Under the Chilian Flag Part 3

"This looks as though it might be the residence of some official or other," mused Jim; "but what an extraordinary quarter of the town the governor seems to have selected for his dwelling! However, I suppose he knows his own business best, and--"

"Will you be pleased to follow me, senor?" here broke in the guide Lopes, bowing in an obsequious manner, and leading the way across the _patio_ to where a heavy door gave entrance into a part of the building which overlooked the courtyard.

Jim tucked his sword under his arm and followed the fellow into a room which seemed, to him coming out of the brilliant sunlight, to be shrouded in darkness.

"Have the goodness to take a chair, senor," smiled Lopes, pushing one of those articles forward for Jim, "while I go and ascertain whether His Excellency will see you."

Jim accepted the proffered chair but, somewhat nettled by a certain curious change in the man's voice, remarked: "But, senor, I have come ash.o.r.e expressly to see the _intendente_; and see him I must; my orders are imperative!"

"Oh, I a.s.sure you there will be no difficulty whatever on that score,"

replied Lopes. "Kindly excuse me for a few minutes while I announce your arrival."

Jim bowed; and his guide walked quickly out of the room, slamming the heavy door somewhat sharply behind him. Douglas heard him pause for a few seconds, and then step sharply across the stone-flagged _patio_, from the other side of which he fancied he heard the sound of a low laugh and some words spoken in an undertone. But he paid no particular attention to the matter and, in order to pa.s.s the time, rose from his seat and began to move round the room. The apartment was so extremely dark, however, that he presently walked over to the window, in order to pull aside the curtains which he supposed, were excluding the light.

Greatly to his surprise, however, he found that there were no curtains before the window, but that the gloom was caused by the fact that a kind of iron shutter was securely fastened across the outside. This was indeed a curious sort of waiting room, and--

A sudden thought flashed across Jim's mind, and he darted quickly to the door and turned the handle, pulling it toward him as he did so.

It was as he had surmised; the door had been locked or bolted on the outside; and he knew now why Lopes had paused those few seconds before crossing the _patio_. Jim was a prisoner, and he had walked into the trap with his eyes open. Oh! what a fool he had been! He might have known that a person of importance such as the _intendente_ of Iquique would not have had his residence among the slums of the city. But what on earth, he wondered, had been their object in making a prisoner of him? How came it about that he had been expected, and that a man had been posted at the pier, ready to receive him and lead him into this ambush?

Then he suddenly remembered the dispatches he carried from the Admiral; and he realised that a person on sh.o.r.e with a telescope could have seen him put off from the flagship, and have observed his progress the whole way from her to the quay. What, too, more natural than that the Peruvians should be anxious to get a Chilian officer into their hands, especially a flag-officer, who would be almost certain to have a very considerable knowledge of the Chilian admiral's plans? There were many ways by which that information could be extracted by unscrupulous and desperate men, and Jim shuddered as he realised the danger in which he stood. The first thing that he now did was to take the dispatches from his inner breast pocket, and secrete them, as well as he could under the circ.u.mstances, next his skin, resolving at the same time that he would give up his life rather than part with them, or disclose to the Peruvians any of the admiral's plans.

The only weapon which Jim had brought ash.o.r.e was, of course, his dress sword; but he resolved that he would make some use of that before they should place him in any closer confinement, or lay hands on his papers.

The next thing to be done was to examine the room, to see whether any means of escape presented itself; and in the first place he scrutinised the window which was secured with the iron shutters outside. But a very few seconds sufficed to show him that there was no possibility of getting out by that way, and he looked round for a second door to the apartment. The walls were, however, lined with ma.s.sive bookshelves, and there was no trace of any door save that by which he had entered.

Strangely enough, there was not even so much as a fireplace to the room; and after half an hour's careful search Douglas was reluctantly compelled to acknowledge that he was helpless to do anything further at present, and that he would have to await developments before taking any action.

He therefore made himself as comfortable as possible in an easy-chair, keeping his ears open at the same time, so that he might have due warning of the approach of an enemy. The house was so silent that, so far as any sound was concerned, it might have been uninhabited. Douglas had been waiting for half an hour, when he discovered that he was becoming exceedingly drowsy, and that the air of the room seemed not only to be unaccountably close but also to have a rather queer new odour in it. Jim yawned portentously several times, and at length moved over to the window to try whether the air would be any fresher there, for he put down its oppressiveness to the fact that there was no chimney in the room. But, so far as he could ascertain, the window seemed to be hermetically sealed; and upon inspection he found that the gla.s.s in it was so abnormally thick that to break it would be practically an impossibility.

