"You are always right, my friend. Your inexhaustible gaiety, your honest carelessness, restore me all my courage, and make me quite a different man."
"Hum!" Valentine said, "I am glad to hear you speak so. The position is serious, it is true; but it is far from being desperate. The chief and I have many times been in situations were our lives only depended on a thread: and yet we always emerged from them honourably—did we not, chief?"
"Yes," the Indian answered laconically, drawing in a mouthful of smoke, which he sent forth again from his mouth and nostrils.
"But that is not the question of the moment. I have sworn to save your father and sister, Pablo, and will do so, or my carcass shall be food for the wild beasts of the prairie; so leave me to act. Have you seen Father Seraphin?"
"Yes, I have. Our poor friend is still very weak and pale, and his wound is scarce cicatrised. Still, paying no heed to his sufferings, and deriving strength from his unbounded devotion to humanity, he has done all we agreed on. For the last week he has only left my father to hasten to his judges. He has seen the general, the governor, the bishop—everybody, in short—and has neglected nothing. Unfortunately all his exertions have hitherto been fruitless."
"Patience!" the hunter said with a smile of singular meaning.
"Father Seraphin believes for certain that my father will be placed in the capilla within two days. The governor wishes to have done with it—that is the expression he employed; and Father Seraphin told me that we have not a moment to lose."
"Two days are a long time, my friend; before they have elapsed many things may have occurred."
"That is true; but my father's life is at stake, and I feel timid."
"Good, Don Pablo; I like to hear you speak so. But reassure yourself; all is going on well, I repeat."