'First of all,' said Peter, 'who is E. W. Smith, and why the dickens
should you imagine he is here?'
Dunbar gave him a quick look. 'Is any one here?' he asked.
'No one but Ross and Christopherson and myself,' said Peter. 'Purvis
was here, but he started for Buenos Ayres last night, and I have no
idea where he is now. I saw the train start from the station at Taco,
but he was not in it.'
'Purvis is in a tight place,' said Dunbar dryly.
Ross, hearing voices in the drawing-room, wakened up, and now appeared
with ruffled hair and still clad in his sleeping-suit. He suggested
refreshments, and sat down to hear what Dunbar had to say.
Peter's face had a queer set look upon it. Where another man might
perhaps have asked questions he showed something of his mother's
reserve, and was never more silent than when a moment of strain
arrived. He began in a mechanical way to make two fresh cups of
coffee, and poured the steaming mixture from the thin saucepan into the
cups. 'The day of reckoning seems to have arrived for Purvis,' he
said; and then lazily, 'poor brute, he had his points.' Purvis was a
common adventurer after all! And he had got close upon two hundred
pounds from him on the plea of having some knowledge of his brother,
which was simply non-existent. He could see the whole thing now. This
cock-and-bull story of the discovery of the missing man was really a
very simple ruse for extorting money, and the last seventy pounds which
he, Peter, had been fool enough to pay him had been wanted to help
Purvis to get away.
'I must search the place thoroughly,' said Dunbar. He finished his
coffee; but the ascertaining whether or not any one was concealed in
the little house or in the outbuildings was a matter of only a few
minutes.
'If he 's got away again,' said Dunbar, 'I 'll eat my hat!'
'Purvis is a slippery customer,' said Ross; 'but he has lived peaceably
and openly for a considerable time. If he is wanted you have only to
ride up to his door and arrest him.'
Dunbar cleared his throat. 'You mind,' he said, 'the story of the
_Rosana_, which I told you on board the Royal Mail Packet, when we were
in the River Plate coming up to Monte Video?'
'I remember,' said Peter briefly. And Ross nodded his head also; every
one in Argentine knew the story of the wreck of the _Rosana_.
'I knew,' said Dunbar, 'that E. W. Smith could not die!'
'Smith being Purvis, I take it,' said Toffy.
'Yes,' said Dunbar, 'or any other alias you please. He is a fair man
now with a beard, isn't he? Well, on board the _Rosana_ he was a
clean-shaven man with dark hair, but you cannot mistake E. W. Smith's
eyes, though I hear his voice is altered.'
'Are you in the police out here?' Peter asked, with a glance at the
commissario to whom he had just handed a cup of coffee.
'No, I 'm not,' answered Dunbar, with his usual economy of speech. 'I
'm from Scotland Yard, and I want E. W. Smith on another count. But I
'll come to that some other time. I 'll need to be off now.'
'Your horse is done,' protested Ross, 'and you are pretty well done
yourself.'
'I 'm not that far through,' said Dunbar.
'Why not send a wire to Buenos Ayres and wait here until you can get a
reply? Purvis may have got on board the train somewhere else, and be
at Buenos Ayres now.'
'Yes, that will do,' said Dunbar. He dispatched his telegram by one of
the peons, who rode off with it across the camp. In spite of fatigue,
Dunbar, with his nervous energy unimpaired, looked as though he would
like to have ridden with the telegram himself. Reflecting, however,
that there was considerable work still before him, he submitted to
stretching himself on a _catré_ and after a short doze and a bath and
some breakfast he took up again the thread of his story.
'I 'll not bother you with an account of E. W. Smith's life,' he
remarked, 'although there is a good deal in it that would surprise you.
I 'll keep to the story of the _Rosana_ as time is short.'
Mr. Dunbar took his faithful friend--his short pipe--from its red-lined
case, filled it with tobacco, and began to draw luxuriously.
'The _Rosana_ sprang a leak after her first day out, on her run down
the coast, and was lost in twenty fathoms of water. She only carried
one boat, and that boat was seen by myself half-burned, but with a bit
of her name in gold-leaf still visible on her bows. Tranter was the
captain of the boat, and E. W. Smith was clerk and general manager.
Every one knew he cheated the company who ran the boat, and cheated the
captain too, when he could; and it generally suited him to make Tranter
drunk when they were in port. Well, he reaped his profit, and I
suppose a good bit of it lies at the bottom of the sea. He was a man
who always kept large sums in hand in case of finding himself in a
tight place. Did I mention,' said Dunbar, 'that he could not row,
though, of course, Tranter could? But Tranter was wanted for steering.'
