Don Miguel passed like a tornado through the body of men moving round him, and discharged his revolvers in the thickest of his unknown enemies. Cries of pain and rage, bullets and arrows pursued him, but did not check the headlong speed of his horse, which seemed no longer to touch the earth, and rapidly did it course along.
Behind him the young man heard the galloping of several horses, hastening in pursuit. "Treachery, treachery!" he shouted, brandishing his sabre, making his horse rear, and bounding like a jackal in the midst of the throng which incessantly closed in upon him.
Suddenly, at the height of the contest, at the superior moment when he felt his strength was deserting him, three shots came from the darkness, and his assailants, attacked in the rear, were compelled in their turn to defend themselves against invisible foes.
"We are coming!" a stout voice shouted, whose energetic accent made the assailants tremble. "Hold your own! hold your own!"
Don Miguel responded by a terrific yell, and threw himself into the thick of the fight with redoubled efforts: now that he knew himself to be supported, he felt he was saved. The crowd gave way in the shadow, like ripe corn beneath the reaper's scythe; the compact mass of assailants parted asunder, and three men, or three demons, rushed into the hole they had made, and bounded forward to the side of the adventurer.
"Ah, ah!" the latter exclaimed, with a bitter burst of laughter, "the fight is now equal; forward, comrades, forward!" And he threw himself once more into the medley, followed by these intrepid allies.
Who were these men? Whence did they come? he did not know or dream of asking them. Besides, this was not the moment for explanations: they must conquer or die.
"Kill him, kill him!" a man yelled, who rushed upon him every moment with uplifted sabre, and in all the ferocious ardour of an inveterate hatred.
"Ah! it is you, Don Stefano Cohecho!" Don Miguel shouted; "I felt sure we should meet; your voice has denounced you."
"Death to him!" the latter answered.