Thank God! At the opposite end of the clearing stood Ellard, upright
and unharmed. Before him, in the centre of the field, was a
rectangular hole like a grave, and the natives were throwing the
earth clods into it. Evidently they were burying some one who had
died, but why did they seem amused? Brady was nowhere in sight. Was
it his body they were burying?
Yelling like an army of blue fiends, the captain’s detachment burst
into the clearing. Surprised and confused, the _insurrectos_ turned
to flee, and met the fixed bayonets of the subaltern’s men.
As soon as he could break away, Wilcox ran to one side. Ellard was
standing as before, still bound hand and foot. His face was half
averted, but on it the subaltern saw a look of the most intense
horror and dread. With a cry of dismay, he dashed forward, but a
naked, brown figure was before him. Twice the shining _kris_ flashed
in the air as the defenseless prisoner toppled backward. Then,
dodging the subaltern’s bullet, the native turned and fled. Two
privates cornered and disarmed him, but before they could put in a
finishing blow, Wilcox had shouted: “Hold on there! Wait till I
come!”
“As you have mercy, put me out of this life!” moaned Ellard.
The tall, strong, young athlete of a moment before lay helpless on
the ground, a bleeding, legless trunk. Sobbing, the subaltern
dropped to his knees beside his friend, and beat passionately at the
earth with clenched fists.
“Don’t, don’t!” almost shrieked the wounded man. “I stood here
powerless to move while they first cut up and then buried Brady
alive, but I didn’t cry! Kill me, shoot me, have mercy on me for
Christ’s sake, but don’t cry!”
A hospital sergeant came running, the captain, white with horror, at
his heels. The fight was over, and a group of men were working at
the grave.
Wilcox staggered to his feet, a strange curse on his lips. The beads
of sweat plowed deep courses through the grime on his cheeks.
Slowly, with infinite deliberation, he reloaded his revolver and
strode to where the troopers held the _insurrecto_ on the ground. As
he went, he muttered, like a man searching for some forgotten
thought, “The measures used are adopted as circumstances arise, and
must be cruel or barbarous as the necessity calls for ... as the
necessity calls for....”
Three times he fired into the prostrate body. “One for Brady, one
for Wright, and one for Ellard!” and then he began to laugh.
UNDER FLYING HOOFS
By Bertrand W. Sinclair.
“Mormon Jack” stretched his generous length in the shade of the
bed-wagon, thereby disturbing the sonorous slumbers of Johnny
Layton, who muttered imprecations as he rolled over to make room.
“You blasted Mormon renegade,” he growled.
“Why don’t you go and lie down where you won’t be disturbin’ a
fellow that has to stand guard to-night?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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