The rider, suddenly aroused from his sleep or, as is more probable, from his reflections, would have been thrown, had he not, by an instinctive movement, gathered up his horse by pulling at the bridle.
"Hola," he exclaimed, drawing himself up sharply and laying his hand on his machete, while he looked anxiously around, "what is going on here? Come, Moreno, my good horse, why this terror? There, calm yourself, my good boy, no one is thinking of us."
But though the master patted it as he spoke, and both seemed to be on good terms, the animal still continued to pull back and display signs of the most lively terror.
"This is not natural, by Heaven! You are not accustomed to be thus frightened for nothing: come, my good Moreno, what is it?"
And the traveller again looked around him, but this time more attentively and peering at the ground, "Ah!" he said all at once, on noticing a corpse stretched out on the road, "Moreno is right; there is something there, the body of some hacendero without doubt, whom the salteadores have killed to plunder him more at their ease, and whom they left, without paying further heed to him: let me have a look."
While speaking thus to himself in a low voice, the horseman had dismounted.
But, as our man was prudent, and, in all probability, long accustomed to traverse the roads of the Mexican confederation, he cocked his gun, and held himself in readiness either for attack or defense, in the event of the individual whom he proposed to succor suddenly rising to ask him for his money or his life, an eventuality quite in accordance with the manners of the country, and against which he must place himself on his guard.
He therefore approached the corpse and gazed at it for an instant with the most serious attention.
It only required one glance to attain for certainty that there was nothing to be feared from the unhappy man lying at his feet.
"Hum!" he continued, shaking his head several times, "This poor fellow seems to be very bad: if he is not dead, he is not worth much more, well, I suppose I must try to succor him, though I am afraid it will be lost trouble."