The White Mice Part 24

"If I could only help!" exclaimed Inez. "It is not fair that strangers to my father should be taking a risk that should fall to one of his children. It would mean so much, it would make me so happy, if I could feel I had done any little thing for him. You cannot know how grateful I am to you all, to your friends, and to you!" Her eyes opened wide in sympathy. "And you were so ill," she exclaimed, "and the fever is so likely to return. I do not see how it is possible for you to work at night at El Morro and by day on the light-house and not break down. We have no right to permit it."

"My health," explained Roddy dryly, "is in no danger from overwork. I am not employed by the company any longer. If I like I can sleep all day. I've discharged myself. I've lost my job."

"You have quarrelled with your father," said the girl quickly, "on account of my father? You must not!" she exclaimed. "Indeed, we cannot accept such a sacrifice."

"The misunderstanding with my father," Roddy a.s.sured her, "is one of long standing. I've never made a success of what he's given me to do, and this is only the last of a series of failures. You mustn't try to make me out an unselfish person. I am sacrificing nothing. Rather, in a way, I have gained my independence. At least, if I get a position now, people can't say I obtained it through my father's influence. Of course, it's awkward to be poor," added Roddy dispa.s.sionately, "because I had meant to ask you to marry me."

With an exclamation the girl partly rose and then sank back, retreating to the farthest limit of the bench.

"Mr. Forrester!" she began with spirit.

"I know what you're going to say," interrupted Roddy confidently. "But I ought to tell you that that doesn't weigh with me at all. I never could see," he exclaimed impatiently, "why, if you love a girl, the fact that she is engaged should make any difference--do _you_? It is, of course, an obstacle, but if you are the right man, and the other man is not, it certainly is best for everybody that you should make that plain to her before she marries the wrong man. In your case it certainly has made no difference to me, and I mean to fight for you until you turn back from the altar. Of course, when Vega told me you were engaged to him it was a shock; but you must admit I didn't let it worry me much. I told you as soon as I saw you that I loved you----"

The girl was looking at him so strangely that Roddy was forced to pause.

"I beg your pardon!" he said.

The eyes of Inez were searching his closely. When she spoke her voice was cold and even.

"Then it was Colonel Vega," she said, "who told you I was engaged to him."

"Of course," said Roddy. "He told me the night we crossed from Curacao."

Deep back in the serious, searching eyes Roddy thought that for an instant he detected a smile, mischievous and mocking; but as he leaned forward the eyes again grew grave and critical. With her head slightly on one side and with her hands clasped on her knee, Inez regarded him with curiosity.

"And that made no difference to you?" she asked.

"Why should it?" demanded Roddy. "A cat can look at a king; why may not I look at the most wonderful and lovely----"

In the same even tones of one asking an abstract question the girl interrupted him.

"But you must have known," she said, "that I would not engage myself to any man unless I loved him. Or do you think that, like the women here, I would marry as I was told?"

Roddy, not at all certain into what difficulties her questions were leading him, answered with caution.

"No," he replied doubtfully, "I didn't exactly think that, either."

"Then," declared the girl, "you must have thought, no matter how much I loved the man to whom I was engaged, that you could make me turn from him."

Roddy held out his hands appealingly.

"Don't put it that way!" he begged. "I've never thought I was better than any other man. I certainly never thought I was good enough for you. All I'm sure of is that no man on earth can care for you more.

It's the best thing, the only big thing, that ever came into my life.

And now it's the only thing left. Yesterday I thought I was rich, and I was glad because I had so much to offer you. But now that I've no money at all, now that I'm the Disinherited One, it doesn't seem to make any difference. At least, it would not to me. Because if I could make you care as I care for you, it wouldn't make any difference to you, either. No one on earth could love you more," pleaded Roddy. "I know it. I feel it. There is nothing else so true! Other men may bring other gifts, but 'Mine is the heart at your feet! He that hath more,'"

he challenged, "'let him give!' All I know," he whispered fiercely, "is, that I _love_ you, I _love_ you, I _love_ you!"

He was so moved, he felt what he said so truly, it was for him such happiness to speak, that his voice shook and, unknown to him, the tears stood in his eyes. In answer, he saw the eyes of the girl soften, her lips drew into a distracting and lovely line. Swiftly, with an ineffable and gracious gesture, she stooped, and catching up one of his hands held it for an instant against her cheek, and then, springing to her feet, ran from him up the garden path to the house.

Astounded, jubilant, in utter disbelief of his own senses, Roddy sat motionless. In dumb grat.i.tude he gazed about him at the beautiful sunlit garden, drinking in deep draughts of happiness.

So sure was he that in his present state of mind he could not again, before the others, face Inez, that, like one in a dream, he stumbled through the garden to the gate that opened on the street and so returned home.

That night McKildrick gave him permission to enter the tunnel. The gases had evaporated, and into the entrance the salt air of the sea and the tropical sun had fought their way. The party consisted of McKildrick, Peter and Roddy and, as the personal representative of Inez, Pedro, who arrived on foot from the direction of the town.

"She, herself," he confided secretly to Roddy, "wished to come."

"She did!" exclaimed Roddy joyfully. "Why didn't she?"

"I told her your mind would be filled with more important matters,"

returned Pedro, seeking approval. "Was I not right?"

Roddy, whose mind was filled only with Inez and who still felt the touch of her hand upon his, a.s.sented without enthusiasm.

McKildrick was for deciding by lot who should explore the underground pa.s.sage, but Roddy protested that that duty belonged to him alone.

