his own escape was unseen, save by a guardsman drowsily pacing his beat
outside the square of buildings. The sentinel would have given the alarm,
had not the Indian pounced on him like a panther and laid him dead with a
knife-stroke.

Catching up the Spaniard, the Indian tied him to the back of a horse and
set off beside him. Thus they journeyed until they came to his lodge,
where he released the trader from his horse and fed him, but kept his
hands and legs hard bound, and paid no attention to his questions and his
appeals for liberty. Tying a strong and half-trained horse at his door,
Ta-in-ga-ro placed a wooden saddle on him, cut off the Spaniard's
clothes, and put him astride of the beast. After he had fastened him into
his seat with deer-skin thongs, he took Zecana's corpse from its wrapping
and tied it to his prisoner, face to face.

Then, loosing the horse, which was plunging and snorting to be rid of his
burden, he saw him rush off on the limitless desert, and followed on his
own strong steed. At first the Spaniard fainted; on recovering he
struggled to get free, but his struggles only brought him closer to the
ghastly thing before him. Noon-day heat covered him with sweat and blood
dripped from the wales that the cords cut in his flesh. At night he froze
uncovered in the chill air, and, if for an instant his eyes closed in
sleep, a curse, yelled into his ear, awoke him. Ta-inga-ro gave him drink
from time to time, but never food, and so they rode for days. At last
hunger overbore his loathing, and sinking his teeth into the dead flesh
before him he feasted like a ghoul.

Still they rode, Ta-in-ga-ro never far from his victim, on whose
sufferings he gloated, until a gibbering cry told him that the Spaniard
had gone mad. Then, and not till then, he drew rein and watched the horse