Perez knelt, too much moved for speech, and Reub helped to adjust upon his shoulders the feeble frame of the sick man, into whose face had come an expression of eager, excited expectation. As the soldier rose he fairly tottered from the unexpected lightness of his burden. He stepped beneath the high, grated window, and Fennell, resting his hands on the lintel, while Reub steadied him from behind, peered out. He made no sound, and finally Perez let him down to the floor.
“Could you see much?” asked Reub, but the other did not answer. His gaze was afar off as if the prison walls were no barrier to his eyes, and a smile of rapturous contemplation rested on his face. Then with a deep breath he seemed to return to a perception of his surroundings, and in tones of irrepressible exultation he murmured:
“I saw the mountains. They are so,” and with a waving, undulating gesture of the hand that was wonderfully eloquent, he indicated the bold sweep of the forest clad Taghcanic peaks. The door swung open, and the jailer stood there.
“Time's up,” he said sharply.
“What, you're not going now? You're not going to leave us yet?” cried Reuben, piteously.
Perez choked down the wrath and bitterness that was turning his heart to iron and said, humbly.
“Mr. Bement, I should like to stay a few minutes longer. This is my brother. I did not know he was here.”
“Sorry for't,” said Bement, carelessly. “Don' see as I kin help it, though. S'posed like nuff he was somebuddy's brother. Mout's well be your'n ez anybuddy's. I dunno who ye be. All I knows is that ye've been here fifteen minutes and now ye must leave. Don' keep me waitin, nuther. Thay ain' nobuddy tendin bar.”
“Don't make him mad, Perez, or else he won't let ye come again,” whispered Reuben, who saw that his brother was on the point of some violent outburst. Perez controlled himself, and took his brother's hands in his coming close up to him and looking away over his shoulder so that he might not see the pitiful workings of his features which would have negatived his words of comfort.
“Cheer up, Reub,” he said huskily, “I'll get you out. I'll come for you,” and still holding his grief-wrung face averted, that Reuben might not see it, he went forth, and Bement shut the door and barred it.