"Ah, ah!" he said, gaily, "You are all right again, I see: all the better; I would sooner have you in that position than the one you were in just now."
"Thanks," the majordomo cordially answered. "I fancy I must have looked very pitiable, stretched out like a half-throttled novillo. Is it not disgraceful for a strong man to faint like a child or a feeble woman?"
"Not the least in the world, compañero," the other said, frankly. "Accident decreed that I should be for a long time the involuntary witness of the contest you waged, though it was impossible to help you, and ¡Viva Dios! I declare that you are a tough combatant; you sustained the shock bravely, and many others in your place—I the first, perhaps—would not have got out of the scrape so well."
This answer completely broke the ice, and made the two men comparatively friends at once.
"I confess," Paredes remarked, as he offered his hand to his new friend, "that for a moment I believed myself lost, and had it not been for you I should have been so."
"Nonsense," the other replied, as he pressed the hand offered him. "You owe me nothing, for, by Jove! You saved yourself all alone. But let us not dwell on this point any longer. Although we are in relative safety, as the water cannot reach us here, our position is not the most agreeable; and I fancy it would be the best for us to try and get out of it as quickly as possible."
"That is my opinion, too; but, unluckily, the means at our disposal are very limited."
"Perhaps so; at any rate, with your consent, we will hold an Indian council."
"That is the best thing we can do at this moment. However," he added, as he looked up to the sky, "day will not break for three hours."
"We have time before us, in that case."