But they fared badly; John Davis, struck by the horse's chest, was hurled twenty feet, and fell to the ground; at the same instant his comrade's skull was broken, and he expired without a groan. This last incident gave the finishing stroke to the Indians, who, unable to overcome the terror with which this extraordinary man inspired them, began flying in all directions with yells of terror. The Scalper gave a glance of triumph and satisfied hatred at the sanguinary arena, where a dozen bodies lay stretched out, and urging his horse on, he caught up a fugitive, lifted him by the hair, and threw him over his saddle-bow, and disappeared in the forest with a horrible grin. Once again the Scalper had opened a bloody passage for himself. As for Fray Antonio, so soon as he saw that the fight had begun, he thought it needless to await its issue; he, therefore, took advantage of the opportunity, and gliding gently from tree to tree, he effected a skilful retreat and got clear off. CHAPTER XXIV. AFTER THE FIGHT. For more than half an hour the silence of death hovered over the clearing, which offered a most sad and lugubrious aspect through the fight we described in the preceding chapter. At length John Davis, who in reality had received no serious wound, for his fall was merely occasioned by the shock of the Scalper's powerful horse, opened his eyes and looked around him in amazement; the fall had been sufficiently violent to cause him serious bruises, and throw him into a deep fainting fit; hence, on regaining consciousness, the American, still stunned, did not remember a single thing that had happened, and asked himself very seriously what he had been doing to find himself in this singular situation. Still, his ideas grew gradually clearer, his memory returned, and he remembered the strange and disproportioned fight of one man against twenty, in which the former remained the victor, after killing and dispersing his assailants. "Hum!" he muttered to himself, "Whether he be man or demon, that individual is a sturdy fellow." He got up with some difficulty, carefully feeling his paining limbs; and when he was quite assured he had nothing broken, he continued with evident satisfaction-- "Thank Heaven! I got off more cheaply than I had a right to suppose, after the way in which I was upset." Then he added, as he gave a glance of pity to his comrade, who lay dead near him; "That poor Jim was not so lucky as I, and his fun is over. What a tremendous machete stroke he received! Nonsense!" he then said with the egotistic philosophy of the desert; "We are all mortal, each has his turn; to-day it's he, to-morrow I, so goes the world." Leaning on his rifle, for he still experienced some difficulty in walking, he took a few steps on the clearing in order to convince himself by a conclusive experiment that his limbs were in a sound state.