you had a hundred lives that I might take them one by one!" Then he
wheeled sharp upon his heel and gave the order to the ensign. "Belt him
to the tree, Farquharson, and make an end of him. I've kept you waiting
over-long."

They strapped me to a tree with other belts, and when all was ready the
ensign stepped aside to give the word. Just here there came a little
pause prolonged beyond the moment of completed preparation. I knew not
why they waited, having other things to think of. I saw the firing line
drawn up with muskets leveled. I marked the row of weather-beaten faces
pillowed on the gun-stocks with eyes asquint to sight the pieces. I
remember counting up the pointing muzzles; remember wondering which
would be the first to belch its fire at me, and if, at that short range,
a man might live to see the flash and hear the roar before the bullets
killed the senses.

But while I screwed my courage to the sticking place and sought to hold
it there, the pause became a keen-edged agony. A glance aside--a glance
that cost a mightier effort than it takes to break a nightmare--showed
me the ensign standing ear a-cock, as one who listens.

What he heard I know not, for all the earth seemed hushed to silence
waiting on his word. But on the instant the early morning stillness of
the forest crashed alive, and pandemonium was come. A savage yell to set
the very leaves a-tremble; a crackling volley from the underwood that
left a heap of writhing, dying men where but now the firing squad had
stood; then a headlong charge of rough-clad horsemen--all this befell in
less than any time the written words can measure.

I sensed it all but vaguely at the first, but when a passing horseman