The Tremendous Event Part 32

"He's in love with the girl."

"A funny way of being in love! . . . He has been persecuting her now for four days."

"Why does she refuse him? To begin with she's his wife. She said yes just now."

"She said yes because, ever since this morning, some one has been squeezing dear papa's throat."

"Well, she'll say yes presently so that it shan't be squeezed a little tighter."

The man bent down:

"How's the old chap doing?"

"Impossible to say!" growled the woman, who held the cord. "He told his daughter not to give in, said that he'd rather die. Since then, you'd think he's sleeping. It's two days since he had anything to eat."

"All this sort of thing," retorted the sentry, moving off, "isn't business. Rolleston ought to be on deck. Suppose something happened, suppose we were to be attacked, suppose the enclosure was invaded!"

"In that case, I've got orders to finish the old man off."

"That wouldn't make us come out on top."

A short time elapsed. The two women talked in very low tones. At moments Simon seemed to hear raised voices from the cabin:

"Listen," he said. "That's Rolleston, isn't it?"

"Yes," said the Indian.

"We must do something, we must do something," said Simon.

The door of the cabin was flung open violently. Rolleston appeared. He shouted angrily to the women:

"Are you ready? Count three minutes. In three minutes strangle him,"

and, turning round, "You understand, Isabel? Three minutes. Make up your mind, my girl."

He slammed the door behind him.

Quick as thought, Simon had seized Antonio's rifle, but, hampered by the bars, he was unable to take aim before the villain had closed the door.

"You will spoil everything!" said Antonio, crawling from under the tarpaulin and wresting the rifle from him.

Simon, in turn, stood up, with distorted features:

"Three minutes! Oh, poor girl, poor girl!"

Antonio tried to restrain him:

"Let's think of something. There must be a porthole in the cabin."

"Too late. She will have killed herself by then. We must act at once."

He reflected for a moment, then suddenly began to run along the deck and, reaching the hatch of the companion-way, jumped to the bottom.

The gangway began with a wider landing where the sentry sat playing cards and drinking.

They rose. One of them commanded:

"Halt! No pa.s.sage here!"

"All hands on deck! Every man to his post," shouted Simon, repeating Rolleston's words. "At the double! And no quarter! The gold! The rain of gold has started again!"

The men leapt to their feet and made off up the companion. Simon darted down the gangway, ran into one of the two women, whom his shouts had attracted, and flung the same words at her:

"The gold! The rain of gold! Where's the chief?"

"In his cabin," she replied. "Tell him!"

And she made off in her turn.

The other woman, who held the cord, hesitated. Simon felled her with a blow on the point of the chin. Then, without troubling about Lord Bakefield, he rushed to the cabin. At that moment, Rolleston opened the door, shouting:

"What's up? The gold?"

Simon laid hold of the door to prevent his closing it and saw Isabel, at the back of the cabin, alive.

"Who are you?" asked the villain, uneasily.

"Simon Dubosc."

There was a pause, a respite before the struggle which Simon believed inevitable. But Rolleston fell back, with haggard eyes:

"M. Dubosc? . . . M. Dubosc? . . . The one who was killed just now?"

"The same," said a voice in the gangway. "And it was I who killed him, I, Antonio, the friend of Badiarinos whom you murdered."

"Ah!" groaned Rolleston, collapsing. "I'm done for!"

He was paralysed by his drunkenness, by his state of stupor and even more obviously by his natural cowardice. Without offering the least resistance, he allowed himself to be knocked down and disarmed by Antonio, while Simon and Isabel rushed into each other's arms.

"My father?" murmured the girl.

"He's alive. Don't be afraid."

Together they went to release him. The old lord was at the end of his forces. It was all that he could do to kiss his daughter and press Simon's hand. Isabel too was on the verge of swooning; shaken with a nervous tremor, she fell into Simon's arms, faltering:

"Oh, Simon, you were just in time. I should have killed myself! . . .

Oh, what degradation! . . . How shall I ever forget?"

Great as was her distress, she had nevertheless the strength to check Antonio's hand when he raised it to stab Rolleston: