his tongue, and looked about him with a weak, almost despairing laugh.
Then he began in another way. "The Christian was a Portuguee from
Marmora. He was set in the wall with his arms outstretched on either
side--the attitude of a man crucified. I built in his arms--his right
arm first--and mortised the stones, then his left arm in the same way.
I was careful not to look in his face. No, no! I didn't look in his
face." Knightley repeated the words with a horrible leer of cunning,
and hugged himself with his arms. To Wyley's thinking he was strung
almost to madness. "After his arms I built in his feet, and upwards
from his feet I built in his legs and his body until I came to his
neck. All this while he had been crying out for pity, babbling
prayers, and the rest of it. When I reached his neck he ceased his
clamour. I suppose he was dumb with horror. I did not know. All I knew
was that now I should have to meet his eyes as I built in his face.
I thought for a moment of blinding him. I could have done it quite
easily with a stone. I picked up a stone to do it, and then, well--I
could not help looking at him. He drew my eyes to his like a steel
filing to a magnet. And once I had looked, once I had heard his eyes
speaking, I--I tore down the stones. I freed his body, his legs, his
feet and one arm. When the guards noticed what I was doing I cannot
tell. I could not tell you when their sticks began to beat me. But
they dragged me away when I had freed only one arm. I remember seeing
him tugging at the other. What happened to me,"--he shivered,--"I
could not describe to you. But you see I had played the coward finely
at Mequinez, and when that question recurred to me as to what had
happened after I had opened the door, I began to wonder whether by any
chance I had played the coward at Tangier. I dismissed the thought as
a sickly fancy, but it came again and again; and I came back here, and
you draw aloof from me with averted faces and forced welcomes on your
lips. Did I play the coward on that night I was captured? Tell me!