he had hoped to
purchase his own freedom by betraying his comrades. But he must have
been mad to do such a thing, surrounded as he was by Chilians, for he
might have felt certain that before assistance could reach him he would
be dead.

The mischief, however, was done, and the slumbering camp was effectually
alarmed. The sentries squibbed off their rifles, and then, reloading,
began to blaze away into the Chilian encampment. The captain's harsh
voice was heard giving orders, and in a few seconds the Peruvian
soldiers had formed up in line, fixed their bayonets, and were prepared
to charge.

"Quick," exclaimed Jim; "seize your shovels and pickaxes and repel their
attack. I will help you. You, Manuel, take the key and free the others
while we who are already free keep the Peruvians at bay. But be cool--
keep calm, and all will be well; we will defend you."

Tossing the key to Manuel, Jim seized a shovel, and put himself at the
head of his men. "Charge! charge!" he roared, and the fifty free
Chilians charged straight at the place where the Peruvians were known to
be.

The next second a sanguinary and ferocious struggle had commenced in the
darkness. The Peruvians, hearing the Chilians approach, had levelled
their rifles, and poured a withering volley into the charging men, with
murderous effect. But, their rifles once emptied, conditions were
somewhat more equal, and for a quarter of an hour the combat raged
furiously. But such an unequal contest could not last very long; the
soldiers were able, during pauses in the struggle, to reload their
rifles; and this being done, they mowed the Chilians down by dozens.
Manuel did his work well, but the liberated men who straggled up, by
twos and threes, did not prove a very valuable reinforcement for the
prisoners.

Then, to crown all their misfortunes, the moon came out and flooded the
battle-ground with light; and light was all that the Peruvians needed to
enable them to turn a one-sided combat into a massacre. The Chilians,
mowed down by the score, at last threw down their primitive weapons and
called for quarter; but the soldiers, rendered still more ferocious by
the sight and smell of blood, continued to fire into the defenceless
prisoners until they were sated with slaughter. Then the hapless band
was surrounded once more, and the unhurt and least seriously wounded men
were manacled afresh. The mortally wounded were simply bayoneted as
they lay, their frien