From that solitude, full
of despair and terror, he was torn out brutally, with kicks and blows,
passive, sunk in hebetude. He listened to threats and admonitions, and
afterwards made his usual answers to questions, with his chin sunk on
his breast, his hands tied behind his back, swaying a little in front of
Sotillo, and never looking up. When he was forced to hold up his head,
by means of a bayonet-point prodding him under the chin, his eyes had a
vacant, trance-like stare, and drops of perspiration as big as peas were
seen hailing down the dirt, bruises, and scratches of his white face.
Then they stopped suddenly.
Sotillo looked at him in silence. "Will you depart from your obstinacy,
you rogue?" he asked. Already a rope, whose one end was fastened to
Senor Hirsch's wrists, had been thrown over a beam, and three soldiers
held the other end, waiting. He made no answer. His heavy lower lip hung
stupidly. Sotillo made a sign. Hirsch was jerked up off his feet, and a
yell of despair and agony burst out in the room, filled the passage of
the great buildings, rent the air outside, caused every soldier of the
camp along the shore to look up at the windows, started some of the
officers in the hall babbling excitedly, with shining eyes; others,
setting their lips, looked gloomily at the floor.
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