[Illustration: "'Him Holguin Spaniard. Now you shoot him,' said the
Cuban."]

Thus saying, the negro handed Ridge a loaded pistol that he had taken
from the Spaniard, and then stepped aside with an air of ferocious
expectancy to note with what skill the latter would fire at the human
target thus provided.

Mechanically Ridge accepted the weapon, and with blazing eyes strode
towards the hapless Spaniard, who uttered a groan of agony, evidently
believing that his last moment had arrived. As the young trooper
passed the place where Dionysio had squatted, he snatched the negro's
big machete from the ground.

At this the latter chuckled with delight, evidently believing that the
blood-thirsty Americano was about to hew his victim in pieces, an
operation that, to him, would be vastly more entertaining than a mere
shooting. Then he stared in bewilderment; for, instead of cutting the
prisoner down, Ridge began to sever the lashings by which he was bound.
As the keen-edged machete cut through the last of these, the released
man fell forward in a faint, and the young American, catching him in
his arms, laid him on the sward. "Bring water!" he ordered, with a
sharp tone of authority, and the negro obeyed.

"You no kill him?" he asked, as he watched Ridge bathe the blood from
the unconscious man's face.

"Not now," was the evasive answer. "Where did you get him?"