When the daylight came there were dead Navahu on the field south of Shufinne––the flower of the shields had bloom! Two dead Te-hua men were also there, and a wounded Navahu had been taken captive by Juan Gonzalvo. Ka-yemo carried two fresh scalps, and Don Ruy lay huddled in a little arroyo, where a lance thrust had struck him reeling from the saddle, and Tahn-té had leaped forward to grapple with the Navahu who, hidden on the edge of the steep bank, waited the coming of the horseman and lunged at him as head and shoulders came above the level.
Where the breastplate ends at the throat he struck, and the blade of volcanic glass cut through the flesh. At the savage yell of triumph the horse swerved––stumbled, and with a clatter of metals rolled down the embankment.
As the Navahu rushed downward with lifted axe and eager scalping knife, an arrow from the bow of Tahn-té pierced the temple of the savage, and with a grunt he whirled and fell dead beside the Castilian.
The horse had quickly regained his feet, but the rider lay still, the blood pulsing from his throat and staining the yellow sand. With dextrous fingers Tahn-té removed the helmet and breastplate that the position of the body might be eased. With sinew of deer from his pouch, and a bone awl of needle-like sharpness, he drew together the edges of the wound, then turning to where the Navahu lay prone on his face in the sand, he deftly cut a strip of the brown skin a finger’s width across, and in length from shoulder to girdle; this he took from the yet warm body as he would take the bark from a willow tree, and bound it about the throat with the flesh side to the wound.
“Take my horse and follow,” whispered Don Ruy, who had recovered breath and speech,––“I am not yet so dead that I need the grave digger––you can ride––take my horse and follow.”
Tahn-té had leaped to the saddle, when a cry at the edge of the arroyo caused him to halt, it was so pitiful a cry, and tumbling down through the sand and gravel came Master Chico with staring eyes of fear, and lips that were pale and quivering. The flayed back of the savage had he caught sight of, and the white face of Don Ruy who looked dead enough for masses despite his own assertion to the contrary, and the lad flung himself on his excellency with a wail that was far from that of a warrior, and then slipped silently into unconsciousness.
With the thought that a death wound had struck 269 the lad who had come to die with his master, Tahn-té turned the face back until the head rested on the arm of the Castilian, lightly he ran his hands over the body, and then halted, his eyes on the face of Don Ruy, who gazed strangely at the white face on his arm. The cap was gone, the eyes were closed, and the open lips showed the white teeth. In every way the face was more childish than it had ever appeared to him––childish and something more––something––
Then Tahn-té, who held the wrist of Chico, laid it gently on the hand of Don Ruy.
“Only into the twilight land has she gone, Señor,” he said softly––“even now the heart beats on the trail to come back––to you!”