'I don't understand the story,' said Ross, leaning forward. 'You say
that Tranter and this man Purvis, or Smith, escaped from the wreck, and
that Purvis could not row?'
'I am coming to that,' said Dunbar, unmoved. 'Observe, the _Rosana_
carried one boat. She had lost her other by an accident, it seems, and
the one that remained was not a much bigger one than a dinghy such as
men use to go to and from the shore when they are in harbour. Tranter
was the first to discover that the _Rosana_ was leaking badly; and the
hold was half-flooded before any one knew anything about it, and the
_Rosana_ was settling by her head. Smith, it seems, and the captain
were armed, or armed themselves as soon as the state of affairs was
known; and before the rest of the crew were awake four men were ordered
to man the boat and bring her alongside. The hatches were closed down
with the rest of the crew still below, and if there was a scuffle two
armed men were perfectly capable of keeping order. Smith and Tranter
got into the boat, and were rowed ashore in safety. If the whole of
the crew had tried to board her there is no doubt about it no one would
have been saved, for there were a good many hands on the steamer, and
the rush to the one boat would have swamped her. The men who manned
the boat and pulled ashore were doubtless glad to save their lives at
any price; but they might make it exceedingly unpleasant for the two
survivors of the wreck did they make their story known. They were
cross-bred natives, whose lives were of no great value to any one but
themselves, and there was an easy way for two armed men to silence them
on a lonely shore without a soul near.'
'It's a sickening story,' said Ross, getting up and walking towards the
window; and unconsciously he clenched his big hand.
'Then how,' said Peter keenly, 'has the story leaked out?'
'Because,' said Dunbar, 'sometimes at a critical moment men do their
work badly, or perhaps a native knows how to feign death before his
life is actually extinct. Dead men tell no lies, but wounded men don't
have their tongues tied in the same way.'
'So one of the men lived to tell tales!' said Peter, leaning forward in
his chair; 'and Purvis, who has been here for some time past, is the
hero of the story? It is a blackguardly tale, Dunbar, and, thank God,
I believe it would have been impossible in England!'
'I don't pass judgment on my fellow-men,' said Dunbar. 'Life is sweet,
perhaps, to some of us, and no doubt the whole crew would have swamped
the boat, but----'
'But, all the same,' said Toffy, 'you don't mean to let Purvis-Smith
get a very light time of it when you do get him.'
'No, I don't,' said Dunbar.
Ross passed out through the door of the little drawing-room to the
corridor, and went to see about some work on the farm. The commissario
drank his coffee, and Dunbar waited restlessly for his telegram.
After breakfast he and Peter slept for a time, for both were dog-tired,
and the day was oppressively hot. In the afternoon a telegram came to
say that no news had been heard of Purvis, and that he was believed to
be still in the neighbourhood of La Dorada.
'If he is,' said Dunbar, folding up the telegram and putting it into
his pocket, 'I think our future duties will not be heavy. The man who
has come to light and told the story of the wreck of the _Rosana_ is a
native of that favoured spot where already our friend Purvis is not too
popular. God help the man if they get hold of him!'
'His little boy is here now,' said Toffy, starting up. 'Purvis came
here to leave him in safety.'
Dunbar was writing another telegram to ask the whereabouts of the
steamer.
'Then,' he said, 'the story is probably known, and Purvis is aware of
it, and has gone north. He daren't show himself near his estancia
after this.'
They began to put the story together, piecing it here and there, while
Dunbar continued to send telegrams.
Ross strolled in presently to discuss the matter again. 'I don't
believe,' he said, 'that Purvis is far off.'
'He is a brave man if he is anywhere near La Dorada,' said Dunbar.
'Purvis is a brave man,' said Ross quietly.
Peter was silent. Only last night he had had good reason to believe
that the mystery of his brother's existence was going to be cleared up.
But with Purvis gone the whole wearisome business would have to begin
again. Why had he not detained the man last night, even if he had had
to do it by force, until he had given him all the evidence he
possessed? He could not exactly blame himself for not having done so.
