He turned to the door, outside which the man with the keys was standing.
"Mendoza, order Perez, Riafio and Garcilaso to get ready the whipping post and make hot the branding irons at once," he commanded in Spanish, then repeated the order in English for the benefit of Standish, whose face went livid.
"Oh, surely you won't be so fiendishly cruel!" burst out Myra passionately. "If you dare to harm Tony——"
"We will withdraw, señorita, and leave Señor Standish to nerve himself for the ordeal that awaits him," interrupted Cojuelo, and hustled her out of the cell before she could say more. "I swear I did not lie to you, Myra," he resumed, as he clanged the door shut on the prisoner. "I am bluffing now, and have no intention of flogging or branding Standish, but only of scaring him into confessing that he is willing to give you to me to save himself."
"And if he stands the test, if he refuses to give me up even when threatened with flogging and burning, you will keep your promise and set us both free?" asked Myra, after a breathless pause.
"Yes, assuredly—and I shall also keep my promise to shoot Don Carlos," was the grim reply. "Look, is it not a picturesque scene?" he added, with a change of tone.
The great cave, lighted by electricity, was certainly a remarkable sight, filled as it was with a picturesque crowd of men, some of them in what looked like stage costumes, nearly all chattering like excited children anticipating a treat as they watched some of their fellows erecting a whipping-post in the centre of the place, while another was busy working the bellows of what looked like a blacksmith's furnace and making irons red-hot. A scene a great artist might have loved to paint, yet the atmosphere was so sinister that Myra shivered involuntarily.
"You are frightened, señorita?" queried Don Carlos, and it seemed to
Myra there was something mocking and sardonic in his tone. "In
England, I remember, you were renowned for your courage and your love
of adventure. Surely this is a great adventure?"
The remark stung Myra's pride, and her fair face flushed hotly.
"It disgusts and revolts me that you should try to terrorise a defenceless man to gratify your own vanity and humiliate me," she answered angrily. "As for being afraid, the remote prospect of having to marry you certainly frightens me."