Book + 

II + 

The Courts of the Morning + 

I + 

Just about the hour of sunrise a girl sat perched on a rock from which the ground fell westward into an abyss of blue vapour. East of her, after a mile of park-like land, the steep woods rose black as coal, and above them soared into the central heavens a great mountain of rock and shale, which, so sheer was the face, showed even to a viewpoint so near its summit cone of snow. The face and the plateau were still dipped in shadow, but beyond the mountain the sun was up, and its first beams, flooding through a cleft on the north shoulder, made a pool of gold far out on the western sea. The peak was the great Choharua, which means, in the speech of the old races, the Mountain of the Two Winds, for it was held to be wind-shed as well as watershed. + 

The tropic dawn broadened fast, though the sun did not show himself. Presently all the plateau to the east was washed in a pure, pale light. The place seemed to sparkle with a kind of hoarfrost, though the air was mild, and its undulations, and the shallow glen of the stream which descended from Choharua, were sharp-rimmed black shadows in that silver field. Then greenness broke through the monotint, like the flush of spring in an English wood, and what had been like a lunar landscape sprang suddenly into clean, thin colours. The far cone of snow became rosy-red and crystalline, so that for one moment, it hung like a translucent jewel in the sky. Then it solidified; the details of the shaly face sprang into hard reality; what had been unfeatured shadow showed now as sheer crag and intricate couloirs, specked with snowdrifts which were leaping waters. At last came the orb of the sun, first a crescent of red gold, and then by quick gradations a great burning archway in which the mountain seemed to be engulfed. The air changed to a glow of essential light, and in a moment it seemed that the faint scents of night became the warm spicy odours of day. + 

The girl was looking to the sea. The line of light, which a minute before had been on the horizon, ran shoreward, as if a tide of sheer gold was flowing in from the west. But the ocean was some thousands of feet below, and the shore waters remained in dusk long after the morning had conquered the plateau. Below her the chasm of blue mist slowly became luminous, and features detached themselves, tall trees near at hand clinging to scarps, outjutting headlands of green far down. The noise of the falling stream grew louder, as if it had been asleep during the darkness and had only begun to talk with the morning. The immediate foreground cleared, and curious things were revealed. There were buildings on the edge of the chasm from which wire ropeways ran down into the brume, the kind of thing by which in Norway the saeter hay is moved to the valley, and by which in the War in the eyries of the Dolomites the Italian army provisioned its lookout posts and gun-stations. Also there were revealed the beginnings of a path which descended the ravine in spirals, and something else⁠—a framework of trestles and iron which decanted itself into the abyss like a gigantic chute. A stranger could now have made out the main features of the landscape⁠—a steep glen down which the torrent from Choharua made its way to the sea, a glen, not a cliff, a place by which it was possible to have access from the shore to the plateau. But that shore would not reveal itself. It lay far below in a broad ribbon of mist, flecked like a bird’s wing, which separated the molten gold of the sea from the gold-washed, recreated world of the morning hills. + 

The girl rose from her perch and drew long breaths of the diamond air. The waxing light revealed her companion, a tall man muffled in a blanket coat, who had been standing beneath her. She turned to him. “It is well called the Courts of the Morning, Excellency,” she said. “Aren’t you glad I made you come with me?” + 

He was busy lighting his pipe. When he raised his face to her, there was a flicker of a smile around the corners of his deep-set eyes. + 

“I blame myself for not appreciating long ago the charms of this corner of my province. It is a place to intoxicate youth.” + 

“And you?” + 

“I am no longer young. To me it is a picturesque mantelpiece between the sierras and the sea. I observe”⁠—he nodded towards the ropeways and the trestles⁠—“I observe your communications. Ingenious!” + 

“You may examine them at your leisure. We have no secrets from our leader.” + 

“Your leader malgré lui. You foolish children are consistent in your folly. Tell me one thing, Miss Dasent. I am apparently at liberty. A charming young lady takes me out to admire the sunrise. Supposing I desire to leave⁠—desire it very badly. I am a busy man and my business will suffer from my absence.⁠ ⁠… Say that I am resolved to end this folly and at this moment. What would hinder me?” + 

“Need you ask?” she said. + 

“I ask,” he replied. Something minatory and grim had come into his face. + 

“I should hinder you,” was her answer. + 

He took a step towards her, while she watched him keenly. As his foot was raised for a second step, she blew a small whistle, and he halted. Out of the rocks and bushes men had appeared by magic, lean Indian faces with their eyes fixed on the girl. She looked at her companion, and he smiled. Then she waved her hand and the faces disappeared. + 

“I thought as much,” he said. “As I said, you are consistent in your folly.” The momentary animation had gone out of his face, and left it placid, set, and inscrutable. He did not move when out of the chasm two figures emerged, so quietly that even the girl, who had been expecting them, started as their steps rang on the stony platform. They were young men, apparently much of an age, but very different in build. One was tall and burly, with an untidy head of tow-coloured hair and a face so rugged that the features might have been rough-hewn with an axe out of some pale wood. It would have made an excellent figurehead for an old China clipper. He wore a khaki shirt, khaki shorts, and football stockings, but there was something about him that smacked of the sea. His companion, who wore similar clothes, was slight and beaky, with a mop of longish dark hair. They were about to cry some greeting to the girl when they caught sight of her companion, and both stiffened, like men who had been trained, in the presence of a superior. + 

“Excellency, may I present to you two members of your staff?” she said. “This”⁠—indicating the tall man⁠—“is Lieutenant Roger Grayne, a naval officer.⁠ ⁠… This is Captain Bobby Latimer. You are not interested in these things, I know, Excellency, but Captain Latimer has quite a reputation in our Air Force.” + 

The bareheaded young men saluted. “Pardon our rig, sir,” said Grayne, “but we’ve been up all night. We’re rather in want of a bath and breakfast. We’ve just been saying goodbye to the Corinna.” + 

“Ah! Your line of communications?” + 

“One of them,” said the girl, smiling. + 

“I venture to remind you,” said the older man, “that the republic of Olifa possesses a navy.” + 

The sailor laughed. “Not a very good one, sir. A trifle short in small craft and a whole lot short in practice. Olifa has never had much coast-patrol work to do, and she is mighty ignorant of this northern shore. I’d like to take you down below there and show you the landing. It’s as cunningly tucked away as the ports the old-time buccaneers used to have among the Florida keys. It would take pretty bright men some months to hit it off.” + 

“But supposing they were fortunate? What then?” + 

“Why then, sir, they could make it difficult for the Corinna and certain other craft, but they couldn’t put any considerable spoke in our business.” + 

“What would prevent them fighting their way up and cornering you like rats on this shelf?” + 

“Ye‑es,” was the answer. “They might⁠—with Heaven’s own luck and plenty of time and no sort of regard for casualties. That four thousand feet of gully is a mighty difficult ladder to climb, and every rung has its nasty catch. I’m not worrying about our little backdoor to the sea. Come here, sir, and have a look down. The mist will be gone by now.” + 

The Gobernador allowed himself to be led to a little platform of rock which projected above the gulf. On his arrival he had made the ascent in a thick fog, and had had no chance of noting the details. Now he saw that the path dropped at once into thick bush, while the trestles zigzagged till they were lost behind a spur of rock. Only the wireways ran straight in a dizzy angle till far below they seemed to terminate in a dull blur on the water’s edge. But what he chiefly observed was that the shore made a little bay, which ran south and was sheltered from the ocean by a green conical spur. To a ship at sea that bay was securely hidden, and the ravine must appear as one of a hundred others on the scarred and wooded mountain face. There would be some intricate prospecting before it was discovered. + 

He turned to the others with a shrug of his shoulders. “I think I have had enough of the picturesque. What about breakfast?” + 

A path led them into the shallow trough of the plateau, where the stream from Choharua wound among lawns and thickets in shining links like a salmon-river. They crossed it by a rough bridge of planks, and then the land lifted gently under the shadow of the mountain, while the shelf broadened as it turned the southern skirts. Presently it flattened out to a miniature plain, and they came suddenly into an area of crowded life. It looked like a cantonment. Round a block of wooden huts lay a ring of tents, from which rose the smoke of morning fires. On the left there were horse-lines, and beyond them the tall masts of a wireless station. On the right were what looked like aeroplane hangars. A busy hum came from the place, and that mingled smell of wood-smoke, horses, and cooking food which since the beginning of time has been a mark of human concourse. + 

The western ocean was hidden by the lift of the shore scarp, but since the coast recessed at this point there was a gleam of water from the south. To the southeast lay the great wall of the sierras, but as it bent inland the land in front seemed to sink in craggy and forested foothills, giving the eyes a great prospect towards what seemed a second and lower plateau. The air was filled with an exquisite morning freshness, half of the sea and half of the hills, and the place seemed part eyrie, part sanctuary⁠—an observation point over the kingdoms of the world, and also a tiny sheltered kingdom, brooded over by virgin peaks and guarded by untravelled seas. + 

The four stopped before one of the larger tents. A little way off a small party of Indians were off-saddling weary horses. The girl pointed to them. + 

“See, Excellency,” she said. “Another of our lines of communication.” + 

An hour later a small company assembled for breakfast in the staff mess-hut. Janet Roylance was dispensing coffee to half a dozen young men in breeches and linen jackets, one of whom was her husband, while Barbara Dasent at the other end of the table was slicing a cold ham. The men rose as the Gobernador entered, and Janet pointed to a vacant chair beside her. + 

“Where is Sandy?” she asked. “Archie saw him an hour ago, and he said he was hungry enough to eat an ox.” + 

“He is getting clean,” said Archie. “He looks as if he had been having a dusty time. He likes tea, Janet.” + 

“I know. I’ve got it for him. And Sobranye cigarettes in a china box. I remembered his tastes.” + 

To a stranger there would have appeared to be no formality or restraint about the little party. It might have been a company of friends breakfasting at some country farm. The Gobernador made a hearty meal, and his watchful eyes seemed almost benevolent when they rested on Janet or Barbara. There was no reference to the hive of strange activities around them. The young Americans were recondite travellers and talked at large of odd places and odd friends. One of them, Eborall by name, whom the others called Jim, had been with Roosevelt on his Amazon expedition and had something to say of the uneasy life of the Brazilian forests. “We never struck a health-resort like this,” he said. “They don’t keep them on the east side of the Andes.” Grayne, who was something of a naturalist, had a discussion with Archie Roylance about a type of short-winged buzzard that he had seen that morning. The young men spoke deferentially, with an eye on the Gobernador, like subalterns breakfasting with their commanding officer. Janet chattered eagerly in her role of the untravelled, to whom every new thing was a marvel. Only Barbara was a little silent. Her eyes were always turning to the door. + 

Presently it opened and a man entered. At first glance he seemed about the same age as the others, for a fine-drawn face often acquires an absurd youthfulness when, after some days of indoor life, it is first exposed to the weather. The tiny wrinkles around his eyes did not show under the flush of sunburn. He entered like a guest who, having arrived late at a country-house, makes his first appearance at breakfast and knows that he will find friends. + 

“Sandy, at last!” Janet cried. All rose, and the young Americans turned curious eyes on the newcomer, as on someone who had been eagerly awaited. + 

“There’s a chair next to Barbara,” Janet said. “Excellency, I don’t think you have met Lord Clanroyden.” + 

The two men bowed, but the newcomer did not offer to shake hands. They smiled on each other with conventional politeness, but the eyes of the elder man dwelt longer on the newcomer’s face. + 

“What’s the news?” Janet asked with a casualness that was obviously assumed. + 

“None at present, except that everything goes well. I must feed first, for my last bite was fifteen hours ago. After that I’m going to turn in and sleep a round of the clock.⁠ ⁠… How jolly it is to be up on this shelf again! I feel a new man already.” + 

Sandy fell heartily on his food. “China tea,” he murmured. “Janet, you saint! I haven’t tasted it for weeks.” + 

But the pleasant informality had deserted the company. Archie looked heavy with unspoken questions. The young Americans fell silent and kept their eyes furtively on Sandy, as if they were trying to harmonise a preconceived figure of their imagination with this ravenous reality. Janet rose. “I don’t see why we should behave as if we were at the Zoo, and watching the animals feed. Your cigarettes are over there, Sandy. We’ll leave you to finish your breakfast in peace.” + 

But the Gobernador did not leave the room with the others. He filled his pipe and pushed the Sobranye cigarettes towards Sandy’s plate. The latter, having finished the marmalade stage, began to peel an apple. “Please smoke,” he said. “I’ll join you in a second.” + 

Presently he swung himself round to face the other, and lit a cigarette. His face had lost the careless youthfulness which it had borne when he first arrived. It was the face of an older and a different man, hard, fine, and alert, and his eyes were as wary as the Gobernador’s. They seemed to be inviting a challenge. + 

The latter spoke first. + 

“I think you owe me an explanation, Lord Clanroyden,” he said. The tones of his voice were perfectly quiet and assured. The question seemed to spring not from anxiety but from a polite curiosity. + 

“I owe you many, but they will have to come bit by bit. Meanwhile I can give you news. The night before last we occupied without serious trouble the city of the Gran Seco. At this moment I think I can fairly say that the whole province is in our hands.” + 

“We! Our! What precisely do you mean?” There was an edge in the voice which proved that its possessor had been startled. + 

“It is a long story. But the name which the newspaper-readers of the world are associating with the revolt against the Olifa Government is your own, Excellency. You were the creator of the Gran Seco, and you are going to be its liberator.” + 

“Liberator? From what? Am I to destroy my own creation?” + 

“The copper industry will not suffer. The Vice-President of the Company will see to that. There will only be a suspension of business⁠—how long will depend upon the Olifa Government.” + 

“Rosas? He is in this fool conspiracy?” + 

“Undoubtedly. You may call him the prime mover. You know him as Rosas the Mexican, but to his friends he is John Scantlebury Blenkiron⁠—a patriotic citizen of the United States⁠—” + 

The other cried out. “Blenkiron! But he is dead!” + 

“Only officially. He is an ancient friend of mine, and it is our good fortune, Excellency, that your paths never crossed till he joined you eighteen months ago. You need not blame your Intelligence service. Blenkiron has puzzled before this the most efficient Intelligence services. He had been watching your doings for some time, and when he put his remarkable talents at your service it was with a purpose. The first part of that purpose has now been accomplished.” + 

Sandy paused. + 

“Go on,” said the other. “I am deeply interested.” + 

Sandy laughed. “We have no secrets from our commander-in-chief. But why should I waste time telling you what you know already?” + 

“I am not sure that I do know. This purpose? You do not want to cripple a great industry? You have no special grievance, I take it, against the republic of Olifa? You are not fanatics about forms of government? Am I to take it that your efforts are directed principally against me?” + 

“You may put it that way if you like. But we have no personal animus against your Excellency. Blenkiron, who has worked with you for nearly two years, rather likes you. We are all prepared to give you devoted allegiance.” + 

“Provided I do what you want?” + 

“Provided you do what we want. We are anxious to prevent you making a fool of yourself.” + 

It was the elder man’s turn to laugh. “I suppose I should be grateful, and I am certainly flattered. But I should like to know just what you consider my capacities in the way of folly.” + 

“I hate to repeat platitudes,” said Sandy, “but, since you insist, you shall have them. You have created a great industry, but you are following what seems to us an unbusinesslike line. You are using up your human material too rapidly. I put aside the moral question, and ask you simply if that is good business. Of course it isn’t, and since you do not do things without a purpose we had to discover that purpose. Well, we know perfectly well what it is. You are trying to make bad trouble in a world which has already too much trouble. We do you the justice to admit that this is not blind malevolence. You have an ideal behind you, a philosophy, a very serious philosophy. Well, to be frank, we don’t like your methods, and we don’t like your purpose, and we hate your philosophy like hell. Do we understand each other?” + 

The Gobernador shook out the ashes from his pipe. His eyes, under his level brows, looked steadily on his companion. There was now no smile on his face, and in his gaze there was a serious perplexity. + 

“Lord Clanroyden,” he said, “I have known about you for some years⁠—under your old name. I have even made it my business to keep in touch with you through my informants. I have always regarded you as a person of quite exceptional intelligence. There have been times when I considered you one of the two or three most intelligent people in the world.⁠ ⁠… I confess that I am grievously disappointed.” + 

“No wonder,” said Sandy. “I have always been a bit of an ass.” + 

“I don’t complain that our aims differ. Your reputation was never that of a thinker. But you were reported to me as a practical man, uncommonly audacious, resourceful, and farsighted. Now I find that you are audacious⁠—but with the audacity of a crude boy. You have organised a childish little piece of banditry. You think you have fathomed my methods. Why, man, you have not learned the alphabet of them. I have my lines down deep in every country on the globe. The Gran Seco has purchase with every Government. As soon as the news of your doings has gone abroad, you will have the most potent forces set at work to defeat you. The prosperity of the Gran Seco is of vital importance to millions up and down the world. The credit of Governments, the interests of a thousand financial groups are involved. The very people who might otherwise sympathise with you will be forced to combine to break you.” + 

“True,” said Sandy. “But you realise that your name as our leader will cramp the style of your supporters.” + 

“Only for a moment. It will not be believed⁠ ⁠…” + 

“I am not so sure. Remember, you are a mystery man, Excellency, whom the world has heard of, but does not know. You have been playing a pretty game with the press, but we too have made our plans. The newspapers by this time will be full of character-studies of the Gobernador of the Gran Seco, arranged for by us. In spite of yourself, you are going to get the reputation of a high-souled humanitarian, a cross between Bolivar and Abraham Lincoln. I think we shall get in first with our picture, and⁠—well, you know what the public is. It will be difficult to efface first impressions, and that, I say, will cramp the style of your people and give us time.” + 

“But what earthly good will time do you? That is my second charge against your intelligence. You have chosen to fight me with weapons so infantile that they will break in a week.⁠ ⁠… What were you and Blenkiron thinking of to put your eggs in this preposterous basket? I have many vulnerable points. I know that, if you do not. You and your friends might have slowly organised the collective stupidity of the world against me. You had your fulcrum in America, and for lever you had all the crude sentimentality of mankind. I have always feared such a crusade. Why did you not attempt it?” + 

“I will tell you why,” was the answer. “It was because we respected you too sincerely. We knew that we couldn’t beat you at that game. To fight you in parliaments, and cabinet councils, and on the stock exchanges and in the press would have been to fight you on your own chosen ground. We preferred to fight you on our ground. We decided to transfer the whole contest to a sphere in which your genius was not at home. You are the last word in civilisation, Excellency, and you can only be beaten by getting you into the ancient and elementary world where civilisation does not apply.” + 

The other did not answer for a moment. Something in the words seemed to have started a new train of thought, and his eyes took on a profound abstraction. Then he leaned forward. + 

“There is method in that,” he said. “I do not quarrel with your policy. But, in the name of all that is rational, where are your weapons? A handful of children, a disloyal colleague who has no doubt worked upon the turbulent element among our white employees, my kidnapping, and the fact that my administration was a somewhat personal matter⁠—these may give you control of the Gran Seco for a day or two. But what then? There are the wealth and the army of Olifa to crush you like a nut on an anvil.” + 

“Not quite so bad. You underestimate Blenkiron, I think. Remember he has been in the Gran Seco for some time, and he has not been idle. We have the Mines Police, and most of the Mines foremen and engineers. When I left yesterday, the place was as docile as a girls’ school, and there was a very stout heart in our troops.” + 

“Troops!” the other said. “You may have got your noncommissioned officers, but where can you get the rank-and-file for an army?” + 

“Where you got your labour, Excellency. Among the old masters of the country. You must have heard of the trouble that the Gran Seco Indians used to give to Olifa. They were never properly conquered till you came along. You policed them and dragooned them, but the dragoons are now on their side. A couple of years more and you would have drained the manhood from them and left them mere shells of men. But at present they are still a people, and a fighting people, and they are going to fight for liberty and vengeance. Not against you⁠—they regard you as their saviour, and are wearing your medals round their necks⁠—but against the oppressors of Olifa.⁠ ⁠… I think you lived too much of a sedentary life, Excellency. You took the word of your subordinates too much on trust. If you had lived as I have among the pueblas, you would have been a little afraid of what you found there.⁠ ⁠… Perhaps a little shocked, too.⁠ ⁠… Those rags and tatters of men, used up in the mines and flung on the dustheap! The remnant of manhood left in them is not a gentle thing.” + 

“But against the army of Olifa! I have made it my business to see that that army is the most efficient for its size in the world. What can your savages and your gunmen do against the last word of science from the laboratory and the factory?” + 

“Nothing if we fight them in their own way. A good deal, I think, if we fight them in ours. We refuse to meet you on your own ground, Excellency, and you may be certain that we don’t mean to meet the Olifa army on theirs.” + 

“I cannot follow your riddles.” + 

“Of course you can’t. This is a very academic discussion we’re having. If you’ll allow me, I’ll explain to you later the general layout. You’re entitled to have everything shown you. It will interest you, as a thinker, for, though you’ll scarcely believe it, we too have our philosophy of life. You are a very wise man, with a large experience of the world, but I believe we can show you something which you know nothing about.” + 

The other was listening intently. “This wonderful revelation?” he asked. “What is it?” + 

“The meaning of youth,” was the answer. “You have lived all your life in an elderly world, Excellency. Everything worked by rule, and even your lawlessness was nicely calculated. And all the old stagnant things were your puppets which you could move as you pleased. But there’s another side of which you know nothing at all. You have your science; well, it will be matched against hope and faith and the simplicity that takes chances. We may go down, but we’ll go down cheerfully, and, if we win, by God, we’ll make you a new man.” + 

A strange look came into the other’s face. He regarded Sandy with a bewilderment in his stern eyes which seemed not altogether unfriendly. + 

“I cannot quite understand,” he said, as he rose, “why you and your friends did not take the simple course. Since your quarrel is principally with me, a bullet in my head strikes me as the most satisfactory solution.” + 

Sandy stood before him, a head shorter, a stone or two lighter, looking at the moment half his age. There was a dancing light in his eyes which answered the flickering spark in the other’s. He laid a hand on the Gobernador’s sleeve, as if the great man were a coeval. + 

“Nonsense!” he said. “We leave murder to your Conquistadors. We think so highly of you that we’re going to have a try at saving your soul.” + 

II + 

The wireless station on the plateau received its punctual bulletins of news from the outer world, copies of which were posted up in the mess-hut. From them it appeared that the republic of Olifa was already in the throes of a campaign. War had begun when on the 14th day of June the city of the Gran Seco had been seized by the rebels, and the whole province was in revolt. The whereabouts of Castor were not known; his lieutenants held the city, but he was reputed to be with the main force of the revolt, somewhere in the hinterland. Olifa had replied to the challenge. Her army was mobilised, and a Gran Seco Expeditionary Force was in being. The aged General Bianca, the Minister of War, did not take command; for that post the President had selected a younger man, General Lossberg, who had been military governor of the city of Olifa, and had come there after the European War with a high reputation from the Eastern Front, where he had been one of Mackensen’s corps commanders. The Expeditionary Force was said to contain four divisions of infantry, a cavalry brigade, and four of the new machine-gun battalions. + 

The comments of the world’s press on the outbreak were curiously restrained. Some influence must have been at work, for the current story represented the revolt as that of the leaders of the copper industry against an oppressive Government, which confiscated their profits and by inhuman laws was ruining their reservoir of native labour. Thus stated, humanity and sound business seemed to be on the side of the rebels. Strange tales were printed of the barbarities of conscripted labour, of men worn to husks and sent back to their villages to die. The picture presented was of enlightened magnates forced unwillingly into harshness by the greed of Olifa, until finally decency and common sense forced them to make a stand. A spontaneous labour revolt had been sponsored by the masters themselves, and at the head stood Castor, the Gobernador. It seemed a clear issue, on which the conscience of the world could not be divided. There were papers in England, France, and America which hailed Castor as a second Lincoln. + 

Yet the more responsible section of the press walked warily, which seemed to point to conflicting versions of the facts among those likely to know best. Such papers were guarded in their comments on the merits of the dispute, and treated it as a domestic Olifa question on which exact information was lacking. Patently the Gran Seco agents throughout the world were puzzled and were holding their hand. Their chief was playing a game on which they had not been instructed. The news columns of such papers were filled with sensational accounts of Gran Seco wealth and luxury and of Indian pueblas full of the broken and diseased, but the leading articles steered a discreet course. Castor was no doubt a great man, possibly a man of destiny, but the end was not yet⁠—and Olifa had been of late a particularly docile and well-conducted republic. The world seemed to agree to make a ring round the combatants. Only the scallywags and the restless youth of all nations were prepared to take sides, and consulates and passport-offices were plagued by those who wished to reach the seat of war. There were perpetual queues at the door of the Gran Seco offices in London, New York, and Paris. + 

One body of men alone had decided views⁠—the military critics. Among these there was a remarkable unanimity. The revolt, in their opinion, could not sustain itself for more than a few weeks. The details of the Olifa army were well known. It was officered by able professional soldiers, it had been a pioneer in mechanisation, and The Times had published from a contributor some striking articles on its efficiency; it had behind it a wealthy Government, and, should the need arise, a big population to conscript; above all, it had an open door to the sea. The rebels must be at the best a rabble of Indian labourers and European miners, with a sprinkling, no doubt, of soldiers of fortune. They might be armed after a fashion, but they could not compete with the armoury of Olifa. They had no communications open with the outer world. Assuming that they had laid in a store of ammunition, they could not supply wastage. The Gran Seco, which was largely a desert, could not feed itself, and the rebels would be starved out long before they were defeated. It was like a fugitive who had climbed a tree: the pursuit had only to wait below till he was forced by hunger to come down. General Weyland in the London Times, and Mr. Winter Spokes in the New York Herald-Tribune reached the same conclusion. + 

The campaign had begun; according to the wireless Olifa was an armed camp, and everything was in train for an advance on the Gran Seco; but in the Courts of the Morning there was peace. There was activity enough. Daily aeroplanes left the shelf for long flights beyond the foothills, and over the arid steppes of the Gran Seco to the savannahs and forests of Olifa, now sweltering under the first deluges of the rainy season. Strings of convoys ascended by the rough paths and departed with their stores. Horsemen arrived hourly with messages, and every yard of the settlement was busy. Yet it seemed a peaceful busyness. The workers met at meals and in the evenings with the cheerfulness of weary but equable folk. There was no tension in the atmosphere. Castor for the most part had his meals in his own room, but he invariably appeared at dinner, and he seemed to be in good health and spirits. Though under constant surveillance, he had the illusion of liberty, and could walk abroad with Janet and Barbara as if he were a guest in a country-house. There was nothing about him of the feverish prisoner, and this disquieted Sandy. + 

“I haven’t begun to understand him,” he told Janet. “You see, all I know about him I know at secondhand from Blenkiron, and by deduction from his public career. I met him for the first time a week ago. Our only talk was just an exchange of polite challenges. We might have been shouting at each other from adjacent mountaintops.⁠ ⁠… I don’t like that calm of his. Here you have a man whose brain has never stopped working, and who has the ambition of a fallen angel. He sees us trying to play havoc with his life’s work, and he makes no sign of impatience. What has his mind got to bite on? It can’t be idle.” + 

“He writes a great deal,” said Janet. “He has told me about it. I don’t think I quite understood, but isn’t there an Italian called Croce? Well, he thinks Croce all wrong about something, and is trying to explain how.” + 

“O Lord!” Sandy groaned. “The fellow is bigger than we thought. I didn’t reckon on this superhuman detachment. He must be very sure he is going to win.” + 

“Yes,” said Janet thoughtfully. “But not for the reasons that the wireless gives. He told me that he thought that those military experts talked nonsense. I think he knows that he will win because he is bigger than we are. He has been studying us all most carefully. You especially, Sandy. Do you notice how he looks at you? I believe he was afraid of you before he met you.” + 

“But not now?” + 

“No. I’m sorry, but I don’t think he is so afraid of you now. I fancy he is always a little uneasy about anything he does not understand. But he thinks he is getting to the bottom of you.” + 

“I daresay he is. But I’m nowhere near the bottom of him. None of the formulas fit him. It’s no good saying that he is pure intellect. He’s that, but he’s a great deal more. On his record I ought to hate him. He stands for everything I most detest, and he has been responsible for the bloodiest cruelties. On the bare facts of the case Nero was respectable compared to him.⁠ ⁠… And yet I can’t hate him⁠—simply because I can’t hold him responsible. He has no notion what he has done, for, with all his cleverness, there’s an odd, idiotic innocence about him. I nourished a most healthy disgust till I met him. But now, confound it, I rather like him.” + 

“So do I,” said the girl emphatically. “Barbara doesn’t, but I do. And I believe he rather likes us⁠—even you, Sandy. You see, we are something that he has never quite met before, and we interest him desperately. He is busy summing us up, and that gives his mind something to work on. Now that I know him, I could no more hate him than I could hate a cyclone or an erupting volcano.” + 

“You mean he is a sort of impersonal natural force?” + 

“No, I don’t. He is a person, but very limited⁠—as limited as a cyclone. His energies and his interests have been constricted into a narrow channel. I think he lacks imagination.” + 

Sandy whistled. + 

“Good for you, Janet. I should have said that his imagination was the most deadly and colossal thing about him.” + 

“Yes⁠—yes. But it is only one kind of imagination. Milton could imagine the scenery of Hell and Heaven, but he hadn’t enough imagination to understand his wife. He is still a little puzzled by us, and that makes him puzzled about himself. Up till now he had been mathematically certain about everything. If we make him uncertain, we may win.⁠ ⁠… Now, I’m going to take him for a walk and continue his education.” + 

