Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 Part 14

I cut Hanley in. "Chief, they're closer! Sp.a.w.n has come! They've missed me! I'll relay what they're saying, but you step it down; there's too much volume."

"You're all right, Phil? Thank Heaven for that! Something blew my vacuums."

"Chief, listen--here they are--"

Perona: "But he will be back. In the garden now, no doubt, with Jetta."

De Boer: "Ah--the little Jetta! So she is there, Sp.a.w.n? Not in years have you spoken of your daughter. A young lady now, I suppose. Is it so?"

Sp.a.w.n cursed. "We leave her out of this. You follow the Senor's plan."

"Come to your house? You think the bird will be there for me to seize?"

"Yes," Perona put in. "You go there; in an hour. Then to the mine."

Sp.a.w.n undoubtedly was in this plot to attack his mine! He said, "At the mine we have arranged everything. d.a.m.n this American! But for Perona I would not bother with him."

"But you will bother," Perona interjected.

De Boer laughed again. "I would be witless could I not figure this! He is a young man, and so handsome he has frightened you with the little Jetta! Is that it, Perona? Jealous, eh?"

I had been holding the image finder so that Hanley might see them.

Hanley's voice rattled my ear-grid. "Phil! Get away from there! Look! De Boer is searching!"

De Boer had, a moment before, spoken quietly aside to Gutierrez. And now three or four of the men were spreading out, poking about with small hand-flashes. Searching for me! The possibility that I might be here, eavesdropping!

Hanley repeated vehemently, "Phil, they'll find you! Get out of there: the way is still open!"

Gutierrez was approaching the archway. But I lingered a moment longer.

"Chief, you heard about that girl, Jetta, Sp.a.w.n's daughter--"

I stopped. Perona was saying, "Sp.a.w.n, was Jetta still in her room? You did not untie her?"

"No."

"And gagged? Suppose the Americano was back there now? She might call to him, and he would release her--"

De Boer: "How do you know he is not around here? Listening?"

With the a.s.sumption that I might be within hearing, De Boer tried to trap me. Gutierrez, at a signal now, suddenly dashed through the archway and planted himself on the path outside. The other searchers spread their rays; the rocks all about me were lighted. But my niche was still untouched.

De Boer: "If he is around here--"

Perona: "He could not have followed me; I was too careful."

I was murmuring: "Chief, they've got that girl."

"Phil, you get away! Go to Markes. Stay with him."

"But Chief, that Jetta, I--"

"Keep out of this! You're only one; you can't help any! I've sent for the Porto Rican patrol ship to handle this."

"Chief, I'm going back to Sp.a.w.n's."

"No--"

I cut off abruptly. In another moment I would have been discovered. The searchers were headed directly for me.

I moved, crouching, back along the inner wall of the archway. The moon was momentarily behind a cloud. It was black under the arch; and out front it was so dim I could only see the faint blob of Gutierrez's standing figure, and the spot of his flashlight.

Perona: "He is not around here, De Boer. That is foolish."

Sp.a.w.n: "He could have gone anywhere. Maybe a walk around the village."

Perona: "Go back home, Sp.a.w.n. De Boer will come--"

Their voices faded as I moved away. A searching bandit behind me poked with his light into the crevice where a moment before I had been crouching. I moved faster. Only Gutierrez now was in front of me. He was at the far end of the arch. I could slip past, and still be fifty feet from him--if I could avoid his swinging little light-beam.

I was running now, chancing that he would hear me. I was on the path; I could see it vaguely.

From behind me came a sizzling flash, and the ting of the flying needle as it missed me by a foot.

"The Americano! He goes there!"

Another shot. The shouts of the bandits in the archway. A turmoil back there.

But it was all behind me. I leaped sidewise off the path as Gutierrez small light-beam swept it. I ran stumbling through a stubble of boulders, around an upstanding rock spire, back to the path again.

There were other shots. Then De Boer's voice, faint by distance: "Stop!

Fools! We will alarm the village! The landing field can see our shots from here! Take it easy! You can't get him!"

The turmoil quieted. I went around a bend in the path, running swiftly.

Pursuit was behind me. I could hear them coming.

It was a run of no more than ten minutes to the junction where, down the slope, I could see the lights of the landing field.

The glow of the village was ahead of me. Then I was in its outskirts.