Another hour, during which the men had thoroughly lost their temper, but not their hearts, by waiting; and talked so loud, and strode up and down so wildly, that Amyas had to warn them that there was no need to betray themselves; that the Spaniards might not find them after all; that they might pass the stockade close without seeing it; that, unless they hit off the track at once, they would probably return to their ship for the present; and exacted a promise from them that they would be perfectly silent till he gave the word to fire.

Which wise commands had scarcely passed his lips, when, in the path below, glanced the headpiece of a Spanish soldier, and then another and another.

“Fools!” whispered Amyas to Cary; “they are coming up in single file, rushing on their own death.  Lie close, men!”

The path was so narrow that two could seldom come up abreast, and so steep that the enemy had much ado to struggle and stumble upwards.  The men seemed half unwilling to proceed, and hung back more than once; but Amyas could hear an authoritative voice behind, and presently there emerged to the front, sword in hand, a figure at which Amyas and Cary both started.

“Is it he?”

“Surely I know those legs among a thousand, though they are in armor.”

“It is my turn for him, now, Cary, remember!  Silence, silence, men!”

The Spaniards seemed to feel that they were leading a forlorn hope.  Don Guzman (for there was little doubt that it was he) had much ado to get them on at all.

“The fellows have heard how gently we handled the Guayra squadron,” whispers Cary, “and have no wish to become fellow-martyrs with the captain of the Madre Dolorosa.”

At last the Spaniards get up the steep slope to within forty yards of the stockade, and pause, suspecting a trap, and puzzled by the complete silence.  Amyas leaps on the top of it, a white flag in his hand; but his heart beats so fiercely at the sight of that hated figure, that he can hardly get out the words—­

“Don Guzman, the quarrel is between you and me, not between your men and mine.  I would have sent in a challenge to you at La Guayra, but you were away; I challenge you now to single combat.”

“Lutheran dog, I have a halter for you, but no sword!  As you served us at Smerwick, we will serve you now.  Pirate and ravisher, you and yours shall share Oxenham’s fate, as you have copied his crimes, and learn what it is to set foot unbidden on the dominions of the king of Spain.”

“The devil take you and the king of Spain together!” shouts Amyas, laughing loudly.  “This ground belongs to him no more than it does to me, but to the Queen Elizabeth, in whose name I have taken as lawful possession of it as you ever did of Caracas.  Fire, men! and God defend the right!”

Both parties obeyed the order; Amyas dropped down behind the stockade in time to let a caliver bullet whistle over his head; and the Spaniards recoiled as the narrow face of the stockade burst into one blaze of musketry and swivels, raking their long array from front to rear.