about four o'clock in the afternoon
Then Jack undertook to see to the release of the unhurt prisoners , with all the business incidental thereto ; and , as a first step , he proceeded with a band of fifty armed negroes to the captured camp , and forthwith went to work to bring in all the weapons and ammunition , the uninjured field gun , the tents , and the wagons , all of which would be exceedingly valuable acquisitions to any revolutionary force which they might chance to join . Then the horses , mules , and cattle were driven in , the mules being harnessed to the gun and the wagons . All these captures having been stored as carefully as circumstances permitted , the prisoners who were to be released were paraded , and each was served with one day 's rations ; then they gladly moved off , _ en route _ for Pinar del Rio , under a strong escort of armed negroes , led by Jack , who was on this occasion mounted upon a good horse . It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when the little army started ; and they marched until eight o'clock , when they camped for the night in the open , Jack and his band returning some three miles along the road by which they had gone , and passing the night in a wood through which the road ran . They arrived back at the estate shortly after nine o'clock the next morning , and Jack then learned , to his profound sorrow , that the unfortunate Senora Montijo had passed away during the night , another victim of Spanish tyranny and oppression . They buried the poor lady on the evening of that day , in a particularly lovely and peaceful spot , some distance up the valley , which had been a favourite resort of her daughter . The ceremony was singularly moving and impressive , every negro on the place following the body to the grave , and Don Hermoso himself , in the absence of a priest , reading the funeral service over his departed wife .