"What did you do then?"
"You know my coolness and rapidity of resolution. I let the man depart with the prisoner."
"Well! and afterwards?"
"I pretended as if I did not wish to meet him."
"Better and better still," the old man said, with a nod of his head, and with a movement swift as thought, he cocked the pistol he held in his hand, and fired. A cry of pain was heard from the door, and the head disappeared suddenly under the curtain. The two men jumped up, and rushed out, but saw nothing, except that a rather large pool of blood clearly indicated that the shot had told.
"What have you done, my father?" Natah Otann exclaimed, in astonishment.
"Nothing. I have merely given a lesson, rather a rough one, to one of those spies I mentioned to you just now."
And he went back coolly, and eat down again. Natah Otann wished to follow the bloody trail left by the fugitive, but the old man checked him.
"Stay! what I have done is sufficient; continue your story, which is deeply interesting. Still you can see you have no time to lose, if you wish to succeed."
"I will lose none, father, you may be assured," the Chief exclaimed, wrathfully, "but I swear that I will know the scoundrel."