The Indian seized the string, and without taking the trouble to remove it from his neck, pulled so violently that a red mark was produced on the soldier's skin. Suddenly a sudden pallor discoloured the prisoner's cheeks; the Sayotkatta advanced upon him, holding up in his hand a long-bladed, thin, and sharp knife. Then came a moment of indescribable agony for Leon, who felt his hair bathed in a cold perspiration, while his temples were contracted by pain. He saw the man with the knife attentively seeking on the victim's chest the position of the heart, and a smile of satisfaction passed over his lips when he had found it; then pressing very lightly the sharp point of the knife on the flesh, he drove it inch by inch, and as slowly as was possible, into the soldier's chest.
The latter kept his enormously dilated eyes fixed on those of the Sayotkatta, all whose movements he watched; ere long the pallor that covered his features became now livid, his lips blanched, and he threw himself back, stammering—
"Santa Maria, ora pro nobis!"
The Sayotkatta was pressing the hilt of the knife against the body, and the Indians struck up a mournful hymn. The knife was drawn out—a jet of blood came from the wound—a convulsion agitated the body, which the piaies supported in their arms, and all was over. The lancero was dead!
Leon bit his poncho to prevent his crying out. A hundred times had the captain of the smugglers' band braved death in his encounters with the custom's officers and lanceros, and his arm had never failed him when he was obliged to cleave a man's head with a sabre cut, or level him by the help of his rifle, but at the sight of the cowardly and cruel assassination being performed he stood as if petrified by disgust and horror. He gave a start when the lancero drew his last breath; but Diego, who was watching him, went up to him.
"Silence! or you are a dead man," he said.
Leon restrained himself, but he had not reached the end of his amazement yet. The piaies raised the corpse, laid it on the stone table, after removing the rest of the clothes, and the Sayotkatta pronounced a few mysterious words, to which the Indians replied by chanting.
Then the latter, taking his knife up again, cut the victim's chest down the whole length, and examined with scrupulous attention the liver, heart, and lungs, which he pulled out to lay on the prepared pyre. All at once he turned round and addressed the spectators with an inspired accent—
"Sons of Chemiin, Guatechu protects you. Everything is favourable, and our cruel enemies will at length fall under our blows."
Then one of the piaies collected in a vessel the blood which dripped from the table, and carefully placed it outside. It was not enough to have mutilated the corpse. This horrible butchery was succeeded by an operation which completely froze Leon's blood, and he could hardly restrain the feeling of repulsion which the hideous spectacle aroused in him.