A peevish expression crossed his face, and he opened his
eyes, the burning, glassy eyes of the consumptive. For a few seconds
he looked fixedly, wonderingly, and then said half dreamily, half
inquiringly, as if he were not quite certain whether it were a man or
a vision, he murmured:
"Perez?"
"Yes, it is I, George," said the soldier, his eyes filling with
compassionate tears. "How came you in this horrible place?"
But before Fennell could answer the other prisoner sprang to the side
of the speaker, clutching his arm in his claw-like fingers, and crying
in an anguished voice:
"Perez; brother Perez. Don't you know me?"
At the voice Perez started as if a bullet had reached his heart. Like
lightning he turned, his face, frozen with fear, that was scarcely yet
comprehended, his eyes like darts. From that white filthy face in its
wild beast's mat of hair, his brother's eyes were looking into his.
"Lord, God in Heaven!" It was a husky, struggling voice, scarcely more
than a whisper in which he uttered the words. For several seconds the
brothers stood gazing into each other's countenances, Reuben holding
Perez' arm and he half shrinking, not from his brother, though such
was the attitude, but from the horror of the discovery.
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