Page:The Popular Magazine v72 n1 (1924-04-20).djvu/40

 asserted Jimmy. “I'll make no compromise and no agreement until I'm assured that he is treated as well as myself, and cared for and kept unharmed. Also that if I'm liberated in four days he is liberated, unharmed, with me.”

“And if I don't agree to this”

“You can go to blazes! I'll agree to nothing! For some reason I but half guess you don't want to hurt me if you can help it. But I tell you this, Sordillo and I leave or finish together. So you can take it or leave it!”

Again the man with the earrings rocked to and fro with personal amusement before he sobered enough to ask, “This Sordillo. Pietro Sordillo. The guide and bad poet—very bad poet! Is he, may I ask, a friend of yours?”

“He is!” Jimmy declared with extra vehemence. “I overheard your instructions regarding him, and if you're going to knife that boy as if he were nothing better than a troublesome dog in your way—well, sharpen the knife plenty because you'll have to use it on me too! Pietro and I came together and—one way or the other—we go together. I'll be quiet, peaceable, unresisting, and stand for the game, whatever it is, if Pietro is turned loose when I am.”

For a long time the burly man regarded him, first with an air of amusement as if surprised that any one should object to the taking of a mere guide's life, and then with an air of perplexity, as if this were a new manifestation of humanity to which he was unaccustomed. He finally shifted his eyes and stared at the door as if not quite certain what answer to make.

“Do you think,” he asked curiously, “that Sordillo would make the same insistence for you if the positions were reversed? That he would demand your safety before making certain of his own?”

“That doesn't matter. He might or he might not. I don't know. But I do know what I'm demanding, and I'm positive that I'm the one you expect to get money out of, or paid for, so—that's my answer.”

The man got to his feet, consulted his watch, glanced about the room and said, “All right! That's an agreement. You are to remain tranquil, and—no harm shall come to Sordillo.” He turned and stared again at his prisoner, then grinned and wagged his head. “I'm certain,” he said, “that I can take your word. You Yankees are a funny tribe. If I hadn't lived with a lot of you, I'd—no, I wouldn't take your promise! But as it is” He turned toward the man who stood quietly by and ordered: “Cut loose his hands. Then see to it that everything is comfortable—that his bed is all right—that he has water, or, if he prefers it, wine, and after that lock the door and keep it guarded outside. I'll see you out there!”

He jerked a head and thumb in the direction of the hallway, glanced around the room as if to reassure himself of its strength then walked to the door, opened it and carelessly strode away through the empty and resonant corridor.

The broad-shouldered man liberated Jimmy with another stroke of that knife that had never been sheathed, grinned in a purely impersonal way, sheathed the knife and followed. But he bolted the door from the outer side after he had closed it and Jimmy proved this by immediately walking across the chamber and testing it.

IMMY could not in the least conjecture what had been the cause of this personal outrage, what the project of profit by his capture, or what had become of Pietro. The sole concrete fact was that he was a prisoner in a tower somewhere in Venice, and that, somewhere in that same building, was Pietro, whose life he had possibly saved. Jimmy, when not excited, was inclined to be a philosopher; hence, convinced that he could do nothing to effect his escape, he calmly threw himself down on the not uncomfortable bed in the circular room and in less than a minute was asleep.

“Rattlety-bang! Thumpety-thump!” A terrific noise in the hallway, accompanied by loud grunts, some perfervid oaths, and more banging against the door aroused Jimmy and brought him to his feet listening.

“Sounds like a dog fight in the fo'c's'le,” he muttered, “only this time it's not dogs. Go to it, whoever you are!”

Then as suddenly as they had begun the sounds ceased, there was silence, and then some one was fumbling at the huge bolts of the heavy door. It swung open a crack and a voice growled, “Are you in there, Signor Ware?”

“Yes, I am here,” Jimmy replied as he edged to the side of the door with a chair