“‘I cling to life more than yourself,’ sharply replied the colonel, ’for I have a mortal outrage to avenge.  But the time is fast slipping away.  Are you ready to proceed to draw the last lottery at which one of us will ever exist?”

“How were we to proceed to this drawing by lot?  By means of the wet finger, like infants; or by head and tail, like the school boys?  Both ways were impracticable.  Our hands imprudently stretched out over the heads of our frightened horses, might cause them to give a fatal start.  Should we toss up a piece of coin, the night was too dark to enable us to distinguish which side fell upward.  The colonel bethought him of an expedient, of which I never should have dreamed.”

“‘Listen to me, captain,’ said the colonel, to whom I had communicated my perplexities.  ’I have another way.  The terror which our horses feel, makes them draw every moment a burning breath.  The first of us two whose horse shall neigh,—­”

“‘Wins!’ I exclaimed, hastily.”

“’Not so; shall be looser.  I know that you are a countryman, and, as such, you can do whatever you please with your horse.  As to myself, who, but last year, wore a gown of a theological student, I fear your equestrian prowess.  You may be able to make your horse neigh:  to hinder him from doing so, is a very different matter.’”

“We waited in deep and anxious silence until the voice of one of our horses should break forth.  The silence lasted for a minute—­for an age!  It was my horse who neighed the first.  The colonel gave no external manifestation of his joy; but, no doubt, he thanked God to the very bottom of his heart.”

“‘You will allow me a minute to make my peace with heaven?’ I said, with falling voice.”

“‘Will five minutes be sufficient?’”

“‘It will,’ I replied.”

“The colonel pulled out his watch.  I addressed toward the heavens, brilliant with stars, which I thought I was looking to for the last time, an intense and burning prayer.”

“‘It is time,’ said the colonel.”

“I answered nothing, and, with a firm hand, gathered up the bridle of my horse, and drew it within my fingers, which were agitated by a nervous tremor.”

“‘Yet one moment more,’ I said to the colonel, for I have need of all my coolness to carry into execution the fearful manoeuver which I am about to commence.”

“‘Granted,’ replied Garduno.”

“My education, as I have told you, had been in the country.  My childhood, and part of my earliest youth, had almost been passed on horseback.  I may say, without flattering myself, that if there was any one in the world capable of executing this equestrian feat, it was myself.  I rallied myself with an almost supernatural effort, and succeeded in recovering my entire self-possession, in the very face of death.  Taking it at the worst, I had already braved it too often to be any longer alarmed at it.  From that instant, I dared to hope afresh.”