Jacinto tugged more violently in his effort to pull the knife from Aforismo's hand. "Dios, Crawford, how did you throw it so hard? No wonder he couldn't get it out. I'll bet it goes clear through the wall into—Crawford, where you going?"
He was almost out the door, and he threw it over his shoulder. "To the house." Crawford ran all the way across the compound and up the steps and through the close, suffocating heat of the entrance hall, glancing through the door of the living-room.
"Merida?" The echo of his voice held a frightening ring, farther down the hall. "Merida?" he called again, and whirled to take the stairway up, knocking off a mahogany riser with his boot heel, leaping the whole elliptical landing where the stairway turned, halfway up. It was recognizable, now, a woman's sobbing, coming from Merida's bedroom. This door was open, too, and he stumbled in. Nexpa was crouched at the foot of the bed with her face in her hands. He grabbed her shoulders, pulling her upward.
"Dónde esta Merida?" he shouted.
The maid turned a face up to him so dark it looked negroid, her eyes wide and terrified. "No sabe, no sabe," she gasped.
"What have they done to her?" he cried hoarsely, shaking Nexpa. "You know. Where is she? Did they take her? What happened?"
"No sabe," sobbed the maid again. "Huerta, Huerta—"
"Huerta took her," shouted Crawford. "What are you talking about? Where? Dónde, dónde?"
"En su cuarto. Merida eo puso alli, en su cuarto!"
"My room?" he said, and dropped her roughly against the footboard and wheeled to run down the hall to the chamber he had occupied, tearing open the door. The reeded mahogany posts supporting the bare tester frame formed a skeleton pattern in the gloom.