“Halt!” said the nondescript gentleman at the head of the guerillas.
“Your business?” demanded Major Riggleston.
“Sorry to trouble you, gentlemen, but you are my prisoners,” said the chief guerilla, as blandly as though he had been in a drawing-room.
“Who are you, gentlemen?” asked the major.
“I don’t like to be uncivil to a well-dressed gentleman like yourself; but I haven’t learned my catechism lately, and can’t stop to be questioned. In one word, do you surrender?”
“Allow me a moment to consult my friends.”
“Only one moment.”
“Don’t you think we had better surrender, Captain Somers?”
“I thought you were a fighting man,” replied Somers.
“I am, when circumstances will admit of it; but they are two to our one.”