CHAPTER XXX.
TO THE RESCUE.
Somehow I did not care to bother my hand in speculations concerning the pirate, or why he came to see me at this uncanny hour. What did it matter whether his suspicions had been aroused, or a sudden desire to be more congenial had flowed into his icicle heart? He was coming, my little game must be disclosed, and the consequences turn out badly—for me.
I could do nothing to prevent it. Acting under an impulse,I groped around until I found the rough cudgel which I had wrenched loose from my beautiful rustic cot—perchance a foolish freak might tempt the curmudgeon to thrust his shocking head through the inviting hole I had made in his old door, and if I could manage to drop that bit of cypress with more or less emphasis upon his caput, it would be well.
There was little time for suspense.
I could see the light, and hear the jingling of those rusty keys.
Of course, he could immediately discover the grand opening. I listened to hear him exclaim, for as yet I was not certain Cerberus could claim a voice, since he had utterly refused to answer civil questions or acknowledge the age of the musty jokes which I had showered him with.
Sure enough, I did hear a voice, but it gave me a tremendous start; had I been in gross error, and was this black-muzzled Tartar only a renegade Yankee in disguise, after all?
For he had cried out:
“Great Scott!”
Somewhere I had heard that exclamation used many times—why, sure enough, it was my old friend, that heart of oak, Mate Robbins; but poor Robbins was dead, and therefore it could not be he who jangled those keys.
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 publicplaza; 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.
I would have enjoyed hearing the details, but he declared this would take much time.
“You see, I’ve had the very old deuce of a time since getting ashore, and there’s a lot to tell that can keep. We want to act now,” he said.
“Right, Robbins—act is the word. But I’m in a poor way to assist,” I declared.
“How so—not wounded, I hope?”
I hastened to assure the honest fellow I was in the pink of condition, which perhaps was hardly the truth, but that my anxiety arose from the lack of proper weapons, such as a man usually delights in when preparing to defy a whole city.
“Then let that trouble you no more,” said he, pressing some things into my eager hands.
“Why, hello! This is the gun I saw in the belt of Cerberus! What have you done with my gentle, humorous jailor, Robbins?”
“If you mean that clumsy rascal with the shock of black hair, I’ve used a whole cable of hempen rope to tie him fast, and stretched his jaws as far as they would go to accommodate a neat little gag. Oh! he’s all right, Morgan; don’t worry about him,” was the cheerful reply the mate gave.
My admiration for the man grew more intense.
He was unquestionably a “hummer,” to use one of his own expressive phrases, or what the cowboys of the plains call a “hustler.”
Woe to Bolivar since he was loose upon her streets, and woe to the reigning dynasty if Robbins had joined forces with the revolutionary party that waited to overthrow the existing government.
Perhaps Cerberus was not the first man to feel the weight of his displeasure, and I was positive he would not be the last.
“Now for Hildegarde!” I said, enthusiastically, waving my captured gun aloft.
“Yes, I suppose the whole thing has to be done over again,” ventured Robbins.
“Well, if I had one reason for joining you in that otherenterprise, where the woman in trouble was utterly unknown, I surely have a thousand now when she is my best beloved, the wife I saved from the sea, whose trust in me has been more than restored, and to rescue whom I’d wade through fire and blood.”
“Bravo!” said Robbins, who always admired in others anything bordering on the theatrical, albeit he was such a practical old chap himself, and could never be made to believe he had done anything great. “Bravo, Morgan! Those sentiments do you honor. And here’s one ready to back you up, though the way be blocked by the whole army.”
“Bah! I’ve subsidized them already—they have accepted my gold and look to fairly swim in champagne when I reach New York. Don’t worry about the army, my boy. There are others,” was what I flung at him.
“Plenty of them—in fact, I think the old army will have its hands full this night, and the green badge they wear turn to a crimson one by the morning,” said this dark conspirator, mysteriously.
I caught his meaning, especially since I knew something about these sudden face-about changes liable to occur any day in the average impulsive young republics of Central America—they are the greatest theatres in the world for remarkable dramatic events.
“It’s a revolution, then,” I remarked.
“Yes, and a gay one, too, you bet,” he returned, with a sagacious nod of his sombrero.
“And you are in it—you, Robbins?”
“Up to my neck.”
“Not forty-eight hours landed in the country—well, you are a Yankee, sure enough. Have they put you up for president, my boy?”
He grinned—it was quite audible.
“Well, hardly, and me not knowing Spanish as she is spoke. Gen. Toreado is in line for that honor.”
“What! Our old acquaintance—the man we abused so handsomely? Well, it seems to me we’re between the upper and nether millstone, and stand a good show of being most beautifully pulverized—they’re all against us.”
“Not quite—fortune and little Carmencita—a good combination, you notice—have raised us up a few friends who’ll do their level best to see us out of the place safely.”
“That one’s easy enough—all they have to do is to take us by boat out on the harbor and deliver us on board.”
“Great Scott; you forget your yacht is a wreck, strewn on the shore.”
“No, I forget nothing; I never shall forget the sad incidents connected with that catastrophe. Poor Gustavus, poor Di, and then Cummings, a man to whom my heart went out. There’s only one bright spot in it, Robbins—that wreck reconciled my wife to me, and I would go through it all again for that reward.”
“I don’t blame you, Morgan. Excuse me for such familiarity, sir, but I somehow can’t forget we were shipmates together on thePathfinder.”
“Morgan it shall be, to the end of the chapter. Let that rest. Now, it’s time we made a move, I reckon. What say you?”
“One minute. It’s well to understand—half the battle lies in work that is planned out to a detail before the first gun is fired.”
“What would you?” restraining my ardor to reach the side of my best beloved.
“You mustn’t rest in ignorance—just now you spoke of the harbor. Why should our escape lead us a second time in that quarter?”
“Why, because I saw a fruit steamer there, that flew the American Stars and Stripes, and once under the old flagwe can snap our fingers at thealcalde, the army—in fact, the entire country.”
“Well, she’s gone,” he said, quietly enough.
That gave me a sad shock.
“The steamer gone—when, where? Hang the luck?”
“To Jalapa.”
“The other fruit port across the mountains. That is a knock-down argument, Robbins. I leave the case in your hands—so long as we take my Hildegarde with us I’m ready to follow you through Hades, if necessary.”
“Perhaps it won’t be quite as bad as that, though I’ve an idea we’re not going to get through without some hard raps. But you shall see for yourself. Now, if you’re ready, follow me.”