MY TURN COMES.
“We must go back--there is a large party advancing. Even if we found
the key, the chances are we could hardly use it.”
Robbins’ declaration gave me a chill.
Go back? That meant to the house where we could no longer hope to
remain concealed! Was this the beginning of the end?
I braced myself for the shock--above all, I must remember whose eyes
were upon me--the chance I had often prayed for might now be close at
hand, and at any rate I must appear to be as cool as an iceberg, no
matter if my blood seemed on fire and my heart thumped like a force
pump.
“Then let us go--something may turn up. The door is lost to us, but
there are other ways of reaching the street, and we’re going to get
there,” I said, with dogged determination.
So we wheeled around.
I could not say what object I had in holding on to the lantern--perhaps
it was purely mechanical on my part, but, after all, it proved a very
lucky move.
No doubt Robbins was also endeavoring to whip his faculties into line
and conjure up some new plan, which, if successfully carried out, might
result in our escape.
I know I never racked my brains with a greater vim in the whole course
of my life than during that brief passage of time.
And the idea that suddenly dawned upon me was, after all, more in the
nature of a genuine inspiration than the result of reasoning.
As we proceeded we came to the abrupt turn where the path left the
wall, and took up a direct line for the casa itself.
Here stood the little toolhouse of the gardener.
We had seen it twice before, and on each occasion I had given it but
a cursory glance, but now it suddenly appealed to me with almost
irresistible persuasion.
“Stop here--I have a plan!” I exclaimed.
Fortunately, the hottest part of the hunt seemed to cover other parts
of the gardens, and this particular section was as yet free to us.
“What have you found?” demanded Robbins.
I pointed to the gardener’s toolhouse.
“Bah! they will surely search that.”
“But I don’t mean to hide,” I said.
“A fort, then--it might serve for a little time, but capture would be
sure.”
“Nonsense, man! The roof--don’t you see it is almost as high as the
wall.”
Then Robbins gave a cry of delight.
“Bully boy!--our chance at last! Now, only to get on the roof! Oh, for
a ladder.”
“Let us look.”
The door of the long, little building was wide open, though, if my
memory served me rightly, it had been closed when we passed before.
This mystery was quickly explained when my friend pointed to some blood
spots upon the sill; the wounded gardener had sought refuge in the
place, it being his first thought as a haven.
At our entrance the poor devil who had been trying to conceal himself
behind a lot of pots and tubs, believing we had followed with the
purpose of finishing him, began to pray about as vigorously as I ever
heard any one.
One quick glance around failed to show me what I longed to see more
than all else--a ladder.
There was a coil of stout rope hanging from a peg, and this I seized
upon and tossed over to Robbins, who seemed disposed to let me run the
whole business now, perhaps because it was I who had conceived the idea.
It was full time I was forging to the front.
Having grasped the bull by the horns, I went from one thing to another
without a break.
Hardly had Robbins clutched the rope than I was bending over the
terrified gardener, and gripping his shoulder so fiercely that,
believing his last minute had come, he let out a yell and appeared
about to keel right over, to avoid which I shook him with considerable
roughness, and luckily remembering, as I thought, one particular word
of Spanish, I shouted in the old fellow’s ear:
“_Escalado! escalado! escalado!_”
And he actually comprehended me this time, which fact must be put down
to my credit.
Understanding that he had a chance for his miserable life, the
fellow aroused himself and sprang a jargon upon me which was about
as intelligible as so much Sanscrit or Hebrew would have been,
accompanying his words with vehement and eloquent gestures.
For the life of me I did not know whether he was begging me to spare
him for the sake of his sixteen motherless bairns, or asking the favor
of being buried in the true faith.
I shook him again, and shouted louder:
“_Escalado! escalado!_--where is the _escalado_?”
More wild protestations that were as Greek, more flinging of the arms.
Confound the old chap! why couldn’t he speak English?
“Señor--oh, señor!”
It was little Carmencita who called aloud, and looking up I discovered
that both she and Hildegarde were in the doorway, surveying all that
went on with eager curiosity.
Oh! here was an interpreter, and my misery gave promise of being ended.
“What does he say?” I demanded, furious to think of the time wasted.
“The ladder is behind the toolhouse,” she said, in a mixture of Spanish
and English.
“Good! good! Robbins, lay hold on it. We may be happy yet.”
I withdrew my hand from the frightened chap, who straightway fell to
groaning his prayers as though desirous of preparing himself for being
speedily ushered into eternity.
