"I am her friend," said Stormont bluntly.
"Ah," said Quintana, "then you shall persuade her to return to me thees packet of which Monsieur Clinch has rob me."
There was a short silence, then Quintana's voice again:
"I know thees packet is concel in thees house. Peaceably, if possible, I would recover my property.... If she refuse——"
Another pause.
"Well?" inquired Stormont, coolly.
"Ah! It is ver' painful to say. Alas, Señor Gendarme, I mus' have my property.... If she refuse, then I mus' sever one of her pretty fingers.... An' if she still refuse—I sever her pretty fingers, one by one, until——"
"You know what would happen toyou?" interrupted Stormont, in a voice that quivered in spite of himself.
"I take my chance. Señor Gendarme, she is within that room. If you are her frien', you shall advise her to return to me my property."
After another silence:
"Eve!" he called sharply.
She placed her lips to the door: "Yes, Jack."
He said: "There are five masked men out here who say that Clinch robbed them and they are here to recover their property.... Do you know anything about this?"
"I know they lie. My father is not a thief.... I havemy rifle and plenty of ammunition. I shall kill every man who enters this room."
For a moment nobody stirred or spoke. Then Quintana strode to the bolted door and struck it with the butt of his rifle.
"You, in there," he said in a menacing voice, "—you listen once tome! You open your door and come out. I give you one minute!" He struck the door again: "Oneminute, señorita!—or I cut from your frien', here, the hand from his right arm!"
There was a deathly silence. Then the sound of bolts. The door opened. Slowly the girl limped forward, still wearing the hunting jacket over her night-dress.
Quintana made her an elaborate and ironical bow, slouch hat in hand; another masked man took her rifle.
"Señorita," said Quintana with another sweep of his hat, "I ask pardon that I trouble you for my packet of which your father has rob me for ver' long time."
Slowly the girl lifted her blue eyes to Stormont. He was standing between two masked men. Their pistols were pressed slightly against his stomach.
Stormont reddened painfully:
"It was not for myself that I let you open your door," he said. "They would not have ventured to lay hands onme."
"Ah," said Quintana with a terrifying smile, "you would not have been the first gendarme who had—accorded me his hand!"
Two of the masked men laughed loudly.
Outside in the rag-weed patch, Smith rose, stole across the grass to the kitchen door and slipped inside.
"Now, señorita," said Quintana gaily, "my packet, if you please,—and we leave you to the caresses of your faithful gendarme,—who should thank God that he still possesses two good hands to fondle you! Alons! Come then! My packet!"
One of the masked men said: "Take her downstairs and lock her up somewhere or she'll shoot us from her window."
"Lead out that gendarme, too!" added Quintana, grasping Eve by the arm.
Down the stairs tramped the men, forcing their prisoners with them.
In the big kitchen the glare from the burning out-house fell dimly; the place was full of shadows.
"Now," said Quintana, "I take my property and my leave. Where is the packet hidden?"
She stood for a moment with drooping head, amid the sombre shadows, then, slowly, she drew the emblazoned morocco case from her breast pocket.
What followed occurred in the twinkling of an eye: for, as Quintana extended his arm to grasp the case, a hand snatched it, a masked figure sprang through the doorway, and ran toward the barn.
Somebody recognised the hat and red bandanna:
"Salzar!" he yelled. "Nick Salzar!"
"A traitor, by God!" shouted Quintana. Even before he had reached the door, his pistol flashed twice, deafening all in the semi-darkness, choking them with stifling fumes.
A masked man turned on Stormont, forcing him back into the pantry at pistol-point. Another man pushed Eve after him, slammed the pantry door and bolted it.
Through the iron bars of the pantry window, Stormontsaw a man, wearing a red bandanna tied under his eyes, run up and untie his horse and fling himself astride under a shower of bullets.
As he wheeled the horse and swung him into the clearing toward the foot of Star Pond, his seat and horsemanship were not to be mistaken.
He was gone, now, the gallop stretching into a dead run; and Quintana's men still following, shooting, hallooing in the starlight like a pack of leaping shapes from hell.
But Quintana had not followed far. When he had emptied his automatic he halted.
Something about the transaction suddenly checked his fury, stilled it, summoned his brain into action.
For a full minute he stood unstirring, every atom of intelligence in terrible concentration.
Presently he put his left hand into his pocket, fitted another clip to his pistol, turned on his heel and walked straight back to the house.
Between the two locked in the pantry not a word had passed. Stormont still peered out between the iron bars, striving to catch a glimpse of what was going on. Eve crouched at the pantry doors, her face in her hands, listening.
Suddenly she heard Quintana's step in the kitchen. Cautiously she turned the pantry key from inside.
Stormont heard her, and instantly came to her. At the same moment Quintana unbolted the door from the outside and tried to open it.
"Come out," he said coldly, "or it will not go well with you when my men return."
"You've got what you say is your property," replied. Stormont. "What do you want now?"
"I tell you what I want ver' damn quick. Who was he, thees man who rides with my property on your horse away? Eh? Because it was not Nick Salzar! No! Salzar can not ride thees way. No! Alors?"
"I can't tell you who he was," replied Stormont. "That's your affair, not ours."
"No? Ah! Ver' well, then. I shall tell you, Señor Flic! He was one ofyours. I understan'. It is a trap, a cheat—what you call aplant! Thees man who rode your horse he is disguise! Yes! He also is a gendarme! Yes! You think I let a gendarme rob me? I got you where I want you now. You shall write your gendarme frien' that he return to me my property,one day's time, or I send him by parcel post two nice, fresh-out right-hands—your sweetheart's and your own!"
Stormont drew Eve's head close to his:
"This man is blood mad or out of his mind! I'd better go out and take a chance at him before the others come back."
But the girl shook her head violently, caught him by the arm and drew him toward the mouth of the tile down which Clinch always emptied his hootch when the Dump was raided.
But now, it appeared that the tile which protruded from the cement floor was removable.
In silence she began to unscrew it, and he, seeing what she was trying to do, helped her.
Together they lifted the heavy tile and laid it on the floor.
"You open thees door!" shouted Quintana in a paroxysm of fury. "I give you one minute! Then, by God, I kill you both!"
Eve lifted a screen of wood through which the tile hadbeen set. Under it a black hole yawned. It was a tunnel made of three-foot aqueduct tiles; and it led straight into Star Pond, two hundred feet away.
