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Page 35
While his mind was busy with this startling question the laughing
voice, now lowered almost to a whisper, approached his door, and he
became conscious of a scrutiny through the grating. Also a discussion
was going on outside, and he heard:
"No, no, not a smile, not a word, unless you open the door so that I
may see el Yanko. I have never seen one in all my life--never."
A short pause, then a key turned, and the door was gently opened. Two
figures entered. A soldier and a slender girl, who clung fearfully to
his arm. They stood and looked at Ridge as he sat on his wooden stool,
and he stared back. For a moment the three gazed at one another in
silence.
Then the girl exclaimed, pettishly:
"If that is all your famous Yanko amounts to, I have already seen
enough, since he looks exactly like other men, only more ugly than
some. Come, let us go."
With this she playfully turned her companion about and pushed him from
the cell. As she did so she made a quick backward movement with her
right hand, and something fell on the straw pallet as though flung
there. A second later the door was relocked, and, with merry laughter
again echoing through the dim corridor, they were gone.
Curiously Ridge fumbled in the musty bedding until he found a small
packet enveloped in brown paper. He opened it eagerly. Inside were
two tiny steel saws, made from a watch spring, and a little tube of
oil. There was also a bit of white paper on which was writing. By
holding this close to the lamp-lighted grating. Ridge read:
"You have only till daylight. Saw out a bar and squeeze through.
Friends will await you outside. Destroy this." There was no signature.
"What friends can I have in this place?" thought the young trooper, as
he nervously chewed the bit of paper to a pulp. At the same time he
was tremulous with a new hope. "Perhaps I can do it," he said, "and
anything will be better than sitting in idleness, with a prospect of
being shot at sunrise."
Standing on his wooden stool he could easily reach the lower end of the
iron bars closing the cell window, and he at once began work on them.
At first he seemed to produce about as much effect as would the gnawing
of a mouse, but after a while his tiny saw was buried in the tough
iron. Then footsteps approached, and Ridge had barely time to fling
himself on the vile-smelling pallet before a sentry was peering in at
the grating. A ray of light fell where he lay, but fortunately failed
to reach the side on which the barred aperture was located. So the
prisoner made a long bunch of the straw, covered it with his coat, and
placed his water-jug at one end, thus causing the whole to bear a rude
resemblance to a human figure.
After that he worked steadily, only pausing at the sound of footsteps,
but not leaving the scene of his operations. He found that he must cut
two bars instead of only one, and a saw snapped in twain when the first
was but half severed. After that he handled the other with intense
caution, and his heart throbbed painfully with anxiety as the work
neared completion.
For hours he toiled, and he knew that daylight could not be far off
when the second bar was finally cut. To bend it aside took all his
strength, and so occupied was he in doing this that for the first time
that night he heeded not a sound of footsteps in the corridor.
"What goes on here?" questioned a harsh voice, and Ridge's heart leaped
into his mouth. With desperate energy he wrenched the bars to one
side, hearing as he did so a fumbling at the lock of his door.
Utilizing his strength to the utmost, he pulled himself up, forced his
body through the narrow opening, and pitched headlong to the ground
outside. At the same time came fierce shouts, a pistol-shot, and a
great clamor from the place he had left,
But strong hands were helping him to his feet, and a voice was saying
in his ears: "You have done well, amigo. Now we must fly for our
lives."
Of course it could not be; but to Ridge's senses, confused by the shock
of his fall, it seemed as though the voice was that of the false friend
who had betrayed him.
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