Don Bernardo, uneasy at the noise he heard, left the head of the escort, and came galloping back to ascertain what was going on, and to pacify the tumult.
Unluckily, the popular feeling had risen with so much rapidity, that at several points the ranks had been broken, the soldiers isolated, and--how it happened no one could say--disarmed, with unexampled celerity, by persons of whom they had no knowledge. In short the procession was cut in two.
Don Bernardo saw at a glance the gravity of the situation. Making way, with considerable difficulty, through the crowd, he rode up to the sergeant, who, cool and imperturbable, still stuck to his prisoner.
"Aha!" said the colonel, with a sigh of satisfaction, "Take me good care of the prisoner. Close up! I fear you will be obliged to open a passage by main force."
"We will open one, do not you be alarmed, colonel. But to the devil with the sun! It blinds one."
The moment he uttered these words, a soldier who was close at hand seized the colonel's leg, and threw him from his horse on the ground. In the same instant, Luco caught hold of the bridle, while Don Guzman, rapid as thought vaulted into the saddle.
What we have related took place so suddenly, and the whole was done so adroitly, that Don Bernardo, completely confounded, was nailed to the ground by a bayonet before he could comprehend what was happening: it is even probable that he died without guessing the cause of the riot.
In the meantime, the twelve riders of the platoon had closed around their ex-prisoner, and started at full speed through the thickest of the throng.
Then a curious thing occurred: these inquisitive gapers, who were an instant before so crowded and compact that they had broken through the line of soldiery, open right and left before the fugitives, shouted their joy at their success, and, the moment they had passed, closed up the breach they had themselves made, and again presented an impassable human barrier to the rearguard, which vainly strove to break it.
Armed men seemed to start suddenly out of the ground, gave the soldiers back blow for blow, and offered a resistance sufficiently energetic to allow time for the fugitives to secure their safety.
Then, suddenly as if by enchantment, these menacing crowds, which had so lately disputed the ground, retreated, melted away, in some manner or another; and that so speedily, that when the soldiers, recovered from their surprise, were prepared for a vigorous defence, there was no one in front of them: the insurgents had disappeared, without leaving any traces behind them.