“He will not—I am sure he will not.”
“In that case all may be idle, and our scheme go for nought. Por Dios! what’s to be done?”
Pressing his head between his hands, the gaucho stands considering, while the other three in silence await the result. His deliberation is not for long; a bright idea has flashed across his brain, and with his countenance also recovering brightness, he exclaims—
“Gracios a Dios! I know how it can be managed; I think I know.”
Ludwig and Cypriano have it on their tongues to inquire what he means. But before either can say a word, he is off and away in a rush toward the scaffold-post to which Shebotha is tied.
Reaching it, he is seen with arms outstretched and in rapid play, as though he were setting her free. Far from that, however, is his intention. He but undoes the knot around her neck, and raising the poncho, clutches at something which encircles her throat. He had noticed this something while throttling her when first caught; it had rattled between his fingers as the beads of a rosary, and he knew it to be such, with a slight difference—the beads being human teeth! A remembrance, moreover, admonishes him that this ghastly necklace was worn by the sorceress, not for adornment, but to inspire dread. It is, in fact, one of her weapons of weird mystery and power, and an idea has occurred to him that it may now be used as an instrument against herself.
Having detached it from her neck, and replaced the poncho upon her head, he returns to where he had left the others, and holding out the string of teeth, says to Nacena—
“Take this. Present it to the crazy paleface; tell him Shebotha sent it as a token authorising you to act for her; and, if he be not altogether out of his wits, I warrant it’ll get you admission to the presence of the paleface. For anything beyond, you will best know how to act of yourself.”
The girl grasps the hideous symbol, a gleam of intelligence lighting up her swarth but beautiful face. For she, too, anticipates the effect it will have on Shebotha’s slave, from actual knowledge—not by guessing, as with Gaspar.
Knowing herself now at liberty and free to depart, without saying another word, she turns her back upon them; and gliding away with the agile, stealthy step peculiar to her race, soon passes beyond their sight.