Hearts of Three by Jack London Chapter IV
"WE must work quickly that is the one thing sure," Francis said to the little conclave of Solanos on the piazza of the Solano hacienda.
"One thing sure! " Leoncia cried out scornfully ceasing from her anguished pacing up and down. "The one thing sure is that we must save him."
As she spoke, she shook a passionate finger under Francis' nose to emphasize her point. Not content, she shook her finger with equal emphasis under the noses of all and sundry of her father and brothers.
"Quick!" she flamed on. "Of course we must be quick. It is that, or… "Her voice trailed off into the unvoiceable horror of what would happen to Henry if they were not quick.
"All Gringos look alike to the Jefe," Francis nodded sympathetically. She was splendidly beautiful and wonderful, he thought. "He certainly runs all San Antonio, and short shrift is his motto. He'll give Henry no more time than he gave us. We must get him out to-night."
"Now listen," Leoncia began again. "We Solanos cannot permit this… this execution. Our pride… our honor. We cannot permit it. Speak! any of you. Father you. Suggest something… "
And while the discussion went on, Francis, for the time being silent, wrestled deep in the throes of sadness. Leoncia's fervor was magnificent, but it was for another man and it did not precisely exhilarate him. Strong upon him was the memory of the jail patio after he had been released and Henry had been arrested. He could still see, with the same stab at the heart, Leoncia in Henry's arms, Henry seeking her hand to ascertain if his ring was on it, and the long kiss of the embrace that followed.
Ah, well, he sighed to himself, he had done his best. After Henrv had been led away, had he not told Leoncia, quite deliberately and coldly, that Henry was her man and lover, and the wisest of choices for the daughter of the Solanos?
But the memory of it did not make him a bit happy. Nor did the rightness of it. Eight it was. That he never questioned, and it strengthened him into hardening his heart against her. Yet the right, he found in his case, to be the sorriest of consolation.
And yet what else could he expect? It was his misfortune to have arrived too late in Central America, that was all, and to find this flower of woman already annexed by a previous comer a man as good as himself, and, his heart of fairness prompted, even better. And his heart of fairness compelled loyalty to Henry from him to Henry Morgan, of the breed and blood; to Henry Morgan, the wild-fire descendant of a wild-fire ancestor, in canvas pants, and floppy sombrero, with a penchant for the ears of strange young men, living on sea biscuit and turtle eggs and digging up the Bull and the Calf for old Sir Henry's treasure.
And while Enrico Solano and his sons talked plans and projects on their broad piazza, to which Francis lent only half an ear, a house servant came, whispered in Leoncia" s ear, and led her away around the ell of the piazza, wliere occurred a scene that would have excited Francis' risibilities and wrath.
Around the ell, Alvarez Torres, in all the medieval Spanish splendor of dress of a great haciendado-owner, such as still obtains in Latin America, greeted her, bowed low with doffed sombrero in hand, and seated her in a rattan settee. Her own greeting was sad, but shot through with curiousness, as if she hoped he brought some word of hope.
"The trial is over, Leoncia," he said softly, tenderly, as one speaks of the dead. "He is sentenced. To-morrow at ten o'clock is the time. It is all very sad, most very sad. But… "He shrugged his shoulders. "No, I shall not speak harshly of him. He was an honorable man. His one fault was his temper. It was too quick, too fiery. It led him into a mischance of honor. Never, in a cool moment of reasonableness, would he have stabbed Alfaro-"
"He never killed my uncle!" Leoncia cried, raising her averted face.
"And it is regrettable," Torres proceeded gently and sadly, avoiding any disagreement. "The judge, the people, the Jefe Politico, unfortunately, are all united in believing that he did. Which is most regrettable. But which is not what I came to see you about. I came to offer my service in any and all ways you may command. My life, my honor, are at your disposal. Speak. I am your slave."
Dropping suddenly and gracefully on one knee before her, he caught her hand from her lap, and would have instantly flooded on with his speech, had not his eyes lighted on the diamond ring on her engagement finger. He frowned, but concealed the frown with bent face until he could drive it from his features and begin to speak.
"I knew you when you were small, Leoncia, so very, very charmingly small, and I loved you always. No, listen! Please. My heart must speak. Hear me out. I loved you always. But when you returned from your convent, from schooling abroad, a woman, a grand and noble lady fit to rule in the house of the Solanos, I was burnt by your beauty. I have been patient. I refrained from speaking. But you may have guessed. You surely must have guessed. I have been on fire for you ever since. I have been consumed by the flame of your beauty, by the flame of you that is deeper than your beauty."
He was not to be stopped, as she well knew, and she listened patiently, gazing down on his bent head and wondering idly why his hair was so unbecomingly cut, and whether it had been last cut in New York or San Antonio.
"Do you know what you have been to me ever since your return?"
