The Indian Scout: A Story of the Aztec City. Gustave Aimard

one will pursue you."

      "Ah!" she continued, looking absently at the Indian's gloomy and apathetic face; "we shall separate tomorrow."

      "We must, señorita; the care for your safety demands it."

      "Who would dare to seek me in these unknown districts?"

      "Hatred dares everything. I implore you, señorita, to put faith in my experience; my devotion to you is unbounded. Though still very young, you have suffered enough, and it is time that a blessed sunbeam should brighten your dreary brow, and dispel the clouds which thought and grief have been so long collecting on it."

      "Alas!" she said, as she let her head droop, to hide the tears that ran down her cheeks.

      "My sister, my friend, my Laura!" the other maiden said, embracing her tenderly, "be courageous to the end. Shall I not be with you? Oh, fear nothing!" she added, with a charming expression. "I will take half your grief on myself, and your burthen will seem less heavy."

      "Poor Luisa!" the maiden murmured, as she returned her caresses. "You are unhappy through me. How shall I ever be able to repay your devotion?"

      "By loving me, as I love you, cherished angel, and by regaining hope."

      "Before a month, I trust," Don Miguel said, "your persecutors will be prevented from troubling you again. I am playing a terrible game with them, in which my head is the stake; but I care little, so long as I save you. On leaving you, permit me to take with me, in my heart, the hope that you will in no way attempt to leave the refuge I have found for you, and that you will patiently await my return."

      "Alas, Caballero! you are aware that I live only by a miracle; my relatives, my friends, indeed, all those I loved, have abandoned me, except my Luisa, my foster sister, whose devotion to me has never swerved; and you, whom I do not know, whom I never saw, and who suddenly revealed yourself to me in my tomb, like the angel of divine justice; since that terrible night, when, thanks to you, I emerged from my sepulchre, like Lazarus, you have shown me the kindest and most delicate attentions; you have taken the place of those who betrayed me; you have been to me more than a father."

      "Señorita!" said the young man, at once confused and happy at these words.

      "I say this to you, Don Miguel," she continued, with a certain feverish animation, "because I am anxious to prove to you that I am not ungrateful. I know not what God, in His wisdom, may do with me; but I tell you, that my last thought, my last prayer will be for you. You wish me to await you; I will obey you. Believe me, I only dispute my life through a certain feeling of anxiety, like the gambler at his last stake," she added, with a heartbreaking smile; "but I understand how much you need liberty of action for the rude game you have undertaken. Hence, you can go in peace; I have faith in you."

      "Thanks, señorita; this promise doubles my strength. Oh, now I am certain of success!"

      A rude jacal of branches had been prepared for the maidens by the other hunters and the Indian warrior, and they retired to rest.

      Although the young man's mind was so full of restless alarms, after a few moments of deep thought he laid himself down by the side of his companions, and soon fell asleep. In the desert nature never surrenders its claims, and the greatest grief rarely succeeds in gaining the victory over the material claims of the human organization.

      Scarce had the first sunbeams begun to tinge the sky of an opal hue, ere the hunters opened their eyes. The preparations for starting were soon completed; the moment of separation arrived, and the parting was a sad one. The two hunters had accompanied the maidens to the edge of the forest, in order to remain longer with them.

      Doña Luisa, taking advantage of an instant when the road became so narrow that it became almost impossible for two to walk side by side, drew nearer Don Miguel's hunting companion.

      "Do me a service," she whispered, hurriedly.

      "Speak," he answered, in the same key.

      "That Indian inspires me with but slight confidence."

      "You are wrong; I know him."

      She shook her head petulantly. "That is possible," she said; "but will you do me the service I want of you? – if not, I will ask Don Miguel, though I should have preferred him not knowing it."

      "Speak, I tell you."

      "Give me a knife and your pistols."

      The hunter looked her in the face. "Good!" he said presently. "You are a brave child. Here is what you ask for." And, without anyone noticing it, he gave the objects she wished to obtain from him, adding to them two little pouches, one of gunpowder, the other of bullets.

      "No one knows what may happen," he said.

      "Thanks," she answered, with a movement of joy she could not master.

      This was all that she said; and the weapons disappeared under her clothes, with a speed and resolution which made the hunter smile. Five minutes after, they reached the skirt of the virgin forest.

      "Addick," the hunter said laconically; "remember that you will answer to me for these two women."

      "Addick has sworn it," the Indian merely replied. They separated; it was impossible to remain longer at the spot where they were, without running the risk of being discovered by the Indians. The maidens and the warrior proceeded toward the city.

      "Let us mount the hill," Don Miguel said, "in order to see them for the last time."

      "I was going to propose it," the hunter said, simply.

      They went, with similar precautions, to the spot they had occupied for a few moments on the previous evening.

      In the brilliant beams of the sun, which had gloriously risen, the verdurous landscape had assumed, a truly enchanting aspect. Nature was aroused from her sleep, and a most varied spectacle had been substituted for the gloomy and solitary view of the previous night. From the gates of the city, which were now widely opened, emerged groups of Indians on horseback and on foot, who dispersed in all directions with shouts of joy and shriller bursts of laughter. Numerous canoes traversed the stream, the fields were populated with flocks of vicunas, and horses led by Indians, armed with long goads, who were proceeding toward the city. Women quaintly attired, and bearing on their heads long wicker baskets filled with meat, fruit, and vegetables, walked along conversing together, and accompanying each phrase with that continual, sharp, and metallic laugh, of which the Indian nation possess the secret, and the noise of which resembles very closely that produced by the full of a quantity of pebbles on a copper dish.

      The maidens and their guide were soon mixed up in this motley crowd, in the midst of which they disappeared. Don Miguel sighed.

      "Let us go," he said in a deep voice.

      They returned to the forest. A few moments later, they set out again.

      "We must separate," Don Miguel said when they had crossed the forest; "I shall return to Tubar."

      "And I am going to try to render a small service to an Indian chief, a friend of mine."

      "You are always thinking of others, and never of yourself, my worthy Marksman; you are ever anxious to be of use to someone."

      "What would you have, Don Miguel? It seems to be my mission – you know that every man has one."

      "Yes!" the young man answered in a hollow voice. "Good-bye!" he added presently, "do not forget our meeting."

      "All right! In a fortnight, at the ford of the Rubio; that is settled."

      "Forgive me my chariness of speech during the few days we have spent together; the secret is not mine alone, Marksman; I am not at liberty to divulge it, even to so kind a friend as yourself."

      "Keep your secret, my friend; I am in no way curious to know it; still, it is understood that we do not know one another."

      "Yes; that is very important."

      "Then, good-bye."

      "Good-bye!"

      The two horsemen shook hands, one turned to the right, the other to the left, and they set off at full speed.

      CHAPTER XI

      THE