At the close of the attack, of all the Spaniards in the fort only the women and children remained alive—spared, no doubt, by order of the chief. These consisted of the hapless Miranda, the innocent cause of this bloody catastrophe, four other women, and as many children. The weeping captives were bound and brought before Siripa, the brother of Mangora, and his successor as cacique of the tribe.
No sooner had the new chief gazed on the woman whom his brother had loved, her beauty heightened in his eyes by her grief and woe, than a like passion was born in his savage soul, and he at once ordered his men to remove her bonds. He then told her that she must not consider herself a captive, and solicited her favor with the gentleness and address that love can implant in the breast of the savage as well as of the son of civilization. Her husband, he told her, was a forlorn fugitive in the forests of a hostile country; he was the chief of a powerful nation and could surround her with luxuries and wealth. Could she hesitate to accept his love in preference to that of a man who was lost to her.
These persuasions excited only horror and anguish in the soul of the faithful wife. Her love for her husband was proof against all that Siripa could say, and also against the fear of slavery or death, which might follow her rejection of his suit. In fact, death seemed to her a smaller evil than life as the wife of this savage suitor, and she rejected his offers with scorn and with a bitter contempt which she hoped would excite his rage and induce him to put her to instant death.
Her flashing eyes and excited words, however, had a very different effect from that she intended. They served only to heighten her charms in the eyes of the cacique, and he became more earnest than ever in his persuasions. Taking her to his village, he treated her with every mark of kindness and gentleness, and showed her the utmost respect and civility, doubtless hoping in this way to win her esteem and raise a feeling in her breast corresponding to his own.
Meanwhile, Hurtado and his men returned with the provisions they had collected, and viewed with consternation the ruins of the fort which they had so lately left. Their position was a desperate one, alone and undefended as they were, in the midst of treacherous tribes; but the fears which troubled the minds of his comrades did not affect that of Hurtado. He learned that his wife was a captive in the hands of the cacique of Timbuez, and love and indignation in his soul suppressed all other feelings. With a temerity that seemed the height of imprudence, he sought alone the village of the chief and demanded the release of his wife.