Buffalo Bill's death message or, In the face of doom
is weak, and I could not wait for its strength to return. It has fallen,
and it will not rise again.”
Nearer he hears the steady thump of feet which had hastened and
frightened him. Then the door of his prison is opened, and a man, fierce
whiskered and fierce of eye, looks in. He sees the candle guttering on
its box, and anger blazes in that fierce, bright eye. He strides across
the room.
“Was it not commanded that no lights should be shown in this room at so
late an hour?” he demands, and he seizes the limp form, drags it over
the floor, and flings it upon the cot in the corner, using as harsh a
hand as if the miserable prisoner had been but a bag of salt.
The prisoner’s head strikes heavily against the wall, and he drops limp,
with a moan, upon the cot.
“Scoundrel! Dog!” cries the fierce-whiskered man. “Lie there! You would
send a message to some one with the candle, eh? If thou art dead, well
enough!”
He blows out the candle, retreats, and locks the door, then his heavy
tread is heard descending the stairs.
In the morning he comes again, unlocks the door, and steps within. He
sees that the prisoner is lying as when last seen. He bends over the cot
and looks again into the pallid face and closed eyes.
“Humph!” he mutters. “Dead! He must have had a soft skull, if that
killed him. But he is dead!”
---------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXXIX.
A PERILOUS CLIMB.
Buffalo Bill had retained the lariats that had been on the two horses
abandoned, and had them with him now, and these he meant to use in
scaling the steep wall he had seen before him.
With them on his arm he approached the wall, after darkness had fallen,
leaving the Yankee in hiding in the midst of some bushes not far from
its base.
The handkerchief had been seen still fluttering from the barred window
when the last rays of the sunset touched the tower, and the spot had
been carefully marked by the scout. He had no fear of going astray; the
only thing he questioned was his ability to mount the wall. Yet he was a
good climber, and he hoped to have no trouble.
Enos Spalding, left behind, gnawed his gnarled fingers and grumbled to
himself, for he had gone without food many hours.
Having reached the moat before the wall, the scout climbed carefully
down into it, finding water not more than ankle deep, with some slimy
ooze and a growth of rank weeds and grasses.
At the base of the wall he stopped and reconnoitered, then found the
exact spot he had located during the day with his glasses.
Above this point, he had discovered, was a small projection. He hurled
one of the lariats up through the darkness, hoping to loop its noose
over the projection. More than a dozen times he tried and failed, but
his persistence was at last rewarded. He drew down on the rope to see
that it was really fast and would support him; then he began to climb
it, with feet set against the wall. The second lariat he bore on his
arm.
When he had gained the projection, he clung there by his eyebrows, as it
were, and hurled the second lariat upward, with an outswing of his arm.
Time and again the folds of the lariat fell down about him.
It would have been a difficult feat to noose that second projection even
in the daytime, at night the task was infinitely harder.
He began to grow tired from swinging the noose upward so many times,
when it caught, as the one had done, before, and held fast. He left the
first lariat in position, and began to climb the second, intending to
leave them in place, to facilitate a quick descent in case of need.
This noose had caught on the projection of stone just below the barred
window; and in a very short time the scout had his face at that window,
having clutched the ledge and drawn himself up.
At the scout’s back, tied there, was a strong stick of wood, with which
he had armed himself, in addition to his revolvers and his knife.
“Hist!” he called, as he clung to the window and tried to look through
the bars.
The handkerchief was in position; he felt it flutter against his cheek.
“Hist!” he called, still louder.
There was a startled stir in the room and after an instant a voice
whispered: “What is it?” The words were in Spanish.
“If there is a prisoner in here, I have come to aid him,” said the
scout.
“Thank Heaven!”
There was a scrambling sound, as if some one slid to the floor, and then
soft footfalls. A face was pressed close against the bars on the inner
side.
“Who is it?” was asked in Spanish.
“I am an American scout, and if prisoners are held here, I stand ready
to aid them. Is this Leon Ruiz?”
“Ruiz is dead; he died in the tower at the other corner, a week ago.”
“That is impossible,” said the scout, “for I saw and talked with him but
two nights since.”
There was no answer to this, save the excited breathing of the man
crouched at the tower window.
“Speak quickly,” said the scout. “I cannot sustain myself here longer;
the strain is too great. I shall have to lower myself. Are you Prince
Mogador?”
The answer was a joyful cry, and then the words:
“I am Prince Mogador! You bring me help? You have come to get me out of
the clutches of these foul fiends?”
“Yes.”
“But you cannot get in! You cannot get through these bars, unless you
have a saw. I have tried to force them, but failed.”
“Reach your hand through and clasp mine,” said the scout. “That will
assist me. If you can support me here in that way for a few seconds I
may be able to loosen one of the bars. They are secured on the outside,
I discover.”
Trembling hands came through the bars and clutched the scout by the
wrist. But those hands had the holding power of steel, the scout found;
hope of escape had filled their owner with renewed strength.
With one hand thus freed, the scout took the strong stick of wood that
he carried lashed to his back, and thrust an end between the bars of the
window.
