Don Louis and Don Cornelio looked out for several instants with the most sustained attention; but, in spite of all their efforts, they perceived nothing. The plain was still just as naked, lighted up by the ruddy glare from the braseros: here and there alone lay the trunks of the trees felled during the day to leave an open prospect.
"No," they said at length, "we see nothing."
"The eyes of the white men are closed at night," the chief muttered sententiously.
"But where are they?" the count asked impatiently. "Why did you not warn us?"
"My brother Koutonepi sends me for that purpose."
The name of Koutonepi—that is to say, the Valiant—had been given to Valentine by the Araucanos on his arrival in America, and Curumilla never called him otherwise.
"Then make haste to teach us, chief, that we may foil the accursed stratagem which these demons have doubtlessly invented."
"Let my brother warn his brothers to be ready to fight."
The word ran immediately along the line from one to the other. Curumilla then tranquilly shouldered his rifle, and aimed at a trunk of a tree rather nearer the intrenchments than the rest.
Never did a shot produce such an effect. A horrible yell rose from the plain, and a swarm of redskins, rising, as if moved by a spring, from behind the stems of trees that sheltered them, rushed toward the intrenchments, bounding like coyotes, uttering fearful yells, and brandishing their weapons furiously.