She did not reply, nor did she endeavour to withdraw her hand, although his was crushing and bruising her flesh against Henry Morgan's ring. She forgot to listen, led away by a chain of thought that linked far. Not in such rhodomontade of speech had Henry Morgan loved and won her, was the beginning of the chain. Why did those of Spanish blood always voice their emotions so exaggeratedly? Henry had been so different. Scarcely had he spoken a word. He had acted. Under her glamor, himself glamoring her, without warning, so certain was he not to surprise and frighten her, he had put his arms around her and pressed his lips to hers. And hers had been neither too startled nor altogether unresponsive. Not until after that first kiss, arms still around her, had Henry begun to speak at all.
And what plan was being broached around the corner of the ell by her men and Francis Morgan? her mind strayed on, deaf to the suitor at her feet. Francis! Ah she almost sighed, and marveled, what of her self — known love for Henry, why this stranger Gringo so enamored her heart. Was she a wanton? Was it one man? Or another man? Or any man? No! No! She was not fickle nor unfaithful. And yet?… Perhaps it was because Francis and Henry were so much alike, and her poor stupid loving woman's heart failed properly to distinguish between them. And yet while it had seemed she would have followed Henry anywhere over the world, in any luck or fortune, it seemed to her now that she would follow Francis even farther. She did love "Henry, her heart solemnly proclaimed. But also did she love Francis, and almost did she divine that Francis loved her the fervor of his lips on hers in his prison cell was inerasable; and there was a difference in her love for the two men that confuted her powers of reason and almost drove her to the shameful conclusion that she, the latest and only woman of the house of Solano, was a wanton.
A severe pinch of her flesh against Henry's ring, caused by the impassioned grasp of Torres, brought her back to him, so that she could hear the spate of his speech pouring on:
"You have been the delicious thorn in my side, the spicked rowel of the spur forever prodding the sweetest and most poignant pangs of love into my breast. I have dreamed of you… and for you. And I have my own name for you. Ever the one name I have had for you: the Queen of my Dreams. And you will marry me, my Leoncia. We will forget this mad Gringo who is as already dead. I shall be gentle, kind. I shall love you always. And never shall any vision of him arise between us. For myself, I shall not permit it. For you … I shall love you so that it will be impossible for the memory of him to arise between us and give you one moment's heart-hurt."
Leoncia debated in a long pause that added fuel to Torres' hopes. She felt the need to temporise. If Henry were to be saved… and had not Torres offered his services? Not lightly could she turn him away when a man's life might depend upon him.
"Speak! I am consuming!" Torres urged in a choking voice.
"Hush! Hush!" she said softly. "How can I listen to love from a live man, when the man I loved is yet alive?"
Loved! The past tense of it startled her. Likewise it startled Torres, fanning his hopes to fairer flames. Almost was she his. She had said loved. She no longer bore love for Henry. She had loved him, but no longer. And she, a maid and woman of delicacy and sensibility, could not, of course, give name to her love for him while the other man still lived. It was subtle of her. He prided himself on his own subtlety, and he flattered himself that he had interpreted her veiled thought aright. And… well, he resolved, he would see to it that the man who was to die at ten next morning should have neither reprieve nor rescue. The one thing clear, if he were to win Leoncia quickly, was that Henry Morgan should die quickly.
"We will speak of it no more… now," he said with chivalric gentleness, as he gently pressed her hand, rose to his feet, and gazed down on her.
She returned a soft pressure of thanks with her own hand ere she released it and stood up.
"Come," she said. "We will join the others. They are planning now, or trying to find some plan, to save Henry Morgan."
The conversation of the group ebbed away as they joined it, as if out of half — suspicion of Torres.
"Have you hit upon anything yet?" Leoncia asked.
Old Enrico, straight and slender and graceful as any of his sons despite his age, shook his head.
"I have a plan, if you will pardon me," Torres began, but ceased at a warning glance from Alesandro, the eldest son.
On the walk, below the piazza, had appeared two scarecrows of beggar boys. Not more than ten years of age, by their size, they seemed much older when judged by the shrewdness of their eyes and faces. Each wore a single marvelous garment, so that between them it could be said they shared a shirt and pants. But such a shirt! And such pants! The latter, man-size, of ancient duck, were buttoned around the lad's neck, the waistband reefed with knotted twine so as not to slip down over his shoulders. His arms were thrust through the holes where the side-pockets had been. The legs of the pants had been hacked off with a knife to suit his own diminutive length of limb. The tails of the man's shirt on the other boy dragged on the ground.
"Vamos!" Alesandro shouted fiercely at them to be gone.
But the boy in the pants gravely removed a stone which he had been carrying on top of his bare head, exposing a letter which had been thus carried. Alesandro leaned over, took the letter, and with a glance at the inscription passed it to Leoncia, while the boys began whining for money. Francis, smiling despite himself at the spectacle of them, tossed them a few pieces of small silver, whereupon the shirt and the pants toddled away down the path.
