Chapter XIV: Part FOUR (3)

Presently the negro carried Margarita into the room and chained her to her pillar. When he had done this, he lit a cigar and puffed the smoke into her face; then thrust his face into hers, and said, “Ah love de white woman,” and kissed her. Then he looked at Sard, blew some cigar-smoke into his face, and said, “Yuh hit me on de jaw. Bimeby I come back and buhn yo eyes out with my segah.”

After this he and the Indians disappeared, closing a door behind them. Father Garsinton entered from the angle of the room.

He was dressed in his scarlet robes and carried a lamp, which he placed upon the low stool from which Hilary had reached the jug. He then went to a small aumbry, drew out some dried carib leaves and flung a few upon the brazier. The stuff sputtered and threw out profuse smoke, the smell of which was both sickly and stupefying. He seemed to breathe it with pleasure. At last he turned to his victims, looked from one to the other, and spoke.

“So,” he said. “My mice. The cat has played with you. And did you taste the pleasures of hope? Did you feel safe at last? Know, my little mice, that I watched, while you hoped. So you would not try the back yard, because of the dog? Why, the dog is stuffed. And so the Dictator will search for Mr. Harker? That is to be expected, but he will not search here, where so much of his wealth is planned for. Still, you enjoyed your little hopes.”

He drew nearer and seemed in some strange way to grow bigger. It was as though the evil which he served had entered into him and taken possession.

“And now,” he said, “put by hope. Evil is stronger than hope; or faith; or charity; or strength, you; or honour, madam. What do you say, sailor?”

“I wish I had you with my hands free.”

“Oh! What would happen then?”

“A cleaner world.”

“Cleaner?” Sagrado said. “A cleaner world? My friend, I serve the purpose of this world, which is not cleanliness, but triumph. You, with your cleanliness, wasting the energy of men in being clean. Pah, you two sickening things; one clean, the other chaste. Which of you does the more harm, with your beastly ideals?”

“We had a man in the fo’c’sle once,” Sard said, “who spoke just the same kind of thing; only there was some excuse for him; he’d been brought up in a brothel. The men took him on deck and scrubbed his mouth out with sand and canvas.”

“I do not use those methods,” Sagrado said. “But I have my own methods of correcting false philosophers, as you shall see.”

He returned, almost immediately, with something tied in a native frail. He laid it upon the floor, then brought the small table or stool and placed it facing the two victims, between them and about one yard from each of them. They could see the carib leaves in the brazier glowing and unglowing and writhing like live things on the charcoal. Then Sagrado unlaced the native frail and drew from it a shell-shaped bomb, which he placed upon the table. He adjusted the fuse with great care and then turned to his victims.

“A fifth part of an hour,” he said, “is twelve minutes. In twelve minutes, precisely, this bomb will explode. It contains a quarter charge, which will suffice. What the bomb leaves, I and my ministrants will then take, to the utmost.”

He lit a twist of bijuco bast in the brazier, and then with the flame set fire to the fuse. It burned for one second, then changed to a glow, as Sagrado softly blew upon it. It glowed rather redly and the glow showed a black mark which at once began to creep, though very, very slowly, along the unburned fuse. Sagrado blew out his lamp and disappeared out of the room. The two victims saw nothing but the veins in the leaves in the brazier and the black mark charring along the fuse in front of the fire which charred it. Already a small piece of white ash, like a cigar-ash, fell from the burnt end of the fuse.

“Do not look at that fuse,” Sard said.

“I cannot help it,” she said.

“Yes, you can help it. Look at me. Can you move at all?”

“Hardly at all. Can you?”

“No.”

“Tell me the truth,” she said. “Do you think they killed my brother?”

“I could not see,” he said.

“I suppose they will kill him. And I suppose this bomb will kill us.”

“It must injure us,” he said.

“How long have we, before it bursts?”

“Ten and a half minutes.”

“Supposing one of us should escape?”

“We had better have no false hopes,” he said. “We’re not likely to leave this house alive.”

“I meant only this,” she said: “the survivor might take a message. Is there any message that you would care to trust me with?”

“You might explain to my aunt, old Lady Crowthorne, in England. Would you care to trust any message to me?”

“To my brother, if he be alive,” she said; “and to my father—he is really my stepfather—Hardy Kingsborough, of Passion Courtenay, in Berkshire. Can you remember that?”

