The White Mice Part 11

"My mother," answered Inez directly, "your consul, Captain Codman, Colonel Vega, and----"

In surprise, Roddy laughed and raised his eyebrows.

"Vega!" he exclaimed. "Why should Vega mistrust me?" Knowing what was in his mind, the girl made him a formal little bow.

"It is not," she answered, "because you saved his life." In obvious embarra.s.sment she added: "It is because you are not in the confidence of your father. You can see that that must make it difficult for Colonel Vega."

Bewildered, Roddy stared at her and again laughed.

"And what possible interest," he demanded, "can _my_ father have in Colonel Vega?"

For a moment, with distrust written clearly in her eyes, the girl regarded him reproachfully. Then she asked coldly:

"Do you seriously wish me to think that you do _not_ know that?"

While they had been speaking, even when Inez had made it most evident to Roddy that to herself and to her friends he was a discredited person, he had smiled patiently. His good humor had appeared una.s.sailable. But now his eyes snapped indignantly. He pressed his lips together and made Inez an abrupt bow.

"I a.s.sure you, I know nothing," he said quickly.

He threw the reins over the neck of the pony, and with a slap on its flank drove it across the road within reach of the waiting Pedro. Then lifting his hat, and with another bow, he started in the direction of Willemstad. Inez, too surprised to speak, sat staring after him. But before he had taken a dozen steps, as though she had called him back and asked him to explain, he halted and returned. He had entirely recovered his good humor, but his manner when he spoke was not conciliatory.

"The trouble is this," he said, "your friends are so deep in plots that they have lost sight of the thing that counts. While they are 'mistrusting,' and suspecting, and spying on each other, a man is dying. I know that much, anyway. That is all I care to know." As though it were an extenuating fact, he added: "It is a question of character. It is a Venezuelan way of doing things. But it is not our way. It was very kind of you to give me this chance to explain our interfering. But I see now--everybody," he added dryly, "has taken pains to make it very plain--that we are a nuisance." He paused, and to a.s.sure her it was not she he was upbraiding, smiled cheerfully. In his most confidential manner he continued lightly: "For myself, I have always thought there was something to say for the fools who rush in where angels fear to tread. I remember once seeing a fool rush into a burning building and rescue a child, while I and some other angels shouted for ladders." He nodded, and again lifted his hat. "Good-by,"

he said, "and thank you." Leaving her seated silent in the saddle, he walked away.

This time he had turned the bend in the road and had proceeded along it some hundred yards, when from behind him he heard approaching at a reckless pace the hoof-beats of a pony. Looking back, he saw a whirlwind of fluttering skirts and scattered sparks and pebbles. Inez, followed by Pedro, drew up even with him; and as she dragged her pony to a halt, threw herself free of the pommel and dropped at his feet to the road. Had he not caught her by the shoulders she would have stumbled into his arms. A strand of hair had fallen across her face, her eyes were eager, flashing. She raised her gloved hands impulsively, and clasped them before him.

"Please!" she begged. "You must not go. It is true--what you say about us, but you must help us. I did not know. I had forgotten. It is three years since I talked to any one--any one from your country. I had forgotten. It is true; we are suspicious, we are _not_ straightforward like you, like the people in the States. But you must not punish us for that. Not _me_!"

At all times the face raised to his was beautiful. Now, the delicate lips, like those of a child before it breaks into sobs, were trembling, the eyes, lifted appealingly, were eloquent with tears.

"You must advise me," said the girl. "You must help me."

She raised her clasped hands higher. She regarded him wistfully, "Won't you?" she begged.

Her attack had been swift, masterly; every feminine weapon had been brought into effective action; and the surrender of Roddy was sudden, and complete. In abject submission he proceeded incoherently:

"My dear young lady!" he cried. "But, my dear young _lady_!"

He was rewarded with a brilliant, blinding smile.

"Then you _will_ help me?" Inez asked.

Roddy recovered himself quickly.

"My Spanish is very bad," he answered, "but what it sounds like in English is, 'I am at your feet.'"

The sun now was shining brightly, and in the open road they were as conspicuous as though they had stood in a shop window on Broadway.

Across the road, in the hedge opposite, a gate barred a path that led into one of the plantations. Roddy opened the gate, and together, followed by Pedro with the ponies, they found a spot where they were hidden by the hedge from any one pa.s.sing on the highway. Inez halted in the shade of one of the orange trees. Speaking rapidly, she sketched for Roddy a brief history of the various efforts that had been made to rescue her father. She explained why these efforts had failed. She told him of the revolution led by Pino Vega, and the good it was expected to accomplish.

At first the girl spoke in some embarra.s.sment. She knew that to be where she was, at that hour, alone with a stranger, was, in the eyes of her friends and family, an unpardonable offense. And though she resented their point of view, the fact that it existed disquieted her.

