Had he no better excuse? Perhaps not. . . . He only knew that he
could not help it; that this thing had been done, and by the consent
of many . . . and that as a man he must kill for it, though as a
soldier he deserved only to be killed.

With the child's eyes still resting on him in wonder, he set the
rifle on its butt and rammed down a cartridge; and so, dropping on
hands and knees, crept to the window.



CHAPTER VII.


Early next morning Sergeant Wilkes picked his way across the ruins of
the great breach and into the town, keeping well to windward of the
fatigue parties already kindling fires and collecting the dead bodies
that remained unburied.

Within and along the sea-wall San Sebastian was a heap of burnt-out
ruins. Amid the stones and rubble encumbering the streets, lay
broken muskets, wrenched doors, shattered sticks of furniture--
mirrors, hangings, women's apparel, children's clothes--loot dropped
by the pillagers as valueless, wreckage of the flood. He passed a
very few inhabitants, and these said nothing to him; indeed, did not
appear to see him, but sat by the ruins of their houses with faces
set in a stupid horror. Even the crash of a falling house near by
would scarcely persuade them to stir, and hundreds during the last
three days had been overwhelmed thus and buried.