Suddenly leaping from his horse, he cut the sinews of the colonel's horse with a blow of his axe. But Don Juan probably expected this attack, for when his horse fell uttering a long snort of pain, he was standing with his feet freed from the stirrups. Then began, between these two men, a combat impossible to describe, in which rage and fury took the place of skill. Tahi-Mari wielded his terrible axe with unparalleled dexterity; Don Juan had his sabre welded to his wrist, and followed the slightest movements of the other.
Each observed the other, and calculated the value of his blows. Eye on eye, chest against chest, panting, with foreheads streaming with perspiration, and their features violently contracted by hatred, they watched for the decisive moment. Don Juan was bleeding from two deep wounds; he felt his strength becoming exhausted, and felt as if he could no longer hold his sword. Tahi-Mari had also received several wounds, not dangerous, it is true, but which were, for all that, visible on his face and movements.
All at once, the half-breed, profiting by the fact that his enemy, who had constantly been on guard, left himself uncovered, aimed a blow at him with his axe. Don Juan raised his sword, but only parried imperfectly, and the axe was buried deeply in his shoulder. Collecting all his strength, he had to keep his feet; but tottering involuntarily, he fell to the ground, heaving a deep sigh. Diego burst into a yell of triumph, and rushed upon the young man.
"At last," he said.
At the same moment he received a violent blow, and he fell back blaspheming. He rose with lightning speed, and saw Leon Delbès before him, who had rolled him in the dust by dashing his horse's chest at him.
"Oh!" the Indian exclaimed, as he let his axe fall, "always he between this family and me!"
"Yes, I! Tahi-Mari—I, whom you must kill before you can reach your enemies—I, who have sworn to tear your victims from you: attack me. What are you waiting for?"
A combat seemed to be going on in Diego's mind, and then he remarked, as if speaking to himself:—
"No, no; not he, not he! the only man who ever loved me on this earth. Now, for the other," he added, as he looked furiously around him, "he can never have enough of Spanish blood."
And slipping on one side, he rushed back into the thick of the fight.