It was not long after this, while they were busy with their gloomy thoughts, that a petty officer of some kind, at the head of a file of men came to their cell. The door was thrown open and the boys were handcuffed,—in spite of their protests against the ignominy. With a soldier on either side of them they were then marched across the barrack ground where a depressing sight met their eyes.
A number of soldiers were carrying an oblong box draped in black across the quadrangle. Behind them followed two weeping women and a bent old man. Two children, wide-eyed at what it all meant,—formed the rest of the sad little party. Both boys realized at once with a keen start of repulsion that they were witnessing the last act of the drama whose action they had heard in their cell.
They were marched across the quadrangle, their escort paying no more attention to the sad scene than if it had been an every day occurrence, and up a flight of steep, bare stairs into a long, low room,—down the center of which ran a long table. The table was covered with cheap oilcloth and was littered with pens and paper.
Half-a-dozen men, who were officers to judge by their uniforms, sat at either side of it and at the head was a man whom the boys recognized at once as General Rogero.
His evil eyes gleamed with a sinister glint as they fell on the two boys.
“So,—here we have the young revolutionists,—gentlemen,” he said, turning to the other officers, who all regarded the boys with curiosity but with no more compassion than if they had been gazing at the tortured victims of a bull fight.
Rogero leaned back. He was evidently in no hurry to shorten his triumph. He seemed fairly to gloat over his two prisoners. Frank and Harry returned his gaze fearlessly and after a while the leader of the Nicaraguan forces dropped his basilisk eyes with a shamed and embarrassed expression. The next moment he made up for his temporary lapse by striking the table with his fist and informing the boys that they were before a court-martial.
“By what right do you bring us here?” demanded Frank.
“By the right that we offer every man to get a chance for his life,” was the startling reply.
“What have we done that puts us within the pale of military law?” again demanded the elder of the brothers.