"Human life is nothing!"

"No; it must end one day."

"You won't give your word unconditionally?"

"No; you know my condition."

He ignored it with a blazing eye, his hand upon the door.

"You prefer to die, then?" "Infinitely."

"Then die you may, and be d.a.m.ned to you!"

CHAPTER XVII. THIEVES FALL OUT

The door slammed. It was invisibly locked and the key taken out. I listened for the last of an angry stride. It never even began. But after a pause the door was unlocked again, and Rattray re-entered.

Without looking at me, he s.n.a.t.c.hed the candle from the table on which it stood by the bedside, and carried it to a bureau at the opposite side of the room. There he stood a minute with his back turned, the candle, I fancy, on the floor. I saw him putting something in either jacket pocket. Then I heard a dull little snap, as though he had shut some small morocco case; whatever it was, he tossed it carelessly back into the bureau; and next minute he was really gone, leaving the candle burning on the floor.

I lay and heard his steps out of earshot, and they were angry enough now, nor had he given me a single glance. I listened until there was no more to be heard, and then in an instant I was off the bed and on my feet. I reeled a little, and my head gave me great pain, but greater still was my excitement. I caught up the candle, opened the unlocked bureau, and then the empty case which I found in the very front.

My heart leapt; there was no mistaking the depressions in the case. It was a brace of tiny pistols that Rattray had slipped into his jacket pockets.

Mere toys they must have been in comparison with my dear Deane and Adams; that mattered nothing. I went no longer in dire terror of my life; indeed, there was that in Rattray which had left me feeling fairly safe, in spite of his last words to me, albeit I felt his fears on my behalf to be genuine enough. His taking these little pistols (of course, there were but three chambers left loaded in mine) confirmed my confidence in him.

He would stick at nothing to defend me from the violence of his bloodthirsty accomplices. But it should not come to that. My legs were growing firmer under me. I was not going to lie there meekly without making at least an effort at self-deliverance. If it succeeded-the idea came to me in a flash-I would send Rattray an ultimatum from the nearest town; and either Eva should be set instantly and unconditionally free, or the whole matter be put unreservedly in the hands of the local police.

There were two lattice windows, both in the same immensely thick wall; to my joy, I discovered that they overlooked the open premises at the back of the hall, with the oak-plantation beyond; nor was the distance to the ground very great. It was the work of a moment to tear the sheets from the bed, to tie the two ends together and a third round the mullion by which the larger window was bisected. I had done this, and had let down my sheets, when a movement below turned my heart to ice. The night had clouded over. I could see n.o.body; so much the greater was my alarm.

I withdrew from the window, leaving the sheets hanging, in the hope that they also might be invisible in the darkness. I put out the candle, and returned to the window in great perplexity. Next moment I stood aghast-between the devil and the deep sea. I still heard a something down below, but a worse sound came to drown it. An unseen hand was very quietly trying the door which Rattray had locked behind him.

"Diablo!" came to my horrified ears, in a soft, vindictive voice.

"I told ye so," muttered another; "the young swab's got the key."

There was a pause, in which it would seem that Joaquin Santos had his ear at the empty keyhole.

"I think he must be slipping," at last I heard him sigh. "It was not necessary to awaken him in this world. It is a peety."

"One kick over the lock would do it," said Harris; "only the young swab'll hear."

"Not perhaps while he is dancing attendance on the senhora. Was it not good to send him to her? If he does hear, well, his own turn will come the queecker, that is all. But it would be better to take them one at a time; so keeck away, my friend, and I will give him no time to squil."

While my would-be murderers were holding this whispered colloquy, I had stood half-petrified by the open window; unwilling to slide down the sheets into the arms of an unseen enemy, though I had no idea which of them it could be; more hopeful of slipping past my butchers in the darkness, and so to Rattray and poor Eva; but not the less eagerly looking for some hiding-place in the room. The best that offered was a recess in the thick wall between the two windows, filled with hanging clothes: a narrow closet without a door, which would shelter me well enough if not too curiously inspected. Here I hid myself in the end, after a moment of indecision which nearly cost me my life. The coats and trousers still shook in front of me when the door flew open at the first kick, and Santos stood a moment in the moonlight, looking for the bed. With a stride he reached it, and I saw the gleam of a knife from where I stood among the squire's clothes; it flashed over my bed, and was still.