Now, as she straightened up and looked silently at Stormont, they heard the trample of boots in the kitchen, voices, the bang of gun-stocks.
"Does that drain lead into the lake?" whispered Stormont.
She nodded.
"Will you follow me, Eve?"
She pushed him aside, indicating that he was to follow her.
As she stripped the hunting jacket from her, a hot colour swept her face. But she dropped on both knees, crept straight into the tile and slipped out of sight.
As she disappeared, Quintana shouted something in Portuguese, and fired at the lock.
With the smash of splintering wood in his ears, Stormont slid into the smooth tunnel.
In an instant he was shooting down a polished toboggan slide, and in another moment was under the icy water of Star Pond.
Shocked, blinded, fighting his way to the surface, he felt his spurred boots dragging at him like a ton of iron. Then to him came her helping hand.
"I can make it," he gasped.
But his clothing and his boots and the icy water began to tell on him in mid-lake.
Swimming without effort beside him, watching his every stroke, presently she sank a little and glided under him and a little ahead, so that his hands fell upon her shoulders.
He let them rest, so, aware now that it was no burden tosuch a swimmer. Supple and silent as a swimming otter, the girl slipped lithely through the chilled water, which washed his body to the nostrils and numbed his legs till he could scarcely move them.
And now, of a sudden, his feet touched gravel. He stumbled forward in the shadow of overhanging trees and saw her wading shoreward, a dripping, silvery shape on the shoal.
Then, as he staggered up to her, breathless, where she was standing on the pebbled shore, he saw her join both hands, cup-shape, and lift them to her lips.
And out of her mouth poured diamond, sapphire, and emerald in a dazzling stream,—and, among them, one great, flashing gem blazing in the starlight,—the Flaming Jewel!
Like a naiad of the lake she stood, white, slim, silent, the heaped gems glittering in her snowy hands, her face framed by the curling masses of her wet hair.
Then, slowly she turned her head to Stormont.
"These are what Quintana came for," she said. "Could you put them into your pocket?"
TWO miles beyond Clinch's Dump, Hal Smith pulled Stormont's horse to a walk. He was tremendously excited.
With naïve sincerity he believed that what he had done on the spur of the moment had been the only thing to do.
By snatching the Flaming Jewel from Quintana's very fingers he had diverted that vindictive bandit's fury from Eve, from Clinch, from Stormont, and had centred it upon himself.
More than that, he had sown the seeds of suspicion among Quintana's own people. They never could discover Salzar's body. Always they must believe that it was Nicolas Salzar and no other who so treacherously robbed them, and who rode away in a rain of bullets, shaking the emblazoned morocco case above his masked head in triumph, derision and defiance.
At the recollection of what had happened, Hal Smith drew bridle, and, sitting his saddle there in the false dawn, threw back his handsome head and laughed until the fading stars overhead swam in his eyes through tears of sheerest mirth.
For he was still young enough to have had the time of his life. Nothing in the Great War had so thrilled him. For, inwhat had just happened, there was humour. There had been none in the Great Grim Drama.
Still, Smith began to realise that he had taken the long, long chance of the opportunist who rolls the bones with Death. He had kept his pledge to the little Grand Duchess. It was a clean job. It was even good drama——
The picturesque angle of the affair shook Hal Smith with renewed laughter. As a moving picture hero he thought himself the funniest thing on earth.
From the time he had poked a pistol against Sard's fat paunch, to this bullet-pelted ride for life, life had become one ridiculously exciting episode after another.
He had come through like the hero in a best-seller.... Lacking only a heroine.... If there had been any heroine it was Eve Strayer. Drama had gone wrong in that detail.... So perhaps, after all, it was real life he had been living and not drama. Drama, for the masses, must have a definite beginning and ending. Real life lacks the latter. In life nothing is finished. It is always a premature curtain which is yanked by that doddering old stage-hand, Johnny Death.
Smith sat his saddle, thinking, beginning to be sobered now by the inevitable reaction which follows excitement and mirth as relentlessly as care dogs the horseman.
He had had a fine time,—save for the horror of the Rocktrail.... He shuddered.... Anyway, at worst he had not shirked a clean deal in that ghastly game.... It was God's mercy that he was not lying where Salzar lay, ten feet—twenty—a hundred deep, perhaps—in immemorial slime——
He shook himself in his saddle as though to be rid of the creeping horror, and wiped his clammy face.
Now, in the false dawn, a blue-jay awoke somewhere among the oaks and filled the misty silence with harsh grace-notes.
Then reaction, setting in like a tide, stirred more sombre depths in the heart of this young man.
He thought of Riga; and of the Red Terror; of murder at noon-day, and outrage by night. He remembered his only encounter with a lovely child—once Grand Duchess of Esthonia—then a destitute refugee in silken rags.
What a day that had been.... Only one day and one evening.... And never had he been so near in love in all his life....
That one day and evening had been enough for her to confide to an American officer her entire life's history.... Enough for him to pledge himself to her service while life endured.... And if emotion had swept every atom of reason out of his youthful head, there in the turmoil and alarm—there in the terrified, riotous city jammed with refugees, reeking with disease, half frantic from famine and the filthy, rising flood of war—if really it all had been merely romantic impulse, ardour born of overwrought sentimentalism, nevertheless, what he had pledged that day to a little Grand Duchess in rags, he had fulfilled to the letter within the hour.
As the false dawn began to fade, he loosened hunting coat and cartridge sling, drew from his shirt-bosom the morocco case.
It bore the arms and crest of the Grand Duchess Theodorica of Esthonia.
His fingers trembled slightly as he pressed the jewelled spring. It opened on an empty casket.
In the sudden shock of horror and astonishment, his convulsive clutch on the spring started a tiny bell ringing. Then, under his very nose, the empty tray slid aside revealing another tray underneath, set solidly with brilliants. A rainbow glitter streamed from the unset gems in the silken tray. Like an incredulous child he touched them. They were magnificently real.
In the centre lay blazing the great Erosite gem,—the Flaming Jewel itself. Priceless diamonds, sapphires, emeralds ringed it. In his hands he held nearly four millions of dollars.
Gingerly he balanced the emblazoned case, fascinated. Then he replaced the empty tray, closed the box, thrust it into the bosom of his flannel shirt and buttoned it in.
