“He runs here and there, the blood trickling from his limbs—but in vain, this is the appointed time for the leap....”
It was an improvisation; they stamped their feet to the slow measure; they shouted in chorus the one word “Leap!” raising a ferocious roar; and between whiles the song of voice and strings came to me from a distance, softened and lingering in a voluptuous and pitiless cadence that wrung my heart, and seemed to eat up the remnants of my strength. But what could I have done, even if I had had the strength of a giant, and a most fearless resolution? I should have been shot dead before I had crawled halfway up the ledge. A piercing shriek covered the guitar, the song, and the wild merriment.
Then everything seemed to stop—even my own painful breathing. Again Castro shrieked like a madman:
“Señorita—your gold. Señorita! Hear me! Help!”
Then all was still.
“Hear the dead calling to the dead,” sneered Manuel.
An awestruck sort of hum proceeded from the Spaniards. Was the senorita alive? In the cave? Or where?
“Her nod would have saved thee, Castro,” said Manuel slowly. I got up. I heard Castro stammer wildly:
“She shall fill both your hands with gold. Do you hear, hombres? I, Castro, tell you—each man—both hands———”
He had done it. The last hope was gone now. And all that there remained for me to do was to leap over or give myself up, and end this horrible business.