he convulsive
heaving of his breast, at his upturned chin, his swelling throat. He
defied Manuel. He would leap. Behold! he was going to leap--to his own
death--in his own time. He challenged them to come down on the ledge;
and the blade of the maimed arm waved to and fro stiffly, point up, like
a red-hot weapon in the light. He devoted them to pestilence, to English
gallows, to the infernal powers: while all the time commenting
murmurs passed over his head, as though he had extorted their sinister
appreciation.

"_Canalla!_ dogs, thieves, prey of death, vermin of hell--I spit on
you--like this!"

He had not the force, nor the saliva, and remained straining mutely
upwards while they laughed at him all together, with something sombre,
and as if doomed in their derision.... "He will jump! No, he will not!"
"Yes! Leap, Castro! Spit, Castro!" "He will run back into the cave!
_Maladetta!_"... Manuel's voiced cooed lovingly on the brink:

"Come to us and drink, Castro."

I waited for his leap with doubt, with disbelief, in the helpless
agitation of the weak. Gradually he seemed to relax all over.

"Drink deep; drink, and drink, and drink, Castro. Water. Clear water,
cool water. Taste, Castro!"

He called on him in tones that were almost tender in their urgency, to
come and drink before he died. His voice seemed to cast a spell, like
an incantation, upon the tubby little figure, with something yearning in
the upward turn of the listening face.

"Drink!" Manuel repeated the word several times; then, suddenly he
called, "Taste, Castro, taste," and a descending brightness, as of a
crystal rod hurled from above, shivered to nothing on the upturned face.
The light disappearing from before the cave seemed scared away by the
inhuman discord of his shriek; and I flung myself forward to lick
the splash of moisture on the sill. I did not think of Castro, I had
forgotten him. I raged at the deception of my thirst, exploring with my
tongue the rough surface of the stone till I tasted my own blood. Only
then, raising my head to gasp, and clench my fists with a baffled and
exasperated desire, I noticed how profound was the silence, in which the
words, "Take away his sting," seemed to pronounce themselves over the
ravine in the impersonal austerity of the rock, and with the tone of a
tremendous decree.

CHAPTER TEN

He had surrendered to his thirst. What weakness! He had not thrown
himself over, then. What folly! One splash