Mr. Fortescue Part 11

"So you are a Christian!" returned the president, almost graciously. "I thought all Englishmen were heretics. I think senores, we may grant Senor Fortescue's request. Instead of being strangled, you shall be shot by a firing party of the regiment of Cordova, and you may see a priest. We would not have you die unshriven, and I will myself see that your body is laid in consecrated ground. When would you like the priest to visit you?"

"This evening, senor president. There will not be much time to-morrow morning."

"That is true. See to it, _capitan_. Tell them at the _carcel_ that Senor Fortescue may see a priest in his own room this evening. _Adios senor!_"

And with that my three judges rose from their seats and bowed as politely as if they were parting with an honored guest. Though this proceeding struck me as being both ghastly and grotesque, I returned the greeting in due form, and made my best bow. I learned afterward that I had really been treated with exceptional consideration, and might esteem myself fortunate in not being condemned without trial and strangled without notice.

CHAPTER X.

SALVADOR.

Now that I knew beyond a doubt what would be my fate unless I could escape before morning, I became decidedly anxious as to the outcome of my approaching interview with the ghostly comforter for whom I had asked. It was my last chance. If it failed me, or the man turned out to be a priest and nothing more, my hours were numbered. The time was too short to arrange any other plan. Would he bring with him a file and a cord? Even if he did, we could hardly hope to cut through the bars before daylight. And, most important consideration of all, how would Carera contrive to send me the right man?

The mystery was solved more quickly than I expected.

After leaving the tribunal, my escort took me back by the way we had come, the police captain, who was showing himself much more friendly (probably because he looked on me as a good "Christian" and a dying man), walking beside instead of behind me; and when we were within a hundred yards or so of the _carcel_ I observed a Franciscan friar pacing slowly toward us.

I felt intuitively that this was my man; and when he drew nearer a slight movement of his eyebrows and a quick look of intelligence told me that I was right.

"I have no acquaintance among the clergy of Caracas," I said to my conductor. "This friar will serve my purpose as well as a regular priest."

"As you like, senor. Shall I ask him to see you?"

"_Gracias senor capitan_, if you please."

Whereupon the officer respectfully accosted the friar, and after telling him that I had been condemned to die at sunrise on the morrow, asked if he would receive my confession and give me such religious consolation as my case required.

"_Con mucho gusto, capitan_," answered the friar. "When would the senor like me to visit him?"

"At once, father. My hours are numbered, and I would fain spend the night in meditation and prayer."

"Come with us, father," said the captain. "The senor has the permission of the tribunal to see a priest in his own room."

So we entered the prison together, and the captain, having given the necessary instructions to the turnkey, we were conducted to my room.

"When you have done," he said, "knock at the door, and I will come and let you out."

"Good! But you need not wait. I shall not be ready for half an hour or more."

As the key turned in the lock, the _soi-disant_ friar threw back his cowl.

"Now, Senor Fortescue," he said, with a laugh, "I am ready to hear your confession."

"I confess that I feel as if I were in purgatory already, and I shall be uncommonly glad if you can get me out of it."

"Well, purgatory is not the pleasantest of places by all accounts, and I am quite willing to do whatever I can for you. By way of beginning, take this ointment and smear your face and hands therewith."

"Why?"

"To make you look swart and ugly, like the zambo."

"And then?"

"And then? When the turnkey comes back we shall overpower, bind, and gag him--if he resists, strangle him. Then you will put on his clothes and don his sombrero, and as the moon rises late, and the prison is badly lighted, I have no doubt we shall run the gauntlet of the guard without difficulty.... That is a splendid ointment. You are almost as dark as a negro. Now for your feet."

"My feet! I see! I must go out barefoot."

"Of course. Who ever heard of a zambo turnkey wearing shoes? I will hide yours under my habit, and you can put them on afterward."

"You are a friend of Carera's, of course?"

"Yes; I am Salvador Carmen, the _teniente_ of Colonel Mejia, at your service."

"Salvador Carmen! A name of good omen. You are saving me."

"I will either save you or perish with you. Take this dagger. Better to die fighting than be strangled on the plaza."

"Is this your plan or Carera's?" I asked, as I put the dagger in my belt.

"Partly his and partly mine, I think. When he heard of your arrest, he said that it concerned our honor to effect your rescue. The idea of throwing a stone through the window was Carera's; that of personating a priest was mine."

"But how did Carera find out where I was? and what a.s.surance had you that when I asked for a priest they would bring you?"

"That was easy enough. This is a small military post as well as an occasional prison, some of the soldiers are always drinking at the _pulperia_ round the corner, and they talk in their cups. I even know the countersign for to-night. It is 'Baylen.' I saw them take you to the tribunal, and as I knew that when you asked for a priest they would call in the first whom they saw, just to save themselves the trouble of going farther, I took care to be hereabout in this guise as you returned. I was fortunate enough to meet you face to face, and you were sharp enough to detect my true character at a glance."

"I am greatly indebted to you and Senor Carera--more than I can say. You are risking your lives to save mine."

"That is nothing, my dear sir. I often risk my life twenty times in a day.

And what matters it? We are all under sentence of death. A few years and there will be an end of us."

Salvador Carmen may have been twenty-six or twenty-eight years old. He was of middle height and athletic build, yet wiry withal, in splendid condition, and as hard as nails. Though darker than the average Spaniard, his short, wavy hair and powerful, clear-cut features showed that his blood was free from negro or Indian taint. His face bespoke a strange mixture of gentleness and resolution, melancholy and ferocity, as if an originally fine nature had been annealed by fiery trials, and perhaps perverted by some terrible wrong.

"Yes, senor, we carry our lives in our hands in this most unhappy country," he continued, after a short pause. "Three years ago I was one of a family of eight, and no happier family could be found in the whole _capitanio-general_ of Caracas.... Of those eight, seven are gone; I am the only one left. Four were killed in the great earthquake. Then my father took part in the revolutionary movement, and to save his life had to leave his home. One night he returned in disguise to see my mother. I happened to be away at the time; but my brother Tomas was there, and the police getting wind of my father's arrival, arrested both them and him. My father was condemned as a rebel; my mother and brother were condemned for harboring him, and all were strangled together on the plaza there."

"Good heaven! Can such things be?" I said, as much moved by his grief as by his tale of horror.

"I saw them die. Oh, my G.o.d! I saw them die, and yet I live to tell the tale!" exclaimed Carmen, in a tone of intense sadness. "But"--fiercely--"I have taken a terrible revenge. With my own hand have I slain more than a hundred European Spaniards, and I have sworn to slay as many as there were hairs on my mother's head.... But enough of this! The night is upon us. It is time to make ready. When the zambo comes in, I shall seize him by the throat and threaten him with my dagger. While I hold him you must stuff this cloth into his mouth, take off his shirt and trousers--he has no other garments--and put them on over your own. That done, we will bind him with this cord, and lock him in with his own key. Are you ready?"

"I am ready."

Carmen knocked loudly at the door.

Two minutes later the door opens, and as the zambo closes it behind him, Carmen seizes him by the throat and pushes him against the wall.

"A word, a whisper, and you are a dead man!" he hisses, sternly, at the same time drawing his dagger. "Open your mouth, or, _per Dios_--The cloth, senor. Now, off with your shirt and trousers."