“Moreno,” she would manage to say, while the Captain was manœuvering for place, “ride forward and stay on my left.... I don’t want the Captain so near ... anyway they’re too bold! I don’t like military men!”
All three stopped their attempts at conversation to look intently at Manos Duras who was waiting motionless at the side of the road. Moreno knew who he was and murmured his name to Elena, whose interest in the gaucho was so keen that she yielded to her impulse to speak to him.
“So you are the famous Manos Duras of whom we have heard so often?”
The horseman seemed a little disturbed by Elena’s words, and more so by her smile. He took off his sombrero with a reverential gesture—“as though he were in front of a miracle-working picture,” thought Moreno—Then, in a theatrical manner that was with him quite spontaneous, he replied,
“I am that unhappy man, señora, and this present moment is the happiest in my life.”
He looked at her with eyes in which she could plainly read a strange mixture of worship and desire; and she smiled with pleasure at the barbaric homage she was receiving.
Canterac, who thought the conversation ridiculous, indicated his impatience by teasing his horse and protesting every few moments that they ought to be getting on. But Elena did not choose to hear him, and, with smiling interest, continued her conversation with the gaucho.
“They tell dreadful stories about you.... Are they true? How many murders have you really committed?”
“Black calumnies, señora!” Manos Duras replied, looking straight into her eyes. “But, if there are any murders I can commit for you, you have only to ask!”
Elena seemed thoroughly pleased by this reply, and said with a look at Canterac,