Little incidents like this, ending so happily, served but to enliven the days.
Indeed, so far, the whole jaunt was, as Dyke had said, a picnic—a picnic on a large scale; a “lark” of antediluvian dimensions.
Imperceptibly, but most completely when one perceived it, the character of their pilgrimage had changed. The way was harder, the obstacles were greater, the heat and the cold became more difficult to support. Each day’s march seemed unending, yet the distancetraversed in a day was comparatively small. They moved still from valley to valley, fighting the walls that intervened, laboriously working round insurmountable barricades. But hitherto the line of their march had been falling as well as rising; now always the valley they entered was at a higher level than the one they had left.
Dyke was systematically jolly with the men at the now frequent halts. He allowed a magic word to be spoken in order to keep up their spirits—the word that for hundreds of years has controlled the destiny of the land and signified life and death to the races of men that inhabited it. Gold. Yes, why not? If we can dig or scratch some to the surface at the end of our journey, or wash it out of its dirt in those bowls that we have brought with us on that saddle, well, we shall be able to make presents all round, beyond the handsome amount of the promised pay. So come along, my lads.
One whole day they were stopped by wind and storm. That was a day of wretchedness, and next morning Dyke did something that appeared utterly fantastic to Emmie watching and shivering before she mounted her mule. He gathered the men together, jollied them, and then solemnly paid them the money that they had so far earned. Truly it was astounding to watch this solemn handing over of the paper dollars to men who were hundreds of miles away from shops and drinking saloons and any other of the joys that money would bring them. But Dyke knew that they liked the feel of the notes in their fingers, the comfortable glow which came when they had bestowed them in recesses of their garments, the certainty that this the price of so muchaccomplished toil could never be forfeited or taken away. Understanding that one should not travel on credit even in the remotest places, he had brought much money with him.
They all started merrily, and the burning sun soon dried their wet garments. Emmie ceased to shiver, and could smile when Dyke praised her courage and good humour. He said they had a bit of a ridge to get over in the next few days, butafterthat it would be downhill again—all easy going, plain sailing, what you could do on your head.
They crossed the ridge.
It was an exhausting episode. The scene had become Dantesque, terrible; they were amidst a ruin and devastation that had been wrought by countless ages, and still the work of destruction was continuing. These gigantic hills were slowly crumbling to dust; their sides, torn and split, poured down together with torrents of melting ice the very fabric of which they were composed, so that their foundation lay buried beneath a vast, ever accumulating rubbish heap. And over and through this débris the little party laboured upward; through twisting lanes of detached rocks as large as churches, under high jutting crags that looked like fortresses shattered by a titan artillery, upon shifting beaches of smooth pebbles, in refuse that time had pulverised so finely that it was here a layer of sand and there a quagmire of mud. Riding was no longer possible. One led one’s mule, one panted and gasped for breath in the increasing thinness of the air. One stopped and rested every moment that one might.
On the first and the second night of the climb Emmiesuffered a little and a great deal. The cold was almost unbearable; it numbed, it stabbed, it seemed to gnaw away the envelope of flesh and then play havoc with one’s bones. Dyke took the most tender care of her, but neither wraps nor solicitude could keep her warm. Towards morning of that second night he took alarm, scared by thoughts of frost-bite, when she confessed that after considerable pain all sensation seemed to have gone from her feet. He took off her boots, woollen socks, and stockings, and for a couple of hours rubbed her bare legs and feet. She was all right; the suspended circulation restored itself; and daylight showed him the white flesh stained with dirt, but not discoloured, and quite unswollen. He put grease on her feet; and Manuel brought them a breakfast of condensed milk, some ground sugar, and a biscuit. The lamps refused to boil water for tea, and only by much coaxing had they consented to give out heat sufficient to thaw the milk. It froze again before Emmie finished her portion.
“Now let’s be off,” said Dyke; and looking at her attentively, he asked if she felt sick. “No? Well, that’s grand of you. Now, listen. The worst is really done. To-day’s climb will bring us over the top.”
They climbed long slopes of pebbles in which they sank to their ankles. At each footstep they slipped back; if they trod upon a slab of rock it slid from beneath their feet; the mules floundered and sent down cascades of loose stones upon those behind. Between the slopes came stretches of nearly bare ground. They skirted glistening fields of snow, made an immense detour above the neck of a glacier that had plunged into and been held by the gorge furrowed out by precedingtorrents. And all this time the sun beat upon them with hammering strength.
Sometimes an hour was spent in climbing, with many halts, a hundred yards. One halted now without orders because one must, mules lay down and let the sound of the bell grow faint, all along the line the men were coughing. If one made a false step and stumbled, one immediately caught one’s breath and had a fit of semi-suffocation. Then, as soon as one was able to breathe again, a sort of despairing drowsiness possessed one; a weak recoil both of mind and body urged one to move no more, to escape at all hazards the anguish of further effort, to close one’s eyes, lie down, and forget the odious impossible task. On the last and longest slope Manuel Balda abruptly gave in. He was seized with mountain sickness. Two of the Indians tried to pull him to his feet, to help him on, but he went down again.
Thus all were suffering—except Dyke. Just as he had not seemed to feel any real annoyance from the cold, he appeared to find no trouble in keeping his lungs comfortably at work without a sufficient supply of air. With his arm about her waist he pulled Emmie, almost carried her, along with him till they reached the naked and nearly level table-ground that was the summit of their climb. Now he went back, leaping and sliding down the slope to the rescue of Manuel. He brought him up, and went down again to drag up the mules. He wrestled with them, pulled them, pushed them, somehow set them going, and one heard his cheery shouts from far down below while he still expended his super-human energy.
Then at last they were all up—the men lying on the ground, the poor mules side by side, their heads all oneway, their nostrils widely distended as they vainly sought more air, their legs shaking, and the sweat pouring in rivers from their heaving flanks—and Dyke stood there laughing, snapping his fingers, chaffing, “jollying” his too feeble crowd. He also praised them, swearing that they had done grandly, and that they might feel proud of themselves. But it would not do to linger, he added; for the afternoon was getting far advanced, and the lower they could get before pitching their camp the better it would be. A few more minutes, and then down we go.
For these minutes he sat beside his Emmie’s prostrate form, and “jollied” her in her turn.
“You angel, you have been magnificent. You have set us all an example.” And laughingly he confessed that, after her performance on board ship, he had dreaded lest she might be sick again in the mountains. He confessed, too, that until they were fairly started and “things began to come back” to him, he had forgotten that there was this little high bit to negotiate. “We are at an elevation of sixteen thousand feet. Do you realize it? We are well above the summit of Mont Blanc. In Europe people would say we had made a remarkable ascent.”—and he laughed.“Yes, quite an ascent—something to write about to the newspapers. It is only out here, in this glorious atmosphere, that it seems such a trifle. No, I oughtn’t to have said that. It was very wrong of me. For of course I know that it must have tired you. You dear girl, you are so splendid and brave that I forget. But all easy going now—as I promised you. And, Emmie, I want you to have a good look at the view. You’ll say it’s worth all the trouble. Sit up, dear.”
