Some had their teeth clenched, and their eyes wearing a wild glare of hate, of fear, and defiance mingled; some there were who seemed scarcely conscious of the awful doom prepared for them, and some glanced wistfully and fearfully at the newly-dug pits which were to receive them when all was over. Some were occupied by external objects, and the eyes of one followed earnestly the course of a falling star of great beauty and brilliance, which vanished behind the hills of Albuquerque. A guerilla, clad in somewhat tattered black velvet, now took off his sombrero, and in doing so, displayed, by a pretty plain tonsure, that he was an unfrocked or degraded priest; but now inspired by something of his former holy office, he held up a small crucifix, and exclaimed-- "Frenchmen, if any man among you is a true son of the Church, I pray God and the Blessed Madonna to receive him, and have mercy on his soul!" "That is the Padre Trevino, our second in command," whispered Lazarillo; "and he is the best shot among us." As Trevino spoke, the sixteen prisoners and all the onlookers, crossed themselves very devoutly. Some of the doomed closed their eyes, and by their muttering, seemed to be praying very earnestly. Intensity of emotion seemed to render them all more or less athirst, as they were seen to moisten their pale lips with their tongues. The stern grey-haired captain on the right alone seemed unmoved; he had neither a prayer to give to Heaven or to earth, and thus stood gazing stonily and grimly at his destroyers. "On your knees, senors! on your knees!" said Trevino. "Never to Spaniards!" replied the old captain. "Are they really in earnest, M. le Capitaine?" asked the prisoner next him, a mere youth. "Earnest--ma foi! I should think so, Louis." "Ah, mon Dieu--to be shot thus--it is terrible!" he exclaimed, in a piercing voice. "On your knees, Frenchmen," repeated the militant friar, "not to us, but to God!" "To the blessed God, then," said the old captain; "kneel, comrades; 'tis the last word of command you will ever hear from me." They all knelt, and now the firing party came forward three paces-- ----"a death-determined band, Hell in their face and horror in their hand." And forming line about twenty paces from the prisoners, shouldered arms. Then Quentin felt his excited heart beating painfully in his breast, and he held his breath as if suffocating. From the shoulder the muskets were cast to the "ready," and then followed the terrible clicking of the sixty locks, a sound that made the youngest victim, who had been named Louis, a fair-haired lad (some poor conscript, torn from his mother's arms, perhaps), to shudder very perceptibly and close his eyes; and now came the three fatal and final words of command from the unfrocked friar. "Camaradas, preparen las armas!" "Apunten!" ("Vive la France! Vive l'Empereur!" cried the old captain, defiantly.) "FUEGO!"