“We must rout the English out of Pensacola!” he explains to Colonel Coffee.
“Pensacola!” repeats Colonel Coffee, looking thoughtful. “It is Spanish territory, General! There is the boundary; and diplomacy, I believe, although it is an art whereof I know little, lays stress on the word boundary.”
“Boundary!” snorts the General in dudgeon. “The English are there! Where my foe goes, I go; my diplomacy is of the sword.”
The General elaborates; for he is not without liking the sound of his own voice. Governor Maurequez, he says, has welcomed the English; he must enlarge that welcome to include Americans.
“For I tell you,” goes on the General, “that I shall expect from him the same courtesy he extends to Colonel Nichols. Nor do I despair of receiving it, since I shall take my artillery. With both Americans and English among his guests, if trouble fall out it will be his own fault, and should teach him to practice hereafter a less complicated hospitality.”
The General prepares for the journey to Pensacola. The treasure chest shows the usual emptiness, and he exerts his own credit, as he did on a Natchez occasion, to provide for his hunting-shirt men. This time the Government will honor his drafts promptly, for election day is drawing near.
One sun-filled autumn morning, the General and his hunting-shirt men march away for Pensacola, their hearts full of cheering anticipations of a fight, and eight days provant in the commissariat.
“We should be there in eight days,” says the General hopefully, “and Governor Maurequez and the English must provide for us after that.”
The General does not overstate the powers of his hunting-shirt men, and the eighth morning finds them and him within striking distance of Fort St. Michael. The General shades his blue eyes with his hand and scans the walls with vicious lynxlike intentness in search of that hated red flag. His heart chills when he does not find it. There is the flag of Arragon and Castile; but the staff which only yesterday supported the flag of England stands an unfurnished, naked spar of pine.
The General heaves a sigh.