Fate Knocks at the Door Part 34

A dangerous step, but I shall take the chance of the sail, even if you decide that your part is too uncertain. In any case be very sure to destroy this letter. If it should fall into the hands of Rey's innumerable agents,--I'm afraid I shouldn't come back from the party. There is operating in the city as well as in _The Pleiad_ as perfect a system of espionage as one would encounter in the secret service of a formidable nation.

Safely secreted in the forecastle during the early afternoon, you could not fail to hear, some hours later, a signal tapped on the deck forward. This signal would come after supper, when it was dark, and everything propitious as possible. The sailing party would be divided at this time, say half on deck and half below.

The signal--three double taps--"tap-tap ... tap-tap ...

tap-tap"--given sharply, unmistakably, with a heavy cane or something of the kind.

Emerging from the forecastle (with a look and a command behind, as if to your hidden compatriots), it would seem that you would have the occupants of the cabin rather neatly at your mercy. If the affair there were attended by luck, and managed quietly enough, you might continue and surprise the deck party, but let us not rely too far upon fair chances. There is a strong flavor of danger about the _coup_ at best. I do not consider here any aid which I _may_ render; so that you are one against eight--three white men, three (?) Chinese, and two women.

I have reasons for helping you.

You seem to want this meeting, and I believe war is imminent. Let me impress upon you: Take every precaution; think out every possible step before joining action. Senor Rey is a cultivated criminal. Sorenson may prove dangerous. Framtree looks big enough to laugh--if he is cornered. The Chinese are Chinese.

I am writing at crazy speed. You should have this by noon, and lose no time after that. Oh, yes, the _Savonarola_ carries two small boats. If the surprise is successful, these boats may be useful to eliminate the Chinese and the Sorensons. You will be armed, of course. I am just adding thoughts at random. A little red chalk-mark on the white frame of the companion-way will tell me that you are aboard, if I should miss seeing you.

Yours in excitement, but not without hope,

ADITH MALLORY.

I _know_ what you can do.

THIRTIETH CHAPTER

MISS MALLORY'S MASTERY

Bedient felt the blood warming in his veins. This was the last of "the four" nights. Miss Mallory's determination to sail with the Spaniard was enough to spur him to attempt joining her; if, indeed, his absolute need to break the deadly ennui had not banished hesitation. He glanced through the letter again, and burned it.

"Monkhouse," he said below, "I've had about enough of Coral City this time, and I'm riding back toward the _hacienda_ this afternoon. I'm leaving a little present for you with the management of the Inn. Some time I'll send a pony trap down for you, when I'm hungry for more tales----"

The old man was more mystified than ever, but the business of the Spaniard had to wait until he hunted up the management, with whom his relations had worn thin. Bedient found his servant, ordered the ponies, and the two rode up _Calle Real_, before one in the afternoon. They pa.s.sed _The Pleiad_ bluffs, overlooking the Inlet, where the _Savonarola_ lay, and on for a mile or more into the solitude. Here Bedient sent forward his servant with both ponies and let himself down the bluff to follow the sh.o.r.e back.

The sand was white as paper and hot as fresh ashes. The muscles of his face grew lame from squinting in the vivid light. There was not a human being in sight on either length of curving sh.o.r.e, nor a movement in the thickly covered cliffs. The world was silent, except for the languorous wash of the little waves and the breathing of a soft wind in the foliage. For an hour he made his way mostly under cover around the sh.o.r.e to the mouth of the Inlet, from where he could see Jaffier's gunboat on the watch.

The distance was about a thousand yards back to where the yacht lay.

The cut was a natural stronghold, opening sidewise on the face of the sh.o.r.e, so as to be invisible from the open water. It was deep enough for an ocean-liner, but too narrow for a big steamer to enter with her own power. Bedient turned into the thick, th.o.r.n.y undergrowth, which lined the eastern wall of the Inlet, and made his way around its devious curvings, silently and slowly. The growth on the cliffs was so dense in places that he had to crawl. The heat pressed down upon the heavy moist foliage, and drained him like a steam-room. He had wobbled from weakness and the heat in the saddle, even on the breezy highway.

