. I probably
was the first decent man who ever had treated him civilly, and to
impress me with his knowledge he spread that knowledge before me. It was
_sale_, shocking, degrading.

At first I took comfort in the thought that Schnitzel was a liar. Later,
I began to wonder if all of it were a lie, and finally, in a way I could
not doubt, it was proved to me that the worst he charged was true.

The night I first began to believe him was the night we touched at
Cristobal, the last port in Valencia. In the most light-hearted manner
he had been accusing all concerned in the nitrate fight with every crime
known in Wall Street and in the dark reaches of the Congo River.

"But, I know him, Mr. Schnitzel," I said sternly. "He is incapable of
it. I went to college with him."

"I don't care whether he's a rah-rah boy or not," said Schnitzel, "I
know that's what he did when he was up the Orinoco after orchids, and if
the tribe had ever caught him they'd have crucified him. And I know
this, too: he made forty thousand dollars out of the Nitrate Company on
a ten-thousand-dollar job. And I know it, because he beefed to me about
it himself, because it wasn't big enough."

We were passing the limestone island at the entrance to the harbor,
where, in the prison fortress, with its muzzle-loading guns pointing
drunkenly at the sky, are buried the political prisoners of Valencia.

"Now, there," said Schnitzel, pointing, "that shows you what the Nitrate
Trust can do. Judge Rojas is in there. He gave the first decision in
favor of the Walker-Keefe people, and for making that decision William
T. Scott, the Nitrate manager, made Alvarez put Rojas in there. He's
seventy years old, and he's been there five years. The cell they keep
him in is below the sea-level, and the salt-water leaks through the
wall. I've seen it. That's what William T. Scott did, an' up in New York
people think 'Billy' Scott is a fine man. I seen him at the Horse Show
sitting in a box, bowing to everybody, with his wife sitting beside him,
all hung out with pearls. An' that was only a month after I'd seen Rojas
in that sewer where Scott put him."

"Schnitzel," I laughed, "you certainly are a magnificent liar."

Schnitzel showed no resentment.

"Go ashore and look for yourself," he muttered. "Don't believe me. Ask
Rojas. Ask the first man you meet." He shivered, and shrugged his
shoulders. "I tell you, the walls are damp, like sweat."

The Government had telegraphe