ill be
long before some poor fellows will be falling out and crawling back to
the rear."

"Yes," said Fitz eagerly; "I never thought of that. Come on, then, and
let's make haste so as to get back in time."

The skipper nodded, and they hurried away, but had very little distance
to go, for the sound of the firing was bringing the curious from out of
the town, and it was not long before they had been furnished with the
material for binding up wounds, and better still, with a doctor, who
joined hands with them at once in making the rough ambulance
arrangements.

Within half-an-hour they were back at the spot where the interview with
Don Ramon had taken place, to find that which their ears had prepared
them for, the rattle of musketry going steadily on as the enemy
advanced, while they were just in time for the sharp dull thud and
echoing roar of the first field-piece, whose shell was seen to burst and
send up its puff of smoke far along the rugged valley.

This checked the advance for some minutes, scattering the enemy in all
directions, but it was plain to the lookers-on from their post of
observation, that they were being rallied, and the speaking out of the
second gun from the battery plainly told that this was the case.

What followed in the next two hours was a scene of confusion and
excitement far up the valley, and of quiet steady firing from the
battery, whose shells left little for Don Ramon's advance posts to do.

They lay low in their shelters, and built up rifle-screens, hastily
made, firing as they had a chance, but their work only helped to keep
the enemy back. It was to the guns that Don Ramon owed his success.
There was no lack of bravery on the part of the enemy's officers, for
they exposed themselves recklessly, rallying their men again and again,
and gradually getting them nearer and nearer to those who served the
guns.

But the rifle-firing was wild, and not a man among the gunners went
down, or was startled from his task of loading and laying the sheltered
pieces. All the same the enemy advanced, the rugged pass affording them
plenty of places that they could hold, and at the end of three hours
they had made such progress that matters were beginning to look serious
for the defenders of Velova, and the time had come when it was evident
to the watchers that Don Ramon was making ready to retire his guns to
his next defence, for the teams of mules were hurried up and placed in a
hollow beyond t