"As they appeared Rube sprang up with the exclamation, 'Trapped, by
thunder!' and then fell flat on his back, shot, I believed, through
the head.
"I rushed to my rifle, seized it, but before I could get it to my
shoulder it was knocked from my hand. Half a dozen fellows threw
themselves upon me, and I was a prisoner. I didn't try to resist
when they laid hands on me, because I knew I should have a knife in
me at once; and though I knew my life was not worth an hour's
purchase--no, nor five minutes'--after I was caught, still upon the
whole it was as well to live that five minutes as not.
"There was such a hubbub and a shouting at first that I couldn't
hear a word, but at last I picked up that they were a party of the
band of El Zeres, who was in the neighborhood, and had been fetched
by a boy that traitress Pepita had dispatched for them directly we
arrived. Pepita herself was wife of one of the other chiefs of the
band. Much fun was made of poor Rube and myself about our courting.
I felt mad with myself for having been caught so foolishly. I
couldn't feel angry with Rube, with him lying dead there, but I was
angry with myself for having listened to him. I oughtn't to have
allowed him to have his own way. I warn't in love, and I ought to
have known that a man's head, when he's after a gal, is no more use
than a pumpkin.
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