"The blood shed by the Apache warriors has been ransomed by the Comanche squaws," he said; "the ground is saturated with it; grief can now give way to joy, and my brothers enter their village with heads erect, for the Master of Life is satisfied." Then taking from the hands of the hachesto the totem which the latter had been waving round his head, he stationed himself on the right hand of Black-deer, and entered the village with the warriors, amid the deafening shouts of the crowd, and to the sound of the instruments which had recommenced their infernal charivari. The procession marched straight to the great square where the scalp dance was to take place. Loyal Heart and his comrades desired most eagerly to escape this ceremony; but it would have been a great insult to the Indians to do so, and they were compelled to follow the warriors, whether they liked it or not. On passing before the hunter's rancho, they noticed that all the windows were hermetically closed. Doña Jesuita, not at all desirous to witness the cruel sight, had shut herself up; but No Eusebio, whose nerves were probably harder, was standing in the doorway, carelessly smoking his cigarette, and watching the procession defile, which, by Loyal Heart's orders, he had preceded by a few moments, in order to reassure Doña Jesuita as to the result of the engagement. When the whole tribe had assembled on the square, the scalp dance commenced. In our previous works we have had occasion to describe this ceremony, so we will say nothing of it here, except that, contrary to the other dances, it is performed by the squaws, and that on this occasion it was Black-deer's newly-married wife who led the dance, in her quality of squaw of the Chief who had commanded the expedition. The Apache prisoners had been fastened to stakes erected expressly; and for some hours they were exposed to the ridicule, jests, and insults of their enemies without displaying the slightest emotion. When the dance at length ended, the time for torture arrived. We will not dwell on the frightful sufferings inflicted on the wretched men whom their evil destiny had delivered into the hands of their implacable foes, for we have no desire to describe horrible scenes; we have even felt a repugnance to allude to them, but are bound to be faithful historians. As we have undertaken the task of making known the manners of races hitherto almost unknown, and which are destined so shortly to disappear, we will not fail in our duty, and in order that our readers may thoroughly understand what Indian torture is, we will describe the punishment inflicted on one of the prisoners, a renowned Apache Chief. This Chief was a young man of five-and-twenty at the most, of lofty and well-proportioned stature; his features were noble, and his glance stern, and though severely wounded in the action, it was only when literally overwhelmed by numbers, that he had fallen upon the pile of his warriors who had died bravely at his side.