The League of the Leopard Part 15

"Is that the person you mentioned?" he asked. "It is evident that you dislike him. May I ask why?"

Miss Castro appeared to consider, and then answered frankly:

"Why should I not tell you? You are _muy caballero_, and I think, good friend of me. He was partner with my father, this Victor Rideau. They once go inland to trade with an Emir, who at that time gather much plunder of ivory, and perhaps they give their carrier boy the good rifle and cartridge, for the Emir is treacherous. He is very bad man, and--_pobre padre mio!_--when Rideau is go away he put pressure on Dom Pedro, and demand all his rifle and black carrier boy. What would you?

My father he is not desire his throat cut, and he agree. The Emir write safe conduct and agreement, and sent him back with ivory, but this Rideau he guard the scroll in Arabic, and now always demand the silver from my father for fear he denounce him to the authority. One must not sell the black boy, and there is heavy penalty for giving the negro the arm of precision."

Dane grasped the situation, surmising that the Emir in question was one who had, for a time, successfully defied both British and French. He also surmised that the Gallic authorities would deal stringently with whoever had supplied the Moslem soldier with modern weapons at a time when it appeared quite possible he would even march upon the coast.

Still, he was not sure that very much pressure had been required to convince Dom Pedro.

Returning to her almost caressing manner, Miss Castro touched his arm:

"Why you need that gold?"

"Gold is generally useful, isn't it?" smiled Dane. "It would help me to earn a little more than my bread when I go back to England."

Bonita Castro laughed, and then grew serious. There was a light in her dark eyes, and her voice grew deeper; and it was only because it appeared necessary that Dane afterward told his comrade part of what followed. Indeed, there was little to relate, but much to be imagined.

"Is there no other place than England, when all the world is good?" she said. "Is not this much better than your mud and snow, and the sight of the men with anxious faces groping through the fog? _Vaya!_ You men of the English cities, you not know how to live."

The speaker pointed out through the open window, and most men would have agreed with her in a measure. If the beauty of the fever coast is that of a whited sepulcher, it is a sufficiently alluring region, and Dom Pedro's factory stood high and healthily upon the summit of a bluff.

Tall palms swaying about it before the sea breeze tossed their emerald traceries against transparent blue. In the cottonwoods' shadow beyond them tall white lilies grew, and the rollers of the southern ocean, flaming dazzlingly, dissolved into spouts of incandescence upon a crescent of silver sand below. The whole scene was flooded with light and color, and permeated by the languorous spell of the tropics, which it is not good for white men to linger under.

"It is all very beautiful," he said; "but I have my bread to win."

"You are very modest, Don Ilton. Is there no place for such as you in Africa? Now I know one who would give much--even a share in the profits of several factories--for the help of two men he could trust. There will be more gold to win than you will ever find in the Leopards' country; and there will be the excitement you hunger for. The man who needs the a.s.sistance has a cunning enemy. Will you not listen when again he speaks to you?"

Miss Castro leaned slightly forward.

"It is the life you English long for. There would be adventure; much profit, I think, too, and--for that you like also--an enemy. He is bad enemy of--me. This England of yours is far off, and the wise man he--is it not so?--takes gratefully what the good saints send him. Is it not enough, Don Ilton?"

Dane was not a vain man, but there was a subtle inflection in the woman's voice which suggested an amplification of the meaning of her last words. England certainly seemed very far away, Maxwell's project a mad one; and Dane remembered that the woman for whose sake he had joined in it had been ready to think ill of him. His companion was very alluring, he was weak in mind and body, very grateful to one who had saved his life for him, and loath to resume the burden which was part of his birthright as a civilized Englishman. A word, even a gesture, would, it seemed, smooth out many difficulties, and, shaking off responsibility, he might henceforward live for the day only; but though intoxicated by the spell of the tropics and the eyes of his companion, Dane had a memory, and he realized that he stood on the brink of a declivity. He had seen the end of other Britons who, selling their birthright for a few years' indulgence, sank beyond the level of the beasts. The face of a countrywoman, no longer cold and disdainful, but innocent and gentle, rose up before him; and the struggle ended.

"It is so much that I do not deserve it," he said humbly, answering her question. "I must accomplish the purpose which brought me here, and then go back to England. Nothing would turn back my comrade."

Miss Castro did not speak for a few moments, but Dane felt that she understood more than he had said. Then she looked at him steadily.

"You are a strange people, but, go when you will, G.o.d go with you, Don Ilton. Now, at least from my hands, you will take the medicine."

Dane's hand trembled as he held it out for the gla.s.s, for the struggle had left its mark on him; but he felt inclined to resent this climax, which appeared grotesquely ludicrous. Nevertheless, he duly swallowed the medicine, and resisted an inexplicable impulse which prompted him to smash the gla.s.s. Then, with a wondrous unfolding of filmy draperies, his companion rose languidly, and, it seemed to Dane, melted out of the room. Almost simultaneously the crouching figure in the dusty compound rose and vanished too.

