character. Hillyard rested the point of his elbow on the earth
and supported the barrel of his Colt upon his left forearm. He aimed
carefully along the sights.

"Let them go on!" he said between his teeth. "I will give them until the
last moment--until the darkness begins to hide them. But not a moment
longer. I am not here, my friend, for my health. I am here because there
is a war."

"The little Marteen" was singularly unapparent at this moment Here was
just the ordinary appalling Englishman who had not the imagination to
understand what a desperately heinous crime it would be to kill two of
the Guardia Civil, who was simply going to do it the moment it became
necessary, and would not lose one minute of his sleep until his dying
day because he had done it. Jose Medina was completely at a loss as he
looked into the grim indifferent face of his companion. The two horsemen
were covered. The Colt would kill at more than five hundred yards, and
it had no more to do than carry sixty. And still those two fools sat on
their horses, and babbled to one another, and looked out to sea.

"What am I to do with this loco Ingles?" Jose Medina speculated,
wringing his hands in an agony of apprehension. He had no share in those
memories which at this moment invaded Martin Hillyard, and touched every
fibre of his soul. Martin Hillyard, though his eye never left the sights
of his Colt nor his mind wavered from his purpose, was with a
subordinate consciousness stealing in the dark night up the footpath
between the big, leafy trees over the rustic railway bridge to the
summit of the hill. He was tramping once more through lanes, between
fields, and stood again upon a hillock of Peckham Rye, and saw the
morning break in beauty and in wonder over London. The vision gained
from the foolish and romantic days of his boyhood, steadied his finger
upon the trigger after all these years.

Then to Jose's infinite relief the two horsemen rode on. The long,
black, shining barrel of the Colt followed them as they dwindled on the
road. They turned a corner, and as Hillyard replaced his pistol in his
pocket, Jose Medina rolled over on his back, and clapped his hands to
his face.

"You might have missed," he gasped. "One of them at all events."

Hillyard turned to him with a grin. The savage was not yet exorcised.

"Why?" he asked. "Why should I have missed one of them? It was my
business not to."

Jose Medina flung up his hands.

"I will not