Presently, into the orderly routine of the plateau came something of the stir of war. Messengers from the lowlands became more frequent, and Sandy had to take his sleep when he could, for he might be called upon at any hour. The wireless operators were kept busy, and at night there was much activity in the ravine which dropped seaward, for unlighted ships groped their way into the secret gulf. The aeroplanes, which were still used only for intelligence purposes, and not for combat, brought back more authentic news than the war correspondents cabled to the press of the world, and that they gained it at some risk was proved by more than one that returned with damaged planes and bullets in its fuselage. + 

The Gobernador had shown little interest in the wireless messages from the world’s capitals. He had left Olifa with no more than a suit of dress-clothes, and had been fitted out from the wardrobe of Archie, who was much the same height and figure. One morning Sandy came in to breakfast with a new light in his eye. + 

“Things are beginning to move, sir,” he told Castor. “The time has come to get into campaigning kit. We shan’t be a dressy staff, but we can’t go about like earth-stoppers any more.” + 

Thereafter everyone appeared in simple khaki tunics and breeches. Castor submitted good-humouredly to the change. + 

“You look like General Smuts, sir,” Archie told him, “only a little darker and less benevolent.” + 

Castor smiled. “That would seem to be in keeping. Like Smuts, I am an intellectual compelled by fate to be a leader of guerrillas. Is it not so?” + 

That night Sandy and young Latimer pinned up on the wall of the mess-hut a big map mounted on calico, and proceeded to ornament it with little flags. + 

“There is your province, sir,” he said, “a better map than anything the Surveyor-General has in Olifa. The colour-washes represent altitudes. The red flags are our posts, and the green are the Olifa army. I am going to give a staff lecture, for the bell has rung and the curtain gone up.” + 

The map showed only the northern half of the republic, from Olifa city to the apex where the great mountains crowded down upon the sea. From the Courts of the Morning the land fell in tiers⁠—first the wooded shelves, then the barrens of the Seco Boreal, and then the broad shallow cup where the Mines and the city lay. From the Gran Seco city the country ran westward for a hundred miles till it ended in the rocky sierras of the coast. Eastward it rose into the savannahs of the Indian reserve and the Tierra Caliente, till it met the main chain of the Cordilleras. The map did not embrace this latter feature, and there was no sign on it of the pass into the Poison Country. The south boundary of the Gran Seco was a ridge of dolomite cliffs, broken apparently only at one place⁠—by the long winding valley up which the railway ran from Santa Ana. From the contours it looked to be otherwise unapproachable from that side, save by one or two tortuous and difficult footpaths, at the head of which under Castor’s administration there had been blockhouses and patrols. There was no breach at either end, for on the west this southern ridge ran out in the coast sierras, and on the east became a buttress of the main Cordilleras massif. There were red flags in the city and at the Universum, clusters at two points in the Indian Reserve, one of them very close to the mountains, and a chain running up towards the Courts of the Morning. In the plain of Olifa there was a big green concentration at Santa Ana, and a green blob halfway up the railway. + 

“Lossberg has got his rolling stock at last,” Sandy explained. “He has his pioneers and one of his machine-gun battalions at the frontier, and his cavalry patrols were last night within five miles of the Gran Seco city.” + 

Castor donned a pair of horn spectacles and examined the map closely. He studied especially the Seco Boreal and the eastern frontier. He ran his finger along the southern rim. + 

“That was always a troublesome place,” he said. “Practicable for a mountaineer or an Indian, but scarcely more. At least, so our reports said. But we had to watch it. Rosas”⁠—he smiled⁠—“was always very strong about keeping posts there.” + 

He took a step backward and surveyed the map. + 

“It appears that the military gentlemen who write to the papers are right,” he said. “I seem to be in a very bad strategical position. Olifa can force a passage⁠—it may take a little time and she may have losses, but she can fight her way up the railway to the Gran Seco. After that we are at her mercy, at least so far as the city and the Mines are concerned, for I do not suppose we can hope to win a field action against her.” + 

“Not a chance,” said Sandy cheerfully. + 

“Then nothing remains but a guerrilla war on our savannahs. I think she will beat us there, for ours is a hard dry soil and tanks and armoured cars can go anywhere. I speak as a civilian, but am I not right, Lord Clanroyden?” + 

“Perfectly.” + 

“Our troops are mounted?” + 

“All of them.” + 

“Where on earth did you get the horses? The Indian ponies are a miserable breed.” + 

“Not so bad as you think,” Sandy smiled. “But we had other sources of supply. Olifa is a famous horse-breeding country.” + 

“But how did you draw on Olifa? How did you get the horses up?” + 

“Some day I will tell you⁠—but not now.” + 

The Gobernador looked puzzled. + 

“I take it we have a certain amount of food and munitions?” + 

“Enough to go on with.” + 

“But not indefinitely.⁠ ⁠… Then it looks as if before long our present dwelling-place would become a point of some importance. It is now our poste de commandement, and presently it may be our last refuge. We have access to the sea. If we can find ships, we shall have to make a moonlight flitting, as your people did at Gallipoli.” + 

“I shouldn’t wonder.” + 

Castor took off his spectacles. “I speak with all modesty, but was it not a blunder to let Olifa strike first? I should have thought that our best chance would have been to obstruct the railway⁠—like⁠—like my Dutch prototype in your South African war. Can an inferior safely surrender the offensive?” And he smiled pleasantly. + 

Sandy shook his head. + 

“It wouldn’t have done. We should have given old Lossberg a lot of trouble, but he would have smashed us in the long run.” + 

“Won’t he smash us anyhow in the long run?” + 

Castor moved closer and again studied the map. + 

“God has been unkind to us in planting that wall of rock and snow in the east. It is most unfortunate that the southern wall of the Gran Seco runs clean up to the mountains without a convenient pass for honest guerrilleros to descend upon Olifa.” + 

“Most unfortunate,” said Sandy, but there was no melancholy in his tone.⁠ ⁠… “Well, that’s the layout. Now I will expound the meaning of our flags.” + 

He enumerated in detail the strength and composition of the various detachments, and then explained the composition and marching order of the Olifero forces. Castor listened attentively and asked questions. “We are holding the city lightly, but the Mines strongly. Ah, I see. We have a big detachment on the railway. Who, by the way, commands in the city? Rosas? We have given my friend the post of honour⁠—and danger.” + 

Day by day the green flags crept northward till they were spilled in clusters beyond the Gran Seco frontier. Every evening Sandy gave his staff lecture. It was noticeable, now that the campaign had begun, that his spirits rose, and though he had scarcely time to feed or sleep he showed no trace of weariness. Yet there was tension in the air. The faces of the men would suddenly go blank as some problem swept them into preoccupation. Even the Gobernador was not exempt from these sudden silences. He alone had no routine work, but Janet, who had become his chief companion abroad, reported that he was becoming temperamental. + 

“I think it is this place,” she told Sandy. “I don’t believe he has ever been much out-of-doors in his life before. He has always lived in cities and railway-carriages, and Nature is rather a surprise to him and puts him off his balance. He told me today that this living with sunsets and sunrises made him giddy.⁠ ⁠… His education is progressing. I wish I knew what he was thinking when he has that blindish look in his eyes.” + 

“He seems to be interested in the campaign,” said Sandy. “As an intellectual problem, I suppose. Something for his mind to work upon.” + 

The girl hesitated. + 

“Perhaps,” she said. “But I think there is something more in it than that. He has been adopted for the first time in his life into a community. We others are busy at a game. He is like a child. He can’t help hankering a little to play too.” + 

Presently events began to crowd on each other. The green flags made a forest between the Gran Seco frontier and the city, and spread out till their right wing was very close to the Universum Mine. + 

“That’s the cavalry,” Sandy explained. “They’re finding it a tougher job than they reckoned. Yesterday they tried a sort of Jeb Stuart ride round the city and came in for some rough handling from Peters. They’ve first-rate cavalry, but indifferent M.I.” + 

Then came a halt and the green flags did not advance for a day or two. + 

“We put up quite a good little show,” was Sandy’s comment. “You remember the fifth milepost down the line where it runs through a horseshoe valley. That’s our position, and it is pretty much like that of the Boers at Magersfontein. They can’t find our trenches to shell us out of them. Lossberg is getting nervous about a frontal attack and is considering an enveloping movement. See! He has two of his machine-gun battalions moving east of the Universum. He’s bringing up another infantry division, too. That makes three, besides oddments. A pretty good muster against our modest territorials!” + 

Two days later the red flags had fallen back two miles along the railway. + 

Sandy, with his eye on a smaller chart, elucidated the position on the big map. + 

“Our forward zone has gone, and now we’re in our battle zone, though we don’t intend to have much of a battle. But we’ve got to stick it there for a couple of days.⁠ ⁠… You see this bunch of red flags east of the Mines? That’s our counter-movement beginning.” + 

“It looks as if we were shaping for a big field action,” said one of the young Americans. + 

“Not a bit. We aren’t looking for any barren victories. This is all directed to Lossberg’s address. We know a good deal about him, and he’s a cautious warrior. He’s taking no risks, for he has the strength and he means to use it.⁠ ⁠… I hope to Heaven Peters doesn’t dip in too deep.” + 

To Janet and Barbara these days were as thrilling as the last act of a good play. Up in that quiet place, they seemed to watch the struggle like gods from the empyrean. The very map became like a crystal in which their fancy could see the hot mustard-coloured hills, the puffs of shrapnel on the ridges, the ant-like movements of little mortals. Even the Gobernador lost something of his calm, and the eyes under his level brows kindled. In these days the aircraft were never idle. Every hour of the day and night heard the drone of their going or returning. + 

On the evening of July 17th Sandy had much to tell. + 

“You will be glad to hear that Lossberg has got his reinforcements. This morning the last division of his Expeditionary Force crossed the frontier.” + 

“You seem pleased?” asked the puzzled Janet. + 

“I am. I don’t want unnecessary bloodshed, and these small holding battles take their toll. It’s only a matter of hours now till we acknowledge defeat and fling up the sponge. It hasn’t been a bad show, except that Peters went further than I intended. He pushed his counterattack at the Universum a little too deep, and suffered accordingly. That’s the worst of the enthusiastic amateur.⁠ ⁠… There will be a great Olifa triumph presently. It will be fun to see what the papers make of it.” + 

Next day Sandy’s good-humour had increased. He appeared at luncheon silent but beaming, and when an excited company gathered in the mess-hut before dinner he arrived like a breathless boy. + 

“I want a drink, for I’ve had a dusty afternoon.⁠ ⁠… Thanks, Bobby, a whisky-and-soda.⁠ ⁠… We needn’t wait. I can give you the news now. Early this morning we fell back from our last positions and all our troops have been withdrawn from the city. Lossberg’s cavalry patrols must be in it now.⁠ ⁠… Also the Universum is in his hands, and the Alhuema and the San Tomé whenever he likes to have ’em. He will meet with no opposition. The first bout is past and we’ve been knocked over the ropes. It’s Lossberg’s round.⁠ ⁠… You needn’t look anxious, Excellency. There hasn’t been ten pounds’ worth of damage done to the Company’s property.” + 

“I wasn’t thinking of the Company,” said Castor, and his face had become very grave. “Has all this happened according to your plan?” + 

“More or less⁠ ⁠… except for Peters’s venture. I didn’t want our casualties to go beyond two hundred, and they’re actually three hundred and seventeen. Still, your army has not suffered badly.” + 

“For God’s sake don’t call it mine. I’m your prisoner and your enemy. What’s the next step? When is this infernal folly to cease?” + 

Sandy grinned benignly. “Properly speaking, the infernal folly has just begun. The sparring is over and the real business is about to commence.” + 

The other considered. “Your plan, I take it, was to put up just enough resistance to compel Olifa to send the whole of her Expeditionary Force inside the Gran Seco. You know, of course, that she has reserves?” + 

Sandy nodded. “But they will take some time to assemble, and they will have to make their way up.” + 

“Why should they not?” + 

“It may be difficult, for soon there will be a most imperfect railway.” + 

“And Lossberg.” + 

“Our first business was to get him in. Our business now is to see that he does not get out.” + 

Castor laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound. “An ingenious plan! I have been obtuse. I might have guessed it.” + 

Dinner that evening was a strange meal and a short one. There was little talk, since for the first time the unpredictable future brooded over all of them like a cloud. In the cloud there was no depression, but a certain awe. Sandy and Castor were the last to rise. The elder man had recovered his balance, and as they left the hut his eyes met the other’s. + 

“We are declared enemies, Lord Clanroyden,” he said, “and the gloves are off. I make you my compliments on your boldness. I take it you are about to leave me and assume the direct command of the revolutionaries?” + 

“As your lieutenant. I shall report to you regularly.” + 

“Let that fooling stop. I am at present your victim, but some day soon the parts will be reversed. I have only one thing to say to you. You have succeeded for the moment in putting me out of action. But I am something more than a single man marooned up on this shelf of mountain. I have my bodyguard⁠—everywhere in the world, and also in Olifa, and in the Gran Seco. You cannot destroy that bodyguard, though no doubt you have tried, for most of it is subterranean and secret. That force will be fighting for me. Its methods are what you would call criminal, for it does not accept conventional standards of honour. But it is resourceful and subtle and it will stick at nothing. What chance have you against it? You will be compelled to take risks, and that force I speak of will make those risks a certainty of death.” + 

“I wonder why you tell me that. Is it meant as a friendly warning?” + 

“I am not your friend. It is a warning. I do not wish you to deceive yourself. I want you to know what is against you.” + 

For a moment Sandy stared at Castor’s face as if he sought something buried deep in the man. Then he laughed. + 

“Thank you, Excellency.⁠ ⁠… I hope they’ll make you comfortable while I’m away.⁠ ⁠… If we meet again, we may be able to shake hands.” + 

III + 

The details of Lossberg’s advance up the railway, when, with overwhelming superiority of numbers and artillery, and after various checks, he drove in the screen of the defence, and on July 19th entered the Gran Seco city, do not belong to this story. They will be found set out at length in the dispatches of the correspondents who accompanied the Olifa army. Those veracious writers gave ample information about the Olifa command, for censorship was thought unnecessary in such a case, but they were very much in the dark as to the personnel of the enemy. Castor was assumed to be commander-in-chief, and Rosas, described as a Mexican adventurer who had been once on the staff of Porfirio Diaz, was credited with such military talent as the rebels possessed. The correspondents had followed the military critics in assuming that the result was a foregone conclusion. But presently a new name appeared in their dispatches⁠—Obro, an Indian word which was interpreted in Spanish as “el lobo gris”⁠—“the grey wolf.” El Obro was believed to be the name of a guerrilla leader much reverenced by the Indians, who was assumed to be lurking in the hinterland. As the weeks passed this name was to appear more often, till presently Castor and Rosas were almost forgotten and it had the headlines to itself. + 

On the day before the defence broke, Blenkiron was sitting on an empty shell-case in what had once been the garden of his house behind the Administration Buildings. An algarroba tree gave him a little shade from the pitiless sun, and, since he was grey from head to foot with dust and had a broad battered panama hat pulled down over his head like a burnous, he had something of the air of a qadi under a palm. Around him stood a small group in rough field-service kit, all of them dusty and a little hollow-eyed, their shoulders limp and rounded like those of men who have not lain flat in bed for several nights. The place was very quiet to be in the heart of a city. There was no sound except that of an occasional car driven at top-speed in the adjoining street, though an alert ear might have caught at intervals a curious pattering noise coming from the south, a noise which at times grew into something like the beating of muffled drums. + 

A man was speaking, a man with a drawl and a sleepy voice. This was Escrick, the sub-manager of the Alhuema Mine, who had once commanded a brigade of Australian infantry in France. He had been in charge of the position astride the railway, and had sited the trenches so skilfully that Lossberg’s guns had bombarded dummies and Lossberg’s advance had been time and again held up by concealed machine guns. He had now the task of drawing off his men by night, a task which, having been at the evacuation of Helles, he had no doubt as to his ability to perform. + 

Blenkiron, as the plan was unfolded, glanced at the paper in his hands, and at Escrick’s further elucidation with the point of a riding-switch in the thick dust. Then he turned to another man, a heavy red-faced fellow who was perpetually mopping his face with a blue-spotted handkerchief. At his look of inquiry the man nodded. + 

“The last of the supply wagons leave this afternoon, sir,” he said. “Three of the centres are already stocked up, and the fourth will be completed by midnight. The men should be well on their way before daybreak tomorrow, and all arrangements have been made for mining and blowing-up the roads behind them.” + 

“You’re not leaving much behind?” + 

“Not an ounce of flour or a pound of bacon,” was the answer. + 

“I reckon that’s fair. It’s up to Lossberg to feed the population of the city he captures. What’s it they call them, Luis? The bouches inutiles?” + 

Luis de Marzaniga smiled. “There won’t be too many of these useless mouths, Señor.” + 

“Lordy, it’s hot!” Blenkiron sighed. “Let’s get inside the shack and moisten our lips with lime-juice. The maps are there, and I’ll like to have a once-over before we get back to our jobs.” + 

A hut in the garden had been transformed into an office, and on one wall hung a big plan made of a dozen sheets pinned together. It had none of the finish of the products of a Government Map Department, being the work of the Mines surveyors. Each of the men had a small replica, which he compared with the original. + 

There followed an hour of detailed instruction as to routes and ultimate concentrations. Four points were marked on the big map with red circles. One, lettered Pacheco, lay in the extreme southwest angle of the Gran Seco. Magdalena, the second, was a hundred miles farther north, under the shadow of the peaks called the Spanish Ladies. The third was near the centre of the northern part of the province, the Seco Boreal, and had the surprising name of Fort Castor: while the fourth, Loa, was at the opening of the neck of land which led to the Courts of the Morning. The commandos under Escrick were to make for the two latter points, while Peters and his forces, which had been fighting in the Mines sector, had the two former for their objectives. + 

There was also to be a change in the command. Blenkiron, once the city had been surrendered, laid down his duties. The field force in the future would be divided between Escrick and Peters; and, under Castor as generalissimo, the operations as a whole would be directed by him whom the Indians called El Obro. + 

“I guess we’ll keep to that pet name,” Blenkiron said. “It sounds good, and kind of solemn. We haven’t any use for effete territorial titles in this democratic army, and ‘Sandy’ is too familiar.” + 

Then he made the men repeat their instructions till each was clear not only about his own task but about the tasks of the others⁠—a vital thing in a far-flung force. After that he lectured them.⁠ ⁠… So far luck had been on their side. Their losses had been small; under estimate in the railway sector, and not thirty percent beyond it even after Peters’s rash counterattack. No officer had fallen, and only six had been wounded. One aeroplane, unfortunately, had been brought down, and the pilot and observer, both young Mines engineers, killed. That was their most serious casualty. “A very nice little exhibition of the new bloodless conduct of war,” said Blenkiron. But this was only the overture; the serious business was now about to begin, when they had to make the country fight Lossberg, as Washington made the geography of America fight Burgoyne and Cornwallis. “It’s going to be a mighty tough proposition, but I reckon if we pay strict attention to business we’ll put it through.” + 

“Say, though,” said Escrick, “what is going to be the upshot?” + 

“Peace, sonny. We’ve got to make the Excelentísimo at Olifa so dead-sick of the business that he’ll want to deal. Same game as Robert E. Lee played before Gettysburg. We can’t beat them, but we may make them want to deal. And in that deal Mr. Castor is going to state the terms. And those terms are going to fix things more comfortably in this province, but principally they are going to fix Mr. Castor.⁠ ⁠… You’ve got the schedule for tonight clear? Then we’d better dissolve this conference. I join you, General Escrick, at twenty minutes after midnight.” + 

The men entered their dusty cars and departed, while Blenkiron went into his house, accompanied by Luis de Marzaniga, who seemed to be acting as his chief staff-officer. As they lunched frugally off sardines and biscuits, Blenkiron was in a cheerful mood, but a shadow seemed to hover about the face of the younger man. + 

“What’s worrying you, Luis?” Blenkiron asked. “Things have panned out pretty well according to plan. There’s snags good and plenty to come, but we needn’t think about them just yet.” + 

“I think, Señor, that there is one snag which we have forgotten.” + 

“Meaning?” + 

“The bouches inutiles whom we are leaving to the care of General Lossberg.” + 

“Why, man, we can’t do anything else. The civilians in a captured city are not our concern. They’re his funeral. He’s bound to treat them well for⁠ ⁠…” + 

“It is scarcely a question of humanity. But some of these bouches may be mischievous.” + 

“The Bodyguard?” + 

The young man took a paper from his pocket. + 

“Here,” he said, “I have a list of the more dangerous of the Bodyguard and of those gentry whom we call the Conquistadors. I have made notes on each.⁠ ⁠… Kubek⁠—he was happily killed in this very house. We found his body over there by the window.⁠ ⁠… Ramiro and Mollison, they were shot by Peters at the roundup.⁠ ⁠… Bechstein⁠—dead of spotted fever.⁠ ⁠… Snell⁠—died of wounds two hours after Kubek.⁠ ⁠… But Radin and Molinoff are at large⁠—you remember that they broke away in the confusion, when the house in the Calle of the Virgin fell as Peters was taking them to the lockup.⁠ ⁠… There are others, too. We know nothing of what became of Martel and Carvilho and Magee and Trompetter⁠ ⁠… and Laschallas, whom we used to think as dangerous as Kubek. Do you know that he, or somebody very like him, was seen last night in a drinking-den near St. Martin’s Port?” + 

“That only means that there are a handful of bad men loose. You can’t corral all the scamps. Besides, a gunman’s not too dangerous in a war where everybody has a gun.” + 

“I wonder. Remember that these are a very special type of gunman. The Gobernador chose them for their brains out of the rascality of the globe.⁠ ⁠… Then there are the three ruffians you sent with him to Olifa. What were their names?” + 

“Carreras, Judson, and Biretti.” + 

“Yes. Well, you may be sure they will come back, if indeed they are not back already.⁠ ⁠… I do not like it, Señor. They are dangerous grit to get into our wheels. I should be happier if I knew that they were in their graves.” + 

“So should I. But I don’t let that outfit worry me. I reckon they’re part of the legitimate risk of war. Anything more?” + 

“The Conquistadors.” + 

Blenkiron laughed aloud. + 

“That pie-faced bunch! Say, Luis, you’re getting fanciful. What harm can those doped owls do us? They’ll be waiting for Lossberg and making a fuss about their comforts. It’s him they’ll bite, not us.” + 

“I wonder again. Lariarty was in the roundup which Lord Clanroyden organised. He was consorting with the Bodyguard. Is there not something there to make us think?” + 

“Why, Luis, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Except for Castor, I reckon I know the Conquistadors better than any other man, and I’ve sized them up long ago. They’re the most dangerous stuff on earth, so long as Castor has the handling of them, but without him they’re no more good than dud shells. They’ve powder enough, but, lacking Castor, they haven’t the current to fire the charge. Let ’em alone, and they’ll just moon about and rot.” + 

“And yet Lariarty was at the meeting which was nearly the end of Lord Clanroyden. He sat in the judge’s chair. It is right to assume that he had some part in the plot.⁠ ⁠… I think you are wrong, Señor. I think the Conquistadors are like sick wolves⁠—dying, if you like, but with enough strength to turn and bite. And, remember, their bite will be deadly, because it is poisoned.” + 

Blenkiron looked perturbed. “I can’t bring myself to think that. What could they do? They won’t fit in with Lossberg.” + 

“No, indeed. General Lossberg, if I understand him, will make nothing of them. He is a conventional soldier, and will fight his battles in the old professional way.⁠ ⁠… But what if the Conquistadors keep the same company that we found Lariarty keeping? They have no scruples. What if a dull anger and a craving for their drug⁠—for presently they will get no more of it⁠—what if that kindles their wits and screws up their nerves sufficiently for one desperate throw? The remnants of the Bodyguard, if they can find them, will be their executants. They will think chiefly of getting to Castor, and, failing that, of revenge.” + 

“It will be hard to reach the Courts of the Morning.” + 

“Maybe. But it may be less hard to reach you⁠—or Lord Clanroyden. Our army is not a machine, but a personal following. A well-aimed bullet might make it a rabble.” + 

Blenkiron sat brooding for a moment. “I think you put the risk too high,” he said at last, “but we can’t neglect any risk. Have you put Intelligence on to the job?” + 

“Señor Musgrave and his young men have been too busy fighting battles. I have done a little myself.” + 

“You have told me what gunmen survive, but you haven’t located them. How about the Conquistadors?” + 

Luis took up another paper. + 

“Lariarty, whom Peters wanted to lock up, was set free by Lord Clanroyden. He has been living quietly in his rooms, playing much music on his piano. There are five others in the Gran Seco, and they profess to be waiting till the Mines are started again, whether by Lossberg or ourselves. They shrug their shoulders, and behave as if there were no war. The dandyism of their clothes has not changed, and they feed solemnly together at the Club or the Regina. What they do beyond that I cannot tell.” + 

“Who’s here beside Lariarty?” + 

Luis read from his paper. + 

“Señores Frederick Larbert, Peter Suvorin, Maximilian Calvo, Jacques D’Ingraville, Luigi Pasquali.” + 

Blenkiron considered. “After Lariarty I should say that D’Ingraville was the danger. He’s not so deeply dipped, and he’s the youngest. Funny to think that he was once a French flying ace.” + 

“I have something more to tell you. Romanes is returning. I had information this morning that two days ago he landed in Olifa and that he is now with Lossberg.” + 

“H’m! I don’t like that. Europe has a bad effect on those lads⁠—breaks their temper and quickens their brains. And he won’t get the dope to quiet him⁠—not unless he goes into the Poison Country, and Peters will have a word to say to that.⁠ ⁠… Darn you, Luis, you’ve given me a thorn to lie on, just when I was feeling comfortable and meaning to hog it on my bed till sundown. What are you going to do?” + 

“I would beg leave of absence till eight o’clock. You have no need, I think, for my services, and there are one or two inquiries I wish to make before we leave the city.” + 

So, while Blenkiron, who had slept less than six hours in the past three days, did his best that afternoon to make up arrears, Luis de Marzaniga set out on his own errands. He visited the Club, and saw in a corner of the deserted dining-room three men lunching. They were just beginning, and in the dislocation of the service their meal was bound to be a slow one. Satisfied with his survey, he joined a young man, who was waiting for him in the street, and the two made a round of domiciliary visits. This young man knew his business, and the outer doors of three flats were neatly opened without damage to the locks. Two of the flats⁠—those of Larbert and D’Ingraville⁠—were in normal order, full of books and bibelots and queer scents, but the third, that of Peter Suvorin, was in a state of supreme untidiness. Its owner had been burning papers in the stove, his bedroom was littered with clothes, while a half-packed valise stood on the bed. “It seems,” said Luis to his companion, “that Señor Suvorin is about to make a journey.” + 

His next visit was alone, and to the Regina Hotel. There it was plain that he had a friend, for a word to the headwaiter in the almost empty restaurant got him an immediate interview with a servant in a little room behind the office. + 

“Señor Pasquali’s apartments?” he asked. “You have watched them as I directed?” + 

“With assiduity. The Señor is going away soon. Where, I do not know, but he has had his baggage prepared as if for a rough journey. Also he has received every night at the hour of ten a visitor.” + 

The visitor was described: a tall man, with a long dark face and high cheekbones, like an Indian’s. No, not an Indian⁠—certainly a white man. There was a white scar on his forehead above his right eye. He spoke with Señor Pasquali in French. + 

Luis whistled. “That is our friend Radin,” he said to himself. “Radin beyond doubt. What has that ugly rogue from the gutter to do with the superfine Pasquali, who plays Scriabin so ravishingly? They may be going travelling together⁠—perhaps also with Suvorin. Luis, my dear, these things must be looked into.” + 

Luis went out into the glare of the afternoon with a preoccupied face. He walked for a little down the Avenida Bolivar, and then struck through a nest of calles in the direction of the smelting works. His preoccupation did not prevent him keeping a sharp lookout, and presently in a jostle of market-women at a corner he saw a face which made him walk quietly back a little, slip up a side-street, and then run his hardest to cut it off. He failed, for the man had disappeared. After a moment’s reflection Luis returned to the Administration Buildings and sought out the room given up to the headquarters of the Air Force. The true air base was the Courts of the Morning, but there was an aerodrome and a single squadron behind the city. There he cross-examined the officer in charge as to whether any Olifa planes had recently crossed their lines. He was told that four had been brought down, but that to the best of Headquarters’ knowledge no voluntary landing had been made. “But we cannot tell,” said the officer. “We are not holding a continuous line⁠—only two sectors.” + 

“Then an Olifa plane might land someone in a place from which he could make his way here?” + 

“It is possible,” was the answer. “Not very likely, but possible.” + 

In the narrow lane Luis had seen Dan Judson, one of Castor’s three trusties. Where Judson was one might look to find also Carreras and Biretti, and the probability was that all three had been landed from an enemy plane and were now in the city. Suvorin and Pasquali were making a journey, and Radin was privy to it. Luis’s next business was to go to tea with Lariarty, whom he knew a little. + 

He found that gentleman quite openly preparing for the road. Lariarty’s face was whiter than ever and his eyes looked tortured; but they also looked most furiously alive, and his whole body seemed to have woken into an hysterical life. + 

“Ho, Señor,” Luis exclaimed. “Do you follow us into exile? I thought you would await the conqueror here⁠—seeing that you have no politics⁠—and advise him wisely about Gran Seco business. That was also Señor Rosas’s belief.” + 

Lariarty looked at him with a composure which seemed to be the result of a strong effort, for the man was obviously ill at ease. + 