Purvis had declared that he was only going to Buenos Ayres for a couple
of days, and it would have been absurd to delay him that he might give
information which perhaps he did not fully possess. Still, the thing
had been too cleverly worked out to be altogether a fraud, surely. His
thought went back again to the belief that Purvis had got hold of his
brother, and had extracted a great deal of information from him, and
was only delaying to make him known to Peter until he had arranged the
best bargain he could for himself. Looking back on all the talks they
had had together there was something which convinced him that Purvis's
close application to the search had not been made with a view only of
extracting some hundreds of pounds from him, but that the man's game
was deeper than that. Purvis was far too clever to waste his talents
in dabbling in paltry matters, or in securing a small sum of money for
himself. He was a man who worked in big figures, and it was evident
that he meant to pull off a good thing.
That his dishonesty was proved was beyond all manner of doubt, and the
only thing was to watch events and to see what would now happen. If
Purvis gave them the slip what was to be done in the future?
'I believe he will try to save his steamer,' said Ross, after a long
silence.
Every one was thinking of the same subject, and his abrupt exclamation
needed no explanation.
'If he could trust his hands he might,' said the commissario in
halting, broken English; 'but I doubt if they or the peons have been
paid lately.'
'Besides, on the steamer,' said Toffy, 'he could be easily caught.'
'Yes,' said Dunbar, 'if he knows that we want to catch him, which he
doesn't. He is afraid of the people at La Dorada now; but he is
probably unaware of the warm welcome that awaits him in Buenos Ayres.'
Dunbar went to the door again to see if there was any sign of his
messenger returning from the telegraph office. The sun was flaming to
westward, and Hopwood had moved the dinner-table out into the patio,
and was setting dinner there.
'He will do the unexpected thing,' said Ross at last. 'If Purvis ever
says he is going to sit up late I know that is the one night of the
week he will go to bed early.'
They went out into the patio, and Ross swizzled a cocktail, and they
fell to eating dinner; but Dunbar was looking at his watch from time to
time, and then turning his glance eastward to the track where his
messenger might appear. It was an odd thing, and one of which they
were all unaware, that even a slight noise made each man raise his head
alertly for a moment as though he might expect an attack.
The sun went down, and still no messenger appeared. They sat down to
play bridge in the little drawing-room, and pretended to be interested
in the fall of the cards.
'That must be my telegram now,' said Dunbar, starting to his feet as a
horse's hoofs were plainly heard in the stillness of the solitary camp.
'Well, I 'm damned,' he said. He held the flimsy paper close to his
near-sighted eyes, and read the message to the other men sitting at the
table:
'Smith, or Purvis, at present on board his own steamer in midstream
opposite La Dorada. Fully armed and alone. Crew have left, and peons
in revolt. A detachment of police proceeds by train to Taco to-night.
Join them there and await instructions.'
'I thought he would stick to the steamer,' said Ross at last.
'And probably,' said Dunbar, 'he is as safe there as anywhere he can
be. He can't work his boat without a crew, but if he is armed he will
be able to defend himself even if he is attacked. I don't know how
many boats there were at La Dorada, but I would lay my life that Purvis
took the precaution of sending them adrift or wrecking them before he
got away.'
'What is to be the next move?' said Peter.
'I suppose we shall have to ride down to Taco to-night,' said Dunbar.
'Yon man,' he finished, in his nonchalant voice, 'has given me a good
bit of trouble in his time.'
'It seems to me,' said Ross, 'that you can't touch any business
connected with Purvis without handling a pretty unsavoury thing.'
'Now, I 'll tell you an odd thing,' said Dunbar. 'I have had to make
some pretty close inquiries about Purvis since I have been on his
track, and you will probably not believe it if I tell you that by birth
he is a gentleman.'
'He behaves like one,' said Ross shortly.
'If I had time,' said Dunbar, 'I could tell you the story, but I see
the fresh horses coming round, and I and the commissario must get away
to Taco.' He was in the saddle as he spoke, and rode off with the
commissario.
'A boy,' said Hopwood, entering presently, 'rode over with this, this
moment, sir.' He handed a note to Peter on a little tray, and waited
in the detached manner of the well-trained servant while Peter opened
the letter.
The writing was almost unintelligible, being written in pencil on a
scrap of paper, and it had got crushed in the pocket of the man who
brought it.
'It is for Dunbar, I expect,' said Peter, looking doubtfully at the
name on the cover. He walked without haste to a table where a lamp
stood, and looked more closely at the address. 'No, it's all right,
it's for me,' he said.
At first it was the vulgar melodrama of the message which struck him
most forcibly with a sense of distaste and disgust, and then he flicked
the piece of paper impatiently and said, 'I don't believe a word of
it!' His face was white, however, as he turned to the servant and
said, 'Who brought this?'
'I will go and see, sir,' said Hopwood, and left the room.
