The cacique bade his men drop their arms—almost a needless recommendation.
“Take her,” he said sullenly.
Campbell pointed to the man whom he had knocked down. “Take away his knife,” he said, addressing his 54 boatswain, a burly Yankee. “Now—you have attempted to kill an Englishman, and you shall die.” Don Pedro felt the edge of the knife and gave it a final “strop” on his palm. “I’m going to cut his head off, as a warning to the rest of you,” he said, so sternly that the Indians and even the cacique uttered little cries of terror.
Ascencion began to think that Englishmen were no more merciful than other people; for, as the Indian crouched whimpering at Don Pedro’s feet, he stooped and brandished the knife with all the coolness of a butcher. But, to her amazement, when he stood up again, the head was still in its normal position, while, in his left hand, Campbell held the braided pigtail of hair, full five feet long, which had proudly adorned the head of the would-be assassin; and he, still doubting his good fortune in having got off so cheaply, sprang up and made headlong for the woods.
This is but one of the scores of anecdotes told of the celebrated soldier of fortune, Peter Campbell, who, whatever may have been his faults, was never known to show fear, to be disloyal to his employers or unjust to the Indians; indeed, by his unfailing good nature and sense of fairness and fun, he succeeded in adjusting many a tribal or political grievance which in the hands of most men, however well-meaning, would probably have ended in bloodshed.
The Portuguese girl was taken up the river, and when she returned to her parents she was accompanied by a husband, for she married an Irish settler in Corrientes.