his heels; and I've discovered, commander, close by here, on a pile of
rock, a great heap of fagots--he's after lighting a beacon of some
kind up here, I'll be bound--"

A terrible cry echoing suddenly through the town stopped the soldier's
speech. A brilliant light illuminated the young officer. The poor
orderly was shot in the head and fell. A fire of straw and dry wood
blazed up like a conflagration not thirty feet distant from the young
commander. The music and the laughter ceased in the ballroom. The
silence of death, broken only by moans, succeeded to the joyous sounds
of a festival. A single cannon-shot echoed along the plain of the
ocean.

A cold sweat rolled from the officer's brow. He wore no sword. He was
confident that his soldiers were murdered, and that the English were
about to disembark. He saw himself dishonored if he lived, summoned
before a council of war to explain his want of vigilance; then he
measured with his eye the depths of the descent, and was springing
towards it when Clara's hand seized his.

"Fly!" she said; "my brothers are following me to kill you. Your
soldiers are killed. Escape yourself. At the foot of the rock, over
there, see! you will find Juanito's barb--Go, go!"

She pushed him; but the stupefied young man looked at her, motionless,
for a moment. Then, obeying the instinct of self-preservation which
never abandons any man, even the strongest, he sprang through the park
in the direction indicated, running among the rocks where goats alone
had hitherto made their way. He heard Clara calling to her brothers to
pursue him; he heard the steps of his murderers; he heard the balls of