When Egypt Went Broke by Holman Day (classic books to read TXT) 📖

the mass of rocks and earth was hoisted from behind and slid toward the pit. There was a tremor of the ground under the prison and its yard as if Thor had thunked viciously with his heaviest hammer. When startled men shot glances from the windows that were handiest for observation, the hill was toppling into the pit. In the forefront was the dynamite shed, splintering under the tons of moving rock. Instantly the last sliver of the shed was swallowed up, and then other tons of dirt and rock went piling into the pit, burying the shattered structure in crashing depths from which lime-rock dust came puffing in clouds.
On the edge of the pit a man was dancing wildly in an aura of dust. The man was Wagg. He came staggering away from the pit, his arms folded across his eyes.
"I saw him!" he squalled, when officers met him in their race across the yard from the prison. "He was in the shed. I told him to keep away from them wires. I've been telling everybody to keep off'n them wires. But everybody has been bound and determined to fool with 'em." He pulled down his arms and shot accusatory digit at the deputy warden whom he had previously rebuked. "Only this day I had to warn you not to fool with them wires. He must have done it. I saw him go under. It's Gawd-awful. I'll never forget it--how he looked. Gimme water!"
He sucked from the edge of the tin dipper which a man brought, suffling like a thirsty horse. He rolled up his eyes and surveyed the warden, who had arrived.
"Number Two-Seven-Nine--you say he has gone?" The warden's countenance registered honest horror; but Mr. Wagg's simulated horror was even more convincing in its intensity.
"He's gone! He's under the whole of it!" Wagg dropped the dipper and collapsed on the ground. "My nerve is all busted, Warden. I sha'n't ever have any more grit to be a guard. I ask to be discharged. Here and now I beg to be fired!"
"I'll arrange a furlough for you, Wagg," said the warden, with understanding sympathy. "You're entitled to a lay-off with pay. It was a terrible thing to see!"
"And his mother!" mourned the guard. "Break it to her easy!"
"A dreadful--dreadful affair," insisted the warden.
He started toward the edge of the pit. "And the prison commissioners, the way state finances are, will never go to the expense of having all that rock moved to dig him out."
"Probably not, seeing that he's under the whole of it," agreed Wagg. "He was a likable chap, spite of what he had done to get in here. Poor Two-Seven-Nine!"
One of the inside guards had arrived at the scene of mourning. He was greatly excited. "And I guess it's poor Two-Eight-Two! He's missing from the noon count-up, Mr. Warden!"
Wagg struggled upon his feet. He was not simulating the new phase of his emotions. He looked distinctly frightened. "There's only one under there. I saw him go. Who is Two-Eight-Two?"
"One of the pair sent down from Levant for breaking and entering in the nighttime."
"He wasn't in my crew--he wasn't on outdoor work," shouted Wagg.
"What was his job?" demanded the warden.
"Harness shop," reported an officer. He called to another guard and started into the building indicated.
All those in the yard waited anxiously, their eyes on the door where the guards had entered. Promptly the officers came out. One propelled a convict, clutching the collar of the dingy prison coat; the other carried a length of narrow ladder that was fashioned from strips of leather. "I reckon he hid out to work on this," said the guard.
"Didn't you know that you couldn't get away with anything of that sort?" the warden demanded, angrily.
The convict looked past the warden, straight into the eyes of Wagg. "You never can tell what you can get away with till you try it," Two-Eight-Two declared. There was a touch of insolence in his manner.
"Into the doghole with him!" the warden commanded.
Wagg surveyed the departure of the convict. The man contrived to twist his head around and look behind him; and he disclosed a grin. But he was hampered by the clutch on his collar and Wagg was not sure that the grin was intended for him, though the consciousness that the convict might have beheld what was on the inner side of that shield of boards was a thought which troubled Mr. Wagg's complacent belief that a good job had been well done.
He continued to watch the man until the narrow door which opened from the yard, admitting to the doghole cells, swallowed up the convict and his guard. All that time a sort of quivery feeling was inside Wagg. He actually found himself in frantic mental search of some kind of a lie to be used in case the convict whirled and pointed to the big chimney and got over an accusation. But the man did not look around again.
"I can plainly see that you are in a bad way, Wagg," affirmed the warden. Fervently did Mr. Wagg agree in his heart. "Your leave of absence dates from this moment, if you say so."
"I may have to go on to stone work again if I don't get back my grit, warden. I'd like to have the run of the yard for a day or so, in order to look over just how that blast worked. Seeing that it cost a human life, I'd like to get full value of experience out of it."
"Come and go as you like, Wagg. I'll lend you a key to the small door beside the wagon entrance in case you don't want to ring in through the guardroom."
