thought: he turned to look at his captives as he passed, but there
seemed to be no speculation in his eyes, only a glare, such as the
petroleuses have, in their eyes, in revolutions, in the days of frenzy.
He passed out of that door through which the body of Hilary had been
dragged. Sard reckoned that doors led out of the central house into the
houses on each side. He made the note in his mind, “the man controls two
houses; perhaps three; there may be twenty or thirty of them, living
here.” The door clicked to behind the Holy One; Sard was alone with
Margarita.
“Mr. Harker,” she said, “does anybody know that you are here?”
“No,” he answered. “It was false.”
“Or that my brother was here?”
“Nobody knows. And it is my fault. I ought not to have let your brother
into this house without the police.”
“Why did you?”
“We heard you cry out.”
“I cried because I saw that I was near the street,” she said. “They were
bringing me in here from inside there. I hoped that someone might hear.”
“We did hear. If we shout now, someone may hear.”
“At this time in the morning?”
“It is worth trying. Help! help! help!” he shouted. “Police! Murder!
Help us here! Help! help! help!”
“It is useless,” she said. “When I cried, they drew the doors across;
these doors are sound-proof.”
“Let us save our breath for the present,” he said. “The streets are
deserted now. We will shout later, when there are more people stirring.”
She did not answer immediately; she thought and he knew that she
thought, that there might not be a “later” for him. He put a strain upon
his bonds to test them. His legs were tightly lashed, his arms were
secure; his body was chained to the stake and that chain was racked.
“Mr. Harker,” Margarita said, “is there any chance of the men of your
ship coming to look for you?”
“No,” he said, “next to none. My ship is lost. People may enquire for me
presently.”
After a silence Margarita asked:
“Did my brother say if the police were searching for me?”
“Yes, indeed, Miss Kingsborough, you are being sought for everywhere,
and the police have been warned.”
“Have you any faith in the police?”
“Yes,” he said, “indeed, yes.”
“But if the police are competent,” she said, “then how do you account
for our being as we are?”
“The wicked have their day,” he said.
He was fearful lest this should be disheartening to her. He hastened to
add: “They will get you out of this, Miss Kingsborough. I shall be asked
and searched for at seven o’clock, only five hours from now, by the
Dictator himself.”
“What Dictator is that?” she asked. “Where is this place?”
“In Santa Barbara,” he said. “The Dictator is Don Manuel. Did you not
even know where you are?”
“I have known nothing of where I have been since they dragged me out of
the house after you had warned us. They put me into a boat and then into
a ship, where I was a prisoner for a fortnight. Sometimes we were at sea
and sometimes in anchorages. I knew from the sun that we went south and
west; nothing more than that. Then three nights ago they landed me and
wheeled me here, bound, blindfolded and gagged, upon a stretcher in a
sort of ambulance. I knew from the noises and smells that we were in a
city. Someone stopped the people who were bringing me and asked what was
the matter. The woman said, ‘She has had an accident, poor thing.’”
“You had women guards, then?”
“Oh, yes, two.”
“Surely there were some decent men among the smugglers who were willing
to help you: for instance, a man called Douglas?”
“The only men whom I have met have been those who carried me away out of
the house, and those who are here, the Indians and a terrible negro.”
“But about this man in red,” Sard said, “I know him only as Father
Garsinton; he seems to be the head of the business; but what is his
aim?”
“He worships evil,” she said.
“Yes, but what does he hope to gain by all this?”
“To increase the power of evil in the world.”
“But he is not young,” Sard objected. “He is grown up; he is even
elderly.”
“He is a devil,” she said.
“I have heard of boys in cities thinking these thoughts,” Sard said,
“but never grown men. And why does he single out you?”
“He has always wanted me,” she said. “He always said that he would have
me. He told me years ago that to-night should be the night: now it is.
And now he has killed my brother.”
He heard her weeping and saw tears running down her steady face.
