CONCERNING WOMAN'S WILES AND WITCHERY
When Jim woke next morning his first act was to try doors and window.
All were as he had left them last night. But since he was not the man
for worry before breakfast he went into his tub singing. When he had
splashed refreshingly in the cool water and thereafter had dressed,
breakfast was ready for him. For, while he was in his own room he
heard the door to the room Barlow had slept in the first night open.
And when he went through the bath to see who was there he saw a tray
spread on a little table by a window, the coffee steaming. No one was
there. He tried the outer door which led to the hall. Locked, of
course. So he sat down and uncovered the hot dishes and made a hearty
meal.
"They've certainly got the big bulge on the situation," he conceded.
"They could starve a man, poison his rolls or bore a bullet into him
while he slept, and who outside to know about it?"
Now he had the run of four rooms and could look out into the gardens.
Not so bad, he consoled himself. He had his smoke and sat back in his
chair, assuring himself that there were advantages in being shut off by
himself where he could take time to shape his plans. But as an hour
passed in silence--not a sound from any part of the big house all of
whose inmates might have been asleep or dead--and another hour dragged
by after it, he grew first impatient and then angry. He had found that
all of his planning could be done in five minutes: It resolved itself
down to a decision to have a talk with Barlow and then, with or without
help from Ruiz Rios, to make a bolt for the open. If Bruce and Barlow
would come to their senses and join him, it would all be so simple.
Three able-bodied, determined Americans against a handful of Zoraida's
hirelings.
The time came when Jim thundered at the doors and called. When only
silence followed his echoing voice he hammered at the hardwood doors
with the butt of his revolver and shouted, demanding to be a let out.
He tried the iron gratings over the windows and found them firm in
their places and too heavy-barred to be bent. In the end he gave over
in high disgust and waited.
Toward noon, while he was in his own room, pacing restlessly up and
down, he heard a door slam. He ran to the bathroom and found that the
door leading to Barlow's former quarters was closed and locked.
Someone was moving about just beyond the thick panel. He heard the
homely sound of dishes on a tray and waited, his hand on the doorknob,
meaning to push his way forward once the door was opened. But he heard
no other sound, though he waited minute after minute until perhaps half
an hour had dragged by. Then he sat on the edge of the tub, grown
stubborn, determined not to budge. And so another half hour passed.
An hour was a long time for Jim Kendric to sit or stand still and at
the end of it he began pacing up and down again; at first just in the
narrow confines of the bath, presently soft-footedly upon the soft
carpet of his room. And no sooner had he stepped a dozen paces from
the bathroom door than he heard a bolt shot back. He raced to the door
that had so long baffled him and threw it open. As he did so he heard
the outer hall door slam shut. When he laid hasty hands on it it was
barred again.
"Well, there's food, anyway," he muttered. And sat down.
Half way through his meal a thought struck him which gave little zest
to the rest of his food. He had walked silently when he left his post;
no one waiting in the room where the tray was could have heard him, he
felt sure. Then how did that person know the instant he stepped away?
He could not have been spied on through the keyhole of the door since
no keyhole was there; the fastening on the other side was simply that
of primitive bar. But that he had been spied on he was confident.
Well, why not? The house was old and no doubt had known no end of
intrigue in its time. The walls were thick enough for passageways
within them; an eye might be upon him all the time. He did not relish
the thought but refused to grow fanciful over it.
The afternoon he spent stoically accepting his condition. As he put it
to himself, the other fellow had the large, lovely bulge on the
situation. For the most part of the sultry afternoon he sat in
shirt-sleeved discomfort at his open window, staring out into the empty
gardens and wondering what the other dwellers of the old adobe house
were doing. Where were Bruce and Barlow and what lies was Zoraida
telling them? And where was Betty? He did not realize that his
wandering thoughts came back to Betty more often than to either of his
friends whom he had known so many years. But realization was forced
upon him that, despite all he had told both Zoraida and Ruiz Rios, he
did feel a very sincere interest in her. When repeatedly vague fears
on Betty's account disturbed him he told himself not to be a fool and
sought to dismiss them for good. What though Zoraida had indulged in
wild talk? At least she was a woman and though she held Betty for
ransom would be woman enough to hold her in safety. And yet his fears
surged back, stronger each time, and he would have given a good deal to
know just where and how Betty was spending the long hours of this
interminable day.
