“You’ll come out of this only to die,” added a cuadrillero.
They took away the gag and hung him up by his feet, for he must go down head foremost and remain some time under the water, just as the bucket does, only that the man is left a longer time. While the alferez was gone to look for a watch to count the minutes, Tarsilo hung with his long hair streaming down and his eyes half closed.
“If you are Christians, if you have any heart,” he begged in a low voice, “let me down quickly or make my head strike against the sides so that I’ll die. God will reward you for this good deed—perhaps some day you may be as I am!”
The alferez returned, watch in hand, to superintend the lowering.
“Slowly, slowly!” cried Doña Consolacion, as she kept her gaze fixed on the wretch. “Be careful!”
The well-sweep moved gently downwards. Tarsilo rubbed against the jutting stones and filthy weeds that grew in the crevices. Then the sweep stopped while the alferez counted the seconds.
“Lift him up!” he ordered, at the end of a half-minute. The silvery and harmonious tinkling of the drops of water falling back indicated the prisoner’s return to the light. Now that the sweep was heavier he rose rapidly. Pieces of stone and pebbles torn from the walls fell noisily. His forehead and hair smeared with filthy slime, his face covered with cuts and bruises, his body wet and dripping, he appeared to the eyes of the silent crowd. The wind made him shiver with cold.
“Will you talk?” he was asked.
“Take care of my sister,” murmured the unhappy boy as he gazed beseechingly toward one of the cuadrilleros.
The bamboo sweep again creaked, and the condemned boy once more disappeared. Doña Consolacion observed that the water remained quiet. The alferez counted a minute.