answer, Don Estevan took from his purse the piece of gold he had promised, and handed it to Cuchillo.
“It is the young Tiburcio Arellanos to whom you have given life,” continued the outlaw. “As for me I only followed the dictates of my heart; but it may be that we have both done a very foolish action.”
“Why that?” asked the Spaniard. “This young man will be easily watched so long as he is near us; and I presume he is decided to be one of our expedition?”
“He has asked twenty-four hours to reflect upon it.”
“Do you think he knows anything of—”
“I have my fears,” replied Cuchillo, in a melancholy tone, little regarding the lie he was telling, and the purpose of which was to render the Spaniard suspicious of the man he had himself vowed to kill. “In any case,” continued he, with a significant smile, “we have saved his life, and that will serve as tit for tat.”
“What do you mean to say?”
“Only that my conscience assures me it will be perfectly tranquil if—if—Carramba!” added he, brusquely—“if I should send this young fellow to be broiled with his mother in the other world.”
“God forbid that!” exclaimed the Spaniard, in a lively tone. “What need? Admit that he knows all: I shall be in command of a hundred men, and he altogether alone. What harm can the fellow do us. I have no uneasiness about him. I am satisfied, and so must you be.”
“Oh! I am satisfied if you are,” growled Cuchillo, like a dog whose master had hindered him from biting some one, “quite satisfied,” he continued, “but perhaps hereafter—”
“I shall see this young man,” said the Spaniard, interrupting him, and advancing in the direction where Tiburcio stood, while Cuchillo followed, talking to himself:
“What the devil possessed him to ask how long I had owned my horse? Let me see! the animal stumbled, I remember, and it was just then he dismounted and threatened me. I can’t understand it, but I suspect what I do not understand.”
When Arechiza and Cuchillo reached the camp, an excitement was observed among the horses, that gathered around the capitansa, at a short distance from the fire, and to all appearance in a state of extreme terror, were uttering a wild and continuous neighing. Some danger yet afar, but which the animals’ instincts enabled them to perceive, was the cause of this sudden stampede.
“It is some jaguar they have scented,” suggested one of the domestics.
“Bah!” replied another, “the jaguars attack only young foals—they wouldn’t dare to assault a strong vigorous horse.”
“Do you think so?” demanded the first speaker. “Ask Benito here, who, himself, lost a valuable animal taken by the jaguars.”
Benito, hearing this reference to himself, advanced towards the two speakers.
“One day,” he began, “or rather, one night just like this, I chanced to be at a distance from the Hacienda del Venado, where I was a vaquero at the time. I was in search of a strayed horse, and not finding him, had made up my mind to pass the night at the spring of Ojo da Agua. I tied my horse at a good distance off—where there was better grass—and I was sleeping, as a man sleeps after riding twenty leagues, when I was suddenly awakened by all the howlings and growlings of the devils. The moon shone so clear you might have fancied it daylight. All at once my horse came galloping toward me with the lazo hanging round his neck, which he had broken at the risk of hanging himself.
“ ‘Here then,’ said I, ‘I shall now have two horses to go in search of instead of one.’
“I had scarce made this reflection, when I observed, under the light of the moon, a superb jaguar bounding after my horse. He scarce appeared to touch the ground, and each leap carried him forward twenty feet or more.
“I saw that my poor steed was lost. I listened with anxiety, but for a while heard nothing. At the end of a quarter of an hour, however, a terrible roar—”
The speaker paused, and stood trembling.
“Virgen Santa!” cried he, “that’s it!” as the fearful cry of a jaguar at that moment echoed through the camp, succeeded by a deathlike stillness, as if both men and animals had been alike terrified into silence.
Chapter Fifteen.
Nocturnal Visitors.
The sudden shock occasioned by the perception of a peril so proximate and imminent paralysed every tongue. Even the ex-herdsman himself was silent, and appeared to reflect what had best be done to avoid the danger.
At this instant the voice of Don Estevan broke the temporary silence that reigned within the camp.
“Get your weapons ready!” shouted he.
“It is useless, master,” rejoined the old vaquero, whose experience among jaguars gave a certain authority to his words, “the best thing to be done, is to keep the fire ablaze.”
And saying this, he flung an armful of fagots upon it, which, being as dry as tinder, at once caught flame—so as to illumine a large circle around the camp.
“If they are not choking with thirst,” said Benito, “these demons of darkness will not dare come within the circle of the fire. But, indeed, they are often choking with thirst, and then—”
“Then!” interrupted one of the domestics, in a tone of anxiety.
“Then,” continued the herdsman, “then they don’t regard either light or fire; and if we are not determined to defend the water against their approach, we had better get out of their way altogether. These animals are always more thirsty than hungry.”
“How when they have drunk?” asked Baraja, whose countenance, under the light of the fire, betrayed considerable uneasiness.
“Why, then they seek to appease their hunger.”
At this moment a second cry from the jaguar was heard, but farther off than the first. This was some relief to the auditory of Benito, who, relying upon his theory, was satisfied that the animal was not yet at the extreme point of suffering from thirst. All of them preserved silence—the only sounds heard being the crackling of the dry sticks with which Baraja kept the fire profusely supplied.
“Gently there, Baraja! gently!” called out the vaquero, “if you consume our stock of firewood in that fashion, you will soon make an end of it, and, por Dios! amigo, you will have to go to the woods for a fresh supply.”
“There! hold your hand,” continued he, after a pause, “and try to make the fagots last as long as possible, else we may get in darkness and at the mercy of the tiger. He is sure to come back again in an hour or two, and far thirstier than before.”
If Benito had desired to frighten his companions, he could not have succeeded better. The
