door, sergeant."

The sergeant, shrugging his shoulders, explained that he had no right
to open the door even if he had had the key. But he had not the key.
The adjutant of the garrison kept the key. Those men were giving much
unnecessary trouble, since they had to die at sunset in any case. Why
they had not been shot at once early in the morning he could not
understand.

Lieutenant Santierra kept his back studiously to the window. It was at
his earnest solicitations that the Commandante had delayed the
execution. This favour had been granted to him in consideration of his
distinguished family and of his father's high position amongst the
chiefs of the Republican party. Lieutenant Santierra believed that the
General commanding would visit the fort some time in the afternoon,
and he ingenuously hoped that his naive intercession would induce that
severe man to pardon some, at least, of those criminals. In the
revulsion of his feeling his interference stood revealed now as guilty
and futile meddling. It appeared to him obvious that the general would
never even consent to listen to his petition. He could never save
those men, and he had only made himself responsible for the sufferings
added to the cruelty of their fate.

"Then go at once and get the key from the adjutant," said Lieutenant
Santierra.

The sergeant shook his head with a sort of bashful smile, while his
eyes glanced sideways at Gaspar Ruiz's face, motionless and silent,
staring through the bars at the bottom of a heap of other haggard,
distorted, yelling faces.