"Go and inform the master that I bring a traveller with me," cried my guide, "and be sure not to forget to tell Black Elk that he is a Frenchman."
"How do you know that?" I asked, a little annoyed, for I piqued myself upon speaking Spanish with great purity.
"Pardi!" he said laughing, "we are almost compatriots."
"How so?"
"Dame! I am a Canadian, you understand, and I soon recognised the accent."
During the exchange of these few words, we had arrived at the door of the hacienda, where several persons waited to receive us.
It appeared that the announcement of my quality of Frenchman, made by my companion, had produced a certain sensation.
Ten or twelve domestics held torches, by favour of which I could distinguish six or eight persons at least, men and women, coming forward to welcome us.
The master of the hacienda, whom I recognized as such at once, advanced towards me with a lady hanging on his arm, who must have been a great beauty, and might yet pass for handsome, although she was near forty years of age.
Her husband was a man of about fifty, of lofty stature, and endowed with a marked, manly countenance; around them clung, with staring eyes, five or six charming children, who resembled them too strongly not to belong to them.