‘Oh, Luce, Luce!’ wailed Ephraim, suffering the sergeant to lead him away. ‘What shall I do? What shall I do? I brought it on ye. Oh, fergive me! Fergive me!’ ‘Files! ‘Shun!’ cried Plowes, shoving Ephraim into his place. ‘Right face! Fifty paces to the front! Quick—march!’ The melancholy procession started, Lucius still holding his head high, and Ephraim crying and whining like a child that has been whipped. ‘Don’t cry, Grizzly,’ said Lucius, taking him by the arm. ‘They’ll think you’re a funk. I know better; but don’t give them the chance to say so. Don’t worry over me. It’s not your fault. I ought to have remembered what my General said. It’s a big price to pay for being disobedient; but it’s my fault, not yours. Oh, don’t cry so, dear old Grizzly!’ Their positions were curiously reversed. The soft, young southern voice was calm and clear, there was no shrinking in the bright blue eyes, and the quivering coward of half an hour before now marched to his death with a step as steady and bearing as firm as that of any of the cavaliers whose blood ran in his veins; while his comrade, all his steadfast courage gone, shuffled along, his gaunt frame seeming to shrivel in his clothes as he went, and his queer, old-looking face drawn with the agony of his fear and self-reproach. Only there was this difference—Lucius was thinking of himself, and that nerved him. Ephraim was thinking of Lucius, and that unmanned him. ‘Files! Halt! Front! Order—arms!’ shouted the sergeant, and the men stood still. ‘Now then, you two,’ said Plowes, ‘come with me.’ His rough heart was touched for once in his life by what he had just heard, and he muttered as they marched along: ‘I’ll make it thirty paces, and ye kin take yer chance.’ Such a favour! And having said thus much, he placed them and went back without another word. Lucius straightened himself up and once more locked his fingers behind his back. ‘Hold up, Grizzly!’ he said. ‘Don’t let them think that you’re afraid.’ Ephraim bent his lank body and kissed Lucius on the cheek. ‘Good-bye, Luce,’ he said. ‘Maybe God’ll let me meet ye by-and-by.’ He raised his head, and swift as lightning a change came over his face, and a flame of joy sparkled in his eyes as he stared over the heads of the firing party at the woods beyond them. Plowes had reached his men. ‘‘Shun!’ he called. ‘At thirty paces—prepare to fire a volley! Ready!’ ‘Ef I kin on’y gain an ounce of time,’ muttered the Grizzly, with a sob in his throat.—‘Hold on!’ he shouted suddenly. ‘I can’t abear it. Wait till I blind our eyes.’ ‘Blind ’em, then, and be quick about it,’ returned Plowes sullenly; for he was getting heartily sick of the job he had taken in hand. ‘I’ll not have my eyes bound,’ declared Lucius, pushing Ephraim’s hand away. ‘It’s the last thing I’ll ever ask of ye,’ stammered Ephraim, scarcely able to speak, and Lucius submitted. ‘Now then, sharp with your own,’ called Plowes.