Again and again, he halted with shut eyes until his reeling senses righted. The thousand yards from the mouth of the cove to the moorings of the _Savonarola_ wound like a Malay _creese_ with an interrogation point for a handle. The distance consumed an hour, and much of the vitality he had summoned by sheer force of will. He lay panting at last in the smothering thicket, thirty feet from the rear-deck of the _Savonarola_. Yet there was a laugh in his mind. It was altogether outlandish, when he considered his small personal interest in such an affair.... He thought of the listening eyes of Beth Truba--had he told her of such an adventure of his boyhood.... And he thought of the clever and intrepid Adith Mallory, and what she had meant by the last added line of her letter, "I know what you can do."

Someone was already aboard, for the cabin-door was open. The sliding hatch connected with the thick upright door, so that a single lock sufficed for the cabin, which opened from the aft-deck. The still, deep water of the cove drew Bedient's eyes constantly, and kept alive the thought of his terrible thirst. The words of old Monkhouse repeated often in his brain, "Ah, 'tis deep fathims under the _Savonarola_." He slipped a little steel key from the ring, smiling because it was the key to one of the Carreras cabinets at the _hacienda_, and placed it in his mouth. He had done the same with a nail when in the small boat with Carreras, the only boat that reached sh.o.r.e from the _Truxton_. It started the saliva.

There was but one man in the cabin so far, as Bedient ascertained through the ports,--a Chinese, and he was sweeping industriously. Miss Mallory's idea that he steal in, while the boat was being provisioned, seemed a far chance. He might have boarded the craft now, and surprised the oriental in the cabin, but he had no grudge against him, and Rey's Chinese were not purchasable. He thought of the forlorn last chance--to creep back to the mouth of the Inlet where it was narrowest, and wait on a sheltered ledge there for the _Savonarola_ to be ejected with pikes from the crooked mouth. He might leap on the deck as she swung around, but he would then have to face the whole party.

After an interminable period--it was past three in the afternoon--the Chinese appeared from a cabin, and sat down on the low rail aft, mopping his shaven head. "I don't wish you any harm, little yellow man," Bedient thought, "but you'd be most accommodating if you would fall into a faint for a minute or two----"

At this juncture, Bedient was startled by the clapping of hands from somewhere up the winding steps toward _The Pleiad_. The Chinese leaped up to listen for a repet.i.tion of the signal, which his kind answers the world over. The hands were clapped again, and then the voice:

"Oh, Boy, won't you come up here for a moment? I'm afraid to climb down all these steps alone with this big package. It must be put aboard for to-night."

"The unparalleled genius----" Bedient breathed.

The Chinese understood, and stepped ash.o.r.e quickly. Bedient began to roll forward with the first movement of the boy. The red chalk mark would hardly be needed. He had just torn his finger upon a thorn.

Seeing the blood rise, it occurred that one is never without a bit of red. At the base of the bank he turned his eyes upward. The Chinese was plodding up the stairs, the woman holding his mind occupied with words.

Bedient leaped across to the deck, and sank into the cabin of the _Savonarola_. From the shaded roomy quarter then, he ventured a last look. John Chinaman's broad back was still toward him, and Miss Mallory was laughing. "How good of you!" she said to the boy. "The steps looked so many and so rickety, and I was all alone. Here's a _peso_ for you.

We'll be aboard about six." She laughed again.

"What a bright light to shine upon a man!" Bedient thought, as he covered his bleeding finger with a handkerchief, to avoid leaving a trail in the spotless cabin. He moved forward toward the right compartment, unsteadily; then entered and closed the door.

This was Adith Mallory's especial afternoon and evening. She was emphatically alive. One of her dearest desires, and one which had long seemed farthest from her, was to do some big thing for Andrew Bedient.

The plan was hers, every thought of it, and now she saw him safely stored in the forecastle.

She tried to put away all thoughts of fear. The party, of which she was the blithest,--ah, how she loved sailing!--stepped on board at six.

