The rear-guard under Carlos had not passed much more than a hundred yards ahead when the leading files of the pursuers appeared round the bend of the path, breathless, from the fact that the retreating party had no sooner disappeared round the elbow than the Spaniards had broken into a run, taking advantage of the circumstance that they were for a moment out of sight of the enemy to shorten the distance between themselves and the pursued. As the vanguard of some twenty pursuing Spaniards dashed round the bend they dropped on one knee and raised their rifles to their shoulders, availing themselves of the lightning flashes to take aim at the little crowd of retreating figures imperfectly seen here and there through the overhanging and swaying branches. The Cruise of the Thetis--by Harry Collingwood CHAPTER NINETEEN. TRAPPED! Never for a moment did they suspect the existence of the little body of men concealed among the ferns and undergrowth and boulders, some sixty feet up the precipitous side of the hill round the base of which they were winding, until, before the quickest of them could pull trigger, there rang out above them an irregular volley, aimed with such deadly precision that every man of them went down before it, and were there found, blocking the path, when their comrades arrived upon the scene a minute or two later. As these in turn swung round the bend and came upon the prostrate forms, they naturally halted and proceeded to examine the bodies, with the view of separating the living from the dead; with the result that there was almost instantly a crowd of about a hundred Spanish soldiers bunched together in the narrow path, some of them performing ambulance work, but the majority simply waiting for an opportunity to pass. This was altogether too good a chance to be neglected; and, waiting only until the jostling crowd in the pathway was at its thickest, Jack raised a whistle to his lips and blew a single, shrill note.