The drums beat to arms, and in a few minutes the battery was manned with artillerymen. To the inconceivable horror of Bags and Bill, the whole of the guns in the battery were altered in position, and a gunner took post at the rear of each with a lighted portfire. Then a flushed face might be seen, by the blue light of the portfires, rising from behind a neighbouring piece of rock, the eyes staring, the mouth open in agonised expectation. "Number one--fire!" said the officer in command, to the gunner in rear of the gun in which Mr Bags had invested his capital. "No, no!" shouted Bags, rising wildly from behind the rock. The portfire touched the vent--there was a discharge that seemed to rend Mr Bags's heartstrings and blow off the roof of his skull--and the clever speculation on which he had counted for making his fortune ended, like many others, in smoke. He gazed for a moment out in the direction of the flash, as if he expected to see the watches and rings gleaming in the air; then he turned and disappeared in the darkness. After a few ineffectual discharges, the Spaniards seemed to become aware of the badness of their aim, and to take measures to amend it. Several shot struck the hospital; and some shells falling through the roof, exploded in the very wards where the sick lay. The unhappy Jew, Lazaro, lying in a feverish and semi-delirious state from his former hurt and agitation, was again struck by a splinter of a shell which burst in the ward where the Major's care had seen him deposited, blowing up the ceiling and part of the wall. In the midst of the confusion, the Jew, frantic with terror, rushed unrestrained from the building, followed only by his daughter, who was watching by his bed. He was not missed for some time, and the attempts to discover him, made after his disappearance became known, were of no avail. A neighbouring sentry had seen a white figure, followed by another crying after it, dash across the road and disappear in the bushes; but the search made about the vicinity of the spot failed in detecting any traces of them, and those who troubled themselves to think of the matter at all, surmised that they had fallen into the sea. CHAPTER V.