The Jungle Trail/Chapter 6

RAY FELIPE replaced the section of log in the wall so that it fitted perfectly; and then he, who had been playing the man the last few minutes, became the priest again, and turned slowly toward the table.

Batter it down, men!" he heard the officer shrieking outside. "Tear the hut to pieces!"

Fray Felipe made a light, and when it showed through the cracks in the sides of the hut there were exclamations outside, and presently the battering ceased.

"Open, fray!" came the command again.

Fray Felipe crossed the tiny room and removed the bar from the door and hurled it open. The light from many torches struck against him, and men with naked blades in their hands thrust him aside and plunged into the hut until it would hold no more, the governor's lieutenant and Pasqual Garabito leading them.

"How is this?" Fray Felipe demanded in a loud and stern voice. "You violate my poor dwelling at night, Señor Lieutenant, with weapons held ready as if for a foe? You care naught if you disturb a man at prayers?"

"We seek fugitives desired by his excellency," the lieutenant answered.

"And you expect to find such folk beneath my humble roof? There is but the one apartment to my dwelling, señor, and it is not so large but a clear-sighted man may penetrate the furthest corner of it with his eyes. Look your fill, and then tell me whether you can find fugitives here."

"Stand back! There is scant room!" the officer cried to his men; and his soldiers fell back, until only the lieutenant and Garabito and two guards were inside the hut.

Fray Felipe stood back against the wall looking at this scene, the smoke from the torches almost stilling him.

"Well! They seem not to be here!" the lieutenant exclaimed after he had glanced around the room.

"Are you a fool, señor?" Garabito cried. "Did we not see the native enter the hut before the light went out? Where, then, is the native we saw?"

"Where is the native?" the officer demanded of Fray Felipe, facing him now.

"There is no native here, señor," the fray replied.

"Any man with eyes can see that! Where did he go? What have you done with him?"

"Do you find any hiding-place in my poor hut?"

Garabito sprang forward angrily to within half a pace of the fray and glared into his eyes.

"Answer, fray, and do not evade!" he cried. "This is a serious business."

"I do not recognize any authority here to question except that of the officer," Felipe replied. "When he questions, I answer, and for none other."

"Well, then, have you seen our fugitives?" the lieutenant asked hotly.

"Their names, officer?"

"Bartolmeo Botello, and the Señorita Inez Malpartida."

"Indeed? And why are they fugitive, señor?"

Garabito rushed forward again. "Can you not see, lieutenant, that the fray but plays for time to let them escape?" he cried. "Have an immediate answer out of him, by the saints!"

"Answer me, fray!" the officer ordered. "You have seen them?"

"Si, señor!"

"Hah! Now we get at it!"

"Often have I seen them, señor. Señor Botello is an old friend of mine; and, as for the señorita, I have observed her in the plaza and at his excellency's residence—a fair and sweet young lady of whom—"

"No—no! Silence! Do not play longer with us! Have you seen them here—to-night?"

"Hah! That is your meaning, is it? Have I seen them here, and this very night?"

"Answer, dog!" Garabito shouted.

Fray Felipe's eyes suddenly blazed, and he took a step forward, almost at the point of turning from priest to man in a twinkling, and Garabito retreated across the room.

"I like not your words and manners, señor!" the fray said.

"Have done with this nonsense! And you, Señor Garabito, keep out of this!" the lieutenant ordered. "By the saints! It were duty enough to hunt down such people without having meddlers at my heels!"

"A meddler—I?" Garabito cried, stalking forward again.

Now Fray Felipe smiled as at two small boys quarreling, and raised one hand.

"It is not seemly to quarrel in a fray's poor hut, señores." he said. "If quarrel you must, repair to the plaza of Antigua, where there is ample room and a surgeon is near."

"The fray speaks truth! We quarrel, and so delay matters!" Garabito snouted. "At him again, lieutenant! Make him give us a proper answer!"

The lieutenant walked across the room again and stopped before the fray, his fists on his hips, to put the question direct.

But there came another interruption, for old Señor Malpartida rushed in at the door breathlessly, hurling common soldiers to right and left.

"Where is my daughter? You have found her?" he shouted.

"We are trying—"

"Trying? Dios! Can you do nothing but talk?" "Softly, señor. I am about to put a question to this fray."

Señor Malpartida sputtered his wrath and stepped back, and now the lieutenant faced Fray Felipe again, this time with hot determination in his manner.

"Answer me straight!" he ordered. "Have you seen the two I mentioned here to-night?"

"The two you mentioned here to-night, señor? Si! Often, in the plaza—"

"No, no, no! Silence, fray! You take a wrong meaning of my words. Have they been here to-night?"

"They have," Fray Felipe answered.

"Hah! How long since?"

Since what, señor?"

"Since they departed! May the saints blast you—"

"Señor! The saints are not to be mentioned in such tones. Surely your religious training—"

Garabito groaned and turned away, and old Señor Malpartida sputtered again.

"You've thrown him off the track once more!" Garabito screeched. "Let me at him!"

"Fray," said the lieutenant now, ignoring the others, "this is a very serious business. Evade no longer, but give me the direct answer. How long since they departed?"

