The noise of the battle was now approaching rapidly from the east and south.  The Tehuas were forcing his men into a confused mass; it was no longer an action, it was becoming a slaughter, a butchery of the vanquished.  Tyope felt as if chills and fever were alternately running through him; his people were without head, for the Hishtanyi Chayan was useless as a leader.  He must try to get through, and as it was impossible to force a passage, he determined to steal through at all hazards.

A number of Tehuas had passed without seeing him, in their eagerness to reach the slaughter-pen into which the timbered plateau above the Canada Ancha was converted.  Tyope improved the opportunity to slip from one tree to another, toward where the greatest uproar was heard.  Voices sounded quite near, and he cowered down between two cedars.  The voices came nearer, and the more he listened the more he became convinced that his own tongue was spoken.  He was on the point of rising and going up to the parties who spoke Queres, for they must be friends.  He distinctly heard his name.  He looked, and looked anxiously, for he preferred to find out who they were ere addressing them.  As they came closer he thought he recognized a woman’s voice.

Nearer and nearer came the voices, and at last a group of men stood out between the trees.  They were warriors of the Tehuas, and in their midst was a woman.  She was speaking to one of them in the language of the Rito, and all around her seemed to be attentively listening.  He stared at her,—­stared, his eye-balls starting from their sockets, his face colouring and then becoming almost black.  Had any one seen Tyope at that moment he must have taken him for some baffled and terrified demon from the nether world.

He felt neither indignation nor passion.  His heart stood still; so wonderful was the discovery he was making that he was benumbed, body and soul!  For that woman who so confidently stood in the midst of the enemies of her tribe, and who spoke to them with an air of assurance bordering upon authority, uttering his own name time and again, was Shotaye!

Once more his passion came back, and delirious with rage and frenzied with fury he lifted the bow with the ready arrow.  But so monstrous was the sight to his eyes that his hand dropped paralyzed, and he was unable to speed the shaft.  He stood disarmed, and stared, gaping like a fiend in despair who does not venture to oppose his master.  He understood now the connection of events, the unexpected ambush.  He saw that it could not have happened otherwise.  He saw it clearly, to his shame!  The woman whom he had persecuted for years, and whom he was certain that he should destroy utterly at the end of this campaign, had outwitted him and destroyed his plans and hopes forever.  Then let her suffer for it!  He raised his bow, dropped it again and stared.  It was not pity that fettered his otherwise ruthless hand; it was superstitious fear.  That Shotaye