Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/278

 "Your horse, comrade—go!" It was the young man who led the people, the friend whose wall had sheltered them in the night.

"I wonder if it is loaded?" Felipe muttered, training the cannon to bear on the soldiers, who came at the double on their charge.

"Felipe! Quick, your horse!" Henderson shouted.

Felipe raised his left hand like a fencer, seized the lanyard, the people fleeing from the impending discharge.

"Felipe!" Henderson appealed, reluctant, even in the peril that came charging across the plaza, to ride away and leave him there.

"Fire!" cried Roberto, lifting his sword high.

As the soldiers halted suddenly at the command, their pieces lifted in quick accord, Felipe pulled the lanyard. While the cannon rocked from the discharge he leaped to his saddle.

"Away then, comrade," he said.

Felipe waved his hat to the people as he passed, turning to see what slaughter that charge of grape-shot had made among General Garvanza's men.

"Yes, undoubtedly it was loaded," said Felipe, as he rode hard at his comrade's side.

The smoke of the cannon-shot still hovered blue in the early sun, shrouding from the shocked eyes of the people those who had fallen in its blast, when Don Abrahan came galloping into the plaza at the head of thirty men. His belated expedition for the rescue of his kinswoman from the hands of