by John Buchan
“Olifa, maybe. Yes, I guess she’s in Olifa. Don’t worry, Miss Babs. She can’t come to any hurt. We’re not fighting with savages who torture their prisoners. I wonder what Lossberg’s next move will be?”
Grayne went off to give orders for the strengthening of the guards at the sea-ravine, since there lay their Achilles-heel, and Barbara bathed her face and tidied herself to meet Castor. This awful thing must be faced with a stiff lip, at any rate in the presence of the enemy. She was possessed with a cold fury against him. The enemy — his side — had made war on women and stolen that woman whom she had come to love best in the world.
Some rumour had already reached him, for he was in the mess-hut, evidently dressed in a hurry, since he had a scarf round his neck instead of a collar. She did not know what she expected to find in him — triumph perhaps, or a cynical amusement. Instead she found a haggard man with bleared eyes — no doubt the consequence of his feverish chill. He startled her by his peremptoriness. “Have you found her?” he cried. “Lady Roylance?...What has happened?...Tell me quick, for God’s sake.”
To her amazement he appeared to be suffering.
“No news — except that Janet has gone. We found the track to the water’s edge, and there must have been a launch...They murdered two of the guards...”
She stopped, for something in his eyes took away her breath. It was suffering, almost torment. She had never known him as Janet knew him, and had regarded him as a creature of a strange and unintelligible world, though she had reluctantly admitted his power. Now the power remained, but the strangeness had gone. He had suddenly become human, terribly human. She had come to upbraid and accuse; instead she wanted to pity. She found one who shared to the full in her misery.
“Oh, Mr Castor,” she cried, “where have they taken her?”
“How can I tell?” he asked fiercely. “Have you sent for her husband?”
She nodded. “Sir Archie is at Loa. He will be here before luncheon.”
“And Lord Clanroyden?”
“He is at the other end of the Gran Seco. He is busy with a big movement. He will be told, but I do not think he can come.”
“But he must. What does his imbecile war matter?...Oh, you miserable children! You have played with fire and you will be burned.”
There was so much pain in his voice that Barbara tried to comfort him. “But surely in Olifa she can come to no harm?”
“Olifa! Why do you think she is there?”
“She was carried off by sea. Where else could General Lossberg...?”
“Lossberg! What has he to do with it? Lossberg is not the man to waste time on such a business. He has no desire for my company.”
“But who?”
“There are others besides Lossberg — a far more deadly foe than the Olifa army. I warned Lord Clanroyden. I warned him that the true danger was not in the field...Lossberg is not the man for midnight escapades. He is too stiff. Regular soldiers do not climb ravines by night and stick knives between the shoulders. That is another kind of war. That is the way of the Conquistadors. Remember that D’Ingraville, who first found us out, is one of them.”
Barbara’s face had become as haggard as his own.
“Then where can they have taken her?”
“I do not know,” he said, “but not to Olifa — no, not to Olifa.”
Archie arrived a little after midday. He looked suddenly much older, and Barbara noticed that his limp had grow heavier. He was very quiet, so quiet that it seemed him possible for anyone to express sympathy. In a level, almost toneless voice he asked questions, and carefully went over all the ground between the camp and the ravine-foot. He had a talk alone with Castor, and announced that he was going back to the Gran Seco, and would return some time on the morrow.
Luis de Marzaniga, it seemed, had one foot in the theatre of war and one in Olifa; it might be possible for him to discover whether Janet had been taken to Olifa city. Also Sandy must be seen. He had cut the railway again, and was now engaged in worrying that section of Lossberg’s army which lay around the Mines. Ammunition, it appeared, was getting low, and it was important to replenish the store by captures. It was necessary that Sandy should be consulted, and his Intelligence department might be able to help.
He flew off in the evening, a calm, self-contained, stricken figure, the sight of whom made Barbara want to howl. Once again it was halcyon weather, and the sight of smoke rising in straight spires in the blue twilight against the flaming background of the west almost broke her heart. About this time Janet should have been coming in from her evening gallop, shouting for her bath...There was no dinner in he mess-tent that night, for no one could face a formal meal. Castor had kept indoors all day, and was now occupied in striding round the central square in the way passengers take exercise on board ship. He stalked across to Barbara.
