One sun-filled autumn morning, the General and his hunting-shirt men march away for Pensacola, their hearts full of cheering anticipations of a fight, and eight days provant in the commissariat. “We should be there in eight days,” says the General hopefully, “and Governor Maurequez and the English must provide for us after that.” The General does not overstate the powers of his hunting-shirt men, and the eighth morning finds them and him within striking distance of Fort St. Michael. The General shades his blue eyes with his hand and scans the walls with vicious lynxlike intentness in search of that hated red flag. His heart chills when he does not find it. There is the flag of Arragon and Castile; but the staff which only yesterday supported the flag of England stands an unfurnished, naked spar of pine. The General heaves a sigh. “Coffee,” he says, pathos in his tones, “they have run away.” “Possibly,” returns the excellent Coffee, who sees that the General's regrets are leveled at an absence of English, and is anxious to console him, “possibly they've only retired to Fort Barrancas, six miles below, and are waiting for us there.” The disappointed General shakes his head; he does not share the confidence of the optimistic Coffee. “Send Major Piere,” he says, “with a flag of truce to announce to the Spaniard our purpose of lunching with him. We will ask him, now we're here, by what license he gives shelter to our enemies.” Major Piere goes forward, white flag fluttering, and is promptly fired upon by Governor Maurequez at the distance of six hundred yards. The balls fly wide and high, for the Spaniard shoots like a Creek. Finding himself a target, the disgusted Major Piere returns and reports his uncivil reception. The General's eyes blaze with a kind of blue fury. “Turn out the troops!” he roars. The drums sound the long roll. The hunting-shirt men are about the cookery--being always hungry--of the last of those eight days' rations. When they fall into line, the General makes them a speech. It is brief, but registers the point of better provender in Pensacola than that which now bubbles in their coffee pots and burns on their spits. Whereat the hunting-shirt men cheer joyously. “The English, too, are there,” concludes the General. Then, in a burst of flattering eloquence: “And I know that you would sooner fight Englishmen than eat.” At the name of Englishmen, the hunting-shirt men give such a cheer that it quite throws that former cheer into the vocal shade. Everyone is in immediate favor of rushing on Pensacola. The General becomes cunning, and sends Colonel Coffee with a detachment of cavalry to threaten Fort St. Michael from the east. The Spaniards are singularly guileless in matters military. That feigned attack succeeds beyond expression, and the befogged Governor Maurequez hurries his entire garrison to those menaced eastern walls.