"It is Petion himself!" gasped Don Esteban in accents of dismay, "and if we should be so unfortunate as to fall into his hands after resisting him, our fate will be too dreadful for description! Would it not be better," he suggested, with quivering ashen lips, "that we should surrender at discretion, without attempting resistance? If we do so we shall probably be shot, out of hand; but even that would be preferable to being carried off into the mountains, and there dying a lingering death by torture, as we know that many other whites have done who have dared to resist Petion." "No, certainly not!" answered Don Luis with decision. "I will never agree to it. Our young friend, Don Ricardo, here, seems to be of opinion that the house is capable of being defended effectively, and he ought to know, since fighting is his trade. And I do not suppose that the mere fact of Petion's appearance among our assailants is going to make him alter his opinion. Is it, Don Ricardo?" "By no means," said I. "Rather the other way about. For if we can only contrive to bowl over Mister Petion--" Don Esteban uttered an ejaculation of horror. "Kill Petion!" he exclaimed. "My good sir, I most fervently hope that no one in this house will be so ill-advised as to attempt Petion's life. For if anything were to happen to him his followers would be so incensed, so utterly maddened with fury, that they would simply pull the place down about our ears, and drag us out from among the ruins to die a death of unimaginable horror!" "My dear Don Esteban," I retorted, "do you really believe that those fellows will fight any the more courageously if their leader happens to be slain? Because I do not; on the contrary, I am firmly convinced that if the head is destroyed the body will also lose vitality, and very speedily collapse. Therefore I, for one, shall make it a point of honour to do my best to kill Petion, if he will only afford me the chance, and I very strongly recommend that the rest should do the same. If Petion falls, his followers will very soon be discouraged." "Yes, yes, I quite agree with you, Don Ricardo," exclaimed Don Luis. "Nothing is so likely to discourage those fellows as to see their leader fall, therefore let us kill Petion, if we can--although he is popularly believed to bear a charmed life." "It will need a very much more potent charm than any that he is at all likely to possess to stop a bullet, if I can only get a fair shot at him," I exclaimed. "But, come, gentlemen, let us get back to our posts. We must watch their every move now, or they may take us unawares and play us some very ugly trick." Our dialogue had lasted less than five minutes; but, brief as it was, it had outlasted the consultation between Petion and his lieutenants, who, I was annoyed to find upon returning to my point of observation, had retired and were now out of sight.