The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1893-03-09
in. Then the retracipg of those

struggle and dropped out of the ranks.
Some became deranged and, wander
ing off, slipped down the rocky ravines
and were killed.
On the evening of the tenth day they
were met by body of Mexican caval-
ry and hidden to halt and give up their
arms
After three days rest in which their
half-spent lives were restored by those
arts of healing the Mexicans know so
well, they were carried, handcuffed in
pairs, into Saltillo and thence to
Salado.
The hoary walls of the old hacienda
looked down in sinister strength as the
thinned ranks filed in. Eight Mcxicans
were outside digging trench. Ned
exchanged look with Harvey, his
companion in irons, and whispered:
"That means death" He was not
wrong. At tive o'clock of the same
day the prisoners were ordered out and
ranged in double line against one of
the walls
The officer in command then read
the written decree of Santa Ana, pres
ident of Mexico, "a decree which pro-
nounced for these men a fate so in
genious in it's torture to mind and body
the subtle brain of Herod
Every tenth man was to be killed,
the decision TO be made by lottery
Into a jar were to be dropped one
hundred and seventy beans-one hun
dred and fifty-three white and seven
teen black
Each man was to take out bean.
Those drawing the black ones were to
be shot before the sun went down; the
rest spared death, but retained as
prisoners.
1t was a dark and cloudy day, this
26th of March, with high winds that
whipped the sand into great waves and
blew it across the plains
Beyond the door of the courtyard
nothing could be seen but the flying
sand.
Over all spread the dusky canopy of
the heavens
A Mexican soldier mounted stool
and held aloft the fatal pitcher.
The roll was called.
AS each hand was slowly lifted and
poised for one single instant above the
mouth of the jug life and death must
have met and made salute
The game was for souls, and the die
was Mexican bean!
Fosters name was called near the
last and he carelessly dropped in his
left hand, with perchance a reminis-
cence of childish days when he had
done such things ''for luck" and found
he had picked up white bean.
AS he returned to his place Harvey
passed him, and Ned saw in the white.
drawn face of his friend no sign of
fear, but the mental anguish of Geth-
semane.
What was it he had said las night in
one of the pauses of that long marchP
That perhaps, even now, a baby
voice was waking faint echoes in his
little home, and that the anxiety he
was bearing for another was sharper
with pain than any physical torture he
had experienced.
Ned looked at the smooth white oval
of the vegetab BILE seed in his hand and
made resolve.
When he looked up Harvey was Just
raising his hand. Ned noticed how it
trembled.
When the fingers were withdrawn
there was something black outlined
against their bloodless tips.
The change in his face was that of
| death.
With a quick movement toward his
FRIEND Foster made a sudden thurst
and gesture, and-how it was no one
could ever explain but after the slight
confusion and percmptory orders to fall
in line Harvey was seen standing in his
old place staring with bcwildered gaze
at white object in his open palm, and
Ned. erect and calm, with brow of
more than mortal beauty, awaiting the
signal of death
AS soon as Harvey regained control
of his confused faculties he made fran.
tic, pitiablc efforts to communicate
with his friend, but was silenced at the
point of muslet and compelled to
throw himself face downward with the
rest, while the seventeen doomed men
were led forth, bound together with
cords, their eyes bandnged, and shot
repeatedly until life was extinct. They
asked the privileges of being shot from
the front, but were refused, and made
to sit upon log near the wall with
their backs to the eXecutioners
Six were taken out first, then six
more and then five.
Darkness fell like great funeral pail
as the last shots were fired, and stars
shed their holy candle rays above the
dead; the dishonored dead, lying in
one great heap, body piled atop of
body.-Nora c. Perry, in Omaha Bee
Spoony and Didn't Care Who Knew 1t.
The newly welded couple boarded
the train Mt n village station and a
crowd of about hundred people saw
them off. The groom was strapping
young fellow, with sunburned face and
hands and bears grease on his hair,
while the bride mirht have heen the