wouldn't
have supposed that he would be the man to go back on us. I thought he was
the best of the lot."

"Get behind that wall of bags," cried the captain, "every one of you.
Whoever they are, we will talk to them over a breastwork."

"I think we shall have to do more than talk," said Burke, "for a blind
man could see that there are guns in those boats."

CHAPTER XL

THE BATTLE OF THE GOLDEN WALL

The five men now got behind the barrier of bags, but, before following
them, Captain Horn, with the butt of his rifle, drew a long, deep furrow
in the sand about a hundred feet from the breastwork of bags, and
parallel with it. Then he quickly joined the others.

The three white men stationed themselves a little distance apart, and
each moved a few of the top bags so as to get a good sight between them,
and not expose themselves too much.

As the boats came on, the negroes crouched on the sand, entirely out of
sight, while Shirley and Burke each knelt down behind the barrier, with
his rifle laid in a crevice in the top. The captain's rifle was in his
hand, but he did not yet prepare for action. He stooped down, but his
head was sufficiently above the barrier to observe everything.

The two boats came rapidly on, and were run up on the beach, and the men
jumped out and drew them up, high and safe. Then, without the slightest
hesitation, the ten of them, each with a gun in his hand, advanced in a
body toward the line of bags.

"Ahoy!" shouted the captain, suddenly rising from behind the barrier.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" He said this in English, but
immediately repeated it in Spanish.

"Ahoy, there!" cried Cardatas. "Are you Captain Horn?"

"Yes, I am," said the captain, "and you must halt where you are. The
first man who passes that line is shot."

Cardatas laughed, and so did some of the others, but they all stopped.

"We'll stop here a minute to oblige you," said Cardatas, "but we've got
something to say to you, and you might as well listen to it."

Shirley and Burke did not understand a word of these remarks, for they
did not know Spanish, but each of them kept his eye running along the
line of men who still stood on the other side of the furrow the captain
had made in the sand, and if one of them had raised his gun to fire at
their skipper, it is probable that he would have dropped. Shirley and
Burke had been born and bred in the country; they were hunters, and were
both good shots. It