The Quest of the Four Part 38

The old woman looked at him very keenly, and drove more smoke of the cigarrito through her nose. Her next words made no reference to de Armijo, but they startled John:

"You look through the loophole to-night, about midnight," she said, "You see something on the mountain side, fire, a torch, it may mean much.

Who can tell?"

Excitement flamed up again in John's veins.

"What do you mean, Catarina?" he exclaimed.

"Last night I crawled to the loophole for air. It was bright moonlight, and while I was standing there I thought three human beings pa.s.sed on the little patch of the mountainside that I can see."

"It is all I know," said Catarina. "I can tell you no more. Now I am _concinero_ (cook) again. Now I go. But watch. There have been many changes. Diego, the soldier, will bring you your food as before. Watch that, too."

"Poison!" exclaimed John aghast.

"No! No! No! _Hai Dios_ (my G.o.d), no! But do as I say!"

She snuffed out the end of the cigarrito, picked up the dishes, and promptly left the cell. She also left the captive much excited and wondering. De Armijo had said there were changes! Truly there had been changes, said Catarina, but she had not told what they were. He made many surmises, and one was as good as another, even to himself. Let a man cut three years out of his life and see if he can span the gulf between. But he was sure, despite his ignorance of their nature, that Catarina's words were full of meaning, and, perhaps among all the great changes that had come, one was coming for him, too.

He slept that afternoon in order that he might be sure to keep awake at night, and long before midnight he was on watch at the loophole. There was still soreness in his head, where the flat of the heavy steel blade had struck, but it was pa.s.sing away, and his strength was returning. It is hard to crush youth. It was now easier for him, too, as the chains had not been put back upon his ankles.

He waited with great impatience, and, as his impatience increased, time became slower. He began to feel that he was foolish. But Catarina had been good to him. She would not make him keep an idle quest in the long cold hours of the night. And he had seen the three shadows pa.s.s the night before. He was sure now from what Catarina had said that they were the shadows of human beings, and their presence there had been significant.

The night was not so bright as the one before, but, by long looking, he could trace the details of his landscape, all the well known objects, every one in its proper place, with the dusky moonlight falling upon them. He stared so long that his eyes ached. Surely Catarina had been talking foolish talk! No, she had not! His heart stopped beating for a few moments, because, as certainly as he was at that loophole, a light had appeared on his bit of landscape. It was but a spark. A spark only at first, but in a moment or two it blazed up like a torch. It showed a vivid red streak against the mountainside, and the heart of the captive, that had stood still for a few moments, now bounded rapidly. The words of Catarina had come true, and he had had a sign. But what did the sign mean? It must be connected in some way with him, and nothing could be worse than that which he now endured. It must mean good.

It was a veritable flame of hope to John Bedford, the prisoner of the Castle of Montevideo. New strength suffused his whole body. Courage came back to him in a full tide. A sign had been promised to him, and it had come.

The light burned for about half an hour, and then went out suddenly.

John Bedford returned to his cot, a new hope in his heart.

CHAPTER XVII

THE THREAD, THE KEY, AND THE DAGGER

When John Bedford rose the next morning he was several years younger.

He held himself erect, as became his youth, a little color had crept into the pallid face, and his heart was still full of hope. He had seen the light that Catarina had promised. Surely the world was making a great change for him, and he reasoned again that, his present state being so low, any possible change must be for the better.

But the day pa.s.sed and nothing happened. Diego, the slouching soldier, brought him his food, and, bearing in mind the vague words of Catarina, he noticed it carefully while he ate. There was nothing unusual. It was the same at his supper. The rosy cloud in which his hopes swam faded somewhat, but he was still hopeful. No light had been promised for the second night, but he watched for long hours, nevertheless, and he could not restrain a sense of disappointment when he turned away.

A second day pa.s.sed without event, and a third, and then a fourth. John Bedford was overcome by a terrible depression. Catarina was old and foolish, or perhaps she, too, had shown at last the cunning and trickery that he began to ascribe to all these people. He would stay in that cell all his life, fairly buried alive. A fierce, unreasoning anger took hold of him. He would have flared out at stolid Diego who brought the food, but he did not want those heavy chains put back on his ankles.

His head was now healed enough for the removal of the bandage, but a red streak would remain for some time under the hair. Doubtless the hair had saved him from a fracture of the skull. Every time he put his hand to the wound, which was often, his anger against de Armijo rose. It was that cold, silent anger which is the most terrible and lasting of all.

Although he was back in the depths, John felt that the brief spell of hope had been of help to him. His wound had healed more rapidly, and he was sure that he was physically stronger. Yet the black depression remained. It was even painful for him to look through the slit at his piece of the slope, which he sometimes called his mountain garden. He avoided it, as a place of hope that had failed. On the sixth day, Diego brought him his dinner a little after the dinner hour. He was sitting on the edge of his cot and he bit into a tamale. His teeth encountered something tough and fibrous, and he was about to throw it down in disgust. Then the words of Catarina, those words which he had begun to despise, came suddenly back to him. He put the tamale down and began to eat a tortilla, keeping his eye on Diego, who slouched by the wall in the att.i.tude of a Mexican of the lower cla.s.ses, that lazy, dreaming att.i.tude that they can maintain, for hours.

