"He'd better hurry!" repeated the scoundrel, with a laugh. "If not, all will be over in five minutes. You see that I'm a man of method, eh, Florence, my darling?"
He picked up something from the ground. It was a stick shaped like a crutch. He put it under his left arm and, still bent in two, began to walk like a man who has not the strength to stand erect. Then suddenly and with no apparent cause to explain his change of attitude, he drew himself up and used his crutch as he would a cane. He then walked round the outside of the grotto, making a careful inspection, the meaning of which escaped Don Luis for the time.
He was of a good height in this position; and Don Luis easily understood why the driver of the yellow taxi, who had seen him under two such different aspects, was unable to say whether he was very tall or very short.
But his legs, slack and unsteady, gave way beneath him, as if any prolonged exertion were beyond his power. He relapsed into his first attitude.
The man was a cripple, smitten with some disease that affected his powers of locomotion. He was excessively thin. Don Luis also saw his pallid face, his cavernous cheeks, his hollow temples, his skin the colour of parchment: the face of a sufferer from consumption, a bloodless face.
When he had finished his inspection, he came up to Florence and said:
"Though you've been very good, baby, and haven't screamed so far, we'd better take our precautions and remove any possibility of a surprise by giving you a nice little gag to wear, don't you think?"
He stooped over her and wound a large handkerchief round the lower part of her face. Then, bending still farther down, he began to speak to her in a very low voice, talking almost into her ear. But wild bursts of laughter, horrible to hear, interrupted this whispering.
Feeling the imminence of the danger, dreading some movement on the wretch's part, a sudden murderous attack, the prompt prick of a poisoned needle, Don Luis had levelled his revolver and, confident of his skill, waited events.
What was happening over there? What were the words spoken? What infamous bargain was the villain proposing to Florence? At what shameful price could she obtain her release?