第75章

Langham caught it by the throat as though it were human, and did not feel the hot metal burning the palms of his hands as he choked it and pointed its muzzle toward the Palace, while the others dragged at the spokes of the wheel.It was fighting at close range now, close enough to suit even Langham.He found himself in the front rank of it without knowing exactly how he got there.Every man on both sides was playing his own hand, and seemed to know exactly what to do.He felt neglected and very much alone, and was somewhat anxious lest his valor might be wasted through his not knowing how to put it to account.He saw the enemy in changing groups of scowling men, who seemed to eye him for an instant down the length of a gun-barrel and then disappear behind a puff of smoke.He kept thinking that war made men take strange liberties with their fellow-men, and it struck him as being most absurd that strangers should stand up and try to kill one another, men who had so little in common that they did not even know one another's names.The soldiers who were fighting on his own side were equally unknown to him, and he looked in vain for Clay.He saw MacWilliams for a moment through the smoke, jabbing at a jammed cartridge with his pen-knife, and hacking the lead away to make it slip.He was remonstrating with the gun and swearing at it exactly as though it were human, and as Langham ran toward him he threw it away and caught up another from the ground.Kneeling beside the wounded man who had dropped it and picking the cartridges from his belt, he assured him cheerfully that he was not so badly hurt as he thought.

``You all right?'' Langham asked.

``I'm all right.I'm trying to get a little laddie hiding behind that blue silk sofa over there.He's taken an unnatural dislike to me, and he's nearly got me three times.I'm knocking horse-hair out of his rampart, though.''

The men of Stuart's body-guard were fighting outside of the breastworks and mattresses.They were using their swords as though they were machetes, and the Irishmen were swinging their guns around their shoulders like sledge-hammers, and beating their foes over the head and breast.The guns at his own side sounded close at Langham's ear, and deafened him, and those of the enemy exploded so near to his face that he was kept continually winking and dodging, as though he were being taken by a flashlight photograph.When he fired he aimed where the mass was thickest, so that he might not see what his bullet did, but he remembered afterward that he always reloaded with the most anxious swiftness in order that he might not be killed before he had had another shot, and that the idea of being killed was of no concern to him except on that account.Then the scene before him changed, and apparently hundreds of Mendoza's soldiers poured out from the Palace and swept down upon him, cheering as they came, and he felt himself falling back naturally and as a matter of course, as he would have stepped out of the way of a locomotive, or a runaway horse, or any other unreasoning thing.His shoulders pushed against a mass of shouting, sweating men, who in turn pressed back upon others, until the mass reached the iron fence and could move no farther.He heard Clay's voice shouting to them, and saw him run forward, shooting rapidly as he ran, and he followed him, even though his reason told him it was a useless thing to do, and then there came a great shout from the rear of the Palace, and more soldiers, dressed exactly like the others, rushed through the great doors and swarmed around the two wings of the building, and he recognized them as Rojas's men and knew that the fight was over.

He saw a tall man with a negro's face spring out of the first mass of soldiers and shout to them to follow him.Clay gave a yell of welcome and ran at him, calling upon him in Spanish to surrender.The negro stopped and stood at bay, glaring at Clay and at the circle of soldiers closing in around him.He raised his revolver and pointed it steadily.It was as though the man knew he had only a moment to live, and meant to do that one thing well in the short time left him.

Clay sprang to one side and ran toward him, dodging to the right and left, but Mendoza followed his movements carefully with his revolver.

It lasted but an instant.Then the Spaniard threw his arm suddenly across his face, drove the heel of his boot into the turf, and spinning about on it fell forward.

``If he was shot where his sash crosses his heart, I know the man who did it,'' Langham heard a voice say at his elbow, and turning saw MacWilliams wetting his fingers at his lips and touching them gingerly to the heated barrel of his Winchester.

The death of Mendoza left his followers without a leader and without a cause.They threw their muskets on the ground and held their hands above their heads, shrieking for mercy.Clay and his officers answered them instantly by running from one group to another, knocking up the barrels of the rifles and calling hoarsely to the men on the roofs to cease firing, and as they were obeyed the noise of the last few random shots was drowned in tumultuous cheering and shouts of exultation, that, starting in the gardens, were caught up by those in the streets and passed on quickly as a line of flame along the swaying housetops.

The native officers sprang upon Clay and embraced him after their fashion, hailing him as the Liberator of Olancho, as the Preserver of the Constitution, and their brother patriot.Then one of them climbed to the top of a gilt and marble table and proclaimed him military President.