Peter, with the scrap of paper in his hand, walked over to the
bridge-table where the others were sitting, and laid the crumpled note
in front of them. 'Another trick of our friend Purvis,' he said
shortly.
The three men at the card-table bent their heads over the crumpled
piece of note-paper spread out before them. Ross smoothed out its
edges with his big hand, and the words became distinct enough; the very
brevity of the message was touched with sensationalism. It ran: 'I am
your brother. Save me!' and there was not another vestige of writing
on the paper.
'Purvis has excelled himself,' said Ross quietly. 'It's your deal,
Christopherson.'
Toffy mechanically shuffled the cards and looked up into his friend's
face. 'Is there anything else?' he said, and Peter took up the dirty
envelope and examined it more closely.
There was a scrap of folded paper in one corner, and on it was written
in his mother's handwriting a note to her husband, enclosing the
photograph of her eldest son in a white frock and tartan ribbons.
Peter flushed hotly as he read the letter. 'He has no business to
bring my mother's name into it,' he said savagely; and then the full
force of the thing smote him as he realised that perhaps his mother was
the mother of this man Purvis too.
'Have a drink?' said Ross, with a pretence of gruffness. It was
oppressively hot, and Peter had been riding all the previous night.
Ross mentioned these facts in a kindly voice to account for his loss of
colour. 'It's a ridiculous try on,' he said, with conviction; and
then, seeking about for an excuse to leave the two friends together to
discuss the matter, he gathered up the cards from the table, added the
score in an elaborate manner, and announced his intention of going to
bed.
Dunbar and the commissario had put a long distance between themselves
and the estancia house now. The silence of the hot night settled down
with its palpable mysterious weight upon the earth. The stars looked
farther away than usual in the fathomless vault of heaven, and the
world slumbered with a feeling of restlessness under the burden of the
aching solitude of the night. Some insects chirped outside the
illuminated window-pane, as though they would fain have left the large
and solitary splendour without and sought company in the humble room.
Time passed noiselessly, undisturbed even by the ticking of a clock.
To have stirred in a chair would have seemed to break some tangible
spell. A dog would have been better company than a man at the moment,
because less influenced by the mysterious night and the silence, and
the intensity of thought which fixed itself relentlessly in some
particular cells of the brain until they became fevered and ached
horribly. A little puff of cooler air began to blow over the baked and
withered camp; but the room where the lamp was burning had become
intolerably hot, and the mosquitoes which had been contemplating the
wall thoughtfully throughout the day began to buzz about and to sing in
the ears of the two persons who sat there.
'Damn these mosquitoes!' said Peter, and his voice broke the silence of
the lonely house oddly. He and Toffy had not spoken since Ross had
left the room, and had not stirred from their chairs; but now the
feeling of tension seemed to be broken. Toffy began to fidget with
some things on a little table, and opened without thinking a carved
cedar-wood work-box which had remained undisturbed until then. He
found inside it a little knitted silk sock only half-finished, and with
the knitting needles still in it, and he closed the lid of the box
again softly.
Peter walked into the corridor and looked out at the silver night.
There was a mist rising down by the river, and the feeling of coolness
in the air increased. He leaned against the wooden framework of the
wire-netting and laid his head on his hands for a moment; then he came
back to the drawing-room. 'Do you believe it?' he said suddenly and
sharply.
'I suppose it's true,' said Toffy. 'God help us, Peter, this is a
queer world!'
'If it were any one else but Purvis!' said Peter with a groan. He had
begun to walk restlessly up and down, making his tramp as long as
possible by extending it into the corridor. 'And then there is this to
be said, Toffy,' he added, beginning to speak at the point to which his
thoughts had taken him--'there is this to be said: suppose one could
get Purvis out of this hole, Dunbar is waiting for him at Taco. He
will be tried for the affair of the _Rosana_ and other things besides,
and if he is not hanged he will spend the next few years of his life in
prison. It is an intolerable business,' he said, 'and I am not going
to move in the matter. One can stand most things, but not being mixed
up in a murder case.'
He walked out into the corridor and sat down heavily in one of the
deck-chairs there. There was a tumult of thought surging through his
mind, and sometimes one thing was uppermost, sometimes another.
If it were possible to get down the river in a boat to the steamer, he
thought, there would of course be a chance of bringing Purvis back
before it was light; but if he did that he would have to start within
the hour. The nights were short.
And then, again, he would be compounding a felony, though in the case
of brothers such a law was generally put aside, whatever the results
might be.
