Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

by John Buchan

  “What am I sittin’ here for?” he exclaimed. “Come on, sir,” and he struggled to rise. “We maun get haud o’ Sir Erchibald or Maister Lewis. There’s awfu’ things gaun to happen afore the nicht’s oot. It’s Veiro...the twa leddies...and him they ca’ the Gobernador...Oh, sir, let’s oot o’ this and awa’ up to Heidquarters. They’ll let me in if you’re wi’ me. I’ve been tryin’ to win in my lane for the last hour, and the sentries just shoo’d me awa’.”

  His earnestness and alarm communicated themselves to Don Alejandro. Then the man seemed to recover his balance, and, leaning forward, clutched Don Alejandro’s knee.

  “I’ve been in this toun a’ week. The folks think I’m a native frae some landward bit...I’ve been biding doun near the harbour — it’s an auld haunt o’ mine...Some o’ thae Bodyguard blagyirds is there, and I go chief wi’ ane o’ them...Syne Judson appeared — ye mind him? and he kenned me, and there was a wee bit o’ a turn-up. I had to rin for my life, but I had fund oot what they were ettlin’, and I’ve been jinkin’ about the closes and tryin’ to see Sir Erchibald...This verra nicht...Man, they’re clever. When we’re a’ crackin’ about the grand victory and thinkin’ that there’s nae mair fecht left in the ither side, they’re plannin’ a bloody revenge...Wha’s in it? Judson, for ane, an’ yon lang, black-avised lad they ca’ Laschallas, and some o’ the white-faced gentry that used to manage the Gran Seco...What do they ettle? It canna be ransom, for there’s nae hidy-hole they could carry their prisoners to. It maun be murder — black murder. Oh, haste ye, sir. The blagyirds or now will be well on the road to Veiro. They’ve gotten cars and they’ll no be easy stoppit...What’s the time? Gettin’ on for eight?” The man staggered to his feet with wild eyes. “Is there no an aeroplane?” he cried. “We maun gan by air, for they’ll beat us by the road.”

  But when a quarter of an hour later Archie and Blenkiron were roused by the news into violent activity, it was found that there were no aeroplanes to be had in or near the city of Olifa. Also it was discovered that the wires between Olifa and Veiro had been tampered with. It was impossible to communicate even with Alcorta Junction.

  IX

  That day the life at Veiro had returned to something of in ancient serenity. Castor, indeed, was kept busy with constant telephone calls from the city, and on four occasion messengers came to him by car. But otherwise there was no sign that the place was any kind of headquarters. No garrison was in the house, and no sentries were at the gate, for considerable armies lay between it and the city on one side, and Pecos and the road to the Gran Seco on the other.

  Don Mario pottered about the stables and the garden and had a long siesta in the darkened library. Janet also slept, for the strain of the past weeks had fatigued her more than she knew. Barbara wrote letters and went riding in the first cool of the evening. In the dim, musty-smelling rooms, in the sunny courtyard, in the garden where the lawns were beginning to brown under the summer heats, there was an air of calm after storm, of a general relaxing. The feeling was in the atmosphere, but with Janet it was less positive satisfaction than a mere rest from anxiety. She understood now that she and Barbara had been living for a long time on the extreme edge of their nerves. The news that victory had been won brought relief rather than triumph. She had not yet adjusted her world to meet it; she was simply aware that her mind could leave the weary treadmill and be still.

  But at dinner she the realised that a change was coming over her mood. She felt light-hearted again, and had begun to look into the future. Barbara seemed to have suffered the same change, for she had been singing as she dressed. Don Mario was in his usual placid humour, but Castor was in line with her new temper. His work for the day was finished; he had bathed and got himself into dress-clothes, for some of his kit had been sent out that morning from he city; and now he relaxed into something very like high spirits. Janet had never witnessed this new mood of his, and she found it delightful. Before he had always retained the manner of one in command, one a little apart, for whom friendliness involved a slight descent and unbending. But now he had dropped without effort to the level of ordinary folk, he laughed without constraint, his eyes had in frank companionship.