She obeyed him, and looked about her with dazed eyes at the incredibly superb panorama. Truly, if one had been able to breathe painlessly, if one’s head had not seemed to be bursting, if the murderous sun had not been melting one’s spine and battering at one’s shoulders, it was a view to compensate one for the trouble of attaining it.
One seemed to be lying on the roof of the world, and the nearer peaks, which still rose above them, were its towers and cupolas; across its parapet one gazed at a vast semi-circle of sunlit space. Looked at from here, the great brilliantly-coloured hills through which they had fought their way appeared smooth, gently curved and rounded, dull of tone; northward one saw, as if painted on a map in sepia, with streaks and patches untouched by the brush, a perspective of almost parallel ridges that one guessed were the outlines of unending valleys; while eastward beyond a range of lower summits, one had a glimpse of the plains themselves and a true horizon, a flat, faintly golden sea meeting the sky at a distance of eighty, a hundred, or perhaps more miles away. Closer to one’s eyes, if one looked directly downward, there were strong colours, forceful shapes. Spires of red rock glowed fiercely beside a profound gorge filled with purple shadow; and an immense unbroken cloak of snow that stretched from the crest to the base of one neighbouring hill gave off a white smoke in the sun’s rays and made rainbow shafts hover amidst the smoke. But the prevailing impression was of colourless distance, measureless space, and light so strong that it destroyed the substance and form of all that it shone upon.
They began the descent. Two thousand feet lowerdown one felt an immense relief, after another thousand one was breathing in comfort; all the heads had ceased to ache; Manuel Balda was cracking jokes, laughing at sickness, vowing that he had stopped that time merely because of a slight stitch in the side of him.
Next day they rode on, through a valley wider and easier than any they had yet entered. Dyke set the men singing, made Manuel the leader of the march, and kept by Emmie’s side. She saw condors at close range. Four or five of them rose from the dry bed of a torrent, and, coal-black in the sunshine, swept upward on extended wings. They looked enormous, as sinister and evil as their ugly reputation had led her to imagine. One of the men fired his rifle, but without effect. They soared into space, vanished.
Dyke spoke to her of the emeralds, telling her how he meant to set about the work of exploration. Without his telling her, she understood that he felt excited as they drew nearer to the goal.
He talked to her also of “the sense of direction.” This was after she had paid him compliments upon the unwavering confidence with which he had led them through the labyrinth of hills and vales.
“It is too wonderful, Tony. I can’t think how you do it.”
“Well,” he said modestly, but much gratified, “of course, there’s the compass—and the sun. Besides, I can always go to any place where I have once been. Then I have my landmarks. If you want to know, I’m looking for one of them now. It’s about due. Yes,” and he smiled complacently,“I suppose Iamrather good at finding my way. The gods, Emmie, gave me something beyond the usual European outfit—they gave me thesense of direction.” And he held forth about this instinctive faculty, saying it was being investigated and that much more would be known concerning it later on. There had been some good research work with homing pigeons, migratory birds, and wild as well as domesticated dogs. “I don’t attempt to explain it myself. If you’ve got it, you’ve got it—and you know you’ve got it. It was that and nothing else which saved my life in North Australia in the year 1884. I was temporarily blinded, by the sand, you know—so that I couldn’t see five yards ahead—but I knew. I didn’t go in circles—I didn’t falter—I didn’t have to calculate or think. I knew. Yes, that’s my trump card—and except for it, I wouldn’t be so bumptious. I might consent to take a back seat to others—the gentlemen that the press eulogise for their scientific training—and their learning—and culture. But Anthony Dyke beats themthere. That’s why I say, put your money on old A. D. What?”
He broke off, laughing. “How I do gas about myself! But you lead me on, Emmie; you spoil me. You should check me instead of encouraging me. All those Indian fellows behind us have the gift I speak of—but perhaps less fully developed. You remember where we lost that pack—the place where the mule went down. If I told one of them to go back there, he’d find his way unerringly—even, mark you, if he didn’t actually retrace his steps. He’d get there.”
They rode on. And Emmie felt as if her past had gone from her utterly; it was not now that she had grown so accustomed to this new life that she felt she had been leading it for years. There had never been another life.
And certainly, could they have seen her, no old friends of Queen’s Gate or Prince’s Gardens could have helped to recall her to herself. They would not have recognised her. Although she still spoke so gently and smiled so dreamily, she sat her mule with the nonchalant ease of a gaucho; her whole aspect was wild and fierce; the remnants of her stout straw hat, battered out of its original shape, were tied beneath her chin and bound about her neck; her dusty smeared face was almost black, with yellow lines that had been scored by perspiration. She might have been an Indian boy—as Dyke had told her. He said he must hit upon a good man’s name and rechristen her.
Soon after the mid-day halt there came into view the landmark for which he had been watching. With a grunt of satisfaction he pointed it out to her—the white dome of a mountain that had shown itself above the nearer summits. “That’s my guide now.” The sight of it made Dyke pleasurably excited. He talked of his emeralds again. They must push on steadily now and waste no time. He galloped off to tell Manuel that the goal was drawing nearer, and then returned to her.
They rode on—on into silence. That day Emmie was conscious of it, in this manner, for the first time. Yet it must have been with them, one would think, for a long while. The silence seemed to have become a property of space. It could no more be broken by the slight sounds they made—such as the note of the bell, the shuffle of so many iron-shod feet, the shouts of the muleteers, the song of Dyke—than you can break the ice of a frozen lake by throwing a small stone at it. The stone slides across the surface till it comes to rest.She remembered the noise of explosions heard during the early days, when they were still in touch with the fretful ambitious labours of humanity—those engineers on the new railway blasting the rocks that opposed them. Here it was as if the mountains could permit no noises, not even echoes of noises, that they did not themselves create. They commanded a universal hush, in which, after breathless listening pauses, they sucked the roaring wind through their jagged teeth, threw a garment of snow from their shoulders, or with earthquake groans let their sides gape open and a vast new ravine appear in the raw wound. Then one might hear their reverberating voice high in the air and low in the ground. But otherwise all must be still. Silence and solitude—the sense of loneliness undisturbed since the world began grew deeper as the shadows of the hills began to creep across one’s path. It seemed then to be a valley into which man had never been, into which no man should ever go.
But that was an illusion, mere nonsense. As Dyke told her, in the dim past many men had been here. These valleys, all of them running north and south, had formed a great trade route that stretched nearly from one end of the continent to the other. During the dominion of the Incas, perhaps earlier still, perhaps ages and ages ago, before the Pharaohs reigned and pyramids were built in Egypt, this was a busy crowded highway of commerce and government; with troops of soldiers passing and repassing, tax collectors going south, great nobles being carried in gilded litters, priests of the sun, long trains of llamas instead of mules carrying tribute northward from remote provinces or conquered territories. Doubtless, if one dug away thedust of time, or could remove the layers of fallen rocks, one would find traces of the great highway—its buried pavement, the foundation masonry of ruined bridges, fragments of wall that had belonged to rest-houses.
