Leaving him, where he had fallen, the men rushed to the assistance of the fellow who had dragged the lady from her steed.
‘For God’s sake, gentlemen, don’t kill Joaquin. He has never injured you.’
‘Don’t fret, honey, ’tisn’t Joe Quin we’re after. ‘Tis your own elegant self,’ said one of the ruffians.
‘So, you d—d stuck-up thing, you wouldn’t dance with me at your outlandish fandango, the other night. Now, my lady, you shall dance to other music;’ and as he spoke he seized her brutally, and inflicted several fierce kisses upon her reluctant lips. Fired by her charms and her resistance, the villain was proceeding to further outrage, when, all her woman’s nature flashing from her indignant eyes, she drew a small thin-bladed stiletto, and sent its bright blade straight to the heart of the ravisher. For a moment, and but for a moment, the villains were appalled at this prompt and terrible retribution. But even the thought of their guilty comrade hurried out of the world in the very act of perpetrating the most heinous offence, could not make them pause in their infernal intentions, for seizing the hapless woman, now become insensible, they bore her into a clump of bushes from which they had sprung upon Joaquin and his bride.
Hours after, when Joaquin returned to consciousness, he found himself bound hand and foot, with strips of green hide. His horse and that of Carmencitto both gone.
Joaquin’s first impulse was to call aloud upon the name of his young wife. But all was silent. ‘Holy Virgin!’ he exclaimed, as recollection began fully to return to him. ‘Where art thou, Carmencitto?’ he shouted. A low, faint moaning was heard in the neighboring shrubbery. Again, and again, the wretched youth called loudly on Carmencitto. But the only replies he received were the faint moanings, which his foreboding heart, rather than his ear, told him came from the lips of Carmencitto. His suspense became insupportable. He would—he must—learn all. Even though that all confirmed a horrid suspicion that chilled the blood to his very heart.
With the fierceness of a starving coyote he gnawed the green hide that confined his arms, and they once released he soon entirely disengaged himself. He sprang to his feet, and rushed in the direction from whence the sounds of distress proceeded. Better had he been smitten with eternal blindness than ever have gazed upon that sad, sad spectacle.
Carmencitto lay almost senseless upon the grass. Her modest garments torn to shreds, exposed her fair young bosom, slowly heaving, as if with the latest sobs of expiring life. Her cheeks were colorless. Her lips white as chalk, except where they were dabbled with the crimson blood, that was slowly oozing at every respiration of her heaving breast! In one of her little pale hands she clutched a small gold crucifix, which the villains had overlooked in their lust or haste.
As Joaquin burst through the thicket and stood before her, the closed lids of her black eyes slowly opened, and she cast one look full of love and sorrow upon her heart-broken husband.
Tearing his black locks he flung himself on his knees by her side, and tenderly raising her, he pressed her to his heart and while he wiped the blood from her lips, his tears fell thick and fast upon her upturned face.