He went on, in his vibrating heart-stirring whisper, to speak of the South Pole. She had divined—as it seemed, long ago—that this was his ultimate goal, the glorious hope of his life’s work. Dyke meant, had always meant, to capture the South Pole, and all other tasks were but a filling or wasting of time. He had marked it down as his own. He spoke of it as if it hadbeen some dangerous yet timid animal of the chase, round which he had made narrowing circles till it crouched fascinated, unable any more to flee from its pursuer; it knew that it could not escape and that when Dyke ceased to circle and dashed in, it must fall into his hands.
“Remember, Emmie, I’m not all talk; I’m do as well. Yes, Dyke will do things”; and his blue eyes flashed at her, and the colour came to those high cheek-bones as if the tea was beginning not only to cheer but to intoxicate. “If they won’t support me—if they won’t fit me out in the style I ask for—if they won’t give me the ship I want—Then in a sieve I’ll thither sail, and like a rat without a tail, I’ll do, I’ll do, I’ll do. No, you don’t know me yet, Emmie. You don’t know me yet.”
But already how well she knew him!Better perhaps than he knew himself. She knew that behind all the courage which for so long had made him hold his life at a pin’s fee; behind the insatiable curiosity, the love of adventure, the fiery challenge to the universe that form the very substance of a true explorer’s mental constitution;—behind all that there was the unslumbering desire for personal fame. If only by his little individual trick of speaking of himself in the third person—“That’s not good enough for Dyke”; “Anthony Dyke has other plans”; and so on—she would have known so much as this. Habitually, during all those enforced silences that had made up his active career, he had listened to the imagined voices of the world thinking about him; and now he could not think of himself in relation to fame without, as it were, standing for a moment outside himself. Dyke wanted the South Pole; but Dyke wanted the undying fame ofgetting it. Why not? The labourer is worthy of his hire. She felt that she need not class his ambition—the last infirmity of noble minds—as even one slight defect of his innumerable glorious qualities.
Nevertheless, she thought sagely that it was the thing she must always reckon with—the factor never to be omitted from her calculations when making plans for his assistance, moral or immoral.
She knew him—he need not fear her lack of knowledge. She knew that he was noble to the core; simple only as everything fine and great will always be; at his own trade as resourceful as Pizarro, in all other things as grand a gentleman as Cortes; gentle with women, splendid with men—familiar, as people who live their whole lives in Kensington cannot be, calling sea-captains old boy, slapping underlings on the back, and yet being a leader and a chieftain all the while. Yes—even when exploding under a misapprehension with cab-drivers.
Before paying the bill for tea, she picked up the bunch of roses that he had bought from the beggar. She attached exactly the same value to it as if it had been that tiara of emeralds. It had been given to her by him. And with deep penetrating joy she remembered how he had called her his queen, wishing for an instant perhaps that she was really and truly some splendid historical queen or empress. But, no, even then she would have been just as unworthy of such a lover.
THE last days had come. They were staying at Liverpool at the North Western Hotel: and Dyke, although as sweet to her as ever, was preoccupied with final business. He hurried to and fro about this new strange city unaccompanied by her now, talked in her presence of such abstruse matters as the charter-party, bills of lading, the ship’s clearance papers, and had no time to teach her what it all meant. In some mysterious manner the agent of the owners of the ship had “got upon his nerves,” as he said; but he was long-suffering and indulgent towards this gentleman, permitting himself no explosions; even asking him to dine at the hotel with Captain Cairns, the first mate, and other men. They had a round table in a corner of the big room, drank a great deal of champagne, and talked rather too loudly for the comfort of their neighbours.
Miss Verinder’s table was at a distance, right on the other side of the room, where she sat quite alone and ate her dinner with little appetite. Dyke came over to her once, bowed to her, and stood by the table; outwardly just a friend or an hotel acquaintance, a person upon whom she had no claims of any kind. But he looked down at her with eloquent eyes, and whisperingly told her how terrible it was to be separated from her for one of their last three evenings.
She understood. He was constant and loyal as ever; the only change in him was what every woman mustfatally see in the man she loves when he begins to take up again a man’s job. She understood—only it made her heart ache; and while telling the waiter that she did not require any more of the dinner but would like a cup of coffee, she thought of the essential force of those two hackneyed and inexact words. A heartache! Of course her heart was not really aching, and yet itfeltlike that; the pain was mental, yet it seemed physical—this dull oppressive discomfort that had taken the taste away from the food, the colour from surrounding objects, the brilliancy from the electric light, suggested something primitive and instinctive that might be shared by dumb animals quite low down the scale; say the young sheep driven into a different gate from that through which its companion passed as they both approached the shambles; or, at highest, the sensations of a dog when it loses its master.
Separation. Anthony’s own word echoed itself as she sipped her coffee and glanced across the room to the corner where he was being jolly with an unexplained purpose to that agent of the shipowners. She was losing him by inches; every moment those men, that ship, the breezes of the wide estuary, the trackless ocean, and the call of plains and hills that she had never seen were taking him bit by bit even while he was still here. It was not like the end of a dance; or the falling of a curtain at the end of a play, or the blowing out of candles when the feast is over; it was like night slowly creeping into a lampless room, where you have to sit and wait, watching the walls fade and the window frames grow fainter, until it is quite dark. Her world would be such a room to her when the slow separation had been completed and she was finally alone.
Her brain and not her heart ached now, as for a few moments she allowed herself to think of what separation would really mean to her. Her eyes smarted, her throat grew hot, her head was full of the dully throbbing anguish. She could scarcely breathe. Then she drove thought away again, beating it from her with the verbal weapons she had prepared against this emergency; saying to herself, “It is wrong of me. I must not be selfish. I must look at everything from his point of view. I know very well that if it were in my power to keep him, I would urge him to go.”
And beneath the words and the thoughts and the pain, she had now the sense of unreality or impossibility. They could not be separated in this manner. Some chance would intervene; by no action of her own but by some eleventh hour leniency of fate, the consummation of the catastrophe would be prevented or at least retarded; nature itself would recoil from adding this one more to its tale of endless cruelties. It was with Miss Verinder, finishing her coffee, as with children when they think of death, believing that death is something that will certainly happen, and yet, owing to some failure of the thought-machine at their disposal, being unable to believe in its possibility.
It could not be that if on the fourth night from now she entered this great dining-hall, she would find apparently the same crowd of travellers, the swing-doors opening and shutting, the waiters going round asking people whether they wanted any liqueur with their coffee—and yet no Anthony Dyke to be seen or heard anywhere. It could not be that she should creep back to London, a broken useless thing wanted by nobody, and that her lover would have gone from her for yearsif not for ever. Itmustbe impossible that so strong, so overwhelmingly real a thing as he, should fade out of her life and take his place among such weak impalpable things as ghosts or dreams or haunting memories; that he for whom she had forsaken and renounced her home, her parents, her friends, every precept of education, every habit of the mind, should become again scarcely more to her than he had been three months ago—a name in a newspaper.
