Suddenly the General on the opposite bank, who all the while had been darting about hither and thither like a gad-fly, held up his arm, and with astonishing pride of horsemanship (and faith in the soundness of his girths) rode his charger straight down the shelving sides of the ravine, the slaty fragments crumbling and slipping under the iron-shod hoofs. With a cheer the red _boinas_ of the Estella regiment followed, and then straight up the opposite slopes of shale they dashed towards Rollo and his poor defences. "Hold your fire!" he cried, first in English, and then in Spanish. "Wait till you are sure of them. We are only half a dozen, and we must wing a man apiece!" It chanced, however, just as the horseman (who, as the Sergeant had supposed, was Cabrera himself, almost out of his mind with disappointed fury) surmounted the ridge a little to the right of Rollo's position, but close to where the Sergeant lay behind his rock, that Concha threw herself off her charger (or rather one of General Espartero's), and with a joyous shout informed them that the Queen was safe and that twelve hundred Cristino regulars were following close behind her! Thus these two, the disappointed murderer and the triumphant deliverer, met almost face to face. Cabrera heard Concha's glad proclamation. He saw the plumes of Espartero's troopers already topping the rise, strong well-knit men of the best farming stock in Old Castile mounted on Gallegan horses. Quite breathless with her headlong course, Concha stood panting, her hand pressed on her breast. Her eyes were wandering every way in search of Rollo, and in her haste and happiness she had left her weapons behind in the camp of Espartero. "At any rate I will make sure of you!" cried the Butcher of Tortosa, bitterly, and drawing a pistol he covered Concha at point-blank distance. But from behind his rock (as it were out of the ground) arose the tall gaunt form and leathern visage of Sergeant Cardono. With a sweep of the arm he set Concha behind him, and as the General's pistol went off he received the shot in his own bosom. The next moment the Castilian horsemen crashed full on the front of Cabrera's advance and hurled it down the side of the ravine, the General himself being borne away in the thickest of the surge. Meantime another part of Espartero's command had bent round to the east and was by this time taking the Carlists on the flank. In thirty seconds the ridge of the _barranco_, which the six had defended so well, was deserted; even slow-going John Mortimer had been swept into the tide of pursuit.