“Oh! do it, Gaspar!” exclaims Cypriano; “do that, and all I have will be yours.”
“Yes! all we both have,” adds Ludwig; “all there is at the estancia. But rescue sister, and I’m sure my mother will make you welcome to everything.”
“Ta-ta!” returns the gaucho, in a tone of reproach at being thus bargained with; gentle, however, as he knows it is from their anxiety about Francesca. “Why, hijos mios, what are you speaking of? Promises to me,—a bribe for but doing my duty! ’Twill be a far day before Gaspar Mendez will need that for service done to either friend or relative of his dear dead master—ay, to the laying down of my life. Carramba! are we not all embarked in the same boat, to swim or sink together? But we sha’n’t sink yet; not one of us. No; we shall swim out of this sea of troubles, and triumphantly. Cease despairing, then; for after all there mayn’t be so much danger. Though Naraguana be dead, there’s one above him, above all, up there in Heaven, who will not forsake us in this our extremity. Let us kneel and pray to Him.”
And they do kneel; Ludwig, as called upon by Gaspar repeating the Lord’s prayer, with a solemnity befitting the occasion.
Chapter Fifty.
A Midnight Promenader.
Rising from their knees, and resuming their seats upon the ledge, they return to the subject of discourse, interrupted by their devotional interlude; Caspar declaring it his fixed intention to disguise himself as an Indian, and so seek entrance into the town. No matter what the danger, he is ready to risk it.
The others consenting, the next question that comes before them is, how the disguise is to be got up. About this there seems a difficulty to Ludwig, and also to Cypriano; though recalling the transformation of the latter into a soldier-crane, so quickly done by the deft hands of the gaucho, they doubt not that he will also find the ways and means for transforming himself into a redskin.