“Passion Courtenay?”

“Yes. Why? Do you know it?” she asked.

“I should think I do,” he said. “I’ve gone there every year, when I have been in England, for the last fifteen years.”

“With whom do you stay, then? Oh, this is happy, to hear of home now, here.”

“I do not stay,” he answered. “As a rule I go over for the day, and then away in the evening. You see, I know nobody there, now: in a way I never did. I go to the inn near the river, the Hunt and Hounds; then I go on the river, and away by the evening train, the 7.13.”

“I expect we have passed each other,” she said.

“Very likely,” he said. “Whereabouts do you live there, Miss Kingsborough? Could you describe it?”

“Yes. For the last ten years we have lived at The Murreys, which you may not know, but must have seen, if you have been to the Hunt.”

“I know the outside of your home very well, then,” he said. “It’s called The Murreys from the mulberry trees. Whenever I go on the river there, I land in one of the fields below your house and walk from the river to your garden wall. The field is called Bridger’s Peace; do you know why?”

“It means the piece of ground where the bridgers camped when they built the bridge in the fourteenth century.”

“I thought it was the other kind of peace,” he said, “the ‘Peace which passeth all understanding’; which it has always been to me.”

“It is a beautiful place,” she said; “and the thought of it is peace now.”

“Yes,” he said.

“It is going on, now,” she said, “under this same night; the water is going on under the bridge.”

“Ah, to be tied,” he cried, “lashed foot and hand!”

“Why did you land in our field?” she asked.

“The field is mixed up with my life; I have to go there. In a way, that field and house have been all my life. The sea has only been something to wrestle with: that is not enough.”

“What have the house and field been to you, then?” she asked.

“It would be mean not to share with my companion,” Sard said; “you are linked with the place too. It is all strange, and your being here at the end is almost the strangest: you, the owner of that place, and I, just the trespasser and worshipper. Fifteen years ago I was taken to a picnic there. I don’t believe in chance. But it seemed just chance that I went there. We didn’t know the people, but they wanted a boy to fill up a side at cricket. Anyhow, I went. Some people called Penga took me.

“But I was quite out of it. I was the youngest there. They had two elevens without me, and I didn’t know a soul there, except Dick Penga, and he had had the swot of bringing me and thought me a child, besides.

“There was a Spanish lady, a widow, there with her daughter, who was of my own age. She was out of it too.

“I could always talk Spanish, so I talked to the girl. In a way, we were children; but it was not any childishness to me. That girl altered my life. She has been my life ever since, all the life that mattered: the rest was only ropes and weights.”

“You saw her again, then?” Margarita said.

“No,” he said. “I’ve never seen her since, nor heard from her. You see, she was only there by as strange a chance, almost, as I. She came from Santo Espirito, in Andaluz, in Spain. I wrote to her there, but I never had an answer: of course, she would never have written to me.

“I went to Santo Espirito as soon as I could; but that was eight years later. Nobody knew of them there. The place had all changed in the interval, for they had begun to work copper there: it was a mining town.”

“What was the girl’s name?”

“Juanita de la Torre.”

“Would you know her again, do you think?”

“I thought that you were she when I saw you at that window at Los Xicales.”

“I am she,” she said simply. “I am Juanita de la Torre. My mother married my stepfather the year of the picnic. He met her at the picnic for the first time. Four years later we went to live at The Murreys. We took the name Kingsborough when mother married: we’ve been brought up as English ever since. Margarita is my second name; I took to that, because the English cannot pronounce the other.”

“I can, Juanita. Ah! no, no! do not look at that fuse. I will tell you when to prepare. We still have four minutes.”

“How can you tell?”

“I’ve kept watches nearly every day and night for ten years. I can tell time within a minute or two. And to think that we met at Los Xicales and never knew! I was misled by your name. Why did you not speak? You heard my name.”

“Remember I did not know your name,” she said. “I have always thought that your name was Chisholm. I never once heard you called Harker. You were Chisholm to me.”

“Ah! I was afraid of that,” he said. “You never got my letter?”

“Never.”

They were silent for a few seconds; in the stillness some ash dropped from the fuse with a feathery fall: down in the town a cock crowed.

