The coin fell with a faint thud in the dust a yard from my feet.
“Well?” said Methuen.
“I congratulate you, old fellow. I swing.”
He frowned and made no reply. Garcia’s voice broke the silence. “Bueno, Señor Methuen,” he said. “I advise you to shoot straight, or you will not get home even now. You remember I said there was still another condition. Well, here you are: you must cut your friend down with a bullet before he is quite dead, or I’ll string you up beside him.”
Methuen let up a short laugh. “Remember what I said about that fellow in ‘the Mikado,’ Calvert? You see where the ‘humour’ comes in? We’ve had that coin spun for nothing. You and I must change positions.”
“Not at all. I take what I’ve earned.”
“But I say yes. It works this way: I took it that the man who was hanging stood a delicate chance anyway, and I didn’t feel generous enough to risk it. But now the Señor here has put in the extra clause, the situation is changed altogether. You aren’t a brilliant shot, old man, but you may be able to cut me down with a bullet if you remember what you’re firing for, and shoot extra straight. But it’s a certain thing that I couldn’t do it if I blazed away till Doomsday. The utmost I could manage would be to fluke a pellet into your worthy self. So you see I must wear the hemp, and you must apply your shoulder to the rifle butt. Laugh, you fool,” he added in English. “Grin, and say something funny, or these brutes will think we care for them.”
But I was incapable of further speech. I could have gibed at the prospect of being hanged myself, but the horror of this other ordeal turned me sick and dumb. And at what followed I looked on mutely.
There was a well at one side of the plaza, and the earless man went and robbed the windlass of its rope. With clumsy landsman’s fingers he formed a noose, took it to the great magnolia tree, and threw the loose end over the projecting branch. The bell of the little white chapel opposite went on tolling gravely, and they marched my friend up to his fate over the sun-baked dust. They passed a thong round his ankles; the earless man fitted the noose to his throat; a dozen of the guerillas with shouts and laughter laid hold of the hauling part of the line; and then a voice from behind fell upon my ear. Garcia was speaking to me. With a strain I dragged my eyes away from the glare of the plaza, and listened. He was smiling wickedly.
“——, and so your pluck has oozed away?” he was saying, as the cigarette smoke billowed up from between the white walls of his teeth. “Well, of course, if you do not care for the game, you can throw up your hand at once. You’ve only to say the word, and you can be dangling on that bough there inside a couple of minutes. It’s quite strong enough to carry more fruit than it will bear just now. But it’s rather hard on your friend not to try——”