The majordomo stepped unnoticed out of the hall after his master, and leaving the latter to go in search of Count de Melgosa, who had already reached the patio, and was about giving his servants the necessary orders for departure, he quietly entered the inner apartments, went through several rooms, and reached an octagonal parlour of small size, whose windows looked out on the huerta, which at that moment was filled with horses and armed men who had formed a temporary bivouac there. On reaching it the Indian looked searchingly around him, then, going to the door, bent his body forward, and seemed to be listening.
"They are coming," he said to himself, almost immediately after.
With one bound he reached the other end of the room, opened, with a key that hung from his neck by a thin steel chain, a door carefully concealed in the wall, took a final glance of singular meaning at the door of the room, and then disappeared, closing the panel, which moved noiselessly in a groove, at the very moment when Don Aníbal entered the room, accompanied by the count.
"Here," the hacendero said, pointing to a butaca, "we can converse at our ease, without fear of being disturbed by intruders."
"I assure you that I have nothing to say to you; still, if you desire to exchange a few words with me while my servants are saddling the horses, it will afford me great pleasure."
While saying this, the count seated himself.
"Oh, oh!" the hacendero remarked, with a smile, "Is that your tone? I cannot believe that you really intend to go away so speedily; it cannot be so, for the honour of my house. My dear count, old friends as we are must separate with mutual satisfaction, and when all the duties of hospitality have been strictly fulfilled."
"My dear Don Aníbal, at the present day," the count said with reserve, "the duties of hospitality have become, I fear, very weak ties, and are not strong enough to retain anybody."
"Do not believe that," Don Aníbal exclaimed warmly; "friendship has its undeniable rights, and if fate has cast us into two opposite parties, we ought only to esteem each other the more for having followed our convictions."
"Unfortunately, Don Aníbal, but few friendships resist political hatreds. However great the affection may be we feel for a man, however powerful the sympathy we may have with him, when a community of thought no longer exists, when everything separates you, indifference inevitably succeeds friendship, and, as you know, from indifference to hatred is only a step."