ts were well able to use them. On
came the wild horsemen firing their carbines, when, with lances at rest,
they charged full down on the body of seamen. Several saddles were
emptied, but not till they had got close up to the bayonets did they
wheel round, apparently with the intention of retreating. Believing
that they were doing so, the bluejackets rose from their knees, and
imperfectly disciplined as they were for fighting on shore, without
waiting for their officer's orders, rushed forward in pursuit of the
apparently flying enemy. Tom and Gerald, carried away by their ardour,
took the lead, and having only their swords in their hands, got ahead of
the rest. At that moment the horsemen, once more wheeling, charged with
desperate fury against the partly broken square.

The seamen, however; again rapidly forming, fired a volley which
prevented the gauchos from cutting their way through them. Two of the
gauchos, however, as they came up, threw their lassos over Tom and
Gerald, who were at that moment in the act of springing back to gain the
protection of the bayonets, and greatly to their horror and dismay they
found themselves dragged up on the saddles of the horsemen, who with
their companions galloped off amid the showers of bullets which the
bluejackets sent after them. Among the few who, amid the smoke from the
muskets and the confusion, had seen the midshipmen spirited away, was
Snatchblock.

"We must get the young reefers back, lads! It won't do to lose them,"
he shouted out, and followed by a dozen of the _Supplejack's_ crew, less
accustomed to discipline than the rest, he started off in pursuit.
Terence seeing them going, and not knowing the cause, called them back,
but not hearing him they ran on, hoping to overtake the fleet horsemen.
The gauchos, discovering from the flight of their party in other
directions that the day was lost, continued their flight: had they
turned back, they would probably have cut down the whole of their
pursuers.

Snatchblock, compelled at length to return, told Adair what had
happened.

"Rogers and my nephew carried off?" exclaimed Adair. "How did you
fellows come to allow that?"

"We couldn't help it, sir! indeed we couldn't!" answered Snatchblock.
"There isn't a man among us who wouldn't have given his own life rather
than have let the young gentlemen be carried off by the savages, to be
killed and eaten for what we know, but their horsemen came down upon us
like l