“Oh, no, no,” he said, “do not weep; do not cry like that.”
“I cannot help it,” she said. “I loved my brother.”
“He loved you too, dearly.”
They were silent for some minutes, while Sard tried again to shift his
bonds. When he spoke again he had good news.
“Miss Kingsborough,” he said, “I have to break this news to you. Your
brother is not dead. He is alive. He has just crept into the room behind
you.”
“Don’t make any noise,” Hilary said. “For heaven’s sake don’t make any
noise. I’ve been knocked out. I’m dizzy and sick.”
He came up between them and sat down upon the floor.
“Oh, Hilary,” she said, “you are covered with blood.”
“Yes, I know, dear. O Lord, I do feel queer! They have all gone
upstairs, the people here. Cheer up, Pearl, my darling, we’ll soon have
you out of this. The only question is, how to open the padlocks.”
“Have you any keys?” Sard asked, “or anything like wire for a
pick-lock?”
“No,” he said, “I’m afraid I have nothing; nothing at all.” He bowed
himself forward where he sat and propped his head in his hands; a few
drops of blood trickled over his fingers. Sard saw that he was on the
brink of swooning.
“Mr. Kingsborough,” he said, “will you look about the room for a wire or
a tool or something?”
“Wait a moment, will you,” Hilary answered. “It’s silly of me. I’m
afraid I’m going to faint.” He fainted, then came to himself, then saw
the blood on his hands and fainted again. Presently he hove himself up
into a sitting posture and said that he had never felt so sick in his
life.
“Shut your eyes,” Sard said.
“Yes, you say ‘shut your eyes,’ but my head’s all gone. I’m as sick as a
cat. I say, would you mind bringing me some water?”
“I’ll bring you water,” Sard said. Margarita was crying. “I’ll bring you
lovely water. Only, you see, your sister and I are locked up here,
chained. We want you to unchain us.”
“So I would,” he said. “But I cannot stand this smell of incense. It
takes all the strength clean out of me.”
“Hilary,” Margarita said sharply, “Hilary, turn round. Look at that
shelf on the side of the wall there. Is not that water in a glass jug
there?”
“It is water,” Sard said. “Look, Mr. Kingsborough. It is water. Get to
the shelf and splash yourself.”
“It is water,” Hilary said. “I don’t know about getting to it.”
“You can get to it, Hilary dear,” Margarita said. “Crawl to it and then
you will reach it. Oh, well done, Hilary; how splendid of you!”
The sick man crawled on hand and knees to the wall. He leaned for a
moment there and said, “I can’t reach it.”
“Rest and gather strength,” Sard said.
“Hilary,” his sister said, “crawl to that little table in the middle of
the room. You will be able to push that to the wall and then climb to
the water.”
“Yes, I will,” Hilary said: “only I must wait for a moment, for this
sickness to pass.”
He stayed there huddled against the wall, with his eyes shut, for two or
three minutes. He looked liker a dead man than a living. At last he
moved forward from the wall and slowly crawled to the table. The table
was liker a large old English stool than a table. When he reached it, he
drooped forward over it as though he would never have the strength to
rise.
“Take your time,” Sard said. “Do not try to lift that stool, but push it
before you while you lean on it. So. That is you. Not too big a push at
a time: take it quietly.”
“Oh, I do feel so sick!” Hilary said.
“No wonder. You’ve had a bat on the head,” Sard said. “You are a marvel
to be moving at all, but go handsomely; there’s always time; always lots
of time; no rushing. Now wait; rest; gather your strength again.”
He waited, leaning on the stool, while the others watched him.
“You are nearly there,” Sard said. “One more little effort and you will
be there. I think your brother’s a hero, Miss Kingsborough, to be doing
this, in his state.”
“You are wonderful, Hilary,” she said. “Now forward again.”
The sick man thrust the stool before him almost to the wall.
