I don’t know how I did it, but I’d pulled Gerald off the table, and he was sprawling on the floor, before the room filled with smoke and noise, and a bullet had cut clean across the green cloth. I saw the insurgent officer whip out a revolver and fire, I sprang out into the dark with mine, and José, with a yell, a _machete_ in his hand, dashed past me, down on to the beach. But there wasn’t a sign of any one. People rushed into the room, the lights were knocked out, and then Gerald sang out, asking what was the matter. ’My dear Billums, I wouldn’t have had that happen for worlds,’ he said, when the lamps had been relighted, and I’d shown him where the bullet had ripped across the table. ’What happen?’ I asked. ’Why, you knocking me down, of course.’ He was quite hurt about it, and wanted to finish the game, said the cut across the cloth would make it all the more ’sporting,’ but the noise of firing in the forest became more furious, and orderlies came in with news that Zorilla was on the move at last. Gerald wrote out more orders and shrugged his shoulders. ’He’s marching towards El Castellan. I suppose he thinks I shall try and prevent him.’ ’But won’t you?’ I asked. ’My dear Billums, of course not; he can go there as fast as he likes. He thinks I shall try and get in front of him, and then he’ll double back to San Fernando. Not much! Come along and we’ll have a look round.’ I followed him out of the Casino—it was quite dark, the forest absolutely black—we mounted horses, and, with a lot of officers, trotted down the road. I was so nervous and overwrought in the dark lanes, which we presently rode through, that my heart thumped every time I heard ’_Quien Vive!_’ or ’_Que Gente!_’ called out by sentries or pickets we couldn’t see, and the murmurs of ’_Yuesencia!_’ or ’_Don Geraldio!_’ from hundreds of unseen mouths. Gerald found some officers and seemed satisfied; somehow or other we got back, and the night was so still, except for the distant firing, the rustling trees, and the very faint noise of the sea, and the darkness was so intense, that I was jolly glad to be inside the Casino again. More orderlies were waiting for Gerald here, and a prisoner was dragged into the light. ’That settles it,’ he said decisively, looking at the poor, miserable, frightened, whining brute. ’He’s been caught in the El Castellar direction—where they are advancing. He belongs to the 5th Santa Cruz _Cazedores_—the worst fighters in the army. Old Zorilla wouldn’t put them there if he was in earnest. I’m going to bring back every man I can get hold of, place them the other side of that stream—down the road there—it runs nearly straight inland for four or five miles, and I wish to goodness the moon would come out.’