A STRUGGLE
I think that at first sheer amazement had controlled the Spaniard's
thoughts. But whatever the cause of the control was, it soon passed
away; then the whole fiery nature of the man seemed to sweep from him
like a torrent:
"And so all the learned arguments with which you have overwhelmed me,
were but a cloak to cover your possession of the treasure which it was
given to me and mine to guard. I might have guessed, that without the
certainty of possession you would not have been so obdurate to my offer,
given in all sincerity as it was. From other things, too, I might have
known! That woman, so old, who watches you with eyes that see more than
is to see, and who have reason of her own to mistrust you, she telled
to me that nightly she has heard you dig in the rock as though you make
grave. Take care it is not so! I am guardian of that treasure; and I am
desperate! Already have I told you that all things are to me, all ways
to fulfill the trust of my fathers. We are here alone! I am armed; and
already my life is forfeit to this course. Yield yourself, then, to me!"
Like a flash of light he had drawn a dagger from his breast; and with an
upward sweep of his hand held it poised, either to strike or throw.
But already I had taken warning from his eyes. Ever since danger had
threatened Marjory, I had carried my revolver with me; even at night it
rested under my pillow. The practice which Marjory and I had often had,
till she had taught me the old trick which her father had taught her of
getting "the drop" on an adversary, stood me now in good stead. Whilst
he had been drawing his dagger, I had already covered him; he finished
the words of his command straight into the muzzle of my six-shooter.
I said as quietly as I could, for it was with a mighty effort I kept
approximately calm under stress of such a sudden attack:
"Drop that dagger! Quick; or I shall shoot it from your hands!" He
recognised his helplessness in the matter. With a despairing sigh he
opened his fingers; the dagger fell jingling to the floor. I went on:
"Now hold up your hands, well above your head! Move back to the wall!"
He did so, and stood facing me with a disdainful smile. I stooped, and
with my right hand picked up the dagger, still keeping him covered with
my left. I put the weapon on the far side of the table, and approached
him. He did not move, but I could see that he was sizing me up. This
gave me no anxiety, for I knew my own strength; and I had also a shrewd
idea that if he had any other arm about him he would not be calculating
his chances for a physical struggle. Cautioning him that his life
depended on his stillness, for I still held my revolver to his breast, I
passed my hand lightly over him; he had manifestly no other weapon. The
only sign of one was the sheath of his dagger; this I took from him.
I placed the dagger in it and put it in my own pocket; then I drew a
chair to the middle of the room and motioned him to sit down. He obeyed
sullenly. Having by this time regained something of my serenity of mind,
I spoke:
"Your pardon, Sir, for the indignity to which I have been obliged to
submit you; but I am sure you will remember that it was not I who began
the question of force. When you thought it right to draw arms upon me in
my own house, you made it necessary that I should protect myself. Now,
let me say something in answer to your charge against me. The finding of
the treasure has nothing whatever to do with my theory of action;
I should hold my present view just as strongly had we not made the
discovery. Indeed, I may say that since we have had actual possession of
the treasure, it seems not nearly so desirable as it had been. So far as
I am concerned, I don't care a straw whether I have ultimate possession
of it or not; but I am so fixed up that if I waive my rights--that is if
I have any to waive--that I may aid in doing a repugnant thing to a very
dear friend. That I shall not do. I shall oppose its doing by any means
in my power!" The Spaniard saw a chance, and spoke:
"But if I undertake----" I cut him short:
"Sir, in this matter you are not in a position to undertake. By your own
showing, you are simply bound to fulfill your trust and to restore the
treasure to the King, who will restore it to the Pope; or to restore it
to the Pope direct." He answered quickly:
"But I can stipulate----" again I interrupted him for this was a useless
road to travel;
"How can you stipulate? You would, or might, be told to simply fulfill
the duty that had been undertaken for you. Did you refuse, from whatever
motive, no matter how justly founded, on ground of right or honour, you
would not be holding to the simple terms of your trust. No! sir. This is
no private affair to be settled by you or me, or by us both together. It
belongs to politics! and international politics at that. The Government
of Spain is desperately in want of money. How do you know to what shift,
or to what specious argument it will condescend in its straits. I have
no doubt that, should anything be done contrary to your idea of fair
play, you would be grievously pained; but that is not to the point. Your
Government would not take thought for any wish of yours, any more than
for aught of mine. Your King is a minor; his regent is a woman, and his
councillors and governors are all men chosen to do what they can to save
their country. Sir, but a few minutes ago you professed it your duty to
take any step, even to crime and dishonour, to carry out your duty.
