"Eh!" the host said, with a bow, "Back already?"
"As you see, compadre; but let me have my breakfast at once, for I have a deal to do."
"Are you going to leave us already?"
"I do not know; come, pray make haste."
The ranchero served him without further questioning. The adventurer made a hearty meal, paid liberally to appease his host's ill temper, saddled his horse, and set out, without saying whether he should return or not. A quarter of an hour later he was in the open country, and inhaling with infinite pleasure the fresh, fragrant breeze that reached him from the desert.
[CHAPTER XXXVI.]
THE HACIENDA DEL TORO.
We will now leap over an interval of a fortnight, and return to the Hacienda del Toro; but before resuming our story we will cursorily describe the events that occurred during this fortnight, in order to make the reader thoroughly understand by what a strange concourse of events accident brought all our characters face to face, and produced a collision among them, from which an unforeseen dénouement issued.