say it seriously? Are you not fooling?”
“I advise you in earnest. All you need is courage.”
“But you tell me when.”
“Right now—race along before the sergeant comes.”
Roque gave rein to his horse and urged it with quick strokes of his heels against its flanks, but he hardly succeeded in making it take a slow and measured gallop. He had gone but a few steps when a report sounded just behind him and a bullet passed, grazing the brim of his sombrero.
“Zounds,” he murmured, “what a scare this man has aimed to give me.”
And instinctively he tried to place himself in the field at one side of the road to hide himself in the brambles. But there was no time for anything. For all his urging the horse would not do better than his little gallop. He heard the nearing band of horses and various shots sounded. Then he understood that he had fallen into a trap and that he was about to lose his life through it. Impelled by the instinct of self-preservation, he tried to dismount to seek shelter; but it was too late. The gendarmes were upon him, firing with their rifles.
“Jesus help me! Mother receive my spirit!” he said in thought, and fell penetrated by the bullets. Two had entered at the shoulders and emerged at the chest, and the third entered at the neck and destroyed the skull.
What was it which the terrified Diaz then saw? Upon a plank, borne by four