Carnero reflected for a moment. "Listen, Don Martial: before I can answer categorically the question you have asked me, I must tell you a long story. Are you ready to hear it?"
"Yes," the other answered, without hesitation, "for there are many things I am ignorant of, which I ought to know. So speak without further delay, señor, and though some parts of the narrative will be most painful to me, hide nothing from me, I implore you!"
"You shall be obeyed. Moreover, the night is not yet far advanced; time does not press us, and in two hours you will know all."
"I am impatiently waiting for you to begin."
The capataz remained for some considerable time plunged in deep and serious reflection. At length he raised his head, leant forward, and setting his left elbow on the table, began as follows:--
"At the time when the facts occurred I am about to tell you, I was living at the Hacienda del Palmar, of which I was steward. Hence I was only witness to a portion of the facts, and only know the rest from hearsay. When the Comanches arrived, guided by the white men, Don Sylva de Torrés was lying mortally wounded, holding in his stiffened arms his daughter Anita, who had suddenly gone mad on seeing you roll down the precipice in the grasp of the Indian chief. Don Sebastian Guerrero was the only relation left to the hapless young lady, and hence she was taken to his hacienda."
"What?" Don Martial exclaimed in surprise. "Don Sebastian is a relation of Doña Anita?"
"I had not the slightest idea of it; and yet I had for several years been closely connected with the Torrés family, for I was their tigrero."
"I know it. Well, this is how the relationship exists: Don Sebastian married a niece of Don Sylva's, so you see they were closely connected. Still, for reasons never thoroughly made known, a few years after the general's marriage, a dispute broke out which led to a total suspension of intimacy between the two families. That is probably the reason why you never heard of the connection existing between the Sylvas and the Torrés."
The Tigrero shook his head. "Go on," he said. "How did the general receive his relation?"
"He was not at the hacienda at the time; but an express was sent off to him, and I was the man. The general came post haste, seemed greatly moved at the double misfortune that had befallen the young lady, gave orders for her to be kindly treated, appointed several women to wait on her, and returned to his post at Sonora, where events of the utmost gravity summoned him."