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Updated: May 5, 2025
The lid would then be screwed on, the troop would form a double line, facing inward, the firing-party would "present arms," and six of the dead man's more particular pals, or of his "townies," would bear the coffin out and place it upon the gun-carriage.
Next moment, by dint of supreme effort, she struggled to her feet and rose stiffly. Then, a moment later, her hands clenched and despair in her splendid eyes, she turned and staggered out. Four hours later Colonel Svetchine boldly faced a firing-party in the yard of the fortress. There was a word of command, and next second the gallant soldier fell forward on his face dead.
He set her at his side there and told her the story of his escape from the firing-party, and of the inspiration that had come to him on the morrow to make use of the letter in his boot which Sunderland had given him for Monmouth in the hour of panic. Monmouth's cavalier treatment of him when he had arrived in Bridgwater had precluded his delivering that letter at the council.
Perhaps I am sentimental; it is a French weakness; but on those few occasions when I have found a guilty woman in my power and she has been pretty morbleu! she has escaped! It may be that I have seen to it that she was kept out of further mischief, but nevertheless she has never met a firing-party because of me. Very well.
The firing-party cocked and raised their guns, but were suddenly arrested by seeing the wall of the enclosure behind Pedro lined, as if by magic, with human heads, all of which carefully levelled an equal number of muskets.
These concluded, and everything being ready for the last fatal act of the tragedy, the firing-party were ordered to advance nearer, when M'Intyre, stepping out from his place amongst them, advanced towards the colonel, and again implored him to release him from the dreadful duty imposed on him. The colonel's reply was as determined and peremptory as before.
Having up to that point kept his eyes on the ground, he had not observed Lawrence; and the first intimation he had of his presence was on hearing his voice as he stepped forward, placed his tall and stalwart frame in front of him, and said sternly to the firing-party "Villains! you will have to send your bullets through my breast before they harm Conrad!"
Covered with dust and mud, our horses reeking with foam, Corporal Frank and I burst through the crowd of spectators on the west side of the plaza, and gained the open space just as the firing-party was advancing with gleaming knives and wild yells to complete the tragedy by scalping the slain. Raising my right hand I shouted, in Spanish, "Stop where you are!"
And this same military history had vaguely worried him all the time, and now that he could think clearly, worried him with a very definite worry. In leaving his firing-party he had been guilty of a crime. Every misdemeanour in the Army is termed a crime from murder to appearing buttonless on parade. Was it desertion? If so, he might be shot. He had not thought of that when he started on his quest.
This is the Château of Miramar, formerly the residence of the young Austrian Archduke Maximilian, who, dazzled by the dream of life on an imperial throne, accepted an invitation to become Emperor of Mexico and a few years later fell before a Mexican firing-party on the slopes of Queretaro.
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