blood. No features were distinguishable.

"Who are you? What are you?" cried I.

"Rowley," it answered: "Rowley I was, at least, if those devils
haven't changed me."

"Then changed you they have," cried I, with a wild laugh. "Good God!
have they scalped him alive, or what? That is not Rowley."

The Mexican, who had gone to give some drink to the creature claiming
to be Rowley, now opened a valise that lay on the ground a short
distance off, and took out a small looking-glass, which he brought and
held before my face. It was then only that I began to call to mind all
that had occurred, and understood how it was that the mask of human
flesh lying near me might indeed be Rowley. He was, if any thing, less
altered than myself. My eyes were almost closed; my lips, nose, and
whole face swollen to an immense size, and perfectly unrecognisable. I
involuntarily recoiled in dismay and disgust at my own appearance. The
horrible night passed in the ravine, the foul and suffocating vapours,
the furious attack of the musquittoes--the bites of which, and the
consequent fever and inflammation, had thus disfigured us--all
recurred to our memory. But the women, the fight with the
monsters--beasts--Indians--whatever they were, that was still
incomprehensible. It was no dream: my back and shoulders were still
smarting from the wounds that had been inflicted on them by the claws
of those creatures, and I now felt that various parts of my limbs and
body were swathed in wet bandages. I was mustering my Spanish to ask
the Mexican who still stood by me for an explanation of all this, when
I suddenly became aware of a great bustle in the encampment, and saw
every body crowding to meet a number of persons who just then emerged
from the high fern, and amongst whom I recognized our arrieros and
servants. The new-comers were grouped around something which they
seemed to be dragging along the ground; several women--for the most
part young and graceful creatures, their slender supple forms muffled
in the flowing picturesque _reboxos_ and _frazadas_--preceded the
party, looking back occasionally with an expression of mingled horror
and triumph; all with rosaries in their hands, the beads of which ran
rapidly through their fingers, while they occasionally kissed the
cross, or made the sign on their breasts or in the air.

"_Un Zambo muerto! Un Zambo Muerto!_" shouted they as they drew near.

"_Han matado un Zambo!_ They have killed a Zambo!" repe