“To whom?”
“To that ugly zambo you’ve seen skulking about the camp—who belongs to nobody. It was at the Puente National, as I have said. I was standing under the bridge—the dry arch at the further end. It was just after dark; when, who should come there but Capitan Rayas, and the zambo following him. They were talking about this very niña: and I heard her name more than once. I did not hear much, for I had to keep a good distance off, so that they might not see me. But I heard that.”
“What?”
“What I’ve said about the offer of the onza. ‘Find out, Santucho,’ said Rayas—Santucho is the zambo’s name—‘find out where he has hid her.’”
“Who has hid her?”
“Carrambo! that’s what I couldn’t make out; but who, if it wasn’t her own brother?—Calros, they call him.”
“There’s something ugly in all that,” remarked one of the men.
“It isn’t the niña, that’s certain,” jocularly rejoined Anton Chico.
“The zambo, then! he’s ugly enough. What say you, camarados?”
“The patron, who wanted to employ him, is no great beauty himself,” said one who had not before spoken. “Notwithstanding his fine trappings, he has got some black marks against him. Look here, hombres,” continued the speaker, drawing nearer to the others, and adopting a more confidential tone. “I’m a blind man, if I haven’t seen his phiz before; ay, and tapado at that.”