In a rush Henry was at the window just in time to encounter Francis face to face and thrusting a revolver to him through the bars.
“Greetings, camarada,” Francis said. “We’ll have you out of here in a jiffy.” He held up two sticks of dynamite, with fuse and caps complete. “I have brought this pretty crowbar to pry you out. Stand well back in your cell, because real pronto there’s going to be a hole in this wall that we could sail the Angelique through. And the Angelique is right off the beach waiting for you.—Now, stand back. I’m going to touch her off. It’s a short fuse.”
Hardly had Henry backed into a rear corner of his cell, when the door was clumsily unlocked and opened to a babel of cries and imprecations, chiefest among which he could hear the ancient and invariable war-cry of Latin-America, “Kill the Gringo!”
Also, he could hear Rafael and Pedro, as they entered, babbling, the one: “He is the enemy of brotherly love”; and the other, “He said I was to go to hell—is not that what he said, Ignacio?”
In their hands they carried rifles, and behind them urged the drunken rabble, variously armed, from cutlasses and horse-pistols to hatchets and bottles. At sight of Henry’s revolver, they halted, and Pedro, fingering his rifle unsteadily, maundered solemnly:
“Senor Morgan, you are about to take up your rightful abode in hell.”
But Ignacio did not wait. He fired wildly and widely from his hip, missing Henry by half the width of the cell and going down the next moment under the impact of Henry’s bullet. The rest retreated precipitately into the jail corridor, where, themselves unseen, they began discharging their weapons into the room.
Thanking his fortunate stars for the thickness of the walls, and hoping no ricochet would get him, Henry sheltered in a protecting angle and waited for the explosion.
It came. The window and the wall beneath it became all one aperture. Struck on the head by a flying fragment, Henry sank down dizzily, and, as the dust of the mortar and the powder cleared, with wavering eyes he saw Francis apparently swim through the hole. By the time he had been dragged out through the hole, Henry was himself again. He could see Enrico Solano and Ricardo, his youngest born, rifles in hand, holding back the crowd forming up the street, while the twins, Alvarado and Martinez, similarly held back the crowd forming down the street.
But the populace was merely curious, having its lives to lose and nothing to gain if it attempted to block the way of such masterful men as these who blew up walls and stormed jails in open day. And it gave back respectfully before the compact group as it marched down the street.
“The horses are waiting up the next alley,” Francis told Henry, as they gripped hands. “And Leoncia is waiting with them. Fifteen minutes’ gallop will take us to the beach, where the boat is waiting.”
“Say, that was some song I taught you,” Henry grinned. “It sounded like the very best little bit of all right when I heard you whistling it. The dogs were so previous they couldn’t wait till to-morrow to hang me. They got full of whiskey and decided to finish me off right away. Funny thing that whiskey. An old caballero turned peddler wrecked a wagon-load of it right in front of the jail——”
“For even a noble Narvaez, son of Baltazar de Jesus y Cervallos è Narvaez, son of General Narvaez of martial memory, may be a peddler, and even a peddler must live, eh, senors, is it not so?” Francis mimicked.
Henry looked his gleeful recognition, and added soberly:
“Francis, I’m glad for one thing, most damn glad....”
“Which is?” Francis queried in the pause, just as they swung around the corner to the horses.
“That I didn’t cut off your ears that day on the Calf when I had you down and you insisted.”
CHAPTER VI
Mariano Vercara e Hijos, Jefe Politico of San Antonio, leaned back in his chair in the courtroom and with a quiet smile of satisfaction proceeded to roll a cigarette. The case had gone through as prearranged. He had kept the little old judge away from his mescal all day, and had been rewarded by having the judge try the case and give judgment according to program. He had not made a slip. The six peons, fined heavily, were ordered back to the plantation at Santos. The working out of the fines was added to the time of their contract slavery. And the Jefe was two hundred dollars good American gold richer for the transaction. Those Gringos at Santos, he smiled to himself, were men to tie to. True, they were developing the country with their henequen plantation. But, better than that, they possessed money in untold quantity and paid well for such little services as he might be able to render.
His smile was even broader as he greeted Alvarez Torres.
“Listen,” said the latter, whispering low in his ear. “We can get both these devils of Morgans. The Henry pig hangs to-morrow. There is no reason that the Francis pig should not go out to-day.”
The Jefe remained silent, questioning with a lift of his eyebrows.
“I have advised him to storm the jail. The Solanos have listened to his lies and are with him. They will surely attempt to do it this evening. They could not do it sooner. It is for you to be ready for the event, and to see to it that Francis Morgan is especially shot and killed in the fight.”
“For what and for why?” the Jefe temporised. “It is Henry I want to see out of the way. Let the Francis one go back to his beloved New York.”
“He must go out to-day, and for reasons you will appreciate. As you know, from reading my telegrams through the government wireless——”
“Which was our agreement for my getting you your permission to use the government station,” the Jefe reminded.
“And of which I do not complain,” Torres assured him. “But as I was saying, you know my relations with the New York Regan are confidential and important.” He touched his hand to his breast pocket. “I have just received another wire. It is imperative that the Francis pig be kept away from New York for a month—if forever, and I do not misunderstand Senor Regan, so much the better. In so far as I succeed in this, will you fare well.”
“But you have not told me how much you have received, nor how much you will receive,” the Jefe probed.
“It is a private agreement, and it is not so much as you may fancy. He is a hard man, this Senor Regan, a hard man. Yet will I divide fairly with you out of the success of our venture.”
The Jefe nodded acquiescence, then said:
“Will it be as much as a thousand gold you will get?”
“I think so. Surely the pig of an Irish stock-gambler could pay me no less a sum, and five hundred is yours if pig Francis leaves his bones in San Antonio.”
“Will it be as much as a hundred thousand gold?” was the Jefe’s next query.
Torres laughed as if at a joke.
“It must be more than a thousand,” the other persisted.
“And he may be generous,” Torres responded. “He may even give me five hundred over the thousand, half of which, naturally, as I have said, will be yours as well.”
“I shall go from here immediately to the jail,” the Jefe announced. “You may trust me, Senor Torres, as I trust you. Come. We will go at once, now, you and I, and you may see for yourself the preparation I shall make for this Francis Morgan’s reception. I have not yet lost my cunning with a rifle. And, as well, I shall tell off three of the gendarmes to fire only at him. So this Gringo dog would storm our jail, eh? Come. We will depart at once.”
He stood up, tossing his cigarette away with a show of determined energy. But, half way across the room, a ragged boy, panting and sweating, plucked his sleeve and whined:
“I have information. You will pay me for it, most high Senor? I have run all the way.”
“I’ll have you sent to San Juan for the buzzards to peck your carcass for the worthless carrion that you are,” was the reply.
