as rowed out to the quiet yacht in the same boat with the
tall American, whose clothes were torn and caked with mud, and in
whose eyes there glowed a fierce determination.

That night the sky was overcast. The harbingers of the wet season had
already arrived. At two in the morning the rain came, descending in a
torrent. In the midst of it a light skiff, rocking dangerously on the
swelling sea, rounded a corner of San Fernando and crept like a shadow
along the dull gray wall. The sentry above had taken shelter from the
driving rain. The ancient fort lay heavily shrouded in gloom.

At one of the narrow, grated windows which were set just above the
water's surface the skiff hung, and a long form arose from its depths
and grasped the iron bars. A moment later the gleam of an electric
lantern flashed into the blackness within. It fell upon a rough bench,
standing in foul, slime-covered water. Upon the bench sat the huddled
form of a man.

Then another dark shape rose in the skiff. Another pair of hands laid
hold on the iron bars. And behind those great, calloused hands
stretched thick arms, with the strength of an ox. An iron lever was
inserted between the bars. The heavy breathing and the low sounds of
the straining were drowned by the tropic storm. The prisoner leaped
from the bench and stood ankle-deep in the water, straining his eyes
upward.

The light flashed again into his face. His heart pounded wildly. His
throbbing ears caught the splash of a knotted rope falling into the
water at his feet. Above the noise of the rain he thought he heard a
groaning, creaking sound. Those rusted, storm-eaten bars in the
blackness above must be slowly yielding to an awful pressure. He
turned and dragged the slime-covered bench to the window, and stood
upon it. Then he grasped the rope with a strength born anew of hope
and excitement, and pulled himself upward. The hands from without
seized him; and slowly, painfully, his emaciated body was crushed
through the narrow space between the bent bars.

* * * * *

Cartagena awoke to experience another thrill. And then the ripple of
excitement gave place to anger. The rabble had lost one of its
victims, and that one the chief. Moreover, the presence of that
graceful yacht, sleeping so quietly out there in the sunlit harbor,
could not but be associated with that most daring deed of the
preceding night, which had given liberty to the excommunicate