Читать книгу Сердца трех / Hearts of three. Уровень 3 - Джек Лондон, William Hootkins - Страница 6

It the mid-afternoon, Henry, at his barred cell-window, stared out into the street. The street was dusty and filthy. Next, he saw a light wagon. The wagon was drawn by a horse. In the seat a gray-headed, gray-bearded man strove vainly to check the horse[43].

Henry smiled. Just opposite the window, the old man made a last effort. The driver fell backward into the seat. Then the wagon was a wreck. The gendarmes came out of the jail. The old man went hurriedly to the wagon and examined some cases, large and small. One of the gendarmes addressed him.

“Me? Alas senors, I am an old man, and far from home. I am Leopoldo Narvaez[44]. I have driven from Bocas del Toro. It has taken me five days. My home is in Colon. But tell me, is there Tomas Romero[45] in this city?”

“There are many Romeros in Panama,” laughed Pedro Zurita[46], the assistant jailer[47]. Do you mean the rich Tomas Romero who owns many cattle on the hills?”

“Yes, senor, it must be he. I shall find him. If my precious goods can be safely stored, I shall seek him now.”

He took out from his pocket two silver pesos and handed them to the jailer. Pedro Zurita and the gendarmes began to carry the boxes into the jail.

“Careful, senors, careful,” the old man said, greatly anxious. “Handle it gently. It is fragile, most fragile. “

Then he added gratefully: “A thousand thanks, senors. Tomorrow I shall return, and take my goods. Good-bye, senors!”

In the guardroom, fifty feet away from Henry’s cell, the gendarmes were robbing Leopoldo Narvaez. Pedro Zurita made a survey of the large box.

“Leave it alone, Pedro,” one of the gendarmes laughed at him.

The assistant jailer sighed, walked away and sat down, looked back at the box, and sighed again.

“Take the hatchet there and open the box,” he said. “Open the box, Ignacio[48], we will look, we will only look. Then we will close the box again.”

“Whiskey! The old man was a fool,” laughed gendarmes. “That whiskey was his, all his, and he has never taken one little sip!”

In few minutes everybody was drunk. Pedro Zurita became sentimental.

“My prisoners,” he maundered. “I love them as brothers. Life is sad. My prisoners are my children. Behold! I weep. Let us share with them. Ignacio, carry a bottle of this elixir to the Gringo Morgan. He will drink and be happy today.”

Henry was crossing his big cell to the window when the heard a key in the door. Ignacio came in, completely drunk, bottle in hand, which he gravely presented to Henry.

“With the high compliments of our good jailer, Pedro Zurita,” he mumbled. “He says to drink and forget that he must hang you tomorrow.”

“Tell Senor Pedro Zurita to go to hell along with his whiskey,” Henry replied.

The gendarme suddenly become sober.

“Very well, senor,” he said, and locked the door.

In a rush Henry was at the window just in time to encounter Francis face to face. Francis was thrusting a revolver to him through the bars.

“Henry,” Francis said. “Stand back in your cell, because there will be a hole in this wall. The Angelique is waiting for you. Now, stand back.”

Henry backed into a rear corner of his cell, and the door was clumsily unlocked and opened.

“Kill the Gringo!” cried the gendarmes.

Ignacio fired wildly from his gun. The next moment he went down under the Henry’s bullet. Henry waited for the explosion.

It came. The window and the wall beneath it became all one aperture. Francis dragged him out through the hole.

“The horses are waiting,” Francis told Henry. “And Leoncia is waiting with them. In fifteen minutes we’re on the beach, where the boat is waiting.”

“Funny thing that whiskey. An old man broke a wagon right in front of the jail,” Henry said.

“A noble Narvaez, eh, senor?” Francis asked.

“It was you!”

Francis smiled.