“Is there a woman?” he asked Henry Morgan pointedly.
“A woman wonderful. I love her.”
“It is good to be so vexed, for a man unvexed by woman is only half a man,” the blind judge vouchsafed. He addressed the Jefe. “No woman vexes you, yet are you troubled. But this man”—indicating Henry—“I cannot tell if all his vexation be due to woman. Perhaps, in part, it may be due to you, or to what some prompting of evil may make him meditate against you. Stand up, both men of you. I cannot judge between you. Yet is there the test infallible, the test of the Snake and the Bird. Infallible it is, as God is infallible, for by such ways does God still maintain truth in the affairs of men. As well does Blackstone mention just such methods of determining the truth by trial and ordeal.”
CHAPTER XI
To all intents it might have been a tiny bull-ring, that pit in the heart of the Blind Brigand’s domain. Ten feet in depth and thirty in diameter, with level floor and perpendicular wall, its natural formation had required little work at the hands of man to complete its symmetry. The sackcloth men, the haciendados, the gendarmes—all were present, save for the Cruel Just One and the mestiza, and all were lined about the rim of the pit, as an audience, to gaze down upon some bull-fight or gladiatorial combat within the pit.
At command of the stern-faced leader of the sackcloth men who had captured them, Henry and the Jefe descended down a short ladder into the pit. The leader and several of the brigands accompanied them.
“Heaven alone knows what’s going to happen,” Henry laughed up in English to Leoncia and Francis. “But if it’s rough and tumble, bite and gouge, or Marquis of Queensbury or London Prize Ring, Mister Fat Jefe is my meat. But that old blind one is clever, and the chances are he’s going to put us at each other on some basis of evenness. In which case, do you, my audience, if he gets me down, stick your thumbs up and make all the noise you can. Depend upon it, if it’s he that’s down, all his crowd will be thumbs up.”
The Jefe, overcome by the trap into which he had descended, in Spanish addressed the leader.
“I shall not fight with this man. He is younger than I, and has better wind. Also, the affair is illegal. It is not according to the law of the Republic of Panama. It is extra-territorial and entirely unjudicial.”
“It is the Snake and the Bird,” the leader shut him off. “You shall be the Snake. This rifle shall be in your hands. The other man shall be the Bird. In his hand shall be the bell. Behold! Thus may you understand the ordeal.”