Twenty-Four Hours/Chapter 10

EAN waited exactly ten minutes by her watch. Meanwhile she roughed her hair into wispy disorder. When the moving pointer reached the proper point on the dial she walked composedly to the office.

As she entered, Veinte Cuatro happened to be staring straight at the doorway, his eyes blank with thought. They focused at once on her, however, and automatically he arose. She paused within the door-frame, giving him a hesitant smile.

“General,” she said before he could speak, “I should like to go to the boat and get a few personal belongings. I know I look most unpresentable, and I do not like to remain so. But it would not be safe for me to walk alone among your men, would it?”

Cleverly phrased, that question. It aroused instantly his pride of control.

“Not safe? Señorita! You may walk unattended among the men of Federico Gordo without the slightest fear. Any man of mine who so much as speaks disrespectfully to you shall answer to me, and well they know it! Indeed you may go to the boat. But—” again gleamed the sudden twinkle under the bushy brows “—if you make yourself look more charming than at present, señorita, I fear that you will devastate my army!”

A merry laugh acknowledged his gallantry. She blushed a little, too, and for an instant her gaze dropped before his bold regard. Then she recovered her nonchalance.

“Then I warn you, sir, to prepare for devastation. You have seen me only at my very worst, and I intend to make radical changes at once. When I return, beware!” With another little laugh she turned and walked out.

He stood a few seconds looking at the empty doorway, the smile still in his eyes. All at once those eyes sharpened, as if with half-born suspicion. In three long strides he was at the outer door, watching her. She was swinging lithely away with head high, ignoring the men who squatted, sat, or stood along the street; a proud, cool figure, showing neither haste nor concern, nor once looking back. The men, most of them now full-fed and jovial, eyed her ardently, and more than one of them arose or turned as if meditating advances. But not one of them spoke. They glanced warily toward the door whence she had emerged, spied there the tall form and ominous face of their master, and were dumb. After she turned the corner—still without a backward look—Veinte Cuatro slowly returned to his treasure-table.

Even in the next street, beyond sight of the general, no man directly addressed the khaki-clad young woman, though a number of them exchanged broadly admiring remarks which made her color deepen. Nor did any one follow her. As Hart had predicted, the gang was temporarily on its best behavior. No man cared to have any complaint against him lodged with the ruthless general just now. So, unaccosted and unmolested, Jean passed to the boat.

“Just in time, girlie,” Hart welcomed her. “Have any difficulty?”

“No.” She glanced at the attentive Mendez. “He can't understand?”

“Not a word.”

“Well, I'm supposed to be obtaining personal effects and dolling up to devastate our mutual friend. And I told him I couldn't pass safely among his men, so he sent me alone to prove that I could. Now what do we do? Anything?”

“I'll say so,” affirmed Kelly. “We're goin' to devastate yer black gorilla quicker'n ye think, unless somethin' slips. Jest a little more flimflam work and we make a break. But don't let on.”

As he spoke he was lifting the top of a box seat beneath which, as he knew, she kept a travel set of toilet articles and other belongings; and, as if she had asked him to do so, he handed her the leather case. Seating herself insouciantly at the bow, she drew out mirror and comb, and, propping the glass at an angle, proceeded to arrange her hair. Mendez, hitherto watching faces and striving to interpret tones, smirked and relaxed, although he did not at once withdraw his attention from her. In fact, it took a peremptory summons from Hart to bring his mind back to the supposedly refractory ignition.

By this time the poker-faced partners had implanted in the brain of the spurious expert the idea that the mysterious “sweetch” was some sort of metal arrangement belonging at the top of the battery, the function of which was to diffuse electricity between the connecting wires; that without it the current would not flow unless, by some hook or crook, it could be coaxed to life; but that if the frozen power could be made to come alive, for even the veriest fraction of a second, it would run merrily thereafter. Ever since the arrival of the ostensible captain of the craft the pair had apparently been seeking some way of giving the necessary impulse to the circuit. Actually they had, while performing weird stunts about the battery, been laying out their plan of ensuing action, meanwhile turning an occasional misleading Spanish phrase in the direction of the lieutenant—who, looking wise, assented to all they said, but ventured no suggestions from his own profound experience. Now, while Mendez's observations oscillated between the ugly battery and the attractive Señorita, they kept up their pretense for a few minutes longer. The sentries, who had manifested extreme interest in the launch since the arrival of Jean, gradually relapsed into drowsiness.

All at once Hart straightened up, his face brightening as if a sudden solution had occurred to him.

