Toffy was hovering about the dining-room waiting for him as he turned
and went into the house again, and said, 'All this is a bit rough on
you, Peter.' And Peter assented with a nod.
The two men went into the little drawing-room to collect pillows for
the long chairs in the corridor where they were going to sleep, and
Peter went to a side table to turn low a lamp which was adding to the
heat of the room. 'I say,' he said, 'didn't you mean these letters to
go?'
'Haven't my letters gone?' said Toffy. 'How on earth were they
forgotten?'
'Toffy,' said Peter, 'when I meet you acting as a sandwich-man in
Piccadilly, without a rag to your back or a shilling to your name, I
shall say nothing more encouraging to you than, "It was just what I
expected!"'
'But Ross always told me to leave my letters here when I wanted them
posted!' said Toffy, scratching his head.
'It's an extraordinary thing,' said Peter, 'that you ever have a pillow
to lay your head on; and you don't get that unless I heave it at you
and prevent other fellows grabbing it! Who 's got your motorcar at
home now? Some one, I suppose, you 've lent it to, and from whom you
won't a bit like to ask it back. Are you getting any rent at all for
Hulworth?' he went on, his wrath increasing as he spoke, 'or are you
letting it slide for a bit because your tenants are hard up? Would you
have a picture, or a bit of cracked china, or a bottle of wine left, if
they had not been all tied up by some cunning ancestor and looked after
by his executors? What has become of your horses, and why are you
always put to sleep in the billiard-room of an hotel, or in the pantry,
when other fellows get a decent bed provided for them? Why do they
give you a room over the stables when country houses are full, where
the coachman's wife asks you if you would like a little hot water in
the morning, and regrets that the chimney doesn't draw very well? You
were born that way, I suppose,' finished Peter hopelessly. 'I don't
believe you were ever allowed a cradle if your nurse wanted it for any
one else!'
'I rub along all right!' said Toffy apologetically.
'Look here,' said Peter, 'I 'll ride with these letters after Purvis,
and ask him to post them; he 'll get down to Taco in time to catch the
mail, and I can easily overtake him on the _bayo_.'
The Englishmen had learned to call their horses after their different
shades of colour, in the usual Argentine way; the one Peter spoke of
was a dun-coloured brute, three-parts English-bred.
Toffy protested, but Peter was obstinate. He had been worried and
unsettled all day, and he believed that it would be a good thing to let
off steam by a ride over the camp; besides which, Toffy's letters had
taken a good two hours to write, and Peter guessed they were important.
He could easily overtake Purvis with them before he should reach La
Dorada.
'I 'll sit up and trim the lamp like a faithful wife, until you
return,' said Toffy.
'You 'll go to bed, you ass!' shouted Peter. He was outside the house
fastening the girths of the _bayo_ as he spoke, and now he swung
himself into the saddle and sent his horse forward with the
characteristic quick movement of a hunting man.
The long ride in the moonlight did him good. The intensity of the
clear light had something strange and wonderful in it, touched with
unearthliness. Night with its thousand secrets whispered about him,
and he felt very small and insignificant riding alone under the great
silvery dome of heaven, hushed with a sense of the far-away and with
the mystery of its innumerable stars. Now and then he came across a
herd of cattle standing feeding in the short grass of the camp, their
shadows showing black beside them, or a frightened tropillo of horses
would start at the sound of the _bayo's_ hoofs. He took a short-cut
through the mimosa woods, where the ground was uneven. His horse
picked its way unfalteringly as it cantered forward, though Peter had
to stoop very often to save his head from touching the low branches of
the trees. Overhead some parakeets, disturbed in their slumbers, flew
from bough to bough, their green wings and tiny red heads turning to
strange colours in the moonlight. He got away through one of the rough
gates of the estancia out into the open camp again, where the earth was
full of a vast stillness about him, and the stars pulsated overhead to
the unspeakable music of the night.
