"Ha!" exclaimed the Frenchman, his eyes lighting up like sunlight on ice, his grimacing face wreathing into an outrageous smile. "It is the haughty hidalgo come to wipe out his dishonor in the blood of ma chérie Felicidad!"
With a laugh that was worse than brutal, that was pitiless and fiendish at such a time, he sprung back into the dark shelter of the doorway.
The frail slip of a girl was left, unaided and alone, to face the avenger.
CHAPTER XXXII
Attracted by the vibrant loud outcry of the terrible doctor, Jacinto Quesada put down the earthen bowl of stew, left the bedside of the sick Morales, and showed himself in the doorway of the hospital. With weakness his rickety legs tottered under him; with weakness the world reeled and swam before his eyes. He shaded his eyes with a pale and unsteady hand and peered out into the cold sunlight.
He understood the threat. Down at the end of the uneven street, on the great rock at the brink of the village, bulked Calamity on horseback!
Quesada clutched at the jamb of the door. Shaking like a tag of paper in an ugly wind, for an intolerable moment he clung there. Then all at once, in a blind broken-legged stagger, out into the street he lurched.
With every leaden stride, he seemed to gather to his need what scattered rags and tatters of strength he yet possessed. His legs straightened under him somewhat; his heavy toppling shoulders came up.
On the sudden, he slewed completely round. Back the way he had come, back toward the sick bay, he pitched.