There was very little chance of an escape. Every one's hand was
against Purvis now, and there was the vaguest possibility that he could
get away to England. The heir to Bowshott would be doing his time in
prison, and that, after all, was the right place for him--or he might
be hanged.
And then he, Peter, was the next heir. That was the _crux_ of the
whole thing--he, Peter Ogilvie, was the next heir. If anything were to
happen to his brother he would inherit everything.
But that, again, was an absurdity. A man in prison, for instance,
would not be the inheritor of anything. No, his brother must take his
chance down there on the steamer. He had been in tight places before
now, and no one knew better how to get out of them. He had some money
at his command. Let things take their chance. Yet if Purvis did not
inherit, he, Peter, was the next heir.
That was the thought that knocked at him to the exclusion of nearly
everything else: he would benefit by his brother's death. Bowshott
would be his, and the place in the Highlands, and Jane and he could be
married.
He paused for a moment in his feverish survey of events. To think of
Jane was to have before one's mind a picture of something absolutely
fair and straightforward. A high standard of honour was not difficult
to her; it came as naturally as speaking in a well-bred manner, or
walking with that air of grace and distinction which was characteristic
of her. Such women do not need to preach, and seldom do so. Their
lives suggest a torch held high above the common mirk of life. Peter
had never imagined for a moment that he was in the least degree good
enough for her; but, all the same, he meant to fight for all that he
was worth for every single good thing that he could get for her.
... His brother even had a son. His nephew was in the house now.
Peter laughed out loud. The boy had a Spanish mother; but if there
ever had been a marriage between Purvis and her it could easily be set
aside. Purvis had been married several times, or not at all. Dunbar
thought that his real wife was an English woman at Rosario.
He reflected with a sense of disgust that, he and Purvis being both of
them fair men, it might even be said that they resembled each other in
appearance; and he wondered if he would ever hold up his head again now
that he knew that the same blood ran in the veins of both, and that
this murderer, with his bloodstained hands, was his brother.
And what in Heaven's name was the use of rescuing a man from one
difficulty when he would fall into something much worse at the next
opportunity?
Finally, there was nothing for it but to remain inactive and let Purvis
escape if he could, but to do nothing to help him. Time was getting on
now; another half-hour and it would be too late to start.
Perhaps the whole real difficulty resolved itself round Jane. Jane, as
a matter of fact, had taken up her position quite close to Peter
Ogilvie this evening in the dark of the tropical night. There were
probably devils on either side of him, but Jane was certainly there.
She looked perfectly beautiful, and there was not a line in her face
which did not suggest something fair and honest and of good worth.
... But suppose the man turned out to be an impostor after all? Then
Dunbar had better treat with him. The chain of evidence was pretty
strong, but there might be a break in it.
... He could not go alone down the river; Ross and Toffy and Hopwood
would have to come too, to man the four-oared boat, and some one would
have to steer, because the river was dangerous of navigation and full
of sandbanks and holes. Why should he involve his friends in such an
expedition to save a man who had sneaked off from a boat and left a
whole crew to perish, and who had shot in cold blood the men who rowed
him to safety?
_Before God he was not going to touch the man, nor have anything to do
with him!_
Half an hour had passed. In twenty minutes it would be too late to
start.
Jane drew a little nearer, and just then Toffy laid down the book which
he had been reading and strolled about the room. Perhaps he wanted to
show Peter that he was still there and awake, and in some way to
comfort him by his presence, for he sat down by Mrs. Chance's piano and
picked out a tune with one of his fingers.
The devil beside Peter became more imperative and drew up closer, and
told him that it was his own sense of honour that made him loathe his
reputed brother and turn from him in disgust. He said that the note
that had reached him was all part of Purvis's horrible sensationalism
and his lies, and that no earthly notice should be taken of it; also,
that it would be sheer madness to risk his own life and his friends'
for this contemptible fellow. Jane, on the other side--possibly an
angel, but to the ordinary mind merely a very handsome English
girl--stood there saying nothing, but looking beautiful.
Toffy continued to pick out the tune with his forefinger from Mrs.
Chance's book:
[Illustration: music fragment:
A-bide with me! fast falls the e-ven-tide;
The dark-ness deep-ens: Lord with a a-bide!]
It all came before him in a flash: the village church, and the swinging
oil-lamps above the pews; he and Jane together in Miss Abingdon's pew,
and Mrs. Wrottesley playing the old hymn-tunes on the little organ. He
could not remember ever attending very particularly to the evening
service. He used to follow it in a very small Prayer Book, and it was
quite sufficient for him that Jane was with him. He had never been a
religious man in the ordinary sense of the word. He had wished with
all his heart when his mother died that he had known more about sacred
things, but they had never seemed a necessary part of his life. He
knew the code of an English gentleman, and that code was a high one.
