Page:Amazing Stories Volume 01 Number 12.djvu/25

Rh “I'd thought of that. How do you know he did?”

“How! Dios Mio—everything the man has on is Cesare's. Cesare's clothes ! Cesare's shoes ! On his finger is Cesare's ring—the ring Cesare was saving to be garroted in!”

“I thought somehow he resembled Cesare,” nodded Pethwick, “and I knew it was not his face.”

“Ciertamente, not Cesare, but his murderer,” aspirated Pablo excitedly. “I saw this fellow behind this very boulder! This same fellow!”

Pethwick nodded in the sunlight, unaware that Pablo expected him to do anything. Indeed, the engineer was glad he had come out of the tent. Mr. Three's intelligence was oppressive. So now he stood breathing deeply, as if from some struggle. The cliffs, the sunshine, the river, the savor of the kitchen, almost made him doubt the existence in his tent of such a personage as Mr. Three from the Land of One. Where in Heaven's name was that land? Did there flourish over behind the Andes somewhere an unknown race of extraordinary arts and sciences who called themselves the First?

And there recurred to him his fancy that if such a nation existed, it must be an offshoot of the old Incan race. Perhaps fugitives flying before the old conquistadores found a haven in some spot and there had built up the most advanced civilization upon the face of the earth. The thought was utterly fantastic, and yet it was the only explanation of Mr. Three sitting there in the tent.

“Well?” said Pablo interrogatively.

The engineer came out of his reverie.

“Is that all you wanted to tell me?”

“All? Isn't that enough?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Aren't you going to do anything?” demanded Pablo. “He is an Indian. I thought when Indians killed any one the white men garroted them. Qwk! Like that!” He pinched his throat and made a disagreeable sound.

“What am I to do?” inquired Pethwick blankly. “Blessed Virgin! Does not the white man's law work in the Valley de Rio Infiernillo? I knock an old man on the head and barely save my neck. This cholo kills my good camarada, wears his clothes, steals the very ring Cesare meant to be garroted in, what happens to him? Why, he sits at the table with white men and plays! Ehue! A fine justice!”

The engineer hardly knew how to answer this. He stood looking at Pablo rather blankly. He felt sure an attempt to arrest Mr. Three would prove perilous indeed. On the other hand, Pablo's attitude demanded that Pethwick should act.

Isolated like this, Pethwick was the lone representative of the great Anglo-Saxon convention of justice. It is a strange convention that polices every clime and every tongue. Red, brown, black and yellow men refrain from violence because the white man says:

“Thou shalt not kill!”

Wherever a single unit of the white race is placed, that law inheres in him. Men of all colors come to him and say: “Murder has been done; now what will you do?”

And he must act.

He must deal out that strange Anglo-Saxon convention called justice, or he must die in the attempt.

That is what the white race means; it is what civilization means. It is not any one white man who has this power of judging and punishing; it is any white man. They are the knight-errants of the earth. Each one must fight, sit in judgment and administer justice to the best of his ability and conscience, so help him God.

It is the most amazing hegemony on the face of the earth, when one comes to think of it—and the most universally accepted.

Now Pablo was asking Pethwick an account of his stewardship.

Certainly the engineer did not think of the problem in just those terms. He was not conscious of his racial instinct. He thought, in rather loose American fashion, that since Pablo had put it up to him like this he would have to do something.

The Zambo began again.

“Look at what I did. I only knocked an old man on the head—”

Pethwick interrupted with a gesture:

“Pablo, get those handcuffs you and Cesare used to wear and bring 'em to the tent.”

“Si, señor,” hissed the half-breed gratefully.

Pethwick turned back toward the tent with thorough distaste for his commission. As he entered, Mr. Three glanced up with quizzical eyes and it suddenly flashed on the engineer with a sense of embarrassment that the man from One already knew what was in his thoughts.

HIS was soon proved. Mr. Three nodded his head smilingly.

“Yes,” he said, “Pablo is quite right. Here is the ring.”

He held up a hand and displayed an old silver ring engraved in the form of a snake.

M. Demetriovich glanced up at this extraordinary monologue.

“Then you did kill Cesare Ruano?” exclaimed the engineer. Mr. Three paused for a moment, then answered:

“Yes, I did. There is no use going through a long catechism. I may also add, I knew the emanations of radium would have some effect on the boy, Standifer, but I did not know what.”

The old savant stared at the man from One.

“Be careful what you say, Mr. Three. Your confession will place you in jeopardy of the law.”

“Then you maintain laws in this country,” observed Mr. Three. “What will be the nature of the instruction you will give me?”

“No instruction,” said Pethwick; “punishment.”

“A very antiquated custom. I should think anyone could see that criminals need instruction.”

At that moment Pablo appeared in the entrance with the manacles.

“This is hardly the time to enter into an abstract discussion of punishment, Mr. Three,” observed Pethwick brusquely. He held the manacles a moment a little self-consciously, then said, “You may consider yourself under arrest.”

To Pethwick's surprise, the man from One offered no resistance, but peaceably allowed himself to be chained to the chair in which he sat. He watched the procedure with faintly amused