He stepped over to the stockade, scrutinising it attentively for a space, then, stooping a trifle, he bore his weight on one particular pile, whereupon, all of a sudden, a piece of the palisade opened widely, like the secret door that it was, quite noiselessly, and left a broad gangway. Oliver waved his hand, signifying "come on!" and held up three fingers, meaning "three at a time!"—sign language being universal on the border where so many tongues are intermixed. The horsemen passed him in review, three abreast, each leading his mount.
As, strangely enough, the hoofs drew no sound whatever from contact with the soil, Mr. Gladsden stooped and examined the feet of his own steed, upon which act all the enigma was solved. Like the old wars man he was, Oliver had hinted that he wanted his troop with muffled hoofs, and the delicate trick over which King Lear was ecstatic, had been performed by swathing them in strips of blanket around cotton wool pads.
The Englishman was the very last to march forth, still shaking the hands of don Benito and his young namesake.
"Go with God!" said the sire, fervently; "You hold our fate in your brave hands. You alone can save us."
"Keep up your spirits," was the rejoinder. "That friend of mine is no common man, and, in any case, we are going to do our best. If I never return, mind, as that scrap of writing I dashed off, records, I leave my sons especially to you as a second father, and to you, Jorge, as an elder brother."
As he mounted, and moved on to join his comrades, the secret door swung to, and all dissolution of continuity in the barrier disappeared.
There was a ditch to leap, and its sloping front to slide down. There the squadron formed. Oliver had taken to his side the oldest tigrero, or "vermin" eradicator of the farm, as his pilot.
"Follow!" said the American, curtly, between this hunter and Gladsden, "By threes, follow!"