She went out of the room, and a party of travellers at the nearest table to hers thought her a good-looking but hard sort of young woman—too proud and defiantly British for their taste—and, considering her youthfulness, too self-possessed and self-satisfied. Did you hear how she spoke to the waiter? “No, no liqueur, thank you.” Just like that—so off-hand.
Miss Verinder had the same air of hardness and resolution, together with a new and metallic form of gaiety, next morning when Dyke took her with him to visit the ship. TheMercedaria—a steamer of about three thousand tons—had come out into the river now, and she lay moored in the bright but soft sunlight towards the Birkenhead shore. With her one tall funnel and two raking masts, she looked, not only small, but a battered and rather disreputable kind of tramp, when compared with the lofty shining mass of a big liner a little higher up the river. But she loomed up high and solid, as their boat passed under her stern.
Dyke took the honoured visitor here and there about the vessel, showing her first the saloon, and what they pompously called the state rooms. This accommodation, although originally planned for a few passengers as well as the ship’s officers, seemed to Miss Verinder’s untutored eye appallingly inadequate and restricted for so long a voyage. The state rooms were but dark and stuffy cupboards, with a bunk in each. A rough partition of woodwork, left plain and unvarnished, had been erected athwartship at the back of the saloon, which itself was a dull malodorous den, with a table surrounded by seven permanently fixed swivel chairs. A large oil lamp hung beneath a skylight above the table, and really, this was all of furniture or decoration. It was a relief to emerge on the upper deck, and feel again the air and warmth. Here Dyke showed her the chart-room—quite a comfortable retreat—immediately below the bridge, with leather cushions to its benches and printed certificates in frames against the wall.
An unshaved but smiling steward or cook followed them up, to say that by the orders of Captain Cairns he had put out a bottle of champagne and some biscuits down below, for the lady. Captain Cairns himself, immensely improved in appearance now that he was wearing uniform, welcomed her very courteously, and said he only wished that she was going with them across the sea. He was busy, Captain Cairns, making these kindly civilities brief and to the point, and then at once resuming his task. There were lighters alongside, and the last of the cargo was being hoisted on board by the noisy rattling steam winches.
On this pleasant sunny morning the very air seemed full of bustling activity; the whole stream was alive with traffic; crowded steam ferry-boats shot diagonally across it, and made their practised curves, as they glided to the huge landing-stages. Tugs whistling insistently went up and down, together with strings ofbarges; and farther off, one saw the long forest of masts that told of unceasing trade. It was as though everybody was hurrying to get away, and the great city itself, seen from here with diminished eminence and towers and domes brought together by the distance, seemed to be sitting on the waters, calmly meditating in the midst of a foolish tumult.
Miss Verinder stood near a boat that hung inboard on its davits, with her gloved hand on the rail and her gauze scarf gently stirring in the friendly breeze, while she talked and smiled, gaily and cheerfully. This is the woman’s portion. One must not say anything, or do anything, to bother one’s man or to lower his spirits when he is taking up his own burden of care and anxiety.
She watched, with intelligent interest, the toil of the sailors and the winches, as the wooden cases one after another came up from the hidden barge, swung round, and disappeared in their proper hold. This part of the cargo, as Dyke explained, was coming in last because it would go out first. The sailors, he assured her, although they certainly looked a shabby untrimmed gang, apparently of all nationalities too, were a real good lot. Oh, yes, one could trust old Cairns for that, and everything else.
With her heart aching rather worse than last night, Miss Verinder laughed and showed most intelligent interest.
Some of the big cases had on them, marked roughly in black paint, the words, “Bicycles” and “Bicycle accessories.” Oh, yes, of course, this was that consignment of which Dyke had spoken. The bicycles for the people of Uruguay, all bitten with the fashionable craze—the bicycles, of which the mere notion hadcaused Mr. Cairns to laugh so uproariously. Making conversation, she reminded Dyke of the Captain’s humour.
But Dyke looked at her doubtfully. Indeed his whole face clouded and he answered with a strange glumness. Then abruptly he took her by the arm, drawing her across the deck to the corresponding boat on the other side. There he told her firmly that he could not allow the continuance of a deception, however trifling. He could not leave her in the dark about anything in any way concerning him. Between him and her there must not be a secret, even though the secret was devoid of all importance. Well then, he had to confess, or rather to inform her, that all these bicycles—and he looked round to be sure that they were not overheard—those bicycles, don’t you know, were not really bicycles. No, they were, in fact, rifles, and so forth, technically known as small arms.
“But, Anthony,” said Miss Verinder, looking at him timidly but intently, “isn’t that what you call gun-running?”
“Oh, no, I don’t call it that. I shouldn’t think of calling it that, Emmie,” and he laughed. With a very uncharacteristic confusion, even sheepishness, he answered her further questions. He had released her arm, and he stood there really like a naughty boy answering a governess. He could only try to laugh it off. He had no excuses.
“But, Anthony, isn’t it dangerous?”
His eyes gave a flash, and sheepishness vanished.
“Oh, I knowthatwouldn’t deter you, Tony. But, I mean, isn’t it against the law?”
“Well, there’s no revolution in Uruguay—not at this minute, anyhow. I don’t pretend to any blind respect for the law; but I don’t see why the law should object. No,” and he laughed now with unembarrassed cheerfulness. “If they don’t stop us here, they won’t stop us out there. So don’t you worry, darling. If we get safe out of the Mersey, I promise we’ll get safe into Rio Grande.”
It was their last day. After a misty morning there had been a little rain, then the dark sky fought the sunlight, and now a settled gloom lay on the town and the river, with presages of more rain. Smoke was rolling languidly from theMercedaria’sugly yellow funnel. She was to sail before night. She was to sail in five hours.
Miss Verinder wandered about her disconsolately, and talked to Dyke from time to time. He was very busy. Down below Reynolds, the steward or cook, was busy too; in his shirt sleeves, packing away all kinds of light consumable stores in the narrow compartment that was his whole realm. She gave money to Reynolds, begged him to take care of Mr. Dyke as well as he could. Reynolds promised. She sat for a long while alone on the bunk in Dyke’s cabin, staring at trunks that were like old friends to her, trunks that had been in his room at the hotel such a little while ago; and she fingered many parcels all thrown down there on the bunk, the things she had bought for him yesterday and the day before—comforts, contrivances, and books. That small square parcel contained the poems of Tennyson. He loved them—especially theIdylls of the King. Both head and heart were aching so intolerably that she had to clench her hands sometimes;and her breathing was affected. She felt that she might suffocate if she did not have more air, and yet she did not like to go up to the deck where Dyke and Cairns were busy with some one in the chart-room. Down here, in this small buried cabin, she had a feeling that the ship was enormous, a monster of the deep now gathering energy, angrily shivering, like the men on the upper deck panting to get to work.
Then she heard Dyke’s voice calling to her, and she went up with him. He said that he had been looking for her everywhere. As she came out into the daylight he noticed her whiteness, and saw that sharpened, hardened aspect of the face that had once impressed itself on the attention of her father. Her nose seemed much too thin, her chin much too pointed and the almost colourless lips were drawn inward by an ugly contraction; seeing her thus, no sane person could have described her as a pretty girl, indeed it would have been kind not to call her plain; but this marring of her beauty, this swift disfigurement, for one who not only knew the cause but was himself the cause stirred deeper wells of love and made admiration more poignantly sincere. He took her twitching fingers, and in a husky whisper muttered words of encouragement and hope.
