The alarmed Governor, catching sight of a couple of dead Spaniards, fresh killed in the struggle with the foolish interior fort, expresses his grief in staccato shrieks, which serve as weird marks of punctuation to the laughter of the rude hunting-shirt men. The laughter ceases when the General himself rides up. “Thar's the Gin'ral,” says a hunting-shirt man, biting his merriment short off. “Thar's the man of mercy you're asking for.” Governor Maurequez starts back at sight of the gaunt face, emaciated by sickness born of those Benton bullets, and yellowed to primrose hue with the malaria of the Alabama swamps. The lean figure on the big war stallion might remind him of Don Quixote--for he has read and remembers his Cervantes--save for the frown like the look of a fighting falcon, and the fire-sparkle in the dangerous blue eyes. As it is, he feels that his visitor is a perilous man, and begins to bow and cringe. “I beg the victorious Senor General,” says he, pressing meanwhile a right hand to his heart, and presenting the white square of truce with the other--“I beg the victorious Senor General to spare my beautiful Pensacola!” “You are Governor Maurequez!” returns the General, hard as flint. “Yes, Senor General; I am Governor Maurequez, as you say. Also”--here his voice begins to shake--“I must remind your excellency that this is a province of Spain, and ask by what right you invade it.” “Right!” returns the General, anger rising. “Did you not fire on my messenger? Sir, if you were Satan and this your kingdom, it would be the same! I would storm the walls of hell itself to get at an Englishman.” There comes the whiplike crack of a rifle almost at the General's elbow. Far up the narrow street, full four hundred yards and more, a flying Spanish soldier throws up his hands with a death yell, and pitches forward on his face. At this, the hunting-shirt man who fired tosses his coonskin cap in the air and shouts: “Thar, Bill Potter, the jug of whisky's mine! Thar's your Spaniard too dead to skin! If the distance ain't four hundred yard, you kin have the gun!” “What's this?” cries the General fiercely. “Nothin', Gin'ral!” replies the hunting-shirt man, abashed at the forbidding manner of the General, “nothin', only Bill Potter, from the 'Possum Trot, bets me a jug of whisky that old Soapstick here”--holding up his rifle as identifying “old Soapstick”--“won't kill at four hundred yard.” “Betting, eh!” retorts the General, assuming the coldly implacable. “Now it's in my mind, Mr. Soapstick, that unless you mend your morals, some one about your size will pass an hour strung up by the thumbs so high his moccasins won't touch the grass! How often must I tell you that I'm bound to break up gambling among my troops?” The rebuked soapstick one slinks away, and the General turns to Colonel Coffee. “Give the word, Coffee, to cease firing.” The General's glance comes around to Governor Maurequez, still bowing and presenting his white flag.