resistible and fatal longing for a supreme
felicity. And in a drink of water for me, then, there was a greater
promise than in universal knowledge, in unbounded power, in unlimited
wealth, in imperishable youth. What could have been these seductions to
a drink? No soul had thirsted after things unlawful as my parched throat
thirsted for water. No devil had ever tempted a man with such a bribe of
perdition.

I suffered from the lucidity of my feelings. I saw, with indignation, my
own wretched self being angled for like a fish. And with all that, in
my forlorn state, I remained prudent. I did not rush out blindly. No. I
approached the inner end of the passage, as though I had been stalking
a wild creature, slowly, from the side. I crept along the wall of
the cavern, and protruded my head far enough to look at the fiendish
temptation.

There it was, a small dark object suspended in the light, with the
yellow rock across the ravine for a background. The silver top shivered
the sunbeams brilliantly. I had half hopes they had taken it away by
this time. When I drew my head back I lost sight of it, but all my being
went out to it with an almost pitiful longing. I remembered Castro for
the first time in many hours. Was I nothing better than Castro? He had
been angled for with salted meat. I shuddered. A darkness fell into
the passage. I put down my uplifted foot without advancing. The
unexpectedness of that shadow saved me, I believe. Manuel had descended
the cornice.

He was alone. Standing before the outer opening, he darkened the
passage, through which his talk to the people above came loudly into
my ears. They could see now if he were not a worthy _Capataz_. If the
_Inglez_ was in there he was a corpse. And yet, of these living hearts
above, of these _valientes_ of Rio Medio, there was not one who would go
alone to look upon a dead body. He had contrived an infallible test, and
yet they would not believe him. Well, his valiance should prove it; his
valiance, afraid neither of light nor of darkness.

I could not hear the answers he got from up there; but the vague sounds
that reached me carried the usual commingling of derision and applause,
the resentment of their jeers at the admiration he knew how to extort by
the display of his talents.

They must kill the cattle, these _caballeros_. He scolded ironically. Of
course. They must feed on meat like lions; but their souls were like the
souls of hens born on dunghills. A