"Let us be off! We have wasted too much time here already!"
And he rushed out of the rancho, the others following close at his heels.
In the meanwhile, Don Pablo and Father Seraphin were in the house. The priest had taken the maiden to the house of an honest family which owed him great obligations, and was too happy to receive the poor sufferer. The missionary did not intend, however, to let her be long a burthen to these worthy people. At daybreak he intended to deliver her to certain relations of her father, who inhabited a hacienda a few leagues from Santa Fe.
Doña Clara had been placed in a comfortable room by her hosts. Their first care had been to make her doff the Indian robes for others more suitable to her birth and position. The maiden worn out by poignant emotions of the scene she had witnessed, was on the point of retiring to bed, when Father Seraphin and Don Pablo tapped at the door of her room. She hastily opened it, and the sight of her brother, whom she had not hoped to see so speedily, overwhelmed her with joy.
An hour soon slipped away in pleasant chat. Don Pablo was careful not to tell his sister of the misfortune that had befallen her father; for he did not wish to dull by that confession the joy the poor girl promised herself for the morrow. Then, as the night was advancing, the two men withdrew, so as to allow her to enjoy that rest so needed to strengthen her for the long journey to the hacienda, promising to come and fetch her in a few hours. Father Seraphin generously offered Don Pablo to pass the night with him by sharing the small lodging he had not far from the Plaza de la Merced, and the young man eagerly accepted. It was too late to seek a lodging at a locanda, and in this way he would be all the sooner with his sister next morning. After a lengthened leave-taking, they, therefore, left the house, and, so soon as they were gone, Doña Clara threw herself, ready dressed, into a hammock hanging at one end of the room, when she speedily fell asleep.
On reaching the street, Don Pablo saw a body lying motionless in front of the house.
"What's this?" he asked, in surprise.
"A poor wretch whom the ladrones killed in order to plunder him," the missionary answered.
"That is possible."
"Perhaps he is not quite dead," the missionary went on; "it is our duty to succour him."