aw not a man, not a musket.
She saw only the wet fields of cane, and the black mist-shrouded
mountains beyond.

"Just the same," the Frenchman assured her pleasantly, "they are there,
full five hundred of my little tribe. Does mademoiselle approve?"

"It looks like the curtain on 'Fra Diavolo,'" she replied, shuddering.

CHAPTER V

THE MISSOURIANS

"Men sententious of speech and quick of pistol practice."
--_Major John N. Edwards._

An hour before nightfall the guerrillas attacked. Jacqueline was
standing at the window, when she heard a jubilant din and saw a tawny
troop charging through the fields toward the house. They yelled as they
came, waving machetes and carbines. It was the usual theatrical dash of
Mexicans. Like savages, they thought first to frighten their
adversaries.

"Won't you come and see, Berthe? It's like a hippodrome."

She felt sorry for them. The dulcet cane grew thorns. Under the leaves
the black soil was become clay red with leather jackets. The Cossacks
had fixed sword-bayonets to their muskets, and were waiting on their
knees.

Stung by the hidden barbs, the first horses reared in air, pawing and
screeching frantically. Many sank down again, and they were limp as the
life ebbed. Others crashed backward, their riders underneath, and those
behind plunged over them, unable to stop. Soon it was a fearful jumble;
men and beasts, hoofs and steel, curses and shrill neighing. Then the
firing began, a woof of fine red threads through the warp of pale-green
reeds. The guerrillas yet fought. The myth of their own heavier numbers
kept them from panic. Ragged fellows with feet bare in the stirrups
leaned over to slash at heads between the tasselled stalks. They
squirmed like snakes from under kicking horses, and fainting, got a
carbine to the shoulder at aim, and someway, pulled the trigger. Then
they were taken in the rear. One-half of the Contra forces, mounted, had
waited under the sapling growth of the nearest foothill. Now they sprang
from cover, bloodthirsty whelps trailing the Tiger. The guerrillas could
not turn back. To retreat they must cleave the way in front, and they
did, by sheer desperation. Falling in the mesh at every step, they at
last gained the large open space around the cabin.

Then it was that Jacqueline got a near view of Don Rodrigo. He was
superbly mounted, and his long body made a heroic figure on the
curveting charger. He f