Part 47 (1/2)
The awakening of my conscience sent me to my feet; but before I had stumbled halfway through the pa.s.sage I heard his shout in the open air, ”Behold me!”
A man outside cried excitedly, ”He is out!”
An exulting tumult fell into the arch, the clash of twenty voices yelling in different keys, ”He is out--the traitor! He is out!” I was too late, but I made three more hesitating steps and stood blinded.
The flaming branches they were holding over the precipice showered a mult.i.tude of sparks, that fell disappearing continuously in the lurid light, shutting out the night from the mouth of the cave. And in this light Castro could be seen kneeling on the other side of the sill.
With his fingers clutching the edge of the slab, he hung outwards, his head falling back, his spine arched tensely, like a bow; and the red sparks coming from above with the dancing whirl of snowflakes, vanished in the air before they could settle on his face.
”Manuel! Manuel!”
They answered with a deep, confused growl, jostling and crowding on the edge to look down into his eyes. Meantime I stared at the convulsive heaving of his breast, at his upturned chin, his swelling throat. He defied Manuel. He would leap. Behold! he was going to leap--to his own death--in his own time. He challenged them to come down on the ledge; and the blade of the maimed arm waved to and fro stiffly, point up, like a red-hot weapon in the light. He devoted them to pestilence, to English gallows, to the infernal powers: while all the time commenting murmurs pa.s.sed over his head, as though he had extorted their sinister appreciation.
”_Ca.n.a.lla!_ dogs, thieves, prey of death, vermin of h.e.l.l--I spit on you--like this!”
He had not the force, nor the saliva, and remained straining mutely upwards while they laughed at him all together, with something sombre, and as if doomed in their derision.... ”He will jump! No, he will not!”
”Yes! Leap, Castro! Spit, Castro!” ”He will run back into the cave!
_Maladetta!_”... Manuel's voiced cooed lovingly on the brink:
”Come to us and drink, Castro.”
I waited for his leap with doubt, with disbelief, in the helpless agitation of the weak. Gradually he seemed to relax all over.
”Drink deep; drink, and drink, and drink, Castro. Water. Clear water, cool water. Taste, Castro!”
He called on him in tones that were almost tender in their urgency, to come and drink before he died. His voice seemed to cast a spell, like an incantation, upon the tubby little figure, with something yearning in the upward turn of the listening face.
”Drink!” Manuel repeated the word several times; then, suddenly he called, ”Taste, Castro, taste,” and a descending brightness, as of a crystal rod hurled from above, s.h.i.+vered to nothing on the upturned face.
The light disappearing from before the cave seemed scared away by the inhuman discord of his shriek; and I flung myself forward to lick the splash of moisture on the sill. I did not think of Castro, I had forgotten him. I raged at the deception of my thirst, exploring with my tongue the rough surface of the stone till I tasted my own blood. Only then, raising my head to gasp, and clench my fists with a baffled and exasperated desire, I noticed how profound was the silence, in which the words, ”Take away his sting,” seemed to p.r.o.nounce themselves over the ravine in the impersonal austerity of the rock, and with the tone of a tremendous decree.
CHAPTER TEN
He had surrendered to his thirst. What weakness! He had not thrown himself over, then. What folly! One splash of water on his face had been enough. He was contemptible; and lying collapsed, in a sort of tormented apathy, at the mouth of the cave, I despised and envied his good fortune. It could not save him from death, but at least he drank. I understood this when I heard his voice, a voice altogether altered--a firm, greedy voice saying, ”More,” breathlessly. And then he drank again. He was drinking. He was drinking up there in the light of the fire, in a circle of mortal enemies, under Manuel's gloating eyes.
Drinking! O happiness! O delight! What a miserable wretch! I clawed the stone convulsively; I think I would have rushed out for my share if I had not heard Manuel's cruel and caressing voice:
”How now? You do not want to throw yourself over, my Castro?”
”I have drunk,” he said gloomily.
I think they must have given him something to eat then. In my mind there are many blanks in the vision of that scene, a vision built upon a few words reaching me, suddenly, with great intervals of silence between, as though I had been coming to myself out of a dead faint now and then.
A ferocious hum of many voices would rise sometimes impatiently, the scrambling of feet near the edge; or, in a sinister and expectant stillness, Manuel the artist would be speaking to his ”beloved victim Castro” in a gentle and insinuating voice that seemed to tremble slightly with eagerness. Had he eaten and drunk enough? They had kept their promises, he said. They would keep them all. The water had been cool--and presently he, Manuel-del-Popolo, would accompany with his guitar and his voice the last moments of his victim. Bursts of laughter punctuated his banter. Ah! that Manuel, that Manuel! Some actually swore in admiration. But was Castro really at his ease? Was it not good to eat and drink? Had he quite returned to life? But, _Caramba, amigos_, what neglect! The _caballero_ who has honoured us must smoke. They shouted in high glee: ”Yes. Smoke, Castro. Let him smoke.” I suppose he did; and Manuel expounded to him how pleasant life was in which one could eat, and drink, and smoke. His words tortured me. Castro remained mute--from disdain, from despair, perhaps. Afterwards they carried him along clear of the cornice, and I understood they formed a half-circle round him, drawing their knives. Manuel, screeching in a high falsetto, ordered the bonds of his feet to be cut. I advanced my head out as far as I dared; their voices reached me deadened; I could only see the profound shadow of the ravine, a patch of dark clear sky opulent with stars, and the play of the firelight on the opposite side. The shadow of a pair of monumental feet, and the lower edge of a cloak, spread amply like a skirt, stood out in it, intensely black and motionless, right in front of the cave. Now and then, elbowed in the surge round Castro, the guitar emitted a deep and hollow resonance. He was tumultuously ordered to stand up and, I imagine, he was being p.r.i.c.ked with the points of their knives till he did get on his feet. ”Jump!” they roared all together--and Manuel began to finger the strings, lifting up his voice between the gusts of savage hilarity, mingled with cries of death. He exhorted his followers to close on the traitor inch by inch, presenting their knives.
”He runs here and there, the blood trickling from his limbs--but in vain, this is the appointed time for the leap....”
It was an improvisation; they stamped their feet to the slow measure; they shouted in chorus the one word ”Leap!” raising a ferocious roar; and between whiles the song of voice and strings came to me from a distance, softened and lingering in a voluptuous and pitiless cadence that wrung my heart, and seemed to eat up the remnants of my strength.
But what could I have done, even if I had had the strength of a giant, and a most fearless resolution? I should have been shot dead before I had crawled halfway up the ledge. A piercing shriek covered the guitar, the song, and the wild merriment.