d follow, which I longed
to do, to learn at once the worst of it, I saw the figure of a man much
nearer, and even within twenty yards of me, gliding along without any
sound. Faint as the light was, I felt sure that it was not one of our
own men, and the barrel of a long gun upon his shoulder made a black
line among silver leaves. I longed to run forth and stop him, but my
courage was not prompt enough, and I shamefully shrank away behind
the trunk of the carob-tree. Like a sleuth, compact, and calm-hearted
villain, he went along without any breath of sound, stealing his escape
with skill, till a white bower-tent made a background for him, and he
leaped up and fell flat without a groan. The crack of a rifle came later
than his leap, and a curl of white smoke shone against a black rock,
and the Sawyer, in the distance, cried, "Well, now!" as he generally did
when satisfied.

So scared was I that I caught hold of a cluster of pods to steady me;
and then, without any more fear for myself, I ran to see whether it was
possible to help. But the poor man lay beyond earthly help; he was too
dead to palpitate. His life must have left him in the air, and he could
not even have felt his fall.

In violent terror, I burst into tears, and lifted his heavy head, and
strove to force his hot hands open, and did I know not what, without
thinking, laboring only to recall his life.

"Are you grieving for the skulk who has shot my Firm?" said a stern
voice quite unknown to me; and rising, I looked at the face of Mr.
Gundry, unlike the countenance of Uncle Sam. I tried to speak to him,
but was too frightened. The wrath of blood was in his face, and all his
kind desires were gone.

"Yes, like a girl, you are sorry for a man who has stained this earth,
till his only atonement is to stain it with his blood. Captain Pedro,
there you lie, shot, like a coward, through the back. I wish you were
alive to taste my boots. Murderer of men and filthy ravisher of women,
miscreant of God, how can I keep from trampling on you?"

It never had been in my dream that a good man could so entirely forget
himself. I wanted to think that it must be somebody else, and not our
Uncle Sam. But he looked toward the west, as all men do when their
spirits are full of death, and the wan light showed that his chin was
triple.

Whether it may have been right or wrong, I made all haste to get away.
The face of the dead man was quite a pleasant thing, compared with the