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 at the fellow, "whom I pardoned at the petition of Captain del Valle, on assurance that you were an honest man at the bottom, and one who had rendered service to the state."

"It is I," Alvitre returned, insolent under the governor's severity where an honest man would have been ashamed.

"Your pardon is revoked. Stand! you are under arrest." The governor's sword flashed in the moonlight as he spoke. He presented it at Alvitre's breast. "And I tell you, villain, that you shall hang for this night's work!"

"I'll have something to hang for, then!" Alvitre said. He sprang back, snatched a pistol from his sash, the governor's sword-point pressing him. The cap flashed in the governor's face; Alvitre flung the pistol down with a curse, retreating nimbly before the governor's sword.

"Stand!" the governor commanded; "stand, or you're a dead man!"

Alvitre's foot struck the cross that he had contemptuously wrenched from the place where Padre Ignacio had planted it. He bent as swift as a swallow, laid hold of it, guarding himself against Governor de Arrillaga's lunges with desperate dexterity. A smashing blow sent the sword whirling down the embankment; Alvitre, a cry of rage in his throat, lifted the cross high to strike the governor dead.

A swishing sound, as of the wing of a waterfowl rushing in the panic of flight above the hunter's head; a noise of impact, sudden, sharp, as an apple