Yes, if all the ghosts of antiquity should appear, they would form a multitude to fill the valley floor from hillside to hillside.
Talking of these things led him naturally to speak once more of the emeralds. Of course, it stood to reason that they mined as far south as this. In those days the mineral wealth of the hills was searched with untiring vigour; there were mines everywhere—for gold, for silver, for the precious stones—above all, one must suppose, for emeralds. The word was on his lips continually. Emeralds!
He was eager to push on, but with all his urging, the march had grown slow and languid. The men seemed tired and stupid; they would not respond to his cheering holloas. They let the mules string out. And two or three times Manuel Balda came and asked him if they might not halt for the night. At last he gave the order.
The night fell swiftly, and it was very dark until the moon rose. Emmie, after lying down, lifted the flap of their tent, and saw the bare ground silvered and the rocky slopes greyly shining, and she felt as if far and near, all round her, to the ends of the earth, there were solitude, silences, mysteries. The sensation—for it was no more—had not the smallest importance to her mind. She was very happy, supremely contented.
She looked at the tiny camp-fire, dying down now, to red embers, so that the group of men who were crouched upon the ground about it showed in the pale moonlightwith no glow of flame upon their faces. Dyke was standing by them, still talking to them. It was a lengthy jollying to-night.
There stood her man. She had got him now, for her very own. These hired followers did not count; he and she were alone now, with no human being to come between them. They had travelled far in their great love—away from etiquette books, beyond the reach of laws—backward through the ages to forgotten codes and outworn ceremonies—back, almost, to the elements of life and the rule of nature. She was half dreaming; and she thought, as she dropped her curtain and lay down beneath the rugs, that Aconcagua had married them; these mountains had confirmed the bond, making them one under the cold stars, mingling their limbs by the pressure of iron frosts, moulding their embrace to the uneven surface of their bed of stone; and now the shadowy stately ghosts of the Incas had gathered round the nuptial tent, to put a mystic seal upon their union.
“Emmie, are you asleep?”
She was asleep, but she woke to the murmur of his voice at her ear. Lying beside her, he continued to whisper.
“Emmie, there’s something wrong with the men.”
“Something wrong? How do you mean?”
“I can’t understand, myself. I’ve been at them for hours, and I can’t make anything of them. It’s as though they had become suspicious—or as though they were all sickening for some infernal disease.”
“What does Manuel say? Is he all right?”
“No. I believe he’s been somehow upset too, but hewon’t own it. He was helping me with them, seeming to back me up, and yet I had the feeling that he would let me down if he dared. It struck me they might have taken alarm because I made them fill the water skins yesterday. You know—they might have supposed we were going where there’d be no water. But it wasn’t that. Emmie, I had to tell you this. Don’t worry about it.”
“No—only because you are worried yourself, Tony.”
“Well, it would be too damnably disappointing if they lost heart now, or shirked the work I have to give them. But I don’t believe they will. No, it is some ridiculous and absurd fancy that has taken possession of them. One must be prepared for anything—in the Andes. Whatever it is, I’ll put it right to-morrow.”
At daybreak they went on.
There was something wrong with the men—you could not observe them and retain any doubt as to the fact. They moved slowly, silently, often with downcast eyes; the whole march was languishing. Dyke rode up and down the straggled column talking to the riders one after another; he was very jolly with them, full of fun and good fellowship, but resolutely determined to get to the bottom of the queer paralysing trouble.
At last one of them told him. The explanation was more fantastically absurd than anything he could have divined. They told him they were disturbed because they had heard him using a word—a bad word—an ominously bad word to use in these regions. Gold was a good word—a word to set one’s mind on fire, brace one’s muscles, and make one’s blood dance. But thatother word, emeralds—oh, no. Merely to hear it, in the mountains, took the heart out of one. Surely everybody knew that the quest of emeralds was forbidden.
“Yes, that is the silly belief of these Indian boys,” and Manual Balda, voluble and discursive now that the secret was out. “It is their legends—how can I say how old? Oh yes, Missis, vairy silly. But an Indian is a child always. Not Christian-believing. Su-per-sti-tious!” And he indicated that he and the other three Spaniards held such nonsense in proper contempt.
“Then why didn’t you tell me the truth about it yesterday?” asked Dyke.
Why? Ah, that was difficult to answer. Manuel had felt timid, had not liked to carry tales, had feared that Don Antonio, instead of laughing and snapping his fingers, might be angry.
“Has he think I was su-per-sti-tious also, like those boys?” he inquired of Emmie. “See here, Missis. Why should I, Manuel Balda, fear the evil spirits? I am good Christian. I carry my charm.” He had pulled out of his clothes a little silver crucifix tied to a dirty string, and he held it up reverently. “No evil spirit will dare touch him who carries that.”
Dyke called an immediate halt, and gathering the men together he thrashed out the matter with them in jovial friendly style. First he made the Indians talk, encouraging them to say all that was in their minds; with much wisdom patiently listened to the long involved stories that they soon began to tell him. For a considerable time he denied nothing. Yet it was very difficult not to make mock. To stand there, at this late period of the world’s history, and hear such legendsfrom the lips of strong grown men, no matter what their race or position in the social scale! But for the setting of the scene itself, it would have been impossible. The primeval ramparts, the forlorn grandeurs, the lonely unvisited pomp, that surrounded them, made what is real and what is incredible seem almost to join hands.
They told him stories as old as that of the famous River of Emeralds and its guarding dragon, who demolished with thunder and lightning every intruder that sought to steal the hidden richness. They told him stories as recent as that of the five travellers from Santiago, who were changed into five round stones only a few years ago. Then when Dyke thought the time had come to argue with them and jolly them, they said that perhaps they did not implicitly believe such tales; but this they did indeed believe—that a curse or ban had been laid on emerald-hunting, and that for their part they were averse from defying it. They vowed that at least this much was true: for hundreds of years no one had done any good by looking for emeralds, and many had come to grief at the game. The Spaniards nodded their heads in grave affirmation.
Dyke said that, accepting for argument’s sake the notion of a ban, or curse or bad luck, then anything of that sort would fall upon him, the leader of the expedition, and not on them his honest followers. It was he who made the defiance and wanted emeralds, not they. And on his head be all the consequences. He said this loudly and solemnly, looking about him with a majestic sweep of the eyes; and it had a great effect upon them. They cheered up visibly.
At the mid-day halt he tackled them again, enforcinghis successful argument; telling them he merely wanted them to dig for him. There would almost certainly be gold. And if emeralds were found, they need not even touch them. He Dyke would do that. They were not likely to find so many that he could not carry them all away himself. He made them laugh, and after that all seemed well. He snapped his fingers and told Emmie that he had done the trick. They were now “as merry as grigs.”
All seemed well; the afternoon march progressed rapidly.
At night he sat with them, sang to them; told them how nearly their destination was reached. Early to-morrow, he said, they would come to a break in the hills on both sides, and the narrow valley that opened on their right hand would bring them to the final halt. They need have no apprehensions about water. There would be no difficulties.
