Rising ground and the bulk of the fortress hid from them the battery; they would hear, not see, John Nevil’s onslaught, so now they watched the east for the silver signal of attack.  Not long did they watch.  Above the waters the firmament became milk white; an argent line appeared, thickened:—­one moment of the moon, then tumult, shouting, the blast of a trumpet, the sound of small arms, and the roar of those guns which must be rushed upon and silenced!  Noises of bird and beast had the tropic night, all the warfare and the wrangling with which life exacts tribute from life, but now the feud of man with man voiced itself to the stars.  So great and stern was the uproar that it seemed as though John Nevil might oversweep with his iron determination that too formidable battery and unaided seize 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.