Smiling
they came, but all wistfully anxious, as though their errand were
paramount and their span short: he saw them cluster about him,
running now, bringing their tiny gifts, and scarcely heard the
heavy sigh of his guard as Rodriguez gagged him and Morano tied
him up.
Had Rodriguez now released the prisoner they could have been three
to three, in the event of things going wrong with the sleep of la
Garda; but, since in the same time they could gag and bind
another, the odds would be the same at two to two, and Rodriguez
preferred this to the slight uncertainties that would be connected
with the entry of another partner. They accordingly gagged the
next man and bound his wrists and ankles. And that Spanish wine
held good with the other two and bound them far down among the
deeps of dreams: and so it should, for it was of a vine that grew
in the vales of Spain and had ripened in one of the years of the
golden age.
They bound one as easily as they had bound the other two; and the
last Rodriguez watched while Morano cut the ropes off the
prisoner, for he had run out of bits of twine and all other
improvisations. With these ropes he ran back to his master, and
they tied up the last prisoner but did not gag him.
"Shall we gag him, master, like the rest?" said Morano.
"No," said Rodriguez. "He has nothing to say."
And though this remark turned out to be strictly untrue, it well
enough answered its purpose.
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