He fell at the first discharge. He fell because he thought he was a
dead man. He struck the ground heavily. The jar of the fall surprised
him. "I am not dead apparently," he thought to himself, when he heard
the execution platoon reloading its arms at the word of command. It
was then that the hope of escape dawned upon him for the first time.
He remained lying stretched out with rigid limbs under the weight of
two bodies collapsed crosswise upon his back.

By the time the soldiers had fired a third volley into the slightly
stirring heaps of the slain, the sun had gone out of sight, and almost
immediately with the darkening of the ocean dusk fell upon the coasts
of the young Republic. Above the gloom of the lowlands the snowy peaks
of the Cordillera remained luminous and crimson for a long time. The
soldiers before marching back to the fort sat down to smoke.

The sergeant with a naked sword in his hand strolled away by himself
along the heap of the dead. He was a humane man, and watched for any
stir or twitch of limb in the merciful idea of plunging the point of
his blade into any body giving the slightest sign of life. But none of
the bodies afforded him an opportunity for the display of this
charitable intention. Not a muscle twitched amongst them, not even the
powerful muscles of Gaspar Ruiz, who, deluged with the blood of his
neighbours and shamming death, strove to appear more lifeless than the
others.

He was lying face down. The sergeant recognised him by his stature,
and being himself a very small man, looked with envy and contempt at
the prostration of so much strength. He had always disliked that
particular soldier. Moved by an obscure animosity, he inflicted a long