"Now," he exclaimed in a firm voice, in whose notes traces of the past tempest were still audible, "let us speak of that poor Doña Anita de Torrés."
"Alas!" said the elder Rallier, "I cannot tell you anything, although my sister Helena, her companion at the Convent of the Bernardines, to which I sent her in accordance with your wish, has let me know that she would have grand news for us in a few days."
"I will give you that news, with your permission," Don Martial said at this moment, suddenly joining in the conversation, to which he had hitherto listened with great indifference.
"Do you know anything?" Valentine asked him.
"Yes, something most important; that is why I was so anxious to speak with you."
"Speak then, my friend, speak, we are listening."
The Tigrero, without further pressing, at once reported, in the fullest details, his interview with Don Sebastian Guerrero's capataz. The three Frenchmen listened with the most serious attention, and when he had finished his story, Valentine rose—
"Let us be off, señores," he said, "we have no time to lose; perhaps heaven offers us, at this moment, the opportunity we have been so long awaiting."
The others rose without asking the hunter for any explanation, and a few minutes later Valentine and his comrades were galloping along the highway in the direction of Mexico.
"I do not know what diabolical plot they are forming," Ño Lusacho muttered, on seeing them disappear in the distance; "but they are worthy gentlemen, and let the ounces slip through their fingers like so much water."