Douglas now began to find that his breathing was becoming distinctly difficult and, seized with a vague sense of new danger, he ran to the door and hammered vigorously upon it, shouting at the same time for some one to come and release him. But his blows and shouts only echoed emptily round the _patio_, and not a soul put in an appearance. He felt as though all the strength were going out of his limbs, and he presently staggered to a sofa, upon which he flung himself, powerless to stand upon his feet any longer. Strange visions began to float before him, and curious fancies flitted through his brain, which felt as though some one had bound an iron strap round it and was gradually increasing the pressure until it seemed as though his head must split asunder.

How much longer would it be, he wondered dully, before the c.o.xswain in charge of the _Blanco Encalada's_ steam-launch became anxious about his long absence, and inst.i.tuted inquiries, or returned to the flagship with the news? Admiral Williams was certainly not the man to allow to pa.s.s unchallenged such a gross violation of International Law as the seizure and imprisonment of a properly accredited envoy; but then, the people who had been guilty of this outrage had doubtless acted unofficially, and the _intendente_ would consequently deny all knowledge of the business. Surely, though--

But by this time Jim's thoughts had become more and more confused, and his brain was refusing to act coherently. Flashes of lurid light pa.s.sed before his eyes, and the horrible feeling of suffocation became ever more and more acute. Finally, with what he fancied was a shout for a.s.sistance, but it was, in reality, only a weak whisper, Jim lost consciousness altogether, and rolled from his couch on to the floor, where he lay like a log, breathing stertorously.

Almost at the same moment a section of the book-case surrounding the room moved inward, apparently of its own volition, and two men, one of whom was the man Lopes, crept cautiously into the apartment. Hastily seizing Jim's inanimate body by the arms and legs, they dragged him out of the room, carried him down a long narrow pa.s.sage and, opening the door of another room, took him inside and placed him on a bed which it contained.

"What a time the youngster took to go off, Manuel!" said the second fellow, addressing Lopes while he industriously searched Jim's pockets.

"I hope we have not given him an overdose, and killed him; for I expect the information that we shall extract from him will be worth a great deal more than that contained in the papers which he is sure to carry.

By the way, I wonder where they can be? They are certainly not in his pockets. You are certain you have not made a mistake, _amigo mio_, and got hold of the wrong man?"

"_Carrajo_! no," exclaimed Lopes testily. "This is the fellow, without doubt; I watched him all the way from the ship. Here, lend me your knife, and I will rip up his clothes; he is certain to have suspected treachery after I locked him in, and will have secreted the doc.u.ments somewhere. Ah! here they are. Now, read them out to me, Carlos, while I try to bring the _hijo_ round."

There was silence for a few minutes, broken only by the rustle of paper; then, with an oath, the man called Carlos dashed the packet down, saying, in a voice hoa.r.s.e with excitement and rage: "_Carramba_, Lopes you are a fool! you have made a mistake somewhere. This is not the man at all! I suspected as much when I saw that it was only a boy that you had captured. These papers are simply a notification from the admiral of the Chilians that the condensation of water is to cease! While we have been wasting time here the other fellow will have come ash.o.r.e and returned again, with the papers still in his possession! Oh! Lopes, you are a mule, _cabeza de porco_! All our trouble has been in vain."

"Softly, softly, my friend," replied Manuel. "Even if we have, as you say, secured the wrong messenger, all our trouble will _not_ have been useless. You may have observed, _caro mio_, that this is a flag- officer, and he will be certain to have knowledge of a great many of Rebolledo Williams's plans. Very well; when he recovers we will take measures to induce him--ha! ha!--to tell us all he knows. After the attention of an hour or so which we will give him, and with the a.s.sistance of certain little instruments which we possess, we will get out of him all the information he has. It is wonderful," he went on musingly, "how communicative a man will become--under certain circ.u.mstances."

The man Carlos looked at his fellow-scoundrel for a few moments, and then broke out into a hoa.r.s.e chuckle.

"All right, _querido_; I understand," he laughed. "We will remove him, however, for the present, to less comfortable quarters, as he seems to be on the point of recovery. Lift up his feet, _mi amigo_, while I take his arms as before." Suiting the action to the word, the two men seized Jim's body and carried it away down another pa.s.sage, until they came to a flight of stone stairs, down which they went into the very bowels of the earth, as it seemed. Presently they encountered a ma.s.sive stone door which, on being opened, disclosed a damp and unspeakably filthy cell. Into this they tossed the unfortunate officer, and, without caring, apparently, whether they broke every bone in his body or not, kicked him unmercifully into the centre of the dungeon, and then turned and left him.

Although the two scoundrels had been under the impression that Jim Douglas was on the point of recovery from unconsciousness when they thus callously tossed him into the cell, they were mistaken; for they found, upon revisiting him several hours later, that he was still in a state of insensibility. The two rascals then became not a little alarmed for the success of their scheme, and they at once did all in their power to revive their victim, with the result that, late that same evening, he recovered his senses, although he was much too dazed to answer the questions which they tried to put to him. The men therefore gave up their attempt for that night, and left Jim in peace, handing him a little bread and water, and promising themselves that they would return early the next morning.

