A little apart was a group composed of four or five persons, seated on buffalo skins. These persons, whom our readers are well acquainted with, were the Count de Melgosa, Don Aníbal de Saldibar, Don Aurelio Gutiérrez, and Moonshine. Don Aníbal, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, seemed suffering from profound sorrow. The count was looking at him sadly. The Canadian was philosophically smoking his Indian pipe, while at times taking a commiserating look at the hacendero. As for Don Aurelio, he was yawning as if going to put his jaw out, with his back carelessly resting against a tree, his arms folded, and his legs stretched out.
We will now explain to the reader why these persons were collected at this spot. To do so we will go back a little way, and return to the canyon in which the fate of Mexico was decided. The first moments following a victory are always devoted by the victors to joy and delirium, order and discipline no longer exist. Men congratulate each other and run backwards and forwards, singing, laughing, and forgetting all the perils and agony of the struggle. But when minds began to calm, and reason regains its sway, reflection comes, and the sanguinary details of the battle appear in all their horror.
General Don Pelagio Sandoval after giving quarter to the conquered immediately disarmed them, and employed them in removing the wounded and burying the dead. Of all the Spanish soldiers who entered the defile, not a single man had succeeded in escaping to bear to Coahuila the news of this awful defeat. The Mexicans had comparatively lost very few men, although their loss for all that was considerable. The Mexican general resolved to encamp on the battlefield, and his troops were encamped on the plain in front of the mouth of the canyon.
It was about nine in the evening. The bivouac fires formed a brilliant circle round the camp, the soldiers were singing and laughing while narrating to each other the exciting incidents of the battle. The general, who had retired to a jacal of branches built for him, which his troops had lined inside with the flags captured from the enemy, was conversing with Oliver Clary. The Canadian had just finished a story which must have powerfully affected his hearer, for his face was pale, and a burning tear trembled at the end of his lashes.
"Poor Don Aníbal," he said, passing his hand over his eyes, "what a frightful misfortune. This last blow is the most terrible of all. He will not get over it."
"Immediately after the battle," the hunter continued, "Count de Melgosa, who as you know took no part in the action, but constantly remained with the rearguard, came to join the hacendero at the barricade which you ordered him to defend, and at which he fought so bravely."
"I know it, he killed General Cárdenas with his own hand. It is better that it should be so. That man had excited such hatred against himself, that had he lived I should probably have been powerless to protect him in spite of my eager desire to do so."
"The moment was well selected for a confession of the nature which the count had to make to Don Aníbal. The latter, overexcited by the fighting, and intoxicated by the smell of powder, endured this new misfortune with more strength than we had ventured to expect. Still the blow was terrible, and fears were entertained for his life during a moment. He rolled on the ground like an oak uprooted by the hurricane, and for some minutes was a prey to frightful convulsions and a delirium which threatened to change into insanity. Fortunately, the very intensity of the crisis saved him. He recovered, thanked the count and myself for the sympathy we had shown him, sat down on a gun carriage, and after a few nervous spasms managed to weep. Now he is calmer, and you will see him soon, for he means at once to start in pursuit of the Indians."
"Alas, I fear that his search will be unsuccessful. The villain who betrayed him has escaped. Does he know it?"
"Not yet."