Indeed, you drew a weapon upon me, a presumably unarmed man, in my own
house in which you are a self-invited guest. Suppose some of the
Government of Spain hold ideas of their duty, equally strong and equally
unscrupulous; who then is to answer for what they do. Why, in such case,
they would undertake anything, until they had got possession of the
treasure; and would then act entirely upon what they would call their
'better judgment.'" His native pride awoke in an instant for he said
hotly:
"I would have you know, Senor, and remember always when you talk with a
Spaniard, that our statesmen are not criminals, but men of honour." I
bowed instinctively as I answered him:
"Sir, I have no doubt whatever, and I speak in all sincerity, that you
yourself are, under normal circumstances, a man of the highest honour.
Your self-sacrificing offer has shewn me that; and I have added to that
knowledge by seeing the pain you have suffered at even the thought of
dishonour." Here he bowed low, and there was a look of gratitude in his
eyes which touched me to the quick. "And yet even you have openly told
me that all your belief in honour, all your life-long adherence to its
behests, will not keep you from fulfilling a duty should these things
clash. Nay more, you have already done things which I take it are at
variance with your principles. How then can you, or I, believe that
other men, of less lofty lineage and less delicate sense of honour,
will forego an advantage for their country in distress, yielding to a
theoretical point of right or wrong. No sir" I went on pitilessly, for I
felt that it would be a kindness to him to shut absolutely this door of
hope, "We must take no step which will place in the hands of others the
guardianship of that treasure, of which you have hitherto conceived
yourself trustee, and of which I now believe myself to be the owner."
For fully several minutes we faced each other in silence. His face grew
more and more fixed and stern; at last he stood up with such a look of
resolution that instinctively my fingers tightened round the butt of my
revolver. I thought that he might be about to throw himself upon me, and
attempt even at such odds as were against him, a struggle for present
mastery. Then, without moving from his place, he spoke:
"When I have done all I can to fulfill my trust in its completeness,
and have failed, I shall ask the government of my country to make
representation to her friend England of a friendly claim, so that we may
get even a part of the treasure; and then I will devote myself to the
avenging of my honour on those who have foiled me in my duty!" This was
a sort of speech which braced me up again. It was a promise of war, man
to man, and I could understand it better than the subtleties which now
enmeshed us. I put my pistol back in my pocket, and bowed to my opponent
as I answered:
"And when that time comes, Sir, you will find me at your service; how
you will; where you will; and when you will. In the meantime, when first
you place the matter on the international plane, I shall take care that
the American government, in which dear friends of mine are interested,
shall make friendly demand of her friend, England, that she shall take
no step with regard to this particular treasure--if indeed it be then in
her possession--which may be used to the detriment of the trans-Atlantic
power. Thus you see, sir, that time must in any case elapse before a
final settlement. Nothing can be done till the close of the present war,
when I take it that immediate need of the sinews of war shall have
ceased to exist. Be very careful, then, how you take any steps to bring
upon the scene other powers than ourselves; powers vastly more strong,
and vastly less scrupulous--perhaps." He answered nothing, but looked at
me a long time in silent cold disdain. Then he said quietly:
"Have I your permission, Senor, to depart?" I bowed, and brought him
to the door. When outside he turned, and, lifting his hat high in an
old-fashioned, stately way, bowed. He passed up the laneway towards
Whinnyfold, without once glancing back.
As I stood looking at him, I saw in the dusk Gormala's head now and
again showing above the low green bank which guarded the edge of the
cliff. She was bent double, and was in secret following the Spaniard.
I went back to the house to think over matters. Altogether, we were
getting so complicated that there did not seem any straight road to
take. In the back of my mind I had a firm idea that the best thing
I could do would be to hand over the treasure to the custody of the
police; inform the Sheriff; and get my solicitor to enter a formal claim
of ownership, wherever the claim should be made. Then I should get
Marjory to come upon our honeymoon. I could see that her mind was
almost, if not quite, made up to accept this step; and for a while I
lost myself in a day dream.
