It was in vain that he tried to restore order in his ideas, or bring back his fugitive thoughts; the shock had been too rude; the commotion too strong; in spite of all his efforts he could not succeed in refastening the broken thread of his thoughts. He saw himself, alone, wounded, and abandoned on the seashore; he understood instinctively all the horror and desperation of his position; but no gleam of intelligence flashed across his brain to guide him in this fearful chaos. He was angry with himself at the impotence to which he found himself reduced and the impossibility of attempting anything to get only a few yards away from the sea, at the edge of which, he was lying, and which would infallibly swallow him up, if his weakness overcame his will and betrayed his courage. Then took place on that desolate shore a horrible drama, filled with moving and startling incidents--the wild struggles of a half-dead man striving to reconquer the existence which was ebbing from him, and struggling with savage energy against the death whose fatal hand already pressed heavily upon him. The slightest movement the Scalper attempted occasioned him unheard of sufferings, not only through the numerous wounds, whose lips were filled with sand and gravel, but also because he was compelled to confess to himself that all his efforts would lead to no result, and that, unless a miracle happened, he was infallibly lost. That miracle, which the wretch did not hope for, the very thought of which could not occur to him, Providence, whose ways are impenetrable, and who often only appears to save a guilty man to inflict on him a more terrible chastisement, was preparing to perform at the moment when the wounded man, his strength and energy exhausted, was falling back conquered on the beach, resolved to await coldly that death which he could not avoid. The Texans had scattered along the beach several parties of Freebooters, who were intended to watch the movements of the Mexican cruisers. These parties were all within hail of each other, and able to assemble at a given point with extreme rapidity. Chance willed it that when the Scalper's body was again thrown into the sea it touched shore not far from a rather large rancho standing close to the beach, and in which the most influential Chiefs of the Texan army were this night assembled, in prevision of the great events that were preparing. Naturally the approaches to the rancho were carefully guarded, and numerous patrols marched around it in order to ensure the safety of the Chiefs.