The adventurers surrounded their Chief, anxiously watching his every movement. The young man soon opened his eyes again, and, helped by Davis, managed to sit up. A slight patch of red was visible on his cheekbones, but the rest of his face retained an ashen and cadaverous hue. He looked slowly round him, and the absent expression of his glance gradually changed into a gleam of intelligence. "Drink!" he muttered in a hollow and inarticulate voice. John Davis uncorked his flask, bent over the wounded man, and placed it to his lips. The latter drank eagerly for two or three minutes, and then stopped with a sigh of relief. "I fancied I was dead," he said. "By Heaven!" John Davis remarked, "It was a close shave." "Is Captain Melendez still alive?" "Yes." "What state is he in?" "No worse than your own." "All the better." "Shall we hang him?" Ruperto remarked, still adhering to his notion. The Jaguar started, frowned, and then shouted with greater strength than he might be supposed to possess-- "On your life, not a hair of his head must fall; you answer for him to me body for body." And he added in a low voice, unintelligible by the hearers, "I swore it--" "'Tis a pity," Ruperto went on. "I am certain that hanging a Mexican Captain would have produced an excellent effect through the country." The Jaguar made a sign. "All right, all right," the adventurer continued; "if it is not pleasant to you, we will say no more about it. No matter, that is a funny notion of yours." "Enough," the young man said; "I have given my orders." So soon as he was alone. Captain Melendez let his head fall on his hands, and tried to re-establish the balance in his mind and arrange his ideas, which the shock he had received had utterly disordered. Still he gradually yielded to a species of lethargy, the natural result of his fall, and soon fell into a deep sleep. He slept peacefully for several hours, nothing happening to disturb his repose; and when he awoke he found himself quite a new man; the restorative sleep he had enjoyed had completely rested his nervous system, his strength had returned, and it was with an indescribable feeling of joy that he rose and walked a few steps on the prairie. With calmness of mind courage returned, and he was ready to recommence the contest. He noticed, too, with a certain degree of pleasure, that the adventurers left him at perfect liberty, and did not appear to pay any attention to him. Ruperto returned, but this time he had put off his mocking air, and carried some provisions in a basket. The adventurer offered them to the Captain with rough politeness, in which, however, the desire to be agreeable was perceptible. The Captain readily accepted the food, and ate with an appetite that surprised himself after so serious a fall. "Well," Ruperto remarked, "did I not tell you that you would be soon cured? It is just the same with the Captain--he is as fresh as a floripondio, and was never better in his life."