"That is true, speak as you think proper."
"Never," the Negro continued, "did I gallop in such good spirits; my horse stretched out, so that it was a pleasure to see; and it seemed as if the poor brute understood my impatience to get away from the hacienda, so fast did it race. This ride lasted thus, without interruption, for nearly five hours; at the end of that period I thought it advisable to grant my horse a few minutes' rest, that it might regain its breath, for animals are like men precisely—if you overwork them, they break down all at once; and that would have happened to me had I not been careful to stop in time. I therefore allowed my horse to rest for two hours; then, after rubbing it down, I started again, but had not yet reached the end of my adventures. I had scarce galloped an hour longer ere I fell into a large party of horsemen, armed to the teeth, who suddenly emerged from a ravine, and surrounded me ere I had even time enough to notice them. The meeting was anything but agreeable—the more so, as they did not appear at all well disposed toward me; and I do not exactly know how I should have got out of the hobble, had not one of the men thought proper to recognize me, though I do not remember ever to have met him before, and burst out, 'Why, it is a friend; 'tis Quoniam, Tranquil's comrade!' I confess that this exclamation pleased me; a man may be brave, but there are circumstances in which he feels frightened, and this is what happened to me at that moment."
The hunters smiled at the Negro's simple frankness, but were careful not to interrupt him, as they felt instinctively that he had reached the most interesting point of his long and prolix narration.
"At once," the latter continued, "the manner of these men changed entirely; they became most polite and attentive, in proportion as they had been, previously brutal. 'Lead him to the commandant,' said one of them the others approved, and I gave in, because resistance would have been folly. I followed without any remark, the man who led me to their Chief, though inwardly cursing the wasps' nest into which I had fallen. Fortunately I had not far to go. Can you guess, Tranquil, who this Chief was to whom I was led?"
"The Jaguar," the hunter answered.
"What!" the Negro exclaimed, in amazement, "Have you guessed it? Well! I swear to you that I did not suspect it in the least, and was greatly surprised at seeing him. But I must do him the justice of saying that he received me very well; he questioned me about a good many matters, which I answered as well as I could—where I came from, what was doing at the hacienda, where I was going, and so on. In short, he conversed with me for more than an hour; then, doubtless, satisfied with the information I had given him, he left me free to continue my journey, and began his own. It seems that he is going straight to the Larch-tree hacienda."
"Does he intend to lay siege to it?"
"That is his intention, I believe; but, although he is at the head of nearly twelve hundred determined bandits, I do not think his nails, and those of his comrades, will be hard enough to dig a hole in such stout walls."
"That is in God's hands. Have you finished your narrative?"
"Very soon."