ROLLO INTERVENES
With eyes injected, wide open mouth, and dropped jaw the man sat all
fallen together in his seat, the gold ornaments still strewed about him,
the pencil with which he had been checking them fallen from his
nerveless grasp.
"I have accounted for the old lady," said Rollo, who with the eager
professional assistance of La Giralda had been gagging and securing the
Tia. La Giralda with a wicked glee also undertook the office of searcher
of her rival's person, into the details of which process the unlearned
historian may not enter--suffice to say that it was whole-hearted and
thorough, and that it resulted in a vast series of objects being slung
upon the table, many of them plundered from Don Luis's own house and
others doubtless secreted during the process of overhauling Ramon's
strong box.
"Ah-ah, most excellent Tia, you will not refuse me a peseta as my share
next time you go out a-caudle-ing!" said La Giralda, all in a grinning
triumph when she had finished, and to fill the cup yet fuller, was
adjusting her friend's gag to a more excellent advantage.
"Stay where you are, Luis Fernandez," said El Sarria, sternly, as he sat
down with his pistols on either side of him. "I advise you not to move
hand or foot, if you set any value upon your life. I shall have much to
say to you before--before the morning!"
And the doomed man, recognising the accents of deadly intent in his late
friend's voice, let his head sink into his hands with a hopeless moan.
"Meantime I will put these things in order," said the Scot, in whose
military blood ran the instinct of loot, and he was beginning to throw
all the objects of value indiscriminately into the open chest when El
Sarria checked him.
"I will take only what is mine own--and hers," he said, "but meantime
abide. There is much to be said and done first!"
Then he turned his broad deeply lined brow upon Fernandez, who looked
into his eyes as the trembling criminal, hopeless of mercy, waits the
black cap and the sentence.
Rollo had settled the Tia on the floor with her head on a roll of
household stuffs which she herself had rolled up in her cloak for
transport.
La Giralda asked her friend if she felt herself as comfortable as might
be, and the Tia looked up at her with the eyes of a trapped wild-cat.
Then the Scot stood on guard by the door which led to the staircase, his
sword drawn in his hand. The picturesqueness of the scene at the table
appealed to the play-actor in him.
El Sarria held the documents in his hand which Fernandez had been about
to destroy, and waved them gently in his enemy's face as a king's
advocate might a written indictment in a speech of accusation.
"You betrayed me to the death, friend Luis, did you not? You revealed
my hiding-place. That is count the first!" he began.
And the wretched man, his lips dry and scarce obeying his will, strove
to give utterance to the words, "It was all my brother's doing. I swear
it was my brother!"
"Bah," said El Sarria, "do not trouble to lie, Luis, being so near the
Other Bar where all must speak truth. You knew. You were the trusted
friend. Your brother was not, and even if you were not upon the spot, as
I thought, the blood-hounds were set on the trail by you and by no
other."
Fernandez made no reply, but sank his head deeper between his hands as
if to shut out his judge and probable executioner from his sight.
"Pass, then," said the outlaw, "there is so much else that it matters
not whether you were at the Devil's Canyon or no. At any rate, you
decoyed my wife here, by a letter purporting to be written to Dolores
Garcia by her husband----"
"Concha Cabezos lies. She was a liar from the beginning. That also was
my brother. I swear to you!" cried the wretched man, in so pitiful an
accent that for the first time Rollo felt a little sorry for him.
But there was no gleam of pity in the eyes of Ramon. Instead, he lifted
a pistol and toyed with it a moment thoughtfully.
"Luis," he said, "your brother has his own sins to answer for. Beneath
the fig-tree in the corner an hour or two ago, his sins ran him to
earth. Whether at this moment he is alive or dead I know not--neither
care. But you cannot saddle him, in the flesh or out of it, with your
peccadilloes. Be a man, Luis. You used not to be a coward as well as a
thief and a murderer."
But neither insults nor appeals could alter the fixed cloud of doom that
overspread the face of Don Luis. He did not again interrupt, but heard
the recital of El Sarria in silence, without contradiction and
apparently without hope.
"You brought my wife here by this forged letter while you knew I was
alive and while you were plotting your best to kill me. You procured my
outlawry, and the confiscation of my property--which I doubt not you and
the worthy Alcalde de Flores shared between you. You have kept my wife
drugged by that hell-cat these many days, lest she should find out your
deceit. You plotted to slay the child of her womb--_my son_, Luis, do
you hear, _my only son_!"
The outlaw's voice mounted into a solemn and awful tone of accusation,
like a man in hell calling the roll of his own past happinesses.
"Now, Luis Fernandez," thundered Ramon, after a period of silence, "what
have you to say to all this? Have you any reasons to advance why you
should not die by my hand?"
"Ramon, Ramon, do not kill me in my sins," cried the wretched man. "By
the memory of our boyhood together let me at least receive absolution
and go clean!"
"Even as you would have made me go unshriven by the mouth of the Devil's
Canyon--even as this very night you sent forth to the holy ministry of
the worm, and the consolations of the clod the young child, unblessed
and unbenisoned, without touch of priestly hand or sprinkling drop of
holy water! Even so, Luis, friend of my youth, according to the measure
ye mete it shall be measured to you again. The barley bushel is good
measure also for the rye!"
Rollo, standing by the door and looking over the heads of accuser and
accused, saw through a window the first green streaks of a doubtful dawn
drawn livid and chill athwart a black sky. He went across to El Sarria
and whispered in his ear. Fernandez lifted up his head and eyed the Scot
with a kind of dull curiosity as if he wondered what his part in the
affair might be. And the keen and restless eyes of the Tia watched him
also, from where she lay pillowed on her stolen bundle like a bound and
helpless Fury.
In quick whispers Rollo urged a plan of action upon El Sarria, by which
he hoped to obtain a reprieve and perhaps his life for the wretched man.
But he did not advert to this, only to the necessity of haste, and to
the perilous state of Dolores. This was indeed his great argument.
Whatever happened she must be cared for. The matter of the traitors
could be arranged later. While Ramon sat considering, the active eyes of
the young Scot discovered a small iron-faced door open at one corner of
the chamber. He went across and pulled aside the curtain which half
concealed the entrance.
"A regular strong room, by Jove!" he cried; "here is everything
comfortable for our friends while we settle our other affairs. We shall
need our good Senor Don Luis, from time to time during the morning, but
I doubt not he will oblige us."
Rollo sounded all over the strong room of the mill-house for any signs
of another possible exit, but all was solid masonry. Besides which, the
chests of valuables and papers, the casks of fine liquors and smuggled
cigars proved that this was intended for a secret wall chamber in which
to conceal the valuables of the house in case of alarm. Such
hiding-places are not uncommon in the old houses of Spain, as Rollo
knew, though this was the first he had seen.
"Give yourself the pain of entering, Senor," he said to Fernandez, and
without waiting for any overt permission from Ramon, he caught up the
old hag Tia Elvira in his arms and carried her, bundle and all, into the
room.
"Here I am compelled to leave you for the time being in the dark, Don
Luis," he said courteously. "But I think you will agree that your state
is not the less gracious for that. I shall return immediately and
present certain propositions for your consideration."
"You are an Englishman," cried Fernandez, "you will not stand by and see
a man murdered in cold blood."
"The blood is none so cold that I can see," said Rollo, shrugging his
shoulders. "I will do the best I can for you, Senor; only do not try any
tricks with us. The least sign of further treachery will be fatal, and
we have many friends about us."