Casa Azul was the senator's quinta—that quinta with white walls, green blinds, and leafy bowers, which he so much regretted having left in a moment of silly ambition, and which he never hoped to see again. When he passed by a wood, or along a narrow way between two mountains, he cast terrified glances around him, and entered the suspicious passage, murmuring—
"This is where they are waiting for me!"
And when the wood was passed, and the dangerous lane cleared, instead of felicitating himself upon being still safe and sound, he said, with a shake of the head—
"Hum! the Pícaros! they know very well I cannot escape them, and they are playing with me as a cat does with a mouse."
And yet two days had passed away without a mishap, nothing had occurred to corroborate the senator's suspicions and uneasiness. He had that morning crossed the ford of the Carampangne, and was drawing near to the Bio Bio which he hoped to reach by sunset.
But the Bio Bio had to be crossed, and there lay the difficulty. The river has but one ford, a little above Concepción. The senator knew it perfectly well but a secret presentiment told him not to approach it. Unfortunately Don Ramón had no choice, he could take no other road.
The senator hesitated as long as Cæsar did at the famous passage of the Rubicon; at length, as there were no means of doing otherwise, Don Ramón very unwillingly spurred on his horse, and advanced towards the ford, recommending himself to the protection of all the saints of the Spanish golden legend.
The horse was tired, but the smell of the water renovated its strength, and it cantered gaily on with the infallible instinct of these noble beasts, without pausing in the inextricable windings which crossed each other in the high grass. Although the river was not yet visible, Don Ramón could hear the roaring of the waters. He was passing by, at the moment, a dark hill, from the thickly-wooded sides of which proceeded, at intervals, sounds which he could not make out. The animal too, as much alarmed as its master, pricked up its ears and redoubled its speed. Don Ramón scarcely ventured to breathe, and looked in all directions with the greatest terror. He was close to the ford, when suddenly a rough voice smote his ear and rendered him as motionless as if he had been changed into a block of marble. Half a score Indian warriors surrounded him on all sides; these warriors were commanded by Black Stag.
It was a strange circumstance, but when the first moment of terror was past, the senator completely recovered himself—now that he knew what he had to trust to, the danger which he had so long dreaded was before him, but less terrific than he had supposed it to be. Black Stag examined him carefully, and at length placed his hand upon the bridle of his horse, saying, as he endeavoured to recall a half-effaced remembrance—
"It seems to me that I have seen the paleface somewhere?"