by Max Brand
“I have come, señor,” I said, bowing to him, “to tell you that I realize that I was unpardonable in laying a hand upon you . . . and to beg you to forgive me.”
I said this loudly, so that the Negroes would be sure to hear me, for I was rather sure that one reason the rascal hated me was because I had mastered him in the presence of witnesses. He was shocked by this address of mine into an audible gasp. And then I saw his bright eyes flicker to one side and to the other, drinking with infinite satisfaction the expressions that he found upon the faces of the Negroes—expressions of surprise and contempt.
Of course they were thinking that I made this apology owing to fear of him. I suppose that it would have torn the heart of most men to allow even a Negro to have such disdainful thoughts concerning him. But, for my part, I did not care a whit at that moment what anyone in the world thought of myself—except the people who were most intimately connected with me.
Then I heard Vidett saying slowly, with relish: “I was afraid that I would have to speak to you again on this subject.”
“I trust it is finished now,” I said, still more humble than before.
“I think that you have said enough,” said Vidett in a lordly fashion, and he held out his hand to me with the air of a duke to his lowest retainer.
I stepped closer, and, as I took that hand, I murmured behind a smile: “I have set you right in the eyes of the blacks, Vidett. But I know that you hate me in your heart, and in my heart I want you to know that I detest you for a poisonous dog.”
His self-control was so miraculous that he received this fairly stinging speech with a sudden almost happy lifting of his eyes and a bright smile upon me.
“Really?” he said. “You intrigue me, Mendez.”
And he drew me aside a few paces. We continued to smile for the benefit of the sharp-eyed Negroes.
“You mean it?” he said.
“With all my heart.”
“What has made you hate me?” he asked with a sort of idle curiosity.
“I don’t know, frankly,” I said. “Your wish to kill a helpless man while your two Negros held his arms . . . that was something, but still it was not enough for the feeling that I have in my heart about you. I trust that you will understand me?”
“It is an instinctive loathing?” he asked merrily.
“You have it, exactly.”
“My dear friend, we can now speak to one another. I abhor you from my soul.”
“I ask you for what reason?”
“The best reason that can be found in the entire world . . . because you have dared to look down on me and scorn me. You must pay me for that.”
“I shall do that to the best of my ability.”
“Until that happy time, adiós.”
“Adiós. I shall do my best to continue to guard you from harm.”
“Swine of a Spaniard,” said Vidett through his smile.
XXIII
I went back to Caporno and told him that his son-to-be and I were at least upon a pseudo-friendly footing—that we had given up attempts at deceit and were frank with each other. Caporno listened to me with an elf-like smile that foreboded mischief. On the way back, I peeked into the room of old Sam Clyde—who knew the things that Caporno was so anxious that I should not know. He winked and waved at me, and I smiled and waved at him. Then I went back to Vidett.
I remained with him through the day. Where he went, I followed. And although I could see that he resented this close attendance intensely, I kept at his side. In the middle of the afternoon, however, he told me that I should not be needed for an hour or more, because he was about to interview Rosa and her father privately. I told him that I was extremely sorry. That I should be glad to keep out of earshot of the party, but that I must certainly remain near enough to keep my eye upon them.
Vidett listened to me with a sort of incredulous rage. Then he turned his shoulder on me and strode for the house. I followed at his heel, grinning to myself. When he reached Caporno, he demanded in a voice of iron whether or not I were appointed to dog his footsteps everywhere. Caporno’s answer was as smooth and as deft as I had expected.
“In the name of heaven, dear Lewis, what will you have me do? Let you risk your life?”
“This is a matter for the three of us, surely,” said Vidett, “and for no others.”
“My dear boy, I have nothing to say to you that I shall not be glad to have any man of honor overhear.”
I listened to this tale with much amusement, and with dread, also, for I had no real desire to push the rage of Vidett past a certain point.
“Very well, then,” said Vidett at last, “let him stay in the same room with the three of us.”
“As you wish,” said Caporno.
And that was why I remained in the chamber of Caporno when his daughter came in to consult with him and with Lewis Vidett. I was withdrawn to the farthest corner of the room, of course. But still it was very noticeable that Rosa stopped short and stared when she first noticed me.
“I have resolved to keep the guard of Lewis’s safety constantly with him,” said her father.
Rosa thanked him, but I thought that her smile was rather wry. “I suppose this is to make the talk short . . . and not to the point,” she said.
“Not at all,” said Caporno. “My dear child, speak freely before Mendez. Any gentleman is welcome to overhear whatever is in mind.”
His daughter bit her lip, and then she tossed up her head. “Since you are here, Señor Mendez, will you join our circle?”
I told her that I preferred remaining where I was, because I desired to watch Vidett, but not at all to eavesdrop upon what they said to one another.
“Dear Father,” Rosa sneered, “you are so thoughtful of the safety of my Lewis. But as for secrecy, I care about it as little as you do. You know why I begged for this last interview. For the last time I want to beg you to give in to us . . . we wish to be married immediately. For the thousandth time, Father, tell us why do you hold out against us?”
