Part 9 (1/2)

”Who is this?” he cried, thrusting his face into the American's and showing a brutal countenance bristly with a week's growth of beard.

”The stranger,” one of Blake's captors answered, whereupon the tall man uttered a violent exclamation.

”Wait!” cried the other. ”He is already dying. He cannot stand.”

Some one else explained, ”It is indeed the American, but he is wounded.”

”Let me finish the work; he has seen too much,” said the first speaker, roughly.

”No, no! He is the American. Do you not understand?”

”Remember the order, Narcone,” cautioned another.

But Narcone continued to curse as if mastered by the craving to kill, and if the others had not laid hands upon him he might have made good his intention. They argued with him, all at once, and in the midst of the confusion which ensued a new voice called from the darkness:

”What have you there?”

”The American! He cannot stand.”

A square figure came swiftly through the group, muttering angrily, and the others fell back to give him room, all but Narcone, who repeated, doggedly:

”Let me finish the work if you fear to do so.”

His companions broke out at him again in a babble of argument, whereupon the new-comer shouted at them in a furious voice:

”Silenzio! Who did this?”

No one answered for a moment, but at length the brigand who held Blake's hands pinioned at his back with a sash or scarf ventured to suggest:

”I am not so sure he is injured. We pulled him down first; he may only be frightened.”

”There was to be no shooting,” growled the leader of the band.

”Eh? But you saw for yourself. There was nothing else to do,” said Narcone. ”That Ricardo was an old wolf.”

The thick-set man, whom Norvin took to be the infamous Cardi himself, cried sharply:

”Come, come, Signore, speak! Are you hurt?”

The prisoner shook his head mechanically, although he did not know whether he was injured or not. His denial seemed to satisfy the chief, who said with relief:

”It is well. We did not wish to harm you. There would be consequences, you understand? And now a match, somebody.”

”It is not necessary,” Narcone a.s.sured him with a laugh. ”Of what use to learn a trade like mine if one cannot strike true? The knife went home, twice--once for us, once for poor Galli, who was murdered. It was like killing sheep.” Picking up the wisp of gra.s.s which he had dropped, he began to dry his hands once more.

A tiny flame flickered in the darkness. It was lowered until it shone upon the upturned face of Ricardo Ferara where he lay sprawled in the dust, his teeth showing beneath his gray mustache, then died away, and the black outlines of the bull-necked man leaped into relief again as he stooped to examine Martel.

Not until that instant did the full, crus.h.i.+ng horror of the affair come home to the American, for events had crowded one another so closely that his mind was confused; but when, in the halting yellow glare, he saw those two slack forms and the crooked, unnatural postures in which death had left them, his consciousness cleared and he strained at his bonds like a fear-maddened horse.

His actual danger, however, was at an end. One of the band removed the rifle which still hung from his shoulders and which he had forgotten; another slipped the scarf from his wrists and directed him to go. He staggered away down the road along which he and Martel and Ricardo had come, walking like a sick man, for he was crippled with, fright. After a few steps he began to run, heavily, awkwardly at first, stumbling as if his joints were loose; but as his body awoke and the blood surged through him he went faster and faster until he was fleeing like a wild animal. And as he ran his terror grew. He fell many times, goblin shapes pursued him or leaped forth from the shadows, but he knew that no matter how fast he fled he could never escape the thing he had met back there in the night. It was not the grisly sight of his murdered friend nor the bared teeth of Ricardo Ferara grinning upward out of the road which filled him with the greatest horror; it was the knowledge of his own foul, sickening cowardice. He ran wildly as if to leave it behind, but it trod in his tracks and kept step with him.