He was in the hard-breathing front rank, pressed against the wall. The closed door of the café was in front of him. He could see a pale blot wavering like a moth within the glass,—the anxious face of Pedro. Then a darkness appeared in the blot, and two smaller blots appeared with cautious gestures. Fellowes worked forward till he leaned against the door. It opened suddenly. Fat hands dragged him within. And Pedro clapped to the door again in the excited faces of his friends.
“That was well done,” said Pedro, puffing heavily. “I saw the señor. I thought, he wishes to question me, to ask me the truth; I will admit him. And you are here, señor.”
Fellowes looked round. The thick-walled room was cool and dark, bitter with the smell of stale cheap wine, and as still as a chapel. The noise outside penetrated only as a murmur. “And the man?” he asked, with a breath of relief. “You have him here?”
“The man who was there?” said Pedro. “Yes, señor. You wish to ask him of the battle? Yes, señor. I will give light.”
He brought a little reeking lamp of the sort they light in shrines. Shapes dawned on them cloudily,—barrels, jars, an old door like a cave’s mouth, and a flight of steps. “He is . . .?” began Fellowes in some astonishment. And Pedro finished quickly, “In the cellar? Yes, señor. Why? Because he is afraid.”
The last word came back deep and hollow as Pedro led the way into the cellars. “Afraid . . .”
If the upper floor had been as still as a chapel, the cellar was as still as a tomb. The steps led straight down into a square room full of broad mud pillars; on three sides of this room smaller ones opened, bins and cupboards for storing the wine and the aguardiente. Each opening was hung with a rough door, and every door stood open, so that beyond the circling shadows of the pillars there seemed to wait a monstrous company of wings. Fellowes turned mechanically to close the door at the foot of the stairs. And a voice cried to him quickly, “Señor, señor, leave the door open, in the name of God.”
“Yes,” said the fat Pedro in a whisper, “that is the man. Leave the door open, señor. In the name of God.”
Fellowes looked. The soldier sat on a straw mattress with his back against the far wall, so that all the open doors were in view. His slender brown feet were wrapped in strips of native cloth that had once been white, but were now stained a thick dark brown. His knees were drawn up and his hands clasped them. He wore some sort of uniform-coat with gaudy yellow flannel facings, and a broad hat lay beside him, together with an untouched bottle of Pedro’s wine. His voice, singularly sharp and quick, was yet the voice of a sound man.
“Are you . . .” began Fellowes, and then stopped. The face touched with a strange reflection not of light, but of darkness, answered him. It was the only answer he had. For the soldier was counting the doors on his fingers,—“Four—seven—nine, and all open.”