His Unknown Wife

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 things were done swiftly but without nervous haste. The very essence of the plan was the conviction that no forward step should be taken without making sure that the prior moves were complete and thorough.

He had detached from the jailer’s belt a chain carrying a bunch of keys and the revolver in its leather holster. Before slipping this latter over the belt he was wearing, he examined it. Though somewhat old-fashioned, it seemed to be thoroughly serviceable, and held six cartridges with bull-nose bullets of heavy caliber.

Then he searched the unconscious man’s pockets for cigarettes and matches. Here he encountered an unforeseen delay. Every Spaniard carries either cigarettes or the materials for rolling them, but this fellow seemed to be an exception.

Now, a cigarette formed an almost indispensable item in Maseden’s scheme; but time was even more precious, and he was about to abandon the search when he noticed that one button-hole of the jailer’s tunic was far more frayed than any other. He tore open the coat, and found both cigarettes and matches in an inside breast pocket.

Not one man in a million, in similar conditions, would have been cool-headed enough to observe such a trivial detail as a frayed button-hole.

Next he examined the bunch of keys, and came to the conclusion, rightly as it transpired, that the same large key fitted the locks of both doors; which, however, were heavily barred by external draw-bolts.

Jamming on the helmet – like the glittering boots, it was a size too small – he lowered the chin-strap, lighted a cigarette, and limped quickly along the corridor towards the patio, which filled a square equal in size to the area of the great hall.

As he left the cell he heard the half-caste’s breathing become more regular. The man would soon recover his senses. Would the gag prove effective? Maseden dared not wait to make sure.

He could have induced a more lasting silence, but even life itself might be purchased too dearly; he took the risk of a speedy uproar.

Unlocking the door, with a confident rattling of keys and chain, he shouted:

“Hi, guards! Draw the bolts!”

The soldiers in the patio were ready for some such summons, though the hour was slightly in advance of the time fixed for the American’s execution, so the order was obeyed with alacrity. Maseden appeared in the doorway, taking care that the door did not swing far back. He blew a great cloud of smoke; growled over his shoulder: “I’ll return in five minutes,” pulled the door to, and swaggered past the waiting troops, not forgetting to salute as they shouldered their rifles.

A long time afterwards he learned that he actually owed his escape to Captain Ferdinando Gomez’s tight boots. One of the men was observant, and inclined to be skeptical.

“Who’s that?” he said. “Not el Capitan Ferdinando, I’ll swear!”

“Idiot!” grinned another. “Look at his limp! He pinches his toes till he can hardly walk.”

At the gateway, or porch, leading to the patio, stood a sentry, who, luckily, was gazing seaward. Maseden conserved the cigarette for another volume of smoke, and pulled down the chin-strap determinedly.

He got beyond this dragon without any difficulty. Indeed, the man was taken by surprise, and only noticed him when he had gone by.

Maseden was now in a graveled square. Behind him, and to the left, stood the time-darkened walls of the old Spanish fortress. In front, broken only by a line of trees and the squat humps of six antiquated cannons, sparkled the blue expanse of the Pacific. To the right lay the port, the new town, and such measure of freedom as he might win.

He had yet to pass the main entrance to the castle, where, in addition to a sentry, would surely be stationed some sharp-eyed servants, each and all on the qui vive at that early hour, and stirred to unusual activity by the morning’s news, because Cartagena regarded a change of president by means of a revolution as a sort of movable holiday.

At this crisis, luck befriended him. In the shade of the trees opposite the main gate was an orderly holding a horse. The animal’s trappings showed that it did not belong to a private soldier, and the fact that the man stood to attention as Maseden approached seemed to indicate that which was actually the fact – the charger belonged to none other than the president’s aide-de-camp.

Fortune seldom bestows her favors in what the casino-jargon of Monte Carlo describes as “intermittent sequences,” or, in plain language, alternate coups of red and black, successive strokes of good and bad luck. The fickle goddess rather inclines to runs on a color. Having brought Maseden to the very brink of the grave, she had decided to help him now.

As it turned out, Gomez’s soldier servant had been injured during the overnight disturbance, and the deputy was a newcomer.