Douglas recovered his faculties soon after Carlos and Lopes had left him, and while eating his frugal meal tried to unravel the mystery of his capture, and to calculate how long it would probably be before Admiral Williams should take any steps to find him. He was, however, still very dull and heavy, and presently dropped into a deep sleep, from which he was awakened, just as dawn was breaking, by the entrance of his captors. They immediately began to interrogate him about the number of men in the fleet, the condition of the ships, the number of their guns, and, above all, as to the plans which Admiral Williams had formed for the forthcoming attack on Peruvian ports.

Jim, of course, firmly refused to give them any information whatever upon the matters in question, but loudly denounced the way in which he had been treated, and demanded to be set at liberty immediately. Carlos and his accomplice merely laughed, and Lopes remarked: "So you refuse to tell us anything, do you, my young c.o.c.kerel? Well, we shall see, we shall see. I will wager that you change your mind within the next half- hour; what say you, Carlos, eh? Now, once more will you tell me what--"

"No!" roared Douglas, in a fit of exasperation, "I will tell you _nothing_! and you may do what you please, I will still keep silent. My captain will know how to avenge me if you offer me any injury."

"Hark how loudly it crows, Manuel," laughed Carlos, showing all his teeth. "However, I think we had better not waste any more time; bring in the playthings, Lopes, my brave."

The latter went out of the cell, and presently returned, carrying an iron brazier filled with glowing charcoal, and bearing under his left arm a cloth which, when unrolled, disclosed to Jim's horrified gaze a glittering array of instruments, the suggestiveness of the shapes of which left little doubt as to what was their ghastly use. The poor lad turned sick and faint, and the sweat began to pour off him at the mere sight of those fearful appliances. Still, he did not falter, and he swore to himself that not all their tortures should make a traitor of him.

"Now, Carlos!" exclaimed Lopes, throwing himself upon Jim, who struggled vainly to free himself from the clutches of the two powerful men who held him. In a few moments he was bound hand and foot, and Carlos removed the naval sword which they had not, as yet, taken from the young Chilian officer. Douglas was then flung on his back, and both arms and legs were lashed securely to iron rings cemented into the floor of the cell. This done, with a sardonic laugh, the two men stood upright and looked at the rec.u.mbent form of their prisoner. Then Carlos stepped across the dungeon and, chuckling all the while, thrust several of the steel instruments of torture in among the glowing charcoal of the brazier.

Half-fainting, and with every nerve and sense strained to its utmost, Jim suddenly fancied that he heard a faint sound, coming apparently from a great distance. It sounded, to his fevered imagination, almost like a bugle call, but it was so exceedingly faint that he thought his ears must have deceived him. He looked at the two rascals above him, but they were talking, and had evidently heard nothing. Carlos drew out from the brazier a long, curved piece of steel, but it was not yet red- hot and he replaced it, with a malevolent glance at Douglas.

Then suddenly there rang out, high, clear, and quite unmistakable, the sound of a trumpet; and it was blown at no very great distance away, either! Jim recognised it immediately; it was the alarm, and he felt that some crisis was at hand.

"_Carrajo_!" exclaimed the man Lopes, turning a pale face to his confederate, "what does that mean? Run up above, man, quickly, and find out. Surely it cannot be that--" He broke off, as a dull boom rumbled through the stagnant air and made the very stone cell quiver. "Quick, Carlos; quick, man, and see what is the matter."

Without further bidding Carlos opened the door and sprang up the stairs, just as an appalling crash was heard, apparently quite close at hand, even if not in the very building itself. Then there was another rending explosion, and another, not quite so close at hand this time. Lopes, quivering with fear, glanced at Douglas, and then at the open door, as though meditating flight, and he had evidently just made up his mind to decamp when Carlos came plunging down the stone steps.

"_Amigo mio_!" he gasped hoa.r.s.ely, "something has gone terribly wrong somewhere, for the Chilian squadron is bombarding Iquique; and what is more, all the sh.e.l.ls are falling in this quarter. The streets are full of dead, and a man I saw flying past just now says that a body of marines is already on sh.o.r.e, and coming this way. We must fly at once, or we shall be too late! Can it be that this is in return for our having seized this youngster? Come along, my friend, quickly; and it would be well to give the boy a tap on the head and thus spare his countrymen the trouble of carrying him away, if they find him. But, come quickly man, or we are both lost. Those cursed sh.e.l.ls are beginning to fall in this direction again!"

And indeed he was right; the dungeon fairly rocked under the hideous concussion of the bursting missiles, while the roar of falling masonry could plainly be heard above, mingled with shrieks which came to their ears, strangely m.u.f.fled by the distance.