"Not so very long," Fray Felipe answered.

"Tell me what you know of this matter."

"Hah! Now we get at it, Señor Lieutenant. They came to me through the jungle some time since, Señor Botello and the lady, Señorita Inez Malpartida, a comely and well-mannered—"

"Come to the point, fray!"

"Señor Botello's native guide had come before, telling me the story of the señor's arrest and trial. Wherefore, I allowed the señor and his lady to enter, and after a short time here they departed again with the native." "Why came they here? To get food and drink to carry with them on a journey?"

"They asked for neither food nor drink, officer; for, the native being in their company, they could not lack for those things in the wilderness."

"They said where they were going?"

"I believe the señor intimated it was his intention to go to De Balboa's camp on the shore of the Great South Sea."

"I knew it—I feared it!" Señor Malpartida cried. "I am disgraced! My daughter alone with that man!"

"You are not disgraced, señor," the stern voice of Fray Felipe rang out. "She has a right to be with Señor Botello."

"A right? A right, say you? How, in the name of all the saints, can you make that statement, fray?"

She has the right of every wife to be with her husband." "Her husband!"

Malpartida and Garabito and the lieutenant cried it in a breath.

"But yes, señores! Because they wished it. and because they said they would make the journey at any rate, I married them here in my hut but a few minutes ago."

"You—married them!" Malpartida gasped. "You—"

"Had I not the right?" Fray Felipe demanded. "I knew of no reason—"

"You must have known there was something irregular."

"Si—irregular, señor. But would you want me to let them take a long journey alone without being wedded?"

"You'll answer for this to the governor, fray!" Garabito declared furiously.

"That may be true—but not to you, señor. I fail to see where you enter this affair."

"I was betrothed to Señorita Inez."

"But not by her wish, señor. And you are a man unworthy—"

"Fray!"

"I repeat it, señor. The caballero who has besmirched his name by mistreating a native maid—"

"A falsehood! One of this Botello's falsehoods!" "I had it not from Señor Botello, but from the maid herself, who has not sense enough to make up a lie. Your falsehoods avail you naught with me, señor."

Now Señor Malpartida thrust Garabito aside and stepped up beside the lieutenant.

"We are wasting time," he complained. "Let us after them—let us take them into custody, that I may see my daughter incarcerated for the remainder of her life in some holy house, and this Señor Botello whipped like the cur he is!"

"Señor Malpartida, your new son-in-law is a clean, courageous, and dignified gentleman," Fray Felipe stated. "You should be proud to acknowledge him."

"Enough of this!" the lieutenant cried. "You married them, eh? Then it must have been done in the dark. We saw your light go out. We saw that native of Botello's enter here, and he has not departed."

"Then he must be here yet. Find him," the fray suggested.

The lieutenant went swiftly around the room again, thrusting his sword at the logs, and on the outside soldiers at his command walked around the hut, but could find no trace of the fugitives, nor could the native guides find a trail they had made leaving the place. Puzzled men reported so to their officer, and a puzzled lieutenant once more faced the fray.

"This is all you have to tell me?" he asked.

"It is all, señor. You know where to find me if his excellency wishes to interview me about this business."

"We are wasting time—wasting time!" old Malpartida shrieked. "Leave the fool fray to his hut! Back to Antigua and make up a force to pursue them! Get natives and track them down! Are we fools, to linger here longer?"

He rushed frantically through the door, tumbling the soldiers aside; and the lieutenant, thinking Malpartida spoke sense, ordered his men to collect and prepare to hasten back to the plaza. Señor Pasqual Garabito went forward, and now when he stood before Fray Felipe his countenance was white from anger.

"This has been your doing, fray!" he accused. "You are a near friend of this out-at-elbows Botello. You shall be made to suffer for performing this marriage and for casting insults upon me when there were other men present to hear. You—unworthy the holy robe that you wear!"

As he finished speaking he touched the robe—grasped it and jerked it as if to tear it away from Fray Felipe's shoulders. And then the fray became the man again.

His eyes blazed, he stood erect suddenly and straightened his shoulders, his two arms shot forward and his hands grasped the arms of Señor Garabito. He shook the cabellero as a terrier shakes a rat.

"Honorable caballero—you?" he cried. "Wrecker of girls' lives, gambler, wine-guzzler, court dandy, worthless shape of a man! The natives open their simple hearts to me, señor, and I, who have heard whisperings, say this—treason is neither creditable to a man nor a safe way to prolong his life!"

Garabito's face went ashen at the fray's words, and he grew limp in his adversary's arms as if all fight suddenly had been taken out of him. if it had not been before.

"Out—out of my poor house, which shelters only honest men!" the fray cried. "Think twice hereafter before you term me unworthy!"

He whirled Garabito around, conducted him swiftly to the door, and hurled the caballero sprawling far from the hut in the midst of a group of startled soldiers.

The door was slammed shut again; once more the heavy bar dropped into its place; Fray Felipe went to his knees in that fourth corner of the room, and asked pardon because for a time he had forgotten the cloth he wore and had succumbed to an unholy passion. The man had become the priest again!