For some minutes after the departure of the guerillero, the melancholy caravan silently continued its journey. The last words uttered by Cuéllar had gone home, however: the count and the vaquero felt involuntarily restless, and without daring to impart their gloomy presentiments to each other, they advanced with excessive prudence, sniffing the air, so to speak, and starting at the least suspicious movement in the bushes. It was a little past five a.m.: it was that moment when nature appears to be sunk in contemplation, and when day and night, struggling together with almost equal force, melt into each other and produce that opaline gleam, whose misty tints impart to objects a vague and undetermined appearance, which renders them somewhat fantastic. A greyish vapour rose from the ground and produced a transparent fog, which the sunbeams, gradually growing in intensity, rent at spots, lighting up one part of the landscape and leaving the other in shadow: in a word, it was no longer night and not yet day. In the distance the numerous domes of the buildings of Puebla appeared, standing out in confused masses against the dark blue sky: the trees, washed by the abundant night dew, had grown green: on each leaf trembled a crystalline drop of water and their branches agitated by the morning breeze, smote each other softly with mysterious murmurings: already the small birds concealed beneath the foliage were uttering twitterings, and the wild oxen raised their heads above the tall grass with hoarse lowings. The fugitives were following a winding track beset on either side by factitious embankments, thrown up for the cultivation of the agave, which limited the horizon to an extremely narrow circle, and prevented that careful survey of the environs, which was perhaps necessary for the general safety of the caravan. The count approached Dominique, and leaning over the saddle, said in a low cautious voice:
"My friend, I know not why, but I feel an extreme anxiety: the farewell of that bandit painfully affected me: it seems to forebode a speedy, terrible and inevitable misfortune for us, and yet we are only a short distance from the town, and the tranquillity that prevails around us ought to reassure me."
"It is this tranquillity," the young man replied in the same key, "which causes me like yourself indescribable agony: I too have a presentiment of a misfortune; we are here in a wasp's nest, and no place would be better for an ambush."
"What is to be done?" the count muttered.
"I do not know exactly, for it is a difficult case: still I feel convinced that we ought to redouble our prudence. Place don Andrés and his daughter in front, warn the peons to march with finger on trigger, and be ready for the slightest alarm: in the meanwhile, I will go out scouting and if the enemy is pursuing us, I will contrive to throw him off the track: but we must not lose a single instant."
While speaking thus, the vaquero dismounted, threw his bridle to a peon, placed his gun on his left arm and ascended the right hand embankment, where he almost immediately disappeared among the bushes that bordered the path.
When left alone, the count immediately set about following his friend's advice: he consequently formed a rearguard of the most resolute and best armed peons, and gave them orders attentively to watch the approaches; but he concealed from them, through fear of terrifying them, the gravity of the events he foresaw. The majordomo, as if he divined the count's anxiety and shared his suspicions of an approaching attack, had placed don Andrés and his daughter in the centre of a small group of devoted servants, of whom he took the command, and hurrying on the horses, he left an interval of about one hundred yards between himself and the main body. Do?a Dolores, overwhelmed by the terrible emotions of the night, had paid very slight attention to the arrangements made by her friends, and mechanically followed the new impulse given her, in all probability unconscious of the new dangers that menaced her, and only thinking of one thing, watching over her father, whose state of prostration was becoming more and more alarming. In fact, since his departure from the hacienda, in spite of his daughter's entreaties, don Andrés had not uttered a syllable, with fixed, lacklustre eyes, with his head bowed on his chest and his body agitated by a continuous nervous trembling, he left his horse to guide itself, without appearing to know whither he was going, so utterly had sorrow broken all his energy and will.
Leo Carral, who was devoted to his master and young mistress and who understood how incapable the old gentleman would be of offering the slightest resistance in the probable event of an attack, had especially recommended the servants he selected to serve as an escort to don Andrés, not to lose sight of him; and in the event of a combat, to make every possible effort to draw him out of the medley, and protect him as far as possible from danger: then at a signal the count gave him, he turned back and rejoined him.
"I see," the count said, "that like myself you have a foreboding of danger."
The majordomo shook his head. "Don Melchior will not give up the game," he replied, "until he has either won or utterly lost it."
"Do you then suspect him to be capable of a horrible trap?"
"This man is capable of anything."
"Why, in that case he is a monster."