The youngsters in the regiment knew quite well that he was 'as straight
as they make 'em'; but he had never inflicted advice nor had a moment's
serious conversation with one of them.
Another ten minutes had passed, and left only five minutes to spare;
but Jane was smiling a little, and Toffy was fingering out quavering
notes on the old piano:
[Illustration: music fragment:
When o-ther help-ers fail, and com-forts flee,
Help of the help-less, oh, a-bide with me!]
Life seemed to get bigger as he listened. There were no such things as
difficulties. You had just to know what you ought to do, and then to
try to do it. You had not to pit yourself against a mean mind, and act
meanly by it. Each man had his own work to do, and what other men did
or left undone was their own business. His brother was in a mess, and
he had to help him out of it, whether he deserved it or no--not
weighing his merit, but pardoning his offences and just helping him in
his need. The glories of life might fade away, as the old hymn said,
or they might last; but all that each man had to care about so long as
he remained here was to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with
his God.
The angel and the devil--if they existed at all--fled away and left one
solitary man standing alone fighting for the sake of honour and clean
hands.
The clock struck ten, and the time was up.
Peter went inside and laid his hand on Toffy's shoulder. 'Let's
start,' he said, 'if you are ready.'
'All right,' said Toffy, shutting the piano. 'I 'll go and get Ross.'
* * * * *
They were in the boat now, slipping down the stream in the dark. The
current in the river was strong here, and the boat slid rapidly between
the banks. There was hardly any necessity for rowing. Christopherson
sat in the stern with the tiller-ropes in his hands, and Peter reserved
his strength for the moment when they should get to the broader part of
the river where the stream did not race as it raced here. On their way
back they would, of course, avoid the upper reaches of the river, and
would land lower down when they had the man well away from his own
place. Peter rowed stroke, and Hopwood and Ross rowed numbers one and
two. The steering probably was the most difficult part of the
business, especially in the present state of the river, and any moment
they might go aground or get into some eddy which might turn the bow of
the boat and land them in the bank. Rowing was still easy, and Peter
was husbanding every ounce of his strength for the pull home. None of
the men spoke as the boat slipped down between the banks of dry mud on
either side of the river. Some reeds whispered by the shore, and a
startled bird woke now and then and flew screaming away. The moon
shone fitfully sometimes, but for the most part the night was dark, and
the darkness increased towards midnight. Once or twice the breeze
carried the intoxicating smell of flowers from the river-bank. It was
difficult for Toffy, although he had been down the river many times, to
know exactly his bearings. They passed a little settlement on their
starboard hand, and saw a few lights burning in the houses.
'That must be Lara's house,' said Peter. 'We will land here on our way
back, and get some horses, and ride over to the estancia in the
morning.'
The settlement was the last place on the river where Purvis's steamer
plied, and there was a small jetty piled with wheat waiting to be taken
away. Here the river was broader and much shallower, with stakes of
wood set in its bed to show the passage which the little steamer should
take.
'We should not be far from La Dorada now,' said Toffy, steering between
the lines of stakes; 'but I can't see any signs of the steamer in this
blackness.'
In the daytime the river was a pale mud-colour and very thick and
dirty-looking. The moon came out for a moment and showed it like a
silver ribbon between the grey banks.
'Easy all!' said Toffy, sniffing the air. 'We must be near the
canning-factory at La Dorada.'
The horrible smell of the slaughter-house was borne to them on the
river, and there were some big corrals close by the water, and a small
wharf.
'It reminds me,' thought Toffy, 'of the beastly beef-tea which I have
had to drink all my life.'
'Good heavens!' cried Ross, 'they are firing the wharf! Purvis's
chances are small if this is their game.'
There was not very much to burn; the wood of the wharf kindled easily,
and the wheat burned sullenly and sent up grey volumes of smoke.
'Steer under the bank,' said Peter. 'We don't want to be seen.'
Toffy steered the boat as near the shore as the mud would allow, and as
the wood of the wharf burned more brightly he could see some men
running to and fro confusedly every few minutes, and then making off
farther down the river.
'They 'll fire the steamer next!' said Peter, and then bent his back to
the oar, and the boat swung away into the middle of the stream again.
The darkness seemed to increase in depth, as it does just before the
dawn: it was baffling in its intensity, and seemed to press close.
