The sword glittered with red for a second or two, then as it whirled in its hissing circle, it cleared again and the light reflected from the smooth steel.
It was a rock that got him, a rock expertly thrown. At that there must have been an element of luck in it, for the rock was thrown by the young girl who had crawled to the outer edge of the circle of combatants.
It arched over the heads of the warriors, and dropped from the half darkness, squarely upon the top of the soldier’s head.
He would have shaken off the daze in a few seconds, but he was too hard pressed to stop even for an instant. The sword wavered for a moment in its glittering speed, and then they were on him like a pack of brown wolves dragging down a wounded buck. The whole place became but a swarming mass of seething bodies, and then the motion gradually subsided.
I moved my arms, testing the bonds which held me to see if there was any chance of escape. There was none. My arms might as well have been gripped in a vise.
Then the circle of red figures fell apart and I saw our warrior raised to his feet. His head was bleeding heavily from the cut the rock had inflicted. His arms were circled with cords, and there was still the half-dazed look in his eyes I have seen in the eyes of prize fighters when some unexpected blow has caught them with deadly force in the middle of conflict.
But he was still laughing, and I could see the gleam of his teeth.
About us gathered the enraged Indians. Many had wounds and they were in a deadly humor.
“Explain to them. Otherwise they will put us to death,” chattered Emilio Bender.
Explain! As well have tried to explain cold-blooded murder to twelve men in a jury box. All the smoldering enmity of these Indians against the white man had been fanned to life. They had captured us in the act of raiding them in their sacred cave. All we could hope for was that the end would be merciful. But that was a vain hope. They had been too careful to catch us alive.
If our Mexican could throw himself back three hundred years into some past incarnation under the influence of hypnotism, then these savage Indians could throw themselves back under the influence of rage until the traditions of millions of years of ancestors swayed them in what they were to do.
They jerked us together, tied the three of us with a rope which went around our necks. Many of them had nasty wounds from which blood was flowing in veritable rivulets. But they paid them no heed. Their obsidian-like eyes were glittering with a deadly rage.
The voice of the swordsman rang out. He was fully conscious once more.
“What sort of soldiers are you?” he cried at us. “Why didn’t you hold them here? You two should have had no trouble holding off the tribe. But you didn’t hold one. You let the whole band come down upon me. Soldiers! Bah!
“Where are the circles of dead bodies that should be in front of you? Not a body. You are both tied like a couple of rabbits being taken to the spit! Bah, you have disgraced the swords you carried!
“You, charioteer, did the best that could be expected of you. But how of you, soldier? Soldier indeed! You will answer to me for that falsehood! You are not a soldier. You are not even a charioteer!”
He would have said more, but they jerked on the rope which circled our necks, and we perforce shuffled forward in the half darkness.
Behind us, men looked to their own wounds, or gave treatment to the wounds of others. Ahead of us, some half dozen of the Indians jerked on the rope and took us forward at a half run.
“Don’t stumble,” I warned Emilio Bender, “or they will drag you to death, and the weight of your body will strangle us all.”
I knew something of Indian methods, and knew how hard it was to rush at a half trot through the darkness with hands tied.
Bender yammered some reply, but I could not catch it nor did I care greatly what it was. But he did not stumble.
I did not warn the Mexican. He had heard my warning to Bender, and he was not the sort to stumble, that soldier of a distant past, come to life to plunge us all into a conflict which mocked at history.
We came at length to a lighted chamber. There was a big fire in the center and the walls were black with smoke. This must have been the council chamber of the tribe for countless centuries.
They lined us up against a wall and there were iron loops driven into the solid rock of that wall. They tied us to these loops, and I could hear the laugh of the Mexican as the rope bit into his flesh.
“These are the loops we put into the wall to tie our prisoners to. Now they have turned the tables!”
I found nothing to laugh about, nor did Emilio Bender.
Chapter 9
The Magic of Gold
The Indians squatted in a circle to hold a conclave, and they talked in low tones.
“Will they kill us?” asked Bender.
“Ha!” chuckled the soldier. “Will they kill us! My white-livered scrivener, who talked like a soldier and fought like a coward — they will kill us by inches! Look you to the lofty walls of the cave. From those walls your screams of agony will echo back to you before another twenty-four hours have crossed the pathway of time.”
The remark got on Bender’s nerves.
“Yours, too!” he snapped.
“No,” said the soldier, simply. “I will not scream.”
I spoke to Bender in a low voice. “I have heard of a tribe which dwells in a secret pueblo. They come in to Zuñi to trade; and once or twice when I have been in Zuñi I have seen members of what I considered a new tribe. This is their secret: They make headquarters in this cave. If they are ever surprised on the outside, they pretend to be the ordinary run of Pueblo Indians. How savage they are I don’t know. Perhaps when they have had time to cool off I can barter with them. Remember, we know where there is a store of golden plunder which doubtless they consider sacred ornaments. For the present, our hope is that they will save us and not put us to immediate death.”
Bender grunted at that.
The soldier laughed aloud. “What a fight it would have been had the comrades of my army been with me!”
I turned to him. “Whatever possessed you to grab that girl?”
“Because I wanted to,” he said promptly enough. “I could see that there were not so many men but that three soldiers could hold them at bay. But you are a charioteer and would not know the pleasure of battle.”
That was, to him, sufficient reason. We stood there in a line against the wall, ropes knotted around our necks, ropes binding our arms behind us.
About the fire squatted the Indians in council. From time to time stragglers, more or less seriously wounded, came into the chamber of the cave. The women were treating those who had suffered the most, and in the distance I could hear that wailing cry of savage sorrow with which primitive people mourn for a loved one who is dead.
As the fire died down, fresh wood was piled on it. I noticed the shape of that wood. Plainly it had been cut short in order to be dragged in through an opening; it would not have been cut in such lengths to be hauled in over the long trail we had used. Nor was there any evidence of the entrance we had used being known to the Indians.
I hoped it was a secret entrance about which they did not know. That would give us a break — if we could find our way back to that hole, and if we had the chance to get loose.
The council droned into the small hours of the night. From what I could hear I gathered that the Indians were worried lest others should know that we had come to the cave. Before they decided what to do they wanted to make certain we were alone.