“Some of us remain,” he said. “But not I. I wish to be at the Gobernador’s side, for his interests are my interests. I have today been at Headquarters, and it is arranged that I go with General Escrick.” + 

“What makes you so certain you will find the Gobernador with Escrick?” + 

“I am not certain. But if I am with the field army, it stands to reason that I must sooner or later come across the commander-in-chief.” + 

“Who are staying behind?” + 

“All the others.” + 

“Suvorin?” + 

“Yes.” + 

“And Pasquali?” + 

“Certainly. Why do you ask?” + 

“No reason at all.⁠ ⁠… I congratulate you, Señor, on your courage, for we of Escrick’s command must ride fast and far. You are perhaps out of training for the savannahs and the mountains?” + 

“I am not in good form. But there was a time when I was never off a horse.” + 

Luis abounded in friendly advice, as from an old campaigner, and finally took his leave. “We shall meet in the darkness,” he said, and was told that Lariarty had orders to report himself at midnight. + 

It was now within an hour of nightfall and Luis repaired to Blenkiron’s house for a bath. As he splashed in the tepid water, he reflected. “I am certain that they are all going with Escrick,” he told himself. “Lariarty alone will go openly, but the others will be there somehow⁠—Suvorin and Pasquali and Calvo⁠—likewise that trinity of cherubs, Judson, Carreras, and Biretti. Larbert and D’Ingraville will wait here till Romanes comes, and then join them.⁠ ⁠… There’s going to be a gathering of the vultures somewhere in the North.⁠ ⁠… They’re after the Gobernador, and if they fail to get him they may do some miscellaneous shooting.” + 

After his bath Luis made a careful toilet from a store of clothes which he carried in an old saddlebag. A yellow shirt with a fancy collar, flapping trousers of dirty grey, skin brogues, a dark poncho, and a high-crowned, broad-brimmed hat transformed him into a mestizo peasant, at least three-quarters Indian. He rolled some cigarettes of leaf tobacco and placed them behind his ear, and then sauntered across the Avenida, down through the narrows of the Market, to the cluster of yards and huts above the dry ravine which separated the city from the smelting works. His disguise was perfect, for he stopped now and then to engage in a street-corner argument, and mixed as naturally with the disputants as if he were one of the vegetable-sellers whose mules lined the causeway. + 

He found the place he sought, an alley close to the sunken street called St. Martin’s Port, where had stood centuries ago a tiny monkish settlement. All had gone except a tooth of ancient brick masonry, which had once been part of an arched gateway. The street was a warren, full of bolt-holes that looked like cul-de-sacs and cul-de-sacs that looked like bolt-holes, but Luis seemed to know his way about it. At the head of a court, the paving of which may have been contemporary with Pizarro, there was a green gate in an adobe wall. He pushed through it and said something to a slatternly half-caste woman, who sat dozing in a chair outside a second door. He opened this and stumbled into what was obviously the backroom of a café, the front of which was in another street. Stumbled, for he seemed suddenly to have become rather drunk. + 

There were few in the place, three or four peasants drinking small glasses of aguardiente, and one man in the shadows who had before him a tankard of beer. + 

Luis joined the group of peasants and gave his order. An albino negro, a weird sight in that ill-lit place, brought him his drink, and he commanded another glass for the man opposite him. This was a gipsy-looking fellow with long earrings, who had been discoursing to the company on cockfighting. A dispute presently arose in which Luis’s hiccuping voice was predominant. It was about the merit of Gomez’s red cock which had won the championship at Maddalo on St. Rosalia’s feast-day. + 

The dispute grumbled, died down, flared up, for all had the air of having drunk too well. Then the talk became confidential between Luis and his vis-à-vis, and they shuffled a little apart from the others. More drinks were brought. There was a sudden gust of quarrel, and Luis in dudgeon removed himself across the room. But his new friend followed, and there seemed to be a reconciliation, for once again the two heads were close together and the talk was all of cocks and challenges. + 

In his new position Luis was scarcely a yard from the dark corner where the man with the tankard of beer was sitting. There were now three of them there. They looked viciously at the argumentative peasants, but there was no other part of the room which promised greater peace, and they remained sitting. Luis was by way of now being very drunk, and he made his confidences at close quarters into the garlic-smelling ear of his companion. But this position left his eyes free to wander, without the other noticing it, and he had a good view of the men in the shadows. + 

One had the face which he had seen three hours before in the crowded calle⁠—a small man, very thickly made, with rabbit teeth, an underhung jaw, and a broken nose. This was the famous Daniel Judson. Beside him sat a taller man with a long, sallow, clean-shaven face and thick, dark eyebrows which made a straight band almost from ear to ear. This Luis knew for Laschallas, who, as he had told Blenkiron, was the most dangerous of the survivors of the Bodyguard. But it was the man opposite the two who surprised him. He wore a thin dark overcoat with the collar turned up, but the face above the collar had the unmistakable waxy pallor of Lariarty. + 

In the intervals of his drunken wrangling Luis tried to catch their conversation. But not a word could he overhear. They spoke in low tones, and when he sidled nearer them, still in the embrace of his cockfighting colleague, Judson arose and cursed them. The other was scared into sobriety, for Mr. Judson in his wrath was not a pretty sight, and Luis had perforce to follow him and put as much distance as possible between the three and themselves. Presently he gave up the attempt to eavesdrop, extricated himself with some difficulty from his companion, and staggered out of the café by the road he had come. He had learned several things⁠—that the trusties, or at least one of them, were in Olifa, that Laschallas was alive, and that Lariarty was not leading an idle life. + 

He went home, got into proper clothes and hunted up one of Escrick’s staff-officers. There was a good deal of sound coming from the south, where the retreat from the trenches was being covered by machine-gun activity, and some of the troops already withdrawn were filing through the streets. What had been infantry was now being transformed into light cavalry at the horse-lines north of the city. Luis found the staff-officer he sought, and learned from him that the only civilian accompanying Escrick was Lariarty⁠—Blenkiron himself had sanctioned it⁠—for whom a seat had been provided in one of the staff cars. He left the office with injunctions that no civilian passes were to be given without further reference, and that the occupants of every car were to be jealously scrutinised. + 

Then he supped with Blenkiron, and told him what he had discovered. Blenkiron, still sleepy as an owl, was slow to take it in. “They can’t do anything,” he reflected. “They’re bottled up in this city, whether it’s me or Lossberg that’s in charge. They’re town rats, Luis; they won’t thrive out in the wilds. Where are you going?” + 

“I thought I’d look up Lariarty and see if he’s ready. I propose to keep an eye on that gentleman.” + 

But when Luis was admitted by Lariarty’s servant to Lariarty’s flat he found no sign of impending departure. Lariarty, washed and perfumed, was wearing a smoking-suit of silk, and in the buttonhole of his jacket was a yellow picotee, such as Archie had remarked in the Gran Seco visitors the first night in the Olifa hotel. He was improvising on his piano. The nervousness of the afternoon had gone, and he seemed to be at ease with the world. + 

“Hullo, Señor,” Luis cried. “You’ll be late. We start in twenty minutes.” + 

Lariarty smiled and went on playing. + 

“I am not coming. Not at present. I have been reconsidering the matter, and I think that it is my business to remain here. Here or at Olifa. My duty is to the Mines, and my knowledge may be needed.” + 

Something had happened that evening, some news had reached the Conquistadors, which had caused them to change their plans. It would be as well, Luis thought, if they all remained in the city; he had not approved of Blenkiron’s consent to Lariarty’s departure, which seemed to have been the unthinking decision of an overpressed man.⁠ ⁠… But did this mean that all would stay behind? Was there no chance of a blunder in this midnight retirement? The last four days had been too feverish to allow of strict attention to the ritual of surveillance which had looked on paper so perfect. The thought made Luis hurry to the northern barrier. + 

The outlets from the city were few, and all were carefully barricaded. It was now midnight, and the troops were by this time safely out of the trench lines, where now a rearguard was conducting a noisy camouflage. The place was as bright as day with the great arc lights on their tall standards, and in their glare a mounted army was assembling, as shaggy a force as ever followed Timour or Genghiz. They had for the most part come straight from the line, and there was no sleep for them till they had put many thirsty miles between themselves and the Olifa van. Yet they were a cheerful crowd, and drank black coffee out of bottles and smoked their little acrid cigarettes before they jogged off, each squadron to its appointed place. + 

The officer in charge of the business, a young analytical chemist, saluted him. + 

“All goes smoothly, sir,” he said. “The staff leaves in a quarter of an hour. The road is being kept clear for cars. Your advance party got off half an hour ago.” + 

“Advance party!” Luis stammered. + 

“Yes, sir. They presented your instructions and I countersigned them, as your telephone message directed.” + 

“Yes, yes, of course. Were their passes all right? I was afraid they might be slow in reaching them.” + 

“They were all in order, with the Chief’s signature.” + 

“One car, you say?” + 

“They packed into one car. Rather a tight fit for six of them.” + 

“Who was driving?” + 

“Mr. Suvorin. He was the only one I recognised.” + 

“A good car?” + 

“One of the new Administration Packards. There’s nothing wrong, sir?” + 

“Nothing. I was just wondering when we would overtake them.” + 

IV + 

In the Courts of the Morning there was still peace. The brooding heats, the dust-storms, the steaming deluges of the lowlands were unknown. The air was that of a tonic and gracious autumn slowly moving to the renewal of spring. The mornings were chilly, with a sea-fog crawling over the rim of the plateau; the days were bright and dry as old wine, the nights blue and starlit. There was peace in that diamond ether, but it was not the peace of lethargy but of ordered action. The place was as busy as ever, but it had no longer the air of a headquarters. It was now a base, a depot, and the poste de commandement was somewhere far below in the broken levels which spread dizzily towards the southern skyline. + 

The Gobernador had been given his choice. “I can take you with me,” Sandy had said. “It won’t be a comfortable life, but you don’t mind that. Or you can stay here in the watchtower and follow our doings on the map.” + 

“I am free to decide?” Castor had asked, and was told “Perfectly.” He had considered for a little and had finally chosen to remain. “I am your enemy,” he said, “and we should be at too close quarters for comfort. I shall stay here till something happens.” + 

Sandy laughed. “I know what you mean. Well, I hope it won’t, but if my luck gives out don’t imagine that the show is over. You’re the only one in your class, but I’ve heaps of alternatives in mine. Archie will keep you posted and I’ll look in every now and then.” + 

But Sandy did not come back.⁠ ⁠… The crowded days’ work went on; horse and mule convoys came daily up the mountain paths and departed with their burdens; the receivers ticked busily in the wireless station; aeroplanes⁠—fewer than before, for the fighting machines were mostly at advanced headquarters⁠—departed at dawn and returned often after nightfall, while flares like forest fires burned to guide them to their landing-places. There was a special activity in the glen which led to the sea; it seemed as if its defenders had reached the conclusion that that port to the outer world would soon be discovered and closed, for almost every night some kind of tramp put in and unloaded and stole out before the following daylight. Busiest of all were the two girls. Barbara was in charge of the hospital stores, and it seemed that these were now urgently needed, for in the plains below men were suffering. With her staff of peons she worked early and late, with Janet as an unskilled assistant. + 

The latter had another duty laid upon her, and that was to provide company for the Gobernador. With Sandy’s departure he had become the prey of moods. His former equability had gone, and he appeared to swing between a profound abstraction, when he seemed unconscious of his surroundings, and a feverish interest in them. + 

For example, he visited constantly the top of the ravine and would spend an hour gazing into the green depths which ended in a sapphire patch of sea. Once, when Janet accompanied him, he turned to her sharply. + 

“This place could be forced,” he said. “Olifa has a navy.⁠ ⁠… It would take a week⁠—ten days perhaps⁠—and she would lose a thousand men, but it could be done. Then this sanctuary of yours would fall. How would you escape?” + 

“I suppose by the hill roads to the south,” Janet answered. + 

“But they will be blocked. It might be hard to force a way up here from that side, but Olifa could block the exits. What then?” + 

“I’m sure I don’t know. I don’t believe both disasters could happen at once.” + 

“Why not?” + 

“Simply because things don’t work out that way.” + 

He laughed angrily. “You are all children. You trust childishly to fortune. That’s well enough for Clanroyden and the others. They are soldiers and take chances. But what is to become of you?” + 

“Barbara and I went into this with our eyes open.” + 

“You were a fool, then. And your husband was a fool to let you.” + 

There were many similar occasions when his face looked sharp and anxious and there was a hard edge to his voice. But there were others, when the mountain spaces seemed to work on him as an opiate and he fell into a mood of reflection. From these fits he would emerge with cheerfulness almost, certainly with philosophy. At such times he seemed to enjoy Janet’s company and would detain her in talk from her many duties. He would ask her questions about herself, her home, her views on life, with an engaging ingenuousness, as if he had discovered a new type of mortal and was labouring to understand it. He had a natural good-breeding which robbed his questions of all impertinence, and in this novel sphere Janet felt that she could regard him as an equal. + 

“This hilltop is bad for me,” he once told her. “I have no facts to work upon and I begin to make pictures. Wasn’t it Napoleon who said that we should never think in pictures, but always look at things as if through a telescope⁠—bring reality close to one, but always reality?” + 

“Isn’t that begging the question?” the girl replied. “Reality for us is what we make of things. We may make them conform to our picture. It is what we all do. It is what you have been doing all your life, Excellency.” + 

“But your pictures and mine have been very different. I am a scientist and you are a romantic.” + 

“You are the romantic. You have tried to force the world inside a theory, and it is too big for that. We humble people never attempt the impossible. You are a self-deceiver, you know.” + 

“Why?” he asked. + 

“Because of your intellectual pride. It is only humility that sees clearly and knows its limitations.” + 

“Lord Clanroyden, for example, is humble?” There was a not unpleasant irony in his voice. + 

“Profoundly.” + 

“Yet he has challenged me. With his handful of amateurs he has challenged the might of Olifa. Was your Jack the Giant-killer humble?” + 

Janet laughed. “I think he was. Jack saw that the giants were far bigger than himself, but that, being overgrown, unnatural things, they were bound to be stupid and weak.” + 

“You think that a colossus is always weak?” + 

“He must be if he is outside the human scale. If he has no other flaw, he will have the weakness of pride.” + 

“You and your friends are very proud.” + 

“Oh, I hope not. If we are, we shall be punished for it. Sandy⁠—Lord Clanroyden⁠—is daring, but that is not because he thinks too much of himself, but because he believes that he has great allies.” + 

“Such as?” + 

The girl quoted: + 

“Exultations, agonies, + 

And love, and man’s unconquerable mind.” + 

Castor laughed. + 

“That is Wordsworth, isn’t it? It is a good answer, Lady Roylance, from your point of view. I am prepared to admit that Lord Clanroyden has allies⁠—at any rate, he has friends. He need not be lonely.” + 

“You are lonely?” she asked with kind eyes. + 

“I have always been rather lonely.⁠ ⁠… Perhaps⁠ ⁠… if I had met someone like you⁠ ⁠… long ago⁠ ⁠… I should not be so lonely today.” + 

It was Archie who brought the first big news. One evening he appeared at dinner with his left arm in a sling. “Not a wound,” he explained. “It was my own dashed silliness in getting too near the business end of a mule. I’ve been having a giddy time and I’m badly short of sleep. How are things going? Pas si bête, as they say⁠—except for Sandy. Old Sandy has gone stark mad. At present it’s a useful kind of madness, but the question is how long it will be till he goes clean off his rocker. He’s been doing pretty desperate things.” + 

Later he explained. + 

“Lossberg is making war according to the books. Sandy sits down and thinks out very carefully what the books direct and then does the exact opposite. He is trying to draw the enemy deep into the country, and for that purpose he is making a feature of Fort Castor. We’ve a pretty useful Intelligence service, and the best part of it is that section which we put at Lossberg’s disposal. You see, having the country on our side, we have a lot of enthusiastic volunteers. Lossberg picks up some Indian or half-starved mestizo who is easily frightened into telling what he knows. The poor devil is obviously speaking the truth, for he is too scared and stupid to lie. Only what he says has been carefully pumped into him by our little lot. The result is that Lossberg has got it into his head that Fort Castor is our big base, and is stretching his claws round it as carefully as a cat stalking a mouse. He has moved up the better part of a division. But there’s nothing in Fort Castor except mounted patrols. We put up a beautiful camouflage and let Lossberg’s flying men have a discreet look at it once in a while. But when he takes the place after some trouble he won’t find a tin of bully beef in it.” + 

Somebody asked where Sandy was. + 

“He was in Magdalena yesterday. We are organised in two armies. Escrick, with the Army of the North, is now divided between Loa and Magdalena, and he has a covered line of communications between them through the hills behind, just like what Stonewall Jackson had in the Shenandoah valley. The enemy has spotted neither. Peters, with the Army of the South, is playing the same game. Lossberg thinks he is based on the Indian pueblas in the Tierra Caliente from which he can threaten the Mines, and consequently he has a division strung out from the San Tomé to the Universum and is building a sort of Great Wall of China in the shape of blockhouses. Peters just does enough to keep the Mines lively, but he isn’t worrying about them. All he wants is to get Lossberg rattled.” + 

Archie pointed to the southeast corner of the big map. + 

“There’s a spot there called Pacheco, just under the hills. That’s Peter’s real base. He’s got some nice country west of that for his scallywags to operate in. There should be news from that quarter pretty soon.” + 

“Base?” he said in reply to a question of Castor’s. “Why, we haven’t any proper base, and we haven’t any communications to cut. We’re the most lightly equipped force in the world, for we don’t go in for high living. A bit of charqui and a bag of meal will last one of our fellows for a week. Also we know all the wells and water-holes, and Lossberg doesn’t. Water is going to give him a lot of trouble.” + 

“Has he no one who knows the country?” Janet asked. + 

“Not as we do. He’ll pick up somebody later, for we’re bound to have a traitor or two in our camp. Also there are your gunmen, Excellency. One or two of them have been a bit around. But he hasn’t got anybody yet, and has gone poking about, trusting to bad maps, and the lies we manage to feed him.” + 

“What about his Air Force?” + 

Bobby Latimer answered. + 

“So far we’ve managed to keep it in order. We’ve nothing on them in the way of flying, for they’re nicely trained, but they can’t just fight in our way. And they haven’t any machines as good as our new Gladas. If this were a regular war, they’d be mighty good at contact work and bombing expeditions. You never saw prettier squadron flying. But we’ve no communications to bomb, and at present they’re wasting their efforts every night on Fort Castor.” + 

“But do none of their planes get abroad and discover your real whereabouts? Magdalena, for example⁠—or Loa?” + 

“So far we haven’t let them. We can beat anything they’ve got in place and we seem to have more appetite for a scrap. There’s been one or two very pretty dogfights. Besides, it don’t signify if they spot Magdalena or Loa or even Pacheco. We could shift somewhere else in a couple of hours.” + 

“But you have a base.” It was Castor who spoke. “Where we are sitting now is your base. If they take this, you are lost. If they even bomb it, you are deeply embarrassed.” + 

“I think that’s right,” said Latimer. “Therefore it’s up to us to let no enemy planes north of Loa. So far they haven’t shown any inclination in this direction. They’re too much occupied with General Peters.” + 

“Yet at any moment they may discover it?” + 

“There’s no reason in the nature of things why they shouldn’t,” said Archie. “But it’s one thing for a chance plane to spot us and another thing for Lossberg to exploit his knowledge.” + 

Three days later Archie returned in high spirits. He had two pieces of news. + 

The first was that Bobby Latimer had brought down an enemy plane north of Loa. The pilot and observer were alive, and the plane was not too badly damaged, so they had added one to their stock of aircraft⁠—a Seaforth monoplane, on the mechanism of which he discoursed at length. Happily they had the spares for it. He welcomed this new sign of enterprise on the part of Olifa as likely to relieve the tedium of his job. When Janet observed that, if one enemy could get as far as Loa, a second might get farther, Archie was reassuring. + 

“The way I look at it is this. They’ve spotted Loa⁠—they were bound to hear of it from spies and suchlike. But they’re so darned unenterprising that only one of their planes gets through. If these things be done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? Loa is an easy mark, but this place from Lossberg’s lines would be dashed difficult, even for a swell like Bobby.” + 

The other news was startling. Peters’s raiders had made the garrisons at the Mines nervous, and, since it was assumed that the guerrillas were based on the villages in the Indian reserve and drew their supplies thence, it was resolved to clear that country and bring the women and children into a huge concentration camp near the city. + 

Archie was triumphant. “It’s what Sandy has been playing for, but he scarcely hoped to bring it off.⁠ ⁠… Lossberg thinks the Tierra Caliente is an asset to us. Good Lord! it’s a millstone round our necks. Presently we should have had to feed these villages⁠—a thing we had budgeted for⁠—and this means that we shall now be a thousand percent better off for supplies. He’s a humane man, your General Lossberg. The concentrados will be a long sight better off with him than on their own, and if they get pinched a little when he gets pinched, we had made our book for that. Soon we’ll all have to draw in our belts.⁠ ⁠… Sandy has made Lossberg hold the baby for him, which is what you might call strategy.” + 

A light of reminiscence woke in his eyes. + 

“That was always old Sandy’s way. Once at Crask, I remember, he fairly did me in. We were out rough shooting together and it was a blistering hot day. When we turned at the march burn, we were both a little bored, for we had seen very little, so by way of putting a spice of interest into the game, we agreed that I should carry what he shot and he what I shot, and I backed myself for a fiver to give him the heavier load. Well, I soon presented him with a hill partridge and a snipe, while he hadn’t let off his gun. Then I’m blessed if he didn’t shoot a roebuck and I had to sling the infernal brute on my back. After that he couldn’t miss, and I hadn’t the proper use of my arms. I staggered into Crask just about dead with heat, and laden like Balaam’s ass⁠—roebuck on back, string of grouse and blackcock round my neck, rabbits in my pockets, and one and a half brace of snipe in my hat.” + 

For a day or two the plateau drowsed in its bright aromatic heat, and no news arrived except what the Olifa wireless told⁠—how Lossberg had begun to clear the Indian country, and the rebels, baseless and foodless, were for certain no more now than bands of refugees clinging to the mountains’ skirts. Fort Castor, their chief centre, had been occupied without serious opposition. It was anticipated that soon there must be a general surrender. Olifa was marching to an easy victory, and the President, in a public speech, spoke contemptuously of the rabble of amateurs which had attempted to defy the disciplined forces of the republic. The comments of the foreign press were no longer guarded. The military critics congratulated themselves on their prescience, and wrote, almost with regret, of the mathematical certainties of modern warfare. + 

Their views did not disturb Janet’s peace of mind, but she had her own anxieties. She had an apprehension of some calamity approaching, and studied the blue sky for that enemy plane which might break through their guard. The drone of a machine arriving sent her hurrying out-of-doors, and she would wake with a start in the night and listen for a beat in the air which would be different from the beat of their own planes. Castor seemed to share her excitement; his eyes also were always turning skyward. + 

Then came two days of storm, when the thunder rattled among the crags of Choharua, and the rain fell in torrents, and the outlook was limited to six yards of swirling vapour. After that came a wind which threatened to uproot the huts, and which brought the sound of a furious sea even up to that ledge of mountain. During these days the wireless was disordered by atmospherics, but from its broken messages one thing emerged. Something had happened, something of vital importance, something which had got on Olifa’s nerves. It could not be a battle? Surely Sandy had never been betrayed into measuring his meagre strength in lists chosen by the enemy. + 

Then one afternoon Archie arrived, a weary Archie who could scarcely speak for drowsiness. + 

“Has there been a battle?” Janet demanded. + 

“Not likely. But we’ve begun the offensive.” + 

“What losses?” + 

“None. Practically none on either side. But there’s been the deuce of a lot of destruction of property. Sandy says it’s cheaper than human life and just as effective.” + 

“What have you done? Quick! Tell me.” + 

“We’ve cut the enemy’s communications. I’m dropping with sleep, Janet. In six hours you’ll hear everything.” + 

In six hours a washed, shaven, fed, and refreshed Archie told this story. + 

“Ever since Lossberg started pushing out from the Gran Seco city, our army has more or less disappeared. He felt us, but he didn’t often see us, barring, of course, our planes. Yet he was being sniped and shelled and bombed a good deal and Peters kept him lively at the Mines. Two things accordingly happened. The first was that Lossberg, not being able to get us into the open, thought we were far stronger than we were and grew more cautious than ever. The second was that he thought we had all our men in two places⁠—up in the hills northeast of Fort Castor and in the eastern end of the Tierra Caliente. In that he was right⁠—more or less⁠—but he didn’t know the length of our range. The consequence was that he thought that the city and everything south and west of it were safe, but that the east and northeast were formidable and needed a big striking force. So he held the railway with only three garrisons between the city and the frontier⁠—at San Luca, at Villa Bar, and at Gabones itself⁠—and small posts of six men each every four miles.” + 

Archie with pencil and paper drew a sketch of the railway. + 

“You remember the big dry valley twenty-five miles down the line. I believe there’s occasionally a trickle in it in January, but just now it is like the Prophet’s Valley of Dry Bones. There’s a big viaduct crosses it⁠—sixteen arches, the biggest and costliest piece of engineering on the whole line. It would have taken a cog-and-pinion arrangement or miles of circuitous gradients to get the railway across the valley. So the engineers very properly decided on a bridge. + 

“Blenkiron always had his eye on the San Luca bridge, and so had Lossberg, for he had a post at each end, twenty men with machine guns at San Luca station⁠—that’s the north end⁠—and thirty-five at the south end, at a place called the Devil’s Ear. It was the only part of the line about which he showed any nervousness. But his posts weren’t very well placed, for they were at the abutments of the bridge, and the bridge has sixteen arches, and the valley is more than half a mile wide, so that if there was trouble about the middle of the viaduct it would be some little time before the ends heard of it and arrived to help. + 

“Blenkiron⁠—the scheme was his principally⁠—wanted to cut the line at a place where it would be hard to mend. San Luca was an obvious spot, especially as the bridge was unguarded in the middle, since it was calculated that wandering bandits could do no harm to the huge stone piers. Lossberg’s engineers in the Gran Seco could do any ordinary repairs that were required, but something very big would want help from Olifa. So Blenkiron’s second job was to make it pretty hard for Olifa to get to San Luca, and that meant a simultaneous bedevilment of the railway somewhere well to the south of the Devil’s Ear.” + 

Again Archie had recourse to pencil and paper. + 

“You see this point here, twelve miles north of Villa Bar and about twenty-three from San Luca. The railway runs in a deep cutting, the beginning of the long climb to the watershed. On the east side there’s a considerable mountain with a shaly face, which is shored up to prevent it slipping on to the metals. There was a little post about a mile off at a place called Tombequi⁠—half a dozen sleepy Oliferos who spent their days playing spadillo and begging for drinks from the passing trains. + 

“Well, it was Peters’s outfit that got the job, and it was decided to make it a long-range business. You see, not one of our fellows had so far been seen within fifty miles of the railway after the city was surrendered, so Lossberg assumed that all was well there and took no precautions. We didn’t want to alarm him, so we took Pacheco for a base, the better part of one hundred and fifty miles off. It’s an ugly bit of country from there to the railway⁠—the south rim of the Gran Seco basin, and on the north face of the rim an abomination of desolation, all pitted and tortured red rocks like the Sinai desert. The crest, however, is flattish, with a good deal of scrub on it, and there’s water in one or two places⁠—the actual springs, I fancy, of streams that go down into the Vulpas valley. There used to be posts there, but Lossberg had no use for them, and on that bit of frontier all he has is a few mounted patrols which keep to the low ground on the north side under the rocks. Accordingly we fancied the high ground above the rocks, where there was nobody to spot us except vultures. + 

“We left Pacheco last Tuesday night with Sandy in command. He insisted upon taking charge⁠—said he wanted a little fresh air and exercise⁠—I flew him over from Magdalena that evening. I never saw a fellow in such spirits⁠—filled with ’em, drunk with ’em. There were two parties⁠—one under a chap called Jervoise, mounted on wiry little Indian ponies, with some queer kit on their saddles. That was the Tombequi outfit. The San Luca crowd were coming in cars and weren’t due to start from Pacheco till twenty hours later. A place had been agreed on as a rendezvous. + 

“It was a mad ride, and Sandy was the maddest thing in it. It looked as if he had been getting charged with electricity till he could hold no more and had to give some of it off in sparks. He’s fit again too, fitter than I’ve ever seen him before.⁠ ⁠… We climbed out of the levels up long glens of loess till we struck the stony corridor that runs between the ridges. There was a big white moon, and the shale looked like snowdrifts and ice couloirs. There wasn’t a sound, for there are no beasts or birds up there⁠—only the thud of hoofs, an occasional clash of buckles, and Sandy humming his crazy songs. + 

“We did fifty miles before dawn, and then lay up for most of the day on the top of the ridge, where there were water and scrub. We were off again at nightfall, and next morning came to the place they call Tulifa, where there is a bad foot-track up from the Vulpas valley. Here we had to go cannily, for we had to get off the hills, which had become a series of knife-edges, and take to the sandy valleys to the north of ’em. Yet they made pretty fair cover for men in open order, and we had goodish guides, and by nightfall we weren’t twenty miles from the railway. The staff-work had been top-hole, for we got to the appointed rendezvous just fifteen and a half minutes late. The cars had come through without a hitch and had been hiding all day in a ravine. There were three of ’em⁠—Rolls-Royce chassis and bodies that looked like a travelling circus. + 

