"True, and if that should happen, my fate is decided. What would you, my lord? There is a risk to run, but by no other means of acting. However perilous such an expedition may be, it is not so much so as you may suppose, for a man who, like me, belongs to the Indian race and naturally knows the habits of the men he wishes to deceive."
While the marquis and the captain thus talked together, the caravan continued to advance slowly through the inextricable meanderings of a narrow path, traced with difficulty by the passage of wild beasts.
Silence the most complete reigned in the desert, which the foot of man appeared never to have trodden since the time of its discovery.
Meanwhile the half-caste hunters and the soldados da conquista, aroused by the unexpected presence before them of the Guaycurus chief, put themselves on their guard; they only advanced according to the Spanish expression, "with the beard on the shoulder," eye and ear on the watch, finger on the trigger of their fusils, ready to fire at the least alarm.
The caravan thus attained the hill on which Don Diogo proposed to encamp. The Indian—with that infallible glance which a long experience gives, and which is possessed only by men inured by years of life in the desert, so varied and so full of unforeseen dangers—had admirably chosen the only spot where it was possible to establish a camp which could resist a sudden attack of the enemy.
This hill formed an advance post of one of the largest rivers of the plain. Its steep sides were without verdure, its summit alone was covered with a thick wood. On the side next to the river the hill, which was almost perpendicular, was insurmountable, and only accessible by the desert for a space of ten yards at the most.
The marquis congratulated Don Diogo on the sagacity with which he had chosen this position—
"However," added he, "I cannot help asking myself whether it is necessary for a single night to establish ourselves on the summit of such a fortress."
"If we had but to remain there but a single night," answered the Indian, "I should not have given myself the trouble of choosing this place, but the information we have to obtain will take us some time, and we may remain here a few days."
"Remain a few days here!" cried the marquis.