But the man at her side did not seem to consider talking to a girl in the open sunshine either as a novel experience or one especially disgraceful. Politely, with lowered eyes, he gave to what she said the closest attention. The circ.u.mstance that they were alone, even the fact that she was young and attractive, did not once appear to occur to him. Seeing this, Inez with each succeeding moment gained confidence in Roddy and in herself and spoke freely.

"That is what we have tried to do," she said. "Now I am going to tell you why I asked you to meet me here this morning, and how I believe you can help me. Three days ago I received a message from my father."

Roddy exclaimed with interest, but motioned eagerly for her to continue.

"It is in cipher," she continued, "but it is his handwriting. It is unmistakable. It was given to me when I was at church. I was kneeling in the chapel of St. Agnes, which is in the darkest corner of the building. At first I was alone, and then a woman came and knelt close beside me. She was a negress, poorly dressed, and her face was hidden by her shawl. For a moment I thought she was murmuring her prayers, and then I found she was repeating certain words and that she was talking at me. 'I have a letter, a letter from your father,' she whispered. I crowded closer, and she dropped a piece of paper in front of me and then got to her feet and hurried away. I followed, but there were many people at ma.s.s, and when I had reached the street she had disappeared. The message she brought me is this: 'Page 54, paragraph 4.' That is all. It is the second message we have had from my father in two years. The first one was by word of mouth, and came a month ago. The meaning of that was only too plain. But what this one means I cannot imagine, nor," proceeded Inez with distress, "can I see why, if he had the chance to write to us, he did not write more openly."

She looked appealingly at Roddy, and paused for him to speak.

"He was afraid the message would be intercepted," said Roddy. "What he probably means to do is to send it to you in two parts. The second message will be the key that explains this one. He knew if he wrote plainly, and it fell into the wrong hands--" Roddy interrupted himself, and for a moment remained silent. "'Page 54, paragraph 4,'"

he repeated. "Has he sent you a book?" he asked. "Has any book come to you anonymously?"

The girl shook her head. "No, I thought of that," she said, "but no books have come to us that we haven't ordered ourselves."

"What do the others think?" asked Roddy.

The girl colored slightly and shook her head.

"I have not told them. I knew my mother would ask Pino to help her, and," she explained, "though I like Pino, for certain reasons I do not wish to be indebted to him for the life of my father. Before appealing to him I have been trying for two days to find out the meaning of the cipher, but I could not do it, and I was just about to show it to my mother when Captain Codman told us of your offer. That made me hesitate. And then, as between you and Pino, I decided you were better able to help us. You live in Porto Cabello, within sight of the prison. Pino will be in the field. His revolution may last a month, it may last for years. During that time he would do nothing to help my father. When you risked being shot yesterday, it seemed to me you showed you had spirit, and also, _you_ are from the States, and Pino is a Venezuelan, so----"

"You needn't take up the time of the court," said Roddy, "in persuading me that I am the man to help you. To save time I will concede that. What was the other message you received from your father?"

The eyes of the girl grew troubled and her voice lost its eagerness.

"It was charged in a French paper," she said, "that the prisoners in San Carlos were being killed by neglect. The French minister is a friend of our family, and he asked Alvarez to appoint a committee of doctors to make an investigation. Alvarez was afraid to refuse, and sent the doctors to examine my father and report on his health. One of them told him that Alvarez would permit him to send a message to my mother, and to tell her himself whether he was, or was not, ill. This is the message that they gave us as coming from my father.

"'I don't know what you gentlemen may decide as to my health,' he said, 'but _I_ know that I am dying. Tell my wife that I wish to be buried in my native country, and to place upon my tombstone my name and this epitaph: "He wrote history, and made history."'" The voice of the girl had dropped to a whisper. She recovered herself and continued sadly: "Until three days ago that is the only word we have received from my father in two years."

The expression on Roddy's face was one of polite incredulity. Seeing this, Inez, as though answering his thought, said proudly: "My father made history when he arranged the boundary line between British Guiana and Venezuela."

Roddy shook his head impatiently.

"I wasn't thinking of that," he said. "I was thinking of the message.

It doesn't sound a bit like your father," he exclaimed. "Not like what _I've_ heard of him."

The eyes of the girl grew anxious with disappointment.

"Do you mean," she asked, "that you think he did _not_ send that message?"

"It doesn't sound to me," said Roddy, "like the sort of message he would send, knowing the pain it would cause. He isn't the sort of man to give up hope, either. Even if it were true, why should he tell your mother he is dying? And that epitaph!" cried Roddy excitedly.

"_That's_ not like him, either! It is not modest." With sudden eagerness he leaned toward her. "_Did_ your father write history?" he demanded.

Unable to see the purpose of his question, the girl gazed at him in bewilderment. "Why, of course," she answered.

"And does any part of it refer to Porto Cabello?"

After a moment of consideration Inez nodded. "The third chapter," she said, "tells of the invasion by Sir Francis Drake."