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I say that it rested upon me, but this is not altogether true, for, had it been so, that stone would have killed me at once, as a beetle is killed beneath the foot of a man, instead of taking more than two-and-twenty years to do it. The greater part of its weight was borne by the piece of rock against which the señor had struck his leg, a point of the fallen boulder only pressing into my back and grinding me against the ground. Now we were in darkness, for the señor had been knocked down also, and his candle extinguished, and, in the midst of my tortures, it came into my mind that he must be dead.

Presently, however, I heard his voice, saying, “Ignatio; do you live, Ignatio?”

Now I thought for a moment. Even in my pain I remembered that more of the roof would surely give ere long, and that if my friend stayed here he must die with me. Nothing could save me, I was doomed to a slow death beneath the stone; and yet if I told him this I knew that he would not go. Therefore I answered as strongly as I could: