Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/158

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V

Dick was pale, but the Marquis was livid. So they appeared to Natividad; as to Uncle Francis, he had not his glasses on, and noticed nothing disquieting in their appearance.

"Those scoundrels have both my children now," groaned Don Christobal in answer to Natividad's eager questions, and told what had happened.

Badly mounted for mountain roads, the Marquis had found great difficulty in following. Several times he had been on the point of abandoning his horse, but, thinking it might be valuable later on, had kept to it. Once or twice he had been obliged to dismount and drag the unwilling beast behind him. At dawn, he reached the Indians' camp, which he searched in vain for some personal sign of his daughter. She was evidently too well guarded. Finally he found the llama's body, but being convinced that Dick was with little Christobal, had not worried overmuch. Then, a little further on, he found Dick, but alone.

Dick, powerless to interfere, had seen little Christobal carried off by the same Indians who

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