A cave near Cape San Antonio that the aborigines had chambered for tombs was their reputed hiding-place, where they also worshipped their master, Satan, with fantastic ceremonies, and sacrificed in his honor the best of the cattle, sheep, and horses they captured on their raids. And the utter helplessness of the Spanish authorities gave a certain color to these rumors, for the giants snapped their fingers at their pursuers and went on killing, looting, burning, running off stock, always appearing in unexpected places and disappearing like mists at sunrise. Thus, two and a half years went by, and the offer of five thousand dollars each for the heads of the devil-brigands had come to nothing. Finally the Havana authorities were prayed and pestered into a spell of activity. They organized a troop of one hundred and fifty men and sixty dogs, put twenty officers at the head, and sent along four chaplains to pray the evil charms away. The three savages were cornered on a mountain, where two of them were killed after they had inflicted many hurts on their pursuers. The heads of these two were lopped, forwarded to the capital, and every one supposed that the reign of terror was at an end. But, as if the strength of the slain ones had passed into his arm, the third man, Taito Perico, who had escaped during the fight, became a greater scourge than ever. He was fury incarnate, and so sudden were his visitations, so quick and deadly his work, so complete his disappearances, that more than ever it was believed he was a fiend. He resumed the work of slaughter in the Vuelta Arriba. He had a horse now, carried a huge lance, and killed or wounded almost every one he met,--but not all. There was in this black heart a core of sympathy. Once he stole a little child and kept her with him for some time, lavishing on her the affection of a barbarian big brother, and so endearing him to her that when she was rescued from his jungle haunt, while he was absent hunting, she wept for the kind Taito Perico, even in her parents' arms. Then he stole a boy of eight years and kept him for some months, allowing him at the end of that time to return unharmed to his parents.