ith his hands still
bound behind him, toward the soldiers, who, seeing that he was an
apparently escaped prisoner, opened out and allowed him to pass through
their ranks.

At this moment an officer wearing a full suit of plate armour, and
mounted on horseback, advanced, and, lifting the visor of his helmet,
demanded, in fairly good English:

"Where is the officer in command of this force?"

"Here," answered Bascomb, pushing his way to the front.

The Spaniard bowed. Then, indicating with a wave of his hand the troops
present, which must have numbered some eight hundred at least, he said
with a smile:

"Senor, do you need any further argument than these to convince you of
the desirability of surrendering at discretion?"

"_A buena querra_?" demanded Bascomb, who had picked up a phrase or two
of Spanish during his conversations with Marshall.

"Certainly, senor, if, as I presume to be the case, you hold a
commission from your queen."

"I hold no such commission, senor," answered Bascomb, who began to
realise that he and his followers were in a very tight place.

"You hold no such commission, eh? Then, is one to assume that you are
merely a band of ordinary, commonplace pirates, eh?" demanded the
officer.

"You are at liberty to assume what you please," retorted Bascomb. "I
repeat that I hold no commission, no authority save that which is
conferred by my own sword. And I surrender _a buena querra_, or not at
all."

"You surrender at discretion, or not at all, senor pirate. Which is it
to be?" was the rejoinder.

"Not at all, then," answered Bascomb. "We will fight to the death,
rather than surrender to perish in your hellish Inquisition!"

The Spaniard bowed, closed the visor of his helmet, and reined his horse
back very slowly until he had returned to his place at the head of the
regiment of cavalry which he commanded; while Bascomb, turning to his
followers, shouted:

"Now, dogs of Devon, show these cowardly Spaniards a bit of your
quality. Look to the troops, horse and foot, that they've brought
against us, eight hundred of 'em to our forty; that's just twenty to
one, twenty soldiers that each man of us must kill before we can get
back to the ship. For that's where we're going; we can't take the town
with all these soldiers against us. But let us get back to the ship and
we'll tell 'em another story; all their soldiers and twice as many again
won't save 'em from the heavy ordnance of the gall