Next day they started betimes. All was well; the men seemed alert again, just as they had been when they first brightened to the sound of the “good word.” Manuel, who was nearly as excited as Dyke and far more exuberant, obtained leave to go ahead and signal to them as soon as the promised fateful valley came into view.
There was a cry of satisfaction when they saw him, far ahead, standing in his stirrups and waving his hat above his head. They waved to him in return, to show they had got the signal, and he disappeared. All pushed on to follow him. Dyke shouted and sang, as they swept into the entrance of this the last of the valleys, his own valley.
Plainly it was the ancient bed of a torrent that onceused to pour down into the wide valley they had left; strewn with rocks large and small, it looked even now so much like a water-course that one could scarcely believe it was dry. The hour was still so early that the high frowning cliffs filled it with grey shadow, and made the sunlight overhead seem trebly vivid.
Then they saw Manuel riding back towards them with breathless haste. They could see him belabour the galloping mule, urging it to its full speed, oblivious of all obstacles. He pulled the poor brute almost upon its haunches when he reached Dyke, and spoke in wild excitement.
“Don Antonio, we are forestalled. There are men there already.”
Dyke would not believe. He laughed. “Manuel, old chap, you have been dreaming.”
But Manuel, gesticulating, swore that he was very wide awake—happily so, perhaps, for everybody’s sake. He had seen. He could trust the evidence of his eyes.
“How many men did you see?”
“Two only. But there may be more, many more, hidden there among the rocks.”
“What sort of men are they?”
“How can I say? Brigands! A gang perhaps? Not Indians.”
“What were they doing?”
“Watching—those two—as if on guard—as if they certainly knew we were coming—and so watched and waited for us.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Dyke quietly. “I can’t believe it. It’s impossible. Emmie, fall back a bit, and keep with the others.” And he ordered the men tounsling their rifles and to follow him slowly, leaving the pack-mules behind. “Now, Manuel, old boy, come along with me.”
The thing was a fact, no day-dream, no optical delusion.
Dyke saw them plainly, unmistakably, when Manuel drew rein and pointed with outstretched hand. At perhaps five hundred yards distance the sun’s rays, pouring down through a break in the cliff top, had invaded the lower ground and made a bright patch of coloured rock and sand; and here, apparently crouched beneath a huge boulder, but in the full sunlight, the two men were sharply visible, although one had an impression that they themselves were perhaps not aware of how conspicuous they had become. Dyke rode boldly on and Manuel reluctantly for another four hundred yards; and the men, though seeming to watch them, did not once stir.
Dyke dismounted, gave his mule to Manuel, and walking on slowly, with his revolver in his hand, called to the two watchers. They did not answer, they did not move. They were seated side by side, but at a few yards one from the other; their hats were drawn down upon the brow, so that Dyke could not see the eyes which seemed to be watching him with such intentness; their attitude was identical, backs slightly bowed, hands clasped about their knees.
When he got within fifty yards of them, he put the revolver in his pocket, turned round, and beckoned to Manuel and the others to come on.
He knew now why these men remained so strangely motionless. They were dead. They had been dead for a long time, possibly for years; the cold and the rarefiedair had preserved their bodies, their mummified hands were intact, all the flesh of their faces that one could see beneath the broad-brimmed hats was free from any sign of decomposition. Dyke, looking sadly down at one of them, judged him, by the grizzled hair upon his chin and the deep wrinkles at each side of the mouth, to have been a man of over fifty years of age, and noticed how the sun had obliterated the colour of the once scarlet shawl that was bound about his waist, and faded the brown leather of his belt and pouches. With gentle reverent hands he raised the soft brim of the hat, and looked at the whole face.
Then he started back in horror and disgust. Not the faintest suspicion of the truth had come to him till the lifted hat disclosed the nose, the eyes, the forehead; and all the features, swiftly assembled, flashed into a long familiar mask. It was his old comrade, Pedro del Sarto.
He sprang to the other body, and took it roughly by the shoulder. It fell over sideways, queerly and lightly, like a thing made of basket-work and hooped steel, and lay there with its hands still clasping its knees, in the frozen attitude that could not change. But the hat had rolled away, and Dyke saw the face that he had expected to see. It was Juan Pombal, del Sarto’s underling and constant associate.
Dyke went back to the other body, knelt by it, and searched it. There was no weapon of any kind; there was no food in a wallet on the ground; but in the belt pouches he found dollar notes, a small pocket book, and some papers—amongst them, tattered and stained, the map that he himself had given to Pedro at Buenos Ayres over two years ago.
Manuel and his fellow Argentines had gatheredround; they were gesticulating, chattering, asking each other questions; while they feasted their curiosity in scrutinising the dead men. How had they come here, whence, why? The four Indians stood where the mules had been left and would approach no nearer.
Dyke, going to Emmie, told her the nature of the discovery he had made. He understood at once all that it implied. His comrade, his friend, the man he trusted as a brother, had played him false, had tried to cheat him, and in making the attempt had thus miserably met with disaster. No other explanation was possible. Pedro, falling into low water, as people reported at Buenos Ayres, had yielded to the temptation offered by a chance. He knew that the friend he was betraying would not return for a year and a half at least; there would be plenty of time to come up here, put his dirty hands in the pocket of treasure, and get safely away. As to facing Dyke afterwards, he probably made no plans; he left the future to take care of itself.
“And I loved him, Emmie,” said Dyke bitterly. “I loved that man.”
But Pedro and Pombal did not venture to come here alone. No, obviously, they must have brought mules and muleteers with them; they fitted themselves out much as Dyke had done, although in more meagre style, before they risked themselves in the wilderness. What had happened to their hireling followers?
The bitterness passed from Dyke’s tone, as little by little he reconstructed the horrible details of the tragedy. Their muleteers had deserted them. But why? Perhaps Pedro bullied the men, drove them too hard, or fed them badly. Or the men took fright, thinking their provisions might give out. Somethinghad frightened them, and they had consummated the hideous deed. The betrayers had themselves been betrayed.
Working backwards to the date of Pedro’s disappearance from Buenos Ayres, he hit upon the most probable cause of the men’s fright. It was the menacing state of the weather that struck fear into their craven hearts. Dark snow-laden clouds banking up from the south, a spatter of rain and sleet, a wind with ice needles in its breath—and they had thought that the winter was upon them. Pedro had started too late; he himself must have known it by then. But he would not give in. Perhaps the men urged him to turn back, pleaded with him; but dogged, and resolute even to ferocity, he drove them on. Then waiting for an occasion, they fell upon him and his fellow slave-driver, disarmed them, and left them to perish. The doomed pair wandered hither and thither, lost themselves in a gathering darkness of sluggish death. Storms of snow hid the faint light. The wind cut them. They sat down in the shelter of these rocks to wait till the wind dropped. It was a bad place, the worst possible place, if the wind changed its quarter and the snow began to drift. They slept, and woke no more. The snow covered them; the sun melted the snow. Twice they had been covered and uncovered.
Rancour against a treacherous friend had vanished, and a fierce impersonal indignation moved Dyke as he thought of the treachery of those half-bred dogs. The damnable curs—to leave their leaders, taking food, arms, everything. It made one sick. But, as he knew, things like this happen in the Andes—have always been happening.
