Between his legs rested a rifle richly damascened with silver, and the carved boss of a knife handle peeping out of the top of his right boot.
Lastly, to complete this accoutrement, a splendid Guayaquil straw hat, adorned with an eagle's plume, was lying on a table near the one which he occupied.
In spite of the young man's swarthy face, his long black hair falling in disorder on his shoulders, and the haughtiness of his features, it was easy to recognise by an examination of his features the type of the European under the exterior of the American; his eyes full of vivacity which announced boldness and intelligence, his frank and limpid glance, and his sarcastic lips, surmounted by a fine and coquettishly turned up black moustache, revealed a French origin.
In truth, this individual, who was no other than Leon Delbès, the most daring smuggler on the Chilian coast, was born at Bayonne, which city he left after the loss of an enormous fortune which he inherited from his father, and settled in South America, where in a short time he acquired an immense reputation for skill and courage, which extended from Talcahueno to Copiapó.
His comrade, who appeared to be a man of five-and-thirty years of age, formed the most perfect contrast with him.
He wore the same costume as Delbès, but there the resemblance ended.
He was tall and well built, and his thin, muscular limbs displayed a far from ordinary strength. He had a wide, receding forehead, and his black eyes, close to his long, bent nose, gave him a vague resemblance to a bird of prey. His projecting cheek bones, his large mouth, lined with white, sharp teeth, and his thin pinched-up lips, imparted to his face an indescribable expression of cruelty; a forest of greasy hair was imprisoned in a red and yellow silk handkerchief which covered his head, and whose points fell upon his back. He had an olive complexion, peculiar to individuals of the Indian race to which he belonged.
This man was well known to the inhabitants of Valparaíso, who experienced for him a hatred thoroughly justified by the acts of ferocity of which he had been guilty under various circumstances; and as no one knew his real name, it had grown into a custom to designate him by the name of the Vaquero, owing to his great skill in lassoing wild bulls on the Pampas.
"The fiend twist the necks of those accursed English captains!" the Frenchman exclaimed, as he passionately smote the table: "it is easy to see that they are heretics."
"Yes," the other replied; "they are thieves—a whole cargo of raw silver, which we had such difficulty in passing, and which cost us the lives of two men."