Part 18 (2/2)
”Tongues were h ”If I see you drop your hand lower than the counter I shall rip you up We shall then be able to see whether you digest your food or not”
I began to eat and sip my wine, still with those brutal eyes onhastly look of horrible excite performances became more frequent and the slimy froth dropped continually from the corners of his mouth on to his bosom I dared not look at the knife, because a terrible i into be overcohtest attempt to escape would be fatal to me; for the felloas evidently thirsty for h But what, I thought, if he were to grow tired of waiting, and, carried away by his e his weapon intoavailed h over-caution These thoughts were h it all I laboured to observe an outwardly calely weak and nervous My lips grew dry; I was intensely thirsty and longed for more wine, yet dared not take it for fear that in ht cloudwill it take your friend to return with the Alcalde?” I asked at length
Gandaratime,” said one of the other men ”I, for one, cannot wait till he comes,” and after that he took his departure
One by one they now began to drop away, till only two men besides Gandara remained in the porch Still thatits prey, or rather like a wild boar, gnashi+ng and foa, and ready to rip up its adversary with horrid tusk
At length I an to despair of the Alcalde co to deliver me ”Friend,” I said, ”if you will allow me to speak, I can convince you that you areabout Santa Colo the knife-point warningly against e it intoht the Alcalde were not coh at once and cut your throat afterwards It is a virtue to kill a Blanco traitor, and if you do not go bound hand and foot from here then here you must die What, do you dare to say that I did not see you at San Paulo--that you are not an officer of Santa Coloma? Look, rebel, I will swear on this cross that I saw you there”
Suiting the action to the word, he raised the hilt of the weapon to his lips to kiss the guard, which with the handle formed a cross That pious action was the first slip he had ave the first opportunity that had co all that terrible interview Before he had ceased speaking, the conviction that h ht hand dropped to rasped the handle of my revolver under my _poncho_ He saw the movement, and very quickly recovered the handle of his knife In another second of tih ht from my waist, and fro on to the floor; he swerved, then fell back, co body I leaped, and alround was several yards away, then, wheeling round, I found the other twoout afterthe foremost of the tith my revolver
They instantly stood still
”We are not following you, friend,” said one, ”but only wish to get out of the place”
”Back, or I fire!” I repeated, and then they retreated into the porch
They had stood by unconcerned while their cut-throat co ry with the away at once, stood for so the twohis clothes to look for the wound, the other holding a flaring candle over his ashen, corpse-like face
”Is he dead?” I asked
One of the men looked up and answered, ”It appears so”
”Then,” I returned, ”I ing alloped away
Soine, after what I had related, that my sojourn in the Purple Land had quite brutalised me; I am happy to inform them that it was not so Whatever a man's individual characterinclination in him to reply to an attack in the spirit in which it is made He does not call the person who playfully ridicules his foibles a whitened sepulchre or an unspeakable scoundrel, and the sahting If a French gentleo to the encounter twirling round, all smiles and compliments; and that I should select , like that experienced by the satirist about to write a brilliant article while picking out a pen with a suitable nib
On the other hand, if ateeth attempts to disembowel me with a butcher's knife, the instinct of self-preservation co the heart with such i his blood I could spurn his loathsome carcass with e words That he was past recall seeret did I feel at his death Joy at the terrible retribution I had been able to inflict on the alloping away into the darkness--such joy that I could have sung and shouted aloud had it not see
CHAPTER XXI
After ht, albeit I slept on an e), and under the vast, void sky, powdered with innumerable stars And when I proceeded next day on ht_, as the pious Orientals call the first wave of glory hich the rising sun floods the world, had never seemed so pleasant to my eyes, nor had earth ever looked fresher or lovelier, with the grass and bushes everywhere hung with starry lace, sparkling with countless dewy geht Life see my heart that when I reered it I alretted that he was now probably blind and deaf to nature's sweet e, thatched house, with clu near it, also surrounded with brushwood fences and sheep and cattle enclosures
The blue sleah the shady trees--for this _rancho_ actually boasted a chi tosiesta in the shade after it, would be, thought I; but, alas! was I not pursued by the awful phantoeance? Uncertain whether to call or not, ht on towards the house, for a horse always knohen his rider is in doubt and never fails at such tiive his advice It was lucky for me that on this occasion I condescended to take it ”I will, at all events, call for a drink of water and see what the people are like,” I thought, and in a few reat interest to half a dozen children ranging fro at me ide-open eyes They had dirty faces, the s but a small shi+rt The next in size had a shi+rt supple to the knees; and so on, progressively, up to the biggest boy, ore the cast-off parental toggery, and so, instead of having too little on, was, in a sense, overdressed I asked this youngster for a can of water to quench ar He ran into the kitchen, or living-rooain without either water or fire ”_Papita_ wishes you to come in to drink _mate_,” said he