Now there was little more for this excited young man to do. He was through with Clinch. Hal Smith, hold-up man and dish-washer at Clinch's Dump, had ended his career. The time had now arrived for him to vanish and make room for James Darragh.
Because there still remained a very agreeable rôle for Darragh to play. And he meant to eat it up—as Broadway has it.
For by this time the Grand Duchess of Esthonia—Ricca, as she was called by her companion, Valentine, the pretty Countess Orloff-Strelwitz—must have arrived in New York.
At the big hunting lodge of the late Henry Harrod—now inherited by Darragh—there might be a letter—perhaps a telegram—the cue for Hal Smith to vanish and for James Darragh to enter, play his brief but glittering part, and——
Darragh's sequence of pleasing meditations halted abruptly.... To walk out of the life of the little Grand Duchess did not seem to suit his ideas—indefinite and hazy as they were, so far.
He lifted the bridle from the horse's neck, divided curb and snaffle thoughtfully, touched the splendid animal with heel and knee.
As he cantered on into the wide forest road that led to his late uncle's abode, curiosity led him to wheel into a narrower trail running east along Star Pond, and from whence he could take a farewell view of Clinch's Dump.
He smiled to think of Eve and Stormont there together, and now in safety behind bolted doors and shutters.
He grinned to think of Quintana and his precious crew, blood-crazy, baffled, probably already distrusting one another, yet running wild through the night like starving wolves galloping at hazard across a famine-stricken waste.
"Only wait till Stormont makes his report," he thought, grinning more broadly still. "Every State Trooper north of Albany will be after Señor Quintana. Some hunting! And, if he could understand, Mike Clinch might thank his stars that what I've done this night has saved him his skin and Eve a broken heart!"
He drew his horse to a walk, now, for the path began to run closer to Star Pond, skirting the pebbled shallows in the open just ahead.
Alders still concealed the house across the lake, but the trail was already coming out into the starlight.
Suddenly his horse stopped short, trembling, its ears pricked forward.
Darragh sat listening intently for a moment. Thenwith infinite caution, he leaned over the cantle and gently parted the alders.
On the pebbled beach, full in the starlight, stood two figures, one white and slim, the other dark.
The arm of the dark figure clasped the waist of the white and slender one.
Evidently they had heard his horse, for they stood motionless, looking directly at the alders behind which his horse had halted.
To turn might mean a shot in the back as far as Darragh knew. He was still masked with Salzar's red bandanna. He raised his rifle, slid a cartridge into the breech, pressed his horse forward with a slight touch of heel and knee, and rode slowly out into the star-dusk.
What Stormont saw was a masked man, riding his own horse, with menacing rifle half lifted for a shot! What Eve Strayer thought she saw was too terrible for words. And before Stormont could prevent her she sprang in front of him, covering his body with her own.
At that the horseman tore off his red mask:
"Eve! Jack Stormont! What the devil are you doing overhere?"
Stormont walked slowly up to his own horse, laid one unsteady hand on its silky nose, kept it there while dusty, velvet lips mumbled and caressed his fingers.
"I knew it was a cavalryman," he said quietly. "I suspected you, Jim. It was the sort of crazy thing you were likely to do.... I don't ask you what you're up to, where you've been, what your plans may be. If you needed me you'd have told me.
"But I've got to have my horse for Eve. Her feet arewounded. She's in her night-dress and wringing wet. I've got to set her on my horse and try to take her through to Ghost Lake."
Darragh stared at Stormont, at the ghostly figure of the girl who had sunk down on the sand at the lake's edge. Then he scrambled out of the saddle and handed over the bridle.
"Quintana came back," said Stormont. "I hope to reckon with him some day.... I believe he came back to harm Eve.... We got out of the house.... We swam the lake.... I'd have gone under except for her——"
In his distress and overwhelming mortification, Darragh stood miserable, mute, irresolute.
Stormont seemed to understand: "What you did, Jim, was well meant," he said. "I understand. Eve will understand when I tell her. But that fellow Quintana is a devil. You can't draw a herring across any trail he follows. I tell you, Jim, this fellow Quintana is either blood-mad or just plain crazy. Somebody will have to put him out of the way. I'll do it if I ever find him."
"Yes.... Your people ought to do that.... Or, if you like, I'll volunteer.... I've a little business to transact in New York, first.... Jack, your tunic and breeches are soaked; I'll be glad to chip in something for Eve.... Wait a moment——"
He stepped into cover, drew the morocco box from his grey shirt, shoved it into his hip pocket.
Then he threw off his cartridge belt and hunting coat, pulled the grey shirt over his head and came out in his undershirt and breeches, with the other garments hanging over his arm.
"Give her these," he said. "She can button the coataround her waist for a skirt. She'd better go somewhere and get out of that soaking-wet night-dress——"
Eve, crouched on the sand, trying to wring out and twist up her drenched hair, looked up at Stormont as he came toward her holding out Darragh's dry clothing.
"You'd better do what you can with these," he said, trying to speak carelessly.... "Hesays you'd better chuck—what you're wearing——"
She nodded in flushed comprehension. Stormont walked back to his horse, his boots slopping water at every stride.
"I don't know any place nearer than Ghost Lake Inn," he said ... "except Harrod's."
"That's where we're going, Jack," said Darragh cheerfully.
"That'syourplace, isn't it?"
"It is. But I don't want Eve to know it.... I think it better she should not know me except as Hal Smith—for the present, anyway. You'll see to that, won't you?"
"As you wish, Jim.... Only, if we go to your own house——"
"We're not going to the main house. She wouldn't, anyway. Clinch has taught that girl to hate the very name of Harrod—hate every foot of forest that the Harrod game keepers patrol. She wouldn't cross my threshold to save her life."
"I don't understand, but—it's all right—whateveryousay, Jim."
"I'll tell you the whole business some day. But where I'm going to take you now is into a brand new camp which I ordered built last spring. It's within a mile of the State Forest border. Eve won't know that it's Harrod property.I've a hatchery there and the State lets me have a man in exchange for free fry. When I get there I'll post my man.... It will be a roof for to-night, anyway, and breakfast in the morning, whenever you're ready."
"How far is it?"
"Only about three miles east of here."
"That's the thing to do, then," said Stormont bluntly.
He dropped one sopping-wet sleeve over his horse's neck, taking care not to touch the saddle. He was thinking of the handful of gems in his pocket; and he wondered why Darragh had said nothing about the empty case for which he had so recklessly risked his life.
