“But who could have betrayed us? No one. Of course no one could tell of that intent. How then should he have prepared such an infernal surprise?
“Ah! I forget. It was broad daylight as we made the crossing of the long prairie. We may have been seen, and our purpose suspected? Just so—just so. And then, while we were making our toilet in the chapparal, the other could have been contrived and effected. That, and that only, can be the explanation!
“Fools! to have been frightened at a scarecrow!
“Carrambo! It shan’t long delay the event. To-morrow I go back to the Alamo. I’ll touch that thousand yet, if I should have to spend twelve months in earning it; and, whether or not, the deed shall be done all the same. Enough to have lost Isidora. It may not be true; but the very suspicion of it puts me beside myself. If I but find out that she loves him—that they have met since—since—Mother of God! I shall go mad; and in my madness destroy not only the man I hate, but the woman I love! O Dona Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos! Angel of beauty, and demon of mischief! I could kill you with my caresses—I can kill you with my steel! One or other shall be your fate. It is for you to choose between them!”
His spirit becoming a little tranquillised, partly through being relieved by this conditional threat—and partly from the explanation he had been able to arrive at concerning the other thought that had been troubling it—he soon after fell asleep.
Nor did he awake until daylight looked in at his door, and along with it a visitor.
“José!” he cried out in a tone of surprise in which pleasure was perceptible—“you here?”
“Si, Señor; yo estoy.”
“Glad to see you, good José. The Doña Isidora here?—on the Leona, I mean?”
“Si, Señor.”