"Sir," said Don Gregorio, coldly, "so much the worse for you; if you had remained quietly at Santiago, you would not be in this position."
"That is true, my friend," the general followed up, with a hearty laugh.
"How did it happen that you, who are as great a coward as a hare, troubled yourself with military politics?"
The senator made no reply to this cruel apostrophe.
"Whatever may happen, can I reckon upon you, general?" Don Gregorio asked.
"I can only promise you one thing," the old soldier answered, nobly; "that I will not shrink, and if it should come to that, will sell my life dearly. As to this cowardly fellow, I undertake to make him perform prodigies of valour."
At this threat the unhappy senator felt a cold sweat inundate his whole body. A long column of flame burst from the top of the mountain.
Don Gregorio cried, "Caballeros! Forward! and God protect Chili!"
"Forward!" the general repeated, unsheathing his sword.
While these things were going on in the defile, a few words exchanged between Antinahuel and the Linda filled the Toqui with uneasiness, by making him vaguely suspicious of some treachery.
"Nothing very extraordinary," he replied, carelessly; "some reinforcements have arrived rather late, upon which I did not reckon."
"Good Heavens!" said Doña Maria, "I have been perhaps deceived by an extraordinary resemblance; but, if the man I mean were not forty leagues off, I should declare it is he who commands that troop."
"Let my sister explain herself," said Antinahuel.
"Tell me, in the first place, chief," the Linda continued, "the name of the warrior to whom you spoke?"
"That is impossible! Joan is at this moment more than forty leagues from this place, detained by his love for a white woman," the Linda cried.
"My sister must be mistaken, because I have just been conversing with him."
"Then he is a traitor!" she said passionately.
"This has an awkward appearance," he said. "Can I have been betrayed?" he added in a deep tone.
"What are you going to do?" the Linda asked, stopping him.
"To demand of Joan an account of his ambiguous conduct."
"It is too late," the Linda continued, pointing with her finger to the Chilians.
"Oh!" Antinahuel cried, with rage, "woe be to him if he prove a traitor."