Parthian
arrows of rhetoric the mountaineers retreated.

But this did not last long. The Maroons soon learned to keep out of the
way of the shells, and the island relapsed into terror again. It was
deliberately resolved at last, by a special council convoked for the
purpose, "to persuade the rebels to make peace." But as they had not as
yet shown themselves very accessible to softer influences, it was
thought best to combine as many arguments as possible, and a certain
Colonel Quarrell had hit upon a wholly new one. His plan simply was,
since men, however well disciplined, had proved powerless against
Maroons, to try a Spanish fashion against them, and use dogs. The
proposition was met, in some quarters, with the strongest hostility.
England, it was said, had always denounced the Spaniards as brutal and
dastardly for hunting down the natives of that very soil with
hounds,--and should England now follow the humiliating example? On the
other side, there were plenty who eagerly quoted all known instances of
zooelogical warfare: all Oriental nations, for instance, used elephants
in war, and no doubt would gladly use lions and tigers, also, but for
their extreme carnivorousness, and their painful indifference to the
distinction between friend and foe;--why not, then, use these dogs,
comparatively innocent and gentle creatures? At any rate, "something
must be done"; the final argument always used, when a bad or desperate
project is to be made palatable. So it was voted at last to send to
Havana for an invoice of Spanish dogs, with their accompanying
chasseurs, and the efforts at persuading the Maroons were postponed till
the arrival of these additional persuasives. And when Colonel Quarrell
finally set sail as commissioner to obtain the new allies, all scruples
of conscience vanished in the renewal of public courage and the chorus
of popular gratitude; a thing so desirable must be right; thrice were
they armed who knew their Quarrell just.

But after the parting notes of gratitude died away in the distance, the
commissioner began to discover that he was to have a hard time of it. He
sailed for Havana in a schooner manned with Spanish renegadoes, who
insisted on fighting everything that came in their way,--first a Spanish
schooner, then a French one. He landed at Batabano, struck across the
mountains towards Havana, stopped at Besucal to call on the wealthy
Marquesa de San Felipe y San Jorge, grand patroness of dogs and
cha