The Indian, without replying, felt in a bag of striped calico thrown over his shoulder, and produced a greasy paper, folded in four, which he opened and offered the Mexican.
"What is this?" the latter asked, as he looked and ran through it. "Oh, yes, certainly; your engagement. Well, what connection has this with the question I asked you?"
Curumilla, still impassive, laid his finger on the paper, at the last paragraph of the engagement.
"Well, what then?" the Mexican exclaimed, ill-humouredly. "It is said there, it is true, that I must trust entirely to you, and leave you at liberty to act as you please for the common welfare, without questioning you."
The Indian nodded his head in assent.
"Well, voto a Brios!" the Mexican shouted, irritated by this studied coolness, in spite of his resolve to curb his temper, and annoyed at the man's obstinate refusal to answer, "what proves to me that you are acting for our common welfare, and that you are not a traitor?"
At this word traitor, so distinctly uttered by the Mexican, Curumilla gave a tiger glance at the speaker, while his whole body was agitated by a convulsive tremor: he uttered two or three incomprehensible guttural exclamations, and ere the Mexican could suspect his intentions, he was seized round the waist, lifted from the saddle, and hurled on the ground, where he lay stunned.
Curumilla leapt from his mule, drew from his belt two gold ounces, hurled them at the Mexican, and then, bounding over the precipice that bordered the road, glided to the bottom with headlong speed and disappeared at once.
What we have described occurred so rapidly that the peons who remained behind, although they hurried up at full speed to their master's assistance, arrived too late on the scene to prevent the Indian's flight.
The Mexican had received no wound; the surprise and violence of the fall had alone caused his momentary stupor; but almost immediately he regained his senses, and comprehending the inutility and folly of pursuit at such a spot with such an adversary, he devoured his shame and passion, and, remounting his horse, which had been stopped, he coolly gave orders to continue the journey, with an internal resolution that, if ever the opportunity offered, he would have an exemplary revenge for the insult he had received.