Mendez, the blacksmith. Listen, I will tell you. It is the God's truth
I tell. There were seven of us hiding out there in the wood. We were
scared. We heard our names called out. We had heard the threats to burn
us alive. We ran away. We were not cowards,--but still we ran away. We
would wait till the crowd cooled off. That was my advice. Then we would
return,--then we would help to find the men who did it,--and we would
help to burn them alive. An hour ago Sancho Mendez crawled out of the
brush up there above the landing and begged us to protect him. His leg
was broken. He had fallen over a log. You all know Sancho Mendez. He was
a good boy. He was the friend of Boss Percival. He was no friend to me.
But he swears he will be my slave for ever if I will save him. Then he
tells us everything. When I ask him why the hell he run away, he says he
lose his mind or something. He just go crazy, he says. He say everybody
was chasing him,--he could hear them in the bushes, he could hear that
girl screaming out his name,--and all that. He was going to jump in the
water and drown, because he say people tell him always it is the easy
way to die. But he falls down and breaks his leg,--here below the knee.
He cannot run no more. It is all up. He is afraid to breathe. People are
all around him with knives and axes and clubs. He can hear them in the
brush. Then the daylight comes, and he sees us down below in the wood,
and he says he thanks God. I will be his friend,--I will save him
because I am an angel from heaven! Bah! I spit in his face. We tie him
to a tree with our belts, and then I come down to tell Boss Percival we
have his man,--his good and loyal friend."

"Stop!" yelled Percival, as the crowd began to show symptoms of breaking
away. "Listen to me! I give you fair warning. I don't want to do it,
but, by God, I'll order these men to shoot the first who tries to start
anything. We're going to have law and order here. This man Sancho is
going to have a fair trial. What's more, he had a companion. What does
he say of the other man, Manuel Crust?"

"Sancho Mendez says he was alone. There was no other man."

Percival looked hard into Manuel Crust's bloodshot eyes. An appalling
thought had suddenly flashed into his mind. Many seconds passed before
he dared to open his lips. As if by divine revelation the situation lay
bare before him,--the whole Machiavelian scheme as conceived by Manuel.
Sancho Mendez was to be sacrificed!

Ev