Hearts of Three (Adventure Classic). Jack London
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Henry smiled and marveled that the rickety wagon could hold together, so prodigious were the bumps imparted to it by the deep ruts. Every wheel, half-dished and threatening to dish, wobbled and revolved out of line with every other wheel. And if the wagon held intact, Henry judged, it was a miracle that the crazy harness did not fly to pieces. When directly opposite the window, the old man made a last effort, half-standing up from the seat as he pulled on the reins. One was rotten, and broke. As the driver fell backward into the seat, his weight on the remaining rein caused the horse to swerve sharply to the right. What happened then—whether a wheel dished, or whether a wheel had come off first and dished afterward—Henry could not determine. The one incontestable thing was that the wagon was a wreck. The old man, dragging in the dust and stubbornly hanging on to the remaining rein, swung the horse in a circle until it stopped, facing him and snorting at him.
By the time he gained his feet a crowd of mosos was forming about him. These were roughly shouldered right and left by the gendarmes who erupted from the jail. Henry remained at the window and, for a man with but a few hours to live, was an amused spectator and listener to what followed.
Giving his horse to a gendarme to hold, not stopping to brush the filth from his person, the old man limped hurriedly to the wagon and began an examination of the several packing cases, large and small, which composed its load. Of one case he was especially solicitous, even trying to lift it and seeming to listen as he lifted.
He straightened up, on being addressed by one of the gendarmes, and made voluble reply.
“Me? Alas senors, I am an old man, and far from home. I am Leopoldo Narvaez. It is true, my mother was German, may the Saints preserve her rest; but my father was Baltazar de Jesus y Cervallos é Narvaez, son of General Narvaez of martial memory, who fought under the great Bolivar himself. And now I am half ruined and far from home.”
Prompted by other questions, interlarded with the courteous expressions of sympathy with which even the humblest moso is over generously supplied, he managed to be polite-fully grateful and to run on with his tale.
“I have driven from Bocas del Toro. It has taken me five days, and business has been poor. My home is in Colon, and I wish I were safely there. But even a noble Narvaez may be a peddler, and even a peddler must live, eh, senors, is it not so? But tell me, is there not a Tomas Romero who dwells in this pleasant city of San Antonio?”
“There are any God’s number of Tomas Romeros who dwell everywhere in Panama,” laughed Pedro Zurita, the assistant jailer. “One would need fuller description.”
“He is the cousin of my second wife,” the ancient answered hopefully, and seemed bewildered by the roar of laughter from the crowd.
“And a dozen Tomas Romeros live in and about San Antonio,” the assistant jailer went on, “any one of which may be your second wife’s cousin, Senor. There is Tomas Romero, the drunkard. There is Tomas Romero, the thief. There is Tomas Romero—but no, he was hanged a month back for murder and robbery. There is the rich Tomas Romero who owns many cattle on the hills. There is....”
To each suggested one, Leopoldo Narvaez had shaken his head dolefully, until the cattle-owner was mentioned. At this he had become hopeful and broke in:
“Pardon me, senor, it must be he, or some such a one as he. I shall find him. If my precious stock-in-trade can be safely stored, I shall seek him now. It is well my misfortune came upon me where it did. I shall be able to trust it with you, who are, one can see with half an eye, an honest and an honorable man.” As he talked, he fumbled forth from his pocket two silver pesos and handed them to the jailer. “There, I wish you and your men to have some pleasure of assisting me.”
Henry grinned to himself as he noted the access of interest in the old man and of consideration for him, on the part of Pedro Zurita and the gendarmes, caused by the present of the coins. They shoved the more curious of the crowd roughly back from the wrecked wagon and began to carry the boxes into the jail.
“Careful, senors, careful,” the old one pleaded, greatly anxious, as they took hold of the big box. “Handle it gently. It is of value, and it is fragile, most fragile.”
While the contents of the wagon were being carried into the jail, the old man removed and deposited in the wagon all harness from the horse save the bridle.
Pedro Zurita ordered the harness taken in as well, explaining, with a glare at the miserable crowd: “Not a strap or buckle would remain the second after our backs were turned.”
Using what was left of the wagon for a stepping block, and ably assisted by the jailer and his crew, the peddler managed to get astride his animal.
“It is well,” he said, and added gratefully: “A thousand thanks, senors. It has been my good fortune to meet with honest men with whom my goods will be safe—only poor goods, peddler’s goods, you understand; but to me, everything, my way upon the road. The pleasure has been mine to meet you. To-morrow I shall return with my kinsman, whom I certainly shall find, and relieve from you the burden of safeguarding my inconsiderable property.” He doffed his hat. “Adios, senors, adios!”
He rode away at a careful walk, timid of the animal he bestrode which had caused his catastrophe. He halted and turned his head at a call from Pedro Zurita.
“Search the graveyard, Senor Narvaez,” the jailer advised. “Full a hundred Tomas Romeros lie there.”
“And be vigilant, I beg of you, senor, of the heavy box,” the peddler called back.
Henry watched the street grow deserted as the gendarmes and the populace fled from the scorch of the sun. Small wonder, he thought to himself, that the old peddler’s voice had sounded vaguely familiar. It had been because he had possessed only half a Spanish tongue to twist around the language—the other half being the German tongue of the mother. Even so, he talked like a native, and he would be robbed like a native if there was anything of value in the heavy box deposited with the jailers, Henry concluded, ere dismissing the incident from his mind.
In the guardroom, a scant fifty feet away from Henry’s cell, Leopoldo Narvaez was being robbed. It had begun by Pedro Zurita making a profound and wistful survey of the large box. He lifted one end of it to sample its weight, and sniffed like a hound at the crack of it as if his nose might give him some message of its contents.
“Leave it alone, Pedro,” one of the gendarmes laughed at him. “You have been paid two pesos to be honest.”
The assistant jailer sighed, walked away and sat down, looked back at the box, and sighed again. Conversation languished. Continually the eyes of the men roved to the box. A greasy pack of cards could not divert them. The game languished. The gendarme who had twitted Pedro himself went to the box and sniffed.
“I smell nothing,” he announced. “Absolutely in the box there is nothing to smell. Now what can it be? The caballero said that it was of value!”
“Caballero!” sniffed another of the gendarmes. “The old man’s father was more like to have been peddler of rotten fish on the streets of Colon and his father before him. Every lying beggar claims descent from the conquistadores.”
“And why not, Rafael?” Pedro Zurita retorted. “Are we not all so descended?”
“Without doubt,” Rafael readily agreed. “The conquistadores slew many——”
“And were the ancestors of those that survived,” Pedro completed for him and aroused a general laugh. “Just the same, almost would I give one of these pesos to know what is in that box.”
“There is Ignacio,” Rafael greeted the entrance of a turnkey whose heavy eyes tokened he was just out of his siesta. “He was not paid to be honest. Come, Ignacio, relieve our curiosity by letting us know what is in the box.”
“How should I know?” Ignacio demanded, blinking at the object of interest. “Only now have I awakened.”
“You have not been paid to be honest, then?” Rafael asked.
“Merciful