his capture he had gathered no information, yet his pleas were futile, and he at last seemed to understand that his doom was sealed. From then, as he returned to the prison to await the execution of his sentence, he said nothing more. Last night the shooting party came for him, marching him to a secluded point upon the south-eastern face, and there they halted him, a silent figure in a wilderness of rock and scrub. Around him there was the scene of the veldt at eventide. There was the gorgeous, flaming sunset, its ruddy gold turning the azure of the sky to clouds of purple, pale orange, and a deeper blue. Here and there the heavens were flecked with fleecy clouds, which gambolled gently before the breeze. In the distance lay the green-clad veldt, simmering a russet brown beneath the glories of the sunset. At our feet it sloped, breaking into rocky sluits, banked up with bushes; over all there was the zephyr, tempering the heat. It was a moment meant for rejoicing in the beauty of earth's loveliness rather than for dimming it with the sadness of some crimson act. Presently we arrived, and as we bent across the slope the blood-red stream of passing sunlight played around the shallow heap of earth, thrown out from this man's final resting-place. It was visible, much as were the deeper shadows of the excavation some seventy yards away, when, as though wishing to spare the prisoner, his eyes were bandaged by the officers of the party. With that a sudden silence fell upon us, and each seemed to feel that he were walking within the shadows of the valley of death. The prisoner, supported on either arm, stumbled in the partial blindness of the bandage, seeming, now that his last hour was at hand, to be more careless, more light-hearted than any of the party. Then we halted, and he was asked whether there were anything further which he wished to say, and he was warned for the last time. He shook his head somewhat defiantly, but his lips moved, and in his heart one could almost hear the muttered curses. Then for a space he stood still, and a few yards distant, in fact some ten paces, the firing party formed across his front. There were six of them, with a corporal and the officer in command of the post, and there was that other, who in a little was to pay the penalty of his crime. There was a moment of intense silence as we waited for the sun to set, in which the nerves seemed to be but little strings of wire, played upon by the emotions. Unconsciously, each seemed to stiffen, as we waited for the word of the officer, feeling that at every pulsation one would like to shriek "Enough, enough!" As we stood the prisoner spoke, unconscious of the preparations, and the officer approached him. He wanted, he said, to take a final glance at the place that he had known since his childhood. His prayer was granted, and as he faced about, the bandage across his eyes was, for a few brief minutes, dropped upon his neck.