– he would learn her surname when he signed the register – was obviously hard pressed to retain her senses till the end. She was sobbing pitifully, and the knowledge that her distress was induced by the fate immediately in store for the man whom she was espousing “by God’s holy ordinance” tested Maseden’s steel nerve to the very limit of endurance.
But he held on with that tenacious chivalry which is the finest characteristic of his class, and even smiled at Steinbaum’s fumbling in a waistcoat pocket for a ring. He was putting the ring on the fourth finger of his wife’s left hand and pronouncing the last formula of the ceremony, when he caught an agonized whisper:
“Please, please, forgive me! I cannot help myself. I am – more than sorry for you. I shall pray for you – and think of you – always!”
And it was in that instant, while breathlessly catching each syllable of a broken plea for sympathy and gage of lasting remembrance, that Maseden’s bemused faculties saw a means of saving his life.
Though a forlorn hope, at the best, with a hundred chances of failure against one of success, he would seize that hundredth chance. What matter if he were shot at quarter to eight instead of at eight o’clock? Steel before, he was unemotional as marble now, a man of stone with a brain of diamond clarity.
If events followed their normal and reasonable course, he would be free of these accursed walls within a few minutes. Come what might, he would strike a lusty blow for freedom. If he failed, and sank into eternal night, one or more of the half-caste hirelings now so ready to fulfill the murderous schemes of President Suarez and his henchman Steinbaum would escort an American’s spirit to the realm beyond the shadows.
He did not stop to think that an unknown woman’s strange whim should have made possible that which, without her presence in his prison-house, was absolutely impossible; still less did he trouble as to the future, immediate or remote. His mind’s eye was fixed on a sunbeam creeping stealthily towards a crack in the masonry of that detestable cell.
He meant to cheat that sunbeam, one way or the other!
CHAPTER II
TIME VERSUS ETERNITY
Henceforth Maseden concentrated all his faculties on the successful performance of the trick which might win him clear of the castle of San Juan. Nothing in the wide world mattered less to him than that the newly-made bride should stoop to sign the register after he had done so, or that by turning to address Steinbaum he was deliberately throwing away the opportunity thus afforded of learning her surname.
When an avowed enemy first broached the subject of this extraordinary marriage, he had made a bitter jest on the use in real life of a well-worn histrionic situation. And now, perforce, he had become an actor of rare merit. Each look, each word must lead up to the grand climax. The penalty of failure was not the boredom of an audience, but death; such a “curtain” would sharpen the dullest wits, and Maseden, if wholly innocent of stage experience hitherto, was not dull.
He scored his first point while the bride was signing her name. Beaming on Steinbaum, he said cheerfully:
“I bargained for money, Shylock. You’ve had your pound of flesh. Where are my ducats?”
Steinbaum produced a ten-dollar bill. He even forced a smile. Seemingly he was anxious to keep the prisoner in this devil-may-care mood.
“Not half enough!” cried Maseden, and he broke into Spanish.
“Hi, my gallant caballeros, isn’t there another squad in the patio?”
“Si, señor!” cried several voices.
Even these crude, half-caste soldiers revealed the Latin sense of the dramatic and picturesque. They appreciated the American’s cavalier air. That morning’s doings would lose naught in the telling when the story spread through the cafés of Cartagena.
And what a story they would have to tell! Little could they guess its scope, its sensations yet to come.
“Very well, then! At least another ten-spot, Steinbaum… But, mind you, sergeant, not a drop till the volley is fired! You might miss, you know!”
The man whom he addressed as sergeant eyed the two notes with an amiable grin.
“You will feel nothing, señor – we promise you that,” he said wondering, perhaps, why the prisoner did not bestow the largesse at once.
“Excellent! Lead on, friend! I want my last few minutes to myself.”
“There are some documents to complete,” put in Steinbaum hastily, with a quick hand-flourish to the notary.
Señor Porilla spread two legal-looking parchments on the table.
“These are conveyances of your property to your wife,” he explained. “I am instructed to see that everything is done in accordance with the laws of the Republic. By these deeds you – ”
“Hand over everything to the lady. Is that it? I understand. Where do I sign? Here? Thank you. And here? Nothing else … Mrs. Maseden, I have given you my name and all my worldly goods. Pray make good use of both endowments… Now, I demand to be left alone.”
Without so much as a farewell glance at his wife, who, to keep herself from falling, was leaning on the table, he strode off in the direction of the corridor into which his cell opened. It was a vital part of his scheme that he should enter first.
The jailer would have left the door open. Maseden was determined that it should be closed.
Captain Gomez’s tight boots pinched his toes cruelly as he walked, but he recked little of that minor inconvenience at the moment. In four or five rapid paces he reached the doorway and passed through it. There he turned with his right hand on the door itself, and his left hand, carrying the helmet, raised in a parting salute. He smiled most affably, and, of set purpose, spoke in Spanish.
“Good-by, señora!” he said. “Farewell, gentlemen! I shall remember this pleasant gathering as long as I live!”
The half-caste was at his prisoner’s side, and enjoying the episode thoroughly. He would swill his share of the wine, of course, and the hour of the siesta should find him comfortably drunk.
Maseden flourished his left hand again, and the plumed helmet temporarily obscured the jailer’s vision. The door swung on its hinges. The lock clashed. In the same instant the American’s clenched right fist landed on the half-caste’s jaw, finding with scientific accuracy the cluster of nerves which the world of pugilism terms “the point.”
It was a perfect blow, clean and hard, delivered by an athlete. Out of the tail of his eye, Maseden had seen where to hit. He knew how to hit already, and put every ounce of his weight, each shred of his boxing knowledge, into that one punch.
It had to be a complete “knock-out,” or his plan miscarried. A cry, a struggle, a revolver shot, would have brought a score of assailants thundering on each door.
As it happened, however, the hapless Spaniard collapsed as though he were struck dead by heart-failure or apoplexy. Maseden caught the inert body before it reached the stone floor, and carried it swiftly into the cell. Improvising a gag out of his discarded pajamas, he bound the half-caste’s hands and feet together behind his back, utilizing the man’s own leather belt for the purpose.
These