Finally came dusk, time of the first stars in the sky and lighted lamps
in men's houses. And, bringing him infinite relief, a tap at his door
and the gentle voice of Rosita saying:
"La Señorita invites Señor Kendric, if he has rested sufficiently, to
join her and her other guests at table."
He followed the little maid to the great dim dining-room.
Purple-shaded lamps created an atmosphere which impressed him as a
little weird; the long table was set forth elaborately with much rich
silver and sparkling glass; several men servants stood ready to place
chairs and serve; there were rare white flowers in tall vases, looking
a bluish-white under the lamps. As Kendric came to the threshold wide
double doors across the room opened and Zoraida's other "guests"
entered. They were Bruce, stiff and uncomfortable, seeming to be doing
his best to unbend toward Betty; Betty herself, flushed and excited;
Barlow, morose because of the arm he wore in a sling or because of a
day not passed to his liking; and Ruiz Rios, suave and immaculate in
white flannels.
When they were all in the room a constraint like a tangible inhibition
against any natural spontaneity fell over them. Kendric read in
Barlow's look no joy at the sight of him but only a sullen brooding;
Betty flashed one look at him in which was nothing of last night's
friendliness but an aloofness which might have been compounded of scorn
and distrust; Bruce appeared not to notice him.
"Oh, well," was Kendric's inward comment. "The devil take the lot of
them."
Zoraida did not keep them waiting. One of the servants, as though he
had had some signal, threw open still another door and Zoraida, a
splendid, vivid and vital Zoraida, burst upon their sight. She was
gowned as though she had on the instant stepped from a fashionable
Paris salon. And as though, on her swift way hither, she had stopped
only an instant in some barbaric king's treasure house to snatch up and
bedeck herself with his most resplendent jewels. Her arms were bare
save for scintillating stones set in broad gold bands; long pendants,
that seemed to live and breathe with their throbbing rubies, trembled
from the tiny lobes of her shell-pink ears. Her throat was bare, her
gown so daringly low cut at breast and back that Betty stared and
flushed and turned away from the sight of her.
At her best was Zoraida tonight. Life stood high in her blood; zest
shone like a bright fire in her eyes. A moment she poised, looking the
queen which she meant to become, which already in her heart she felt
herself. The inclination of her head as she greeted them, the
graciousness which the moment drew from her, were regal.
Even the heavy arm-chair at the head of the table had the look of a
throne. Two men drew it back for her, moved it into place when she was
seated. Then she looked to her guests, smiled and nodded and in
silence each accepted the place given him. Thus Jim Kendric sat at the
other end of the table in a chair like Zoraida's. At his right was
Betty who, since she averted her face from both him and Zoraida, kept
her eyes on her plate. At his left was Ruiz Rios. To right and left
of Zoraida sat Bruce and Barlow.
"I am afraid," said Zoraida lightly, embracing them all with her quick
smile, "that I have seemed to lack in courtesy to my friends today!
But here, _amigos_, when you come to know our land of the sun, you will
understand that the long hot days are for rest and solitude in shady
places while it is during the nights that one lives." A goblet of wine
as yellow as butter stood at her hand having just been poured from an
ancient misshapen earthen bottle. She lifted it and held it while the
other glasses were filled. "I drink with you, my friends, to many
golden nights!"
She scarcely more than touched the yellow wine with her lips and looked
to the others. Barlow, still surly, tossed off his drink at a gulp.
