As the fiendish suggestion is spoken in a whisper, the three listeners do not hear what it is. They can only guess by the behaviour of the young girl that some offer has been made which she indignantly rejects. This can be told by her rejoinder, and the air in which she delivers it.
“No!” she exclaims, starting back with an expression of horror upon her countenance. “Never, never! If Aguara be untrue to me, it is no fault of the paleface. I know that; and have no vengeance for her. But for him—ah! if he have deceived me, it is not she, but he should suffer punishment. And punished he shall be—by my brother.”
“Oh! your brother!” returns the sorceress with a sneer, evidently in anger at having her offer so rejected. “If Kaolin can right your wrongs, let him.” And she adds, making to move off, “I suppose you haven’t any more need for me, or my services.”
“If she haven’t I have,” cries Gaspar, springing out from the place of concealment and seizing hold of the hag, while at the same instant Cypriano flings his arms around the Indian girl.
“Come, Mam Shebotha!” continues the gaucho, “it’s my turn to have a talk with you.”
She makes an effort to escape, and would cry out; but cannot, with his sinewy fingers around her throat.
“Stop your struggling!” he commands, giving her a shake till her old bones crackle at every joint. “A cry, a word from you above a whisper, and I’ll close your windpipe so that you’ll never grunt through it again. Come, muchachos! Let’s to the other side! One of you bring on the girl. Vamos!”
Raising the hag in his arms he bears her off, with no more care for her comfort than if she were a trapped wolf. Nacena is borne more tenderly in Ludwig’s arms, into which she has been transferred, by a sort of tacit understanding between him and his cousin—the latter walking alongside. No threat hears the girl, nor needs it to enforce silence. For she is no more apprehensive of injury, now knowing him who carries her as her brother’s old playfellow. Above all, does she feel reassured, on hearing whispered in her ear—
“Have no fear, Nacena! Am not I the bosom friend of your brother? I will not deceive you.”
Does she note the earnestness of his words, and the significant emphasis given to those last pronounced? Whether or not, she refrains making rejoinder: but suffers herself to be borne on through the scaffold tombs without resistance, and silent as the forms reposing upon them.