“A hairpin, Jean,” he demanded. She tossed him one. He held it solemnly in the sun; touched it to the engine; held it in the sun again, and drew it along the wiring. As he took it away, Kelly surreptitiously threw over the switch. At the responding buzz both voiced exultant exclamations.

“One of those simple things of which a man seldom thinks,” Hart told the mystified Mendez. “No doubt you have heard of it, teniente, but forgotten it, as we did. The radioactivity of the sun and the electricity of the hair combine in a loop of wire to break up static.”

“Oh my Gawd!” breathed Kelly. “That's a hot one!”

“Uh—ah—why, yes, certainly, capitân! Stupid that we are! And now, vâlgame, at last the sweetch is in order, yes? And the boat will run?”

“I think so. But we had best make sure. We shall make_a test. Kelly, prime her.

ELLY worked with speed. Up the hill, men were beginning to come toward the port. Mendez, seeing the hurried priming of the engine, stiffened suspiciously, slipping a hand to his revolver; then, recalling that the boat was roped to the shore, hesitated. Up forward, with heart beating like a trip-hammer, Jean managed to continue her toilet with every appearance of unconcern. Hart, getting his hand on the steering-wheel, turned the rudder hard to starboard and held it so.

“You'll have to get this bird,” he said quietly. “I have to hang tight to the wheel—”

“I'll nail him.” With a grunt Kelly rocked the flywheel. The spark caught. The boat bucked sternwise. The rope snapped. Mendez, caught unready for the backward motion, tottered. Kelly lunged into him headfirst, seizing each wrist, butting him in the body, knocking him down and falling on him with crushing force. The launch sheered away from the bank.

“Down, Jean!” snapped Hart. She slid from seat to floor.

“Kick this guy!” panted Kelly. “Make it snappy!”

Hart shot a hard toe under the ear of Mendez, who went limp. Kelly released his wrists, disarmed him, and scrambled up.

“Stop it!” he bawled in Spanish. “Stop the engine! It is running backward! The boat will blow up! Maldito! We shall be killed!”

The yell was for the benefit of the astounded sentinels, whose rifles had automatically leaped up, but who stared along the barrels in indecision. They were so near that, if they did fire, they could hardly miss. Kelly, still bellowing, made show of yanking violently at the gear lever, without actually moving it at all. Jean, hugging the floor, took cue from his example and began screaming as if mortally afraid.

To the bewildered pickets, who had been unable to see the swift manhandling of their teniente in the bottom of the boat, everything indicated an unexpected calamity. The big Americano had sprung away from the engine in alarm and collided with the lieutenant, and both had lost their balance. The one-armed Americano was leaning helplessly on something. Everybody was scared, and the infernal boat was running crazily backward, going in a circle. All was happening so fast that they had no time to reason things out. The teniente was still aboard; he was armed, and was giving them no orders to shoot; and the execution of Luis and Rafael for shooting a stranger without orders was very vivid in their memories. Wherefore they stood as if petrified while the boat wheeled farther and farther outward.

Not until the launch had described a semicircle and was well away from shore did Kelly shift the gear or Hart alter the helm. Then, with her nose pointed seaward and the weight of the current on the stern, she darted away down the Orinoco, a speeding target hard for any rifleman to hit. And thereafter, while a mob came tearing down the hill and the paralyzed pickets still gaped, the three Americans gave their farewells in their varying ways.

Hart sat down comfortably and gave the town of Caicara a wide grin and a deep chuckle. Kelly put a thumb to his nose and wagged thick fingers at the running raiders. And Jean, arising and leaning over the side, blew a saucy kiss in the general direction of the headquarters of Federico Gordo, Spanish cavalier.

“Ta-ta, old dear!” she caroled.

And then, lying back with the wind rushing through her hair, she laughed in joyous abandon.

“Jest like takin' candy away from a kid, wasn't it, hey?” gurgled Kelly. “And all the kink's hosses and all the kink's men can't never catch up with us three again. Sure, I'm a pote. But what'll we do with this?” He nodded toward the supine Mendez. “It's kind of under foot, and we don't need it. Will we drop it overboard?”

“Oh, no,” dissented Hart. “Why be ungrateful? It would be tough on our old college chum back there to lose his expert engineer—especially since he's learned all about the radioactivity of hairpins. We'll chuck him ashore somewhere.”

