“It is,” he continues, “that you can still rid yourself of that rival, not by doing wrong, but right and justice. With your help we shall take her away to a place where Aguara will never more set eyes upon her. But as I’ve said, we stand in need of your assistance, and you must give it.”
“You will, you will!” interposes Cypriano, in tones of earnest appeal.
“Yes, dear Nacena,” follows Ludwig, in tenderer tones; “I’m sure you will. Remember, she is my sister, and that you yourself have a brother!”
Had they but known it, there was no need for all this petitioning. Even while Gaspar was speaking, and long before he had finished, the Indian girl, with the quick, subtle instinct of her race, divined what they were aiming at—the very end she herself desires, and might have proposed to them. The same instinct, however, prompts her to feign ignorance of it, as evinced by her interrogative rejoinder:—
“How can Nacena assist you? In what way?”
“By helping us to get the paleface out of her prison.” It is Gaspar who speaks. “She is imprisoned, is she not?”
“She is.”
“And where is she kept?” further questions the gaucho.
Cypriano trembles as he listens for the answer. He fears, half expecting it to be, “In the toldo of the cacique.”
It is a relief to him, when Nacena, pointing towards the dark object bound to the scaffold-post, says: “She has charge of the paleface captive.”