“Well, I am thy friend, am I not?” quoth Mexia, comfortably.  “I am not Englishman nor Valdez nor Cimmaroon slave, and so I fear not thy smile.  It is twelve of the clock....  Do you think that Desmond knows so much?”

“Not more than one other,” answered De Guardiola, and called for a flask of wine.

The day wore on in heat and light, white glare from the hill, and from the sea fierce gleams of blue steel.  The coasts loomed, the plain moved in the hot air.  Here the plain was arid, and there yellow flowers turned it to a ragged Field of Cloth of Gold.  The gaunt cacti stood rigid, and the palms made no motion where they dropped against the blue.  In cohorts to and fro went the colored birds; along the sandy shores, rose pink and scarlet and white, crowded the flamingoes.  Crept on the noonday stillness; came the slow afternoon, the sun declined, and every hour of that day had been long, long!  One would have said that it was the longest day of the year.  Throughout it, dominant upon its ascending ground, white, impregnable, and silent as a sepulchre, rose the fortress.  Before the fortress, slumberous also, couched the long, low fortification of stone and earthwork commanding in its turn the road through the tunal.  In the town below, alcalde and friar waited trembling upon the English Admiral with representations that the quality of mercy is not strained.  The slight rills of gold yet hidden in Nueva Cordoba burst forth and began to flow fast and more fast towards the English quarters.  From the churches, Dominican and Franciscan, wailed the miserere, and the women and children trembled beneath the roofs which at any moment might no longer give them sanctuary.  For all the blazing sunshine, the place began to wear a look of doom.

During the day the English dragged Mexia’s conquered guns to the edge of the town, and under their cover threw up earthworks and planted their artillery where it might speak with effect.  Spanish soldiery appeared before the battery, and, according to the tactics of the time, began to make thorny with abattis, poisoned stakes, and other devices the way of the enemy across the open space which it guarded.  English marksmen picked them off, others took their place; they falling also, one great gun from the fort bellowed defiance.  Its echoes ceasing, silence again wrapped the white ascent and all that crowned it.  For days now each antagonist had that knowledge of the other that ammunition was the pearl of price only to be fully shown by warrant of circumstance.

The sun in sinking cast a strange light.  It stained the sea, and the air so partook of that glow that town and fortress sprang into red significance.  The river also, where swung the dark ships, was ensanguined, as was every ripple upon the shore, where now the birds grew very clamorous.  There were no clouds; only the red ball of the sun descending, and a clear field for the stars.  The evening wind arose; at last the day died; unheralded by any dusk, on came the night.  Color of blood changed to color of gold, gleamed and glistened the sea, sparkled the fire-flies, shone the deep stars; over the marsh flared the will-o’-the-wisp like a torch lit to bad ends.