What this whole business was about Stormont had no notion. But he knew Darragh. That was sufficient to leave him tranquil, and perfectly certain that whatever Darragh was doing must be the right thing to do.
Yet—Eve had swum Star Pond with her mouth filled with jewels.
When she had handed the morocco box to Quintana, Stormont now realised that she must have played her last card on the utterly desperate chance that Quintana might go away without examining the case.
Evidently she had emptied the case before she left her room. He recollected that, during all that followed, Eve had not uttered a single word. He knew why, now. How could she speak with her mouth full of diamonds?
A slight sound from the shore caused him to turn. Eve was coming toward him in the dusk, moving painfully on her wounded feet. Darragh's flannel shirt and his hunting coat buttoned around her slender waist clothed her.
The next instant he was beside her, lifting her in both arms.
As he placed her in the saddle and adjusted one stirrup to her bandaged foot, she turned and quietly thanked Darragh for the clothing.
"And that was a brave thing you did," she added, "—to risk your life for my father's property. Because the morocco case which you saved proved to be empty does not make what you did any the less loyal and gallant."
Darragh gazed at her, astounded; took the hand she stretched out to him; held it with a silly expression on his features.
"Hal Smith," she said with perceptible emotion, "I take back what I once said to you on Owl Marsh. No man is a real crook by nature who did what you have done. That is 'faithfulness unto death'—the supreme offer—loyalty——"
Her voice broke; she pressed Darragh's hand convulsively and her lip quivered.
Darragh, with the morocco case full of jewels buttoned into his hip pocket, stood motionless, mutely swallowing his amazement.
What in the world did this girl mean, talking about anemptycase?
But this was no time to unravel that sort of puzzle. He turned to Stormont who, as perplexed as he, had been listening in silence.
"Lead your horse forward," he said. "I know the trail. All you need do is to follow me." And, shouldering his rifle, he walked leisurely into the woods, the cartridge belt saggingen bandouliereacross his woollen undershirt.
When Stormont gently halted his horse it was dawn, and Eve, sagging against him with one arm around his neck, sat huddled up on her saddle fast asleep.
In a birch woods, on the eastern slope of the divide, stood the log camp, dimly visible in the silvery light of early morning.
Darragh, cautioning Stormont with a slight gesture, went forward, mounted the rustic veranda, and knocked at a lighted window.
A man, already dressed, came and peered out at him, then hurried to open the door.
"I didn't know you, Captain Darragh——"he began, but fell silent under the warning gesture that checked him.
"I've a guest outside. She's Clinch's step-daughter, Eve Strayer. She knows me by the name of Hal Smith. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir——"
"Cutthatout, too. I'm Hal Smith to you, also. State Trooper Stormont is out there with Eve Strayer. He was a comrade of mine in Russia. I'm Hal Smith to him, by mutual agreement.Nowdo you get me, Ralph?"
"Sure, Hal. Go on; spit it out!"
They both grinned.
"You're a hootch runner," said Darragh. "This is your shack. The hatchery is only a blind. That's all you have to know, Ralph. So put that girl into my room and let her sleep till she wakes of her own accord.
"Stormont and I will take two of the guest-bunks in theL.And for heaven's sake make us some coffee when you make your own. But first come out and take the horse."
They went out together. Stormont lifted Eve out of the saddle. She did not wake. Darragh led the way into the log house and along a corridor to his own room.
"Turn down the sheets," whispered Stormont. And, when the bed was ready: "Can you get a bath towel, Jim?"
Darragh fetched one from the connecting bath-room.
"Wrap it around her wet hair," whispered Stormont. "Good heavens, I wish there were a woman here."
"I wish so too," said Darragh; "she's chilled to the bone. You'll have to wake her. She can't sleep in what she's wearing; it's almost as damp as her hair——"
He went to the closet and returned with a man's morning robe, as soft as fleece.
"Somehow or other she's got to get into that," he said.
There was a silence.
"Very well," said Stormont, reddening.... "If you'll step out I'll—manage...." He looked Darragh straight in the eyes: "I have asked her to marry me," he said.
When Stormont came out a great fire of birch-logs was blazing in the living-room, and Darragh stood there, his elbow on the rough stone mantel-shelf.
Stormont came straight to the fire and set one spurred boot on the fender.
"She's warm and dry and sound asleep," he said. "I'll wake her again if you think she ought to swallow something hot."
At that moment the fish-culturist came in with a pot of steaming coffee.
"This is my friend, Ralph Wier," said Darragh. "I think you'd better give Eve a cup of coffee." And, to Wier,"Fill a couple of hot water bags, old chap. We don't want any pneumonia in this house."
When breakfast was ready Eve once more lay asleep with a slight dew of perspiration on her brow.
Darragh was half starved: Stormont ate little. Neither spoke at all until, satisfied, they rose, ready for sleep.
At the door of his room Stormont took Darragh's offered hand, understanding what it implied:
"Thanks, Jim.... Hers is the loveliest character I have ever known.... If I weren't as poor as a homeless dog I'd marry her to-morrow.... I'll do it anyway, I think.... Ican'tlet her go back to Clinch's Dump!"
"After all," said Darragh, smiling, "if it's only money that worries you, why not talk about a job tome!"
Stormont flushed heavily: "That's rather wonderful of you, Jim——"
"Why? You're the best officer I had. Why the devil did you go into the Constabulary without talking to me?"
Stormont's upper lip seemed inclined to twitch but he controlled it and scowled at space.
"Go to bed, you darned fool," said Darragh, carelessly. "You'll find dry things ready. Ralph will take care of your uniform and boots."
Then he went into his own quarters to read two letters which, conforming to arrangements made with Mrs. Ray the day he had robbed Emanuel Sard, were to be sent to Trout Lodge to await his arrival.