“At the rendezvous we separated. Sandy transferred himself to the cars, for San Luca was the main objective, and I went with him. Jervoise trotted off with his bandits according to plan. They had to work exactly to schedule, for there was a big freight train due to pass Tombequi at forty-three minutes past nine. The plan was to let it pass and blow up the line behind it, while we blew up the San Luca bridge in front, and so bottled it up. Our motto was ‘Anything to give pain’!⁠ ⁠… + 

“I wasn’t an eyewitness of Jervoise’s show, but it ran like a clock. The roads were difficult and the party had to split up, but the sections arrived to a tick, and the only chaps who could complain were the poor devils of horse-holders, and the Olifa post, who were surprised at supper and put in the bag. No⁠—there were no casualties, and we don’t take prisoners. Jervoise annexed their trousers, and turned them loose. He don’t like the raggedness of his outfit, and consequently has the eye of an old-clothes man for pantaloons. His lot made a fearsome mess, blew up the track in twenty places over a three-miles stretch, and tumbled down half the mountainside on it. Sandy reckons it will take a fortnight’s hard work to clear it. + 

“I was in the San Luca push myself. There was a dust-storm blowing up from the east and the moon was covered, and as we had no lights and the road was naked prairie I’m bound to say I felt a bit rattled. If you’re loaded up with guncotton and blasting gelatine it isn’t much fun to be ricocheting from boulder to boulder. We couldn’t go slow and feel our way, for we had to keep to schedule time. But the weather was a godsend, for the wind drowned the noise of our wheels, and when we got to the bridge, the lights were burning clearly at each end and everything as peaceful as Clapham Junction. + 

“We didn’t take long about the job, for the whole thing had been arranged to the last detail, with the help of a plan of the bridge provided by one of our fellows who had been in the railway shops. We laid the charges, lit the fuses, and, if you believe me, when we started off on the return journey we weren’t two minutes out in our reckoning. + 

“It was all too easy, and that made me nervous. But we didn’t miss fire. In the War I saw a good many mines go up, but never anything like this. The empty valley became suddenly like Tophet, spouting sheets of greeny-yellow flame, while a mushroom of black smoke wavered above it. Then the wind blew the mushroom aside, and we saw that two of the arches had gone and that the viaduct was like a man’s mouth with the front teeth drawn.⁠ ⁠… After that there is nothing to tell. The posts on each side of the bridge started shooting into vacancy, and just as we left there came an agonised whistle from the south. It was the freight train slowing down to discover what the devil had happened.” + 

Thus Archie to Janet. Before dinner he repeated the tale in its main features to Castor, who heard it with drawn brows. + 

“I make you my compliments,” the latter said. “You have certainly instituted a new kind of war. Can Lord Clanroyden repeat the performance?” + 

“Whenever he pleases. You see, we have the real mobility, and we have also knowledge of the country on our side. Lossberg already finds it hard to know what to do. He can’t police the whole Gran Seco, and as soon as he gets away from his bases we give him beans. We’re not too well off for stores, but we can always replenish at his shop.⁠ ⁠… No, we don’t mean to make the railway unworkable. We can’t afford that, for we want Lossberg to supply himself⁠—that he may supply us. He’s our Q. side. But we shall make it so difficult that the job will take up a lot of his time. He’s vulnerable, you see, and we’re not. We’re not in the same elements. It’s like a fight between a wolf and a shark.” + 

“Then how can you hope for a decision?” + 

“We don’t want any dramatic coup. We want to tire him out so that he’ll see it’s hopeless, and Olifa will make peace. On our terms, of course.⁠ ⁠… On your terms, that is to say,” Archie added. + 

Castor smiled at the correction. + 

“You are convinced that you are invulnerable?” he asked. “What about the air? Olifa has twice your number of machines.” + 

“She can’t use ’em properly. That’s our almighty luck. They’re good average flying men, but they’ve no genius for the thing, and we’ve got the pick of the American fliers. Blenkiron saw from the first the necessity of that.” + 

“If you had a genius against you it might be uncomfortable?” + 

“To be sure. In the air you don’t reckon by quantity. One airman like Lensch⁠—you remember?⁠—the Boche who was killed in April ’18⁠—would put a different complexion on the business.” + 

It was Janet who first saw the stranger. She had gone for a before-dinner scamper on the downs, and had turned for home, when her eye caught sight of a small monoplane coming in from the sea. That was not a route taken by their own planes, and the girl halted and had a look at it through her glasses. It was a strange make, one she had never seen before, and suddenly she realised what it meant. Lossberg had at last broken the cordon, and the Courts of the Morning were discovered. + 

As she galloped furiously towards the huts, she saw that the alarm had become general. The visitor had dropped low and was cruising scarcely two hundred feet up, getting a full view of the details of the place. There were no antiaircraft guns, and the rifle shots from the sentries left him unharmed.⁠ ⁠… Then one of their own planes rose, and the girl checked her horse to watch. The stranger let it approach, and then⁠—contemptuously, it seemed⁠—flew towards it. There was a burst of fire, the two planes seemed about to collide, and then by a curious manoeuvre the stranger slipped out and turned his head for the sea. She thought she saw a hand wave in farewell. It was indeed farewell, for the pursuing plane was utterly outclassed in speed. Almost in a minute, it seemed to her, the stranger was a speck in the pearly haze which marked the meeting of sea and sky. + 

She found Archie and Castor outside the mess-hut. + 

“Do you still maintain your invulnerability?” the Gobernador asked, but Archie did not hear. He was engaged in a passionate soliloquy. + 

“There’s only one fellow in the world who could do that trick,” he exclaimed. “I’ve seen him do it a dozen times.⁠ ⁠… Who? A Frenchman called D’Ingraville. He used to go gunning for Lensch, and would have got him too, if Peter Pienaar hadn’t chipped in first. But D’Ingraville died long ago.” + 

“I think you are mistaken,” said Castor quietly. “Captain Jacques D’Ingraville has been for several years a member of my staff.” + 

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. + 

VI + 

It was on the evening of the 9th day of August that D’Ingraville paid his brief visit to the Courts of the Morning. Archie departed at once to report, and returned next day to order certain precautionary measures. Two of their best fighting scouts, with Roger Grayne in charge, were stationed there, and arrangements were made for early notice of any future visitors from the air. By this time the camp at Loa was known to Lossberg and his next advance would be in that direction. But it was from the sea that the immediate danger was feared. Provision was made for closing the sea-ravine by explosions which would hurl down a thousand tons of rock and strip part of the gully as bare as the face of a wall. Since their communications with the outer world would thus come to an end, such action was to be taken only in the last resort, and it was anticipated that any ordinary attempt at landing could be repelled by the garrison of the ravine. Only if Olifa made an assault in force would heroic measures become necessary. The thing had to be faced, for D’Ingraville must have given Lossberg the exact position of their base, and, since it was obvious that it must be replenished by sea, it would be easy to discover the point of access to the shore. Plans had long been settled for evacuating the Courts of the Morning in case of need, and it was essential that an assault from the sea should be obstructed long enough to enable the plans to be methodically carried out. The one thing to guard against was surprise. A post was stationed on the shore, two others respectively a third and a half of the way up, and a strong garrison at the summit to guard the precipitous final section. All were connected by telephone with main headquarters and with each other, and there were numerous small mines laid which could be used in the detailed defence of each part of the route. + 

The incident, however, had shattered the peace of the plateau. The place was no more a sanctuary, for its secret had been laid bare. Barbara, busy with her hospital stores, seemed to be unconscious of the change, but Janet fell a prey to a perpetual apprehension. She tried to laugh at herself, but the ghost would not be laid. The shelf of mountain, which had seemed so secure and homelike, was now but a narrow ledge on a great cliff, and she herself a climber sick with vertigo.⁠ ⁠… The enemy was down below in the woody shelves, slowly creeping nearer, and the army of defence was apparently at the other side of the Gran Seco. He was out on the broad seas, waiting for the dark of night to swoop in upon the coast. She would stare down into the green depths of the ravine, and imagine it peopled with fierce faces, and horrible with smoke and blood. In the coverts of wildwood on the plateau enemy spies might be lurking⁠—even far up on the grim face of Choharua. She pictured the enemy⁠—men with evil, pallid faces, such as she had caught a glimpse of in the streets in her visit with Archie to the Gran Seco, and at the picture she thrilled with horror. + 

Her fears were worst at night, when she would awake at the slightest sound and lie for a space listening, with every nerve tense.⁠ ⁠… In the daytime she forced herself to cheerfulness, and managed to fill up every minute with duties. The weather was changing, and the spring rains were beginning. The sky, which for weeks had been an arch of crystal by day and by night a velvet canopy ablaze with stars, was now perpetually clouded, and often the plateau would be shrouded in a fine mist. This obscurity did not help her spirits. It seemed to offer cover for infinite chances of surprise by land, water, and air. + 

One thing only gave her comfort. She had decided weeks before to make herself a good pistol shot, and now she assiduously practised, under Roger Grayne’s tuition. Grayne, large, rugged, shaggy, and imperturbable, was a fortunate companion for a nervous girl. Janet had always been a fine rifle shot, and now she became a very fair marksman with a revolver, and learned to shoot in any position. + 

“That’s fine!” Grayne would say. “I shouldn’t like to be up against you in a roughhouse, Lady Roylance. Say, you’re not worrying about this little business? It’s all as right as rain.” And when, moved by his friendliness, she confided to him her doubts, he laughingly disposed of them.⁠ ⁠… The weather was far worse for Lossberg than for them. Supposing his planes arrived on a compass course, they were morally certain to come to grief, for the plateau was tricky in a dead calm, and certain death in foul weather to anyone who did not know it.⁠ ⁠… An attack from Loa! It would take weeks for the enemy to fight his way through the most difficult country on God’s earth, and there were roads by which every ounce of supplies could be got off before Lossberg was within thirty miles.⁠ ⁠… The sea! He admitted that there was a risk there, but there could be no surprise. There was just the one narrow avenue of approach, and that could be held against the whole darned Olifa navy long enough to give them ample time to move. “You see,” he concluded, “we’re so fixed that we can’t be surprised. Olifa’s got to come in force to take our sea approach, and coming in force means early notice. We’re not worrying about stray guardacostas. It’s not as if one man could wriggle through and bomb us in our beds. That’s the kind of game I don’t fancy, but it’s about as likely here as for an army corps to come over Choharua.” + 

But if Grayne was a solid comfort to the girl, the Gobernador was very much the reverse. He, like her, seemed to be the victim of nerves ever since D’Ingraville’s plane had vanished seaward. He was no longer friendly and forthcoming, a pleasant companion indoors and abroad. He had become silent and preoccupied, and meals were Trappist-like banquets. Nor did he, as at the beginning of his sojourn on the plateau, spend much of his time in his own room. He seemed to dislike to be alone, and to have nothing on which he could fix his mind. From morning till night he roamed about the settlement, constantly turning his eyes to the sky, always intent and listening. There were no restrictions on his movements, so he went many times to the sea-ravine, and sat on the rocks at the top of it staring downward and seaward. + 

Once Janet found him sitting huddled there in a waterproof coat, when a shower had passed and a watery sun was trying to shine. The air was stuffily raw, oppressive to the walker, but chilly when movement ceased. He was squatting like a figure of Buddha, and his eyes seemed trying to pierce the clouds which drooped low over the sea. + 

“You are looking for your deliverers, Excellency?” the girl asked. + 

He shrugged his shoulders. + 

“I told you,” he said, “that folly is always punished. But its punishment may be also a foolish business. This holiday camp seems to be coming to an end.” + 

“Perhaps. Do you know, your voice sounds as if you were rather sorry?” + 

He did not reply, but unbuttoned the collar of his waterproof as if the weather choked him. + 

“I have seen you shooting at a target,” he said at last. “You can use a pistol?” + 

“Pretty well. I’m improving every day.” + 

“Then you have the ultimate safeguard. You need not fear the worst.” + 

“I hope for the best,” she said with enforced gaiety. “Perhaps I may shoot General Lossberg.” + 

“Lossberg!” he repeated almost bitterly. “You need not fear Lossberg. I was thinking of something very different, and I am glad to know that in the last resort you will be safe.⁠ ⁠… Most women are afraid of pistols, but you are different from most women. After all, it is a merciful death.” + 

Janet shivered, for the eyes which the Gobernador turned upon her had that in them which she had never seen before. There was anxiety in them, and something which was almost tenderness. She understood that if she feared the coming of his deliverers, so also did he⁠—and not for his own sake. + 

“I’m afraid we are giving you a miserable time,” she said, trying to speak lightly. “We have dragged you out of your comfortable groove into an anxious place.” + 

“You have upset the work of my life,” he said gravely. Then he added, as if by an afterthought, “and the foundations.” + 

“The foundations?” + 

“Yes. I had a clear course marked out, like a chart. Now the chart is overboard, and the rudder is swinging loose.” + 

“There may be other charts,” she said gently. + 

Then she averted her face and began to talk nonsense rapidly, for she realised that she herself must be the chart-maker. + 

VII + 

On the evening of August 19th the rain, which had fallen all day, ceased, and a thin fog oozed out of the ground. By six o’clock night had fallen and a small wind had risen, and, since the sky was heavily overcast, the darkness was soon like the bottom of a cellar.⁠ ⁠… The moon would not rise for an hour or two, and, unless the weather changed, it would give little light. + 

At the foot of the sea-ravine, in a log hut above the jetty, the coast garrison was preparing supper. Behind was a short space of flat ground, much of which had been cleared, but a grove of dead fan-palms remained, whose withered leaves rustled and creaked in the wind. It was a noisy spot, for the torrent after its breakneck descent drove through the boulders of the beach in a fury of loud white waters. In that sheltered bay the sea was calm, but the stream made a perpetual clamour as of beating surf. + 

The garrison consisted of six Indians of the hills, four of Luis’s haciendados, whom he specially trusted, and two of Grayne’s ex-marines. The whole was in charge of one of the Alhuema engineers, a gnarled Ulsterman called Corbett, who had come to the Gran Seco from Rhodesia, and whose experiences went back to the Matabele wars. There was a small stove in the hut, and, since supper had just been cooked, the air in that tropical spot on the sea-level was like an orchid-house. A lantern stood on the trestled table, but windows and door were closed so that from the sea no light could have been observed. Only the white men and the mestizos sat at the table; the Indians ate their meal of boiled millet and syrup in their own circle apart. + 

Corbett mopped his brow. He had begun to fill a pipe and had stopped as if in a sudden distaste. + 

“I can’t smoke in this blasted conservatory,” he said. “Shade the light, Bill. I’m for a little fresh air.” + 

He unbarred one of the windows and let in a current of steamy wind which stirred but did not cool the thick atmosphere of the hut. Outside the night was hot, noisy, and impenetrably dark. He stuck head and shoulders out, and promptly drew them back. + 

“Bill,” he whispered, “come here! First stick the lantern under the table.⁠ ⁠… Look straight ahead. D’you see a light?” + 

The man called Bill stared into the blackness and then shook his head. + 

“Nix,” he said. + 

“Funny,” said the other. “I could have sworn I caught a spark of something. It might have been on the water, or on the land across the channel. No, not at the seaward end⁠—at the end under the big red rock.⁠ ⁠… Here, Jones, you have a look-see. You’re like a cat and can see in the dark.” + 

The Indian addressed as Jones had a long look. “I see no light,” he said. “But I can hear something which is not the wind or the stream. Bid the others be quiet.” + 

He remained motionless for several minutes, like a wild animal that has been alarmed. Then he too shook his head. + 

“It has gone,” he said. “For a second I thought I heard a man’s voice and the noise of a ship.” + 

“But the whole damn place is full of noises,” said Corbett. + 

“This was a different noise. The wind is from the west and the sea carries sound.” + 

“Where might it have been?” + 

“I think near the rock beyond the water.” + 

“Same place as I thought I saw the light.” Corbett rubbed his bristly chin. “Can’t say I like that. Jones and me may be dreaming, but it’s the first time we’ve ever imagined anything like it. We’d better get the patrols out. Bill, you stay here, with Jones and his two mates. Keep your ears cocked and your eyes skinned. And you’d better call up Number One and tell ’em that we’re a bit anxious. Kittredge will take the southern beat up to the head of the gulf⁠—same three as last night⁠—and I’ll go north. It’s the water’s edge we’ve got to watch, so there’s no call to go fossicking in the bush.⁠ ⁠… Remember the drill, you all, if you hear a shot. We meet here again at midnight, when Bill and his little lot turn out. No smoking for you boys. Keep your pipes in your pockets till you get back.” + 

We are concerned only with the doings of Kittredge and his party of three, whose beat lay south along the shore of the little gulf to where the land swung round in a horn of cliff to form the breakwater which separated the inlet from the ocean. He had with him one Indian and two of Luis’s mestizos. Beyond the jetty the trees descended almost to the water’s edge, high timber trees festooned with lianas, but for a yard or two on the seaward side the western winds had thinned the covert a little, and the track zigzagged among bare boles. Beyond, the hill dropped almost sheer, so that the traveller was wet by the tides, but farther on there was a space of treeless ground, covered with light grass and thorn bushes, and at the water’s edge, where another stream entered the sea, a reed-swamp, haunted by wildfowl. + 

Kittredge divided his patrol. To the Indian he relegated the patch of forest, since he was the best man for a tangled country. The place where the cliffs dropped sheer to the water he left to one of the mestizos, for it seemed the easiest to watch, since its rear was protected. He himself with the other mestizo took the patch of savannah which stretched to the head of the gulf. They did not keep very near the sea because of the swamps, but chose the higher ground among the grass and scrub. It was not a good place for observation, since the ears were filled with the rustling of dry sedge in the wind, and the eyes in the darkness could have made out nothing except a light. + 

Kittredge and his man saw no light, and they heard little but the wind in the grass and reeds and an occasional stirring of wild duck. They made their way to the head of the gulf and about eleven o’clock turned for home. They expected to pick up the other mestizo in the cliff section, but could not find him, so they assumed that, since they were a little behind time, he had gone back according to instructions to the rendezvous in the hut. The Indian in the forest belt was still awaiting them. He had seen and heard nothing. + 

But the man in the cliff area had not gone home. He had sat for half an hour on the shelf of rock straining his eyes into the gloom. Then, being alone, he had become the prey of fears, for he was superstitious. He had said his prayers, and moved a little north, so that he could have the sheer rock-wall at his back. A movement in the sea startled him, till he decided that it was a fish. But he had become restless and nervous and again shifted his post, this time to a boulder which overhung deep water. He was just about to squat himself on it, when a sound halted him, and in a moment of panic he felt for his pistol. It was his last earthly act, for at that instant a knife was neatly driven between his shoulder-blades, and almost in the same movement his pistol was taken from his hand and his body slid quietly into the sea. + 

At Post No. 1, two-thirds of the way up the ravine, the telephone message from the shore had been duly received. It was a small post, and the officer in charge, an old colleague of Corbett’s, was not inclined to disregard his warning. But since the post was at a turning, where the cliff was sheer above and below the path, there seemed no need for special precautions. Anything which came up the path would be instantly observed. But it occurred to him that it might be just possible to avoid the path and make a way across the creeper-clad precipice and the steep glen up a tributary stream, so he sent a man up the road to the only corner where such a shortcut could debouch. + 

This man, an Indian of the Gran Seco, was not accustomed to forests, nor to the thick steamy darkness of that gash in the mountains. He started at every sound⁠—the cry of a piripipi bird, the rustle of a dead branch, the rooting of a wild pig, for all were unfamiliar. Presently, being a philosopher, he decided that every noise was alike and innocuous, and relapsed into meditation. His philosophy was his undoing. About a quarter of an hour before midnight, as he sat sleepily perched on the end of one of the many wooden bridges, something struck him, something as sudden and secret and deadly as a serpent’s fang. Quick hands thrust his dead body into the thicket. He was not missed by Post No. 1 till next morning at breakfast. + 

At Post No. 2, the halfway post, placed beside one of the main platforms of the chute, the night passed without incident. There the ravine was broad and densely wooded, and the angle of the slope was only some 30 degrees. Nothing that night appeared on or near the path. + 

The garrison at the summit were in tents strung out on both banks of the stream before it began its descent, and completely commanding the path and the off-take of the chute and the wire ropeways. The current of the stream had been used to develop electric power for haulage, and the engine-house stood close to the left bank. The post was admirably sited to command the path, but, owing to the obstruction of the buildings, it had no long field of view to left or to right. The uppermost part of the ravine was wider than the lower, and very steep, but ribbed with lateral spurs. It was possible for an active man to make the ascent by one of these spurs without the cognisance of the summit garrison. + 

Geordie Hamilton, late of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, was not only in charge of the garrison but also of the engine-house, since by profession he was a mechanic. He and his men, mostly Mines workmen, were stalwart bulldogs to guard a gate, but they were not greyhounds to range at large. They had received Corbett’s warning from the shore, and till well after midnight were very alert to watch the only area from which they anticipated danger.⁠ ⁠… The wind was rising, and the glen was full of sound. They did not hear, and if they had heard they would not have regarded, the fall of a stone in a subsidiary gully a quarter of a mile to their left, the creak of a log, and the long screech of metal on stone which means that nailed boots have slipped.⁠ ⁠… + 

Janet had gone to bed in a happier frame of mind. The Gobernador had caught cold, and Barbara, fearing fever, had given him a sleeping-draught and packed him between blankets. Moreover, she had shifted him from his ordinary quarters to another hut, one with a fireplace, which Janet and Archie had hitherto occupied, Janet removing herself to his in exchange. His new hut was close to the mess-room in the very centre of the compound; his old one was on the northern outskirts, selected originally in order that it might be specially guarded by sentries without making the fact too obvious. + 

Janet slept till a little after midnight, and then for no apparent reason she found herself wide awake. This was constantly happening to her nowadays, and she lay for a little with her nerves on stretch, listening for she knew not what. There was no sound except the wind, making odd little noises in the thatch and among the unseasoned planks of the hut. There were sounds, too, coming from inside, so she snapped her bedside switch and stared into the corners. But it was only the wind stirring a pile of old picture-papers and flapping a waterproof on a peg. Janet turned off the light and tried to compose herself to sleep again. She thought of a procession of ducks on a common and sheep coming through a gate, but it was no use. Very soon she realised that she was hopelessly wide awake and would not get to sleep again that night. She realised something more⁠—that her nervous unrest had come back with redoubled force. She felt her heart beating and her fingers twitching and a ridiculous, unreasoning fear at the back of her head. + 

Very much ashamed of herself, she decided that there was nothing for it but to get up and dress. It was a wild night, as she saw when she opened the door, but there was some sort of moon, and her first idea was to go for a ride on the downs.⁠ ⁠… She wished she had a dog; Archie had found a mongrel terrier with the army and had meant to bring it to her but had forgotten.⁠ ⁠… She thought of going to look for Barbara, but felt some scruples about breaking into the beauty-sleep of one who slept like a log and had apparently no tremors. + 

She dressed and again looked out into the night. It was windy and mild, the sky was thick with low clouds, and the moon gave only the faintest light. She could see the outline of the next hut, but very dimly, and she realised that her notion of saddling a horse and going for a ride was impracticable. She felt that a gallop would restore her balance, but in such obscurity she would certainly break her neck. + 

Then she tried to read. She had been taking a course of Wordsworth, as something to distract her mind, and she resolutely plunged into the Prelude. But she found that the words did not make sense. The discovery irritated her so much that it almost restored her poise. “You little fool,” she told herself, “what kind of wife are you for a soldier? You should be back in the schoolroom. You have got the vapours, my dear. You who used to laugh at your sister when she was afraid to go to bed at Glenraden because of the ghost on the tower staircase!” + 

Janet’s annoyance did her good. But she could not get rid of an intolerable sense of expectation. She looked at her watch and saw that it was after one o’clock. Five hours till daybreak! She lay down again on her bed, shut her eyes, and tried to remember all the jolliest things in her life. A certain picnic in her childhood to the Sea Skerries⁠—days with hounds in Warwickshire⁠—her first London ball⁠—escapades with her sister Agatha⁠—that memorable day in the rain beside the flooded Doran when she had first found herself in Archie’s arms. Archie! She thought of him with such a glow of pride and affection that she forgot her fears.⁠ ⁠… She began to picture their return to Crask and what she would do with the old house on the hillside. + 

Her fancy was toying pleasantly with the future, when suddenly she sat bolt upright. She had heard a sound which could not be the wind. + 

It was the sound of steps close to the hut, stealthy steps but unmistakable, as even a small noise can be in the midst of louder noises in a different key. She switched on the light. She had locked the door on going to bed, but had unlocked it when she looked out at the weather. To her horror she saw it gently open. + 

A man came swiftly into the room⁠—and then another. Both had white faces and their brows were damp with sweat. One was a tall man with a hatchet face and a scar above his right eyebrow, the other was squat and muscular with rabbit teeth and a broken nose. Their clothes were much torn, as if they had had a rough journey. + 

The eyes of both showed amazement and disappointment. They were looking for something other than a scared girl. + 

“The Gobernador?” the first one cried, and “Where in hell’s the boss?” came from the other. + 

Then Janet understood. She had her pistol under her pillow, and in a second had snatched it and fired. But it was wild shooting, the shot struck a rafter, and before she could fire again the men were upon her. They were men of quick decision and skilful at the job. A scarf was wound suffocatingly over her mouth and she was seized in a grip which seemed to crush the breath from her. She felt herself in the open air, and heard with almost her last moment of clear consciousness a voice saying, “If the bitch squeals, wring her neck.” + 

After that she remembered little. She felt the colder breath of the night, and then swift movement in a man’s arms. There was a noise in the air⁠—she thought it was shots and cries, and sudden flashes of light. She was aware of being rushed along, of being suddenly dropped in cover, and then again of violent speed. She struggled till her limbs cramped, but she was like a baby in the hands of her captors. And very soon weariness and panic did their part, and a merciful numbness fell upon body and mind. + 

Janet’s shot had awakened the camp. The pickets had fired in answer, the big arc lights had been turned on, and in three minutes the place was feverishly awake. But the sentries had been withdrawn from Janet’s hut, since the Gobernador was no longer there, and on that side the scrub came nearest, so that it was easy for the raiders to find cover. Yet they could hardly have escaped but for an unlucky blunder. Geordie Hamilton, hearing the uproar, had assumed that the camp was attacked by its landward approaches. That was the side from which he had always anticipated danger. Therefore, contrary to orders, he led the garrison straight to the camp, and all but stumbled on Radin, Judson, and Laschallas as they made their way to the sea-ravine. This meant that the post on its summit was empty, and the most difficult part of the descent was left unguarded. + 

Janet awoke from her swoon to find herself in the midst of water. She had a bad headache, and felt rather sick; also her body seemed to be a mass of aches. She was no longer bound, and had been laid on a rough couch of dirty cushions and tarpaulins. The weather had changed; above her was a blue arch of sky, and around her a circle of blue water, except on one side where a distant wall of green and umber told of land. + 

Slowly recollection came back to her, and with it her powers of observation. She saw that she was in a petrol launch, some ten miles out in the Pacific. There were four men on board. Two were the rabbit-toothed man and the tall hatched-faced fellow she had seen in the hut. Another was sallow with thick black eyebrows, and the fourth was plump and yellow, with sharp little eyes. She lay very still, for all her tremors had gone. She knew the worst now. There had been treachery among the company in the Courts of the Morning. D’Ingraville had located their base, but some traitor must have gone out from among them and told the secret of the sea-ravine. These ruffians had come to rescue the Gobernador, and they had known exactly in which hut he slept. They had been foiled by his cold, which proved that he was not privy to the plot, and at this conclusion Janet felt an unreasoning gladness. Not finding him, they had carried her off⁠—no doubt as a hostage. At the thought her heart began to flutter again, but she resolutely steadied herself. The time for foolishness was past. She was not anticipating danger now, but in the thick of it, and must brace herself to meet it. She choked down every thought and memory which might weaken her resolution. Her business was to keep her head and play the game for her side.⁠ ⁠… But at the sight of the men with their evil faces she could not repress a shiver. + 

They were not unkind to her. One of them brought her water and a towel and she was able to make a sort of toilet. Another fetched her a cup of strong coffee, a box with biscuits in it, and a couple of oranges. She could not eat, but the coffee did her good, and her headache began to mend. + 

Then, from the land side, at a great height an aeroplane came flying. It must have been an assignation, for the men had been on the lookout for it, and a flag was hoisted. On nearer view it was seen to be a seaplane. It circled twice round the launch, and then slid gracefully down till it floated like a bird on the water. The launch steered towards it, and its occupant was revealed as a slight, youngish man, with a fair beard, an oddly-shaped head like a faun’s, and grey eyes that were set somewhat too close together. + 

His face, as he caught sight of Janet, expressed surprise. The man called Laschallas spoke to him in rapid Spanish, and his brows darkened. He seemed to be cursing them, and the reply was an impassioned defence. Then he shrugged his shoulders and bowed to Janet. + 

“I expected another guest, madame,” he said in French, “but we must rejoice at what fortune has given us. You will do me the honour to accompany me.” + 

The transhipment was a delicate business, and was not accomplished without a great deal of angry speech. Janet kept a tight hold on her nerves and accepted the inevitable. The four men in the launch were brutes, but what was this smiling, faun-like creature, and whither was he taking her? She felt desperately solitary, cut off from all that was normal and dear. + 

The plane lifted from the water, and turned seaward to gain elevation. Then it circled round, and steered for the wall of mountain. + 