I cared no longer for his woes--there was good Robbins buckling under
the weight of the ladder, which he had found just as the girl had said.
I was more than once inclined to believe her bright eyes had discovered
it sticking out, and that the gardener had not, after all, understood
my elegant Spanish phraseology, bad luck to him!
Robbins quickly had the ladder slanting up to the roof of the
toolhouse--it was long enough to extend a foot above the wall, a fact I
noted with extreme satisfaction, for I had to think of getting down as
well as up.
“Can you ascend?”
I half extended my hand to assist Hildegarde, but perhaps she failed
to note the fact, or else did not care to accept my aid, for she
mounted the ladder with the agility of a gazelle leaping over the green
_veldt_--a swish of her skirts and she had landed upon the gently
sloping roof of the toolhouse.
I wanted to cry “well done,” but something seemed to hold my tongue;
she would not care for such an expression of appreciation on my part.
“You next, Carmencita,” I said, and the child was up in almost a
twinkling, to meet the eager, outstretched hand above, and be drawn
safely to the roof.
“I’m last,” declared Robbins.
“Very good,” was my reply, and with a rush I darted up the ladder.
Then came the sturdy mate--the lantern I had blown out and left below,
as we had no longer any need for its services, and its light might
betray us to the enemy.
They had scattered in various directions, so that the whole garden
seemed to be undergoing a species of spring cleaning, bushes being
roundly whipped and every foot of ground closely searched--all but the
very corner where we were so busily engaged in working out our own
salvation.
No sooner was Robbins able to plant his feet upon the roof than he laid
hold of his side of the clumsy ladder, even as I had grasped the other.
It was a cumbersome affair, that certainly reflected no great credit
on its builder, but something had to come when the two of us got to
work, and hence the ladder was successfully hoisted and swung over the
outside of the wall.
What did this mean? It failed to touch the bottom! There must be a
greater depth in the street than on the garden side.
We bent down, holding it with main strength, and still found no footing.
“It must go,” I gasped, red in the face.
“Surely. We take chances. Say when,” was the reply of the mate.
“Now, then.”
Both released our hold together--there was a dull sound below, as the
foot of the ladder struck, and I listened with my heart in my mouth,
expecting a crash as it toppled over, but it failed to come.
At least, we did not seem reduced to the sterner resort to the rope, as
yet.
“Hold on--let me go,” I cried, clutching hold of the eager Robbins, who
was already halfway over the parapet of the adobe wall.
“Nixy--my business--yours is to look after her, Morgan,” he hurriedly
answered.
Undoubtedly she heard him.
I could not contradict the fellow--surely that was not the time or
place to enter into a discussion as to what my duty might be toward
Hildegarde; once it had been my highest ambition to serve her as a man
may only serve the one woman he loves on earth, but that had long since
passed, and I was no longer anything of a factor in her world, only a
bitter memory of a past that she would sooner forget.
Meanwhile Robbins had found a footing on the top round of the ladder.
“Will it hold?” I inquired, eagerly, fearfully, for I dreaded lest the
old thing would topple over and precipitate him into the street.
It was bad enough with Robbins, but, deprived of his cheery presence,
our chances would be poor indeed.
“Yes, I think so. Take this rope and lower one end with me--it will
help steady things. Once below, I’ll put the ladder on a secure
foundation.”
Then he went down.
A few brief seconds of suspense--I knew he had reached the street, for
he let go the rope, which I pulled up and made a noose at the end.
I could hear him move the ladder some, in order to plant it more
steadily.
It was a time of great suspense--those in the garden had discovered our
presence on the roof of the toolhouse, and while some ran to the door
in the wall, hoping to get out and cut off our escape, others gathered
below, and not only shouted at us, but began to throw things, the curs!
I was tempted to open on them with my pistol, but realized that other
affairs needed attention.
The noose was slipped about Carmencita, and the child, lowered by my
arms to the ladder, made the descent in safety.
Once more the rope was drawn up. Hildegarde was next. She took the
noose from my hand and slipped it under her arms without my assistance;
I could not but admire her courage. Next she stepped to the edge of the
wall, and looked fearfully down to where the unseen ladder stood.
“You must forgive me, but it can’t be helped,” I said, suddenly, with a
determination that would not be baffled.
In another instant I had her again in my arms, she whom I had not seen
for two long years, and yet who had once been flesh of my flesh, the
woman I had loved above all else on God’s footstool, and whom I had in
my fool’s paradise called--“wife!”