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The parent-birds were cooing dolorously upon the thatched roof, flying hither and thither. Joanna, embracing her dead child, was still sobbing when Tiburcio entered the chamber. He stopped before the little bed, and looked down.
"God will send me friends," answered Tiburcio, glancing towards the distant light. "The hospitality of the wandering traveller a sleep by his camp-fire will be safer for me than that of your father's roof." And Tiburcio continued to advance towards the breach with a gentle but resolute step.
Cuchillo recounted how they had found Tiburcio half dead upon the road, and also the other circumstances, already known to the reader; but the question put by Diaz had brought the red colour into the face of the outlaw, for it recalled to him how his cunning had been outwitted by the young man, and also how he had been made to tremble a moment under Tiburcio's menace.
It was then that he learned through a friend, who was an intimate acquaintance of Doña Victorina's, of the dire straits in which that lady was placed and also of her patriotism and her kind heart. Don Tiburcio then saw a patch of blue sky and asked to be introduced to her. Doña Victorina and Don Tiburcio met: tarde venientibus ossa, he would have exclaimed had he known Latin!
Juana Leal, only daughter of Tiburcio, had been sought in marriage by a nephew of Don Alejandro, and the latter, dignified as a Castilian noble, was then at the house negotiating for the girl's hand. Juana was nearly eighteen, had been born at the ranch, and after reaching years of usefulness had been adopted into Miss Jean's household.
At an early hour for such was the custom of the hacienda all the guests had retired to their sleeping apartments even the domestics were no longer to be seen in the great hall; and a profound silence reigned throughout the vast building, as if all the world had gone to rest. But all the world was not yet asleep. Alone in his chamber, Tiburcio awaited impatiently the hour named by Rosarita.
Tiburcio, unsuspecting, was no longer on his guard, and the outlaw, profiting by the darkness, had already detached his carbine from the saddle. In another moment, beyond doubt, he would have carried into execution his demoniac purpose, had it not been for the appearance of a horseman, who was coming at full gallop along the road.
Who do you think he was?" "How should I know?" replied the haciendado. "Tiburcio, the adopted son of the famous gambusino, Marcos Arellanos." "How! his mother dead! I am sorry. He is a brave youth, and I have not forgotten the service he once did me. But for him we should all have been dead of thirst, my daughter, my people, and myself.
But in truth I forget myself; I have this day designed for Rosarita a husband of a more exalted station." "And it may be that you have done wrong," rejoined the monk, in a serious tone; "from what I suspect in fact, what I may say I know this Tiburcio might make a more valuable son-in-law than you imagine." "It's too late then," said Don Augustin. "I have given my word, and I cannot retract it."
After leaving the bottoms of the creek, Tiburcio showed the young man a trail made by the javeline, and he was surprised to learn that an animal with so small a foot was a dangerous antagonist, on account of its gregarious nature.
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