“Strange,” he said. “There is a cock crowing. I cannot hear a cock without knowing that I have an immortal soul.”

“It is a live cry,” she said.

“It is like a trumpeter trumpeting the graves open. It’s the cry the dead will rise with.

“Ah!” he cried, bitterly. “And the living are rising with it, and going out to their work, while we are lashed here like staysails. Oh, if I could only heave this pillar down!” He swayed from side to side, but was too tightly lashed: there was no stirring that tree bole tamped in four feet below the floor.

“It’s no good,” he said. “I am caught. And if I had not been a hasty fool, I could have come here with guardias and set you free.”

“Don’t think that for an instant,” she said. “They were going to cut my throat if there were any rescue. ‘We shall all die together,’ he told me. It’s death to him to be caught here, but he was determined that I should die first. Guardias would not have saved me.”

“I haven’t done much,” he said.

“You have done everything,” she said.

The red glow on the fuse suddenly changed to yellowish; a little flame sprang up out of the glow: it wavered like a candle-flame.

“The thing is going to explode,” she said.

“I think so, it is bad fuse: it is burning.”

“How long have we?”

“Perhaps less than a minute.”

“Could you sing something?”

The flame in the fuse suddenly brightened and lit up the room. He turned to Margarita and saw her great eyes fixed upon his.

“Here comes the burst,” he said. “Stand by.”

The flame steadied, then began to shoot higher with a steady sputtering hiss till it was a foot high and scattering sparks.

“Keep your eyes tight shut,” he said. “And remember it may just as easily cut our chains as us. Here she comes.”

The flame changed its colour to a dull red, which smoked; it sputtered more loudly, then lessened, sank down and went out.

“Wait,” Sard said, “wait: it may be a delayed fuse.” He counted up to seventy-three, slowly. “No,” he said. “The fuse has failed: it is not going to explode.”

The light appeared at the door at the apex of the room: Sagrado came in and looked at them.

“First the pleasures, then the miseries of hope,” he said, “to make the victims despair.”

“We do not despair,” Sard said.

“Do you not?” Sagrado answered. “No; perhaps not yet. But you will.”

“A butcher’s sponge, like you, won’t make me.”

“We shall see.”

“A man would be unclean,” Sard said, “even for spitting at you.”

“Unclean?” Sagrado answered. “There are various conceptions of cleanliness, but all have to do with consecrations and devotions. I am called unclean by you, who serve men, who are a servant in a ship. Other flunkeys serve the state. I am myself, unspotted from these flunkeydoms and slaveries. If I serve, I serve evil, the master of this world.”

“It is something,” Sard said, “to have a master as dirty as the servant.”

“It is much,” Sagrado answered, “to have a power commensurate with your philosophy.”

“I have not seen any power in you yet,” Sard said.

“No?” Sagrado said. “Yet I stand free, while you are bound, you and your romantic one. Which of us has the power, Margarita?”

“He has,” she answered. “And you know it.”

“I do not know it,” he said, “nor do events show it. I wanted you in my hands by a certain day: there was nothing that you wanted less. Yet you came to my hands, to the very moment planned. This sailor, or second mate, if I understand him, has wanted you for fifteen years: there was nothing that you wanted more, if I overheard correctly. Are you in his hands, or arms, or in mine? Which of us has the power over you?”

“He has,” she said. “And you know it.”

“If you will not see truth, you must learn truth; and you too, my sailor. . . .

“You, as I understand it,” he said, turning to Sard, “were for saving her from danger in Las Palomas. Did you save her? . . .

“Did you save your ship from danger? Why, do you suppose, did I go in your ship amid all that I most despise? _Your_ ship, I say, but I mean your owner’s ship, which you were bought to keep afloat: you, a man, being slave to a thing.”

“The thing obeyed its slaves,” Sard said.

“For a while,” the Holy One said. “For a while it gave satisfaction; the slaves earned a dividend for their employers. But then I came, I, the Holy One, who am appointed by my Master to bring down all this order which he most loathes. I came to that ship to lay her low, as an offence, and to smite her brains with numbness. They were slave-brains, thinking of nothing but of keeping their prisons clean. Their one joy was the pothouse, their sole art the music-hall; their religion, what was that, you, who reckon yourself their leader?”

