THE PRISONER OF THE TOWER.
Using the immemorial privilege of a teller of tales, I ask the reader to
turn back now and look with me into one of the tower rooms of the San
Paz Hacienda.
It is not the room at whose barred window Buffalo Bill saw the flutter
of that handkerchief, but is like it, except that the bars are broken,
and a space in the window is open large enough to permit the passage of
the body of a man.
Yet this is of no use to the pallid prisoner lying on his cot in a
corner of the little room, for below that window are the jagged tops of
trees, projecting sharply upward, ready to impale him like dagger points
if he should venture to try to escape by leaping down. He believes he
has reason on his side, when he thinks it is the wish of his jailers
that he shall leap down upon those treetops and thus meet death.
Yet his jailers, cruel as they are, have not, so far, tried to take his
life directly, though they have apparently sought to do so indirectly,
for they have subjected him to tortures so inhuman they pass belief. His
body is knotted and bent by reason of these tortures, and the
intolerable torment of continuous pain is his portion. He groans now and
then, covers his eyes with his hands, and wonders if the end his
fiendish captors seem to wish is not near.
Yet he will do nothing to destroy his own life. He desires to live, and
he feels that he has justification for this desire. His death would mean
much to many people, besides his jailers.
Night comes, shadowing the little room by slow degrees, and then
plunging it into darkness. Lying on his cot, his cheeks flushed and
feverish, his brain gradually becoming bewildered, he yet listens to the
sounds of the night—to the cry of birds, to the distant yelping of
wolves in the mountains, the occasional ring of a rifle or musket as its
butt is jarred against the earth by the hand of a sentry.
Feeling that his strength is failing, that his mind is leaving him, he
begins at length to pray for death. He takes from beneath the thin
pillow of his cot a dagger. It has a handle of gold, is ponderous, and
its keen double edge would quickly let out his life. He holds it in his
hand, which shakes under the suggestive temptation; he even lifts it to
drive it into his bosom. But he does not. His hand drops against the
tattered covering of the cot, and he groans aloud.
“I must live!” he moans. “Yet here I die! Die in this poisonous place,
without friends, without help!”
The dagger slips from his fingers and he covers his face with his hands,
while tears of weakness trickle down his cheeks. His sobs choke and
stifle him.
“If I could but get word to them of what I suffer! If they could but
know that I live—that I exist, for I do not live! But they will never
know. I am buried in a place of which I have no knowledge; and how long
I have been here I fail even to remember. For my mind is blank at times,
and days and nights go without leaving any record on my miserable
brain.”
There is a scratching sound at the window. He hears it, the sobbing and
the tears cease, and he is alert.
“Is help at hand?” he whispers. “It cannot be!”
He is so weak that in trying to get out of the bed he almost falls to
the floor, yet with caution he crawls toward the window.
Something is beating against it, on the outside.
The darkness is so great he cannot see what it is, but, creeping up to
the window, he puts a hand through, and it touches a frightened bird,
which flutters its wings and makes strange cries as he draws it into the
room. He is bewildered. This was not what he expected.
He cannot see the bird, but it seems to be some kind of gull, or sea
bird, and he thinks it has wandered from the sea, and, becoming
bewildered, has struck in the darkness against the window ledge and
injured itself.
Crawling over to the other side of the room, he finds a stub of candle
on a box, and, with trembling fingers, he secures a match and gets a
light. Then he sees the bird, to which he has clung. It is a sea bird,
he is sure, and its head is bruised, showing that he judged truly in
thinking it had struck in the darkness against the tower. It seems as
sadly bewildered as he had been himself a little while before.
The bird is too weak to be released, it could not fly if he should toss
it through the window, he fears, yet he knows that it will get strong.
It has wings of broad expanse, and it must have been a powerful flyer in
its normal condition.
He tears from his tattered coat a bit of thread, and ties the legs of
the bird, lest in its weakened state it may flutter to the window and
escape.
Having done that, he begins to pull with feverish eagerness at the coat,
extracting thread after thread. These threads he separates by
untwisting, and at length succeeds in getting a fine strong cord that he
deems of suitable length for the purpose that has come to him.
Having done this, he crawls over to his cot, and brings to view again
the dagger with the handle of gold. He tests its weight by swinging it
up and down.
“Too heavy, I fear, yet I must try it!” he says, and he searches about
the littered floor, which is covered with filthy straw, and from the
straw he at length extracts a cartridge. It had slipped from the belt of
a guard. He had noted its fall, but had thought nothing of it until now.
He has discovered that the interior of the hard mattress of his cot is
composed of bark. He has had much time in the past to inspect thoroughly
the few belongings of his room, and he has again and again looked
curiously at that bark. He had never seen any just like it, and did not
know the name of the tree which had yielded it, yet he had observed that
it resembled thin sheets of paper.
Now he crawls weakly to the cot and gets one of the thinnest and
lightest of these bark sheets. None are of very large size, yet he takes
the largest he can find.
Then, by the light of the dripping candle, he begins to write a message
on the bark, using the lead of the cartridge as a pencil.
The prisoner has not written the half of what he wishes to say, when he
hears a sound which causes him to cease writing. He crushes the
unfinished message into the handle of the dagger, which opens when he
presses a secret spring.
Still hastening feverishly, he ties the dagger to the neck of the bird
with the cord he has twisted, and then, crawling to the window, he hurls
the bird out into the darkness. He hears the apparently futile beat of
its wings, as it seems to be drawn downward by the weight of the dagger
tied to its neck; and then, overcome, he falls, half fainting, by the
window.
“It was useless!” he groans. “The bird cannot carry that weight while it
is weak, and I could not wait for its strength to return. It has fallen,
and it will not rise again.”
Nearer he hears the steady thump of feet which had hastened and
frightened him. Then the door of his prison is opened, and a man, fierce
whiskered and fierce of eye, looks in. He sees the candle guttering on
its box, and anger blazes in that fierce, bright eye. He strides across
the room.
“Was it not commanded that no lights should be shown in this room at so
late an hour?” he demands, and he seizes the limp form, drags it over
the floor, and flings it upon the cot in the corner, using as harsh a
hand as if the miserable prisoner had been but a bag of salt.
The prisoner’s head strikes heavily against the wall, and he drops limp,
with a moan, upon the cot.
“Scoundrel! Dog!” cries the fierce-whiskered man. “Lie there! You would
send a message to some one with the candle, eh? If thou art dead, well
enough!”
He blows out the candle, retreats, and locks the door, then his heavy
tread is heard descending the stairs.
In the morning he comes again, unlocks the door, and steps within. He
sees that the prisoner is lying as when last seen. He bends over the cot
and looks again into the pallid face and closed eyes.
“Humph!” he mutters. “Dead! He must have had a soft skull, if that
killed him. But he is dead!”
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