A sudden quiver that perhaps was nearly akin to fear pulsed up into Aylmer's brain, showed, indeed, in his eyes. The fever of his wound was already upon him; his lips were parched, his tongue swollen. To be left in that pit—to be sealed in—to die?
Landon grinned.
"Eh?" he questioned. "Are second thoughts best? Do you begin to understand?"
For a moment or two the stillness remained unbroken, and in Aylmer's gaze there was little still but wonder—wonder that things like Landon should continue to exist in this prosy work-a-day world of ours. Opportunities for unleashing a real lust of cruelty and evil come to few of us. We argue therefore that they do not occur. A common error. A glance at the pages of half a dozen reports of philanthropic societies will refute it, but we, who are not engaged in social reform, are lost in amazement at the monsters when we meet them. It was incredulity which was in Aylmer's mind, and incredulity Landon imagined to be deliberation.
"There are no two ways to it!" he cried sharply. "Don't think that. It's yes or no, now and here!"
Aylmer made a wearily contemptuous gesture.
"Haven't you had your answer?" he said. "It's no; it would be no if I had a thousand chances to say it—no—no—no!"
Landon rose. He looked down at the man at his feet malignantly, suspiciously. He shouted in Spanish to some unseen listener outside. The end of a rope was dropped down through the opening. Methodically Landon knotted it about the dead horse's neck and forelegs.
"No, my friend," he said, as if in answer to some unspoken question, "you aren't going to exist by munching this dead brute's flesh or sucking its blood till help comes, if it comes at all. You are going to be left in here with no more company than your own obstinacy, alone."
He shouted again. The rope tautened. Landon seized it, and with a couple of energetic jerks swung himself up into the sunshine. And then the carcase rose, dragged a little on the floor, and in its turn was hauled out of sight. The cellar loomed larger, gloomier, emptier when it was gone. There was another dragging sound. Half the light which filtered through the opening was eclipsed.