"That need not disturb you. I will put you on my horse; and by making it go at a foot pace, it will carry you, without any dangerous jolts, to a safe place."
"I leave myself in your hands."
"That is the best thing you could do. Do you wish me to take you to your house?"
"My house!" the wounded man exclaimed, with ill-disguised terror, and making a movement as if he would try to fly. "You know me then, señor—know my residence?"
"I do not know you, and am ignorant where your house is situated. How could I know such details, when I never saw you before this night?"
"That is true," the wounded man muttered, speaking to himself. "I am mad! This man is honest." Then, addressing Dominique, he said in a broken and scarce distinct voice; "I am a traveller. I come from Veracruz, and was going to Mexico, when I was suddenly attacked, plundered of everything I possessed, and left for dead at the foot of this cross, when you so providentially discovered me. As for a home, I have no other at this moment but the one you may be pleased to offer me. This is my whole story: it is as simple as truth."
"Whether it be true or not does not concern me, señor. I have no right to interfere in your affairs against your will. Let me request you, therefore, to refrain from giving me information which I do not ask of you—which does not concern me, and which, in your present condition, can only be injurious to you, first, by causing you too great tension of mind, and then, by forcing you to speak."
In truth, it was only by a violent effort of the will, that the wounded man had succeeded in keeping up so long a conversation. The shock he had received was too powerful, his wound too severe, for him to talk any longer, without running the risk of falling into a fainting fit more dangerous than the one from which he had been so miraculously drawn by his generous saviour. Already he felt his arteries throbbing, a mist spread before his sight: there was a sinister buzzing in his ears; an icy sweat beaded on his temples; his thoughts, into which he had found it so difficult to introduce a little regularity and coherence, were beginning to desert him again: he understood that any lengthened resistance on his part would be madness, and he fell back in a state of discouragement, and heaving a sigh of resignation—
"My friend," he murmured, in a faint voice, "do with me what you please; I feel as if I were dying."
Dominique watched his movements with an anxious eye: he hastened to make him drink a few drops of cordial, with which he had mixed a soporific. This help was efficacious, and the wounded man felt himself recalled to life. He tried to thank the young man.