Two or three leagues farther, however, the houses of Talca could be seen on the horizon glistening in the sun. All was perfectly calm in the vicinity; no human being showed himself: no flocks grazed on the devastated prairies; on all sides, a leaden silence and a lugubrious tranquillity brooded over the landscape, and imparted a heart-breaking effect to the cheerful sunbeams.
All at once Wilhelm, who was riding a few paces ahead of the troop, stopped his horse with a start of terror, and anxiously leaned over his saddle. Leon dashed his spurs into his horse's flanks, and joined the smuggler. A hideous spectacle was presented to the two men; in a ditch bordering the road lay, pell-mell, a pile of Spanish corpses horridly disfigured, and all deprived of their scalps.
Leon commanded a halt, while asking himself what he had better do. Should he turn back, or advance on the town, which was evidently in the hands of the Indians? Hesitation was permissible. Still the captain understood that a determination, no matter what its nature, must be formed at once, and looking around him, he noticed a ruined hacienda about a league distant. It was a shelter, and it was better to seek refuge there, than remain on the open plain.
Twenty minutes had not elapsed before Leon leaped from his horse and rushed into the farm. The house bore traces of fire and devastation. The cracked walls were blackened with smoke, the windows broken, and amid the ruins that encumbered the patios lay the bodies of several men and women, assassinated and partly burnt.
Leon conducted the trembling ladies to a room which was cleared of the rubbish that obstructed the entrance; then, after recommending them not to leave it, he rejoined his comrades, who were establishing themselves as well as they could among the ruins.
"Caballeros," he said to them, "we are going to entrench ourselves here while four of you go out to reconnoitre; for we should commit a grave imprudence by entering the town before knowing in whose hands it is. Who are the four men who will undertake the duty?"
"I!--I!" all the smugglers replied, in chorus.
"Very good," Leon remarked, with a smile; "I shall be obliged to choose."
"Giacomo, Hernandez, Joaquin, and Harrison, leave the ranks!"