It was full time I was forging to the front.
Having grasped the bull by the horns, I went from one thing to another without a break.
Hardly had Robbins clutched the rope than I was bending over the terrified gardener, and gripping his shoulder so fiercely that, believing his last minute had come, he let out a yell and appeared about to keel right over, to avoid which I shook him with considerable roughness, and luckily remembering, as I thought, one particular word of Spanish, I shouted in the old fellow’s ear:
“Escalado! escalado! escalado!”
And he actually comprehended me this time, which fact must be put down to my credit.
Understanding that he had a chance for his miserable life, the fellow aroused himself and sprang a jargon upon me which was about as intelligible as so much Sanscrit or Hebrew would have been, accompanying his words with vehement and eloquent gestures.
For the life of me I did not know whether he was begging me to spare him for the sake of his sixteen motherless bairns, or asking the favor of being buried in the true faith.
I shook him again, and shouted louder:
“Escalado! escalado!—where is the escalado?”
More wild protestations that were as Greek, more flinging of the arms. Confound the old chap! why couldn’t he speak English?