“Their religion is to risk their lives and mortify their flesh in order to bring bread to their fellows,” Sard said. “In doing that, they make iron swim and dead-weight skim and the dead thing to be beautiful. Show me a finer religion, you who are already carrion for the want of one.”

“They had no religion,” Sagrado answered. “They were slaves who made pennies for pot-houses while their work made pounds for peers. I, the Holy One, came among them, and scattered among them the seeds of terror. Would that you had been there, my second mate, to watch that terror growing; the geraniums, the birds, then one by one the brains; I, with a little drug, putting my hand on the heart of your so boasted machine. It was a work of art, my second mate, a symphony of horror. I drew out what notes I wished, I struck what chords I loved, and the instruments which I disliked, I destroyed. Your Cary, I destroyed. I numbed him and killed him. With my own dose, in his own stronghold, I gave him Death.”

“You weren’t allowed to bury him,” Sard said.

It was a shot which went home. Plainly, the burial of Captain Cary by the murderer in the priest’s clothes would have given a relish to the crime.

“No matter,” the Holy One answered, controlling his face, “I shall bury you, when I have done with you.”

“You haven’t done with me yet,” Sard said. “And I owe you for Captain Cary.”

“Your owners owe me for the ship.”

“Perhaps I may pay that too.”

Sagrado walked to the throne in the apex of the room; he seated himself and appeared to consider. Sard knew that he had touched the beast to the quick by his remark about the burial. He followed it up with:

“Mr. Dorney read the service very well, I understand. You did not numb his brains, I gather.”

“He has few to numb,” Sagrado answered. “But I am thinking of what you said about payment, and of you paying me. You think yourself capable, do you, of standing in a contest with me?”

“I would do my best, the city scavenger being absent.”

Sagrado laughed, yet seemed still to be considering: he swayed a little to and fro.

“Yet it is absurd,” he said. “It would be no fair match.”

“You are older,” Sard said, “that is true, but you are fresh. I have already fought twice this night.”

“I had not heard that,” Sagrado answered. “I heard that you had been beaten: did you refer to that?”

“Yes,” Sard said.

“That was not in my mind,” Sagrado said, “when I wondered at the fitness of the match. The issue is not between Master and servant, but between the civilised world and its Destroyer. You are disgusting to me, but not important enough. You are not master of your destiny. You are a part of the scum of life, which is active for another (though without religion) and worried for another, though without purpose. And your talk is such as one would expect: it is prejudice based on ignorance, just like your press. Your sports, your muscle, your fair play, all these catchwords which you repeat when people ask you for intelligence, degrade men. Shall we say that they are the barrel-organs played loudly that men may not know of the degradations done to manhood?”

“You may say what you like,” Sard said, “the sewer of your mind is probably better fluent than stagnant.”

“I see what you are,” Sagrado answered, “the prop of it all, the sergeant, the second mate, the curé, the school-master, the petty officer.” He strode up to Sard and boxed his ears. “Pah!” he said, “you have no foundations, you paltry thing. You talk about manhood, probably, and reckon yourself a man; not a gentleman, of course, for that not even you would pretend, even at sea, but a man, no doubt. You, a preacher and a slave; who cannot know what manhood is. I will tell you what it is: it is the attainment of power and the use of power. Old as I am, I will show you. You shall stand in the wrestle with me. Esclavos!”

At his call the group of seven Indians entered. Sard saw them in the light now; seven wild animals, with a light in their eyes from the desire of blood: they had faces without mark of mirth or pity. At a sign from Sagrado they cast loose Sard’s chains. Sagrado cast off his scarlet robe and stretched his arms.

“You are free,” Sagrado said. “Come, then, to the test. Why do you not come?”

Sard hesitated for a second, thinking that one of the Indians would surely knife him when he moved. He felt that he had reached his end, and that this was how he was to die, shut up here with wild beasts in the presence of his love. He glanced at Margarita, and stood with dropped hands, letting the blood run into his numbed arms again. He meant to hit Sagrado before he died.

“The preacher hesitates,” Sagrado said.

Sard glanced again at Margarita; her look made it all worth while.

“I don’t hesitate,” Sard said. “But keep your slaves from me.”

“You are meat for the sacrifice,” Sagrado answered, “they will not touch you.”

“Time, then,” Sard said.

