Сердца трех / Hearts of Three

The rest retreated precipitately into the jail corridor, where, themselves unseen, they began discharging their weapons into the room.

Thanking his fortunate stars for the thickness of the walls, and hoping no ricochet would get him, Henry sheltered in a protecting angle and waited for the explosion.

It came. The window and the wall beneath it became all one aperture. Struck on the head by a flying fragment, Henry sank down dizzily, and, as the dust of the mortar and the powder cleared, with wavering eyes he saw Francis apparently swim through the hole.

By the time he had been dragged out through the hole, Henry was himself again. He could see Enrico Solano and Ricardo, his youngest born, rifles in hand, holding back the crowd forming up the street, while the twins, Alvarado and Martinez, similarly held back the crowd forming down the street.

But the populace was merely curious, having its lives to lose and nothing to gain if it attempted to block the way of such masterful men as these who blew up walls and stormed jails in open day.

And it gave back respectfully before the compact group as it marched down the street. �The horses are waiting up the next alley,’ Francis told Henry, as they gripped hands. �And Leoncia is waiting with them. Fifteen minutes’ gallop will take us to the beach, where the boat is waiting.’

�Say, that was some song I taught you,’ Henry grinned. �It sounded like the very best little bit of all right when I heard you whistling it. The dogs were so previous they couldn’t wait till to-morrow to hang me.

They got full of whiskey and decided to finish me off right away. Funny thing that whiskey. An old caballero turned peddler wrecked a wagon-load of it right in front of the jail-’

�For even a noble Narvaez, son of Baltazar de Jesus y Cervallos e Narvaez, son of General Narvaez of martial memory, may be a peddler, and even a peddler must live, eh, señors, is it not so?’ Francis mimicked.

Henry looked his gleeful recognition, and added soberly:

�Francis, I’m glad for one thing, most damn glad…’

�Which is?’ Francis queried in the pause, just as they swung around the corner to the horses.

�That I didn’t cut off your ears that day on the Calf when I had you down and you insisted.’

Chapter VI

Mariano Vercara E Hijos, Jefe Politico of San Antonio, leaned back in his chair in the courtroom and with a quiet smile of satisfaction proceeded to roll a cigarette.