"I don't like to leave that boy," muttered Lopes, who seemed much the cooler of the two men, "but if I stay here we shall both be buried alive. No, Mr Officer, I will not kill you," he said, drawing back his lips from his teeth with an evil smile; "I will leave you here, so that your friends may have the satisfaction of killing you themselves!"

Then, as another fearful crash sounded above, he kicked the brazier of coal over so that the glowing embers scattered themselves over Jim's body, and, calling to his friend, exclaimed, "_Adios, senor_!" as the two men ran up the stone stairs. Jim suffered excruciating pain as the embers burnt their way through his clothes and ate into his flesh; but at length he contrived to roll and shake himself free of them.

Meanwhile, his two enemies could hardly have gone a dozen steps upward when there came a most deafening concussion close by, and a shower of dust and flying fragments of masonry scattered itself round Douglas, nearly blinding him. He felt that he was lost; for, bound as he was, he could do nothing to help himself; but as he lay there waiting for death he was astonished to find that one of the cords confining his wrists was slackening, and the next moment it had parted; a fragment of glowing charcoal had providentially fallen upon it and burnt it through. With one hand free, he found himself able, with some difficulty, to release the other; after which a few seconds were sufficient to enable him to cast loose the lashings from his feet. He then stumbled and groped his way up the steps, pa.s.sing, as he did so, the mangled bodies of Lopes and of Carlos, who had been literally blown to pieces. The house above was a mere shapeless ma.s.s of wreckage, and Jim had little difficulty in clambering over the debris into the street. As he emerged from the wrecked building there was a rattling volley, and a shower of bullets whistled past the young officer's head. His own men were firing at him, under the impression that he was one of the enemy! He s.n.a.t.c.hed a handkerchief from his pocket and waved it, just in time to avoid being riddled by a second discharge.

A moment later Douglas was shaking hands with his rescuers, who had so nearly escaped being merely his avengers. It now appeared that the c.o.xswain of the launch, suspecting treachery, had followed Jim and his guide to the house, outside which he had waited for some time in the hope that he was mistaken, and that Jim would presently make his appearance. But when an hour had pa.s.sed, the man felt convinced that something was wrong, and hurried back to the ship to report. Admiral Williams had thereupon sent an ultimatum to the _intendente_ that, unless Senor Douglas was returned to the _Blanco Encalada_ by daybreak, he would bombard.

The unfortunate official, knowing nothing of the occurrence complained of, had failed, of course, to produce the young man; and Rebolledo Williams had carried out his threat, very nearly destroying the man whom he wished to save in so doing. Under cover of the heavy gun-fire a party of marines had been landed, and, under guidance of the c.o.xswain, had gone toward the house where Jim was known to be. The men, seeing the place in ruins, naturally concluded that Jim was dead, and were on the point of retreating when the lad put in an appearance among the ruins.

Having happily accomplished their errand, the detachment now returned to the ships, having to fight their way back through the streets in the face of an almost overwhelming Peruvian force. But they won through eventually, and regained their boats without great loss. That afternoon Jim reported to the admiral, who thereupon determined to bombard in grim earnest on the following morning. Needless to say Jim slept sounder that night than he had done in the dungeon on the previous evening.

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE BATTLE BETWEEN THE ESMERALDA AND THE HUASCAR.

On the following morning, shortly after daybreak, Rebolledo Williams began his preparations for a further bombardment of Iquique; but, just as he was on the point of opening fire, the _Blanco Encalada's_ yeoman of signals presented himself with a report that the Chilian gunboat _Magellanes_--a vessel of 772 tons displacement and of eleven knots speed--had just made her appearance in the bay, coming up from the southward, and flying the signal, "Have important news to communicate."

The admiral therefore ordered operations to be suspended for the moment, and waited impatiently for the captain of the _Magellanes_ to come aboard and make his report. The little vessel was evidently in a hurry, for she steamed in at full speed, and did not bring up until close alongside the flagship. The anchor then splashed down to the accompaniment of a roar of chain-cable through the hawse-pipe the captain's gig was lowered away; and a few minutes later that individual was being pulled across the short s.p.a.ce of water between his own ship and the _Blanco Encalada_.

Captain Simpson was closeted for over an hour with his admiral; at the end of which time the signal was made for the whole fleet to heave short in readiness for an early departure. The _Magellanes_ was also ordered to accompany the squadron. As the ships were to go northward at top speed it was impossible to take the _Esmeralda_ along as well, in consequence of her phenomenally low rate of speed. But as she herself would be at the mercy of almost any hostile ship that might happen to heave in sight while the main body of the fleet was absent, it was decided to leave with her the gunboat _Covadonga_; and these two vessels were ordered to continue the blockade of the port to the best of their ability.