At last came the sound of a bolt being withdrawn, a key clicked in the lock and two men entered his prison. Looking up, he saw that one of them was the little Mexican who had ridden close to him on that nightmare journey.
“Take the rope off hees feet, Pedro,” he directed his companion. “It is necessary that he walk into the great Espato’s presence.”
The rope was being removed from about his feet—none too gently, at that. Then the two men lifting him up, forcing him to stand upon what seemed like two flabby pincushions, into which the pins were beginning to stick agonizingly.
Phil never forgot that awful march into the presence of the bandit chief, his two captors driving him on relentlessly with blows and kicks, his feet aching with a pain that is like nothing else in all the world, the pain of blood rushing into a part of the body from which it had been cut off.
Then he had been pushed into the glare of the fire, swaying on his tortured feet while innumerable swarthy faces leered at him mockingly. Summoning all his strength he gave them back glare for glare dauntlessly.
There was a murmuring in the crowd of men, a deferential giving way as a swart, stocky man, pushed his way through. Instantly Phil forgot all the others as he gazed at this man. For there was a long, ugly gash across his forehead and in that startled moment Phil recognized the man as the one whom he had struck with his revolver upon that memorable day when the Mexicans had tried to surround the plane and he and his chums had made their spectacular escape.
And by the gleam in the other’s eye it could be seen that he also recognized Phil.
“So,” said the Mexican in a soft, drawling voice—Phil was later to learn that when this man spoke in his gentlest accents, the danger was greatest, “You have come to me, Americano, like a little lamb to the slaughter. You fight well, senor,” with a slight motion of his hand toward the scar on his forehead. “But something, perhaps it is a little bird, whispers to me, the great Espato, that you have fought your last fight, Americano.”
Then the great truth dawned upon Phil. It had been no other than the bandit Chief himself who had been knocked out in such a masterly manner by the blow of his—Phil’s—own revolver. At memory of that beautiful scrimmage Phil momentarily forgot his great danger. He even grinned.
“Well, Espato,” he said, “perhaps you’re right about my having scrapped my last scrap, but at least,” his mocking eyes on the ugly scar which adorned the man’s forehead, “I gave you something to remember me by.”