Foaming, prancing steeds flew with light artillery over the naked ridges, dashing madly down deep defiles, and crushing the cactus with their whirling wheels.
"Andela! Andela!" was their cry.

In vain they urged their horses, in vain they drove the spur deep and bloody into their smoking sides.

The elements were against them, and in favour of their foes.
The earth and the water were their impediments, while the air and the water were the allies of their enemies.

_They_ clung and sweltered through the hot and yielding sand or sank in the marshy borders of the Mandinga and the Medellin, while steam and the wind drove the ships of their adversaries like arrows through the water.
The alarm spread up the coast.

Bugles were sounding, and horsemen galloped through the streets of Vera Cruz.