Philosophising presently, he spoke of fear, and of what a horrible force it is. The most degrading of all passions, it would seem also the most powerful. Half the wickedness of the world can be traced to it. When it binds five or six people together in its loathsome clutch, there is no enormity that they may not commit, because—and this is so terrible—fear felt in common by five or six men is not five or six separate fears added together, but multiplied together many times.
And Emmie, looking round her, thought that this place might well be the primeval home of fear; in this overwhelming loneliness, among these dark cliffs, the stealthy grey shadows, and the sunlight that seemed to make the solid rock tremble, fear was originally engendered; so that the first live matter, waking to life here, was afraid—afraid of all things, even of itself. It was only her transient thought. She herself had no fear. Why should she? She was with Anthony Dyke.
They resumed the march. There was a question of burying the corpses, but in view of the evident reluctance of Manuel and the others, Dyke gave up this intention. The pious task would have entailed a considerable labour and waste of time. “Leave them there as a warning,” said Manuel, not to Dyke but to the empty air. He had fished out his crucifix, and looking back, he crossed himself and shivered. “Leave them to the condors,” said one Indian to another. “The condors left them so long without touching them. Let no one touch them now.” All were eager to get away from the sinister spot.
A profound depression of the spirits had fallen upon them. Again they moved languidly and needed frequent rallying. They spoke apathetically, if not sullenly.Dyke dealt gently with them, and pleased them by making the day’s march shorter than he had wished. At night, when they had eaten their food and Dyke as usual went and talked to them, they seemed contented enough.
They camped at a point where one enormous rock—a monster carried by ice and stranded here thousands of years ago—stood isolated in the middle of the way. Manuel Balda pitched Dyke’s tent and made the sleeping-place behind this rock, out of sight of the camp-fire and the men, very neatly and snugly. More silent than was his wont, but as efficient as ever, he carried out his customary duties, boiled their tea, gave them their supper.
The moon had risen high and was shedding its gentle radiance far and near, as Emmie and Dyke came round the broken angles of the big rock, and standing side by side, looked down at their little camp. All was peaceful; the familiar aspect of the nightly assemblage gave one a sense of comfort and security. The men lay huddled on the ground with saddles for pillows; the mules, some with shining moonlit coats, some dark and shadowy, were ranged behind their deposited burdens. In the profound silence one could hear the slightest movement, and a note of the bell as the madrina raised her head startled one by the sharpness of the sound. Beyond this one spot of animated existence the moonlight showed them the valley stretching away tenantless through its stone walls, like an unused passage in a dead world. There was no need to post sentries on guard; there were no living foes that could attack the camp. Dyke and Emmie went back behind their rock, and they too lay down to sleep.
Dyke woke at dawn, and mechanically groped for the revolver that from habit he kept within reach of his hand while sleeping. His hand did not encounter it. No doubt it lay buried in the blankets and the rugs. He crept from the tent, got upon his feet, stretched himself, and went yawning round the rock. Then he uttered a roar of anger.
The place was empty. The camp had vanished. Not a sign of man or beast was anywhere visible. Like Pedro del Sarto, he had been abandoned by his cowardly followers. As far as the eye could reach—and that was for many miles—the valley lay grey and void. Those scoundrels already had made good their escape from it; their resented intrusion no longer troubled its blackened heights and barren flats; it had swept them away with the deadly impalpable force that it contained. They were gone again, by the path on which they had dared to come; and Fear triumphant laughed in the sunlight above the deserted valley and lay down to rest in its shadowed depths.
Presently Dyke found a small pile of tinned meat neatly arranged near the ashes of the fire. The deserters had left him food, then? Not a great deal, but some. He stood looking at the piled tins and thinking. The germ of panic had entered the blood of those Indians when they first heard what they called the bad word, and hence onwards they were diseased, sickening creatures able to spread contagion to the rest of his crowd; the sight of the dead men, scaring them, seeming to confirm their notion of a curse upon an impious quest, had made it almost certain that they would try to do what they had now done. All of them together had become resolved to go no further. The Spaniards,little less superstitious than themselves, agreed to their plan. And Manuel? He too was afraid, and yet perhaps he endeavoured to be faithful and staunch; but if those others stood round him with their knives at his breast, his fidelity would not avail. They would simply tell him what they had resolved; they would give him orders, and he must obey. They had no grudge against the chieftain. Dyke knew that they liked him—until they began to fear him. Thus, if Manuel asked them to leave that food, they would be willing to do so. They took the riding mules because, if left, these would have provided the means of pursuit. Dismounted, he could never catch them. When one of the Indians crawled on his belly like a snake, and with careful hand beneath the flap of the tent abstracted his revolver, it was a necessary precaution, nothing more. They disarmed him merely to prevent any dangerous interference should he chance to wake. Then, their precautions taken, the madrina’s bell muffled, and all being ready, they stole off in the moonlight—with Manuel Balda, perhaps looking back, trembling, crossing himself, feeling pity and regret. What must be must be.
Dyke shook his fist in the direction the runaways had taken. Every bone in their bodies should eventually be broken; but meanwhile old A. D. had allowed them to put him in a very tight place. He did not doubt that he could get out of it easily, on his head, if—It would be almost amusing, a sprightly continuation of the lark, if—Yes, if he had been alone.
An immense remorse seized him, and he stood for a few moments with bowed head, staring at the stony pitiless ground. Why had he brought her here? Wrong—very wrong. But it was not in his natureto remain brooding on past mistakes when the future demanded prompt activity. He roused himself, shrugged his shoulders and gave a grunt.
Those blackguards had left tins of meat but no tin-opener. He smashed a tin against the rock, and he and Miss Verinder had their meagre breakfast. He offered her his apologies before sitting down.
“I blame myself—I should have forseen—guarded against it. Of course,” and he laughed ruefully, “my emeralds have gone up the chimney. And for ever probably—for goodness knows if I can find time to come back here again later on. A disappointment, I admit. But I am not thinking ofthat. Certainly not. I’m only thinking of you. Emmie—you plucky, jolly little Emmie—it’s going to be difficult—foryou”; and he looked at her wistfully. “On foot, you know! Without our furs we’re going to feel cold at night. We’re going to miss our nice hot tea, too. Yes, we’re ill provided with comforts now.” And he laughed again, but gaily this time. “I have plenty of money—my pockets are full of money. That’s rather funny, isn’t it? An object lesson, what! No grocer’s shops—or Army and Navy Stores handy.
“But, of course, you understand, Emmie, my pretty one, that there’s not the least cause for anxiety. It will be absolutely all right if we go slow and don’t fuss. That’s the one great thing on these occasions—never fuss yourself.”
While he talked he was thinking hard. He decided to strike for Chile and hit off one of the hill roads at its nearest accessible point. That way they would have nothing to climb; it would be all down hill. And he calculated the distance and the number of days thatwould be required. Could she do as much as twenty miles a day, on an average? Then he calculated the amount of nourishment contained in the tins. How long would it last her? He saw plainly that it was going to be a desperate race against starvation.
