"Perfectly, your excellency. I shall keep a strict watch over my people, so that you shall not be disturbed."
"You are a splendid landlord, and I predict that you will make a rapid fortune, for I see that you thoroughly understand your own interests."
"I try to satisfy the gentry who honour my poor abode with their presence."
"Excellently reasoned! Here are the two promised ounces, and four piastres in the bargain for the refreshments you are going to serve us. Have these gentlemen's horses taken to the corral, and have the goodness to leave us."
The landlord bowed with a grimacing smile, brought, with a speed far from common with people of his calling, the refreshments ordered, and gave the hunter a deep bow.
"Now," he said, "your excellency is in your own house, and no one shall enter without your orders."
While Valentine was making this bargain with the ranchero, his friends remained silent, laughing inwardly at the hunter's singular mode of proceeding, and the unanswerable arguments he employed to avoid an espionage almost always to be found in such places, when the master does not scruple to betray those who pay him best.
"Now," said Valentine, so soon as the door closed behind the landlord, "we shall talk at least in safety."
"Speak Spanish, my friend," said M. Rallier.
"Why so? It is so delightful to converse in one's own tongue, when, like me, you have so few opportunities for doing so. I assure you that Curumilla will not feel offended."