“I became very cold, there behind the door. Something jerked in my chest, and the gun jerked in my hand. I wondered what I should do. If I fired, I might have hit my friend. I didn’t fire. I watched the insurgentes coming nearer. I saw their faces, as they ran through the streaks of light and shadow in the clearing, now bright, now dark, and all with one thought in them . . . Then I was afraid. Afraid as I hadn’t been before. The light went out, my flesh trembled, my sinews shook against my bones. Mother of God, I died,—died many times.”
The soldier bent forward, panting. His eyes for the first time met Fellowes’.
“I was there. I will tell you all I know, señor. He was my friend. I was afraid.
“I shut the door.”
The cellar was very still. The lamp-fire trembled, and Pedro’s immense squat shadow surged like a cloud.
“I shut the door. The square of sunlight on the floor grew thin and went out. There was a place for a bolt, but no bolt. I drove in my bayoneta,—drove it in with the child’s shoe I picked up from the floor. I leaned against the door, staring at the floor where the sunlight had been. My hands were over my ears, but I could hear everything, rolling like stones in my heart, in my head . . .
“I shut the door. It was fast when he flung himself against it, calling me to open in the name of God. I wanted to open it, then, señor, I wanted to open it. But I couldn’t move. I was afraid. And they killed him against it. They didn’t shoot. They killed him with their bayonets. The points came through to the other side and pricked me,—twice,—as I leaned against it. Then they took the fowls and went away. I don’t know how many there were or why they went away. Perhaps they didn’t see the door had been open.
“It was very quiet again. I crushed my ear against my side of the door, but there was no sound from his side. I put my lips to the wood and spoke to him in a whisper for fear the insurgentes should hear and come back. I couldn’t believe that he didn’t hear. I thought he was listening in silence and laughing,—just to pay me out—but there was no sound but the drip from the water-jar. It was very loud, like a bell. A drop would flash in the shadow and fall, and then the sound would come in my head,—‘Boom.’ Soon I saw that there were two ‘Booms’ to every drip that fell. I couldn’t understand it at first. But the other drip, the other noise, were outside. I looked down at my feet. The jefe’s shoes he had stolen for me were very dark, very wet, with—with what had dripped and run under the closed door from his side to mine . . .
“I was afraid again. I kicked off the shoes and ran round and round the room. I couldn’t believe that he was dead. He was such a merry one. As I ran, I kept saying, ‘I’m afraid of the insurgentes, afraid of the insurgentes,’ and I called, ‘Are you here, amigo, have they come? But he didn’t answer ‘We must keep the soup hot.’ Then I knew I wasn’t afraid of the insurgentes, but of my amigo on the other side of the door.
“When it was dark, so dark I could see nothing, I went to the door. My hands were quite steady as I worked out the bayoneta. But I opened it the breadth of a hand. Señor, the door opened inwards. As it came, something came with it, heavy, dragging on the ground—pinned to it as a bat’s skin’s pinned on a board . . .