THE PRISONER
"Well, what do you want? Who are you?"
Gus felt his heart almost leap in his bosom. The voice may have been a
little huskier, with an accent of suffering and despair, but it was
recognizable.
"Keep very quiet, Tony. I'm not supposed to be here, but out yonder,
guarding the path. Paid to do it, you understand? But lie low until
to-morrow. Then----"
"But tell me; I seem--I--who can you be? Oh, what----?"
"Oh, you don't know me, sure enough. I'm Gus, Tony--Gus Grier. Bill
Brown and I are down here to get you. We--, but that must keep. Lie low,
old chap. I've got to get away now and go awfully careful, but it'll be
all right----"
"Oh, Gus! My friend Gus! You here and for me? I believed the world--but
no matter now. Oh, my good friend Gus, you will not never give up? You
will--oh, my friend----"
"Go slow, Tony, not so loud! Do you think we would come this far and
then go back on you? I must get away now--right off. Lie low."
Gus felt an almost irresistible desire to break open the window or the
door at once and get his friend out. Then, if need be, fight their way
to safety, but common sense told him that the certain noise of doing
such a thing would be heard and perhaps his effort defeated, with great
danger to himself, and Tony, too. If there had been but one guard or
even two--but three were too great odds.
Back he went to his position, and there he watched for the rest of the
day, elated with his discovery of Tony, saddened by the delay, grinning
at the thought of the Malatesta and their confederate compelled to
watch, almost motionless, for the supposed prowlers.
At last darkness threatened. Those small banditti, the mosquitoes, as
bloody-minded as the Malatesta, began to sing and to stab. The assassin
owls made mournful cadences in keeping with the scene and its
half-tragic human purposes, while the whippoorwills voiced the one
element of brightness and hope.
The young fellow in the narrow, dark, log-walled cabin, with its barred
window and padlocked oaken door, had been long disconsolate. But now,
for the first time in many days, hope came to him as he walked back and
forth, fighting pests, still tortured in mind, fearing failure,
wondering, praying, yet proud and never beseeching, waiting for another
and perhaps a brighter day.
For three months he had been a prisoner, waking from a fevered sleep
after a long illness, his splendid constitution alone serving to doctor
him, he had found himself mysteriously at sea, in the locked cabin of a
tossing yacht that knew no harbor of rest. He had been denied even the
chance to talk to, or to know his jailers. He had managed to keep alive
on the rough, often unpalatable food poked under his door. There was no
response to his callings, hammerings or threats. A less balanced,
hopeful, kindly, gentle fellow would have gone insane.
Then, gagged and bound, he had been dumped about almost like a sack of
wheat and landed in this horrible place alongside of which his prison
room in the yacht was a palace. Now here for the first time had come a
friendly voice, that of more than a friend, indeed, and he had again
seized upon hope.
Yes, he would lie low, be patient, hope on and wait.