A sprinkling of soldiers, all dismounted cavalry or gunners, a few disheveled officers, had accompanied De Sylva in his flight. With reckless bravery, he and Russo had tried to rally the troops camped at headquarters. It was a hopeless effort. Half-breeds can never produce a military caste. They may fight valiantly in the line of battle--they will not face the unknown, the terrible, the harpies that come at night, borne on the hurricane wings of panic. Unhappily, De Sylva and his bodyguard were the messengers of their own disaster. The cowardly genius at Pesqueira had planned a surprise. He would not lead it, of course, but in Dom Miguel Barraca he found an eager substitute. It was a coup of the Napoleonic order; an infantry attack along the entire front of the Liberationist position cloaked the launching against the center of a formidable body of cavalry. The project was to thrust this lance into the rebel position, probe it thoroughly, as a surgeon explores a gunshot wound, and extract the offender in the guise of Dom Corria. The scheme had proved eminently successful. The Liberationists were crumpled up, and here was Dom Corria making his last stand. He deserved better luck, for he was magnificent in failure. Calm as ever, he tried to be shot or captured when the reserves in camp failed him. Russo and the rest dragged him onward by main force. "They want me only," he urged. "My death will end a useless struggle. I shall die a little later, when many more of my friends are killed. Why not die now?" They would not listen. "It is night!" they cried. "The enemy's horses are spent. A determined stand may give us another chance." But it was a forlorn hope. As San Benavides lurched into the _pateo_, the horses of the first pursuing detachment strained up the slope between house and encampment. Carmela, all her fire gone, the pallid ghost of the vengeful woman who would have shattered her lover's skull were the revolver loaded, was the first to see him. She actually crouched in terror. Her tongue was parched. If she uttered some low cry, none heard her. Dom Corria, striving to dispose his meager garrison as best he could, met his trusted lieutenant. His face lit with joy. "Ah, my poor Salvador!" he cried. "I thought we had lost you at the ford!" "No," said San Benavides. "I ran away!" Even in his dire extremity, De Sylva smiled. "Would that others had run like you, my Salvador!" he said. "Then we should have been in Pernambuco to-morrow." The Brazilian looked around. His eye dwelt heedlessly on the cowering Carmela. He was searching for Iris, who had been compelled by Coke and Bulmer and her uncle to take shelter behind the score of sailors who still remained at Las Flores. "It is true, nevertheless," he said laconically. "I knew the game was lost, so I came here to try and save a lady." "Ah--our Carmela? You thought of her?" "No!"