V
The new Administration Packard, which a little before midnight on the 18th of July carried six men beyond the northern barricades of the Gran Seco city, did not continue more than a few miles on the road which ran to Fort Castor. Suvorin, who drove—he had in the early days of motoring won the Grand Prix in the race from Paris to Marseilles—did not know the country, but there were men with him who did. Obedient to their instructions, he turned to the right at the San Pedro calvary, and for three hours bumped and skidded along sandy tracks and over stony barrens. It was apparent to one who kept an eye on the stars that he was bending south in a wide circuit, and presently the party came to the main highway between the city and the Mines. Since the defence was not holding a continuous line, but only two sectors, the party were no longer in the battle zone. They did not cross the road till it had been carefully reconnoitred, and once beyond it the car was again in a moraine of boulders and banks of shale. The moon had long set, and the headlights were working feebly, so that it was more by good fortune than by skill that it came at last to the respectable road which ran from the Universum Mine to the railway-sidings south of the city. Here it turned west and made better speed, till the dancing pencils of the searchlights revealed the proximity of General Lossberg’s army. The travellers were in fact very near the General’s advanced headquarters, and a rifle-shot over their heads presently brought them to a halt. Among them they must have had adequate passports, for an hour later they were partaking of the General’s hospitality. He was in a good humour, for he had just had word of the evacuation of the city, and believed that now he was pressing hard on the heels of the fleeing and broken rebels.
Of the six occupants of the car only one accompanied the General on his triumphant entry. This was the driver of the car, Peter Suvorin, a tall man with a bony face and skin like old parchment, and hair so pale that he seemed almost an albino. The others prepared to go down country. General Lossberg entertained him and Pasquali to breakfast, and had an interview thereafter with the others in the extremest privacy. They formed a curious contrast to the trim Olifa staff. The General was very neat in his field-grey uniform, a well-set-up figure which did not look its fifty-eight years, square, tanned face, brisk, grey moustache, steady, competent grey eyes—the whole a little marred by a stupid mouth and a heavy, rather brutal chin. The motorcar party compared to him seemed like a wandering theatrical troupe. Pasquali, he who played Scriabin, was indeed sprucely dressed and wore an expensive fur-coat, but his prognathous jaw was blue and unshaven, and his dark eyes so opaque with weariness that he looked like a sick negro. Radin was a tall fellow, whose high cheekbones suggested Indian blood, and who carried a recent scar above his right eye. Daniel Judson, short, thick, with rabbit teeth and a broken nose, looked like a damaged prizefighter, and thick black eyebrows above a sallow face gave Laschallas the air of a provincial actor imperfectly made up. Trompetter, a Javanese Dutchman with a touch of the tar brush, had a broad, wedge-shaped face as yellow as a guinea, and little sharp pig’s eyes. All, except Pasquali and Suvorin, were dressed in oddments, and, having been in close hiding, looked as unwholesome as the blanched insects below an upturned flowerpot.
Another joined the conference, a man with a light-cavalry figure, wearing a suit of thin tweeds which had been made not a month before in London. He shook hands with Pasquali and Suvorin, bowed to the General, and nodded to the others. Lossberg spoke to him at length, and he appeared to assent.
“You, Señor Romanes,” said Lossberg, “and also Señor Suvorin enter the city with me. I will have you attached to my Intelligence section. These other gentlemen return in half an hour to Olifa, in the charge of Señor Pasquali. They will report to General Bianca and put themselves under his instructions. I must bid you goodbye, gentlemen, for time presses.” And the brisk general not unwillingly left the group to an aide-de-camp.
So the party of five travelled in comfort that day down country, and, after many delays owing to freight trains, reached the city of Olifa on the following morning. They duly reported to General Bianca, but they did not take his instructions. They seemed to be concerned with urgent business of their own, for they disappeared into the underworld of Olifa, meeting every evening at a certain café in a back street. Yet there was nothing clandestine about their activity, for not a day passed without one or more of the five being closeted with high officials of the Army, the Marine, or the Police.