A start of astonishment pervaded the assembly.
"I!" cried the machi, in a voice of amazement.
"You, yourself, and you know it well," replied Valentine, giving him a look that made him tremble.
"Stranger," said Trangoil-Lanec, with the majesty of a martyr, "it is no use to interpose in my favour; my brothers believe me guilty, and innocent though I am, I must die."
"Your devotion to your laws is noble, but in this case it is absurd," Valentine replied.
"This man is guilty," the machi persisted.
"Let us put an end to this, then," replied Trangoil-Lanec; "kill me!"
"What say my brothers?" Curumilla asked of the crowd, who pressed anxiously around him.
"That the Murucho medicine-man be allowed to prove the truth of his words," replied the warriors with one voice.
They loved Trangoil-Lanec, and in their hearts desired that he should not die. On the other hand, they entertained for the machi a hatred which the profound terror he inspired them with scarcely sufficed to make them conceal.