“_Adonde está el padre?... Adonde está el padre?_” No one answered;
there wasn’t a priest of any denomination; I don’t know whether the
omission was purposed. The man’s face grew convulsed with agony, his
eyeballs stared out very white and vivid, as he struggled with the two
men. He began to curse us epileptically for compassing his damnation. A
hoarse patter of Spanish imprecations came from the crowd immediately
round me. The man with the voice like Ramon’s groaned in a lamentable
way; someone else said, “What infamy ... what infamy!”
An aged voice said tremulously in the carriage, “This shall be a matter
of official remonstrance.” Another said, “Ah, these English heretics!”
There was a forward rush of the crowd, which carried me away. Someone
in front began to shout orders, and the crowd swayed back again. The
infantry muskets rattled. The commotion lasted some time. When it
ceased, I saw that the man about to die had been kissing the very old
man; tears were streaming down the gray, parchment-coloured cheeks.
Pedro Nones had the rope round his neck; it curved upwards loosely
towards the beam, growing taut as the cart jolted away. He shouted:
“_Adiôs, viejo, para siempre adi------_”
My whole body seemed to go dead all over. I happened to look downwards
at my hands; they were extraordinarily white, with the veins standing
out all over them. They felt as if they had been sodden in water, and
it was quite a long time before they recovered their natural colour.
The rest of the men were hung after that, the cart jolting a little way
backwards and forwards and growing less crowded after every journey.
One man, who was very large framed and stout, had to go through it twice
because the rope broke. He made a good deal of fuss. My head ached, and
after the involuntary straining and craning to miss no details was over,
I felt sick and dazed. The people talked a great deal as they streamed
back, loosening over the broader stretch of pebbles; they seemed to wish
to remind each other of details. I have an idea that one or two, in
the sheer largeness of heart that seizes one after occasions of popular
emotions, asked me in exulting voices if I had seen the nigger’s tongue
sticking out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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