Both, written from the Ritz, bore the date of the day before: the first he opened was from the Countess Orloff-Strelwitz:
"Dear Captain Darragh,"—You are so wonderful! Your messenger, with thetenthousand dollars which you say you already have recovered from those miscreants who robbed Ricca, came aboard our ship before we landed. It was a godsend; we were nearly penniless,—and oh,soshabby!"Instantly, my friend, we shopped, Ricca and I. Fifth Avenue enchanted us. All misery was forgotten in the magic of that paradise for women."Yet, spendthrifts that we naturally are, we were not silly enough to be extravagant. Ricca was wild for American sport-clothes. I, also. Yet—onlytwogowns apiece, excepting our sport clothes. And other necessaries. Don't you think we were economical?""Furthermore, dear Captain Darragh, we are hastening to follow your instructions. We are leaving to-day for your château in the wonderful forest, of which you told us that never-to-be-forgotten day in Riga."Your agent is politeness, consideration and kindness itself. We have our accommodations. We leave New York at midnight."Ricca is so excited that it is difficult for her to restrain her happiness. God knows the child has seen enough unhappiness to quench the gaiety of anybody!"Well, all things end. Even tears. Even the Red Terror shall pass from our beloved Russia. For, after all, Monsieur, God still lives."Valentine.""P. S. Ricca has written to you. I have read the letter. I have let it go uncensored."
"Dear Captain Darragh,
"—You are so wonderful! Your messenger, with thetenthousand dollars which you say you already have recovered from those miscreants who robbed Ricca, came aboard our ship before we landed. It was a godsend; we were nearly penniless,—and oh,soshabby!
"Instantly, my friend, we shopped, Ricca and I. Fifth Avenue enchanted us. All misery was forgotten in the magic of that paradise for women.
"Yet, spendthrifts that we naturally are, we were not silly enough to be extravagant. Ricca was wild for American sport-clothes. I, also. Yet—onlytwogowns apiece, excepting our sport clothes. And other necessaries. Don't you think we were economical?"
"Furthermore, dear Captain Darragh, we are hastening to follow your instructions. We are leaving to-day for your château in the wonderful forest, of which you told us that never-to-be-forgotten day in Riga.
"Your agent is politeness, consideration and kindness itself. We have our accommodations. We leave New York at midnight.
"Ricca is so excited that it is difficult for her to restrain her happiness. God knows the child has seen enough unhappiness to quench the gaiety of anybody!
"Well, all things end. Even tears. Even the Red Terror shall pass from our beloved Russia. For, after all, Monsieur, God still lives.
"Valentine."
"P. S. Ricca has written to you. I have read the letter. I have let it go uncensored."
Darragh went to the door of his room:
"Ralph! Ralph!" he called. And, when Wier hurriedly appeared:
"What time does the midnight train from New York get into Five Lakes?"
"A little before nine——"
"You can make it in the flivver, can't you?"
"Yes, if I startnow."
"All right. Two ladies. You're to bring them to thehouse, nothere. Mrs. Ray knows about them. And—get back here as soon as you can."
He closed his door again, sat down on the bed and opened the other letter. His hand shook as he unfolded it. He was so scared and excited that he could scarcely decipher the angular, girlish penmanship:
"To dear Captain Darragh, our champion and friend—"It is difficult for me, Monsieur, to express my happiness and my deep gratitude in the so cold formality of the written page."Alas, sir, it will be still more difficult to find words for it when again I have the happiness of greeting you in proper person."Valentine has told you everything, she warns me, and I am, therefore, somewhat at a loss to know what I should write to you."Yet, I know very well what I would write if I dare. It is this: that I wish you to know—although it may not pass the censor—that I am most impatient to see you, Monsieur.Notbecause of kindness past, nor with an unworthy expectation of benefits to come. But because of friendship,—the deepest, sincerest of mywhole life."Is it not modest of a young girl to say this? Yes, surely all the world which was onceen régle, formal, artificial, has been burnt out of our hearts by this so frightful calamity which has overwhelmed the world with fire and blood."If ever on earth there was a time when we might venture to express with candour what is hidden within our minds and hearts, it would seem, Monsieur, that the time is now."True, I have known you only for one day and one evening. Yet, what happened to the world in that brief space of time—and to us, Monsieur—broughtustogether as though our meeting were but a blessed reunion after the happy intimacy of many years.... I speak, Monsieur, for myself. May I hope that I speak, also, for you?"With a heart too full to thank you, and with expectations indescribable—but with courage, always, for any event,—I take my leave of you at the foot of this page. Like death—I trust—my adieu is not the end, but the beginning. It is not farewell; it is a greeting to himwhom I most honour in all the world.... And would willingly obey if he shall command. And otherwise—allelse that in his mind—and heart—he might desire."Theodorica."
"To dear Captain Darragh, our champion and friend—
"It is difficult for me, Monsieur, to express my happiness and my deep gratitude in the so cold formality of the written page.
"Alas, sir, it will be still more difficult to find words for it when again I have the happiness of greeting you in proper person.
"Valentine has told you everything, she warns me, and I am, therefore, somewhat at a loss to know what I should write to you.
"Yet, I know very well what I would write if I dare. It is this: that I wish you to know—although it may not pass the censor—that I am most impatient to see you, Monsieur.Notbecause of kindness past, nor with an unworthy expectation of benefits to come. But because of friendship,—the deepest, sincerest of mywhole life.
"Is it not modest of a young girl to say this? Yes, surely all the world which was onceen régle, formal, artificial, has been burnt out of our hearts by this so frightful calamity which has overwhelmed the world with fire and blood.
"If ever on earth there was a time when we might venture to express with candour what is hidden within our minds and hearts, it would seem, Monsieur, that the time is now.
"True, I have known you only for one day and one evening. Yet, what happened to the world in that brief space of time—and to us, Monsieur—broughtustogether as though our meeting were but a blessed reunion after the happy intimacy of many years.... I speak, Monsieur, for myself. May I hope that I speak, also, for you?
"With a heart too full to thank you, and with expectations indescribable—but with courage, always, for any event,—I take my leave of you at the foot of this page. Like death—I trust—my adieu is not the end, but the beginning. It is not farewell; it is a greeting to himwhom I most honour in all the world.... And would willingly obey if he shall command. And otherwise—allelse that in his mind—and heart—he might desire.
"Theodorica."
It was the most beautiful love-letter any man ever received in all the history of love.
And it had passed the censor.
It was afternoon when Darragh awoke in his bunk, stiff, sore, confused in mind and battered in body.
However, when he recollected where he was he got out of bed in a hurry and jerked aside the window curtains.
The day was magnificent; a sky of royal azure overhead, and everywhere the silver pillars of the birches supporting their splendid canopy of ochre, orange, and burnt-gold.
Wier, hearing him astir, came in.
"How long have you been back! Did you meet the ladies with your flivver?" demanded Darragh, impatiently.
