The four Comanches steal up to the door; and in skulking attitudes scrutinise it.
It is shut; but there are chinks at the sides. To these the savages set their ears—all at the same time—and stand silently listening.
No snoring, no breathing, no noise of any kind!
“It is possible,” says their chief to the follower nearest him—speaking in a whisper, but in good grammatical Castilian, “just possible he has not yet got home; though by the time of his starting he should have reached here long before this. He may have ridden out again? Now I remember: there’s a horse-shed at the back. If the man be inside the house, the beast should be found in the shed. Stay here, camarados, till I go round and see.”
Six seconds suffice to examine the substitute for a stable. No horse in it.
As many more are spent in scrutinising the path that leads to it. No horse has been there—at least not lately.
These points determined, the chief returns to his followers—still standing by the doorway in front.
“Maldito!” he exclaims, giving freer scope to his voice, “he’s not here, nor has he been this day.”
“We had better go inside, and make sure?” suggests one of the common warriors, in Spanish fairly pronounced. “There can be no harm in our seeing how the Irlandes has housed himself out here?”
“Certainly not!” answers a third, equally well versed in the language of Cervantes. “Let’s have a look at his larder too. I’m hungry enough to eat raw tasajo.”