Page:Vagabond life in Mexico.djvu/45

Rh woman after, shrieking terribly, and her dress flying in disorder about her.

"Will you stand and see me murdered?" cried the pursued, piteously. "Will no one hand me a knife?"

"Let me bury my knife in this rascal's body, this destroyer of my honor!" gasped the outraged husband.

The women, doubtless through sympathy, shrieked in concert, and uttered the most dreadful cries, while a friend of the offender slyly slipped a long knife into his hand. The latter faced about, and rushed boldly at his adversary. The cries of the women increased; a dreadful confusion ensued. The infuriated fellows made prodigious efforts to get at one another. Blood was about to flow, when, in the struggle, the table on which the infant lay was overturned. The body fell on the floor with a dull, heavy sound, and the flowers were scattered about. A large circle formed round the profaned corpse. A piercing shriek rose over all the uproar, and the bereaved mother threw herself on her child's remains with a cry of intense agony.

I had seen too much. I rushed to the balcony to cast a second look into the street, to assure myself that escape was yet possible; but there was no egress in that way. A man had just emerged from one of the lanes which opened upon the opposite bank of the canal. Other men came behind him, brandishing their weapons. This Navaja, whom Perico acknowledged as one of the fraternity, had doubtless collected his troop, and I was about to see him terminate, without being able to help his victim, one of those nocturnal brawls, of which some of the léperos boast. The person they were pursuing soon reached the parapet, and set his back to it. I distinctly heard him exclaim,