CHAPTER IX.BATTLE IN EARNEST.
“Viva Cuba Libre!”
Ramirez shouted that stirring battle-cry with the full strength of his lungs.
“Oh, it’s just glorious!” declared Hal, turning his sparkling eyes upon his comrade. “Two recruits, with six horses and sixty rifles!”
“Our comrades—that is, our comrades-to-be—will embrace us!” uttered Juan.
Click-clack! Hoofs rang out sharply on the stony bed of the ravine.
“Even if they turn to follow, we are leaving the Spaniards behind,” cried Juan.
“Very likely; but what if we were to encounter a second body of the enemy here in this ravine? Our turn to laugh would be over.”
That thought urged them to greater speed. When the ravine narrowed, Hal, with two of the led horses in tow, took the lead, Ramirez following closely.
“Juan, my comrade!”
“Si, mi amigo!”
“We are coming out of the ravine. There is a plain ahead.”
Three minutes more of hard trotting brought them out into open country, dotted here and there with small groves of palms.
“Better halt,” advised Hal, reining up.
Ramirez did the same, without questioning.
“Rope the horses abreast,” directed Maynard. “You can ride on one side of the line, I on the other. In that way we can keep the brutes at a gallop, if needed.”
Dismounting, they quickly accomplished this task. Within two minutes they were once more in saddle.
“You must be our guide,” suggested Maynard, as he settled down in saddle.“Where shall we find the nearest Cuban camp?”
“I do not know,” replied the Cuban. “I know where Major Alvaredo was the day before yesterday, but—diablo!—the Cubans are not likely to camp for two hours in the same spot. All I can say, mi amigo, is that we had better ride eastward, trusting that we shall meet some pacifico who can tell us the way more particularly.”
“Forward, then!”
From a trot they broke into a gallop, urging the pack horses on by liberal lashing with ropes.
In two minutes more our friends had covered over half a mile.
“I heard yells,” muttered Hal, looking backward over his shoulder.
Ramirez looked, too, then broke into a hearty laugh.
Back on a hill, near the mouth of the ravine, they saw a sight calculated to inspire mirth.
Spanish soldiers, some of them nude and many half-dressed, dotted the hill.
In the first fright of surprise, these men had fled. Then, finding that none of their number were killed, and that no foe pursued, they had halted, turned about.
They had probably found their four dead comrades, and must have divined, from the absence of such footmarks as a battalion would have made, that they had been tricked.
So they had pursued until now they had reached a spot whence they were able to see the exact strength of the attacking force.
Frantic shouts now rent the air, reaching our young friends even at that distance.
In the lead of all the Spaniards, Hal could make out the uniform of the Spanish colonel.
“He seems mad,” observed Hal, quizzically. “If those soldiers were close at hand, unarmed though they are, they would make things hot for us.”
Ramirez nodded, his face darkening.
“Mi amigo,” he suggested, tremulously, “suppose we stop and give them fight.”
“With these horses and all these guns destined for the insurgents?” demanded Hal. “My friend—nit! We have no right to risk losing such splendid supplies.”
“At least,” begged Ramirez, “let us halt and fire a half a dozen shots into them.”
“Fire at unarmed men?” retorted Hal. “Not while I’m here to stop it.”
“Mi amigo, you are right,” replied Juan, with an air of self-reproach. “But do not blame me. We have so much reason to hate that uniform of Spain that we cannot resist the temptation to fire upon it wherever we see it.”
“I don’t blame you,” nodded Hal. “But my grievances against Spain are of such recent date that I can wait for fair fight.”
No attempt was made by the Spaniards to pursue the pair across the plain. Such a chase would have been futile, anyway, for jaded men are no match for galloping horses.
In another half hour the foe were left five miles to the rear.
Our young friends, too, had come to the end of the plain. Before them stretched a gradual slope leading up into the hills.
“I think we can halt to breathe our horses,” proposed Hal. “What do you say?”
Ramirez nodding, both threw themselves out of saddle to stretch their legs.
“It’s odd that we haven’t met a single passer-by,” commented Hal.
“What else would you expect?” demanded the Cuban, shrugging his shoulders. “Spain has burned down all the country homes, and driven the people into the cities. Even if pacificos had the courage to remain out here in the country, on what could they subsist? There is not enough food out here to feed a rat.”
“They would have almost as much to eat here as in the cities,” remarked Maynard, growing misty-eyed over the remembrance of the thousands of starving Cuban reconcentrados he had seen in Havana. “But we must go on, Juan. The more I think, the hotter my blood becomes. I shall not be happy until I stand under the Cuban flag.”
Ramirez stretched out his hand, grasping our hero’s warmly.
“I can never forget, mi amigo,” hemurmured, huskily, “that it was you who gave me the happiness of being able to take to the long grass.”
Mounting again, Hal gave the signal to go forward. Up the slope they moved at a jogging gait, being compelled once more to lead their pack horses.
Hal reached the highest land just in advance of his comrade.
Like a flash Maynard wheeled about.
“Halt! Dismount! Don’t come to the top,” he cried. “Tether your horses—so. Follow me.”
Rifle in hand, Hal led the way, Ramirez following without a word.
“Look down there,” cried Hal.
In a valley to the northward rested a squad of Spanish cavalry men, some twenty in number, and commanded by an officer.
Ramirez looked, his eyes flashing with hate.
