“Captain Carrasco, if I mistake not?” sneeringly retorted my protector. “I can believe that of you. Not likely to be a prisoner of any kind. No doubt you took care to get well out of the way before the time when prisoners were being taken?”
“Carajo!” screamed the swarthy disputant, his face turning livid with rage. “You say that? You have heard it, camarados? Capitan Moreno sets himself up, not only as our judge, but the protector of our accursed invaders! And we must submit to his sublime dictation—we the citizens of Puebla!”
“No—no, we won’t stand it. Muera el Americano! The Yankee must be delivered up!”
“You must take him, then,” coolly responded Moreno, “at the point of my sword.”
“And at the muzzle of my pistol,” I added, springing to the side of my generous host—determined to share with him the defence of his doorway.
This unexpected resistance caused a change in the attitude of Carrasco and his cowardly associates. Though they hailed it with a vengeful shout, it was plain that their impetuosity had received a check; and, instead of advancing to the attack, one and all stood cowed-like and silent.
They seemed to know the temper of my protector as well as his sword; and this no doubt for the time restrained them.
But the true secret of their backwardness was to be sought for in the six-shooters, one of which I now held in each hand. The Mexicans had just become acquainted with the character of this splendid weapon—first used in battle in that same campaign—and its destructive powers, by report exaggerated tenfold, inspired them, as it had done the Prairie Indians, with a fear almost supernatural.
Perhaps to this sentiment was I indebted for my salvation. Brave as my protector was, and skilled as he might be with his toledo—quick and sure as I could have delivered my twelve shots—what would all have availed against a mob of infuriated men, already a hundred strong, and every moment augmenting? One, perhaps both, of us must have fallen before their fury.
It may seem strange to talk of sentiment, in such a crisis as that in which I was placed. You will be incredulous of its existence. And yet, by my honour, it did exist. I felt it, as certainly as I ever did in my life.