Ferou stumbled to his feet and backed out the doorway. The doctor followed him step by step. Quesada, a great light coruscating in his brain, recovered the revolver from the bedridden Morales and bounded out in the wake of the two.
Thus, the Frenchman retreating before the importunate muzzle of the senor doctor's pistol, Quesada following after, they went down the muddy street toward that great rock which glared, in the noontide sunlight, on the brink of the village.
Once the Frenchman paused. Imploringly, he lifted his still bleeding right hand.
"Monsenor!" he cried. "For the love of Christ, monsenor—"
Came the sharp click of a pistol being cocked. Then, like a sharper echo of it, the command of the doctor.
"March!"
A mad notion to turn and run for it seized Ferou. But no! They would shoot him down ere he could take ten steps. They were too close.
The police, on the other hand, would be far below, in the gorge. Maybe their carbines would miss. There was always hope.
He backed out upon the hot glaring rock.
Came a yell from the hidalgo, sounding shrill and bodiless in the thin air, and carrying back and far away in ringing echoes: