"I will tell you; but I beg you will not interrupt me. We have already lost much time—which is valuable just now, more especially to yourself, as you ought to know. At the very moment when I came to disturb you, you were giving orders to your confidential servant Diego to get ready your horses."
"Indeed!" said Don Guzman.
"It is the fact. You were only deferring your flight till the arrival of a certain guacho" (Mexican inhabitant of the prairies) "to guide you through the Pampas."
"Do you know that too?"
"We know everything. As for the rest, judge for yourself. Your brother, Don Leoncio de Ribera, a refugee with his family for many years in Chili, is to arrive this very night within a few leagues of Buenos Aires. You have been advised of his coming for some days. It was your intention to repair to the Hacienda del Pico, where he was to expect you; then to introduce him surreptitiously into the city, where you have prepared what you fancied would be a safe hiding place for him. Is this the whole, or have I forgotten any minor particulars?"
Don Guzman covered his face with his hands, discouraged, thunderstricken by what he had just heard.
A horrible gulf yawned before his eyes. If Rosas was master of his secret—and that he was, the revelations of the colonel left no room to doubt—his death and that of his brother had been sworn by the ruthless Dictator. Hope would have been a folly.
"Good God!" cried he; "My brother—my poor brother!"
The colonel seemed to enjoy for a moment the effect produced by his words; then he resumed, in a quiet and insinuating manner:
"Calm yourself, Don Guzman; all is not yet lost. The details I have mentioned, and which you thought such a profound secret, are known to me alone. The order for your arrest does not come into execution before sunrise tomorrow. The stop I have taken should prove to you that I have no wish to make an unfair use of the advantage chance has placed in my hands."