“Ready, then! now mount and be off.”
The Frenchman sprang nimbly to the saddle, and, driving his spurs into the flanks of his horse, shot out from the pen like a bolt of lightning.
For the first three hundred yards or so he galloped directly towards the guerilleros. These stood leaning upon their saddles, or lay stretched along the green-sward. Seeing a single horseman riding towards them, few of them moved, believing him to be some messenger sent to treat for our surrender.
Suddenly the Frenchman swerved from his direct course, and went sweeping around them in the curve of an ellipse.
They now perceived the ruse, and with a yell leaped into their saddles. Some fired their escopettes; others, unwinding their lazos, started in pursuit.
Raoul had by this time set Hercules’s head for the clump of timber which he had taken as his guide, and now kept on in a track almost rectilinear. Could he but reach the motte or clump in safety, he knew that there were straggling trees beyond, and these would secure him in some measure from the lazos of his pursuers.
We stood watching his progress with breathless silence. Our lives depended on his escape. A crowd of the guerilleros was between him and us; but we could still see the green jacket of the soldier, and the great red flanks of Hercules, as he bounded on towards the edge of the woods. Then we saw the lazos launched out, and spinning around Raoul’s head, and straggling shots were fired; and we fancied at one time that our comrade sprang up in the saddle, as if he had been hit. Then he appeared again, all safe, rounding the little islet of timber, and the next moment he was gone from our sight. There followed a while of suspense—of terrible suspense—for the motte hid from view both pursuers and pursued. Every eye was straining towards the point where the horseman had disappeared, when Lincoln, who had climbed to the top of the rancho, cried out:
“He’s safe, Cap’n! The dod-rotted skunks air kummin ’ithout him.”
It was true. A minute after, the horsemen appeared round the motte, riding slowly back, with that air and attitude that betoken disappointment.