CHAPTER XVIII
HARRISON OVERPLAYS HIS HAND
Through the barred window Farrar watched the guard drag Cabenza back. He was very despondent. They had been prisoners now nearly a week and could see no termination of their jail sentence in sight. The food given them was wretched. They were anxious, dirty, and unkempt. Though he would not admit it even to himself, the camera man was oppressed by the shadow of a possible impending fate. The whim of a tyrant regardless of human life might at any hour send them to a firing squad.
Threewit sat gloomily on the stool, elbows on knees and chin resting on his fists. He could have wept for himself almost without shame. For forty-five years he had gone his safe way, a policeman always within call. Not once had life in the raw reached out and gripped him. Not once had he faced the stark probability of sudden, violent death. Clubs and after-theater suppers and poker and golf had offered him pleasant diversion. And now—a cruel fate had thrown him in the way of a barbarian with no sense of either justice or kindness. He felt himself too soft of fiber to cope with such elemental forces.
"Look! What is that, Threewit?"
Farrar was pointing to something on the table that gleamed white in the moonlight. He stepped forward and picked it up. The article was a stone around which was wrapped a paper tied by a string.
"The Mexican must have thrown it in with the dirt. It wasn't there before," replied the director quickly.
Farrar untied the string and smoothed out the paper, holding it toward the moonlight. "There's writing on it, but I can't make it out. Strike a match for me."
His companion struck on his trousers a match and the camera man read by its glowing flame.