e
said to the officer of cavalry. "In this I am alone." With a
suspicious quickness he leaned forward and his big hands shut about
the Spaniard's throat.

Charles, with a suppressed exclamation, recalled Tirso's determination
to choke one of the enemies of Cuba. The man in the gripping fingers
stiffened and then, grotesquely, lost his aspect of a human form;
suddenly he was no more than a thing of limp flesh and gay fabrics.
Instantly an uproar, a surging passionate excitement grew, at the
heart of which Tirso Labrador was curiously still. Heaving bodies, at
once closing in and prudently scattering, hid from Charles his friend.
There was an onrush of gendarmes, harsh exclamations and oaths; then,
at the flash of steel, a short agonized cry--Tirso's voice at once
hoarse and inhuman with death.

Charles Abbott, hurrying away at Andres' urgent insistence, caught a
final glimpse of a big young body sunk on the flagging of the Paseo;
he saw a leaden face and a bubbling tide of blood. Beyond the
Montserrat gate they halted, and he was shocked to hear Remigio Florez
curse Tirso as brutally as any Spaniard. Andres, white and trembling,
agreed. "Here is what I warned you of," he turned to Charles; "it is
fatal to lose your temper. You think that what Tirso did ends with him
in purgatory ... ha! Perhaps he is best out of it among us all. It
might be better for you to go back to America tomorrow and forget
about Cuba."

"Yes," Remigio added, "probably we are all ruined; and certainly the
police spies will be waiting for us at home."

"It would have been better if we had dissipated more," Jaime added:
"we have been entirely too high-minded and unnatural. Young men meet
together only to conspire or find love--the Spaniards know that and we
were fools."

"We haven't been suspected of anything," Andres pointed out; "and it
may be said that Tirso was killed defending his name. No, the trouble
is to come; and it wasn't our fault. We must see less of each other,
at least in public, and be quite overcome about Tirso; that is another
account I charge to Spain: I knew him when I was a child ... in the
Vuelta Arriba--" Andres Escobar began to cry wholly and unaffectedly;
he leaned against an angle of the gate, his head in an arm, and
prolonged sobs shook his body. Tears were silently streaming over
Jaime's face, but Charles Abbott's eyes were dry. He was filled by an
ecstasy of horror and detestation at the brutal murder of Tirso. Fea