“What a fine assistant I have!” said Mr. Ryder sarcastically. “Tell Lyman to go and rout him out. I want to talk with him.”
While the engineer and the operator were talking, Captain Alvarez and his rurales arranged their prisoners in line along the south wall of the power station. This scene had interested Jack far more than the recital of Nedham’s drunken actions for it began to look to the lad as if a wholesale slaughter was about to take place.
“Heavens, I hope Captain Alvarez doesn’t intend to execute them all,” said the youth to Mr. Ryder when the day operator ceased talking. “That would be hideous. It would be brutal murder. You can’t countenance such actions, Mr. Ryder?”
“Indeed I can’t,” said the engineer, hurrying toward Captain Alvarez, “and besides I want to have a word with Cerro before any execution takes place. I think that man knows some things that will help clear up the mystery that surrounds all our recent trouble.”
To do justice to the Mexican commander it must be said that he had not intended to have a wholesale execution. He explained this to Mr. Ryder quite frankly and stated that he merely intended to make the rebel leader face the firing squad while his followers looked on. He thought that it would be a capital way of teaching a lesson. After the execution he purposed sending the whole horde of prisoners to Mexico City, where they would be turned over to General Rodriguez to be confined in the military prison.
“If it is all the same to you,” said Mr. Ryder, “I would like to have a few words with Cerro before he is shot.”
“Certain,” said the officer, “only et ez not so easy to mek him to talk, he is ah what you call—ah—to handle hard you know.”
The rebel leader was lying on the ground near the entrance to the guardhouse. His wounds had been bound up the evening before by one of his followers, but in spite of all efforts to ease him, it was quite evident that the man was suffering a great deal.
Mr. Ryder bent over the prostrate form and spoke in Spanish. “José Cerro, you are going to die. You will soon face the firing squad. Tell me who would give you three thousand pesos for my capture.” But in spite of his pain the little black-haired Mexican smiled grimly and shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I cannot tell, no, no.”