On reaching the top of a small hill which commanded the landscape, the Jaguar halted, and ordered his men to dismount and prepare to camp.
A bivouac is soon organized in the desert.
A sufficient space is cleared with axes, fires are lighted at regular distances to keep off wild beasts; the horses are picketed, and sentries placed to watch over the common safety, and then everybody lies down before the fire, rolls himself in his blanket, and that is all. These rough men, accustomed to brave the fury of the seasons, sleep as profoundly under the canopy of the sky, as the denizens of towns in their sumptuous mansions.
The young man, when everybody had lain down to rest, went the rounds to assure himself that all was in order, and then returned to the fire, when he fell into earnest thought.
The whole night passed and he did not make the slightest movement; but he did not sleep, his eyes were open and fixed on the slowly expiring embers.
What were the thoughts that contracted his forehead and made his eyebrows meet?
It would be impossible to say.
Perhaps he was travelling in the country of fancy, dreaming wide awake one of those glorious dreams we have at the age of twenty, which are so intoxicating and so deceitful!
Suddenly he started and sprung up as if worked by a spring.
At this moment the sun appeared in the horizon, and began slowly dispersing the gloom.