"Don Torribio, you told me one day that there's many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip; well, listen to me in my turn; between your forehead and a crown there is death!"
She then placed two flower pots near the balustrade on the terrace of the house. This was doubtless a signal, for in a few minutes Mercedes entered the saloon hurriedly, saying—
"He is here."
"Let him come in," Don Valentine and his daughter said simultaneously.
Pedrito made his appearance. The estanciero recommended the utmost vigilance to Mercedes, closed the door, and then seated himself by the bombero's side.
"Well?" he asked him.
The Plaza Mayor on this day offered an unexpected sight. In the centre rose a tall scaffold covered with red velvet tapestry, on which a chair of carved nopal wood was placed. The back was surmounted by a massive gold sun flashing with diamonds; a vulture of the Andes, the sacred bird of the Incas, also of gold, held in its bent beak an imperial crown, while in its claws it had a sceptre terminating in a trident, and a hand of justice holding a dazzling sun. This vulture, with outstretched wings, seemed hovering over the chair, to which there was an ascent of four steps. On the right of this chair was another, somewhat lower, but more simple.
At midday, the moment when the day star at its zenith darts forth all its beams, five cannon shots, fired at regular intervals, boomed forth majestically. At the same moment the different Patagonian tribes debouched through each of the entrances of the square, led by their Ulmen, and dressed in their robes of state. Only fifteen thousand warriors were assembled, for, according to the Indian custom, so soon as Carmen was taken, the booty was sent under safe escort to the mountains, and the Patagonian troops disbanded and returned to their tolderías, ready to come back, however, on the first signal.
The tribes drew up on three sides, leaving the fourth vacant, which was soon occupied by five hundred gauchos. The latter were mounted and well armed, while the Indians were on foot, and had only their machetes in their girdle. The windows were lined with spectators, behind whom Indian women, irregularly grouped, thrust out their heads over their shoulders.
The centre of the square was free. In front of the scaffolding, and at the foot of a clumsy altar shaped like a table, with a deep gutter running down it and a sun above it, stood the great matchi of the Patagonians and twenty priests, all with their arms crossed, and their eyes fixed on the ground.