Page 209 (1/1)

All that day, or during most of it, at least, Rosa and O'Reilly sat hand in hand, oblivious of hunger and fatigue, ihest tension Now they would rejoice hysterically, assuring each other of their good fortune, again they would grow sick with the fear of disappointment Time after time they stepped out of the hut and stared apprehensively up the slopes of La Cumbre to assure themselves that this was not all a part of some fantastic illusion; over and over, in minutest detail, Johnnie described what he had seen at the botto the afternoon to sleep, but he could not, for the moment he closed his eyes he found hi at those stubborn rocks and slippery tiue rendered him feverish and irritable

Jacket, too, felt the strain, and after several fruitless attempts to sleep he rose and went out into the sunshine, where he fell to whetting his knife He finished putting a double edge upon the blade, fitted a handle to it, and then a cord hich to suspend it round his neck He showed it to O'Reilly, and after receiving a word of praise he crept out-doors again and tried to forget how sick he was Black spots were dancing before Jacket's eyes; he experienced spells of dizziness and nausea during which he dared not attempt to walk He knew this h, the thought of food was distasteful to him He devoutly wished it were not necessary to clith to descend it

Luckily for the sake of the secret, Evangelina spentupon his bed, too ill to notice the peculiar actions of his co of unreality that the trio dragged themselves upward to the ruined quinta when darkness finally caer talked, for conversation was a drain upon their powers, and the reaction from the day's excitement had set in O'Reilly lurched as he walked, his limbs were heavy, and his liveliest sensation was one of dread at the hard work in store for hi of that door assumed the proportions of a Herculean task

But once he was at the bottom of the well and beheld the handiwork of Sebastian, the slave, just as he had left it, his sense of reality returned and with it a certain measure of determination Inasmuch as he had made no visible ied his tactics now and undertook to loosen one of the jaed into the rock at top and botto the entire structure so that he could pry it out far enough to squeeze his body through