Like a sling he spins the lazo loop around his head. So eager is he to throw it with sure aim, that he does not appear to take heed of what the fugitive has said—spoken as she went at full speed: for she made no stop, while calling out to the “Tejanos.” He may fancy it has been addressed to himself—a final appeal for mercy, uttered in a language he does not understand: for Isidora had spoken in English.
He is only undeceived, as the sharp crack of a rifle comes echoing out of the glen,—or perhaps a little sooner, as a stinging sensation in his wrist causes him to let go his lazo, and look wonderingly for the why!
He perceives a puff of sulphureous smoke rising from below.
A single glance is sufficient to cause a change in his tactics. In that glance he beholds a hundred men, with the gleam of a hundred gun barrels!
His three followers see them at the same time; and as if moved by the same impulse, all four turn in their tracks, and gallop away from the cliff—quite as quickly as they have been approaching it.
“’Tur a pity too,” says Zeb Stump, proceeding to reload his rifle. “If ’t hedn’t a been for the savin’ o’ her, I’d a let ’em come on down the gully. Ef we ked a captered them, we mout a got somethin’ out o’ ’em consarnin’ this queer case o’ ourn. Thur aint the smell o’ a chance now. It’s clur they’ve goed off; an by the time we git up yander, they’ll be hellurd.”
The sight of the savages has produced another quick change in the tableau formed in front of the mustanger’s hut—a change squally sudden in the thoughts of those who compose it.
The majority who deemed Maurice Gerald a murderer has become transformed into a minority; while those who believed him innocent are now the men whose opinions are respected.
Calhoun and his bullies are no longer masters of the situation; and on the motion of their chief the Regulator Jury is adjourned. The new programme is cast in double quick time. A score of words suffice to describe it. The accused is to be carried to the settlement—there to be tried according to the law of the land.