Taking a pistol in either hand, he went down the hillock, preceding Inez and Maria, and ran with them in the direction of the forest. On reaching its skirt they stopped, for the young ladies, exhausted with fatigue, felt that they could go no farther. Leon did not press them, but making them a signal to listen, he imitated with rare perfection the cry of an eagle of the Cordilleras, which he repeated twice. Within a minute, which seemed an hour to the smuggler, the same cry answered him. A quarter of an hour did not elapse ere sixty riders, having Wilhelm and Harrison at their head, debouched from the forest and surrounded the captain and the young ladies, whom they lifted on their saddles.
"Saved! great Heavens!" Leon exclaimed; "they are saved!"
At the same moment a flash crossed the horizon, a whistling was heard, and a bullet broke the branch of a tree a couple of feet from the captain.
"The Indians!" Leon exclaimed; "we must gallop, my lads."
It was indeed the Indians, who guided by Meli-Antou, were pursuing the smugglers with terrible imprecations. This is what had occurred.
We said that on the day of the escape Leon surprised the Sayotkatta in the act of listening at the door. He had not deceived himself; still, as Schymi-Tou was ignorant of Spanish, he had been unable to understand the young people's conversation, but he had noticed a certain animation which appeared to him suspicious. He did not dare, however, oppose the ceremony of exorcism which was about to take place, and contented himself with imparting his suspicions to Meli-Antou, who was astonished at the Sayotkatta's doubts, and treated them as chimeras.
But, as the old man seemed strongly inclined to suppose some machination, or, at least, some jugglery, on the part of the pretended conjuror, he resolved to watch what took place on the eminence, and hold himself in readiness to march with twenty men, to the help of Tcharanguii, if he were the dupe of the medicine man's trickery. A little while, then, after the young ladies started for the hillock, he followed on their track, accompanied by his warriors; and, on reaching the hill, he crawled up through the tall grass, and listened.
He first heard the prayers of the five men, and was on the point of regretting that he had followed the Sayotkatta's advice, when Leon suddenly ceased speaking. He thought, however, that whispered prayers had succeeded the former ones. Still, as this silence was prolonged, he went a little higher, and was staggered at only seeing Tcharanguii and his four warriors, lying on the ground. Thinking them dead, he rushed toward them, and shouted to his men, whom he had left at the foot of the mound. They were soon with him, and shook the five sleepers, who at last woke up with a very confused idea of what had happened to them.