Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/652

 The winner, who had fallen panting and exhausted, was raised into a sitting posture by two troopers, one of whom poured a draught of brandy down his throat. The spirit almost instantly revived him, and in a few seconds he was able, though still weak and dizzy, to stand upon his feet and look about him.

A few paces off, his beaten rival stood beside his horse. Dare looked at him, and their eyes met. Quixarvyn's face bore an almost imperceptible smile; but it was not this, but something in his look which the other could not have defined, which struck him backwards like a shock. He staggered back a pace or two, bewildered by the light which broke upon his mind. Then he stepped up to his rival's side, and the guards, who saw no cause to interfere, falling back a little, he put his mouth close to Quixarvyn's ear:—

"You pulled that horse!" he said.

Quixarvyn looked at him, but answered not a word.

"You let me win," the other went on, his voice breaking. "For her sake you did it."

Quixarvyn drove his nails into his palms; he had acted, he was acting, not without a bitter cost.

"Make her happy," he said, briefly.

As he spoke he turned away, and strode swiftly to his old position at the head of the line of prisoners, before which the firing party was again drawn up.

Dare turned his back upon the scene, and thrust his fingers in his ears. Nevertheless, he could still hear, with horrible distinctness, the Sergeant's loud clear voice, with an interval between the words—

"Ready!"

"Present!"

"Fire!"

Almost as the word was given came the crash of the report. Moved by an impulse which he could not conquer, he turned round with a shudder. The soldiers were lowering their smoking muskets, and a thick white cloud hung above the line of prisoners stretched upon the ground. At the extremity of the line Quixarvyn lay upon his face, with his right hand clenched upon a portrait which he had taken from his breast, and a bullet through his heart.