The injured Lama, I may say, was the one at the head of the party that wanted to have my head cut off, so that, naturally enough, I could not help betraying my satisfaction at the accident. I was glad they had let me live another day were it only to see his self-inflicted punishment.
Martini-Henry Exploded
CHAPTER XC
A consultation—Untied from the rack—The most terrible twenty-four hours of my life—I lose the use of my feet—Circulation returning—Intense pain—Sports.
The Pombo, who had been, during the greater part of the afternoon, looking at me with an air of mingled pity and respect, as though he had been forced against his will to treat me so brutally, could not help joining in my laughter at the Lama's sorrowful plight. In a way, I believe he was rather glad that the accident had happened; for, if he had until then been uncertain whether to kill me or not, he felt, after what had occurred, that it was not prudent to attempt it. The gold ring which had been taken from me on the day of our arrest, and for which I had asked many times, as it had been given by my mother, was regarded as possessing miraculous powers as long as it was upon me; and was therefore kept well away from me, for fear that, with its help, I might break my bonds and escape. The Pombo, the Lamas and officers held another consultation, at the end of which, towards sunset, several soldiers came and loosed my legs from the stretching log; and my hands, though still manacled, were lowered from the pillar behind.
As the ropes round my ankles were unwound from the deep channels they had cut into my flesh, large patches of skin came away with them. Thus ended the most terrible twenty-four hours I have ever passed in my lifetime.
I felt very little relief at first as I lay flat on the ground, for my body and legs were stiff and as if dead; and, as time went by, and I saw no signs of their coming back to life, I feared that mortification had set in, and that I had lost the use of my feet for good. It was two or three hours before the blood began to circulate in my right foot, and the pain when it did so was intense. Had a handful of knives been passed slowly down the inside of my leg the agony could not have been more excruciating. My arms were not quite so bad: they also were numbed, but the circulation was more quickly re-established.