“Stop there,” Sard said. “Do not push it further under the shelf. Now
you are almost there: all that you have to do now is to heave yourself
up and reach the jug. Steady yourself against the wall.”
Hilary with an effort hove himself to a kneeling posture on the stool.
When there, he found that he had pushed it too far underneath the shelf.
He could not see the jug, but saw instead that he would have to lean
somewhat backward, clutching to the shelf with one hand while he groped
for the jug with the other. The thought of doing this unnerved him, he
made no attempt for a minute.
“It is just directly over your head,” Margarita told him.
“Yes, I know where it is,” he answered, “only getting it is the problem.
However, it is water.”
“It is lovely water, which will take away all your faintness.”
“Yes, by George, it will! I can tell you I want it. I’m going to get
it.”
“Good. Well done.”
He steadied himself as cautiously as a tightrope-walker. He placed one
foot upon the stool, swayed, steadied, made an effort, caught the rim of
the shelf and stood there.
“Splendid, Hilary! You’ve done it.”
“Good man.”
“It’s on a tray,” Hilary said. “I can’t reach the jug, it’s too far in.
But I’ve got hold of the tray.”
“Pull the tray towards you. There; it is coming.”
“Now catch hold of the jug.”
“Oh, take care, take care; mind, Hilary!”
“You’ll have the whole thing down.”
“Oh, Lord!” Hilary said.
In his weakness, as the tray reached the edge of the shelf, Hilary
slipped, failed or fell. He tipped the tray over as he dropped; there
was a crash and a breaking of glass and a gurgling of liquid.
“I’m sorry, you people,” Hilary said; “I was afraid that that would
happen. I’m too weak to do this kind of thing: now it is gone.”
“No, no, it is not,” Margarita said. “Wet your handkerchief in it, then
drink that, or mop your forehead with it.”
“Well thought of,” Sard said.
“I say,” Hilary said, “this is not water: it is that what’s-its-name,
the white brandy these fellows drink.”
“Drink some, drink some, then.”
“I’m drinking. I say. You may say what you like. It makes me feel a
different being.”
“Splash your brows with it.”
“I will. And I will save this. There’s about a tumblerful. And, good
Lord, I say, I say!”
“What? What have you found in the tray?”
“Bunches of keys. Look here. Two bunches of keys. I may be able to
unlock your padlocks.”
“Try your sister’s padlocks first.”
“No, no,” Margarita said, “try Mr. Harker’s padlocks first. He is a man.
He can help.”
“Your sister first,” Sard said. “I’ll not be set free first. And as for
helping, I have not helped anyone, so far as I can see.”
Hilary tried the keys in the padlocks of his sister’s chains. He tried
eleven without success; then, at the twelfth, the locks clicked back and
the chains could be cast aside. She was still bound to the pillar by a
thong of hide. “I cannot undo this knot,” Hilary said, “my fingers are
too weak.”
“Gnaw it open with your teeth,” Sard said.
Hilary sat down and sipped some brandy.
“I wish you would not upset me,” he said. “I feel as sick as a dog, and
the very thought of taking this stuff in my teeth is more than I can
stand.”
“Sorry,” Sard said. “What you must do is, pick up a piece of broken
glass with a sharp edge and saw it through with that.”
“Good,” Hilary said. “I can do that.”
As he bent to pick up the glass, it seemed to all three there that men
were muttering just beyond the doors. They heard no words distinctly,
but voices spoke, feet shuffled: the noise, whatever it was, died away
almost at once: all was still again. Hilary sawed through the hide, so
that Margarita was free. She took the keys and began to try them on the
padlocks of Sard’s chains. She unlocked his hand-chains with the third
key, but could not fit the leg-iron padlock until the last key of all.
They cast loose the last of the chains, Sard was free. He picked up the
chain, which was of a one-inch link, stopped a bight in it for a
handfast, made an overhand knot in each end, and then swayed it to and
fro. “Now we have some sort of a weapon,” he said. “Now we will see
whether we cannot get out of here.”
