Forget me altogether, and think of what you have to do.'
"'Be without fear, senor. You are nothing to me but a gun-carriage, and
I shall not waste a shot.'
"I heard the spluttering of a port-fire, and smelt the saltpetre of the
match. I saw suddenly before me a nondescript shape on all fours like
a beast, but with a man's head drooping below a tubular projection over
the nape of the neck, and the gleam of a rounded mass of bronze on its
back.
"In front of a silent semicircle of men it squatted alone, with Jorge
behind it and a trumpeter motionless, his trumpet in his hand, by its
side.
"Jorge, bent double, muttered, port-fire in hand: 'An inch to the left,
senor. Too much. So. Now, if you let yourself down a little by letting
your elbows bend, I will . . .'
"He leaped aside, lowering his port-fire, and a burst of flame darted
out of the muzzle of the gun lashed on the man's back.
"Then Gaspar Ruiz lowered himself slowly. 'Good shot?' he asked.
"'Full on, senor.'
"'Then load again.'
"He lay there before me on his breast under the darkly glittering bronze
of his monstrous burden, such as no love or strength of man had ever
had to bear in the lamentable history of the world.
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