“If I haven’t settled his hash,” pursues Vicente, “then a man may get a bullet through midribs, and live afterwards—a thing not likely. Or I’m much mistaken, mine went straight centreways into the white—that sweet thing I’ve such reason to remember—unluckily for him painted too conspicuously.”
“It must have been El Cascabel, if you saw that.”
“He it was, or I shouldn’t have been so quick on the trigger. Indeed, I wasn’t so confident about the carry of my piece. ’Twas a long shot.”
“The bullet may have hit without killing him—spent, and only stunned him?”
“If your worship feels inclined for a bet, I’ll lay big odds that ere this the Rattlesnake has kicked his last kick, or, to put it more appropriately, wriggled his last wriggle.”
The auditory gathered around the gambusino would laugh at his quaint words, but ere they give way to the inclination it is checked by other words quick following in exclamatory tones,
“Bet’s off, your worship—too late! I’m not the man to dishonour myself by wagering on a certainty. Oigate! you hear that?”
Don Estevan does hear, as the others, sounds ascending from below—human voices, in that melancholy cadence which tells of lamentation for the dead. They come from the direction of the camp, in a wild crooning wail, now and then a stave, as if coyotes were taking part in the lugubrious chorus. At intervals, also, there are other notes, differently intoned; loud angry ejaculations, the Apache war-cry, proclaiming vengeance only to be satisfied with blood for blood.
For nearly an hour the infernal fracas is kept up, the volume of voice continuous, and redoubled by reverberation along the cliffs. Then it is abruptly brought to a close, succeeded by a silence mysterious and ominous in itself. Can it be that in their insane anger the savages have resolved upon the ascent, coûte-qui-coûte? The darkness, dense as ever, would favour, and might tempt them.
There is enough probability in it to make the videttes more vigilant, and their numbers are now greater. After an event of such serious consequence, most of the people—women and children excepted—are up and active, moving backwards and forwards between their place of bivouac by the spring and the ravine’s head, all careful not to approach this point too near. The big muskets admonish them; though as yet no shot from one, nor from any other sort of piece, has been fired by the savages. If they mean assault, it will be by stealth, and in silence.