He listened: all was still in the house.
“It’s all right,” he said, “I’ll be back in five minutes.”
He hated leaving them, but there was nothing for it. A piece of carib leaf settled in the brazier with a little sigh.
“I’ll go then,” he said. “Look out.”
He crept out of the room and across the hall. When he was near the door, he stumbled on something which had not been there on his first journey.
As he stumbled forward over it, he heard Margarita call, “Look out, Hilary; the Indians!” He heard Hilary gasp, as though struck, and cry out, “Ah! would you?” At the same instant, as he himself rose from the floor of the hall, someone most active tackled him from behind, with a strangle-hold round the throat. He swung himself forward and hove the strangler off his feet, but did not make him loose his hold. He stumbled again on the thing on the floor and someone came at him from in front. He hit out and landed on a body, but somebody new caught him by the right arm and gave it a twist which nearly broke it. He hit one or two bodies and faces, but they were all Indians; it was like punching india-rubber; they hissed their breath in through their teeth and came on again. He reached the door; he got hold of the latch, but the door would not open. He got hold of the strangler’s arm and wrenched it against the iron of the door. Then somebody thrust him sideways; he stumbled on to somebody who was crouching; then, immediately, he was down, with three or four of these wild cats on top of him. In his rage at being brought down, he hit hard, but they were too many and seemed to see in the dark. He was mastered, bound, blindfolded and gagged. Then a couple of them picked him up like a sack and ran him along into the inner room. A man asked in good Spanish, “If the lad were dead?” An Indian replied, “That he still breathed.” They hove Sard against the upright bole. Though he writhed, he was helpless: he felt like a storm staysail made up for bending; they chained him there. He heard Margarita wail. Then an Indian—perhaps the man whom he had wrenched against the iron—hit him hard in body and face again and again and again.
Presently he stopped, and there was silence, save for a rustling, as though snakes were gliding away. Then a light appeared, someone laughed with satisfaction and twitched the bandage from Sard’s eyes.
Sard saw before him the Father Garsinton who had asked for a passage in the Pathfinder. It was he, unmistakably, but changed indeed. He now wore a scarlet robe wrought with symbols, which gave him the appearance of a cardinal of the Middle Ages. He gave to Sard the impression of an overwhelming power devoted resolutely to the practice of evil. There was cruelty in every line, with enormous strength (and grace) to give the cruelty its part in the world.
The man snickered as he looked at his victims chained to the trees before him. He walked a few yards to and fro with his head up, smiling; he stretched his hands and a light came into his eyes. It was exactly as though he realised those gestures of freedom which would most hurt his prisoners. The face had been made hard and evil by the devil, but it had also been made tired. The flesh was puckered at the eyes; there was some loose flesh forming under the chin; the mouth was a shade out of condition. The scarlet skull-cap no doubt hid hair beginning to be grey or thin. The great want in the face was the want of horns sprouting from the brow; with those he would have been a complete devil.
“Well,” Sard said, “our friends know that we are here. You had better let us go before they come to fetch us.”