"I got to Five Lakes station just as the train came in. The young ladies were the only passengers who got out. I waited to get their two steamer trunks and then I drove them to Harrod Place——"
"How did they seem, Ralph—worn-out—worried—ill?"
Wier laughed: "No, sir, they looked very pretty and lively to me. They seemed delighted to get here. They talked to each other in some foreign tongue—Russian, I should say—at least, it sounded like what we heard over in Siberia, Captain——"
"ItwasRussian.... You go on and tell me while I take another hot bath!——"
Wier followed him into the bath-room and vaulted to a seat on the deep set window-sill:
"—When they weren't talking Russian and laughing they talked to me and admired the woods and mountains. I had to tell them everything—they wanted to see buffalo and Indians. And when I told them there weren't any, enquired for bears and panthers.
"We saw two deer on the Scaur, and a woodchuck near the house; I thought they'd jump out of the flivver——"
He began to laugh at the recollection: "No, sir, they didn't act tired and sad; they said they were crazy to get into their knickerbockers and go to look for you——"
"Where did you say I was?" asked Darragh, drying himself vigorously.
"Out in the woods, somewhere. The last I saw of them, Mrs. Ray had their hand-bags and Jerry and Tom were shouldering their trunks."
"I'm going up there right away," interrupted Darragh excitedly. "—Good heavens, Ralph, I haven't any clothes here, have I?"
"No, sir. But those you wore last night are dry——"
"Confound it! I meant to send some decent clothes here——All right; get me those duds I wore yesterday—and a bite to eat! I'm in a hurry, Ralph——"
He ate while dressing, disgustedly arraying himself in the grey shirt, breeches, and laced boots which weather, water, rock, and brier had not improved.
In a pathetic attempt to spruce up, he knotted the red bandanna around his neck and pinched Salzar's slouch hat into a peak.
"I look like a hootch-running Wop," he said. "Maybe I can get into the house before I meet the ladies——"
"You look like one of Clinch's bums," remarked Wier with native honesty.
Darragh, chagrined, went to his bunk, pulled the morocco case from under the pillow, and shoved it into the bosom of his flannel shirt.
"That's the main thing anyway," he thought. Then, turning to Wier, he asked whether Eve and Stormont had awakened.
It appeared that Trooper Stormont had saddled up and cantered away shortly after sunrise, leaving word that he must hunt up his comrade, Trooper Lannis, at Ghost Lake.
"They're coming back this evening," added Wier. "He asked you to look out for Clinch's step-daughter."
"She's all right here. Can't you keep an eye on her, Ralph?"
"I'm stripping trout, sir. I'll be around here to cook dinner for her when she wakes up."
Darragh glanced across the brook at the hatchery. It was only a few yards away. He nodded and started for the veranda:
"That'll be all right," he said. "Nobody is coming here to bother her.... And don't let her leave, Ralph, till I get back——"
"Very well, sir. But suppose she takes it into her head to leave——"
Darragh called back, gaily: "She can't: she hasn't any clothes!" And away he strode in the gorgeous sunshine of a magnificent autumn day, all the clean and vigorous youthof him afire in anticipation of a reunion which the letter from his lady-love had transfigured into a tryst.
For, in that amazing courtship of a single day, he never dreamed that he had won the heart of that sad, white-faced, hungry child in rags—silken tatters still stained with the blood of massacre,—the very soles of her shoes still charred by the embers of her own home.
Yet, that is what must have happened in a single day and evening. Life passes swiftly during such periods. Minutes lengthen into days; hours into years. The soul finds itself.
Then mind and heart become twin prophets,—clairvoyant concerning what hides behind the veil; comprehending with divine clair-audience what the Three Sisters whisper there—hearing even the whirr of the spindle—the very snipping of the Eternal Shears!
The soul finds itself; the mind knows itself; the heart perfectly understands.
He had not spoken to this young girl of love. The blood of friends and servants was still rusty on her skirt's ragged hem.
Yet, that night, when at last in safety she had said good-bye to the man who had secured it for her, he knew that he was in love with her. And, at such crises, the veil that hides hearts becomes transparent.
At that instant he had seen and known. Afterward he had dared not believe that he had known.
But hers had been a purer courage.
As he strode on, the comprehension of her candour, her honesty, the sweet bravery that had conceived, created, andsent that letter, thrilled this young man until his heavy boots sprouted wings, and the trail he followed was but a path of rosy clouds over which he floated heavenward.
About half an hour later he came to his senses with a distinct shock.
Straight ahead of him on the trail, and coming directly toward him, moved a figure in knickers and belted tweed.
Flecked sunlight slanted on the stranger's cheek and burnished hair, dappling face and figure with moving, golden spots.
Instantly Darragh knew and trembled.
But Theodorica of Esthonia had known him only in his uniform.
As she came toward him, lovely in her lithe and rounded grace, only friendly curiosity gazed at him from her blue eyes.
Suddenly she knew him, went scarlet to her yellow hair, then white: and tried to speak—but had no control of the short, rosy upper lip which only quivered as he took her hands.
The forest was dead still around them save for the whisper of painted leaves sifting down from a sunlit vault above.
Finally she said in a ghost of a voice: "My—friend...."
"If you accept his friendship...."
"Friendship is to be shared.... Ours mingled—on that day.... Your share is—as much as pleases you."
"All you have to give me, then."
"Take it ... all I have...." Her blue eyes met his with a little effort. All courage is an effort.
Then that young man dropped on both knees at her feet and laid his lips to her soft hands.
In trembling silence she stood for a moment, then slowly sank on both knees to face him across their clasped hands.
So, in the gilded cathedral of the woods, pillared with silver, and azure-domed, the betrothal of these two was sealed with clasp and lip.
Awed, a little fearful, she looked into her lover's eyes with a gaze so chaste, so oblivious to all things earthly, that the still purity of her face seemed a sacrament, and he scarcely dared touch the childish lips she offered.
But when the sacrament of the kiss had been accomplished, she rested one hand on his shoulder and rose, and drew him with her.
Thenhismoment came: he drew the emblazoned case from his breast, opened it, and, in silence, laid it in her hands. The blaze of the jewels in the sunshine almost blinded them.
That washismoment.
The next moment was Quintana's.
Darragh hadn't a chance. Out of the bushes two pistols were thrust hard against his stomach. Quintana's face was behind them. He wore no mask, but the three men with him watched him over the edges of handkerchiefs,—over the sights of levelled rifles, too.
