Money to Burn/Chapter 16

UIS, still bruised and weak from his master's manhandling, nevertheless was sufficiently recovered to be ready to follow—and to follow with an intelligence the lack of which he had bemoaned as his course in Villeta's service. He made sure that his lariat was fast about his waist; he ran lithely to a cupboard and brought forth two villainous-looking machetes. He rummaged in the buffet for bread and a bottle of wine, and from somewhere procured part of a ham which he slashed into thick slices, bundling the lot up in a cloth and fastening it at his side.

Meanwhile, Dan softly retraced his steps to that corridor down which he had so lately hurried. He went swiftly but warily, yet he met with no impediment, saw no one. So far as all this part of the great house was concerned, the usurping master's retainers, it now seemed, might have ridden away with him that morning. Whatever the racket of the fight with Peña, it had not reached the ears of the guards below.

A few hours since, Stone would have said that each one of those many doors in the long halls of the palacio resembled all the others, and he would have had no little difficulty in finding the one that he sought. But not now. The girl was waiting behind it, and the fact of her unseen presence there distinguished it from its fellows. Mistake was impossible.

Although no alarm had been given by his struggle, he hardly dared to knock. He bent to the broken lock and whispered.

“Señorita!”

She was expectant. She opened the door. “Is everything prepared?” She stood there like a flower that waits the rising sun.

“Less than it ought to be—but as much as possible. How about you?”

Every woman is definitely of two sorts: Either she is never ready—which is frequent—or else her celerity in anticipation outdistances that of the average man. When it is a question of dressing for the theater or a dance, she will let you wear out your shoes as they pace the reception room, but when there arises a real emergency, she is rarely found delaying—in the matter of clothes.

“Ready?” said the señorita. “But see!”

She stepped backward a pace. Dan could ill afford the time for inspection, but he ventured it.

However simply her jailers had furnished her room, they had brought her wardrobe with her and stowed it in that sixteenth-century armario. She was habited for the road, and her practical accouterments gave her a look absurdly youthful. He felt at first as if he were about to kidnap a child, but then his rapid gaze noted the black mantilla held in her white hands, symbol of the Spanish girl of marriageable age.

She followed his glance. Her lips curved into a twitching smile, yet her swiftly upraised arm showed, the next moment, that she realized something of the seriousness of their undertaking. Her face was as calm as a woodland pool, but it was also resolute.

There was a brief pause.

“Am I not ready?” she asked presently.

Dan caught his breath. She was lovely, and he was about to lead her into danger.

“We've got Peña tied up, but there are guards at most of the doors, you know. They're armed, and they must have orders not to let us pass. We think we can find one way out of the house that isn't watched, only then there'll be the patio and the outer defense to negotiate.”

She made a gesture that defied these things.

“That's all right,” said Stone, “and of course they won't want to hurt you if they can avoid it, those fellows down there. It'd be only Luis and me they'd aim for; they'd just try to recapture you. Still, they're bound to be careless with their guns, and in any mix-up”

“Let us go,” said the girl.

He looked meaningly into her black eyes. “You'll take the risk?”

She bowed a full and comprehending assent.

“It's some risk, you understand,” he still warned her.

The señorita advanced to him. She looked up into his face; she put a hand in both of his. “Anything—death—is better than remaining here. Let us lose no time. Let us go.”

He ran by her side to the room in which he had left Luis. The Carib, though fuming from impatience, displayed his preparations with a certain degree of simple pride.

“That's good,” Dan commended him.

“Take this,” said Luis. He shoved a machete into Stone's fist. “First I look ahead,” he added.

From the doorway Dan and Gertruda watched him as he tiptoed to the central staircase. He ran silently down it, reconnoitering. All but his head disappeared.

The girl pressed Stone's hand. “If I escape,” she gratefully whispered, “I shall owe it all to you.”

“And Luis,” Dan corrected.

“And Luis,” admitted Gertruda.

“And if you don't escape?” His voice shook at this repeated mention of her peril.

She smiled. “Then I shall be in no worse position than I was before.”

“But if—if I mean if you're hurt?”

“You mean if I am killed.” Her own tone was serenity itself. “Why not speak the word? If I were armed, I could force the issue. I could make it that they should never recapture me alive. As the affair stands, well, if I am killed by mere accident, how can it matter? Here I have been a prisoner, whereas the dead that die in the Lord, they are free.” She pressed his hand again. “Charge yourself with no crime against me, whatever may happen, señor. You risk much for me, and if my life is risked too, why that is at my request.”

He looked down at her. Above them rose the vaulted ceiling; behind them the long corridor stretched away, silent, empty. At their feet descended the wide staircase—the way perhaps to liberty, but certainly through jeopardy. Long he looked at her and she at him.

A low whistle interrupted them. Dan's glance shifted to the stairway. Luis was impatiently beckoning.

The American wanted to take this woman in his arms. He might never see her, after a few minutes hence, again. Surely she would forgive him if he told her now what he had come to know she meant to him. Her face was very close; her moist, red lips were parted. Surely

Again the whistle.

Dan released her. He turned to the stairs.

“Come!” he said.