  At dinner he talked to Don Mario of past days in Olifa. He even spoke of his Campanillo grandmother. The old man presently passed from his stilted English into Spanish, which Janet could not easily follow, but it was clear that he was pleased by Castor’s questions and was expanding happily on some matter very dear to his heart. Once again Janet saw in the two faces that which she had noted weeks before at Charcillo in the faces of Luis and his young caballeros — something innocently apostolic, the ardour of men in the grip of an idea. She looked across the table at Barbara, who wore pale pink roses on the breast of her black gown. Barbara had spoken little, but there was a pleasant content in her dark eyes — and now, as she caught Janet’s glance and followed it to Castor’s ardent face, there was also a flicker of amusement.

  They drank their coffee in Don Mario’s own room, among the spurs and whips and sporting pictures. The French windows were open wide, for the night was warm, but a fine-meshed curtain of gauze hung over them to keep out moths and flying ants. Without the stars burned fiercely, and in their light an ancient baroque group, which adorned the terrace, had the appearance of a knot of eavesdroppers. Barbara had started at her first sight of the statuary.

  Castor stood before the empty fireplace which had been filled with a tapestry screen. There were three lamps in the room set on little tables, which illumined the heads of the two women and of Don Mario in his high-backed chair. The face of the Gobernador, being only partially lit, revealed none of the lesser details of age. The fine lines on the forehead, the streaks of grey in beard and hair were unseen; only the trim figure and the noble contour of the head stood out, and these had an air of vital youth. The impression was strengthened by the new note in his voice.

  “You are twenty years younger to-night. Excellency,” said Don Mario.

  “I am beginning life again,” was the answer. “I have been middle-aged — I have been old — and now I am young.”

  “Can one begin life anew?” the old man asked in his precise English. “It is the fashion for people to talk so, but I wonder. It has never been my fate, for I have carried into each new stage of my life heavy burdens from the last stages. But perhaps I was always lazy — lazy and a little timid.”

  “I have been fortunate,” said Castor gravely, “for Fate itself has shut the door on that which I would leave behind.”

  “But is the door fast? Will nothing creep through?”

  “It can be kept fast and well guarded. I do not mean that I must not atone for my blunders. God knows I have made many and I have much folly to expiate. Yet that too is part of my good fortune. I am in a position to mend what I have done wrongly.”

  The old man shook his head. “You are luckier than I. The blunders I have made were such as did not permit themselves to be atoned for. Witness my error in crossing the Vidas and the Cintra blood. I was warned by my father about the Cintra stock, which he said meant speed but no heart, and in the mares a lamentable barrenness. But I would not listen, and all my life I have paid the penalty.”

  “I am not a fatalist,” was the answer. “That is the blindest of superstitions. The spirit and mind of man are free to shape life if they are resolute enough and wise enough. A man is not the slave of his father’s actions, or of his own. Any error can be redeemed on this side of the grave.”

  Don Mario laughed. “I will not discourage your optimism, Excellency. It is a pleasant gift of youth. I who am old practise humility.”

  “I too would practise humility,” said Castor. “That is what I have learned in the Courts of the Morning. Before, I was arrogant and self-centred and friendless and inhuman. But up in that mountain eyrie I found a juster perspective...Call it a revelation. I was granted a view of life from a great height, and many things, including myself, took different proportions. That I owe to you, La
dy Roylance, and to your friends. If I were to die now, I should die happy, for I have become young again. You opened a door for me, and I have passed through it.”

  “You are certain that it is closed behind you?” Janet did not know what made her ask the question. The words seemed to come mechanically to her lips.

  “Closed and bolted and guarded.” There was both solemnity and exhilaration in his tone. Janet never forgot the picture he made in that moment, his head flung back, his eyes looking down under their heavy lids with a glow of something more than friendliness, his voice grave and vibrant and masterful. It challenged Fate, but in the challenge there was no vanity. She felt a sudden kindling of enthusiasm, a longing to follow this man who was born to lead his fellows. The cold Olympian had disappeared, and Prometheus was in his place, Prometheus the pioneer of humanity, the bringer of gifts to men.

