“I have no gold, gentlemen.”
“Don’t lie to us. We’ve heard all that before. You might as well tell us first as last. See that rope, you know what it means.”
“I have told you the truth.” The old man was thin and aged.
“Swing him up, boys.”
He dangled from the end of the rope, and then they let him fall.
“Now, where is the gold?”
He did not understand at first, then he said feebly:
“The gold—oh, yes, the gold—. I am sorry, gentlemen, but I have no gold.”
“Swing him up again.”
The jerk on his neck well-nigh broke it, and the suffocation was almost too much.