CHAPTER V.
STORMING SAN MARCO.
We started out on our storming expedition on a Tuesday night, about nineo'clock; we had a latch-key, so we could come home when we pleased.Rectus carried the rope, and I had the grapnel, wrapped in its cottonwool. We put newspapers around these things, and made pretty respectablepackages of them. We did not go down the sea-wall, but walked aroundthrough some of the inner streets. It seemed to us like a curiousexpedition. We were not going to do anything wrong, but we had no ideawhat the United States government would think about it. We came down tothe fort on its landward side, but our attack was to be made upon thewaterfront, and so we went around that way, on the side farthest fromthe town. There were several people about yet, and we had to wait. Wedropped our packages into the moat, and walked about on thewater-battery, which is between the harbor and the moat, and is used asa sort of pleasure-ground by the people of the town. It was a prettydark night, although the stars were out, and the last of the promenaderssoon went home; and then, after giving them about ten minutes to getentirely out of sight and hearing, we jumped down into the moat, whichis only five or six feet below the water-battery, and, taking ourpackages, went over to that part of the wall which we had fixed upon forour assault.
We fastened the rope to the grapnel, and then Rectus stood back while Imade ready for the throw. It was a pretty big throw, almost straight upin the air, but I was strong, and was used to pitching, and all thatsort of thing. I coiled the rope on the ground, took the loose end of itfirmly in my left hand, and then, letting the grapnel hang from my righthand until it nearly touched the ground, I swung it round and round,perpendicularly, and when it had gone round three or four times, I gaveit a tremendous hurl upward.
It rose beautifully, like a rocket, and fell inside of the ramparts,making only a little thud of a sound.
"First-rate!" said Rectus, softly; and I felt pretty proud myself.
I pulled on the rope, and found the grapnel had caught. I hung with mywhole weight on it, but it held splendidly.
"Now, then," said I to Rectus, "you can climb up. Go slowly, and be verycareful. There's no hurry. And mind you take a good hold when you get tothe top."
We had arranged that Rectus was to go first. This did not look verybrave on my part, but I felt that I wanted to be under him, while he wasclimbing, so that I could break his fall if he should slip down. Itwould not be exactly a perpendicular fall, for the wall slanted alittle, but it would be bad enough. However, I had climbed up worseplaces than that, and Rectus was very nimble; so I felt there was nogreat danger.
Up he went, hand over hand, and putting his toes into nicks every nowand then, thereby helping himself very much. He took it slowly andeasily, and I felt sure he would be all right. As I looked at him,climbing up there in the darkness, while I was standing below, holdingthe rope so that it should not swing, I could not help thinking that Iwas a pretty curious kind of a tutor for a boy. However, I was takingall the care of him that I could, and if he came down he'd probably hurtme worse than he would hurt himself. Besides, I had no reason to supposethat old Mr. Colbert objected to a little fun. Then I began to think ofMrs. Colbert, and while I was thinking of her, and looking up at Rectus,I was amazed to see him going up quite rapidly, while the end of therope slipped through my fingers. Up he went, and when I ran back, Icould see a dark figure on the wall, above him. Somebody was pulling himup.
In a very few moments he disappeared over the top, rope and all!
Now, I was truly frightened. What might happen to the boy?
I was about to shout, but, on second thoughts, decided to keep quiet;yet I instantly made up my mind that, if I didn't see or hear from himpretty soon, I would run around to the gate and bang up the peopleinside. However, it was not necessary for me to trouble myself, for, ina minute, the rope came down again, and I took hold of it. I pulled onit and found it all firm, and then I went up. I climbed up pretty fast,and two or three times I felt a tug, as if somebody above was trying topull me up. But it was of no use, for I was a great deal stouter andheavier than Rectus, who was a light, slim boy. But as I neared the top,a hand came down and clutched me by the collar, and some one, with apowerful arm and grip, helped me over the top of the wall. There stoodRectus, all right, and the fellow who had helped us up was the bigIndian, "Maiden's Heart."
I looked at Rectus, and he whispered:
"He says there's a sentinel down there in the square."
At this, Maiden's Heart bobbed his head two or three times, and,motioning to us to crouch down, he crept quietly over to the inner wallof the ramparts and looked down.
"What shall we say we came for?" I whispered, quickly.
"I don't know," said Rectus.
"Well, we must think of something," I said, "or we shall look likefools."
But before he had time to think, Maiden's Heart crept back. He put hisfinger on his lips, and, beckoning us to follow him, he led the way to acorner of the fort near one of the lookout towers. We followed asquietly as we could, and then we all three slipped into the narrowentrance to the tower, the Indian motioning us to go first. When we twostood inside of the little round tower, old Maiden's Heart plantedhimself before us in the passage, and waited to hear what we had to say.