  In the pause which followed Janet alone caught Barbara’s whisper. “Turn your head slowly round...to the window...Watch the group of statues. I saw them move...there are people there.”

  She obeyed. She saw the edge of the group, where Hercules was engaged with the Hydra, move ever so slightly. She saw, too, a dark blur close to the right of the window, which had not been there before. In an instant she divined the truth. This was Fate’s answer to the challenge. The Gobernador had shut the door on his past, but something had forced it ajar and slipped through.

  She heard Barbara speaking low and composedly. “They cannot see me. I am behind the light...I will slip out...Go on talking.”

  Janet’s heart seemed to stop, and then resumed its beating, so loudly that she felt that it must drown the ticking of the silver clock behind Castor’s head. In a voice so steady that it surprised her, she began to question Don Mario about the coloured print of Eclipse beside his chair. She was aware of a slight stirring in the shadows and knew that Barbara had left the room.

  Barbara found herself in a long corridor which had suddenly become very dark, and realised that the lamp in the hall beyond had been put out. Why? It was too early for the servants to have gone to bed. Someone must have entered the house, someone different from the group outside the window. It required all her courage to traverse the corridor and reach the hall. It was in black darkness, and she began to rope her way to the passage beyond, which led to the courtyard...She stopped to listen. There seemed to be a sound coming from the courtyard-servants, perhaps — there were four men indoors, a butler, two footmen, and Don Mario’s valet. Outside by the corrals there were the grooms and the cattlemen, hardy peons who might be trusted to defend their master. She must get to them — at my cost she must get to them. She stilled every other thought by clenching her teeth on that purpose.

  Presently she was at the foot of the main staircase, a broad shallow thing which led direct to the galleries of the upper floor. Here there was a faint glimmer of light, for the stars were shining through the staircase window. Her eyes were on it when she stumbled over something which lay sprawled across the bottom step. She bit hard into her lips and stood shivering. It was a man’s body. She bent, and even in the dim light she saw by the uniform that it was one of the house-servants. He was dead. Her hands, as they touched his shoulder, felt something warm and sticky.

  At the same moment sounds, stealthy sounds, reached her ear from the direction of the courtyard. The murderers were there, and that way there was no escape. Scarcely knowing what she did, she stepped over the body and ran up the staircase. She had a blind idea of getting to her own room, as if there she would find sanctuary.

  She sped like a hare along the top gallery, and reached her room. At the door she stopped to listen. All seemed quiet on the upper floor. Inside the door there was the same faint sheen of starlight. Barbara sat down on her bed, and struggled against the terrible lassitude which weakened her limbs and dulled her brain.

  She forced herself to think. She did not trouble to guess who the enemies were — it was enough for her that they had come for murder. The little party in the room below were unarmed, and one was a girl and another an old man. She must act — at once — rouse the peons — destroy the ruffians outside on the lawn before they had time to shoot. It was the only way, and she tottered to the window.

  The room was at the other side of the house from the garden, and the window looked down on some outhouses and part of a little enclosed court. The peons lived beyond the big orchard where the corrals began. She must get to them, and almost before she knew she found herself on the veranda. There was a drop of a few feet to a roof whence she might reach the courtyard...But the courtyard might be a cul-de-sac. It must be, for the enemy would guard all the approaches.

  She dropped on to the roof of a shed. The courtyard was empty, but she thought she heard a sound from the gate which led to the stable yard. That was on her left; on her right were other roofs and then a grove of trees; in front a wall ran straight to the edge of the orchard. This last must be her road, and she started climbing along the top of the adobe wall, which was plentifully studded with sharp tiles.

  The pain of the traverse seemed to restore her balance She felt her gown tearing, and her stockings in shreds, and her knees and wrists ached. In her haste she had no time to pick her way, but when the wall suddenly broadened she scrambled to her feet, and the last stage she almost ran.