'Way enough!' sang out Toffy, for quite unexpectedly the little
steamer, tied to a stake in midstream, loomed up suddenly before them.
The men shipped their oars with precision, and Toffy caught hold one of
the fender-ropes.
'Are you there?' he called up to the deck from the impenetrable
darkness.
As he spoke Purvis appeared at the top of the little gangway, dressed
in his clerkly suit and stiff hat.
'You are just in time,' he said in his thin, high voice, without a
trace of excitement in it. 'When the light dawns they will find their
boats, and even now we may have to run for it.'
'Get on board,' said Ross roughly, 'and don't waste time.'
'I can't sink my steamer,' said Purvis quietly, 'in this shallow part
of the river, and I haven't the means of blowing her up; but I shall
now go below and overturn the lamp in my cabin, and the boat and all
that is in it will not be very long in being consumed.'
'Stop that lunatic!' yelled Ross, as Purvis turned to descend into the
cabin. 'There 's a boat coming up--I can hear the oars distinctly
behind us. We 'll be overtaken if there 's a minute's delay!'
Peter, who was next the gangway, sprang on board the boat and stumbled
down the companion in the dark.
'Purvis!' he shouted, 'you 'll be shot in cold blood yet if you don't
look out.'
Purvis had collected a few things and laid them on a pile of shavings
in the middle of the cabin, and the oil-lamp with which he was to
ignite the pile was in his hand.
On the top of the pile Peter saw a large tin dispatch-case inscribed
with his mother's name.
'Hallo!' he said quietly; 'I think I 'll take this!'
For a moment he imagined that Purvis's hand moved with suspicious
suddenness towards his revolver-pocket. In the next Purvis had swung
up the companion staircase and into the boat, and Peter jumped into his
place as the sound of rowing and the splash of oars was heard behind
him. Toffy rowed the bow-oar now, and Purvis, who knew every turn of
the river, took the tiller-ropes.
'I can't row,' he said, in his plaintive voice, 'but I can steer better
than any of you.'
The man's composed and unruffled serenity was still undisturbed
although the rhythmic beat of oars behind them was growing nearer and
nearer, and the creaking of the leather in the row-locks could be heard
distinctly.
'I have a revolver,' said Purvis quietly; 'and dawn is not quite upon
us yet.'
Their boat had still the start of the other, and the darkness helped
them. Purvis knew every yard of the river, and could have steered in
the darkness of a London fog. His pale eyes seemed to have something
in them of the quality of a cat's as he peered through the dense gloom
and guided the boat unerringly.
There came a faint light on the surface of the water; they could dimly
see the stakes in the river, and could hear the beat of the oars in the
other boat. It was a race for the Italian settlement, where they would
be safe, and where the pursuing boat, seeing the lights from the
houses, would probably fall behind.
Peter had rowed stroke in the Eton boat, but Toffy had always been too
delicate to be a strong rower; the other men had splendid staying
power, but no particular skill. Still, Ross knew Peter's stroke, and
the steering was perfect. Not a yard of way was lost on the long
chase, and as the four rowers warmed to their work the excitement of it
prevailed over every other thought. Purvis himself and all his
meannesses were forgotten. It was a race, and that was all, and four
men's hearts leapt to it.
The other boat seemed to be drawing nearer. The morning was dawning
mistily, and the pursuers appeared to be getting out of their course
for a time.
Peter swung to his oar in perfect style, and Purvis with the
tiller-ropes in his hands gave way to every leap of the boat, bending
his short, spare body in time to the stroke of the oars as he sat in
the stern.
'If we are overtaken we will make a fight for it,' he said.
'Naturally,' said Peter briefly, between the long strokes of his rowing.
'They 'll probably catch us up in the next hundred yards,' said Purvis.
'I should think that they are armed, and the day is breaking.'
He turned round in his seat as he spoke, for there was a broad straight
piece of river before them; and as the boat came on he pointed his
revolver uncertainly in the mist and fired. 'Confound you!' roared
Peter, 'don't draw their fire yet! Probably our best chance is that
they don't know for certain where we are.'
But Purvis had fired again. There were some uncertain shots in return,
and one struck the gunwale of the boat by Peter's side.
'That was a near thing,' he said to himself under his breath. And then
the old feeling of protection for the 'young un'--the delicate boy who
had been his fag at Eton--stopped his grim smiling, and as another shot
whizzed past them he yelled out suddenly, 'Lie down, Toffy! Get down
into the bottom of the boat!'
