The end of the building shut off the view as they looked from the window. But they knew the horde was approaching, and rapidly, and with the blood shrieks were mingled other cries the meaning of which Señora Vallejo could not understand at first.
“They are acclaiming someone,” she said, finally. “Some chief who has performed a murderous assault, I suppose. May the saints curse the man whose treason agitated them!”
Then she grasped the girl and drew back from the window quickly, letting the draperies that hung there fall back into place. An Indian had appeared at the end of the patio—a tall, young Indian streaked with war paint and with a musket in his hand. They watched as he glanced around the enclosure, then slipped like a snake past the fountain to the door to listen there. Finally he whirled around and ran to the end of the patio again, to wave his musket and shriek at the others.
Then, like a wave breaking on a rocky beach, the horde poured into the patio—dancing, shrieking, screeching—charging across the veranda, splashing through the water of the fountain, tearing at the palms old Señor Fernandez himself had planted and tended until they were grown.
And, in their midst, sitting his horse with shoulders squared, his face devoid of all expression, was the man Señor Fernandez had said his daughter was to marry.
“They have brought him here to kill him!” the girl moaned. “And, the others——?”
“Dead, else ridden for help,” replied the señora. “If we had but a poniard——”
The horse had stopped beside the fountain. A chief grasped the animal’s mane and was shouting to the maniacs who shrieked around him. They stopped their dancing and their cries died down. Half a dozen men raised hands to take the rider from his horse and carry him toward the door, half a dozen more led the animal from the patio, scores ran toward the adobe buildings, and others gathered in groups in the enclosure to hold animated conversation, now and then screeching their enthusiasm and shaking muskets and bows above their heads.
Señora Vallejo drew the girl back from the curtained window, and they stood at the foot of the bed, still clasped in each other’s arms, looking toward the door. They heard steps in the corridor outside—the steps of but one man, it seemed—and they feared a skulking gentile reconnoitering, one who soon would send a shriek ringing through the house to inform the others he had found women there.
Silence for an instant, then they heard the bolt withdrawn. Another instant, and the door was thrown open.