The uproar grew as the liquor diminished. One gendarme quarreled with Ignacio over a forgotten debt of ten centavos. Two others sat upon the floor, arms around each other's necks, and wept over the miseries of their married lot. Augustino, like a very spendthrift of speech, explained his philosophy that silence was golden. And Pedro Zurita became sentimental on brotherhood.
"Even my prisoners," he maundered. "I love them as brothers. Life is sad." A gush of tears in his eyes made him desist while he took another drink. " My prisoners are my very children. My heart bleeds for them. Behold! I weep. Let us share with them. Let them have a moment's happiness. Ignacio, dearest brother of my heart.
Do me a favor. See, I weep on your hand. Carry a bottle of this elixir to the Gringo Morgan. Tell him my sorrow that he must hang to-morrow. Give him my love and bid him drink and be happy to-day."
And as Ignacio passed out on the errand, the gendarme who had once leapt into the bull-ring at Santos, began roaring:
"I want a bull! I want a bull!"
"He wants it, dear soul, that he may put his arms around it and love it," Pedro Zurita explained, with a fresh access of weeping. "I, too, love bulls. I love all things. I love even mosquitoes. All the world is love. That is the secret of the world. I should like to have a lion to play with…"
The unmistakable air of "Back to Back Against the Mainmast "being whistled openly in the street, caught Henry's attention, and he was crossing his big cell to the window when the grating of a key in the door made him lie down quickly on the floor and feign sleep. Ignacio staggered drunkenly in, bottle in hand, which he gravely presented to Henry.
"With the high compliments of our good jailer, Pedro Zurita," he mumbled. "He says to drink and forget that he must stretch your neck to-morrow."
"My high compliments to Senor Pedro Zurita, and tell him from me to go to hell along with his whiskey," Henry replied.
The turnkey straightened up and ceased swaying, as if suddenly become sober.