And quite suddenly Toffy did as he was told.
Peter rowed then like two men, but the river ran more quickly now, and
the shallows were more dangerous, and the steering was more difficult.
By Jove, how well Purvis knew the navigation of it! He had the
tiller-ropes in his hands again. He made a feint to go under the bank
as though to land, and then shot suddenly into midstream. The other
boat followed in their wake. Purvis's knowledge of the currents was
probably well known, and it was safe to follow his lead: the boat and
the men in it were clear enough to see now.
But what in the name of Heaven was Purvis doing! It positively seemed
as though he was trying to lose the little bit of way that they had
gained in advance of the others, and for one moment a horrible sense of
the man's unscrupulousness came over Peter Ogilvie, and he wondered
even now, in the midst of the chase, whether it might not be that
Purvis was playing them false.
'I 'll shoot him before he can sing out if he is!' thought Peter to
himself as the boat was steered on to the very edge of a shallow again,
and then made off into the middle of the stream. 'Look out what you
are about!' he cried, seeing in the wake of the boat the uneven,
circuitous route by which they had come. 'For God's sake steer
straight if you can!'
And then he saw a smile on Purvis's face--the usual watery, mirthless
smile, and the pale, wide-open blue eyes; and, looking back, Peter saw
that the boat behind them was overturned in the stream, and that the
men who had been in it were struggling to the bank, while the boat
itself was being carried rapidly down with the current.
He eased his rowing then, and getting his breath he laughed out aloud.
The spirit and excitement of the chase had been good, and it was
successfully over.
'Look here, you can get up now, Toffy,' he said.
He turned round in his seat and shipped his oars with a jerk. '_You
devil!_' he said slowly; '_you must have seen him hit!_'
He bent over the poor boy stretched out in the bottom of the boat and
felt his heart and found that it still beat. He loosened his neckcloth
and sprinkled water on his face, while the two other men fell to their
oars again, and rowed the boat as the day dawned to the little Italian
settlement. They carried Toffy into the house of the Argentine woman
who burned candles to the Virgin and stuck French paper match-boxes
round her shrine. They lifted him into the hut and laid him on the
humble bed, and Peter dressed the wound as well as he knew how, while
Hopwood in an agony hovered round them, and Ross was sending here and
there to try to find a doctor.
No one knew what had become of Purvis, no one cared. Each was trying
with all his might to save a life very dear to them which was slowly
ebbing away.
The sun was up now, and the long hot day was beginning; but still Toffy
had never spoken, and still Peter kneeled by his side on the mud floor
of the hut, easing him as well as he could, giving him water to drink,
or bathing his forehead. There was not much that he could do for him;
but he felt that Toffy was conscious, and that he liked to have his old
friend near him. He never altered his position as he kneeled, for his
arm was under the dying man's head, and it seemed a more comfortable
place for it than the poor Argentine woman's hard pillow.
Toffy lay with wide-open eyes, and there were great beads of
perspiration on his forehead which Hopwood wiped away from time to
time. He breathed with difficulty in short gasps, and still he never
spoke. It came upon Peter with a horrible sinking of the heart that he
might die before a doctor came, and without saying one word to him.
All the compunction of a heart that was perhaps unusually womanly and
tender was raging within him for not having taken better care of the
boy. He wanted to say so much to Toffy, and to beg his forgiveness,
and to ask if there was anything in the world he could do for him, and
he hoped wildly and pitifully that he was not in pain. But the dying
man's eyes were fixed on the bare walls of the hut and on the little
shrine of the Virgin in the corner of the room, and it seemed now as if
the mistiness of death were settling upon them, so that they saw
nothing.
Ross went restlessly to and fro, now entering the room for a few
minutes, and then going out again to scan the distant country to see if
by any chance the camp doctor was coming.
When Toffy at last spoke he went and stood outside the hut, and an
instinct caused him to bare his head for a moment.
Just at the end Toffy said something, and his voice sounded a great way
off, and almost as though it came from another land. 'Is Kitty there?'
he said.
'No; it is me, old man,' said Peter thickly.
He was holding the boy's head now, for his breathing was becoming more
difficult, and he stooped and kissed him on the forehead. He felt the
chill of it, and, startled, he called out, almost as one calls out a
message to a friend departing on a journey, raising his voice a little,
for Toffy already seemed a long way off, 'I never knew--I never knew,
Toffy--that you had been hit, or I would have stopped.'
'I didn't want to spoil the race,' said Toffy. 'I don't often win a
race,' he said, and with that he died.