Page:Cup of Gold-1929.djvu/190

How may these beasts of buccaneers overcome horsemen like mine?”

Rodriguez, at the head of his troop, seemed to hear the Governor's praise. His shoulders stiffened. He rose in his stirrups and gave the signal for the charge. The bugles sang excitedly. The hooves roared with a hollow rolling sound over the turf. Their coming was like a red wave with a silver crest. Rodriguez turned in his saddle and looked proudly at the hurtling troop behind him, following his orders as though they were the multi-members of one great body governed by his brain. Every saber was lined along a horse’s neck. Rodriguez turned again to look once more at his lovely Panama before the shock. And then the whole troop rode headlong into a marsh. They knew it was there, but in the enthusiasm of the moment, in the excitement of their figures, they had forgotten about it. In a second the horse of Panama was a broken jumble of men and fallen beasts. They were flies caught in a green flypaper.

Don Juan looked dazedly at the pile of writhing, mangled bodies out on the plain, and then he burst into sobs like a child who has seen his bright toy broken in the road. The Governor did not know what to do. His brain was heavy with a red sorrow. He turned about and started plodding homeward. He would go and hear a mass in the Cathedral, he thought.

The Spanish staff had grown frantic. Red and gold uniforms were rushing about in every direction. Every officer shouted commands at the top