“Is this true, Sanchez?” I whispered to the torero, who was standing near me.
“No,” was the reply, given also in a whisper. “It is only a trick to make you run the better and show them the more sport. You are to die all the same. I heard them say so.”
Indeed, it would have been slight grace had they given us our lives on such conditions; for it would have been impossible for the strongest and swiftest man to have passed through between their lines.
“Sanchez!” I said again, addressing the torero, “Seguin was your friend. You will do all you can for her?”
Sanchez well knew whom I meant.
“I will! I will!” he replied, seeming deeply affected.
“Brave Sanchez! tell her how I felt for her. No, no, you need not tell her that.”
I scarce knew what I was saying.
“Sanchez!” I again whispered—a thought that had been in my mind now returning—“could you not—a knife, a weapon—anything—could you not drop one when I am set loose?”
“It would be of no use. You could not escape if you had fifty.”