Page:The plumed serpent - 1926.djvu/111

Then he noticed that two other men had hold of José.

“Come,” they said.

There were five Mexicans—Indians, or half-Indians—and the two captives. They went, the captives in slippers and shirt-sleeves, to the little office away at the end of the other part of the hotel, which had been the old ranch-house.

“What do you want,” said Bell.

“Give us the money,” said the bandits.

“Oh, all right,” said the American. There were a few pesos only in the safe. He opened, showed them, and they took the money.

“Now give us the rest,” they said.

“There is no more,” said the manager, in all sincerity; for José had not confessed to the thousand pesos.

The five peons then began to search the poor little office. They found a pile of red blankets—which they appropriated—and a few bottles of red wine—which they drank.

“Now,” they said, “give us the money.”

“I can’t give you what there isn’t to give,” said the manager.

“Good!” they said, and pulled out the hideous machetes, the heavy knives of the Mexicans.

José, intimidated, produced the suit-case with the thousand pesos. The money was wrapped up in the corner of a blanket.

“Now, come with us,” said the bandits.

“Where to?” asked the manager, beginning at last to be scared.

“Only out on to the hill, where we will leave you, so that you cannot telephone to Ixtlahuacan before we have time to get away,” said the Indians.

Outside, in the bright moon, the air was chill. The American shivered, in his trousers and shirt and a pair of bedroom slippers.

“Let me take a coat,” he said.

“Take a blanket,” said the tall Indian.

He took a blanket, and with two men holding his arms, he followed José, who was likewise held captive, out of the little gate, across the dust of the road, and up the steep little round hill on which the organ cactus thrust up their sinister clumps, like bunches of cruel fingers, in the moonlight. The hill was stony and steep, the going, slow. José,