“Pearl,” Hilary asked, “do you know whether we can get out from here
into any yard at the back of the house?”
“There is a yard at the back of the house; I have seen it. There is a
shed in it, with a great dog,” she said. “But even if we reached the
yard, it would not help. There are houses beyond.”
“Let us keep to what we know,” Sard said. “We know the way to the Plaza,
and in the Plaza we may meet people who will help us. We must slide
these doors apart and make for the front door.”
“I agree,” Margarita said.
“Each have a sip of brandy,” Sard said.
They each took a sip, then took their bearings and moved to the sliding
door.
“The light is going out,” Hilary said. The light suddenly dimmed to half
its strength.
“All right,” Sard said. “That means that it is half an hour from dawn.
They cut off the light at the power-house.”
“I was afraid that it meant that we were discovered,” Margarita said.
“Not a bit of it,” Sard said. “It’s the custom in the port. Now, Mr.
Kingsborough, we’ll soon have you and your sister out into safety. Catch
hold of the door here. Dig your nails into it. Quietly, now. Are you all
ready?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“Then, when I give the word, heave back. All together, now. Heave!”
They hove: it trembled a little, but did not give.
They hove again and again, but there was nothing for them to catch hold
of: they could only hold by the tips of their fingers: the door
trembled, but did not give. While Sard searched for something that would
give them a purchase, the light went out.
“We can’t shift this panel,” Sard said; “we must try this door at the
side.”
He opened it and peered beyond it into a dimness in which there was a
flight of stairs.
“Come on,” he whispered. “There’s no one here.”
They crept into the dimness. There was another door beyond the
staircase. They went through it into a darkness in which they groped.
Suddenly Sard trod upon somebody, who caught him by the leg. “Look out!
Get back,” he cried. Somebody grappled him as he spoke, so that he could
not get back with the others. A light suddenly shone out to show him a
big buck negro coming at him. An Indian, who had him round the hips,
brought him to the ground.
Sard shook himself free, rose to his feet, hit somebody hard, and at
once was clinched by the big negro. “You’ve not got me yet,” he said. He
hit him on the ribs and kicked his shins; the negro got him by the
throat.
“I got yuh, honey,” he said.
The Indian whom he had kicked aside, caught him by the leg again. By a
violent effort he flung himself free, and hit the negro on the jaw. The
negro grunted, ducked and came on: two or three Indians leaped in, like
cats. Sard hit one over the heart, so that he fell, then the others got
him down, and snarled and spat over him, and called him evil names. They
trussed him up as before with strips of hide. The negro held him by the
throat while they did it.
“I got yuh, honey,” he kept saying. “I sure got yuh.”
When he was lashed up like a hammock, the negro slung him over his
shoulder. An Indian, the man whom he had knocked down, followed just
behind, digging Sard in the legs at each step with the point of a knife.
The negro carried Sard back to the temple and chained him to the pillar
from which he had escaped. Two Indians came up to Sard and pricked him
with their knives.
“Gringucho!”
“Hay que matarle.”
“Si, hay que.”
“Hijo de puta.”
Presently the negro carried Margarita into the room and chained her to
her pillar. When he had done this, he lit a cigar and puffed the smoke
into her face; then thrust his face into hers, and said, “Ah love de
white woman,” and kissed her. Then he looked at Sard, blew some
cigar-smoke into his face, and said, “Yuh hit me on de jaw. Bimeby I
come back and buhn yo eyes out with my segah.”
After this he and the Indians disappeared, closing a door behind them.
Father Garsinton entered from the angle of the room.
He was dressed in his scarlet robes and carried a lamp, which he placed
upon the low stool from which Hilary had reached the jug. He then went
to a small aumbry, drew out some dried carib leaves and flung a few upon
the brazier. The stuff sputtered and threw out profuse smoke, the smell
of which was both sickly and stupefying. He seemed to breathe it with
pleasure. At last he turned to his victims, looked from one to the
other, and spoke.