The letter was from Henry, and Leoncia scanned it hurriedly. It was not precisely in farewell, for he wrote in the tenour of a man who never expected to die save by some inconceivable accident. Nevertheless, on the chance of such inconceivable thing becoming possible, Henry did manage to say good-bye and to include a facetious recommendation to Leoncia not to forget Francis, who was well worth remembering because he was so much like himself, Henry.
Leoncia's first impulse was to show the letter to the others, but the portion about Francis withstrained her.
"It's from Henry," she said, tucking the note into her bosom. "There is nothing of importance. He seems to have not the slightest doubt that he will escape somehow." "We shall see that he does," Francis declared positively.
With a grateful smile to him, and with one of interrogation to Torres, Leoncia said:
"You were speaking of a plan, Senor Torres?"
Torres smiled, twisted his mustache, and struck an attitude of importance.
"There is one way, the Gringo, Anglo-Saxon way, and it is simple, straight to the point. That is just what it is, straight to the point. We will go and take Henry out of jail in forthright, brutal and direct Gringo fashion. It is the one thing they will not expect. Therefore, it will succeed. There are enough unhung rascals on the beach with which, to storm the jail. Hire them, pay them well, but only partly in advance, and the thing is accomplished."
Leoncia nodded eager agreement. Old Enrico's eyes flashed and his nostrils distended as if already sniffing gunpowder. The young men were taking fire from his example. And all looked to Francis for his opinion or agreement. He shook his head slowly, and Leoncia uttered a sharp cry of disappointment in him.
"That way is hopeless," he said. "Why should all of you risk your necks in a madcap attempt like that, doomed to failure from the start?" As he talked, he strode across from Leoncia's side to the railing in such way as to be for a moment between Torres and the other men, and at the same time managed a warning look to Enrico and his sons. "As for Henry, it looks as if it were all up with him-"
"You mean you doubt me?" Torres bristled.
"Heavens, man," Francis protested.
But Torres dashed on: "You mean that I am forbidden by you, a man I have scarcely met, from the councils of the Solanos who are my oldest and most honored friends."
Old Enrico, who had not missed the rising wrath against Francis in Leoncia's face, succeeded in conveying a warning to her, ere, with a courteous gesture, he hushed Torres and began to speak.
"There are no councils of the Solanos from which you are barred, Senor Torres. You are indeed an old friend of the family. Your late father and I were comrades, almost brothers. But that and you will pardon an old man's judgment does not prevent Senor Morgan from being right when he says your plan is hopeless. To storm the jail is truly madness. Look at the thickness of the walls. They could stand a siege of weeks. And yet, and I confess it, almost was I tempted when you first broached the idea. Now when I was a young man, fighting the Indians in the high Cordilleras, there was a very case in point. Come, let us all be seated and comfortable, and I will tell you the tale …"
But Torres, busy with many things, declined to wait, and with soothed amicable feelings shook hands all around, briefly apologized to Francis, and departed astride his silversaddled and silver-bridled horse for San Antonio. One of the things that busied him was the cable correspondence maintained between him and Thomas Regan's Wall Street office. Having secret access to the Panamanian government wireless station at San Antonio, he was thus able to relay messages to the cable station at Vera Cruz. Not alone was his relationship with Regan proving lucrative, but it was jibing in with his own personal plans concerning Leoncia and the Morgans.
"What have you against Senor Torres, that you should reject his plan and anger him?" Leoncia demanded of Francis.
"Nothing," was the answer, "except that we do not need him, and that I'm not exactly infatuated with him. He is a fool and would spoil any plan. Look at the way he fell down on testifying at my trial. Maybe he can't be trusted. I don't know. Anyway, what's the good of trusting him when we don't need him? Now his plan is all right. We'll go straight to the jail and take Henry out, if all you are game for it. And we don't need to trust to a mob of unhung rascals and beach-sweepings. If the six men of us can't do it, we might as well quit."
"There must be at least a dozen guards always hanging out at the jail," Eicardo, Leoncia's youngest brother, a lad of eighteen, objected.
Leoncia, her eagerness alive again, frowned at him; but Francis took his part.
"Well taken," he agreed. "But we will eliminate the guards."
"The five-foot walls," said Martinez Solano, twin brother to Alvarado.
"Go through them," Francis answered.
"But how?" Leoncia cried.
"That's what I am arriving at. You, Senor Solano, have plenty of saddle horses? Good. And you, Alesandro, does it chance you could procure me a couple of sticks of dynamite from around the plantation? Good, and better than good. And you, Leoncia, as the lady of the hacienda, should know whether you have in your store-room a plentiful supply of that three-star rye whiskey?
"Ah, the plot thickens," he laughed, on receiving her assurance. "We've all the properties for a Eider Haggard or Eex Beach adventure tale. Now listen. But wait. I want to talk to you, Leoncia, about private theatricals.