"No," the majordomo replied gently, "he is a mixed blood, an envious and proud man, who knows that fortune alone can obtain him the apparent consideration which he covets: all means will be right to obtain this consideration."
"Even parricide?"
"Exactly."
"What you tell me is horrible."
"What would you have, se?or? It is so."
"Thank Heaven, we are approaching Puebla, and once inside the town we shall have nothing more to fear."
"Yes, but we are not there yet: you know the proverb as well as I do, Excellency."
"What proverb?"
"That twixt the cup and the lip there's many a slip."
"I hope that this time you will be mistaken."
"I wish it, too: but you called me, Excellency?"
"Yes; I had a hint to give you."
"I am anxious to hear it."
"In the case of our being attacked, I insist that you leave us to our own resources, and escape at full speed towards Puebla, taking with you don Andrés and his daughter, while we are fighting. Perhaps you will have time to place them in safety behind the walls of the town."
"I will obey you, Excellency. No one shall reach my master without passing over my corpse. Have you nothing more to say to me?"
"No. Return to your post; and may Heaven be gracious to us!"
The majordomo bowed, and galloped up to the small troop, in the centre of whom were don Andrés and his daughter. Almost at the same moment Dominique reappeared on the side of the track: he fetched his horse, and then stationed himself on the count's right.
"Well," the latter asked him, "have you discovered anything?"
"Yes, and no," he replied, in a low voice.
His face was gloomy, his eyebrows contracted till they joined. The count examined him attentively for a moment, and felt his alarm redoubled.
"Explain yourself," he at length said to him.
"What is the use? You will not understand me."
"Perhaps not; but speak all the same."
"This is the fact. The plain is completely deserted on our right, left, and rear; I am certain of that. If the danger really exists, it is not to be feared in those quarters. If a trap is laid for us—if ambushed enemies are prepared to rush upon us, this trap is ahead; these enemies are concealed between the town and us."
"What makes you suppose this?"
"Signs which are certain to me, and which my long residence among the Indians made me recognize at the first glance. In the regions where we now are, men generally neglect all the precautions employed on the prairies, the forgetfulness of one of which would entail the immediate death of the imprudent hunter or warrior who had thus revealed his presence to his enemy. Here the trail is easy to recognize, and easier to follow, for it is perfectly visible even to the most inexperienced eye. Listen carefully to this:—since we left the hacienda, we have been—I will not say followed, for the term is not correct under the circumstances, but accompanied on our right by a large party of horsemen, who galloped in the same direction as ourselves at the distance of a gunshot at the most. These men, whoever they may be, wheeled about half a league from here, drawing slightly nearer to our left, as if they wished to approach us; but then doubled their pace, passed us, and entered, ahead of us, the track on which we now are, so that we are following them at this moment."
"And you conclude from this?"
"That the situation is dangerous, even critical; and that whatever precautions we may take, I am greatly afraid that we have to deal with too strong a party. Remark how the path gradually contracts—how the sides become scarped. We are now in a ca?on, and in a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes at the most, we shall reach the spot where the canyon opens out into the plain. It is there, be assured, that our watchers are waiting for us."
"My good fellow, this is only too clear. Unluckily, we have no way of escaping the fate that menaces us, and we must push on all the same."
"I know it, and it is that which vexes me," the vaquero said with a suppressed sigh, as he cast a side glance at do?a Dolores. "If the question only concerned us, it would be soon settled, for we are men, and could fall bravely; but will our death save that old man and that poor innocent girl?"
"At least, we will attempt impossibilities to keep them from falling into the hands of their persecutors."
"We are now approaching the suspicious point, so let us push on, to be ready for any event."
They forced their horses into a gallop. A few minutes passed, and they then reached a spot where the path, before entering the plain, made a rather sharp elbow.
"Look out," the count said, in a low voice.
All placed their finger on the trigger. The elbow was passed, but suddenly the whole cavalcade halted with a start of surprise and terror. The entrance of the canyon was barred by a strong barricade, composed of branches, trees, and stones, thrown across the path. Behind this barricade some twenty men were standing motionless and threatening. The weapons of other men crowning the heights on the right and left could be seen glistening in the beams of the rising sun. A horseman was standing in the centre of the path, a little in front of the barricade. It was don Melchior.
"Ah! Ah!" he said, ............