“It—it’s quite all right, Tony. I—I’ll not disgrace you.”
“You see, Emmie dear. The time will pass,” he mumbled. “Back soon as I can.”
“Yes—I know. But not too soon—not—not till you’ve done your work.”
For perhaps seventy seconds they stood holding hands, and looking at each other.
“Anthony.”
“Oh, Emmie. It’s awful, isn’t it?”
Then some one shouted to him. Some one had just come up the side.
“You’ll let me stay to the last moment, won’t you?” she said, with a spasmodic clutch of her fingers. “You won’t send me ashore, till you need?”
“No, no,” he said, hurrying away.
It was now about three in the afternoon, and during the next hour she had but flying sentences from him at long intervals. Worrying, annoying things, as she gathered, occupied all his thoughts. Men came and went. There were gusts of loud swearing in the chart-room and confidential irritable exchanges as Captain Cairns appeared and disappeared. Then there was talk of the pilot. Something was very much on Anthony’s nerves, obviously; she learned from his snatches of explanation that this concerned certain formalities that should have been completed but were not—the ship’s papers not yet absolutely in order, clearances still required, the port or custom-house authorities rubbed the wrong way by sheer stupidness and now becoming troublesome when there was no leisure to soothe them? She did not know. She only knew that Anthony was angry, using strong language and saying he would go and attend to it himself since he could trust nobody else.
There was a second cause for annoyance. Four or five of the crew were on shore instead of on board—five, perhaps six of Cairns’s international mob absent, playing the fool, getting drunk, what not, just as their services were urgently required. Cairns was as angry as Dyke about this. The second mate must go off ina boat at once and bring those men aboard dead or alive, with or without their kit; and Dyke exploded, roaring threats—advising the captain to put them in irons after breaking their bones. And then, with more talk of another boat, a boat for Mr. Dyke; with more talk about the pilot, the tide, those papers—then, after all this, suddenly, Miss Verinder understood. The ship was going to sail before its time. The ship was going to sail as soon as it possibly could.
“Yes, my darling, yes. No, you can’t stay now. I’m going ashore myself. I haven’t a minute to spare. Come along.”
As they were rowed away from the ship the other boat parted from them, and Dyke shouted further menaces across the water. He was worried, irritated, answering his Emmie’s questions automatically. She sat bolt upright, rigid, so that her slim body jerked all in one piece as the rowers plunged their oars faster and faster, but she still showed a sympathetic intelligent interest. Replying to her quite sensible inquiries, Dyke told her at which landing-place the mate’s boat would lie waiting for those men; also that if the mate failed to find the absentees he would return to the ship without them. If Dyke could polish off his rather ticklish bit of business, he intended that the ship should leave her moorings in two hours.
“So it’s good-bye, Emmie”—they were close to the shore now—“Good-bye, my best—my dearest—my only love.”
She did not reply, she could not reply. This manner of parting with him was too bitter. It was too bitter.
He hurried her across the landing-stage and through the crowd on the sloped bridge, put her into a cab, andtold the driver to take her to the hotel. One more squeeze of the hand, and he had vanished. She could not see if he jumped into another cab himself or crossed the wide roadway towards lofty buildings on the other side. Anyhow he was about his business. It had begun to rain, a gust of cold wind swept through the cab windows.
At the hotel, as she passed his room, the door stood open, and she saw the chambermaid with brush and broom making its emptiness neat and clean for another lodger. There was a litter of crumpled newspapers on the tiled hearth; the low table on which he packed his last valise had been pushed away from the foot of the bed; and the window curtains were looped up high, to keep them out of the dust that the broom was making.
Miss Verinder went into her own room, and remained for a minute motionless, with clenched hands, struggling for breath. This parting was too bitter—much too bitter. It was more than she could bear. She rang the bell, and continued to ring it until the chambermaid came to help her. Then she began to pack, with feverish haste.
Dusk was falling rapidly and the port light of theMercedariamade a red reflection in the grey stream when, after less than two hours, Dyke got back on board. He had achieved his object, but he roared in anger again at hearing that the mate had not returned with those men.
They came while he was still shouting. Their boat was alongside. They were coming up the ladder. Captain Cairns, on the bridge with the pilot, lookeddown at the vague clambering forms and cursed them one by one and all together. They were in tarpaulin coats, clutching at their bundles or chests and seeming to have an absurd amount of baggage; one at least of them—if not every one of them, as the Captain said—appeared to be drunk. The others had to aid him as he sprang weakly and clumsily from the boat to the ladder.
Then soon theMercedariabegan to glide down the river, emitting a melancholy siren blast to demand her rights of way. They were off. The dusk was deepening, the rain swept along with them; all was greyness, mistiness, and smoke, and the city towers and pinnacles seemed to sink lower and to fade behind banks of cloud, below which hundreds of lights began to twinkle feebly. The wretchedness and misery of departure enveloped the whole broad estuary.
Dyke had put on a waterproof and a sou’wester, and he prowled to and fro below the bridge gazing across the water, now on this side, now on that. He was quiet now, and yet not altogether easy in his mind. The fretfulness caused by dread of delay and interruption could not immediately be subdued, and perhaps certain doubts still lingered. He went down to the lower deck, made his way aft and stood for a while right at the stern, looking out intently. One might have supposed that he was now silently brooding on his love, sadly thinking of the girl he had left behind him; but in truth he thought only of the voyage and the venture. Watching and waiting, as the low land slid away and the darkness fell, he was wondering if a steam pinnace with those confounded custom-house people would come racing after him, and feeling that he would like tosink them if they came. But nothing happened. It was all right.
He went up again to the chart-room and stood there, cheerful, rubbing his hands. He slapped jolly old Cairns on the back and the two sat there for a bit, drinking whisky and water, and gaily chatting, like two schoolboys glorying in the success of their latest prank.
The pilot had been dropped. It was black night now and theMercedariawas safely out at sea; rain and wind drove at her as she ploughed across the pleasant heave and swell, rolling scarcely at all, but filled with throbbings and vibrations—with delightful sounds too, of orders repeated through the darkness, the scurry of footsteps, of the rudder chains clanking in their grooves, the work of her screw, the splash of water against her bows: sounds that are so stimulating and seductive to those who delight in journeys by sea, but so insidiously distressing, so suggestive of augmented woe, to those unpractised in the ways of the unsteady deep.
Every throb and murmur rejoiced the heart of Dyke; the very smells of the ship were refreshing to him. Some of them rose, to welcome and cheer, as he went down the companion-way towards the comfortable lamp-light of the saloon. There was the peculiar characteristic stuffiness, with odours of leather, stale salt water, and dead fish, enriched at the moment by the efforts of Reynolds the steward frying meat and onions in grease, and that oil lamp burning cheerily but with a smoky flame.
Dyke stood in the saloon doorway, his face all wet,his beard glistening, and the water falling from his coat to the floor. He stood there, dripping but full of enjoyment, for one moment; then Reynolds in the cuddy heard him shout.
