to a night
attack."

Twenty minutes later Jack rode off with his party, having first obtained
directions from the natives as to the best road to Estrella. The village
was but some fifteen miles off, and lay in the center of a fertile
district on the other side of a range of lofty hills. The road they were
traversing ran through the hills by a narrow and very steep valley.

"This would be a nasty place to be attacked," Jack said to the sergeant,
who was riding just behind him.

"It would, indeed, sir; and if they were to set some of those stones
arolling they would soon knock our horses off their legs."

A mile or two further on the road again descended and the valley opened
to a fertile country. Another half hour's sharp riding brought them into
Estrella. Their coming had probably been signaled, for the inhabitants
evinced no sudden alarm as the little troop rode along the principal
street. The women stood at the doors of the houses to look at them, the
men were gathered in little knots at the corners; but all were unarmed,
and Jack saw at once that there was no intention of offering resistance.
He alighted at the door of the village inn, and in a few minutes two or
three of the chief men in the village presented themselves.

"The English general," Jack said, "has heard that the people of your
neighborhood are hostile, and that those who would pass through with
animals and stores for the army are prevented from doing so. He bids me
say that he does not wish to war with the people of this country so long
as they are peaceful. Those who take up arms he will meet with arms; but
so long as they interfere not with him he makes no inquiry as to whether
their wishes are for King Charles or Philip of Anjou; but if they evince
an active hostility he will be forced to punish them. You know how
Marshal Tesse has massacred unarmed citizens whom he deemed hostile, and
none could blame the English general did he carry out reprisals; but
it will grieve him to have to do so. He has therefore sent me with this
small troop to warn you that if the people of this village and district
interfere in any way with his friends, or evince signs of active
hostility, he will send a regiment of horse with orders to burn the
village to the ground, and to lay all the district bare."

"Your general has been misinformed," the principal man in the place
said. "There are, it is true, some in the district who hold for Philip
of Anjou; but the populat