Meantime, as the first volleys of musketry shook their windows, the garrison of the flat-roofed house had whispered one to another that now was their time to escape. In vain Marcelino prayed them to hold out till Don Juan Martin had driven off the English, they had imbibed a wholesome fear of these English and would not listen to him. They opened a side door and rushed forth; the officer in command of the picket which occupied the patio made no attempt to stop them, they ran at once for the trees and were soon safe from all pursuit. All save one, who stood alone in the open doorway, with his arms crossed over his chest and the stump of a broken sword in his hand, listening intently to the sounds of the fierce contention which raged outside, of which he could see nothing from where he stood. As these sounds died away his lips closed tightly together, and as the ringing sound of a British cheer came to him through the smoke, which was lightly drifting away over the tree-tops, he threw the stump of the broken sword from him and bowed his head as though he resigned himself to some bitter fate. "Porkey Oosty no va?" said a voice close at hand, speaking in very barbarous Spanish, but yet in words which Marcelino could understand. He looked round and saw a young English officer standing on the paved causeway which surrounded the house, looking curiously at him. "Will not you stop me?" answered Marcelino in English. "Stop you? no; our orders are to send you away from here." Marcelino looked at him attentively, he had seen him before somewhere, presently he remembered where that was. This was the young officer who, to his astonishment and that of his men, had jumped in among them over the aloe fence not an hour before; also the same officer whom he had seen standing under the glare of the wax-lights beside his sister in his mother's sala only two nights ago. "You will not stop here, you will go back to the city?" he said. "I believe so," replied the officer. "Then will you do me a favour?" "I shall have much pleasure." "You visit at the house of Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon?" "Yes, frequently," answered the young officer, his face lighting up with pleasure. "I will write a line for Doña Constancia if you will carry it for me." "Certainly I will," answered the other, who began to have some idea of who he was speaking to. Marcelino drew a pocket-book from his breast and wrote in pencil a line only to say that he was safe, signing it only with one letter, M. Then tearing out the leaf, he folded it up and handed it to Lieutenant Gordon, saying: "There is no treason in it, but it may give ease to an anxious heart." "She shall have it as soon as I can get off," replied the other. They shook hands cordially together, and Marcelino raising his hat turned away, and walked off deliberately but rapidly through the quinta.