He took two blankets for her; he dared not cumber himself with more.
“Now, Emmie, my lad,” he said, smiling at her, just before they started.“Left foot foremost. And don’t hurry.”
IT was nine days later before they met their first chance of aid. They had emerged from the labyrinth and were coming down the seaward slopes, along a flat gulley between two low ridges of granite. Before them at a great distance lay the surface of the ocean, placid as its name, majestic as death, like a vast enveloping obliviousness on the confines of man’s brief futile life; between this and them, but still invisible, stretched a broad land of hope and plenty, the grazing grounds of Chile, woods as pretty as gardens, little nestling hamlets, and then thriving towns, splendid cities, the noise and bustle of prosperous ports;—but as yet nothing of all this in sight, not one stunted shrub, not a trace left by human kind. Behind them lay those nine pitiless days and the eight unendurable nights; a plodding delirium of cold, hunger, and toil. For more than forty-eight hours he had not been able to give her anything to eat. How long it was since he himself had eaten he did not count. He was carrying her on his back, his arms about her thighs, her arms about his neck, her blackened shrunken face close against his hairy dust-begrimed cheek. At intervals he had carried her in this manner throughout the ordeal, but now his burden was becoming pitifully light.
“It’s all right, darling,” he whispered as he stalked along.“Keep up your spirits. On my honour I see daylight at last. We have come out just where I wanted. Sense of direction, what! Trust A. D.”
“Put me down, Tony. Youmustbe tired. Let me walk again.”
“Yes, directly. There’s another steep bit ahead.”
He set her upon her feet soon, and helped her to scramble with him from the gulley down into a sort of plateau or wide terrace running north and south upon the hillside. At the southern end of this terrace they stopped to rest.
They were a pair that might well arouse swift pity in all but the hardest of hearts. Their thinness alone sufficed to tell their story and to urge their immediate need. The manifold print of famine was upon them. Dyke, ragged and dirty, had mysteriously preserved his strength; while Emmie rested he examined the ground, peered over the edge of the plateau at the precipitous but not impossible cliff, went forward to find a better way; moving to and fro, he looked gaunt, dingy, dangerous as a famished wolf. Emmie, with lips that the sun had split for want of grease, with blood rusty and dry upon her chin, with matted hair plastered to her forehead, looked like an emaciated boy who had been huddled into the worn-out garments of a grown man. She seemed weak to the verge of complete exhaustion; her eyes in the enlarged orbits seemed enormous, spheres of dull glass without flash or glow. Yet her faith in her companion was quite undaunted, her love for him quite untouched.
He came and stood by her, snapped his bony fingers and produced a chuckle in his hollow throat. He said that there was an unmistakable track straight through this ledge and at the end descending in zig-zags as far as he could see. It most certainly would lead them to habitations and the road.
It was at this moment that they heard the sound of a human voice. Dyke looked round eagerly. As if from nowhere, as if he and his mule had dropped out of the sky, a man was riding towards them. He sat high upon a padded and peaked saddle, and as well as himself, the mule carried a couple of large sacks of forage and various wallets and bags; till he drew considerably nearer he had the aspect of a Chilian farmer, who on a business journey had somehow attempted a short cut along the face of the hills. He shouted to them in Spanish, telling them to stand still; and even before noticing that he had drawn a pistol, Dyke whispered a warning.
“Emmie, I don’t like the look of him. Take everything quietly. Don’t interfere, whatever I say or do. And, Emmie, this fellow mustn’t know your sex.”
Indeed, one could not like the look of him, now that he drew close. He was a thick-set man of about forty, with small blood-shot eyes in a swarthy scarred face; his whole air, suggesting sullen fierceness, stupid cruelty, unreasoned suspicion, was very distasteful to Dyke. This peremptory stranger seemed far from being the friend in need for whom one had hoped.
Dyke, obeying his order and the menace of his levelled revolver, stood now with raised hands; and Emmie had to rise too and assume the same attitude.
“We are neither of us armed,” said Dyke, meekly. “But my boy there is very tired. Please don’t trouble him.”
The man told them to pull up their outer garments, in order to see if there was anything concealed about their waists. They obeyed him. And he then told them to turn round, so that he could look at the backs oftheir breeches. Then, satisfied that they were weaponless, he allowed Dyke to drop his hands and the boy to lie down again. With an oath he asked what they were doing here, and what they wanted.
Dyke said they were doing nothing, and they wanted food.
“Food?” the man echoed. “Food?” And bringing his mule still nearer, he stared at Dyke’s high cheekbones and bearded mouth. “Have you any money to buy food?”
Dyke said he had no money.
“That’s a silly lie,” said the man. “People don’t come up here without money.”
“No more did I,” said Dyke. “But I’ve been robbed.”
“By whom?”
“By bandits,” said Dyke. “There are many of them about.”
The man grinned, as if amused, and said something to the effect that such a great hulking rascal ought to be able to defend himself. To this Dyke replied that he might have tried to do so, but he was so completely exhausted by hunger. “My boy and I are almost at our last gasp. You can see that for yourself.” Then humbly and plaintively he begged for food, saying that the man assuredly had food stowed away in those wallets, and imploring him to spare a few morsels of it. “Have pity on us. Please have pity on us.”
The man sat upon his mule, staring stupidly; hardly seeming to listen to these piteous appeals, but to meditate. With his eyes still on Dyke’s face, he dropped his rein round his saddle-peak, passed the revolver from his right to his left hand, drew from his belt-sheath aformidable knife, and then replaced the revolver in its holster.
“You are lying,” he said, with some more oaths, but with no sign of real anger. “You may have money concealed about you, as surely as I have food in my bags. Perhaps if I searched your filthy carcase, I should find it.” Then he began to grin again, as if an idea had come into his sluggish mind. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Dyke said he was going down the hillside towards the high road.
“And further, perhaps,” said the man. “To hell, if I choose to send you there. Eh?”
Dyke gave a little groan, and began to tremble very perceptibly. He gazed at the man in mute despairing entreaty.
It was horrible. One could see the man’s mind dully working; these poor wretches were utterly in his power, and he was cudgelling his slow wits for a means of gratifying himself by making them suffer. Merciless as a tiger, stupid as a wild hog, he meant to torment them; their helpless condition afforded the chance of inflicting pain, and pain must be inflicted. To run his knife into them would be pleasurable, but too tame a jest. Here was the chance of real fun. He wished, if he could, to work the thing up into a huge side-splitting joke that he could brag about afterwards.
And presently he got upon what he felt to be the right line. Grinning, and with the conscious effort of one who forces himself to appear as a wit although nature has not given him an original sense of humour, he said it was true that he had food, but he did not feel disposed to part with it for nothing. Yes, he had goodfood—bread and meat—wine too; and telling Dyke to keep his distance, he opened a wallet and turned its gaping mouth so that the food could be seen.
“There, that’s what you want? Eh?”
Dyke, trembling from head to foot, stared at the food and groaned, as if in the agony of his craving.
