Bell stepped out of a tall French window to a terrace, and from the
terrace to the ground. There was a dull muttering in the sky to the
east, and a speck appeared, drew nearer swiftly, grew larger, and
became a small army biplane. It descended steeply to earth behind a
tall planting of trees. Bell lighted a cigarette and moved
purposelessly down an elaborately formalized garden.
"More victims," he observed grimly to himself, of the plane.
Ribiera lifted a pigmented hand to wave languidly from a shaded chair.
There were women about him, three of them, and it sickened Bell to see
the frightened assiduity with which they flattered him. Bell had met
them, of course. Madame the wife of the State President of Bahia--in
the United States of Brazil the states have presidents instead of
governors--preferred the title of "Madame" because it was more foreign
and consequently more aristocratic than Senhora. And Madame the wife
of the General--
"Senhor," called Ribiera blandly, "I have news for you."
Bell turned and went toward him with an air of pleased expectancy. He
noticed for the first time the third of the women. Young, in the first
flush of youthful maturity, but with an expression of stark terror
lingering behind a palpably assumed animation.
"An acquaintance of yours, Senhor," said Ribiera, "is to be my
guests."
Bell steeled himself.
"The Senhor Canalejas," said Ribiera, beaming, "and his daughter."
* * * * *
Bell seemed to frown, and then seemed to remember.
"Oh, yes," he said carelessly, "I met her in Washington. She was on
the _Almirante Gomez_, coming down."
The next instant he saw Ribiera's expression, and cursed himself for a
fool. Ribiera's eyes had narrowed sharply. Then they half-closed, and
he smiled.
"She is charming," said Ribiera in drowsy contentment, "and I had
thought you would be glad to improve her acquaintance. Especially
since, as my friend, you may congratulate me. A contract of marriage
is under discussion."
Bell felt every muscle grow taut. The fat, pigmented man before
him....
"Indeed," said Bell politely, "I do congratulate you."
Ribiera looked at him with an expression in which a sardonic
admiration mingled with something else less pleasant.
"You are clever, Senhor Bell," he said heavily, seeming to sink more
deeply into his chair. "Very clever." He shifted his eyes to the women
who stood about him. "You may go," he said indifferently. His tone was
exactly that of a despot dismissing his slaves. Two of them colored
with instinctive resentment. His eyes lingered an instant on the
third. Her face had showed only a passionate relief. "You, Senhora,"
he said heavily, "may wait nearby."
The terror returned to her features, but she moved submissively to a
spot a little out of earshot. Bell found his jaws clenched. There is a
certain racial taint widespread in Brazil which leads to an
intolerable arrogance when there is the slightest opportunity for its
exercise. Ribiera had the taint, and Bell felt a sickening wrath at
the terrified submission of the women.
"_Si_," said Ribiera, suddenly adverting to insolence. "You are
clever, Senhor Bell. Where did you learn of _yagué_?"
* * * * *
Bell inhaled leisurely. His muscles were tense, but he gave no outward
sign. Instead, he sat down comfortably upon the arm of a chair facing
Ribiera's. The only way to meet insolence is with equal insolence and
a greater calm.
"Ah!" said Bell pleasantly. "So you found out it didn't work, after
all!"
Ribiera's eyes contracted. He became suddenly enraged.
"You are trifling with me," he said furiously. "Do you know the
penalty for that?"
"Why, yes," said Bell, and smiled amiably. "A dose of--er--poison of
The Master's private brand."
It was a guess, but based on a good deal of evidence. Ribiera turned
crimson, then pale.
"What do you know?" he demanded in a deadly quietness. "You cannot
leave this place. You are aware of that. The people here--guests and
servants--are my slaves, the slaves of The Master. You cannot leave
this place except also as my slave. I will have you bound and given
_yagué_ so that you cannot fail to tell me anything that I wish to
know. I will have you tortured so that you will gladly say anything
that I wish, in return for death. I will--"
"You will," said Bell dryly, "drop dead with seven bullets in your
body if you give a signal for anyone to attack me."
