"We must make an end of this," he said, raising his head. He moved forward and stretched out his arms.
But at the moment, fearing that the instinct of self-preservation would certainly make him swim, he stopped.
He looked all round in search of some weight, and his eyes fell upon the anchor of a smack, which lay below on the lower wall. He jumped down, seized it, cut a piece of rope from a launch with his knife, lashed it to the anchor, and, like a gymnast anxious to exhibit to the public the prodigious power of his muscles, he scaled the steps with his burden. Once there he tied the cord to his neck, put his foot upon the wall, and, with the anchor in his arms, he precipitated himself into the deep. His colossal form made a great vacuum in the waters, which closed immediately over him. The deep sea extinguished that spark of life with the same indifference as it had so many others.
A sailor, seeing him from a distance, ran crying:
"A man in the water!"
Three or four others from boats at hand followed, and in a few minutes there was a crowd of twenty or thirty at the end of the landing-stage.
"Who was it? Do you know him?" was asked of him who had seen him.
"I think it was Don Gonzalo."
"The mayor?"
"Yes."