Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

by John Buchan

  She saw the lean, knotted neck, the oddly-shaped skull, the pale, sneering face, as if the soul had wholly mastered the body, and transformed it to an exact reflex. But the eyes, which had once been dull and expressionless, now danced and glowed with a crazy brilliance.

  “Good evening, sir,” he said, and his voice, once so passionless, had an odd lilt in it, like a parson who intones a litany. “Ah, it is the old horse-breeder, Sanfuentes!...And you, madame! I have been longing to meet you again, for the last time you left in rather a hurry.” But he looked not at Janet or Don Mario, but steadily, devouringly, at the Gobernador.

  Janet sat very still in her chair, a yard from each. Castor had moved his head and she saw the clock. It must be ten minutes since Barbara had slipped out. She kept her gaze rigidly on its minute-hand, as if by some mental concentration she could hasten its circuit, for she had a notion that if the end did not come for another ten minutes there was hope.

  “Good evening,” she heard Castor say. “You’ve an odd way of announcing yourself. You look a little off-colour. Would you like some food?”

  The other did not reply. He was smiling, but so close were his lips to his teeth that it looked like a snarl.

  “A cigarette anyhow.” Castor was about to feel for his case in his pocket, when a pistol barrel confronted him.

  “Stay still,” said Romanes. “Not a movement. You will stand quite rigid, please, while I say what I have to say.”

  “Right!” was the answer. “You used to have better manners, Romanes. Let me hear what you want to say. You have come, I suppose, to ask for terms.”

  The coolness of the Gobernador’s tone seemed to move the other to fresh mirth. “Terms!” he cried. “Oh, yes, we ask for terms. A free pardon, of course, and our passage paid to Europe, and five hundred apiece on which to begin a new life. Terms!” and his voice rose almost to a shriek. “Do you not know that there are no terms on God’s earth you could offer us?”

  “There is nothing I intend to offer you,” was the answer.

  “No. You are wise. I never underestimated your brains...You have used us, and I think we have given you good service...Now you have changed your plans, and would fling us on the scrap-heap. You have different ambitions now, and your old tools are no longer required. But the tools may have something to say to that.”

  “True. I am inclined to agree with you. I am not the man to shirk my responsibility.” Castor’s eyes had made the circuit of the room. He saw the ravening faces at the window, old Don Mario huddled in his chair, Janet below him white-lipped and tense. He saw something else — a new figure which had slipped in by the door, and which he recognised as Lariarty. He saw him before Romanes did, and it was the almost imperceptible start which he gave that caused the other to cast a swift glance to his left. Romanes smiled as he observed the newcomer. “Just in time,” he said. “I wondered if you would bring it off. We are going to be offered terms after all. Our old chief says he admits his responsibility.”

  Lariarty’s sick, drawn face made no response, but he moved nearer Romanes, till their elbows almost touched. His hands were empty, but there was a bulge in his side pocket.

  “Terms!” Romanes cried again. “You have broken our world in bits, and you speak of recognising your responsibility! You have played with souls, and you are going to find that it is an awkward game. We are dying — dying. Morituri te salutamus. And the way we salute you is to take you with us. There will be no Castor, the regenerator of Olifa, for little boys to read about in their history books. For in about two minutes Castor will be dead.”

  The man on the hearthrug threw back his head.

  “When we worked together, Romanes,” he said, “you did not make full use of your opportunities. You cannot know much about me if you think that I can be frightened by threats of death. I am frightened of many things, but not of that...You seem to hold a strong hand. Take me away with you — anywhere — away from this house. Then, if you are determined on it, put a pistol bullet through my head, or put me against a wall for the rest of your gang to have a share in the pleasure of killing me. I accept what Fate sends — I have always accepted it. But why should you bring an old man and a girl into this unpleasant business?”

