“Have I not said so?”
“You are mad!” exclaimed Pepé and Bois-Rose, simultaneously, “the fellow would have killed him for nothing!”
“You are a god!” cried Cuchillo; “and you estimate my scruples at their real value. What! all this gold?”
“All, including the smallest particle,” answered Fabian, solemnly: “I shall have nothing in common with you—not even this gold.”
And he made a sign to Cuchillo to leave the ground.
The bandit, instead of passing through the hedge of cotton-trees, took the road to the Misty Mountains, towards the spot where his horse was fastened.
A few minutes afterwards he returned with his serapé in his hand. He drew aside the interlacing branches which shut in the valley, and soon disappeared from Fabian’s sight. The sun, in the midst of his course, poured down a flood of light, causing the gold spread over the surface of the valley to shoot forth innumerable rays.
A shudder passed though Cuchillo’s veins, as he once more beheld it.
His heart beat quick at the sight of this mass of wealth. He resembled the tiger which falling upon a sheepfold cannot determine which victim to choose. He encompassed with a haggard glance the treasures spread at his feet; and little was wanting to induce him, in his transports of joy, to roll himself in these floods of gold.
Soon, however, restored to calmer thoughts, he spread his mantle on the sand; and as he saw the impossibility of carrying away all the riches exposed to his view, he cast around him a glance of observation.