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Updated: June 15, 2025
It was near midnight when he reached the tavern and climbed the rickety stairway to the room where the two men waited. Chauvenet opened the door at his approach, and they cried aloud as the great figure appeared before them and the lamplight fell upon his dark blood-smeared face. "The letters!" snapped Chauvenet. "Is the message safe?" demanded Durand. "Lost; lost; they are lost!
Bodies of soldiers and civilians were lying everywhere, the faces of some, to whom death had come swiftly, so calm and composed that they looked as if they slept, while upon the blood-smeared countenances of others, hideously mutilated perhaps, were terrible expressions, showing in what frightful agony they had passed into eternity.
Scott looked searchingly at the crowd before him. The steer John was holding had been dehorned but not seared. The blood had run down the brute's white face and formed a crimson icicle on its under lip. John had run his fingers through his ashen hair, leaving it blood-smeared. Charleton was lighting a blood-stained cigarette with the hot searing-iron.
But somehow the sight of the badly-wounded man disarmed me, and I dismounted to part the bushes and kneel down beside where my enemy lay back with his legs beneath the neck and shoulders of his dead horse, blood-smeared and ghastly, as he gazed wildly in my face. "Wather!" he said pitifully. "I am a dead man."
It was like attempting to lift the earth. The weight of the body frightened her. Again she sank down among the ferns under the great oak tree; once more she took his blood-smeared head on her lap, smoothing the bright, wet hair; and her tears fell slowly upon his upturned face. "My friend," she stammered, " my kind, droll friend.... The first friend I ever had "
But the encounter was unequal. In another moment both boys were lying side by side on the floor and their captors stood over them. Even in the half light of the little room both boys could see the blood-smeared cheek of the marshal.
Purposely Aldous stepped out into the full illumination of it. The old hunter looked up. For a moment he stared into the blood-smeared face of his friend; then he sprang to his feet, and caught him by the arm. "Yes, I got it," nodded Aldous cheerfully. "I went out for it, Mac, and I got it! Get out your emergency kit, will you? I rather fancy I need a little patching up."
But now my hand was on his throat, my knee was planted on his chest, and by one twist I could end a record whose further writing would be in the blood of his victims. I lifted my eyes an instant to the western sky, out of which a clear, sweet air was softly fanning my hot blood-smeared face. The sun had set as O'mie cut my bonds.
Then the signal is given, the hide sways to and fro for a few seconds, and then, with a skilful jerk, it is drawn as taut as eight pairs of strong arms can draw it. If the executioners are skilful at the business the victim shoots upwards from the blood-smeared surface like a dude's hat in a gale of wind.
Finally, the plucky little beast seemed to come to the conclusion that the decisive moment had arrived, for, suddenly placing his head between his fore legs, so that his long, powerful horns pointed straight at his opponent's body, he hurled himself violently forward, like a bolt shot from a catapult; the sharp, bayonet-like horns buried themselves deeply in the grey-spotted, blood-smeared body; and as a prolonged yell of agony rent the air the antelope turned a complete somersault over his antagonist and staggered to his feet, bewildered but unhurt, the force with which the final stroke had been delivered having been so tremendous that the horns had disengaged themselves by the simple process of tearing two ghastly slashes in the fearfully lacerated carcass of the now defunct enemy.
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