"Terms have nothing to do with the matter. Now that you have discovered Don Louis is not the accomplice you hoped to find, who would raise you to the president's chair, and as you despair of changing his views, you wish to get rid of him—that is natural."
"Sir!"
"Let me continue. For that purpose you can hit on nothing better than buying him. Indeed, you are used to such transactions. I have in my hands the proofs of several which do you a great deal of honour."
The general was livid with terror and rage. He clenched his fists and stamped, while uttering unconnected words. The hunter seemed not to notice this agitation, and continued imperturbably—
"Still you are mistaken in applying to me. I am no Dog-face, a fellow with whom you made a famous bargain some years ago. I have dealt in cattle, but never in human flesh. Each man has his speciality, and I leave that to you."
"Stay, sir!" the general exclaimed in a paroxysm of fury. "What do you want to come to? Did you accept this interview for the purpose of insulting me?"
Valentine shrugged his shoulders.
"You do not believe it," he said: "that would be too childish. I want to propose a business transaction."
"What!"
"Or a bargain, if you prefer that term."
"What is its nature?"
"I can tell you in two words. I have in my possession various papers, which, if they saw light, and were, handed to certain persons, might cost you not only your fortune, but possibly your life."
"Papers!" Don Sebastian stammered.
"Yes, general; your correspondence with a certain North American diplomatist, to whom you offered to deliver Sonora and one or two other provinces, if the United Sates supplied you with the means to seize the presidency of the Mexican Republic."
"And you have those papers?" the general said with ill-restrained anxiety.
"I have the letters, with your correspondent's answers."
"Here?"
"Of course," Valentine said with a laugh.
"Then you will die!" the general yelled, bounding like a panther on the hunter.
But the latter was on his guard. By a movement as quick as his adversary's, he seized the general by the throat, threw himself upon him, and laid his foot on his chest.
"One step further," he said coldly to the general's companions, who were running up at full speed to his aid, "one step, and he is a dead man."
Certainly the general was a brave man. Many times he had supplied unequivocal proofs of a courage carried almost to temerity: still he saw such resolution flashing in the hunter's tawny eye, that he felt a shudder pass through all his limbs—he was lost, he was afraid.
"Stop, stop!" he cried in a choking voice to his friends.
The latter obeyed.
"I could kill you," Valentine said; "you are really in my power; but what do I care for your life or death? I hold both in my hands. Rise! Now, one word—take care that you do nothing against the count."
The general had profited by the hunter's permission to rise; but so soon as he felt himself free, and his feet were firmly attached to the ground, a revolution was effected in him, and he felt his courage return.
"Listen in your turn," he said. "I will be as frank and brutal with you as you were with me. It is now a war to the death between us, without pity and without mercy. If I have to carry my head to the scaffold, the count shall die; for I hate him, and I require his death to satisfy my vengeance."
"Good!" Valentine coldly answered.
"Yes," the general said sarcastically. "Come, I do not fear you! I do not care if you employ the papers with which you threatened me, for I am invulnerable."
"You think so?" the hunter said slowly.
"I despise you; you are only adventurers: You can never touch me."
Valentine bent toward him.
"Perhaps not," he said; "but your daughter?"
And, taking advantage of the general's stupefaction, the hunter uttered a hoarse laugh and rushed into the thicket, where it was impossible to follow him.
"Oh!" the general muttered, at the expiration of a moment, as he passed his hand over his damp forehead, "the demon! My daughter!" he yelled, "my daughter!"
And he rejoined his companions, and went off with them, not responding to one of the questions they asked him.
[1] See "Gold-Seekers." Same publishers.
CHAPTER II.
THE MISSION.
Valentine, after suddenly parting from the general as we narrated, did not appear at all alarmed about pursuit; and if he hurried on at first, he soon relaxed his speed. On arriving about a hundred yards from the spot where his interview with Don Sebastian had taken place, he stopped, raised his eyes to the sky, and seemed to consult his position. Then he went on; but, instead of proceeding toward the mission, he turned his back completely on it, and returned to the bank of the river, whence he had before been retrograding.
Although the hunter was walking at a quick pace, he seemed greatly preoccupied, and looked mechanically around him. At times he stopped, not to listen to any strange sound, but through the thoughts which oppressed him, and robbed him of all sense of external things. Evidently Valentine was seeking the solution of a problem that troubled him.
At length, after about a quarter of an hour, he saw a faint light a few paces ahead of him. It glistened through the trees, and seemed to indicate an encampment. Valentine stopped and whistled softly. At the same moment the branches of a shrub, about five yards from him, parted, and a man appeared. It was Curumilla.
"Well," Valentine asked, "has she come?" The Araucano bowed his head in reply. The hunter made an angry gesture.
"Where is she?" he asked.
The Indian pointed to the fire the hunter had noticed.
"Deuce take the women!" the hunter growled; "they are the least logical beings in existence. As they let themselves ever be guided by passion, they overthrow unconsciously the surest combinations."
Then he added in a louder voice—
"Have you not executed my commission, then?"
This time the Indian spoke.
"She will listen to nothing," he said; "she will see."
"I knew it!" the hunter exclaimed. "They are all alike—silly heads, only fit for mule bells; and yet she is one of the better sort. Well, lead me to her. I will try to convince her."
The Indian smiled maliciously, but made no reply. He turned away and led the hunter to the fire. In a few seconds Valentine found himself on the skirt of a vast clearing, in the centre of which, by a good fire of dead wood, Doña Angela and her camarista, Violanta, were seated on piles of furze. Ten paces behind the females, several peons, armed to the teeth, leant on their long lances, awaiting the pleasure of their mistress. Doña Angela raised her head at the sound caused by the hunter's approach, and uttered a slight cry of joy.
"There you are at last!" she exclaimed. "I almost despaired of your coming."
"Perhaps it would have been better had I not done so," he answered with a stifled sigh.
The young lady overheard, or pretended not to hear, the hunter's reply.
"Is