And now he began to expect every minute to overtake Purvis, and he
strained his eyes eagerly for the solitary figure of the horseman. He
knew he was riding a much better horse than the one Purvis was on, and
still he failed to come up with him. The track on which he rode was
clear enough, and his horse knew the way to La Dorada as well as any
peon on the place. Peter took out his watch and looked at it in the
moonlight. It was not a quarter to twelve, and he was already at the
little settlement, close by the river, where some Italians and
Spaniards lived. He recognized one of the ill-built small huts as the
place where Juan Lara dwelt, and he drew up to ask whether Purvis was
ahead of him or not, and whether his boy had started with his mail-bag
for the train yet. A Spaniard with a dark face answered his knock, and
told him that no one had passed that way to-night, also that his boy
had left much earlier in the afternoon with the mail. He suggested
that the traveller should come inside and wait until his friend should
overtake him; and as there was plenty of time Peter resolved to rest
his horse, and then to push on to La Dorada if Purvis should not turn
up. Lara's wife came to beg him to enter. She was an old woman before
her time, and had reared a large family in the tiny confines of this
little hut. Peter took off his soft felt hat and, stooping below the
little doorway, came inside. The use of the Spanish language was
inherited from his mother, and he congratulated Lara's wife on her
skill in washing shirts, and made some conversation with her.
The place which he had entered was poor enough; it was built on a mud
floor, and was entirely devoid of furniture save for a ramshackle
bedstead with spotless linen upon it, and a couple of chairs. There
was a tiny shrine with an image of the Virgin in the corner of the
room; before it burned a halfpenny night-light, and round it were
ranged in a row a number of paper match-boxes with little coloured
pictures upon them. They were French match-boxes, which opened with a
spring formed of elastic, and underneath the pictures were jokes of a
doubtful description. Neither Lara nor his wife knew anything of the
French language; the empty paper match-boxes, with the horrible jokes
upon them, were offered faithfully before Our Lady. They were the best
they had to give, and they were the only decorations in the room.
The-woman dusted a chair for Peter, and set the other for her husband,
and she herself sat down upon the edge of the bed. They were both glad
of visitors at whatever hour they arrived, and in the solitary life of
the camp a belated horseman may often ride up after dusk.
Peter explained that it was Señor Purvis, who owned the big estancia
down at La Dorada, whom he was riding to overtake.
'He had better not ride about too much alone,' said the Spaniard.
'There are some long knives about, and the señor is a short man.'
'What is the trouble on the estate?' said Peter. But he could get no
information from Lara. 'He had better take care,' the man said.
'Señor Purvis would be safer if he were to sail away in his steamer,
and be gone for a month or two.'
'He has a mixed lot of men on his estancia, has he not?' Peter asked.
'Yes,' said the man; 'but they are mostly Spanish, and the señor, for
all his Spanish tongue, has not got a heart that understands the
people.'
'You don't think anything can have happened to him?' Peter asked.
He reflected that the road was an open one all the way, and that he
must have seen if there had been anything like a disturbance; but in
the end a certain apprehension for the safety of the man made him think
that he had better push on and hear if there were any news of him at La
Dorada. There might be some path or track to the river-side of which
he knew nothing; and if that bypath existed Purvis would certainly take
it, however circuitous it might be. There seemed to be some curious
obliquity about him which made for crooked ways, and in any case Peter
did not want to miss the mail with Toffy's letters. He said good
night, and, hearing no news of the traveller at the quay, he rode on
until he reached the small unfenced railway station at Taco, set down
apparently promiscuously on the grey arid plain. There Lara's boy was
waiting with his mail-bag, and after a time the sleepy station-master
began to bestir himself, and a cart came in with five horses harnessed
abreast carrying some freight. Still there was no sign of Purvis, and
Peter had to give his letters to the guard when at last, with a shrill
whistle, the train came into the station.
