ich the popping shots of the besieged garrison
rang out sharply. They, too, had observed the group. But the distance
was too great and in the spatter of spent musket-balls cutting up the
ground, the group opened, closed, swayed, giving me a glimpse of busy
stooping figures in its midst. I drew nearer, doubting whether this was
a weird vision, a suggestive and insensate dream.

"A strangely stifled voice commanded, 'Haul the hitches tighter.'

"'Si, senor,' several other voices answered in tones of awed alacrity.

"Then the stifled voice said: 'Like this. I must be free to breathe.'

"Then there was a concerned noise of many men together. 'Help him up,
hombres. Steady! Under the other arm.'

"That deadened voice ordered: 'Bueno! Stand away from me, men.'

"I pushed my way through the recoiling circle, and heard once more that
same oppressed voice saying earnestly: 'Forget that I am a living man,
Jorge. Forget me altogether, and think of what you have to do.'

"'Be without fear, senor. You are nothing to me but a gun-carriage, and
I shall not waste a shot.'

"I heard the spluttering of a port-fire, and smelt the saltpetre of the
match. I saw suddenly before me a nondescript shape on all fours like
a beast, but with a man's head drooping below a tubular projection over
the nape of the neck, and the gleam of a rounded mass of bronze on its
back.

"In front of a silent semicircle of men it squatted alone, with Jorge
behind it and a trumpeter motionless, his trumpet in his hand, by its
side.

"Jorge, bent double, muttered, port-fire in hand: 'An inch to the left,
senor. Too much. So. Now, if you let yourself down a little by letting
your elbows bend, I will . . .'

"He leaped aside, lowering his port-fire, and a burst of flame darted
out of the muzzle of the gun lashed on the man's back.

"Then Gaspar Ruiz lowered himself slowly. 'Good shot?' he asked.

"'Full on, senor.'

"'Then load again.'

"He lay there before me on his breast under the darkly glittering bronze
of his monstrous burden, such as no love or strength of man had ever
had to bear in the lamentable history of the world. His arms were spread
out, and he resembled a prostrate penitent on the moonlit ground.

"Again I saw him raised to his hands and knees and the men stand away
from him, and old Jorge stoop glancing along the gun.

"'Left a little. Right an inch. Por Dios, senor, stop this trembling.
Where is your strength?'

"The old gunner's