someone, something, was watching him from the central House of Sorrow.
It became more than fancy with him that something evil, like a vast
black cat, was watching him there. He turned to the house, to face it,
whatever it was, but could see nothing there, save the green verandah,
the windows blank and sightless, the walls morphewed with scaling. Then
the central door opened, a man came out, locked the door behind him and
then stood surveying the Plaza. As Sard was the only person there, he
stared at Sard, who stared back. He was a shortish, very strongly made
man, with the rangey boss movement of a young bull on pasture.
There was something dangerous about him. He tossed his head back, which
flashed his earrings and emphasised the raffish sideways cock of his
hat. There was something familiar about him: he reminded Sard of that
“flash townee,” Sumecta, who had sat with Mr. Wiskey at the
boxing-match.
The man strode off the doorstep on to the pavement. He gave his hat a
further cock, still staring at Sard, almost with challenge, then he
pulled a coloured handkerchief from a side pocket and blew his nose at
Sard. As he drew the handkerchief something glimmered out with it and
fell into the dust of the gutter. The man was plainly Sumecta, and the
blowing of the nose was as the range-bull’s bellow at a rival. Sard
tilted back his chair to watch him. Sumecta advanced to Sard, who waited
for him, humming.
“You’re out here kind of late,” Sumecta said.
“Am I?”
Sumecta sharpened his tone. “Have you got a match?”
“Yes.” There was a pause: the two men watched each other. Presently
Sumecta said: “Can I have the match? I’d like it.”
“Would you?”
“Yes.”
Sard went on with his humming but kept an eye lifting lest some other
waif of the night should come. Sumecta took a half-step nearer.
“For two pins,” he said, “I’d bash your face in.”
Sard went on humming, but drew two pins from the lapel of his coat and
offered them.
“What d’you mean?” Sumecta said.
“Two pins. There was going to be bashing.”
“You’re a funny dog, aren’t you?” Sumecta said. He edged away from Sard
but kept his eyes upon him. He had the flash cock to his hat, a mouth
with a tooth gone and a swollen nose. He edged away with his eyes on
Sard till he was off the Plaza and going down the stair. Sard edged his
chair a little round so that he might follow Sumecta as he went. When
Sumecta was out of sight Sard swiftly and silently stepped aside in case
Sumecta should rush back for a sudden shot. But no shot came, Sumecta
was gone: his steps were dying away. Sard was alone again.
Being alone, he stepped swiftly to where the glimmering thing had
dropped into the gutter. As he had expected, it was a door key: he
picked it up. “If he had been reasonably polite,” he said to himself,
“he should have had it. As it is, he shall do without it. And now, if
I’m to be at the palace at seven I had better be off to turn in.”
He had pocketed the key and turned to the head of the stair on his way
to bed, when he heard someone hurrying to the stair-foot. For the
moment, he judged that it was Sumecta come back to shoot him, but a
glance showed that it was a much younger, slighter man. He came running
up the stairs, looked about the Plaza for someone, and hailed Sard with:
“Oh, your Excellency?” It was Hilary Kingsborough.
“His Excellency has gone, Mr. Kingsborough,” Sard said. “He has been
gone about half an hour.”
“Curse,” the young man said. “But who are you who know my name? O, you
are the Mr. What’s-his-name, who warned me that night. Where has His
Excellency gone, do you know?”
“Back to the palace to bed.”
“Curse. They told me there that I should find him here. I’ve been
hunting for him and just missing him ever since I landed at ten o’clock.
I must find him.”
Sard was struck by the high, shrill, feverish excitement of the young
man’s speech; his face was gaunt and burning: his body wasted.
“Let me come with you,” Sard said, “I’ll find you a cab, I’m afraid
you’re ill.”
“Ill?” he said. “This thing is tearing me to pieces. Those devils shot
me and took my sister. And I can’t find her, Mr., sir, no one can find
her.”
“But she was found,” Sard said. “She was found at Tlotoatin. I read it
in the paper here, only a few hours ago.”
“The paper was a damned lie,” the young man cried. “She isn’t found.
We’ve no trace nor track of her. Good God, they are all in it, police,
press, politicians, and I can’t get a word of truth, nor any clue of
where she is. You said that they talked of Santa Barbara? For the love
of God, now Mr. What’s-your-name (I can’t remember names), those devils
whom you overheard, tell me the truth now, they said they were coming
here.”
“Mr. Kingsborough,” Sard said, “they did. What is more, one of the men,
whom I overheard, came out of that door not ten minutes ago.”
“What? You’ll swear that?”