“Rosa,” said her father, “I have promised to let you speak for the last time of this affair. It ought to be enough for you that I do not approve of the marriage at present. It is not a matter that has anything to do with Lewis. You know my preference for him.”
“I know the preference which you pretend,” said Rosa.
If I had thought her hard before, she was like flint now. I have never listened to a less feminine woman. Her voice rose with a bold ring that filled the room. I could have heard her if I had covered my ears.
“Child, child,” said Caporno, adopting melting tones, “you do not understand. How could I have any wish other than the greatest happiness for the two of you?”
“Heaven alone knows what goes on in your head,” said the girl, meeting his eye fairly and squarely.
At least, I had to admire her courage. And all the time, from the distance, I was admiring the exquisite slender, girlish beauty of the daughter of Caporno. I was admiring that beauty and seeing more and more that in such a child he was punished for all his sins, no matter how many they might be.
“Very well,” said the father. “I tell you for the thousandth time that I cannot conduct the affairs of my life as common men do. There is a certain diplomacy that is necessary. Some of my affairs are in confusion and for the present. . . .”
“You have told us that for six months!” cried the girl in a fury.
“It is true, nevertheless.”
“Señor,” broke in Vidett, speaking for the first time, “I entreat you now to name a day.”
“A day? Do you wish that?”
“We do.”
“Shall I say, then . . . two months from today?”
“Two months!”
“Is that too long?”
“Eternity.”
“But, my children, there are such matters as trousseaus. . . .”
“They matter nothing at all to us.”
“You are determined, then?”
“Perfectly.”
“Very well . . . only one month.”
“One eternity!”
They both cried this in a single voice. “In two weeks from today, then, Rosa.”
“It is too long. We have waited forever, already.”
“In what time do you suggest?” asked the father coldly.
“Tomorrow!” cried Rosa.
“Impossible.”
“In a week from this day, señor,” suggested Vidett more courteously.
“In a week, then,” said Caporno. “But you wring my heart with your haste.”
He might better have said: “You fill me with wild fury with your haste.” I, never moving my eyes from that fat face of his, saw the strength of his emotion. Then I followed the girl and her lover from the room. I knew that this was a grim decision that had been forced from Caporno, and I knew that he was ready to strike and to strike hard at his son-in-law.
Vidett, as soon as he was alone in the corridor with Rosa—save for me, following in the little distance—turned his head sharply over his shoulder and barked at me: “Señor Mendez, keep your distance, if you please!”
I fell back an obedient distance, and they continued talking together rapidly, the girl filled with joy over the victory that she had extorted from her father, and Lewis Vidett shaking his head and very grave. At length this gravity of his began to prove more contagious. Once or twice she half turned and threw back glances of distrust at me, glances rapidly darkening. And the eye of no man has ever given me such fear as did the glance of this girl.
Then she seemed to argue with him; I heard him say: “I am afraid of your father, Rosa.”
That was all I actually overheard.
They broke off their talk and suddenly came back to me, Rosa smiling very happily.
“We have talked everything over,” she said, holding out her hand, “and I am apologizing for Lewis because he has treated you in such a manner. Because I, señor, know that the man who saved his life cannot be his enemy, really. I have persuaded Lewis to trust you. Will you in turn trust me, and him?”
Of course there was nothing for me to do but to thank her and tell her that in everything I should hope to do as she and Vidett wished. Beyond that, I desired their happiness, I told them, in the match the plans for which I had overheard. Vidett now gripped my hand with a fine strength, and I felt rather ashamed of all the suspicions that had been so dark in my mind a few moments before. During the rest of that day I was with Vidett, not as a spy or a guard, but as a friend. He chattered away merrily, asking me a thousand questions, and, when I would not talk, he unbosomed himself and told me tales out of his own life.
True stories—of gambling, mostly. And, although his part in the stories was dexterously whitewashed so as to be fairly clean, yet one could see the rascal that he was peeping out from behind every bush, so to speak. No, I did not like Vidett a whit better for his talk and his friendliness of that day, but I had to admit that he was infinitely entertaining.
He was particularly attentive to me and cordial during the lunch and the dinner hours.
And Caporno, passing me after the dinner was ended, whispered softly: “Beware.”
That was all, and it was enough. As though he had cupped cold water in his hand and dashed it into my face. I retired and decided that I must be on my watch. I should beware of only one thing, naturally—Vidett!
However, I could see nothing wrong. After dinner, we sat in the garden, for a time, and Rosa strummed a guitar and created a real music out of the strings. And Vidett sat near her and sang a soft high baritone, with tenor notes taken deftly in falsetto. While I watched the stars and the dark tops of the trees against them, until Vidett stood up to go to bed—at the same time the snore of Caporno announced that he was sleeping. I went in with Lewis Vidett, and before I started for my own room, he called me back.
“To pledge our new friendship, my dear friend.”
He poured out two glasses of a heady, spiced wine, and we drank to one another. I remember the flash of his teeth as he smiled when I bade him good night. There was that one similarity between him and his betrothed—their strange, quick, mirthless smiles. But, when I had turned the lock of my bedroom door, a wave of blackness struck across my brain, and I realized suddenly that there had been a reason for the smile of Vidett!
