Banco: The Further Adventures of Papillon by Henri Charrière

my movements; he held out his hand and said, “Give it to me. It’ll be better off here than anywhere else.”
    Unwillingly I held it out, because I knew he was putting himself in danger, immediate danger. But what could I do? Refuse? Impossible: it would sound very strange.
    I walked out, my hand on my gun. I could see no one in the darkness, but I didn’t have to see them to know they were there. Quickly, almost running, I made for Miguel’s place. There was just a chance that if I came back with him and a big carbide lamp we might avoid the crunch. Unfortunately Miguel’s was more than two hundred yards from our shack. I began to run.
    “Miguel! Miguel!”
    “What’s the matter?”
    “Get up quick! Bring your gun and your lamp. There’s trouble.”
    Bang! Bang! Two shots in the pitch-black night.
    I ran. First I got the wrong shack--insults from inside and at the same time they asked me what the shooting was about. I ran on. This was our shack--all lights out. I flicked my lighter. People came running with lamps. There was nobody left in the room. Jojo was lying on the ground, blood pouring from the back of his neck. He was not dead, but in a coma. A flashlight they’d left behind showed just what had happened. First they’d shot out the carbide lamp, at the same time knocking Jojo out. Using the flashlight, they’d swept up the pile lying in front of Jojo--my bag and his winnings. His shirt had been torn off, and the canvas belt he wore next to his skin had been ripped open with a knife or a machete.
    All the gamblers had escaped, of course. The second shot had been fired to make them move faster. Anyhow, there had not been many of us left when I’d got up. Eight men sitting down, two standing, the four guys in the corners and the kid who poured out the rum.
    Everybody offered to help. Jojo was carried to Miguel’s hut, where there was a bed made of branches. He lay there in a coma all the morning. The blood had clotted; it no longer ran out, and according to an English miner that was a good sign but also a bad one, because if the skull was fractured, the bleeding would go on inside. I decided not to move him. A miner from El Callao, an old friend of Jojo’s, set off for another mine to fetch a so-called doctor.
    I was all in. I explained everything to Mustafa and Miguel, and they comforted me by saying that since the whole business had been, as you might say, signaled hours ahead, and since I had given Jojo a clear warning, he ought to have followed my lead.
    About three in the afternoon, Jojo opened his eyes. We made him drink a few drops of rum, and then, the words coming hard, he whispered, “It’s all up with me, buddy: I know it. Don’t let me be moved. It wasn’t your fault, Papi; it was mine.” He paused for a while and then went on, “Miguel, there’s a can buried behind your pigsty. Let the one-eyed guy take it to Lola, my wife.” His mind was clear for a few minutes after that, and then he relapsed into coma. He died at sunset.
    Doña Carmencita, the fat woman from the first joint, came to see him. She brought a few diamonds and three or four notes she had found on the floor at our place during the morning. God knows hundreds of people had been there, yet not one of them had touched either the money or the diamonds.
    Almost the whole of the little community came to the funeral. The four Brazilians were there, still wearing their shirts outside their trousers. One of them came up to me and held out his hand; I pretended not to see it and gave him a friendly shove in the belly. Yes: I had been right. The gun was there, just where I had thought it would be.
    I wondered whether I ought to deal with them. Do it now? Later? Do what? Nothing: it was too late.
    I wanted to be alone, but after a burial it was the custom to go and have a drink at every joint whose owner had turned up at the graveyard. They always came, all of them.
    When I was at Doña Carmencita’s she came and sat by me, with