Mr. Wagg expressed his gratitude in proper terms and allowed that he would go and lie down for a time in order to calm himself. Again he urged the warden to break the news gently to Vaniman's mother and respectfully requested that Guard Wagg's sympathy be included in the condolence in the official letter.
The newspapers of that afternoon contained an account of the tragic happening at the state prison.
That night, too, Vona Harnden kept vigil, her door locked against her mother, whose fatuous commonplaces of commiseration were like files against the raw surface of the girl's agony.
The front parlor of the Harndens had been converted into a sleeping room for Tasper Britt. Vona's room was over the parlor. She could hear the rasping diapason of his snoring. He appeared to be sleeping with the calm relaxation of a man who had been able to eliminate some especial worries from his mind.
Furthermore, that night, the chairman of the prison commissioners had a talk with the warden over the telephone. The warden made a guess as to how many thousands of tons of rock were piled above the body of the unfortunate victim.
"The taxpayers will never indorse the project of digging out that pit to recover the body of a convict, no matter who he is," declared the commissioner. "I don't mean to sound brutal, but we must let it stand as it is. Enter the reports of witnesses and declare the man officially dead. Here is one case, at least, Mr. Warden, when there's no doubt about a man being dead."
However, shortly after twelve o'clock that night--and the night being particularly black with an overcast sky--Bartley Wagg opened the iron door of the big chimney and called forth Frank Vaniman and led him out through the little door at the side of the carriage entrance.
There was a conveyance waiting there, a good-sized van, drawn by a solid-looking horse. Mr. Wagg lifted the flap of the van's cover.
"Crawl in!" he commanded. "You'll find plenty of room along with the rest of the camping kit. Roll yourself up in the tent and take it easy. My nerves have been shocked by the terrible affair and I'm going into the mountains to recuperate. Doctor's orders!" He was grimly serious.
He mounted the seat of the van and drove away with his passenger and the outfit.


CHAPTER XXIV
THE SHADE WHO STALLED
Mr. Wagg did not hurry. He used several days for his trip to Egypt. He drove leisurely along roads which led through small towns and out-of-the-way places. That plan afforded him opportunity and excuse for pitching a tent to serve as shelter during the night stops. And after the tent was pitched and the dusk descended, Vaniman was able to come thankfully from the hateful restraint of the van and stroll along the woodland aisles and get the kinks out of his anatomy.
But, although he eased his body, he was unable to ease his mind. He had not expected to enjoy his questionable freedom, anyway. Liberty was of value to him only as he might be able to use it in his fight for his rights as an innocent man. He could not freely use his liberty until he had cleared his name and thereby justified his escape from the prison. Now he was wondering whether he would have allowed Wagg to proceed as he did had the guard apprised him of the full details of the plan. The sweat of anguish stood out on him as he pondered in the jolting van; he found no pleasure in the respite of the peaceful woods.
By the plot of Wagg he had dealt his loved ones the cruel blow that sudden death inflicts on the affections. In spite of what he hoped to gain from his freedom, Vaniman was accusing himself, realizing what his mother, his sister, and Vona were suffering. It was his nature to draw fine distinctions in points of honor; he was ashamed in the presence of Wagg; and in the consideration of the interests of self, he felt that his liberty was exacting too great a price from others. To all intents and purposes, outside the knowledge of one man to the contrary, he was dead, and he had deprived his best beloved of hope and peace of mind. The one man in the secret profanely declared that if Vaniman made an attempt to communicate with any person in the world until their particular business had been settled, the whole project was in danger. "I don't care how much dependence you put in your mother's good sense. She's a woman, and women slop over when they're all wowed up! She'd have to tell your sister, wouldn't she? She couldn't let your sister go on suffering. And your sister's too young to be trusted. Vaniman, the toughest part is over for 'em. That's a cinch! They'll go on sorrowing, of course, but they'll be feeling more reconciled every day. Mourners always do. Mourners can't help seeing the bright side, after a time. Think of that and quit your foolishness. You have made a trade with me. Till your part of that trade is carried out you ain't a free agent to do what you want to do in your own affairs."
The worry over his inability to carry out that trade was mingled with the young man's general bitterness of regret because he had challenged Fate so boldly.
"There's one thing about it," Mr. Wagg pursued, "the quicker you come across with me the sooner you can do what you darnation want to on your own hook. I have worked a thing that could be worked only once. You're out--and you're out right. Nobody is chasing you. Take another name, show up in some other part of the country, and you'll live happy ever after."
He dwelt on that theme whenever the two talked, and he played all the variations. Furthermore, he complained because Vaniman was not showing his gratitude in more hearty fashion. "I catch you looking at me like a youngster would look