“Now the music—take the music for your cue, Lopez; then jerk him up!” cried the sharp voice of the fiend.
I shut my eyes, waiting for the pull. It was but a moment, but it seemed a lifetime. There was a dead silence—a stillness like that which precedes the bursting of a rock or the firing of a jubilee-gun. Then I heard the first note of the bugle, and along with it a crack—the crack of a rifle; a man staggered over me, besprinkling my face with blood, and, falling forward, disappeared!
Then came the pluck upon my ankles, and I was jerked head downwards into the empty air. I felt my feet touching the branches above, and, throwing up my arms, I grasped one, and swung my body upwards. After two or three efforts I lay along the main trunk, which I embraced with the hug of despair. I looked downward. A man was hanging below—far below—at the end of the lazo! It was Lopez. I knew his scarlet manga at a glance. He was hanging by the thigh in a snarl of the rope.
His hat had fallen off. I could see the red blood running over his face and dripping from his long, snaky locks. He hung head down. I could see that he was dead!
The hard thong was cutting my ankles, and—oh, heaven!—under our united weight the roots were cracking! Appalling thought! “The tree will give way!” I held fast with one arm. I drew forth my knife—fortunately I still had one—with the other. I opened the blade with my teeth, and, stretching backward and downward, I drew it across the thong. It parted with a “snig”, and the red object left me like a flash of light. There was a plunge upon the black water below—a plunge and a few white bubbles; but the body of the Jarocho, with its scarlet trappings, was seen no more after that plunge.
Chapter Fifty.
A Very Short Trial.
During all this time shots were ringing over me. I could hear the shouts and cheering of men, the trampling of heavy hoofs, and the clashing of sabres. I knew that some strange deliverance had reached us. I knew that a skirmish was going on above me, but I could see nothing. I was below the level of the cliff.