The meeting broke up, and each went to execute the orders he had received. The camp was broken up in the utmost silence, and the most minute precautions were taken to allow none of the movements to transpire outside. The bivouac fires were left lighted; in short, nothing was touched which could cause any suspicion of a hurried departure.
At about eleven in the night the two parties, under Valentine and Captain de Laville, set out in different directions: the count soon followed them with the main body and the baggage, so that by midnight the camp was entirely deserted. Curumilla had not deceived the count. After about two hours' march he made the troops wheel to the right, and entered a narrow path, in which there was just room for the vehicles, and the whole company disappeared in the infinite windings of a true wild beast's track, in which it was impossible to suppose that an armed body, accompanied by numerous and heavy wagons and field pieces, would ever venture.
Still, when the first obstacles were overcome, this road, which appeared so difficult, offered no serious causes for delay, and the Frenchmen pushed on rapidly. Two days after they were rejoined by the detachments which had operated on their flank. Captain de Laville and Valentine had been completely successful in deceiving the general, whose advanced post still continued to guard the roads, little suspecting that they had been turned.
This march lasted nine days, through numberless difficulties, over shifting sand which fled beneath the feet, under a parching heat with no water, and, during the last two days, with no provisions or forage. But nothing could lessen the courage of the men, or destroy their inexhaustible gaiety: they went on bravely, keeping their eyes fixed on their chief, who went on foot before them, consoling and encouraging them. On the evening of the ninth day they saw in the distance, in the centre of a well-wooded landscape, the outlines of a considerable hacienda. It was the first house they had come across since leaving La Magdalena.
"What hacienda is that?" Don Louis asked Belhumeur, who walked by his side.
"The Hacienda del Milagro," the Canadian answered.
The Frenchmen uttered a shout of joy: they had arrived. They had marched sixty leagues in nine days, along almost impracticable roads.
Curumilla had kept his promise. Thanks to him, the column had not been molested.