O'ROURKE TO THE RESCUE
Penthouse (still known to the army as Señor Cuddlehead) sat in the
colonel's bedroom in an unenviable frame of mind. He had been a fool
to show himself to Hemming. He had been a fool to put any faith in
these niggers. Why, the little cowards were afraid to break into the
house,--afraid to face five white men and a couple of women. And now
that Hemming had seen him again, and again in a decidedly
unfavourable light, what mercy could he expect if Hemming ever got
out of the President's villa? Whatever he could do must be done
quickly. He looked at the colonel, who lay in drunken half-slumber
on the bed.
"You don't seem to be carrying out our plans," he said.
The Brazilian groaned, and muttered something in his own tongue,
which, fortunately, the other could not translate. "We must carry
off the women to-night. Our chances of getting what we want lessen
every hour. If help comes from the coast, then what will happen?
Half a dozen men could run your dirty army out of the country." With
every unheeded word, Penthouse's anger grew. The colonel sprawled
there, murmuring that he felt very ill. Penthouse jumped up and
shook him violently.
"Wake up, you drunken hog!" he shouted; "wake up, and get to work."
The colonel opened his eyes.
"The ladies--they are gone. They went--long ago."
He closed his eyes again.
"You fool!" cried Penthouse, trembling with rage and disappointment,
"you fool, didn't I tell you to put a guard on the boat, and to
surround the house?"
"The guard went--to Pedro's--to buy wine. I did not hear till
to-day. I was angry," replied the Brazilian, in a faint and broken
voice.
"To buy wine," echoed the white man, in a tragic cry. Failure
grinned at him again. Even in battle and murder he could not
succeed. He almost found it in him to regret the vagrant, hungry
days on the London streets, when he went up and down among familiar
faces, tattered and disguised. He was at home there, at least, and
knew the tricks of the place. But here, hunted by Hemming for a
murderer, penniless, and among strangers,--Lord, one would be better
dead.
"Hemming must never get away from that house," he whispered to
himself.
The colonel snorted and choked in his heavy sleep. For a few minutes
the broken Englishman looked at him intently. Then he walked over to
a small table by the window. "There is still liquor that I don't
have to pay for," he said, and lifted the bottle.
Through the President's gardens and the streets of the little town,
the troopers sauntered and smoked, awaiting further orders from their
colonel for the undoing of the passive enemy.
"The colonel and Señor Cuddlehead are closeted together," said a
subaltern to a sergeant, "so before dark we shall have our money."
"But the ladies have gone," replied the sergeant. "They went away in
the President's steamer while the guard was shaking dice at Pedro's."
"How do you know that?" argued the officer. "No one saw them go. Of
course they keep away from the windows."
"The General Hemming would see that we got our money, if the ladies
were in any danger," said the other, conclusively. But the subaltern
shook his head.
"You don't know these fools of Englishmen as well as I do," he said.
"They would rather have their own grandmothers shot than pay out any
money."
"But," retorted the sergeant, with a knowing look, "it is not the
general's money we want, but the President's. He would force the old
man to pay, if the ladies were in peril. No, the women have gone
with the steamer, I am sure."
"Englishmen are stubborn brutes," replied the officer, unconvinced,
"and besides, my friend, this Hemming believes that with his own
right arm he is able to defend the house against us. Also, my
friend, why should he give us Tetson's money until we force him to?
It may all be his some day."
The besieged wondered why more shooting was not done. What fun could
the little men find in a smokeless revolution? Did they still cling
to the hope of receiving back pay? Did they still believe the family
to be in the villa? Hemming, seated by the window, with his rifle
across his knees, wondered when they would begin to humble his
arrogance. Valentine Hicks, eating quinine and prowling from room to
room, and window to window, with his Winchester under his arm, lived
over and over again his parting with Marion. Smith, armed like a
pirate, and itching for a fight, was happier than he had ever been.
He had a heavy strain of the bulldog in him, had this valet named
Smith, also a fine respect for gentlemen, and a love of their
companionship.
It was dark in the gardens. Smith was downstairs in the
billiard-room, motionless and wide awake. Hemming and Hicks were
smoking, one on each side of the upper hall window, which overlooked
the front steps, the driveway, and the great gates.
"The poor fellows will be sadly disappointed when they get in and
find the Tetsons and the money gone," remarked Hemming, calmly,
"though their stupidity in thinking them still here beats me."
"There are some things of value in the house," replied Hicks.
"Oh, yes; they might melt the silver," suggested Hemming, "but the
furniture would bother them. Of course they will tear up the place,
and pot us, and try to get revenge that way."
"Yes," replied Hicks, "but I have a little stone about me." He
opened his linen tunic, and unfastened a narrow cartridge-belt. "I
wear it next my skin," he said, "and it galls me a bit sometimes."
He drew a brass shell from one of the loops and with his penknife
extracted a cork and a wad of cotton wool. Then he shook something
white and rough, but glowing dimly, into the palm of Hemming's hand.
He laughed softly.
"The bridegroom's gift to the bride," he said,--"if the bridegroom
gets to the church."
Hemming gazed at it in silence.
"Cut and polished, what would it be worth?" asked its owner. His
voice was low and eager. He placed a trembling hand on his friend's
knee.
"I have seen diamonds in the rough before," replied Hemming, "but
never one as large as this. Brazilian stones vary a good deal in
quality. It may stand for a fortune, or perhaps for nothing more
than a respectable cottage, with stables, a paddock, and an orchard,
and maybe a shooting in Scotland."
