“Torture, old man. That’s what we’re being saved for, I’m very much
afraid. A Peruvian guerilla is never a gentle-minded animal at the best
of times, and Garcia is noted as being the most vindictive brute to be
found between the Andes and the Pacific. Then if you’ll kindly remember
how you and I have harried him, and shot down his men, and cut off his
supplies, and made his life a torment and a thing of tremors for the
last four weeks, you’ll see he had got a big bill against us. If he’d
hated us less, he’d have had us shot at sight when we were caught; as it
is, I’m afraid he felt that a couple of bullets in hot blood wouldn’t
pay off the score.”
“If he thinks the matter over calmly, he’ll not very well avoid seeing
that if he wipes us out there’ll be reprisals to be looked for.”
“And a fat lot,” replied Methuen grimly, “he’ll care for the chance of
those. If we are put out of the way, he knows quite well that there are
no two other men in the Chilian Service who can keep him on the trot as
we have done. No, sir. We can’t scare Garcia with that yarn. You think
that because we’re alive still there’s hope. Well, I’ve sufficient faith
in my theory for this: If anyone offered me a shot through the head now,
I’d accept it, and risk the chance.”
“You take the gloomy view. Now the man’s face is not altogether cruel.
There’s humour in it.”
“Then probably he’ll show his funniness when he takes it out of us,”
Methuen retorted. “Remember that punishment in the ‘Mikado’? That had
‘something humorous’ in it. Boiling oil, if I don’t forget.”
Involuntarily I shuddered, and the raw-hide ropes cut deeper into my
wrists and limbs. I had no great dread of being killed in the ordinary
way, or I should not have entered the Chilian Army in the middle of a
hot war; and I was prepared to risk the ordinary woundings of action in
return for the excitements of the fight. But to be caught, and held a
helpless prisoner, and be deliberately tortured to death by every
cruelty this malignant fiend, Garcia, could devise, was a possibility I
had not counted on before. In fact, as the Peruvians had repeatedly
given out that they would offer no quarter to us English in the Chilian
Service, we had all of us naturally resolved to die fighting rather than
be taken. And, indeed, this desperate feeling paid very well, since on
two separate occasions when Methuen and myself had been cornered with
small bodies of men, and would have surrendered if we could have been
guaranteed our lives, we went at them each time so furiously that on
each occasion we broke through and escaped. But one thinks nothing of
the chances of death and maiming at those times. There is a glow within
one’s ribs which scares away all trace of fear.
“I suppose there’s no chance of rescue?” I said.
“None whatever,” said Methuen, with a little sigh. “Think it over,
Calvert. We start out from the _hacienda_ with an escort of five men,
sing out our adios, and ride away to enjoy a ten days’ leave in the
mountains. The troops are left to recruit; for ten days they can drop us
out of mind. Within twelve hours of our leaving them, Garcia cleverly
ambushes us in a cañon where not three people pass in a year. The poor
beggars who form our escort are all _gastados_.”
“Yes, but are you sure of that?” I interrupted. “I saw them all drop off
their horses when we were fired upon, but that doesn’t prove they were
dead. Some might have been merely wounded, and when the coast cleared,
it is just possible they crawled back to our post with the news. Still,
I own it’s a small chance.”
“And you may divest yourself of even that thin rag of hope. Whilst you
were being slung senseless across a horse, I saw that man without the
ears go round with a _machete_, and—well, when the brute had done, there
was no doubt about the poor fellows being as dead as lumps of mud. Ah,
and talk of the devil——”
The earless man swung into the hut.
“_Buenas_, Señores,” said he mockingly. “You will have the honour now of
being tried, and I’m sure I hope you will be pleased with the result.”
“I suppose we shall find that out later,” said Methuen with a yawn; “but
anyway, I don’t think much of your hospitality. A cup of wine now after
that ugly ride we’ve had to-day would come in very handy, or even a nip
of _aguardiente_ would be better than nothing.”
“I fancy it might be a waste of good liquor,” was the answer; “but you
must ask Garcia. He will see to your needs.”
A guard of twelve ragged fellows, armed with carbine and _machete_, had
followed the earless man into the hut, and two of them, whilst he
talked, had removed the seizings from our knees and ankles. They helped
us to our feet, and we walked with them into the dazzling sunshine
outside.
“I’ll trouble some of you for my hat,” said Methuen, when the glare
first blazed down on him; and then, as no one took any notice of the
request, he lurched against the earless man with a sudden swerve, and
knocked his sombrero on to the brown baked turf. “Well, I’ll have yours,
you flea-ridden _ladron_,” said he; “it’s better than nothing at all.
Pick up the foul thing, and shake it, and put it on my head.”
The guerilla bared his teeth like an animal, and drew a pistol. I
thought he would have shot my comrade out of hand, and by his look I
could see that Methuen expected it. Indeed, he had deliberately invited
the man to that end. But, either because the nearness of Garcia and fear
of his discipline stayed him, or through thought of a finer vengeance
which was to come, the earless man contented himself by dealing a
battery of kicks and oaths, and bidding our guards to ward us more
carefully.
In this way, then, we walked along a path between two fields of vines,
and passed down the straggling street of the village which the guerillas
had occupied, and brought up in a little _plaza_ which faced the
white-walled chapel. In the turret a bell was tolling dolefully with
slow strokes, and as the sound came to me through the heated air, it did
not require much imagination to frame it into an omen. In the centre of
the _plaza_ was a vast magnolia tree, filled with scented wax-like
flowers, and splashed with cones of coral-pink.
We drew up before the _piazza_ of the principal house. Seated under its
shade in a split-cane rocker, Garcia awaited us, a small, meagre, dark
man, with glittering teeth, and fingers lemon-coloured from cigarette
juice.
He stared at us and spat; and the trial, such as it was, began.
I must confess that the proceedings astonished me. Animus there
certainly was; the guerillas as a whole were disposed to give us short
shrift; but their chief insisted on at least some parade of justice. The
indictment was set forward against us: We had shot, hanged, and harried,
and in fact used all the harshness of war. Had we been Chilians in the
Chilian Service, this might have been pardonable; but we were aliens
from across the sea; mere freebooters, fighting, not for a country, but
each for his own hand; and as such we were beyond the pale of military
courtesy. We had earned a punishment. Had we any word to speak why this
should not be given?
Garcia looked towards us expectantly, and then set himself to roll a
fresh cigarette.