We needed no words to give us an explanation of what we saw. It was intelligible without this. We had tracked the bandits to their den. They were in it—their victims along with them!
For the first time since starting on the uphill pursuit, we felt puzzled as to how we should act. My own impulses prompted me to spring forward, and bring the affair to an instant termination.
As far as regarded victory or defeat, I had no fear about the issue. Although Carrasco’s party and ours were nearly equal in numbers, I knew that in real strength—as in courage and equipment—we were as two to their one.
But even reversing the order, my men would not have shied from the contest; not if the enemy had been ten to our one.
For myself—with the motive I had, to move, and madden me,—odds never entered my thoughts.
As it was, we simply considered ourselves in the presence of vermin, that we could crush beneath the heels of our boots.
With such feeling of contempt for our antagonists, the impulse was to set upon them at once. My men only waited for the word.
I was prevented from giving it by a reflection. In destroying the vermin the game might be injured along with it? Mercedes and her sister—I thought only of Mercedes—might be wounded, perhaps killed in the conflict?
This fear was sufficient to restrain us. My comrades intuitively shared it with me; and I had no difficulty in keeping them in check.