ble. Like everyone else, she never dreamed that a
great tragedy could come to her. Just as we never think of ourselves as
meeting with a street accident, so she never thought of this catastrophe.
Yet there he lay, the symbol of that inexorable terror that moves through
the world.

She went over quietly to a chair near the table and sat down. She hid her
face in her hands. She did not wish to see that silent form again; yet he
had been her husband, and her place, she knew, was by his side, in death
even more than in life. How the world had changed for her in this little
hour!

She had come into the room just as Pancho was finishing his talk with
Gilbert; and she caught the force of his words. Now she heard him saying
something else.

"And now, what you say? You all 'appy, eh?"

Gilbert was still too dazed to understand. "You've killed him!" was all he
could utter.

"I 'ave," the bandit answered. "You need not thank me. It was a great
pleasure." Evidently he smiled; Lucia would not look up.

Gilbert paced the floor. "He's dead!" he kept repeating, as though to brand
the truth upon his brain. "He's dead!" He paused once and stared down again
at the body.

"He's dead, just as I say," Lopez stated. "Pedro never misses."

As though he had heard his name spoken, the ubiquitous Pedro ambled in,
slowly, and with a bored expression upon his ugly countenance.

"Azcooze, my general," he said. His chief turned. "It is ze damn ranger.
Zey is after us some more."

Lopez never turned a hair. Lucia heard him say: "It is time. I was
agspectin' zem. Ze 'osses?"

"Zey are ready," Pedro informed him.

Pancho paused and considered a moment. "Zey come from ze souse, zose
rangers?"

"_Si_," was the quick answer.

Lopez rose. "Felipe Aguilaw becomes more hefficient hevery day. I shall
make general of 'im yet. _Bueno_, we go."

"Red" had gone over and looked out of the window. Twilight had definitely
come, and the sky was a great sheet of flame. Orange, pink, purple, and
red, the clouds shifted over the face of the dying sun. A king going down
to his death could not have passed in greater glory. While men and women
fought their little battles, waged their puny quarrels, this stately
miracle occurred once more. Unmindful of the grief of mortals, the day was
about to pass into the arms of the waiting night.

"What's it all about?" "Red" asked, turning from the wonderful scene
without to the frightened people within.

"It is