Wonderful to relate, a cry answered his own!
Don Torribio, astonished, and not daring to believe that a miracle was to take place in a wilderness where none before himself had dared to penetrate, fancied his ears had deceived him; yet, confessing to himself how little strength was still left him, and feeling hope faintly reviving in his soul, he uttered a second cry, more poignant, more help-seeking than the former.
As soon as the echoes of the forest were silent after their repetition of the cry, a single word, weak as a sigh, was borne to his listening ears on the wings of the breeze: "Hope!"
Don Torribio recovered himself. Electrified by the word, he seemed to regain new life and strength, and redoubled his strokes on his numberless assailants.
Suddenly the gallop of many horses was heard in the distance, several discharges of firearms illumined the darkness with their transient splendour, and some men, or rather demons, rushed unexpectedly into the thickest crowd of wild beasts, making a horrible slaughter.
At this moment Don Torribio, attacked by two tiger cats, rolled upon the platform struggling with both.
In a very short time the brutes were put to flight by the newcomers, who hastened to light fires to keep them at bay for the rest of the night.
Two of the men armed with burning torches of ocote wood, set themselves to search for the man whose cries of distress had brought them to his aid.
They were not long in finding him stretched out on the platform, surrounded by ten or twelve dead tiger cats, and clutching in his stiffened hands the throat of a strangled catamount.
"Well, Carlocho," exclaimed a voice, "have you found him?"