He rushed at Sagrado and landed with both hands upon a guard which he could not break. Stepping back, he trod into an Indian, while another Indian lurched into his side. There were Indians all round him; a sort of net of Indians. Sagrado came at him and gripped him; he clinched and drove in short-arm blows at Sagrado’s ribs; an Indian tripped him, and Sagrado got a better hold as he staggered. Sagrado was as strong as an ox and quick as a wild beast. Sard was a strong man, but this was a bull-bison of a man. He wrenched an arm free and struck with it; an Indian parried the blow; Sagrado changed his hold and pinned the arm: it was like fighting with an octopus. Indians, stooping down, snatched at Sard’s ankles. Presently Sard tripped and fell: Sagrado brought his shoulders to the mat.

“You see,” he said, “you are down. Give in.”

“I won’t,” Sard said. He struck Sagrado’s mouth and flung him aside. He rose to his feet, as Sagrado rose swearing and savage. He had cut Sagrado’s lip on a tooth, and Sagrado’s mouth bled.

“You shall pay for that,” Sagrado said.

Sard struck him again on the mouth and saw the blood quicken in the cut; he struck again; the Indians caught his arm, Sagrado pinned it and closed with him. They swayed to and fro, while the Indians struck him in the lower ribs, trying for the death-touch. Sard felt Sagrado’s fingers squirming free for a death-touch, which he did not know and could not guard. The death-touch came. A deadly weakness turned all Sard’s strength to water. He went down and felt his life die away, and then ebb partly back. He knew that he must rise, and tried hard to rise, but he was down, he could not rise.

In a few seconds he tried again, but now Sagrado had him by the throat. “Not so,” Sagrado said. “You are beaten. Try that again and I will break something.”

“I’m not finished yet,” Sard said.

“Yes, you are,” Sagrado answered. “But since you doubt it, there goes your arm.”

With a swift jerk he snapped Sard’s arm against a fulcrum, and then twisted the broken bone so that Sard cried and swooned. Sagrado waited till he had recovered and then bound him to his pillar.

“You see,” he said; “you thought yourself a man. You make a poor show in the hands of a man. Do you admit that you are beaten?”

“No.”

“You are beaten, by one twenty years older than yourself, and in the presence of your lady-love, who is now my lady-love. Those friends of yours, who were coming, are somewhat overdue. I’ve beaten you and chained you to your pillar with my own hands. Do you admit that I am your master? Answer, dog; reply, my second mate. For I am your master. The lion has caught his meat; the bull has won his heifer. And now the rites shall begin.”

He said something in Indian to the slaves, who brought forth properties from an inner room. They brought robes, rings, a crown, a sword. Then the negro appeared bearing an altar of an evil design, which he set to Sagrado’s hand. The Indians brought forward the throne.

The negro held the robe for Sagrado.

“I put on the garments of a king,” Sagrado said. “It is the colour of power. It was woven by a woman who killed her son and lived in infamy till she was hanged.”

“Your sister, I presume,” Sard said.

The negro held the rings to Sagrado, who put them on his fingers and on his thumbs.

“These rings,” he said, “are beaten from your Christian chalices, and reconsecrated to your Master’s master.”

The negro held the sword to Sagrado, who took it, kissed it and held it to his heart.

“This sword,” he said, “is the steel of the guillotine of revolution which slays, unjustly, the shrieking innocent.”

The negro laid hands upon the crown.

“See the crown,” Sagrado said. “The gold that men betrayed for, the diamond that women whored for, the ruby that men murdered for, the lead that took life, and the poisonous metals which destroy life.”

The negro, advancing, crowned Sagrado.

Sagrado sat still for a moment upon this throne. Once again Sard had the impression that something evil flowed into the man to make him bigger: he seemed to dilate and glow with an increase of personality.

“Take now the oil and the wine of evil,” Sagrado said, “and anoint me to the worship of evil.”

The negro anointed and asperged Sagrado, with some intoned words of ritual which were in no tongue known to Sard. The Indians had heaped carib leaf upon the brazier, which poured forth stupefying smoke. The negro began to chant a hymn with a rhythm which seemed to go between the marrow and the bone. Whatever it was, it stirred the Indians. They were standing three and three on each side of the throne: the seventh fed the brazier. They sometimes marked a rhythm with a stamp and a catching of the breath: their eyes became brighter and brighter, and turned upwards till they were absorbed within themselves. Their tongues licked to and fro as though they were lapping blood. Sagrado rose to his feet and drew his sword.

