He spoke with knowledge, as the thunder suddenly grew louder and the air around them was tinted with phosphorescent light. It was not a flare of lightning, merely its distant reflection, but it was enough to have disclosed them, if they had been standing, to any one ten paces distant. The danger itself gave them new strength, and they quickly crossed the ground to the _chevaux de frise_, where they crouched against the tall cedar posts. They lay almost flat upon the ground, and they were very glad of the shelter, because the lightning was coming nearer. Now, when the lightning flashed along the mountain slopes, they saw not far away the dim figure of a soldier, and they heard distinctly his cry: "Sentinela alerte!" "Wait until he goes back," whispered the stranger. "Then we must climb the wall and climb it quickly. It’s fastened with cross timbers which will give us hold for both hand and foot." The lightning tinted the sky once more with its phosphorescent gleam, and they did not see the soldier. "Now for it!" said the man in a sharp, commanding whisper. "Up with you and over the wall!" John seized the crosspiece, and in another instant was on the top of a wall of cedar posts twelve feet high. He did not know until afterward that the strong hand of his rescuer had helped him up. In another instant the man was beside him, and then the lightning flared brightly, showing vividly the huge castle, the stone ramparts, the moats and the two figures, naked to the waist, sitting on top of the cedar wall. "Sentinela alerte!" was shouted far louder than usual, and "Sentinela alerte!" came the reply in the same tone. Two musket shots were fired, and the two figures, one with a red stain on his side, sprang outward from the cedar fence into the second and smaller moat, which was only fourteen feet wide, although its outer wall was an earthwork rising very high above the water. Two or three strong strokes carried them across, and with desperate efforts they climbed up the high bank. They heard shouts, and they knew that when the lightning flared again more shots would be fired at them. It was then that John noticed the red stain on the side of his comrade, and all the reserves of mental strength that made him so much like his brother, Philip, came to his aid. He snatched the package from his head, tore it apart, threw the serape around his body and stood up, erect and defiant, pistol in hand. He would do something for this man who had done so much for him.