near by, as if fascinated by the sight of these men who were to be shot
presently--"for an example"--as the Commandante had said.

The sergeant, without deigning to look at the prisoner, addressed
himself to the young officer with a superior smile.

"Ten men would not have been enough to make him a prisoner, mi teniente.
Moreover, the other three rejoined the detachment after dark. Why should
he, unwounded and the strongest of them all, have failed to do so?"

"My strength is as nothing against a mounted man with a lasso," Gaspar
Ruiz protested, eagerly. "He dragged me behind his horse for half a
mile."

At this excellent reason the sergeant only laughed contemptuously. The
young officer hurried away after the Commandante.

Presently the adjutant of the castle came by. He was a truculent,
raw-boned man in a ragged uniform. His spluttering voice issued out of
a flat yellow face. The sergeant learned from him that the condemned men
would not be shot till sunset. He begged then to know what he was to do
with them meantime.

The adjutant looked savagely round the courtyard and, pointing to the
door of a small dungeon-like guardroom, receiving light and air through
one heavily barred window, said: "Drive the scoundrels in there."

The sergeant, tightening his grip upon the stick he carried in virtue
of his rank, executed this order with alacrity and zeal. He hit Gaspar
Ruiz, whose movements were slow, over his head and shoulders. Gaspar