Dane decided that it would be well to gather strength with all possible celerity, and leave the factory as soon as he was fit to travel in a hammock. Accordingly, in spite of the protests of Dom Pedro, who, after repeating in definite form the offer made by his daughter, found him supplies and carriers, he presently took his leave, and shook hands with Miss Castro beside the waiting hammock at the compound gate. Her manner had been a shade more reserved of late, but she spoke with friendly earnestness when she laid in his hand a tiny object wrought in silver and ivory.

"You will take this for what you call a keep-a-sake, Don Ilton," she said. "There is always peril in the bush country, and it was given my mother by a holy man. It has the virtue. If you meet Rideau in the forest, remember he is my enemy and beware of him. And now, senor, the good saints keep you."

Dane bent over the little olive-tinted fingers, then Amadu helped him into the hammock, and presently Dom Pedro's factory had faded to a white blur against the sparkling sea.

As he journeyed northward Dane had much to ponder over. He regretted that he had been unable to secure a closer view of Rideau or his dusky follower. He fancied he once heard the Frenchman's voice raised angrily in an altercation with Dom Pedro; but he could learn nothing about the tall negro, who had vanished mysteriously. When the journey was almost accomplished, and he was recovering strength again, there was added another subject for consideration. Searching for the map Maxwell had given him, he failed to find it; but, after the first shock of dismay had pa.s.sed, he was almost thankful that time and distance prevented his returning to the factory in search of it. Dane, remembering the surgeon's narrative, felt himself unequal to the task of asking Miss Castro what she had done with it. He pushed on, hoping for the best, and that Maxwell might not ask too many questions.

Maxwell, when he heard the news, sat silent for several minutes.

"We are not beginning well," he then said gravely, "but that is perhaps not material. It seems to me that the future of the mine will be settled when we meet Monsieur Rideau and his lieutenant, as I think we will. Of course it is no use asking where you lost the map."

Dane recognized the significance of the last sentence, and answered accordingly.

"If I had possessed that knowledge I should have returned and found it.

I have reasons for believing it was in my pocket-book when I left the factory."

Maxwell glanced at him keenly and smiled.

"After what you told me, I suppose one could expect nothing else from you," said he.

CHAPTER X

RIDEAU'S BARGAIN

Some time after Dane's departure, a smartly uniformed hammock train approached Dom Pedro's factory. That worthy ceased his leisurely pacing up and down the veranda, and watched the bearers wind out from the steamy shadow with ill-concealed anxiety, hoping that he might be mistaken. Then as they came on at a steady trot with the poles of the lurching hammock upon their woolly crowns, he stamped on the flooring; and even a sleepy Krooboy started at his vivid maledictions. There was no longer room for doubt that he was about to be honored by a visit from his former partner, Monsieur Victor Rideau, and it was very evident that Dom Pedro was not pleased to see him. His sister, a portly lady, of doubtful age, sat in a shady corner of the veranda, but she pa.s.sed much of her time in Africa in peaceful slumber, and was now asleep as usual--or appeared so.

"It is too hot for anger, father," a voice said; and Dom Pedro, turning, saw his daughter leaning languidly over the bal.u.s.trade. She, too, was watching the hammock with a curious expression.

"There is good cause!" Dom Pedro answered, cutting short his flow of expletives. "This Rideau comes another time to torment me. Why is it that when so many honest men die up yonder this one should always come back safely?"

"He will not always do so. Some day he, too, will be lost in the forest," said Bonita quietly; and the man glanced at her with hope in his eyes, for several of his daughter's predictions had curiously been fulfilled. This may have been due to coincidence, or a shrewd calculation of probabilities; but Dom Pedro, having lived long in a land where occult influences are believed in, was not free from superst.i.tion.

"I would send half, or at least a third, of all I have, to the hospital in Lisboa if that were so," he declared. "Nina, you speak as though you knew."

Bonita laughed a little, though there was anxiety in her face.

"Padre, one might doubt the efficacy of such a bribe. Perhaps I do. It is money he wants, as usual?"

"Yes." There was a certain hesitation in the man's answer which did not escape his daughter. "It is, of course, the silver, and I have not much to give him. You have no regard for this Rideau, nina?"

Bonita's face was a study. Anger, loathing, and the faintest trace of fear were stamped upon it.

"Regard! I have only hatred for _el perro_!"

The emphasis on the last word was significant: while it means simply dog, and is used on occasion to designate a person jestingly, the Castilian can, by change of inflection, make it imply a rabid cur of the lowest degree; and Bonita used the epithet in that manner.

Dom Pedro raised his shoulders, and drew in his breath. He was slightly afraid of his daughter; but, unfortunately for them both, he was more afraid of Rideau, and he did not look at her when he spoke again.

"It is strange the Senor Dane did not return for the book he left, since it shows the path through the forests of Shaillu's country, and he cannot find his way without it."

Bonita smiled upon him pityingly.

"You do not know those men as I do. They plan all from the beginning and leave nothing to chance. The Senor Maxwell is a man of system, and he will have safe in his memory all the book could tell him."