"That would do for us," said Hicks, grinning like a schoolboy. "Old
Tetson could manage the orchard, and Mrs. Tetson could see that he
didn't get his feet wet." For a few moments he seemed to be
following this dream of bucolic bliss.
Then he continued: "I bought it in Pernambuco last December from a
drunken sailor, a cook or something like that, who had run away from
a wind-jammer. He didn't think much of it. It had been given him by
an old woman,--at least, so he said, but more likely he stole it. I
paid fifteen _milreis_ for it,--fifteen _milreis_, with the exchange
at ninepence."
"Put it away," said Hemming, "and keep that belt next your hide, no
matter how much it galls."
Hicks replaced the stone in the empty shell, and the shell in his
belt.
"And she thinks I haven't a cent," he whispered. "Isn't she a brick?"
The Englishman leaned back, out of range of the open window, and
relit his cigar. Suddenly Hicks bent forward, listening.
"Did you hear that?" he said.
But Hemming had heard no unusual sound, only the footsteps of their
guards, and the noise of men singing at the barracks.
"It's the first time I have heard an old 'Sam Peabody' in Brazil,"
said the American.
"Who?" said Hemming, wondering if his friend's temperature had gone
up again.
"It's a bird, some sort of sparrow we have in the North," replied
Hicks. He left the hall quietly, and hung out of a window in his own
room. Presently, from the shrubbery below him, came the familiar
notes again. He wet his lips with his tongue, and whistled the clear
call himself. He was answered immediately. He peered down into the
dim garden. The only light was that of the stars. He could see
nothing. No leaf stirred in the shrubbery, and there was neither
sight nor sound of the enemy on that side of the house.
"If you don't intend to let us in," said a quiet voice, "you might
pass out a couple of drinks."
"Whiskey and soda for me," said the voice of Captain Santosa.
Hicks ran down-stairs, and Hemming followed him. They unbarred a
window, and Smith stood ready with his rifle at port. In crawled
O'Rourke and Santosa, very wet as to clothing, but very dry inside.
"The Campbells have arrived," said O'Rourke, brushing mud from his
leggings. Hemming, for a moment, was dumbfounded at this unexpected
appearance.
"God bless you, Bertram," he said at last, and they shook hands
warmly.
"I thought, a few days ago, that it was chance that brought me to
Brazil," said O'Rourke, "but really, little fellow, it must have been
your guardian angel. What a chap you are for getting into silly
messes. There seems to be a row whenever you arrive."
"This row is not Hemming's fault," protested Hicks. O'Rourke and
Hemming laughed happily, for both felt that, together, they could
pull out of the worst scrape ever invented.
"This gentleman would come," said Santosa, "and at a pace that nearly
wore me to the bone."
Just then Smith held a tray toward the late arrivals.
"We left McPhey organizing a relief expedition to come by land,"
O'Rourke informed them, after quenching his thirst, "and the major,
after doing his business, will bring a party up by boat,--a company
or two of government troops."
"Where did you leave the horses?" asked Hemming.
"Up the trail a little way, with a dusky admirer of yours," replied
O'Rourke.
The besieged returned to the upper hall. Hicks gave a clear though
somewhat lengthy account of the rebellion. Santosa told them of his
ride to Pernambuco and O'Rourke gave such news as he could of the
outside world. Hemming, with his eyes on the dark blue square of the
window, tried to formulate a plan by which five men might protect
themselves and the property against five hundred a day or two longer.
He knew that, if the colonel really intended violence, the crisis
must soon come.
Santosa kicked off his boots, and went to sleep on the floor. Hicks,
seated with his rifle across his knees, also slipped away to the land
of Nod.
"If you have no objections," remarked O'Rourke, "I will take a bath.
Hope the enemy won't make any hostile move while I'm splashing."
Hemming lit another cigar, and continued his watch by the open
window. His arm pained him a good deal, so it was not hard to keep
awake. He heard the guards tramping about, and now and then a few
words of conversation, or a snatch of laughter. He heard music and
shouting in the distance, and sometimes the faint and hurried clatter
of hoofs. All the windows in the town seemed alight. A cool wind
stole across the palms. His thoughts left the foolish, drunken men
without, and the adventurers within, and journeyed, with the wind,
far beyond the black palms and the little city. The report of a
rifle brought him to his feet with a jump. Hicks also was out of his
chair. Santosa was pulling on his boots. They hurried down-stairs
followed by O'Rourke in a bath-towel.
"If it's a fight," said O'Rourke, "I'll dry myself and join you. If
it's just skirmishing, I'll go back to my tub."
They found Smith at his post in the billiard-room.
"What is the trouble?" asked Hemming.
"Family quarrel, I believe, sir," replied the valet. "Two people
have been talking English for quite awhile, just a little way off
that window. Then some one fired a shot, and they dusted. Think it
was one of the guards, sir, who fired. Drunk, I suppose."
"What were they talking about?" asked Hemming.
"Well, sir, I couldn't catch much of it," replied Smith, "but there
was something said about Mr. Tetson's steamer, the _Alligator_, and
about the firemen and engineers being prisoners. From what I could
gather, she was captured about half a mile down-stream to-night on
her way up. One of the men said that he had got a job on her,
because he had some important business to attend to up here."
"The devil!" exclaimed Hicks. "I bet they had a letter for me."