“They may be enemies, but they may possibly be friends; and unless we learn the truth, we may be knocking our heads together before we discover it,” he observed. “I have had so many bullets flying about my ears of late, and have got off scot-free, that I am not afraid of any they may fire at me.”
Though we were unwilling to expose the padre to danger, his offer was of too much value to be refused. We accordingly begged him to do as he proposed; and bidding us not to be anxious about him, he rode off in the direction from which the vedette had come.
We waited, fearing every instant to hear the sound of a shot; but the silence of night remained unbroken. I had directed my men not to fire till they received my order to do so, to prevent the risk of the padre being shot at on his return to the camp.
Some time had passed away, when a horseman was seen coming over the plain, and the padre’s voice was heard shouting,—“All right! They are friends, and will be here anon!”
In another minute he had reached us. “Who do you think they are?” he exclaimed. “The labourers of your father and Señor Concannan, with a number of villagers and blacks; and some of my people, headed by Señor Denis, your young brother, and your Irish servant. They knew my voice, which I took care to let them hear before I approached; and I told them that I would ride back and inform you, lest you should begin peppering at them as they marched here to embrace you. They have come in search of Aqualonga and his band, whom they had traced in this direction, having ascertained that he it was who had carried off Donna Norah.”
My uncle and the whole party were thankful to have recovered her without having to fight, as they had expected; though Gerald declared that he was sorry not to be able to break a lance in her service, against the renowned tawny-skinned chieftain Aqualonga.
“Faith, Masther Gerald, it’s much betther as it is,” observed Tim, “as the savage might have managed to run his lance into you; and Miss Norah, depend on it, is a mighty deal more pleased to have no blood spilt in her cause.”
We were now—our two parties forming one camp—capable of setting at defiance any enemies likely to approach us.
The next morning we continued our journey; and at length, after a somewhat fatiguing march over the wide-extended plain,—having to cross several rivers and swamps, sometimes fording them, and at others passing over in hide-formed canoes, while the horses swam behind us,—we reached Don Fernando’s. Our welcome was such as might have been expected: Norah was received as a daughter, and Don Carlos and I were treated as heroes; and by none more so than by Isabella Monterola,—who has since, to my great happiness, become my wife. My cousin, Colonel Acosta, as I will still call him, was truly mourned for. “Poor fellow!” said Don Fernando; “the loss is ours. He would never have recovered the death of Donna Paola.”
The next day the bandit chief, whose safe-keeping cost us much anxiety, was sent off under a strong escort to Popayan; where he was, soon after, ordered to be shot. An immense crowd collected to gaze on an Indian who had been the terror of the country for so many years; and one man, as he observed his short figure and coarse and ugly features, exclaimed,—“Is that the hideous little fellow who has alarmed us so long?”