“Make ready, men! Look to your rifles and revolvers! Sergeant! form in single file, for a march up the mountain-path!”
As he of the triple chevron hastened to execute the order, I turned towards Francisco Moreno.
With an indescribable emotion, I bent down over the wounded man.
At a glance I could see that he had been badly abused.
In addition to several stabs from sword or poignard, the bullet of an escopette had traversed his left thigh—the purple spot appearing right over the femoral artery!
I had myself received just such a shot at the storming of Chapultepec—creasing, but, fortunately, without cutting the vein; and I knew, that if this had been opened in the thigh of Francisco Moreno it was his life-blood I saw upon the floor.
Its quantity, and the deathlike paleness of his face, were points for a sad prognosis.
In a double sense the spectacle gave me pain. In the finely-chiselled features—more perfect in their pallor—I saw that which had deprived me of Dolores Villa-Señor. No wonder she loved him!
But he was going from this world, and my jealousy should go with him.