The Linda smiled with an undefinable expression.
"The Eagle will follow me," said Antinahuel; "unless he prefers giving me his word."
"No!" Don Tadeo answered.
The two men left the toldo together. Antinahuel commanded his warriors to guard the prisoner strictly.
At sunrise the camp was struck, and the Aucas marched during the whole day into the mountains without any determinate object.
"Has my sister commenced?" asked the chief of Linda.
"I have commenced," she replied.
The truth was she had passed the whole day in vainly endeavouring to induce the maiden to speak to her; the latter had constantly refused, but the Linda was not a woman to be easily repulsed. As soon as the chief had left her, she went to Doña Rosario, and stooping to her ear, said in a low, melancholy voice—
"Pardon me all the ill I have done you—I did not know who you were; in the name of Heaven, have pity on me—I am your mother!"
At this avowal, the young girl staggered as if she were thunderstruck. The Linda sprang towards her, but Doña Rosario repulsed her with a cry of horror, and fled into her toldo.