"Your prisoners! You are joking!" cried they.
"It is time!" cried Don Armero, who up to this time had remained a silent, but not disinterested, witness of the scene.
Zeno Cabral had not made a movement. At the cry of Juan Armero the glade had, as if by magic, filled with soldiers.
Don Roque and Don Eusebio saw that they were lost. Followed by Don Sebastiao, who had boldly placed himself at their side, a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other, they rushed on the nearest Montoneros, and tried to force a passage.
There was a moment of frightful tumult, mixed with cries and imprecations of rage or pain--the sound of firearms--a hurried tramping--and then calmness suddenly ensued.
Don Eusebio, his left arm broken by a ball, was lying on the ground, tightly bound with a lasso; Don Roque and Don Sebastiao, both unwounded, were also bound, and crouching on the ground, at a few paces from General Moratín; as to M. Dubois, at the moment when he drew two pistols from his pocket and prepared, though he was no soldier, to sell his life dearly, he had received a ball in the middle of the forehead, and was lying dead.
Mataseis and Sacatripas tried to gain the money which they had received; they alone had drawn, Zeno Cabral having given the order to seize the conspirators without wounding them, if possible.
The partisan then approached the prisoners.
"Do you now admit that you are in my power?" said he.
"All is not yet finished," answered the marquis, with disdain; "I have not come here alone; I have troops--"
"Listen," said Zeno Cabral to him, sharply interrupting him.
At this moment a horrible clamour arose in the plain.
"What is that?" cried the marquis, with alarm.
"The war cry of Indians," coldly answered the partisan--"who are massacring your soldiers."
"Oh, it is not--it cannot be--my soldiers are brave, they will defend themselves," cried the general.
"They will be massacred," pursued Zeno Cabral, "and those who will escape the massacre will be burned alive."
"Do you not see that, for some time, the air is rarefied; the Indians have fired the plain;" and turning towards the Montoneros, "To horse!" cried he, in a thundering voice, "To horse! We have scarcely the time to escape!"
"Oh! These men are wild beasts!" cried the marquis.