But for his mail the cavalier would not have lived through a dozen paces. He was breathing in gasps, his arm stiffening with its wounds. Warriors whirled around him, yielding here before the lightning blade; closing there and forcing him to fight to the rear. From the doorway Markumi had sped his last arrow and fled. Every shaft had carried death. Cristoval fought, not with hope, not in despair, but in madness to reach and save his love; in a frenzy to kill, kill, kill, while a man lived to interpose. All at once he became conscious of a growing light. The villa was afire! A torch had been set to the roof of the main building, and the thatch blazed high, a column of rosy smoke curling toward the quiet stars. Half across the court his eye caught the gleam of a morion. A Spaniard dashed from a door, followed by two others bearing a senseless form. For the first time Cristoval gave voice, and his roar overtopped the din. The first Spaniard stopped, glanced toward the struggle, then rushed forward with a shout, followed by one of the others, leaving their burden to the third. Straight to thy doom, Juan Lopez!
He sprang through the mob, sweeping the Cañares from his path, and whirling aloft his halberd. Cristoval rushed upon him. The axe fell, was caught upon the buckler, and Cristoval drove his sword into the Spaniard's throat, jerked it out, and while the other tottered, drove it home again with all the force lent his arm by hate.
It was the end. While he strove to disengage his blade the Cañares swept upon him. He was down. On his knees he still fought, creeping a few inches toward his beloved, then sank beneath a war club whose force even his helmet could not ward. While his brain reeled he heard the yell of triumph, growing distant to his ears, and the world ceased to be. A score of hands clutched to tear him to pieces, struck back by the second halberdier.
"Off, dogs! He is mine.—Hola, Duero! We have him!—A thousand castellanos!"
He stopped. A Cañare reeled against him in a spasm of coughing, tugging at the shaft of an arrow in his chest. In another moment the Spaniard had been forced away from Cristoval by a rush of the tribesmen, and arrows and javelins whistled about him from the darkness outside the court. He heard Duero calling and swearing, a fierce yell from the gloom surrounding the villa, and a storm of missiles swept the court, whose tumult became a pandemonium.
Xilcala had been roused. One of the household had given alarm, and the flames brought the villagers on wings. The conflagration wrought its own punishment: every Cañare in the court revealed by the mounting flames, the garden in blackness. A merciless hail assailed the ravagers from the obscurity, and they were seized with panic—a mere tossing herd, stampeded by a foe unseen, dropping by twos and threes beneath the deadly rain. Yells, the crackling flames, and the shouts of the invisible assailants made the garden a horror.
The halberdier fought his way to Duero's side, and they stood in consternation. The still unconscious Rava had been drawn into the doorway. With a motion to his companion Duero picked her up, and they groped through the smoke-filled building into the shrubbery in front, and were away.
Clear of the garden, they made a detour to pass the village, halting once to bind and gag the Ñusta as they hurried toward the gorge. A mile beyond the town they joined a small party of Spaniards and Cañares in concealment beside the road. Duero replied to their questions with a comprehensive curse. "Move, blockheads!" he roared. "Fetch the litter. Before ye finish gawping they will be upon us. Hell is uncovered, d' ye hear? Fetch the litter."
A hamaca was brought, Rava thrust into it, and the curtains drawn. Two Cañares took it up, and the party hurried away.
At the entrance of the gorge they crossed the stream by a bridge of twisted osiers. On the farther side they hacked with their halberds until the structure hung, a wreck, from its opposite anchorage. It would cut off the retreat of their allies, but would delay pursuit, for the torrent was unfordable. Their route was down the gorge. Toward morning they crossed and destroyed another bridge, then proceeded in security.