bullets.

Meantime Chiquita, who had breathlessly watched all that passed from
her hiding place among some furze bushes close at hand, when she saw her
friend in peril, crept softly forth, glided along on the ground like a
snake until she reached the knife, lying unnoticed where it had fallen,
and, seizing it, in one instant had restored it to Agostino, She looked
like a little fury as she did so, and if her strength had been equal to
her ferocity she would have been a formidable foe.

Agostino again aimed his navaja at the baron, who was at that moment off
his guard, and would not perhaps have escaped the deadly weapon a second
time if it had been hurled at him from that skilful hand, but that
a grasp of iron fastened upon the desperado's wrist, just in time to
defeat his purpose. He strove in vain to extricate his right arm from
the powerful grip that held it like a vice--struggling violently, and
writhing with the pain it caused him--but he dared not turn upon this
new assailant, who was behind him, because de Sigognac would have surely
scored his back for him; and he was forced to continue parrying his
thrusts with his left arm, still protected by the ample cloak firmly
wound around it. He soon discovered that he could not possibly free
his right hand, and the agony became so great that his fingers could no
longer keep their grasp of the knife, which fell a second time to the
ground.

It was the tyrant who had come to de Sigognac's rescue, and now suddenly
roared out in his stentorian voice, "What the deuce is nipping me? Is it
a viper? I felt two sharp fangs meet in the calf of my leg."

It was Chiquita, who was biting his leg like a dog, in the vain hope of
making him turn round and loose his hold upon Agostino; but the tyrant
shook her off with a quick movement, that sent her rolling in the dust
at some distance, without relinquishing his captive, whilst Matamore
dashed forward and picked up the navaja, which he shut together and put
into his pocket.

Whilst this scene was enacting the sun had risen, and poured a flood of
radiance upon the earth in which the sham brigands lost much of their
life-like effect. "Ha, ha!" laughed the peasant, "it would appear that
those gentlemen's guns take a long time to go off; they must be wet
with dew. But whatever may be the matter with them they are miserable
cowards, to stand still there at a safe distance and leave their chief
to do all the fighting by himself."

"The