Colonel O’Neill conducted the execution. He gave the command of death in a stern tone, characteristic of the disciplined soldier that he was, and the leaden volley stretched the Night-Hawks dead upon the leaves.
“Well done, was it not?” he said, turning to Funk who had witnessed the murder without an outward sign of emotion. “My men shoot well.”
“Quite well,” was the reply, and as the outlaw’s glance fell upon the still forms on the ground, for the first time, a tear of affection stole to his eye.
“Braver men than they never lived,” he murmured; and then, in a lower tone: “I am the last.”
He was now led forward, and halted between the corpses of his two last followers.
“I accord you a liberty,” said O’Neill, admiring, despite his hate, the unflinching courage of the man with whom he was dealing. “Raynor, untie his hands.”
The soldier addressed drew a knife and obeyed the command.
Funk’s hands crept around to his side, and seemed to hang listlessly there.
“Royal Funk, would you see the deadly flash?” asked O’Neill.
“I am a soldier, I would die as one!” was the reply.