He was alive and not mortally hurt. He felt hazily thankful. This stone kennel was too much like a prison cell to be anything else. A rotten deal, to throw a man in jail after failing to kill him. This seemed like the fine hand of Colonel Fajardo. It was one way to finish the job. His five bravos had made a mess of it.
His disordered mind fitfully clearing, Richard Cary became aware of the one thing of supreme importance. His ship was to sail at noon. He fumbled in the pockets of his torn trousers. His watch and money were gone. What hour of the day was it now? He rolled his head and blinked at the little window set in the iron door. The sunlight blazed like a furnace in the yard outside. It was the breathless heat and brightness that smote the city near the middle of the day. Perhaps it was not yet noon.
His first voyage in the Tarragona and logged as a deserter? An officer who had earned promotion on his merits in the hard schooling of the North Atlantic trade? It was an imperative obligation to return to the ship. Had Captain Sterry made an effort to find him? Perhaps not. Good riddance might be his feeling in the matter. An official word from the Union Fruit Company would have set powerful influences at work in Cartagena. Political connections safeguarded its vast commercial interests on the Colombian coast. The inference was that Captain Sterry had been willing to let his too candid second mate go adrift.
The hope of getting back to the ship was another delusion. This the battered man on the cot presently realized. He was buried alive in this stone vault of a prison and lacked strength even to lift his head. Tears of weakness filled his eyes. He felt profound pity for himself. He was a forlorn derelict on a lee shore.
Soon, however, the sweat dried on his face. His skin grew dry and hot. His heart was beating faster. The burning sensation in his head was diffusing itself through his body. The air of the room was more stifling than ever. It was like a furnace. Strange, but he felt less inert, not so helpless to move. He was dizzy, light-headed, but this was preferable to the incessant waves of pain. He did not know that fever was taking hold of him. He mistook it for a resurgence of his tremendous vitality, evidence that he could pull himself together and break the bonds of his weakness.
He lay motionless, waiting, trying to think coherently, while the fever raced through his veins. He seemed to be floating off into space. The sensations were agreeable. No longer sorry for himself, he was unafraid of any odds. Keep him in a Cartagena jail? Nonsense. All he had to do was to use his wits. He laughed to himself, but he was careful to lock his lips. Not a sound escaped him. He was wary and cunning.
The Colombian corporal of the guard decided to pry himself from the hammock and ascertain whether the big Americano was dead by this time. Instead of peering through the window, the corporal thought best to make a closer investigation. He was impatient with this prisoner who had stubbornly refused to become a corpse. A clumsy iron key squeaked in the rusty lock of the door. The corporal walked in and stooped over the cot.
Yes, the Americano had about finished with the business of living. A hand held over his mouth detected no breath at all. The corporal was about to shift his hand to the naked chest to discover if the heart had ceased to beat.
Two mighty arms flew up. One of them wrapped itself around the corporal’s neck and pulled him down. Fingers like steel hooks squeezed his throat. He gurgled. He was pop-eyed. His grass sandals were kicking the stone floor. It was a small, scratching noise unheard on the porch of the shack where the two privates drowsed and rolled cigarettes.
The corporal’s toes ceased their rustling agitation. His lank body was as limp as an empty sack. It slid gently from the side of the cot. It sprawled so still that a green lizard ran over one twisted leg and paused close by to swell its ruby throat. The hour of the siesta appeared to have overtaken this luckless corporal somewhat earlier than usual.