CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THROUGH THE OPEN SKYLIGHT

Sommers took his cigar from his mouth and laid it carefully down upon the edge of the table, although he was plainly unconscious of the movement.  He lifted his head with a little toss that threw back a heavy lock of his jet-black hair.  He glanced around the table, and his eyes dominated those others hypnotically.

“I have here,” he began in the sonorous voice and the measured enunciation of the trained orator, “a letter from our esteemed—­and unfortunate—­comrade and fellow worker, Elfigo Apodaca.  Without taking your valuable time by reading the letter through from salutation to signature, I may say briefly that its context is devoted to our cause and to the inconvenience which may be entailed because of our comrade’s present incarceration, the duration of which is as yet undetermined.

“Comrade Apodaca expresses great confidence in his ultimate release.  He maintains that young Medina is essentially a traitor, and that his evidence at the preliminary hearing was given purely in the spirit of revenge.  That Comrade Apodaca will be exonerated fully of the charge of murder, I myself can entertain no scintilla of doubt.  We may therefore dismiss from our minds any uneasiness we may, some of us, have entertained on that score.

“The question we are foregathered here to decide to-night is whether the date set for our public demonstration shall remain as it stands; whether we shall seek permission to postpone that date, or whether it shall be deemed expedient to set it forward to the earliest possible moment.  As you all are doubtless aware, our esteemed compatriots in Mexico are ready and waiting our pleasure, like hounds straining at the leash.  The work of organization on this side of the line has of necessity been slow, because of various adverse influences and a slothful desire for present ease and safety, which we have been constrained to combat.  Also the accumulation of arms and ammunition in a sufficient quantity for our purpose without exciting suspicion has required much tactful manipulation.

“But we have here assembled the trusted representatives from our twelve districts in the State, and I trust that each one of you has come prepared to furnish this Junta with the data necessary for an intelligent action upon the question we have to decide to-night.  Am I right, gentlemen, in that assumption?”

Eleven men nodded assent and looked down at the slips of paper they had produced from inner pockets and held ready in their hands.

“Then I shall ask you, compadres, to listen carefully to the report from each district, so that you may judge the wisdom of foreshortening the interval between to-night and the date set for the uprising.