It was decided that the
forest presented less dangers and difficulties than the fortified road,
and that the only hope of safety lay in a flank movement which would lead
them to the rear of the enemy.
During that day active preparations were made for the proposed movement.
The three hundred Spaniards who had ambushed them some days before still
hung upon their rear. Their horses, sick, and prisoners were therefore
left in an enclosed camp, barricaded by their baggage-vehicles and guarded
by eighty of their number. As a means of impressing the enemy with their
numbers and alertness they kept up camp-fires all night, repeated at
intervals the rolls upon the drum, relieved the sentinels with a great
noise, and varied these signs of activity with cries and occasional
discharges of musketry.
Meanwhile, as soon as the shades of evening descended, the remainder of
the freebooters, some two hundred in number, began their march, following
the route indicated by a scout they had sent to examine the forest. The
difficulties of that night journey through the dense wood proved very
great, there being numerous steep rocks to climb and descend, and this
needed to be done with as little noise as possible.
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