FullReads

Laguerre was sitting in a chair with his arms and legs securely bound, but he had succeeded in working considerable havoc with the furnishings of the place as well as with his splendid uniform. His lips foamed, his eyes protruded at sight of his captor; a trickle of blood from his scalp lent him a ferocious appearance.

Inocencio seated himself, and the two men stared at each other across the bare table.

Laguerre spoke first, his tongue thick, his voice hoarse from yelling. Inocencio listened with fixed, unwavering gaze.

“You tricked me neatly,” the former raved. “You are a government spy, I presume. The government feared me. Well, then, it was bold work, but you will listen to what I say now. We will settle this matter quickly, you and I. I have money. You can name your price.”

The hearer curled his thin lips. “So! You have money. You offer to buy your life. Old Julien had no money; he was poor.”

Petithomme did not understand. “I am too powerful to remain in prison,” he declared. “The President would not dare harm me; no man dares harm me; but I am willing to pay you–“

“All Hayti could not buy your life, Laguerre!”

Some tone of voice, some haunting familiarity of feature, set the prisoner’s memory to groping blindly. At last he inquired, “Who are you?”

“I am Floreal.”

The name meant nothing. Laguerre’s life was black; many Floreals had figured in it.

“You do not remember me?”

“N-no, and yet–“

“Perhaps you will remember another–a woman. She had a scar, just here.” The speaker laid a tobacco-stained finger upon his left cheek-bone, and Laguerre noticed for the first time that the wrist beneath it was maimed as from a burn. “It was a little scar and it was brown, in the candle-light. She was young and round and her body was soft–” The mulatto’s lean face was suddenly distorted in a horrible grimace which he intended for a smile. “She was my wife, Laguerre, by the Church, and you took her. She died, but she had a child–your child.”

The huge black figure shrank into its green-and-gold panoply, the bloodshot eyes rested upon Inocencio with a look of terrified recognition.

“I have no children, Laguerre; no wife; no home! I am poor and you have become great. There was an old man whom you stretched by the wrists, in the moonlight. Do you remember him? And the old woman, my mother, whom one of your soldiers shot? Maximilien did it, but I killed him and Congo! And now there is only you.”

“That was–long ago.” The prisoner rolled his eyes desperately; his voice was uncertain as he whined, “I am rich–richer than anybody knows.”

“Others had more money than we, eh?”

The general nodded.

“Pierrine is dead, and you would have been the President. It is well that I came in time.” Again Captain Ruiz smiled, and the corpulent soldier was shaken loosely as by an invisible hand. “Come now! Your friends are approaching and I must prepare you to greet them.”

He untied the knots at Laguerre’s ankles, then motioned him toward the cabin door.

That streamer of smoke had grown; it was a black smudge against the sky when the two gained the deck, and at sight of it the general shouted:

“My ship! The gunboat! Ho! If harm comes to me–“

Inocencio took one end of the new rope which had been run through the block at the masthead, and knotted it about his prisoner’s wrists, then with his knife he severed the other bonds.

“Give way!” he ordered.

The crew held back, at which he turned upon them so savagely that they hastened to obey. They put their weight upon the line; Laguerre’s arms were whisked above his head, he felt his feet leave the deck. He was dumb with surprise, choked with rage at this indignity, but he did not understand its significance.

“Up with him! In a rush!” cried the captain, and hand over hand the sailors hauled in, while upward in a series of jerks went Petithomme Laguerre. The schooner listed and he swung outward; he tried to entwine his legs in the shrouds, but failed, and he continued to rise until his feet had cleared the crosstree.