Stephens did not meet the cacique's eye. He was looking down at the prostrate figure on the ground. "So you've brought her back, Salvador," he remarked in an unruffled, every-day voice.
"Yes, I have," he replied brutally; "and I've given her something to keep her from ever running away again."
"It looks like it," said Stephens.
He took one hand out of his pocket, stooped down, and felt her head. "It looks like she'd never run anywhere again," he said.
He did not really believe that she was killed, but he thought it politic to assume so. His position placed him absolutely at the mercy of the Indian; but his voice, his manner, and his action conveyed the assumption that it was absolutely impossible that the Indian should dream of attacking him.
His coolness succeeded. The cacique lowered his whip and stepped back, while Stephens moved the girl's arms gently from her head. They fell limp on the earthen floor.
Stephens had seen some wild doings in Californian mining towns, but he never had seen a woman beaten in his life. Those limp arms sent a queer thrill through him. A sudden fury rose within him, but he mastered it. He felt her head all over slowly and carefully to see if the skull was fractured—as indeed it might well have been had she been struck with the loaded whip-handle. This gave him time to think of his next move.
"If you've killed her, you'll be hanged for it, Salvador," he said at last, in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone. "You and she are not citizens, but you'll be hanged all the same. The law of the Americans reaches here; understand that."
The Indian, whose passion was really more under control than seemed to be the case, was somewhat cowed at Stephens's deliberate statement, but he rejoined sullenly, "She's not dead. Lashes don't kill."