Yet I laugh at this when I remember how they
crept snake-like in the bushes, and tried to pick us off at the doors,
and how they strove, without much danger to themselves, to run our
pickets in on us, and get to see our backs turned, whereupon, doubtless,
humanity would have been little thought of, and filibuster blood cheap
enough. Indeed, once that morning, with little less than four-score
horse, they came charging with hope to pass a picket of ten men; but
saddles being emptied, they recoiled, and their leader being slain,
whilst attempting to rally them, they fled contemptibly,--seven or eight
from one. However, this is only my revenge for much exasperation and
deploration that they would never come away from their pestiferous
walls,--where, after all, they had a right to stay, and will not be
blamed by the candid and unbebullet-whizzed reader that they did stay.
We kept our post at the doors, annoyed and apprehensive, until the sun
was an hour or so high, when a party of rangers arrived from Rivas
with led horses to transport the wounded,--which incumbrance it was, I
suppose, that prevented our withdrawal earlier.
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