“Great heavens! Emmie!”
She was calmly sitting at the table, with the lamp-light on her white face; and she spoke to him in gentle pleading tones.
“Don’t be angry with me.”
But he was angry, terribly angry; with himself or fate, rather than with her. He did not speak harshly or unkindly to her herself, but he addressed the woodwork, the skylight, and all inanimate things with dreadful severity. He waved his arms, he pulled at his hair; never had she seen him so agitated, so perturbed.
“Tony dear, what does it matter?”
He said that her presence there had put him in a hideously false position. He said that he must not of course blame her; what she had done was noble, heroic, angelic; only he ought to have warned her of the disastrous effect of such an act. “Emmie, you reckless self-sacrificing saint, you really have carted me. You’ve made me break my solemn promise. In all my life I’ve never gone back on my word. My old father foresaw, he feared—and I gave him my word of honour that I wouldn’t take you out of England.”
Poor Miss Verinder said forlornly, “You must tell your father the fault is mine. It is I who have run away with you, not you with me.”
But Dyke then said they must stop the ship and land her as soon as possible. He would go and consult with Captain Cairns. Miss Verinder said no, she begged him not to think of doing that; she would gowith him to their port of destination and then quietly return to England. Deprecatingly she explained that she had not planned this treacherous act, she had never meant to do anything at all on her own initiative or without his explicit approval; but the accelerated departure, that hasty good-bye, the bundling her into a cab and disappearing, had been too much for her. Then the thought had come of the mate’s boat lying there waiting—and then “Tony, I had to do it. I couldn’t, Icouldn’thelp it.” And she concluded with urgent entreaties that Mr. O’Donnell, the second mate, should not be made to suffer for her imprudence. Mr. O’Donnell, she said, had at first strongly objected to bring her off, but she had not been quite truthful to Mr. O’Donnell. She had “over-persuaded” Mr. O’Donnell. After that he had been kindness itself; lending her one of the men’s coats, helping her out of the boat, troubling about her luggage.
“Tony!” and she stretched out her hand.
She was deadly pale, trembling a little, and her dark hair hung down loosely about her pleading eyes. Dyke stooped over her and kissed her cold forehead.
“Emmie!”
Reynolds came in with a tray of plates, and was followed by heavy waves of that odour of fried steak and onions; he fixed the tray to the table in some ingenious manner, and every time theMercedariasoftly heaved the plates made a musical clatter. Those invisible chains rumbled behind Miss Verinder’s head, and before her eyes two scuttles with brass bolts slowly sank a few feet and as slowly rose. She shivered, but went on talking; her gentle voice a little shaky, but very sweet still.
“And I meant—dear Tony—not to give anybody any trouble—not to get in anybody’s way. But now I fear—that I may not be quite well on the voyage—at least at first. Tony!” And she looked at him despairingly.“I do feel so ill. Can I go and lie down anywhere?”
MISS VERINDER suffered from sea-sickness in a more or less acute form throughout the interminable voyage. The ship touched at Lisbon and Dyke wanted to put her ashore, but she refused to stir. They encountered terrible weather in the long trudge to St. Vincent; and there, in a spell of stifling heat while the ship coaled, she seemed so desperately ill that he tried again, with the aid of a German physician. She refused to move; she might be dying, but she certainly would not leave the ship. She faintly declared that of course she was not dying; very soon now she would be quite well.
With the ship in motion again, and a cool head wind in their faces, she seemed to revive a little; but she relapsed as they worked southwards towards the equator—a relapse not occasioned but perhaps intensified by the well-meant efforts of Reynolds to tempt her appetite with pork and beans, and kindred dainties.She lived on tea and biscuits—and on the sound of Dyke’s voice. He was her steward, lady’s maid, and nurse. At meal-time she liked to have the door of her cabin wide open, so that through the narrow passage she could hear him laugh and talk. Along with the sound of his voice, came perfumes of hot coarse food that made her writhe in sudden spasms of nausea; yet she never closed the door. She took what gave her joy at the cost of all that gave her torment. Indeed shenever counted the cost in regard to this or any other matter that concerned her love. Not for an hour, not for a minute, did she regret that she had come with him. She merely apologized for causing him such dreadful trouble.
“Tony dear, I shall wear out even your patience. How can you forgive me?”
He used to tell her that each trifling service he had the honour to perform was like a tiny piece of flax, and that out of such pieces she had made a rope so strong as to bind him to her invincibly. He could never break loose now if he wanted to be free. And he wouldn’t want. He became husky when he spoke of her courage, and then he would laugh to cheer her; promising that she should have three happy weeks at Buenos Ayres while he and that staunch old sportsman Pedro del Sarto were preparing their jaunt to the Andes—weeks to make up for all this. “Our honey-moon, Emmie!”
Truly he served her and waited upon her with a surpassing tenderness. He had a trick of kneeling by the berth, making one arm her pillow, and with his other hand softly playing with her hair. That rough muscular hand grew light as a rose leaf while it swept back the hair and touched her face. And once, while in this attitude, perhaps because of noticing her debility and frailness, or because of thinking of what she had done for his sake, he began to weep. Then, till he recovered composure, she did really believe she might die; it seemed that in her weak state the mingled sweetness and pain of their love must surely kill her; and she thought that, for bringing tears to those eyes, she deserved death.
“There. You musn’t let me get too sentimental, Emmie. Check me. It’s a fault of mine. Now here’s cheerful news. Cairns says we may see land in four days. So the worst is over. Down the Brazilian coast it’s nothing at all.”
They got her up on deck, after they had entered the glorious harbour of Rio de Janeiro. And she sat, wrapped with shawls, languidly surveying the broad smooth waters, the vast semi-circle of mountains, and the garden-like beauty of town and shore. It was a vague dream-panorama, so far as she was concerned.
Here the ship was joined by two Italians from the southernmost province of Brazil. These, it seemed, were the consignees of those bicycles and accessories. They were citizens of Brazil—adventurous merchants—dealers in bicycles, and a variety of other things—anything, in fact, likely to prove quickly marketable. As Dyke informed her, confidentially, it was at their option where they would accept delivery of his merchandise. They had made all arrangements for landing the goods, and they would pop them over the border into Uruguay, as appeared best and most convenient. It was all going to be as easy as falling off a house.
As soon as the ship steamed out of the placid bay Miss Verinder went below again. She remained there, listening day after day to the gaiety of the saloon, a gaiety largely increased by the addition to their party.
She was once more very unwell—at her worst almost during forty-eight hours when, as Dyke explained, they were standing on and off by the lagoon in front of Porto Alegre. They were waiting for a river steamer of shallow draught that was coming out to meet them. This steamer, as Miss Verinder gathered, duly arrivedalongside, and, before the dawn of another day, the most delicate part of their cargo was transferred to her. Miss Verinder listened with anxious interest to gentle bumps and jarrings, produced by their temporary consort—to the noisy racket of steam winches, the shouted orders, the general hubbub that continued during the lengthy task of transshipment.
