Then they went on again, by paths that led through tobacco fields and amidst breast‐high cane dripping with the dew that brushed them as they passed. This was, however, the work the Sin Verguenza were accustomed to, and no one saw them flit through the misty fields file by file. The cazadores, on their part, marched with bugles and wagons and loaded mules; and there was perhaps some excuse for their leader, the Colonel Morales, who believed the Sin Verguenza to be hiding some ten leagues away. They stopped for the last time within sight of the white‐walled town, which lay dark and silent girdled by thin wisps of mist, and the Captain Maccario spoke to those who could hear him. His words were not eloquent or especially patriotic, but they were answered by a portentous murmur; and Appleby surmised that there would be wild work if the Sin Verguenza sacked the town. He, however, moved forward as he was bidden with his ragged half‐company, realizing that in the meanwhile he was rather going with than leading them. Where the rest went he could not see, for his attention was occupied in getting into and out of enclosures noiselessly, and once he fell into an aloe hedge and pricked himself grievously. Then he wondered what had happened to the barefooted men, but none of them at least said anything, and the dim, flitting forms went on. It all seemed unreal to him—white walls that rose higher, shadowy figures, and the silence they scarcely disturbed; but once more he was vaguely conscious that it was curiously familiar. Then there was no more cover, for they straggled out, not in ranks, but clusters, from among orange trees and tall, flowering shrubs, which he fancied by their scent were oleanders, with a bare strip between them and the flat‐topped houses. Santa Marta lay before him scarcely two hundred yards away, and he felt his heart throb painfully. His guide whispered something, and Appleby nodded, though he could not remember what the man had said, and they went forward at a run. The patter of feet, and clatter of strap and swivel, seemed to swell into a bewildering din, but they were almost upon the fielato offices, where the carretera entered the town, before a rifle flashed.