The Texan"s face clouded.
"I cannot understand you," he said. "Why this hurry? It would in reality be a breach of faith to our great friend, Santa Anna--that is, if you could go. I don"t believe you can."
Ned was troubled. He was tempted to tell what was in his mind, but he knew that he would not be believed, so he fell back again upon his infinite capacity for silence. Mr. Austin read resolution in the closed lips and rigid figure.
"Do you really mean that you will attempt to steal away?" he asked.
"As soon as I can."
The man shook his head.
"It would be better not to do so," he said, "but you are your own master, and I see I cannot dissuade you from the attempt. But, boy, you will promise me not to take any unnecessary or foolish risks?"
"I promise gladly, and, Mr. Austin, I hate to leave you here."
Their quarters were commodious and Ned slept alone in a small room to the left of the main apartment. It was a bare place with only a bed and a chair, but it was lighted by a fairly large window. Ned examined this window critically. It had a horizontal iron bar across the middle, and it was about thirty feet from the ground. He pulled at the iron bar with both hands but, although rusty with time, it would not move in its socket. Then he measured the two s.p.a.ces between the bar and the wall.
Hope sprang up in the boy"s heart. Then he did a strange thing. He removed nearly all his clothing and tried to press his head and shoulders between the bar and the wall. His head, which was of the long narrow type, so common in the scholar, would have gone through the aperture, had it not been for his hair which was long, and which grew uncommonly thick. His shoulders were very thick and broad and they, too, halted him. He drew back and felt a keen thrill of disappointment.
But he was a boy who usually clung tenaciously to an idea, and, sitting down, he concentrated his mind upon the plan that he had formed. By and by a possible way out came to him. Then he lay down upon the bed, drew a blanket over him because the night was chill in the City of Mexico, and calmly sought sleep.
CHAPTER II
A HAIR-CUT
The optimism of Mr. Austin endured the next morning, but Ned was gloomy.
Since it was his habit to be silent, the man did not notice it at first.
The breakfast was good, with tortillas, frijoles, other Mexican dishes and coffee, but the boy had no appet.i.te. He merely picked at his food, made a faint effort or two to drink his coffee and finally put the cup back almost full in the saucer. Then Mr. Austin began to observe.
"Are you ill, Ned?" he asked. "Is this imprisonment beginning to tell upon you? I had thought that you were standing it well. Can"t you eat?"
"I don"t believe I"m hungry," replied the boy, "but there is nothing else the matter with me. I"ll be all right, Uncle Steve. Don"t you bother about me."
He ate a little breakfast, about one half of the usual amount, and then, asking to be excused, went to the window, where he again stared out at the tiled roofs, the green foliage in the valley of Mexico and the ranges and peaks beyond. He was taking his resolution, and he was carrying it out, but it was hard, very hard. He foresaw that he would have to strengthen his will many, many times. Mr. Austin took no further worry on Ned"s account, thinking that he would be all right again in a day or two.
But at the dinner which was brought to them in the middle of the day Ned showed a marked failure of appet.i.te, and Mr. Austin felt real concern. The boy, however, was sure that he would be all right before the day was over.
"It must be the lack of fresh air and exercise," said Mr. Austin. "You can really take exercise in here, Ned. Besides, you said that you were going to escape. If you fall ill you will have no chance at all."
He spoke half in jest, but Ned took him seriously.
"I am not ill, Uncle Steve," he said. "I really feel very well, but I have lost my appet.i.te. Maybe I am getting tired of these Mexican dishes."
"Take exercise! take exercise!" said Mr. Austin with emphasis.
"I think I will," said Ned.
Physical exercise, after all, fitted in with his ideas, and that afternoon he worked hard at all the gymnastic feats possible within the three rooms to which they were confined. De Zavala came in and expressed his astonishment at the athletic feats, which Ned continued with unabated zeal despite his presence.
"Why do you do these things?" he asked in wonder.
"To keep myself strong and healthy. I ought to have begun them sooner.
The Mexican air is depressing, and I find that I am losing my appet.i.te."
De Zavala"s eyes opened wide while Ned deftly turned a handspring. Then the young American sat down panting, his face flushed with as healthy a color as one could find anywhere.
"You"ll have an appet.i.te to-night," said Mr. Austin. But to his great amazement Ned again played with his food, eating only half the usual amount.
