Pullen watched him.
“Ay, maybe the knife, but not the buttons; there’s no evil in them.”
“Nay,” he said determinedly, “evil in everything he touched, everything he owned—sink it deep, Joe, sink it deep.”
Pullen sighed and shrugged his shoulders.
“Maybe you’re right, lad,” he said, “maybe you’re right,” and added cheerfully, “and I don’t know who’d buy them, anyway. Come, then, heave him in.”
Hal bent down and together they lifted the once so gallant little figure, still clad in all its bravery, and dropped it gently into the gray patch; the weights hit the mud first and sank quickly out of sight, dragging the silk-stockinged feet with them; the ooze clicked and chuckled to itself as it sucked down its prey. Farther and farther in sank the body of the great little captain, who twelve hours before was so gay, so sure of himself, so debonair.
The dawn breeze came stealing across the sea, and a sea-gull screamed lazily near by, while a faint yellow light began to glow over the mainland the other side of the bay. Now the mud had reached the Spaniard’s breast; his head, still bound with his famous black kerchief, had fallen forward and his limp arms lay loosely on the soft slime.
Joe looked at him critically.
“I wonder now has he struck the hard?” he said thoughtfully, and leaning forward he put his foot on the black-coated shoulder and pushed vigorously. The mud sucked noisily and the body vanished rapidly. Now only the head and one arm were visible. Now the head was gone. The dark eyes, the terrible crooked smile, the white flashing teeth—the cold silent mud had them all. Now only a hand was left; it lay for a second on the gray background, white and shapely, and then it, too, vanished, leaving the gray circle as quiet and untroubled as before.