Guided by Quintana's directions, the three had made a wide detour of the
east, steering by compass for the cross-roads beyond Star Pond.
In a dense growth of cedars, on a little ridge traversing wet land,
Quintana halted to listen.
Sard and Sanchez, supposing him to be at their heels, continued on,
pushing their way blindly through the cedars, clinging to the hard ridge
in terror of sink-holes. But their progress was very slow; and they
were still in sight, fighting a painful path amid the evergreens, when
Quintana suddenly squatted close to the moist earth behind a juniper
bush.
At first, except for the threshing of Sard and Sanchez through the
massed obstructions ahead, there was not a sound in the woods.
After a little while there _was_ a sound -- very, very slight. No dry
stick cracked; no dry leaves rustled; no swish of foliage; no whipping
sound of branches disturbed the intense silence.
But, presently, came a soft, swift rhythm like the pace of a forest
creature in haste -- a discreetly hurrying tread which was more a series
of light earth-shocks than sound.
Quintana, kneeling on one knee, lifted his pistol. He already felt the
slight vibration of the ground on the hard ridge. The cedars were
moving just beyond him now. He waited until, through the parted
foliage, a face appeared.
The loud report of his pistol struck Sard with the horror of paralysis.
Sanchez faced about with one spring, snarling, a weapon in either hand.
In the terrible silence they could hear something heavy floundering in
the bushes, choking, moaning, thudding on the ground.
Sanchez began to creep back; Sard, more dead than alive, crawled at his
heels. Presently they saw Quintana, waist deep in juniper, looking down
at something.
And when they drew closer they saw Georgiades lying on his back under a
cedar, the whole front of his shirt from chest to belly a sopping mess
of blood.
There seemed no need of explanation. The dead Greek lay there where he
had not been expected, and his two pistols lay beside him where they had
fallen.
Sanchez looked stealthily at Quintana, who said softly:
"Bien sure. ... In his left side pocket, I believe."
* * * * *
Sanchez laid a cool hand on the dead man's heart; then, satisfied,
rummaged until he found Georgiades' share of the loot.
Sard, hurriedly displaying a pair of clean but shaky hands, made the
division.
When the three men had silently pocketed what was allotted to each,
Quintana pushed curiously at the dead man with the toe of his shoe.
"Peste!" he remarked. "I had place, for security, a ver' large diamon'
in my pistol barrel. Now it is within the interior of this gentleman.
..." he turned to Sanchez: "I sell him to you. One sapphire. Yes?"
Sanchez shook his head with a slight sneer: "We wait -- if you want your
diamond, mon capitaine."
Quintana hesitated, then made a grimace and shook his head.
"No," he said, "he had swallow. Let him digest. Allons! March!"
But after they had gone on -- two hundred yards, perhaps -- Sanchez
stopped.
"Well?" inquired Quintana. Then, with a sneer: "I now recollec' that
once you have been a butcher in Madrid. ... Suit your tas'e, l'ami
Sanchez."
Sard gazed at Sanchez out of sickened eyes.
"You keep away from me until you've washed yourself," he burst out,
revolted. "Don't you come near me till you're clean!"
Quintana laughed and seated himself. Sanchez, with a hang-dog glance at
him, turned and sneaked back on the trail they had traversed. Before he
was out of sight Sard saw him fish out a Spanish knife from his hip
pocket and unclasp it.
Almost nauseated, he turned on Quintana in a sort of frightened fury:
"Come on!" he said hoarsely. "I don't want to travel with that man! I
won't associate with a ghoul! My God, I'm a respectable business
man----"
"Yaas," drawled Quintana, "tha's what I saw always myse'f; my frien'
Sard he is ver' respec'able, an' I trus' him like I trus' myse'f."
However, after a moment, Quintana got up from the fallen tree where he
had been seated.
As he passed Sard he looked curiously into the man's frightened eyes.
There was not the slightest doubt that Sard was a coward.
"You shall walk behin' me," remarked Quintana carelessly. "If Sanchez
fin' us, it is well; if he shall not, that also is ver' well. ... We go,
now."
* * * * *
Sanchez made no effort to find them. They had been gone half an hour
before he had finished the business that had turned him back.
After that he wandered about hunting for water -- a rivulet, a puddle,
anything. But the wet ground proved wet only on the surface moss.
Sanchez needed more than damp moss for his toilet. Casting about him,
hither and thither, for some depression that might indicate a stream, he
came to a heavily wooded slope, and descended it.
There was a bog at the foot. With his fouled hands he dug out a basin
which filled up full of reddish water, discoloured by alders.
But the water was redder still when his toilet ended.
As he stood there, examining his clothing, and washing what he could of
the ominous stains from sleeve and shoe, very far away to the north he
heard a curious noise -- a far, faint sound such as he never before had
heard. If it were a voice of any sort there was nothing human about it.
... Probably some sort of unknown bird. ... Perhaps a bird of prey. ...
That was natural, considering the attraction that Georgiades would have
for such creatures. ... If it were a bird it must be a large one, he
thought. ... Because there was a certain volume to the cry. ... Perhaps
it was a beast, after all. ... Some unknown beast of the forest. ...
Sanchez was suddenly afraid. Scarcely knowing what he was doing he
began to run along the edge of the bog.
