“His gun has a quare sound, Captain,” said the Irishman, appealing to me. “It’s diffirint intirely from a Mexican piece, and not like our own nayther. It’s a way he has in loadin’ it.”
“Well—what of that?”
“Why, Raowl says one of them axed him who fired. Now, I heerd a shot, for my ear was close till the door here. It was beyant like; but I cud swear upon the blissed crass it was ayther the sargint’s rifle or another as like it as two pays.”
“It is very strange!” I muttered, half in soliloquy, for the same thought had occurred to myself.
“I saw the boy, Captain,” said Raoul; “I saw him crossing when they opened the door.”
“The boy!—what boy?” I asked.
“The same we brought out of the town.”
“Ha! Narcisso!—you saw him?”
“Yes; and, if I’m not mistaken, the white mule that the old gentleman rode to camp. I think that the family is with the guerilla, and that accounts for our being still alive.”
A new light flashed upon me. In the incidents of the last twenty hours I had never once thought of Narcisso. Now all was clear—clear as daylight. The zambo whom Lincoln had killed—poor victim!—was our friend, sent to warn us of danger; the dagger, Narcisso’s—a token for us to trust him. The soft voice—the small hand thrust under the tapojo—yes, all were Narcisso’s!