Fitz the Filibuster Part 53

"Yes--to save their lives and yours. It was in an emergency. This is a different thing. I cannot do it."

"Then you forsake me?" cried the Don angrily. "That is neither true nor fair," replied the skipper sternly. "I have helped you truly and well, and run great risks in bringing you those munitions of war. With that you must be content. As for forsaking you, you know in your heart, through my help and the counsel you have received from my young companion here, you never stood in a better position for dealing a death-blow at your rival's position. Is that the truth, or is it not?"

"Ah!" cried the Don pa.s.sionately, evading the question. "When your help means so much you give me empty words."

"That is no answer, sir," replied the skipper. "Is what I have said the truth, or is it not?"

Don Ramon turned upon him furiously, his eyes flashing and his hands clenched; but as he met the Englishman's stern questioning eyes he stopped short, fixed by them, as it were, and then tossing his open hands in the air with a gesture which seemed to say, There, I surrender!

his angry countenance softened, and he supported himself by taking hold of the pommel of his saddle.

"Yes," he said wearily, "of course it is the truth. You always were the man in whom I could trust, and I suppose you are right. Forgive me for being so exacting. But, captain, I have so much at stake."

"Then trust to the strength of your cause, your position, and the bravery of your people. But I am not going to forsake you, Ramon,"

continued the skipper, in a graver and softer tone, "and I will tell you this; if the day goes against you, the schooner will be lying a few hundred yards from sh.o.r.e with her boats ready to take off you and as many of your friends as you wish to bring. I will do that at any risk, but I can do no more."

Don Ramon was silent for a few moments, before repeating the captain's last words slowly. Then, after a pause--

"It may be different," he said, "but if matters are as bad as that, it will be because I have fired my last shot, and Villarayo has found that another lover of his country is in his way no more. No, Captain Reed, I shall not have to put your hospitality to the test. I could not escape, and leave those who have been fighting for me to the death. There," he added quickly, completely changing his tone, "I do not mean to die; I mean to win. Forgive me once again. You will after your fashion shake hands?"

"With all my heart," cried the skipper, stretching out both his, which were eagerly caught and raised quickly to the Spaniard's lips.

"Thank you," he cried, "I am a man once more. Just now I talked like a disappointed woman who could not have her way.--What does that mean?" he said sharply as there was a shout from the distance.

"People coming down the pa.s.s," cried Fitz excitedly, and there was the report of a rifle which ran reverberating with many echoes along the rocks.

Before the sounds had ceased Don Ramon had sprung upon his mule, to turn smiling with a comprehensive wave of his hand to the trio, and then cantered off amongst the rugged stones, while they watched him till he reached the battery of field-pieces and sprang off to throw the rein to one of his men.

"That shot was the opening of the ball," said the skipper. "Now, my lads, back aboard the schooner, to make our arrangements, Poole, for keeping my word with the Don if he and his people have to run."

"No!" burst out both the boys in a breath.

"No?" cried the skipper good-humouredly. "What do you mean? This isn't going to be a show. You don't want to stop and see the fight?"

"Not want to stop and see it?" cried Fitz excitedly.

"Well, I am not fond of fighting, father," said Poole, "but I do. I want to see Don Ramon win."

"Humph!" grunted the skipper. "Well, you must be disappointed. As for you, Mr Burnett, the sooner you are out of reach of bullets the better."

"Well," cried Fitz, "I like that--coming from the skipper of a trading schooner! Do you know what I am?"

"Of course," was the answer, with a smile.

"It doesn't seem like it," cried Fitz. "I know I am almost a boy still--Don't laugh, Poole!" he added sharply, with a stamp of the foot--"Well, quite a boy; but young as I am, I am a naval officer, and I was never taught that it was my duty to run away if ever I came under fire."

"It's the safest way," said the skipper mockingly. "'He who fights and runs away, will live to fight another day.' That's it, isn't it?"

"I suppose so," said Fitz, getting on his stilts--"to be laughed at for a coward as long as he lives. Look here, Captain Reed, I am your prisoner, but you are not my captain, and I mean to stop and see this fight. Why, I must. I shall have to tell. Captain Glossop all about this some day, and I should look well if I owned that I had run away.-- But you don't mean it, sir. It's all nonsense to talk of being in danger up here, all this distance off. Yes, he is joking, isn't he, Poole?"

"Well, there's not much joke about it, my lad," said the skipper gravely. "I must own that I don't want to go away myself. Seems to me that what we ought to do is to hurry back to where the women are, get a good supply of linen and bandages from them, and muster some bearers for--Yes, the firing is going on, and I don't suppose that it will be long before some poor fellows will be falling out and crawling back to the rear."

"Yes," said Fitz eagerly; "I never thought of that. Come on, then, and let's make haste so as to get back in time."

