Part 4

“But, I know him, Mr. Schnitzel,” I said sternly. “He is incapable of it. I went to college with him.”

“I don't care whether he's a rah-rah boy or not,” said Schnitzel, “I know that's what he did when he was up the Orinoco after orchids, and if the tribe had ever caught him they'd have crucified him. And I know this, too: he made forty thousand dollars out of the Nitrate Company on a ten-thousand-dollar job. And I know it, because he beefed to me about it himself, because it wasn't big enough.”

We were passing the limestone island at the entrance to the harbor, where, in the prison fortress, with its muzzle-loading guns pointing drunkenly at the sky, are buried the political prisoners of Valencia.

“Now, there,” said Schnitzel, pointing, “that shows you what the Nitrate Trust can do. Judge Rojas is in there. He gave the first decision in favor of the Walker-Keefe people, and for making that decision William T. Scott, the Nitrate manager, made Alvarez put Rojas in there. He's seventy years old, and he's been there five years. The cell they keep him in is below the sea-level, and the salt-water leaks through the wall. I've seen it. That's what William T. Scott did, an' up in New York people think 'Billy' Scott is a fine man. I seen him at the Horse Show sitting in a box, bowing to everybody, with his wife sitting beside him, all hung out with pearls. An' that was only a month after I'd seen Rojas in that sewer where Scott put him.”

“Schnitzel,” I laughed, “you certainly are a magnificent liar.”

Schnitzel showed no resentment.

“Go ashore and look for yourself,” he muttered. “Don't believe me. Ask Rojas. Ask the first man you meet.” He shivered, and shrugged his shoulders. “I tell you, the walls are damp, like sweat.”

The Government had telegraphed the commandant to come on board and, as he expressed it, “offer me the hospitality of the port,” which meant that I had to take him to the smoking-room and give him champagne. What the Government really wanted was to find out whether I was still on board, and if it were finally rid of me.

I asked the official concerning Judge Rojas.

“Oh, yes,” he said readily. “He is still incomunicado.”

Without believing it would lead to anything, I suggested:

“It was foolish of him to give offence to Mr. Scott?”

The commandant nodded vivaciously.

“Mr. Scott is very powerful man,” he assented. “We all very much love Mr. Scott. The president, he love Mr. Scott, too, but the judges were not sympathetic to Mr. Scott, so Mr. Scott asked our president to give them a warning, and Senor Rojas--he is the warning.”

“When will he get out?” I asked.

The commandant held up the glass in the sunlight from the open air-port, and gazed admiringly at the bubbles.

“Who can tell,” he said. “Any day when Mr. Scott wishes. Maybe, never. Senor Rojas is an old man. Old, and he has much rheumatics. Maybe, he will never come out to see our beloved country any more.”

As we left the harbor we passed so close that one could throw a stone against the wall of the fortress. The sun was just sinking and the air became suddenly chilled. Around the little island of limestone the waves swept through the sea-weed and black manigua up to the rusty bars of the cells. I saw the barefooted soldiers smoking upon the sloping ramparts, the common criminals in a long stumbling line bearing kegs of water, three storm-beaten palms rising like gallows, and the green and yellow flag of Valencia crawling down the staff. Somewhere entombed in that blotched and mildewed masonry an old man of seventy years was shivering and hugging himself from the damp and cold. A man who spoke five languages, a just, brave gentleman. To me it was no new story. I knew of the horrors of Cristobal prison; of political rivals chained to criminals loathsome with disease, of men who had raised the flag of revolution driven to suicide. But never had I supposed that my own people could reach from the city of New York and cast a fellow-man into that cellar of fever and madness.

As I watched the yellow wall sink into the sea, I became conscious that Schnitzel was near me, as before, leaning on the rail, with his chin sunk on his arms. His face was turned toward the fortress, and for the first time since I had known him it was set and serious. And when, a moment later, he passed me without recognition, I saw that his eyes were filled with fear.

When we touched at Curacoa I sent a cable to my sister, announcing the date of my arrival, and then continued on to the Hotel Venezuela. Almost immediately Schnitzel joined me. With easy carelessness he said: “I was in the cable office just now, sending off a wire, and that operator told me he can't make head or tail of the third word in your cable.”

“That is strange,” I commented, “because it's a French word, and he is French. That's why I wrote it in French.”

With the air of one who nails another in a falsehood, Schnitzel exclaimed:

“Then, how did you suppose your sister was going to read it? It's a cipher, that's what it is. Oh, no, YOU'RE not on a secret mission! Not at all!”

It was most undignified of me, but in five minutes I excused myself, and sent to the State Department the following words:

“Roses red, violets blue, send snow.”

Later at the State Department the only person who did not eventually pardon my jest was the clerk who had sat up until three in the morning with my cable, trying to fit it to any known code.

Immediately after my return to the Hotel Venezuela Schnitzel excused himself, and half an hour later returned in triumph with the cable operator and ordered lunch for both. They imbibed much sweet champagne.

When we again were safe at sea, I said: “Schnitzel, how much did you pay that Frenchman to let you read my second cable?”