"And is it your opinion that Doña Rosario is no longer here?"
"No," said the Indian, shaking his head. "Let my brother look around him."
"Well," said the young man, turning his eyes in all directions, "I see nothing."
"If the prisoner were here, my brother would see warriors and horses; the village would be alive."
"Corbleu!" thought Valentine; "these savages are wonderful men; they see everything, they divine everything. Chief," he added, "you are wise; tell me, I beg of you, who taught you all these things."
The Indian stopped; with a majestic gesture he indicated the horizon to the young man, and said, in a voice the solemn accent of which made him start—
"Brother, it was the desert.
"Yes," the Frenchman replied, convinced by these few words; "for it is there alone that man sees God face to face."
They now entered the village, and, as Trangoil-Lanec had said, it seemed deserted. They saw a few sick persons, who, reclining upon sheepskins, were complaining lamemtably.
"Caramba!" said Valentine, much disappointed, "you have guessed so truly, Chief, that there are even no dogs to bite our heels."