Four Bells: A Tale of the Caribbean

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

His absence would cause comment. Richard Cary upheaved himself from the cot and almost toppled over. He struggled to keep his feet. Drunk with fever, he began to walk with a giddy, erratic motion in the direction of the door. He succeeded in reaching it. Grasping the timbered framework, he stood there half-blinded by the dazzle of the sun. The two Colombian soldiers looked up and saw him.

Body and blood of San Felipe! What an apparition! A man raised from the dead and such a man! What had befallen the corporal? It was easy to guess that. For the moment these two affrighted soldiers were incapable of motion. The love of life, however, pricked them to scramble for their rifles. Already the fearful specter of the Americano was lurching from the doorway, across the yard, straight at them.

With chattering teeth, Private Francisco dived to clutch a rifle. Private Manuel tripped and rammed into him. They clawed each other, with bitter words. The sturdier Francisco was first to lay hands on a rifle. He pulled trigger. Nothing but a foolish click. It was the corporal’s rifle, unloaded because he had intended cleaning it mañana. Francisco flung the useless thing aside. He could run faster without it.

The Americano picked up the discarded rifle and wheeled in pursuit of him. For a dead man, this yellow-haired ogre could be as quick as a tiger. As if the rifle were no heavier than a pebble, he hurled it, butt foremost, at the fleeing Francisco. It struck him on the hip. He turned a somersault. So fast was he running that his heels flipped over his head. When he fell, the dust whirled like brown smoke. He tried to crawl away on hands and knees.

The Americano turned to find the other soldier. He was on the porch, about to fire his rifle. The barrel waved like a leaf in a gale. Here was enough to disturb the bravest soldier. The first bullet went singing off into the blue sky. Before Manuel could shoot again, something like a house fell upon him and flattened him out. His head whacked a plank. A fist drove his jaw askew. He was instantly as peaceful as the corporal who slumbered with a green lizard for a comrade.

The disabled Francisco had not crawled far on hands and knees. Richard Cary tottered after him and dragged him to the timbered doorway of the vaulted cell. A thrust of the foot and Francisco rolled inside like a bale. It was better to stay there, he thought, than to try to run away again. And now Manuel was dumped in on top of him. The iron door closed and the key squeaked in the rusty lock. Richard Cary tossed the key over the roof of the shack.

Thus far he had behaved with normal promptitude and efficiency. Now he reeled to the bench on the porch and fought against utter collapse. His head spun like a top as he groped for a coffee pot on the table and drained the black brew to the dregs. It seemed to steady his quivering nerves, to clear the mists of fever from his brain. He would go and search for his ship until he dropped in his tracks.

One of the discarded rifles caught his eye, but he found it too heavy to carry. A machete hung from a peg in the wall. It was a handy weapon, with a straight blade. With it he slashed strips from the hammock and tied them around his bare feet. There was a grain of method in his madness.

The machete in his hand, he moved out into the yard and gazed up at the city wall. Here and there were easy ascents, he knew, built for the passage of troops and vehicles. One of these sloping roadways ought to be somewhere near the prison which had once been the barracks of the Spanish garrison. From the lofty parapets he should be able to see the harbor and the wharf where the Tarragona berthed. Then he could perhaps make his way thither before an alarm was raised. If they tried to stop him, he would hack a path with the machete.

Rocking on his feet and muttering aloud, he walked out of the yard and turned at random. Unseen, he passed into a paved alley and saw in front of him a wide ramp leading to the top of the wall. Fortune had not deserted him. Very slowly he climbed the rutted, crumbling slope, panting for breath, his face a bright crimson, his knees crippling under him. He could not finish the ascent, and yet he did. He was broken in body, but his will urged him on.