Name: A Set of Six
Author: Conrad, Joseph

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like a child, and did not know what would happen. I was anxious to be comforted in my helplessness and remorse. “‘Have you the authority, Senor teniente, to release my wrists from their bonds?’ Gaspar Ruiz’s head asked me. “His features expressed no anxiety, no hope; his heavy eyelids blinked upon his eyes that looked past me straight into the courtyard. “As if in an ugly dream, I spoke, stammering: ‘What do you mean? And how can I reach the bonds on your wrists?’ “‘I will try what I can do,’ he said; and then that large staring head moved at last, and all the wild faces piled up in that window disappeared, tumbling down. He had shaken his load off with one movement, so strong he was. “And he had not only shaken it off, but he got free of the crush and vanished from my sight. For a moment there was no one at all to be seen at the window. He had swung about, butting and shouldering, clearing a space for himself in the only way he could do it with his hands tied behind his back. “Finally, backing to the opening, he pushed out to me between the bars his wrists, lashed with many turns of rope. His hands, very swollen, with knotted veins, looked enormous and unwieldy. I saw his bent back. It was very broad. His voice was like the muttering of a bull. “‘Cut, Senor teniente. Cut!’ “I drew my sword, my new unblunted sword that had seen no service as yet, and severed the many turns of the hide rope. I did this without knowing the why and the wherefore of my action, but as it were compelled by my faith in that man. The sergeant made as if to cry out, but astonishment deprived him of his voice, and he remained standing with his mouth open as if overtaken by sudden imbecility. “I sheathed my sword and faced the soldiers. An air of awestruck expectation had replaced their usual listless apathy. I heard the voice of Gaspar Ruiz shouting inside, but the words I could not make out plainly. I suppose that to see him with his arms free augmented the influence of his strength: I mean by this, the spiritual influence that with ignorant people attaches to an exceptional degree of bodily vigour. In fact, he was no more to be feared than before, on account of the numbness of his arms and hands, which lasted for some time. “The sergeant had recovered his power of speech. ‘By all the saints!’ he cried, ‘we shall have to get a cavalry man with a lasso to secure him again, if he is to be led to the place of execution. Nothing less than a

A Set of Six

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