Then they were under way again, and Dyke came down to her joyous and smiling, snapping his fingers in innocent glee. Those Italians and their perhaps slightly compromising bicycles had gone for ever. The deed was done. All the cargo now on board was good honest domestic stuff for the Argentine, and, as Dyke said, laughing, “the Pope himself might come and look at it, if he cared to.”
They steamed steadily southward, and although Miss Verinder felt relief of mind, and delighted in the thought that Dyke’s cleverness and resource had met with a prosperous issue, she still remained far from well. Then at last they were on the brown mud-stained bosom of the River Plate. They were between the black stretching arms of the Ensenada Canal. They were on shore. Emmie stood upon a stone pier that did not undulate beneath her feet, and leant against a post that yielded no vibration to her shoulder. She was better, even as she staggered through the Custom House on Dyke’s arm; she was convalescent when she entered the train, able to take pleasure in looking at the flat low land and herds of cattle, in catching glimpses of a huge two-wheeled country cart, and fantastic, brightly-coloured figures on horseback; she was almost well when Dyke helped her out of the train, in the fine noisy station at Buenos Ayres.
He kept his promise. He gave her the happy weeks. Flush of money, joyous after the successful voyage, he had only one slight care or disappointment, and he did not allow this to trouble him long. He insisted on buying for her wonderful, gay-coloured dresses that had come to the street called Florida direct from the Rue de la Paix; like a debonair honey-moon husband with a runaway bride, he could not buy enough for her; and himself, with hair cropped and beard trimmed, faultlessly attired, too, in white flannels, was now a not unworthy companion to those enticing Paris frocks. In the sunshine and the warmth, lulled by all the charms of exotic novelty, revelling in the strangeness and freedom of her environment, Miss Verinder blossomed with beauty and health.
She drank deep of the brimming cup of life. As a favourite poet expressed the thought that was often in her mind—whatever happened now, she would have had her day.
She felt that this Buenos Ayres, although the biggest city in the world if judged by extent, was not large enough to hold her joy. It flowed out from her beyond the vast chess-board of houses and far over the dusty plains; it danced with the sunlight on the water that she saw in flashes as they drove in their two-horse fly along the incredibly uneven pavement of the streets; it filled the whole summer night as they sat drinking their coffee under the palm-trees of Palermo’s park.
They were staying at one of the lesser hotels—a place built in the Spanish style about a garden-courtyard that was full of sweet-smelling flowers and shrubs; with the very modern addition of a wooden hall in which was set forth the one long table at which the guestsassembled twice a day. There were fifty or sixty of them often at the table d’hôte dinner, a gathering of many races with representatives of many trades; German commercial travellers, Argentine farmers come from their estancias to pass a few days in the city; comfortable Chilian families en route for Europe, sea captains and their mates like Cairns and O’Donnell, Frenchmen travelling for pleasure; and generally some of the engineers and surveyors whose work related to the construction of the trans-Andine railway. The talk frequently ran on this wonderful railway that was soon to pierce the great mountain barrier and enable you to travel from one ocean to the other as easily as if you were going from London to Brighton. A Frenchman said that although the railway would be marvellous and admirable as an engineering feat, he regretted it as something which attacked one of nature’s last remaining strongholds, which would rob you of romance and mystery; but Dyke jovially laughed away this notion, vowing that the Andes were big enough and strong enough to withstand a hundred such inroads, and referring them to a certain book on the subject which it might not become him to particularise more fully.
Those of the hotel guests who did not know him already made his ripe acquaintance during the progress of a single meal; and they rarely failed to felicitate Emmie on her good fortune in having such a man to act as escort and guide.
“Yes, yes, Mrs. Fleming. Vairy well-known man throughout the Argentine Republic. Vairy well respected man to the populace and the government.”
Dyke had given out that she was Mrs. Fleming, a lady journalist, visiting South America for the purposeof gathering literary materials, and that it was his task to show her things of interest; but these chance friends drew their own conclusions as to the bond that subsisted between the two. Dyke was not really good at deception; after making those hidalgo bows when they met for dinner and ceremoniously standing by the door as she passed out, he would allow his far-reaching voice to be heard in the gardens as he called up to her in her room: “Emmie, my darling, come down for a stroll. It’s a perfect night.”
Moreover, they could not do otherwise than notice the meek adoration in her face as she looked at him. But this crowd did not mind. They liked her; they felt sure that Fleming, her husband, was a blackguard, and that she had been driven by his ill usage to place herself under the protection of the illustrious Don Antonio Dyke.
On the other hand the official people, with their wives, daughters, and young lady visitors, fought shy of Mrs. Fleming, dodging introduction to her and ignoring it afterwards if undodgable—more especially at the Lawn Tennis Club, where nothing could prevent him from taking her. Indeed one might say that just as he had been “that man” in Prince’s Gate, so she had become “that woman” in Buenos Ayres.
When he left her in the hired victoria outside consulates, ministries, or government offices—and necessarily he did thus leave her now and then,—frivolous clerks and minor officials peeped at her from behind sunblinds or even came forth to get a good stare at her. Aware both of this curiosity and its cause, she did not at all suffer because of them. The swarthy coachman drew the carriage into the shade of some gum trees,mounted the box seat again, and immediately fell asleep; and Emmie brought out her grammar or conversation book, and unconcernedly pursued her study of that Spanish tongue which Dyke lisped so fluently. She would not trouble to change the position of her flaming parasol when the silly young men passed to and fro, staring. Let them say what they pleased. She could not now bother even to think of such trivial matters as conventional etiquette or orthodox relationships. She was in another hemisphere—too far from the Albert Hall for it to be worth while.
From the Argentine government—a government that has always proved the most liberal in the world towards colonists and travellers—Dyke was obtaining every facility and authorisation that he required for his new journey to the Andes. Emeralds had not been mentioned, but it was understood that he would explore in search of mineral deposits, and if he found anything worth finding a full share of the value of the discovery would be secured to him. For the best of all reasons, he was going to make the trip alone and not in company with his associate, del Sarto.
To his great disappointment Pedro del Sarto had totally vanished. It seemed that his varied business had gone wrong, he himself was obviously dropping into low water, and then, of a sudden, more than a year and a half ago, he had left Buenos Ayres without a word to anybody. Dyke hunted throughout the city for a faithful underling of Pedro’s, a man called Juan Pombal. But this man had also disappeared. Then, after more hunting, he found an Indian woman who had been Pedro’s cook, housekeeper, and perhaps other things as well; but beyond confirming the fact of thedeparture she could supply no information. She expected to see her master again one of these days, and meantime she bore his absence philosophically.
The loss of the expected comrade and partner was a blow to Dyke; but, as has been indicated, it was temperamentally impossible to him to permit any disappointment either to weigh upon his spirits or to turn him from his purpose. He must go by himself—that was all about it. Nevertheless, during his first surprise at so strange a failure to keep a business appointment, he confessed to Mrs. Fleming that he felt “flummuxed” by dear old Pedro’s conduct.