VIII + 

Janet’s pistol-shot, and the answering shots from the sentries, awakened the camp effectually, but in the thick night, with a volleying wind, it was hard to locate the trouble. Grayne, who was in command, naturally assumed that the danger lay in the neighbourhood of the Gobernador’s hut, but Castor was discovered sleeping the heavy sleep of one dosed with aspirin, and Barbara, who slept next door, had heard nothing. The big arc lamps showed everything normal, and, since the light had been promptly switched off in Janet’s hut by the raiders, it was presently decided that it had been a false alarm. The arrival of Geordie Hamilton and his garrison from the head of the ravine complicated matters, and it was the better part of an hour before peace was restored. No one doubted that the whole thing had been a blunder of a nervous sentry who had taken a whimsy of the wind for a shot. Barbara went back to bed. + 

She woke about dawn with an uneasy feeling. Why had Janet not been awakened by the noise⁠—Janet, the lightest sleeper of them all? It was a mild blue morning after the rain, so she slipped on a dressing-gown and ran across to Janet’s hut. To her surprise the door stood open, unlatched. The bed had been slept in, but the occupant had clearly got up and dressed. There was a faint smell which puzzled her, till she realised that it was powder; a shot had been fired in the place during the night. Then she noticed that the floor around the doorway was muddied, and that some of the furniture looked as if it had been violently pushed aside. Lastly, on one of the rafters she observed a jagged splinter which could only have been done by a bullet. + 

With terror in her heart she hurried to find Roger Grayne, and in five minutes the camp was astir. The tracks of the raiders were clear on the road to the sea, except where they had been overlaid by those of Hamilton’s men. The Indian trailers had no difficulty in pointing to the very place where they had taken cover, and in deciding that there had been three men in the business, three men who, in departing, had been encumbered with a burden.⁠ ⁠… The very spot was found where they had circumvented Hamilton’s garrison on their way up. At Post No. 1 it was discovered that one of the scouts had not come back, and his body was presently found in the thicket at the turn of the road. Down on the shore Corbett reported the absence of one of the mestizos who had gone on patrol to the head of the gulf. The section where the cliffs dropped straight to the sea was searched, and blood was found on the reef by the water’s edge. The Indians scattered among the shore thickets, and soon reported that they had discovered the tracks of the raiders, both those going and those returning, and across the gulf evidence was found that a petrol-driven vessel had landed recently. The story was plain in all its details. Their base had been raided, and Janet had been carried off. + 

“They did not come for her.” Barbara with tragic eyes clutched Grayne’s arm. + 

“I guess they didn’t. They came for the Gobernador. Some swine has double-crossed us and given away his exact location, only he didn’t know that his Excellency was sick. They were certainly fooled about that.⁠ ⁠… But, my God! Miss Babs, we can’t sit down under this. It’s maybe bad strategy, but I’d rather they’d taken twenty Gobernadors than that little lady. Say, what do they want with her? A hostage, I guess. Who’d have thought Lossberg would be so bright?” + 

“But where is she?” Barbara cried. All the colour had gone out of her cheeks, and her face was a waxen mask of misery. + 

“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. + 

“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 grown heavier. He was very quiet, so quiet that it seemed impossible 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 sometime 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 the 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 a 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 a 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 seaplane, and since up to yesterday our army had no seaplanes, and Peters knew that, he thought it worth while to mention the fact.” + 

“Well?” + 

“We have no seaplanes. 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 seaplane to meet them?” + 

Castor rose and walked to the big wall map. + 

“Show me the exact spot where the seaplane 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 País 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 País de Venenos.” + 

“You think they have gone there⁠—with Janet?” + 

“I do not think that. It is not a place where white 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 País 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 seaplane may have an undercarriage.⁠ ⁠… 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. “Goodbye, 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 southeast 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 been 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 hands of men such as he had seen in the Gran Seco streets, men with evil, furtive eyes and corpse-like faces.⁠ ⁠… Weeks before Sandy had drawn for him a rough map of the whereabouts of the País de Venenos, as a preliminary for certain exploratory flights which were contemplated in the southeast 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 be 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 seaplane 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 Señor 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 mountain 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. + 

He dropped still lower. The forest was dense as the grass on a lawn. Tall trees now and then broke it, and sudden rocky spurs, but, though he was less than five hundred feet above it, he could make out no details, except where the river broadened into a leaden pool. The vegetation was as thick as an animal’s pelt. A strange odour ascended to him⁠—sweet and stupefying and rotten.⁠ ⁠… Could Janet be in that jungle of death? Could any human being be there and hope for life? The place seemed like a charnel-house encrusted by foul mosses. + 

Janet was not there⁠—of that he had a sudden, complete conviction. The horror of the place grew on him, but he still held on. It was fast growing dark, and out of the forest a fog was rising like a wraith. He saw it billowing up towards him, and started to climb.⁠ ⁠… + 

Then his eye fell on the petrol gauge, and he had an ugly shock. What on earth had happened? He remembered now⁠—he had forgotten to refill at Magdalena as he had intended. But still he had started that morning with enough for a twenty-four hours’ flight. The tank must have sprung a leak, for there were only about twenty minutes of petrol left. + 

He turned and flew in what he thought was the direction of the entrance to the gorge. There was just a chance that he might reach it in time and find a landing-place beyond it, for there could be no landing in this jungle. But the fog had enveloped him and was now far above him, a horrible, thick, choking whiteness which smelt of violets. He turned to look at Hamilton. That worthy, with the collar of his coat turned up, had his usual sullen calm. “It’s comin’ on for a thick nicht,” he observed. + 

Archie looked again and saw that the main tank had gone dry. There was only the reserve tank left, and that would last at the most a quarter of an hour. He climbed steeply, for he remembered that he had been descending since he passed through the gorge. Below him was now thick darkness, but the mist above him seemed to hold the late sunshine. It might be thinner higher up, so he climbed towards the light. + 

Something not unlike panic had now seized Archie. If the petrol failed before he reached a landing-place, then he must crash in this noisome forest. Horror of the place gripped him like a nightmare. He climbed up and up, struggling to get above the mist, only dimly aware of the direction of his course.⁠ ⁠… Could he hit off the gorge in this suffocating gloom? Was it worth trying? He had seen the zone of snow which encircled the cup. Up there there must be open ground, where a landing might be made. So he contented himself with climbing, bearing blindly to the left. His one aim was to get above the forest. + 

It was certainly less dark. He was coming out of the main shroud of the fog, and the white veil seemed to have patches in it. The altimeter registered nearly twelve thousand feet.⁠ ⁠… But the forest was climbing with him, and suddenly below him he saw in the brume the top of a tall tree, a thin etching of black in the dimness. He must be far up the containing slopes. Then he observed from the gauge that only a few minutes more of petrol remained. + 

He came to a decision. + 

“Hamilton,” he cried, “we’ve got to go overboard. Get your chute ready.” + 

There was no change in the man’s stolidity. He had practised this drill in the Courts of the Morning, and now quietly made his preparations. Archie directed his spotlight downwards, and once again a fluff of tree tops came into view. + 

“Quick,” he said. “I’ll follow in a second.” + 

“I doot I’ll get a dunt,” said Hamilton grimly as he went over the left side of the cockpit. Archie saw that the chute had opened and righted at once, and that he was descending steadily into the void. + 

His own task was more difficult. He cut out the switches and pulled the plane into a stall. He meant to go out on the right, when suddenly the right wing began to droop, which meant that it would strike the parachute. He therefore steadied the plane, and followed Hamilton over the left side. He started head foremost, but the risers pulled him upright and the parachute opened. The plane above him was lost in an instant, and Archie, oscillating violently and feeling very sick, plunged into a gulf of primeval darkness. Something hit his head; then he hung for a second upside-down before slipping into what seemed a gigantic bramble bush which scratched his face. Another bump, a plunge, and Archie found himself standing on tiptoe on solid earth, with the ruins of the parachute and his greatcoat hanked in the lower boughs of a tree. + 

X + 

Archie took a good quarter of an hour to disentangle himself from his Absalom-like posture, since, owing to the constriction of his garments, he could not get at his knife, and his hands were numb with cold. When at last he was free, he pitched forward stiffly into a huge tree-fern, which kept him from rolling down the slope. The actual forest was thin, but the undergrowth was dense and waterlogged, and the declivity so steep that every step must be watched. The fog was still there, but it was not thick, and a faint light filtered through it, so that it was possible to see the ground beneath and the trees above in a dim monotint. + 

His first business must be to find Geordie Hamilton. He shouted, but it was like speaking with the mouth muffled by folds of blanket. He argued that Hamilton must have descended not more than two hundred yards below him, and that the plane when he left it had been directly ascending the mountain face, so he tried to shape a straight course downhill. But the going was appalling. There were thickets of cactus to be circumvented, an occasional tall tree choked with creepers, and strips of sheer red earth. He stopped every few yards to shout for his companion, but no answer came; it seemed impossible to pierce that deathly stillness. Presently he realised that at this rate he would soon be lost. He halted and mopped his brow, for he was sweating under the burden of his heavy flying-clothes. And then he heard, apparently from the bowels of the earth, what seemed to be a groan. + 

“Hamilton,” he cried, and, shouting his name, he made his way a little to the left. + 

At last a reply came, a miserable, muffled voice. + 

“Is’t you, Sir Erchibald?” it said, and it was as if its owner were speaking from under deep water. + 

The place was a shallow ravine, and as Archie groped his way something very hard and sharp caught him in the neck. + 

“Hamilton, where on earth are you?” he cried in pain. + 

“I’m catched in a buss,” came an answering groan. “For God’s sake get me out, for I’ve gotten some awfu’ jags.” + 

Then Archie remembered his spotlight. It revealed a great clump of the aloe called caraguatá, with Hamilton most intricately wedged among the sword-like leaves. Above the spikes, like a dissolute umbrella, waved the parachute. Hamilton hung face downward, his greatcoat suspended above him and his legs splayed like a clumsy diver’s. He had ceased to struggle, for every movement sent the thorns deeper into his tenderest parts. + 

Archie stripped to shirt and breeches, and set himself slowly to cut the victim out, but it was the better part of an hour before the work was done, and Hamilton, still apoplectic about the face, was cautiously examining his wounds. He had plenty of them, but only scratches, though he declared that his legs were so stiff that it would be a month before he could walk. + 

“You’ll have to start right away,” Archie told him. “We can’t stay in this blasted hothouse. We must be pretty near the edge of the tree-line, and once we get above the forest we can find a place to sleep. So step out, my lad, game leg or no. You and I are about equal now.” + 

Slowly and with many stumbles they began the ascent, guiding themselves by the lift of the ground. It was desperately laborious, for sometimes the way was up sheer banks of earth, the remains of old landslides, and as slippery as oil; sometimes through acres of great ferns where the feet sank into deep hollows among the roots: sometimes through cactus scrub which reduced their coat-skirts to rags; often through horrible oozing moss which sent up a stink like a charnel-house. The fog was dying away, and the rising moon made their immediate environment clear, but the better they could see the more hopeless the toil became. Hamilton panted and sobbed, and Archie’s weak leg gave him many falls. The air had none of the wholesome chill of night. A damp heat closed them in, and when now and then a faint waft came up from the valley beneath it seemed to have a sickening scent of violets. + 

Often they stopped for breath, but they did not lie down. Instinctively they both shrank from contact with that unhallowed soil. Once Hamilton drank from a pool in a stream, and was violently sick. + 

“We must be about the height of the Matterhorn,” Archie said, “and yet it’s as hot as hell. This is a cursed place.” + 

“ ’Deed, it’s no canny,” said Hamilton, gulping with nausea. + 

Before long it was clear that Hamilton’s strength was giving out. Thickset and burly as he was, this greenhouse-mountaineering was beyond him. He stumbled more often, and after each fall took longer to recover. At last he stopped. + 

“I doot I’m done, sir,” he wheezed. “This bloody cemetery is ower much for me! You gang on.” + 

“Nonsense,” said Archie, taking his arm. He was dog-tired himself, but to his more sensitive nerves the hatred of the place was such that it goaded him forward like a spur. “See, we’ll take hands. We can’t be far from the tree-line.” + 

But it seemed hours before they reached it. Fortunately the slope had become easier and less encumbered, but the two men staggered on drunkenly, speaking no word, their eyes scarcely seeing, so that their falls were frequent, everything blotted from their mind but the will to bodily endurance. So blind were they that they did not notice that the fog was almost gone, and they had come out of the forest before they realised it. Suddenly Archie was aware that he was no longer climbing steeply, and then he was looking across a shelf of bare land which rose to a rim of a pale silver. He was breathing free air, too. A cool light wind was on his forehead. + 

“Hamilton,” he cried, “I⁠ ⁠… believe⁠ ⁠… we’re clear.” + 

The two dropped like logs, and the earth they sank on was not the reeking soil of the forest, but the gravel of an upland. + 

Both lay for a little, their limbs too weary to stretch. Then Archie crawled to his feet. + 

“Let’s go on a bit. I want to feel really quit of that damned Poison Valley. We must find a hole to sleep in.” + 

They staggered on for another half-mile, weakly, but no longer so miserably. The sand and shale underfoot gleamed white as salt in the moonlight, and were broken only by boulders and small scrubby thorns. Then they found a shelf of rock which overhung so as to form a shallow cave. It was now as cold as it had been hot in the covert, the sweat had dried upon them, and the scratches on hands and face smarted in the frost. Each had a small ration of food in his pocket, charqui⁠—which is the biltong the Gran Seco Indians prepare⁠—some biscuits and chocolate, and Archie had a packet of raisins. They supped lightly, for thirst and hunger seemed to have left them, and, cuddled against each other for warmth, both were soon asleep. + 

Archie woke in an hour’s time. He had slept scarcely at all during the past three days, and even deep bodily fatigue could not drug his mind. Wild dreams had assailed him⁠—of falling down precipices of red earth into a foetid jungle threaded by oily streams. He woke to find that the moon had set and that it was very dark. Far off there was a call like a jackal barking. There were other things alive on this shelf beside themselves. + 

Then he heard a sound close at hand⁠—the padding of soft feet on gravel. His spotlight was beside him, and he flashed it in the direction of the feet. About ten yards away stood an animal. At first he thought it was a wolf from its size, till he saw its sharp muzzle and prick ears, its reddish fur, and its thick tail. It was a fox, one of the cannibal foxes of the País de Venenos that he had heard of from Sandy. The animal blinked in the light, and its teeth were bared in a snarl. Archie reached for Hamilton’s rifle, which lay loaded beside them, but he was too late. The great brute turned and trotted off, and passed out of sight among the boulders. + 

“Enough to put me off foxhunting forevermore,” thought Archie. After that he did not sleep, but lay watching the dark thin to shadows and the shadows lighten to dawn. The sun seemed to leap with a bound over the far Cordilleras, and a morning mist, as white and flat as a snowfield, filled the valleys. Archie’s heartsickness returned to him like a fever. Somewhere within the horizon was Janet, but by what freak of fortune was he to get her⁠—himself a mere lost atom at the edge of his endurance, and as ignorant as a babe of this immense, uncharted, unholy world? + 

Both men soon realised that the País de Venenos had exacted its penalty. Hamilton was clearly in a fever, which may have been due to his many cuts, and Archie felt something like a band of hot steel round his head. For breakfast they nibbled a little chocolate and ate a few raisins. Then, as far as their bodily discomfort permitted, they discussed their plans. + 

“We’re up against some solid facts, Hamilton,” said Archie. “We’re looking for my wife, and I believe she’s somewhere within fifty miles, but we’ve got to admit that we’re lost ourselves. All I remember from Lord Clanroyden’s map is that if we keep going up the south wall of the Poison Country we’ll come to the main range, and southwest of that lies Pacheco. The people we’re seeking must be up on the range, but they may be north or south of the Poison Country. We couldn’t cross that infernal valley, so let’s hope they are on the south. Another thing⁠—we mayn’t be able to get up the range⁠—we’re neither of us in much form for mountaineering. Also, we’ve got about enough food to last us with care for two days. We shan’t want for water.” + 

“I’ll no need much meat,” said Hamilton sombrely. “I couldna swallow my breakfast, my throat’s that sair.” + 

“We’re both dashed ill,” Archie agreed. “I feel like a worm, and you look like one. Maybe we’ll be better if we go higher.” + 

Hamilton turned a feverish eye upwards. “I doot it’s higher we’ll be goin’. Anither kind o’ Flyin’ Corps. Angels.” + 

“That’s as it may be. It’s too soon to chuck in our hand.⁠ ⁠… You and I have been in as ugly places before this. We’re both going on looking for my wife till we drop. We’ll trust to the standing luck of the British Army. I’ve a sort of notion we’ll find something.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“We’ll maybe find mair folk than we can manage.” + 

“Undoubtedly. If we’re lucky enough to get that far, we’ll have to go very warily. We needn’t make plans till we see what turns up. At the worst we can put up a fight.” + 

Hamilton nodded, as if the thought comforted him. A fight with men against odds was the one prospect which held no terrors for him. + 

The two very slowly and painfully began their march over the shelf and up to the snow-rimmed slopes which contained it. The País de Venenos behind them was still a solid floor of mist. Happily the going was good⁠—flat reefs of rock with between them long stretches of gravelly sand. Archie decided that he must bear a little to his right, for there the containing wall seemed to be indented by a pass. They must find the easiest road, for they were in no condition to ascend steep rock or snow. The wind was from the east and wisps of cloud drifted towards them, bringing each a light flurry of snowflakes. They had awoken shivering, and now as they walked their teeth chattered, for both were too sore and stiff to go fast enough to warm their blood. + 

Suddenly they struck a path⁠—a real path, not an animal’s track, but a road used regularly by human feet. Indeed, it seemed at one time to have been almost a highway. At one place Archie could have sworn that the rock had been quarried to ease the gradient, and at another, where it flanked a stream, it looked as if it had been embanked. In that wild place it seemed a miracle. Archie thought that he must be lightheaded, so he examined carefully the workmanship. There could be no doubt about it, for his fingers traced the outlines of squared stones. Once this had been a great highroad, as solid as Roman work. It seemed to come out of the mist of the Poison Valley, and to run straight towards the pass in the ridge. + 

He pointed it out to Hamilton. + 

“Aye, there’s been folk here lang syne,” was the answer. + 

Archie bent over a patch of snow. “Not so long ago. Here are the marks of feet, naked feet, and they were made within the past twenty-four hours.” + 

Slowly they tramped up the glacis of the range towards the pass. Hamilton walked like a man in a dream, stumbling often, and talking to himself. He seemed to have a headache, for he stopped at the water-pools to bathe his head. The pain in Archie’s forehead grew worse as they ascended, till it became almost unbearable. He kept his fingers on his eyes to ease the throbbing behind them. But his mind was clear, and he could reason with himself about his condition. It might be the poisoning of the forest⁠—most likely that was true in Hamilton’s case⁠—or it might be mountain sickness. He had once had a slight bout in the Karakoram, and he had heard that it was common in the Cordilleras.⁠ ⁠… Just before the summit of the pass he looked back. The tablecloth was lifting from the País de Venenos, and the white floor was now cleft with olive-green gashes. + 

The summit of the pass was a hollow between snowdrifts. There both men stood and stared, for the sight before them was strange and beautiful. Archie had expected another tableland, or a valley of rocks shut in between peaks. Instead his eyes looked over a wide hollow, some three miles in diameter. High ridges flanked it on all sides, and on the west was a great mass of mountain, which he believed must project like a promontory towards the Tierra Caliente. The slopes beneath them were at first boulders and shingle, but presently they became the ordinary grassy savannah, with clumps of wood here and there which seemed to be more than scrub. And in the centre of the hollow lay a lake, shaped like a scimitar, of the profoundest turquoise blue. + 

He unslung his field-glasses and examined the place. There was no sign of life in it. At various points on the shore he could detect what looked like millet fields, but there was no mark of human habitation. Then he examined a dark blur near the western end, and found something that might have been the ruins of a Border keep. + 

“We’ve struck a queer place,” he told his companion, but Hamilton turned a blank face. He had almost lost the power of sight; his whole mind was bent on forcing his sick body into movement. + 

As they began to descend, an oppression seemed to lift from Archie’s soul. The horror of the place where he had landed left him, now that he had come into a clean bright country. Also the band of iron round his brow fretted him less. He found that he moved with greater ease, and he could lend a hand to his tottering companion. When they reached the first grass he felt hungry, and they sat down to complete their breakfast. But Hamilton could only manage a single raisin, though he drank thirstily from a stream. + 

The whole place was a riot of blue light, the heavens above and the lake beneath; even the rim of silver sand seemed to catch a turquoise reflection. The air, too, was no longer the dry, throat-catching thing of the high snows, but fresh and clement. The sun warmed them gratefully, and Archie’s eye recovered its old keenness. He saw a bird at last and the ornithologist awoke in him. + 

“By Jove, a black snipe,” he cried. “The first I’ve seen.” + 

The road they had followed skirted the northern edge of the lake and led them straight to the ruins near the western end. At close quarters the strangeness of the latter was increased. This had been a castle, like any Scots peel tower, the guardian of this fair valley. It had long been deserted, but the keep still stood foursquare, of a masonry which time and storm could not crumble. Archie examined it curiously. No mortar had been used, and the stones fitted into each other with such mathematical exactness that a knife could not find a lodgment. There were no signs of windows. Whoever dwelt here must have dwelt in darkness unless he had some means of artificial light.⁠ ⁠… Archie remembered a story which Luis had told him of the old lords of the mountains, who controlled the Poison Country. They dwelt secure, he had said, for they made a belt of poison round them, and in their windowless dwellings they lived by candlelight. No, not candles, Luis had added, something stranger⁠—natural gas, or perhaps electricity⁠—for he believed that they were great men of science.⁠ ⁠… At the recollection this clod of masonry, solid as a single boulder, seemed to link him up again with the vale of horrors behind him. The sunshine had become less bright, the place less innocent. + 

Beyond the keep was a meadow where the stream from the lake issued. Here Archie saw something which had been hitherto hidden by the ruins, and which made him drop Hamilton’s arm and hobble at his best pace towards it. It was an aeroplane⁠—a seaplane, drawn up just beyond the sand of the shore. + 

Archie recognised the make⁠—a Wentworth B⁠—of which there were none in the Gran Seco. His next observation was that it was out of action. The floats had been damaged, and the propeller was bent. Had it crashed?⁠ ⁠… It was D’Ingraville’s machine beyond doubt. Had Janet travelled in it? What had befallen her? + 

With a sinking heart he examined the thing, and presently he was reassured. The machine was damaged, but there had been no serious accident. It must have alighted in the lake, for it had been drawn by human hands up on the shore. He saw the grooves and ribs which it had made in the sandy beach.⁠ ⁠… He examined it carefully. There was still a good supply of petrol in the tank. Could he use it? A further inspection convinced him that he could not. Repairs were needed, and he had no means of repairing it. + 

His first impulse was to destroy it. He could easily set it on fire and reduce it to a ruin of bars and wires.⁠ ⁠… But what good would that do? If Janet had come in it and was now somewhere not far off, this might be a means of escape. How, he did not know, but there was no point in burning a possible boat. + 

Then a few yards off he saw something white on the grass. It was a tiny fragment of cambric, with a monogram in one corner. Janet was always dropping handkerchiefs; he spent his time retrieving them. + 

He stood with the thing in his hand, and a lump rose in his throat. He wanted to cry, the first tears since his childhood. Janet had sent him a message, Janet who had disappeared into the darkness. By some miracle he had found touch with her, the one chance in a million had succeeded. A great wave of longing and tenderness engulfed him. He stood blindly, as visions of Janet passed before his eyes, her dancing grace, her whimsical humour, her friendly courage. He had picked up her handkerchief, here at the ends of the earth, as he had so often done at faraway Crask.⁠ ⁠… + 

Then suddenly, for the first time since her loss, there came to him hope. An unreasoning hope, but as vivid as a revelation. She was somewhere near⁠—two days ago, not more, she must have stood on this very spot. He would find her. Nay, he would rescue her. The Providence which had led him thus far so strangely would not fail him. + 

With this new confidence something returned to Archie. He became his normal self again, and felt desperately sleepy. He had not slept for days. + 

Hamilton sprawled limply near the ruined tower, his burning head pillowed on his arm. Archie got a piece of tarpaulin and some broken struts from the seaplane, and made him a shelter from the sun, which was now very warm in that bare place. He stretched himself at his side, and in an instant was sound asleep. + 

He woke to the sound of voices. The covering had been lifted, and around them stood a group of men. Hamilton was sitting up and looking at them with sick eyes. + 

The men were Indians, but of a type which Archie had never seen before. They were not of the Gran Seco breed, for those were bullet-headed and muscular, whereas these were of a leanness which made them seem inhumanly tall, and their heads were the heads of white men. Instead of the dull beady eyes of the Gran Seco, the eyes of these men were large and bright and lustrous, as if they lived in a perpetual fever. Their faces were so emaciated as to be almost skulls. Unlike the Indians of Olifa and the Gran Seco who favoured black ponchos, the ponchos of these men were of a dark red⁠—the colour of the raw earth in the País de Venenos. + 

Yet, to his surprise, Archie felt no shrinking from them. They were armed⁠—with blowpipes and slender lances⁠—but they seemed to have no hostile purpose. They stood in a circle looking down gravely at the awakened sleepers. + 

Archie scrambled to his feet, and held out his hand as the best gesture of friendship which he could think of. But there was no movement in response. Their hands hung stiffly by their sides. + 

He tried them in Spanish. He told them that he had flown thither from the Gran Seco, and pointed to the seaplane to illustrate his mode of travel. He asked them if they had seen any white man in the neighbourhood⁠—especially if they had seen a white woman. Archie’s Spanish was apt to be of a biblical simplicity, and he explained his meaning with an elaborate pantomime. He was like a man who has a desperate message to deliver, but who finds himself stricken with partial aphasia. + 

It appeared that they understood something of what he said, for they began to speak among themselves, in voices pitched so low that they sounded like the murmuring of insects. Then one, who seemed to be their leader, spoke. It was a kind of Spanish, oddly pronounced and very hard to follow, but Archie gathered that he was ordered to accompany them. The speaker pointed down the ravine towards which the stream from the lake flowed. + 

“Right, my lad,” said Archie, “I’ll go with you fast enough,” and he nodded and grinned and waved his hand. + 

Then one of them bent over Hamilton, who had lain back on the ground again with his hands pressed to his head. It looked as if these strange people knew something of medical science, for the man felt his pulse and the beating of his heart. He spoke to the others, and they moved apart. In a few minutes a little fire had been made of driftwood and thorn-scrub, while two of them took charge of Hamilton. They stripped off his greatcoat and tunic, and bared him to the waist, and then they proceeded to knead and pinch certain muscles, while his head hung limply over their knees. Then they prepared a queer little greyish pill which they induced him to swallow. + 

Meantime an iron girdle had been put on the fire, and on it a number of little dried kernels roasted. Archie was given a share, and found them palatable: they tasted like crayfish, but may have been a kind of caterpillar. Then a rough litter was made, out of their lances and the tarpaulin, and Hamilton, now in a deep sleep, was hoisted thereon. + 

Archie made a last effort to get some news to allay his anxiety and nourish his hopes. “White woman,” he repeated, pointing down the glen of the stream. But he got no answer. The leader, whom he addressed, faced him steadily with his bright, inscrutable eyes. But before they moved off they did the thing which Archie had decided against. They spilled petrol over the wings of the seaplane and applied to them a flaming brand from the fire. As Archie looked back, he saw beside the blue lake in the serene sunshine the bonfire burning garishly, like a sacrifice before the altar of the immemorial tower. + 

XI + 

The third day after Archie’s departure, the threat to the Courts of the Morning became urgent. The first word came from Escrick’s Intelligence; there had been a succession of small fights in the Loa district, and Grayne was warned to extra vigilance. His planes patrolled in a wide radius, and Grayne himself was confident that no enemy machine could reach them. “D’Ingraville might, if he isn’t otherwise engaged,” he said, “but they’ve gotten nobody else of his class.” But definite news came by way of Olifa that there would presently be an attack in force from the sea, and that Lossberg had relinquished his Fabian tactics and was now clearly pushing northward. Loa might have to be abandoned any hour, and then would come the advance up the shelves of the foothills. It might be made a slow and a costly business, but in the end it must succeed, for the defence could not indefinitely oppose his superior numbers, his Schneider batteries, and his ample machine guns. The time was drawing near when they must give up their mountain base. + 

The strangest thing about the new situation was its effect on the Gobernador. It might have been expected that the approach of his friends would put him into a state of extreme restlessness, that he would wait eagerly for news of each stage and welcome the hope of escape. Instead he seemed to resent it. He spoke of it with irritation, as if impious hands were being laid on something sacred. He was resentful, too, of Sandy’s failure⁠—or he was certain that he had failed. + 

“Lossberg has got his skirts clear,” he told Barbara. “He feels himself strong and secure enough to take the offensive. That means that Lord Clanroyden’s scheme has miscarried. Lossberg, in spite of his pinpricks, is getting all the supplies he wants, and has leisure to make a bold attack on our base. He is neither rattled nor embarrassed, and he has no notion of making peace. Clanroyden’s was an ingenious plan, but it was bluff, and the bluff has been called. Once it fails, we have no second string. It is our turn to be driven from post to pillar⁠ ⁠… and there is far more against us than Lossberg. We have no news of Lady Roylance?” + 

There was more than exasperation in his tone as he spoke, there was an aching anxiety. Barbara, who in these last days had become a tense, silent being, looked at him curiously. + 

“I think that we have succeeded in one thing, Excellency,” she said. + 

“What?” + 

“We have made you an ally. This war was directed against you. Now you speak as if you were sorry that it was not going better.” + 

