He stopped obedient to the captain’s signals, but the next moment his roving eye caught the gleam of gun-barrels in among the trees in the section of wood they had left when they ran for the balloon, and here and there a face peeped out and was rapidly withdrawn; so rapidly that the Grizzly rubbed his eyes and asked himself whether they had not deceived him. ‘It looked like ’em,’ he said to himself; ‘but it can’t be. How can it be? Oh, I reckon it’s some more Yanks comin’ ter see the fun.’ He held his tongue, however, and, for want of something better to do, took a piece of string from his pocket, and twisted it nervously round and round his fingers, the while he kept his eyes steadfastly fixed upon the forest opposite. But if he had seen anything, there was nothing to be seen now. Suddenly the colonel halted in his walk, turned, and approached them. ‘Now it’s comin’,’ thought Ephraim, twirling his string more rapidly than ever. Lucius stood perfectly still and erect, his hands locked behind his back, and his eyes staring straight in front of him. Whatever his feelings, they did not appear upon the surface. The colonel’s swarthy face was deeply flushed, his black, deep-set eyes glittered menacingly under their bushy, overhanging brows, and he gnawed persistently at his long moustache. It was evident that in the struggle which had been going on in his mind, the evil had conquered the good. Captain Peters drew himself up as the colonel neared him, and waited silently at attention. ‘Captain Peters,’ began Spriggs, speaking rapidly in a husky voice, whether the result of shame or of his still blazing wrath it would be hard to say, ‘since you seem to have taken a more proper view of your position, I will condescend to explain matters to you. You were right in your surmise that these fellows are those who arrived yesterday in that balloon for the purpose of making observations of our position. They escaped, as you have doubtless heard, and they have been retaken, as you now see.’ Captain Peters bowed. ‘Well, sir,’ went on the colonel, ‘I presume you know the punishment in these cases, though your experience is probably not very great.’ He sneered out the last words, and still Captain Peters did not reply, though his brown face became a shade paler. ‘We will take that for granted, then,’ pursued the colonel. ‘Very well, sir, as, owing to your hasty assumption of the command, that punishment cannot be carried out in the usual manner, you will take a firing party fifty yards to the right, set these two rascals twenty paces in front, and—shoot them.’ The word came out with a snap as though the demon which possessed the man had forcibly expelled it. ‘Colonel!’ ejaculated the astounded Captain Peters. ‘Shoot them! Why—why——Has the charge been proved?’ ‘Your duty is to obey, sir, not to ask questions,’ said the colonel with a hang-dog look. ‘Call your men forward at once.’