Part 39 (2/2)

Immediately Lieutenant Trent signaled the advanced line, reporting the party seen out on the plain.

”Then wait and escort them in,” came Commander Dillingham's order.

”O.K., sir,” the detachment's signalman wigwagged back.

In three-quarters of an hour more the painfully moving party reached the detachment. They were truly refugees, released from Mexico City and nearby points.

The sight of these suffering people, some hundred and twenty in number, and mainly Americans, was enough to cause many of the sailormen to shed unaccustomed tears, and not to be ashamed of them, either!

Every degree of wretchedness and raggedness was represented by these sufferers of indescribable wrongs.

Men, and women too, showed the marks of rough handling by brutal prison guards. There were many disfigured faces. One man carried in a crude sling, an arm broken by a savage Mexican captor.

Such spectacles were of daily occurrence in Vera Cruz! These wretched men, women and children had been on the way on foot since the middle of the night, having painfully trudged in over the twenty-five-mile gap in which the tracks had been torn up.

Ordering his men to fall in, Lieutenant Trent escorted the patient, footsore procession in to the advanced line. The sailormen adjusted their own steps to those of the sufferers. As they moved along c.o.xswain Riley vented his feelings in an undertone:

”We need only a band and a dead march to make a funeral of this!

And---yet---no war!”

From the slow-moving ranks came only a deep, surly growl. Lieutenant Trent turned around, then faced front once more; he had no heart to utter a rebuke.

Mingled cheers and growls greeted the arrival of the pitiful fugitives at the advanced lines. The cheers were for the fact that the refugees had at least escaped with their lives. The growls were for the Mexicans responsible for this spectacle.

”We must secure conveyances of some kind to take these poor people into the city,” declared Commander Dillingham. ”I will send a messenger to ask for the best sort of carriages that can be found in a place like Vera Cruz. Lieutenant, as the second airs.h.i.+p is returning yonder, your duty outside the lines is over. You may march your men to the camp yonder and let them rest until they are needed.”

”I wish a word with you, sir, when possible,” Trent urged.

”At once,” replied Commander Dillingham. Darrin was with Lieutenant Trent when he reported the discovery of the whereabouts of Cantor and Cosetta.

”It wouldn't do any good to go out in the daytime,” the commander decided. ”The fellows would see you coming, and take to their heels toward the interior before you came within rifle range.

You will have to go after dark, Lieutenant, and better still, towards midnight. In the early evening they might be watching for an American advance, but late at night they would decide that their hiding place is not suspected. You will plan, Lieutenant, to leave here at a little before eleven o'clock to-night, which will bring you to the adobe house about midnight. I will communicate my information to the commander of the forces ash.o.r.e, and, if not reversed by him, my present instructions will hold.”

The orders were not reversed. At 10.45 that night Trent marched his detachment beyond the advanced line. Every man moved as softly as he could, and there was no jingling of military accoutrements.

Finally the adobe house stood out dimly against the night sky at a distance of less than half a mile.

”If Cosetta has his men with him, they are doubtless sleeping outside, on their arms, tonight,” Lieutenant Trent explained, after a softly ordered halt. ”When we attack, Cantor and perhaps Cosetta, will try to escape from the rear of the house, making a quick dash for the interior, while Cosetta's men try to hold us in check. Therefore, Darrin, I am going to let you have fifteen men. You will make a wide detour of the house, and try to work to a position in the immediate rear. You will have your men lie flat on the ground, and I will take every precaution that my men do not fire upon you. If you see Cosetta or Cantor, you will know what to do.”

”Aye, aye, sir,” responded Ensign Darrin.

With the stealth of a cat Dave advanced, revolver in hand. He was behind the house, and within forty feet of the back door, when a cras.h.i.+ng fire ripped out in front.

Cosetta's men, lying on the ground, had failed to note Darrin's flanking movement, but had discovered Trent's advance.

Suddenly the rear door flew open, and two men dashed out.

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