Inside Clinch's home Eve awoke with a start. Her ears were filled with
a strange, rushing, cracking noise. A rosy glare danced and shook
outside her windows.
As she sprang to the floor on bandaged feet, a shrill scream burst out
of the ruddy darkness -- unearthly, horrible; and there came a
thunderous battering from the burn.
The girl tore open her bedroom door. "Jack!" she cried in a terrified
voice. "The barn's on fire!"
"Good Good!" he said, "-- my horse!"
He had already sprung from his chair outside her door. Now he ran
downstairs, and she heard bolt and chain clash at the kitchen door and
his spurred boots land on the porch.
"Oh," she whimpered, snatching a blanket wrapper from a peg and
struggling into it. "Oh, the poor house! Jack! Jack! I'm coming to
help! Don't risk your life! I'm coming -- I'm coming----"
Terror clutched her as she stumbled downstairs on bandaged feet.
As she reached the door a great flare of light almost blinded her.
"Jack!"
And at the same instant she saw him struggling with three masked men in
the glare of the wagon-shed afire.
His rifle stood in the corridor outside her door. With one bound she
was on the stairs again. There came the crash and splinter of wood and
glass from the kitchen, and a man with a handkerchief over his face
caught her on the landing.
Twice she wrenched herself loose and her fingers almost touched
Stormont's rifle; she fought like a cornered lynx, tore the handkerchief
from her assailant's face, recognised Quintana, hurled her very body at
him, eyes flaming, small teeth bared.
Two other men laid hold. In another moment she had tripped Quintana,
and all four fell, rolling over and over down the short flight of
stairs, landing in the kitchen, still fighting.
Here, in darkness, she wriggled out, somehow, leaving her blanket
wrapped in their clutches. In another instant she was up the stairs
again, only to discover that the rifle was gone.
The red glare from the wagon-house lighted her bedroom; she sprang
inside and bolted the door.
Her chamois jacket with its loops full of cartridges hung on a peg. She
got into it, seized her rifle and ran to the window just as two masked
men, pushing Stormont before them, entered the house by the kitchen way.
Her own door was resounding with kicks and blows, shaking, shivering
under the furious impact of boot and rifle-butt.
She ran to the bed, thrust her hand under the pillow, pulled out the
case containing the Flaming Jewel, and placed it in the breast pocket of
her shooting jacket.
Again she crept to the window. Only the wagon-house was burning.
Somebody, however, had led Stormont's horse from the barn, and had tied
it to a tree at a safe distance. It stood there, trembling, its
beautiful, nervous head turned toward the burning building.
The blows upon her bedroom door had ceased; there came a loud trampling,
the sound of excited voices; Quintana's sarcastic tones, clear,
dominant:
"Dios! The police! Why you bring me this gendarme? What am I to do
with a gentleman of the Constabulary, eh? Do you think I am fool enough
to cut his throat? Well, Senor Gendarme, what are you doing here in the
Dump of Clinch?"
Then Stormont's voice, clear and quiet: "What are _you_ doing here? If
you've a quarrel with Clinch, he's not here. There's only a young girl
in this house."
"So?" said Quintana. "Well, that is what I expec', my frien'. It is
thees lady upon whom I do myse'f the honour to call!"
Eve, listening, heard Stormont's rejoinder, still, calm, and very grave:
"The man who lays a finger on that young girl had better be dead. He's
as good as dead the moment he touches her. There won't be a chance for
him. ... Nor for any of you, if you harm her."
"Calm youse'f, my frien'," said Quintana. "I demand of thees young lady
only that she return to me the property of which I have been rob by
Monsieur Clinch."
"I knew nothing of any theft. Nor does she----"
"Pardon: Senor Clinch knows, and I know." His tone changed,
offensively: "Senor Gendarme, am I permit to understan' that you are a
frien' of thees young lady? -- a heart-frien', per'aps----"
"I am her friend," said Stormont bluntly.
"Ah," said Quintana, "then you shall persuade her to return to me thees
packet of which Monsieur Clinch has rob me."
There was a short silence, then Quintana's voice again:
"I know thees packet is conceel in thees house. Peaceably, if possible,
I would recover my property. ... If she refuse----"
Another pause.
"Well?" inquired Stormont, coolly.
"Ah! It is ver' painful to say. Alas, Senor Gendarme, I mus' have my
property. ... If she refuse, then I mus' sever one of her pretty
fingers. ... An' if she still refuse -- I sever her pretty fingers one
by one, until----"
"You know what would happen to _you?_" interrupted Stormont, in a voice
that quivered in spite of himself.
"I take my chance. Senor Gendarme, she is within that room. If you are
her frien', you shall advise her to return to me my property."
After another silence.
"Eve!" he called sharply.