"Thanks for your fraternal conduct. Now speak, I am listening to you. Whatever you may tell me, I shall have the courage to hear it."
Don Louis, without revealing to the count his meeting with the Tigrero, as had been agreed on, told him how he had overheard a conversation between his guide and several Apache warriors ambushed in the vicinity of the hacienda, and the plan they had formed to surprise the colony.
"And now, sir," he added, "it is for you to judge of the gravity of this news, and the arrangements you will have to make, in order to foil the plans of the Indians."
"I thank you, sir. When my lieutenant told me, a few moments prior to your arrival, of the disappearance of the guide, I immediately saw that I had to do with a spy. What you now report to me converts my suspicions into certainty. As you say, there is not a moment to lose, and I will at once think over the necessary arrangements."
He walked to a table and struck a bell sharply. A peon entered.
"The first lieutenant," he said. In a few minutes the latter arrived.
"Lieutenant," the count said to him, "take twenty men with you, and scour the country for three leagues round. I have just learned that Indians are concealed near here."
The old soldier bowed in reply, and prepared to obey.
"An instant," Louis exclaimed, signing him to stop, "one word more."
"Eh?" Martin Leroux said, turning round in amazement, "You are talking French now."