"Now you see?
In this way has the moment escaped."
Robert Jordan said nothing.
"I go down there," the gypsy said angrily.
"To do what?"
"_Que va_, to do what.
At least to prevent him leaving."
"Can he leave with a horse from below?"
"No."
"Then go to the spot where you can prevent him."
"Agustin is there."
"Go then and speak with Agustin.
Tell him that which has happened."
"Agustin will kill him with pleasure."
"Less bad," Robert Jordan said.
"Go then above and tell him all as it happened."
"And then?"
"I go to look below in the meadow."
"Good.
Man.
Good," he could not see Rafael's face in the dark but he could feel him smiling.
"Now you have tightened your garters," the gypsy said approvingly.
"Go to Agustin," Robert Jordan said to him.
"Yes, Roberto, yes," said the gypsy.
Robert Jordan walked through the pines, feeling his way from tree to tree to the edge of the meadow.
Looking across it in the darkness, lighter here in the open from the starlight, he saw the dark bulks of the picketed horses.
He counted them where they were scattered between him and the stream.
There were five.
Robert Jordan sat down at the foot of a pine tree and looked out across the meadow.
I am tired, he thought, and perhaps my judgment is not good.
But my obligation is the bridge and to fulfill that, I must take no useless risk of myself until I complete that duty.
Of course it is sometimes more of a risk not to accept chances which are necessary to take but I have done this so far, trying to let the situation take its own course.
If it is true, as the gypsy says, that they expected me to kill Pablo then I should have done that.
But it was never clear to me that they did expect that.
For a stranger to kill where he must work with the people afterwards is very bad.
It may be done in action, and it may be done if backed by sufficient discipline, but in this case I think it would be very bad, although it was a temptation and seemed a short and simple way.
But I do not believe anything is that short nor that simple in this country and, while I trust the woman absolutely, I could not tell how she would react to such a drastic thing.
One dying in such a place can be very ugly, dirty and repugnant.
You could not tell how she would react.
Without the woman there is no organization nor any discipline here and with the woman it can be very good.
It would be ideal if she would kill him, or if the gypsy would (but he will not) or if the sentry, Agustin, would.
Anselmo will if I ask it, though he says he is against all killing.
He hates him, I believe, and he already trusts me and believes in me as a representative of what he believes in.
Only he and the woman really believe in the Republic as far as I can see; but it is too early to know that yet.
As his eyes became used to the starlight he could see that Pablo was standing by one of the horses.
The horse lifted his head from grazing; then dropped it impatiently.
Pablo was standing by the horse, leaning against him, moving with him as he swung with the length of the picket rope and patting him on the neck.
The horse was impatient at the tenderness while he was feeding.
Robert Jordan could not see what Pablo was doing, nor hear what he was saying to the horse, but he could see that he was neither unpicketing nor saddling.
He sat watching him, trying to think his problem out clearly.