CHAPTER VII.
THE LOST KEY.
What Carmencita wailed may have struck dumb terror to the heart of her mistress, but for my part I saw as yet no reason to despair. The association with such a man as Robbins was in itself quite enough to inspire confidence; and besides, there were other good reasons why I should scorn to show the white feather.
We had already started to traverse the gardens, while that infernal alarm bell kept up its fearful clatter, loud enough to awaken the dead.
“Don’t be anxious, we will surely find a way out, door or no door,” I managed to say, close to the hooded head.
Hildegarde turned as if to look at me, but made no attempt at replying, for with such a din it must have been quite useless.
Robbins permitted himself to be guided by the girl, for though he may have felt sure as to the route, it was best to so act that a blunder was out of the question.
We were lucky enough not to run across any gardener, and the idea flashed into my mind that this fellow might be busily engaged fastening the door in the wall.
Hildegarde bore herself well, I am bound to admit—many women must have been dreadfully shocked by the clamorous racket which we had aroused, and bordered close upon hysterics; but she was able to contain herself, though I had no doubt that she must be trembling violently.
Somehow a wave of great pity seemed to fill my heart, for it was truly a most abominable situation for any lady as gently bred as I knew her to have been, carefully shelteredfrom all scenes of violence, and with the blood of peace-loving Quakers running in her veins.
Then the wall loomed up ahead.
How dreadfully lofty it seemed—I had paid little attention to its height before, but now it appalled me, for there seemed a chance that should the door be closed to our exit we must clamber over the wall in some way if we would escape.
There was a moving figure that caught my attention—coming toward us on the run, and as he rushed into the glow of a lantern that hung from a bush loaded with flowers, I saw that it was the gardener.
He held something in his hand which I immediately determined was the key to the door, the panacea for all our troubles.
Apparently he caught sight of us at about the same time, for his forward motion ceased, and it looked very much as though he were about to begin a retrograde one.
Here was my chance.
Robbins might have run at him, but such a move must have only added the wings of fear to the gardener’s flight.
I had a better plan, a swifter messenger, for that key was decidedly essential to our comfort, and even heroic measures might be pardoned in the effort to secure the talisman that would prove our “open sesame.”
Accordingly, as quick as a flash I rushed to the fore, giving Robbins no time to act, and as I jumped I drew from its place of concealment the reliable little firearm which I had learned through excessive target practice to use almost as well as an expert.
“Stand, or you are a dead man!”
That was what I shouted in Spanish—at least I tried to say it, though assured later on by little Carmencita that what I so fiercely ejaculated was more to the effectthat I took the fellow for a ghost come back from the dead, and was ordering him to return to the kingdom of the departed shades.
Never mind; my fierce demeanor should surely have convinced him that he was in dire peril unless he surrendered.
The fool did not have sense enough to see he had not the ghost of a chance to escape—or perhaps he took it for granted that I was as abominable a pistol shot as his countrymen.
When I saw that he meant to disregard my stern command, and that there was immediate danger of both man and key slipping through our fingers, I realized that the time had come for action rather than words.
Now it was not in my heart to kill the poor devil—I had never sent a human being into the other world as yet, though coming uncommonly near it while attacked by Italian brigands on one occasion, and later on when some heathen Chinese thought me a soft mark on the outskirts of old Canton.
Besides, this fellow was in the alcalde’s pay, and only did his duty in the premises.
To wing him then was the height of my ambition as I threw my little firearm forward in a fashion in vogue among all good pistol shots.
Then came the spiteful little crack, hardly louder than the snapping of one’s finger, for modern powder is next to noiseless in its detonation.
“He’s down!” exclaimed Robbins, setting his six foot frame in motion.
I remained with our charge and advanced more quietly.
“Oh, I hope you have not killed him! It was too bad to shoot!” said Hildegarde.