  Romanes thrust his face close to the other’s, and to Janet it seemed that it was now the mask of madness. She had forgotten about the slow minute-hand of the clock, for with Lariarty’s coming — and coming through the door — she had realised that all hope was gone. But in that moment she did not think of her own danger. What held her gaze was Castor, who seemed to have risen to a strange nobility. There was not a tremor in his face, not a shadow of hesitation in his grave eyes. It was man towering above the beast, humanity triumphing even in its overthrow...These broken things before him were in part his handiwork. They were the world he had left — but he had left it. Yes, whatever happened, he had left it...

  “Not so,” Romanes was saying. “We are not civilised executioners. We are damned and dying, and our vengeance is the vengeance of the damned. The women go with you — there was another here who must be found. And the old horse-coping fool...After that we will find Rosas...and Clanroyden, curse him...and...”

  It was then that Don Mario struck. He had been quietly reaching with his right hand for a loaded riding-whip which was on the rack on the wall beside his chair. Its handle had a heavy metal knob, and, without rising in his seat, he swung it with surprising agility at Romanes’s head.

  But the eyes of age are not those of youth and he missed his aim. The handle only grazed Romanes’s shoulder, glanced off, hit the lamp on the table behind him, and sent it crashing to the ground.

  Romanes half turned to his assailant, and as he moved Lariarty leaped on him. As he leaped he cried in a strange, stifled voice the single word “Pecos,” the signal which he had agreed upon with Sandy. If he could deal with the tiger within, it was for Sandy to frustrate the wolves without.

  But Don Mario’s unexpected attack had deranged the plan. Lariarty should have trusted to his pistol; instead, he yielded to that ancient instinct which urges a man to grapple with an enemy who is suddenly unbalanced. The signal which he should have shouted was muffled by his haste, and the watchers at the window were given a moment to act before Sandy could strike. When “Pecos” rang out a second time with a desperate shrillness it was too late.

  For Romanes, even in his madness, had judged the situation right. He could make certain of at least part of his vengeance. Castor, too, was upon him, but his right hand was free, and he shot him at close quarters in the neck. The Gobernador fell forward on the sitting Janet, and in the same instant shots were fired from the window.

  They may have been meant for Castor, but they found other quarries. Lariarty dropped with a bullet in his brain, and Romanes clutched at space, gasped, and fell beside him.

  Janet, struggling to rise, with the shots still like whip-lashes in her ear, heard a second burst of fire. It came from outside the window, and she knew it for rifles. Then there seemed to be a great quiet, and the world disappeared for her — everything except a dying man whom she had laid in her chair...

  He was beyond speech, and his eyes were vacant and innocent like a child’s. She pressed her face to his and kissed him on the lips...A fresh lamp seemed to have been lit behind her, and by its aid she saw the glazing eyes wake for a second, and through them the soul struggle to send a last message. There was peace in the face...

  When Archie arrived ten minutes later his first demand was for Janet. Sandy drew him gently up to the ragged gauze curtain.

  “She is safe — by a miracle,” he said. “But Castor is dead — he died in her arms. Don’t disturb her yet, Archie. A woman can only love one man truly, but many men may love her...Janet was the only love of Castor’s life. He died happy with her kiss on his cheek...Let her stay a little longer beside him.”

  EPILOGUE

  The Courts of the Morning had recovered the peace which till a year ago had been theirs since the
beginning of time.

  Where had once been the busy depot was now only shaggy downland, and a few blackened timbers, over which Nature had begun to spin her web. Choharua looked down again upon meadow and forest as free from human turmoil as the blue spaces of ocean beyond. Only at the head of the seaward gully were there signs of life. A small group of tents had been set up, almost on the spot where Barbara and the Gobernador had first looked down the four thousand feet of green dusk to the land-locked bay. The ruins of the power-house and the chute were already masked with creepers and tall grasses, and only certain scars on the hillside, not made by the winter rains, told that there man had once wrought and striven.

