forward.
Night, too, came creeping like an assassin amid the ghostly trees.
So twilight died in the stillness of Drowned Valley and the pall ofnight lay over all things, -- living and dead alike.
* * * * *
Episode Eleven
The Place Of Pines
* * * * *
I
The last sound that Mike Clinch heard on earth was the detonation of hisown rifle. Probably it was an agreeable sound to him. He lay therewith a pleasant expression on his massive features. His watch hadfallen out of his pocket.
Quintana shined him with an electric torch; picked up the watch. Then,holding the torch in one hand, he went through the dead man's pocketsvery thoroughly.
When Quintana had finished, both trays of the flat morocco case werefull of jewels. And Quintana was full of wonder and suspicion.
Unquietly he looked upon the dead -- upon the glittering contents of thejewel-box, -- but always his gaze reverted to the dead. The faintestshadow of a smile edged Clinch's lips. Quintana's lips grew graver. Hesaid slowly, like one who does his thinking aloud:
"What is it you have done to me, l'ami Clinch? ... Are there truly twosets of precious stones? -- _two_ Flaming Jewels? -- two gems of Erositelike there never has been in all thees worl' excep' only two more? ...Or is one set false? ... Have I here one set of paste facsimiles? ... Myfrien' Clinch, why do you lie there an' smile at me so ver' funny ...like you are amuse? ... I am wondering what you may have done to me, myfrien' Clinch. ..."
For a while he remained kneeling beside the dead. Then: "Ah, bah," hesaid, pocketing the morocco case and getting to his feet.
He moved a little way toward the open trail, stopped, came back, stoodhis rifle against a tree.
For a while he was busy with his sharp Spanish clasp knife, whittlingand fitting together two peeled twigs. A cross was the ultimate result.Then he placed Clinch's hands palm to palm upon his chest, lay the crosson his breast, and shined the result with complacency.
Then Quintana took off his hat.
"L'ami Mike," he said, "you were a _man!_ ... Adios!"
* * * * *
Quintana put on his hat. The path was free. The world lay open beforeJose Quintana once more; -- the world, his hunting ground.
"But," he thought uneasily, "what is it that I bring home this time?How much is paste? My God, how droll that smile of Clinch. ... Which isthe false -- his jewels or mine? Dieu que j'etais bete!---- Me whohave not suspec' that there are _two_ trays within my jewel-box! ... Iunnerstan'. It is ver' simple. In the top tray the false gems. Ah!Paste on top to deceive a thief! ... Alors. ... Then what I have recoverof Clinch is the _real!_ ... Nom de Dieu! ... I think thees dead manmake mock of me -- all inside himse'f----"
So, in darkness, prowling south by west, shining the trail furtively,and loaded rifle ready, Quintana moved with stealthy, unhurried treadout of the wilderness that had trapped him and toward the tangled borderof that outer world which led to safe, obscure, uncharted labyrinths --old-world mazes, immemorial hunting grounds -- haunted by men who prey.
* * * * *
The night had turned frosty. Quintana, wet to the knees and very tired,moved slowly, not daring to leave the trail because of sink-holes.
However, the trail led to Clinch's Dump, and sooner or later he mustleave it.
What he had to have was a fire; he realised that. Somewhere off thetrail, in big timber if possible, he must built a fire and master thisdeadly chill that was slowly paralysing all power of movement.
He knew that a fire in the forest, particularly in big timber, could beseen only a little way. He must take his chances with sink-holes andfind some spot in the forest to build that fire.
Who could discover him except by accident?
Who would prowl the midnight wilderness? At thirty yards the fire wouldnot be visible. And, as for the odour -- well, he'd be gone beforedawn. ... Meanwhile, he must have that fire. He could wait no longer.
He cut a pole first. Then he left the trail where a little springflowed west, and turned to the right, shining the forest floor as hemoved and sounding with his pole every wet stretch of moss, every stripof mud, every tiniest glimmer of water.
At last he came to a place of pines, first growth giants towering intonight, and, looking up, saw stars, infinitely distant. ... where perhapsthose things called souls drifted like wisps of vapour.
