LITMIR.BIZ

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He stooped and picked up the note he had been writing. “I was just sending that to you by the boy when you screamed. Take it. Read it. It won’t bite you. It isn’t a viperine.”

      Though she refused to receive it, her eyes involuntarily scanned the opening line:

      “I am the man whom you mistook for Henry Morgan…”

      “You… are… not… Henry?” she gasped.

      “No, I am not. Won’t you please take it and read.”

      “But the name? Your name?”

      “Morgan, Francis Morgan.” He bowed. “As I explained there, Henry and I are distant relatives, or something like that. Moreover, Henry did not kill your uncle.”

      To his bewilderment, a great doubt suddenly dawned in her eyes.

      “Henry,” she accused him. “This is a devil’s trick you’re trying to play on me. Of course you are Henry.”

      Francis pointed to his mustache.

      “You’ve grown that since,” she challenged.

      He pulled up his sleeve and showed her his left arm from wrist to elbow.

      “Do you remember the scar?” he asked.

      She nodded.

      “Then find it.”

      “I… I ask your forgiveness. I was terribly mistaken, and I’ve treated you…”

      “That kiss was delightful,” he naughtily disclaimed.

      “Do you have a message from Henry,” she changed the subject abruptly. “Is he innocent…? This is true? Oh, I want to believe you!”

      “I am morally certain that Henry did not kill your uncle!”

      “Then say no more, at least not now,” she interrupted joyfully. “First of all, you must go with me now to the house. And you can tell me about Henry on the way.”

* * *

      Alvarez Torres was sitting on the broad piazza of the Solano Hacienda.[44] What he saw was Leoncia and Francis. Next and Torres could scarcely believe his eyes, he saw Francis take a ring, and Leoncia extend her left hand and receive the ring upon her third ringer. Engagement finger it was!

      What had really occurred was the placing of Henry’s engagement ring back on Leoncia’s hand. And Leoncia, she knew not why, was not very glad to receiving the ring.

      Torres tossed the dead cigarette away, twisted his mustache fiercely, and advanced to meet them across the piazza.

      “One does not expect to see a shameless murderer here.”

      Francis smiled.

      “Another lunatic in this lunatic land,” he said. “The last time, Leoncia, that I saw this gentleman was in New York. He was really anxious to do business with me. Now I meet him here and the first thing he tells me is that I am a shameless murderer.”

      “Senor Torres, you must apologize,” she declared angrily. “We don’t insult guest in the house of Solano.”

      “Senor Torres,” Francis said. “I know what your mistake is. You think I am Henry Morgan. I am Francis Morgan, and you and I, not long ago, transacted business together in Regan’s office in New York.”

      Torres, overwhelmed for the moment by his mistake, uttered apologies both to Francis and Leoncia.

      “And now,” said Leoncia, “Senor Torres, we will tell you about Henry.”

      While she departed, Torres found he was more amazed and angry than ever. A newcomer, a stranger put a ring on Leoncia’s engagement finger! He thought quickly and passionately for a moment. Leoncia, whom to himself he always named the queen of his dreams, had engaged herself to a strange Gringo from New York. It was unbelievable, monstrous. He clapped his hands, summoned his hired carriage.

      After lunch, Francis, eager to bring to Henry the good word that his ring adorned Leoncia’s finger, resolutely declined her hospitality to remain for the night and meet Enrico Solano and his sons. Francis had a further reason for hasty departure. He could not endure the presence of Leoncia. She charmed him, drew him, to such extent that he dared not endure her charm. So Francis departed with a letter to Henry from Leoncia in his pocket. Leoncia stared at the ring on her finger with a vaguely troubled expression.

      From the beach, Francis signaled the Angelique to send a boat ashore for him. But suddenly half a dozen horsemen rode down the beach upon him at a gallop. Two men led. The following four had guns. Of the two leaders, Francis recognized Torres.

      “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.”

      And as Francis held her pliant form, he remembered Henry, in his canvas pants, bare-footed, under his floppy sombrero, digging holes in the sand of the Bull.

      “They just knew I was guilty and were eager to punish me. Why delay? They knew Henry Morgan had knifed Alfaro. They knew I was Henry Morgan,” he said.

      Deaf to his words, she was in his arms, against him, to him, her lips raised to his; and his own lips to hers. “I love you, I love you,” she whispered.

      “No,

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