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A sheet of flame
ran three times along the face of the fort without checking their steady
march. They crowded right up to the very stakes, flourishing their broad
knives. But this palisade was not fastened together with hide lashings
in the usual way, but with long iron nails, which they could not cut.
Dismayed at the failure of their usual method of forcing an entrance,
the heathen, who had marched so steadily against the musketry fire,
broke and fled under the volleys of the besieged.
"Directly they had passed me on their advance I got up and rejoined
Gaspar Ruiz on a low ridge which jutted out upon the plain. The musketry
of his own men had covered the attack, but now at a sign from him a
trumpet sounded the 'Cease fire.' Together we looked in silence at the
hopeless rout of the savages.
"'It must be a siege, then,' he muttered. And I detected him wringing
his hands stealthily.
"But what sort of siege could it be? Without any need for me to repeat
my friend Pajol's message, he dared not cut the water off from the
besieged.


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