“Scum of all devils!” he bellowed. “In fire descend to fire that lasts eternal!”
He pulled the trigger. There was a flash and shattering explosion. A blazing hornet stung Ducos in the leg. He may have started and shrieked. Any cry or motion of his must have passed unnoticed in the screaming panic evoked of the crash. He clung on with his hands and dared to raise his head. The mouth of the pass was dusk with flying skirts. Upon the sands beneath him, the body of the priest, a shapeless bulk, was slowly subsiding and settling, one fat fist of it yet gripping the stock of a pistol which, overgorged, had burst as it was discharged.
* * * * *
The reek of the little tragedy had hardly dissipated before Ducos found himself. The sentiment of revolt, deriving from his helpless position, had been indeed but momentary. To feel his own accessibility to torture, painted torture to him as an inhuman lust. With the means to resist, or escape, at will, he might have sat long in ambush watching it; even condoning it as an extravagant posture of art.
With a heart full of such exultation over the success of his trick that for the moment he forgot the pain of his wound, he hurriedly unpicked the knots of the shorter cords about him, and, jumping to the ground, waited until the shadow of a little depressed figure came slinking across the sand towards him.
“Eugenio!” it whispered; “what has happened? O! art thou hurt?”
She ran into his arms, sobbing.
“I am hurt,” said Ducos. “Quick, child! unstrap this from my arm and bind it about my calf. Didst hear? But it was magnificent! Two birds with a single stone. The piastres in pickle for us. Didst see, moreover? Holy Emperor! it was laughable. I would sacrifice a decoration to be witness of the meeting of those two overhead. It should be the Yanguesian for my money, for he has at least his teeth left. Look how he shows them, bursting with rage! Quick, quick, quick! we must be up and away, before any of those others think of returning.”
“And if one should,” she said, “and mark the empty beam?”
“What does it matter, nevertheless! I must be off to-night, after thou hast answered me one single question.”