thunder!" and then fell flat on his back, shot, I believed, through the
head.

'I rushed to my rifle, seized it, but before I could get it to my
shoulder it was knocked from my hand. Half a dozen fellows threw
themselves upon me, and I was a prisoner. I didn't try to resist when
they laid hands on me, because I knew I should have a knife in me at
once; and though I knew my life was not worth an hour's purchase--no,
nor five minutes'--after I was caught, still, upon the whole, it was as
well to live that five minutes as not.

'There was such a hubbub and a shouting at first that I couldn't hear a
word, but at last I picked up that they were a party of the band of El
Zeres, who was in the neighbourhood, and had been fetched by a boy that
traitress Pepita had despatched for them directly we arrived. Pepita
herself was wife of one of the other chiefs of the band. Much fun was
made of poor Rube and myself about our courting. I felt mad with myself
for having been caught so foolishly. I couldn't feel angry with Rube,
with him lying dead there, but I was angry with myself for having
listened to him. I oughtn't to have allowed him to have his own way. I
warn't in love, and I ought to have known that a man's head, when he's
after a gal, is no more use than a pumpkin. While I was thinking this
out in my mind I had my eyes fixed upon poor Rube, whom no one thought
of noticing, when all of a sudden I gave quite a start, for I saw him
move. I couldn't see his face, but I saw a hand stealing gradually out
towards the leg of a man who stood near. Then there was a pause, and
then the other hand began to move. It wasn't at all like the aimless way
that the arms of a badly hit man would move, and I saw at once that Rube
had been playing "possum" all along.'

'Doing what, Seth?' Ethel asked.

'Just pretending to be dead. I held my breath, for I saw he had come to
the conclusion that he could not be overlooked much longer, and was
going to make a move.

'In another minute there was a crash and a shout as the two men fell to
the ground with their legs knocked clean from under them, catching hold
of other men and dragging them down with them. From the midst of the
confusion Rube leapt to his feet and made a rush for the window; one man
he levelled with a blow of his fist; another he caught up as if he had
been a baby, and hurling him against two others, brought them on the
ground together, and then leaping over their bodies, dashed thr