“I don’t swear. He did. He went down those stairs, you must almost have
met him.”
“Then Margarita may be in that house?”
“I don’t think that that can be,” Sard said. “It’s not very likely, is
it?”
“Likely?” Hilary cried. “What is likely? She has disappeared and every
power, here and in the Occidental, is behind the swine who took her.
I’ve come here to see the Dictator, and I want you to see him, too, Mr.,
sir. Tell him that you know that they are a Santa Barbara gang and that
he must find her.”
“All right I will,” Sard said. “I was to see him in a few hours’ time,
but I will go to him at once instead. Only look here, Mr. Kingsborough,
I have seen this Dictator. Since I have landed I have seen both himself
and his police service. It is hardly credible or possible that Miss
Kingsborough could have been brought here without the fact coming to his
knowledge.”
“That is what I am saying,” Hilary said, “he is in it, with the gang,
and so I’ll tell him to his face.”
“Mr. Kingsborough, he is not that kind of man. Be assured, he is one who
will help you in every way.”
“He will,” Hilary said. “Why did his filthy press print that lie, that
she is found? He is in this rum-smuggling business, as everybody knows.
He is in the smugglers’ power; he has to let them do what they please.
My sister may be in that house: very likely is! Well, I am going in, to
see.”
“Wait just for one minute, Mr. Kingsborough,” Sard said. “You’ve been
shot, you say; you are still ill. We have a Minister here who will have
that house laid bare for us almost within the hour. We will find a cab
and drive to the Embassy and have the house searched in the proper
manner.”
“The proper manner,” Hilary said. “I don’t know of any proper manner
with blackguards of this sort. Why should you try to keep me from saving
my sister, you might be one of the gang yourself.”
Sard was about to answer soothingly, seeing the young man’s distress and
nervous exhaustion, but as he opened his lips there came the cry of a
woman from within the central house. It was the cry of one in despair.
It rang out clearly and fully for an instant, then was stopped suddenly
as by a blow or a gag.
“You heard that?” Hilary said. “That was my sister’s voice. She is
inside there.”
“Listen a moment,” Sard said, “wait.”
“I’m not going to wait,” Hilary answered. “Wait for what? Till they’ve
killed her?” He was half-way to the door, when Sard stopped him.
“Look here,” Sard said, “this may be the key of this door; the man
dropped it. We’ll go in, if it is. Are you armed?”
“No; are you?”
“No,” Sard said, “but I’m used to rough houses. Are you?”
“No.”
“Well,” Sard said, “there’s only one rule in rough house fighting, and
that is, be first. Come on.”
* * * * *
They crept to the door of the house. It looked more solid, close at
hand. It had knopped iron plates across it: the fanlight was barred: the
windows to each side were covered with old iron rejas. The house behind
it was as silent as the grave. For a moment Sard thought of calling a
civil guard, but put the thought from him, “I’m my own civil guard in a
seaport town; besides, this gang is certain to have squared the police.”
Both men listened: Sard tried the key.
The key fitted and turned. Very gently, lest the door should be upon a
chain, Sard moved it ajar. He peered in. There was a smell of some gum
or incense, like the smell of sweet leather. There was an ample hall,
dark as old leather, with patches of light from the windows. He saw then
what he had not suspected from without, that the windows were of an
opaque glass. He edged into the hall, followed by Hilary. They stood
together, inside the door, listening intently. Sard felt along the door
to make sure how to open it. “It’s a latch door,” he whispered. “We’d
better close it.”
“No, keep it open for our retreat,” Hilary whispered.
“Too risky,” he answered. “It might slam to, or be noticed from outside,
or make a draught that would be noticed inside.”
“Better have a line of escape,” Hilary said.
“We’ll prop it, then,” Sard said. “Or will you stand guard while I
explore?”
“No fear,” Hilary answered, “I’m going to find my sister.”
“Come on, then,” Sard said. “We’ll prop it.”
There was a mat just within the door. He lifted an edge of this so that
it kept the door pressed to, but not shut. Hilary took a step into the
room and stumbled on the well of the mat. He gasped out “God!” and then
shook with a laugh which was noiseless but hysterical. His stumble
crashed in that stillness like a shot. Sard squeezed his arm to steady
him: then they both listened: then Hilary whispered:
“I hear a sort of scratching noise.”
Sard heard it too, and thought, at first, that it was the fidgeting of
feet, then made sure that it was not that, nor yet the brushing of
leaves upon a window, but some noise which he could not yet explain: it
might be nothing but the breeze upon a ventilator. It was a constant
flutter somewhere to their left; it came no nearer.
