Chapter XXXVIII: The Prisoner of the Tower

Using the immemorial privilege of a teller of tales, I ask the reader to turn back now and look with me into one of the tower rooms of the San Paz Hacienda.

It is not the room at whose barred window Buffalo Bill saw the flutter of that handkerchief, but is like it, except that the bars are broken, and a space in the window is open large enough to permit the passage of the body of a man.

Yet this is of no use to the pallid prisoner lying on his cot in a corner of the little room, for below that window are the jagged tops of trees, projecting sharply upward, ready to impale him like dagger points if he should venture to try to escape by leaping down. He believes he has reason on his side, when he thinks it is the wish of his jailers that he shall leap down upon those treetops and thus meet death.

Yet his jailers, cruel as they are, have not, so far, tried to take his life directly, though they have apparently sought to do so indirectly, for they have subjected him to tortures so inhuman they pass belief. His body is knotted and bent by reason of these tortures, and the intolerable torment of continuous pain is his portion. He groans now and then, covers his eyes with his hands, and wonders if the end his fiendish captors seem to wish is not near.

Yet he will do nothing to destroy his own life. He desires to live, and he feels that he has justification for this desire. His death would mean much to many people, besides his jailers.

Night comes, shadowing the little room by slow degrees, and then plunging it into darkness. Lying on his cot, his cheeks flushed and feverish, his brain gradually becoming bewildered, he yet listens to the sounds of the night—to the cry of birds, to the distant yelping of wolves in the mountains, the occasional ring of a rifle or musket as its butt is jarred against the earth by the hand of a sentry.

Feeling that his strength is failing, that his mind is leaving him, he begins at length to pray for death. He takes from beneath the thin pillow of his cot a dagger. It has a handle of gold, is ponderous, and its keen double edge would quickly let out his life. He holds it in his hand, which shakes under the suggestive temptation; he even lifts it to drive it into his bosom. But he does not. His hand drops against the tattered covering of the cot, and he groans aloud.

“I must live!” he moans. “Yet here I die! Die in this poisonous place, without friends, without help!”

The dagger slips from his fingers and he covers his face with his hands, while tears of weakness trickle down his cheeks. His sobs choke and stifle him.

“If I could but get word to them of what I suffer! If they could but know that I live—that I exist, for I do not live! But they will never know. I am buried in a place of which I have no knowledge; and how long I have been here I fail even to remember. For my mind is blank at times, and days and nights go without leaving any record on my miserable brain.”

There is a scratching sound at the window. He hears it, the sobbing and the tears cease, and he is alert.

“Is help at hand?” he whispers. “It cannot be!”

He is so weak that in trying to get out of the bed he almost falls to the floor, yet with caution he crawls toward the window.

Something is beating against it, on the outside.

The darkness is so great he cannot see what it is, but, creeping up to the window, he puts a hand through, and it touches a frightened bird, which flutters its wings and makes strange cries as he draws it into the room. He is bewildered. This was not what he expected.

He cannot see the bird, but it seems to be some kind of gull, or sea bird, and he thinks it has wandered from the sea, and, becoming bewildered, has struck in the darkness against the window ledge and injured itself.

Crawling over to the other side of the room, he finds a stub of candle on a box, and, with trembling fingers, he secures a match and gets a light. Then he sees the bird, to which he has clung. It is a sea bird, he is sure, and its head is bruised, showing that he judged truly in thinking it had struck in the darkness against the tower. It seems as sadly bewildered as he had been himself a little while before.

The bird is too weak to be released, it could not fly if he should toss it through the window, he fears, yet he knows that it will get strong. It has wings of broad expanse, and it must have been a powerful flyer in its normal condition.

He tears from his tattered coat a bit of thread, and ties the legs of the bird, lest in its weakened state it may flutter to the window and escape.

Having done that, he begins to pull with feverish eagerness at the coat, extracting thread after thread. These threads he separates by untwisting, and at length succeeds in getting a fine strong cord that he deems of suitable length for the purpose that has come to him.

Having done this, he crawls over to his cot, and brings to view again the dagger with the handle of gold. He tests its weight by swinging it up and down.

“Too heavy, I fear, yet I must try it!” he says, and he searches about the littered floor, which is covered with filthy straw, and from the straw he at length extracts a cartridge. It had slipped from the belt of a guard. He had noted its fall, but had thought nothing of it until now.

He has discovered that the interior of the hard mattress of his cot is composed of bark. He has had much time in the past to inspect thoroughly the few belongings of his room, and he has again and again looked curiously at that bark. He had never seen any just like it, and did not know the name of the tree which had yielded it, yet he had observed that it resembled thin sheets of paper.

Now he crawls weakly to the cot and gets one of the thinnest and lightest of these bark sheets. None are of very large size, yet he takes the largest he can find.

Then, by the light of the dripping candle, he begins to write a message on the bark, using the lead of the cartridge as a pencil.

The prisoner has not written the half of what he wishes to say, when he hears a sound which causes him to cease writing. He crushes the unfinished message into the handle of the dagger, which opens when he presses a secret spring.

Still hastening feverishly, he ties the dagger to the neck of the bird with the cord he has twisted, and then, crawling to the window, he hurls the bird out into the darkness. He hears the apparently futile beat of its wings, as it seems to be drawn downward by the weight of the dagger tied to its neck; and then, overcome, he falls, half fainting, by the window.

“It was useless!” he groans. “The bird cannot carry that weight while it is weak, and I could not wait for its strength to return. It has fallen, and it will not rise again.”

Nearer he hears the steady thump of feet which had hastened and frightened him. Then the door of his prison is opened, and a man, fierce whiskered and fierce of eye, looks in. He sees the candle guttering on its box, and anger blazes in that fierce, bright eye. He strides across the room.

“Was it not commanded that no lights should be shown in this room at so late an hour?” he demands, and he seizes the limp form, drags it over the floor, and flings it upon the cot in the corner, using as harsh a hand as if the miserable prisoner had been but a bag of salt.

The prisoner’s head strikes heavily against the wall, and he drops limp, with a moan, upon the cot.

“Scoundrel! Dog!” cries the fierce-whiskered man. “Lie there! You would send a message to some one with the candle, eh? If thou art dead, well enough!”

He blows out the candle, retreats, and locks the door, then his heavy tread is heard descending the stairs.

In the morning he comes again, unlocks the door, and steps within. He sees that the prisoner is lying as when last seen. He bends over the cot and looks again into the pallid face and closed eyes.

“Humph!” he mutters. “Dead! He must have had a soft skull, if that killed him. But he is dead!”

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