SENORITA RAFAELA
Meantime, what of Jack.
After bowling Muller over and fleeing from the sentries drawn by the
latter's shout, Jack ran through the great arched doorway into the
left wing of the palace. Ahead lay a dark corridor, upon which opened
the doors of the ground floor rooms. He was in a round entranceway
from which ascended a flight of winding stone steps to the balconied
upper floor and the turret rooms above. Up there, somewhere, was his
father. Jack paused only a moment, then sprang up the steps.
As he reached the upper landing, he heard the sound of footsteps
descending from the tower. He listened a moment. They were not the
familiar footsteps of his father.
He must act quickly, if he were to stand any chance of escape.
Springing forward, revolver in hand, he seized the knob of the nearest
door on the balcony, found the door give and leaped in, pushing it to
behind him and setting his back against it.
The room was brightly lighted, evidently a young lady's boudoir. This
much his first glance showed Jack. It showed him also two women--one
young and very beautiful, the other wizened and monkey-like, both
terrified and speechless. They were Don Fernandez' daughter, Rafaela,
and her duenna or chaperone, Donna Ana.
"Quiet," hissed Jack in Spanish, waving his weapon threateningly.
He listened with strained attention to sounds from outside. The
menacing footsteps reached the landing, and then continued to descend.
Jack turned the key in the lock. He was none too soon. A moment later
the padding of the bare feet of the sentries sounded muffled outside,
then grew fainter as the men separated, one ascending the stairway of
the tower, the other running along the balcony.
Jack was puzzled as to what next to do. From Roy Stone's brief
description of the Don's family, he guessed at the identities of the
two women. While he stood irresolute, the girl recovered from her
fright. Her dark eyes flashed, and she commanded him in an imperious
tone to lower his weapon.
"Not till you promise me not to shout, Miss," Jack said.
"Very well," said the girl. "But who are you? You cannot escape. My
father will capture you."
"Not if I can help it, Miss," said Jack grimly.
In the rapid march of events, the handkerchief with which he had
bound up his jaw had become loosened. Now it fell, revealing Jack's
handsome features and his close-clinging mop of dark curls.
"Why, you are just a boy," declared Rafaela, and her eyes lost some of
their hostility while at the same time, unconsciously, her voice
became less harsh.
"Surely," she said, turning to Donna Ana, "this lad can have done
nothing so terrible."
The prim, black-robed duenna had gained courage from her mistress's
temerity. She had ceased trembling. Yet she was exercised about
something. Jack could not understand why. Surely, she was no longer
fearful of him. She leaned closer to her young mistress, seated at a
low writing table, and whispered in her ear. Rafaela threw back her
head and laughed--a low, musical laugh that sounded fascinatingly
pleasant in Jack's ears, worried though he was.
"My dear Donna Ana," said the girl. "What if he is a man! And in my
room! Are you not here to watch over me? And I do not believe he will
bite. No, no. See, he is such a nice young man that I can chuck him
under the chin. So!"
And suiting action to words, the girl sprang from her chair, walked
swiftly across the room and chucked Jack under the chin.
To say that Jack was surprised would be a mild statement. From his
knowledge of Latin-American girls gathered in Peru, he believed those
of good family invariably were convent-bred and extremely decorous in
the presence of young men. He was so dazed at the girl's action that
her next move, which was a lightning-quick attempt to grasp his
revolver and wrest it from him, almost succeeded.
Jack retained a grip on the weapon, however, and managed to prevent
Rafaela from obtaining it. Foiled in her attempt, all her bravado
deserted her and running back to her chair, she sank into it and began
to weep.
What in the world should a fellow do in a case like this? Jack didn't
know. Usually, he was equal to emergencies, but this one was something
beyond his understanding. He stood helpless, while the duenna
alternately glared at him and patted her young charge on the back,
muttering soft words of comfort to her meanwhile.
Quickly as the shower came, however, it disappeared. Rafaela pushed
Donna Ana aside impatiently and looked at Jack, smiling through her
tears.
"Well, sir," she said, demurely, "that did not succeed. What do you
intend to do with your prisoners?"
This wasn't so bad. Jack grinned.
"Look here," he said, sensing a kindred spirit. "I'm not a rascal. You
will have to believe me. I haven't done anything so terrible, after
all. You need not be scared of me."
