Striding along with her buoyant energy, she soon outstripped them all, and in a few minutes she appeared on the ledge in front of us, two hundred feet above the creek. For a moment she stood silent, a swarthy black-eyed beauty, holding the two plaits of her hair in outstretched hands: just in the same attitude and with just the same smile on her arched lips we saw her every morning when she called us to breakfast; for she was Henrico's niece and we lodged with him.
"Fortune, señors!" cried she. "Here are soldiers with a message; we do not read in our village; we come to you to speak it to us." And now the soldiers filed in, and Henrico proffered me a crumpled paper. I read on it: "To Capitan Barras." "Here!" cried I, "this is not for us."
"No," said a dusty, sweat-soaked soldier, "Capitan Barras is killed. I am his sergeant. Read, señor, I am the next."
"The enemy are reënforcing by sea. Have correct information that they intend capturing the lighthouse at San José on the 12th, and light it to guide the transports which are due to pass the inshore channel of the Devil's Teeth. Detail a command to destroy the lighthouse beyond repair. I have wired to the cruisers; latter will be able to overtake and capture transports if delayed off San José on the night of the 12th. You have six (6) hours start of the enemy.
As I finished this terse and emphatic message the sergeant cried "Ho!" and "Is that the lighthouse?"
"Yes," sang out the villagers as one man.
"Advance!" cried the sergeant, shouldering to the front of the crowd; Chloe was already on her way out, but with a sharp, smothered cry she stopped dead in the opening, turned round, and thrust back the following men, hissing the while through her teeth:
There came a sudden metallic rattling, a rapid snapping of rifle breeches, then dead, nervous silence.
The lighthouse was in possession of the enemy! Already a couple of soldiers leaned over the balcony round the lenses, and we could hear their voices as they sang out to a mounted officer below. About this latter, and standing at ease, were some eighty men.
"And the videttes," growled the sergeant, as he pointed to the hill crest. At this an angry murmur arose about us. They were completely outnumbered by the Balmacedians; and outmaneuvred by the fatal mischance to their captain in a skirmish at daybreak. He had been shot through the throat. With a last effort he had thrust the note into the sergeant's hands and bade him haste to San José, halting neither to fight nor to rest. This we learned afterward.