With a rope around his waist, upon which he was to pull if he needed aid, an electric torch and a revolver he entered the tunnel. It led down and straight before him. The air was damp and chilly, but in breathing he now found no difficulty. Nor, at first, was his path in any way impeded. His torch showed him solid walls, white and discolored, and in places dripping with water. But of the bats, ghosts and vampires, for which Peter had cheerfully prepared him, there was no sign. Instead, the only sounds that greeted his ears were the reverberating echoes of his own footsteps. He could not tell how far he had come, but the rope he dragged behind him was each moment growing more irksome, and from this he judged he must be far advanced.

The tunnel now began to twist and turn sharply, and at one place he found a shaft for light and ventilation that had once opened to the sky. This had been closed with a gridiron of bars, upon which rested loose stones roughly held together by cement. Some of these had fallen through the bars and blocked his progress, and to advance it was necessary to remove them. He stuck his torch in a crevice and untied the rope. When he had cleared his way he left the rope where he had dropped it. Freed of this impediment he was able to proceed more quickly, and he soon found himself in that part of the tunnel that had been cut through the solid rock and which he knew lay under the waters of the harbor. The air here was less pure. His eyes began to smart and his ears to suffer from the pressure. He knew he should turn back, but until he had found the other end of the tunnel he was loth to do so. Against his better judgment he hastened his footsteps; stumbling, slipping, at times splashing in pools of water, he now ran forward. He knew that he was losing strength, and that to regain the mouth of the tunnel he would need all that was left to him. But he still pushed forward. The air had now turned foul; his head and chest ached, as when he had been long under water, and his legs were like lead. He was just upon the point of abandoning his purpose when there rose before him a solid wall. He staggered to it, and, leaning against it, joyfully beat upon it with his fists. He knew that at last only a few feet separated him from the man he had set out to save. So great was his delight and so anxious was he that Rojas should share in it, that without considering that no slight sound could penetrate the barrier, he struck three times upon it with the b.u.t.t of his revolver, and then, choking and gasping like a drowning man, staggered back toward the opening. Half-way he was met by McKildrick and Peter, who, finding no pressure on the end of the rope, had drawn it to them and, fearing for Roddy's safety, had come to his rescue. They gave him an arm each, and the fresh air soon revived him. He told McKildrick what he had seen, and from his description of the second wall the engineer described how it should be opened.

"But without a confederate on the other side," he said, "we can do nothing."

"Then," declared Roddy, "the time has come to enroll Vicenti in the Honorable Order of the White Mice."

On their return to Roddy's house they sent for Vicenti, and Roddy, having first forced him to subscribe to terrifying oaths, told the secret of the tunnel.

Tears of genuine happiness came to the eyes of the amazed and delighted Venezuelan. In his excitement he embraced Roddy and protested that with such companions and in such a cause he would gladly give his life. McKildrick a.s.sured him that when he learned of the part he was to play in the rescue he would see that they had already taken the liberty of accepting that sacrifice. It was necessary, he explained, that the wall between the tunnel and the cell should fall at the first blow. An attempt to slowly undermine it, or to pick it to pieces, would be overheard and lead to discovery. He therefore intended to rend the barrier apart by a single shock of dynamite. But in this also there was danger; not to those in the tunnel, who, knowing at what moment the mine was timed to explode, could retreat to a safe distance, but to the man they wished to set free. The problem, as McKildrick pointed it out, was to make the charges of dynamite sufficiently strong to force a breach in the wall through which Rojas could escape into the tunnel, and yet not so strong as to throw the wall upon Rojas and any one who might be with him.

"And I," cried Vicenti, "will be the one who will be with him!"

"Good!" said Roddy. "That's what we hoped. It will be your part, then, to prepare General Rojas, to keep him away from the wall when we blow it open, and to pa.s.s him through the breach to us. Everything will have to be arranged beforehand. We can't signal through the wall or they would hear it. We can only agree in advance as to the exact moment it is to fall, and then trust that nothing will hang fire, either on your side of the barrier or on ours."

"And after we get him into the tunnel!" warned Vicenti, as excited as though the fact were already accomplished, "we must still fight for his life. The explosion will bring every soldier in the fortress to the cell, and they will follow us."

"There's several sharp turns in the tunnel," said McKildrick "and behind one of them a man with a revolver could hold back the lot!"

"I speak to do that!" cried Roddy jealously. "I speak to be Horatius!"

"'And I will stand on thy right hand,'" declared Peter; "'and hold the bridge with thee.' But you know, Roddy," he added earnestly, "you're an awful bad shot. If you go shooting up that subway in the dark you'll kill both of us. You'd better take a base-ball bat and swat them as they come round the turn."

"And then," cried Roddy, springing to his feet, "we'll rush Rojas down to the launch! And in twelve hours we'll land him safe in Curacao.

Heavens!" he exclaimed, "what a reception they'll give him!"

The cold and acid tones of McKildrick cast a sudden chill upon the enthusiasm.

"Before we design the triumphal arches," he said, "suppose we first get him out of prison."

When at last the conference came to an end and Vicenti rose to go, Roddy declared himself too excited to sleep and volunteered to accompany the doctor to his door. But the cause of his insomnia was not General Rojas but the daughter of General Rojas, and what called him forth into the moonlit Alameda was his need to think undisturbed of Inez, and, before he slept, to wish "good-night" to the house that sheltered her. In this vigil Roddy found a deep and melancholy satisfaction. From where he sat on a stone bench in the black shadows of the trees that arched the Alameda, Miramar, on the opposite side of the street, rose before him. Its yellow walls now were white and ghostlike. In the moonlight it glistened like a palace of frosted silver. The palace was asleep, and in the garden not a leaf stirred.

The harbor breeze had died, and the great fronds of the palms, like rigid and glittering sword-blades, were clear-cut against the stars.