’The field-gun is right ahead,’ my brother said; ’they’ll be firing again in a minute or two.’ He’d hardly spoken before I saw the glare of it, heard the dull bang, and a shell burst overhead. It lighted us for a second; I saw hundreds of the little brown chaps in their white shirts scurrying about among the trees, and then a regular hail of shrapnel bullets spattered on the road and against the tree-trunks, more rifles went off, and bullets sang past. Behind me a mule screamed, fell on the ground with a thud, and began kicking. I felt myself wriggling up against the barricade for shelter, but Gerald sang out for me, and I followed him round it to the road, in between it and the gun. I didn’t like being there, in the open, a little bit. ’Must do it, Billums—we’re the only Englishmen here—must go to the outpost lines—they’re a hundred yards ahead of us—come on,’ and he began striding along the road, very conspicuous in his white clothes, and, as far as I knew, walking straight towards that field-gun. I found myself trying to walk _behind_ him, but pulled myself together and walked by his _side_. ’We’re at the edge of the clearing now,’ he said; ’bear off to the right,’ and you may guess how glad I was to step off the road. We wormed our way in among the trees, and Gerald had just whispered, ’We’re right in the skirmishing line,’ when a rifle went off not two yards from me, and I jumped almost out of my skin. Rifle firing burst out to right and left—I could see the little spurts of flame among the trees—and then a very short way in front and below hundreds of rifles went off and bullets flew past, branches and leaves falling down behind me. Gerald pulled me round some thick undergrowth and whispered, ’Look down there.’ I peered through and could see nothing at first, but our people fired again, and immediately I saw hundreds of little spurts of fire—a whole line of them. Then that field-gun fired—the flash seemed almost in my face—and for a second I saw the glitter of the gun itself and the dark figures of the men fighting it. ’The whole of Zorilla’s army is there,’ Gerald was saying, when we heard cheering running far into the woods on each side, down below, and then sweeping far away—it seemed to be running round a huge circle. I could hear ’_Viva La Buena Presidente! Viva La Buena Presidente!_’