Bruce drank slowly, a little, and set his glass down. Betty did not
lift her eyes and kept her hands in her lap. Ruiz tasted eagerly and
his eyes sparkled and widened. Kendric mechanically set his glass to
his lips, drank sparingly and marveled. For never had he tasted
vintage like this. Its fragrance in his nostrils rose with strange
pleasant sensation to his brain; a drop on his palate seemed to pass
directly into his blood and electrically thrill throughout his whole
body. The draft was like a magic brew; potent and seductive it soothed
and at the same time set a delicious unrest in the blood, like that
vaguely stirring unrest of youth in springtime.
Barlow, the sullen, alone had drunk deeply. And in a flash Barlow was
another man. A warm color crept into his weathered cheeks, he drew
himself up in his chair, his eyes shone. Zoraida, looking from face to
face, laughed softly.
"What say you, my guests, to Zoraida's wine?" she said happily. "Made
for Zoraida a full four hundred years ago, treasured for her in the
vaults of the ancient Montezumas, distilled from the olden moonberry
which no longer do men know where to find or how to grow! None but the
Montezumas themselves and the priests of the great god Quetzel ever
drank of it, and they only on great feast days of rejoicing. A taste,
Miss Pansy Blossom, would bring back the roses to your pale cheeks.
And see my friend Barlow!" Lightly, laughing, she laid her hand for a
fleeting instant on his arm. "Already has the moonberry made his heart
swell and blossom and filled it with dream stuff like honey!"
Something--the golden liquor in his veins or Zoraida's touch or the
look in her eyes--emboldened the sea-faring man. He clamped his big
hairy hand down over her slim fingers and cried out, half starting from
his chair:
"It's in my mind, Zoraida, that the old Montezumas left more than
bottled moonshine after them. To be taken by them that have the hearts
for the job. Maybe for you--Yes, and for me!"
Zoraida drew her hand away but the laughter did not die in her eyes or
pass away from her scarlet lips. Barlow, holding himself stiff, shot a
look that was open challenge at Kendric who returned it wonderingly.
Rios touched up the ends of his black mustachios and appeared highly
good humored.
"Who knows?" said Zoraida softly, with a sidelong look at Kendric. "At
least, spoken like a man, friend Barlow!"
Her mood was one of intense exhilaration. The movements of her supple
body in her ample chair were quick and graceful and sinuous, like a
slender snake's; she seemed a-thrill and glowing; it was as though for
the moment life was for her as a great dynamo to which she had drawn
close so that it sent its mighty pristine and vigorous current dancing
through her. She lifted her glass and sipped while she still smiled;
she saw Barlow's empty goblet and impulsively emptied into it half of
her own. Though her back for the time was upon Bruce she seemed to
feel his quick jealous frown, for she turned swiftly from Barlow, and
her fingers fluttered to Bruce's shoulder. Kendric saw her eyes as she
gave them to Bruce in a look that was like a kiss. The boy flushed and
when she made further amends by holding to his lips her own glass, he
touched it almost reverently.
Kendric, sickening with disgust at what he chose to consider a
competition in assininity between his two old friends, turned from them
to Betty with some trivial remark. As he spoke he was contrasting her
with the splendid Zoraida and had he voiced the comparison Zoraida must
have whitened with anger and mortification while Betty flushed up,
startled. He would have said; "One is like a poison serpent and the
other like a flower." But instead of that he merely said:
"And how have you spent the long day, Miss Betty?"
Betty raised her head and looked at him steadily. A flower? Quickly,
even before she spoke, he amended that. A girl, rather; a girl with a
mind of her own and a sorching [Transcriber's note: scorching?] hot
temper and her utterly human moments of unreasonableness. Her glance
meant to cut and did cut. Her voice was serene, cool and contemptuous.
"I do not require to be amused, thank you," she said.
"Amused?" demanded Kendric, puzzled equally by words and expression.
"I am here against my will," she explained. "You are among your chosen
friends. To entertain me you need not deny yourself the pleasure of
their delightful conversation."
"You know better than that," he said sharply. "If you don't care to
talk with me----"
"I don't," said Betty.