But we couldn't think of anything to say. Directly, however, I thought Imust do something, so I whispered to the Indian:
"Does the sentry ever come up here?"
He seemed to catch my meaning.
"I go watch," he said. "Come back. Tell you." And off he stole, makingno more noise than a cat.
"Bother on him!" said Rectus. "If I'd known he was up here, I wouldnever have come."
"I reckon not," said I. "But now that we have come, what are we going todo or say? That fellow evidently thinks we have some big project onhand, and he's ready to help us; we must be careful, or he'll rush downand murder the sentinel."
"I'm sure I don't know what to say to him," said Rectus. "We ought tohave thought of this before. I suppose it would be of no use to mentionmy poster to him."
"No, indeed," said I; "he'd never understand that. And, besides, there'sa man down there. Let's peep out and see what he's doing."
So we crept to the entrance of the passage, and saw Maiden's Heart,crouched near the top of the inclined plane which serves as a stairwayfrom the square to the ramparts, and looking over the low wall,evidently watching the sentry.
"I'll tell you what let's do," said Rectus. "Let's make a rush for ourrope, and get out of this."
"No, sir!" said I. "We'd break our necks if we tried to hurry down thatrope. Don't think of anything of that kind. And, besides, we couldn'tboth get down before he'd see us."
In a few minutes, Maiden's Heart crept quickly back to us, and seemedsurprised that we had left our hiding-place. He motioned us farther backinto the passage, and slipped in himself.
We did not have time to ask any questions before we heard the sentrycoming up the stairway, which was near our corner. When he reached thetop, he walked away from us over toward the Indian barracks, which wereon the ramparts, at the other end of the fort. As soon as he reached thebarracks, Maiden's Heart took me by the arm and Rectus by the collar,and hurried us to the stairway, and then down as fast as we could go. Hemade no noise himself, but Rectus and I clumped a good deal. We had towear our shoes, for the place was paved with rough concrete andoyster-shells.
The sentry evidently heard the clumping, for he came running down afterus, and caught up to us almost as soon as we reached the square.
"Eugh!" said he, for he was an Indian; and he ran in front of us, andheld his musket horizontally before us. Of course we stopped. And then,as there was nothing else that seemed proper to do, we held out ourhands and said "How?" The sentinel took his gun in his left hand, andshook hands with us. Then Maiden's Heart, who probably remembered thathe had omitted this ceremony, also shook hands with us and said "How?"
The two Indians now began to jabber to each other, in a low voice; butwe could not,
of course, make out what they said, and I don't think theywere able to imagine what we intended to do. We were standing near theinner door of the great entrance-way, and into this they now marched us.There was a lamp burning on a table.
Said Rectus: "I guess they're going to put us out of the front door;"but he was mistaken. They walked us into a dark room, on one side of thehall, and Maiden's Heart said to us: "Stay here. Him mad. I come back.Keep still," and then he went out, probably to discuss with the sentinelthe nature of our conspiracy. It was very dark in this room, and, atfirst, we couldn't see anything at all; but we soon found, from thesmell of the bread, that we were in the kitchen or bakery. We had beenhere before, and had seen the head-cook, a ferocious Indian squaw, whohad been taken in the act of butchering a poor emigrant woman on theplains. She always seemed sullen and savage, and never said a word toanybody. We hoped she wasn't in here now.
"I didn't know they had Indian sentinels," said Rectus. "That seems alittle curious to me. I suppose they set the innocent ones to watch theguilty."
"I don't believe that would work," said I, "for the innocent chapswould want to get away, just as much as the others. I guess they make'em take turns to stand guard. There has to be a sentinel in a fort, youknow, and I suppose these fellows are learning the business."
We didn't settle this question, nor the more important one of our reasonfor this visit; for, at this moment, Maiden's Heart came back, carryingthe lamp. He looked at us in a curious way, and then he said:
"What you want?"
I couldn't think of any good answer to this question, but Rectuswhispered to me:
"Got any money with you?"
"Yes," said I.
"Let's buy some sea-beans," said Rectus.
"All right," I answered.
"Sea-beans?" said Maiden's Heart, who had caught the word; "you wantsea-beans?"
"Yes," said Rectus, "if you have any good ones."
At this, the Indian conducted us into the hall, put the lamp on thetable, and took three or four sea-beans from his pocket. They were verynice ones, and beautifully polished.
"Good," said I; "we'll take these. How much, Maiden's Heart?"
