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.