“Lord Clanroyden must come at once,” he said.
“He can’t,” she said. “Sir Archie says that he is needed most desperately where he is. He is conducting a war.”
“You know him well. You have influence over him. Cannot you bring him here?”
The girl for a moment coloured.
“I do not think I have any influence with him, and if I had I would not use it to take him away from his duty.”
“Duty!” he said bitterly. “What duty is there in such fool concern? He has started a fire which he cannot control, and soon it will burn down his own house. His own house, I say. He was a friend of Lady Roylance.”
“So were you, I think,” said Barbara quickly. “Have you too not kindled a fire which you cannot control? The Conquistadors and the Bodyguard were your own creation.”
For a moment there was anger in his face, and then it died out, leaving it curiously bleak and pale.
“I think that is a fair retort, Miss Dasent,” he said, and resumed his sombre constitutional.
Archie returned very early next day, not in the small Shark-Gladas, which was his usual means of travelling, but in one of the big Seaforths which were meant for bombing and load-carrying.
“I want to see Castor,” he told Barbara. “I think he liked Janet, and he can help a lot. I’ve told Hamilton to report here in an hour, for there isn’t much time to lose.”
The three sat in the mess-hut. The Gobernador had recovered his trimness of bearing, but the almost insolent detachment which had hitherto characterised him seemed to have gone. His air was restless, and his voice, when he spoke, had a sharper pitch. There was something angrily defensive in his manner, something uncertain in the eyes which searched the others’ faces.
“I want your help, sir,” Archie said in his new, quiet, toneless voice. “You and my wife were friends, and I don’t think you want her to come to any harm.”
“Help,” Castor broke out. “You make me impotent and then ask my help! I did not start this business. I am the victim of your absurdities. You have plunged this land into a war directed against myself. I am your prisoner, though you call me your leader. You have brought me into a world which is utterly unfamiliar. I have no mastery in it. I am accustomed to organise and govern, but I cannot organise the confusion you call war. I am a reasonable man, and this is the domain of the wildest unreason...Then the crash comes, and you ask my help. You fools! You have made me more powerless than the rudest vaquero.”
“I know, I know,” said Archie soothingly. “I have no business to ask you for favours, but I don’t think you will refuse all the same. You see, it is your old organisation that we have to fear, not the Olifa army. I do not think you want Janet to suffer at their hands.”
“You have evidence?”
“A little. Enough to act upon.”
“But I cannot control them. I am cut off...”
“No. But you can give me the benefit of your knowledge. Listen, sir. Our Intelligence have their own sources of news, and they are positive that Janet is not in Olifa. How they know I cannot tell, but we have never found them wrong. Further, they say that there are none of the Conquistadors or
the Bodyguard now in Olifa. We may take it that the raiders belonged to one or the other. That is your own view, I think. Now, what facts have we? She was carried off in a launch — that we know. If she was not taken to Olifa, she may be hidden somewhere along the coast. That is possible, but not very likely — for two reasons. The first is that our own people know the coast, and my information is that there is no place on the whole line of shore under the mountains where any permanent camp could be made. If they landed Janet, it could only be for a day or a night — it can’t be her final destination. The same is true of the low coastland farther south between the hills and Olifa, where there are nothing but malarial swamps. Janet may be there, but it is not likely, because of my second reason. Whoever carried her off wanted her for in purpose. They came for you, and took her instead, and they can only have taken her as a hostage. To use her as such she must have been taken to some place in touch with the Olifa army, and that must mean either Olifa or the Gran Seco plateau.”
“But how could she reach the Gran Seco except by Olifa?”
“It is only a guess, but yesterday afternoon Peters reported from Pacheco that a plane had been seen flying eastward. It was marked like our own planes, and was flying high. Enemy planes are not allowed in that quarter, and, seeing it bore our own markings, no further notice was taken of it. But it was observed that it was a sea-plane, and since up to yesterday our army had no sea-planes, and Peters knew that, he thought it worth while to mention the fact.”
