Biff!
Ned’s hot temper had suffered a sudden boiling over. It was a relief to find an outlet for it. As his fist collided with Hank Harkins’ grin, wiping it instantaneously into nothingness, the youth stumbled backward and fell in a heap on the ground.
“Hit him another for me,” grunted Stanley, as he gazed with intense satisfaction on the recumbent form.
CHAPTER XIV.
A DRUM-HEAD COURT-MARTIAL.
Through the jeering camp the American prisoners were marched. They had, of course, been searched and their revolvers confiscated. How fortunate, Ned thought it then, that he had left the will in safe hands before they started on their perilous errand. From the general’s manner, he had seen that it was of even more importance than he had deemed it.
“I wonder if he is not withholding his niece’s inheritance from her,” he thought.
But there was little opportunity for reflection as they were hurried along the white coast road toward Miraflores. All the way they were greeted with jeers and execrations.
“Yankee pigs” was the mildest of the epithets hurled at them with true South American vehemence.