"He was."
"Well?"
"He escaped death, though grievously wounded."
The artful woman endeavoured to read what impression the news she had so coolly imparted made upon the stoical face of the Indian.
"Listen to me, my sister," he resumed, after a minute's pause; "Don Tadeo is still your enemy, is he not?"
"More so than ever."
"Good!"
"Not content with having basely abandoned me, and having torn from me my child, the innocent creature who alone consoled me and enabled me to support the sorrows with which he has overwhelmed me, he has crowned his insults by publicly paying his addresses to another woman, whom he takes with him everywhere, and who is at this moment his companion at Valdivia."
"Hum!" the chief said, carelessly.
Accustomed to Araucanian manners, which permit every man to take as many wives as he can support, he found the action of Don Tadeo perfectly natural. This did not escape Doña Maria: an ironical smile curled for a second the corners of her lips, and she continued, negligently, but looking earnestly in the face of the chief—