ELLY guffawed; then abruptly fell silent, squinting back. Across the swash of dividing waves thumped a ragged volley of rifle-shots. Silvery spurts of water leaped up here and there astern. Too late, the raiders had opened fire. Among the forms bounding down the hillside was distinguishable one bigger than the rest, furiously jerking its arms on high as it ran and roared. Veinte Cuatro, the Black Ant who had forborne to bite when he could, now was clashing his jaws in deadly rage.

The trio in the boat tensed and crouched; then, as more bullets skittered astern, relaxed. They were out of range.

“Jest another o' them salutes that these guys seem so fond of,” grinned Kelly. “Too bad our rifles are back there, or we might give 'em many happy returns o' the day. But all we've got is this guy's popgun, and— Aw, wal, we're through with all that kind o' rough stuff, ain't we, Hart? Peaceable sailormen, that's us.”

With mocking flourishes of the hand they settled down to easy riding of the rollers. Steadily the town receded, soon to be blotted from sight by intervening trees.

Mendez opened his eyes, stared, staggered to his feet, and gaped around him; then slumped down on a seat and almost wept. His fate was sealed! These treacherous schemers would hand him over to some federal garrison! He could not swim, and even if he could the crocodiles would get him. There could be no escape. Woe, misery, despair!

When at length the boat headed shoreward again, stopped at an uninhabited spot, and gave him access to freedom, he was astonished; but his exit was accomplished with agility and alacrity. Once aground, he straightened into a semblance of his former importance, and the look he gave his captors and liberators was anything but pleasant. But he spoke never a word.

“Tell the general,” instructed Hart, “that we are desolated by the necessity of depriving him of his boat; but, as a man of experience, he must understand how important it is to our purpose. Tell him also that, because of our kindly feeling for him, we have removed the señorita before she could devastate the forces of liberty and justice. We thank him for his hospitality and wish him a fond reunion with his worthy brother. And while you are walking back to the town, teniente, meditate on the fact that a hairpin can sometimes give a man an unexpected shock. Tell the general about that; and tell him to beware of hairpins and of those who use them. Adios!”

With a mirthful gurgle of the exhaust, the launch backed, swung, and sped away. Mendez hissed something under his breath and, red-faced, turned to his hot, hard tramp along the shore.

The sun, rolling steadily to the zenith, paused at its peak of ascent to survey things below. It saw the engineer officer, sore-footed and sore-headed, trudge wearily into Caicara, look about, and quietly lose himself among troopers embarking in a fleet of canoes. It saw those canoes, laden with men and spoils, lengthen into a great water-snake and begin swimming northeastward, heading for an unraided town leagues down the river, on the other shore; a snake on whose nose rode a big, ugly-visaged individual somewhat resembling a gigantic veinte cuatro ant, whose temper was so savage that none dared speak to him. And, peering slyly into a bat-befouled belfry of the town church, it spied something which, had he known of it, would have caused that black ant instantly to turn back and invade that respected edifice with naked steel.

Up there, quiet as the bats which hung asleep above them, lay two men; one pale, haggard, and hollow-eyed, with three severe bullet wounds crudely bandaged; the other unwounded, wary, watchful, listening intently to every voice and other sound floating up from the streets. The one was the vanished jefe civil, Jaime Gordo; the other his faithful servant, the stone-throwing Claudio. By what route these two had reached their hiding place they alone knew. It was a cunningly chosen retreat, however, and the last spot in all the town likely to be suspected. Perhaps, if Veinte Cuatro had remained longer, even this odd corner might have failed to shelter the refugees. But it was not ordained that he should stay. So only the prying sun saw the stoic pair, and that sun did not betray them. At its next rising it was to find them once more in their usual abode, fervently hoping never again to see either the implacable revolucionarios or the intractable Americanos.

Having observed these things, the blazing god of the daytime took one glance backward. Away at the east, surging sturdily down the river, danced the launch which on the previous noon had limped gaspingly into the port of Caicara. Wide and free before it stretched the open road to Ciudad Bolívar, stronghold of federal forces and seat of a governor who, instead of putting El Tigre and El Toro against a wall, would speed their departure for their own land. Nowhere along that flowing highway lurked any menace to boat or passengers. And the voyagers, with minds already forgetful of the recent past and dreamily visioning the near future, were lounging in wordless fellowship.

So the sun, at the top of its arc, jestingly loosed an extra blast of heat on the over-hot head of Federico Gordo, shot a wicked wink of light into the eyes of Jaime Gordo, darted a streak of back-fire at the burbling launch, and rolled on westward. On the Orinoco another twenty-four hours had come and gone. Noonday proceeded as usual.