Crack! went the carbine. Rita's ears rang with the noise; she held the reins mechanically, only half-conscious of herself. Pah! pah! and again crack! The blue rifle-smoke was in her eyes and nostrils, the Mauser bullets pattered like hail on the road; and still Aquila galloped on, never turning his head, never slackening his mighty stride, and still the road rushed by, and the turn by the hill grew nearer—nearer—
Pah! Rita felt her companion wince. His left arm relaxed its hold and dropped at his side. With his right hand he carefully replaced his carbine in its sling.
"For life, Aquila!" he said softly, in Spanish; and once more Aquila gathered his great limbs under him, and once more the terrible pace quickened.
A stone? a hole in the road? who knows? In a moment they were all down, horse and riders flung in a heap together. The horse struggled to his knees, then fell again. He screamed, an agonising sound, that in Rita's excited mind seemed to mingle with the smoke and the dust in a cloud of horror. Every moment she expected to feel the iron hoofs crashing into her, as the frenzied creature struggled to regain his footing.
Delmonte had sprung clear, and in an instant he was at Rita's side, raising her. "You are hurt? no? good! keep behind me, please."
He went to the horse, and tried to lift him, bent to examine him, and then shook his head. Aquila would not rise again; his leg was shattered. Delmonte straightened himself and looked about him. If this had happened a hundred, fifty yards back! but now the woods were gone, and on either hand stretched a bare savannah, broken only by the hateful barbed wire fences. He drew his revolver quietly. The healthy brown of his face had gone gray; his eyes were like blue steel. He looked at Rita, and met her eyes fixed on him in a mute anguish of entreaty.
"Have no fear!" he said. "It shall be as it would with my own sister. I know these men; they shall not touch you alive."
He bent once more over the struggling beast, and even in his agony Aquila knew his master, and turned his eyes lovingly toward him, expecting help; and help came.
"Good-bye, lad!" The pistol cracked, and the tortured limbs sank into quiet.
"Lie down behind him!" Delmonte commanded. "So! now, still."