CHAPTER XXXI.
PORTIFORO’S WAY.
As he told Virginia, Minister Throgmorton had been to the arsenal early that morning to talk with the Camera Chap, but the interview was brief. Finding the prisoner evasive and uncommunicative, the United States representative had left in a rage, mistaking Hawley’s attitude for brazen indifference to his fate.
With the exception of this visitor and Lopez, the prisoner was permitted to receive no callers. Lieutenant Ridder, who had visited the arsenal shortly after his friend’s arrest and demanded to see him, was politely but firmly informed that, according to the rules and regulations, Señor Hawley, by the nature of the charge against him, was strictly denied visitors, and although the naval officer resorted to both pleading and threats, he was unable to change this decision.
Although Hawley was by no means an unsociable man, he was glad that this rule was in force, for ever since his arrest he had feared that Virginia Throgmorton might be indiscreet enough to come to see him. Even as it was, knowing the girl’s loyal and impulsive nature, he was afraid that she might manage, by the use of her father’s influence, to obtain the necessary permission to visit him. Such an interview, he felt sure, would be disastrous, for he had no doubt that every word that passed between them would be eagerly listened to by Portiforo’s spies.
Consequently, when late that afternoon he heard footsteps in the cement-walled courtyard upon which the door of his dungeon opened, and, peering through the bars, caught sight of the figure of a woman approaching his cell, his heart skipped a couple of beats. The woman, who was flanked on either side by a uniformed official, wore a heavy veil, but as she drew near she threw aside this covering, and an involuntary exclamation of dismay escaped from the Camera Chap’s lips as he caught sight of her features.
The visitor was not Virginia. Recognizing that pathetic, haggard face at first glance, the prisoner would have been relieved at that moment to have seen the daughter of the United States minister standing there in her place; for if Virginia’s visit to the jail would have been an unwise step, the presence of this woman was a hundred times more so. He marveled at the madness which had caused Señora Felix to come to see him—for he supposed at first that it was on his account that she was there.
Greatly to his surprise and relief, however, the señora and her companions passed his cell without even a glance at him. As she went by he observed that tears were streaming down her cheeks and that her frail form was trembling with emotion.
They halted at a cell on the same tier, a few yards away, and the two officials withdrew a short distance, leaving the woman to talk with its occupant through the bars. The Camera Chap could not see her now, but he heard her burst suddenly into a fit of violent sobbing. Then he heard a man say soothingly: “Courage, señora! I entreat you to be calm, my dear friend. Surely you who have faced all your tribulations with such sublime bravery are not going to break down now.”
At the sound of that patient, softly modulated voice, Hawley gave a start of surprise. He felt positive that he recognized it as the voice of Doctor Gaspard Bonsal. Until that moment he had been unaware of the identity of any of his fellow captives, and the possibility that the venerable physician might be confined in the arsenal jail had not occurred to him, for he had heard that he had been sent to El Torro.
Although, under other circumstances, he would have been averse to playing the rôle of eavesdropper, he could not help now straining his ears in an effort to catch the conversation which passed between the señora and her devoted old friend, for he had an uneasy suspicion of what her visit and her great grief portended. They spoke mostly in such low tones that what they said did not reach him, but once Doctor Bonsal unconsciously raised his voice, and the Camera Chap heard him say. “I am old, my child, and what happens to me does not matter. We must accept the situation with philosophy.”
“If only I could do something,” the woman sobbed. “I have been to Portiforo and pleaded with him, but it was no use. He would not listen. That tyrant——”
She stopped short at a remonstrance from the physician, spoken in a voice so low that Hawley could not catch the words. Almost immediately after that the two officials stepped up to the señora and gruffly informed her that it was time for her to withdraw. The Camera Chap heard her plead with them to be allowed to have a few more words with the prisoner, but the request was refused, and, sobbing violently, she was literally dragged from in front of the barred door.
The next morning Hawley’s fears for the old physician were confirmed in a startling manner. At sunrise the tramp of many feet resounded on the stone floor of the courtyard, and he heard a hoarse voice exclaim: “Adelante!” Knowing that this order was the Spanish equivalent for “Forward, march!” he was not surprised, upon jumping from his bed and gazing through the bars, to see a file of soldiers in the courtyard. There were about twenty of them. At the command of the officer they ranged themselves at one end of the yard and stood at attention, as unconcerned as though they had come there to perform their usual morning drill. Presently Hawley heard voices to the right of his cell. “Are you ready?” somebody asked. Then, in a voice which thrilled the listener, Doctor Bonsal answered unfalteringly: “I am ready.”
A gate creaked on its hinges, and the venerable prisoner, his head held high, his shoulders squared, walked past the Camera Chap’s door, an army officer in dress uniform on each side of him.
Like a man in a dream, the snapshot adventurer gazed upon the scene that followed. He saw the officers place their victim with his back to the cement wall of the courtyard, and tie a handkerchief over his eyes. He saw them step back, and heard one of them give an order which caused the long line of gleaming rifle barrels at the other end of the yard to rise with a precision that seemed almost automatic. In another minute the tragedy was over, and in ten minutes the courtyard was clear, and the routine of the prison was resumed.
Hawley was horrified at what he had witnessed, but his predominant emotion was one of violent rage. “If ever I get out of here,” he murmured, “I’ll make Portiforo pay for this.” Then he smiled grimly as the thought came to him that instead of getting out, the chances were that before long he himself would be in the same position as the ill-fated Doctor Bonsal.
Presently two men came to his cell and threw open the door. “Señor,” one of them said politely, “we must request you to be good enough to accompany us.”