He despised him, and yet he could be
very useful. He would have to work with him and he must treat him at least
with superficial politeness. Then he looked at the prisoner. Paul, too,
slept soundly, his fine face thrown into relief in the wan moonlight,
every sensitive feature revealed. Alvarez wondered again that he should
find a youth of such classic countenance and cultivated mind in the deep
forest.
The wandering breeze ceased, and the wilderness fell into a silence so
deep and heavy that it preyed upon the nerves of the Spaniard. Then, out
of the stillness came a long, plaintive note, wailing, but musical, full
of a quality that made it seem to Alvarez weird and ominous.
"Only the howl of a wolf," muttered the Spaniard, who recognized the
long-drawn cry. But it made him shiver a little, nevertheless. He alone
was awake, except the sentinels, and he felt like a tiny, lost speck in
all the vast wilderness. A second time came the cry of the wolf, and then
it was repeated a third and a fourth time. After the fourth it ceased.
The four cries were so distinct, so equal in length, and repeated at such
regular intervals that they seemed to Francisco Alvarez like set notes. He
listened intently, but they did not come again.
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