"It must be so, Madame," answered Don Pablo, respectfully; "we are threatened with a storm, and any delay might cause us serious injury."
"Would it not be better to defer our journey for some hours?" pursued the marchioness.
"You do not know our Cordilleras, my lady," answered the Pincheyra, smiling. "A storm of two hours generally occasions such disasters that the means of communication are stopped for weeks; but for that matter I am completely at your orders."
The marchioness did not reply, and was at once escorted to the horses which awaited them.
The two ladies were placed about the centre of a troop formed by some twenty horsemen. By a remarkable refinement of courtesy on the part of uncultivated soldiers, Don Pablo had placed two horsemen to the right of the ladies, in order to preserve them from a fall during the darkness.
A group of a dozen horsemen, separated from the body of the troop, proceeded in advance as pioneers.
Notwithstanding the precarious situation in which she found herself, and the apprehensions by which her mind was harassed, the marchioness experienced a certain satisfaction, and an indefinable feeling of joy, to find herself at last out of the camp of the bandits.
Don Pablo, in order no doubt to avoid annoying the ladies, kept with the advanced guard, and, as soon as the day had become light enough to direct his course with safety, the two horsemen placed near the ladies were removed, so that the latter enjoyed a degree of liberty, and could talk to each other without fear of their words being heard.
"Mother," said Doña Eva, "does it not seem strange to you, that since our departure from Casa-Frama, Señor Sebastiao Vianna has not come near us."
"Yes; this conduct on the part of an intimate friend does appear to me singular; however, we must not be in a hurry. Perhaps Don Sebastiao has reasons for keeping aloof."