“We can’t allow Espinosa to escape,” the lad cried, aghast as he regained his men and saw with horror that many lay moaning on the ground. “They’re intrenched there, sir,” a sergeant exclaimed. “It would be suicide to charge them;” but Phil had gone too far and had suffered too much to be stopped by any thoughts of discretion or danger. “Charge, I say,” he cried; “that murderer Espinosa must not escape.” The sergeant from his security on the ground gazed up at the lad, believing quite properly that he had lost his mind, but before he could be stopped, Phil was beyond reach, charging blindly forward, while from the intrenchments came a volume of fire which it seemed folly to face. The seasoned old sergeant shook his head knowingly, but when an officer orders a charge there is but one thing to do. As one man the line arose from its shelter and raced madly after the midshipman. Hand to hand they battled--the natives with a courage born of desperation, for their backs were almost at the sheer edge of a precipice. Slowly they gave way before the onslaught of the Americans. Phil and O’Neil fought shoulder to shoulder and the lad in his weakened condition, bleeding profusely from a score of wounds, never more sorely needed the help that the brave sailorman could give. “He’s getting away,” O’Neil cried out in an agonized voice as the stubborn defenders fell one by one before the avenging bayonets. The natives died bravely, in fanatical fervor, fighting to the last man, not wishing nor asking for quarter. O’Neil and Phil at last stood upon the brink of a yawning chasm while they saw, far below them, and just disappearing within the shadow of the woods, a small band of natives, while there dangled from the rocks at their feet the severed end of a rope--the leader’s road to safety. CHAPTER XXI THE GUNBOAT TAKES A HAND Sydney gazed in consternation at the black speck clinging to the top of the cliff. His hands trembled excitedly as he held his glasses to his eyes focusing upon this spiteful piece of artillery. “We’ve got to silence that gun,” he said in a hoarse voice to Major Marble at his side, as he rang the engine room telegraphs for full speed astern. “They can’t miss us, and one shell would sink us. Yet Phil and O’Neil are probably there.” “There are our men, general,” Major Marble reported, pointing to a creeping point of color just emerging from the jungle and showing itself against the neutral tints of the treeless mountainside. “Make up your mind quickly, Mr. Monroe,” the general exclaimed anxiously. “Shell it, or else let’s try to get by; we can’t afford to leave the neck of the sack open for Espinosa and his cutthroats to escape.” Sydney saw there was no way out of the situation, save to silence the battery:--one shot through the boiler of the “Mindinao,” and the gunboat with all on board would be killed by the explosion or else drowned in the madly racing current of the river.