"Let go! I answer for all then," addressing his horse,—"Lillo!" he said.
At this name, the horse raised its noble head, and fixing its sparkling eye on the man who had called it, with a sharp and irresistible movement, it threw off the two men who tried to check it, sent them rolling on the grass, to the shouts of their comrades, and rubbed its head against its master's chest with a neigh of pleasure.
"You see," the stranger said, as he patted the noble animal, "it is not difficult."
"Hum!" the first adventurer who picked himself up said, in an angry tone, and rubbing his shoulder; "that is a demonio to which I would not entrust my skin, old and wrinkled as it is at present."
"Do not trouble yourself any further about the horse, I will attend to it."
"On the faith of Domingo, I have had enough, for my part; 'tis a noble brute, but it has a fiend inside it."
The stranger shrugged his shoulders without replying, and returned to the fire, followed by his horse, which paced step by step behind him, not evincing the slightest wish to indulge further in those eccentricities which had so greatly astonished the adventurers, who are, however, all men well versed in the equine art. This horse was a pure barb of Arab stock, and had probably cost its present owner an enormous sum, and its pace seemed strange to men accustomed to American horses. Its master gave it provender, hobbled it near him, and then sat down again by the fire: at the same instant the Captain appeared in the entrance of the tent.
"I beg your pardon," he said, with that charming courtesy natural to the Hispano-Americans; "I beg your pardon, Señor Caballero, for having neglected you so long, but an imperative duty claimed my presence. Now, I am quite at your service."
The stranger bowed. "On the contrary," he replied, "I must ask you to accept my apologies for the cool manner in which I avail myself of your hospitality."
"Not a word more on this head, if you wish not to annoy me."