“It’s all right,” Hilary muttered.
“Seconds out of the ring,” Sard answered. “Come on, now. Time.” He could
see almost nothing. He groped about the hall. It was soft to the feet
with a closely-woven grass matting. He moved eight paces to his right
and touched a wall or screen of wood: “wood panelling,” he decided. It
ran from the front of the house into the house: it seemed to be the
boundary wall of the hall on that side. He groped along it to the end,
but found no door, nor any break in the panelling. A table stood near
this wall; it bore a metal tray containing a visiting card nearly as big
as a postcard.
Sard took the card and listened. He heard Hilary at a little distance
breathing like a roaring horse. Sard wished that he would make less
noise with his breathing. He crept across to him and told him so.
“You’re snorting like a horse yourself,” Hilary said.
“Have you found any door?”
“No. There’s no door on this side. Only a row of pegs for hats and a
rack for whips, but the whips are gone.”
“Is it all panelling?”
“Yes, panelling; with two chairs.”
“The door will be at the back then,” Sard said. “Come to this wall at
the back. What is that thing on the wall?”
“It looks like a painting,” Hilary said.
“It is a painting,” Sard said, “but the paint is running on it. And it
doesn’t smell like paint.”
“Is there no door?”
“None. None that I can see,” Sard whispered.
“Let me see,” Hilary answered.
He peered close to the wall and groped along it with his fingers. There
seemed to be no door there. It was panelling, as at the sides. High up
in the centre of it was a trophy of a horned beast’s head: it looked
like a giant goat’s head; something odd had been done to it. The smell
of sweet leather was much stronger at that end of the hall. There were
figures painted on the panels, at both sides of the trophy. The paint
was trickling down the wall.
“Someone has been burning carib leaf,” Hilary whispered.
“There must be a door,” Sard whispered back. “Only it is let in flush
with the panels. We must strike a light.”
“Go ahead then,” Hilary muttered.
At that instant there came a little suck of air, Sard’s propping gave
way before it, the hall door shut to with a crash.
“I say, you are a pearl of a door-fastener,” Hilary said.
“Hush! Watch for a light.”
They watched; but no light showed and no sound came.
“Nobody stirring,” Sard said; “the breeze is rising. We must leave the
door. Look there.”
“What?”
“A man looking in at the window at us.”
“Can he see us?”
“Not possibly.”
“Who is he?”
“I can’t see.”
“Is he a civil guard?”
“He’s not wearing a helmet.”
“Do you think he can be coming in here?”
“No. He would come in if he belonged here. There, he has gone. He was
only some passer-by.”
“It’s an odd time of morning for a passer-by,” Hilary said. “There. It
is striking two.”
“Look here,” Sard said, stooping down; “I’ve guessed the secret of this
wall. It has no door; but it slides in grooves to and fro. They seem to
have oiled the runners. I’m going to strike a light to see which way the
thing runs. Hold this twine: it is tarry. I’ll light it. It will make a
candle.”
He took a small hank of roping twine, lit it and held it to the wall.
“Look here,” he said, “at what is on my hands: blood. This which I
thought was oil is blood. There can be no doubt of that. They have
spattered blood all over this wall here.”
“They have killed her, then!”
“Not they. This is not the blood of a murder,” Sard said. “Look, it is
splashed high up on the wall. It has been flung from a cup at those
images.”
It was undoubtedly so.
“This seems to be a pretty devilish place,” Hilary said.
“We will shame the devil before we leave it. Now come here, behind me,
Mr. Kingsborough; dig your fingers into this panel; that’s you. Now,
heave; heave and start her; oh, heave! handsomely, handsomely; she is
moving.”
The heavy panel of the wall slowly slid away to their right. A waft of
the smoke of burning carib leaf came into their faces, so that they
tasted rather than smelled it. It was sickly to taste and dizzying to
breathe. Sard stopped heaving at the panel and peered into the opening
which they had made.
They were looking into a large room, which ran further back (that is,
away from the Plaza front) than they had expected. There were some
upright things, they could not see what, in the middle of the room; all
very dim. To the right of these there was a brazier glowing faintly with
charcoal on which carib leaf had been crumbled. Sard, who was nearest to
the opening, felt at once that there was somebody there. His dream of
the mountains came back to him with a shock. He called in a low voice:
“Miss Kingsborough!”
Her voice from the middle of the room answered faintly:
“Yes.”
“Margarita!” Hilary cried.
“She is tied to these uprights,” Sard said, as he pushed into the room.