Presently Diego glanced at the loophole, and in an instant John whipped the tamale off the plate and thrust it under the cover of the cot. Then he went on calmly with his eating, and drank the usual amount of bad coffee. Diego, who had noticed nothing, took the empty tray and went out, carefully locking the heavy door behind him. Then John Bedford did something that showed his wonderful power of self-restraint. He did not rush to the bed, eager to read what the tamale might contain, but strolled to the loophole and looked out for at least a quarter of an hour. He did not wish any trick to be played upon him by a sudden return of Diego. Yet he was quivering in every nerve with impatience.

When he felt that he was safe, he returned to the cot and took out the tamale. He carefully pulled it open, and in the middle he found the tough, fibrous substance that his teeth had met. He had half expected a paper of some kind, rolled closely together, that the writing might not perish, and what he really did find caused a disappointment so keen that he uttered a low cry of pain.

He held it up in his hand. It was nothing more than a small package of thread, such as might have been put in a thimble. What could it mean?

Of what possible use was a coil of fifty yards or so of thread that would not sustain the weight of half a pound? Was he to escape through the loophole on that as a rope? He looked at the loophole four inches broad, and then at the tiny thread, and it seemed to him such a pitiful joke that he sat down on the cot and laughed, not at the joke itself, but at any one who was foolish enough to perpetrate such a thing.

He tested the thread. It was stronger than he had thought. Then he put it on his knee, took his head in his two hands, and sat staring at the thread for a long time, concentrating his thoughts and trying to evolve something from this riddle. It did mean something. No one would go to so much trouble to play a miserable joke on a helpless captive like himself. Catarina certainly would not do it, and she had given him the hint about the food, a hint that had come true. He kept his mind upon the one point so steadily and with so much force that his brain grew hot, and the wound, so nearly cured, began to ache again. Yet he kept at it, studying out every possible twist and turn of the riddle. At last he tested the thread again. It was undeniably strong, and then he looked at the loophole. Only one guess savored of possibility. He must hang the thread out of the loophole.

He ate the rest of the tamale, hid the little package under his clothing, and at night, after supper, when the darkness was heavy, he threw the end of the thread through the long slot, a cast in which he did not succeed until about the twelfth attempt. Then he let the thread drop down. He knew about how many feet it was to the pavement below, and he let out enough with three or four yards for good count. Then he found that he had several yards left, which he tied around one of the iron bars at the edge of the loophole. It was a black thread, and, although some one might see it by daylight, there was not one chance in a thousand that any one would see it at night.

"Fishing," he said to himself, as he lay down on his cot, intending to sleep awhile, but to draw in the thread before the day came. It might be an idle guess, he could not even know that the thread was not clinging to the stone wall, instead of reaching the ground, but there was relief in action, in trying something. He fell asleep finally, and when he awoke he sprang in an instant to the floor. The fear came with his waking senses that he might have slept too long, and that it was broad daylight. The fear was false. It was still night, with only the moon shining at the loophole. But he judged that most of the night had pa.s.sed, and his impatience told him that if anything was going to happen it had happened already. He went to the window. His thread was there, tied to the bar and, like a fisherman, he began to pull it in. He felt this simile himself. "Drawing in the line," he murmured. "Now I wonder if I have got a bite."

Although he spoke lightly to himself, as if a calm man would soothe an excitable one, he felt the cold chill that runs down one's spine in moments of intense excitement. The moonlight was good, and he watched the black thread come in, inch by inch, while the hand that drew it trembled. But he soon saw that there was no weight at the other end, and down his heart went again into the blackest depths of black despair.

Nevertheless, he continued to pull on the thread, and, as it emerged from the darkness into the far end of the loophole, he thought he saw something tied on the end, although he was not sure, it looked so small and dim. Here he paused and leaned against the wall, because he suddenly felt weak in both mind and body. These alternations between hope and despair were shattering to one who had been confined so long between four walls. The very strength of his desire for it might make him see something at the end of the thread when nothing was really there.

He recovered himself and pulled in the thread, and now hope surged up in a full tide. Something was on the end of the thread. It was a little piece of paper not more than an inch long, rolled closely and tied tightly around the center with the thread. He drew up his stool and sat down on it by the loophole, where the moonlight fell. Then he carefully picked loose the knot and unrolled the paper. The light was good enough, and he read these amazing words:

"Don't give up hope.

Your brother is here.

He received your letter.

Put out the thread Again to-morrow night.

Read and destroy this."

