The other horsemen crowded close, staring through the darkness.  It was very still in the woods; dawn was less than half an hour away.

“What is Evangelina thinking about?” Asensio muttered.

“But, see!  It grows brighter.”  There followed a moment or two during which there was no sound except the breathing of the horses and the creak of saddle leathers as the riders craned their necks to see over the low tree-tops below them.  Then Esteban cried: 

“Come!  I’m—­afraid it’s our house.”  Fear gripped him, but he managed to say, calmly, “Perhaps there has been an—­accident.”

Asensio, muttering excitedly, was trying to crowd past him; for a few yards the two horses brushed along side by side.  The distant point of light had become a glare now; it winked balefully through the openings as the party hurried toward it.  But it was still a long way off, and the eastern sky had grown rosy before the dense woods of the hillside gave way to the sparser growth of the low ground.

Esteban turned a sick, white face over his shoulder and jerked out his orders; then he kicked his tired mount into a swifter gallop.  It was he who first broke out into the clearing.  One glance, and the story was told.

The hut was but a crumbling skeleton of charred poles.  Strung out across the little field of malangas, yuccas, and sweet-potatoes were several hilarious Volunteers, their arms filled with loot from the cabin.  Behind them strode an officer bearing Rosa struggling against his breast.

Esteban did not pause; he drove his horse headlong through the soft red earth of the garden.  His sudden appearance seemed briefly to paralyze the marauders.  It was a moment before they could drop their spoils, unsling their rifles, and begin to fire at him, and by that time he had covered half the distance to his sister.  Those rifle-shots came faintly to Esteban’s ears; he scarcely heard them; he merely lowered his head and rode straight at that black-visaged colonel, sobbing and whimpering in his fury.

But in spite of his speed he made no difficult target.  A bullet brought his horse down and the boy went flying over its neck.  Nothing but the loose loam saved him from injury.  As he rose to his feet, breathless and covered with the red dirt, there came a swift thudding of hoofs and Asensio swept past him like a rocket.  Esteban caught one glimpse of the negro’s face, a fleeting vision of white teeth bared to the gums, of distended yellow eyes, of flat, distorted features; then Asensio was fairly upon Colonel Cobo.  The colonel, who had dropped his burden, now tried to dodge.  Asensio slashed once at him with his long, murderous machete, but the next instant he was engaged with a trooper who had fired almost into his face.