On the instant a young Indian woman, with a shrieking infant in her arms, rushed to the door.  There was a blue gunshot wound in her neck, and her features were sharpened as if in the agony of death.  Another shot, and the child’s small, shrill cry blended with the mother’s death shriek; falling backwards the two rolled over the brow of the hill out of sight.  The ball had pierced the heart of the parent through the body of her offspring.  By this time a party of Spanish soldiers had surrounded the hut, one of whom, kneeling before the low door, pointed his musket into it.  The Indian, who had seen his wife and child shot down before his face, fired his rifle and the man fell dead.

Half a dozen musket balls were now fired at random through the wattles of the hut, while the lieutenant, who spoke Spanish well, sung out lustily that we were English officers who had been shipwrecked.

“Pirates!” growled the officer of the party.  “Pirates leagued with Indian bravos; fire the hut, soldiers, and burn the scoundrels!”

There was no time to be lost; Mr. Splinter made a vigorous attempt to get out, in which I seconded him with all the strength that remained to me, but they beat us back again with the butts of their muskets.

“Where are your commissions, your uniforms, if you be British officers?” We had neither, and our fate appeared inevitable.

The doorway was filled with brushwood, fire was set to the hut, and we heard the crackling of the palm thatch, while thick, stifling white smoke burst in upon us through the roof.

“Lend a hand, Tom, now or never.”  We laid our shoulders to the end wall, and heaved at it with all our might; when we were nearly at our last gasp it gave way, and we rushed headlong into the middle of the party, followed by Sneezer, with his shaggy coat, full of clots of tar, blazing like a torch.  He unceremoniously seized, par le queue, the soldier who had throttled me, setting fire to the skirts of his coat, and blowing up his cartridge-box.  I believe, under Providence, that the ludicrousness of this attack saved us from being bayoneted on the spot.  It gave time for Mr. Splinter to recover his breath, when, being a powerful man, he shook off the two soldiers who had seized him, and dashed into the burning hut again.  I thought he was mad, especially when I saw him return with his clothes and hair on fire, dragging out the body of the captain.  He unfolded the sail it was wrapped up in, and pointing to the remains of the naval uniform in which the mutilated corpse was dressed, he said sternly to the officer, “We are in your power, and you may murder us if you will; but that was my captain four days ago, and you see at least he was a British officer—­satisfy yourself.”

The person he addressed, a handsome young Spaniard, shuddered at the horrible spectacle.

When he saw the crown and anchor, and his Majesty’s cipher on the appointments of the dead officer, he became convinced of our quality, and changed his tone.