Explore "The Trail-Hunter" by Gustave Aimard on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
On the selfsame day that Father Seraphin went to the prison to propose an escape to the condemned, a very strange circumstance had aroused the entire population of Santa Fe. At about midday, at the moment when the inhabitants were enjoying their siesta, and the streets, calcined by the beams of a tropical sun, were completely deserted, a formidable whoop, the terrible war yell of the Comanche Indians, burst forth at the entrance of the town.
There was a general alarm, and everybody barricaded himself in his house, believing in a sudden assault of the savages. Presently an immense clamour, and cries of distress and despair uttered by a terrified population, could be heard throughout the town. Several times already the Comanches, in their periodical incursions, had come near Santa Fe, but never so closely as this time; and the remembrance of the cruelties they had practised on the hapless Spaniards who fell into their hands was still present to every mind.