Then before his starting eyes a figure rose out of the bushes whence the hiss had come.

It was not that of a rattlesnake, but that of a man, a tall man with powerful shoulders, blue eyes, and yellow hair, undoubtedly one of the ferocious Americans.
The sentinel felt that his hour had come, and he began to patter his prayers in his throat, but the two Americans, the one before him, and the one who had grasped him from behind, did not slay him at once.

Instead they said words together in their harsh tongue.

Then they tore pieces from the sentinel's clothing, made a wad of it and pressed it into his mouth.
They also tied a strip from the same clothing over his mouth and behind his head, and, still despoiling his clothing, they bound him hand and foot and laid him in the bushes, where he was invisible to his comrades and could only see a sky in which a few dim stars danced.

But on the whole he was glad.