"In that case they are lost!" General Soto-Mayor exclaimed, wildly.
"Perhaps not," Leon answered, struck by a sudden inspiration.
"Oh, sir!" the old gentleman continued, "if you suspect the spot where they are, speak--fix yourself the sum I am to pay you for such a service, and I will pay it. Stay, sir; yesterday I was rich, powerful, and honoured; today I am only a poor old man, whose heart is broken; but I swear to you on my honour as a gentleman, that if you restore me my daughters, I will love you as a son, and will bless you with tears of joy and gratitude."
On seeing the old general so crushed by despair, Leon felt himself moved by a pity and compassion which he did not attempt to check.
"I only ask your esteem, general, if I succeed."
"Speak, then, sir," Don Juan de Soto-Mayor and Don Pedro said together; "do you really think that you can place us on the track of the ravishers?"
A ray of hope had illumined the old man's heart on hearing Leon speak in such a way as to suggest a possibility of finding the maidens again, and he awaited with feverish anxiety the captain's answer, who kept silence, and seemed plunged in deep reflection. Still, as Leon seemed to be reflecting on the weight of the words which he was going to utter, and whose meaning might cause those who listened to him either an immense consolation or a bitter deception, neither of the two gentlemen dared to interrupt him.
The fact was that Leon was asking himself whether he could undertake the liberation of the maidens. He had but one resource, that of going to find Tahi-Mari, and threatening to kill himself in his presence, unless he restored to the father the daughters whom he was bewailing.
Assuredly, after the conversation which had caused the separation between the captain and Diego, it was at least a bold step to think of imploring the Inca's clemency again; but since the latter had voluntarily broken the bonds which held young Don Juan captive, it was but reasonable to assume that Diego was animated by a different purpose. Perhaps he had renounced, if not his vengeance, still that which he had selected in vowing the death of all the Soto-Mayors. And then, again, if he thirsted for victims, had not the general's beloved wife been killed by Indians under his orders?