The youthful Grand Duchess had turned deadly white. One of Quintana's men took the morocco case from her hands and shoved her aside without ceremony.
Quintana leered at Darragh over his levelled weapons:
"My frien' Smith!" he exclaimed softly. "So it is you, then, who have twice try to rob me of my property!
"Ah! You recollec'? Yes? How you have rob me of a pacquet which contain only some chocolate?"
Darragh's face was burning with helpless rage.
"My frien', Smith," repeated Quintana, "do you recollec' what it was you say to me? Yes?... How often it is the onexpected which so usually happen? You are quite correc', l'ami Smith. It has happen."
He glanced at the open jewel box which one of the masked men held, then, like lightning, his sinister eyes focussed on Darragh.
"So," he said, "it was also you who rob me las' night of my property.... What you do to Nick Salzar, eh?"
"Killed him," said Darragh, dry lipped, nerved for death. "I ought to have killed you, too, when I had the chance. But—I'mwhite, you see."
At the insult flung into his face over the muzzles of his own pistols, Quintana burst into laughter.
"Ah! Youshouldhave shot me! You are quite right, my frien'. I mus' say you have behave ver' foolish."
He laughed again so hard that Darragh felt his pistols shaking against his body.
"So you have kill Nick Salzar, eh?" continued Quintana with perfect good humour. "My frien', I am oblige to you for what you do. You are surprise? Eh? It is ver' simple, my frien' Smith. What I want of a man who can be kill? Eh? Of what use is he to me? Voilà!"
He laughed, patted Darragh on the shoulder with one of his pistols.
"You, now—youcould be of use. Why? Because you are a better man than was Nick Salzar. He who kills is better than the dead."
Then, swiftly his dark features altered:
"My frien' Smith," he said, "I have come here for my property, not to kill. I have recover my property. Why shall I kill you? To say that I am a better man? Yes, perhaps. But also I should be oblige to say that also I am a fool. Yaas! A poor damfool."
Without shifting his eyes he made a motion with one pistol to his men. As they turned and entered the thicket, Quintana's intent gaze became murderous.
"If I mus' kill you I shall do so. Otherwise I have sufficient trouble to keep me from ennui. My frien', I am going home to enjoy my property. If you live or die it signifies nothing to me. No! Why, for the pleasure of killing you, should I bring your dirty gendarmes on my heels?"
He backed away to the edge of the thicket, venturing one swift and evil glance at the girl who stood as though dazed.
"Listen attentively," he said to Darragh. "One of my men remains hidden very near. He is a dead shot. His aim is at your—sweetheart's—body. You understan'?"
"Yes."
"Ver' well. You shall not go away for one hour time. After that——"he took off his slouch hat with a sweeping bow—"you may go to hell!"
Behind him the bushes parted, closed.
José Quintana had made his adieux.
WHEN at last José Quintana had secured what he had been after for years, his troubles really began.
In his pocket he had two million dollars worth of gems, including the Flaming Jewel.
But he was in the middle of a wilderness ringed in by hostile men, and obliged to rely for aid on a handful of the most desperate criminals in Europe.
Those openly hostile to him had a wide net spread around him—wide of mesh too, perhaps; and it was through a mesh he meant to wriggle, but the net was intact from Canada to New York.
Canadian police and secret agents held it on the north: this he had learned from Jake Kloon long since.
East, west and south he knew he had the troopers of the New York State Constabulary to deal with, and in addition every game warden and fire warden in the State Forests, a swarm of plain clothes men from the Metropolis, and the rural constabulary of every town along the edges of the vast reservation.
Just who was responsible for this enormous conspiracy to rob him of what he considered his own legitimate loot Quintana did not know.
Sard's attorney, Eddie Abrams, believed that the French police instigated it through agents of the United States Secret Service.
Of one thing Quintana was satisfied, Mike Clinch had nothing to do with stirring up the authorities. Law-breakers of his sort don't shout for the police or invoke State or Government aid.
As for the status of Darragh—or Hal Smith, as he supposed him to be—Quintana took him for what he seemed to be, a well-born young man gone wrong. Europe was full of that kind. To Quintana there was nothing suspicious about Hal Smith. On the contrary, his clever recklessness confirmed that polished bandit's opinion that Smith was a gentleman degenerated into a crook. It takes an educated imagination for a man to do what Smith had done to him. If the common crook has any imagination at all it never is educated.
Another matter worried José Quintana: he was not only short on provisions, but what remained was cached in Drowned Valley; and Mike Clinch and his men were guarding every outlet to that sinister region, excepting only the rocky and submerged trail by which he had made his exit.
That was annoying; it cut off provisions and liquor from Canada, for which he had arranged with Jake Kloon. For Kloon's hootch-runners now would be stopped by Clinch; and not one among them knew about the rocky trail in.
All these matters were disquieting enough: but what really and most deeply troubled Quintana was his knowledge of his own men.
He did not trust one among them. Of internationalcrookdom they were the cream. Not one of them but would have murdered his fellow if the loot were worth it and the chances of escape sufficient.
There was no loyalty to him, none to one another, no "honour among thieves"—and it was José Quintana who knew that only in romance such a thing existed.
No, he could not trust a single man. Only hope of plunder attached these marauders to him, and merely because he had education and imagination enough to provide what they wanted.
Anyone among them would murder and rob him if opportunity presented.
Now, how to keep his loot; how to get back to Europe with it, was the problem that confronted Quintana after robbing Darragh. And he determined to settle part of that question at once.
About five miles from Harrod Place, within a hundred rods of which he had held up Hal Smith, Quintana halted, seated himself on a rotting log, and waited until his men came up and gathered around him.
For a little while, in utter silence, his keen eyes travelled from one visage to the next, from Henri Picquet to Victor Georgiades, to Sanchez, to Sard. His intent scrutiny focussed on Sard; lingered.
If there were anybody he might trust, a little way, it would be Sard.
Then a polite, untroubled smile smoothed the pale, dark features of José Quintana:
"Bien, messieurs, the coup has been success. Yes? Ver' well; in turn, then, en accord with our custom, I shall dispose myse'f to listen to your good advice."
He looked at Henri Picquet, smiled and nodded invitation to speak.