“Nonsense,” he said sharply. “I am anxious about Lady Roylance.” + 

Next day there was disquieting information. Loa had been evacuated in the night owing to Lossberg’s pressure, and that general was now beginning his movement northward on scientific lines. His mounted troops were clearing and guarding his flanks, his pioneers were pushed forward to improve the roads for his batteries, and two of his mechanised battalions were already in the foothills. Their progress could be delayed, but with Sandy and the bulk of his force engaged at the other side of the Gran Seco it could not be seriously opposed. Sandy had long ago decided that it was no part of his business to resist any movement of Lossberg’s too long. + 

Grayne rapidly calculated. + 

“He will take four days at the earliest to get here. We could lengthen them out to six, but it isn’t worth it. That gives us plenty time, for we’ve got all the details of the evacuation settled long ago. The stuff we’re taking with us has already begun to leave for Magdalena.⁠ ⁠… No, Miss Babs, I guess Lossberg can’t hit off that road. It’s our covered Valley of Virginia, and he could no more stop our using it than General Banks could stop Stonewall Jackson. It’s way out of the reach of his patrols. But we can’t cut it too fine. Before his first troops get to the place they call Three Fountains, every soul here has to be on the road to Magdalena and this place one big bonfire.” + 

Barbara asked about the sea-ravine. + 

“We’ll get early news of that from the air,” was the answer. “I’m not going to waste one solitary man on holding it. We’ve had it mined and monkeyed with, so as it will be a steep mountaineering proposition for the dago sailormen, but it’s not going to be anything more. We’ll retire shelf by shelf and watch the fireworks.” + 

Two nights later it was reported by wireless that destroyers had left Olifa for the north, and the following morning they were sighted by Grayne’s air scouts about twenty miles south of the Courts of the Morning. This news enabled Grayne to adjust his timetable. The destroyers entered the gulf at 11:30 a.m., but they seemed to find difficulty with that uncharted coast, and it was well into the afternoon before they attempted to land their men. Corbett and his garrison had been withdrawn from the shore, and the hut left apparently intact. But the first mariners who entered it had various unpleasing surprises, with the result that the occupation of the beach became a matter of careful reconnaissance, and darkness had fallen before the last of the landing-parties was on shore. Corbett, now at Post No. 1, waited grimly for the morning advance. + 

The last day in the sanctuary was for Barbara like some strange motion-picture seen from uneasy stalls. She had nothing to do except to wait and watch. The Courts had been dismantled till they looked like a disused builder’s yard. The tall poles of the wireless installation had gone, the huts were empty, the great storehouse was bare except for the inflammable material which could be fired by a single fuse. One solitary aeroplane patrolled the sky. White mechanics, troopers, mestizos, Indians, all had gone except the guard which was to accompany herself and the Gobernador. It was a clear bright day and rather cold. From the sea-ravine could be heard an occasional rumble and sputter of fire, but the only garrison left there now was Corbett and two of his lieutenants. The Olifa advance was three-quarters of the way up the ravine, and Corbett had been ordered, after seeing to the last great explosion, to make his best speed to the huts. As Barbara looked round the deserted camp which for weeks had been her home, she wanted to cry. Departure seemed a farewell both to her hopes and her friends. + 

The Gobernador, muffled in a great blanket-coat, joined her. He too looked at the bare walls and the desolate compounds. + 

“That is the curse of war,” he said. “It makes one destroy what one loves.” + 

“I feel as if I were leaving home,” said Barbara. + 

“I did not mean this place,” was the answer. “I was thinking of Lady Roylance.” + 

Presently there fell on their ears a dull roar from the direction of the sea-ravine. Grayne appeared with his watch in his hand. + 

“Time to start now, Miss Babs. Corbett will be here in five minutes. Lossberg is a mile short of Three Fountains.” + 

They mounted their wiry little horses, while the guardian aeroplane flew very slowly to the south. It was almost dusk, and as they turned into the forest trail they stopped instinctively for one look backward. Suddenly the Courts were bright with tongues of fire, and Corbett and his assistants joined them. It was to the accompaniment of roaring flames behind, which made a rival glow to the sunset, that the party disappeared into the gloom of the trees. As they bent eastward under the skirts of the mountain the crackling and the glow died away, and presently, at a headland above a deep glen, Grayne halted. From far down in the muffled foothills to the south came the chatter of machine guns. + 

“That is the last word,” he said. “Lossberg is at Three Fountains and our defence is falling back to join us. I’m sorry. I’d got to like the old place.” + 

For hours they rode through the dark forest. There was no moon, and the speed was poor, for they guided themselves only by contact. The Indians who led the way had to move slowly to keep pace with the groping, jostling cavalcade behind. Barbara and Castor rode in the centre of the group, and, full of their own thoughts, spoke scarcely a word to each other, except of apology for a sudden jolt. The Gobernador had accompanied them without protest. He seemed to have no ear for the distant rat-tat of the machine guns of his friends. + 

About ten o’clock they halted to bivouac for the night. It was a hollow tucked between the knees of the mountain spurs. Some summer thunderstorm had once set the forest alight, and for acres beside the stream there was bare ground carpeted with moss and studded with the scarred stumps of trees. Half a dozen fires were soon burning, and supper was eaten from the saddlebags. Barbara had her sleeping-tent, but she ate with Castor beside one of the bivouacs. She noticed how clumsily he dismounted from his horse, and how stiffly he moved. This was not the life he knew, and he was no longer young. + 

It was a quiet night without a breath of wind, but chilling towards frost. The sky was ablaze with stars, which there in the open gave light enough to show the dim silhouettes of the overhanging hills. As the two sat side by side in the firelight, Castor smoking his pipe, his figure hunched in that position peculiar to townsmen who try to reproduce in the wilds the comfort of a chair, the girl realised that something had happened. Hitherto she had felt it a duty to entertain the Gobernador, making conversation as one does with a stranger. Now she found that there was no such need. She could be silent without impoliteness. He had become her friend, as he had been Janet’s, a member of her world, whose thoughts she could instinctively discern, and who could anticipate her own. + 

For the last days she had been slipping dangerously near the edge of her self-control. Janet’s danger seemed only a part of the general crumbling of life. She had the sensation of walking on quicksands, with a thin crust between her and unspeakable things. But the ride in the forest⁠—movement, even if it were towards the unknown and the darkness⁠—had put vigour again into her blood, and now in this great hollow hand of the mountains, under a blazing canopy of stars, she felt an irrational hope. She turned to her companion, who had let his head sink back against the flaps of his saddle and was staring upwards. + 

“I thought the Courts of the Morning was a refuge,” she said, “but I think it must have been also a prison. I feel freer now.⁠ ⁠… I feel nearer Janet.” + 

He did not answer. Then he asked: + 

“Where were you brought up, Miss Dasent? What kind of life have you had? You can’t be more than twenty-one or twenty-two.” + 

“I am twenty-four,” she said. She began to tell him of her childhood, for it comforted her to talk. She spoke of a rambling country-house high up in the South Carolina piedmont, with the blue, forested hills behind; of a childhood among old coloured servants; of winter visits to the Florida shores; of barbecues each autumn for the mountain folk; of spring gallops among upland meadows or on the carpeted trails in the pinewoods; of days with a bobbery pack of hounds in difficult pockety country. She found herself speaking easily and naturally as if to an old friend. Her school days in Charleston, her first visits to Washington and New York, her first crossing of the Atlantic⁠—she made a pleasant picture of it all as stages in a progressive happiness. + 

“Why do you want to hear this?” she asked at length. “It is so different a world from yours⁠—so very humble.” + 

“It is a different world⁠—yes. I can judge one thing about you. You have never known fear. No man or woman or animal has ever made you afraid.” + 

She laughed. “How preposterous! I have been often terribly afraid.” + 

“No. You have never met a fear which you were not ready to face. You are brave by instinct, but perhaps you have not been tested. When you meet a fear which draws the blood from your heart and brain and the vigour from your nerves and still keep your face to it⁠—that is the test.” + 

“Have you known such a fear?” she asked. + 

“I? How could I? You cannot fear what you despise. I have been too unhappily fortunate in life. I began with advantages. I was educated by my father, who was an embittered genius. I inherited very young a great fortune.⁠ ⁠… I was born in Austria, and therefore had no real country. Even before the war Austria was a conglomerate, not a people.⁠ ⁠… I was brought up to despise the world, but I did not learn the lesson fully, for I excepted myself. I found that I was cleverer than other people, and that my brains enabled me to use those others. How could I ever be afraid of what I could use? For twenty years I have watched a world which I despised as futile, and pulled the strings of its folly. Some of those years were occupied by war. I took no apparent part in the war, for I had no fatherland, but I caught fish in its troubled waters. I evolved a philosophy, but I have never lied to myself, and I knew that I cared for that creed only because it flattered my egotism. I understood humanity well enough to play on its foibles. I thought that it was all foibles, save for one or two people like myself in each generation. I wanted to adjust the world so that it would be in the hands of this select few. Oh, I was supremely confident. I believed in the intellect, and mine told me that I was right. I even cultivated a dislike of the things and the people that were opposed to my creed. But there was no passion in my dislike⁠—there is no passion in contempt, just as there is no fear. I have never been afraid⁠—how could I, when I saw mankind like little ants running about on my errands? Therefore my courage has never been tried. But there is this difference between us⁠—I know that you are brave, and I do not think that I am.” + 

“What nonsense!” Barbara exclaimed. “You have amazing fortitude. Look how you have behaved since we carried you off.” + 

“That was not fortitude, it was bewilderment. I have been beginning to wonder, to puzzle. I have never before been puzzled in my life. I have lost my contempt.” + 

“That is a good thing,” and she smiled. “My father had me taught Latin and I remember what an old bishop of the Middle Ages said. He said that the advancing stages in human wisdom were ‘spernere mundum, spernere sese, spernere nullum.’ ” + 

He lifted his head sharply. + 

“I have gone through the first stage,” he said. “I have despised the world. I think I have reached the second⁠—I am coming to despise myself⁠ ⁠… and I am afraid.” + 

The ride next day was in a difficult country, for it became necessary, in order to avoid the deep-cut ravines of torrents, to climb high up on the mountainside. The path was good, for it had been used incessantly for transport during the past months, but the weather was vile, for the southwest wind brought a storm of rain, and the party rode all day in an icy bath. The track ran with water like a millstream, the trees were too scattered to give protection against the slanting spears of rain, and in the thicker coverts a steady shower-bath descended from the canopy. + 

Till the late afternoon the downpour continued, and what with slipping and plunging horses, water at every ford swirling to the riders’ boots, and the relentless soaking cataracts of rain, there was no bodily comfort that day. Barbara, herself lithe and active as a boy, saw that the Gobernador bore the labour ill, and was very near the edge of his strength. He managed his horse clumsily, and often in the steeper places she took his bridle. At one of the fords it was only by a vigorous haul that she saved him from a ducking. + 

Before evening the rain ceased, the sun came out, and in that high cold place there was no steamy mist, only a tonic smell of wet mountain soil and a jewelling of every leaf and herb. The encampment at dusk was in a stony trough, where a shelf of rock made a deep overhang, and tents could be set up under it as under a roof. Barbara assisted the Gobernador to dismount, and so weary was he that he almost fell into her arms. She attended herself to his comfort, stripped off his soaking boots and blanket-coat, ransacked his valise for dry clothes, compounded with the assistance of Roger Grayne a merciless cocktail, and made his bed in a dry nook of rock not too far from the warmth of the fire. She found him curiously helpless. He was too weary to protest, and had as little knowledge of how to look after himself as a recruit on his first day’s service. + 

After supper he seemed to recover. A woman who has nursed a man feels a protective interest in him, and Barbara found a new ease in talking to him. How had she ever looked on one so helpless as a great criminal! She dropped the formal “Excellency” with which she had been in the habit of addressing him. She had made him get into his sleeping-bag at once, and eat his supper among a pile of coverings. Now he reclined like an ancient Roman at table, the great fire lighting up the rocky antrum and silhouetting against the darkness his noble head and brows and the nose like a ship’s prow. + 

“Do you know,” he said, “I have hardly ever in my life endured bodily discomfort or pain? I have never been ill. I know so little of what is in the world.” + 

He seemed to have divined the girl’s thoughts. He had used human beings as pawns, careless of their sufferings. She thought that Janet was right⁠—that he had a short-range imagination. That was his defence. His cruelties had been blindness, rather than purposeful crime. She looked on him with a kindlier eye. + 

Then they spoke⁠—a sure proof of intimacy⁠—of their friends. Grayne sat with them for a little, and then went off on a tour of inspection. As he went, Castor’s eyes followed him. “That’s a good boy! You have many like him?” + 

“Plenty. America produces them in bulk.” + 

“And Britain. A different type, but the same in essentials. But they are only company officers⁠—at the best, perhaps, brigadiers. It is commanders-in-chief that we need.” + 

“There is Lord Clanroyden,” said the girl. + 

“Perhaps. I am not sure. He has most of the gifts, but has he ever faced fear⁠—faced it, and gone through to the other side? His eye is that of a leader, but I do not see in it the depths of the man who has passed the ultimate test.” + 

“You are an acute observer,” she said. + 

“I am becoming one,” and he smiled. “I have observed something else.⁠ ⁠… If it is a liberty, I ask forgiveness.⁠ ⁠… I have noted that when he was near you you moved away, as if you shrank from too near a contact. A little nervous shiver ran over you. That does not mean dislike. I think it means that you are in love with him, for even when you moved away your eyes were happy.” + 

“I think you are very wise,” she said quietly. “But Lord Clanroyden will never have a thought for any woman.⁠ ⁠… I am going to give you a hot drink, and then you must sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day.” + 

Next day they came out of the foothills on to a high shelf of ground, under the peaks called the Spanish Ladies. By midday they reached Magdalena, which, since Fort Castor and Loa had gone, was now Escrick’s only base. They were here at a lower elevation, and in ordinary savannah, greening already and scented with the curious nut-like odour of a mountain spring. The cantonments, hidden in a fold of ground, could be recognised from afar by the wireless poles. Magdalena was still secure, and apparently unknown to the enemy, whose nearest post was a hundred miles distant. But the place was under strict discipline, and it was through two lines of sentries that they made their way into the dusty circle of huts and horse-lines. + 

Escrick himself was there, and he and Grayne had much to discuss, so Barbara and the Gobernador lunched alone in the General’s hut. The latter had lost his air of fatigue and bewilderment. His eyes scanned sharply every detail of the place, as though it was an environment, still unfamiliar, with which it was his business to become acquainted. + 

“These people are losing,” he told Barbara. “I feel it in the air. I felt it a week ago in the Courts of the Morning. Just at present things are going badly for us.” + 

But there was neither disappointment nor elation in his tone. He spoke briskly, as if he had come to some decision. Later, when Escrick and Grayne joined them, it was he who directed the conversation. + 

“Speak to me frankly, General,” he said. “I am your commander-in-chief in name. I want an exact statement of the situation as you see it.” + 

Escrick had still his quiet, sleepy manner. His blue eyes were as placid as ever, and his voice had its soft drawl. But he looked an older man, and his brick-red face had been fined down and sharpened. + 

“Things aren’t so bad, sir. I would say they were going on according to plan, if that phrase hadn’t got so blown upon. The loss of Loa don’t signify, and we always realised that sooner or later we’d be shoved out of the Courts of the Morning.” + 

“It will be the turn of this place next.” + 

“I think not. Lossberg hasn’t got on to the track of Magdalena. It will be Pacheco’s turn first. He must know about Pacheco.” + 

“Well, Pacheco be it! If he takes Pacheco, what will you do?” + 

“Shift somewhere else. It’s a big country, and we aren’t tied down to any lines of communication.” + 

“But that can’t go on forever. Where are you going to get your supplies⁠—your munitions and your food?” + 

“From Lossberg. We’ve been pretty lucky so far.” + 

“The railway? How is that working?” + 

“So-so. We worry it a bit, but he’s got the best part of a division on it now, and he’s building blockhouses. The Chief isn’t finding it so easy to keep it crippled.” + 

“And the Mines?” + 

“That’s what you might call the main front. We have a scrap there every second day. And of course we’re busy over the whole country. We don’t give Lossberg time to sit down and think.” + 

“General, answer me one question.” The Gobernador’s face and voice had a sudden authority which Barbara had never observed before. He seemed to be again the chairman presiding at a council of the Gran Seco administration. “Are you certain that Lossberg is not winning?” + 

Escrick looked his questioner full in the face. “He ain’t winning. But, if you press me, our side ain’t winning either.” + 

“Then he is winning. He has only to maintain himself and he is bound to win in the end. And that end is not very far distant. I should like to see your returns of supplies. Remember, I am a business man, and this is my subject.” + 

Papers were sent for, and the Gobernador pored over them, making calculations with a pencil. Then he asked for a map, and a big one was spread out for him on a table. + 

“You are losing,” he said at last. “If I made a graph of the position your line would be going down and Lossberg’s slowly rising. You know that without my telling you. In rations and ammunition you have begun these last weeks to give out more than you take in. That can only have one end.” + 

Escrick nodded. “Seems so,” he said dryly. + 

“It was bound to happen. Our only chance was to delay its happening till we had made Lossberg think it could never happen. We were striking at his nerves, and the nerves of Olifa. But we have failed. Lossberg isn’t rattled one bit. He is really rather comfortable. He is planted at the Gran Seco city and at the Mines. He is getting up his stuff by the railway, and he is going to get it quite easily when his blockhouses are completed. He has sufficient reserve of vitality to take Loa and drive us out of the Courts of the Morning. Presently he will drive us out of Pacheco and Magdalena. He won’t get tired of the game and call on the President of Olifa to make peace. He is quite cheerful. Shall I tell you what will happen next?” + 

He leaned forward, till his lean face was close to Escrick’s. + 

“He is going to get the Mines started. At half-power or quarter-power, no doubt, but still started. He will find labour among the concentrados or he will import it. Soon there will be freight-trains running to Olifa as before. And we shall be driven back bit by bit into the mountains, getting fewer every day.” + 

“We’ve had mighty small losses so far,” said Escrick. + 

“They will come⁠—never fear. From starvation, if not from bullets. Make no mistake, they will come. Do you know what we are now, General Escrick? A rebellion on the defensive, and that is the feeblest thing known to history.” + 

The Gobernador spoke with a passion that silenced his hearers. There was no exultation in his voice; rather it seemed to be bitter with reproach and disappointment. + 

Then Grayne spoke. + 

“We’re keeping our end up in one branch,” he said. “The air. Bobby Latimer got two enemy planes yesterday. We’ve got the whip hand of them there all right. We can fly anywhere we like in this darned country, and if we weren’t short of bombs we could mess up things considerable for old Lossberg.” + 

Then Barbara asked a question which had been on her lips since the moment she arrived. She did not expect an answer, for Sir Archie’s objective had been Pacheco and Janet’s kidnapping had naturally not been made public in the army. + 

“Have you heard anything of Sir Archibald Roylance?” she asked. + 

Escrick shook his head. + 

“He came here five days back. I wasn’t here, but he saw Lowson, my Chief of Intelligence. He was going to General Peters and he left a message that he was flying close to the mountains. He never turned up at Pacheco, and our planes have been all over the ground and can’t find any trace of him.” + 

A small cry was wrung from Barbara’s lips. The Gobernador got to his feet and walked to the door. The fatigue of yesterday had returned to him and was shown in his cramped movements, but there was no weariness in his voice and eyes. + 

“Where is Lord Clanroyden?” he asked. + 

“At Pacheco. General Peters is having the heavy end just at present. Yesterday he had quite a show at the Universum.” + 

“Telegraph to him that I am coming. Can you send Miss Dasent and myself by air?” + 

“Sure. One of Captain Latimer’s men is going there this afternoon, for we’re concentrating for another try at the railway.⁠ ⁠… But hadn’t you better stay here, sir? Pacheco soon won’t be too safe for civilians.” + 

The Gobernador smiled. “I suppose I am a civilian, but I’m not thinking about safety. I’m going to Lord Clanroyden to help him to make peace.” + 

Escrick whistled softly. + 

“You won’t succeed, sir. From what you have said, peace must mean surrender, and we’re not likely to be in the mood for that. Lossberg may drive us up into the snowfields, but devil a man of us will cry ‘Kamerad!’ ” + 

The Gobernador’s smile broadened till he looked almost cheerful. + 

“I know, I know,” he said. “Nevertheless I hope to make peace.” + 

In the late afternoon, in a world of soft airs and a warm stillness, Barbara and Castor flew over the barrens of the Tierra Caliente. Thirty miles off on their left the great mountains flamed in the setting sun, and in the twilight they saw before them the line of steep cliffs which ran at right angles to the main range and made the southern wall of the Gran Seco. A little short of it they swerved eastward into the secluded valley of Pacheco. + 

Sandy was sitting in his hut with his elbows on a deal table, studying by the light of two candles a paper which lay before him. An aide-de-camp brought him a message which made him rise to his feet and stare blinkingly at the door. + 

The Gobernador stood before him, bent a little like a man whose every limb aches with stiffness. He did not hold out his hand. + 

“Lord Clanroyden,” he said, “I have come to take over the command with which you honoured me some time ago.” + 

XII + 

Barbara interposed. She ran forward and seized Sandy’s hand. + 

“Janet!” she cried. “Have you any news of Janet?” + 

Sandy stood holding her hands, his face a study in perplexity. + 

“I don’t know,” he said. “I have just had this letter from Luis. He has disappeared for the last eight days.⁠ ⁠… Sit down, please, all of you. I’m very glad to see you. Tommy, get seats, and get a lamp of some kind.⁠ ⁠… You’ll want food. Tell them at the mess.⁠ ⁠… Here is Luis’s letter, brought by an Indian half an hour ago. I’m hanged if I know what to make of it.” + 

The letter was an oblong of rough paper, which had been rolled inside a hollow stem. It might have been torn from a sketching-block. The message had been written with an indelible pencil, and was a good deal blurred. It ran: + 

For C.-in-C. Most urgent. Do not worry about the lady. Patrol by air line N22a to P13c⁠—also by mounted patrols⁠—let no man pass west or north. Send troop without fail on receipt of this up Cabalpas valley to camp foot of third left-hand tributary counting from Maximoras. From camp they should patrol in arc N. N. E. to E. Do not leave Pacheco but await me. L. de M. + 

Barbara almost snatched the paper from him. + 

“It is from Don Luis. He has found Janet. She must be safe, for he tells us not to worry. But what does the rest mean?” + 

The aide-de-camp had brought a big paraffin lamp which illumined the great map on the wall. + 

“One thing we can settle,” Sandy said. “Luis is referring to our map squares.” He held the lamp high. “The line from N22a to P13c⁠—there it is,” and he drew a blue pencil along it. “Look. It is the chord of an arc which covers all the southeast angle of the Gran Seco. See, Excellency, it stretches from north of the entry to the País de Venenos right down to the southern wall. Well, that’s simple.” + 

He rang a bell and gave certain orders. “We shall want most of our planes for the job, and the railway raid tomorrow must be countermanded. It’s a longish stretch of country, so we will begin at dawn. The mounted patrols can start tonight.⁠ ⁠… Now for the rest of it.” He scribbled two words on a piece of paper. “Take this to Jeffries and get him to ask his Indian scouts about them. Send me the man who knows where Cabalpas and Maximoras are.” + 

When the aide-de-camp had gone he turned to the Gobernador. + 

“You are in command, sir. How do you read this message?” + 

“Apparently Don Luis de Marzaniga has found Lady Roylance. I hope she is safe, but I do not know. Perhaps he only wants to dissuade us from looking for her because he has other things for us to do. There are people in the mountains whom he wants to keep there. We can assume, I think, that these are Lady Roylance’s captors. They must be the Conquistadors and their followers. But why does he want to keep them bottled up? Perhaps he has a plan for taking them all prisoners at once, and does not wish them to scatter.” + 

Sandy rubbed his chin. + 

“I think there must be more in it than that,” he said. “To rescue Janet is desperately important. And Archie! Where in Heaven has poor old Archie got to? He has flown out of creation somewhere between here and Magdalena. But it doesn’t greatly matter what happens to the Conquistadors. To hang them all in a bunch won’t bring us nearer winning this war. I wish Luis hadn’t been so cryptic. Perhaps he was having a hustled time when he scribbled this letter. No, we could find out nothing from the messenger. He was a friendly Indian of the foothills, and could only tell us that it had been passed on to him from a friend with a word which he was bound to obey. It may have gone through twenty hands before it reached us.” + 

“But Luis himself will soon be here to explain,” said Barbara. + 

“But when? And there may be a good deal to do before that.” + 

There was a knock at the door, and the aide-de-camp returned accompanied by a tall Indian, whose belt of tiger-cat skins proclaimed a hunter. + 

“Colonel Jeffries says that this is the best of his scouts, sir. He knows where the places are.” + 

Sandy looked hard at the man. “I have seen you before,” he said in Spanish. “You were with Don Luis de Marzaniga and myself when he visited the País de Venenos.” + 

The Indian stood stiffly to attention. “I was with you,” he said. “I have known the Señor Luis since he was a child. What do you seek of me, my lord?” + 

“Where is Maximoras?” + 

“It is the place which we in our tongue call Hatuelpec, where once long ago was a great city. In six hours’ riding from Pacheco towards the sunrise, you will reach a river under the mountain called the Blue Wolf. Into that river enters another flowing from the sunrise, and up that river in three hours you will reach a little plain full of great stones. That place is Hatuelpec, which you call Maximoras.” + 

Sandy traced the route on the map. It led him into country marked only by vague contours of mountains, as blank as the heart of Africa in maps of a century ago. + 

“And Cabalpas?” + 

The man corrected him. “The name is Catalpas⁠—or as we say Arifua. It is the little river which flows by Hatuelpec.” + 

“Do you know the third tributary on the left hand above Maximoras?” + 

The Indian considered, and then a strange look came into his face. “I know the stream. It is the way to⁠—” He stopped. “It is the way to a place which we call Iliyabrutla, which means the Thrones of the King.” + 

“You have been there?” + 

“No, my lord, nor any of my race. It is a place accursed and the abode of devils.” + 

“You can guide a party to the Catalpas valley?” + 

“Beyond doubt. But the road is not easy, for it is among the broken places of the hills. It is a journey of twelve hours for good horses.” + 

Sandy turned to the aide-de-camp. “My compliments to General Peters and ask him to have ready a patrol of fifty picked troopers to start in an hour’s time. They will take rations for three days. This man will be their guide. I suggest that Captain Rivero is put in command.” Then to the Indian: “Go, brother, and God be with you. You will show the way to Maximoras.” + 

“El Obro commands.” The man saluted and went. + 

An orderly announced dinner, and they crossed the square to the mess-hut. + 

“I have taken to dining alone,” Sandy announced. “Tonight there will only be we three. I can’t offer you much in the way of food, for we’re short of what we used to call hospital comforts. We’re getting very near to the ‘hog and hominy’ of your ancestors, Miss Barbara.” + 

He spoke lightly and cheerfully, but as Barbara looked at him across the rough table she noticed a profound change. Before, she had seen him worn to the last limits of his physical strength, but there had always remained a certain lift and effervescence of spirit. Now, though his face was less haggard than she had seen it, it was also less vital. His eye had dulled, and there were lines of strain on his forehead and a tightness of suffering about his mouth. He sat, too, listlessly in his chair, like a man oppressed with a great weariness. He looked up suddenly and caught her eye and seemed to brace himself. + 

“We have some hope at last⁠—about Janet,” she said. + 

“A shred. A week ago it would have given me a new tack of life, but now I seem to have got beyond hoping. The thing has tortured me so much that the ache is dull.” + 

The girl looked at him and saw an anxiety deeper even than her own. Instinctively she tried to comfort. + 

“But it wasn’t your blame. It was ours⁠—up in the Courts of the Morning. We kept too slack a watch.” + 

“The whole blame was mine. This war was made by me⁠—by your uncle partly, but mainly by me. I seem to be fated to wreck the things I care about.” + 

“That is the fate of all of us.” The Gobernador had hardly spoken up till now. “That is also my fate. I have made a great industry, and now I am destroying it. I have become a friend of Lady Roylance, and she is in danger from that which I have created. I have had dreams, and now I am trampling on them.” + 

The words seemed to touch a spring in Sandy which released a new vigour. His figure lost its listlessness, he sat upright, and into his eye came something of the old fire. + 

“You mean that? By God, then we cannot be beaten. We have won the big stake.” + 

“No. You are wrong. We have still to win it. Supposing I died tonight, in what way would you be better off? Lossberg will wear down your resistance⁠—in time, and his methods will not be gentle. The republic of Olifa will not be merciful conquerors. The old Gran Seco will be restored⁠—without its Gobernador⁠—and the people of the Tierra Caliente will be slaves again. Olifa will faithfully copy my methods, but without⁠—if I may say so⁠—my intelligence. You may in the end get fair terms for most of your white officers, since they are valuable for the industry, but you will get no terms for the rank and file. Therefore I say that whatever may become of me, you have not yet begun to win. At present you are losing with terrible speed. Can you deny it?” + 

“We can never lose,” said Sandy. “Assume the worst⁠—assume that we are broken up like a covey of partridges and forced in bands into the mountains. We can still make the Gran Seco a hell for any Olifa administration. They may start the Mines, but they’ll only limp along. They must come to terms with us⁠ ⁠…” + 

Castor broke in. “Forgive me, Lord Clanroyden, but you do not understand the mind of such a state as Olifa. She has been peaceful and prosperous for a time, but it is not long since she had Indian wars grumbling all along her borders. She is accustomed to a skin-deep civilisation. Lossberg will enjoy the task of policing this territory, and Olifa will run the Mines again and not grumble at the decline in her profits. Remember, she has solid reserves which I have given her.⁠ ⁠… We must be candid with each other, if I am to accept the command with which you have honoured me.” + 