* * * * *
Ribiera stared at him as his hand rested negligently in his coat
pocket. And then, quite suddenly Ribiera began to chuckle. His rage
vanished. He laughed, a monstrous, gross, cackling laughter.
"You have been my guest for two days," he gasped, slapping his fat
knees, "and you have not noticed that your pistol his been tampered
with! Senhor Bell! Senhor Bell! My uncle will be disappointed in you!"
It seemed to impress him as a victory that Bell had been depending
upon an utterly futile threat for safety. It restored his good humor
marvelously.
"It does not matter," he said jovially. "Presently you will tell me
all that I wish to know. More, perhaps. My uncle is pleased with you.
You recall your little talk with the wireless operator on the
_Almirante Gomez_? You tried to learn things from him, Senhor. He
reported it. Of course. All our slaves report. He sent his report to
my uncle, The Master, and I did not have it until to-day. I will admit
that you deceived me. I knew you had talked with Ortiz, who was a
fool. I thought that in his despair he might have spoken. I gave you
_yagué_, as I thought, and informed my uncle that you knew nothing.
And he is very much pleased with you. It was clever to deceive me
about the _yagué_. My uncle has high praise for you. He has told me
that he desires your services."
Bell inhaled again. There was no question but that Ribiera was totally
unafraid of the threat he had made. His gun must have been tampered
with, the firing-pin filed off perhaps. So Bell said placidly:
"Well? He desires my services?"
* * * * *
Ribiera chuckled, in his gross and horrible good humor.
"He will have them. Senhor. He will have them. When you observe your
hands writhing at the ends of your wrists, you will enter his service,
through me. Of course. And he will reward you richly. Money, much
money, such as I have. And slaves--such as I have. The Senhora...."
Ribiera looked at the terrified girl standing thirty or forty feet
away. He chuckled again.
"My uncle desires that you should be induced to enter his service of
your own will. So, Senhor, you shall see first what my uncle's service
offers. And later, when you know what pleasures you may some day
possess as my uncle's deputy in your own nation, why, then the fact
that your hands are writhing at the ends of your wrists will be merely
an added inducement to come to me. And I bear you no ill will for
deceiving me. You may go."
Bell rose.
"And still," he said dryly, "I suspect that you are deceived. But now
you deceive yourself."
He heard Ribiera chuckling as he walked away. He heard him call,
amusedly, "Senhora." He heard the little gasp of terror with which the
girl obeyed. He passed her, stumbling toward the gross fat man with
the light brown skin and curly hair. Her eyes were literally pools of
anguish.
* * * * *
Bell threw away his cigarette and began to fumble for another. He was
beginning to feel the first twinges of panic, and fought them down.
Ribiera had not lied. Bell had been at this _fazenda_ of his--which
was almost a miniature Versailles three hundred miles from Rio--for
two days. In all that time he had not seen one person besides himself
who did not display the most abject terror of Ribiera. Ribiera had
made no idle boast when he said that everyone about, guests and
servants, were slaves. They were. Slaves of a terror vastly greater
than mere fear of death. It--
"Senhor!... _Oh, Dios!_" It was the girl's voice, in despair.
Ribiera laughed. Bell felt a red mist come before his eyes.
He deliberately steadied his hands and lighted his cigarette. He heard
stumbling footsteps coming behind him. A hand touched his arm. He
turned to see the girl Ribiera had pointed out, her cheeks utterly,
chalky white, trying desperately to smile.
"Senhor!" she gasped. "Smile at me! For the love of God, smile at me!"
In the fraction of a second, Bell was mad with rage. He understood,
and he hated Ribiera with a corrosive hatred past conception. And then
he was deathly calm, and wholly detached, and he smiled widely, and
turned and looked at Ribiera, and Ribiera's whole gross bulk quivered
as he chuckled. Bell took the girl's arm with an excessive politeness
and managed--he never afterward understood how he managed it--to grin
at Ribiera.
"Senhora," he said in a low tone, "I think I understand. Stop being
afraid. We can fool him. Come and walk with me and talk. The idea is
that he must think you are trying to fascinate me, is it not?"
She spoke through stiffened lips.
"Ah, that I could die!"