Picquet shrugged: "For me, mon capitaine, eet ees ver' simple. We are five. Therefore, divide into five ze gems. After zat, each one for himself to make his way out——"
"Nick Salzar and Harry Beck are in the Drowned Valley," interrupted Quintana.
Picquet shrugged again; Sanchez laughed, saying: "If they are there it is their misfortune. Also, we others are in a hurry."
Picquet added: "Also five shares are sufficient division."
"It is propose, then, that we abandon our comrades Beck and Salzar to the rifle of Mike Clinch?"
"Why not?" demanded Georgiades sullenly;—"we shall have worse to face before we see the Place de l'Opéra."
"There remains, also, Eddie Abrams," remarked Quintana.
Crooks never betray their attorney. Everybody expressed a willingness to have the five shares of plunder properly assessed to satisfy the fee due to Mr. Abrams.
"Ver' well," nodded Quintana, "are you satisfy, messieurs, to divide an' disperse?"
Sard said, heavily, that they ought to stick together until they arrived in New York.
Sanchez sneered, accusing Sard of wanting a bodyguard to escort him to his own home. "In this accursed forest," he insisted, "five of us would attract attention where one alone, with sufficient stealth, can slip through into the open country."
"Two by two is better," said Picquet. "You, Sanchez, shall travel alone if you desire——"
"Divide the gems first," growled Georgiades, "and then let each do what pleases him."
"That," nodded Quintana, "is also my opinion. It is so settle. Attention!" Two pistols were in his hands as by magic. With a slight smile he laid them on the moss beside him.
He then spread a large white handkerchief flat on the ground; and, from his pockets, he poured out the glittering cascade. Yet, like a feeding panther, every sense remained alert to the slightest sound or movement elsewhere; and when Georgiades grunted from excess emotion, Quintana's right hand held a pistol before the grunt had ceased.
It was a serious business, this division of loot; every reckless visage reflected the strain of the situation.
Quintana, both pistols in his hands, looked down at the scintillating heap of jewels.
"I estimate two and one quartaire million of dollaires," he said simply. "It has been agree that I accep' for me the erosite gem known as The Flaming Jewel. In addition, messieurs, it has been agree that I accep' for myse'f one part in five of the remainder."
A fierce silence reigned. Every wolfish eye was on the leader. He smiled, rested his pair of pistols on either knee.
"Is there," he asked softly, "any gentleman who shall objec'?"
"Who," demanded Georgiades hoarsely, "is to divide for us?"
"It is for such purpose," explained Quintana suavely, "that my frien', Emanuel Sard, has arrive. Monsieur Sardis a brokaire of diamon's, as all know ver' well. Therefore, it shall be our frien' Sard who will divide for us what we have gain to-day by our—industry."
The savage tension broke with a laugh at the word chosen by Quintana to express their efforts of the morning.
Sard had been standing with one fat hand flat against the trunk of a tree. Now, at a nod from Quintana, he squatted down, and, with the same hand that had been resting against the tree, he spread out the pile of jewels into a flat layer.
As he began to divide this into five parts, still using the flat of his pudgy hand, something poked him lightly in the ribs. It was the muzzle of one of Quintana's pistols.
Sard, ghastly pale, looked up. His palm, sticky with balsam gum, quivered in Quintana's grasp.
"I was going to scrape it off," he gasped. "The tree was sticky——"
Quintana, with the muzzle of his pistol, detached half a dozen diamonds and rubies that clung to the gum on Mr. Sard's palm.
"Wash!" he said drily.
Sard, sweating with fear, washed his right hand with whiskey from his pocket-flask, and dried it for general inspection.
"My God," he protested tremulously, "it was accidental, gentlemen. Do you think I'd try to get away with anything like that——"
Quintana coolly shoved him aside and with the barrel of his pistol he pushed the flat pile of gems into five separate heaps. Only he and Georgiades knew that a magnificent diamond had been lodged in the muzzle of his pistol. Theeyes of the Greek flamed with rage at the trick, but he awaited the division before he should come to any conclusion.
Quintana coolly picked out The Flaming Jewel and pocketed it. Then, to each man he indicated the heap which was to be his portion.
A snarling wrangle instantly began, Sanchez objecting to rubies and demanding more emeralds, and Picquet complaining violently concerning the smallness of the diamonds allotted him.
Sard's trained eyes appraised every allotment. Without weighing, and, lacking time and paraphernalia for expert examination, he was inclined to think the division fair enough.
Quintana got to his feet lithely.
"For me," he said, "it is finish. With my frien' Sard I shall now depart. Messieurs, I embrace and salute you. A bientôt in Paris—if it be God's will! Donc—au revoir, les amis, et à la bonheur! Allons! Each for himself and gar' aux flics!"
Sard, seized with a sort of still terror, regarded Quintana with enormous eyes. Torn between dismay of being left alone in the wilderness, and a very natural fear of any single companion, he did not know what to say or do.
En masse, the gang were too distrustful of one another to unite on robbing any individual. But any individual might easily rob a companion when alone with him.
"Why—why can't we all go together," he stammered. "It is safer, surer——"
"I go with Quintana and you," interrupted Georgiades,smilingly; his mind on the diamond in the muzzle of Quintana's pistol.
"I do not invite you," said Quintana. "But come if it pleases you."
"I also prefer to come with you others," growled Sanchez. "To roam alone in this filthy forest does not suit me."
Picquet shrugged his shoulders, turned on his heel in silence. They watched him moving away all alone, eastward. When he had disappeared among the trees, Quintana looked inquiringly at the others.
"Eh, bien, non alors!" snarled Georgiades suddenly. "There are too many in your trupeau, mon capitaine. Bonne chance!"
He turned and started noisily in the direction taken by Picquet.
They watched him out of sight; listened to his careless trample after he was lost to view. When at length the last distant sound of his retreat had died away in the stillness, Quintana touched Sard with the point of his pistol.
"Go first," he said suavely.
"For God's sake, be a little careful of your gun——"
"I am, my dear frien'. It is ofyouI may become careless. You will mos' kin'ly face south, and you will be kin' sufficient to start immediate. Tha's what I mean.... I thank you.... Now, my frien', Sanchez! Tha's correc'! You shall follow my frien' Sard ver' close. Me, I march in the rear. So we shall pass to the eas' of thees Star Pon', then between the cross-road an' Ghos' Lake; an' then we shall repose; an' one of us, en vidette, shall discover if the Constabulary have patrol beyon'.... Allons! March!"