And then a miracle seemed to happen. Suddenly, there was not an enemy within reach of his sabre, for boloman was fighting boloman, or, rather, the newcomers were slaying his enemies for him. The corporal lowered the point of his sabre—he had lost a great deal of blood, and the weight of the weapon now seemed almost unbearable—then he turned to his comrade with a question in his eyes, and, before the other had time to answer, lurched forward in a dead faint.
When the corporal recovered his senses, he was lying on a pile of blankets under a palm-leaf shelter. His left hand, which was bandaged up, was very painful—that was his first impression; then he began to remember, vaguely at the outset, seeing everything as through a mist of blood, which cleared away suddenly when it struck him that he was a prisoner amongst the ladrones, and he knew how ladrones treated Spanish prisoners. Better to have died there, at the foot of the big tree. Still, they should get no sign of weakness from him.
He closed his eyes whilst he repeated a prayer, then opened them again, to see a native, whose face was somehow familiar, standing beside him, regarding him with grave interest.
The corporal returned the look, then raised himself on his unwounded arm. “You are Felizardo!” he cried.
Felizardo nodded. “Yes, Senor, it is Felizardo. You remember last time, outside Don José’s warehouse, you saved me? Now”—he bowed slightly—“I am able to save you, also from ladrones.”
The corporal lay back again. This was an unprecedented situation, for which there was no provision made in the Regulations; for this same Felizardo was a ladrone who had slain a priest. At first, he tried to think what would be the correct thing to do; but in the end he could only jerk out a question: “Why did you do it?”
Felizardo waved his hand. “Those ladrones who burned Igut captured some of my men’s wives—that was all. We came on you by chance, and I was glad to pay my debt.”
The corporal breathed heavily. He did not intend to show any anxiety, but he wanted to know his fate. “And now?” he asked.
Felizardo smiled slightly. “Now, if you like, you may go back to Calocan at once; or, if you would honour me, stay with me in my mountains until your wound is healed.”
From any other native, the mere invitation, even without the phrase “my mountains,” would have stirred the corporal’s deepest wrath; but somehow he realised, almost with a sense of humiliation, that this native was a stronger man than himself. For a moment, he was inclined to accept, then he remembered he must go back and report—his defeat.