Money to Burn/Chapter 17

HEY joined the Carib.

“All is safe,” he whispered, and then ominously added: “So far.”

The three stole down the broad stairs. Before them the main hall lay, full of shadow. Anything might be hiding here, but the tall front door was open, and there a glare of sunlight outlined an oblong of the stone floor, baking it a bright yellow. Just so the peon must have left his post, in his haste of suspicion, to follow Dan.

The intervening space was brief, but the journey across it seemed to the fugitives to consume an interminable period. No guards, however, leaped from the darkness; no alarm shattered the stillness of the house. A few yards from that patch of yellow light, Luis gestured a command to pause.

Himself, he ran nimbly forward, stopped, and then, an inch at a time, thrust his head beyond the threshold. They saw him turn this way and that. They waited for a while breathless.

Would there be somebody in the patio? There must be! Stone felt more keenly than ever the folly of this attempt. They could not expect all the jailers of the hacienda to be as fast asleep by day as those warders spellbound by the good fairy when Prince Charming rescues his princess from the ogre's castle in the fairy tale.

“What time is it?” asked Gertruda.

Dan glanced at her in something close to annoyance. How could the hour matter? He wondered at the irrelevancy of this question from a woman who had lately shown herself so practical.

“Time?” he repeated.

“Yes. What time”

The Carib's swathed head had been drawn back. It turned its broken nose in their direction. “Again all safe.”

The girl sighed relief. “I thought so. It is the lucky hour of the siesta.”

“You mean they're napping?” asked the incredulous Dan.

“But of course, all except the guards, and everybody thinks this door guarded. They have all had a little bread and a great deal of wine, the peons, and so they now repose themselves. It is their right. It is the one right that they have; they could not live without it.”

Inwardly, Stone upbraided himself for his criticism of her. He was glad, even at such a crisis, that he had kept it silent.

“Hurry!” said Luis.

The admonition was unnecessary. They sped after him.

Not a creature was visible as they began to descend the widening flight of steps to the patio. Except for the ever-moving fernlike branches of a Pride of India tree in the farthest corner, scarce a leaf stirred in the noonday heat. Assured that his fellow was on duty somewhere just beyond the palacio's open door, a single guard sat asleep with his back against the trunk of a coconut palm. Don Ramon had reasonably built his reliance on the interior warders, and every one of the outside sentinels now relied, in tropical relaxation, upon the jungle as the best of secondary prison walls.

“He sleeps sound, that one,” grinned Luis.

“But we won't run any unnecessary risks,” Dan said. “Walk softly!”

They moved with caution down the top steps. Their footfalls roused no echoes.

“Muerte al traidor!”

A shriek. A shriek of terror, but a shriek as well—so those words seemed to Stone—admonitory. From inside the house it came, from the very corridor that still yawned but a few feet behind and above the escaping prisoners, a raucous voice that shattered the lazy quiet with this cry of haste and alarm. It was as if the doorway itself vomited the shout.

Dan wheeled. Nothing to be seen.

He turned again. He began to drag the girl down the steps for a frantic dash onward. All this in the smallest flash of time. As he laid hold of her, she looked up and smiled. She incredibly smiled!

“What” began Stone.

“It was Pedro,” said Luis and laid a reassuring hand on the American's arm.

“Pedro?”

“The parrot,” explained Gertruda, “my uncle's parrot.”

Dan drew a long breath, but though he arrested his pace, he was not wholly appeased. “It doesn't matter what it is if it wakens that guard.”

It did not waken the guard, however. The dozing sentinel, long familiar with the bird's noises, never budged from his repose at the foot of the palm.

The trio of fugitives stood still to convince themselves. The cry was not repeated. The tropical quiet had returned, the noon's suspense of all perceptible motion monotonously continued.

“Phew!” gasped Dan.

Straight down on their heads poured the molten sun. The courtyard clay, pounded hard by the bare feet of one generation of peons after another, was set aglow with the heat until it looked like a bed of living coal. The dancing air was incandescent; it burned the eyes. From human interference the fugitives might be immediately safe in the patio, but here and everywhere else where there was no shade, there lurked the deadly menace of the skies.

“We can't stand this,” Stone continued. “We'll never get anywhere on foot. We've got to get horses somehow.” He addressed Luis.

The Carib nodded. “But of a certainty, señor.”

He led them by a devious way around the house. They left the cleared space for a grateful shade, a slim path that plunged among rioting convolvulus, a tangle of spice and lemon trees.

“What's this?” asked Dan.

It was a rear approach to the hacienda's stables. Presently he saw their roofs just topping the foliage. The low buildings appeared to be deserted.

“Wait,” said Luis, and ran nimbly ahead.

They saw him creep into the stables by a back door. Dan drew Gertruda among the deepest shadows.

“If they're not empty”

“They will be.”

“But we haven't a minute to spare!”

The siesta concluded, Peña was sure soon to be missed and searched for by his fearful but faithful underlings. He would be found and released; pursuit would result, inevitably and swiftly. Dan and the girl waited in anxious silence, Gertruda outwardly calm but with a vivid flush upon her cheeks, her companion frankly chafing.

Two minutes passed—and no sound came from the stables.

Five minutes—the pawing of animals disturbed.

The rattle of harness—sounds, but no sign.

Then the rear door reopened. Luis appeared at last. He was mounted and drew two saddled horses after him, their bridles in his right hand.

“I have left nothing but mules in the stalls,” he said.

Almost at once, the party was riding slowly down the neglected avenue toward the hacienda's wall. Hurry was as yet dangerous, but as long as they moved at a walk the overgrown roadway deadened all sound of hoofs.

“The gate will be locked,” said Dan. “How are we going to manage that?”

The Carib smiled grimly. “Let me ride ahead,” said he. “The gate is my business.”

He dispatched it summarily. As they drew near, they saw the keeper sprawled under a clump of oleanders. Luis leaped from his horse, picked up a stone, vaulted hack into saddle and then threw his missile.

When Columbus found the Caribs, they were experts with the sling, and marksmanship is one of the few talents that centuries of degeneration have left them. That stone took the sleeping man full in the face. It was small and lightly thrown, but it wakened him.

He sat erect and rubbed his eyes.,

“Halt!” ordered Luis to his little company.

They all drew rein.

The gatekeeper blinked. He looked up. He looked at the gate. Then, still in quest of the source of the projectile, he glanced up the drive.

He saw them. He was an ugly fellow with a heavy scowl and an unduly large mouth. The stone had cut him slightly between the eye, and a trickle of blood ran down his nose. He sprang to his feet and whipped out a revolver.

Instantly, Luis clapped heels to his horse. The animal bounded forward. Before the weapon was fired, the Carib was upon its owner.

“Take this medicine!” he laughed. His machete flashed. “Una cucharada tres veces al dia!”

The keeper had leaped aside, but not far enough. The machete descended.

It was a brief but nasty business. The girl, realizing something of what was coming, had hidden her eyes. Even Stone did not care to look too closely. Luis searched the body and found what he sought—a key.

The escaping prisoners took the road to the village.