Alas! How different! Distracted,
restless, supine, burning with fury, or frozen with terror, he felt
a dread as fathomless as the sea creep upon him from every side. That
rogue of a doctor had to come out with his information. That was clear.
It would be of no use to him--alone. He could do nothing with it.
Malediction! The doctor would never come out. He was probably under
arrest already, shut up together with Don Carlos. He laughed aloud
insanely. Ha! ha! ha! ha! It was Pedrito Montero who would get the
information. Ha! ha! ha! ha!--and the silver. Ha!
All at once, in the midst of the laugh, he became motionless and silent
as if turned into stone. He too, had a prisoner. A prisoner who must,
must know the real truth. He would have to be made to speak. And
Sotillo, who all that time had not quite forgotten Hirsch, felt an
inexplicable reluctance at the notion of proceeding to extremities.
He felt a reluctance--part of that unfathomable dread that crept on all
sides upon him. He remembered reluctantly, too, the dilated eyes of the
hide merchant, his contortions, his loud sobs and protestations.
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