Bell had a horrible part to play while he walked the length of the
formal garden with her, and found a pathway leading out of it, and led
her out of sight. He stopped.
"Now," he said sharply, "tell me. I am not yet his slave. He has
ordered you...."
She was staring before her with wide eyes that saw only despair.
"I--I am to persuade you to be my lover," she said dully, "or I shall
know the full wrath of The Master...."
* * * * *
Bell asked questions, crisply, but as gently as he could.
"We are his slaves," she told him apathetically. "I and _mi
Arturo_--my husband. Both of us...." She roused herself little under
Bell's insistent questioning. "We were guests at his house at dinner.
Our friends, people high in society and in the Republic, were all
about us. We suspected nothing. We had heard nothing. But two weeks
later Arturo became irritable. He said that he saw red spots before
his eyes. I also. Then Arturo's hands writhed at the ends of his
wrists. He could not control them. His nerves were horrible. And mine.
And we--we have a tiny baby.... And Senhor Ribiera called upon my
husband. He was charming. He observed my husband's hands. He had a
remedy, he said. He gave it to my husband. He became normal again. And
then--my hands writhed. Senhor Ribiera told my husband that if he
would bring me to him.... And I was relieved. We were grateful. We
accepted the invitation of the Senhor Ribiera to this place. And he
showed us a man, in chains. He--he went mad before our eyes. He was a
member of the United States Secret Service.... And then the Senhor
Ribiera told us that we faced the same fate if we did not serve
him...."
* * * * *
Bell had thrust aside rage as useless, now. He was deliberately cold.
"And so?"
"It is a poison," she said unsteadily. "A deadly, a horrible poison
which drives men murder mad in two weeks from the time of its
administration. The Senhor Ribiera has an antidote for it. But mixed
with the antidote, which acts at once, is more of the horrible poison,
which will act in two weeks more. So that we are entrapped. If we
disobey him...."
Bell began to smile slowly, and not at all mirthfully.
"I think," he said softly, "that I shall gain a great deal of pleasure
from killing the Senhor Ribiera."
"_Dios_--" She strangled upon the word. "Do you not see, Senhor, that
if he dies we--we--" She stopped and choked. "We--have a tiny baby,
Senhor. We--we would...."
Again sick rage surged up in Bell. To kill Ribiera meant to drive his
slaves mad, and mad in the most horrible fashion that can be imagined.
To kill Ribiera meant to have these people duplicate the death of
Ortiz, as their greatest hope, or to fill madhouses with snarling
animals lusting to kill....
"It is--it is not only I, Senhor," said the girl before him. She was
utterly listless, and in the agony of despair. "It is Arturo, also.
The Senhor Ribiera has said that if I do not persuade you, that both
Arturo and I.... And our little baby, Senhor!... Our families also
will be entrapped some day. He has said so.... He will give that
poison to our baby.... And it will grow up either his slave, or--"
Her eyes were pools of panic.
"Oh, God!" said Bell very quietly. "And he's offering me this power!
He's trying to persuade me to become like him. He's offering me
pleasures!"
* * * * *
He laughed unpleasantly. And then he went sick with helplessness. He
could kill Ribiera, perhaps, and let only God know how many people go
mad. Perhaps. Or perhaps Ribiera would merely be supplanted by another
man. Ortiz had said that he killed The Master's deputy in Buenos
Aires, but that another man had taken his place. And the thing went
on. And The Master desired a deputy in the United States....
"Somehow," said Bell very softly, "this has got to be stopped.
Somehow. Right away. That devilish stuff! Can you get hold of a bit of
the antidote?" he asked abruptly. "The merest drop of it?"
She shook her head.
"No, Senhor. It is given in food, in wine. One never knows that one
has had it. It is tasteless, and we have only Senhor Ribiera's word
that it has been given."
Bell's hands clenched.
"So devilish clever.... What are we going to do?"
The girl stuffed the corner of her handkerchief into her mouth.
"I am thinking of my little baby," she said, choking. "I must persuade
you, Senhor. I--I have been tearful. I--I am not attractive. I will
try. If I am not attractive to you...."
* * * * *
Bell cursed, deeply and savagely. It seemed to be the only possible
thing to do. And then he spoke coldly.
