and the next moment the
Spaniards were upon them. The party holding the pass were the picked
men, veterans, among the marauders. They met the onset with tremendous
courage and crossed blades in the smoke like men, but at the same
instant the advance guard of the main army sprang at the barricade and
assaulted them vigorously from the other side. The odds were too much
for the buccaneers, and after a wild melee in which they lost heavily,
the survivors gave ground.

The road immediately below the pass opened on a little plateau, back of
which rose a precipitous wall of rock. Thither such of the buccaneers as
were left alive hastily retreated. There were perhaps a dozen men able
to use their weapons; among them Teach was the only officer. L'Ollonois
had been cut down by de Tobar in the first charge. The Spaniards burst
through the pass and surrounded the buccaneers. The firearms on both
sides had all been discharged, and in the excitement no one thought of
reloading; indeed, with the cumbersome and complicated weapons then in
vogue there was no time, and the Spaniards, who had paid dearly for
their victory, so desperate had been the defence of the pirates, were
fain to finish this detachment in short order.

"Yield!" cried Alvarado, as usual in the front ranks of his own men.
"You are hopelessly overmatched," pointing with dripping blade to his
own and the Viceroy's soldiers as he spoke.

"Shall we get good quarter?" called out Teach.

A splendid specimen he looked of an Englishman at bay, in spite of his
wicked calling, standing with his back against the towering rock, his
bare and bloody sword extended menacingly before him, the bright
sunlight blazing upon his sunny hair, his blue eyes sparkling with
battle-lust and determined courage. Quite the best of the pirates, he!

"You shall be hung like the dogs you are," answered Alvarado sternly.

"We'd rather die sword in hand, eh, lads?"

"Ay, ay."

"Come on, then, senors," laughed the Englishman gallantly, saluting with
his sword, "and see how bravely we English can die when the game is
played and we have lost."

Though his cause was bad and his life also, his courage was magnificent.
Under other circumstances it would have evoked the appreciation of
Alvarado and some consideration at his hands. Possibly he might even
have granted life to the man, but memory of the sights of the night
before in that devastated town six thousand feet below their feet, and
the dea