"Art thou besotted?—God forgive thee!—this is impiety."
The magician held his peace; for about this time, the Mexicans, knowing that this band, diminished, disordered, and divided by the ditch into two feeble parties, was the sole remaining fragment of oppression, and determined that no invader should escape alive, rushed upon the causeway on all sides with such savage violence as seemed irresistible. Those who had not yet crossed, broke in affright, and flung themselves into the sluice with such speed, that, in a few moments, Don Amador began to think that he and Botello were the only Christians left.
"Why dost thou hold me, madman?" he cried. "Let me free."
"Hark! dost thou not hear?—there are Christian men behind us," said Botello.—"Courage! What if these devils be thicker than the thoughts of sin in man's heart, fiercer than conscience, deadlier than remorse; yet shall we pass them unharmed.—Patience! 'Tis the voice of a Spaniard, I tell thee, and behind!"
"It is in front:—hark! 'tis Don Hernan!"
"It is behind, and it is the cry of Alvarado! Let us return, and give him aid. Ho, ye that fly! return! the Tonatiuh is shouting behind us: will ye desert him?—Return, return!"
Before Amador could remonstrate, the lunatic, for at this moment, more than any other, Botello seemed to deserve the name, had dragged him to the top of the dike, where he stood exposed to the view and the shots of the foe. A thousand arrows were aimed at the pair.
"Thou art a dead man!" said Amador.
"Dost thou not see the star?" cried the magician, impatiently. "Not a bird hath yet flapped her wing, not an eagle hath fled from her cliff; and my star, my star——"
As he spoke, he let go his hold of the cavalier, to point exultingly at the diminutive luminary. At that very instant, an arrow, aimed close at hand, struck the neophyte on the breast, entering the mail at a place rent by blows of a previous day, and, without wounding him, forced its way out through links hitherto uninjured.