A yell of joy greeted this finale, and the two ladies were led to the posts. "There is still time," the Stag whispered in a hollow voice in the maiden's ear; "save yourself; save your mother! One word, but one, and you will escape the horrible punishment that threatens you." "No," she answered in a firm voice, "I will not save myself by a cowardly deed; my fate is in the hands of God, and He can deliver me if He wills it." "Summon thy God to thy help, then, proud fool, but make haste, for in a second it will be too late." Suddenly, as if God wished to confound the blasphemer, a discharge of musketry burst forth like a thunderclap, and thirty horsemen dashed into the clearing, uttering cries of defiance and felling all who opposed their passage with sabre cuts and blows with their gun stocks. The Indians, who fancied themselves safe in their den, were terrified by this sudden attack, for which they were the less prepared, because the majority of them, supposing that they were going to celebrate a festival, had thrown their weapons pell-mell in a corner of the clearing. At the first moment the medley was frightful; the Indians fell like ripe corn beneath the strokes of the hunters. The women, half mad with terror, escaped in all directions, uttering fearful shrieks. Some warriors, however, had succeeded in recovering their lances, and prepared for a regular resistance. "Ah!" the majordomo shouted, as he seized Doña Diana in his arms, "Dead or alive, you shall not escape me." And lifting the maiden as if she were an infant, he started for the teocali. "Mother; help, help!" the maiden shrieked in terror. Doña Emilia leapt on the Indian and clung to him like a lioness; it was in vain that the latter tried to free himself; maternal love had increased her strength a hundredfold. "Hold on, hold on!" Oliver shouted, as he made his horse leap over the corpses. The Stag heard him, and he understood that his victim would escape him. "Ah!" he shouted wildly, "Die then!" And raising his scalping knife, he tried to stab her to the heart; but, with a movement swift as thought, Doña Emilia threw herself before the knife which completely disappeared in her throat. "Thank you, my God!" she exclaimed, as she clung to the arm of the Comanche with a last supreme effort. At the same moment Clary's sabre descended on the head of the chief, who rolled on the ground with cloven skull, dragging down with him the two females, one of whom was in the death agony, while the other had fainted, but was saved by her mother's heroic devotion. With the assistance of some of his comrades, Oliver raised the captives from the ground. The battle was at an end; the Comanches had fled, leaving the clearing encumbered with corpses and a number of wounded, whom the implacable warriors set to work dispatching with the cold cruelty of men accustomed to such a task.