"I think that if this news is true, it is excellent."
"Understand well, your Excellency, and be assured that I possess too thorough a knowledge of the Indians and their manners to deceive myself."
"I admit it, my friend. Speak, then, I beg."
"I should think, your Excellency, that I failed in my duty if at the crisis at which we are arrived I did not speak to you with the greatest freedom. The Guaycurus have honourably warned you to withdraw from them—they have given you liberty to do so; wrong or right, you have scorned their warning, I do not dispute with you, understand, your Excellency, the wisdom of this decision."
"Continue, my friend."
"They have so little intention of withdrawing, that they have dispatched me to ask the aid of their allies, the Payagoas. Then they have attacked you with fury, not with the design of seizing on your camp—they knew beforehand that they would not succeed—but to reduce you to your present position; that is to say, to the last gasp."
"Conclude, conclude!" interrupted the marquis.
"The conclusion is easy enough," pursued the captain; "the Guaycurus have pretended to withdraw in order to bring you out into the plain, and to overcome you the more easily."
"Are you then afraid, Diogo?"
"Certainly, my lord: very much afraid."