"Oh!" he remarked.
He allowed himself to be gagged without resistance, and was, indeed, hardly conscious of what was being done with him. Marksman then placed a pistol under the wretch's quivering hand, and took off his hat. "Don Estevan," he said, in a grave and solemn voice, "men have condemned you. Pray to God that He may be merciful to you, for you have no hope but in Him."
The hunters and Gambusinos then remounted their horses, extinguished the torches, and disappeared in the darkness, like a legion of black phantoms. The culprit was left alone in the gloom, which his remorse peopled with hideous spectres. With neck stretched out, eyes widely dilated, and ears on the watch, he looked and listened. So long as he heard the echo of the horses' footfalls in the distance, a wild hope still filled his soul; he waited—he expected. What did he await—what expect? He could not have said, himself; but man is so constituted. Gradually every sound died out, and Don Estevan at length found himself alone, in the heart of an unknown desert, with no hope of help from anyone. Then he uttered a profound sigh, closed his hand on the pistol, and placed the icy muzzle against his temple, muttering for the last time the name of his children.
In the meantime the Gambusinos withdrew, a prey to that feeling of undefinable uneasiness which involuntarily contracts the heart of every man, when he has accomplished an act in which he knows that he had, perhaps, no right to take the initiative—even when recognizing its necessity and even strict justice. No one spoke; all heads were bowed. They rode along, gloomy and thoughtful, by each other's side, not daring to interchange their reflections, and listening to the mysterious sounds of the solitude. They had just reached the last limits of the forest covert: before them the waters of the Rubio glistened like a long, silver ribbon in the pale moonlight. They had gained the ford, when suddenly the distant explosion of a firearm resounded hoarsely, driven back by the echoes of the Quebradas. Instinctively these men, for all they were so brave and well tried, shuddered, and stopped with a movement of stupor—almost of terror. There was a minute of ghostly silence. Marksman understood that he must break the gloomy dream which weighed like remorse on all these men. Hence, masking with some difficulty the emotion that almost choked him, he said, in a grave voice:—"Brothers! the vengeance of the desert is satisfied. The scoundrel we condemned has at length done justice on himself."
There is in the human voice a strange and incomprehensible power. The few words uttered by the Scout sufficed to restore to all these men their pristine energy.
"May heaven be merciful to him!" Don Miguel responded.
"Amen!" the Gambusinos said, crossing themselves piously.
From this moment the heavy weight that oppressed them was removed; the culprit was dead. The unpleasant logic of an accomplished fact once again justified Lynch Law, and at the same time stifled regret and remorse, by putting an end to the cruel uncertainty which had hitherto oppressed them.
Don Stefano once dead, the girl he had so pitilessly pursued was saved, in the eyes of these iron-hearted men: this reason alone was sufficient to extinguish in them all pity for the criminal. A sudden reaction took place in them, and their rebel natures, momentarily subdued, rose again stronger and more implacable than ever.