But his speech did not proceed to the finish. The priest swooped down and caught the three necks between his hands, easily spanning them, pressing the heads hard together. Then he lifted the boys high in the air and held them there, a kicking, humiliated trio. The blanched olive of his face was reflected in the pallid brows at the extremity of his rigid arms. His voice, which had been lost in passion, found itself.
"And when your Indians come, Senor Don Roldan," he said, "they will find three skeletons six feet beneath the floor of this cave. You will never leave this cave, not one of you. When you are dead for want of food and drink, I shall return and bury you. And no one will seek you here." Suddenly he dashed them to the ground. "A thousand curses go with you," he shrieked, "to make a murderer of me. I was near enough to hell before—"
"And our fingers will scratch the ground beneath your feet," interrupted Roldan, who between mortification and rage felt equal himself to murder, but determined as ever to hold his own. "Our skulls will grin at you from every corner as you work—"
"I don't care!" shouted the priest. "I don't care! Here you rot. This gold is mine. No man shall touch it but myself."
"But if we promise never to return, and to tell no man of what we know," interposed Rafael, feebly.
The priest laughed. "With the glitter of gold in your brains? You could not keep an oath on the cross." He turned swiftly and strode down the passage.
"What will he do?" gasped Adan.
"Roll a stone over the entrance and secure it with others," said Roldan. "There are plenty nigh. If we follow, he will beat us back with those fists, and one blow would crack our skulls in two."
"Then what shall we do? Rot here? Starve to death? Madre de dios!"
"We have been between the teeth of death before, have we not? We shall have many more adventures, my friends."