Now he bent down, and I mechanically raised my cypress flail, though dubious about the propriety of using it.
A second later I dropped the cudgel nervelessly to the floor, for some one had said:
“Hello! there, Morgan, old boy—are you on deck yet?”
That was either Robbins or his ghost, and if the latter, then a pretty healthy specimen of a specter, as I found when he had succeeded in unlocking the door, and shook me heartily by the hand.
I was still a little mystified, because the man who wrung my arm like a pump handle was rigged out quite bravely as a citizen of Bolivar, and might have passed for such on the public plaza; but it was Robbins’ voice, and I was willing to take the rest for granted.
Strange to say, I felt a little bit of chagrin at his coming just at that time; you see, my heroic battle with that sturdy old fraud of a door had all been for naught, and had this friend shown up half an hour earlier he might have saved me an immense amount of labor.
Nevertheless, I was royally glad to have the dear fellow with me, and to learn, first of all, that he was in the land of the living, when I had all along been dismally picturing him as food for the sharks.
So I returned his hand squeeze with interest, and prepared to bombard him, not with the nutty jokes I had fired at Cerberus, but real questions, with a decided bearing upon the situation.
He was bound to answer after a fashion, and thus I learned that he had escaped the fury of the sea, with Carmencita, learned of my capture, gone with the child to the house of her relatives, who belong to the secret revolutionary party—the “outs” are always plotting to overthrow the government in that country, so there is constantly a revolution slumbering beneath the surface—had been warmly received into their councils, and assisted to lay the wires looking to my rescue.
This seemed to bring him down to the present, when he appeared before me.