In sight there was no object to guide me. I paused in my steps, and listened for a sound.
For some seconds there was a profound silence, unbroken even by the groans of the wounded, some of whose voices were, perhaps, now silent in death. The wolves, too, had suspended their hideous howlings, as though their quest for prey had ended, and they were busily banqueting on the dead.
The stillness produced a painful effect, even more than the melancholy sounds that had preceded it I almost longed for their renewal.
A short while only did this irksome silence continue. It was terminated by the voice I had before heard, this time in the utterance of a different speech.
“Soy moriendo! Lola—Lolita! a ver te nunca mas en este mundo!” (I am dying, Dolores—dear Dolores! never more shall I see you in this world!)
“Nunca mas en este mundo!” came the words rapidly re-pronounced, but in a voice of such different intonation as to preclude the possibility of mistaking it either for an echo or repetition by the same speaker.
“No, never!” continued the second voice, in the same tone, and in a similar patois. “Never again shall you look upon Lola—you, Calros Vergara, who have kept me from becoming her husband; who have poisoned her mind against me—”
“Ah! it is you, Rayas! What has brought you hither? Is it to torture a dying man?”
“Carajo! I didn’t come to do anything of the kind. I came to assure myself that you were dying—that’s all. Vicente Vilagos, who has escaped from this ugly affair, has just told me you’d got a bit of lead through your body. I’ve sought you here to make sure that your wound was fatal—as he said it was.”
“Santissima! O Ramon Rayas! that is your errand?”