"You think so; but take care. You know that I am rarely deceived in my appreciations. Now, I am convinced this man deceives, and is playing a long studied part."
"My dear friend, several persons have said to me what you are now stating. I have watched the man with the greatest care, and never has anything suspicious in his conduct justified the unjust doubts entertained about him."
"Heaven grant that he may always be so, my friend; and that you may not be aroused, at the moment when you least expect it, from your imprudent slumber by a thunderclap."
At the same instant a dazzling flash shot athwart the sky, and the thunder burst forth furiously. The two men, involuntarily struck by this strange coincidence, remained for a moment dumb and amazed, listening to the alarm cries of the sentries as they challenged each other in the darkness, and feeling their hearts contracted by an undefinable sadness.
"It is, perchance, a warning from heaven," Don Pelagio muttered in a low voice.
"Oh! I cannot believe it," the hacendero replied, as he passed his hand over his damp forehead.
The general rose.
"Come," he said, as he looked out, "that thunderclap is the last effort of the tempest, and the sky seems growing clearer. We shall have a splendid day tomorrow."
"At what hour do you intend starting, General?" the hacendero asked him.
Don Pelagio looked at his watch.