  The day was passing from the steady glare of afternoon to the light airs which precede twilight. The sun was nearing a broad belt of amethyst haze which lay on the western horizon, and the face of Choharua was beginning to break up into shadows. The party who occupied the tents had come there by sea, and made their way up the rugged steps of the ravine to the plateau. The reason of their journey was apparent, for between the ravine and the mountain, on a mound which rose like a sentinel above the meadows, could be seen a tall wooden cross. Presently that would be replaced by a stone memorial, to mark the resting-place of him who had been the Gobernador of the Gran Seco.

  There was the smoke of a destroyer far below in the gulf. That very day it had brought to this eyrie the new President-elect of the Republic of Olifa. The said President-elect was sitting beside Sandy on the very edge of the ravine, so that he looked down fifty feet of red rock to the tops of tall trees. He was amusing himself with dropping his cigarette ash into the gulf.

  “If I slipped off this perch I should certainly break my neck,” he observed. “That has been the position of all of us for so long that we have got used to it. I wonder when I shall feel accustomed to being secure?”

  Sandy asked about the condition of Olifa.

  “It is a marvel. We are a stable people after all, and, having gone a little off the lines, we have now jolted back to the track and are quite content with it...The elections went as pleasantly as a festa...Lossberg is content, for he has Bianca’s place, and the army reductions will be made slowly and discreetly. There is a vast amount to be done, but bit by bit we shall remake the machine. I shall have Blenkiron to assist me, praise be to God. Him I have left wallowing in business, while I made the trip here to see you. You, my dear Sandy. For some months the destiny of Olifa has depended on you. I want that to continue.”

  Sandy did not speak. His eyes were on the downs which ran southward along the scarp, where far off he thought he saw two figures.

  “I have come to offer you the post of Gobernador of the Gran Seco,” Luis continued briskly. “In effect, as you know well, it will be an independent province. Its problems are not those of Olifa. It cannot be an integral part of the republic. It is tributary, yes — but not dependent. He who governs it must be a strong man and a wise man. And it is of the first importance, for on it rest the wealth and peace of Olifa.”

  “It is a great charge,” said Sandy, but his eyes were still on the distant figures.

  “You are already a king among the Indian pueblas. You are a king among the mine-workers. You will have Blenkiron as your lieutenant to direct the industry. We will build you a palace, and up here in the Courts of the Morning you will have your country estate. It is a good watch-tower, senor. Here you will be able to think high thoughts.” He laid his hand on the other’s arm.

  “Consider! Are you the man to go home to Europe and sit down in cities? Will you dabble in your politics, like Sir Archie? I do not think so. You would be restless in an old country where things move slowly and everything is done by long speeches...You are a landowner, are you not? Will you settle down upon your acres, and shoot little birds, and entertain your friends, and in time grow fat? I know the life a little, for I have seen it, and it is pleasant — oh yes. But is it the life for you?”

  Luis’s air suddenly became very grave. “You are my friend, and I love you more than a brother. Therefore I want you to stay with me. But you are also a great man, and I am jealous that your greatness shall not be wasted. You are a creator, and you cannot escape your destiny. The era of the Old World is over, and it is the turn of the New World to-day. I have often heard you say that the difficulties even of Europe must be settled in the West. Listen to me, senor. The time will come when the problems of the West will be settled between the United States and Olifa. Yes, Olifa. We have wealth, we have won stability, presently we shall have leadership. I cannot do the leading. I can only, as you say, ‘carry on.’ Castor would have done it if he had lived. Now his mantle awaits you. You will have work worthy of a man, work which will need all your powers of mind and will and body. You will make a name that will live for ever. Will you choose to be a sleepy squire when you might be a king? You are not a provincial, you are not a native of any land. Your country is that which you can make for yourself...”

  Sandy shook his head. “I don’t think you understand.”

  “But indeed I understand. I understand you. I have studied you with admiration, and, what is more, with love. I know you better than you know yourself.” He smiled. “I said that you could be a king, and I did not speak altogether in metaphor. Forms of government are not eternal things. Olifa is a republic, because republics were in fashion when she began. But some day she may well be a kingdom...Do not laugh. I do not mean any foolish dictatorship. We are a free people. But Olifa demands a leader, and whoever the leader is whom she follows he will be her king.” Luis rose. “Think well over what I have said. I now go to stretch my legs before dinner. Within a day or two I must have your answer.”

