“You lie,” muttered Phil, between clenched teeth. “You can kill me, of course. I’m helpless. But you won’t get a sound out of me.”
“We will kill you, oh, yess, we will kill you,” said Espato, and the voice of the bandit sounded to Phil like the hiss of some poisonous snake. “But we will not kill you at once. Oh, no. That would be too good for one who has defied the great Espato. We will hang you up by your thumbs, my little friend, until they have been pulled from the sockets. Then, if you faint, we will take you down and revive you. Ah, yess, it iss no part of our plan that you should faint.”
A hoarse chuckle from someone in the shadows and over Phil there passed a deathly nausea. He was sick and dizzy from the blow on his head and he was weak from lack of food. If the villains intended to torture him why didn’t they hurry up and get to it, he thought, miserably. Anything would be better than this!
“And after we have revive you,” Espato was saying in his maddening drawl, “then we will perhaps open up a vein or two and into your hot blood, my friend, we will pour a little boiling lead. That is to cure you of hot temper, my Americano.”
“I should think,” said Phil, with defiance in his tone, “I should think that would cure anybody.”
“Ah, you see fit to joke, my frien’,” remarked Espato with an evil smile. “Good, it will give me great pleasure to erase the smiles from your face. Ten minutes in the torture dungeon an’ you will not smile. Ah, no, they do not smile then. You will look like this then, my friend.” He distorted his face into a horrible grimace of agony and Phil turned away, sickened.
“Ah,” cried the rascal, delightedly, turning Phil’s face about roughly, so that he was forced to look at him. “You are not, perhaps, quite so happy as you were, eh? Good. We have already begun to erase the smiles from your face. You look sick, my frien’. Ah, I remember,” he added, in the apologetic tones of a host who has forgotten his duty toward a guest. “You are hungry. Ah, yess, you mus’ be famish’. Tony, Tony Gomez,” he called and from the shadows there stepped forth a young Mexican, who stood sullenly awaiting further orders from his chief. “You will take this so distinguish visitor of ours,” with a mocking sweep of his hand toward Phil, “back to the guest chamber. An’ then you will take to him food, the best what we have. It is not our intention, senor,” he swept Phil a low bow, “to starve you to death. Ah, no. We wish that you be in the best of good spirits, so that you may the better enjoy the entertainment which we bring to you later. Ah, yess. You must be strong an’ well, my game cock, so that we may the better enjoy your enjoyment. Good night, an’ the mos’ pleasant of dreams, Americano.”
The young Mexican, Tony Gomez, seized Phil roughly by the arm and hurried him past the group of sneering faces about the fire and thrust him again into the damp, evil-smelling dungeon which he had occupied before.
Gloomy and forbidding as the place was it was a relief after his recent ordeal for here at least, he could be alone. He sank wearily down upon the stone bench at the farther end of his prison while Tony Gomez with a muttered word or two about bringing some food, went out, closing and barring the door behind him.
The prison was absolutely dark, save for that little slit far up in the wall. The flickering of the firelight through this aperture seemed only to emphasize the gloom.