Framtree was brought to the meeting. Celestino Rey was beguiled from his _Pleiad_ throne, and helped to a seat in this floating Elba. Here, too, came the Sorensons and the Chinese--mob-stuff. There is a mob in every drama--poor mob that always loses, of untimely arousings, mere bewildered strength in the wiles of strategy. Poor undone mob--its head always in the lap of Wit, to be shorn like Samson.... And the Glow-worm--that incomparable female facing the South, her great yellow smoldering eyes, filled with the dusky Southern Sea, and who knows what lights and lovers of Buenos Aires, flitting across her dreams?... Had there been absolute need for an ally, Miss Mallory could almost have trusted the Senora.

"We didn't care to heat up the cabin from the galley," Senor Rey declared as they descended for supper, "so I have had our repast prepared at _The Pleiad_, save, of course, the coffee. You will not miss for once the _entree_, if the cold roast fowl is prime, I am sure.

There are compensations."

"Miss an _entree_!" Miss Mallory exclaimed. "I could live a week on pickles and lettuce-leaves, to stay at sea in such weather!"

"Astonishingly fine sailor is Miss Mallory," the Spaniard enthused.

"She talked ship with me like a pirate, and knew my _Savonarola_ from boom to steering gear at a glance. You all must thank Miss Mallory for our little excursion to-night."

The lady in question wondered if the forecastle-door were proof against the voices in the cabin. She did not turn her eyes to it, but happened to note that the Spaniard caught a glance from Jim Framtree, as he spoke his last words; also that Framtree arose, looked aft from the cabin doorway, and turned back with a smile. Miss Mallory followed his eyes a moment later and discovered that Dictator Jaffier's gunboat had moved. Steam was up; her nose was pointed their way; more still, she was leisurely trailing! Senor Rey did not miss the American woman's interest.

"The Dictator is always so good about giving the _Savonarola_ armed convoy," he said.

Miss Mallory became deeply thoughtful, but roused herself, realizing it did not become her in this company. She imagined that the great yellow eyes of the Glow-worm were regarding her with queer contemplative scrutiny. Sorenson felt the call to remark something, and the _Savonarola_ was obvious.

"Fine little craft for a honeymoon," he observed, "that is, of course, if the lady in question enjoyed sailing. It's amusing to picture some women on a sailing-trip----"

"And some men on a honeymoon," added Miss Mallory.

This delighted Framtree.... Sorenson was rather a ponderous Slav with languages. He was not accustomed to conserve his thirst until dinner-time. Indeed, he had brought aboard on this occasion an appreciation for sparkling refreshments, that had been a.s.siduously cultivated during the long day. Already Sorenson had endangered his domestic peace, through attentions, delicate as you would expect from a bear that walked like a man. These were directed toward the American woman. She broke every shaft with unfailing humor, and girded her repugnance as added strength for the End. There were moments she did not relish. Strain settled with the darkening day. She thought of the face she had seen at her carriage at noon--a tortured face--and what he had pa.s.sed through since, cramped in the forecastle! Perhaps he was unconscious from the heat and the suffocating place--and from the illness she could never understand.... But in Miss Mallory all these thoughts and conditions drew upon as perfect a nervous organization as could be found anywhere in these complicated days--and it was over at last.

Sorenson and his wife followed her on deck after supper, the other three tarrying below. There was no moon. The breeze abaft the beam was a warm, steady pressure that coaxed a whispering of secrets from the sails, and sent the willing craft forward with her bow down to work, and a business-like list. One Chinese was serving below. The remaining two were squatted aft by the wheel. Madame Sorenson took a chair on the cabin-deck, amidship. Miss Mallory moved past her and forward. The thought in her brain was: If Sorenson follows me now, anything that should happen to him is his own fault. She carried playfully a heavy cane, found in the cabin. Sorenson embraced his own disaster in joining her.

"How enticing the water looks!" she observed.

"It does 'pon my word," said the Russian.

Each noted that the foresail hid the face of Madame Sorenson, although her shoulders were expressive.... The look upon Sorenson's flushed features held Miss Mallory true to her latest inspiration.

"You are a good swimmer?" she asked in a lowered tone, but carelessly.

"Ah, yes, there are many grand swimmers in my country among the coast men."