“So,” he said. “My mice. The cat has played with you. And did you taste
the pleasures of hope? Did you feel safe at last? Know, my little mice,
that I watched, while you hoped. So you would not try the back yard,
because of the dog? Why, the dog is stuffed. And so the Dictator will
search for Mr. Harker? That is to be expected, but he will not search
here, where so much of his wealth is planned for. Still, you enjoyed
your little hopes.”
He drew nearer and seemed in some strange way to grow bigger. It was as
though the evil which he served had entered into him and taken
possession.
“And now,” he said, “put by hope. Evil is stronger than hope; or faith;
or charity; or strength, you; or honour, madam. What do you say,
sailor?”
“I wish I had you with my hands free.”
“Oh! What would happen then?”
“A cleaner world.”
“Cleaner?” Sagrado said. “A cleaner world? My friend, I serve the
purpose of this world, which is not cleanliness, but triumph. You, with
your cleanliness, wasting the energy of men in being clean. Pah, you two
sickening things; one clean, the other chaste. Which of you does the
more harm, with your beastly ideals?”
“We had a man in the fo’c’sle once,” Sard said, “who spoke just the same
kind of thing; only there was some excuse for him; he’d been brought up
in a brothel. The men took him on deck and scrubbed his mouth out with
sand and canvas.”
“I do not use those methods,” Sagrado said. “But I have my own methods
of correcting false philosophers, as you shall see.”
He returned, almost immediately, with something tied in a native frail.
He laid it upon the floor, then brought the small table or stool and
placed it facing the two victims, between them and about one yard from
each of them. They could see the carib leaves in the brazier glowing and
unglowing and writhing like live things on the charcoal. Then Sagrado
unlaced the native frail and drew from it a shell-shaped bomb, which he
placed upon the table. He adjusted the fuse with great care and then
turned to his victims.
“A fifth part of an hour,” he said, “is twelve minutes. In twelve
minutes, precisely, this bomb will explode. It contains a quarter
charge, which will suffice. What the bomb leaves, I and my ministrants
will then take, to the utmost.”
He lit a twist of bijuco bast in the brazier, and then with the flame
set fire to the fuse. It burned for one second, then changed to a glow,
as Sagrado softly blew upon it. It glowed rather redly and the glow
showed a black mark which at once began to creep, though very, very
slowly, along the unburned fuse. Sagrado blew out his lamp and
disappeared out of the room. The two victims saw nothing but the veins
in the leaves in the brazier and the black mark charring along the fuse
in front of the fire which charred it. Already a small piece of white
ash, like a cigar-ash, fell from the burnt end of the fuse.
“Do not look at that fuse,” Sard said.
“I cannot help it,” she said.
“Yes, you can help it. Look at me. Can you move at all?”
“Hardly at all. Can you?”
“No.”
“Tell me the truth,” she said. “Do you think they killed my brother?”
“I could not see,” he said.
“I suppose they will kill him. And I suppose this bomb will kill us.”
“It must injure us,” he said.
“How long have we, before it bursts?”
“Ten and a half minutes.”
“Supposing one of us should escape?”
“We had better have no false hopes,” he said. “We’re not likely to leave
this house alive.”
“I meant only this,” she said: “the survivor might take a message. Is
there any message that you would care to trust me with?”
“You might explain to my aunt, old Lady Crowthorne, in England. Would
you care to trust any message to me?”
“To my brother, if he be alive,” she said; “and to my father—he is
really my stepfather—Hardy Kingsborough, of Passion Courtenay, in
Berkshire. Can you remember that?”
“Passion Courtenay?”
“Yes. Why? Do you know it?” she asked.
“I should think I do,” he said. “I’ve gone there every year, when I have
been in England, for the last fifteen years.”
“With whom do you stay, then? Oh, this is happy, to hear of home now,
here.”
