“Fire off both your barrels!” he directs on the instant; and, without lowering the glass, “Allow a little time between, that our people mayn’t mistake it for a single shot.”
The English youth, elevating the muzzle of his gun, presses the front trigger, and then, after an interval, the back one, and the shots in succession go reverberating along the cliff in echo upon echo.
Scarce have these died away when the Mexican again speaks, this time not only to say the other two signals are to be given, but with words and in tone telling of even more. “Carramba!” he cries out, “just as I expected, and worse! Apaches, and the cruellest, most hostile of all, Coyoteros! Quick, muchacho!” he continues, still keeping the telescope to his eye, “pull the pistols out of my belt and fire off both.”
Again two loud cracks, with a few seconds of time between, resound along the cliff, while the dusky horsemen, now near enough for their individual forms to be distinguishable by the naked eye, are seen to have come to a halt, seated on their horses and gazing upward. But through the glass Vicente sees more, which still further excites him.
“Por todos demonios esta El Cascabel!” (By all the devils it’s the Rattlesnake!)
“El Cascabel!” echoes the English youth, less puzzled by the odd name than surprised at the manner of him who has pronounced it. “Who is he, Don Pedro?”
“Ah, señorito! you’ll find that out too soon—all of us, I fear, to our cost. Yes!” he goes on talking, with the telescope still upheld, “’tis El Cascabel, I can make out the death’s head on his breast, original pattern of that on my own. He and his made the copy, the brutes burning it into my flesh in sheer wanton mockery. Malraya! we’re in for it now; a siege till the crack of doom, or till all of us are starved dead. No hope of escaping it.”
“But if we surrender, might they not be merciful?”
“Merciful! surrender to the Rattlesnake! That would be as putting ourselves in the power of the reptile he takes his name from. You forget Gil Perez and his massacre.”
“No, indeed. But was it Coyoteros he massacred?”