Gaspar Ruiz Read online

  III

  "YES, my friends," he used to say to his guests, "what would you have?A youth of seventeen summers, without worldly experience, and owingmy rank only to the glorious patriotism of my father, may God rest hissoul, I suffered immense humiliation, not so much from the disobedienceof That subordinate, who, alter all, was responsible for thoseprisoners; but I suffered because, like the boy I was, I myself dreadedgoing to the adjutant for the key. I had felt, before, his rough andcutting tongue. Being quite a common fellow, with no merit except hissavage valour, he made me feel his contempt and dislike from thefirst day I joined my battalion in garrison at the fort. It was onlya fortnight before! I would have confronted him sword in hand, but Ishrank from the mocking brutality of his sneers.

  "I don't remember having been so miserable in my life before or since.The torment of my sensibility was so great that I wished the sergeant tofall dead at my feet, and the stupid soldiers who stared at me toturn into corpses; and even those wretches for whom my entreaties hadprocured a reprieve I wished dead also, because I could not face themwithout shame. A mephitic heat like a whiff of air from hell came outof that dark place in which they were confined. Those at the window whoheard what was going on jeered at me in very desperation; one of thesefellows, gone mad no doubt, kept on urging me volubly to order thesoldiers to fire through the window. His insane loquacity made my heartturn faint. And my feet were like lead. There was no higher officer towhom I could appeal. I had not even the firmness of spirit to simply goaway.

  "Benumbed by my remorse, I stood with my back to the window. You mustnot suppose that all this lasted a long time. How long could it havebeen? A minute? If you measured by mental suffering it was like ahundred years; a longer time than all my life has been since. No,certainly, it was not so much as a minute. The hoarse screaming of thosemiserable wretches died out in their dry throats, and then suddenly avoice spoke, a deep voice muttering calmly. It called upon me to turnround.

  "That voice, senores, proceeded from the head of Gaspar Ruiz. Of hisbody I could see nothing. Some of his fellow-captives had clambered uponhis back. He was holding them up. His eyes blinked without looking atme. That and the moving of his lips was all he seemed able to manage inhis overloaded state. And when I turned round, this head, that seemedmore than human size resting on its chin under a multitude of otherheads, asked me whether I really desired to quench the thirst of thecaptives.

  "I said, 'Yes, yes!' eagerly, and came up quite close to the window. Iwas like a child, and did not know what would happen. I was anxious tobe comforted in my helplessness and remorse.

  "'Have you the authority, senor teniente, to release my wrists fromtheir bonds?' Gaspar Ruiz's head asked me.

  "His features expressed no anxiety, no hope; his heavy eyelids blinkedupon his eyes that looked past me straight into the courtyard.

  "As if in an ugly dream, I spoke, stammering: 'What do you mean? And howcan I reach the bonds on your wrists?'

  "'I will try what I can do,' he said; and then that large staringhead moved at last, and all the wild faces piled up in that windowdisappeared, tumbling down. He had shaken his load off with onemovement, so strong he was.

  "And he had not only shaken it off, but he got free of the crush andvanished from my sight. For a moment there was no one at all to be seenat the window. He had swung about, butting and shouldering, clearinga space for himself in the only way he could do it with his hands tiedbehind his back.

  "Finally, backing to the opening, he pushed out to me between the barshis 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 asyet, and severed the many turns of the hide rope. I did this withoutknowing the why and the wherefore of my action, but as it were compelledby my faith in that man. The sergeant made as if to cry out, butastonishment deprived him of his voice, and he remained standing withhis mouth open as if overtaken by sudden imbecility.

  "I sheathed my sword and faced the soldiers. An air of awestruckexpectation had replaced their usual listless apathy. I heard the voiceof Gaspar Ruiz shouting inside, but the words I could not make outplainly. I suppose that to see him with his arms free augmented theinfluence of his strength: I mean by this, the spiritual influence thatwith ignorant people attaches to an exceptional degree of bodily vigour.In fact, he was no more to be feared than before, on account of thenumbness 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 himagain, if he is to be led to the place of execution. Nothing less than agood enlazador on a good horse can subdue him. Your worship was pleasedto perform a very mad thing.'

  "I had nothing to say. I was surprised myself, and I felt a childishcuriosity to see what would happen. But the sergeant was thinking ofthe difficulty of controlling Gaspar Ruiz when the time for making anexample would come.

  "'Or perhaps,' the sergeant pursued vexedly, 'we shall be obliged toshoot him down as he dashes out when the door is opened.' He was goingto give further vent to his anxieties as to the proper carrying outof the sentence; but he interrupted himself with a sudden exclamation,snatched a musket from a soldier, and stood watchful with his eyes fixedon the window.'"