CHAPTER XXI.
In the time-eaten wall Clara had found a fissure through which she could watch the parley between Thurstane and the Apaches. She climbed into it from a mound of disintegrated adobes, and stood there, pale, tremulous, and breathless, her whole soul in her eyes.
Thurstane, walking his horse and making signs of amity with his cap, had by this time reached the low bank of the rivulet, and halted within four hundred yards of the savages. There had been a stir immediately on his appearance: first one warrior and then another had mounted his pony; a score of them were now prancing hither and thither. They had left their lances stuck in the earth, but they still carried their bows and quivers.
When Clara first caught sight of Thurstane he was beckoning for one of the Indians to approach. They responded by pointing to the summit of the hill, as if signifying that they feared to expose themselves to rifle shot from the ruins. He resumed his march, forded the shallow stream, and pushed on two hundred yards.
"O Madre de Dios!" groaned Clara, falling into the language of her childhood. "He is going clear up to them."
She was on the point of shrieking to him, but she saw that he was too far off to hear her, and she remained silent, just staring and trembling.
Thurstane was now about two hundred yards from the Apaches. Except the twenty who had first mounted, they were sitting on the ground or standing by their ponies, every face set towards the solitary white man and every figure as motionless as a statue. Those on horseback, moving slowly in circles, were spreading out gradually on either side of the main body, but not advancing. Presently a warrior in full Mexican costume, easily recognizable as Manga Colorada himself, rode straight towards Thurstane for a hundred yards, threw his bow and quiver ten feet from him, dismounted and lifted both hands. The officer likewise lifted his hands, to show that he too was without arms, moved forward to within thirty feet of the Indian, and thence advanced on foot, leading his horse by the bridle.
Clara perceived that the two men were conversing, and she began to hope that all might go well, although her heart still beat suffocatingly. The next moment she was almost paralyzed with horror. She saw Manga Colorada spring at Thurstane; she saw his dark arms around him, the two interlaced and reeling; she heard the triumphant yell of the Indian, and the response of his fellows; she saw the officer's startled horse break loose and prance away. In the same instant the mounted Apaches, sending forth their war-whoop and unslinging their bows, charged at full speed toward the combatants.
Thurstane had but five seconds in which to save his life. Had he been a man of slight or even moderate physical and moral force, there would not have been the slightest chance for him. But he was six feet high, broad in the shoulders, limbed like a gladiator, solidified by hardships and marches, accustomed to danger, never losing his head in it, and blessed with lots of pugnacity. He was pinioned; but with one gigantic effort he loosened the Indian's lean sinewy arms, and in the next breath he laid him out with a blow worthy of Heenan.