“If—they enter—you will remember your promise?”
He held out his arms, and she slipped into them, and for a moment their lips met. He was almost sobbing when he answered.
“I’ll remember.”
“You’ll not let them take me alive?”
“Never that, señorita! I wish we might face a different future. I am just beginning to find life worth the living,” he said. “But at least I can die knowing your heart is mine.”
Hostiles in the tunnel were still battering against the wall, trying to gain entrance. The caballero had been watching there carefully, yet found no cause for alarm. One shot had come through the crack, but it was an easy matter to stand in such part of the chapel that no bullet could reach them.
He crept to the door again and listened, Anita close behind him. The shots seemed to be scattering now, and he sensed that the Indians were preparing for the last rush. He heard the comandante shouting orders. Children were crying; the voice of a fray in prayer could be heard above the din.
Again the men in the tunnel assaulted the wall, and the caballero left the door quickly to stand in the centre of the room, pistol and sword ready in case an entrance should be made. But the barricade he had constructed against the section of masonry held despite the furious attack upon it.
In the church there was another chorus of shrieks, a volley, cries of pain and rage—for the final attack had begun. The caballero clasped Anita in his arms again, and so they waited for the end, the girl with her face against his shoulder and fingers in ears to keep out the death wails and frenzied cries.
The defenders were shouting now, in mock courage the caballero thought, going down to their deaths fighting, dying like men. Suddenly the battering at the wall ceased, and cries from the tunnel told that the Indians were retreating quickly. Word had been passed to them, he supposed, that victory was in the front, and they were eager to be in at the death. They would watch the outlets of the tunnel, of course; there could be no escape that way.