  Sandy remained alone on the pinnacle of rock. The sun was now close to the horizon and the west was like a great flower in blossom. The face of Choharua was rose-red, and the levels below were all purple, a deeper tint than the amethyst of the sea. Out of the circumambient glory Janet appeared, hatless, her hair like an aureole.

  “I left Barbara a mile behind,” she said. “She wanted to see Geordie Hamilton about one of the vaqueros who is sick. You look pensive, Sandy. A penny for your thoughts.”

  “I have been talking to Luis...He has just offered me the governorship of the Gran Seco, with apparently the reversion of a kingdom.”

  “Well?” she asked. She was picking a flower to pieces to hide trembling hands.

  “What do you think, Janet? You are the wisest woman in the world. Shall Ulysses settle down in Phaeacia and forget all about Ithaca?”

  “That is for Ulysses to say.”

  “But Ulysses has no ambition left. He never had much, and what little he had is buried up there.”

  The eyes of both turned eastward to the slim cross on the high ground above the meadows, now dyed blood-red by the setting sun. Against the background of the mountain it stood out like a great calvary.

  “I think we saved his soul,” he said gravely, “but we also brought him to his death. The glory of the work does not seem to amount to much when it all ends in six feet of earth. And the things that matter more than glory! I can’t feel up to them, Janet. I am a very ordinary sort of fellow who shirks responsibility. I am no Castor. I can take a hand in king-making, but a king-maker is never a king.”

  “Other people think differently. Sandy dear,” Janet said softly. “I have had one great moment in my life that I can never forget — when the Army of the Revolution entered Olifa. You, remember, Olifa had got back her old assurance. The Avenida was like a river of white light between two banks of roses...People in masses on both sides, and at all the windows, and on all the house-tops, and everywhere flowers...The Olifa regulars as smart as Aldershot, and the new President in his carriage, and the new ministers...And then, after all the splendour, the lean, dusty fighting men! I cried like a baby when I saw Archie — horribly embarrassed he was, poor darling, not knowing what to do with the flowers that fell on his head and his saddle — rather like a schoolboy being kissed by his mother a
fter a famous innings...But when you came, I stopped crying and my heart stood still. You remember? All the shouting and the flower-scattering seemed to stop when you appeared at the head of your battered commandos. There was a great hush, and for a moment that vast multitude seemed to catch its breath. It was because they saw the man who might be their king...You never moved your head, Sandy, and you stared straight before you as if you were asleep. What were you thinking of?”

  “I was thinking of Castor, and longing for him to be alive.”

  “Only that? Had Ulysses no thought of the vacant throne of Phaeacia — of carrying on a dead man’s work?”

  “No, by Heaven, he cannot...He couldn’t if he wanted to, but he doesn’t want to, for his heart isn’t in it...I’m an alien here and I’m sick of being an alien...I’m not Castor. I haven’t his ambition, I haven’t his brains, I don’t want to be on a pedestal. Perhaps I’m tired, perhaps I’m getting old, but I want my own people. I’ve seen Luis and his gallant lads on fire about this country and planning what a great land it is going to be, and it made me sick for my own...Castor too...He had never known a fatherland before, but he found one here...I’ve got the best in the world, and I’m homesick for it. These last months I’ve been living with half my mind on my work and half on all kinds of small, ridiculous, homely things. You would laugh if you knew the kind of picture I’ve had in my head whenever I wasn’t engaged on some urgent job...How good the beer at Tap used to taste in a pewter mug...the scent of the hay in the Oxford meadows...bacon and eggs for tea after hunting...the moorburn and the peat reek in April...the beloved old musty smell of the library at Laverlaw and logs crackling on a December evening...I’m sick with longing for my own Border hills...It’s no good, Janet. You can’t cut adrift from the bands that God has tied. I’ve had enough of Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus. I’m for the modest little clear streams of Israel.”