andez, still leading, was just
about within pistol range, when I rose to my feet, sprang up on the low
earth parapet which we had constructed, raised my sword above my head,
and, in as loud and authoritative a voice as I could command, shouted,
in Spanish:

"Halt!"

Then, as the advancing pirates wavered and hesitated, in astonishment at
my unexpected action, I continued:

"Fernandez, and you others, I call upon you to throw down your arms and
surrender, in order to prevent the further sacrifice of life. You can
do no good by persevering further in this futile attack, for we are the
masters of the situation, and we can shoot down every man of you before
it will be possible for you to reach the spot where I stand. To push on
will simply mean--"

_Crack_! One of the pirates, crouching behind another, had coolly
levelled his musket and taken a pot shot at me, the bullet passing
through my hat and searing my skull like a white-hot wire, so that I
toppled over with the shock and fell back into the arms of one of my
men. The yell of savage joy raised by the pirates at the sight of my
fall was echoed by my own men as they sprang to their feet, intending to
leap over the low parapet and charge down upon the advancing foe to
avenge me. But I was not really hurt, and, shaking off the grip of the
man who held me, I cried out in time to stay them, adjuring them, by all
that they held dear, to stand fast where they were, and finish the fight
in the battery itself. And splendidly they obeyed me, although they
might well have been excused had they ignored my command; for the firing
of that musket-shot served as the signal for a general fusillade on both
sides, in the course of which four of our men fell. But ours was the
commanding position, and by the time that the pirates had emptied their
muskets and pistols at us we had brought them to a standstill, with more
than half their number down. After that there was no possibility of
further restraining our lads, nor, indeed, was there any need. We,
therefore, poured out over the low earthwork and down the few yards of
slope that still intervened between us and the enemy, and the next
moment were engaged in a hand-to-hand, life-and-death conflict, neither
side expecting or giving quarter. For the few seconds that it lasted it
was warm work, the pirates fighting desperately--since they knew that,
if taken alive, the halter awaited them--and then, in the space of a
minute it