“I am beginning to hate him!” the girl exclaimed. “It will be difficult, I fear, to do as my father wished. And I—I am beginning to be afraid. The house is so quiet. Señora Vallejo, can you hear Indians shrieking in the distance?”
“I have heard them for some time,” the señora replied. “We have walked into a trap, I fear.”
“Why do the men not start to return to the mission immediately? Señor Lopez and the four soldiers surely can guard us well, and one of them ride ahead for help if we need it.”
“It may be possible,” said the señora, “that the Indians have run away merely because they fear punishment for the killing of their overseers.” But she said it merely to allay the girl’s fears, not because she believed it.
There was a clatter of hoofs at the end of the patio, and the two women hurried across to the window in time to see Señor Lopez and the four soldiers dash away. They turned to the right toward the cañon, and the women could watch them no longer; and so they stood before the window and looked down into the patio, awaiting the return, watching Rojerio Rocha as he paced back and forth beside the fountain, now fumbling at the hilt of his sword, now pulling at the pistol in his belt, always with head bent and a scowl on his handsome face.
In time he stopped at the end of the patio and shaded his eyes with his hands to look toward the cañon. A chorus of shrieks and cries came from the distance. They heard Rojerio Rocha laugh, and then he grasped the reins of his horse, jerked the animal around and vaulted into the saddle to gallop away.
Clasped in each other’s arms, silent, fearful, the two women remained standing before the window. An hour passed that seemed like an age. And then they heard the cries and shrieks again, doubled now, seemingly coming nearer—cries and shrieks that the older woman translated as easily as if they had been spoken words. Even the girl seemed to recognise a new note in the bedlam, for she looked up into the older woman’s face wonderingly, questioningly, and she felt Señora Vallejo’s arms tighten about her.
“What is it?” she asked.
“The blood cry—I know it well.”
“And it means——”