“Now,” he said, “I draw the sword of evil for the deed that crowns evil.” He advanced to Sard and pressed the point of the sword upon his throat.

“Do obeisance to evil,” he said, “and you shall live.”

“Apply to the marines,” Sard answered, “not to the deck department.”

“Do obeisance to evil,” Sagrado said, “and your lady-love shall be spared.”

“I will not be spared,” Margarita cried; “I defy you!”

“You dirty lunatic,” Sard said, “do your damnedest.”

“You have not said one thing yet,” Sagrado said; “that you would rather die a thousand deaths, etc. . . . Do you say that?”

“Yes,” Sard said.

“You shall, then, die a thousand deaths. And you shall beg life from me before you die the third.” He turned to the negro.

“Anoint this beast for the sacrifice,” he said.

A tremor of excitement passed through the Indians. The negro cut away Sard’s shirt so as to bare the throat and heart. Then he poured the stolen wine over Sard’s head. Sard shook the drops from him and glanced at Margarita, who was thinking of him, not of herself. She gave him her love in a look. An Indian came to each side of Sard: each held a pointed knife to his cheek, so that he could no longer see Margarita, only know that she was there, and gazing at him.

“Crown the beast for sacrifice,” Sagrado said.

The Indian came forward with a wreath of white flowers which had been drenched in patchouli; he crowned Sard with it and the Indians laughed and clapped their hands. The negro thrust it down upon Sard’s brow, so that the thorns in it drew blood, which slowly trickled into his eyes and dripped on to his chest. Sagrado laughed. He paused for an instant as though gathering evil: again he seemed to swell. He held the sword in both hands, with his thumbs uppermost, pointing straight at Sard. For a moment he stared at Sard along the line of the blade; then his head went back and his eyes turned upward in invocation.

He cried aloud upon the evil of the ages and of the day and of the hour to descend upon him. It seemed to Sard that the house filled with a murmur as though the evil obeyed his call. He heard, as it were, wings, and, as it were, voices, and knew that death came with them.

“I feel you,” Sagrado cried, “I know you, I obey you. I offer you this beast in . . .”

The murmur of wings and voices grew louder. In their greed for blood the devils beat upon the door: their teeth snapped like shaking chains. The Indians laughed, clapped their hands and moaned: “Ahi! ahi! ahi-a-hé!”

Then from the hall somewhere behind Sard came a woman’s scream of “Danger! Look out!” which was stifled in the throat as by a blow or a gag. Someone seemed to be heaving on the sliding panels and banging on the door behind the throne.

Sagrado laughed with a high, clear, inhuman cry:

“With all my strength and will and spirit,” he cried, “I offer you the life of this beast in . . .”

There came a crash both behind and in front of Sard: there was a deafening bang: someone fell over the brazier, which upset. All the stinking and smouldering carib leaf rolled from its metal pot. The room at the instant filled with men: they were all in green and silver. Sagrado whirled about to face them: one of them with a rifle beat the sword out of his hand: it broke below the hilt and fell in two pieces. After the crash, there came a silence so great that the double tinkle and clatter of the broken sword was memorable. The ball of carib leaf broke open, smoking violently: wisps of gunpowder-smoke drifted past. Sard could not imagine what had happened: all that he saw was so tight and red: but one of the Indians was lying on the floor, hardly moving. The men in green and silver were covering the rest with rifles. Behind the riflemen Sard saw the white but interested faces of Paggy and Crockums.

There was deep silence for nearly half a minute. Then somebody flung open a door which brought a gush of pure air into the foulness. An officer who had Sagrado covered with a revolver trod out the carib leaf under his feet. Two guards advanced, struck Sagrado suddenly on the wrists, knocking them together, then instantly twisted the twitch or cuero about them and wrenched it taut. Sard thought, “I have often heard that they put the twitch on criminals. They can break a man’s wrists with it, so they say. Now there it is, actually done, before my eyes. They have him at their mercy.”

Sagrado neither spoke nor struggled. He was like one drugged and unable to speak through the drug. He thought no more of Sard, but plainly did not yet know what had happened. The negro had turned whitish under his colour: the Indians moved no muscle.

