The movement was all but fatal. The wound in his throat tore apart,
his head fell forward and his eyes closed. I saw the blood spreading
and dyeing the gold braid. But he straightened himself and leaned
forward. His eyes opened, and, holding himself erect with one hand on
the railing of the balcony, he stretched the other over me, as though
in benediction.

"Go, Royal!" he cried, "and--God bless you!"




VI


I bent my head and drove my spurs into my horse. I did not know where
he was carrying me. My eyes were shut with tears, and with the horror
of what I had witnessed. I was reckless, mad, for the first time in my
life, filled with hate against my fellow-men. I rode a hundred yards
before I heard the scout at my side shouting, "To the right, Captain,
to the right."

At the word I pulled on my rein, and we turned into the Plaza.

The scout was McGraw, the Kansas cowboy, who had halted Aiken and
myself the day we first met with the filibusters. He was shooting from
the saddle as steadily as other men would shoot with a rest, and each
time he fired, he laughed. The laugh brought me back to the desperate
need of our mission. I tricked myself into believing that Laguerre was