He said: "There are five masked men out here who say that Clinch robbed
them and they are here to recover their property. ... Do you know
anything about this?"
"I know they lie. My father is not a thief. ... I have my rifle and
plenty of ammunition. I shall kill every man who enters this room."
For a moment nobody stirred or spoke. Then Quintana strode to the
bolted door and struck it with the butt of his rifle.
"You, in there," he said in a menacing voice, "-- you listen once to
_me!_ You open your door and come out. I give you one minute!" He
struck the door again: "_One_ minute, senorita! -- or I cut from your
frien', here, the hand from his right arm!"
There was a deathly silence. Then the sound of bolts. The door opened.
Slowly the girl limped forward, still wearing the hunting jacket over
her night-dress.
Quintana made her an elaborate and ironical bow, slouch hat in hand;
another masked man took her rifle.
"Senorita," said Quintana with another sweep of his hat, "I ask pardon
that I trouble you for my packet of which your father has rob me for
ver' long time."
Slowly the girl lifted her blue eyes to Stormont. He was standing
between two masked men. Their pistols were pressed slightly against his
stomach.
Stormont reddened painfully:
"It was not for myself that I let you open your door," he said. "They
would not have ventured to lay hands on _me._"
"Ah," said Quintana with a terrifying smile, "you would not have been
the first gendarme who had -- _accorded me his hand!_"
Two of the masked men laughed loudly.
* * * * *
Outside in the rag-weed patch, Smith rose, stole across the grass to the
kitchen door and slipped inside.
"Now, senorita," said Quintana gaily, "my packet, if you please, -- and
we leave you to the caresses of your faithful gendarme, -- who should
thank God that he still possesses the good two hands to fondle you!
Allons! Come then! My packet!"
One of the masked men said: "Take her downstairs and lock her up
somewhere or she'll shoot us from her window."
"Lead out that gendarme, too!" added Quintana, grasping Eve by the arm.
Down the stairs tramped the men, forcing their prisoners with them.
In the big kitchen the glare from the burning out-house fell dimly; the
place was full of shadows.
"Now," said Quintana, "I take my property and my leave. Where is the
packet hidden?"
She stood for a moment with drooping head, amid the sombre shadows,
then, slowly, she drew the emblazoned morocco case form her breast
pocket.
What followed occurred in the twinkling of an eye: for, as Quintana
extended his arm to grasp the case, a hand snatched it, a masked figure
sprang through the doorway, and ran toward the barn.
Somebody recognized the hat and red bandanna:
"Salzar!" he yelled. "Nick Salzar!"
"A traitor, by God!" shouted Quintana. Even before he had reached the
door, his pistol flashed twice, deafening all the semi-darkness, choking
them with stifling fumes.
A masked man turned on Stormont, forcing him back into the pantry at
pistol-point. Another man pushed Eve after him, slammed the pantry door
and bolted it.
Through the iron bars of the pantry window, Stormont saw a man, wearing
a red bandanna tied under his eyes, run up and untie his horse and fling
himself astride under a shower of bullets.
As he wheeled the horse and swung him into the clearing toward the foot
of Star Pond, his seat and horsemanship were not to be mistaken.
He was gone, now, the gallop stretching into a dead run; and Quintana's
men still following, shooting, hallooing in the starlight like a pack of
leaping shapes from hell.
But Quintana had not followed far. When he had emptied his automatic he
halted.
Something about the transaction suddenly checked his fury, stilled it,
summoned his brain into action.
For a full minute he stood unstirring, every atom of intelligence in
terrible concentration.
Presently he put his left hand into his pocket, fitted another clip to
his pistol, turned on his heel and walked straight back to the house.
Between the two locked in the pantry not a word had passed. Stormont
still peered out between the iron bars, striving to catch a glimpse of
what was going on. Eve crouched at the pantry doors, her face in her
hands, listening.
Suddenly she heard Quintana's step in the kitchen. Cautiously she
turned the pantry key from inside.
