"Fourteen thousand six hundred and thirty piastres."
"Very good. If that will suit you, I will give you an order for that sum on Messrs. Torribi, Dellaporta, and Co., at Guaymas."
"Good! This night it will start for the hacienda."
"As soon as our business is settled here, general. We are anxious to rejoin our friend."
"In an hour the bill of exchange will be ready."
"Still," the general continued, "you will be good enough to tell Don Louis that I regard myself as his debtor, and if ever he come to Sonora I will prove it."
"Possibly he may soon arrive," the hunter replied, with a side glance at Doña Angela, who blushed.
"I hope so; and now, gentlemen, I am at your service. If I can be of any use to you, remember that you can always apply to me."
After exchanging a few more words they parted. In passing Doña Angela, Valentine bowed respectfully.
"Don Louis still has your reliquary," he muttered in so low a voice that she guessed the words rather than heard them.
"Thank you," she answered; "you are kind."
"She loves Louis," Valentine said to himself as he returned to the cuarto, accompanied by Don Cornelio.
"The man is a fool to refuse a profit of 5000 piastres," the general said to Don Isidro so soon as he found himself alone with him.
"Perhaps so," the latter replied thoughtfully; "but I fancy he is an enemy."
The general shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, not deigning to attach the slightest importance to this insinuation.
The same evening Valentine and his two companions left San José, and proceeded toward Guaymas, without seeing Doña Angela or the general again.
During the few thousand years since the world on which we vegetate issued from the hands of the Creator, many revolutions have taken place, many extraordinary facts have been accomplished. How many nations have succeeded each other, rising and falling in turn, disappearing without even leaving a trace, after traversing history like dazzling meteors, and then going out eternally in the night of ages!
But of all the strange facts of which the memory has been preserved, none in our opinion can be compared with what we have seen accomplished under our own eyes, with extraordinary audacity and success, during about three-quarters of a century.