“Look what he is doing, no, not that one.” From the tangle came running a dripping human. He tossed his hands, staring up at the burning bowl of a sky. No help there! The sun-baked sands, glittering like brass, gave no escape. He raised his hands, and they could see him take the poise of diver; like a projectile he shot into the pool of living green beneath.
“He thinks it’s water,” whispered Innes.
“He’s got it,” cried Estrada, caught with excitement. “It’s a madness. One man died yesterday.”
“Died!”
“Why, no white man, for they’re white, those Mexican, can stand that hole. It’s an inferno. There have been two deaths already. If another goes, they’ll walk out. I’ve told Rickard; he knows. They’re superstitious as niggers—the third death—they’re boiling with discontent already. Then where’ll we be, where’ll the gate be?” The graceful indolence of the Cardenas was gone; he was all Estrada now, vehement and impassioned.
“He may die?”
“I shouldn’t have brought you here!”
He tried to get her away. Her eyes would not leave that pool of living green, the hole that the poor wretch had thought was cooling waters. The smell of cut arrow-weed, sickly sweet, smote against her nostrils. Then she saw a movement in the undergrowth. A group of men were pulling him out—she saw his face, distorted, livid. His lips were chattering; he screamed like a raucous ape.
“Did you see him?” she breathed.
“I saw them,” his answer was grim. He watched them, their composite expression foreboding, as they bore to camp the struggling madman.