The skipper nodded, and they hurried away, but had very little distance to go, for the sound of the firing was bringing the curious from out of the town, and it was not long before they had been furnished with the material for binding up wounds, and better still, with a doctor, who joined hands with them at once in making the rough ambulance arrangements.

Within half-an-hour they were back at the spot where the interview with Don Ramon had taken place, to find that which their ears had prepared them for, the rattle of musketry going steadily on as the enemy advanced, while they were just in time for the sharp dull thud and echoing roar of the first field-piece, whose sh.e.l.l was seen to burst and send up its puff of smoke far along the rugged valley.

This checked the advance for some minutes, scattering the enemy in all directions, but it was plain to the lookers-on from their post of observation, that they were being rallied, and the speaking out of the second gun from the battery plainly told that this was the case.

What followed in the next two hours was a scene of confusion and excitement far up the valley, and of quiet steady firing from the battery, whose sh.e.l.ls left little for Don Ramon's advance posts to do.

They lay low in their shelters, and built up rifle-screens, hastily made, firing as they had a chance, but their work only helped to keep the enemy back. It was to the guns that Don Ramon owed his success.

There was no lack of bravery on the part of the enemy's officers, for they exposed themselves recklessly, rallying their men again and again, and gradually getting them nearer and nearer to those who served the guns.

But the rifle-firing was wild, and not a man among the gunners went down, or was startled from his task of loading and laying the sheltered pieces. All the same the enemy advanced, the rugged pa.s.s affording them plenty of places that they could hold, and at the end of three hours they had made such progress that matters were beginning to look serious for the defenders of Velova, and the time had come when it was evident to the watchers that Don Ramon was making ready to retire his guns to his next defence, for the teams of mules were hurried up and placed in a hollow beyond the reach of the enemy's rifles; and now too it was seen plainly enough that Villarayo or his captains were preparing for a rush to capture the guns, and in the excitement the skipper forgot about all risks to him and his, and proposed that they should hurry to a spot higher up one side of the pa.s.s and fifty yards nearer to the battery.

This proved to be an admirable point of vantage, and enlightened the lookers-on to far more than they had been before, for they were startled to see how much greater was the number of the attacking force than they had believed.

The enemy were in two bodies, gathered-together and lying down on the opposite sides of the pa.s.s, and the lads had hardly raised their heads above the shelter of some stones when they saw that the order had been given for the advance, and the men were springing to their feet.

"I must go and warn him," cried the skipper, beneath his breath, "or he will lose his guns; and then--"

He said no more, but stood spellbound like his young companions at what was taking place, for Don Ramon was better supplied with information than he had believed, and as the attacking forces of the enemy sprang up, he found that the direction of the battery's fire had been altered to left and right, and the attacking forces had barely commenced their crowded charge when the six pieces burst forth almost together with such a hurricane of grape that a way was torn through each rough column and the fight was over, the smoke from the discharge as it rose showing the enemy scattered and in full flight, the steep sides of the little valley littered with the wounded, and more and more faltering behind and dropping as their comrades fled.

"_Viva_!" shouted the skipper, with all his might; but it was a feeble sound as compared with the roar of voices which rose from the battery and beyond, while it only needed the rifle-shots of those lying in the shelters higher up the pa.s.s, and a sh.e.l.l dropped here and there till the full range of the field-pieces had been reached, to complete Villarayo's discomfiture for that day at least.

"Now," said the skipper quietly, "we must leave the succour of the wounded to Ramon's own people. I am sick of all this. Let's get back on board the schooner."

It was about an hour afterwards that Poole went to his father on the deck of the _Teal_.

"Oughtn't we to have stopped a little longer," he said, "and tried to be of some help?"

"I should have liked to, my boy," said the skipper sadly, "but I didn't want you and young Burnett to see what was bound to follow. The rougher portion of Don Ramon's followers have not the same ideas of mercy to a fallen enemy that belong to a European mind, and so I came away."

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

POLITICAL QUESTIONS.

Happily for them, the boys saw little more of the horrors of the petty war. Aboard the schooner what met their eyes were the triumphs of peace. The next day flags were flying, bells ringing, guns firing, and the whole of the inhabitants of the town were marching in procession and shouting _Vivas_.

Crowds gathered upon the sh.o.r.e nearest to where the schooner was moored, to shout themselves hoa.r.s.e; and not content with this, they crowded into boats to row out round the little English vessel and shout themselves hoa.r.s.er there, many of the boats containing women, who threw flowers which floated round.

"I am getting rather tired of this," said Fitz, at last. "I suppose it's very nice to them, and they feel very grateful to your father for bringing the guns and ammunition to beat off this other President fellow; but keeping on with all this seems so babyish and silly. Why can't they say, 'Thank Heaven!' and have done with it?"

"Because they are what they are," said Poole, half contemptuously.

"Why, they must have been spoiling their gardens to bring all these flowers. They are no use to us. I should call that boat alongside-- that big one with the flag up and all those well-dressed women on board."