“It is well—God has spoken,” announced the sackcloth leader, as he descended into the pit. “The man uninjured is innocent. Remains now to test the other man.”
“Me?” the Jefe almost shouted in his surprise and consternation.
“Greetings, Jefe,” Henry grinned. “You did try to get me. It’s my turn now. Pass over that rifle.”
But the Jefe, with a curse, in his disappointment and rage forgetting that the rifle had contained only one cartridge, thrust the muzzle against Henry’s heart and pulled the trigger. The hammer fell with a metallic click.
“It is well,” said the leader, taking away the rifle and recharging it. “Your conduct shall be reported. The test for you remains, yet must it appear that you are not acting like God’s chosen man.”
Like a beaten bull in the ring seeking a way to escape and gazing up at the amphitheatre of pitiless faces, so the Jefe looked up and saw only the rifles of the sackcloth men, the triumphing faces of Leoncia and Francis, the curious looks of his own gendarmes, and the blood-eager faces of the haciendados that were like the faces of any bull-fight audience.
The shadowy smile drifted the stern lips of the leader as he handed the rifle to Henry and started to blindfold him.
“Why don’t you make him face the wall until I’m ready?” the Jefe demanded, as the silver bell tinkled in his passion-convulsed hand.
“Because he is proven God’s man,” was the reply. “He has stood the test. Therefore he cannot do a treacherous deed. You now must stand the test of God. If you are true and honest, no harm can befall you from the Snake. For such is God’s way.”
Far more successful as the hunter than as the hunted one, did the Jefe prove. Across the pit from Henry, he strove to stand motionless; but out of nervousness, as Henry’s rifle swept around on him, his hand trembled and the bell tinkled. The rifle came almost to rest and wavered ominously about the sound. In vain the Jefe tried to control his flesh and still the bell.