Do not draw me without cause,
Or sheathe me without honour.
The blade was red with blood. Diaz shaded his eyes with his right hand, and tried to pierce the distant obscurity. All at once he perceived at the end of the luminous zone projected by the fires, the man he was seeking. He was making furious evolutions on his horse, and uttering shouts of defiance. Diaz remembered the speech of the haciendado about the horse he had given him—“The Indian whom you pursue must be mounted on the wings of the wind if you do not catch him,” and he resolved to make the attempt. The noble animal, excited by the spur, leaped over the intrenchments overthrown by the Indians, and the two were soon side by side. The Indian brandished his hatchet, Diaz his sword, and for some seconds there was a trial of agility, courage, and address. Each sustained his country’s reputation, but the Indian’s hatchet broke to pieces the sword of the Mexican. The two combatants then seized one another round the body and tried to drag each other from their horses, but like centaurs, each seemed to form a part of the animal he bestrode.
At last Diaz disengaged himself from his adversary’s clasp, and backed his horse, still facing the Indian. Then, when he was a little way off, he caused his horse to rear so furiously that the animal seemed for a moment to be raised over the Indian. At the same moment Diaz lifted his right leg, and with a blow from the large heavy iron-bound stirrup, broke his adversary’s skull, whom his horse carried away dead from the spot.
This last magnificent exploit seemed to end the battle; some arrows flew harmlessly around Diaz, who was welcomed back with shouts of triumph by his companions.
“Poor Benito!” cried Baraja; “may God rest his soul, I regret even his terrific histories.”
“What is still more to be regretted,” interrupted Oroche, “is the death of the illustrious Cuchillo, the guide of the expedition.”
“Your ideas are still confused from the blow you received on your head,” said Diaz, as he tried the flexibility of a new sword. “But for the illustrious Cuchillo, as you call him, we should not have lost to-night at least twenty brave comrades. Cuchillo unluckily died a day too late, and I cannot say ‘God rest his soul.’”
Meanwhile the Indians were deliberating. The last exploit of Diaz, the death that so many of their party had met with in the camp, and those killed by the filing, had thinned their ranks.
The Indian never persists in a hopeless struggle: a singular mixture of prudence and contempt of life characterises this singular race, and prudence counselled them to retreat; they did so precipitately as they had attacked.
But the tactics of the white men were different; they were anxious to profit by a victory the fame of which would penetrate to the furthest end of the desert, and render their future more secure. Therefore an order to pursue the fugitives given by Don Estevan was received with acclamations. Twenty cavaliers instantly rushed forward, Pedro Diaz among the foremost. Sword in one hand, and lasso and bridle in the other, he was soon out of sight.