His Unknown Wife

Steinbaum, however, had recovered his nerve in the stronger light of the great hall, especially since the soldiers had gathered around.

“The señora declines to unveil,” he growled in Spanish. “Begin, padre! There is not a moment to spare.”

The ecclesiastic opened a book and plunged forthwith into the marriage service. Maseden was aware that the shrinking figure by his side was trembling violently, and a wave of pity for her surged through his heart.

“Cheer up!” he whispered. “It’s only a matter of form, anyhow; and I’m glad to be able to help you. I don’t care a red cent what your motive is.”

Steinbaum gurgled ominously, and the bridegroom said no more. Clearly, though he had given no bond, he was imperiling the fulfillment of this unhappy girl’s desire if he talked.

But he kept his wits alert. It was evident that the lady understood little Latin and no Spanish. She was quite unable to follow the sonorous phrases. When the portly priest, who seemed to have small relish for the part he was compelled to play in this amazing marriage, asked Maseden if he would have “this woman” to be his wedded wife, the bridegroom answered “Yes,” in Spanish; but a similar question addressed to the bride found her dumb.

“Say ‘I will,’” murmured Maseden in her ear.

She turned slightly. At that instant their heads came close together, and the long, unfamiliar fragrance of a woman’s well-tended hair reached him.

It had an extraordinary effect. Memories of his mother, of a simple old-world dwelling in a Vermont village, rushed in on him with an almost overwhelming force.

His superb self-possession nearly gave way. He felt that he might break down under the intolerable strain.

He feared, during a few seconds of anguish, that he might reveal his heartache to these men of inferior races.

Then the pride of a regal birthright came to his aid, and a species of most vivid and poignant consciousness succeeded. He heard Steinbaum’s gruff sponsorship for the bride, obeyed smilingly when told to take her right hand in his right hand, and looked with singular intentness at the long, straight, artistic fingers which he held.

It was a beautifully modeled hand, well kept, but cold and tremulous. The queer conceit leaped up in him that though he might never look on the face of his wedded wife he would know that hand if they met again only at the Judgment Seat!

Then, in a dazed way which impressed the onlookers as the height of American nonchalance, he said, after the celebrant: “I, Philip Alexander, take thee, Madeleine – ”

Madeleine! So that was the Christian name of the woman whom he was taking “till death do us part,” for the Spanish liturgy provided almost an exact equivalent of the English service. Madeleine! He had never even known any girl of the name. Somehow, he liked it. Outwardly so calm, he was inwardly aflame with a new longing for life and all that life meant.

His jumbled wits were peremptorily recalled to the demands of the moment by the would-be bride’s failure to repeat her share of the marriage vow, when it became her turn to take Maseden’s hand.

The priest nodded, and Steinbaum, now carrying himself with a certain truculence, essayed to lead the girl’s faltering tongue through the Spanish phrases.

“The lady must understand what she is saying,” broke in Maseden, dominating the gruff man by sheer force of will.

“Now,” he said, and his voice grew gentle as he turned to the woman he had just promised “to have and to hold,” “to love and cherish,” and thereto plighted his troth – “when the priest pauses, I will translate, and you must speak the words aloud.”

He listened, in a waking trance, to the clear, well-bred accents of a woman of his own people uttering the binding pledge of matrimony. The Spanish sentences recalled the English version, which he supplied with singular accuracy, seeing that he had only attended two weddings previously, and those during his boyhood.

“Madeleine” – 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.