and I intend to be the last to
leave the shore.' You see, young gentlemen, it is not only Englishmen
can do gallant things, and I like when I have an opportunity to praise
those with other blood in their veins.

"You'd like to know how we took the _Esmeralda_, I daresay?" said Tom.

"I told Master Harry all about that the other day," observed Fleming.
"It was a gallant thing, wasn't it?"

"But, I say, I wonder if the gentlemen over heard talk of what my lady
did? She was, for a woman, and a young, beautiful woman too, just as
brave as my lord. Well, I'll tell you. The first part I heard from a
man, a soldier, a brave, faithful fellow, who was with her; the rest I
saw myself. She, with her baby, was up the country, at a place called
Quilca, among the mountains, when, as she was at a ball at some great
man's house there, she heard that the Spaniards had made up their minds
to seize her and her infant, and to detain them as hostages. To think
with her was to act. Going quietly out of the ball-room and changing
her dress, she popped the nurse and child into a sort of palanquin, and
mounting one of her horses, and ordering out all the rest, she started
away in the middle of the night, and pushed on without stopping
anywhere, or telling any one where she was going. All that night and
all next day she travelled on, mounting another horse whenever the one
she rode grew tired. At last she arrived at a dark ravine, just a split
in the mountain some hundred feet deep, with a foaming torrent roaring
below. There was just the sort of rope bridge we had to cross
yesterday. Some of the people had gone down below to haul the horses
over, and she had sent her own horse across, when what should they hear
but the sound of the enemy's bugles. Seizing her child, she ordered the
palanquin-bearers to go over, and then followed close behind them
herself. Again the bugle sounded,--the enemy were close at hand. She
hurried on, but the movements of so many people crossing made the bridge
swing fearfully from side to side. She felt as if she must be thrown
off into the raging gulf below. More and more the bridge swung, and at
length, overcome with terror, she sank down on the narrow pathway,
clasping the infant to her breast. I've heard people say they dream of
such things. Here was the reality. The bridge continued to swing
backwards and forwards with a fearful motion, and she clung to it for
her life. It was a great risk fo