I came back to the reality of things by dimly and gradually realising
that it had grown dark. So I made preparation for the night, bearing in
mind that I had a vast treasure in my possession, and that a desperate
man who claimed to represent its ownership was aware that I had it in
the house. It was not till I had seen to the fastenings of every window
and door, that I began to prepare a meal.
By this time I was exceedingly hungry; when I had eaten I seated myself
before a rousing fire of pine logs, lit my pipe, and began to think.
Without, the wind was rising. I could hear it whistle along the roof,
and now and again it roared and boomed down the chimney; the leaping
fire seemed to answer its call. I could not think definitely; my
thoughts kept whirling in a circle from the Spaniard to the treasure,
from the treasure to Gormala, from Gormala to Marjory, and from Marjory
back to the Spaniard again. Every time the cycle became complete and my
thoughts came back to Marjory, my rapture as I thought of her and of
our future, became clouded by a vague uneasiness. It was out of this
that the thought of Don Bernardino came to commence the next round of
thought. In all my mental wanderings he became a dominant character;
his pride, his sense of duty which subordinated even honour, his
desperation, his grief, all seemed to be with me and around me. Now and
again I trembled, when I thought that such self-sacrificing forces might
be turned against Marjory.
Little by little, despite all my anxiety, stole over me the disposition
of sleep. I was indeed almost worn out. The events of the past few days
had crowded together so quickly that I had had no time for pause. Even
the long sleep which had crowned the vigil in the water cave had not
enabled me to lay in, so to speak, a provision of sleep; it had been the
payment of a debt to nature rather than the putting by of capital. I
had the consoling thought that Marjory had promised me she would not
leave Crom Castle till I came. Safe in this thought I rolled myself in
rugs--choosing those that she had used--and fell asleep.
I think that even in sleep I did not lose the sense of my surroundings,
for in dreams my thoughts ran in their waking channel. Here again, all
the disturbing elements of my life of late became jumbled together; and
a sort of anxiety regarding something unknown seemed to brood over me.
So far as I remember, I slept fitfully; waking often in a sort of agony
of indefinite apprehension. A couple of times I made up the fire which
was falling low, for there was a sort of companionship in it. Without,
the wind howled more loudly, and each time as I sank back to rest I
pulled the rugs more closely around me.
Once, I started broad awake. I thought I heard a cry, and naturally, in
my present frame of mind, my thoughts flew to Marjory in some danger;
she was calling me. Whatever the cause was, it reached my brain through
a thick veil of sleep; my body answered, and before I had time to think
of why or wherefore, I was standing on the floor broad awake, alert and
panting. Again there came a sharp cry outside, which threw me in an
instant into a cold sweat. Marjory was in danger and was calling me!
Instinctively I ran to the window, and pulling open the shutters, threw
up the sash. All was dark outside, with just that cold line on the far
Eastern horizon which told of coming dawn. The wind had risen high, and
swept past me into the room, rustling papers and making the flames
dance. Every now and again a bird swept by me on the wings of the
wind, screaming as it flew; for the house was so close to the sea that
the birds took no note of it as they would ordinarily do of a human
habitation. One of them came so close that its scream seemed to sound
loudly in my ears; it was doubtless just such a cry as this which had
torn me from my sleep. For a while I hesitated whether I should go right
away to Crom; but second thoughts prevailed. I could not get into the
house at such an hour, without creating alarm and causing comment. So I
went back to the chimney corner, and, piling on fresh logs and snuggling
into my nest of rugs, soon found sleep again descending on me. The
serenity of thought which comes with the day was using its force....
This time I woke more slowly. The knocking was continuous and
imperative; but it was not a terrifying sound. We are all more or less
used to such sounds. I listened; and gradually consciousness of my
surroundings came back to me. The knocking was certainly persistent....
I put on my shoes and went to the door.
Outside was Mrs. Jack, looking troubled and hot in spite of the cold of
the wind which seemed to sing around the house. As I opened the door,
she slipped past me and closed it behind her. Her first words made my
heart sink, and my blood run cold with vague terror:
"Is Marjory here?"