"Now for it!" said the man in a sharp, commanding whisper. "Up with you and over the wall!"
John seized the crosspiece, and in another instant was on the top of a wall of cedar posts twelve feet high. He did not know until afterward that the strong hand of his rescuer had helped him up. In another instant the man was beside him, and then the lightning flared brightly, showing vividly the huge castle, the stone ramparts, the moats and the two figures, naked to the waist, sitting on top of the cedar wall.
"Sentinela alerte!" was shouted far louder than usual, and "Sentinela alerte!" came the reply in the same tone. Two musket shots were fired, and the two figures, one with a red stain on his side, sprang outward from the cedar fence into the second and smaller moat, which was only fourteen feet wide, although its outer wall was an earthwork rising very high above the water. Two or three strong strokes carried them across, and with desperate efforts they climbed up the high bank. They heard shouts, and they knew that when the lightning flared again more shots would be fired at them. It was then that John noticed the red stain on the side of his comrade, and all the reserves of mental strength that made him so much like his brother, Philip, came to his aid. He snatched the package from his head, tore it apart, threw the serape around his body and stood up, erect and defiant, pistol in hand. He would do something for this man who had done so much for him.
The lightning flared again, a long quivering stroke, and the heads of half a dozen men appeared at the crest of the chevaux de frise, not twenty feet away. But John Bedford looked at only one of them. He saw the swarthy, angry face of de Armijo. He seemed to be beckoning with his sword to his men, but a flash like that of the lightning seared John's whole brain. He remembered how this man had struck him down, when he was chained and helpless, and he fired point blank at the angry face. De Armijo fell back with a terrible cry. He was not dead, but the bullet had plowed full length across his cheek, and he would bear there a terrible red weal all the rest of his life.
The lightning passed, and they were in complete darkness, but John felt a hand on his arm.
"Come," whispered his rescuer. "You did that well. Prison hasn't taken any of the manhood from you. We're outside everything now, and the others are waiting for us."
They fled away together in the darkness.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE HUT IN THE COVE
John Bedford forgot everything in those moments of wild exultation save the fact that he was free. The miracles had begun, and the whole chain was now complete. After three years in one cell he had left behind him forever, as he believed, the Castle of Montevideo, and he was going straight to his brother and powerful friends. He cast back only a single look, and then he saw the huge dim bulk of the castle showing through the mists and the rain. But presently the woods shut it from view, and he could not have seen it had he looked again. John's exultation, the vast rebound, grew. He had escaped, and he had struck down the enemy who had struck him. He felt equal to anything, and he forgot for the moment that the man who had rescued him in such an extraordinary way was wounded. But the man himself stopped soon.