While the battle was raging the families of many of the soldiers from Colorado City had gathered in the Anway Fort at that place, and a telepathic wave of horror spread over all. Many were praying and weeping, and all seemed to feel that a dreadful thing was being enacted in which their loved ones were taking part.
When the news of the battle reached the fort and the death of young Murat was announced, Marie Tinville fell in a swoon, after which her mind was a blank. From that time on her decline was rapid and in a few months she was laid in the lonely grave upon the mesa.
After that stories were told of strange things. A white light was seen about the grave, which vanished on close approach. Once old Ben Jordan an antelope hunter, came to town at night, his long hair fairly on end, saying that a white light had risen in front of him near the grave, out of which protruded a naked arm. The incredulous asked him what he had been drinking, but he stuck to the story as long as he lived.
George Birdsall, a young man of Colorado City, had heard the story and thought it all a joke. He recently went out one night to investigate. He saw no white light, but felt a peculiar rush of cold air and a touch upon the cheek as soft as if some one had gently kissed him.
[XIX.]
UNDER THE BLACK FLAG.
As the sun went down below the rolling glassy waters of the gulf of Mexico, I sat on the hatchway steps of the little steamer Dauntless, fully realizing for the first time that perhaps before morning I would be swinging to the yard-arm of a Spanish man-of-war.
I was sick, anyway, and the abominable mixture of whiskey and garlic which Mark Witherspoon had given me as a preventive against yellow fever, had made the contemplation worse.