I soon had my father fully acquainted with the state of affairs, and while I was talking to him, Colonel Preston came to sit down upon an upturned barrel, and talk for a time about the state of affairs.
Chapter Fifty Two.
Our officers and gentlemen made a very shabby parade that evening, when just before sundown word was passed from the sentries that a party was approaching from the Spaniards, and it was decided to go outside and meet them, so as not to show the poverty of our resources within the defences, and the sore straits to which we had been brought.
So the General and Colonel Preston, with about half a dozen gentlemen, went out to meet the new enemy, while Morgan contrived that I should, as Captain Bruton’s son, be where I could see and hear all that was going on.
And, as I said, our officers and gentlemen made a very shabby parade, for their clothes were torn and stained, and there were no brave uniforms now, such as they wore the last time the Spaniards from the south came to demand that we should leave the place. But if they had no scarlet and gold to show, there was a grim sternness about our people that was very impressive, something which taught the visitors that ours were no feather-bed soldiers, but men who could face fire and use the sword.
Of that party of six who went out to meet the Spaniards, there was not one who was not injured, though slightly, while the little body-guard of eight soldiers who followed them was in similar plight.
Our numbers were hastily selected by the General, on seeing that while a larger number had come away from the main body of the Spaniards, only eight approached the gates.
Everything was done so deliberately that I noticed that the General carried his left arm in a scarf, and that the hair had been all cut away in a patch at the back of Colonel Preston’s head, so as to admit of its being strapped with plaister. Another officer had a cut on his left cheek which had divided the lip; another wore a bandage in the shape of a red silk handkerchief, and another carried his injured hand in his breast.