had most formidable auxiliaries, in three Spanish blood-hounds, as yet held in leather-leashes; but who were jumping and struggling, open-mouthed, and barking, and panting to get at us, until they were almost strangled; their eyes straining in their heads, or rather starting from their sockets, as they champed and dashed the foam right and left from their coal-black muzzles. They were indeed superb creatures, all three of a bright bay colour, and about the height of a tall English stag-hound; but much stronger, as if there had been a cross of the bull-dog in their blood. The moment Lieutenant Sprawl stuck his very remarkable snout over the stockade, several of us having scrambled up abreast of him, the man already mentioned as apparently the leader of the party hailed—
"Que quieren ustedes—somos Españoles—y unde esta la guerra entre ustedes i nosotros."
He was answered by a volley from all our pieces, and simultaneously, in the struggle to get over, half-a-dozen of us tumbled down, right into the soft mud; those who had the luck to fall on their feet sank to their knees in an instant, whilst several who fell head foremost, left a beautiful cast of their phrenological developements in the mire. We fought with all our might, you may imagine, to extricate ourselves, but two out of the group were instantly pinned in their clay moulds, by the boarding-pikes of the slaver's crew, and died miserably where they fell, while several others were wounded by shot; but more of our fellows continued to pour in after us, and there we soon were, thirty men at the fewest, struggling and shouting, and blazing away, using the dead bodies of our fallen comrades as stepping-stones to advance over; while about fifteen more, as a reserve under little Binnacle, had perched themselves on the top of the stockade in our rear, and kept pouring in a most destructive fire over our heads. The yells of the men, and the barking and worrying of the dogs, who had now been let loose, and who were indiscriminately attacking whoever was next them, were appalling in the highest degree.
The bipeds whoso manfully opposed us, it was our duty and our glory to encounter; but the dogs were the very devil—altogether out of our reckoning. It was curious to see those who feared not the face of man, hanging back, and looking behind them to see if the coast was clear for a bolt, when attacked by one of the bloodhounds. So our antagonists, although so largely overmatched in numbers, had, from the ferocity of their allies, and the soundness of their footing, the advantage over us, and made good their position on the wooden stage, notwithstanding all our attempts to dislodge them; and they were in the act of getting another of the carronades, no doubt loaded with grape, slewed round and pointed at us, when five marines, who had scrambled through the brake, took them in flank, and attacked them from the sea face, with unexampled fury. The serjeant of the party instantly shot the leader of the Spanish crew in the back, between the shoulders, when he made a staggering rush, and to my utter consternation bore me to the ground, and then fell forward right on the top of me. Oh for the mahogany desk jammed into the pit of my stomach, thought I; all your accounts are closed, Master Benjie. Still in my dreams I often fancy that I feel the convulsive clutches of the dying man, and the hot blood gurgling from his mouth, down my neck, and the choking gasp, and the death quiver.
I was not stunned however, although I must have been overlaid some time, for when I wriggled myself clear of the horrible load, our fellows had already gained the platform, led by old Davie Doublepipe, who was laying about him with his rusty weapon like a Paladin of old; at one moment shredding away showers of twigs from the branches that overhung us; at another inflicting deep and deadly gashes on his antagonists; his sword raining blood, as he whirled it round his head flashing like lightning; while his loud growl, like the roaring of the surf after a gale, alternated rapidly with his tootletoo, that gushed shrill and sharp from out the infernal noise and smoke and blaze of the tumult. The Gazelles and Midges had now closed hand to hand with their antagonists, and the next minute the survivors of the latter fairly turned tail, and fled along a narrow path, equally muddy as the one we had entered by; where many of them stuck up to the knees, and were there shot down by our people, but no attempt was made to follow them. Several men had been terribly torn by the bloodhounds, who, when their masters had fled, noble brutes as they were, stood gasping and barking; and handling at us, at the entrance of the opening. thus covering their retreat;—spouting out in abound or two towards us every now and then, and immediately retiring, and yelling and barking at the top of their pipes. I was going to fire at one of them, when the Scotch corporal of marines, already introduced on the scene, took the liberty of putting in his oar. "Beg pardon, Mr. Brail, but let abee for let abee with mad dogs and daft folk, is an auld but a very true adage." I looked with an enquiring eye at the poor fellow, who appeared worn to the bone with illness, so that I was puzzled to understand how Sprawl had brought him with him; but I took his hint, and presently the canine rear-guard beat a retreat, and all was quiet for a time.
We now spiked the cannon and capsized them into the mud, where they instantly sank, and I had time to look around on the scene of conflict. There lay two of our people stark and stiff, countersunk into the soft soil, which was gradually settling over the bodies in a bloody mire; while four wounded men were struggling to extricate themselves, and endeavouring to attain the hard footing of the platform of planks. Three of them, with the assistance of their mess-mates, did accomplish this, but the fourth was too badly hurt, and too faint from the loss of blood, to persevere, and in despair threw himself back, gasping on the bloody quagmire.
"What is that?" said I, while half a dozen dropping shots sparkled out from beneath the thick jungle, and at the very instant one of the boat-keepers stuck his head over the stockade.
"The tide has left us, sir, and the mouth of the creek has not six inches of water in it, sir. The boats must stick hard and fast until next flood."
Startling enough this. What was to be done? To retreat, for the time, was out of the question, so we had no chance but in a forward demonstration.
"After these miscreants, men," cried old Sprawl, having previously ordered ten hands back to cover the boats—"after them, and drive them from the jungle."
"Hurrah!" We shoved along the narrow path through which the enemy had vanished, and the first we overtook was a poor devil shot through the neck, writhing in agony, and endeavouring to extricate himself from the slough. He was thrust through on the instant, as unceremoniously as if he had been a crushed beetle. A little farther on we encountered in another small by-track that took away to the left, three others, evidently part of the gang who had been peppering us from beneath the covert of the bushes. These were shot down as unceremoniously where they stood. I cannot forget the imploring glances of the poor fellows as they vainly beseeched our mercy, and the fearful sight of their stretching themselves out, and falling crash back amongst the branches when we fired. Two of them seemed to fall at once quite dead amongst the bloody leaves; but the third, shrieking aloud, had wrestled himself a fathom or two into the brake before he received his quietus from a marine, who walked close up to him, and shot him deliberately through the heart. Still we heard the shouts of the rest of the party who had retreated, and were now well ahead of us, and we pushed on in pursuit—when all at once, as if I had been struck by the levin-brand, a flash of light blazed across my eyes, and I came to the ground by the run.
[1] Literally—Take care—mind your eye.
CHAPTER III.
THE MIDGE IN THE HORNET'S NEST.
When I came to myself I was sitting in the small muddy path through which our antagonists had been driven. About a fathom from me, partly hid by the mangrove bushes, lay the dead body of one of the white crew of the polacre. He had fallen on his back across a stout branch, that shot out horizontally from one of the trees at a height of about a foot from the ground, so that, while his feet and legs rested on the soft black alluvial soil on one side of it, his head, with the face turned upwards, and relaxed arms, hung down