“Well?”
“We have no sea-planes. That plane was not ours, though it pretended to be. It may have been Lossberg’s, in which case he has diddled us. But I am inclined to think it was somebody else’s. Janet was carried off in a launch. Why should not her captors somewhere out at sea have arranged for a sea-plane to meet them?”
Castor rose and walked to the big wall map.
“Show me the exact spot where the sea-plane was seen,” he said.
Archie pointed with his finger.
“It was flying east?”
“East with a point of south.”
“It was undoubtedly D’Ingraville. I think you are right, Sir Archibald. D’Ingraville met the launch and he has taken your wife with him.”
“Where? Can you help me to that?”
Castor looked at the map again.
“It is the direction of the Pais de Venenos. You have heard of it?”
Archie nodded. “That was my own guess. Tell me more, sir.”
“I can tell you very little. I have been there, but once only, and long ago. My colleagues, whom you call the Conquistadors, know it well. D’Ingraville, especially, and Pasquali. And Romanes — above all Romanes, who should by now have returned from Europe...There is a drug there which they depend upon.” The Gobernador spoke hesitatingly, like a man loath to divulge something of which he is scarcely proud.
“I know about astura. I am told that without it they will die.”
“No — not die — not at once. But they will be unhappy. I have always believed that the Conquistadors would make some violent effort to replenish their supply. They will attempt to open up communications with the Pais Venenos.”
“You think they have gone there — with Janet?”
“I do not think that. It is not a place where which men can dwell. The Conquistadors perhaps — they are immune — but not the Bodyguard. Besides, I do not think a plane could land there, for it is a desperate country of gorges and forests. Somewhere adjacent, perhaps — from which the Pais could be visited.”
Archie was on his feet, striding about excitedly.
“Somewhere adjacent!” he cried, and his voice was harsh with pain. “But where? There are thousands of miles of unexplored country. Somewhere where a plane could land — the sea-plane may have an under-carriage...That must be in the hills. But Peters has all the Pacheco country patrolled, and beyond that the mountains rise like a wall...If only I could get Luis, but Luis has disappeared on some job of his own...Things aren’t going too well with us at the moment, you know. We’re terribly short of supplies, and Lossberg is getting cautious and won’t stick out his head to let us hit it...You’ve told me all you can think of. Excellency? Well, I’m off. Hamilton should be here to report.”
Outside the door stood Geordie Hamilton, the same stocky, impassive figure that had stumped heavily through four years of fighting in France, his blue eyes looking sullenly forth from a mahogany face.
“You’re coming with me, Hamilton,” said Archie. “Got your kit? Full marching order. We don’t know when we will be back.”
“Where are you going?” Castor asked.
“To look for Janet.” The young man’s face seemed to Barbara to have regained a kind of peace. He would not return alone. Moved by a sudden impulse, she kissed his cheek.
“Thank you, Babs dear,” he said. Then he held out his hand to Castor. “Good-bye, I think you wish me well, sir.”
It was the first time that any of the party had shaken hands with the Gobernador.
IX
The Seaforth flew first to Loa, where Archie asked for news of Don Luis. He was believed to be on the southern front, somewhere in the Pacheco area, where there was a good deal of activity. Loa itself was at present stagnant, a mere blockhouse to guard the road to the Courts of the Morning, and a forwarding depot for Magdalena. Lossberg’s advance party, which a week before had been within twenty miles, had now withdrawn.
Then, hugging the skirts of the hills, and having a good deal of trouble with the eddies of wind that blew down the gullies, Archie flew south-east to Magdalena, Escrick’s headquarters, under the snowy peaks of the Spanish Ladies. There he had an interview with Escrick’s chief Intelligence officer and was shown the dispositions of the enemy in the Tierra Caliente. The nearest enemy planes were based on the Mines, and were probably at that moment busily engaged, since Sandy was worrying the Universum sector.
