"What use would it be, my lord, to speak without your authority of what you term crotchets, and what I term certainties? The soldiers placed under my orders know as well as I do what awaits them in the desert. As to your slaves, what use would it be to frighten them beforehand? Is it not better to leave them in entire ignorance? For, I repeat, to escape will be impossible for us." The marquis knitted his eyebrows, and crossed his arms with anger. "Let us see," resumed he, with a subdued voice, but nevertheless, with trembled emotion, "let us make amend for it, Diogo." "I ask nothing better, your Excellency." "Speak, but be brief; I repeat, time flies, an hour ago we ought to have been on our journey." The captain scratched his forehead with an embarrassed air, but appearing all of a sudden to arrive at a decision. "This is the state of the case, my lord," said he; "up to the present time we have traversed civilised countries, or nearly so, where we have only had to contend against ordinary dangers; that is to say, the bites of wild beasts or those of reptiles." "Well?" "Why, you understand, my lord, we are about, in a few minutes, to enter the territory of the redskins." "To what are you driving, with these interminable preambles?" asked the marquis. "To this, your Excellency; you are a great lord, expert in everything connected with civilised life, but pardon me for saying so, in complete ignorance of life in the desert. I believe then, with all due respect to you, my lord, that it would be well for you to permit me to take upon myself alone, from today, the responsibility of the journey of the caravan. There, your Excellency, that is what I wished to say to you." The marquis remained some moments silent; his eyes fixed on the calm and loyal countenance of the captain. "What you ask of me is very serious, Don Diogo," at last answered the marquis. "Treason surrounds me on every side; the men on whom I thought I had the most right to count have been the first to abandon me; you yourself consider this journey in advance to be a folly, and appear to be afflicted by sad presentiments." "Your Excellency, I am not surprised at the suspicions against me which arise in your mind; on the contrary, I think them very natural. But the soldados da conquista are all tried men, chosen with the greatest care, and since the formation of this corps there has never been found a traitor in it. I do not say this for myself, but the honourable manner in which I have spoken to you--the things I have told you--ought to inspire, if not entire confidence in me, at least the commencement of it." "Yes, I know; all your proceedings have been in good faith; you see that I render you justice." "Not sufficiently, your Excellency; you judge me according to the knowledge acquired in civilised life, and not by that of the desert. Permit me, then, to make a simple observation." "Speak."