George Montgomery took an early opportunity of explaining to his friend
De Leon, that, for certain reasons, he was traveling under an assumed
name. To the other, it is lamentable to add, this appeared the most
natural thing in the world, and he never gave the matter a second
thought.
The devotion of the rescued stowaway to the friend who had saved him was
touching in the extreme. He followed him like his shadow, with a
dog-like fidelity which awoke the sneers of the supercilious Spaniards.
There were occasions when these sneers roused the ire of the patient De
Leon and prompt retribution seemed very near the heads of the offenders,
but the butt of their shafts recollected himself in time and dissembled
his wrath, conscious that he was not yet quite out of danger, and that
so long as he was on board ship and within touch, he was by no means
beyond the reach of Spanish malice.
At length the island of Cuba was reached, and the two friends left the
ship in safety.
On the night of their arrival, as the two were seated in the Hotel
Pasaje, in Havana, the second officer of the ship, who had been
celebrating his return with some old friends, entered the hotel. When he
saw De Leon, he pointed him out jeeringly to the friends who accompanied
him, as “the stowaway.”
He had been a special offender in this respect on board ship, so that it
scarcely needed the fresh insult to fire De Leon’s blood.
When the latter noticed that the officer’s companions were regarding him
curiously, he rose to his feet with much deliberation, and, lifting his
full wine-glass from the table, he threw its contents straight into the
officer’s face. As the latter endeavored to wipe the dark claret from
his face, De Leon, with the air of a grandee of Spain, raised his hat to
the other gentleman; then fixing his gaze on the officer, he said; “I am
at your service, señor.”
The interposition of the hotel officials prevented any continuation of
the quarrel there, and the entire party left together. George
Montgomery, who accompanied his friend, was in dismay at the quarrel
and the duel with the officer which seemed impending.
“You do not know, my friend, what you are about. If you knew what it was
to have blood on your hands you would die rather than shed it.”
The other glanced at him strangely for a moment, and then replied, “In
anything but this I would obey you willingly, but I am by birth a
Spanish noble, and this man has insulted me. I have avenged that insult,
and now I should be a coward if I did not give him the satisfaction he
requires.”
At this moment one of the officer’s friends approached Montgomery and
informed him courteously that the gentleman who had been insulted
demanded satisfaction, and intimated that the more promptly it could be
afforded, the more it would be to the taste of his principal.
As George Montgomery hesitated and then protested that nothing would
induce him to sanction a duel, De Leon took the matter into his own
hands, and said, “This gentleman is the only friend I have in the city;
he will not act, therefore I must dispense with a second, and I say I am
ready now to meet your principal. I have no preference as to weapons,
but as the choice rests with me, and to save time, I name the rapier. I
am content to accompany you alone, and as soon as we can secure the
weapons, I will go with you and settle the matter.”
The other bowed gravely, and, promising to return in a few minutes, he
left.
“Good-bye, for the present, at least,” exclaimed De Leon with
outstretched hand to his friend, as his opponent’s second returned with
the rapiers under his arm. “If all goes well I will return to the hotel
in a couple of hours, and if not, why then dearest of friends, adieu,”
and he raised the other’s hand to his lips and kissed it, not formally,
but tenderly and even passionately.
“Oh! I cannot let you go alone,” returned the other. “It is all wrong, I
know, and can only build up untold misery in the future, but I cannot
turn my back on a friend.”
In reply De Leon pressed his hand, and together they entered one of
three carriages which had been summoned for the use of the party.
A drive of twenty minutes landed them on a lonely spot hedged in on
three sides by lofty palms and a dense undergrowth of palmetto, and on
the other side by the blue waters of the bay, where a solitary craft lay
moored near the shore.
The moon was high in the heavens, and the light was almost as clear as
day.
When De Leon ran his fingers over the weapon which was handed to him, he
seemed jubilant with gaiety. “My friend,” he exclaimed, “if I thought I
was going to die, I would make a confession to you; I did you a great
wrong once. But I shall spit that wretch like a lark, and I cannot
afford to lose your friendship, so my confession must wait.”
While the preliminary arrangements were being made the movement on shore
had attracted the attention of the look-out on board the low-lying craft
at anchor a few hundred yards away, and presently a boat put off from
the ship containing the three officers on duty, who correctly surmised
the cause of the unwonted gathering and came ashore to see the fight.
