"By dying thus bravely," Don Tadeo observed, "Joan has rendered us a last service.
"Bah!" Valentine philosophically rejoined, "he is happy. Must we not all die, one day or another?"
Valentine was in his element; he had never been present at such a festival, he absolutely fought with pleasure.
"Pardieu! we did wisely in quitting France," he said, "there is nothing like travelling."
Louis laughed heartily at hearing him moralize.
"You seem to be enjoying yourself, brother," he said.
"Prodigiously." Valentine replied.
His courage was so great, so audacious, so spontaneous, that the Chilians looked at him with admiration, and felt themselves electrified by his example. Cæsar, covered by his master with a kind of cuirass of leather and armed with an enormous collar edged with steel points, inspired the Indians with the greatest terror—they knew not what to make of such a creature.
The battle raged as fiercely as ever; both Chilians and Araucanos fought upon heaps of carcases. The Indians gave up all hopes of conquering, but they did not even think of flying; resolved all to die, they determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible, and fought with the terrible despair of brave men who neither expect nor ask for quarter. The Chilian army drew nearer and nearer around them. A few minutes more and the Araucano army would have ceased to exist.
Antinahuel shed tears of rage; he felt his heart bursting in his breast at seeing his dearest companions thus fall around him. All these men, the victims of the ambition of their chief, died without a complaint, without a reproach. Suddenly a smile of strange character curled his thin lips; he beckoned to the Ulmens, who were fighting near him, and exchanged a few words.