The captain surveyed him with a bitter smile on his lips, and with his arms crossed upon his chest. But the exhausted nerves of the hunter could sustain him no longer; his clenched fingers relaxed their hold of the post he had seized with the energy of despair. "Hangman! be for ever accursed!" he cried, with an accent of frantic rage. And he fell. "A good journey to you!" said the captain, sneeringly. An immense clamour arose from the gates of the fort. The captain rushed to the assistance of his people. The Comanches had gained possession of the barricades. They rushed in a crowd into the interior of the fort, massacring and scalping the enemies whom they encountered in their passage. Four American soldiers only were left standing; the others were dead. The captain entrenched himself in the middle of the staircase which led to the platform. "My friends," he said to his comrades, "die without regret, for I have killed the man who betrayed us." The soldiers replied by a shout of joy to this novel consolation, and prepared to sell their lives dearly. But at this moment an incomprehensible thing took place. The cries of the Indians ceased, as if by enchantment. The attack was suspended. "What are they about now?" the captain muttered; "What new devil's trick have these demons invented?" Once master of all the approaches to the fort, Eagle Head ordered the fight to cease. The colonists who were made prisoners in the village were brought, one after another, into his presence: there were twelve of them, and four were women. When these twelve unfortunates stood trembling before him, Eagle Head commanded the women to be set apart. Ordering the men to pass one by one before him, he looked at them attentively, and then made a sign to the warriors standing by his side. The latter instantly seized the Americans, chopped off their hands at the wrists with their knives, and, after having scalped them, pushed them into the fort. Seven colonists underwent this atrocious torture, and there remained but one. He was an old man of lofty stature, thin, but still active; his hair, white as snow, fell on his shoulders; his black eyes flashed, but his features remained unmoved; he waited, apparently impassible, till Eagle Head should decide his fate, and send him to join the unfortunates who had preceded him. But the chief continued to survey him attentively. At length the features of the savage expanded, a smile played upon his lips, and he held out his hand to the old man,-- "_Usted no conocer amigo?_" (No you know friend?) he said to him in bad Spanish, the guttural accent of his race. At these words the old man started, and looked earnestly at the Indian in his turn. "Oh!" said he, with astonishment, "El Gallo!" (the Cock.) "Wah!" replied the chief, with satisfaction, "I am a friend of the grey head; redskins have not two hearts: my father saved my life,--my father shall come to my hut."