After all, is he going to let himself be surrounded, and approached in this easy manner? Such is the interrogatory which passes among those watching from above, for the videttes have returned to their post, with others accompanying them.
One answers it, saying, “It’s not at all likely. He let himself be taken in a trap! More like the redskins will find themselves in one before long. See! they begin to find it now!”
This, from Pedro Vicente in his old spirit, as he points to the line of savages far extended.
The files have by this faced westward, but are advancing towards the stream; now, on nearing it, they are seen to stop abruptly as if in surprise. Then, after an instant, all wheel round and ride back eastward, till getting on their old line, they return at a gallop towards their camp. They have discovered the stream to be impassable.
“That horse is the demonio himself,” says Pedro Vicente—“neither more nor less. He must have known they could not cross the swollen streamlet, or he’d never have stopped by it as he has done. But they’ve not given him up yet. No! see: they’re going round by the head of the lake.”
Just this they intend, as is seen by their advancing towards the point where the lake commences by the mouth of the ravine. They have no difficulty in crossing its in-going stream, a few minutes after the rain ceased having reduced this to its normal condition of a tiny rivulet.
And like some dark, disagreeable vision Henry Tresillian sees pass before his eyes the savage cohort, file after file, one disappearing after another, till at length no animated form is observable on the plain below, save that their eyes have been hitherto regarding with interest.
There is a long interval without event; nearly an hour elapses ere Crusader shows any sign, his head almost continuously to the grass, raised only occasionally, as he changes place upon it. All this time the Indians are out of sight, with no sound coming from the direction they had taken.
But at length there is a sound, a startled neigh from the black horse, who, tossing his crest in air, rears upward with a curving sweep, and then darts straight away, as if in flight from an advancing enemy—the enemy seen instantly afterwards as several mounted men disclose themselves from the western framework of rock, all in a tail-on-end gallop.
Crusader has taken along the edge of the stream, and follows it in parallel direction downwards, just as he fled before from the same pursuers. There would seem no chance of their overtaking him now; for he appears to gain distance at every bound, without even straining himself. But lo! what is that?