'" Jacket
carried out his pantomime by prodding with a rigid finger first
one, then another of his listeners. "Oh, he went mad, like a bull,
indeed, but I was another Rafael Guerra. He shed rivers of blood,
the ground grew slippery and the grass became red. He stood
rocking in his tracks, finally; his breath was like a hurricane.
He was exhausted, he was covered with foam, his limbs were made of
lead. It was my moment. 'For all your sins!' I cried, and with
that I drove yonder blade through his heart and out between his
shoulders, thus! My brothers, his flesh was rotten, and the steel
clove it as if it were butter."
Jacket was more than gratified at the effect of his recital, for
children screamed, women shuddered, and men turned shocked eyes
upon one another. He realized that with a little further practice
and a more diligent attention to detail he could horrify the
stoutest-hearted listener, nay, cause hysterical women to swoon.
He concluded his account in a studiously careless tone; "O'Reilly
came, too late, but he helped me to bury the offal. We flung it
head first into an old well and dumped rocks upon it. There it
will lie until Cuba is free. That, my friends, was the end of
Cobo, exactly as it happened."
O'Reilly saw little of his sweetheart that day, for Norine
promptly bore the girl off to her own quarters and there attended
to her needs, the most pressing of which was clothing.
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