Oscar’s erect figure at salute and his respectful voice brought Claiborne down from the stars.

“We can get rid of the prisoners to-night—­yes?”

“At midnight two secret service men will be here from Washington to travel with them to Baltimore to their boat.  The Baron and my father arranged it over the telephone from the Springs.  The prisoners understand that they are in serious trouble, and have agreed to go quietly.  The government agents are discreet men.  You brought up the buckboard?”

“But the men should be hanged—­for they shot our captain, and he may die.”

The little man spoke with sad cadence.  A pathos in his erect, sturdy figure, his lowered tone as he referred to Armitage, touched Claiborne.

“He will get well, Oscar.  Everything will seem brighter to-morrow.  You had better sleep until it is time to drive to the train.”

Oscar stepped nearer and his voice sank to a whisper.

“I have not forgotten the tall man who died; it is not well for him to go unburied.  You are not a Catholic—­no?”

“You need not tell me how—­or anything about it—­but you are sure he is quite dead?”

“He is dead; he was a bad man, and died very terribly,” said Oscar, and he took off his hat and drew his sleeve across his forehead.  “I will tell you just how it was.  When my horse took the wall and got their bullets and tumbled down dead, the big man they called Zmai saw how it was, that we were all coming over after them, and ran.  He kept running through the brambles and over the stones, and I thought he would soon turn and we might have a fight, but he did not stop; and I could not let him get away.  It was our captain who said, ‘We must take them prisoners,’ was it not so?”

“Yes; that was Mr. Armitage’s wish.”

“Then I saw that we were going toward the bridge, the one they do not use, there at the deep ravine.  I had crossed it once and knew that it was weak and shaky, and I slacked up and watched him.  He kept on, and just before he came to it, when I was very close to him, for he was a slow runner—­yes? being so big and clumsy, he turned and shot at me with his revolver, but he was in a hurry and missed; but he ran on.  His feet struck the planks of the bridge with a great jar and creaking, but he kept running and stumbled and fell once with a mad clatter of the planks.  He was a coward with a heart of water, and would not stop when I called, and come back for a little fight.  The wires of the bridge hummed and the bridge swung and creaked.  When he was almost midway of the bridge the big wires that held it began to shriek out of the old posts that held them—­though I had not touched them—­and it seemed many years that passed while the whole of it dangled in the air like a bird-nest in a storm; and the creek down below laughed at that big coward.  I still heard his hoofs thumping the planks, until the bridge dropped from under him and left him for a long second with his arms and legs flying in the air.  Yes; it was very horrible to see.  And then his great body went down, down—­God!  It was a very dreadful way for a wicked man to die.”