“Let’s go on eating, gentlemen,” he exclaimed, “and pay no attention to the joke.” But his voice, instead of reassuring, increased the general uneasiness, for it trembled.
“I don’t suppose that that Mene, Tekel, Phares, means that we’re to be assassinated tonight?” speculated Don Custodio.
All remained motionless, but when he added, “Yet they might poison us,” they leaped up from their chairs.
The light, meanwhile, had begun slowly to fade. “The lamp is going out,” observed the General uneasily. “Will you turn up the wick, Padre Irene?”
But at that instant, with the swiftness of a flash of lightning, a figure rushed in, overturning a chair and knocking a servant down, and in the midst of the general surprise seized the lamp, rushed to the azotea, and threw it into the river. The whole thing happened in a second and the dining-kiosk was left in darkness.
The lamp had already struck the water before the servants could cry out, “Thief, thief!” and rush toward the azotea. “A revolver!” cried one of them. “A revolver, quick! After the thief!”
But the figure, more agile than they, had already mounted the balustrade and before a light could be brought, precipitated itself into the river, striking the water with a loud splash. [[334]]
[1] Spanish etiquette requires a host to welcome his guest with the conventional phrase: “The house belongs to you.”—Tr. [↑]
[2] The handwriting on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast, foretelling the destruction of Babylon. Daniel, v, 25–28.—Tr. [↑]