On the instant a young Indian woman, with a shrieking infant in her arms, rushed to the door. There was a blue gunshot wound in her neck, from which two or three large black clotting gouts of blood were trickling. Her long black hair was streaming in coarse braids, and her features were pinched and sharpened, as if in the agony of death. She glanced wildly behind, and gasped out, "_Escapa, Oreeyue, escapa, para mi soi, muerto ya_." Another shot, and the miserable creature convulsively clasped her child, whose small shrill cry I often fancy I hear to this hour, blending with its mother's death-shriek, and, falling backwards, rolled over the brow of the hill out of sight. The ball had pierced the heart of the parent through the body of her offspring. By this time a party of Spanish soldiers had surrounded the hut, one of whom kneeling before the low door, pointed his musket into it. The Indian, who had seen his wife and child thus cruelly shot down before his face, now fired his rifle, and the man fell dead. "_Sigi mi Querida Bondia--maldito_." Then springing to his feet, and stretching himself to his full height, with his arms extended towards heaven, while a strong shiver shook him like an ague fit, he yelled forth the last words he ever uttered, "_Venga la suerte, ya soi listo_," and resumed his squatting position on the ground. Half-a-dozen musket balls were now fired at random through the wattles, while the lieutenant, who spoke Spanish well, sung out lustily, that we were English officers who had been shipwrecked. "_Mentira_," growled the officer of the party, "_Piratas son ustedes_." "Pirates leagued with Indian bravoes; fire the hut, soldiers, and burn the scoundrels!" There was no time to be lost; Mr. Splinter made a vigorous attempt to get out, in which I seconded him, with all the strength that remained to me, but they beat us back again with the buts of their muskets. "Where are your commissions, your uniforms, if you be British officers?" We had neither, and our fate appeared inevitable. The doorway was filled with brushwood, fire was set to the hut, and we heard the crackling of the palm thatch, while thick stifling wreaths of white smoke burst in upon us through the roof.