with their backs turned to the town, looking out across the plain to
the hills.

The men in the crowd behind them were also grimly silent. They knew
that whatever they might say would be twisted into a word of sympathy
for the condemned man or a protest against the government. So no one
spoke; even the officers gave their orders in gruff whispers, and the
men in the crowd did not mix together, but looked suspiciously at one
another and kept apart.

As the light increased a mass of people came hurrying from the town
with two black figures leading them, and the soldiers drew up at
attention, and part of the double line fell back and left an opening in
the square.

With us a condemned man walks only the short distance from his cell to
the scaffold or the electric chair, shielded from sight by the prison
walls; and it often occurs even then that the short journey is too much
for his strength and courage.

[Illustration: Young Spanish Officer]

But the merciful Spaniards on this morning made the prisoner walk for
over a half-mile across the broken surface of the fields. I expected to
find the man, no matter what his strength at other times might be,
stumbling and faltering on this cruel journey, but as he came nearer I
saw that he led all the others, that the priests on either side of him
were taking two steps to his one, and that they were tripping on their
gowns and stumbling over the hollows, in their efforts to keep pace
with him as he walked, erect and soldierly, at a quick step in advance