The Dictator strode through the guards and spoke.

“So,” he said, “a nice, pretty Christian scene of play! And Harker mio, my benefactor. One turn deserves another.”

Guardias kept flooding into the room. They sorted themselves into couples, who advanced, each couple, to an Indian, put the cuero on him and dragged him aside. The Dictator with his own hands beat and tore at Margarita’s chains. A chief of guardias, who had keys about him, unlocked the padlocks; the chains clanked to the floor, Sard and Margarita were free. The two reefers were white and subdued, but both were kind and helpful. They brought chairs for the two victims, and then, after a little search, brought water in some bronze bowls and mopped their brows. “You’re among friends, Miss,” they said. “No one shall hurt you.” “You’re all right, sir,” they said to Sard; “you’ll soon feel better. It’s all right now, sir; those devils are all cueroed up.”

When the Dictator had helped to restore the two victims, he turned to the guards. “Take those Indios and this negro out into the Plaza for the present,” he said. “Leave this leader of theirs. I wish a little to examine him.”

When the last of the eight had been removed, the Dictator turned to Margarita.

“Miss Kingsborough,” he said, “I’m glad to be able to say that your brother is safe. He will do well enough; but I have thought it better to have him to my palace for my doctor to overhaul. Presently, when my carriages come, you shall join him.

“And now I will a little question this atavist, this throwback, who has so nearly destroyed my Harker. Bring this creature to the light.”

The man who held the twitch brought Sagrado forward. Sagrado seemed dazed still, but in his dream he was unwilling to be seen; he shrank from the Dictator and bowed his head into his robes.

“Let me see him,” the Dictator said. “Hold up his head to the light. So, tear away that crown.”

A man flung the crown to the ground: Sagrado was displayed: he turned whiter, but became more himself. The Dictator looked hard at him.

“We have met before,” he said.

“We have had dealings,” Sagrado said.

“So, it is Rafael Hirsch returned; one more who has not yet paid me for Carlotta. Are you not Rafael Hirsch?”

“If I were fifty Rafael Hirsches,” Sagrado answered, “you would not be paid for Carlotta. You will carry that wound to your death, and no son of yours will carry on your work here. Killing her has kept you sterile at least.”

“Good work is fruitful of itself,” the Dictator answered. “My work is my son and my daughter. My people will inherit from me. So, Rafael Hirsch, we who once talked of magic together, see where our magics have led us.”

“The game is not yet over, Manuel.”

“The game is never over, Rafael Hirsch, never, never, never, whether in its mercy or in its fire. Have you anything to say?”

“Not with words,” Sagrado said.

“Not with deeds,” the Dictator said. “And yet, one thing you can say, one thing you know which you can tell me. Upon what spot of these accursed stones was she of whom we spoke bestially murdered?”

“Shall I have life, if I say?”

“You are not judged to death yet.”

Sagrado seemed to consider this in all its bearings, while the others watched him. A kind of hope kindled on his face for a moment; he even smiled: then he studied the Dictator’s face and smiled again, more bitterly.

“I think you would like to know that, Manuel,” he said, “‘pretty damned bad,’ as they say. You will not know it from me. But I do know it. What is more, Manuel; I heard what she said, before the knife-point touched her throat. Shall I tell you what she said?”

The Dictator made a sign with one hand: Sagrado was removed. A guardia’s hand upon his throat made his telling of what she said unintelligible, furious as it was.

The Dictator crossed himself and remained in prayer until the noise of feet and of raving were shut away by the door.

“So,” he said. “So passes the pride of power, into madness which brings a judgment. I knew that man as a scholar of strange things . . .” He paused and then continued in English:

“But you would like to know what brings me here, so like the Deus in the play. You must thank these two reefers here: Mr. Paggy and Mr. Crockums.

“Your brother, Miss Kingsborough, was left for dead in this house. He was not dead, however. He managed to crawl to the wall and there broke a window. Mr. Paggy and Mr. Crockums happened to be in the Plaza when the glass broke. They were in a state familiar to young men: a romantic state, of pining for romance. They thought that some woman was imprisoned here against her will. Hearing Mr. Kingsborough’s tale, they ran for help.

