A very decided retrograde movement then began among the Indians; they stopped and formed a wide circle about twenty yards from the two ladies; it was probable that not one of them was anxious to venture within reach of a woman whom all regarded as the evil genius of their nation. The white men, or at least those who wore that dress, were alone bold enough to approach her, which they did not do, however, without very marked hesitation. At last, after exchanging a few words in a low voice, two of the bravest of them ventured to assist the unhappy ladies, while the others, who stopped a few yards off, kept their finger on the trigger, ready to fire at the slightest suspicious movement on the part of the prisoners. But they had nothing to fear from them; their fall had crushed them; they were nearly fainting, and could scarce keep up. "If you are Christians," Doña Emilia murmured, in a faint voice, "help my daughter, my poor child; she is dying." They made no reply, but after raising the two ladies with a species of sorrowful pity, they transported them to the top of the hill, and laid them on furs near a fire, which the Indians had lit while they were being brought up. Doña Diana then noticed that the horses lying on the ground, behind which the defenders of the mound had sheltered themselves, were not killed, as her mother had supposed, but merely bound so that they could not stir. "Oh, my presentiments!" she murmured feebly, as she raised her eyes to heaven. And she fainted, succumbing as much to the grief that filled her heart, as to the physical suffering she experienced. CHAPTER XXIV. OLIVER CLARY. As we have seen, Running Water and his comrades attacked Count de Melgosa after White Crow had summoned him to surrender. The unexpected arrival of Doña Emilia had not only foiled the plans of the Comanche chiefs, but also caused such a panic among their warriors that, in spite of the efforts of the sachems to rally them, they were even really themselves carried off and constrained to seek safety in a hurried flight. In a retreat so precipitate as that effected by the redskins, the feeling of terror so rules over all other feelings, that the voice of the chiefs are despised, their orders are unlistened to, and each man running off at a venture, seeks his own safety without troubling himself about the rest. After a mad ride through bush and briar, and not following any settled direction, Running Water, who was involuntarily affected by the general terror, stopped, quite out of breath, and fell at the foot of a Peru tree, which rose alone in the centre of a spacious plain.