With that coolness which powerful men alone possess in critical circumstances, the majordomo, although he felt that the water was rapidly encircling him, and was almost up to his horse's girths, would not leave anything to chance. Fearing he had been deceived by one of those optical illusions, so frequent when the senses are overexcited, he resolved to wait for a second flash, and kept his eyes fixed on the spot where the hill must be, which he fancied he must have seen as in a dream. All at once, at the moment when the desired flash lit up the darkness, a voice, that overpowered the roar of the tempest, reached his ear:
"Courage! Keep straight on," he heard.
The majordomo uttered a cry of delight, which resembled a yell; and, lifting his horse with his bridle and knees, he dashed toward the hill, pursued by the seething waters which were powerless to arrest him; and, after an ascent that lasted scarce ten minutes, he fell fainting into the arms of the man whose summons had saved him. From this moment he had nothing to fear: an inundation could not reach the top of the hill where he had found such a providential refuge.
[CHAPTER XII.]
A CONVERSATION BY NIGHT.
The majordomo's fainting fit, caused rather by the moral struggle he had sustained than by the physical fatigue he had endured, was not of any duration: when he re-opened his eyes, he was alone on the top of the hill. He threw off the furs and blankets laid over him, to protect him, doubtless from the icy cold of the night, and looked curiously round him. The tempest was still raging, but it had lost a great deal of its violence. The rain had ceased: the deep blue sky was gradually becoming studded with twinkling stars, which shed an uncertain light, and gave the landscape an aspect of strange and desolate wildness. The wind blew furiously, and formed waves on the seething top of the waters, which had now almost risen to the spot where the majordomo lay. A few yards from its master, his horse was quietly grazing; it was eating the young tree shoots, and the tall close grass that covered the ground like a thick carpet of verdure. Another horse was browsing close by.
"Good!" Paredes muttered to himself, "My saviour has not gone away; I hope he is not far off, and that I shall see him soon. Where can he be? At his own business, of course, though I cannot guess the nature of his occupation at such a moment. Well, the best plan will be to wait for him."
The Mexican had scarce ended his soliloquy, ere a shadow stood out in the gloom, and the man of whom he was speaking appeared.