Long Odds Part 38

She spread out her hands in a vaguely forceful fashion as she turned from him and moved towards the door, but before she reached it she stopped and glanced at him again. Ormsgill who set his lips tight said nothing at all. Then there was a sound of footsteps outside, and Dom Clemente, who appeared in the entrance, stood still looking at them curiously. It was a moment or two before he turned to Benicia.

"Ah," he said, "I did not know you were here until a few minutes ago and I will not keep you now. I think the Senora is waiting for you."

He stood aside when she swept past him and vanished with a rustle of filmy draperies. Then he turned to Ormsgill.

"Senor," he said, "I am inclined to fancy that you have something to say to me."

The blood rose to Ormsgill's face, and his voice was strained. It was an almost intolerable duty that was laid upon him.

"I am afraid your surmise is not correct," he said. "I have nothing to say."

Dom Clemente let one hand drop on the hilt of his sword. "Senor," he said, "I am informed by my Secretary that the Senorita Benicia Figuera has obtained certain concessions concerning you from a man whose authority we submit to. You are, it seems, to be treated with every consideration, and he will investigate the complaints made against you personally. That," and he made a little impressive gesture, "is evidently the result of the Senorita Benicia's efforts on your behalf.

I am here to ask you why she has made them?"

Ormsgill looked at him steadily, though it cost him an effort to answer.

"I have the honor of the Senorita's acquaintance," he said. "It seems she is one who does what she can for her friends. I can offer no other explanation."

"Ah," said Dom Clemente with incisive quietness, "I once informed you that it seemed to me you were doing a perilous thing in going back to Africa. It is possible you will shortly realize that what I said was warranted."

Then he turned and went out, and Ormsgill sat down again with a little gasp, for the tension of the last few minutes had been almost insupportable.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

ON HIS TRIAL

Several hours had pa.s.sed since Dom Clemente left Ormsgill's quarters when he sat with one of his staff under a lamp in a room of the fazienda. He had laid his kepi on the table, and leaned back in his chair looking at a strip of paper with a little grim smile in his eyes. A negro swathed in white cotton squatted against the wall watching him uneasily, and a black soldier who had led the man in stood with ordered rifle at the door. At length Dom Clemente tossed the paper across to the officer sitting opposite him.

"I should be glad of your opinion," he said.

"It is discreet," said his companion, who examined the paper carefully. "The writer evidently foresaw the possibility of his message falling into the wrong hands. It is also indifferent Portuguese, but I think it is the writing of an educated man."

"Exactly! The question is why should an educated man express himself in that fashion?"

The officer shook his head. "That," he said reflectively, "is a thing I do not understand."

Dom Clemente smiled a little, and took up another strip of paper.

"This," he said, "is a message of the same kind which has also fallen into my hands. Does anything else occur to you when you put the two together?"

"They are from the same man," and then a light seemed to break in upon the officer. "He does not write like a native of the Peninsula."

"No," said Dom Clemente. "I do not think he has ever been there.

Still, he had, no doubt, reasons for attempting to write in Portuguese." Then he turned sternly to the crouching negro. "Who gave you this message. Where were you to take the answer?"

"A man of a tribe I do not know," said the messenger who was evidently in a state of terror. "I was to meet him before the morning at a spot about a league away."

"Then," said Dom Clemente, "there is a little service I want from you.

You will take some of my soldiers with you when you meet this man. If you attempt to warn him you will probably be shot."

He turned to his companion. "I think it would be advisable for you to go yourself. You will take a reliable sergeant and several files, and arrest the man who wrote this letter. I think you will find that he is the leader of a big game expedition."

The officer raised his eyebrows. "There is no big game in this part of the country."

"That," said Dom Clemente, "is a point the man in question has probably forgotten. In any case, you will arrest him and bring him here. It is, however, advisable that the thing should be done quietly."

The officer signed to the black soldier who moved forward and touched the messenger's shoulder, and Dom Clemente smiled grimly as he once more busied himself with the papers in front of him when they went out.

In the meanwhile Ormsgill lay half-asleep upon a few empty sugar bags in the ruinous shed. His head ached, for the fever still troubled him now and then and the place was almost insufferably hot, but the strain he had borne that afternoon had left him a trifle dazed and insensible to physical discomforts, and at length he sank into fitful slumber.