"You"re surely ill," said Mr. Austin. "I"ve no doubt de Zavala would allow us to have a physician, and I shall ask him for one."
"Don"t do it, Uncle Steve," begged Ned. "There"s nothing at all the matter with me, and anyhow I wouldn"t want a Mexican doctor fussing over me. I"ve probably been eating too much."
Mr. Austin was forced to accede. The boy certainly did not look ill, and his appet.i.te was bound to become normal again in a few days. But it did not. As far as Mr. Austin could measure it, Ned was eating less and less. It was obvious that he was thinner. He was also growing much paler, except for a red flush on the cheek bones. Mr. Austin became alarmed, but Ned obstinately refused any help, always a.s.serting with emphasis that he had no ailment of any kind. But the man could see that he had become much lighter, and he wondered at the boy"s physical failure. De Zavala, also, expressed his sorrow in sonorous Spanish, but Ned, while thanking them, steadily disclaimed any need of sympathy.
The boy found the days hard, but the nights were harder. For the first time in his life he could not sleep well. He would lie for hours so wide awake that his eyes grew used to the dark, and he could see everything in his room. He was troubled, too, by bad dreams and in many of these dreams he was a living skeleton, wandering about and condemned to live forever without food. More than once he bitterly regretted the resolution he had taken, but having taken it, he would never alter it.
His silent, concentrated nature would not let him. Yet he endured undoubted torture day by day. Torture was the only name for it.
"I shall send an application to President Santa Anna to have you allowed a measure of liberty," said Mr. Austin finally. "You are simply pining away here, Edward, my lad. You cannot eat, that is, you eat only a little. I have pa.s.sed the most tempting and delicate things to you and you always refuse. No boy of your age would do so unless something were very much wrong with his physical system. You have lost many pounds, and if this keeps on I do not know what will happen to you. I shall not ask for more liberty for you, but you must have a doctor at once."
"I do not want any doctor, Uncle Steve," said the boy. "He cannot do me any good, but there is somebody else whom I want."
"Who is he?"
"A barber."
"A barber! Now what good can a barber do you?"
"A great deal. What I crave most in the world is a hair-cut, and only a barber can do that for me. My hair has been growing for more than three months, Uncle Steve, and you"ve seen how extremely thick it is. Now it is so long, too, that it"s falling all about my eyes. Its weight is oppressing my brain. I feel a little touch of fever now and then, and I believe it"s this awful hair."
He ran his fingers through the heavy locks until his head seemed to be surrounded with a defense like the quills of a porcupine. Beneath the great bush of hair his gray eyes glowed in a pale, thin face.
"There is a lot of it," said Mr. Austin, surveying him critically, "but it is not usual for anybody in our situation to be worrying about the length and abundance of his hair."
"I"m sure I"d be a lot better if I could get it cut close."
"Well, well, if you are taking it so much to heart we"ll see what can be done. You are ill and wasted, Edward, and when one is in that condition a little thing can affect his spirits. De Zavala is a friendly sort of young fellow and through him we will send a request to Colonel Sandoval, the commander of the prisons, that you be allowed to have your hair cut."
"If you please, Uncle Steve," said Ned gratefully.
Mr. Austin was not wrong in his forecast about Lieutenant de Zavala. He showed a full measure of sympathy. Hence a pet.i.tion to Colonel Martin Sandoval y Dominguez, commander of prisons in the City of Mexico, was drawn up in due form. It stated that one Edward Fulton, a Texan of tender years, now in detention at the capital, was suffering from the excessive growth of hair upon his head. The weight and thickness of said hair had heated his brain and destroyed his appet.i.te. In ordinary cases of physical decline a physician was needed most, but so far as young Edward Fulton was concerned, a barber could render the greatest service.
The pet.i.tion, duly endorsed and stamped, was forwarded to Colonel Martin Sandoval y Dominguez, and, after being gravely considered by him in the manner befitting a Mexican officer of high rank and pure Spanish descent, received approval. Then he chose among the barbers one Joaquin Menendez, a dark fellow who was not of pure Spanish descent, and sent him to the prison with de Zavala to accomplish the needed task.
"I hope you will be happy now, Edward," said Mr. Austin, when the two Mexicans came. "You are a good boy, but it seems to me that you have been making an undue fuss about your hair."