When the fire took, Quintana's thin dark hands had become nearly uselessfrom cold. He could not have crooked finger to trigger.
For a long time he sat close to the blaze, slowly massaging his torpidlimbs, but did not dare strip off his foot-gear.
Steam rose from puttee and heavy shoe and from sodden woollen breeches.Warmth slowly penetrated. There was little smoke: the big dry brancheswere dead and bleached and he let the fire eat into them without usinghis axe.
Once or twice he signed, "Oh, my God," in a weary demi-voice, as thoughthe contentment of well-being were permeating him.
Later he ate and drank languidly, looking up at the stars, speculatingas to the possible presence of Mike Clinch up there.
"Ah, the dirty thief," he murmured: "-- nevertheless a man. Quel homme!Mais bete a faire pleurer! Je l'ai bien triche, moi! Ha!"
Quintana smiled palely as he thought of the coat and the gently-swayingbush -- of the red glare of Clinch's shot, of the death-echo of his ownshot.
Then, uneasy, he drew out the morocco case and gazed at the two traysfull of gems.
The jewels blazed in the firelight. He touched them, moved them about,picked up several and examined them, testing the unset edges against hisupper lip as an expert tests jade.
But he couldn't tell; there was no knowing. He replaced them, closedthe case, pocketed it. When he had a chance he could try boiling waterfor one sort of trick. He could scratch one or two. ... Sard wouldknow. He wondered whether Sard got away, not concerned exceptselfishly. However, there were others in Paris whom he could trust --at a price. ...
Quintana rested both elbows on his knees and framed his dark facebetween both bony hands.
What a chase Clinch had led him after the Flaming Jewel. And now Clinchlay dead in the forest -- faintly smiling. At _what?_
In a very low, passionless voice, Quintana cursed monotonously as hegazed into the fire. In Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, he cursedClinch. After a little while he remembered Clinch's daughter, and hecursed her, elaborately, thoroughly, wishing her black mischance awakeand asleep, living or dead.
Darragh, too, he remembered in his curses, and did not slight him. Andthe trooper, Stormont -- ah, he should have killed all of them when hehad the chance. ... And those two Baltic Russians, also the girl duchessand her friend. Why on earth hadn't he made a clean job of it?Overcaution. A wary disinclination to stir up civilization by needlessmurder. But after all, old maxims, old beliefs, old truths are thebest, God knows. The dead don't talk! And that's the wisest wisdom ofall.
"If," murmured Quintana fervently, "God gives me further opportunity toacquire a little property to comfort me in my old age, I shall leave nogossiping fool to do me harm with his tongue. No! I kill.
"And though they raise a hue and cry, dead tongues can not wag and Isave myse'f much annoyance in the end."
He leaned his back against the trunk of a massive pine.
Presently Quintana slept after his own fashion -- that is to say,looking closely at him one could discover a glimmer under his loweredeyelids. And he listened always in that kind of sleep. As though ashadowy part of him were detached from his body, and mounted to guardover it.
The inaudible movement of a wood-mouse venturing into the firelit circleawoke Quintana. Again a dropping leaf amid distant birches awoke him.Such things. And so he slept with wet feet to the fire and his rifleacross his knees; and dreamed of Eve and of murder, and that the FlamingJewel was but a mass of glass.
* * * * *
At that moment the girl whose white thr
oat Quintana was dreaming, andwhining faintly in his dreams, stood alone outside Clinch's Dump, riflein hand, listening, fighting the creeping dread that touched her slenderbody at times -- seemed to touch her very heart with frost.
Clinch's men had gone on to Ghost Lake with their wounded and dead,where there was fitter shelter for both. All had gone on; nobodyremained to await Clinch's homecoming except Eve Strayer.
Black Care, that tireless squire of dames, had followed her from thetime she had left Clinch, facing the spectral forests of Drowned Valley.
An odd, unusual dread weighted her heart -- something in emotions thatshe never before had experienced in time of danger. In it there was thedeathly unease of premonition. But of what it was born she did notunderstand, -- perhaps of the strain of dangers passed -- of the shockof discovery concerning Smith's identity with Darragh -- Darragh! -- thehated kinsman of Harrod the abhorred.
Fiercely she wondered how
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