And without further talking they passed into a dining room, where a sumptuously and abundantly-served table awaited them.
According to a patriarchal custom, which, unfortunately, like all good things, is beginning to die out, at Palmar the master and servants took their meals together. This custom, which had existed in the family since the conquest, Don Sebastian kept up—in the first place, through respect for his father's memory, and secondly, because the servants at the hacienda were devoted to their master, and to some extent supplied the place of a family.
The evening passed away, without any incident worthy of remark, in chatting about war and the chase. Captain Don Isidro Vargas was an old soldier, as cunning as a monk. Too clever to assail the young man's ideas straightforwardly, he resolved to study him for some time, in order to discover the weak points of his character, and see how he must attack him in order to drag him out of that slothful and purposeless life he led in this forgotten province. Thus several days were passed in hunting and other amusements, and the captain never once alluded to the subject he had at heart. At times he might make a covert allusion to the active life of the capital, the opportunities of securing a fine position which a man of Don Sebastian's age could not fail to find at Mexico, if he would take the trouble to go there, and many other insinuations of the same nature; but the young man let them pass without making the slightest observation, or even appearing to understand them.
"Patience!" the captain muttered. "I shall eventually find the flaw in his cuirass; and if I do not succeed, I must be preciously clumsy."
And he recommenced his covert attacks, not allowing the young man's impassive indifference to rebuff him.
Don Sebastian performed his duties as master of the house with thoroughly Mexican grace, amenity, and sumptuousness; that is, he invented every sort of amusement which he thought would be most suited to the worthy captain's tastes. The latter let him do so with the utmost coolness, and conscientiously enjoyed the pleasures the young man procured him, charmed in his heart by the activity he displayed in pleasing him, and more and more persuaded that, if he succeeded in arousing in him the feelings which he supposed were slumbering in his mind, it would be easy to convert him to his own ideas, and make him abandon the absorbing life of a campesino.
More than once, during the few days they spent in hunting in the magnificent plains that surrounded the hacienda, accident enabled the captain to admire the skill with which the young man managed his steed, and his superiority in all those exercises which demand strength, activity, and, above all, skill.
On one occasion especially, at the moment the hunters galloped in pursuit of a magnificent stag they had put up, they found themselves suddenly face to face with a cougouar, which threatened to dispute their progress. The cougouar is the American lion. It has no mane. Like all the other carnivora of the New World it cares little about attacking a man, and it is only when reduced to the last extremity that it turns upon him; but then it fights with a courage and energy that frequently render its approach extremely dangerous.
On the occasion to which we allude the cougouar seemed resolved to await its enemies boldly. The captain, but little accustomed to find himself face to face with such enemies, experienced that internal tremor which assails the bravest man when he finds himself exposed to a serious danger. Still, as the old soldier was notoriously brave, he soon recovered from this involuntary emotion, and cocked his gun, while watching the crouching animal, which fixed its glaring eyes on him.
"Do not fire, captain," Don Sebastian said with a perfectly calm voice; "you are not used to this chase, and, without wishing it, might injure the skin, which you see is magnificent, and that would be a pity."