“Only a minute or two’s halt before they make a fiercer attack,” I said.
“No ’tain’t,” said Tom, who had stolen up unobserved; “they’re a-going to set us alight, and I’ve come to tell you.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed my uncle. “They’ll never burn the place till they have searched and plundered it.”
“I quite think with you, Uncle,” I said.
“But they’re a striking lights round my side,” said Tom. “Come and look!”
We hurriedly passed round to Tom’s post, just in time to see the truth of his words, for as we peered cautiously from his window there was a little flickering tongue of flame apparently dancing towards one end of an outhouse. Then it was applied to the thatched roof, and a howl of joy arose as the flame ran rapidly up towards the ridge.
Directly after, though, there arose a shout of rage, and more than one voice, so my uncle said, crying out for the fire to be extinguished; amongst which voices that of Garcia could plainly be heard.
The firing was evidently premature, and efforts were directly made to extinguish it.
A glance, though, showed that the attempt would be in vain; for, with a sharp hissing and crackling noise, the light material began to blaze rapidly, and my uncle gave a groan as he saw that his house was doomed to destruction.
A loud voice now shouted what were evidently orders, and a pattering of feet succeeded, as a fierce struggle now began, to tear out the blazing part of the outhouse before it reached the hacienda, against whose sides it was reared.