“Ha, ha.” The man laughed. Then he said, with the same pompous and straining effort, that he was quite willing to trade his food. If they had no money, they at least had clothes. He would give them a little food in exchange for their garments—say a bit of bread as big as his finger for their boots; another such mouthful for their breeches; another for their socks; and so on. Then, having satisfied their hunger, they could continue the journey in their shirts. That would keep them cool after their repast. It would also be very amusing to him, and make a merry tale. He said he loved a bit of fun. He and his friends were famous for their jokes: good fellows all, liking to make the rocks echo to their laughter.
In vain Dyke pleaded. The man said those were his terms. If Dyke and the boy accepted them, they would all three sit down quietly and make the exchanges; and he laughed at the gaunt starving creature who shivered and quailed and at last consented. Emmie had risen to her feet, and, silent and intent, was watching.
They had no choice but to agree, said Dyke, tremblingly.
Then the man dismounted. He suffered Dyke humbly to hold the mule’s rein as he did so; not turning his back as he got out of the saddle, but swinging his right leg high over its peak so that he came downfacing his victim. But in the very moment that his feet touched the ground he fell. In that brief fraction of time Dyke had slipped his left arm through the rein and struck with his right fist.
The man went down exactly after the style of the prize ring, when something nearly if not quite as good as a knock-out blow lands upon the jaw; and his attitude on the ground was similarly characteristic—face downwards as he struggled to rise.
Dyke sprang upon his back, frustrating the attempt; with the terrified mule rearing above them, nearly wrenching out the shoulder of Dyke, he nevertheless kept his place. He was battering the man’s face upon the stony earth because of his reluctance to let go the knife; he was throttling him as well, working hard at his windpipe; he was giving the man no respite or ease.
He got up presently with the knife in his own hand. He patted and soothed the mule, led it a few paces away, gave it some hay to nibble from one of the forage bags. Tranquil and composed at once, in the manner of mules, it allowed Emmie to take charge of it. The man lay quietly where he had been left, emitting groans—real ones, not sham ones.
Dyke went to him, kicked him, and told him to get up. He obeyed at once, staggering to his feet and moving his hands vaguely. He was dazed, but could understand all that was said to him.
Dyke had a very ugly smile as he looked at his bleeding face, but he spoke quietly and with a great affectation of politeness. He told him that he might go now. They would retain the mule, but they did not require his company any further.
The man obeyed, beginning to move stumblingly inthe direction of the zig-zag path, but Dyke barred his progress.
“No, not that way,” he said. “That’s the way we’re going ourselves. You would taint the air for us. You smell of garlic. That way, please”; and he pointed with the knife to the cliff.
The man, as if waking from his stupor, pleaded anxiously; the cliff was too steep, to attempt it meant certain death. But Dyke said no, he had examined it; any agile, fearless person could easily manage it.
“Besides, this is my fun. You fellows can’t have all the fun to yourself. I, too, like a joke—even a stale joke—the joke you’ve seen so often. Please tell your master how well I’ve learnt the trick of it”; and he pricked him lightly with the knife. “Now, skip—spring like a guanaco, dance like a mountain goat. Let the rocks echo to our laughter.”
It was dreadful to see. With clumsy antics, in a sullen rage and despair, the man retreated from the goading knife. Driven nearer and nearer to the edge of the cliff, he made strange abrupt pauses and capered heavily before moving nearer still; then, shrinking, recoiling, on the very brink he really danced.
Emmie called to Dyke—“Tony, don’t. Tony, don’t”; but at first he did not seem to hear her.
“Tony, stop,” she called again. “You are making me feel faint. I shall lose the mule.”
“Oh, all right,” said Dyke, grumblingly.
And he ceased to use the knife, and used his boot instead. The man crouched on all fours, lowered himself over the brink, hung by his hands, disappeared. Dyke stood there watching him, laughing at him, as he scrambled, fell, and rolled. About a hundred feet downhe seemed to stick fast; or fear prevented him from launching himself further. Dyke went to the mule, came back with the revolver. “Go on, you clumsy fool. Go on, or I’ll shoot.” The man looked upward, but disobeyed the order. “Go on, I tell you. Very well”; and Dyke fired—not at the man but near him. Immediately he went on again, fell, rolled, scrambled, and at last was gone.
Then Dyke and Emmie dined. It was a never-to-be-forgotten meal. They ate sparingly, feeling their internal cramps and pains melted by the warmth of a divinely gentle fire, and yet almost dreading that what gave back their lives might take them away again if they were not careful. Above all else, the wine seemed to restore their forces and set the blood flowing in their veins.
Dyke, dangling his legs over the abyss, talked gaily but philosophically.
“I oughtn’t to have let him go with his life. No, I really ought to have killed him, Emmie. But, then, I knew you wouldn’t like—And I never like to myself, either—if it can be avoided. Of course, I spotted at once that so poor a specimen as that couldn’t work alone—that he was just an understrapper.” And Dyke explained and apologized for the slight untruths that he had felt compelled to tell in regard to the money.“You can’t call that lying, Emmie. I never lie. I hate lies. That was mere poker talk. If he had known I had it, and I hadn’t been nippy enough to down him first, he’d have sent a bullet through me and you too. I thought it all out while he was riding up to us—in fact, the moment I guessed he was one of the gang. If I was to spare his life, I must conceal the money, or he’d tell the others. He hasn’t anything to tell them now.” Dyke chuckled as he said this. “And it’ll take him some time to get home.”
It was past noon. Emmie mounted, and Dyke led the mule. Thus they proceeded very comfortably, encountering no difficulties, on a track that grew plainer and more easy all the way. Before long they stopped and ate again. After another two hours they took another snack. Before the sun went down, they came in sight of what Dyke had been seeking. “There,” he said, pointing downward, “do you know what that means, Emmie? It means safety. Yes, safety at last.”
It was a base camp of the engineers—not the engineers of the railway, but those employed in relaying the underground telegraph cable. One saw two rows of sheds where the men slept, and, close by, something that might almost be called a house. This, as Dyke knew, was an inn that had been established there four years ago when the cable people first appeared in the hills. All round and about these buildings were scattered heaps of material, broken implements, balks of timber.
Dyke said that on the other side of it they would find the open road, only a mile away.
“So we shan’t want the mule any more. And in any case it’s just as well to leave him here, and save ourselves the bother of answering questions. But we’ll keep this”; and he took the revolver from the holster. “It might come in useful—even yet. One never knows. Where did our friend keep his cartridges? Ah, here we are.” He refilled the empty chamber of the revolver after extracting the spent case, and, laughing, drewEmmie’s attention to the fact that the weapon was of English make and Army Service pattern. “Where did the blackguard get it, Emmie? Between you and me and the post, people ought to be a lot more careful than they are in bringing fire-arms into these South American republics. Itpays, but I begin to think it isn’t really right.”
He stripped the mule of saddle and everything else, shook out a heap of hay for it to munch, and left it.
