A scowl darkened Portiforo’s face for an instant. Then he smiled and shook his head. “It is painful to me to have to refuse you anything, my friend,” he said, “but I fear that would be impossible.”
Gale appeared to be keenly disappointed, but his demeanor was only a pose; for he had every reason to believe that when the film was developed, the result would be a blank, inasmuch as he knew that the camera which he had handed Portiforo had never been used.
The News man, himself, had bought that camera, a few days previously, in San Cristobal, and had carried it in his pocket when he went to the Kearsarge dinner, anticipating that it might come in handy. Being rather clever at sleight-of-hand work, it had been a simple matter for him to drop his own kodak, unseen, at the Camera Chap’s feet.
With equal dexterity, he had pocketed the small camera which Hawley had used to take the flash-light picture of President Felix, and which, a few minutes earlier, he, alone, had observed the Camera Chap attempt to conceal by thrusting it into some bushes near which he was standing.
CHAPTER XLIII.
A LITTLE KEEPSAKE.
Later that night, Gale returned to San Cristobal very well satisfied with himself and his evening’s work. He had every reason to believe that he carried in his pocket the photographic proof of President Felix’s incarceration in El Torro fortress; for he deemed it exceedingly unlikely that Hawley would have ventured to take the flash light unless he had found Felix; and, as for the picture turning out successfully, knowing the Camera Chap’s skill as a snapshotter and his ability to get results, even under the most unfavorable technical conditions, the News man felt sanguine on that score.
He thrilled with anticipatory joy as he pictured to himself the glory which would be his when his paper should startle the world by launching his big photographic scoop. But keen though he was to have the film developed, he felt constrained to postpone that detail for a few days. He did not possess the necessary knowledge or materials with which to do the work himself, and, although there were a couple of studios in San Cristobal which made a specialty of doing developing and printing for amateur photographers, he was afraid to trust the precious film to them, particularly as they were run by natives who might recognize the subject of his picture. So he decided to wait until he got to New York and have the negative developed by the experts in the Daily News office.
There was a boat leaving Puerto Cabero for New York the following morning, and he resolved to book passage on her. His work being done, there was nothing now to keep him in Baracoa, except possibly his desire to wait to see what was going to happen to the Camera Chap. It would have filled his mean, malicious soul with joy to be able to go back to Park Row and boast to “the boys” that he had been a personal eyewitness of the snapshot adventurer’s fate, but he put the temptation aside, resolved to subordinate pleasure to duty. He realized the necessity of getting the picture of Felix to his paper as speedily as possible.
Before he sailed, however, he at least had the satisfaction of learning definitely what his rival’s fate was to be. Justice in Baracoa, under the Portiforo administration, was swift—on occasions. The country being under martial law on account of the revolution, the case of the Camera Chap and Lieutenant Ridder, of the United States navy, was tried before a military court. The court convened that morning, and, after less than an hour’s deliberation, arrived at a verdict that the interests of the government of Baracoa demanded that capital punishment should be the fate of both prisoners, and that the sentence of the court should be carried out within twenty-four hours.
When Minister Throgmorton heard of these verdicts he hurried to the palace and held a long conference with the president. After his visit, it was officially announced that the government of Baracoa had decided to pardon one of the two American prisoners. The man who was to receive clemency, it was stated, was Lieutenant Ridder. Although his offense was grievous, President Portiforo was disposed to be magnanimous, and if the state department at Washington would give its assurance that the young man would be dishonorably dismissed from the United States navy, he would be allowed to go free within a few days.