As they approached the line guns flashed out from the wagons, and the bullets sang thickly round them; but they were going too fast to be an easy mark, and the peasants, after firing their guns, seeing the point for which they were making, ran in a body to oppose them, armed with pitch forks and ox goads; few of them had, however, reached the spot when Jack and his troopers dashed up.

There was a short sharp struggle, and then, leaving five or six of the peasants dead on the ground, the troopers burst through and rode forward.

One man only had been lost in the passage, shot through the head as he approached the gap.
"So far we are safe," Jack said, "and as I expect every man in the country round was engaged in that ambush, we need not hurry for the present.

The question is, Which way to go ?" This was indeed a difficult point to settle, for Jack was wholly ignorant of the country.

He had made inquiries as to the way to Estrella, but knew nothing of any other roads leading from that village, and indeed, for aught he knew, the road by which he had come might be the only one leading to the south through the range of hills.
"We will turn west," he said, after a moment's thought, "and keep along near the foot of the hills till we come to another road crossing them." So saying, he set forward at an easy trot across the fields of maize and wheat stubble, vineyards, and occasionally orchards.