“Ah, cousin! how would it be for her? Tied to a tree, with no hope—no chance of getting loosed from it—she’d die of hunger or thirst—miserably perish. Wicked as Shebotha is, we’d be worse than she if we left her to such a fate as that, to say nothing of our bringing it upon her. Ay, and for doing so we’d deserve the same ourselves, or something as bad.”
“Well, Señor Ludwig,” rejoins the gaucho, with an air of submission rather than conviction, “you may be right in what you say, and I’m not the man to deny it. But there need be no difference of opinion on that point. Leaving Shebotha tied to a tree wouldn’t do on any account, for the reasons I’ve stated. It might—most likely would, and, as you say, it ought—end in ourselves getting tied to trees or stakes, with a bundle of faggots between our legs set to the tune of a slow fire. But,” he adds, after a second or two spent considering, “there’s only one other way I can think of to deal with the witch, if we’re not to take her with us.”
“What’s the other?” asks Cypriano, seeing that the gaucho hesitates to declare it.
“Why, knock her on the head, or draw the blade of a cuchilla across her throat, and so stop her grunting at once and for ever. The old wretch deserves no better fate and hanging’s too good for her. But they’d find her dead body all the same; though not with a tongue in it to tell who stopped her wind, or, what’s of more consequence, how and which way we went off. Besides, I dare say, the Señor Ludwig wouldn’t agree to our getting disembarrassed of her in that fashion.”
“Oh! no, no!” ejaculates the humane youth, horrified at the thought of such cruelty, “anything but that, Caspar.”
“Well, there isn’t anything but what I propose doing—that is, taking her along. I’m willing to accommodate her on the croup of my recado, and will show her all the gallantry she deserves. If you’re jealous, Señor Ludwig, you may have her behind you; and as your horse is the lightest laden, that might be best. When we’re crossing back over that riacho where you left your saddle-bags, if you’re tired of riding double, you can drop her down among the lightning-eels, and let them play their batteries upon her old bones till every joint of them cracks asunder.”
Were it not for the gravity of the situation, Gaspar’s young companions would be greatly amused at his quaint rhodomontade. But as both are too anxious about the future, and in no humour for a jest, Ludwig only answers with a faint smile; while Cypriano, alone thinking of Francesca, has somewhat impatiently listened to it. Having hold of the bridle-rein which the gaucho has handed to him, on the latter ceasing to speak, he says in urgent tone—
“Bring her along, then, good Gaspar; and be quick about it! As you’ve said, we should get down to the plain as soon as possible.”
The admonition is not needed, for Gaspar does not waste time over his jokes, nor allow them to interfere with his action. And while delivering the last sally, he has been looking to his horse-gear, to see that his recade is in a proper condition to receive her who is to be his double.
Satisfied it will do, he strides off to where Shebotha is tied; and in a few seconds returns bearing the sorceress in his arms, as though she were but a bundle of rags.