Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/376

 spark of life. Henderson rose with the pistol in one hand, the burned cloth that had hidden it in the other, to see the cavalrymen come charging up the lane.

"Get up!" he ordered Roberto, jostling him with his foot.

Roberto lay stretched and limp as if life had gone out of him, his arms flung out in the road. His face was purple, his lips were distended with congested blood; he was breathing with difficulty.

"Get up!" Henderson repeated, stooping to press the pistol to Roberto's temple.

Roberto rolled his eyes in appeal for the fragment of life that still hung in his body. Henderson took him by the collar of his magnificent coat and heaved him up. And there, with Henderson's knee at his back, the general of forty men sat in the dusty road. His plumed cap was lying by him, crushed by his horse's foot; his heavy, black hair, powdered with dust, fell over his forehead and eyes. He was as bedraggled, limp, and vapid as a drowned man. The spectacle of his soldiers charging to his rescue did not electrify him with one perceptible thrill.

"If they come through the gate, I'll shoot you," Henderson declared in terrible earnestness. "Stand up—stop them!"

He pulled the overthrown general to his feet, where he stood weaving, groping to understand what was desired of him. He made no effort, by word or sign, to halt the approach of his men.