‘Were you strong and I weak,’ I whispered to him, ‘there would be little pity shown. You are athirst for my blood, but Providence has willed that you shall not be gratified. As I grant you mercy now, show mercy to others.’
The clerk tried to speak, but only husky murmurs passed his lips.
‘Lie there,’ I continued, ‘until your friends come to your rescue.’
With that I flung the man upon the floor, so as partially to stun him, and then, with the aid of some ratline stuff, which sailors go seldom without, and which was in the pocket of my old doublet, I both bound and gagged him, not very completely, it is true, but sufficiently, as I believed, to prevent any alarm being given until I had got a good start. It was pitiful to see the impotent spite with which the manacled creature writhed upon the ground, gibbering with his speechless mouth, and flashing his green eyes as though he could have shot blistering venom out of them upon me. But I had little time to bestow upon the spectacle: with a quick step and a beating heart I fled along the corridors. During my scuffle with the clerk, the turnkey’s directions had never ceased to ring in my ears. The two first turnings to the left, the next to the right, the next to the left again. The silent passages echoed to my footsteps with a hollow, ominous sound. There were many nail-studded doors, similar to that of my own cell, on either side. As I made the last turning, I had a glimpse, in the distance, of the guard-room into which I had been at first conducted, and then, looking straight ahead, I saw before me the narrow street, with its deep, dusty ruts, scorching, as it were, in the hot sun. The passage terminated in a great gateway, with pillars and a portico, and on the left side of the door stood a sentry-box, painted white. Pausing for a moment to assume all possible coolness, I walked steadily out humming the butt-end of a Spanish sea-song, which the manners of that nation sing when heaving the anchor to the bows.
Just as I passed the porch I glanced at the sentry. He was a young man; his features bronzed almost black with the sun, and wearing silver earrings, glittering amongst his long greasy curls. The fellow was sitting leaning against his sentry-box; his musket, with his bayonet fixed, hung carelessly across his knee. As I strode by, he half opened his sleepy eyes, and muttered mechanically as though speaking in a dream.
‘Guarda Costa,’ I said, carelessly. The man muttered something again, and his chin fell upon his breast. Like a phantom I glided up the hot and silent street. Not a soul was to be seen. The cloth of outside blinds and the gay draperies hanging from balconies, rustled in the cooling wind, while those thin slices of wood, forming what are called in the Indies, ‘jalousies,’ clattered with a merry rattle. Dogs lay listlessly stretched out in shady corners; bullocks, harnessed to clumsy carts, lay chewing the cud between the shafts, and two or three mendicants, as I judged them from their rags and filth, were stretched beneath gateways and under pillars, where the breeze came freshest. But the spell of sleep was everywhere. Midnight in New Spain might bring the time of gallant assignation and joyous revel, but the drowsy afternoon shone upon a city steeped in sleep, even as though one of the mighty charms which I used to read of in idle chronicles of old fancies, were abroad over the dreaming people, one of those charms of glamour and gramarye of the days when Michael Scott split the Eildon hills in three, and Thomas of Erceldoune was courted of the faery queen!
‘So, blessings on that good old Spanish custom, the siesta,’ I cried to myself, as I sped along the deserted thoroughfare. Carthagena is not large, neither is it fortified towards the land side. Very little time had therefore elapsed until I found myself fairly beyond the city, and running along a rough road, with great plenty of trees and bushes on either side, and patches of fields, wherein grew the broad brown-leaved tobacco plant, and here and there a hut, with a yam garden about it, or the country house of a Carthagena merchant, with prim terraces and avenues of limes, and fountains sparkling among the leaves. These I ran past as speedily as possible; but there was no appearance of aught stirring about them more than in the city. The siesta was everywhere, ay, even in the great woods, which at length I reached; the birds sitting motionless upon the branches, and the beasts of the earth hiding in dens and holes from the fervid noontide heat. The road which I had followed gradually disappeared, splitting as it were into many little tracks made by hunters or other wanderers in the woods. Around me there soon rose rocks and steep hills, and the tangled underwood and the long grass made walking difficult. However, I was in too great spirits to feel much weariness. Every step I took was almost as a year added to my life. So, at last, when I saw that I had really plunged fairly into the wilderness, I forced my way amid the rank vegetation, tearing through brake and thicket, and singing and shouting lustily in the fulness of my heart. The sun was my compass, and by him I steered eastwardly.
‘Ho! ho! Stout Jem,’ I cried to myself, ‘mayhap, we are but now laying the same course; the gay schooner out upon the tilting sea, and he that loves her well amid the shady woods and green savannahs of the main. So we shall meet again, comrades—we shall meet again!’
In this merry mood I traversed several miles before I thought of refreshment or of rest. It was just as my limbs began to ache and my breath to come short, as I breasted a steep hill, that I came to a fair fountain gurgling from a rift in a low mossy rock. It was not an unknown well of the wilderness, for human hands had placed a doubled leaf, through which, as through a spout, the living water ran from the runnel, and tinkled out into a natural basin beneath.
So here I sat me down and wiped the perspiration from my brow. It was a lonely spot, and I wondered whose hands had plucked the leaf and laid it in its place. From the basin I speak of, the water ran amid rustling reeds, and great floating leaves, and gaudy flowers, until it spread itself out into a shallow pool, half covered with greasy scum, but elsewhere as clear as the air above it. In the centre of the pool sat a little bird of the diver species, with the glossy neck and the bright beady eyes which I love in water-fowl. He took little notice of me, and I sat and watched him as he glided to and fro amid the floating leaves and twigs which had fallen from the trees. While thus occupied, I heard once or twice the distant bay as of a dog.