Trembling she stood, looking down upon the foes below her. Her hands were knotted against her breast, that heaved with nature's cry at her cruelty. The thumping of her heart shook her body mercilessly. The anguish of her soul dried her throat, and filled her eyes with dread, and made her an embodiment of horror. Yet a stir of gratitude fought with fear for a place in her.
"Thank God, I am not too late!" was her voiceless cry.
Through the clear air came the sound of a voice, sharply articulate.
"It is not enough that you eat my bread and go forth from my door to do your treacherous act. You come again to my house to scorn at me after my humiliation, and you have not the courage to own your falseness. And now, when I demand from you the satisfaction that most surely do you owe me, how do you make a mock at me? Is that a weapon with which gentlemen do fight? Is it a shot-gun that men do carry to a duel?"
The hitherto still figure on the Doctor's horse stirred uneasily.
"And see, I break it." The mule turned back his ears, as upon them fell the click of the opening gun, followed by the drop of a shell into an open palm. "Ach, yes, I thought so! It needed only this! This so small shot is for the birds!"
A thud vibrated on the air—the sound of the flung-down weapon.
"Now, if you-all were only an American, Ah could make you understand right quick that——"
The Doctor's slow drawl was broken by an exclamation from von Rittenheim. Morgan followed the German's eyes, and saw above them against the fleckless blue of the heavens the brilliant figure of the girl, her hands straining against her breast, her face a field where anxiety and grief flitted like clouds across the background of the sky.
She came down towards them when she saw herself observed, and the two men silently dismounted as she approached, and pulled off their caps, less in salutation than from instinctive respect for deep emotion.