“Very well, my child. Just as you please!” laughed Justin, with a shrug of his shoulders.
Elfie pouted so long in silence that Justin found it necessary to recall her to her narrative.
“Come, Elfie,” he said, “tell me how you and your companion in captivity happened to be bound to these trees?”
“You know,” answered Elfie, “I told you how when Albert Goldsborough found that a battle was in progress on the hill, he made us dismount, and took away our horses, and set a mounted guard of six guerrillas to watch us.”
“Yes.”
“Well, they watched us closely enough for a while. I couldn’t stir, even to walk about and stretch my cramped limbs, without being threatened with a rifle levelled at me!”
“The wretches!”
“And all that time we heard the firing in the distance, and knew that a great battle was going on between the guerrillas and our own troops. And we prayed heartily for the success of our men.”
“Your prayers were heard, Elfie.”
“Of course we could not guess which way the tide of victory would turn. We could only see the clouds upon clouds of black and sulphurous smoke rolling over the hill, and hear the continual firing, and smell the suffocating fumes of gunpowder that were overpowering even at this distance.”