"That was my intention, but unhappily certain reasons, with which it would be useless to acquaint you, render the execution of this project impossible. However, I reckon on seeing you at the fazenda do Rio d'Ouro, where probably I shall arrive before you. In any case, will you remain there till I have seen you, and then perhaps it will be permitted to me to acknowledge, as I have an earnest desire to do, the great service you have rendered me."
"I will wait for you, since you desire it, Señor," I answered, boldly accepting these new circumstances, "not to remind you of the event to which you allude, but because I should be happy to become more intimately acquainted with you."
On the next day, at sunrise, I rose, and after having affectionately taken leave of the people who had so well received me, and whom I thought I should never see again, I left the rancho without being able to bid adieu to don Zeno Cabral.
[1] The word pampa belongs to the Quechua language, language of the Incas. It signifies flat country, savannah, or great plain.
My journey was continued thus under rather singular circumstances--at the mercy of an Indian whose perfidy had been already abundantly proved, and from whom I could expect no good.
However, I was well armed, vigorous, resolute, and set out in pretty good spirits, convinced that my guide would never attack me to my face.
I beg to state that I was wrong in attributing bad intentions to the poor Indian, and that my precautions were unnecessary. Don Torribio and don Zeno Cabral had said the truth; the rude correction inflicted on my Guaranis had had the most salutary influence on him, and had entirely modified his intentions towards me.
He became more lively, more amiable, and especially more of a talker; I took advantage of this change in his disposition to sound him with regard to don Zeno Cabral.
This time also I completely failed, not because the Indian refused to answer me, but on account of his ignorance. In a few words, this is all I succeeded in learning.
Don Zeno Cabral was well known, and especially much feared by all the Indians who live on the desert, and who unceasingly traverse it in every direction. He was to them a strange, mysterious, incomprehensible being, whose power was very great. No one knew his regular abode; he almost possessed the attribute of ubiquity, for he had been seen at distances far removed from each other almost at the same time; the Indians had often laid traps to kill him without ever having succeeded in inflicting on him the slightest wound.