upon the fortress.

No tarrying after the burst of sound and light made Baldry and his men.
Up the steep ground they swept towards that pale, invulnerable castle
borne upon the shoulder of the hill, faintly outlined against the pallid
east. On they came, a long thin line of men of England to that secret
path through the tunal. Devon was there, and Kent and Sussex, and many a
goodly shire beside. Men of land-fights and of sea-fights were they, and
of old adventures to alien countries, strong of heart and frame, and
very fiercely minded towards the fortress of Nueva Cordoba. It withheld
from them the gold they wanted, and now within its grasp was a life they
valued. To-night their will was set to take the one and rescue the
other. They saw the treasure heaped and gleaming, and they saw the face
and waved hand of Mortimer Ferne. They heard him laugh and gayly cry
his thanks.

They entered the defile. To the right and the left rose the impenetrable
wood; before them wound a path thorny and difficult, where not more than
three men might go abreast; beyond, was the mass of the fortress. On
through the impeding growth, where passage was just possible, rushed
Baldry and his men. The way was not long, larger loomed the fortress,
louder grew the noise of attack and defence. At last the edge of the
tunal was reached, and they in the van, freed from hindrance and delay,
sprang forward over open ground, marked here and there by low bushes and
some trailing growth, sweeping around the fortress to the rear of the
battery, and apparently of a solidity with the universal frame
of things.

Suddenly, beneath the footing of the foremost, the earth gave way and a
line of men stumbled, and pitched forward into a trench which had been
digged, which had been planted with pointed stakes, which had been
cunningly covered over by a leafy roof so thin that a child had broken
through. Not until towards the sunset of that day had Don Luiz de
Guardiola received information which enabled him to lay snares, but
since that hour he had worked with frantic haste. Now he knew the moment
when his springe would be trodden upon, the number of them who would
come stealthily through the tunal to that gin, the nature of Nevil's
attack upon the front, what guard had been left in the town, what upon
the ships. His information was minute and accurate, and, hawk and
serpent, he acted upon it with fierceness and with guile.

The onward rush of the English had bee