Then they shoved Paul inside, and quickly closed and locked
the gate behind him. But the last look that Luiz had bent upon the boy was
one of pity and sympathy.
Paul staggered with the force of the push that the men had given him, and
for a moment or two he was dazed, but eye and brain alike cleared as a
great shout arose. Then he beheld an extraordinary scene.
The boy stood within a ring fence enclosing a circular space perhaps
thirty yards across, free from grass, and trodden hard. The fence was of
boards only about half way around, the rest of it being made of strong
parallel bars about two feet apart and fastened to posts. At the far side
a rude log stable seemed to open into it. The place might have been
intended as a breaking ground for horses but Paul did not have time to
think.
Facing him just outside the fence and sitting on a hastily constructed
wooden seat was Francisco Alvarez, still in his finest uniform. Beside him
was Braxton Wyatt, also in a Spanish uniform, and all about them on either
side, wherever the fence was made of parallel bars and open to see,
clustered the mob, soldiers, laborers, servants, white faces, black faces,
yellow faces, brown faces, straight hair, curly hair, and kinky hair,
French, Spaniards, Portuguese, Indians, negroes, and many mixtures, every
one eager and tense, and every eye bent upon Paul who stood, back to the
gate, holding the sword in his hand, but unconscious that he held it.
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