He saluted, held bridle and stirrup while Maseden mounted, and strolled casually across the square to inquire whether he ought to wait or go back to his quarters. He succeeded in puzzling the very sergeant who was mentally contriving the best means of securing the lion’s, or sergeant’s, share of twenty dollars’ worth of wine.

“Captain Gomez has not gone out,” snapped the calculator. “Get out of the way! Don’t stand there like the ears of a donkey! I have occupation. The Señor Steinbaum is putting a lady into his car, and she is very ill.”

So the trooper was unceremoniously brushed aside. A little later he might have reminded the sergeant of the folly of counting chickens before the eggs are hatched.

Maseden was a first-rate horseman, but, owing to the discomfort of excruciatingly tight boots and a wobbly helmet, he did not enjoy the first half mile of a fast gallop down the winding road which he was obliged to follow before he could strike into the country. Beneath, to the left, and on a plateau in front, were respectively the ancient and modern sections of Cartagena. But, having succeeded thus far, he had made up his mind inflexibly as to the course he would pursue.

He meant to reach his own ranch, twelve miles inland, within the hour. He reckoned that, in the easy-going South American way, it would not be occupied as yet by an armed guard. An officer had rummaged among his papers that morning, but came away with the others.

In any event, in that direction, and there only, lay any real chance of ultimate safety.

On his estate there were two men at least in whom he might place trust; and even if he could not enter the house, one of them might obtain for him the clothes and money without which he had not the remotest prospect of getting away alive from the Republic of San Juan.

He had pocketed Steinbaum’s twenty dollars in order to hire a horse, but the unwitting hospitality of Captain Gomez had provided him with a better animal than was to be picked up at the nearest posada. Indeed, with the exception of an automobile, a luxury that was few and far between in Cartagena, he could not have secured a swifter or more reliable conveyance than this very steed, which would cover the twelve miles in less than an hour, and had also saved him a quarter of an hour’s running walk, an experience savoring of Chinese torture when undertaken in tight boots.

The notion of possible pursuit by a party of soldiers in a car had barely occurred to him when he heard the rapid panting of an automobile in the rear.

He slackened pace, took a shorter grip of the reins, and loosened the revolver in its case. Flight was ridiculous, unless he made across country; a last resource, involving a fatal loss of time.

He took nothing for granted. Steinbaum was one of the half-dozen car-owners in Cartagena, and this was surely he, escorting Señor Porilla and the lady back to the town.

They might pass him without recognition. If they didn’t, he would shoot Steinbaum and put a bullet into a tire. There would be no half measures. Suarez and his ally had declared war on him to the death, and war they would have without stint or quarter.

It was a ticklish moment when the fast-running car drew near. Maseden affected to bend over and examine the horse’s fore action, as though he suspected lameness or a loose shoe. He gave one swift underlook into the limousine as it sped by and fancied he saw Porilla, seated with his back to the engine, bending forward.

That was all. The car raced on and was speedily lost in a dust-cloud.

So far, so good. He was dodging peril in the hairbreadth fashion popularly ascribed to warriors on a stricken field. Yet his mount was hardly in a canter again before he was plunged without warning into the most ticklish dilemma of all.

Steinbaum’s car had just turned to the left, where the road bifurcated a few hundred yards ahead, when another car came flying down the other road – that which the fugitive himself must take for nearly half a mile; and this second menace harbored no less a personage than Don Enrico Suarez, president of the Republic of San Juan!

It was an open car, too, and the president was seated alone in the tonneau.

Maseden jumped to the instant conclusion that his enemy was hurrying to witness his execution, probably to jeer at him for having ventured to cross the predestined path of a conqueror. But, even though he passed, Suarez would know that the gaily bedizened horseman was not his glittering aide-de-camp.

To permit the president to reach the Castle meant the beginning of an irresistible pursuit within five minutes. However, that consideration did not bother the Vermonter if for no better reason than that he was determined it should not come into play.

He smiled thoughtfully, adjusted the helmet once more, and voiced his sentiments aloud.

“Good!” he said. “This time, Enrico, you and I square accounts!”