“I told him I would be back here in two years—at the very latest. And you see, Emmie, hebelievedin my discovery. He believed we had got a fortune in it. He believed, even before I gave him the map I had made. He trusted my judgment—just as I trusted his fidelity. We werefondof each other. Emmie, I don’t pretend that Pedro is really a gentleman, but he is a clinking good sort all the same. He and I met first at Punta Arenas—when I was messing about after the beach gold—and we became like brothers. Well then, if he was down on his luck, why didn’t he write to me? And since he knew I was coming back, why couldn’t he wait? The very fact of his losses would have made him all the keener for such a chance as this. It beats me, his going without letting me know. I can only explain it by a guess. More than eighteen months ago. Well, I expect it was the gold again down south that tempted him—and he and Pombal lit out for it, thinking they’d make a bit down there and be back here again in time for me.”
Once more Emmie was taking intelligent interest inDyke’s preparations, and the three happy weeks glided into four and five before everything was completed. A contractor at Mendoza was supplying the mules and their equipment, with an excellent muleteer as chief; seven other men, of whom four were Indians, stout hefty fellows inured to hardship and capable of using picks to good effect, had been engaged by Dyke himself; light mining tools, shelter tents, suitable garments, and a tremendous provision of food in the most conveniently compressed form, made up the outfit of the expedition. It would assemble at Mendoza, and make its real start higher in the hills, at the existing end of the railway. The month of December had now begun, with settled summer weather. As Emmie understood, any further delay would be unwise if not inexcusable.
And so once more their parting drew very near. These were the last days. One lovely night when after driving about the park they had left their carriage in order to saunter among the crowd and listen to the band, she spoke to him quietly but very seriously concerning the risks that he would run on his mountain trip.
“Risks!” he said gaily. “There are no risks of any sort or kind.” There was only one word that could adequately describe this amusing little jaunt, the word that he had used all along. It would be a picnic—a picnic, neither more nor less. And searching for similes, he assured her that he would be as absolutely safe up there as he could be on his native Devon cliffs, or Richmond Hill, or Hampstead Heath.
But apparently not satisfied, she suggested dangers one after another. Hostile Indians? Storms and mists? Ice crevasses? Snow avalanches? Excessive cold?
“No, no—of course not.” He laughed at her suggestions. Hostile Indians no longer existed, it was summer time, the only snow likely to interfere with him would all be melted. She also laughed, but then continued her serious talk, linking her arm in his and pressing it to her side as they strolled away from the music, the lamps, and the crowd.
“Tony dear, you make light of things because you yourself are so wonderful. You don’t feel cold or fatigue. Danger is nothing to you.”
“Oh, isn’t it, by Jove? Emmie, I’m the most cautious old bird alive. It’s been my maxim and watchword never to take an avoidable risk. No, that’s a fool’s game. And—see here—if I’ve been careful in the past, how much more careful shall I be in the future—now that I own the universe? I swear it’s true, Emmie. No chances henceforth for Anthony Dyke.”
But she did not yet seem satisfied.
“I wasn’t thinking of your real work,” she said quietly. “Only about this one little expedition. Supposing it wasn’t yourself—suppose it was somebody else, not trained and clever like you—suppose it was just an ordinary person—would you still say there was no risk?”
“Yes, I would,” said Dyke, after a slight hesitation. “None worth considering. No, any ordinary healthy person could do it as easily as falling off a house.”
“Do you say that on your honour, Tony?”
“Yes, on my honour.”
“Very well,” said Miss Verinder firmly. “Then I’ll go with you.”
Throughout the drive back to the hotel, he was explaining that he had spoken of ordinary men, not ofwomen; that not for a moment could he consent; thatit was quite splendid of her to entertain such a wild idea, but she must dismiss it at once and for ever.
“Oh, no, Tony,” she said, smiling in the darkness as she took his hand and got out of the carriage. “We’ll consider it quite settled, please. Of course I mean for the trip only. Directly you are ready to go to Australia I’ll say good-bye—and no more nonsense.” And she squeezed against him as they passed through the fragrance of the hotel garden.“I’m too proud of you to be selfish. I’d never, never try to come between you and your real work.”
A RAILWAY journey of something under seven hundred miles, during each mile of which the train and everything in it became enveloped in a deeper and deeper mantle of dust, brought them to the town of Mendoza at the foot of the Andes. They stayed here for two nights and a day; then they went on again, climbing now, in the narrow-gauge railway, as far as it could take them. They slept the following night at a still comparatively decent inn, and next day mounted their mules and began to ride.
It was at this point that Miss Verinder, or Mrs. Fleming, or whatever one liked to call her, temporarily disappeared; her place being taken by a person in breeches, with boots big enough to contain a fur lining and at least three pairs of stockings—a person who might readily have been mistaken for a bright-eyed, eager, excited lad, until for a moment she took off her immense straw hat and disclosed an unexpected profusion of dark wavy hair.
Thus she rode out, bestriding her large mule jauntily, with Dyke on one side of her and the capataz or chief muleteer on the other side, the keen thin air fanning her, the fiery sun blazing at her—through such scenery as till now she had seen only in dreams, along the edge of precipices, past ravines through the hidden depths of which torrents went raging, beneath stupendous overhanging cliffs—she rode out into brain-reeling wonder and heart-folding enchantment.
“Isn’t it a lark, Emmie? What?”
“O pig, O laziest of swine,” said their capataz, smiling at her ingratiatingly, but addressing her mule. “Will you move when a lady rides you or will you not?” And, dropping back, he belaboured the hindquarters of Emmie’s mule with a substantial stick.
This highly praised muleteer—Manuel Balda by name—was ferocious enough of aspect; dressed in the usual gaucho style, with slouch hat, poncho, and knife at belt; rolling his sloe-like eyes and showing yellow teeth in a weather-stained face. But his manner had been quite magnificent when Dyke ceremoniously presented him to Emmie a few minutes ago, and since then he had taken off his hat and bowed to her at least five times. His voice, too, grew gentle and caressing whenever he addressed her directly. He spoke English well, and one understood at once that he was inordinately proud of his knowledge of the language. He called her Missis, not Señora or Donna. “Now he moves for Missis,” said Manuel, satisfied with her mule’s accelerated pace. “And I, Manuel Balda, myself would die for Missis”; and he doffed his hat and bowed. “That is comprehended, is it not? Don Antonio has said me to be the guard of Missis all time our journey shall last. Be it so, to the last drop of my blood.” Then, with the most graceful ceremony, he gave his cudgel to her, vowing that he had trimmed it for this express purpose, and begging her not to spare its use. Then with another profound bow he galloped ahead, and they saw him no more till the evening. He had gone on to overtake their train of pack-mules, which had been slowly plodding forward for the last three days.
Emmie, although amused by Manuel’s words andmanners, did not take to the man himself. In her first swift impression there was something vaguely disconcerting, as of weakness or shiftiness detected behind the outward show of loyalty and strength—the quite vague feeling that decides one during one’s first interview with a servant. It did not in any way perturb her, but it was just sufficient to make her ask Dyke if he trusted Manuel implicitly.
“I don’t trust him an inch further than I see him,” said Dyke cheerily. “But he knows his job. That’s the great thing. Presently I’ll let him see—and the others too—that there’ll be trouble for anybody who attempts to play the fool.”