“I do not stay,” he answered. “As a rule I go over for the day, and then
away in the evening. You see, I know nobody there, now: in a way I never
did. I go to the inn near the river, the Hunt and Hounds; then I go on
the river, and away by the evening train, the 7.13.”
“I expect we have passed each other,” she said.
“Very likely,” he said. “Whereabouts do you live there, Miss
Kingsborough? Could you describe it?”
“Yes. For the last ten years we have lived at The Murreys, which you may
not know, but must have seen, if you have been to the Hunt.”
“I know the outside of your home very well, then,” he said. “It’s called
The Murreys from the mulberry trees. Whenever I go on the river there, I
land in one of the fields below your house and walk from the river to
your garden wall. The field is called Bridger’s Peace; do you know why?”
“It means the piece of ground where the bridgers camped when they built
the bridge in the fourteenth century.”
“I thought it was the other kind of peace,” he said, “the ‘Peace which
passeth all understanding’; which it has always been to me.”
“It is a beautiful place,” she said; “and the thought of it is peace
now.”
“Yes,” he said.
“It is going on, now,” she said, “under this same night; the water is
going on under the bridge.”
“Ah, to be tied,” he cried, “lashed foot and hand!”
“Why did you land in our field?” she asked.
“The field is mixed up with my life; I have to go there. In a way, that
field and house have been all my life. The sea has only been something
to wrestle with: that is not enough.”
“What have the house and field been to you, then?” she asked.
“It would be mean not to share with my companion,” Sard said; “you are
linked with the place too. It is all strange, and your being here at the
end is almost the strangest: you, the owner of that place, and I, just
the trespasser and worshipper. Fifteen years ago I was taken to a picnic
there. I don’t believe in chance. But it seemed just chance that I went
there. We didn’t know the people, but they wanted a boy to fill up a
side at cricket. Anyhow, I went. Some people called Penga took me.
“But I was quite out of it. I was the youngest there. They had two
elevens without me, and I didn’t know a soul there, except Dick Penga,
and he had had the swot of bringing me and thought me a child, besides.
“There was a Spanish lady, a widow, there with her daughter, who was of
my own age. She was out of it too.
“I could always talk Spanish, so I talked to the girl. In a way, we were
children; but it was not any childishness to me. That girl altered my
life. She has been my life ever since, all the life that mattered: the
rest was only ropes and weights.”
“You saw her again, then?” Margarita said.
“No,” he said. “I’ve never seen her since, nor heard from her. You see,
she was only there by as strange a chance, almost, as I. She came from
Santo Espirito, in Andaluz, in Spain. I wrote to her there, but I never
had an answer: of course, she would never have written to me.
“I went to Santo Espirito as soon as I could; but that was eight years
later. Nobody knew of them there. The place had all changed in the
interval, for they had begun to work copper there: it was a mining
town.”
“What was the girl’s name?”
“Juanita de la Torre.”
“Would you know her again, do you think?”
“I thought that you were she when I saw you at that window at Los
Xicales.”
“I am she,” she said simply. “I am Juanita de la Torre. My mother
married my stepfather the year of the picnic. He met her at the picnic
for the first time. Four years later we went to live at The Murreys. We
took the name Kingsborough when mother married: we’ve been brought up as
English ever since. Margarita is my second name; I took to that, because
the English cannot pronounce the other.”
“I can, Juanita. Ah! no, no! do not look at that fuse. I will tell you
when to prepare. We still have four minutes.”
“How can you tell?”
“I’ve kept watches nearly every day and night for ten years. I can tell
time within a minute or two. And to think that we met at Los Xicales and
never knew! I was misled by your name. Why did you not speak? You heard
my name.”
“Remember I did not know your name,” she said. “I have always thought
that your name was Chisholm. I never once heard you called Harker. You
were Chisholm to me.”
“Ah! I was afraid of that,” he said. “You never got my letter?”
“Never.”