ope, whose one end was fastened to
Senor Hirsch's wrists, had been thrown over a beam, and three soldiers
held the other end, waiting. He made no answer. His heavy lower lip hung
stupidly. Sotillo made a sign. Hirsch was jerked up off his feet, and a
yell of despair and agony burst out in the room, filled the passage of
the great buildings, rent the air outside, caused every soldier of the
camp along the shore to look up at the windows, started some of the
officers in the hall babbling excitedly, with shining eyes; others,
setting their lips, looked gloomily at the floor.

Sotillo, followed by the soldiers, had left the room. The sentry on the
landing presented arms. Hirsch went on screaming all alone behind the
half-closed jalousies while the sunshine, reflected from the water of
the harbour, made an ever-running ripple of light high up on the wall.
He screamed with uplifted eyebrows and a wide-open mouth--incredibly
wide, black, enormous, full of teeth--comical.

In the still burning air of the windless afternoon he made the waves
of his agony travel as far as the O. S. N. Company's offices. Captain
Mitchell on the balcony, trying to make out what went on generally, had
heard him faintly but distinctly, and the feeble and appalling sound
lingered in his ears after he had retreated indoors with blanched
cheeks. He had been driven off the balcony several times during that
afternoon.

Sotillo, irritable, moody, walked restlessly about, held consultations
with his officers, gave contradictory orders in this shrill clamour
pervading the whole empty edifice. Sometimes there would be long and
awful silences. Several times he had entered the torture-chamber where
his sword, horsewhip, revolver, and field-glass were lying on the table,
to ask with forced calmness, "Will you speak the truth now? No? I can
wait." But he could not afford to wait much longer. That was just it.
Every time he went in and came out with a slam of the door, the sentry
on the landing presented arms, and got in return a black, venomous,
unsteady glance, which, in reality, saw nothing at all, being merely the
reflection of the soul within--a soul of gloomy hatred, irresolution,
avarice, and fury.

The sun had set when he went in once more. A soldier carried in two
lighted candles and slunk out, shutting the door without noise.

"Speak, thou Jewish child of the devil! The silver! The silver, I say!
Where is it? Where have you foreign rogues hidden it?