  Now she was at the transverse wall which bounded the orchard. She remembered that the place was walled all round, and that once inside it might be hard to get out. So she still kept to the wall, which continued to be of a fair breadth, and endeavoured to circuit the orchard so as to reach the corrals. But this took her at right angles to her former course, and brought her back again to the edge of the first courtyard.

  Suddenly she flung herself flat. There were men in the courtyard. Two men came at a run from the direction of the house. There must be a back-door there which she had forgotten. The door into the stable yard opened, but they did not pass through. They seemed to be listening. Had they caught sight of her? She lay in a cold terror for several minutes, till she dared to raise her head again. They were gone, and the door into the stable yard was shut.

  Barbara did not venture to rise again, but crawled for the rest of the road...Presently she was looking into open ground, the ribbon of rough pasture between the orchard and the alfalfa fields...Her sense of direction had become a little confused, but she thought that the peons’ quarters were to her right beyond the orchard.

  She dropped off the wall. It was higher than she had thought, and she felt her ankle wrenched. Then she began to run, keeping in the shadow of the orchard wall. The need for haste was urgent, but her legs seemed to have no power and the pain of her ankle sickened her. Also her heart kept hammering so fast that it choked her breathing.

  Now she was at the angle of the orchard wall, but there were no peons’ quarters before her — only the savannah, with the alfalfa lands on the left, and the rails of a paddock on her right...She turned blindly to the right...ran a few steps...changed her mind...and suddenly found herself almost ridden down by a mounted man.

  The face she saw had the pallor of a Conquistador. She had blundered into the enemy. The man had just avoided her, and was now in difficulties with his beast. A second horseman had leaped to the ground at the sight of her, and it was into his arms that she staggered. To her amazement she heard her name spoken, and looked up into Sandy’s face.

  She clung to him, while she stammered her story.

  “Murder,” he said quietly. “And they are desperate men with no care for their own lives...Timmy, it’s the mercy of God that sent you with us. You’re our only hope. You’ve got to get into the house.”

  Janet realised that the great crisis of her life had come. Don Mario expounded in his hoarse old voice the merits of the Eclipse print — it was from the Sartorius picture which he preferred to the better known Stubbs — he had picked it up in St. James’s Street in ‘98 — no, it must have been ‘96, when he was in England for the Fitzgibbon sale...And all the time her eye
s were on Castor, who still stood before the fireplace. He lit a cigarette and the match made a spurt of light before his face.

  Janet did not dare to look towards the window...The only hope was to keep still. Perhaps the cat would linger over the watching of the mouse. Barbara would now be alarming the house-servants; they would get at the arms, which were all in the gun room; probably they would first get in touch with the outdoor peons. That would all take time, and meantime they must let the murderers savour their revenge at ease. For she had no doubt of the meaning of it all. The Conquistadors and the Bodyguard could have no thought but vengeance; ruin and death lay before them, and they had nothing more to hope or fear...She wished the clock did not tick so loudly.

  Suddenly Castor turned towards the window. Her eyes were on him, and she saw his face go grim. At the same moment there came a sound, which she knew was the rending of the gauze curtain. Now at last she turned her head, and Don Mario craned his from the depth of his chair.

  Outside in the starlight, close up to the sill, were half a dozen men, each with a pistol held to cover the inmates of the room. She saw what she had expected — the rabbit teeth and the weasel face of Judson, Radin with his high cheek-bones and his scar, Suvorin’s parched skin and albino hair, Laschallas’s thick eyebrows. It was as if a wave of corruption had flowed out of the night, and hung, ready to break, at the window.

  One man had entered the room and stood beside Don Mario’s chair. She recognised Romanes. But it was a different figure from the trim cavalryman whom she had last seen in the Tronos del Rey. The lamp on the table at his left showed him clearly, and it seemed as if some screw had been removed which had dislocated the whole fabric of his being. He was unshaven and dirty, his clothes were ragged, and there was a long blue weal on his forehead.