Antinahuel had no other plausible pretext for remaining: he slowly, and, as if regretfully, rejoined his mosotones, got into his saddle, and set off, darting at the Linda a last glance, that would have congealed her with fear if she had seen it.
"Poor puling creature!" she said. "Don Tadeo, it is you I wound in torturing your leman! Shall I at length force you to restore to me my daughter?"
The Indian peons attached to her service had remained with her. In the heat of the pursuit the horses, abandoned by Curumilla and brought back by the scouts, had remained with the troop.
"Bring hither one of those horses!" she commanded.
The courtesan had the poor girl placed across one of the horses, with her face towards the sky; then she ordered that the feet and hands of her victim should be brought under the belly of the animal and solidly fastened with cords by the ankles and wrists.
"The woman is not firm upon her legs," she said, with a dry, nervous laugh.
The poor girl gave scarcely any signs of life; her countenance had an earthy, cadaverous hue, and the blood flowed copiously. Her body, horribly cramped by the frightful posture in which she was tied, had nervous starts, and dreadfully hurt her wrists and ankles, into which the cords began to enter. A hollow rattle escaped from her oppressed chest.