Page:Hopkinson Smith--armchair at the inn.djvu/262

 to what was being done for our release. That he would not discuss.

“By and by we began to grow uneasy and suspect him. One of the men insisted that he was too damned polite to be honest, and that the American consul yarn was a put-up job. Anyway, he was getting tired of it all. It would take him but half an hour to dig the loose earth out of the tunnel, and he was going to begin right away if he went at it alone.

“We at once fell to, working like beavers, digging with everything we had—our fingers bleeding—until we had cleaned out the dirt to the plank. Then we crawled back and waited for the consul’s customary visit. After that was over—no matter how long it lasted—we’d make the dash.

“He came on the minute; and this time, to our intense disgust, brought his guitar—said he thought we might like a little music—and without so much as by-your-leave opened up with negro melodies and native songs, the instrument resting in the hollow of his knee, one leg crooked over the other, a cigarette stuck tight to his lower lip.

“Hour after hour went by and still he sang on—French, German, Italian—anything and