Stronghand by Gustave Aimard

Stronghand quitted the Pyramid in a state of indescribable agitation. The word his mother had whispered in his ear at parting incessantly recurred to his mind, and led him to suppose that Dona Esperanza, with that miraculous intuition Heaven has given to mothers, that they may discover the most hidden feelings of their children, had divined the secret he fancied he had buried in the remotest corner of his heart, and which he did not dare avow to himself. On the other hand, the strange conversation he had held with his father, and the proposal which concluded it, plunged him into extraordinary perplexity. His father's conduct appeared to him extraordinary, in the sense that he did not understand how the old gentleman, who justly enjoyed among the Indians a reputation for stainless honour, could be preparing treacherously to attack the man to whose succour he came at the same moment with such noble disinterestedness.

All this seemed to him illogical, incomprehensible, and in direct opposition with the word "hope," which he fancied he could still hear buzzing in his ear. Still, as he was obliged to cross the torrent, and go some distance before reaching his calli, he had time to restore some degree of order in his ideas, and resume his coolness and self-mastery before he reached his own door. Two men were standing there -- Whistler and Peccary.