"I mean that before attacking you, I resolved to settle matters first with the captain."
"Ah!"
"Well, general, it is my painful duty to inform you that four days after he left Pitic, our brave friend Don Isidro, although an old and experienced soldier, well versed in war stratagems, fell into an ambuscade resembling the one into which you fell today, with this exception——."
"What exception?" the general asked, with greater interest than he would have liked to display, for he was beginning to fear a catastrophe.
"My men were so imprudent," the hunter continued, ironically, "as to leave the captain the means of defending himself. The result was that he died, bravely fighting to save the gold you had intrusted to him, and, before all, the coffin containing your daughter's corpse."
"Well, and I presume you plundered the caravan, and carried off the gold and silver?" he asked, contemptuously.
"You would most probably have acted thus under similar circumstances, Don Sebastian," the hunter answered, giving him back insult for insult; "but I thought it my duty to act differently. What could you expect? I, a coarse, uneducated hunter, do not know how to plunder, for I did not learn it when I had the honour to serve my own country, and I never stood under your orders in Mexico. This is what I did: so soon as the captain and the peons he commanded were killed—for the poor devils, I must do them the justice of saying, offered a desperate resistance—I myself, you understand, friend, I myself conveyed the money to your Hacienda del Palmar, where it now remains in safety, as you can easily assure yourself if you ever return to Palmar."
The general breathed again, and smiled ironically. "Instead of blaming you, señor," he said, "I, on the contrary, owe you thanks for this chivalrous conduct, especially toward an enemy."
"Do not be in such an hurry to thank me, caballero," the hunter answered; "I have not told you all yet."
These words were uttered with such an accent of gratified hatred, that all the hearers, the general included, shuddered involuntarily, for they understood that the hunter was about to make a terrible revelation, and that the calmness he feigned concealed a tempest.