"Keep your secret, my friend; I am in no way curious to know it; still, it is understood that we do not know one another."
"Yes; that is very important."
"Then, good-bye."
"Good-bye!"
The two horsemen shook hands, one turned to the right, the other to the left, and they set off at full speed.
[1] Literally, Quiepaa, sky, tani, mountain, in the Zapothecan language.
[CHAPTER XI.]
THE FORD OF THE RUBIO.
The night was gloomy, not a star shone in the sky; the wind blew violently through the heavy boughs of the virgin forest, with that sad and monotonous soughing which resembles the sound of great waters when the tempest menaces; the clouds were low, black, and charged with electricity; they coursed rapidly through the sky, incessantly veiling the wan disk of the moon, whose cold rays only rendered the gloom denser; the atmosphere was oppressive, and those nameless noises, dashed back by the echoes like the rolling of distant thunder, rose from the quebradas and unknown barrancas of the prairies; the beasts howled sadly all the notes of the human register, and the night birds, troubled in their sleep by this strange uneasiness of nature, uttered hoarse and discordant cries.