The excitement upon this arrival soon subsided, and I had again fallen into unconsciousness, when a rough shake of the shoulder aroused me, and the voice of the old sergeant dinned in my ear,—­“Come here! saddle up! saddle up!  You are detailed for Obraja.”  In a few moments I was mounted, and, with two others of the company, rode out of the gateway into the street.  There we found awaiting us a fourth horseman, charged with orders for the riflemen at Obraja, and whom it was our duty to accompany as guard.

After clearing Rivas, we clattered over the road at a fast pace, rousing all the dogs at the haciendas as we passed, and leaving them baying behind us, until we came to where the Potosi road forked off to the right; thenceforward, fearing an ambush, we rode slowly and with great caution, stopping often to dismount and reconnoitre moon-lit fields beyond the roadside hedges.  At length, after passing a picket of our riflemen, we came to a large adobe house directly on the roadside, where we found the main body of the detachment encamped and sleeping.  The house stood something under half a mile from Obraja, and was the residence of that friendly alcalde who on the approach of the enemy had removed with his family to Rivas, and placed General Walker on his guard.  As we rode into the yard, we had some ado to keep our horses from treading on the sleeping soldiers, who lay scattered all round the building, and also in its open corridor fronting toward Obraja.  Dismounting here, our courier went into the house to communicate with Colonel O’Neal, the commander of the detachment,—­leaving it to us either to tie up, and lie where we were until morning, or pass farther up the road, where Captain Finney’s rangers were stationed.  I chose to go forward and hear the rangers’ story, who, we were told, had had a slight brush with the enemy in the beginning of the night.

After riding near quarter of a mile, I came to another adobe building on the roadside, occupied by a small party, and forming Colonel O’Neal’s advanced post, at the distance of four hundred yards or more from Obraja.  Here they told me that Captain Finney’s company, whilst riding into Obraja early in the night, had been hotly fired upon, and Captain Finney himself was brought off struck in the breast, wounded mortally.  The riflemen had as yet made no attack, but awaited daylight.  The number of the enemy was not known; though rumor placed it between one thousand and fifteen hundred.  Whatever it was, they were apprehensive; for throughout the night we heard them barricading the town with great hurry and clatter; and it gave us sad discomfort to think that in the morning there would be these walls to climb before our men could get at them.  It was the occasion of much bitter cursing that there should be delay until this was accomplished, and of one man’s protesting seriously that it was, and had been, General Walker’s endeavor, not to whip the greasers, but to get as many Americans killed in Nicaragua as possible,—­he nourishing secret and implacable hatred against them for some cause.  However, I think this judgment weak and improbable, though plausible enough from some points of view.