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Updated: June 8, 2025
Diego fastened a leaf upon the bark of a tree and from a great distance transfixed it with an arrow, then in succession sent four others against the trunk, making precisely the form of a cross. The Indians cried, "Hai! Hai!" But when the four harquebus men set up their iron rests, fixed the harquebuses, and firing cut leaves and twigs from the same tree, there was a louder crying.
In this protected spot where there were no frosts and evidently but little rainfall, the bones might have lain for ages without disintegrating, for there were here no other forces to scatter or disturb them. Near the skeleton lay a helmet of hammered brass and a corroded breastplate of steel while at one side was a long, straight sword in its scabbard and an ancient harquebus.
He saw the helmet of hammered brass and the corroded breastplate of steel and the long straight sword in its scabbard and the ancient harquebus mute testimonials to the mighty physique and the warlike spirit of him who had somehow won, thus illy caparisoned and pitifully armed, to the center of savage, ancient Africa; and he saw the slender English youth and the slight figure of the girl cast into the same fateful trap from which this giant of old had been unable to escape cast there wounded and broken perhaps, if not killed.
I said to Luis as we took path after breakfast, "It is borne in upon me that only from ourselves, Admiral to ship boy, can we keep up this heaven ballad! Clothes, beads and hawk bells, cannon, harquebus, trumpet and banner, ship and sails, royal letters and blessing of the Pope nothing will do it long unless we do it ourselves!" "Agreed!" quoth Luis.
"What's the matter?" "A noise... up above..." Standing motionless on the platform, they listened. Lupin thought of the Sire de Tancarville and the sentry who had killed him with a shot from his harquebus. He shivered, feeling all the anguish of the silence and the darkness. "No," he said, "I was mistaken... Besides, it's absurd... They can't hit us here." "Who would hit us?"
The harquebus or hak-bus, hook-gun, so called because of the hook in the front part of the barrel to give steadiness in firing was much lighter, was discharged from the hand; and carried bullets of twenty-four to the pound. Both weapons had matchlocks. The pike was eighteen feet long at least, and pikemen as well as halberdsmen carried rapiers.
Too easily did the English repel an idle sortie, too eagerly did they follow Mexia in retreat, for suddenly Chance, leaving all neutrality, threw herself, a goddess armed, upon the Spanish side. In the very shadow of the hill, the mounted English, well ahead of those on foot, Mexia's disordered band making for the shelter of the tunal, a Spaniard turned, raised his harquebus and fired.
"I tell you, on the credit of a poor gentleman," he said, "that there were five hundred discharges of demi-cannon, culverin, and demi-culverin, from the Vanguard; and when I was farthest off in firing my pieces, I was not out of shot of their harquebus, and most time within speech, one of another."
Later on, in the middle of the sixteenth century, we hear of the long-barrelled harquebus being used in Spain, and before the close of the century the muschite was in use in the English army. This was a heavier weapon than the harquebus, and the soldiers were provided with a long spiked stake with a fork at the upper end in which to rest the ponderous barrel whilst they took aim.
We placed it there, then stood back. At the Admiral's command the harquebus and crossbow men laid their weapons down, though watchful eye was kept. But no arrow flights had come from the wood, and as far as could be seen some kind of lance, not formidable looking, was their only weapon. Next the Admiral made our fifer to play a merry and peaceful air.
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