I told him he had been taken on board the Hector.
'Jolly glad,' he said, sent for some paper, sat down with the soap lather on his face and a towel round his waist, and wrote a reply. 'Wouldn't be the proper thing not to write it myself.'
'Tell Zorilla we found his horse, and have brought him into San Fernando,' I sang out.
'Good stroke, Billums, good stroke. We'll send him back when he's fit—always make friends of an enemy, especially if he's a good chap like Zorilla,' and he added a postscript.
'Where is he?' I asked, as the messenger darted away.
'About three miles off—in another clearing, for the night.'
'But the horse won't be much good to him,' I said, remembering what the Englishman had told me. 'You've got him surrounded, and he must surrender, mustn't he?'
'Yes, I have,' Gerald smiled, 'three thousand men round about the same number. I don't believe I have more—hundreds have gone off to their homes with loot. I tell you what. Old Zorilla isn't beaten till he's dead, and he may be up to any tricks to-night. It's seven miles to El Castellar and it's eight to San Fernando, and he'll lose his job and his reputation if he falls back on the fort. He's lost his guns, and he'll get 'em back, and San Fernando too, if he dies for it. I know the dear old chap.'
'I thought you'd won,' I said, feeling very worried.
'Oh, bother! You've never won in this country. The more you win, the more enemies you make—there are plenty of people, on our side, who want me out of it. That is why those chaps wouldn't obey you this morning—they're as jealous as thieves. I run the show, and they don't like it—a good many of them don't—not the men, the officers. They want their siesta in the middle of the day, and eight hours' sleep besides—it's the custom of the country—they don't get it. They've always run revolutions on those lines, and I don't.'