Kendric reddened angrily. He opened his lips for the retort he meant
to make; then instead gulped down his wine and sat back glowering.
After having been fool enough to worry over her all day long to be told
to hold his tongue now set him to forming sweeping and denunciatory
generalizations concerning her entire sex. Well, he wanted matters
simplified and here came the desired solution. Betty could forage for
herself, could go to the devil if she liked, he told himself bluntly.
Before the night passed he meant to make a break for the open and,
thank God, he'd go alone. As a man should, with no woman around his
neck. Because a girl had hurt him he chose now to pretend to himself
that he was glad to be rid of her.
After that, during the meal, both Jim and Betty sat for the most part
silent and Rios, nursing his mustache and watching all that went
forward, had little to say. On the other hand Zoraida and Bruce and
Barlow made the dinner hour lively with their talk. Skilled in her
management of men, Zoraida had never shown greater genius for holding
two red blooded, ardent men in leash. She threw favors to each side of
her; a tumbled rose from her hair was loot for the sailorman who at the
moment was of a mood to forget other greater and more golden loot for
the scented, wilting petals; a bracelet coming undone was for Bruce's
eager fingers to fasten. And always when she looked at one man with a
kiss in her oblique eyes her head was turned so that the other man
might not see. Kendric she ignored.
"The same old story of good men gone wrong," philosophized Kendric.
"Let a man get a woman in his head and he's no earthly good." And, in
his turn, he ignored Betty. Or at least assured himself that he did
so. But Betty, being Betty, though for the most part her eyes seemed
downcast, knew that the man at her side thought of little but her own
exasperating self. She did a good bit of speculating upon Jim Kendric;
she was perplexed and uncertain; when he was not observing she shot
many a curious sidelong look at him.
"Miss Zoraida is about due to overreach herself," thought Kendric.
"She can't drive Barlow and Bruce tandem."
But Zoraida appeared to feel no uneasiness. As the meal went on and
meats and fruits were served and other vintages poured and coffee set
bubbling over a tiny alcohol flame on the table, her spirits rose and
she dared anything. She was sure of herself and of her destiny and of
her dominance over the pleasureable situation. Bruce's eyes and
Barlow's clashed like knives, but when they met hers softened and
worshiped.
At the end of the meal, when they rose, Zoraida cried: "Wait!" At her
signal her servants swiftly lifted the table and carried it out through
the double doors. Another smaller table was brought in; a man came to
Zoraida with a small steel box. She took it laughing, and laughing
spilled its contents out upon the table so that gold pieces rolled
jingling across the polished top and some fell to the floor. With her
own hands she carelessly divided the gold into four nearly equal piles.
"For my guests!" she told them lightly. She took from the servant's
hands a deck of cards and tossed it down among the minted gold. "I
would watch such men as you four play for the whole stake. And," she
added more slowly, her burning look embracing them all but lingering
upon Jim Kendric, "I have a curiosity to know who of you in my house is
the most favored of the gods!"
"There's a goodly pile there, Señorita," said Barlow who could never
look upon gold without hungering. "You mean it all goes to the man who
wins? And you don't play?"
"All that," she answered him steadily, "goes to the man who wins. With
perhaps much more? Who knows?"
Bruce stepped eagerly to the table where already Barlow was before him
with a heap of the gold drawn up to his hand. Ruiz Rios took his place
indifferently, affecting a look of ennui. Kendric held back. Betty,
aloof from them all, looked about her as though to escape. But at each
door, as though forbidding exit, stood one of Zoraida's men.
"You yourself do not play?" Barlow asked of Zoraida.
"This time, my friend," she replied, "I am content to watch."
Content rather, thought Kendric, to amuse herself by stirring up more
bad blood among friends. For the look he saw on her face was one of
pure malicious mischief. It occurred to him that she had sorrowed not
at all over the taking off of Escobar at Rios's hand; he had the
suspicion that in her cleverness she discerned looming trouble as a
result of encouraging the infatuations of two men like Bruce and
Barlow, and that before she would let herself be destroyed by an
inevitable jealous rage she meant to set them at each other's throats.
