What he saw after his dazzled eyes had become accustomed to the brilliant sunlight was not calculated to reassure him.
Espato was seated on a rough box in the center of the clearing. About him in a semicircle, some standing, others squatting on the ground, were his followers, all with an air of expectancy on their faces.
A group of four prisoners who had been brought in on the recent raid had been brought out and ranged before the bandit chief. Their hands were tied behind their backs but the bonds had been removed from their feet.
Two hundred feet from where Espato was sitting, the plateau terminated abruptly at the edge of a precipice. This ran down a sheer seven hundred feet with jagged rocks at its foot.
An evil sneering smile was on the face of the bandit leader as Phil was brought before him.
“So here is the Americano,” he said and made a mocking bow. “It ees good of him to be present at our leetle merry-making. Perhaps he will even take part in it.”
The significance of the last phrase was not lost on Phil, but his blue eyes had the coldness of ice and the hardness of steel as he gazed unflinchingly at the man who had him so completely in his power.
The bandit glared back at him, but in the duel of eyes his own were the first to fall. He turned to one of his henchmen.
Phil was pulled roughly away and stationed at one end of the line of prisoners.
Espato whispered to Arigo. The latter gave an order, and a squad of men selected one of the prisoners and ordered him to march toward the precipice.
The wretched man hung back, but was urged on by the pricking of knives and bayonets to the edge of the precipice. Phil shut his eyes. There was a piercing scream and a chorus of jeers and laughter from the crowd. When Phil opened his eyes the prisoner had disappeared, and the guards were marching back for another victim. And way off in the sky was a black spot that rapidly grew larger and was joined by others. They were vultures already gathering for the feast.
Again and again the terrible drama was enacted, until Phil was the only prisoner left standing. With each one massacred he himself felt the bitterness of death.
The vultures were no longer visible. They had swooped down to the rocks at the foot of the cliff. Phil knew only too well what they were doing.