He could dimly see that she was there.
“All right, Miss Kingsborough,” he said, “we will soon have you out of
here.”
“I’m here, Margarita,” Hilary said.
Sard reached back for his knife, which he had replaced at San Agostino.
It was a small but very strong sheath-knife without a guard. Margarita
spoke from her stake.
“Oh, be careful, Hilary! There are Indians here.”
“All right, dear,” Hilary said. “We’ve found you now. We won’t let the
Indians hurt you.”
“Good Lord,” Sard said, “she is chained and padlocked as well as tied.
Never mind, Miss Kingsborough, we will set you free.”
He took the chain, so as to bend the hasp of the padlock, but it was
beyond his strength.
“Have you a hairpin, Miss Kingsborough; perhaps I can pick this lock.”
“No,” she said. As he felt along the stake, he found her hair all loose
about her. He felt the foot of the stake. It was an unbarked bole of a
tree dug deep into the earth and tamped well home. She was chained to it
at waist and ankles.
“Catch hold of the stake, Mr. Kingsborough,” Sard said. “We may be able
to heave it right out. Sway with us, Miss Kingsborough. We will give the
word.”
He and Hilary got their arms about the stake and hove and hove again,
with no more result than to make the stake tremble: it was like trying
to pull down a growing tree.
“We’ll save you, Margarita,” Hilary kept saying. Sard could not clearly
see how they could save her without a cold chisel and a mallet. He
struck a match and lit another twist of twine, which burned for nearly
forty seconds. He saw Margarita’s white face and great eyes, a strange
room of a triangular shape, with a throne at the apex, another bole or
tree, a few feet from them, but nothing which could serve as a weapon or
a tool.
“Look here,” he said, “I must fetch in the police. Here’s my knife, Mr.
Kingsborough. You stay here on guard while I run out and fetch some
guardias.”
“They’ll all be bribed,” Hilary said.
“No police can be bribed to this point,” Sard answered. “I’ll have them
here in three minutes. Cheer up, Miss Kingsborough.”
He listened: all was still in the house.
“It’s all right,” he said, “I’ll be back in five minutes.”
He hated leaving them, but there was nothing for it. A piece of carib
leaf settled in the brazier with a little sigh.
“I’ll go then,” he said. “Look out.”
He crept out of the room and across the hall. When he was near the door,
he stumbled on something which had not been there on his first journey.
As he stumbled forward over it, he heard Margarita call, “Look out,
Hilary; the Indians!” He heard Hilary gasp, as though struck, and cry
out, “Ah! would you?” At the same instant, as he himself rose from the
floor of the hall, someone most active tackled him from behind, with a
strangle-hold round the throat. He swung himself forward and hove the
strangler off his feet, but did not make him loose his hold. He stumbled
again on the thing on the floor and someone came at him from in front.
He hit out and landed on a body, but somebody new caught him by the
right arm and gave it a twist which nearly broke it. He hit one or two
bodies and faces, but they were all Indians; it was like punching
india-rubber; they hissed their breath in through their teeth and came
on again. He reached the door; he got hold of the latch, but the door
would not open. He got hold of the strangler’s arm and wrenched it
against the iron of the door. Then somebody thrust him sideways; he
stumbled on to somebody who was crouching; then, immediately, he was
down, with three or four of these wild cats on top of him. In his rage
at being brought down, he hit hard, but they were too many and seemed to
see in the dark. He was mastered, bound, blindfolded and gagged. Then a
couple of them picked him up like a sack and ran him along into the
inner room. A man asked in good Spanish, “If the lad were dead?” An
Indian replied, “That he still breathed.” They hove Sard against the
upright bole. Though he writhed, he was helpless: he felt like a storm
staysail made up for bending; they chained him there. He heard Margarita
wail. Then an Indian—perhaps the man whom he had wrenched against the
iron—hit him hard in body and face again and again and again.
Presently he stopped, and there was silence, save for a rustling, as
though snakes were gliding away. Then a light appeared, someone laughed
with satisfaction and twitched the bandage from Sard’s eyes.
Sard saw before him the Father Garsinton who had asked for a passage in
the _Pathfinder_. It was he, unmistakably, but changed indeed. He now
wore a scarlet robe wrought with symbols, which gave him the appearance
of a cardinal of the Middle Ages. He gave to Sard the impression of an
overwhelming power devoted resolutely to the practice of evil. There was
cruelty in every line, with enormous strength (and grace) to give the
cruelty its part in the world.
