Hal leaned forward, startled. Rodriguez’ hands were becoming colder, more limp, but he did not think it was so near. He could not believe it even then ... he had never seen anything just like it, never witnessed a death so calm, so apparently without effort.
Rodriguez must have sensed Hal’s thoughts, for he nodded his head feebly.
“One bleeds to death without pain, Señor Hal,” he whispered. “Do not worry I am suffering. The world becomes dimmer but something else comes in its place—a light that is bright and makes me happy. Since you have say you will not curse José Rodriguez I see it clear.”
Hal could not talk—he could only grasp tightly the limp, cold hands in his own. But Rodriguez seemed to understand, for his features relaxed, and when the lonely owl again sent its despairing call through the silent jungle night, he did not seem to start as before. His lips barely moved, but Hal caught the words.
“‘Death to Thee who hears me,’ cries ‘the mother of the moon,’” he was saying. “Death to me, Señor Hal; death to you! And when it comes, remember to say a prayer for the departed soul of José Rodriguez!”
Hal promised, choking back a tremor in his voice. Suddenly he heard a strange rustle in the tree opposite, and when he looked up, he saw a glassy pair of eyes staring down at them in the firelight. “The mother of the moon” had come to pay them a visit.
Hal shivered despite an effort to keep calm. The owl with its broad face and strange, glassy eyes looked eerie as it sat perched upon the swinging limb above them. Then, after what seemed an interminable time, it flapped its wings and flew into the blackness beyond.
Hal was suddenly aware then that the pilot’s hands had ceased to return his pressure. They became colder, limp. A sepulchral silence seemed to envelop the little camp in that moment; nothing stirred save the elfin breeze that whispered in the tree tops.
José Rodriguez was dead.