At his orders, the sailors, taking the maiden in their midst, ran off in the direction of the seashore. In the distance, drums and bugles could be heard calling the soldiers under arms, and on the horizon the black outline of a large body of troops hurrying up, with the evident intention of cutting off the retreat of the Texans, could be distinguished. Panting and exhausted, the latter still ran on; they could see the coast; a few minutes more and they would reach it. All at once a band, commanded by the White Scalper, dashed upon them, shouting-- "Down with the Texans! kill them! kill them!" "Oh, my God!" Carmela exclaimed, falling on her knees, and clasping her hands fervently; "will you abandon us?" "Lads," the Captain said, addressing his sailors, "we cannot talk about conquering, but we will die." "We will, Captain," the sailors answered unanimously, as they formed front against the Mexicans. "Father," said Doña Carmela, "will you let me fall alive into the hands of that tiger?" "No," said Tranquil, as he kissed her pale forehead; "here is my dagger, child?" "Thanks!" she replied, as she seized it with eyes sparkling with joy. "Oh, now I am certain of dying free." Lest they should be surrounded, the Texans leant their backs against a rock, and awaited with levelled bayonets the attack of the Texans. "Surrender, dogs!" the Scalper shouted contemptuously. "Nonsense!" the Captain answered; "you must be mad, Señor. Do men like us ever surrender?" "Forward!" the Scalper shouted. The Mexicans rushed on their enemies with indescribable rage. A heroic and gigantic struggle then began, a combat impossible to describe of three hundred men against thirty: a horrible and merciless carnage, in which none demanded quarter, while the Texans, certain of all falling, would not succumb till buried under a pile of hostile corpses. After twenty minutes, that lasted an age, only twelve Texans remained on their legs. The Captain, Tranquil, Quoniam, and nine sailors, remained alone, accomplishing prodigies of valour. "At last!" the Scalper shouted, as he dashed forward to seize Doña Carmela. "Not yet," Tranquil said, as he dealt a blow at him with his axe. The Scalper avoided the blow by leaping on one side, and replied with his machete; Tranquil fell on his knee with a pierced thigh. "Oh!" he said in despair; "She is lost! My God, lost!" Carmela understood that no hope was left her; she therefore placed the dagger against her bosom, and said to the Scalper--"One step further, and I fall dead at your feet!" In spite of himself, this savage man, terrified by the resolution he saw flashing in the maiden's eye, hesitated for a second, but, reassuming almost immediately his old ferocity, he shouted--"What do I care, so long as you belong to no one else!"