Such an act he deemed entirely germane to Zoraida's dark methods.
"Señor Jim does not care to play?" she asked quietly.
Had not Betty chosen to look at him then Kendric's answer would have
been a blunt, "No." But Betty did look, and the glance was as eloquent
as a gush of stinging words. Without a clue to the girl's thoughts, he
merely set her down as the most illogical, impertinent and irritating
creature it had ever been his bad lot to encounter. For her eyes told
him that he was an animal of some sort of a crawling species which she
abhorred. This after he had put in long troubled hours seeking the way
to be of service to her!
"Bah," he said in his heart, staring coldly at her until she averted
her eyes, "they're all the same." And to Zoraida, "I'll play but I
play with my own money."
Zoraida only laughed. His open rudeness seemed unmarked.
"Barlow," said Kendric, "I want a word with you first."
Barlow did not turn or lift his eyes.
"Talk fast then," he retorted. "The game's waiting."
"In private, if you don't mind," urged Kendric.
Now Barlow looked at him sullenly.
"After what happened last night, Kendric," he said heavily, "you and me
have got no private business together. Am I the man to take a bullet
from another and then go chin with him?"
"You blame me for that?" Kendric was incredulous. Barlow snorted.
"Well," continued Kendric stiffly, "at least we've unfinished business
between us. You haven't forgotten what brought us down here, have you?"
"Treasure, you mean?" Barlow spat out the words defiantly. "Put the
name to it, man! Well, what of it?"
"The understanding was that we stand together. That we split what we
find fifty-fifty. Does that still go?"
Barlow pulled nervously at his forelock, his eyes wandering. For an
instant they were fixed on the smiling face of Zoraida. Then grown
dogged they came back to Kendric.
"Hell take the understanding!" he blurted out savagely. "We stand even
tonight, one as close to the loot as the other. It's every man for
himself, whole hog or none, and the devil take the hindmost. That's
what it is!"
"Good," snapped Kendric. "That suits me." He slammed his little pad
of bank notes down on the table and took his chair. "What's the game,
gentlemen?"
They named it poker and played hard. Reckless men with money were they
all, men accustomed to big fast games. The most reckless of them, Jim
Kendric, was in a mood for anything provided it raced. Betty's
attitude, Betty's look, had stirred him after a strange new fashion
which he did not analyze. Barlow's unreasonable unfriendliness hurt
and angered; the jeer in Rios's hard black eyes ruffled his blood. And
even young Bruce looked at him with a defiance which Kendric had no
stomach for. From the first card played, Jim Kendric, like a pace
maker in a race, stamped his spirit upon the struggle.
Betty, seeing that she was not to be allowed to go sat down and for a
space made a pretense of ignoring what went forward before her. But
presently as the atmosphere grew strained and intense, she forgot her
pretense and leaned forward and watched eagerly. Zoraida had a couch
drawn up for her, richly colored silken cushions placed to her taste,
and stretched out luxuriously, her chin in her two hands.
There are isolated games wherein chance enters which make one wonder
what is this thing named chance, and from which one rises at last
touched by the superstition which holds so firm a place in the hearts
of all gamblers. From the beginning it was Jim Kendric's game. When a
jack-pot was opened he went into it with an ace high, though it cost
him a hundred dollars to call for cards, which was not playing poker
but defying mathematics and challenging his luck. And the four cards
given him by Bruce, whose blue eyes named him fool, were two more aces
and two queens. And the pot that was close to ten hundred dollars
before the sweetening was done, was his. Barlow, who had lost most,
glared at him and muttered under his breath; young Bruce merely stared
incredulously and looked again at the cards to make sure; Rios, who had
kept clear, smiled and murmured:
"Lucky at cards, unlucky in love, señor."
"I prefer the cards, thanks," said Kendric, stacking his winnings. And
there was enough of the boy left in him for him to look briefly for the
first time at Betty. Zoraida saw and bit her lip.