"But who are you, then?" asked the girl. "Listen. They are shouting
through the house. Soon they will be making a search from room to
room."
Jack started. If that were true, when the searchers came to this
locked door, what would happen? He thought for a moment. The daring
idea to take the girl into his confidence and enlist her aid had been
budding in his mind. He regarded her keenly for the first time. Would
she help? Perhaps the romantic nature of his enterprise would appeal
to her, even though he was fighting against her father. Well, it would
do no harm to try.
"You asked who I am," he said, "and why I am here. Well, I shall tell
you."
And speaking rapidly in his fluent Spanish, in a few brief statements,
he laid before her the main fact that Mr. Hampton, whom she doubtless
knew, was his father, and that he had come to the rescue in an
airplane.
"Only now," he concluded mournfully, "I have been discovered. I expect
my chum will be forced to fly away. And it looks as if I were bound to
fail."
During his recital, the girl's eyes had grown bright with interest.
She leaned forward, listening with eager attention. As Jack ceased,
apparently she was about to speak, but there came a tattoo of
knuckles on the door which caused her to halt abruptly.
"Our deliverers," murmured Donna Ana, who had never entirely ceased
trembling, and she cast a spiteful glance at Jack. To the duenna,
young men, and especially one so unceremonious, were terrible
creatures.
"Silence," hissed the girl, and the old duenna in evident fear of her
imperious young mistress, trembled the more.
"Quick," whispered Rafaela to Jack, "get under here."
Rising, she seized him by an arm and partly led, partly pushed him to
the chair upon which she had been sitting. It was a wicker chair, with
wicker-latticed sides extending clear to the floor. Lifting it, she
ordered Jack to kneel down and crouch into as small a space as
possible. He complied. Then she clapped the chair over him. He was
completely hidden, except in front, where the wicker latticing did not
extend.
Seating herself calmly in the chair, Rafaela so disposed her skirts
that Jack could not be seen. Then she picked up her pen and sat as if
just interrupted at her writing.
The knocking on the door was repeated, louder this time, and the
voice of the Don himself impatiently bade that the door be opened.
Bending low so that Jack could hear her words, the girl whispered:
"Have no fear. Trust me."
To the duenna, she said:
"Open the door. And if you betray me----"
And she shot at Donna Ana a terrible glance, which caused the latter
to cringe. Evidently, the duenna stood in considerable awe of her
temperamental young mistress.
The old woman unlocked the door and stepped back, revealing on the
threshold Don Fernandez with several armed retainers at his back.
"What does this mean?" he demanded, glaring at his daughter as he
advanced a step or two into the room. "Locked doors at so early an
hour?"
"Why, papa, dear, we heard the shouts and several revolver shots,"
said his daughter. "Was it not natural for two lone women to lock
their door?"
"Humm!"
The Don glanced quickly about the room.
"Papa, what is the matter? What is the meaning of all this noise? Of
those shots?" Rafaela anxiously inquired.
"Some man impersonating one of my lieutenants gained entrance," said
the Don. "I believe him a government agent. He may have come to
attempt my life."
"Oh, no, papa, dear," protested Rafaela, shocked. "Why, he--"
Frantic lest she might betray herself and him, Jack reached forward
cautiously and tapped the tiny ankle dangling before him.
He was none too soon. Thus brought to a realization of her position,
Rafaela checked the words.
"What's that?" asked her father. "What did you say?"
"Why, papa," she answered, "I was going to say he couldn't be so mean.
To come here to kill you. Oh, no. That would be too terrible."
"But I do believe it," affirmed the Don. "What do you know of how
politics is carried on in our poor, distracted country? Tut, tut, you
are just a girl. What I came to ask was whether the man had hidden
here? We have searched all the rooms on this balcony, without success.
Yet most certainly Pedro and Pancho"--indicating the armed men in the
corridor--"saw him bound up the stairs."
"Here?" said Rafaela. "Why, our door has been locked, as you see."
Before Don Fernandez could retort, the report of distant rifle fire
came to the ears of all in the room, followed by a growing fusillade
as the sentries on the northern rim of the valley fell back before
attack.
The Don whirled around.
"Hark," said he, and added with conviction: "The government troops are
attacking. And they sent an assassin ahead of them. Well, he has been
foiled. And they will be foiled, too."
And without more ado he darted from the room, Pancho and Pedro
obediently following at his heels.