The Scalper gave a glance of triumph and satisfied hatred at the sanguinary arena, where a dozen bodies lay stretched out, and urging his horse on, he caught up a fugitive, lifted him by the hair, and threw him over his saddle-bow, and disappeared in the forest with a horrible grin.
Once again the Scalper had opened a bloody passage for himself.
As for Fray Antonio, so soon as he saw that the fight had begun, he thought it needless to await its issue; he, therefore, took advantage of the opportunity, and gliding gently from tree to tree, he effected a skilful retreat and got clear off.
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
AFTER THE FIGHT.
For more than half an hour the silence of death hovered over the clearing, which offered a most sad and lugubrious aspect through the fight we described in the preceding chapter.
At length John Davis, who in reality had received no serious wound, for his fall was merely occasioned by the shock of the Scalper's powerful horse, opened his eyes and looked around him in amazement; the fall had been sufficiently violent to cause him serious bruises, and throw him into a deep fainting fit; hence, on regaining consciousness, the American, still stunned, did not remember a single thing that had happened, and asked himself very seriously what he had been doing to find himself in this singular situation.
Still, his ideas grew gradually clearer, his memory returned, and he remembered the strange and disproportioned fight of one man against twenty, in which the former remained the victor, after killing and dispersing his assailants.
"Hum!" he muttered to himself, "Whether he be man or demon, that individual is a sturdy fellow."
He got up with some difficulty, carefully feeling his paining limbs; and when he was quite assured he had nothing broken, he continued with evident satisfaction—