But he was not very anxious. Don Diego had probably not wished to expose the lady to the horror of crossing the field of battle, and soiling her feet with the blood in which the earth was soaked. He applauded his delicacy, and waited a few minutes, during which he repaired the disorder of his dress, and removed the traces of the combat.
At last he determined to look for his wife, whose long absence began to make him very uneasy.
Corporal Luco, as anxious as himself, undertook to guide him; he had a faint recollection of seeing Don Diego, accompanied by Doña Antonia, the nurse, and two or three more, going in the direction of a hollow in the ground at a little distance.
All of a sudden, the two men uttered a shout of sorrow, and recoiled in horror from the dreadful spectacle before their eyes.
Don Diego was lying on the ground, his chest pierced through and through. He was dead; and close to him Doña Antonia and the nurse were lying senseless. The nurse was Corporal Luco's wife.
Don Guzman fell on his knees beside his wife; he then perceived a paper, which she was clutching convulsively in her right hand.
The unhappy man had great difficulty in releasing it from her grasp; some words were written on it. Don Guzman cast his eyes over the lines, and threw himself on the ground with an agonising cry of despair.
The paper contained these words:
"Brother,—You have deprived me of the woman I love; I deprive you of your son: we are quits."
"DON LEONCIO DE RIBERA."
No doubts were possible after reading this: Don Leoncio was really the author of this odious abduction. He had contrived this horrible piece of treachery while his brother was coming, in all his confidence, to meet him. With an incredible refinement of wickedness, and in order to enjoy his revenge to the utmost, he had delayed the stroke, with the determination to make it fall on his brother's head like a thunderbolt.