down there, too. So that was it! O'Brien knew how to stir their
hate. I should get a short shrift. "He was a fiend, the _Inglez_: look
how many of us he has killed!" they cried; and Manuel would have loved
to cut my flesh, in small pieces, off my bones--only, alas! I was now
beyond his vengeance, he feared. However, somebody was left.

He must have thrown himself flat, with his head over the brink, for his
yell of "Castro!" exploded, and rolled heavily between the rocks.

"Castro! Castro! Castro!" he shouted twenty times, till he set the whole
ravine in an uproar. He waited, and when the clamour had quieted down
amongst the bushes below, called out softly, "Do you hear me, Castro, my
victim? Thou art my victim, Castro."

Castro had crept into the passage after me. He pushed his head beyond my
shoulder.

"I defy thee, Manuel," he screamed.

A hubbub arose. "He's there! He is there!"

"Bravo, Castro," Manuel shouted from above. "I love thee because thou
art my victim. I shall sing a song for thee. Come up. Hey! Castro!
Castro! Come up.... No? Then the dead to their grave, and the living to
their feast."

Sometimes a little earth, detached from the layer of soil covering the
rock, would fall streaming from above. The men told off to guard the
cornice walked to and fro near the edge, and the confused murmur of
voices hung subdued in the air of the cleft, like a modulated tremor.
Castro, moaning gently, stumbled back into the cave.

Seraphina had remained sitting on the stone seat. The twilight rested
on her knees, on her face, on the heap of cold ashes at her feet. But
Castro, who had stood stock-still, with a hand to his forehead, turned
to me excitedly:

"The peons, _for Dios!_" Had I ever thought of the peons belonging to
the _estancia?_

Well, that was a hope. I did not know exactly how matters stood between
them and the _Lugarenos_. There was no love lost. A fight was likely;
but, even if no actual collision took place, they would be sure to visit
the camp above in no very friendly spirit; a chance might offer to make
our position known to these men, who had no reason to hate either me
or Castro--and would not be afraid of thwarting the miserable band of
ghouls sitting above our grave. How our presence could be made known
I was not sure. Perhaps simply by shouting with all our might from the
mouth of the cave. We could offer rewards--say who we were, summon them
for the service of their own Senorita. But,