John leaned against the wall. His surprise and joy were so great that he was overpowered. He realized now that his hope had merely been a forlorn one, an effort of the will against spontaneous despair. And yet the miracle had been wrought. His letter, in some mysterious manner, had got through to Phil, and Phil had come. He must have friends, too, because the letter had not been written by Phil. It was in a strange handwriting. But this could be no joke of fate. It was too powerful, too convincing. Everything fitted too well together. It must have started somehow with Catarina, because all her presages had come true.

She was the cook, she had put the thread in the tamale. How had the others reached her?

But it was true. His letter had gone through, and the brave young boy whom he had left behind had come. He was somewhere about the Castle of Montevideo, and since such wonders had been achieved already, others could be done. From that moment John Bedford never despaired. After reading the letter many times, he tore it into minute fragments, and, lest they should be seen below and create suspicion, he ate them all and with a good appet.i.te. Then he rolled up the thread, put it next to his body, and, for the first time in many nights, slept so soundly that he did not awake until Diego brought him his breakfast. Then he ate with a remarkable appet.i.te, and after Diego had gone he began to walk up and down the cell with vigorous steps. He also did many other things which an observer, had one been possible, would have thought strange.

John not only walked back and forth in his cell, but he went through as many exercises as his lack of gymnastic equipment permitted, and he continued his work at least an hour. He wished to get back his strength as much as possible for some great test that he felt sure was coming.

If he were to escape with the help of Phil and unknown others, he must be strong and active. A weakling would have a poor chance, no matter how numerous his friends. He had maintained this form of exercise for a long period after his imprisonment, but lately he had become so much depressed that he had discontinued it.

He felt so good that he chaffed Diego when he came back with his food at dinner and supper. Diego had long been a source of wonder to John. It was evident that he breathed and walked, because John had seen him do both, and he could speak, because at rare intervals John had heard him utter a word or two, but this power of speech seemed to be merely spasmodic. Now, while John bantered him, he was as stolid as any wooden image of Aztecs or Toltecs, although John spoke in Spanish, which, bad as it was, Diego could understand.

He devoted the last hours of the afternoon to watching his distant garden. It had always been a pleasant landscape to him, but now it was friendlier than ever. That was a fine cactus, and it was a n.o.ble forest of dwarf pine or cedar--he wished he did know which. An hour after the dark had fully come he let the thread out again.

"This beats any other fishing I ever did," he murmured. "Well, it ought to. It's fishing for one's life."

He was calmer than on the night before, and fell asleep earlier, but he had fixed his mind so resolutely on a waking time at least an hour before daylight that he awoke almost at the appointed minute. Then he tiptoed across the cold floor to the thread. n.o.body could have heard him through those solid walls, but the desire for secrecy was so strong that he unconsciously tiptoed, nevertheless. He pulled the thread, and he felt at once that something heavy had been fastened to the other end.

Then he pulled more slowly. The thread was very slender, and the weight seemed great for so slight a line. If it were to break, the tragedy would be genuinely terrible. He had heard of the sword suspended by a single hair, and it seemed to him that he was in some such case. But the thread was stronger than John realized--it had been chosen so on purpose--and it did not break.

As the far end of the thread approached the loophole, he was conscious of a slight metallic ring against the stone wall. His interest grew in intensity. Phil and these unknown friends of his were sending him something more than a note. He pulled with exceeding slowness and care now, lest the metallic object hook against the far edge of the loophole.

But it came in safely, slid across the stone, and reached his hand. It was a large iron key, with a small piece of paper tied around it. He tore off the paper, and read, in a handwriting the same as that on the first one:

"This is the key to your cell, No. 37, but do not use it. Do not even put it in the lock until the fourth night from to-night. Then at midnight, as nearly as you can judge, unlock and go out. Let out the thread for the last time to-morrow night."

John looked at the key and glanced longingly at the lock. He had no doubt that it would fit. But he obeyed orders and did not try it.

Instead he thrust it into the old ragged mattress of his cot. He resumed his physical exercises the next day, giving an hour to them in the morning and another hour in the afternoon. They helped, but the breath of hope was doing more for him, both mind and body, than anything else. He felt so strong and active that he did not chaff Diego any more lest the Mexican, stolid and wooden though he was, might suspect something.

He let out the thread according to orders, and, at the usual time, drew in a dagger, slender and very light, but long and keen as a razor. He read readily the purpose of this. There would be much danger when he opened the door to go out, and he must have a weapon. He ran his finger along the keen edge and saw that it would be truly formidable at close quarters. Then he hid it in his mattress with the key, wound up the thread, and put it in the same place. All had now come to pa.s.s as promised, and he felt that the remainder would depend greatly upon himself. So he settled down as best he could to three days and nights of almost intolerable waiting. Dull and heavy as the time was, and surely every second was a minute, many fears also came with it. They might take it into their heads to change that ragged old mattress of his, and then the knife, the thread, and the key would be found. He would dismiss such apprehensions with the power of reason, but the power of fear would bring them back again. Too much now depended upon his freedom from examination and search to allow of a calm mind.