nd without any refuge open to us? It was not really a hesitation; she
could not be left at the mercy of O'Brien. It was as though I had for
the first time perceived how vast the world was; how dangerous; how
unsafe. And there was no alternative. There could be no going back.

Perhaps, if I had known what was before us, my heart would have failed
me utterly out of sheer pity. Suddenly my eyes caught sight of the moon
making like the glow of a bush fire on the black slope of the mountain.
In a moment it would flood the bay with light, and the schooner anchored
off the beach before the Casa Riego was not eighty yards away. I dipped
my oar without a splash. Castro pulled with his one hand.

The mists rising on the lowlands never filled the bay, and I could see
them lying in moonlight across the outlet like a silvery white ghost
of a wall. We penetrated it, and instantly became lost to view from the
shore.

Castro, pulling quickly, turned his head, and grunted at a red blur
very low in the mist. A fire was burning on the low point of land where
Nichols--the Nova Scotian--had planted the battery which had worked such
havoc with Admiral Rowley's boats. It was a mere earthwork and some of
the guns had been removed. The fire, however, warned us that there were
some people on the point. We ceased rowing for a moment, and Castro
explained to me that a fire was always lit when any of these thieves'
boats were stirring. There would be three or four men to keep it up. On
this very night Manuel-del-Popolo was outside with a good many rowboats,
waiting on the _Indiaman_. The ship had been seen nearing the shore
since noon. She was becalmed now. Perhaps they were looting her already.

This fact had so far favoured our escape. There had been no strollers on
the beach that night. Since the investment of the Casa Riego, Castro had
lived amongst the besiegers on his prestige of a superior person, of
a _caballero_ skilled in war and diplomacy. No one knew how much the
tubby, saturnine little man was in the confidence of the Juez O'Brien;
and there was no doubt that he was a good Catholic. He was a very grave,
a very silent _caballero_. In reality his heart had been broken by the
death of Carlos, and he did not care what happened to him. His action
was actuated by his scorn and hate of the Rio Medio population, rather
than by any friendly feeling towards myself.

On that night Domingo's partisans were watching the Casa Riego, while
Manuel