"'Why, instead of kindly treating the Indians whom they capture, do they use them cruelly?'"
"'Why, lastly, do they wish to compel the sons of Bheman to renounce the faith of their fathers?'"
"You can understand," Don Pedro continued, "the amazement produced in the minds of the senate by the Indian's speech, which demanded the establishment of the Chilian frontiers, the payment of the impost, and the liberation of the plundering and vagabond Indians. Only one reply was possible, a pure and simple refusal. This was given; but then the Indian, whose stoicism had not failed him for a single instant, drew, without a word, a packet from under his poncho, and laid it on the dais at the President's feet. It was a bundle of arrows, whose points were dipped in blood, and which were fastened together by a cascabel's skin."
"Then, taking advantage of the general stupor, the ambassadors withdrew, and when, a quarter of an hour later, the President ordered them to be pursued, it was too late; they appeared to have become suddenly invisible."
"Why, it is war," the old general suddenly interrupted, who had been listening with sustained attention to Don Pedro's narrative; "war with the Indians."
"Yes; a war such as they carry on, without truce or mercy, and which, incredible to relate, has already begun."
"What?" said Don Juan.
"Alas! yes; two hours after the strange disappearance of the Indians, a courier reached Santiago at full gallop, announcing that the Araucanos, more than fifty thousand in number, had crossed the Bio Bio, and were firing and destroying all the villages up to the gates of Valdivia, while another band had arrived under the very walls of Ports Araucos and Incapel."
"On hearing this news, the President of the Republic offered me the command of the province of Valdivia, while ordering me at the same time to explore the neighbourhood of Talca. I eagerly accepted, and set out with the rank of general, following at only a few hours' interval your son Don Juan, who has received orders to defend Incapel."
"What, Don Juan!" the señorita Soto-Mayor interrupted.