The enemy were dismounted, with horses tethered.
“We can fire now!” breathed the Cuban. “Those men are armed.”
“Wait!” warned Hal. “Come here. Now look down there.”
Down the southward slope of the hill, less than half the distance away of the dismounted cavalry was a sight that made the Cuban’s blood boil still hotter.
Four pacificos, their hands bound and roped together, were slowly ascending the grade.
Ahead of them rode three Spanish cavalrymen; behind the prisoners a like number of guards.
“What do you say now?” quivered Hal.
“The pacificos must be saved. They are to be taken to Havana or shot. The latter would be the most merciful fate.”
Ramirez spoke jerkily, at the same time swinging his rifle into position.
“Not yet,” commanded Hal. “Those fellows are coming this way. We can fire straighter when they are nearer. If they keep to their course, they will go by within fifty feet of here.”
“You command,” grumbled Ramirez, “but it is hard to wait.”
“It’s common sense,” declared the American. “If we were to fire now, and miss, the cavalry in the valley on the other side of the hill could reach here before the fight was over. We should be killed, and all to no purpose.”
“You have a plan?” questioned Ramirez.
“Thunder, yes!”
“If it works as well as the other did my patience will be rewarded.”
“Slip back to the horses. Get four more rifles—loaded ones.”
Ramirez vanished, though it hardly seemed as if he had gone, before he was back again.
“Here they are, senor, and loaded.”
“Good. Now crouch down, after placing two of the rifles at my side and two by your own side. Whatever you do, don’t fire until I give the word.”
Ramirez obeyed, though the suspense made him tremble.
His eyes flashed like jewels as he saw the four Cubans and their guard come nearer.
“Surely they are near enough now to open fire,” he whispered hoarsely.
But Hal shook his head emphatically. “No, no, my comrade! When we fire, we must take no chance of missing. Now, not another word, but you will hear me whisper ‘fire’ when they are within a hundred feet. You take the fellow in the front rank on the extreme left.”
Juan protruded the muzzle of one of his weapons through the bushes that screened them from sight.
He shook so with impatience as to make the bushes rattle.
“Steady,” whispered Hal.
Ramirez, by a tremendous effort at patience, got a better grip on himself.
Nearer, still nearer, came the six troopers and their captives.
Hal himself found it hard to restrain the temptation to fire, though he held himself in check to the last.
But at last the whispered word came: “Fire!”
Two jets of flame shot out from the bushes; two troopers reeled from saddle and fell.
Crack! crack! Two more were down.
Crack! crack! A fifth trooper fell, all within the space of five seconds.
Ramirez, firing with the deadly aim of hatred, had brought down all three of his men, but Hal missed at the third shot.
“Car-r-r-r-r-rajo!” vented the solitaryremaining trooper, wheeling and putting spurs to his horse.
Crack! Ramirez fired again, bringing this fellow down, too.
Hal darted to his feet and started down the slope, Ramirez posting after him.
At the first sound of fire, the four pacificos had thrown themselves to the earth. Now they raised themselves, peering eagerly at their rescuers.
“You are friends of Cuba?” panted Hal.
A hot chorus in the affirmative answered him.
“You will fight with us? There are more foes near.”
“Si, si, si,” (yes, yes, yes) cried one of the pacificos, while the other three raised a tumultuous shout of:
“Viva Cuba libre!”
Hal and Juan instantly busied themselves with freeing the quartette.
“Follow us to the top of the hill at your best speed,” yelled Maynard.
He reached there ahead of the rescued ones, faced them, and shoved into the hands of each a rifle.
As these were repeating weapons, each still contained several shots.
Below, on the other side of the hill, an animated scene was going on.
The squad, a few moments before lolling on the grass, had now sprung into saddle.
Their officer was bawling himself hoarse with his rapidly delivered orders.
For a few seconds the squad seemed uncertain whether to flee or fight.
Hal kept his little force out of sight by making them crouch behind the bushes.
“I have waited a year and more for such a chance as this,” sobbed one of the pacificos, kissing the barrel of his rifle, and Hal, looking the emaciated wretches over, had no doubt that they would fight to the last breath.
Juan slipped back to where the horses were tethered, returning with more cartridges.
Hal, in the meantime, had restrained the others from firing.
“It would do little good at this range,” he explained, “and from what I have heard the Cubans are not so rich in ammunition that they can afford to waste any.”
All the time he kept his eyes on the squad below.
Their officer had decided upon an attack, for at a quick command from him the troopers spread out in skirmish line and advanced.
Instantly the pacificos began to take eager aim.
“Don’t fire yet,” ordered Hal.
“But senor,” pleaded one of the quartette, “it is so hard to see the Spaniards, and yet not fire!”
“The best fighters,” rejoined Hal, promptly, “are those who can keep cool and obey orders.”
“The senor is right, mi amigos,” ejaculated Ramirez. “Twice he has restrained my impatience, and in consequence we won both times.”
Bang! A line of fire ran along the skirmish line below, the reports sounding as one.
Whish! whish! A tornado of whistling bullets tore through the leaves of the bushes that sheltered the little Cuban force.
“Oh, mi amigo!” suddenly groaned Ramirez, turning white.
For one of the bullets had struck Hal Maynard.
Up flew his hand to his forehead.
In the next second he keeled back—stretched out.