The boy cried: “You will remember I brought you the information, Senor. I ran all the way until I am almost dead!”

“Yes, yes, animal, I will remember. What is your information? It may not be worth a centavo.[65]”

“The jail,” the boy quavered. “The strange Gringo, the one who was to be hanged yesterday, has blown down the side of the jail. The hole is as big as the steeple of the cathedral! And the other Gringo, the one who looks like him, the one who was to hang tomorrow, has escaped with him out of the hole. This I saw, myself, with my two eyes, and then I ran here to you all the way, and you will remember…”

“I don’t believe it has been accomplished. It is not possible. Even a fool Gringo would not dare.”

Rafael,[66] the gendarme, rifle in hand, came through the courtroom door.

“We are devastated,” were Rafael’s first words. “The jail is destroyed. Dynamite! A hundred pounds of it: A thousand! We came bravely to save the jail. But it exploded the thousand pounds of dynamite. I fell unconscious, rifle in hand. When sense came back to me, I looked about. All others, the brave Pedro, the brave Ignacio, the brave Augustino[67] – all, all, lay around me dead! They lay dead. The cell of Morgan was empty. There was a huge and monstrous hole in the wall. I crawled through the hole into the street. There was a great crowd. But the Gringo Morgan was gone. They rode toward the beach. There is a schooner that is not anchored. Francis Morgan rides with a sack of gold on his saddle. It is a large sack.”

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