The man snickered as he looked at his victims chained to the trees
before him. He walked a few yards to and fro with his head up, smiling;
he stretched his hands and a light came into his eyes. It was exactly as
though he realised those gestures of freedom which would most hurt his
prisoners. The face had been made hard and evil by the devil, but it had
also been made tired. The flesh was puckered at the eyes; there was some
loose flesh forming under the chin; the mouth was a shade out of
condition. The scarlet skull-cap no doubt hid hair beginning to be grey
or thin. The great want in the face was the want of horns sprouting from
the brow; with those he would have been a complete devil.
“Well,” Sard said, “our friends know that we are here. You had better
let us go before they come to fetch us.”
“You lie,” the man said. “Your friends do not know that you are here.”
“The Dictator of this Republic knows that we are here,” Sard ventured.
“The Dictator of this Republic is my good friend,” the man replied.
“My Consul is not; neither is my Minister,” Sard said. “You will find
this kidnapping trade a poor one.”
“How?”
“By our friends.”
“You will find night burglary and knight-errantry poor trades, before
your friends find you, young man. Who are you?”
“Undo these chains and I will show you.”
“You are a sailor; an English sailor, who missed his ship at Las
Palomas,” the padre answered. “You are one of these ship’s dogs who run
loose in foreign ports. A slave by day, a drunken criminal by night.”
“Less of a criminal than a dirty, foreign, woman-torturer.”
“I take you burgling; in the fact, sailor. What is your name?”
“A better name than yours.”
“Your name is Harker. My name is the Holy One.”
“I thought you looked lousy enough for a saint.”
“Do you know the laws about burgling in this land? We may kill burglars.
We do kill them. Every day a corpse of a burglar is flung out. You have
seen such. They are often sailors, unclaimed three days, then buried. I
just tell you now, that your corpse will be flung out of here, in a
little while, when I have finished with you. I shall not keep you long,
but it will be before your friends come here, never fear.”
“You had better hurry up then,” Sard said, “for they will be here in ten
minutes. And you had better not boast too much before witnesses of the
crimes you plan.”
The man stepped swiftly up to Sard and slapped his cheek. When he tried
to slap the other cheek, Sard, as a boxer, was too quick; he snapped at
the hand and bit it; the man wrenched himself free.
“The trapped rat bites,” he said. “Very well.”
He did not seem to mind the bite, though it bled. He seemed to pass into
a state of contemplation in which the body did not matter.
“Do you know what I am?” he asked. “I am the priest of evil. This
triangle in which you stand is the temple of evil. These gallows posts
to which you stand are the altars of evil. I am going to offer mass to
evil, of bread and wine. Do you know what bread and what wine?”
“You drunken, dirty ass!” Sard said. “Mr. Kingsborough, who was here
with me, has raised the town by this. You will be taken out, scrubbed
with sand and canvas, and then jailed; so hold on all with your folly
and let us go.”
“Mr. Kingsborough did not escape quite so easily, honest sailor,” the
Holy One replied. “We are Dagoes, as you call them, here, not
Englishmen; not Gringos; we are not sentimental in our earnest. Mr.
Kingsborough paid the penalty of burglary. You, Madonna, lovely
Margarita Kingsborough, will tell you. You saw what happened to your
brother. Tell him.”
“I heard him groan from a blow, Mr. Harker,” Margarita said. “Then, when
the lights went on, I saw him lying dead on the floor; the Indians
dragged him out.”
“Correct,” the Holy One said. “He is dead. And you are helpless. Your
fleet can’t help you, nor your Minister, nor your Consul, nor your
State, nor any other of those things you believe in. You are in the
hands of power. You are elements for power to sacrifice. You, man, are
bread; you, woman, are wine; and I shall sacrifice your bread and wine,
your blood and honour, your life and your chastity.”
“I knew a dirty talker like you once before,” Sard said. “He was a
Portuguese babu on the mother’s side; his father was the port of Goa. He
fell into the slime once at low tide; but even without that you could
not tell him from filth.”
“I leave you to prepare yourselves,” the Holy One said. “I go to prepare
myself for communion with my god, the god of evil, who will come down
here, to eat of the bread and drink of the wine.” His head went back as
he spoke, and his eyes lit up (they were light-brown rolling eyes) till
they were like the eyes of a beast that sees in the dark. He began to
pray as he stood; his head went even further back, till they could
hardly see his lips moving; then he began to chant:
“I am a body and a hand that wait
Thy power, O Evil; use and make me great
With lust and thirst for blood until I shine
Like goat for rut, like wolf for murder, thine.”