Stormont heard her, and instantly came to her. At the same moment
Quintana unbolted the door from the outside and tried to open it.
"Come out," he said coldly, "or it will not go well with you when my men
return."
"You've got what you say is your property," replied Stormont. "What do
you want now?"
"I tell you what I want ver' damn quick. Who was he, thees man who
rides with my property on your horse away? Eh? Because it was not Nick
Salzar! No! Salzar cannot ride thees way. No! Alors?"
"I can't tell you who he was," replied Stormont. "That's your affair,
not ours."
"No? Ah! Ver' well, then. I shall tell you Senor Flic! He was one of
_yours._ I understan'. It is a trap, a cheat -- what you call a
_plant!_ Thees man who rode your horse he is disguise! Yes! He also
is a gendarme! Yes! You think I let a gendarme rob me? I got you
where I want you now. You shall write your gendarme frien' that he
return to me my property, _one day's time,_ or I send him by parcel post
two nice, fresh-out right-hands -- your sweetheart's and your own!"
Stormont drew Eve's head close to his:
"This man is blood mad or out of his mind! I'd better go out and take a
chance at him before the others come back."
But the girl shook her head violently, caught him by the arm and drew
him toward the mouth of the tile down which Clinch always emptied his
hootch when the Dump was raided.
But now, it appeared that the tile which protruded from the cement floor
was removable.
In silence she began to unscrew it, and he, seeing what she was trying
to do, helped her.
Together they lifted the heavy tile and laid it on the floor.
"You open thees door!" shouted Quintana in a paroxysm of fury. "I give
you one minute! Then, by God, I kill you both!"
Eve lifted a screen of wood through which the tile had been set. Under
it a black hole yawned. It was a tunnel made of three-foot aqueduct
tiles; and it led straight into star Pond, two hundred feet away.
Now, as she straightened up and looked silently at Stormont, they heard
the trample of boots in the kitchen, voices, the bang of gun-stocks.
"Does that drain lead into the lake?" whispered Stormont.
She nodded.
"Will you follow me, Eve?"
She pushed him aside, indicating that he was to follow her.
As she stripped the hunting jacket from her, a hot colour swept her
face. But she dropped on both knees, crept straight into the tile and
slipped out of sight.
As she disappeared, Quintana shouted something in Portuguese, and fired
at the lock.
With the smash of splintering wood in his ears, Stormont slid into the
smooth tunnel.
In an instant he was shooting down a polished toboggan slide, and in
another moment was under the icy water of Star Pond.
Shocked, blinded, fighting his way to the surface, he felt his spurred
boots dragging at him like a ton of iron. Then to him came her helping
hand.
"I can make it," he gasped.
But his clothing and his boots and the icy water began to tell on him in
mid-lake.
Swimming without effort beside him, watching his every stroke, presently
she sank a little and glided under him and a little ahead, so that his
hands fell upon her shoulders.
He let them rest, so, aware now that it was no burden to such a swimmer.
Supple and silent as a swimming otter, the girl slipped lithely through
the chilled water, which washed his body to the nostrils and numbed his
legs till he could scarcely move them.
And now, of a sudden, his feet touched gravel. He stumbled forward in
the shadow of overhanging trees and saw her wading shoreward, a
dripping, silvery shape on the shoal.
Then, as he staggered up to her, breathless, where she was standing on
the pebbled shore, he saw her join both hands, cup-shape, and lift them
to her lips.
And out of her mouth poured diamond, sapphire, and emerald in a dazzling
stream, -- and among them, one great, flashing gem blazing in the
starlight, -- the Flaming Jewel!
Like a naiad of the lake she stood, white, slim, silent, the heaped gems
glittering in her snowy hands, her face framed by the curling masses of
her wet hair.
Then, slowly she turned her head to Stormont.
"These are what Quintana came for," she said. "Could you put them into
your pocket?"
* * * * *