“Now at that very time I was coming to the Plaza, on my way to Santa Alba, where I wished to meditate before Mass; for often in meditation light comes. These reefers ran into my party only a hundred yards from here. I, hearing their story, sent at once for the guardias of the ward, while I surrounded the house with my guard. At the back of the house I found a man whose ways I did not like, one Sumecta, whom I detained.

“I thought at that time that I was dealing with things commonplace, but directly I had made an entrance into the back of the house, I smelt the carib leaf. When I smelt the carib leaf, I smelt devilry. For remember, Harker mio, I am a son of this land, where the devils are strong, and come much into human affairs. In my youth, for which God has punished me, I sought their help, so I know who uses carib leaf and when and why. So I come in, I and my guards.

“Truly, if the reefers had not been prompt and I not where I was with my party, we should have been too late. However, we were in time. Now, Harker mio, taste here this brandy. You are very white.”

“My arm is broken, sir,” Sard said.

“Facundo,” the Dictator said to an equerry, “see that the carriages, when they come, stay in the street at the back, not in the Plaza. See also that a doctor be there.”

When the equerry had gone, the Dictator turned to Margarita.

“Lady,” he said, “what shall be done to these devil-worshippers? Doom or mercy?”

“I should have been glad of mercy a few minutes ago,” Margarita said.

“And you, Harker mio, would you kill them or not kill?”

“Twenty minutes ago I would have killed them,” Sard said. “Then I fought with that man and did not win. I would not have others do what I could not do myself.”

“And you, the reefers?” the Dictator asked.

“They ought to be hanged, sir,” Paggy said.

“I don’t know, sir,” Crockums said, “I don’t know about their being hanged. I don’t know what laws you may have, nor what they deserve, according to your laws.”

At that instant, from without, there came a shattering volley of rifles, which made all present leap. While they stared at each other, plaster and glass pattered and tinkled down somewhere outside.

“That,” the Dictator said, “is what they deserve according to my laws. Nor are my laws savage, seeing that I live in the South, where things bite worse and poison is more fell than in the North, where even the Devil is cold-blooded. So, they are gone where justice is less fallible than here; there they will receive, no doubt, the surplus which we, in our human weakness have failed to give.

“But come, enough of them: they are dead. I hear my carriages. We will leave this place of devilry, for breakfast at the palace. You reefers, too; you have deserved it: I will explain to your captain. Come, then.”

An equerry entered and saluted:

“Your Excellency’s carriages are now in the street without,” he said.

“Good,” the Dictator answered. “Santiago, y cierra España. Miss Kingsborough, I give you one arm; but the other I give to Harker mio.”

“Your Excellency,” Margarita said, “Mr. Harker only has one arm, and that is mine.”

“Better still,” the Dictator said. “Now I may have your persuasion to offer him a crutch; or shall we say a rest?”

Both Sard and Margarita had been dazed by the doings of the morning. Sard, who had been cut, battered and bruised, was weary from fighting and in pain from his arm. He was not able to speak. He felt like one who had had an immense day’s work, which was now done and well done. Margarita was at his side; that was a happiness; his dream had come true; that was a marvel.

The carriages moved out into the light of the dawn through the white-blossomed thorn-tree avenue which led to Cachopos. The sun was just clear of the sea: the birds were going out and the flower-sellers coming in. Sard had Margarita at his side and the Dictator and a doctor opposite. The little white pennons of the lances of the escort fluttered like butterflies. Off Cachopos, a lofty English barque was coming in on the last of the breeze. She stole along like a ghost, white to the trucks, with a roll of brighter white at her lips which she seemed to stoop to drink. From the church of Santa Alba there came the exquisite pure sound of singing.

The carriages swung away from all this towards the palace, which shone above them among the forest. Behind it, far away, were the mountains, peak upon peak, some of them forested, some snowy; one, with a brow of crag, streaked with cataracts.

The Dictator pointed towards the sea, now shut from sight by many snowy branches. “That is shut from you now, Harker mio,” he said; “but when one door shuts another opens. Here is all this land waiting for you. To me, this land has only given work; to you, I see, it has already given all things; let me then add work to those.”

“When my arm is mended,” Sard said. “But your Excellency will have to ask my wife.”

THE END

THE LONDON AND NORWICH PRESS, LIMITED, ST. GILES WORKS, NORWICH

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.