But this combat of giants could not endure longer. Of the twenty companions he had round him on commencing the struggle, the cacique now only saw two or three upright: the rest were dead. There must be an end. The circle that inclosed the hapless Indian drew closer and closer. Henceforth it was only a question of time with him. The rangers, recognising the impossibility of conquering this lion-hearted man, had changed their tactics: they no longer attacked him, but contented themselves with forming an impassable circle round him, waiting prudently for the moment when the strength of the prey, which could not escape them, was exhausted, in order to rush upon him.
The Coras understood the intention of his enemies. A contemptuous smile contracted his haughty lips, and he rushed resolutely toward these men who recoiled before him. Suddenly, with a movement quicker than thought, he threw with extraordinary strength the ploughshare among the rangers, and bounding like a tiger, leaped on a horse, and clutched its rider with superhuman vigour.
Ere the rangers had recovered from the surprise this unforeseen attack occasioned in them, by a desperate effort, and still holding the horseman, the chieftain drew from his girdle a short sharp knife, which he buried up to the hilt in the flanks of the horse. The animal uttered a shriek of pain, rushed headlong into the crowd, and bore both away with maddening speed.
The rangers, rendered furious at being played with by a single man, and seeing their most terrible enemy escape them, started in pursuit; but with his liberty the Coras had regained all his energy: he felt himself saved. In spite of the desperate efforts the rangers made to catch him up, he disappeared in the darkness.
The cacique continued to fly till he felt his horse tottering under him. He had not loosed his hold of the horseman, who was half strangled by the rude embrace, and both rolled on the ground. This man wore the costume of the Apache Indians. The Coras regarded him for an instant attentively, and then a smile of contempt played round his lips.
"You are not a redskin," he said, in a hollow voice; "you are only a paleface dog. Why put on the skin of the lion when you are a cowardly coyote?"
The ranger, still stunned by the fall he had suffered, and the hug he had endured, made no reply.
"I could kill you," the Indian continued; "but my vengeance would not be complete. You and yours must pay me for all the innocent blood you have shed like cowards this night. I will mark you, so that I may know you again."
Then, with fearful coolness, the Coras threw the ranger on his back, put his knee on his chest, and burying his finger in the socket of his eye, gave it a sharp rotatory movement, and plucked out his eyeball. On this frightful mutilation, the wretch uttered a cry of pain impossible to describe. The Indian got up.
"Go!" he said to him. "Now I am certain of finding you again whenever I want you."