Sandy fixed his eyes on the other’s face. + 

“You have changed your views, Excellency. I congratulate you profoundly. But I am curious to know just why.” + 

Castor smiled. “For once in my life I can give no reason⁠—no logical reason. Put it that I am a little weary of my old self. Say that I lived in a rather dismal world and see the door ajar which leads to a brighter one. Put it anyway you like.⁠ ⁠… I am here to help you to win this war, because victory will benefit me⁠—oh yes, enormously.⁠ ⁠… I have not lost my ambitions, but they have a slightly different orientation today.⁠ ⁠… Now let us talk business.” + 

The door opened and a new figure entered⁠—a big man in a most disreputable suit of khaki. He had a full, rather heavy face, which had been burned to something very like the colour of his clothes. There was dust in his hair, and dust rimmed his large placid eyes. + 

“Say, this is a nice party,” he said in a voice cracked with thirst. “Why, Babs child, I heard you were here.⁠ ⁠… I’m mighty glad to see you so blooming. And Mr. Castor, too.⁠ ⁠… But I can’t talk till somebody gives me a drink, for my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth, and I’ve gotten a hunger like nothing on earth.” + 

A mess-servant brought him a long drink of lime-juice and sparklets, and the big man took his place at the table between Sandy and Barbara. He raised his tumbler to the Gobernador. + 

“I suppose,” said the latter, “that I must forget Señor Rosas the Mexican and make the acquaintance of Mr. John S. Blenkiron the American.” + 

“That’s so. So good an American that he poisons himself with soft drinks ever since his country went dry.” + 

“I have told Lord Clanroyden that I have come here to take the command which he offered me.” + 

The big man looked steadily at him, and his quiet ruminant eyes seemed suddenly to become a searchlight. They saw something which he approved, for he bounded to his feet. + 

“That’s fine. I’m proud to be working again with my old chief. We’ll shake on that,” and he held out a mighty fist. + 

“You’ve come from the Mines?” Sandy asked. “How are things going there?” + 

“So-so. The enemy’s getting cunning up that way. He’s extending his radius of defence and making a very pretty corral, with as much barbed wire as the Hindenburg Line. Our boys are terrible short of rifle ammunition, and we’re cleaned out of bombs. Looks like we’ll have to let up for a day or two, and that will give him a cruel chance to pick up.” + 

Sandy gave him a short account of Luis’s message and the action he had taken upon it. Blenkiron received the news with a furious interest. + 

“He tells us not to worry about Lady Roylance? Well, I guess he means she’s not going to come to any harm, for Luis thought the world of her. And he has got that bunch of buckaroos located and wants to keep them tight. He’s right there, for this world won’t ever be a healthy place again till that cesspool is drained. We’ve got to put that job through before we can attend to other business.” + 

“And then?” Castor asked. “Mr. Blenkiron, just before you arrived I was giving Lord Clanroyden my view of the situation. We cannot afford to deceive ourselves. This rebellion was a gamble, but at the start the odds were not too desperate. You had certain assets⁠—a hidden base, a very mobile army, and a special knowledge of the country. Very wisely you did not try to meet Lossberg with his own weapons. Your aim was to fight a war without bloodshed, or as nearly as possible without it, and to let him waste his highly scientific blows on empty air. That was your strategy, and it was intelligent. Your hope was that after a little he would grow weary of it, and that Olifa would grow weary, and that you could make peace pretty much on your own terms. That also was intelligent. You were aiming directly at the morale of Olifa, and it is of course by striking at the morale of the enemy that wars are won. Have I put your views correctly?” + 

Blenkiron nodded. + 

“Well, it is clear that you are going to fail. You have fought a nearly bloodless war, your army is pretty well intact, but your supplies are running low. You have lost your secret base. You have failed to make Lossberg uncomfortable. His spirits are rising, and he is beginning to strike out quite boldly. He is rather enjoying himself, and fancies himself a conqueror. What are you going to do? To do nothing means that within a month you will be scattered among the mountains⁠—mere guerrilleros.” + 

No one spoke, and he went on. + 

“That mustn’t happen. We”⁠—and he emphasised the change of pronouns⁠—“we must still strike at the enemy’s morale, but we must change our methods. It is the republic of Olifa that matters. Hitherto we have been trying to weaken her morale by weakening Lossberg’s. That hasn’t worked⁠—so we must strike directly at the morale of Olifa.” + 

“How?” Blenkiron drawled. + 

“By carrying the war into Olifa. In the idiom of your country’s history, Miss Dasent, by crossing the Potomac.” + 

Blenkiron flung himself back in his chair. + 

“I recognise the old touch,” he said, beaming. “There speaks the Gobernador of the Gran Seco. It’s horse-sense, I don’t deny, but just how are we going to do it? We’re treed up here, like a possum. There’s no way to Olifa except by the railroad, and that Lossberg has gotten policed like Broadway.” + 

“True. But we have still the mastery of the air. You cannot send an army to Olifa, but you can send me.” + 

For an instant a shade of suspicion rested on Blenkiron’s face, but it soon vanished. + 

“I get you,” he said. “You always had that little Government in your side-pocket.” + 

But there was no response in Sandy’s puzzled eyes. + 

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Bobby Latimer can land you wherever you like in Olifa, but how would you be further forward?” + 

“I must be landed where I can get into touch at once with the Government. You see, Lord Clanroyden, that Government have for some years been my very obedient servants. They are not clever people, only cunning, and they are not very brave. I have what you call a moral ascendency over them. If I appear among them suddenly from the clouds I think I can impress them. I do not believe that they like the prospect of a long guerrilla war, and I can expound to them with some force the financial reasons for making peace. I will be literally truthful with them. I shall tell them that the revolt was not of my making, but a spontaneous eruption, in which I was entangled, but I shall tell them also that I am now a convinced partner.” + 

Sandy’s ringers drummed nervously on the table. + 

“I believe you are wrong. How much did the Olifa ministers like you, Excellency? They admired you, obeyed you, feared you, but they probably hated you. They are not clever men, as you justly observe⁠—it would be better for us if they were⁠—but they are vain as peacocks. And jealous, too, at the back of their heads. They are getting triumphant dispatches from Lossberg, and they are swelling with pride. They think they are winning on their own account, they believe that the Gran Seco will fall into their hands and that they will be able to confiscate the Mines. Then they will get, not the handsome share of the profits which you allowed them, but everything. Don’t tell me that they have any fears of not being able to run them without your assistance. Those gentry always believe they are heaven-born geniuses waiting for their chance.” + 

Castor’s face did not change. + 

“It is possible⁠—but I do not think so. I cannot believe that my personal ascendency over them is so brittle. Anyhow, I am prepared to try.” + 

“You realise the result of failure?” + 

“Yes. Lossberg will be entrenched in his authority. The value which its association with my name gives to our revolution will be gone. There may be trouble with foreign capitals.” + 

“And you yourself?” + 

“Oh, I shall be utterly discredited. I shall probably find myself in one of the Olifa prisons, which I understand have not shared in the general progressiveness of the country. There may even be a regrettable incident, for they will still fear me.” + 

“You are a brave man,” said Sandy. + 

“I don’t know. I have not been tested.” Castor looked towards Barbara, as if to remind her of their conversation. “But I see no other way. I should prefer to have an army behind me, but we cannot fly an army over a wall of mountains, and there is no pass.” + 

“You are wrong,” said Sandy. “There is a pass.” + 

Everyone stared at him⁠—Blenkiron with puzzled eyes, Castor with a strained attention, as if doubtful of the correctness of his hearing, Barbara with awakening hope. + 

“There is a pass⁠—a chain of passes⁠—a way from the Gran Seco to Olifa. Luis alone knows it, for it is an old secret of his family. That is how he came to the Gran Seco so often before the war. You”⁠—turning to Blenkiron⁠—“thought it was by an aeroplane with some hidden landing-place in the mountains. I knew the truth, but I was sworn to tell no one. I have travelled the road once with him. It ends at the head of the Vulpas valley. That is how we got up the horses to mount our troops. Luis has been doing a busy horse-trade for months.” + 

“But this alters everything,” Castor cried. “If we had thought of it before⁠—” + 

“I thought about it⁠—thought about it till my head ached. I always meant it to be my last card, and it would have been if things had gone better. If Lossberg had been getting pinched and worried, I meant to use this as the last straw⁠—to leave Escrick and Peters to watch him, and to lead a picked mounted force through the passes up to the gates of Olifa. I calculated that that would do the trick. But⁠—but⁠—now⁠—I don’t see how it is going to work.” + 

He stopped and looked round the table. In each face, as his eyes rested on it, even in Castor’s, the excitement seemed to die down. + 

“Because,” he went on, “if Olifa is confident and has reasons for confidence, such a hussar-ride would have no effect. She has still a part of her regular army left behind, and she has an enormous capacity for calling up reserves. We should have the people against us, and they would rise up at our backs and cut us off. We should achieve nothing, and even if we managed to hack our way out, where should we be? Back in the Gran Seco, with the game going hard against us.” + 

He turned to Castor. + 

“Do you see any answer to that?” he asked. + 

“I am considering.⁠ ⁠… I will tell you presently.” + 

“Do you?” he demanded of Blenkiron. + 

“Not just right away. I’m rather of your way of thinking. It isn’t much good crossing the Potomac unless you can reckon on help from Maryland or Pennsylvania.” + 

Suddenly Barbara spoke⁠—eagerly⁠—stammeringly. + 

“I think I understand Don Luis’s letter. The Conquistadors have found a sanctuary in the mountains. Why does he want none of them to get out? To keep them together and deal with them all at once? Perhaps, but I think he has another reason. He does not want any message carried to General Lossberg. What kind of message? Not a prayer for relief, for at present no one is troubling them. It must be a message of information, vital information. What could that be? Only that they have found the road through the mountains from the Gran Seco to Olifa, and they want to warn him so that he may prevent our taking it.” + 

“Good for you, Babs,” said Blenkiron. “I guess she’s right, gentlemen. But it gets us no further.” + 

“Wait a moment,” said Sandy. “There may be something in it. The message is from Luis, who alone knows the passes. He evidently thinks these passes are our trump card, or he wouldn’t be so keen to keep them open for us. Luis knows Olifa better than anyone of us here. He knows it up to date, which none of us do, for he has been living with one foot there and one in the Gran Seco. He’s a mysterious beggar, for he asked not to be given any responsible job⁠—said he had other very important things to attend to. It looks as if Luis believed that there was a chance of doing something by a flank movement on Olifa.” + 

There was a knock at the door and it opened to admit a young staff-officer. + 

“I apologise for intruding, sir,” he said, “but Colonel Jeffries thinks it important. The patrols have just brought in a prisoner. He was on horseback, accompanied by an Indian servant, and he seems pretty well dead to the world. Where he came from we haven’t a notion, but he asked to see you at once⁠—said it was very urgent. He is not armed and he’s a funny little rag of a man. He talks English perfectly, and looks like a gentleman. Says his name is Alejandro Gedd.” + 

Blenkiron shouted. “Why, it’s the British vice-consul. A good little citizen and a great pal of Wilbur. Let’s have him in at once and feed him. What in thunder has brought him here? You’d as soon expect to see a canary-bird in Labrador.” + 

Five minutes later the staff-officer ushered in the remains of the best-appointed dweller in the city of Olifa. Gone were the trim garments, the ribboned eyeglass, the air of being always freshly barbered. Don Alejandro’s breeches and jacket were stained and torn, spectacles had replaced his monocle, he had a week’s beard on his chin, his eyes were hollow with fatigue, and his dark cheeks had been burned almost black. He walked painfully as if from saddle-stiffness, and he was clearly aching in every bone. But at the sight of the company he tried to straighten himself, and he made an effort to bow to Barbara. + 

Blenkiron almost swung him off his feet and settled him in a chair. “Bring food,” he shouted to the mess-waiter. “Whatever you’ve got, and also any hard drinks you can raise. Sandy, have you any champagne? We’re mighty glad to welcome you, Don Alejandro, but don’t say a word till you’ve got something under your belt.” + 

A cocktail restored the little man to speech. He looked curiously at Castor, and addressed Sandy. + 

“Where is Luis de Marzaniga?” he asked. “He told me to meet him here. I left Charcillo four days ago.” + 

“How have you come?” + 

“Through the passes. I had one of Luis’s guides, but it’s a fatiguing journey and terribly cold. I apologise for my appearance, but I thought it best to report at once. I shall be glad of a meal, for I miscalculated and finished my food this morning at breakfast. But first I should like a word with Luis.” + 

“He is not here, but he is coming soon. We have no secrets among ourselves, Don Alejandro. You see before you the Commander-in-Chief and his Chief of Staff. You can speak freely.” + 

“I only came to report to Luis. It is rather a long story and I shall have to refer to maps and papers. I came to explain to him the exact position at the moment of our Olifa revolution.” + 

There was a complete silence. Blenkiron poured out a half-tumblerful of champagne and handed it to the stranger. He gulped it down and it seemed to send new blood through his body. + 

“What about your Olifa revolution?” Blenkiron asked in a queer tone. + 

“It’s going famously.” Don Alejandro’s voice had lost its flatness. “Going like a fire on the savannah. When Luis and I laid down our lines three years ago, we never thought to have a chance like this. We have all of what you call the gentry behind us, and the haciendados can turn out anything between eight and ten thousand mounted men. Also we have a big movement among the workmen in Alcorta and Cardanio, and we have the train laid in Olifa itself and only waiting for the spark. But the thing’s ripe now and we can’t keep it waiting much longer. We don’t want to show our hand by any premature explosion.” + 

Don Alejandro was surprised at the reception of his words. He looked around the table and saw four faces in which delight still struggled vainly with stupefaction. Also there was complete silence. + 

Then Blenkiron broke it. + 

“Luis certainly knew what he was doing when he sent that message. We’ll have an army back of us in our interview with the Excelentísimo. I guess we’ll get some help from Maryland when we cross the Potomac.” + 

XIII + 

Janet woke with a start from her uneasy sleep. Her nights had been troubled of late, and she was accustomed to waking with a start. + 

The darkness was very thick and close around her, but it was not the closeness of a narrow room. There was a free draught of air and a sense of space, which suggested that she was under the bare vault of heaven. And yet the faint odour was not of the natural world, but of man’s handiwork⁠—hewn stone, and the dust of hewn stone, the smell of a place roofed and enclosed. + 

She lit the candle beside her mattress. It scarcely flickered when she lit it, though there was a sound of wind high up in the dark above her. She told herself that here she was safe, safe at any rate till the morning. Every night she came here, and the narrow entrance was blocked by a pile of cut stones which fitted as closely as a door. When she was first introduced to these sleeping-quarters she had been in a terror of loneliness and anticipation. And then she had realised that this was a merciful provision, that she had at any rate the hours of night to herself, and that not till the sun rose again and the blocks were removed would she have to face the true burden of captivity. Here in this vast dark place, like the inside of a mountain, she was for the moment free. + 

She tried to compose herself to sleep again, for she knew that she needed all her physical and nervous strength for the strain of a new day. But she could not stop her mind from racing. She counted the days she had been a prisoner⁠—seven days, an inconsiderable week, which would have passed too soon in her normal happy life. Now in the retrospect it seemed to lengthen into an eternity. It was only by an effort that she could recall the details of her first coming⁠—the dizzy journey half in the clouds; the Gran Seco like a cup below her brimming with the morning sunlight; the serpentine course among the valleys of the high hills; the blue lake on which the seaplane had alighted; the march with her pilot in the tangled glens through a long day of heat and misery, among strange birds and insects and creepers like the clutching fingers of ghosts; the meeting with a patrol of his allies⁠—the exquisite Pasquali, a man named Molinoff, and four strange Indians with red ponchos; the coming at last into a valley full of stones built in a circle around a huge rotunda. The jungle had not penetrated one inch into this dead city, for the lush vegetation stopped as if edged by a gardener, and the silent avenues were floored with fine white dust, and the walls were so polished and impenetrable that there was no crevice for a blade of grass. Here she had found bivouac fires and evil faces, faces which to her tired eyes were like the demons of a nightmare. They had given her food, and had been civil enough. D’Ingraville’s manners during that awful day had been punctilious, and the men who received her had shown a cold and level politeness. They meant no ill to her⁠—at least for the moment; their careful provision for her safety was proof of it; and when after some fluttering hours in the darkness of the first night she understood this, she had a momentary access of courage. + 

The following day she had realised her position more fully. She was a hostage, to be protected as such, a card when the time arrived to be ruthlessly played. She was given an Indian servant, who brought her water and towels, and her meals when she chose to feed alone. Otherwise she was welcome to sit with her captors, at least with one section of them. For she soon discovered that there were two groups in the camp. One was composed of men of the D’Ingraville type, who in dress and speech and manners were gentlemen. These she realised were the Conquistadors, of whom she had heard so much, and even in her loneliness and fear she could not repress her interest in them.⁠ ⁠… Some of the names she had known before. There was Lariarty, who had been at school with Sandy, and Larbert, whom she believed she had danced with at a Perth ball, and who had once been engaged to a distant cousin. Romanes, too, Cyril Romanes⁠—she had known his name as a noted figure in the hunting-field and a polo-player of worldwide fame. The other names were new to her, Calvo, and Suvorin, and Pasquali, and Seminov, and Laringetti, and Duclos-Mazarin, and Glorian. They were of every physical type⁠—D’Ingraville slim and fair with a pointed beard and a faun-like head; Suvorin, tall, bony, with a skin like old parchment, and hair as light as an albino; Calvo, short and fat; Pasquali, dark, elegant, and hook-nosed; Lariarty with full, well-cut features and a fine brow; Larbert built on the scale of an athlete; Romanes with his neat light-cavalry figure. But all had something in common⁠—the pallor of their faces, their small, considered gestures, and the opaqueness of their eyes. + 

The other group was of different clay. They were of the type of the four who had carried her off, men whose character showed brazenly in their faces. They fed apart from the Conquistadors, and, though they took their general orders from them, lived very much their own life. They gambled and quarrelled and occasionally fought, but since they had no liquor they were reasonably well behaved. They went off in twos and threes to hunt and prospect, and they always reported on their return to Romanes, who seemed to be in charge of the camp. There was little comfort to be had from looking at their faces, on which life had written too plainly its tale. But at any rate they could laugh. Sometimes into the frozen urbanity of the Conquistadors’ talk the distant sound of their guffaws came like an echo of life in a world of the dead. + 

She had to keep a tight hold on her nerves to prevent a breakdown, when she sat among her strange companions. Sandy had called the Gran Seco a “port of missing ships,” and these ships seemed to be phantoms, green with the weeds of some unholy sea. They were mechanically polite, rising when she entered and bowing like automata, helping her first to the monotonous fare; but their words to her were like the commonplaces of a French conversation book. She made many efforts to talk⁠—of music to Pasquali, of hunting to Romanes, of home and friends to Larbert and Lariarty, but she found a wall of opaque civility. Those pages were shut for them, and would not be reopened. She realised that the memories of these men were drugged and their emotions atrophied. But not their minds. Very soon she understood that their minds were furiously alive. + 

For, after the first day or two, while they did not talk to her they talked among themselves before her. There was no danger to be feared from her, for she was securely in their power. They spoke as sparingly as they ate, but bit by bit she gathered the import of their talk. They were desperately anxious about something, and presently it was clear to her that this something was Castor. He was the one anchor of these missing ships. Without him there was no safety in any port.⁠ ⁠… The girl, as she watched, grew amazed and awed at the extent of Castor’s power. He had plucked these derelicts out of the storm, and bestowed on them a dreadful simulacrum of peace. His drug had blotted out the past and given them a keen intellectual life in the present. Without him they were lost again, and all the power of their minds was devoted to winning him back.⁠ ⁠… Soon, from small pieces of evidence, she realised that the same thing was true of the ruffians of the Bodyguard. They, too, were loyal to their salt. The Gobernador had cast his spell over them, and they were resolved to return to his service. Both parties knew what the world did not know, that the Gobernador had been carried off, and was an unwilling figurehead of the rebellion. For Olifa they cared nothing at all, but they were determined that Castor should be set free, and the Castor regime restored. + 

On his account she was a hostage. She saw that they realised that Lossberg might win in the field, but that, even if the rebels were broken up and driven in commandos to the mountains, Castor might be carried with them. To retrieve him she was their chief instrument, their asset to bargain with. If bargaining was impossible, she knew that she need expect no mercy, for pity did not dwell among Conquistadors or Bodyguard.⁠ ⁠… Castor must be recovered, but it was also necessary that Lossberg should win, for if the rebellion succeeded there would be no hope of the restoration of the old life of the Gran Seco, and it was to this that they clung. + 

Janet gathered that they were satisfied with Lossberg’s progress. She had heard Magee, who had arrived the day before her, exulting over the news he brought. But she gathered also that the Conquistadors were anxious. On the day after her coming the four men who had carried her off, Dan Judson, Laschallas, Radin, and Trompetter, appeared in the camp. They had come by the seaplane, and apparently damaged it, for D’Ingraville cursed them with a cold bitterness. But others were expected, with messages from Lossberg, messages which must be brought by air, seeing that Sandy’s patrols lay between the two camps.⁠ ⁠… These messages did not come. No planes of any kind broke through the cordon and brought news. It was clear that the Conquistadors believed that the messengers had started, and had been shot down, and that their chief preoccupation was to establish communications again. + 

Suddenly their anxiety seemed to acquire a sharper edge. Molinoff, Carreras, and Carvilho were out daily, but not as hunters, and every night they returned, bone-weary men. Janet, who had already taken her bearings by the sun, had some rough idea of the position of the camp. She knew nothing about the direction of the País de Venenos, but she realised that she must be in the Cordilleras, in a loop of the main chain, where it split into lateral valleys, and that due west of her lay the Gran Seco and her friends. She noticed that the three men in their daily excursions always went south, as if they were looking for something. One night they did not return, and the following afternoon they staggered in drunken with weariness. But they had discovered something of importance, for Molinoff before he tasted food or drink sought out Romanes. + 

What the discovery was Janet could not learn, but at supper that evening her hosts seemed to be shaken out of their frozen composure. They talked⁠—for them⁠—rapidly, and in low tones. Occasionally one of them would look towards her to see if she was listening, and once Romanes seemed to be about to address her, but changed his mind. She pretended absorption in her food, but her ears were open and she caught one thing. They were determined to send a message to someone. That someone could only be Lossberg. They had learned that which might be vital to his success. + 

For the first time Janet was diverted from anxiety about herself and about Archie’s peace of mind. She saw dimly a chance for action. She could not escape, but could she not find out their secret⁠—hamper them in some way⁠—do something to relieve the dreadful tedium of her impotence? She lay awake half the night making futile plans. + 

Next day she had awoke with a new purpose in life. She observed one result of the previous evening’s discussion. The Indians in the camp were summoned to a council. These were Indians such as she had never seen before⁠—tall men, incredibly lean, with faces like skulls and luminous, feverish eyes. One of them seemed to be chosen for a mission, for he was given a letter by Romanes which he secreted on his body, and the next Janet saw was his red poncho disappearing into the forest.⁠ ⁠… He was not the only messenger. Magee, a wiry little ruffian who knew the Indian speech and acted as interpreter, was also entrusted with a message. To him no letter was given, but Romanes spoke to him long and carefully, drawing plans till he nodded his comprehension. Just before midday Magee also disappeared into the forest which clad the slopes to the westward. + 

There was a change in the manner of the Conquistadors. The necessity for haste seemed to have stripped off some of their civilised veneer. Before they had treated her with complete apathy; now she saw in their eyes suspicion, it might be malevolence. Oddly enough, it made her less afraid. She took it as good news. They had learned something which meant advantage to her friends, or they would not be so eager to forewarn the other side. Janet grew almost at her ease. And then she saw that in D’Ingraville’s face which sent a shiver down her spine. The success of her own side meant that she would become valueless as a hostage. But she would remain a prisoner⁠—and a victim. + 

Next day she had felt the same atmosphere around her of cruelty, gloating cruelty. Before she had been lonely, anxious, oppressed, but now she knew the real chill of fear. Whither could she turn? The Indians? They were savages out of some other world, and she had not a word of their speech. There was no pity in their gaunt, glowing faces.⁠ ⁠… The Bodyguard? They at any rate were human, for they could laugh. One of them, too, had a dog, a mongrel terrier, with whom Janet, having an invincible attraction for all dogs, had endeavoured to make friends. She had partly succeeded, but success was easier with one kind of animal than with the other. The Bodyguard that day was dispersed, except the three, Molinoff, Carvilho, and Carreras, who were resting after their labours of the previous days. Carreras had been one of the three trusties who had been hardly treated by Geordie Hamilton that evening on board the Corinna, and, since he had seen her there, he seemed to regard her with special rancour. As she passed them, where they grumbled and spat over a game of cards, she felt that among these squalid ruffians there was no refuge from the cruelty of their masters. + 

With no books, and nothing to occupy her thoughts, she had watched the hot afternoon decline to evening. She saw homing birds returning, especially one great eagle which had been hunting out in the plains. She saw the sun go down behind the hills, and kindle far off a blue peak which reminded her of Stob Dearg as seen from her room at Glenraden. The old happy world she had lost flitted through her mind in a chain of pictures which she had not the strength to repel. She shut her eyes tight, and the smell of wood smoke from the cooking-fires brought back the hall at Glenraden in wintertime, with her sister Agatha making tea, and her father stamping the snow from his feet, and the dogs tangled on the hearthstone.⁠ ⁠… But it was the picture of Archie which broke her heart, the picture which she had so resolutely fought to shut from her; Archie with his boyish laugh and tousled hair and flushed face, so absurd and unexpected and gallant and gentle.⁠ ⁠… + 

Janet had her supper alone in the immense rotunda where she slept. The Indian who brought it looked steadily before him and had no language but a grave inclination of the head. She heard the blocks being piled together, and knew that for another night she was safe. She blew out her candle and tried to sleep, but now it was not fear that thrilled her, but homesickness. She had gone clean over the horizon, away from the kindly race of men. She believed that she could face horrors, death if necessary, if only a friendly eye or voice were near, if only Archie could hold her hand.⁠ ⁠… But if Archie were here it would mean death for him. The thought terrified her till she remembered how vain it was. Archie would be looking for her with a breaking heart, but by no conceivable chance could he find her hiding-place. It was like being buried deep in the earth.⁠ ⁠… Archie was safe. That was something.⁠ ⁠… As for herself, whether Sandy lost or won she would not live to see it. A sense of utter hopelessness had come over her, the shadow of a dark and certain destiny. But in this certainty there was a kind of miserable peace, and she fell asleep. + 

She awoke with a start, lit her candle and watched the monstrous shadows run into the uppermost gloom. Then, as we have seen, she tried to sleep again, and slowly drifted from memory to vagueness, from vagueness to unconsciousness. + 

She woke again, this time to complete awareness. She had heard a sound different from the light rumble of the wind or the fall of minute particles of dust. There was a human presence somewhere in the emptiness. + 

Panic shook her. Her sanctuary was no sanctuary, and her enemies were here. With trembling fingers she struck a match and held it to her candle. It seemed ages before the wick caught fire, and then it flickered thinly. She was on her feet now, her eyes wildly searching the darkness. + 

Suddenly a voice spoke from behind her. + 

“Please do not be alarmed, Lady Roylance. I am sorry to have disturbed you.” + 

It was a pleasant voice⁠—a foreign voice, for it spoke English with unnatural precision, and made three syllables of her surname. There was something reassuring about that precision. It seemed familiar, too. + 

“Who is it?” she asked, her voice still quivering. + 

A figure came out of the gloom. She held up the candle and it revealed an Indian, bare-legged and barefooted, wearing a long tunic of cats’ skins and on his shoulder a red poncho. In her amazement she almost dropped the candle and all her terrors returned. + 

He seemed to understand her fright, for he spoke rapidly. + 

“Please do not fear. I am a friend whom you know. I am a friend of your husband and of Lord Clanroyden.⁠ ⁠… Will you please dress a little, for I would like you to take a walk with me. I will retire. We cannot speak in this place.” + 

“But who are you?” This time her voice had hope. + 

“My name is Luis de Marzaniga.” + 

“Oh, Don Luis, Don Luis!”⁠ ⁠… Her voice was a wail, for violent relief often takes the tone of tragedy. “Oh, my dear, my dear⁠ ⁠… I am so glad.⁠ ⁠… I can’t speak.⁠ ⁠… In a second I will be ready.” + 

Janet’s toilet did not take long, for she had no clothes but those in which she had left the Courts of the Morning. She pulled on a jumper, and thrust her feet into a pair of much-stained grey suède shoes. At her call Luis again came out of the darkness. + 

“I know I’m a fright, Don Luis. My hair won’t stay tidy, for I have lost most of my hairpins. I swear I shall be shingled as soon as I get home.⁠ ⁠… Archie wanted me to, before we came out here.⁠ ⁠… Have you any word of Archie?⁠ ⁠… We can’t get out of this place, you know.” She babbled like a happy child. + 

“No,” he said, “but we can get above it. You have a good head, I hope, Lady Roylance, for I am going to take you nearer to the stars.” + 

He led her to the southeastern corner, and there her candle, which he carried, revealed a low recess. He motioned her to follow him and she found herself in a tunnel where she had to crouch, almost to crawl. He felt carefully the left side and suddenly he stopped and reached for her hand. “Follow close,” he whispered. “The tunnel is a trap, which ends presently in a pit.” + 

