whose southern German the keen ear of him whose life they balanced caught the foreign accent of a Gallician.
One who seemed the leader of the gang laughed—a rolling, mellow, harmonious laugh, which thrilled through the blood of Erceldoune as menace and challenge had never done: he had heard it a few nights before in the gaslit salon of the Parisian cafe.
"Basta, basta! 'Too many words, my masters.' Kill the Border Eagle and strip him afterwards! His beak won't peck when he's shot down!"
"Stop—stop!" muttered a milder Sicilian. "Give him his choice; we only want the despatches."
"The papers then, or we fire!"
The moon shone clearer and whiter down into the ravine, while they pressed nearer and nearer till the half-circle of steel glittered close against him, within a yard of his breast;—and the Greek who in the Cafe Minuit had lamented so softly the prosaic fate of the violet bonbons, pressed closest of all. He stood quietly, with no change in his attitude, and his broken wrist dripping blood on the stone at his feet; the dark scorn of fiery passions had lowered on his face, stormy, dangerous,
