ck and emphatic tone.

"Captain Hennessy?"

"Hang them!" answered the Irishman.

"Captain Haller?"

"Have you determined, Major Twing?" I asked, intending, if possible, to
mitigate this terrible sentence.

"We have no time, Captain Haller," replied my superior, interrupting me,
"nor opportunity to carry prisoners. Our army has reached Plan del Rio,
and is preparing to attack the pass. An hour lost, and we may be too
late for the battle. You know the result of that as well as I."

I knew Twing's determined character too well to offer further
opposition, and the Jarochos were condemned to be hung.

The following extract from the major's report of the affair will show
how the sentence was carried out:

_We killed five of them, and captured as many more, but the leader
escaped. The prisoners were tried, and sentenced to be hung. They
had a gallows already rigged for Captain Haller and his companions,
and for want of a better we hanged them upon that_.

CHAPTER FIFTY ONE.

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF A BATTLE.

It was still only an hour by sun as we rode off from the Eagle's Cave.
At some distance I turned in my saddle and looked back. It was a
singular sight, those _five_ hanging corpses, and one not easily
forgotten. What an appalling picture it must have been to their own
comrades, who doubtless watched the spectacle from some distant
elevation!

Motionless they hung, in all the picturesque drapery of their strange
attire--draggling--dead! The pines bent slightly over, the eagle
screamed as he swept past, and high in the blue air a thousand bald
vultures wheeled and circled, descending at every curve.

Before we had ridden out of sight the Eagle's Cliff was black with
zopilotes, hundreds clustering upon the pines, and whetting their fetid
beaks over their prey, still warm. I could not help being struck with
this strange transposition of victims.

We forded the stream below, and travelled for some hours in a westerly
course over a half-naked ridge. At mid-day we reached an arroyo--a
clear, cool stream that gurgled along under a thick grove of the _palma
redonda_. Here we "nooned", stretching our bodies along the
green-sward.

At sundown we rode into the _pueblito_ (hamlet) of Jacomulco, where we
had determined to pass the night. Twing levied on the _alcalde_ for
forage for "man and beast". The horses were picketed in the plaza,
while the men bivouacked by their fires--strong mounted p