"Listen to me, Senhora. Ribiera talked frankly to me just now. He
knows that so far I am not subdued. If I escape he cannot blame you.
He cannot! And I am going to attempt it. If you will follow me...."
"There is no escape for me," she said dully, "and if he thinks that I
knew of your escape and did not tell him...."
"Follow me," said Bell, smiling queerly. "I shall take care that he
does not suspect it."
He gazed about for an instant, orienting himself. The plane that had
just landed--the last of a dozen or more that had arrived in the past
two days--had dipped down on the private landing field to the north.
There was a beautifully kept way running from the landing field to the
house, and he went on through the thick shrubbery amid a labyrinth of
paths, choosing the turnings most likely to lead him to it.
* * * * *
He came out upon it suddenly, and faced toward the field. There were
two men coming toward the house, on foot. One was a flying pilot,
still in his flying clothes. The other was a tall man, for a
Brazilian, with the lucent clarity of complexion that bespeaks
uncontaminated white descent. He was white-haired, and his face was
queerly tired, as if he were exhausted.
Bell looked sharply. He seemed to see a resemblance to someone he knew
in the tall man. He spoke quickly to the girl beside him.
"Who is the man to the left?"
"Senhor Canalejas," said the girl drearily. "He is the Minister of
War. I suppose he, too...."
Bell drew a deep breath. He walked on, confidently. As the two others
drew near he said apologetically:
"Senhores."
They halted with the instinctive, at least surface, courtesy of the
Brazilian. And Bell was fumbling with his handkerchief, rather
nervously tying a knot in it. He held it out to Canalejas.
"Observe."
It was, of course, a recognition-knot such as may be given to an
outsider by one in the Trade. The tall man's face changed. And Bell
swung swiftly and suddenly and very accurately to the point of the
other man's jaw.
He collapsed.
* * * * *
"Senhor Canalejas," said Bell politely, "I am about to go and steal an
airplane to take what I have learned to my companion for transmission.
If you wish to go with me...."
Canalejas stared for the fraction of a second. Then he said quietly:
"But of course."
He turned to retrace his steps. Bell turned to the girl.
"If you are wise," he said gently, "you will go and give the alarm. If
you are kind, you will delay it as much as you dare."
She regarded him in agonized doubt for a moment, and nodded. She fled.
"Now," said Bell casually, "I think we had better hasten. And I hope,
Senhor Canalejas, that you have a revolver. We will need one. Mine has
been ruined."
Without a word, the white-haired man drew out a weapon and offered it
to him.
"I had intended," he said very calmly, "to kill the Senhor Ribiera.
His last demand is for my daughter."
They went swiftly. The plane Bell had seen alight some fifteen or
twenty minutes before was just being approached by languid mechanics.
It was, of course, still warm. Canalejas shouted and waved his arm
imperiously. It is probable that he gave the impression of a man
returning for some forgotten thing, left in the cockpit of the plane.
* * * * *
What happened then, happened quickly. A few crisp words in a low tone.
A minor hubbub began suddenly back at the house. Canalejas climbed
into the passenger's seat as if looking for something. And Bell
presented his now useless automatic pleasantly at the head of the
nearest staring mechanic, and while he froze in horror, scrambled up
into the pilot's cockpit.
"Contact!" he snapped, and turned on the switch. The mechanic remained
frozen with fear. "Damnation!" said Bell savagely. "I don't know the
Portuguese for 'Turn her over'!"
He fumbled desperately about in the cockpit. Something whirred. The
propeller went over.... Canalejas shot with painstaking accuracy,
twice. The motor caught with a spluttering roar.
As a horde of running figures, servants and guests, running with the
same desperation, came plunging out on the flying field from the
shrubbery. Bell gave the motor the gun. The fast little plane's tail
came up off the ground as she darted forward. Faster and faster, with
many bumpings. The bumpings ceased. She was clear.
And Bell zoomed suddenly to lift her over the racing, fear-ridden
creatures who clutched desperately at the wheels, and then the little
ship shot ahead, barely cleared the trees to the east of the field,
and began to roar at her topmost speed toward Rio.