hts. The
natives had been waiting only for this; and when the war-chief gave the
wild whoop, men, women, and children seized rocks and clubs, bows and
flint-knives, and fell furiously upon the scattered Spaniards. It was a
ghastly and an unequal fight the winter sun looked down upon that bitter
afternoon in the cliff city. Here and there, with back against the wall
of one of those strange houses, stood a gray-faced, tattered, bleeding
soldier, swinging his clumsy flintlock club-like, or hacking with
desperate but unavailing sword at the dark, ravenous mob that hemmed
him, while stones rained upon his bent visor, and clubs and cruel
flints sought him from every side. There was no coward blood among that
doomed band. They sold their lives dearly; in front of every one lay a
sprawling heap of dead. But one by one the howling wave of barbarians
drowned each grim, silent fighter, and swept off to swell the murderous
flood about the next. Zaldivar himself was one of the first victims; and
two other officers, six soldiers, and two servants fell in that uneven
combat. The five survivors--Juan Tabaro, who was _alguacil-mayor_, with
four soldiers--got at last together, and with superhuman strength fought
their way to the edge of the cliff, bleeding from many wounds. But their
savage foes still pressed them; and being too faint to carve their way
to one of the "ladders," in the wildness of desperation the five sprang
over the beetling cliff.

Never but once was recorded so frightful a leap as that of Tabaro and
his four companions. Even if we presume that they had been so fortunate
as to reach the very lowest point of the rock, it could not have been
less than _one hundred and fifty feet_! And yet only one of the five was
killed by this inconceivable fall; the remaining four, cared for by
their terrified companions in the camp, all finally recovered. It would
be incredible, were it not established by absolute historical proof. It
is probable that they fell upon one of the mounds of white sand which
the winds had drifted against the foot of the cliffs in places.

Fortunately, the victorious savages did not attack the little camp. The
survivors still had their horses, of which unknown brutes the Indians
had a great fear. For several days the fourteen soldiers and their four
half-dead companions camped under the overhanging cliff, where they were
safe from missiles from above, hourly expecting an onslaught from the
savages. They fel