g his workmanship with a satisfied
smile; but vengeance was not to come from him.

Quick and fierce as a tiger-cat, the girl sprang on the ruffian, and
with the intense strength of passion, clasped him in her arms and leaped
with him from the narrow ledge into the abyss below.

There was a rush, a shout; all faces were bent over the precipice. The
girl hung by her chained wrist: the officer was gone. There was a
moment's awful silence; and then Amyas heard his body crashing through
the tree-tops far below.

[Illustration: "DO NOT SHOOT TILL I DO"]

"Haul her up! Hew her to pieces! Burn the witch!" and the driver,
seizing the chain, pulled at it with all his might, while all springing
from their chairs, stooped over the brink.

Now was the time for Amyas! Heaven had delivered them into his hands.
Swift and sure, at ten yards off, his arrow rushed through the body of
the driver, and then, with a roar as of a leaping lion, he sprang like
an avenging angel into the midst of the astonished ruffians.

His first thought was for the girl. In a moment, by sheer strength, he
had jerked her safely up into the road; while the Spaniards recoiled
right and left, fancying him for the moment some mountain giant or
supernatural foe. His hurrah undeceived them in an instant, and a cry of
"English! Dogs!" arose, but arose too late. The men of Devon had
followed their captain's lead: a storm of arrows left five Spaniards
dead, and a dozen more wounded, and down leapt Salvation Yeo, his white
hair streaming behind him, with twenty good swords more, and the work of
death began.

The Spaniards fought like lions; but they had no time to fix their
arquebuses on the crutches; no room, in that narrow path, to use their
pikes. The English had the wall of them; and to have the wall there, was
to have the foe's life at their mercy. Five desperate minutes, and not a
living Spaniard stood upon those steps; and certainly no living one lay
in the green abyss below. Two only, who were behind the rest, happening
to be in full armor, escaped without mortal wound, and fled down the
hill again.

"After them! Michael Evans and Simon Heard; and catch them, if they run
a league."

The two long and lean Clovelly men, active as deer from forest training,
ran two feet for the Spaniard's one; and in ten minutes returned, having
done their work; while Amyas and his men hurried past the Indians, to
help Cary and the party forward, where shouts and musket s