o see
him who has destroyed its abode, but it no longer controls the shattered
tissues; the nerves shiver like the broken springs of clockwork ere they
come to a stand-still forever. The eye still distinguishes light
occasionally, but it cannot see any longer.

Weaker and weaker become the breathings. On both sides of the mouth a
fold begins to form over the blood that has curdled and dried; new
fillets stream to the lips from within. The legs still twitch
convulsively.

Now a stream of blood gushes from the open mouth; wave after wave rushes
up with such swiftness that bubbles and froth form between the lips and
remain there. A chill pervades the whole body; it is the last nervous
tremor; the lower jaw hangs down, showing with fearful distinctness the
folds, the ghastly folds, of death.

All is still. Through the tops of the pines comes a humming sound like a
chant, a last lay to the brave and dutiful man. Still, stark, and stiff
he lies in his gore. His career is ended; his soul has gone to rest.

And thus all remained quiet for a short time. Then the grass was waved
and shaken in the direction to which the old man had turned his back in
the last hapless moment. The grass seemed to grow, to suddenly rise; and
a figure appeared which had been lying flat behind a projecting rocky
ledge. As this figure straightened itself, bunches of grass dropped from
its back to the ground. It was the figure of a man.

But it is not the Tehua Indian who stands there motionless, with bow
half drawn and an arrow in readiness, who gazes over to the corpse to
see whether it is really a corpse, or whether it will need a second
shaft to despatch it forever. The man is of middle height, raw-boned and
spare. Shaggy hair bristles from under the strands that surround his
head like a turban. He wears nothing but a kilt of deerskin; from his
shoulders hangs a quiver; a flint knife depends from the belt. This man
is no village Indian, notwithstanding that dark paint on his body. It is
one of the hereditary foes of the sedentary aborigines,--a Navajo!

He is eying the dead body suspiciously. If it is surely dead the second
arrow may be saved. Those glassy eyes; that sallow face; and the fold,
the ghastly fold that runs on both sides of the mouth, of that mouth
filled with blood now clotting,--they show that life is gone.

Still the savage keeps his bow well in hand, as with head and neck
extended he steals forward slowly, mistrustfully approa