matter! Santa Teresa! if the town is burnt I will have payment for my
three houses!" His superior snarled, then as the surgeon entered, made
signs to the latter to uncover a bruised shoulder and side.

At sunrise a trumpet was blown without the tunal, and the English again
made demand of ransom money. The fortress crouching upon the hilltop
gave no answer, stayed silent as a sepulchre. Shortly afterwards from
one quarter of the town arose together many columns of smoke; a little
later an explosion shook the earth. The great magazine of Nueva Cordoba
lay in ruins, while around it burned the houses fired by English
torches. "Shall we destroy the whole of your city?" demanded the
English. "Judge you if fifty thousand ducats will build it again!"

Nueva Cordoba, distracted, sent petitioners to their Governor. "Pay
these hell-hounds and pirates and let them sail away!" "Pay," advised
also Pedro Mexia, "or presently they may have the fortress as well as
the town! The squadron--it is yet at Cartagena! Easier to torment the
caciques until more gold flows than to build another Nueva Cordoba.
Scarpines and strappado won't lay stone on stone!"

Don Luiz kept long silence where he stood, a man of iron, cold as the
stone his long fingers pressed, venomous as any snake in the tunal,
proud as a Spaniard may be, and like the rest of his world very mad for
gold; but at last he turned, and despatching to the English camp a white
flag, proposed by mouth of his herald a brief cessation of hostilities,
and a meeting between himself, Don Luiz de Guardiola, Governor of Nueva
Cordoba, and the valorous Señor John Nevil, commandant of Englishmen.
Whereto in answer came, three-piled with courtesy, an invitation to Don
Luiz de Guardiola and ten of his cavaliers to sup that evening in Nueva
Cordoba with John Nevil and his officers. Truce should be proclaimed,