"I wish for nothing better," the other answered.
"Why," a voice exclaimed, which the half-breed at once recognised, "it is Lanzi."
"Certainly," the latter shouted, joyfully, "Voto à brios, Doña Carmela, I did not hope to meet you here."
The three persons joined, and the explanations were short.
Fear does not calculate or reflect. Doña Carmela on one side, Lanzi on the other, filled with a vague terror, fled without attempting to account for the feeling that impelled them, exerted only by the instinct of self-preservation, that supreme weapon given by God to man with which to escape danger in extremities.
The only difference was, that the half-breed believed himself pursued by the Apaches, while Doña Carmela supposed them a-head of her.
When the young lady, on Lanzi's recommendation, left the venta, she rode blindly along the first path that presented itself.
Heaven willed it for her happiness that at the moment the house blew up with a terrible crash, Doña Carmela, half dead with fear and thrown from her horse, was found by a white hunter, who, moved with pity at the recital of the dangers that menaced her, generously offered to escort her to the Larch-tree hacienda, where she desired to proceed, in order to place herself under Tranquil's immediate protection.
Doña Carmela, after taking a scrutinizing glance at the hunter, whose honest look and open face were proofs of his loyalty, gratefully accepted his offer, fearing, as she did, that she might fall, in the darkness, among the Indian bands which were doubtless infesting the roads, and to which her ignorance of localities would have inevitably made her a prey.
The maiden and her guide set out therefore at once for the hacienda, but affected by numberless apprehensions, the gallop of the half-breed's horse made them believe a party of the enemy a-head of them, hence they had kept far enough behind to be able to turn and fly at the slightest suspicious movement on the part of their supposed enemies.