First growth timber skirted it; running was unobstructed by underbrush.
With his startled ears full of the alarming and unknown sound, he ran
through the woods under gigantic pines which spread a soft green
twilight around him.
He was tired, or thought he was, but the alarming sounds were filling
his ears now; the entire forest seemed full of them, echoing in all
directions, coming in upon him from everywhere, so that he knew not in
which direction to run.
But he could no stop. Demoralised, he darted this way and that; terror
winged his feet; the air vibrated above and around him with the
dreadful, unearthly sounds.
The next instant he fell headlong over a ledge, struck water, felt
himself whirled around in the icy, rushing current, rolled over, tumbled
through rapids, blinded, deafened, choked, swept helplessly in a vast
green wall of water toward something that thundered in his brain an
instant, then dashed it into roaring chaos.
* * * * *
Half a mile down the turbulent outlet of Star Pond, -- where a great
sheet of green water pours thirty feet into the tossing foam below, --
and spinning, dipping, diving, bobbing up like a lost log after the
drive, the body of Senor Sanchez danced all alone in the wilderness,
spilling from soggy pockets diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, into
crystal caves where only the shadows of slim trout stirred.
* * * * *
Very far away to the eastward Quintana stood listening, clutching Sard
by one sleeve to silence him.
Presently he said: "My frien', somebody is hunting with houn's in this
fores'.
"Maybe they are not hunting _us._ ... _Maybe._ ... But, for me, I shall
seek running water. Go you your own way! Houp! Vamose!"
He turned westward; but he had taken scarcely a dozen strides when Sard
came panting after him:
"Don't leave me!" gasped the terrified diamond broker. "I don't know
where to go----"
Quintana faced him abruptly -- with a terrifying smile and glimmer of
white teeth -- and shoved a pistol into the fold of fat beneath Sard's
double chin.
"You hear those dogs? Yes? Ver' well; I also. Run, now. I say to you
run ver' damn quick. He! Houp! Allez vous en! Beat eer!"
He struck Sard a stinging blow on his fleshy ear with the pistol barrel,
ad Sard gave a muffled shriek which was more like the squeak of a
frightened animal.
"My God, Quintana----" he sobbed. Then Quintana's eyes blazed murder:
and Sard turned and ran lumbering through the thicket like a stampeded
ox, crashing on amid withered brake, white birch scrub and brier, not
knowing whither he was headed, crazed with terror.
Quintana watched his flight for a moment, then, pistol swinging, he ran
in the opposite direction, eastward, speeding lithely as a cat down a
long, wooded slope which promised running water at the foot.
* * * * *
Sard could not run very far. He could scarcely stand when he pulled up
and clung to the trunk of a tree.
More dead than alive, he embraced the tree, gulping horribly for air,
every fat-incrusted organ labouring, his senses swimming.
As he sagged there, gripping his support on shaking knees, by degrees
his senses began to return.
He could hear the dogs, now, vaguely as in a nightmare. But after a
little while he began to believe that their hysterical yelping was
really growing more distant.
Then this man whose every breath was an outrage on God, prayed.
He prayed that the hounds would follow Quintana, come up with him, drag
him down, worry him, tear him to shreds of flesh and clothing.
He listened and prayed alternately After a while he no longer prayed
but concentrated on his ears.
Surely, surely, the diabolical sound was growing less distinct. ... It
was changing direction too. But whether in Quintana's direction or no
Sard could not tell. He was no woodsman. He was completely turned
around.
He looked upward through a dense yellow foliage, but all was grey in the
sky -- very grey and still; -- and there seemed to be no traces of the
sun that had been shining.
He looked fearfully around; trees, trees, and more trees. No break, no
glimmer, nothing to guide him, teach him. He could see, perhaps, fifty
feet; no further.
In panic he started to move on. That is what fright invariably does to
those ignorant of the forest. Terror starts them moving.
* * * * *
Sobbing, frightened almost witless, he had been floundering forward for
over an hour, and made circle after circle knowing, when, by chance he
set foot in a perfectly plain trail.
Emotion overpowered him. He was too overcome to stir for a while. At
length, however, he tottered off down the trail, oblivious as to what
direction he was taking, animated only by a sort of madness -- horror of
trees -- an insane necessity to see open ground, get into it, and lie
down on it.
And now, directly ahead, he saw clear grey sky low through the trees.
The wood's edge!
He began to run.
As he emerged from the edge of the woods, waist-deep in brush and weeds,
wide before his blood-shot eyes spread Star Pond.
Even in his half-stupefied brain there was memory enough left for
recognition.
He remembered the lake. His gaze travelled to the westward; and he saw
Clinch's Dump standing below, stark, silent, the doors swinging open in
the wind.
When terror had subsided in a measure and some of his trembling strength
returned, he got up out of the clump of rag-weeds where he had lain
down, and earnestly nosed the unpainted house, listening with all his
ears.
There was not a sound save the soughing of autumn winds and the delicate
rattle of falling leaves in the woods behind him.
He needed food and rest. He gazed earnestly at the house. Nothing
stirred there save the open doors swinging idly in every vagrant wind.
He ventured down a little way -- near enough to see the black cinders of
the burned bar, and close enough to hear the lake waters slapping the
sandy shore.