I felt chagrined—what I did never appeared worthy of praise in her eyes, yet she could applaud that tall athlete,Robbins, when he knocked down a man a foot under his height.
“No danger—I aimed to disable; our lives may depend on getting that key, else I wouldn’t have shot the poor devil,” I said, coldly.
All the same I knew I was in for rough usage in case we were caught, for I had drawn the blood of the alcalde’s servant, and while in these queer little republics money is a plaster that can cure almost any political ill, still it must needs be a liberal dose that could soothe the ruffled feelings of the enraged mayor after what we had done on this night of nights.
But we were not captured yet—far from it.
Why, the game was young, and there must needs be many a twist and turn before one could call the cards.
Meanwhile we reached the spot where the wretched gardener lay.
He only had a small leaden pellet in his leg, but the shock had quite overwhelmed him, being unused to warfare, and no doubt he believed himself on the road to a speedy dissolution.
At any rate he bawled lustily in terror one instant, and then called upon his patron saint to ferry him over the Styx the next, mixing up his appeals in a manner truly laughable, until Robbins made a threatening gesture which hushed his vociferation.
“The key!” I shouted, for if anything the noise had swelled to still greater volume, and one must raise his voice to be heard.
“Yes—I am looking for it—I would swear he had it in his hand,” cried the mate, already down on his hands and knees.
“We must find it—everything depends on it.”
“He must have thrown it when he fell.”
It was a bright suggestion, for just beyond the fellow was a dense cluster of bushes.
If we had more light possibly a quick search would discover the missing key.
And this caused me to remember the lantern that was suspended from a twig near by.
I turned to obtain possession of it only to find that the same thought had occurred to another, for Hildegarde already had it in her hand and was tripping toward me.
As I took the lantern from her I could not help from throwing a quick glance under the hood of her face—it was very white and looked, yes, a little pinched with excitement and fright.
“Courage,” I said, involuntarily, just as I might have addressed a strange lady thus thrown upon our protection.
Then I sprang to where Robbins, still on his hands and knees, was groping about among the grass and bushes, bent on finding that elusive key.
It seemed to take a fiendish delight in mocking our search, and as the seconds crept by I began to tremble with apprehension lest, after all, we might be cornered like rats, and eventually fall into the hands of our enemies, or be cut down.
A cry from Hildegarde made me spring erect and turn like a tiger—I could hardly tell why I had such a thrill, save that it was caused by the thought that ruffianly hands might have been laid upon her.
She stood with only little Carmencita at her side, and both were pointing.
“See! the gardener—he escapes!” was what I made out.
Then I saw a moving object—it was the fellow I had shot in the leg, for having discovered that he was not yet quite dead, and no longer menaced by the frowning Robbins, he had rolled to one side and was now pulling himselfaway very much as I have seen a wounded hare, with both hind legs shattered, drag itself to a burrow.
What mattered it?—the key was what we wanted now most of all; let the poor devil seek safety after his own fashion.
Robbins was also disgusted—I saw him look up, and wondered whether he had conceived the idea of chasing the creeping wretch, to throttle him until he confessed what he had done with the key.
But it was something else that had occurred to my good friend.
“Keep looking, Morgan, while I run and make sure if the door is fast.”
As he said this, I saw him bound away.
The door could only be a biscuit’s toss down the wall, and his errand would not consume more than a couple of minutes at the most, while much might hinge upon the result.
I had the lantern, and with added zeal kept up the search. Did ever a more obstinate key exist than the one we so eagerly sought to discover? At least I had never heard of it.
Then back came Robbins, panting from his exertions, for these big men always become winded more easily than those of us who are blessed with lesser bulk.
As I glanced up into his face, I read our finish there; disappointment was plainly expressed in the grim manner in which the mate clinched his teeth.
Such men are not easily downed, and the glow of his eyes told us of a sullen determination to keep up the good work, even though we were compelled to force a way into thehaciendaand reach the street by fighting those who might there oppose our progress.