The old man bowed with visible delight. Don Sylva gave the order for departure, and the whole caravan started in the direction of the Rancho de San José.
It was one of those magnificent mornings only known in these blessed regions. The night storm had entirely swept the sky, which was of a pale blue. The sun, already high in the horizon, shot forth its hot beams, which were slightly tempered by the odoriferous vapours exhaling from the ground. The atmosphere, impregnated by acrid and penetrating odours, was of extraordinary transparency; a light breeze refreshed the air at intervals; flocks of birds, glistening with a thousand colours, flew in every direction, and the mules following the bell of the _nena madrina_--the mother mule--were urged on by the songs of the arrieros.
The caravan moved along gaily through the sandy plain, raising round it clouds of dust, and forming a long twining serpent in the endless turnings of the road. A vanguard of ten servants explored the neighbourhood, examining the bushes, and shifting sand heaps. Don Sylva smoked a cigar while conversing with his daughter; and a rearguard, formed of twenty resolute men, closed the march, and insured the security of the convoy.
In this country, we repeat it, where the police are a nullity, and consequently surveillance impossible, a journey of four leagues--and the Rancho de San José is only that distance from Guaymas--is a very serious affair, and demands as many precautions as a journey of a hundred leagues with us, the enemies who may be met, and with whom you run a risk of a contest at any moment--Indians, robbers, or wild beasts--being too numerous, determined, and too greedy for plunder and murder to allow the traveller to confide with gaiety of heart in the speed of his horse.
They were already far from Guaymas, the white houses of which town had long ago disappeared in the numerous turnings of the road, when the capataz, leaving the head of the caravan, where he had hitherto remained galloped back to the palanquin, where Don Sylva was still riding.
"Well, Blas," the latter said, "what is there new? Have you noticed anything alarming ahead of us?"
"Nothing, excellency," the capataz replied: "all is going well, and in an hour at the latest we shall be at the Rancho."