This promise was fulfilled, and for the next week or two the girls shared the old woman's hut together at night, being kept by day in attendance on the cacique's wife, who, if she made them work hard at cooking, corn-grinding, and rough weaving, was at least not unkind to them. But this is not to say that these Indians were not cruel by nature and habit. One day after a foraging party had returned, the cacique approached the two prisoners, and addressing them in Portuguese, said roughly: "Come with me. Come and see what is in store for any of your friends who attempt to rescue you." They followed him tremblingly to the centre of the camp, and there found a young Spaniard, bound hand and foot to pegs that were driven into the ground. He had been caught wandering in the forest, and, being unarmed, was an easy capture. At a word from the chief, a dozen men stepped back from the prostrate lad, and drawing their bows, each sent an arrow straight at him. Every arrow but one transfixed the body; that one was ceremoniously burnt and its ashes buried; it was in disgrace for having missed its mark. This murder was the only exhibition of cruelty which Ascencion witnessed at that camp, though almost every day the cacique threatened her and her sister with death if they made any attempt to escape. As far as they could gather, they were to be kept till the next general meeting of the tribe, and then sold or bartered as wives to the two highest bidders. When they had been in captivity a little over a fortnight some young men of the tribe rode hastily into the camp one evening and called excitedly for the cacique. They had, said they, been pursued by a strong party of Macabi Indians (one of the Peruvian sub-tribes) who had never altogether lost sight of them, and were even now making a descent on the camp. Instantly the whole tribe turned out, with bows, spears, hatchets, and some few even with muskets. The alarm was no false one. The Macabis, about eighty in number, badly mounted, but far better armed than were the Abipons, were in sight, and would soon endeavour to surround the _tolderia_, the inhabitants of which, so far from showing any sign of unreadiness to do battle, or anxiety as to the issue thereof, were quickly and joyously disposing themselves to the best advantage. Indeed, they were the first to open fire; but the harmless volley from the half-dozen ramshackle old muskets was answered by a deadly shower of well-aimed bullets from at least forty guns. The two slave girls, crouching with some other women in one of the huts, could catch glimpses of the fight through the chinks in the matting. To an outsider it might seem that Ascencion would care little as to the result of the conflict, but the Peruvians were a fierce tribe, far more uncivilised than their enemies--who were, for the most part, Christians--and to fall into their hands would probably involve far worse treatment than she had undergone at the hands of her original captors.