The Best Western Novels of William MacLeod Raine. William MacLeod Raine
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the utmost confines of the crowd.
“Fellow lovers of liberty, the hour has struck that we have worked and prayed for. The glorious redemption of our State has been accomplished by your patriotic hands. An hour ago the tyrants, Megales and Carlo, slipped out of the palace, mounted swift horses, and are galloping toward the frontier.”
A roar of rage, such as a tiger disappointed of its kill might give, rose into the night. Such a terrible cry no man made of flesh and blood could hear directed at him and not tremble.
“But the pursuit is already on. Swift riders are in chase, with orders not to spare their horses so only they capture the fleeing despots. We expect confidently that before morning the tyrants will be in our hands. In the meantime, let us show ourselves worthy of the liberty we have won. Let us neither sack nor pillage, but show our great president in the City of Mexico that not ruffians but an outraged people have driven out the oppressors.”
The huge Celt was swimming into his periods beautifully, but it was very apparent to him that the mob must have a vent for its stored excitement. An inspiration seized him.
“But one sacred duty calls to us from heaven, my fellow citizens. Already I see in your glorious faces that you behold the duty. Then forward, patriots! To the plaza, and let us tear down, let us destroy by fire, let us annihilate the statue of the dastard Megales which defaces our fair city. Citizens, to your patriotic duty!”
Another wild yell rang skyward, and at once the fringes of the crowd began to vanish plazaward, its centre began to heave, its flanks to stir. Three minutes later the grounds of the palace were again dark and empty. The Irishman's oratory had won the day.
Chapter 15.
In the Secret Chamber
The escaping party groped its way along the passage in the wall, down a rough, narrow flight of stone steps to a second tunnel, and along this underground way for several hundred yards. Since he was the only one familiar with the path they were traversing, the governor took the lead and guided the others. At a distance of perhaps an eighth of a mile from the palace the tunnel forked. Without hesitation, Megales kept to the right. A stone's throw beyond this point of divergence there began to be apparent a perceptible descent which terminated in a stone wall that blocked completely the way.
Megales reached up and put his weight on a rope suspended from the roof. Slowly the solid masonry swung on a pivot, leaving room on either side for a person to squeeze through. The governor found it a tight fit, as did also Gabilonda.
“I was more slender last time I passed through there. It has been several years since then,” said the governor, giving his daughter a hand to assist her through.
They found themselves in a small chamber fitted up as a living room in a simple way. There were three plain chairs, a bed, a table, and a dresser, as well as a cooking stove.
“This must be close to the prison. We have been coming in that direction all the time. It is strange that it could be so near and I not know of it,” said the warden, looking around curiously.
Megales smiled. “I am the only person alive that knew of the existence of this room or of the secret passage until half an hour ago. I had it built a few years since by Yaquis when I was warden of the prison. The other end, the one opening from the palace, I had finished after I became governor.”
“But surely the men who built it know of its existence.”
Again Megales smiled. “I thought you knew me better, Carlo. The Yaquis who built this were condemned raiders. I postponed their execution a few months while they were working on this. It was a convenience both to them and to me.”
“And is also a convenience to me,” smiled Carlo, who was beginning to recover from his terror.
“But I don't quite understand yet how we are to get out of here except by going back the way we came,” said Gabilonda.
“Which for some of us might prove a dangerously unhealthy journey. True, colonel, and therefore one to be avoided.” Megales stepped to the wall, spanned with his fingers a space from the floor above a joint in the masonry, and pressed against the concrete. Inch by inch the wall fell back and opened into a lower corridor of the prison, the very one indeed which led to the cell in which Bucky and his love were imprisoned. Cautiously the Spaniard's glance traveled down the passage to see it was empty before he opened the panel door more than enough to look through. Then he beckoned to Gabilonda. “Behold, doubting Thomas!”
The warden gasped. “And I never knew it, never had a suspicion of it.”
“But this only brings us from one prison to another,” objected the general. “We might be penned in here as well as at the castle.”
“Even that contingency has been provided for. You noticed, perhaps, where the tunnel forked. The left branch runs down to the river-wash, and by ten minutes' digging with the tools lying there one can force an exit.”
“Your excellency is certainly a wonder, and all this done without arousing the least suspicion of anybody,” admired the warden.
“The wise man, my dear colonel, prepares for emergencies; the fool trusts to his luck,” replied the governor dryly.
“Are we to stay here for the present, colonel?” broke in the governor's daughter. “And can you furnish accommodations for the rest of us if we stay all night, as I expect we must?”
“My dear senorita, I have accommodations and to spare. But the trouble is that your presence would become known. I should be the happiest' man alive to put my all at the accommodation of Chihuahua's fairest daughter. But if it should get out that you are here—” Gabilonda stopped to shrug his fat shoulders at the prospect.
“We shall have to stay here, or, at least, in the lower tier of cells. I'm sorry, Carmencita, but there is no other course compatible with safety,” decided Megales promptly.
The warden's face cleared. “That is really not a point for me to decide, governor. This young American, O'Connor, is now in charge of the prison. I must release him at once, and shall then bring him here to confer with you as to means of safety.”
Bucky's eyes opened wide when Gabilonda and Megales came alone and without a lantern to his cell. In the darkness it was impossible to recognize them, but once within the closed cell the warden produced a dark lantern from under his coat.
“Circumstances have arisen that make the utmost vigilance necessary,” explained the warden. “I may begin my explanations by congratulating you and your young friend. Let me offer a thousand felicitations. Neither of you are any longer prisoners.”
If he expected either of them to fall on his neck and weep tears of gratitude at his pompous announcement, the colonel was disappointed. From the darkness where the ranger's little partner sat on the bed came a deep sigh of relief, but O'Connor did not wink an eyelash.
“I may conclude, then, that Mike O'Halloran has been getting in his work?” was his cool reply.
“Exactly, senor. He is the man on horseback and I travel afoot,” smiled Megales.
Bucky looked him over coolly from head to foot. “Still I can't quite understand why your ex-excellency does me the honor of a personal visit.”
“Because, senor, in the course of human events Providence has seen fit to reverse our positions. I am now your prisoner and you my jailer,” explained Megales, and urbanely added a whimsical question. “Shall you have me hanged at dawn?”
“It would be a pleasure, and, I reckon, a duty too. But I can't promise till I've seen Mike. Do some more explaining, colonel. I want to know all about the round-up O'Halloran is boss of. Did he make a right good gather?”
The subtleties of American humor baffled the little Mexican, but he appreciated the