They squeezed through a subsidiary opening, and almost at once found the roof rise. “There is a staircase,” he whispered. “It is built inside the wall, but it is in good condition. You can stand upright now.” He blew out the candle and took her hand. + 

The steps were smooth and unbroken and they rose steeply. Then they seemed to turn a corner, where the darkness was exchanged for a faint green light. With every step the light grew, and the smell of earth and powdered stone began to change to the freshness of the outer world. Suddenly wind blew in their faces, and they emerged on a kind of barbican, with the stone slats of a roof rising steeply behind them, and in front, beyond a low parapet, the valley white in the moonshine. + 

Janet caught her breath. The sight was not only of a torturing beauty, but it seemed to be an earnest of freedom. She peered over the edge and saw far below her the dusty avenues of the camp, white and quiet as if under a mantle of snow. One of the cooking-fires still smoked feebly, but otherwise there was no movement in the place. The subsidiary towers, which recalled in their shape pictures she had seen of the Rhodesian Zimbabwes, were like solid cones of pale ivory, and their shadows were deep emerald. The valley, she saw, was thickly forested on all sides, the trees now milky in the moon, now of the blackest jet. But beyond its containing walls she saw what was invisible to one below, peaks which must be high mountains, but which under this vault of elfin light seemed curiously near and foreshortened. To the west and southwest, apart from the barrier ridge, the horizon seemed empty, and she realised that she was very near to the edge of the hills. Over there must lie the Gran Seco and her friends. + 

The girl drew long breaths of an air which seemed to blend the aromatic strangeness of forests with the coolness of the high snows. She felt in command once again of herself and her fate. Below were her captors, but now she stood above them. + 

“What is this place?” she asked. + 

He spoke a name. + 

“The Thrones of the Kings,” she repeated. + 

“Of the King,” he corrected. “Los Tronos del Rey. There was only one king, but he was very great. When he died, his captains and councillors were made to die with him. He was buried here, and they in those lesser towers. Once each was also full of gold and silver images and uncountable treasure, but they were rifled long ago by the ancestors of our people⁠—my own among them. The spoilers would have destroyed the tombs also, but they could not. No hand of man can touch this masonry. High explosives only, and happily they did not have them.” + 

“Does the world know about it?” + 

He shook his head, “Only the Indians of the País de Venenos, and they do not talk. The other Indians of the hills regard it as accursed and will not approach it.” + 

“But who brought these people here⁠—the Conquistadors and the others?” + 

“The man called Romanes was in touch with the País de Venenos⁠—also, I think, Pasquali. They got their drugs there, and it was necessary for them to find a camp near. I sanctioned it, for I have much power among the people of the Poison Valley. It was by my authority that these Indians accompanied them, and I myself joined them. You admire my disguise? Since their first coming here I also have been present to observe.⁠ ⁠… But I did not expect you, Lady Roylance, and you have given me anxious thoughts.⁠ ⁠… Also there is another development. Romanes, he who is the commandante, is a good soldier, and his mind is quick. He has discovered that which I hoped to keep hidden.” + 

“I know,” said Janet excitedly. “I saw yesterday that they had found out something which they thought desperately important. I tried to discover what it was⁠—but of course I had no chance. They have sent off messengers to General Lossberg.” + 

“They have. But I do not think those messengers will get through. One was an Indian, and he is already back with me in the forest, not a mile away. The other was the man called Magee. I think that by this time he may have had an accident.” + 

“What was the news?” + 

“No less than the secret way out of the Gran Seco, the way by which I am accustomed to travel. Olifa believes that there is no road but the railway, except for a stray cragsman. The Gobernador also believes this. But there is a way through difficult passes into the Vulpas valley. Once I showed it to Lord Clanroyden, and it is a road which a light army can travel.” + 

“I see, I see,” Janet cried. “Then Sandy might use it, unless Lossberg gets there before him.” + 

“Lossberg will not get there before him. And Lord Clanroyden will beyond doubt use it, since it is the only path to victory.” + 

Janet clasped her hands. All fear for herself had gone, and she joyfully felt herself already united with her friends, since she was again in the game. “I thought I was hidden hundreds of miles away from the rest,” she said, “and I find that I am at the key-point.” + 

Luis looked down upon the small figure whose hair was dull gold in the moonlight, and he smiled. + 

“But you cannot stay here,” he said. “It is too dangerous. It is very necessary that you escape not later than tomorrow night⁠—tonight, I mean, for it is now past midnight.” + 

“I long to get away.⁠ ⁠… I admit I have been horribly frightened.⁠ ⁠… But is there nothing I could do if I stayed?” + 

“You are brave. But no, there is nothing you can do. You will understand that these people are now in a dangerous mood. You are their hostage, but any day they may think that you can be of no use as a hostage, and then⁠ ⁠… they will not be merciful. They are very complete rascals, and it is necessary to keep them here till Lord Clanroyden has made his great stroke. That I think I can undertake through my friends. But we cannot have one of our own people left in their hands. They will be helpless, like imprisoned starving dogs, but they have nasty fangs.⁠ ⁠… No, you must go tomorrow night⁠—this night.” + 

“Will you come with me?” + 

“No. I will follow you by another road. But I will see that you are accompanied. It is a journey which will need courage, Lady Roylance. Also tomorrow will need courage. Your warders will be in a difficult temper, and you must act a part. You must appear to be in deep sorrow, and I think you had better be a little ill. Yet you must go among them, for when they see you sad and helpless they will be encouraged and perhaps hopeful, and it is very necessary to keep their hope alive for another day. If they have hope they will not think yet of revenge.⁠ ⁠… You will sup in your big bedroom, as you did tonight, and an hour before moonrise I will come for you.” + 

“But how can you get out of this place?” + 

“By the way which I shall use tonight. The old builders had many tunnels and passages, which I and my Indians have long known. That is simple. It will be harder to get out of the valley, but there is a road for bold hearts, and after a little your friends will meet you. That I have arranged.⁠ ⁠… And now you must go back to bed and sleep very well, for you have much to do tomorrow.” + 

“I shall sleep,” Janet cried. “I do not think that I have really slept since I came here, but now⁠ ⁠…” Her face glowed with happiness; she seized his hands and held them, like a child who finds in a gesture what it cannot find in words. + 

“You have not asked me who will be your escort,” he said. + 

“I feel so strong,” she laughed, “that if you gave me the right direction I think I could escape alone.” + 

“Not so, my dear lady. It is too hard a task for one, even one so gallant. But you will be given full directions, and two trusty companions. One will be a Scotch soldier, whose name is Hamilton.” + 

Janet dropped his hands and stared open-mouthed. + 

“Geordie Hamilton! Fusilier Geordie! How on earth did he get here? He was in the garrison in the Courts of the Morning.” + 

“He is here. He arrived, having fallen sick on the way, but he is now cured. The other⁠ ⁠…” He paused. + 

“The other?” Janet repeated, with a sudden wild anticipation. + 

“The other is your husband.” + 

XIV + 

Janet looked out next morning on a new world. Hitherto her eyes had been turning inward, busy with her own grief. Now she was in a mood of confidence, almost of exhilaration, and the outer scene made a sharper impact upon her senses. She saw the strange beauty of this glen of sepulchre, the uncanny shafts of ghostly stone, the avenues white and crackling in the heat, the cincture of green forest, the sentinel and enveloping mountains. The sight of a far blue peak seen through a gap seemed a promise of liberty. Her youth had returned to her and she was almost in a mood for singing.⁠ ⁠… Then she remembered the part she had to play, and composed herself to a decent bewilderment. + 

She soon found that she had no need to dissemble, for her new-gained cheerfulness evaporated during breakfast. Her hosts seemed overnight to have changed their attitude. Their formal politeness had gone, and they treated her roughly, like an embarrassing chattel. Behind their iron composure a deep restlessness was patent. Their schemes were going awry, they could not get in touch with their allies, the place which they had thought a strategic vantage-ground was in danger of becoming their prison. + 

They talked freely before her, too, and, with what she had learned from Luis, she could follow the drift of it. They spoke of methods of access and egress. Now that the seaplane was useless, and Lossberg’s planes seemed unable to arrive, they discussed the land routes. Some had come by the País de Venenos, but that was a difficult road, and it would land them in that eastern part of the Tierra Caliente where the patrols of Peters and Escrick were too active for comfort. There was a way through the hills direct to the west, the way by which they had dispatched Magee, but that also was slow and difficult, and came out on to the plateau too near Pacheco. They spoke of a road to the south, the road their daily scouting parties had taken, and in that appeared to lie their chief hope. But it had clearly been no part of their plan to leave⁠—rather they expected Lossberg to make contact with them, and Janet knew the reason. They commanded the secret outlet to Olifa; they were the forward observation-post for Lossberg; but unless Lossberg received and acted on their intelligence, they would be more in the nature of a forlorn hope. + 

They had other anxieties. Janet gathered that the Bodyguard was getting a little out of hand. It had been docile enough when it believed that it was being led back to Castor and its old life. But if it scented failure it would take its own road. She realised that the only tie between the two parties was a common interest; remove that, and there would remain only dislike and contempt. For the first time she heard a note of natural passion among these marionettes, when Lariarty spoke of a wrangle he had had with Judson. For the first time, too, she heard an oath on their discreet lips. Into the face of Romanes there had come a spark of human anger. “By God,” he said, “I’ll show these curs who is top dog.” + 

Janet played well her game of an ailing and heartbroken prisoner, but she was unregarded. Presently she was to have a striking proof of her hosts’ suspicions. The day before in her loneliness she had had thoughts of throwing herself on the mercy of the Bodyguard, and had tried to enter into conversation with them, but had been surlily rebuffed. The most she had succeeded in was a halfhearted friendship with the mongrel terrier that belonged to Carreras. She passed a group of them who were playing cards in the shade of one of the towers, squatted in the white dust. The dog ran to her and she stopped to fondle it. + 

Suddenly she felt her arms pinioned and looked into a grinning face. + 

“Come and join our little party, dearie,” a voice said. “We’re better men than the deadheads up the way. We’re all of us free, white, twenty-one, and hairy chested, and we know how to be kind to a pretty girl.” + 

She struggled to release her arms, but the man’s grip remained, while the card-party laughed. Even in her terror she noticed how curiously low the ears were set on his head. “Let her alone, Jake,” said one of them; “she ain’t yours. We’ve got to toss for her, and act on the square.” + 

The man released her. “I guess that’s right. Run away, my beauty. We got a bond on you, and it’s soon goin’ to be cashed in.” As she hurried off, not daring to look behind, she heard again the ill-omened laughter. + 

At the midday meal her fears were increased. She was curtly told by Romanes that she must prepare to change her quarters. That evening after sundown she would be sent with D’Ingraville to another place. He was perfectly frank. “It is for your own safety, madame,” he said. “You are in danger here at the moment, for there are fools among us. It is not yet in our interest that you should come to any harm.” + 

There was no need of acting now. With a face like a sheet she stammered that she was feeling too unwell to travel. “Tomorrow, I will be better,” she wailed. “But not today, please⁠—not today.” + 

They talked among themselves. “There is no hurry,” said D’Ingraville. “If she is sick, I cannot carry her to Agua Secreta. It is the devil’s own road.” + 

Romanes demurred, but in the end was persuaded. “A word of advice to you, madame,” he said at last. “Do not show yourself this afternoon. Keep in this vicinity, and above all do not go near the camp of those others. Do you understand me?” + 

Janet understood only too well, for the leering faces of the cardplayers that morning had chilled her with a new and terrible fear.⁠ ⁠… What refuge could she find between now and sundown?⁠ ⁠… Could she get hold of Luis and tell him of this fresh peril? He alone would be able to protect her, for if it came to a fight she did not believe that the Conquistadors could stand up against the Bodyguard.⁠ ⁠… She was in terror of both parties, but she wondered if it would not have been wise to go with D’Ingraville. The Indians⁠—Luis⁠—would follow her, and could rescue her. But she remembered Luis’s strict injunction that she was to be in the great rotunda after nightfall and before moonrise. He had made his plans, and had told her that they were urgent.⁠ ⁠… If only she could find him!⁠ ⁠… She had seen two of the Indians at a distance that morning bringing in logs for the fires. But now there was not a sign of any Indian. She peered down the avenues, quiet in the blinding glare of the afternoon, and not a soul was to be seen. She felt very small and solitary and forlorn. + 

Then she remembered the roof to which Luis had taken her. There she could hide herself and be at peace till sunset. At the thought her courage returned. She ran across the patch of sun which separated her from the rotunda, and plunged into its deep shadows.⁠ ⁠… At the entrance lay the blocks which every night were used to make a door. She longed to wall herself up like a condemned nun, but each block required two men to lift.⁠ ⁠… + 

There was no light in the vast place except the shaft from the door, and a dimness far up which may have come from a crack in the roof. She groped in the far corner till she found the entrance to the tunnel.⁠ ⁠… She tried to remember what Luis had done. They had crawled in for some yards, and then he had found an opening on the left-hand side. She ran her hand along the wall, and found such an opening, but the next second her hand was in the void. It was a shaft, not a passage.⁠ ⁠… Very carefully she crawled a little farther along the main tunnel. Luis had said it was a trap, so she must not go too far. Again her hand found an opening in the left wall, and this time it touched solid floor and solid roof. She crept in, and to her joy found the first step of the staircase. Presently she could stand upright, and soon she was out on the barbican, with a fierce sun beating on her head, and the world at her feet, hot, intense, and coloured like blue steel. + 

The trouble was to get out of the pitiless sun. She could only find shelter by lying flat under the parapet, and moving as the sun moved. She had eaten not a morsel at luncheon, and now that her immediate terror was abated, she began to wish she had. She was safe here⁠—she must be safe. She would stay till nightfall, and then slip down and meet Luis. Her confidence returned, and she felt herself almost free. But there were still dregs of fear in her mind, as she remembered the animal faces of the cardplayers, and the cold inhumanity of Romanes, to whom she was only a counter, to be protected until its usefulness was gone.⁠ ⁠… She looked every now and then over the parapet. She saw little figures cross and recross the avenue, but none had the slimness and the litheness of the Indians. Where were her deliverers? Luis had said that Archie would be there, but how in the name of all that was marvellous had Archie managed it? He must be somewhere within a mile or two, and she looked with a sudden friendliness at the circumference of forest. Yet the thought that Archie was near gave her a new nervousness. He too might be in danger.⁠ ⁠… She fixed her eyes on a distant blue mountain and told herself that she and Archie were not really far from home, for the other side of that peak must be visible to watchers from Pacheco. + 

She must have dozed, for she suddenly realised that the sun was behind the peaks, and that the swift tropical twilight had fallen. It was now time to nerve herself for action, for presently the Conquistadors would be sitting down to supper in their mess, and the Indians would come to block up the door. She wondered if, when they missed her from the mess, they would send her food, as they had done previously. She hoped so, for she was very hungry. + 

Down the staircase she groped her way, and crawled back into the tunnel. She only knew that she had reached the rotunda by seeing far off a slant of amber dusk. It showed her the way to her bed, and beside it, to her delight, she found that food had been placed. It was not an appetising meal, for the commissariat of the camp was running low, but she ate it ravenously, and emptied the tin pannikin of water. + 

Then she saw that the men had come to block the door. That gave her comfort, for they were Indians, Luis’s people. She watched the oblong of pale amethyst slowly lessen, and as the blocks rose the remaining daylight seemed to take on a deeper tint, till it was almost crimson. When that had gone, she would light her candle and await her deliverers. + 

Suddenly there seemed to be a scuffle at the entrance. She heard a voice, a thick angry voice, and then the narrow gap above the blocks seemed to be filled⁠—by a man’s body. Someone was clambering over⁠—she heard a thud as he fell on the inner side.⁠ ⁠… With a flash of dreadful illumination she knew who it was. The Bodyguard had cast lots for her, and this man had won.⁠ ⁠… She screamed for help to the Indians outside the door, but they took no notice. Instead, they went on with the last blocks, and the crimson segment disappeared in utter blackness. + 

Panic drove Janet’s fainting limbs into motion. Her one hope was to reach the tunnel, but in the instant darkness she had lost her bearings and she fluttered blindly. The newcomer, too, seemed at a loss. She could hear his hard breathing. Suddenly he lit a match, and she saw the face of one of the cardplayers, a dreadful face, bestial and pitiless. + 

The sight was too much for her nerves, and once again her despairing cry for help rang out. The match flickered and died, but her voice had given him a clue, and she heard him moving nearer. He came slowly and cautiously, for there was no need of haste. He had the whole night in which to find her. + 

All power seemed to have gone from her body, her throat was dry so that she could not utter a word, her feet were like lead, she had lost all sense of direction. Hopeless now to find the tunnel; she could only struggle vainly like a fly till the spider reached her. Already she felt his clutch on her. And then from her palsied lips came one last gasp of terror, for she suddenly felt herself caught in a man’s arms. + 

But it was not her pursuer. Even her confused senses could still hear him stumbling towards her. A voice spoke low in her ears: “Janet, darling, I’m here! Archie!” + 

Then many things seemed to happen at once. A circle of light sprang into being from an electric torch. She saw her pursuer stop in his tracks and blink. Then she saw his hand go to his side, and be pinioned there, and a pistol neatly snatched from it by someone behind him. And then between him and her a figure appeared, no Indian, but a stocky figure with bandy legs, a figure that whistled through its teeth like a groom and addressed her enemy in a tongue which fell like music on her ears. + 

“Sae it’s you, my mannie? I’ll learn ye to frichten a leddy.” + 

There was a sound of a violent impact of fist on chin and then the rattle of a skull on hard stone. + 

“That’ll keep him quiet till the morn,” said the same voice. “I’ve gi’en that wheasel the same as he got on the Corinna.” + 

For a little time and space disappeared for Janet. Overpowering relief and the sense of Archie beside her brought a happy stupor. She was conscious of kissing and fondling the hand which guided her, and murmuring idiotic endearments. They seemed to be descending stone steps, and then following long winding passages. Somewhere there was a light, and she realised that they were a party of four, but more often they moved in profound darkness. Then it seemed to her that they ascended, not by steps, but in a long slanting tunnel. The close air freshened, and at last with a scramble they came out into the night under a sky ablaze with stars. Luis held up his hand to enjoin silence, but Janet had no wish to speak. She was hugging Archie’s arm as if to make sure that he was a bodily presence and not a dream. + 

They were in a little stone courtyard, on the edge of the forest, and at the far southern end of the Tronos del Rey. It was the frontier of the jungle and creepers had encroached upon the stone, completely hiding the tunnel’s mouth, and making the courtyard look like a subsidence in the ruins. They were close to the camp, for voices sounded not a hundred yards away, and against the starlight they could see the pale flicker of fires. + 

Luis signed to them to follow, and they scrambled out of the hollow into the forest, which was thick as moss, except for an occasional trail. “We must go carefully,” he whispered. “Carreras went out this evening to shoot for the pot. He may not have returned. It would not do to meet him.” + 

Luis moved first with Archie at his heels, then Janet, and Hamilton brought up the rear. It was painful going, for chips and slivers of stone were everywhere embedded in the lush herbage and the stones were as unyielding as adamant. Janet felt her stockings and the fringes of her dress being slowly shredded. Then they reached an opening which she judged to be a trail. Luis took one look and then ducked his head, and the others crouched flat to conform. + 

Janet wondered what was coming next. There was still the glow of sunset in the sky, and it made the aisle through which the trail ran a slender cleft of opaque unrevealing light. What came next was a dog. To her horror she found Carreras’s terrier breathing heavily at her shoulder. He had been trained not to bark, but he showed his recognition by shaking himself and sending the dew flying like a shower-bath. + 

She glared at him, she threatened him, but the beast stood wagging his imbecile tail. He had found a friend, and was determined to let his master come up and share in the discovery. + 

Luis did not wait for the meeting. He doubled back and clutched Archie’s arm. + 

“The fellow will be here in a second,” he whispered. “We must show ourselves.⁠ ⁠… You know the road.⁠ ⁠… Here, take the hatchet.⁠ ⁠… I will try to divert them. Once at Agua Secreta you are safe. Quick!” + 

The next five minutes were not for Janet a period of very clear consciousness. She was dragged to her feet, pulled through what seemed to be a fine-meshed sieve of creepers, and landed in a narrow avenue cut as if with a knife between two walls of forest. Then she seemed to be made to halt, and she had the feeling as if alone she was exposed to someone’s gaze, while the rest were hidden.⁠ ⁠… She heard a cry, heard a shot fired, heard other pistol shots from the direction of the camp.⁠ ⁠… And then she found herself running faster than she had ever run before in her life. + 

Luis was last and he was urging them on. They were being pursued⁠—she heard a distant crashing in the undergrowth⁠—perhaps the trail twisted and someone was trying to take a shortcut. Then Luis’s clear whisper followed them. “I leave you. You know the road.⁠ ⁠… Do not for the love of God stop to fight.⁠ ⁠… I do not think you will be followed.⁠ ⁠… Say that I will be at Pacheco in thirty-six hours, no more. Adios!” + 

She had no time to look behind, for Archie’s hand was dragging her, Archie whose game leg seemed to be performing miracles, but she had the sensation that Luis was no longer there. He had swerved to the right down a subsidiary path and was making mighty heavy going. His movements sounded like those of a bull rhinoceros; he was giving tongue, too, babbling loudly to himself. He will betray us all, she thought in a panic, and then she realised that this was his purpose. He was there to be followed.⁠ ⁠… Far back she heard a different kind of cry, the shouting of angry men on a scent which they have missed and recovered. + 

After that it seemed that for hours they struggled and plunged and slipped, always keeping to some sort of trail, but tripped up by creepers, or slithering on greasy earth, or edging painfully through acres of cruel thorn. She used to be famous for her good wind, and had been able to stride from Glenraden to the highest top of Carnmor without a halt. But that had been in clear hill air, with a bright world of salt and heather at her feet and no goad except her fancy. It was a different matter to run through this choking sodden forest, with life as the stake⁠—Archie’s life and her own⁠—maybe, too, the fortunes of the campaign. The girl kept her mind savagely upon a single purpose⁠—to keep up with Archie, and to give him as little trouble as possible, for she knew by his laboured breathing that the strain must be terrible for a lame man. + 

Hamilton, the leader, stopped. He was panting like a dog, but he had voice enough left to whisper hoarsely, “I hear nothing. Maister Lewis maun hae got the hale pack at his heels. They’ll no catch him this side o’ Martinmas. We maun be better than half road. Tak your breath, mem.” + 

But the merciful respite seemed only to last for a second. Again they were off, and now they seemed to be ascending. The ground was harder. They passed over banks of dry gravelly soil, and in places the roots of the trees showed as in a pinewood, instead of being buried deep in rank verdure. Once even there was a shelf of layered rock, and she had to give Archie a hand. But the gain in elevation told them nothing of their position, for it was that murky mulberry dusk in which the foreground is just visible, but everything else an impenetrable blur. + 

They seemed to reach a summit, where curiously enough it was darker than below. After that it was flat for a little, with thinner vegetation but many thorns⁠—Janet felt her hands ache from their attentions. She was feeling a little more at ease. They were on the right road⁠—Hamilton seemed to have no doubt about that⁠—they could not be very far from their goal, and there was no sign of pursuit. Luis must have lifted the enemy cleverly off the scent. She wondered if he were safe.⁠ ⁠… + 

It was Archie who stopped suddenly and put his hand to his head. “Hamilton!” he panted. “Listen! Do you hear anything?” + 

Janet pushed her hair away from her ears. Somewhere back in the forest there was a sound like a little wind. But the night was very still.⁠ ⁠… She listened again, and in the heart of it she heard the unmistakable note of human speech.⁠ ⁠… And then suddenly it sounded much nearer, not a hundred yards away: “Oh! Quick,” she cried. “They’re almost up on us.” + 

She was not quite right, for the acoustics of the place were strange. Actually at the moment the nearest of the pursuers was at least a quarter of a mile off. But all three had felt the ominous proximity of the sound, and all in their different ways reacted to the spur of fear. Hamilton, being of a stocky build, could not quicken his pace, for he had come nearly to the end of his running resources; instead he slowed down, and his hand fiddled with his belt. He would have preferred to fight. Janet got her second wind, and felt an extraordinary lightness and vigour. It was she now who dragged Archie. Inevitably they passed Hamilton, so when they suddenly came to the brink of the gorge she was leading the party. + 

It was the kind of spectacle which cuts short the breath for the sheer marvel of its beauty. From her feet the ground broke into a cliff, but a cliff not of stone but of soil, for it was all forested. The trees were set on so steep a gradient that two yards from her she was looking into branches reached commonly only by high-flying birds. The angle was not less than sixty degrees, but some strange adhesive quality in the soil enabled it to cling to this difficult foundation and support life. But the miracle lay in the depth. In that luminous purple night it ran down from layer to layer of darkness, keeping an exact perspective, till it seemed that it had sunk for miles. The cleft must go to the centre of the globe, and yet a bottom could be detected, though not discerned. Somewhere at an infinite distance below there was water⁠—the so-called Agua Secreta⁠—strong water, too, for out of the deeps rose the murmur of a furious river. + 

From Janet’s feet a bridge flung out into the void. It looked like a ship’s bowsprit hanging over dark oceans, for the eye could not see its further abutment. And such a bridge! It was made of slats and twined osiers and lianas, solidly made, and its making was not of yesterday. But there was no planking to hide the abyss. Between the slats showed the naked void, and the slats were each a pace apart. + 

“On ye gang,” a hoarse voice spoke behind. “It’s the brig we maun cross. Haud fast by the side-ropes, mem, and ye’ll no fa’. Sir Erchibald will keep haud o’ ye.” + 

But Janet had no fear for herself. This lath strung across immensity was a beautiful thing.⁠ ⁠… Suddenly one half of it seemed to become brightly gilt, and she realised that the rim of the moon had lifted above a corner of hill.⁠ ⁠… And it meant safety! It was Archie she feared for, Archie with his crippled leg. She stepped cheerfully out on the bridge. “Hold tight, Archie dear, and go very slow. Balance yourself by my shoulder.” + 

The crossing of that bridge was a comment upon the character of each of the three. Janet was in a kind of ecstasy. To be islanded between sky and earth was an intoxication, and every step was nearer home. If only Archie⁠ ⁠… ! Archie, painfully groping his way, minded the vertigo of it not at all, but he realised, as she did not, how slowly they moved and how imperative was haste. As for Hamilton, the thing was to him pure torment, he was terrified, half out of his senses, but he doggedly plugged along because there was nothing else to be done. He was praying fervently and blaspheming steadily, and prayer and blasphemy continued till the first shot was fired. After that he was more at his ease. + 

They were in the middle of the bridge when the pursuers reached the edge. A cry followed them, heard as clearly in that funnel as if it had been spoken in their ear, to halt and come back or someone would shoot. The warning was followed by a shot, fired wide. + 

The last part of the journey was a nightmare for all three. Speed was an urgent matter, yet a slip would send them whirling into unplumbed gulfs. For Janet all the exhilaration was gone, and her heart was fluttering wildly. She was terrified for Archie, who had had some ugly slips and was leaning heavily on her arm. Also the gulf was now lit with silver moonshine. Before it had merely been a sensation of dark space, felt but not realised; now she could see its shimmering infinity, and something of the old terror of the Abyss began to clutch at her. + 

Before she knew she was off the bridge and had pulled Archie beside her on to a tussock of dwarf arbutus. A deadly faintness was on her, and her head swam. Dimly she saw Hamilton busy with his hatchet.⁠ ⁠… What was he doing?⁠ ⁠… There were men on the bridge. She saw them clearly. They were getting nearer.⁠ ⁠… + 

Then she realised. The fear of the Abyss came back to her. It seemed an awful thing to sacrifice men to it, even enemies. “Stop!” she pleaded. “You can’t. Let’s go on.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“It’s my orders, mem,” said the other, stolidly cutting through the twisted lianas. “Maister Lewis says⁠—at all costs ye maun destroy the brig ahint you.” + 

The pursuit realised what was happening. They were more than halfway across, and the moonlight was so bright that the visibility was like day. Janet could see each of the four figures distinctly. They were all of the Bodyguard. One of them, the foremost, seemed to be the man who had pursued her in the rotunda. + 

A pistol shot struck the earth a yard from Hamilton. + 

“Ye’ll maybe get hurt, mem,” he observed between his strokes. “Get you and the Captain in ahint the buss. I’m near finished.” + 

But apprehension and horror held both Archie and Janet motionless. There was one other pistol shot, which went wide. The men on the bridge had stopped shooting and were labouring grimly in the race with death.⁠ ⁠… Supposing they won, thought Janet.⁠ ⁠… But they did not win. Very gently, without any sag or jerk, the bridge swung out into the gulf like a silver pendulum, and several little black things were shaken from it. + 

Two hours later four of Peters’s troopers, patrolling up the long moraine of shale in one of the tributary glens of the Catalpas stream, came upon three very weary travellers, who were staggering knee-deep in the shingle. To their amazement they found that they were English⁠—two men and a woman, who asked to be taken to Pacheco. One of the men was lame, and he and the woman were set on horseback. + 

When after midnight they reached the camp in the valley bottom their captain, Carlos Rivero, received the travellers with excitement. He fed them, but they made only a hasty meal, demanding at once to be taken to headquarters. At the place which is called Maximoras, but in the old speech Hatuelpec, Captain Rivero, who himself conducted them, was again surprised to be met by a fresh troop from Pacheco, which contained a woman. But it was the commander of this troop who gave Rivero the third and most shattering surprise of the night. For he recognised in him the Gobernador of the Gran Seco. + 