But at daybreak this latter illusion vanished; the Indians seemed to have no inclination to beat a retreat.
The country presented a most afflicting spectacle; everything was burnt down, and the disorder frightful. In one place a band of mounted Apaches were driving before them the horses and cattle they had stolen; in another, nearer the town, and facing towards it, a strong body of warriors, with poised lances, watched the movements of the inhabitants of the presidio, with the intention of repelling any sortie that might be attempted; behind them, women and children were chasing the cattle, which were lowing with anger at being forced to quit the pastures; here and there prisoners, men, women, and children, driven on by blows of the lance, lifted their hands in vain supplication, and painfully dragged themselves forward amidst their captors. Lastly, as far as the eye could see, long files of Indians were hastening up on every side, while others drove in the pickets, or built callis (huts); and the town was completely surrounded.
Then an unheard-of circumstance occurred—a circumstance which the most experienced soldiers in the fort had never witnessed in all their previous encounters with the Indians, viz. the order that ruled through all this disorder; that is to say, the manner in which the callis were grouped, the serried and disciplined march of the infantry, the precision of their movements; and, what particularly upset all the arrangements of the colonel and major, the drawing of a parallel about the place, and throwing up an earthwork with immense rapidity, so as to shelter the Apaches from the fire of the guns.
"¡Sangre de Dios!" exclaimed the colonel, with an angry stamp; "those wretches have a traitor among them; they have never made war in this fashion before."
"Hem!" said the major, pulling at his moustache; "We shall have to tilt against rude jousters."
"Yes," replied the colonel; "and if succour does not arrive from the city, I do not exactly see how this is to end."
"Badly, colonel. ¡Caray! I am afraid we shall lose our hides here. Look! There are more than three thousand of them, without counting those who are still coming and blackening the plain on all sides. But what is the meaning of this noise?" he added, as he turned in the direction whence the notes of a trumpet proceeded.
Four sachems, dressed in white, and preceded by an Indian bearing a white flag, had halted at half-gunshot from the first barricade at the old presidio.
"What can this mean?" said the colonel; "They seem to demand a parley. Do they think I am fool enough to fall into the snare? Major, a hatful of grape for that group of pagans! We'll teach them to take us for dolts!"
"I think you are wrong, colonel, and that it would be better to parley with them; in that way we shall learn their intentions."