“Yes, General.”
“Very well. Proceed. If this prisoner fires before you give the word, have your squad riddle him.” The sergeant backed away and gazed owlishly from the prisoner to his captor. “Ready!” he called. Both revolvers came up. “Fire!” he shouted, and the two shots were discharged simultaneously. Ricardo's cap flew off his head, but he remained standing, while Sarros staggered back against the wall and there recovering himself gamely, fired again. He scored a clean miss, and Ricardo's gun barked three times; Sarros sprawled on his face, rose to his knees, raised his pistol halfway, fired into the sky and slid forward on his face. Ricardo stood beside the body until the sergeant approached and stood to attention, his attitude saying:
“It is over. What next, General?”
“Take the squad back to the arsenal, Sergeant,” Ricardo ordered him coolly, and walked back to recover his uniform cap. He was smiling as he ran his finger through a gaping hole in the upper half of the crown.
“Well, Mrs. Jenks,” he announced when he rejoined the old lady, “that was better than executing him with a firing-squad. I gave him a square deal. Now his friends can never say that I murdered him.” He extended his hand to help Mother Jenks to her feet. She stood erect and felt again that queer swelling of the heart, the old feeling of suffocation.
“Steady, lass!” she mumbled. “'Old on to me, sir. It's my bally haneurism. Gor'—I'm—chokin'——”
He caught her in his arms as she lurched toward him. Her face was purple, and in her eyes there was a queer fierce light that went out suddenly, leaving them dull and glazed. When she commenced to sag in his arms, he eased her gently to the ground and laid her on her back in the grass.
“The nipper's safe, 'Enery,” he heard her murmur. “I've raised 'er a lydy, s'elp me—she's back where—you found 'er— 'Enery——”
She quivered, and the light came creeping back into her eyes before it faded forever. “Comin', 'Enery—darlin',” she whispered; and then the soul of Mother Jenks, who had a code and lived up to it (which is more than the majority of us do), had departed upon the ultimate journey. Ricardo gazed down on the hard old mouth, softened now by a little half-smile of mingled yearning and gladness: “What a wonderful soul you had,” he murmured, and kissed her.
In the end she slept in the niche in the wall of the Catedral de la Vera Cruz, beside her sainted 'Enery.