Mexia wiped the sweat from his brow. "Let us go--let us go, Don Luiz! I stifle here. There's a strangeness in the air--my heart beats to bursting! Holy Teresa, give that the wine was not poisoned!" Back to their fortress rode the Spaniards, up the bare, steep, pallid hillside, through the tunal, past their strong battery; back to the town rode the English, who with the punctilio of the occasion had accompanied their foes to the base of the hill. They rode through the streets which that morning they had laid waste, and through those that the stern Admiral had sworn to destroy. There black ruin faced them starkly; here doomed things awaited mutely. The town was little, and it seemed to cower before them like a child. Almost in silence did they ride, lifted and restless in mind, thought straining at the leash, but finding no words that should free it. "How hot is the night!" spoke Baldry at last. "Hast noticed the smell of the earth? We killed a great serpent coming across the plain to-day." "How the sea burns!" said Henry Sedley. "There is a will-o'-the-wisp upon the marsh yonder." "Here they call it the soul of the tyrant Aguirre," answered Ferne. "A lost soul." A little longer and they parted for the night to meet early next morning in the council with the Admiral. If to Nueva Cordoba, stripped and beaten, trembling beneath the fear of worse things to come, an army with banners held the land, so, in no lesser light, did the English see themselves, and they meant to have the treasure and to humble that white fortress. But it must be done quickly, quickly! Pampatar in Margarita, the castle of Paria or Berreo's settlement in Trinidad, could send no ships that might contend with the four swinging yonder in the river's mouth, but from the west at any hour, from La Guayra or Santa Marta, thunderbolts might fall. Would they indeed be wholly victors, then a general and overwhelming attack must soon be planned, soon made.