“You see,” said Bois-Rose, still clinging to the idea of keeping Fabian near him, “you must learn to know the habits of the desert, and of the Indians. The villains, who see, by the loss of three of their men, what stuff we are made of, have retired to concoct some stratagem. You hear how silent all is after so much noise?”
The desert, indeed, had recovered its silence, the leaves only trembled in the evening breeze, and the water began to display brilliant colours in the setting sun.
“Well, Pepé, they are but seventeen now!” continued Bois-Rose, in a tone of triumph.
“Oh! we may succeed, if they do not get reinforcements.”
“That is a chance and a terrible one; but our lives are in God’s hands,” replied Bois-Rose. “Tell me, friend!” said he to Gayferos, “you probably belong to the camp of Don Estevan?”
“Do you know him then?” said the wounded man, in a feeble voice.
“Yes; and by what chance are you so far from the camp?”
The wounded man recounted how, by Don Estevan’s orders, he had set off to seek for their lost guide, and that his evil star had brought him in contact with the Indians as they were hunting the wild horses.
“What is the name of your guide?”
“Cuchillo.”