‘So I hear,’ said the tall one, ‘but we can turn loose the boys still alive, can’t we?’
‘But the soldiers are awaking, Señor—’
‘I locked the door to the barracks,’ coolly answered the other. ‘Cordano’s men will have to get down into the street from the upper windows.... We can’t leave these men while we’re at it. Tell everybody to be quiet.... Pronto, hombre,’ he added lightly to the soldier with the keys.
Sounds of the soldiers’ arousing was heard from the upper floor of el cuartel facing the street.
‘Pronto, hombre—’ the tall bandit repeated. ‘We’ll fight our way to the horses—’
Elbert in the dark of the cell was folding his blankets in a distracted way, fascinated at the same time by that easy flowing voice of the tall one. He was drawing on his boots—the keys sounding nearer. Another of Mamie’s nasal protests reached his ears. Would they take her? The thought actually weakened him—hardly a chance for men of Monte Vallejo to miss one of her kind in the moonlight. And now, standing at the bars of his own cell door—the tall one—that voice, the sentry beside him with the keys, wailing:
‘No bantit aqui, Señor,—esta ’Mericano. Caballero ’Mericano—’
‘American?’ queried the bandit in English. ‘Oh, I say, in there—is that right?’
Elbert cleared his voice: ‘That you, Bart?’
‘What the hell—?’ same genial tone.