As they joined the group they saluted its members courteously, but
carelessly, as men who were seldom wont to crave permission for their
presence, and were indifferent whether it was accorded or not, an
impression which was heightened by a certain swagger in their manner
which savored more of the buccaneer than of the naval officer, and also
by a superfluity of armament about their persons.
When the duellists had taken their places the contrast in the
expressions of the two principals was very marked.
On De Leon’s face there was an air of smiling assurance which seemed to
goad his opponent almost to fury. He had fully regained his strength
during the weeks which had elapsed since his discovery on board ship as
a stowaway, and the muscular neck and powerful arms promised that, given
equal skill, the observant moon would have left her proud elevation in
the sky before his physical powers would surrender to mere fatigue.
At last the signal of attack was given and the fine steel blades slid
along each other see-saw as their owners felt their way to the attack.
Then the officer shot out his weapon apparently full at the broad breast
of his antagonist. But no harm was done, and the ring of the steel hilts
as they clashed together, was the only sound which was borne on the
night air. A temporary lock of blades prevented any harm being done, and
when they were disengaged the two began afresh the see-sawing with
their weapons.
De Leon, however, had already gauged his opponent’s ability, and before
the latter could fathom his intention or do anything beyond blindly
advancing his weapon, the other’s rapier had disengaged itself from his
blade, slid like a lightning flash over his arm and pierced his neck.
The fight was over almost ere the weapon was withdrawn, and the officer,
choked with blood, staggered backwards and fell into the arms of his
friends.
At that instant a shrill double whistle of warning was heard from the
ship and the three officers belonging to it retraced their steps rapidly
to the boat. At the same moment a body of Spanish troops plunged through
the palmetto, cutlass in hand.
“Stay!” shouted De Leon to the retreating officers, “take us with you.”
His suspicious brain had surmised a trap, and he was afraid of the
troops as foes. The law and order of Spain he dreaded as much as
suspected Christians in former ages feared the Inquisition.
The reasons which impelled the officers to consent to his request may
probably be found in the fact that both looked able, powerful men, and
one at least had just proved himself to be a very efficient swordsman.
“All right, in with you--quick!” shouted the first officer by way of
reply, and the two took their seats hurriedly in the boat, which was
immediately pushed off from the shore.
* * * * *
The vessel was found on a closer acquaintance to be engaged in the
contraband trade, and the captain in command, in consideration of the
sum of two hundred and fifty dollars, agreed to land the two passengers
on the mainland of Florida. The arrangement suited his own purposes for
the moment although he would have preferred to retain his passengers,
and the two were accordingly landed in safety at Punta Rassa, where they
engaged a boat and its owner, a Florida oyster dredger of villainous
appearance, and, had they known it, of still more evil reputation.
With this man they entered into a contract to take them through the
great Lake Okeechobee, with which he assured them he was familiar, and
thence northward through the chain of canals and lakes which led to
within reasonable distance of one of the principal termini of the very
limited railway service of Florida.
Why did George Montgomery choose such a route?
He would probably have found it hard to furnish a reasonable
explanation. When he landed in the State it seemed sufficient rapture
for the moment to feel that he was once more on the same continent with
his wife, and that no terrible width of ocean any longer divided them.
Still he could not forget that he was a fugitive from justice, and that
in all probability the “hue and cry” had been raised against him as the
murderer of his brother-in-law. He shuddered as he thought that on his
first visit to a railway station he might be confronted by a reward
offered for his own apprehension.
And so, satisfied with the thought that day by day he was creeping or
drifting nearer to the woman for whom his whole soul and body hankered,
he seemed to find a temporary contentment in his lot.
His preoccupation of mind rendered him the most unsuspicious of mortals,
and so hastened a catastrophe which came near terminating prematurely
his wanderings.
In taking a bundle of papers from his pocket one day a package of notes
of large denomination fell to the bottom of the boat. As a matter of
fact the parcel represented five thousand dollars, and with a
five-hundred-dollar bill as its outward symbol looked, it must be
confessed, its full value.
As the eyes of the boatman fell upon the parcel they glared at it with a
greed of covetousness which De Leon read at a glance and carefully
noted. The owner of the notes neither saw nor recked of the commotion
aroused by his carelessness. De Leon, however, not only saw the error,
but made it quite clear to the boatman that he understood him.
“Ah! my dear friend, there is trouble for us both ahead,” De Leon
muttered, as he softly soaked the boatman’s cartridges in the limpid
waters of Lake Okeechobee while that worthy slept. “I,” he resumed, “am
a Soldier of Fortune, _you_, my worthy ruffian, are simply a murderer!
but beware, De Leon watches!”
