In these various encampments the general would set out every morning, attended by one of the guides, and not return till evening.
What was he doing during the long hours of his absence?
For what object were these explorations made, at the end of which a greater degree of sadness darkened his countenance?
No one knew.
During these excursions, Doña Luz led a sufficiently monotonous life, isolated among the rude people who surrounded her. She passed whole days seated sadly in front of her tent, or, mounted on horseback and escorted by Captain Aguilar or the fat doctor, she took rides near the camp, without object and without interest.
It happened this time again, exactly as it had happened at the preceding stations of the caravan.
The young girl, abandoned by her uncle, and even by the doctor, who was pursuing, with increasing ardour, the great research for his imaginary plant, and set out resolutely every morning herbalizing, was reduced to the company of Captain Aguilar.
But Captain Aguilar was, we are forced to admit, although young, elegant and endowed with a certain relative intelligence, not a very amusing companion for Doña Luz.
A brave soldier, with the courage of a lion, entirely devoted to the general, to whom he owed everything, the captain entertained for the niece of his chief great attachment and respect; he watched with the utmost care over her safety, but he was completely unacquainted with the means of rendering the time shorter by those attentions and that pleasant chat which are so agreeable to girls.
This time Doña Luz did not become so ennuyée as usual. Since that terrible night—from the time that one of those fabulous heroes whose history and incredible feats she had so often read, Loyal Heart, had appeared to her to save her and those who accompanied her—a new sentiment, which she had not even thought of analyzing, had germinated in her maiden heart, had grown by degrees, and in a very few days had taken possession of her whole being.