"Escape? No, señor. Listen. Do you not hear him move?" replied in the boy in the same tongue. "I think the Gringo is having a fit. For ten—twenty—minutes he has beat on the floor and kicked at the walls. To die at daybreak is not to his liking."
"Mil diablos! I tell you I saw him ride away. It is some one else in there."
"Some one else! But, no—that is impossible. Who else could it be?" As he asked the question the boy's jaw fell slack. A horrible suspicion pushed itself into his mind.
"Estupido!" he continued in growing terror. "Can it be—the general?"
"We shall see."
Culvera stepped to the door. It was locked and the key gone. He called aloud. His only answer was a strange, muffled sound like a groan and the beating of feet upon the floor.
With the butt of the sentry's rifle he hammered in the door at the lock and by exerting all his strength forced the fastening. Lying in the middle of the room, bound hand and foot, with his furious face upturned to the moonlight, was Gabriel Pasquale. Culvera asked no foolish questions, wasted no time. Kneeling beside his superior officer, he cut the handkerchief that gagged him and the ropes that tied his limbs. Together Ramon and the guard lifted him to his feet and held him for a moment until his legs regained their power.
"What devil has done this outrage?" asked Ramon.
For a time Pasquale could only swallow and grunt. When the power of speech returned, he broke into fierce and terrible maledictions. His lieutenant listened in silence, extreme concern in his respectful face, an unholy amusement bubbling up behind the deferential exterior.
"Then it was the Gringo?" he asked when his chief ran out of breath and for the moment ceased cursing.