It was very odd, he reflected; and he began to wonder whether Purvis
was in danger, and to be vaguely disturbed by what the people in the
hut had said to him. Ross had told him many tales of how Englishmen
had been murdered out here. There was the case of poor Wentworth,
whose Spanish wife had held him down when he had tried to escape, and
whose own major-domo had shot him at the door. Nobody knew anything of
the matter, of course. The Spaniards keep their secrets well. Nobody
was ever brought to justice; and the affair, which would have made a
sensation at home, only horrified a few English neighbours near the
estancia. But the feeling against Purvis seemed to be something much
deeper than personal jealousy or mere greed for gold dollars. There
was a storm brewing about him, and no one knew when it would burst.
'Purvis will have to look out,' reflected Peter; and he wondered where
on earth the man had got to to-night. He wished he could give him some
sort of warning; but he reflected that Purvis knew far more about the
state of affairs than he, Peter, did. No one could tell Purvis much
about Argentine that he did not know already. His vague feeling of
suspicion against the man deepened, and he began to wonder what game
Purvis was playing. Had the other man in Rosario paid him well to do
his work for him, or was Purvis withholding information until a certain
price was stipulated? Bowshott was worth a ransom, and Purvis might be
playing a double game. Between the two men he might feather his nest
very well.
The dawn was breaking as Peter rode slowly homewards, and a pale pink
light was in the sky. His horse ambled gently along, never mistaking
his way or making a false step on the rough, uneven ground, but
swinging at an easy canter, and getting over an immense distance
without much distress to himself. The moon, in a sort of hushed
silence, was climbing down the arc of heaven as the sun rose to
eastward. The pale light touched the surface of a _tajamar_ as he rode
past it, and the trees beside it threw still, sad, faint shadows into
its quiet depth. Above the western monte a lordly eagle with hushed
wings rose majestically overhead, and some viscashos popped in a
noiseless way in and out of their holes. The air was cool and fresh
now, and a tree or two began to rise up unexpectedly out of the ground
in the grey light.
He began to get sleepy with the easy motion of the horse; the endless
line of plain around him was wearying to the eye as the sun rose upon
it. Well, he would get into camp before it became very hot; that idiot
Toffy would probably be sitting up for him.
He laughed softly to himself as he saw a flicker of light in the window
that looked towards the track, when at last he drew near the little
estancia house. It was like Toffy to remember to put a lamp where he
could see it! It was worth while taking a midnight ride for such a
good fellow, although he had had a very fair notion of what was in one
of the letters, and entirely disapproved its contents. The last mail
had brought news that Horace Avory was ill, and Peter knew quite well
that Toffy had written to Mrs. Avory. Of course she was not the wife
for him; she was very delicate and no longer very young, and she had a
plain little daughter who was ten years old. Still, Peter supposed
that the marriage might turn out pretty well in spite of obvious
drawbacks; and Heaven knew that Mrs. Avory, in her own sad, tearful
way, had fought very bravely against poverty and loneliness and
unhappiness, and that she loved Toffy with her whole heart. But why,
now that things seemed to be arranging themselves in a satisfactory
manner, should Toffy be in the blues, and lie awake during the greater
part of the hot nights?
He drew up at the door of the house when the sun was becoming hot, and
Toffy appeared in his pyjamas and prepared a cup of coffee on a stove
of patent construction for which he claimed admiration every time it
was used.
'Thanks, Peter!' he said briefly. 'I was writing to Mrs. Avory by this
mail, and she would have been disappointed if she had not heard from
me. Did you overtake Purvis?'
'No, I didn't,' said Peter; 'and what's more, he didn't go by the mail
train to Buenos Ayres!'
'What a queer chap he is!' said Toffy. 'You never know where to have
him! That can't be he coming back now?' he said, looking from the
small window at two riders who came cantering up to the door.
'Is it? Yes! No, it isn't,' said Peter, going over to the window.
'But I 'll tell you who it is, though! It's Dunbar, and he 's got a
commissario of police with him! Now, what in the name of wonder do
they want here?'
The two riders dismounted at the gate and came up the little path
through the garden to the door. They walked stiffly, as though they
had ridden for a long time, and their horses, tethered by the gate,
looked used up and tired.
Dunbar hardly paused to shake hands. 'Look here,' he said, 'E. W.
Smith is here, and he 's wanted!'