San Benavides answered, but his voice was shrill and unofficer-like.
The engines were started.

A man leaped to the wharf.

He was in the act of casting a mooring rope off a fixed capstan when De Sylva shot him between the shoulder-blades.
"On board, all of you!" shrieked the ex-President in a frenzy.
"At 'em, boys!" gasped Coke, though scarce able to stagger another foot.
The men needed no bidding.

Sheets of flame leaped from the vessel's deck as the soldiers seized their rifles and fired point-blank at these mysterious assailants who spoke in a foreign language.

But flame alone could not stop that desperate attack.