They rode on, and the imagination almost fainted in presence of reality. It made one turn dizzy to look down, it set one trembling to look back. Each sharp turn or twist of their path revealed things more tremendous. The heights and depths, the chaotic masses, the savage grandeur of it all, made the fantastic impossible pictures drawn by that popular artist Gustave Doré seem, in one’s memory of them, pale and insipid.
Yet they were still on the beaten track. This was the high road, through the pass, from one civilized country to another; and plainly its frequenters treated it as a quite ordinary affair. Single horsemen came galloping down at them with loose reins; a four-horse coach swept round one of the bends in the granite ledge at break-neck speed; long files of laden mules made clouds of dust, and twice the path was blocked by droves of cattle in the midst of which gauchos, apparently gone mad, were shouting and cursing.
Emmie’s excursion had but begun, she was merely doing what every tourist did, although the romance andgrandeur of it kept her pulses racing. “I am in the Andes,” she murmured to herself. “I am withhim—on the road to the Uspallata Pass—getting higher and higher in the Andes.”
They spent that night at the last of the mountain inns to be encountered by them for a long while. Next morning the true fun would begin.
The inn was a wretched little assemblage of low sheds standing on flat ground a few hundred yards away from the track; but it had a large walled corral in which the baggage of dozens of mules lay stacked or tumbled in loose confusion. The mules themselves—Dyke’s lot among them—were picketed or tied to the walls. Muleteers, the railway people, itinerant dealers, and so forth crowded the place. The living-room had more dreadful odours than the cabin of theMercedaria. The sordidness and dirt of the boarded compartment in which she and Dyke were to sleep surpassed belief; one glance at the two beds—the two lairs—caused the flesh to creep in anticipation of the attack of an insect horde. Dyke, on their arrival, immediately became occupied with his men, and Emmie fell into the charge of the landlady, a dirty but kindly matron, and of Manuel Balda.
“A bit rough,” said Dyke; “but Manuel will help to make you comfortable.”
No one of course could do that; although Manuel, who was torn in opposite directions by his desire to be outside with Dyke examining the equipment and to be here waiting upon his lady, gallantly attempted the impossible task.
She wanted water to wash with; but both he and the landlady implored her to abandon this desire. Alreadythe glare of the fierce sun had scorched her delicate complexion. She might rub her cheeks with vaseline or any procurable grease; but, for the love of heaven, no water! No more washing, Señora, for the future, if you are still to mount.
And now let us chat of these insects which “Missis” dreads in the beds and elsewhere. Well, it is so; and so unhappily it will continue. Perhaps Missis has not thought to meet lice in profusion at these big altitudes?
Miss Verinder confessed that she had not indeed thought of such a meeting; and, before an hour had passed, accepting the strong advice both of Manuel and the landlady, she decided to have her hair cut. Manuel did it for her—using a pair of shears generally employed on the manes of mules, after he had carefully cleansed the blades with oil.
“Yes, I’m sure you’re right,” she kept murmuring, as she sat upon a wooden box and the long dark tresses fell about her on the dirty floor. “Yes, I feel more comfortable already—much more comfortable.”
Dyke, coming in just when the operation was finished, gave a yell of horror and fury at sight of her sitting there brutally bobbed, changed while his back was turned from his glorious dusky-locked princess into a travesty of du Maurier’s popular heroine, Trilby. He beat his breast, he waved his arms, he roared. And then, as Emmie pacified and explained, he picked up fallen meshes, ran them through his fingers, and almost wept.
“Your greatest loveliness. Oh, Emmie, I can’t bear it. It has broken my heart.”
“Don’t be silly, Tony. My hair will grow again. There will be plenty of time—when you are gone”; and again she explained her reasons.
Ah, yes. Well, it must be admitted, lice are lice. Dyke muttered and moaned, but gradually submitted to the cruel stroke. Yes, perhaps, after all, it was the wisest thing to do. “But mark you. This”—after winding a long mesh round his fingers he was putting it in his pocket-book—“this I shall keep for remembrance to my dying day.”
She did not mind the loss of her pretty hair. She did not mind anything—not the foul odours, the greasy food, the bitter cold, the inability to sleep. She feared nothing, she regretted nothing. She was with him still, postponing the inevitable, sharing life with him high in the Andes.
She slept a little towards dawn, and was awakened by Dyke, who for two hours had been working with his men in the darkness outside, loading the pack saddles, seeing that everything was in its place. Now the cavalcade was ready to move. They drank some hot coffee, and started.
It was wonderful to her, most wonderful, that departure in the grey mists of morning. Near a broken gap in the wall of the compound, Dyke, sitting high beside her, held the rein of her mule, and they remained there while one after another the mounted men and the laden mules flitted past, silent, ghostly; vague shapes seen for a moment and immediately lost in the mist. Then, with his hand still on the rein, they trotted boldly on, as if through a white sea, until he had reached the head of the column.
The ground was apparently level and there seemed to be few impediments, but as yet nothing of the way was visible. When Dyke spoke to her his voice seemed to come to her from a distance and to roll from her in themoving waves of white vapour; strange murmurs swept above her head; the rattle of hoofs as they struck upon stone made echoing sounds behind her; and she had what she supposed to be an illusion of a bell that chimed and tinkled, now near, now far away, but never ceasing.
Then swiftly yet gradually the mists broke and the light came flooding down upon them. First the tall peaks caught fire, vast rock buttresses thousands of feet high flamed with orange and crimson, black ragged cliffs shone and glittered, fields of dazzling white snow hung like islands in the air till dark brown mountains rose to carry them; then the whole brightly coloured masses of the hills seemed to spring forth, to steady themselves, to grow less fantastic of shape, more solid of texture; and in a few moments it was broad daylight, with a translucid blue sky, every object far or near sharply defined and the mighty crests of Aconcagua, monarch of the wilds, highest mountain of the southern continent, towering majestic in the blue.
The strong, clear picture given to her by the sunlight was one that would remain with her until memory itself should fade and grow dark. The ground was not as she had supposed, level and free from obstacles; they were winding their way along a rock-strewn valley and mounting fast. The pack-mules, twenty or more of them, with lowered heads climbed patiently each in the footsteps of another; at intervals rode the eight mounted men; and Dyke now pushing ahead, riding alone, seemed an enormous figure in his huge mushroom hat and hung round with wallets. He was happy and joyous, beginning to sing scraps of song; so that his music floated back to them pleasantly, and after a while caught the riders with its pleasant contagion and madethem sing too. But queerly there mingled with the song or its pauses that other music of the bell, which she had fancied an evocation of tricked senses. It was with them still, faintly chiming, gently tinkling, as if a cadence of the march itself.
Manuel Balda, most attentive of guardians, riding by her bridle since Dyke had left her, explained the matter. Pointing to a small grey pony that plodded unladen in advance of the pack-mules, he told her that this little mare was the “madrina” or adopted mother of the troop. With the bell strapped round her neck, she and not any of the riders was really leading the mules. Wherever she went they would follow. If they strayed, the sound of the madrina’s bell would bring them back. They would be miserable, despairing, if they lost it.
