BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

58 BARBAROUS MEXICO
The hairy najocol selected one of the four, tossed
back the remaining three, the pail was carried away and
the giant Chinaman squared off with the naked body of
the victim to the gaze of his fellow bondsmen. The
drama was an old one to them, so old that their eyes
must have ached many times at the sight, yet for them
it could never lose its fascination. Each knew that his
own time was coming, if it had not already come, and
not one possessed the physical power to turn his back
upon the spectacle.
Deliberately the inajocol measured his distance, then
as deliberately raised his arm high and brought it swiftly
down again; the bloated snake swished through the air
and fell with a spat across the glistening bronze shoulders
of the Yaqui!
The administrador, a small, nervous man of many gestures,
nodded his approval and glanced at his watch, the
mayordonzo, big, stolid, grinned slowly, the half dozen
ca palaces leaned forward a little more obliquely in their
eagerness, the regiment of slaves swayed bodily as by
some invisible force, and a second gasp, painful and
sharp like the bursting air from a severed windpipe,
escaped them.
Every eye was riveted tight upon that scene in the
uncertain dimness of the early morning—the giant Chinaman,
bending slightly forward now, the naked body
upon his shoulders, the long, uneven, livid welt that
marked the visit of the wet rope, the deliberate, the agonizingly
deliberate majocol, the administrador, watch in
hand, nodding endorsement, the grinning mayordonzo,
the absorbed ca/'ataces.
All held their breath for the second blow. I held my
breath with the rest, held it for ages. until I thought
the rope would never fall. Not until I saw the finger