All at once there rose a loud cheering at the farmhouse; on its roof the ladies had collected and were waving scarves and veils. And, as an explanation, there was shortly wafted over the valley the music of a cavalry band, strong in brass and kettledrum, playing a lively Arragonese jota. The gay notes grated on the nerves of the Mexicans on the hill, collected round the sad group of the two whites and don Benito, whom they had assisted off his horse.
"The dragoons from the town," observed one of the party. "That crowns the day. In an hour there will not be one Yaqui within view of a telescope."
In fact, the valley was already strewn with plunder, and the dead and the wounded not capable of flight, but of living Indians hardly a hundred. The revolt was over. Then the field was again animated after this transient desertion, for Father Serafino, with peons carrying handbarrows, came forth to attend to the wounded. Upon improvised litters of lances, the European, Oliver, and Benito, all mute and quiet for want of strength, were tenderly transported down the hill and up into the hacienda hall.
The little hero of the Angelito was displaced from his throne, the decorations removed, and the room became a hospital. The ladies had assumed a simple dress befitting their suddenly imposed duty, and were obeying the orders of the father, who had a knowledge of surgery, like all missionaries.
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
THE TRUE CABALLERO.
Four days after the defeat of the insurgents, in his own bedroom of the Hacienda of the Monte Tesoro, don Benito Vázquez de Bustamente lay extended on the couch, pale and weak. His dulled eyes were half shut, and only at long intervals did they let gleams of consciousness escape. Near him were kneeling his daughter and his wife; their daughter-in-law being too ill from her loss and the emotion of the conflict in which all dear to her were involved, to participate in this additional scene of sorrow.
Sad and silent, don Jorge, Oliver, and the English gentleman, the latter's arm in a sling, and both the paler from profuse bloodletting, stood by the bedside. At an altar reared in the room, Father Serafino was just finishing prayers, to which the servants of the estate, kneeling in the corridors, had fervently responded.
At length the prostrate don seemed to revive, for his cheeks were tinged with fugitive purple, and his opening eyes were clear.