"He must have fallen asleep at last; when he awoke again a sense of danger weighed upon his whole body like lead. He was stretched full length, his face downward upon his arms, and although he did not turn his head to see, he knew that it was dark, pitch dark. It seemed to him that a moment ago something cold and steely had touched his temple.
"He lay thus, it seemed to him a long time, motionless, while his heart-pulse rose in crescendo till it almost suffocated him. For to his ears, along the sound-conducting floor, there came a faint, soft rustle of something, somebody crawling. A mad desire to rise, shout, attack, break the silent horror of the moment, thrilled him, but fear laid its cold, paralysing hand upon him, and he could not move.
"Suddenly the spell was broken. A click as of a knife falling from the hand of an assassin to the floor shot the blood through his veins as by chemical reaction. With a shout he had sprung to his feet, darted across the room, and seized the Mauser beneath his pillow. He turned his eyes upon the floor and in the center caught sight of a vague, crouching form. A shot rang into his ears, vibrated in pain along each of his nerves, and then he was leaning back against the bed-post, limp and cold, sick with the sense of mistake, mistake hideous and irretrievable.
"He stayed there, against the bed-post, limp and cold, his eyes straining through the darkness at the vague huddle in the centre of the room. He knew that Maria had awakened with a scream, that she had struck a light, that she was bending over the nameless thing, and he felt a strange relief as her broad back hid it from view. But she returned toward him, and put her dilated eyes, her brown face, fear-spotted, near his own, and she whispered, hoarsely, 'Magdalena!'
"But this was only confirmation of what his whole being was crying to him, and he was busy listening to something else, listening to the crack of a Mauser pistol tearing through his brain, and then springing out into the silent night, echoing, swelling, thundering in fierce crescendo down the hushed streets, reverberated from wall to wall, rushing, a tidal wave of sound, into every house and nook and crevice, shouting, proclaiming, shrieking with its iron voice the story of his life, of his degradation, till the whole city, ringing from the call, hurled it on and on across the sea into Her ears, the heralding trumpet-call of his dishonour, of his fall, of his degradation.
"But Maria was speaking. 'Hush,' she whispered; 'do not tell. We can hide. Martinez will help us. To-morrow we'll bury her. It's the cholera; the health men will believe you; nobody will look close.'
"Together they went back to the spot. Kneeling low, he gathered the little girl up in his arms. Something fell with a steely clang to the floor. He picked it up; it was a pair of scissors. Something eddied down slowly from her other hand; it was a lock of his own hair. He stood there, with the limp little body in his arms, stupid with the sudden vision of the trap set for him, the trap of retributive Fate, its appalling simplicity of means, its atrocity of result. But he must act. Hurriedly seizing his old, moth-eaten, army overcoat, he began to button it upon himself. Maria was talking again.
"'Hush,' she said; 'do not tell. We can hide. Martinez will help us. We'll bury her to-morrow. It's the cholera. The health men will believe you; and nobody will dare look close.'
"He stopped, with his hand upon the last brass button, his head bent to one side, listening to the insidious murmur. And he knew that it was true, hellishly true. The great stricken city, hypnotised with its fear, was indifferent to everything else. The whole thing could be hidden, buried, annihilated. Then he saw himself again as he had been earlier in the night, standing in the moonlight of the balcony, peering into the room, into the depths of his degradation. 'No, no, enough, enough!' he snarled. And, seizing the little body with its possible spark of life, he rushed out into the street.
"The dawn was breaking. Bareheaded, barefooted, he raced silently along the endless, narrow streets. He passed long files of white-garbed men—the cigar-makers on the way to the factories; they scattered before him in fear. The naked muchachos were galloping their ponies to the beach for their morning bath; they circled wide as they came upon him. At a plaza he tried to hail a carromata, but the cochero whipped up his horse in a frenzy of distrust. It was cholera time, and cold egoism ruled the city. He told me of it, that one time. 'I was alone, Courtland, alone, alone. None would near me, none would hear me. They fled, they fled. I was alone, alone with my crime in my arms, with my story in my arms, the story of my life, of my degradation; alone, Courtland, with my temptation, my temptation, Courtland——' A vacuum formed about him as he raced on, cutting his feet upon the stones, panting with the physical effort and the spiritual horror, on and on through narrow streets long as death. He came to a quay, a silent, dark place in the shadow of the city wall, and there his temptation slowed him up. Maria was right. It was cholera time; the great amoral city was indifferent to everything else. The little body with its possible spark of life—this infinitesimal possibility which demanded of him such stupendous self-immolation—could be dropped quietly into the river, to stream out there into the unfathomable secret of the bay. And She would never know. She would never know!