The partisan looked at the Frenchman with admiration.
"Is it possible," murmured he, "that such great and noble natures exist? Don Emile," said he, "I have done you serious injury; I persecuted you during all the time that you were at Casa-Frama, without any real reason. My conduct has been despicable; you ought to hate me, and you save me!"
"Because, Don Pablo," answered the young man, "you are a man in the true sense of the word; because your faults are those necessitated by the life you lead; because every good feeling is not dead within you, and your heart is generous. I do not claim the right of being more severe than God, and of condemning you to perish, when a hope of saving you existed."
"This obligation that you impose on me, Don Emile, I accept with joy. You have a better opinion of me than I dared to have of myself. I will try to show myself, for the future, worthy of what you have done for me today."
"You were acquainted with one another?" said Don Zeno.
The conversation ceased here for the time. The partisans proceeded to arrange their camp, and to prepare their breakfast, of which, now that they were saved, they began to feel the want. Emotions, in the desert, for a time overcome hunger; the danger passed, hunger returns.
Meanwhile the storm had abated, the sky became cloudless, and the sun burst out with a warm glow that was very welcome.
Emile, after having confided the two ladies to the care of the Guarani, had left the tambo, oppressed by a sad apprehension.
At first, carried away by the vivacity of his disposition, he had, at the peril of his life, tried to save men threatened with a frightful death; but, the danger passed, all the difficulty of his position suddenly appeared to him.
The young man's position was critical; an event impossible to foresee had destroyed all his plans. The storm, in thus coming to the aid of the Pincheyras, obliged the Frenchman to adopt a system of dissimulation incompatible with his loyal character.
However, there was no other means than that; he must adopt it. The young man resigned himself to it--against his will, it is true--hoping that perhaps fate might weary of persecuting the two weak creatures whom he wished to serve.