“Do not look for it, Don Juan. The sinners in hell.... Ha! Fiend. I could not resist.”
I sank down by his side. He seemed to be writhing on the floor muttering, “Thirst—thirst—thirst.” His blade clicked on the rock; then all was still. Was he dead? Suddenly he began with an amazingly animated utterance.
“Señor! For this they had to kill cattle.”
This thought had kept him up. Probably, they had been firing shots. But there was a way of hamstringing a stalked cow silently; and the plains were vast, the grass on them was long; the carcasses would lie hidden out of sight; the herds were rounded up only twice every year. His despairing voice died out in a mournful fall, and again he was as still as death.
“No! I can bear this no longer,” he uttered with force. He refused to bear it. He suffered too much. There was no hope. He would overwhelm them with maledictions, and then leap down from the ledge. “Adios, Señor.”
I stretched out my arm and caught him by the leg. It seemed to me I could not part with him. It would have been disloyal, an admission that all was over, the beginning of the end. We were exhausting ourselves by this sort of imbecile wrestling. Meantime, I kept on entreating him to be a man; and at last I managed to clamber upon his chest. “A man!” he sighed. I released him. For a space, unheard in the darkness, he seemed to be collecting all his remaining strength.
“Oh, those strange Inglez! Why should I not leap? and whom do you love best or hate more, me or the senorita? Be thou a man, also, and pray God to give thee reason to understand men for once in thy life. Ha! Enamoured woman—he is a fool! But I, Castro....”
His whispering became appallingly unintelligible, then ceased, passing into a moan. My will to restrain him abandoned me. He had brought this on us. And if he really wished to give up the struggle....
“Señor,” he mumbled brokenly, “a thousand thanks. Br-r-r! Oh, the ugly water—water—water—water—salt water—salt! You saved me. Why? Let God be the Judge. I would have preferred a malignant demon for a friend. I forgive you. Adios! And—-Her Excellency—poor Castro.... Ha! Thou old scorpion, encircled by fire—by fire and thirst. No. No scorpion, alas! Only a man—not like you—therefore—a Mass—or two—perhaps....”
The freshness of the night penetrated through the arch, as far as the faint twilight of the day. I heard his tearful muttering creep away from my side. “Thirst—thirst—thirst.” I did not stir; and an incredulity, a weariness, the sense of our common fate, mingled with an unconfessed desire—the desire of seeing what would come of it—a desire that stirred my blood like a glimmer of hope, and prevented me from making a movement or uttering a whisper. If his sufferings were so great, who was I to... Mine, too. I almost envied him. He was free.