Fitz the Filibuster Part 44

"Yes, with the help of my friends," said the Don, turning in a courtly way towards the English party. "And you have come to warn me that they are just going to make another attack?"

"They are, but not yet. I have been with them at the risk of my life, and I know that the men were so horribly discouraged by their losses that they refused to attack again, and threatened to break up and return to their homes; but at last Villarayo has prevailed upon them to stay, and messengers went hours ago along the pa.s.ses to Velova."

"Yes; what for?"

"With instructions that every fighting man from the fort and the earthworks facing the sea, is to be withdrawn, and come through the mountains to Villarayo's help. They will be here some time to-morrow, and you must be overwhelmed, or flee at once."

"It is impossible," said Ramon coldly. "We are shut in here, and my sun must rise or set to-morrow. This is my last stand."

"But your wife--your children! Think of them."

"I have thought of nothing else, waking and sleeping," said the Don coldly. "But my wife would not look upon me if I forsook my country, and my children shall not live with the knowledge that Ramon's is a coward's name."

"Is this your decision?" said the messenger of bad tidings.

"Yes. Captain Reed, my brave true friend, look at him. He is half-dead with hunger and exhaustion. Can you give him water and food?"

"He shall share what we have, sir, and I am sorry that we cannot give him better fare than biscuit and water; but the rations we brought with us were small, and they are nearly at an end. Don Miguel, I ask your pardon for me and mine. You will forgive us our rough treatment? We were fighting for your friend."

"I know," said the visitor faintly, and he took and grasped the captain's hand.

A few minutes later he was sharing Don Ramon's shelter, and struggling hard to recoup nature with the broken biscuit he was soaking in a pannikin of water, while Fitz and his companions returned to their old station to resume the watch.

They sat for some time thinking, for n.o.body seemed disposed to talk, even the carpenter, the most conversational of the trio, seeming to prefer the society of the piece of dirty-looking black tobacco which he kept within his teeth; but the silence became so irksome, for somehow the firing seemed to have driven every wild creature to a distance, that Fitz broke it at last.

"I don't know when I felt so nervous," he whispered. "I felt sure that something that would have seemed far more horrible than the fight was about to occur."

"What, my father ordering that poor fellow to be shot? Yes, it would have been horrible indeed."

"But would the skipper have ordered him to be shot, Mr Poole, sir?"

said Winks thoughtfully.

"I'm afraid so, Chips."

"Humph! Don't seem like him. He bullies us chaps pretty sharp sometimes, and threatens, and sometimes the words he says don't smell of violets, nor look like precious stones; but I can't see him having a chap shot because he was a spy. Why, it'd be like having an execution without a judge."

"Yes, very horrible," said Fitz, "but it's time of war; as in the Duke of Wellington's time,--martial law."

"Who's him, sir? You mean Blucher--him as got into trouble over the Army boots?"

"No, no," said Poole. "Mr Burnett means the law that is used in fighting times when a Commander-in-chief acts as judge."

"Oh! All right, sir. But it sounds a bit harbitrary, as they calls it in the newspapers. I should have thought a hundred dozen would have been punishment enough, without putting a stinguisher on a man right out. I suppose it's all right, but I wouldn't have given it to him so hot as that. Well, I'm glad he come, because now we know what we've got to expect to-morrow. Do you know what I should like if I could have three wishes same as you reads of in the little story-books?"

"Camel to come up now with one of his hot steak-and-kidney puddings boiled in a basin?"

"_Tlat_!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the carpenter, with a smack of the lips. "And the inions a-smelling looshus a hundred yards away. Nay, it warn't that."

"A carpenter's tools?" said Fitz.

"Nay, but you ain't far off, Mr Burnett. What I was wis.h.i.+ng for was one of them barge-loads of neatly-cut timber as you see piled upon the Mersey, run right up this 'ere little river ready for all our chaps to unload. My word! Talk about a fortification! Why, I'd make a sixtification of it with them timbers, and so quickly that to-morrow when the enemy come they should find all our Spaniels sitting behind the little loop-holes like a row of monkeys cracking nuts, a-laughing and chaffing the enemy, and telling of them to come on."

"Oh, bother!" said Poole. "Don't talk so much. It's enough to tempt the enemy to sneak up and begin potting at us. I know what I should like to do." And he relapsed into silence.

"Well, what?" said Fitz, when he was tired of waiting.

"Get all the men together and make a sally."

"A what?" said the carpenter. "What for? Blest if ever I heard of such a dodge as that before. What'd be the good of a she-male at a time like this? I could make a guy, sir, if that would suit you."

"Will you hold your tongue, you chattering old glue-pot!"

"All right, sir! Go it! Stick it on thick! Glue-pot, eh? What will you call me next? But what would be the good of a Sally?"

"Sally! To issue forth all together, stupid, and surprise the enemy in their camp."

"Oh! Well, I suppose they would be surprised to have us drop upon them all at once; but if they heard us coming we should be surprised. No, sir; let them come to us, for they're about ten to one. We are safest where we are."

"Yes; Chips is right," said Fitz. "It would be very dangerous unless we could get them on the run. I wouldn't do that."

"What would you do, then?" said Poole.

"Well," said Fitz, "you told me I was not a player, and that it was your game."

"Yes, but that was before you began peppering the beggars with that double gun."

"Now, that's too bad," cried Fitz petulantly. "There, I've done now."

"No, you haven't. You have got something on your mind, and if it's a dodge to help us all out of this mess, you are not the fellow to keep it back. So come; out with it."

"Well, I'll tell you what I've been thinking," said Fitz, "almost ever since I heard what that Mr Miguel said about the reinforcements coming from Velova."

"What, to crush us up?" said Poole. "Enough to make any one think! But what about it?"

"Why, the fort and earthworks will be emptied and all the fighting men on the way to-morrow to come and fight us here."

"Of course, and they'll be here some time to-morrow afternoon, and if they don't beat us they will be going back with sore heads; but I am afraid that those of us who are left will be going back as prisoners.

Is that what you meant?"

"No," said Fitz, and without heeding a faint rustling sound such as might have been made by some wild creature, or an enemy stealing up to listen to their words, he went on: "I was thinking that this is what we ought to do--I mean your father and the Don--steal off at once without making a sound, all of us, English and Spaniards too, down to that timber-wharf."

"But suppose the enemy have got scouts out there?"

"I don't believe they have. After that last thras.h.i.+ng they drew off ever so far, and that President is doing nothing but wait for the coming of his reinforcements."

"That sounds right, Mr Poole, sir," said the carpenter.

"Well, it's likely," said Poole, and the faint rustling went on unheard.

"But what then?"