Emmie liked Manuel better to-day; indeed that first faint distrust or questioning doubt of him recurred no more to her contented mind. Every hour he proved himself more useful and valuable. Moreover, though no less respectful, he was less ceremonious now that they had entered the wilderness and left the beaten track far behind them. He laughed and joked, told her travellers’ tales, and showed her how he could swing down from his saddle and pick up a stone from the ground as he cantered past.
He told her, amongst other things, that there had been much talk last night at the inn concerning Ruy Chaves, the notorious bandit of the mountains. This bloodthirsty ruffian and his gang were still at large—a disgrace, as Manuel opined, both to the Chilian and the Argentine frontier forces—and quite recently they had seized a pack train rich with merchandise and murdered the inoffensive merchants and muleteers.“It is a shame, Missis.” And amplifying his narrative, Manuel related how travellers in small parties feared to move freely because of Chaves, how the poor defenceless little innkeepers were forced to pay him tribute; and how, impelled by the cruel humour that is traditionally common with such pirate-dogs, he “teased” as well as killed his victims—for instance, making them dance and caper on the edge of precipices, till to the prick of his knife they jumped into eternity.
Miss Verinder wished to know if Mr. Dyke had heard this talk about Ruy Chaves the bandit; and Manuel said yes, he had heard it all, and he “had laughed and done so.” And Manuel snapped his fingers, and then looked very fierce; implying that bandits would be wise to give him, Manuel, as well as his friend and patron Don Antonio, the widest of wide berths. “You not fear, Missis?”
And he laughed gaily, assuring her that bandit gangs worked frequented highways, and never came up here where there was nothing to prey upon; and that in any circumstances they would not for a moment dream of attacking a strong armed party such as this. Missis need not fear it or anything else. Starvation, thirst, snow—those were the true enemies. And there was much food on the mules, there would be water nearly all the way, the full summer season was propitious.
“So we hope Don Antonio will find what he seeks. It is treasure, is it not, Missis? Ah, ha”; and Manuel laughed cheerfully.“You must not say me. Buthe—Don Antonio—has allow the boys to guess. You can see in the boys’ eyes—so happy and hoping. The Indians most. They will not grow tired—our Indians—now they know what they hunt.”
“Which are the Indians?” asked Emmie. “They all seem just alike.”
In fact, except to a practised eye, there was little that could enable one to distinguish between the descendants of the men who had once owned the land and the descendants of the men who had stolen it from them. Spanish or Indian, these muleteers were dressed in the same manner, spoke the same tongue, and had the same wild cut-throat look except when they were singing or laughing. There was not even a difference of complexion visible. But, as Manuel said, these good boys, although of unadulterated Indian blood, had long enjoyed the advantages of civilization. They were gauchos; they had abandoned the savage hills for the prosperous plains. Yet they could be more useful here than anybody else, because this was their ancient home; they would be able to work well in the air that their ancestors had breathed.
Dyke, far ahead, had reached the top of the valley, and, dismounted, was leading his mule up a steep ridge. This was the first taste of difficulty. They climbed the ridge, scrambled down a long slope, and emerged into another valley, more rock-strewn, more chaotic than the first, with a deep-cut stream running a serpentine course towards them.
They made a long halt by this stream during the intense mid-day heat; and then moved on again till dusk. Their camping-place was on a wide ledge above the stream, where the admirable Manuel made them extraordinarily snug. Dyke was well pleased. Although going so easily, they had made a long march, he said—and not a mule galled, not a pack shifted. Before crawling under the tilt of their little tent, he stood foran hour talking to the men round the camp fire—“jollying them,” as he called it.
Emmie, already asleep, warm and snug in the nest of blankets and furs, murmured a welcome as he crept into it; changing her attitude when he had settled down, dreaming a little, and then sinking back to those depths of slumber in which memory itself lies still and no gleam from the surface of life pierces the darkness.
And so it was day after day, as they moved steadily northwards. It seemed to her that she had never been doing anything else. Climbing, scrambling, fording; eating tinned meat and hard biscuits, sleeping on the ground, smearing oneself with vaseline—all this seemed perfectly natural, the easy routine of the glorious nomad life that she had been leading for many years.
In these early days of the pilgrimage they were not yet entirely out of touch with the rest of mankind. The distant roar of an explosion, with the long rolls of thunder that followed it, told them of the operations of those railway engineers, blasting the rock barrier where they could not pierce or evade it. Through a cleft that gave an unexpected view of lower slopes and foot-hills, they saw roofs and smoke that belonged to a camp made by other engineers, who were busy with the underground telegraph cable. Once they saw a string of mules carrying provisions to a military post, and twice they met solitary riders searching for lost mules.
For the rest, all things were exhilarating, charming, amusing. Dyke, always now in the high spirits of a schoolboy, rode by her side whenever possible; made her sing with him snatches from Gilbert and Sullivan’s operas—“The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la”—gave her his revolver and made her fire it.
“Aim at that white-topped boulder, Emmie. Now then—let go! No—don’t shut your eyes when you pull the trigger. Go on.”
He loaded the weapon again, and she practised its use in a business-like way, with open eyes. She certainly hit boulders, but perhaps not those that he had selected for her target. Whatever she did, and however she did it, he laughed and praised her. He made her strain her eyes to see black spots in the sky that were condors, hovering, waiting, at an immense height, for the chance of a meal.
It seemed once that their chance had come.
Manuel was leading the column, and she and Dyke had dropped back to the rear. It was easy going, judged by the higher standards of her experience, and yet still most tremendous. They were following what might be almost called a path, half way up the brown hillside. Rolling stones and débris shifted and slid beneath their feet, and every now and then they came to horrible narrow scrambling corners on top of almost perpendicular cliffs, where a stumble would have been as dangerous as the “teasing” knife of that atrocious brigand. Emmie, having got round the worst of these corners, was admiring the cautious and yet fearless progress of the pack mules, and thinking that travellers might well describe the sure-footedness of these animals as miraculous. They never made a mistake. Then, that moment, the pack mule immediately in front of her fell. She saw its hindquarters rise, and its laden back disappear; then there was a flash of its four feet, upturned, and the weight of the saddle and burden carried it head over heels into the void. It was dreadful to see—and to hear too. One heard it crash down theprecipitous slope, the loosened stones tumbling with it. Down there at the bottom, far below, it lay stretched—perfectly still.
Then, before the men had done shouting, it got up; it staggered to its feet, shook itself, and attempted to struggle upwards. They all watched. To give aid was impossible. Wildly and desperately it began to work its way along the bottom of the ravine, with head lifted and ears pricked, listening for the tinkle of the bell, as the bell-mare plodded onward, unconcerned. They could see that its pack was hampering it terribly. Then, in its scrambles and leaps, the surcingle broke. The whole thing was under its belly now, and it bucked and kicked, till it fell again. When it rose this time, the pack was round its hocks, and plunging, jumping, springing like a chamois from rock to rock, it kicked itself free. Then, lightly and easily, it sprang along the slope, clambered up, and rejoined the head of the column, where it curvetted playfully to the sound of the bell, and rubbed its wounds against the ribs of the beloved grey pony, which was still plodding on, and still quite unconcerned.