But there was no one at Magdalena who had any knowledge of the approaches to the Poison Country; it was out of their area, and belonged properly to Peters.
The right course would have been to seek Peters at Pacheco, and above all things to find Don Luis. But Archie was not in a mood to think calmly. During the flight from the Courts of the Morning his anxiety about Janet had beer rising to fever heat. Barbara’s kiss of farewell seemed to have let loose a flood of dreadful fancies. He tortured himself with pictures — Janet small and solitary in the hand of men such as he had seen in the Gran Seco streets, men with evil, furtive eyes and corpse-like faces...A week before Sandy had drawn for him a rough map of the whereabouts of the Pais de Venenos, as a preliminary for certain exploratory flights which were contemplated in the south-east angle of the province...At the back of his head he still intended to go to Pacheco, but he felt an uncontrollable impulse first to do another thing. The straight route to Pacheco was over the eastern downs of the Tierre Caliente; but it was still afternoon, the moon would rise early, and even in the dark Pacheco could then reached on a compass course. To allay his anxiety by action of some sort had become a necessity. He decided to follow the line of the mountains, and find, if possible, the gate of the Poison Country which Sandy had described to him. After that he would get in touch with Luis, and discover from him where in that neighbourhood a sea-plane might have landed.
He took the Intelligence officer into his confidence and explained his purpose. “I expect to be at Pacheco tomorrow. If I don’t turn up there, you can tell General Peters the road I meant to take, and get him to tell Senor de Marzaniga. They’ll know where to look for me, if I have to descend.” He borrowed an extra revolver and a supply of cartridges for Hamilton, who had also his rifle. Likewise he borrowed two thick overcoats, for the nights were cold and he might be late. Hamilton ate a large meal, but Archie had no appetite for anything but a couple of dried figs.
The Seaforth left Magdalena a few minutes after 4 p.m. It was a warm bright afternoon, with the visibility so good that every rock and crinkle were clear on the mount
ain wall. Archie kept along the watershed where the barrens of the Tierra Caliente changed to a greener country, and where were the springs of the streams that forced their way through the range. The Cordilleras at that point are a double chain, and the country between the two is in part a maze of deep glens leading ultimately to valleys which debouch on the Orazon, and partly a high desert of shale and sand.
Below him was an even level of greenish-grey downs, shading into umber on the west — a land in which there was no sign of human life. He flew low, and saw the ruins of Indian pueblas, the inhabitants of which had been removed to Lossberg’s concentration camp. Then these ceased, and he swung nearer the mountains, till he found himself in a long hollow, like a ditch under ramparts. He saw the gleam of water far below, and realised that there were many streams, and that all seemed to be affluents of a considerable river.
It was almost dark before the country began to change. The bald screes of the hills gave way to patches of wood, and at the same time the upper slopes grew more precipitous. Then the hollow seemed to draw to a funnel and the mountains fell back a little to receive it. Two peaks stood like sentinels, and between them lay a great wedge of darkness. The sun was now behind the downs to the west, and as Archie dropped lower the hollow seemed to be already brimming with dusk. Inside the great wedge it was already dark, but beyond were the shadows of dim green mountains.
The journey had taken longer than he thought. There was now no hope of getting to Pacheco much before midnight. Archie resolved to descend on one of the green levels and bivouac for the night. But there was still light enough to look inside the great gorge, for he decided that these were the gates he had been seeking. It was a foolish thing to do at such a time of day, but his anxious mind was beyond prudence. He turned to his left and flew towards the cleft.
The funnel was less dark than he had thought. He was flying low, and could see quite clearly beneath him the sudden abrupt descent of the stream and the mat of forest into which it fell. Soon he had passed the portals and the great cup opened out, lying in a clear green gloom like an emerald. In front of him, perhaps six miles away, a mountain rose out of the deeps, and its crest was a cone of snow, now rosy with the sunset. The periphery of the cup was also snow-rimmed, gold and crimson where the dying sun caught it and elsewhere a cold blue grey.
