'Hadn't we better see my brother safely out of it first, sir?' I suggested, for I didn't like the Commandant's eyes or those treacherous-looking soldiers.
'Brain wave, lad! Good brain wave!—we will.'
We did see him out, tramping along through the main gateway, over a drawbridge, and took him down to where his own little brown men clustered, at the edge of the forest, waiting to see the black and green flag hoisted above the fort they hated so much.
It was the most miserable walk I have ever had
It was the most miserable walk I have ever had, and I could have killed the men shouting 'Viva los Inglesas!' as they lined the wall and crowded through the gateway behind us. I feel certain that, if we hadn't been there, and the Hector lying close inshore, they'd have shot Gerald and his officers in the back.
I told Gerald about my having cut the fingers off that little ex-policeman, and implored him not to let him go again, and before we got to the forest we stopped to wish him good-bye. As I was going, he said: 'I know Captain Pelayo, Billums, the Captain of La Buena Presidente—he and old Zorilla are about the only types of the old fighting Spaniard left in the country—and he won't surrender his ship without fighting. He's got good men aboard too.'
We left old Gerald there, but I turned to watch him and the 'Gnome' disappear into the gloomy forest among their little men, before I followed the Skipper—a big lump sticking in my throat.
'I'd have asked your brother to come on board, lad,' he said, 'hang the arresting part of it and that warrant, and have taken him out of the country in safety, but I know he wouldn't; he isn't the kind of chap to leave his fellows in a hole.'
He was about right there.