"He is not 'ere!"

"He heard us, and he's a-hiding."

"Make light, my friend, and we shall very soon see."

Harris did so.

"Here's a candle," said Santos; "light it, and watch the door. Perro mal dicto! What have we here?"

I felt certain he had seen me, but the candle pa.s.sed within a yard of my feet, and was held on high at the open window.

"We are too late!" said Santos. "He's gone!"

"Are you sure

"Look at this sheet."

"Then the other swab knew of it, and we'll settle with him."

"Yes, yes. But not yet, my good friend-not yet. We want his a.s.seestance in getting the gold back to the sea; he will be glad enough to give it, now that his pet bird has flown; after that-by all mins. You shall cut his troth, and I will put one of 'is dear friend's bullets in 'im for my own satisfaction."

There was a quick step on the stairs-in the corridor.

"I'd like to do it now," whispered Harris; "no time like the present."

"Not yet, I tell you!"

And Rattray was in the room, a silver-mounted pistol in each hand; the sight of these was a surprise to his treacherous confederates, as even I could see.

"What the devil are you two doing here?" he thundered.

"We thought he was too quite," said Santos. "You percive the rizzon."

And he waved from empty bed to open window, then held the candle close to the tied sheet, and shrugged expressively.

"You thought he was too quiet!" echoed Rattray with fierce scorn. "You thought I was too blind-that's what you mean. To tell me that Miss Denison wished to see me, and Miss Denison that I wished to speak to her! As if we shouldn't find you out in about a minute! But a minute was better than nothing, eh? And you've made good use of your minute, have you. You've murdered him, and you pretend he's got out? By G.o.d, if you have, I'll murder you! I've been ready for this all night!"

And he stood with his back to the window, his pistols raised, and his head carried proudly-happily-like a man whose self-respect was coming back to him after many days. Harris shrank before his fierce eyes and pointed barrels. The Portuguese, however, had merely given a characteristic shrug, and was now rolling the inevitable cigarette.

"Your common sense is almost as remarkable as your sense of justice, my friend," said he. "You see us one, two, tree meenutes ago, and you see us now. You see the empty bed, the empty room, and you imagine that in one, two, tree meenutes we have killed a man and disposed of his body. Truly, you are very wise and just, and very loyal also to your friends. You treat a dangerous enemy as though he were your tween-brother. You let him escape-let him, I repit-and then you threaten to shoot those who, as it is, may pay for your carelessness with their lives. We have been always very loyal to you, Senhor Rattray. We have leestened to your advice, and often taken it against our better judgment. We are here, not because we think it wise, but because you weeshed it. Yet at the first temptation you turn upon us, you point your peestols at your friends."

"I don't believe in your loyalty," rejoined Rattray. "I believe you would shoot me sooner than I would you. The only difference would be than I should be shot in the back!"

"It is untrue," said Santos, with immense emotion. "I call the saints to witness that never by thought or word have I been disloyal to you"-and the blasphemous wretch actually crossed himself with a trembling, skinny hand. "I have leestened to you, though you are the younger man. I have geeven way to you in everything from the moment we were so fullish as to set foot on this accursed coast; that also was your doeeng; and it will be your fault if ivil comes of it. Yet I have not complained. Here in your own 'ouse you have been the master, I the guest. So far from plotting against you, show me the man who has heard me brith one treacherous word behind your back; you will find it deeficult, friend Rattray; what do you say, captain?"

"Me?" cried Harris, in a voice bursting with abuse. And what the captain said may or may not be imagined. It cannot be set down.

But the man who ought to have spoken-the man who had such a chance as few men have off the stage-who could have confounded these villains in a breath, and saved the wretched Rattray at once from them and from himself-that unheroic hero remained ign.o.bly silent in his homely hiding-place. And, what is more, he would do the same again!