Instead of leaving the camp on the aide of the hacienda, whose gloomy outline was designed, sinister and menacing, on the top of the hill, the Scalper made the column take a long circuit, which skirted the rear of the camp. The deepest silence prevailed on the plain, the camp and hacienda seemed asleep, not a light gleamed in the darkness, and it might be fancied, on noticing so profound a calm, that the plain was deserted; but this factitious calm held a terrible tempest, ready to burst forth at the first signal. These men, who walked on tiptoe, sounding the darkness around them, and with their finger placed on the rifle trigger, felt their hearts beat with impatience to come into collision with their enemies. It was a singular coincidence, a strange fatality, which caused the besiegers and besieged to attempt a double surprise at the same hour, almost at the same moment, and send blindly against each other men who on either side advanced with the hope of certain success, and convinced that they were about to surprise asleep the too confident enemy, whom they burned to massacre. So soon as they had left the camp, the insurgents drew near the river, whose banks, covered with thick bushes and aquatic plants, would have offered them, even in bright day, a certain shelter from the Mexicans. On coming within about half a league of the entrenchments, the column halted; the Scalper advanced alone a few yards, and then rejoined the Jaguar. "We shall have to cross the river here," he said; "there is a ford, and the men will only be up to their waists in water." And, giving the example, the old man stepped into the bed of the river. The others followed immediately, and, as the Scalper had announced, the water was only up to their waists. They passed threes in front, and closing up the ranks, so as to resist the rather strong current, which, without these precautions, might have carried them away. Five minutes later, the whole band was collected in the interior of the grotto, at the end of which was the secret door. "The moment has arrived," the Jaguar then said, "to redouble our prudence; let us avoid, if it be possible, bloodshed. Not a word must be uttered, or a shot fired, without my orders, under penalty of death." Then, turning to the White Scalper, he said, in a firm voice--"Now, open the door!" There was a moment of supreme anxiety for the insurgents, who awaited with a quiver of impatience the downfall of the frail obstacle that separated them from their enemies. CHAPTER XV. A THUNDERBOLT. We will now return to the hacienda.