"Fifty cents," said the Indian.
"For all?" I asked.
"No. No. For one. Four bean two dollar."
We both exclaimed at this, for it was double the regular price of thebeans.
"All right," said Maiden's Heart. "Twenty-five cents, daytime. Fiftycents, night."
We looked at each other, and concluded to pay the price and depart. Igave him two dollars, and asked him to open the gate and let us out.
"ANOTHER BEAN."]
He grinned.
"No. No. We got no key. Captain got key. Come up wall. Go down wall."
At this, we walked out into the square, and were about to ascend theinclined plane when the sentinel came up and stopped us. Thereupon a lowconversation ensued between him and Maiden's Heart, at the end of whichthe sentry put his hand into his pocket and pulled out three beans,which he held out to us. I did not hesitate, but gave him a dollar and ahalf for them. He took the money and let us pass on,--Maiden's Heart atmy side.
"You want more bean?" said he.
"Oh, no!" I answered. "No, indeed," said Rectus.
When we reached the place where we had left our apparatus, I swung therope over the wall, and, hooking the grapnel firmly on the inside,prepared to go down, for, as before, I wished to be under Rectus, if heshould slip. But Maiden's Heart put his hand on my shoulder.
"Hold up!" he said. "I got 'nother bean. Buy this."
"Don't want it," said I.
"Yes. Yes," said Maiden's Heart, and he coolly unhooked the grapnel fromthe wall.
I saw that it was of no use to contend with a big fellow like that, asstrong as two common men, and I bought the bean.
I took the grapnel from Maiden's Heart, who seemed to give it upreluctantly, and as I hooked it on the wall, I felt a hand upon myshoulder. I looked around, and saw the sentinel. He held out to meanother bean. It was too dark to see the quality of it, but I thought itwas very small. However, I bought it. One of these fellows must betreated as well as the other.
Maiden's Heart and the sentry were now feeling nervously in theirpockets.
I shook my head vigorously, and saying, "No more! no more!" threw myselfover the wall, and seized the rope, Rectus holding the grapnel in itsplace as I did so. As I let myself down from knot to knot, a thoughtcrossed my mind: "How are we going to get that grapnel after we both aredown?"
It was a frightening thought. If the two Indians should choose, theycould keep the rope and grapnel, and, before morning, the whole posse ofred-skins might be off and away! I did not think about their being sofar from home, and all that. I only thought that they'd be glad to getout, and that they would all come down our rope.
These reflections, which ran through my mind in no time at all, wereinterrupted by Rectus, who called down from the top of the wall, in avoice that was a little too loud to be prudent:
"Hurry! I think he's found another bean!"
I was on the ground in a few moments, and then Rectus came down. Icalled to him to come slowly and be very careful, but I can't tell howrelieved I was when I saw him fairly over the wall and on his way down.
When we both stood on the ground, I took hold of the rope and shook it.I am not generally nervous, but I was a little nervous then. I did notshake the grapnel loose. Then I let the rope go slack, for a foot ortwo, and gave it a big sweep to one side. To my great delight, over camethe grapnel, nearly falling on our heads. I think I saw Maiden's Heartmake a grab at it as it came over, but I am not sure. However, he pokedhis head over the wall and said:
"Good-bye! Come again."
We answered, "Good-bye," but didn't say anything about coming again.
As we hurried along homeward, Rectus said:
"If one of those Indians had kept us up there, while the other one raninto the barracks and got a fresh stock of sea-beans, they would havejust bankrupted us."
"No, they wouldn't," I said. "For I hadn't much more change with me. Andif I had had it, I wouldn't have given them any more. I'd have called upthe captain first. The thing was getting too expensive."
"Well, I'm glad I'm out of it," said Rectus. "And I don't believe muchin any of those Indians being very innocent. I thought Maiden's Heartwas one of the best of them, but he's a regular rascal. He knew wewanted to back out of that affair, and he just fleeced us."
"I believe he would rather have had our scalps than our money, if he hadhad us out in his country," I said.
"That's so," said Rectus. "A funny kind of a maiden's heart he's got."
We were both out of conceit with the noble red man. Rectus took hisproclamation out of his pocket as we walked along the sea-wall, and,tearing it into little pieces, threw it into the water. When we reachedthe steam-ship wharf, we walked out to the end of it, to get rid of therope and grapnel. I whirled the grapnel round and round, and let thewhole thing fly far out into the harbor. It was a sheer waste of a goodstrong rope, but we should have had a dreary time getting the knots outof it.
After we got home I settled up our accounts, and charged half thesea-beans to Rectus, and half to myself.