ix o'clock the following morning he would be shot. "When
you hear a bugle sound you may know that is the signal for your
execution," the officer added.

While poor Stevens was still begging for an opportunity to be heard in
his own defense the lieutenant dealt him a blow in the side which left
him temporarily breathless. In a moment two soldiers had crossed his
wrists behind his back and were lashing them tightly together with a
rope.

Thus bound he was taken back indoors and made to sit on a bench. Eight
soldiers stretched themselves upon the floor of the room and slept
there; a sergeant slept with his body across the door. A guard sat on
the bench beside Stevens.

"He gave me two big slugs of brandy to drink," said Stevens, continuing
his tale, "and it affected me no more than so much water. After a
couple of hours I managed to work the cords loose and I got one hand
free. Moving cautiously I lifted my feet, and by stretching my arms
cautiously down, still holding them behind my back, I untied one shoe.
I meant at the last to kick off my shoes and run for it. I was feeling
for the laces on my other shoe when another guard came to re-enforce the
first, and he watched me so closely that I knew that chance was gone.

"After a while, strange as it seems, all the fear and all the horror of
death left me. My chief regret now was, not that I had to die, but that
my people at home would never know how I died or where. I put my head
down on the table and actually dozed off. But there was a clock in the
room and whenever it struck I would rouse up and say to myself, almost
impersonally, that I now had four hours to live, or three, or two, as
the case might be. Then I would go to sleep again. Once or twice a
queer sinking sensation in my stomach, such as I never felt before,
would come to me, but toward daylight this ceased to occur.

"At half-past five two soldiers, one carrying a spade and the other a
lantern, came in. They lit the lantern at a lamp that burned on a table
in front of me and went out. Presently I could hear them digging in the
yard outside the door. I believed it was my grave they were digging. I
cannot recall that this made any particular impression upon me. I
considered it in a most casual sort of fashion. I remember wondering
whether it was a deep grave.

"At five minutes before six a bugle sounded. The eight men on the floor
got up, buckled on their cartridge belts, shouldered their ri