Up-stairs, behind the jalousies, Sotillo did not move

g time. The an f the feliow appalled

him. What were Irs officers saying below? They were saying nothing. Complete silence. He quaked. It was n<>t thus that he had imagined himself at that stage of the expedition. He had seen himself trium- phant, unquestioned, appeased, the idol of the soldiers, hing in secret complacency the agreeable alterna- of power and wealth open to his choice. Alas! how different! Distracted, restless, supine, burning with fury or frozen with terror, he felt a dread as fathomless as the sea creep upon him from every side. That rogue of a doctor had to come out with his infor- mation. That was clear. It would be of no use to him alone. He could do nothing with it. Malediction! The doctor would never come out. He was probably under arrest already, shut up together with Don Carlos. Hi- laughed aloud insanely. Ha! ha! ha! ha! It was Pedrito Montero who would get the information. Ha! ha! ha! ha! and the silver. Ha! All at once, in the midst of the laugh, he became motionless and silent as if turned into stone. He, too, had a prisoner. A prisoner who must, must know the real truth. He would have to be made to speak. And Sotillo, who all that time had not quite forgotten Hirsch, felt an inexplicable reluctance at the notion of proceeding to extremities. He felt a reluctance part of that unfathomable dread that crept on all sides upon him. He remembered reluctantly, too, the dilated eyes of the hide-merchant, his contortions, his loud sobs and protestations. It

was not compassion or even mere nervous sensibility.