The old man smiled acidly.
“The señor need fear nothing of our courts. He will be handed over to
his own countrymen. Without doubt of them he will obtain justice.” He
signed to the _Lugareño_ to go, and rose, gathering up his papers;
he bowed to O’Brien. “I leave the criminal at the disposal of your
worship,” he said, and went out with his clerk.
O’Brien sent out the two soldiers after him, and stood there alone. He
had never been so near his death. But for sheer curiosity, for my sheer
desire to know what he _could_ say, I would have smashed in his brains
with the clerk’s stool. I was going to do it; I made one step towards
the stool. Then I saw that he was crying.
“The curse--the curse of Cromwell on you,” he sobbed suddenly. “You send
me back to hell again.” He writhed his whole body. “Sorrow!” he said, “I
know it. But what’s this? What’s _this?_”
The many reasons he had for sorrow flashed on me like a procession of
sombre images.
“Dead and done with a man can bear,” he muttered. “But this--Not to
know--perhaps alive--perhaps hidden--She may be dead....” With a change
like a flash he was commanding me.
“Tell me how you escaped.”