But, if the Apache meditated an attack on the white man, he changed his mind for the moment. He drew his hand from his knife.
“Say Mendez weak?—say he squaw?” he mumbled.
Freeman saw an appeal in these questions. It was as if the fellow had become sensible of his condition and craved indulgence rather than censure.
“The real Mendez is a brave warrior, but, if he is afraid of the Apaches, he is not Mendez; if he wishes to show to his white brother that he is still brave let him go the Apaches and bring back the boy they hold a prisoner; then Mendez will be cunning, he will be brave, he will be a great warrior.”
The fellow straightened up with a majestic dignity that could not fail to command respect. He had thrown off the spell of the horrible stuff, as a Roman warrior might fling off his cloak to give his limbs freer play.
“Mendez is brave: he is a great warrior; he is greater than Geronimo or Cochise; he is not afraid of them; he will bring back the child to his white brother; let his white brother wait here and soon his heart shall be made glad; he shall sing with joy like the birds in the trees. Mendez will soon return; let my brother have patience.”
Maurice Freeman was amazed. He had never heard the surly fellow speak the English tongue with such fluency and eloquence. It was a revelation. He appeared to be another person. He towered in height and was the picture of the great Tecumseh himself, addressing an array of chieftains and urging them to battle.
Before the white man could frame a suitable reply, Mendez turned and strode off, his step that of a conqueror. Captain Freeman gazed in silent wonderment at the figure until it vanished in the gloom and he was left alone.
The only explanation that Freeman could find for this extraordinary occurrence was that when Mendez came to him, though he was so under the influence of tiswin, he was conscious of his unfitness for the task he had undertaken. Prompted by a strange self-accusation, proving that conscience burns in the breast of every being, he had come to make confession. Then he was so stung by the reproofs of the white man that he was roused out of his sodden condition. He had really thrown off the effects of the poison. In other words he was sober, and the Mendez of old.
With his self-restoration came his natural courage and confidence in his own prowess. He felt able to do what he had planned, and set out to do it. He would show Captain Freeman, not by words but by acts, that he was the invincible Mendez, as the white man had described him to the Apache himself.