The Man Inside

Excerpt: 'The long hot tropic day was drawing to its close. The shadows were gradually rising and filling the narrow street, and every now and then from the side of the open drain which ran through the middle of the street a large black carrion bird flew up. There was no sidewalk, the cobblestones running right up to the low white house walls. The windows which opened on the street were for the most part few in number, small and heavily barred. It was not by any means the best quarter in Colon. One building, more pretentious than the rest, was distinguished from its neighbours by large French windows, also protected by the iron screen or reja. It was impossible to tell the nationality of the one man lounging along the street. He seemed profoundly buried in his own thoughts. Dark as his skin was, and black as was his beard, there was something about him which negatived the idea that he was a Spaniard. His rolling walk suggested the sailor’s life. As he passed the building with the long French windows, the tinkle of a guitar roused his attention, and he stepped inside the front door and glanced furtively at the few men who lounged about the tables which dotted the long room. Passing by several empty tables and chairs, the stranger seated himself in the corner of the room on the side further from the street, near a window which opened on a neglected garden. A tropical vine thrust its branches against what had once been a wood and glass partition which formed the end of the room, the branches and leaves twining in and out among the broken panes of the window.