Our prisoner and the recuas were now turned away, with strict charge that none should follow us on pain of death. The Cimaroons divided the burden of the silver amongst them, and once more we pressed on.
'Ho! stand!' suddenly comes out of the darkness, and a Spanish captain glittering in brilliant harness steps into the road.
'Ho!' returns Frank, as though the road were his own, 'stand and declare yourself!'
'Que gente?' says the Spaniard, very proud.
'English,' says Frank, blowing up the match of his pistol; 'what would you?'
'Gentlemen Englishmen,' cries the Spaniard, 'it pains me to be so discourteous as to deny you passage this way. In the name of his most Catholic and Puissant Majesty the King of Spain, I bid you yield yourselves; and promise you, on the word and faith of a Castilian and a gentleman soldier, in that case to use you with all courtesy.'
'Most worthy captain,' says Frank, 'it is utter grief to me that we are in too great haste to grant you this favour, and are forced to inform you, notwithstanding your courteous offer, that for the honour of her most High and Mighty Majesty the Queen of England, Defender of the Faith, we must have passage this way.'
A sharp crack from Frank's pistol was the fitting conclusion to his speech, and I saw the Spaniard reel. Then there was a roar in front of us. Long tongues of flame leaped from the thickets ahead on either hand. A hot iron seemed to sear my leg. Frank clapped his hand to his thigh, and the man on the other side of me fell forward with a terrible cry. Thick and fast their shot whistled by. The Cimaroons had entirely disappeared, and we took what shelter we could.
The narrow road was now full of choking sulphurous smoke. We could see nothing but here and there the leaping flash of a harquebuss or the glimmer of a match. Almost as suddenly as it had begun their fire slackened, and then a merry trill went up, shrill and clear, from Frank's whistle.
We were all out in the road again in a minute. Bow-strings were singing, and small shot barking, as arrows and slugs went tearing into the dense smoke. Then we knew our silence had done its work, and brought the enemy rashly out of their cover. Shrieks, groans, curses, followed our discharge, and gave us courage to advance, which we did at a run through the choking smoke. Still we could not come to push of pike. They seemed to be retreating before us.