But though it was borne in upon those who played and those who watched
that it was Jim Kendric's game there were the inevitable tense moments
when each man in turn had his own eager hope. Bruce, no cool hand at
gambling, showed his excitement in his shining blue eyes; Barlow
muttered to himself; Rios sat forward in his chair and left off
pointing the tips of his mustaches. At the end of the first half hour,
though Kendric's heap of winnings was by far the greatest, no man of
them was down to bed rock.
And by now Kendric lost patience.
"Make it a jack pot for table stakes," he invited. "One hand for the
whole thing!"
"What's the hurry?" demanded Bruce. "You're doing well enough as it
is, aren't you?"
"A quick killing is better than slow torture," returned Jim lightly.
"And you'll note that I am offering odds. Better than two to one
against the flushest of you."
"_Bueno, señor_," said Rios. "It suits me."
"It's a fool thing to do," growled Barlow. A fool thing for Kendric,
but not for him, since his were the biggest losses. He had always
loved money, had Twisty Barlow, and could never understand Headlong
Kendric's contempt for it and now looked at him as though at one gone
mad. Then he shrugged. "Suits me," he said.
"Wait!" Zoraida suddenly leaped to her feet, tossed out her arms in a
wide gesture, her eyes unfathomable and shining with the mystery of a
hidden thought. "I am glad to have in my house men like you four! You
are _men_! Were it life or death, love or war or wealth, you would
play the game the same. Men like you make the blood run hot in the
heart of Zoraida who also grips life by the naked throat. Wait. And
look."
She whirled and in another moment, as lithe as a cat, had sprung to the
top of a serving table half across the room. And there she displayed
herself in all her barbaric splendor, posing like a model in an
artist's studio, turning slowly, standing at last confronting them,
a-thrill with her own daring.
"Would you play for such a stake as never men played for before? For
such a stake as kings would risk their crowns for? As such Zoraida
offers herself, pledging her word to make the rich gift of herself to
the man who wins!"
For a moment all four and Betty with them and the serving men at the
doors stared at her and the room was dead still. Through the deep
silence cut Zoraida's laugh, clear and sweet as a silver bell. Under
their bewildered gaze she preened herself like a peacock, proud of her
beauty so boldly displayed before their eyes. Zoraida smiled slowly.
"Is the stake high enough for your play?" she asked gently, in mock
humility.
Bruce surged up from his chair only to drop back into it without having
said a word. Rios's eyes caught fire and for the first time Kendric
guessed that he, too, was in heart bond-servant to his amazing cousin.
Barlow tugged at his forelock and muttered.
"Heap all the gold together," cried Zoraida. "Play for it and each man
of you pray his favorite god for success. For with it goes Zoraida!"
Betty, looking at her out of round eyes, seemed once more the little
girl Kendric had first taken her to be.
"Will you play?" said Zoraida softly.
"Yes! By God, yes!" cried Barlow.
Rios merely nodded and shoved his money to the middle of the table.
Bruce started like a man from a dream and with hands that shook visibly
thrust forward his own gold. Then all looked to Kendric.
Impulse decided for him and his answer came with no measurable time of
hesitation. If he played and lost, as he looked at it, there was
nothing to regret. If he played and won, perhaps it would have been
Zoraida's own all-hazarding hands which had shown the way to break the
chains that bound his two friends to her. It would need something like
this to bring both Bruce and Barlow to their senses. It was mostly of
Bruce that he thought just then.
"One hand of cards?" said Barlow.
"Rather one card, my friend," said Kendric drily. "We are keeping a
lady waiting."
"Oh!" gasped Betty.
A shining pyramid was made of the gold pieces. Then the cards were
shuffled and one of the serving men was called forward. He dealt one
card to each of the four men, face down, and stepped back. Then the
cards were turned over.
All were high cards, not one lower than a ten, yet with no two alike.
The one ace--the ace of hearts--lay in front of Jim Kendric.