“It is for you, then,” she said, suddenly thrusting a paper into his hands, and uttering more words in Spanish, among which I detected thanks to her patron saint that she had found such a thing as an American in the hot old town of Bolivar.
CHAPTER II.
PERHAPS A FOOL’S ERRAND.
Curiosity may have had something to do with my leaning over Robbins’ shoulder as he unfolded the paper. I, too, was an American, and had as much right as he to enter into the spirit of the game; besides, if it proved to be a begging epistle, cunningly contrived, as I suspected was the case, I was better able to stand the racket than poor Robbins, just rescued from the sea.
When he had straightened out the paper and held it so that the light from neighboring lamps fell upon its face, I was surprised at two things—the writing was plain English, and it was in a decidedly feminine hand. My eyes read the heading: “To any American in Bolivar,” and somehow it seemed to strike me as an appeal quite out of the ordinary.
Further down I found this idea strengthened and in a manner calculated to touch whatever of manliness there might be in a fellow.
Here, then, is what I read. I write it verbatim, for I have preserved the original as a precious link in the wonderful chain of events that had so much to do with my whole existence, that bound me to the past with its keen pleasure and pain, and connected me with a future:
“I am an American lady in trouble, kept a prisoner against my will by those who conspire to rob me of my liberty and my fortune. I charge you, in the name of high Heaven, you into whose hands this note may chance to fall, to either take this child to the house of the American Consul, and let her tell him where I am, or else endeavor to save me at once. If money is any object, I will pay ten thousand dollars to be placed on board any English or American steamer. I dare not sign my name, but you can trust the child, who is as true as steel. May God deal with you as you listen to the appeal of
“One in Distress.”
That was a remarkable document, surely.