XXIV
Of course I knew that it was a knock-out drop or a fatal poison. I was fairly well decided that it was only a knock-out drop, however, for I did not believe that even Lewis Vidett would dare to aim a greater stroke at a man hired by Caporno. I wanted an emetic and I wanted it badly. And, in the meantime, I was sinking under a weight of those black waves that started at my feet and went shooting toward my head.
I opened that door with a hand already growing numb. I hurried down the passage, thanking heaven that the nerves of my legs were still unaffected. I reached the kitchen and asked a frightened mozo for mustard and hot water. A glass of that pungent mixture was placed in my hand, and I went with it out into the night.
There is no emetic that is much better. I don’t want to go into that disagreeable subject; I’ll simply say that I was pretty thoroughly rinsed before I finished drinking that glass of mustard and hot water.
And, when I ended, I lay on my face in the clean sand of the garden path and felt the coolness of the night working slowly at the heat of my forehead and the thrumming of little hammers at my temples and at the base of my brain. Still, I had to use all the force of my will to drag myself stiffly to my feet, and I was staggering drunkenly—not because my body was affected, but because everything whirled before my eyes and the stars turned into bright individual streaks of white fire across the face of the night.
Then, rapidly—because I had the stuff out of me before a great deal of it got into my system—I righted. I knew where I was, what I was doing, and that I had to find the trail of my friend, Lewis Vidett, and find it at once.
First of all, however, I could not start without guns, and my gun belt was in my room. I hurried back for it. I knew where it hung, and I extracted the weapons from it in the darkness and shoved them into my clothes. I was doing that when I heard a soft step pause in the hall outside my door.
Any child might have guessed that stealthy footfall did not belong to any friend of mine. I could put that down easily enough. But who was it, then? Vidett, or one of his black cut-throats, come back to make out whether or not I were really peaceably asleep under the influence of the drug.
When I guessed that much, the rest was easily done. I reached the side of the bed with one stride, and I covered the noise of my heavy body sinking on the mattress and the springs with a big groan. A sleepy, half stifled groan—of the kind that a thick sleeper will use.
In another instant I was cursing myself profoundly, for I heard a hand stealthily trying the door. If they wanted to come in and have a look at me, it was too bad that they couldn’t do it. I was only too willing to sham absolute sleep for them. However, I had turned the lock of the door as I reentered.
My regret ended. A little matter such as a turned lock did not matter it appeared in this house. I heard, now, a busy little clinking sound of metal against metal, then the door softly opened and a draft crossed my room, from window to door, with a ghostly, sighing whisper.
A rustle, a stir, and a shadow leaned over me with the familiar glint of steel in a ready hand. For I recognized the glimmer of steel as an Italian stiletto, and the dim face above the knife was that of Lewis Vidett. Perhaps he preferred to know that I was harmlessly asleep. But, in case there were any doubt, he was determined at least that I should not follow him on this night. Admirably thorough indeed was Lewis Vidett.
He brought something else into his other hand and then a stream of light flared across my face.
I was prepared for anything other than an electric torch. That blinding brilliancy ate through the skin of my eyelids and spread a faint crimson dawn before my eye. Endure it without at least twitching my eyelids
I could not. So I stretched my entire body, groaned heavily, turned from him bodily, and then relaxed every muscle of my body with a slump and another sigh.
Lewis Vidett leaned over me still farther and shone the torch against my face. Through the lashes of my eyes I could see him. And to have that man behind me—well, it was a good deal more terrible than having the eyes of a panther stealing up from the rear. I could feel my heart tighten and my muscles contracting. I could not endure it another moment without whirling on him—and getting that slender tongue of steel buried in my body.
But when the breaking point had come with me, he snapped out the flood of blazing light. He had, apparently, seen enough to satisfy him that I was not feigning sleep. I blessed him for that conclusion.
“Well, little Mendez,” he said, making no effort to keep his voice low, “sleep heartily . . . sleep soundly. Even the mustard and the water could do no more than give you a perfumed sleep . . . so it seems.”
And he went, softly chuckling, from the room.
I had exactly the feeling that a wildcat had left me, as the door closed behind him. I was about to start quietly from the bed when the door jerked open again and a steady shaft of light from the electric torch probed for me—I settled myself in that instant—and found me exactly as I had been before. Perhaps some air-borne suspicion had come to the sensitive brain of Vidett. At least, I will assure you that that ray of light went through me more terribly than a bullet.
But, when the door was closed the second time, I felt that even the suspicions of a Vidett must be thoroughly appeased by what he had seen. I counted ten—twice. Then I got up and started in pursuit. Not through the door. No, I did not want to trust myself to hinges that may creak. I was behind the lines—in the enemies’ territory with a vengeance. First of all, I wanted to get onto more neutral ground. To get there, I leaped through the window and slid off into the garden, where I knelt behind a hedge with my two eyes multiplied into ten, at the least.
There was danger. Oh, it was in the air. It came like a bitter wine into my blood. Danger, danger. I knelt there quivering and thoroughly frightened, with a gun in my hand, ready for anything.
