sentry, who sprang quickly enough from his
reverie beside the fire; then to the General's tent, then to Carlos,
with the same whispered message. "The Gringos are here! Wake, for the
love of Heaven!"

In another moment the little glade was alive with dusky figures,
springing from their beds of moss and leaves, snatching their arms,
fumbling for cartridges. The General was already among them. Carlos and
the other officers came running, buckling their sword-belts, rubbing
their eyes.

"Where are they?" all were asking in excited whispers. "Who saw them? Is
it another nightmare of Pepe's?"

"No! no!" murmured Rita. "I saw them, I tell you! I saw their faces in
the moonlight. I went to get some water. They are climbing up the cliff.
I did not stop to count, but there must be many of them, from the sound
of their feet. Oh, make haste, make haste!"

The General gave his orders in a low, emphatic tone. Twenty men, with
Carlos at their head, glided like shadows across the glade, and
disappeared among the trees. Rita's breath came quick, and she prepared
to follow; but the old General laid a kind hand on her arm. "No, my
child!" he said. "You have done your country a great service this night.
Do not imperil your life needlessly. Go rather to your room, and pray
for your brother and for us all."

But prayer was far from Rita's thoughts at that moment. "Dear General,"
she implored, with clasped hands, the tears starting to her eyes, "Let
me go! let me go! I implore you! I will pray afterward, I truly will. I
will pray while I am fighting, if you will only let me go. See! I have
come all this way to fight for my country; and must I stay away from the
first battle? Look, dear Senor General! Look at my machete! Isn't it
beautiful? it is the sword of a hero; I must use it for him. Let me go!"
The beautiful face, upturned in the moonlight, the dark eyes shining
through their tears, might have softened a harder heart than that of
General Sevillo. He opened his lips to reply, his fatherly hand still on
her arm, when suddenly a sharp report was heard. A single shot, then a
volley, the shots rattling out, struck back and forth from cliff to
cliff, multiplying in hideous echoes. Then broke out cries and groans;
the crash of heavy bodies falling back among the trees below, and shouts
of "_Viva Cuba_;" and still the shots rang out, and still the echoes
cracked and snapped. Rita turned pale as death, and clasped her hands
on her bosom. "