Some prowling dogs barked at them in timid fury as they stood at the inn door, but no watchful attendant came out to welcome them. The door was locked, and none of the engineering folk showed themselves in response to Dyke’s shouting. Then after a little while a man came round from the back of the house. He was a shambling, hang-dog sort of fellow, and he seemed afraid of his visitors. He said he could not possibly take them in; although it was true that the place had once been an inn, it was an inn no longer. The engineers had gone a week ago, taking all possible custom with them. He and his wife were ruined. Dyke said that he and the boy must spend the night there, and they would pay for their accommodation. Fearfully and unwillingly, the man opened the door, saying that they should settle the matter with his wife. Dyke followed him into the house. The wife proved to be a small, alert, brown woman, and obviously very much the better half of the firm. Of uncertain nationality, she jabbered French and Spanish alternately, sprinkling her discourse with a few English words also. She showed no fear, but she was as reluctant as her husband to perform an innkeeper’s task. She said there was no food, no drink, nothing. She urged the visitors toproceed on their journey. But Dyke made short work of her scruples, and ignoring her inhospitable manner, promised to pay her well. She said then that if they insisted, they must have their way. “We are all alone here, my husband and I. We are very helpless. Often we are forced to do what we are told, whether we like it or not.” As to food, she could give them coffee, bread, perhaps some cheese. Dyke said that this was enough.
The building consisted of three rooms: in the middle a public room, that they had already entered, and on each side a smaller room; one the guest-chamber, and the other used by the innkeepers as their kitchen and bed-room. Dyke took possession of the guest-chamber. For furniture it had a low truckle-bed, a small table, and some three-legged stools. The woman, bustling in and out, brought coffee cups, hung a metal lamp to a hook on the wall, and asked them innumerable questions, looking at them curiously with her quick little eyes.
While waiting for their coffee, Emmie lay down upon the bed, and immediately slept. Dyke strolled out of the house, walked all about, and presently went into the kitchen and talked to the man as well as to the woman. In his turn he asked questions. He asked if by chance they were expecting any other visitors. The woman said no, certainly not. Who should ever come here now that the engineers had gone? Then he asked if, since the engineers left a week ago, anybody at all had been there. They both said no, not a soul. Had there been any passers-by? No. Were they sure that they had not seen any horsemen—one horseman—or a farmer on a mule? No.
He went then and stood at the open doorway, lookingacross at the vacated sheds and the refuse of timber and iron. The night had now fallen, thinly and greyly, more than dusk, and yet much less than darkness, so that one could see all salient objects, even at a little distance away. Dyke stood there, noticing everything, thinking about everything. He did not feel easy in his mind. There was something very suspicious, if not quite inexplicable, about this inn and its landlords. He did not want to make any more mistakes. Emmie was in sore need of a night’s rest. He was keenly anxious that she should get it. But he thought now that perhaps it might be wiser to forsake the comfort of a bed, and, pushing on farther, sleep in the open by the roadside. Should they drink their coffee and go?
The woman came out of the kitchen, and passing through the room behind him, said that the coffee was ready. She took it in to the guest-chamber, but he did not follow her. He remained in the doorway. He was doing more than looking out now; he was listening.
In the guest-chamber, the landlady set down the steaming pot of coffee, and, bright-eyed, jabbering, quick-moving, called to Emmie on the bed. Emmie raised herself, sat up, stretched her arms; and the woman, who had sidled close, with an action as quick and sudden as that of an animal, slid a brown hand into the opening of Emmie’s coat, and felt her bosom. Then swiftly she stepped back and laughed. “Yes, a woman! I thought so”; and as Emmie rose, angry and disgusted, she laughed again, and with darting hand gave her a playful pat behind. “Yes, a woman all over.” And roguishly nodding her head, she bustled from the room.
Dyke at the doorway, listening intently, had fanciedthat he heard a sound of horses’ hoofs, but it was gone again, and he thought, “Yes, but the ground looked almost like a meadow beyond those sheds—smooth and stoneless.” Then he heard the sound close and near, and almost immediately saw two horsemen riding towards the door. They came on until he could see them distinctly—two men in cloaks and sombrero hats, riding small mettlesome horses. He drew back and watched them. It was too late for him and Emmie to get away now; and, as he guessed, they were in a peril greater than any they had met in the mountains.
The two men did not immediately enter the house. The innkeeper came from the kitchen with a lantern, and, after tying their horses to posts near the door, they walked away with him talking. They seemed to be waiting for something. Then more men arrived, perhaps ten or a dozen, all mounted, but on mules, not horses. These bestowed themselves and their animals in the empty sheds. The light from the lantern, carried now by one of the horsemen, showed them fitfully—as an ugly lot. Orders were asked for by some of them and instructions given by the man with the lantern. He said they would move from here at two in the morning, and they could sleep till then.
Who were they? Dyke without difficulty guessed; and he wondered if one of their crowd, a man with torn clothes and a broken face, had yet joined them. The nature of their attitude to himself might be affected by the presence of that stupid swine. Why were they here and upon what errand were they engaged? Planning to pounce at daybreak on some carefully tracked booty—a pack train, a government consignment of gold mail bearers, something weak and defenceless that theycould surprise and overpower? Dyke did not tax his brain. They were here. That was what concerned him.
He went back to the inner room. Emmie had drunk her coffee and was again sleeping on the bed. He did not disturb her. The oil lamp burning on the wall showed him the disconsolate bareness of the room; the one window high against the ceiling was too small for anybody to get through, even at a pinch; there was no way of leaving the room except by passing through the public room. He picked up one of the clumsy three-legged stools, and looked at it reflectively. Then he put it down, sat on it, and continued to meditate. Yes, let Emmie sleep. There was not anything to be done—certainly not anything until those fellows in the sheds had had time to settle down to their slumbers. They were to move on at two—that was the order. At two they would begin to stalk their game; after two they would be busy; till two they were free. Then the longer one let them sleep, the nearer it came to two o’clock, the better chance one would have in any attempt to slip out of this undesirable company. He decided to postpone personal effort as long as he possibly could.
Those two horsemen came into the house, and were welcomed and made much of by the landlady. One had a gruff loud voice, the other spoke quietly, drawlingly. The drawling man called the other Martinez. The landlady was finding various food for them, although she had an empty larder for ordinary travellers, and there was talk of wine, their own wine, the wine that she had in keeping for them. They talked freely; but Dyke, listening with his door ajar, knew instinctively that they were aware that the inner room was occupied. The landlord, of course, had told them about his unexpectedguests. Then all at once the drawling man spoke of these wanderers, saying he would go in and see them presently. There was laughter—the man called Martinez laughing gruffly and the woman shrilly. Then the voices ceased, and Dyke understood that all three of them had gone into the kitchen and that they were still talking of him out there.
They returned, and the woman came to the inner room to fetch the coffee-pot and cups.
“Good trade to-night,” said Dyke, smiling at her. “Plenty of custom all of a sudden. That’s fine for you.”
“One never knows,” she said, darting her eyes here and there. “People come and they go. Strange people sometimes—like you two”; and glancing at the recumbent figure on the bed, she gave a short shrill laugh. Then she stooped towards him and spoke in a low voice. “Don’t trouble them until they trouble you. Perhaps they will leave you alone.”