meant to put a handsome oath--"or--it's a fight!"

"There, there," said Jacqueline gently. "Besides, are you not to go with
me just the same?"

Ney turned to the stranger. "I ask you to withdraw, sir, both yourself
and your offers, because you're only meddling here."

The intruder grew rigid straightway. "_I_ am not one to take back
an offer," he stated loftily. His voice was weighted to a heavier
guttural, and in the deep staccatos harshly chopped off, and each
falling with a thud, there was a quality so ominous and deadly that even
Jacqueline had her doubts. But she would not admit them, to herself
least of all. "And I, Monsieur Ney," she said, "have decided to accept,"
though she had not really, until that very moment.

Ney turned to the one sailor with him. "Run like fury!" he whispered.
"Bring the others!"

"Oh, very well," said the Mexican.

As he doubtless intended, Fra Diavolo's words sounded like the low growl
of an awakening lion, and at the same time he brought forth the reed
whistle and put it to his lips. The note that came was faint, like that
of a distant bird in the forest.

Ney smiled. It seemed inadequate, silly. Lately he had become familiar
with the sonorous foghorn, and besides, he was not a woodsman and knew
nothing of the penetration of the thin, vibrant signal. When the sailors
should come, he would take the troublesome fellow to the commander of
the garrison on the hill. But then a weight fell on him from behind, and
uncleanliness and garlic and the sweating of flesh filled his nostrils.
Bare arms around his neck jerked up his chin, according to the stroke of
Pere Francois. Other writhing arms twined about his waist, his legs, his
ankles; and hands clutched after his sabre and pistol. But at last he
stood free, and glared about him, disarmed and helpless. Jacqueline's
infernal Fra Diavolo was surveying him from the closed door of the Cafe,
behind which he had swept the two women. His stiff pose had relaxed, and
he was even smiling. He waved his hand apologetically over his
followers. "His Exceeding Christian Majesty's most valiant contra
guerrillas," he explained.

The so-called contra guerrillas were villainous wretches, at the
gentlest estimate. Their scanty, ragged and stained cotton manta flapped
loosely over their skin, which was scaly and as tough as old leather.
Most of them had knives. A few carried muskets, long, rusty,
muzzle-loading weapons that threw a slug of marble size.