Once more he turned.
She raised her pistol, took deliberate aim at his white forehead, and fired—
Bang! bang! bang! bang! bang! bang!
Six times without an instant's intermission, until her revolver was spent.
When the smoke cleared away, a terrible vision met her eyes!
It was Craven Le Noir with his face covered with blood, reeling in his saddle, from which he soon dropped to the ground.
In falling his foot remained in the hanging stirrup. The well-trained cavalry horse stood perfectly still, though trembling in a panic of terror, from which he might at any moment start to run, dragging the helpless body after him.
Capitola saw this danger, and not being cruel, she tempered justice with mercy, threw down her spent pistol, dismounted from her horse, went up to the fallen man, disengaged his foot from the stirrup, and, taking hold of his shoulders, tried with all her might to drag the still breathing form from the dusty road where it lay in danger of being run over by wagons, to the green bank, where it might lie in comparative safety.
But that heavy form was too much for her single strength. And, calling her terrified groom to assist her, they removed the body.
Capitola then remounted her horse and galloped rapidly into the village, and up to the "ladies' entrance" of the hotel, where, after sending for the proprietor she said: