The Spaniard was able to make no more than feeble resistance. Although he knew his peril and understood that Merriwell meant to kill him on the spot, he found himself nailed to the ground as if a stake had been driven through his body. His jaws opened, his tongue protruded, his eyes bulged from his head and his face turned purple.
“Die!” hissed Dick.
A black cloud fell on Bunol, and in his ears there was a thundering like the roar of Niagara.
Then the flap of the tent behind Dick was lifted. A man peered in. He uttered a shout. A moment later the tent was filled with men who seized Merriwell and tried to tear him from his enemy.
Dick’s hands clung fast to Bunol’s throat. The expression on his face was awful in its deadly determination. The men cried out that he would kill the Spaniard before their eyes.
Some one struck the American boy in the face several times, but still his grip did not loosen in the least.
At the tent door there was further commotion. Brad Buckhart was fighting to get in.
“Pard!” he cried—“pard, what’s doing?”
Dick made no answer.
At last Bunol was wrenched from Dick’s grip, one of the men having loosened the boy’s fingers a bit. In tearing the Spaniard free, however, they did not prevent Merriwell’s fingers from lacerating the fellow’s neck.