Without entering into any details, Don Estevan who was sinking from fatigue, retired to snatch a few hours' repose.
Several days passed without the Indians attacking the pueblo. They contented themselves with investing it more closely, without attempting an assault. Their plan seemed to be to starve out the inhabitants, and force them to surrender from famine.
The blockade was kept so strictly, that it was impossible for the besieged to stir beyond their lines: all their communications were cut off, and provisions began to fail. The cattle which had been collected at the commencement of the siege had all been killed, and the Mexicans were now driven to the necessity of consuming the hides.
The plan would doubtless have succeeded; and the Mexicans, reduced to the last extremity, would soon have been obliged to surrender without striking a blow; but a project of Don Estevan's, communicated to Major Barnum, and executed without delay, suddenly defeated the Tigercat's plans, and obliged him to make the assault, in order to hinder the revolt of the tribes who followed him. The Mexicans, whom the pangs of famine were driving to despair, were eagerly longing for the assault.
Don Estevan ordered a hundred and fifty loaves to be made of wheat saturated with arsenic. These were packed on a few mules, still left in the fort, in company with twenty-four kegs of brandy mixed with vitriol. With ten trusty fellows, he escorted this formidable freight to within a short distance of the redskin intrenchments.
Everything happened as he had foreseen. The Indians, who are extravagantly fond of brandy, were allured by the sight of the kegs, and rushed upon the convoy in the hopes of capturing it.
Don Estevan lost no time. Casting loaves and kegs upon the sand, and retreating at full speed, he brought off his men and mules in the pueblo.
The Indians, dragging their booty into their camp, knocked in the heads of the barrels, and an orgy commenced which lasted till bread and brandy had disappeared.
More than a thousand Indians perished through this ingenious device of the mayor domo's[1] the others, smitten with terror, began to disband in all directions.
The exasperated savages, in their first moments of excitement, and in spite of the efforts of their leader, ruthlessly massacred under horrible tortures all the men, women, and children who had fallen into their power at the commencement of the war, and had been kept prisoners in the camp up to the time.