’They’ve heard the good news; old Zorilla will pretty well guess what it means. Like a shot, Billums?’ and Gerald sang out to the native crouched down beside us. He gave me his rifle with a soft cooing ’_Buenos, Señor!_’ and I leant it against a branch and tried to see something to shoot at, my fingers trembling with excitement. ’Wait till you see the flashes of their next volley, and try and get your sights on,’ Gerald said, and I knew that he was smiling. I didn’t wait, I thought I saw something, and fired, the recoil bumping my shoulder because I hadn’t held the rifle closely enough. It seemed to start every one else firing, and the regulars began firing volleys; you could see the ring of rifle spurts below us, thousands of them, and bullets were flying overhead, pit-patting against the trees, and cutting off branches and leaves. ’"Any one assisting the aforesaid Gerald Wilson will be——"’ Gerald chuckled. ’Shut up, you ass,’ I sang out. The native gave me another cartridge, and, the field-gun blazing again, I just had time to get my sights more or less ’on’ and fire, which started all our chaps easing off too. ’Can’t afford to keep you in the firing line,’ Gerald chuckled, and took me back. ’You’ve made my people waste about two hundred rounds, and I can’t afford to waste one. Listen to Zorilla’s chaps. You’d imagine they had millions to blaze away. ’Something’s wrong, Billums; I can’t make it out. He usually keeps quite quiet, he’s too clever at this game to throw away a single round. You’d imagine from that field-gun firing down the road, and from all those volleys he’s firing, that he means to advance this way.’ He was talking as coolly as a cucumber; I was sweating with excitement. ’There’s a mule track through the forest from here to El Castellar, and I believe he means to break away there. That’s why I came out to-night—to make sure which way he’s going. We’ll know soon.’ We got back behind the barricade, and several hundred of the little brown, whited-coated men began gathering there, gliding noiselessly out from the trees. The moon was hidden now, and it was pitch dark, so that I couldn’t see them, except for a moment when the field-gun fired, but only hear them murmuring to each other all round me. To know that there were four thousand regulars standing by to attack us, in the dark, was anything but comforting, and the bullets whipping past were not any too comforting either. All this while Gerald had been talking to some officers, the ’Gnome’ among them, but now they went away, and he came to me. ’This excitement enough?’ ’I should think it was,’ I told him—rather too much if I had told him the truth. I supposed I should get used to it, but suddenly to find myself in the middle of a fight, in a forest, in the dark, was just a little bit too trying, especially when not a soul, except Gerald, could understand a word I said.