He alone, of the partisans, kept unquiet vigil.
[CHAPTER X.]
THE FORAGERS.
About ten days had passed between the events that we have just related and the day on which we resume our narrative. The scene is no longer in the Cordilleras, but in the midst of the vast deserts which separate Brazil from the Spanish possessions—a kind of neutral territory, which the two nations had for a long time desperately disputed, and which was held by warlike and independent Indians.
The spot to which we have transported our scene was an immense plain enclosed by high mountains, whose peaks were covered in snow. A large river divided the plain into two nearly equal parts, though with a thousand capricious windings; its silvery waters, slightly rippled by the morning breeze and glittering in the first rays of the sun, reflected changing colours as if thousands of diamonds had been scattered on its bosom.
The calm of this majestic desert was only disturbed at this moment by a numerous troop of horsemen, who skirted at a gallop the left bank of the river.
These horsemen, whose nationality it was impossible to discover so far off, appeared to be warriors.
Whoever they might be, they appeared to be in great haste, and dashed forward with such rapidity that, if they continued thus for a few hours, some of them would be inclined to fall back and lag behind.