more of the thoughts of the chief than hatred.
"Come, tie the creature upon a horse," she said.
"This woman belongs to me," Antinahuel replied, "and I alone have the right of disposing of her."
"Not yet, chief; a fair exchange: when you have delivered the general, I will give her up to you."
"My sister forgets," said Antinahuel, "that I have fifty mosotones with me."
"What does that signify?" she replied.
"It signifies," he replied, "that I am the stronger."
"Indeed!" she said, sneeringly, "is that the way you keep your promises?"
"I love this woman," he said, in a deep voice.
"Caray! I know that well enough," she replied.
"I will not have her suffer."
"See there, now," she cried, still jeering; "I give her up to you expressly that she may suffer."
"If such is my sisters thought, she is mistaken."
"Chief, my friend, you do not know what you are talking about; you are ignorant of the hearts of white women."
"I do not understand my sister."
"No; you do not comprehend that this woman will never love you – that she will never entertain for you anything but contempt and disdain."
"Oh!" Antinahuel replied, "I am too great a chief to be thus despised by a woman."
"You will see you are, though; in the meantime I demand my prisoner."
"My sister shall not have her."
"Then try to take her from me!" she shrieked; and springing like a tiger cat, she pushed away the chief, and seized the young girl, to whose throat she applied her dagger so closely that blood stained the point.
Antinahuel uttered a terrible cry.
"Stop!" he shouted in consternation; "I consent to everything."
"Ah!" cried the Linda, with a smile of triumph, "I knew I should have the last word."
The chief bit his fingers with powerless rage but he was too well acquainted with this woman to continue a struggle which he knew must infallibly terminate in the maiden's death. By a prodigy of self command he forced his face to assume a smile, and said in a mild voice —
"Wah! my sister is excited! Of what consequence is it to me whether this woman is mine now or in a few hours hence?"
"Yes, but only when General Bustamente is no longer in the hands of his enemies, Chief."
"Be it so!" he said, "since my sister requires it; let her act as she thinks fit."
"Very well; but my brother must prove his faith to me."
"What security can I give my sister, that will thoroughly satisfy her?" he said with a bitter smile.
"This," she replied, with a sneer; "let my brother swear by the bones of his ancestors that he will not oppose anything it shall please me to do, till the general is free."
The chief hesitated; the oath the Linda requested him to take was one held sacred by the Indians, and they dreaded breaking it in the highest degree; such is their respect for the ashes of their fathers. But Antinahuel had fallen into a snare, from which it was impossible for him to extricate himself.
"Good!" he said, smiling; "let my sister be satisfied. I swear upon the bones of my father that I will not oppose her in anything she may please to do."
"Thank you," the Linda answered; "my brother is a great warrior."
Antinahuel had no other plausible pretext for remaining: he slowly, and, as if regretfully, rejoined his mosotones, got into his saddle, and set off, darting at the Linda a last glance, that would have congealed her with fear if she had seen it.
"Poor puling creature!" she said. "Don Tadeo, it is you I wound in torturing your leman! Shall I at length force you to restore to me my daughter?"
The Indian peons attached to her service had remained with her. In the heat of the pursuit the horses, abandoned by Curumilla and brought back by the scouts, had remained with the troop.
"Bring hither one of those horses!" she commanded.
The courtesan had the poor girl placed across one of the horses, with her face towards the sky; then she ordered that the feet and hands of her victim should be brought under the belly of the animal and solidly fastened with cords by the ankles and wrists.
"The woman is not firm upon her legs," she said, with a dry, nervous laugh.
The poor girl gave scarcely any signs of life; her countenance had an earthy, cadaverous hue, and the blood flowed copiously. Her body, horribly cramped by the frightful posture in which she was tied, had nervous starts, and dreadfully hurt her wrists and ankles, into which the cords began to enter. A hollow rattle escaped from her oppressed chest.
CHAPTER V.
AN INDIAN'S LOVE
The Linda rejoined Antinahuel, who, knowing what torture she was preparing to inflict on the young girl, had stopped at a short distance from the spot where he had left her.
When they reached the toldería, the horsemen dismounted and the maiden was untied and transported, half dead, into the same cuarto where, an hour before, she had, for the first time, found herself in the presence of the courtesan.
The appearance of Rosario was really frightful, and would have excited pity in anybody but the tigress whose delight it was to treat her so cruelly. Her long hair hung in loose disorder upon her half-naked shoulders, and at various spots adhered to her face through the blood which had flowed from her wound; her face, soiled with blood and dirt, wore a greenish cast, and her half-closed lips showed that her teeth were tightly clenched. Her wrists and ankles, to which still hung strips of the thick cord by which she had been fastened to the horse, were frightfully bruised and discoloured. Her delicate frame was convulsed with nervous quiverings, and her faint breathing painfully issued from her heaving chest.
"Poor girl!" the chief murmured.
"Why, chief!" said the Linda, with a sardonic smile. "I scarcely know you! Good Heavens! how love can change a man! What, you, intrepid warrior, pity the fate of this poor maudlin chit! I really believe you will weep over her like a woman, next!"
"Yes," the chief said; "my sister speaks truly, I scarcely know myself! Oh!" he added, bitterly, "is it possible that I, Antinahuel, to whom the Huincas have done so much wrong, can be so? This woman is of an accursed race; she is in my power, I could avenge myself upon her, satisfy the hatred that devours me, make her endure the must atrocious injuries! – and, I dare not! – no, I dare not!"
"Does my brother, then, love this woman so much?" the Linda asked, in a soft, insinuating tone.
Antinahuel looked at her as if she had awakened him suddenly from his sleep; he fixed his dull eyes upon her, and exclaimed —
"Do I love her? – love her! – let my sister listen. Before dying, and going to hunt in the blessed prairies with the just warriors,
