I walked back to the President's house and sat comfortably down in my
office to think the position over with the help of a pipe. But I had
hardly struck the match when the President himself came in. He had
changed his dress-coat for a smoking-jacket, and carried a few papers
in his hand.
"I am glad to see that you are not tired," he said, "for I have still
some work for you to do. I have been looking through some letters, and
there are half-a-dozen of so much importance that I should like copies
made of them before you go to bed."
He laid them on my writing-table with an intimation that he would
return for them in an hour. I rose up with alacrity. I was in no mood
for bed, and the mechanical work of copying a few letters appealed to
me at the moment. A glance at them, however, startled me into an even
greater wakefulness. They were letters, typewritten for the most part,
but undoubtedly signed by Santiago Calavera, and all of them dated
just before the outbreak of the war. They were addressed to the War
Minister of Esmeralda, and they gave details as to where Maldivia was
weak, where strong, what roads to the capital were unguarded, and for
how many troops provisions could be requisitioned on the way. There
was, besides, a memorandum, written, I rejoiced to see, from beginning
to end in Santiago's own hand--a deadly document naming some twenty
people in Santa Paula who would need attention when Juan Ballester had
been overthrown. It was impossible to misunderstand the phrase. Those
twenty citizens of Santa Paula were to be shot out of hand against the
nearest wall. I was appalled as I copied it out. There was enough
treachery here to convict a regiment. No wonder the great house in the
Calle Madrid stood empty! No wonder that Calavera---- But while I
argued, the picture of the daughter in her shining frock, alone amidst
the glitter and the silence, smote upon me as pitiful, and struck the
heart out of all my argument.
Juan Ballester was at my elbow the moment after I had finished.
"It is five o'clock," he said, as he gathered the letters and copies
together, "and no doubt you will want to be on foot early. You can
tell her that I sent her father in a special train last night to the
frontier. He is no doubt already with his friends in Esmeralda."
"Then the prisons----" I exclaimed.
"A lover's embroideries--nothing more," said Ballester, with a smile.
"But it is interesting to know that you are so thoroughly acquainted
with the position of affairs." And he took himself off to bed.
His last remark, however, forced me to consider my own position, and
reflection showed it to be delicate. On the one hand I was Ballester's
servant, on the other I was Harry Vandeleur's friend. I could not side
with both, and I must side with one. If I threw in my lot with Juan
Ballester, I became a scoundrel. If I helped Olivia, I might lose my
bread and butter. I hope that in any case I should have decided as I
did, but there was a good deal of virtue in the "might." For, after
all, Juan seemed to recognise that I should be against him and to bear
no malice. He had even bidden me relieve Olivia of her fears
concerning her father's disappearance. He was a brute, but a brute on
rather a grand scale, who took what he wanted but, in spite of Olivia,
disdained revenge. I decided to help Olivia, and before nine the next
morning I knocked upon her house-door. She opened it herself.
"You have news?" she asked, watching me with anxious eyes, and she
stood aside in the shadow of the door while I went in.
"Your father is safe. He was sent to the frontier last night on a
special train. He is free."
She had been steel to meet a blow. Now that it did not fall, her
strength for a moment failed her. She leaned against a table with her
hand to her heart; and her face suddenly told me that she had not
slept.
"I will follow him," she said, and she hurried up the stairs. I looked
out a train. One left Santa Paula in an hour's time. I went out,
leaving the door ajar, and fetched a carriage. Then I shouted up the
stairs to Olivia, and she came down in a travelling dress of light
grey and a big black hat. Excitement had kindled her. I could no
longer have guessed that she had not slept.
"You will see me off?" she said, as she handed me her bag; and she
stepped gaily into the carriage.
"I will," I answered, and I jumped in behind her.
The die was cast now.
"Drive down to the station!" I cried.
It was an open carriage. There were people in the street. Juan
Ballester would soon learn that he had played the grand gentleman to
his discomfiture.
"Yes, I will see you off, Senorita," I said. "But I shall have a bad
half-hour with Ballester afterwards."
"Oh!" cried Olivia, with a start. She looked at me as though for the
first time my existence had come within her field of vision.
"I am quite aware that you have never given a thought to me," I said
sulkily, "but you need hardly make the fact so painfully obvious."
Olivia's hand fell lightly upon mine and pressed.
"My friend!" she said, and her eyes dwelt softly upon mine. Oh, she
knew her business as a woman! Then she looked heavenwards.
"A man who helps a woman in trouble----" she began.
"Yes," I interrupted. "He must look up there for his reward.
Meanwhile, Senorita, I am envying Harry Vandeleur," and I waved my
hand to the green houses. "For he has not only got you, but he has
realised his nice little fortune out of green paint." And all Olivia
did was to smile divinely; and all she said was "Harry." But there!
She said it adorably, and I shook her by the hand.
"I forgive you," she said sweetly. Yes, she had nerve enough for that!
We were driving down to the lower town. I began to consider how much
of the events of the early morning I should tell her. Something of
them she must know, but it was not easy for the informant. I told her
how Juan Ballester had come to me with letters signed by her father
and a memorandum in his handwriting.
"The President gave them to me to copy out," I continued; and Olivia
broke in, rather quickly:
"What did you do with them?"