The soldiers cast a noose about his neck, and threw the other end over the limb of a tree. A horseman made it fast to his saddle. For the moment, so unbelievable was the proceeding, I was stunned. Then, my heart pounding as though the noose were about my own neck, I hurried with Eustace to the scene, protesting.
The General smiled at us.
“You are good friends,” he said. “I am grateful. But you can not help me, and you may invite trouble for yourselves. If in Mazatlán you should meet the Señorita”—and he whispered her name reverently—“please to tell her that I would have come. Good-by, my friends.”
He glanced toward the car window, where the other American stared with blanched face. And he laughed. Then, with characteristic vanity, he stroked back the hair from his forehead.
“If any one shoots,” he said, “please not to shoot at the face.”
The horseman dug his spurs into the beast, and the rope tightened. The tree was not high enough. The little General reached earthward with his toes, barely touching the ground with them, balancing there in an instinctive effort to preserve life, even for a moment. The officer gave an order. The men unslung their rifles, and fired a scattering volley.
XI
As the smoke cleared away, the train crawled slowly onward toward Mazatlán. For a long time, no one spoke. When Eustace finally broke the silence, it was in a futile effort to turn our minds to another subject.
“We’ll get there just in time to catch the boat south.”
The soap-salesman came out of his reverie with a start.