"The Black-Stag will be there, accompanied by his most valiant warriors; may Pillian guide the steps of my father, and may the god of war grant him success."
"Farewell, brother!" Antinahuel murmured, taking leave of his lieutenant.
Black-Stag bowed to the toqui and retired. As soon as he was alone, Antinahuel made a sign to the Indian whose news had caused his departure. During the conference of the two chiefs this man had stood motionless, at a sufficient distance to prevent his hearing what they said, but near enough to execute immediately the orders that might be given him. He drew near in obedience to the sign.
"Is my son fatigued?" the toqui asked.
"No; my horse alone wants rest."
"Well, my son shall have another horse; he will guide us."
Antinahuel, followed by the scout, advanced, without more words, towards a group of horsemen, who, leaning on their long lances, cast their black shadows gloomily into the night. These horsemen, about thirty in number, were the mosotones of the toqui. Antinahuel, at a bound, sprang upon a magnificent horse, held by the bridle by two Indians.
"Forward!" he cried, settling himself in his saddle, and plunging his spurs into the sides of the horse, which set off with the speed of an arrow.
The mosotones followed as quickly after, and the troop of horsemen glided through the darkness like a legion of gloomy phantoms, preceded by the scout. Who can express the terrible poetry of a night ride in the American deserts? The midnight wind had swept the heavens clear of clouds, and its vault, of a dark blue, appeared to be, like a monarch's robe, splendidly adorned with an infinite number of stars. The night had that velvety transparency peculiar to warm climates. At intervals, a puff of wind, loaded with indistinct sounds, scattered the dry leaves into the air, and was lost in the distance like a sigh.
The Araucanos, bending over the necks of their horses, whose nostrils emitted dense clouds of smoke, rode on, and on, and ever on, without casting even a look around them. And yet the desert they were traversing, so silently and so rapidly, poured floods of splendid harmonies into space. The murmur of water among the lianas and the glayeuls, the moaning of the wind among the leaves, or the confused noise of a thousand invisible insects, could be heard; at times, lights, fluttering through the foliage, danced upon the grass in the manner of wild fires; at distances were to be seen old trees, at the angles of ravines or the brink of precipices, standing like spectres, shaking their winding sheets of parasitical plants; a thousand rumours hovered in the air; nameless cries issued from dens hollowed under vast roots; stifled sighs descended from the hoary summits of the mountains: an unknown and mysterious world could be felt existing around. Everywhere, on the earth, in the air, was to be heard the great flood of life, which comes from God, passes away, and is incessantly renewed.