Desperately, madly, exerting a force that even I had never yet realized myself as possessing, I seized the cross-bars of that iron grating; I pushed them outward, praying to God for one moment--only one moment--of Samson's strength. And--could do nothing! Nothing, at first. Yet--as still I strained and pushed, as I drew back my arms to thrust more strongly even than before--it seemed as if the framework, as if the whole thing, yielded, as if it were becoming loosened in its stone or brick setting. Inspired by this, I pushed still more, threw the whole weight of my big body into one last despairing effort--and succeeded! The grate was loosened, torn out of the frame; with a clatter of falling chips and small débris it fell into the yard ten feet below.
My prayer was heard!
"Quick, Juan," I said, "quick, come. Out of the window, give me your hands. I will lower you. 'Tis nothing."
From Juan there came in answer a cry, almost a scream of terror.
"Save me! Save me!" he shrieked, "there is another man in the room!" and as he so cried, I heard a thump upon the floor--a thump such as one makes who leaps swiftly from a bed--a rush across that floor. Also a muttered curse in Spanish, a tempest of words, a huge form hurled against mine, two great muscular hands at my throat.
In a moment, however, my own hands were out, too, my thumbs pressing through a coarse beard upon a windpipe. "Curse you," I said in Spanish, as I felt that grasp on me relax. "Curse you, you are doomed," and drawing back, I struck out with my full force to the front of me.
Struck out, to feel my clenched fist stopped by a hairy face--the thud was terrible even to my ears!--to hear a bitter moan and, a moment later, a fall--dull and like a dead weight!--upon the floor.
"Come, Juan, come," I cried. "Come."