Several times he wakened with a start and closed a hot hand as his troubles returned to him, but he was too limp in mind to grapple with them. It was rather late in the morning when a patter of naked feet and the shouting of orders roused him. It suggested that the troops were being paraded, and looking out through the window he saw Dom Clemente and several officers descend from the planter's house. After that there was a stir and bustle, and by and by he saw a man whom he did not recognize being led towards the house by a group of deferential officers. This, however, did not appear to concern Ormsgill, and leaving the window when his breakfast was brought him he sat down on the sugar bags for another hour or two. Then the door of the shed was flung open and he saw a black sergeant who stood outside beckoning to him.

"Your presence is required," he said in Portuguese.

Ormsgill stood still a moment blinking in the brightness when he left the shed, for the glare of sunlight on trampled sand and white walls set his heavy eyes aching, but when the sergeant made a sign he followed him to the planter's house. He was led into a big scantily furnished room which had green lattices drawn across two of the open windows, but a dazzling shaft of sunlight streamed in through one that was not covered, and he saw a grave-faced gentleman sitting in state at a table. He was, though Ormsgill did not know this, the man who had talked to Benicia on board the gunboat, and had arrived at the fazienda that morning. Two black soldiers with ordered rifles stood motionless behind him, and Dom Clemente sat on the opposite side of the table. Beside him there were also two other officers, one of whom seemed to be acting as secretary, for there was a handful of papers in front of him, and several of Ormsgill's boys squatted, half-naked, impa.s.sive figures, against the wall.

Ormsgill stood still, looking at the men at the table with heavy eyes.

His thin duck garments were more than a trifle ragged and stained with travel, and his face was haggard. He was, it seemed, to be tried, but he felt no great concern. The result was almost a matter of indifference to him since it only remained for him to go back to Las Palmas if he was set at liberty. There was a momentary silence when he was led in, and then Dom Clemente handed one or two more papers to the secretary.

"There are, as you are aware, several somewhat serious complaints against you," he said in Portuguese. "It is now desirable that they should be investigated. I will have them read to you."

Ormsgill listened gravely while the officer read aloud. He was, it appeared, charged with abducting a native woman from the trader Herrero, and taking away by force labor recruits who had engaged themselves to the latter's a.s.sociate Domingo. There were also charges of supplying the natives with arms and inciting them to mutiny.

"You have heard?" said the man at the head of the table. "If you do not admit the correctness of all this we will hear what you have to say. You will, however, be required to substantiate it."

Ormsgill roused himself for an effort. After all, liberty was worth something, and it was a duty to attempt to secure it, and for the next quarter of an hour he concisely related all that he had done since he came back to the country after the death of Lamartine. None of those who heard him made any comment, but he could see the little smile of incredulity which now and then flickered into the eyes of the younger officers. The man who sat in state at the head of the table, however, listened gravely, and Dom Clemente's face was expressionless.

"That is all," said Ormsgill at last. "It is very possible that what I have told you may appear improbable, and I can not substantiate it.

Most of those concerned are dead. Still, you have some of my boys here, and you can question them."

There was a little silence until the man at the head of the table leaned back in his chair.

"It is a very astonishing story," he said. "There are one or two points I should like made clearer, but in the meanwhile we will hear the boys."

An interpreter was brought in, and with his a.s.sistance two of the boys told what they knew. Then he went out again, and Dom Clemente turned to his companion.

"I must admit that I have information which partly bears out what has been said about the native woman Anita," he said. "If this a.s.surance is not sufficient she could be examined later. I have,"--and he looked hard at Ormsgill--"at least no cause to be prejudiced in the prisoner's favor. In the meanwhile one might ask if he can think of n.o.body else who would support what he has said?"

"No," said Ormsgill dryly, "as I mentioned, most of those concerned are dead."

He saw Dom Clemente glance at the man opposite him who smiled.

"There is one point on which we have not touched," said the latter, who turned to Ormsgill. "How did you get the first eight boys you say you set free out of the country?"

"That," said Ormsgill, "is a thing I can not tell you. It was, at least, not with the connivance of anybody in the city."

Dom Clemente made a little sign to his secretary, who went out, and there was silence for a while. The room was very hot, and Ormsgill felt himself aching in every limb. He had been standing for half an hour now, and his leg was becoming painful. Then there were footsteps outside, and he gasped with astonishment as a black soldier led Desmond in. The latter, however, turned to the officers.