*CHAPTER XVI.* *A SIEGE.* "Fore-doomed is every felon Scot, Who stains our native land. * * * * In ambush, near this darksome stream, Five hundred rifles lay; The water-kelpie stroaked his beard, And nichered for his prey." _Daniel Vedder._ "They must be somewhere hereabout," cried Cifuentes with a horrible oath, speaking at intervals, while he panted with exhaustion and fatigue. "But where in the name of Beelzebub can they have concealed themselves?" "They crossed the stream, I can swear," replied one fellow while he loaded his musquet. "I saw them descend the bank with my own eyes." "You could scarcely see them well with another man’s, Puerco Vadija; but there is no trace of them on the opposite bank. One of the dogs is missing, too." "There it lies, floating among the rocks and foam yonder," replied a third ruffian. "Dead?" "Ay, dead as Judas." "_Demonios_! How can these cursed fiends have escaped us?" "Fiends they appear to be, certainly. They were but three in number, and a hundred shots have missed them, while they have slain some of our best men." "By all the might of hell!" exclaimed Narvaez, in a voice of bitter rage, "they shall not escape us, if we once more gain sight of them. To the gay bravo with the large black feathers I bear a hatred, that every drop of blood in his coward heart only can quench. To think that they should escape us scathless, after having slain so many!" "Poor Julian Diaz!" said Vadija. "A more jolly monk was not in Estremadura, where there are well nigh six thousand of the cord and cowl." "_Dios!_ it maddens me!" "And then the brave Lazarillo de Xeres de los Cavalleros—" "How, Vadija! what of him?" "I found him lying dead in the pathway, stabbed twice in the heart." "_Hombres_! Close round me, comrades; we must fall on some plan to seek vengeance. It is evident they have not crossed the stream,—we must have seen them had they done so; therefore they must be close at hand, and—" The rest was lost in the clamour of the others, who clustered round Cifuentes, each delivering his opinion, and holding forth obstinately against those of his brother rogues, many more of whom were coming straggling up from the rear, panting and almost breathless with exertion. Meanwhile the three fugitives had thrown themselves, wet as they were, upon the damp floor of the cavern, happy to find rest and time to breathe with some regularity and composure.