“Hold hard!” he ordered, and threw his weight on the stick.
The window bars were of iron, fastened on the outside by heavy staples,
yet the force of the wrench thus given tore loose the staples at one
end.
But for the clinging hands that clutched him the scout would have fallen
when the staples lost their hold and the window bar twisted around. He
caught the projection, and again hoisted himself.
“That was good!” he said. “One more, and you can come out of that. Your
fingers clung like iron.”
“Hope makes me strong, señor,” was the trembling answer.
The scout rested a moment or two.
“Now, again!” he said, “hold for your life!”
Again he thrust in the stick and threw his weight upon the outer end.
There was a cracking sound; the stick itself broke; the bar had been
loosened, though the scout had come near falling. Then he crawled up
again, using the rope.
“Now, you can come through, and before morning we can be far from here.
You may tell me your story after we have got down from this and the
peril is not so great. Hold hard!”
There was an interruption, the scout heard a suspicious sound. He
whispered his discovery to Prince Mogador. He felt the rope shake by
which he had ascended. Then he heard the voice of the Yankee, who had
climbed the first rope undiscovered and was now mounting the second.
“By gravy! aire ye up there?” he asked.
“Yes, what is it? What does this mean?”
“It means, Cody, that I was crowded aout daown there by some men, and
had tew make a run fur it. I run tew this wall. While I was flaounderin’
raound in that consarned moat, they come on me ag’in, so clost that I
see the only thing I could do was to climb up here, and so I clumb.
But——”
His trembling explanation was cut short by words in Spanish shouted from
below.
Then a revolver cracked, spurting its fire into the darkness. The bullet
shattered itself against the iron of the last bar the scout had torn
away.
“Wow!” cried the Yankee, as if he had been hit. “That was cuttin’ some
clost, I tell ye!”
The way below was blocked, for other revolvers popped there, and other
voices were heard.
The frightened Yankee, swaying on the rope and clutching blindly at the
wall for support, was almost ready to fall headlong.
“Cody, I can’t hold on here a minute longer!” he appealed. “Can’t ye git
higher, er git somewhere? They’ll shoot us here, sure as guns!”
Buffalo Bill felt one of the bullets cut through his coat and burn his
arm, so close did it pass to his body.
The men below did not see who was at the window, but they had
discovered, or suspected, this attempt at a rescue, and they were
popping away in the darkness, sending their lead perilously near.
“We’ll have to climb into the room,” said the scout, with sudden
decision. He regretted the necessity, but he drew himself up and crawled
between the broken bars and dropped into the room.
Prince Mogador clasped him enthusiastically round the shoulders, in the
impulsive Spanish fashion.
“My rescuer! My savior!” he panted.
“Let me help the other man in,” said the scout, freeing himself. “This
is bad—bad! If we could have had but five minutes longer.”
Then he dragged the frightened and panting Yankee through the bars into
the little room of the tower.
---------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XL.
A PERILOUS POSITION.
When he was safely within the tower, Buffalo Bill drew up the rope last
used, so that the men below could not readily climb to the window. The
tower room was in total darkness, and he could not even see the Moroccan
prince for whom he had taken such risks.
“We ought to have a light,” he said. “Have you a lamp or a candle?”
Prince Mogador scuffled across the room, and, by the light of a match,
produced the stub of a candle, which he offered to the scout. The latter
set a match to it, and when the candle was burning well he glanced
about.
The room was small, and its only furnishings were this candle, a thin
cot, a stool, and a box on which the candle had been sitting.
The scout looked at the prince, and beheld a hollow-eyed young man,
whose unshaven face was so thin and so sallow that it seemed he must be
the victim of a fever. His clothing hung loosely on his almost fleshless
bones. Seeing this mere wreck and skeleton of a man, the scout marveled
at the strength displayed when the prince rendered assistance at the
window. It had been the false strength lent by sudden and high hope.
The excitement of his situation still buoyed Prince Mogador. His eyes
were unhealthily bright and staring, and he trembled as if he had a fit
of ague. The scout saw him reel and put his hand against the wall.
“You are weak,” said the scout. “Sit down.”
“But we must escape while we can!”
Prince Mogador was looking at the exhausted Yankee, who had been
thoroughly tired by his hard and unaccustomed climbing. And the Yankee
was returning the look with interest.
“What’s he sayin’ in that furrin lingo?” asked Spalding.
“This is Prince Mogador!”
“I want tew know!” Spalding gasped, his mouth dropping open. “That beats
heck, by gum! So it’s him?” He turned to Buffalo Bill. “Waal, what we
goin’ tew do? They’re still shootin’ daown there. We can’t git aout by
the winder.”
“There may be another way out,” said the prince, speaking to the
scout—he did not understand Spalding’s twisted English, but understood
his glance at the window. “If that door could be opened!”
The scout took some keys from his pocket and began to try them on the
lock of the door. He found one that fitted, and threw the bolt.
The rays of the candle streamed out into a narrow corridor, at the end
of which was another locked door.