Valentine left the room, went straight to the stables, saddled his horse himself, and set off at a gallop. He had told Don Tadeo the truth: a vague uneasiness disturbed him, he had a presentiment of some misfortune or another.
[CHAPTER XXXIX.]
THE WOUNDED MAN.
Let us return to the Count de Prébois Crancé. When the abduction was committed, that part of the plain where Don Tadeo had pitched his camp was deserted. The crowd, attracted by curiosity, had all gone to the side where the renewal of the treaties was taking place. Besides, the measures of the ravishers had been so judiciously taken, all had passed so quickly, without resistance, without cries or tumult, that no alarm had been given, and no one could suspect what was going on. The cries of "murder!" uttered by the wounded young man were too faint to be heard, and the pistol shots he had fired were confounded with the other noises of the festival.
Louis remained for a considerable time lying senseless in front of the tent, the blood flowing from two wounds. By a singular chance, the peons, the arrieros, and even the two Indian chiefs, who could not think there was anything to be dreaded, had all gone, as we have said, to be present at the ceremony. When the cross had been planted, and the toqui and the General had gone, arm in arm, to the tent of the latter, the crowd began to separate into little groups, and soon dispersed, each returning to the spot where he had established his temporary camp.
The Indian chiefs were the first to quit the scene; now that their curiosity was satisfied, they reproached themselves for having been so long absent from their friend. On approaching the little camp, they were surprised at not seeing Louis, and a certain appearance of disorder in the baggage filled them with uneasiness. They quickened their pace, and the nearer they drew the more evident this disorder became in their eyes, accustomed to remark those thousands of signs which escape the eyes of the white man. In fact, the passage left free in the inclosure formed by the bales, seemed to have been the scene of a struggle; the footmarks of several horses were strongly imprinted in the moist earth, and some bales had even been removed, as if to widen the entrance, and lay scattered about. All these indications were more than sufficient for the chiefs; they exchanged an anxious glance, and rushed into the camp.
Louis was still lying where the assassins had left him, stretched across the entrance of the tent, his discharged pistols in his hands, his head thrown back, his mouth half open, and his teeth clenched. The blood had ceased to flow. The two men looked at him for a moment with a feeling of stupor. His countenance was of a livid paleness.
"He is dead!" said Curumilla, in a voice stifled by emotion.
"He seems so," Trangoil-Lanec replied as he knelt down by the body.