CHAPTER IV.
OF AN ODD PASSAGE IN THE MEADOW.
"For the love of God, my lad, don't fire!" I
cried to the rebel at the pitch of the little voice that
yet was left me.
They had now halted, and stood confronting one another very close in the dewy grass of the open meadow, while the moon wrapped them in her creepy light. For, perhaps, while one might count thirty they stood apart with as little motion as the ghostly trees, in a tense and straining silence. Again I cried:
"Oh, hold your fire, my lad!" more instantly than ever. And as I thus implored him, I made a great effort to overtake and get between them. But the matter was now gone utterly beyond any control of mine. They gave me no more heed than I had been a tuft of grass. And whether 'twas that the sound of me behind him spurred the Captain to a fury, or that he risked his life from calculation, sure, I can never say, for, as I came up, without a word the Captain sprang and the prisoner shot together. At the fierce crack of the pistol the Captain
