“Now, sirs, tell me, what do you want? Is it my ears, or merely my mustache, you want?”
“We want you,” answered the stranger leader.
“And who might you be?”
“He is the honorable Senor Mariano Vercara e Hijos,[45] Jefe Politico of San Antonio,” Torres replied.
“Good night,” Francis laughed, remembering the man’s description as given to him by Henry. “I suppose you think I’ve broken some sanitary regulation by anchoring here. But I am only the charterer of the schooner just a passenger. You must talk to the Captain.”
“You are wanted for the murder of Alfaro Solano,” was Torres’ answer. “You didn’t fool me, Henry Morgan, with your talk up at the hacienda that you were some one else. I know that some one else. His name is Francis Morgan, and he is not a murderer, but a gentleman.”
“Oh!” Francis exclaimed. “But you recognized me, Senor Torres!”
“I was fooled,” Torres admitted sadly. “But only for a moment. Will you come peaceably?”
“Yes,” Francis shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose you’ll hang me at daybreak.”
“Justice is swift in Panama,” the Jefe Politico replied. “But not so quick as that. We will not hang you at daybreak. Ten o’clock in the morning is more comfortable, don’t you think?”
“Oh, by all means,” Francis retorted. “Make it eleven, or twelve noon I won’t mind.”
“You will come with us, Senor,” Mariano Vercara e Hijos said. “Juan! Ignacio![46]” he ordered in Spanish. “Take his weapons. No, it will not be necessary to tie his hands. Put him on the horse behind Gregorio.[47]”
* * *
Francis found himself in a whitewashed cell[48] with walls five feet thick. The hour was half-past eight in the evening. The trial had begun at eight. He was scheduled at ten next morning to swing off into space supported from the ground by a rope around his neck. The trial had lasted half an hour by his watch. Leoncia burst in and prolonged it by the ten minutes.
* * *
The Jefe was right, “Francis acknowledged to himself Panama justice moves swiftly.”
The letter given him by Leoncia and addressed to Henry Morgan had damned him. The rest had been easy. Half a dozen witnesses identified him as the murderer. The Jefe Politico himself had so testified. Torres was in love with Leoncia, and his jealousy knew no limits.
Leoncia broke down, sobbing on his shoulder, in his arms: “It is a cursed country, a cursed country.”