As he referred to himself as a Soldier of Fortune, it is possible that
he was endeavoring to discriminate to the satisfaction of his conscience
between a genius of _la haute finance_, who, in extremity, and with the
touch of a master, borrows a telegraphic cipher and uses it with
brilliant, if ephemeral, result, and a simple highway robber.
It is but just, however, to the brave De Leon to say that his cheeks
tingled with shame whenever he thought of the very scurvy trick he had
once played on his old and unsuspecting friend in stealing his code and
suppressing the message from his wife.
“Ah! it is a sorry business to rob a whole-souled generous man who
trusts you blindly.”
As De Leon reflected thus, the boat lay at anchor for the night on the
broad bosom of that inland sea, Lake Okeechobee.
“I think,” he whispered to himself, “I ought to mention that message to
my friend; it might lessen his distress, and yet how _can_ I let him
know how I have wronged him and tried to defraud him? I cannot do it.”
Three weeks later they stopped at a landing-place on the Kissimmee
River, in order to secure some fresh food. They had passed through the
great lake in safety, and also through its principal tributary to a
point north of Fort Kissimmee. That stoppage was the first of any
consequence since they had left Lake Okeechobee, and it is possible that
the careful watch observed by De Leon having been without result up to
that time, his vigils had grown somewhat careless.
This, however, is mere conjecture, but on the night of that landing, De
Leon awoke from a heavy stupor to find the boatman raising his axe to
slay his friend Montgomery. De Leon essayed to rise to his feet, yelling
out an alarm to his friend as he did so. The assassin, however, had
taken the precaution to tie some ropes across the other’s limbs, loosely
enough so as not to awake him, yet in such a way as to prevent him
rendering any sudden assistance to his friend.
The immediate result of De Leon’s alarm was to divert to himself the
blow intended for his friend. For a moment the yellow, devilish face of
the boatman bent over him with a look of indescribable malice, the next
the axe descended full on poor De Leon’s helpless head, and with a groan
he sank unconscious into the bottom of the boat.
The boatman turned in time to see that Montgomery was awake and feeling
for his pistol, then, recognizing that the game was up, he jumped
ashore.
When he got to the distance of about a hundred yards from the boat, and
so out of pistol range, he raised his rifle, which he had taken up as he
left the boat, and fired. Thanks, however, to poor De Leon’s
thoughtfulness in saturating the ruffian’s cartridges, the latter’s
murderous intentions were foiled although he tried shell after shell
before he gave up as useless his efforts to kill Montgomery.
The latter, oblivious of the murderer’s persistent attempts to shoot
him, was stooping over his wounded friend endeavoring to stay the
frightful loss of blood from the blow given him by the native. The wound
had not been what it had been intended to be--immediately fatal. When De
Leon saw the axe descending he had moved his head so as to evade the
full force of the weapon which had accordingly somewhat glanced in its
stroke.
Still the wound, although not instantly fatal, bid fair to prove so ere
long, and Montgomery groaned when he thought of his inability to render
his friend skilled assistance.
When he saw that the hemorrhage still continued in spite of all his
efforts, a feeling of desperate helplessness seized upon him and his
eyes scanned the land to see whether any possible help was within sight.
While his glance was turned towards the prairie a boat suddenly collided
gently with his own, and, to his amazement, he found a powerful Indian
seated in a birch canoe alongside.
The Indian made a cordial yet dignified signal of friendship, and almost
exhausted his English vocabulary with his greeting, “How do?”
In despair, the other pointed to his dying companion and then to the
woods beyond, indicating that the murderer had fled.
The Indian took in the situation at a glance, and paddling to the shore
he gathered from the armless socket of an aged live oak, a handful of
spiders’ webs; this done, he removed the other bandages and placed the
webs against the wound.
The fine clinging meshes of the webs did what the cloths had failed to
do, and the terrible bleeding stopped. De Leon opened his eyes at
length, and his friend rejoiced to see that he was sensible and as yet,
at least, free from fever.
“Friend, come here to me,” faintly whispered the wounded man, after
looking wistfully at George Montgomery for a time.
“I am going to leave you, George,” and his voice rested tenderly as a
woman’s on the other’s name; “and now that I am dying I want to tell you
about a wrong I did you. Stoop lower.”