CHAPTER XIV
CONCERNING A DIFFICULT SITUATION, RECKLESSLY INVITED
For a moment in the heavy silence Jim Kendric sat appalled by what hehad done. In the grip of the game he had been swayed by emotion, nottarrying for cold logic during an episode when time raced. He hadhoped to win. Thus, since he had discovered that Rios, too, wasenamored of his beautiful cousin, he would tease an old enemy, soberBruce, jolt Barlow--and vex Betty. He had not thought of himself norof Zoraida.
No one spoke. The first sound was a long shuddering breath from youngBruce; his face was a sick white save for a spot of red in each cheek;his eyes looked like those of a man with a high fever. Kendric satstaring in perplexity at the gold he had won, automatically gatheringit toward him. Zoraida stood motionless, displaying herself, awaitinghis eyes. And abruptly, when he lifted his head, his eyes went not toher but to Betty.
The girl appeared fascinated and horrified. Jim's eyes pleaded withher. Betty began to twist her hands in an agony of bewilderedemotions. Zoraida, waiting for Jim's face to be lifted to her and notone accustomed to waiting on a man, frowned. But swiftly and beforeanyone but the always watchful Rios saw, she broke the silence with herlittle cooing laughter. She put out her two white arms toward the menat the table, saying softly:
"Will you help me down, Senor Jim?"
Before Kendric could answer Bruce was on his feet. The blood chargedto his face so that the red spots were merged in the crimson flood.The boy looked ready for murder.
"Stop this, Zoraida!" he said excitedly. "Stop it! You are mad. Haveyou forgotten?--Good God!"
"Betty--" said Kendric, hardly knowing what he would say. He wantedher to understand--
"Don't speak to me!" Betty flung the words at him passionately. "Youare an unthinkable beast!"
Bruce heard nothing that was said, saw nothing but Zoraida. He cametwo steps toward her and then stopped, staring at her.
"Zoraida," he commanded, as one who speaks with love's authority, "youdon't realize what you are doing. It is that cursed wine you havedrunk or there is just desperation in the air and it has got into you.This hideous jest has gone far enough--too far. Tell them, tellKendric, that it was all a jest. Nothing more."
"Had you won," said Zoraida sweetly, "what then, Senor Bruce? Wouldyou have been jesting?"
Bruce's lips moved but no words came. Suddenly he whirled from herupon Kendric, his face distorted with rage.
"Damn you!" he burst out.
No longer was it merely a case of murder in his look. The urge to killhad swept into his heart, rushed hotly along his pounding arteries.Before now had Kendric seen men frenzy-lashed, like Bruce, brieflyinsane with the blood impulse and as Bruce cursed him he knew that hemeant to kill him. There were half a dozen paces between the two menand already was Bruce's hand lost under the skirt of his coat. Kendricsprang to his feet and as he did so Bruce whipped out his pistol.There seemed no loss of time between the action and the discharge. ButKendric had been quick and only his promptness saved the life in himthat night. As he went to his feet he swept up in his hand a heap ofthe shining gold pieces and flung them straight into the boy's purplingface. The bullet went by Kendric's head doing no harm beyondsplintering the wall behind him. Before Bruce could shake his head andfire again Kendric was upon him, worrying him as a dog worries a cat.Bruce, even in the desperation driving him, and with a gun in his hand,was little more than a stripling in the hard hands at his wrist andthroat. A sudden heave and mighty jerk came close to breaking his armand freed the pistol from his claw-like fingers. Kendric hurled himback so that Bruce staggered half across the room and crashed to thefloor. Before he could come to his feet the pistol had been droppedinto Kendric's coat pocket.
During the whole time Twisty Barlow had sat like a man bereft ofvolition, his face puckered queerly, his mouth a little open. Helooked at the gold on the table top and at Zoraida; when Kendric hadhurled the coins into Bruce's face he looked at the gold rolling acrossthe floor and again back to Zoraida. Rios, having risen quietly, stoodwith one hand on the back of his chair, one hand at his mustache,looking steadily at his cousin. Even while Kendric and Bruce battledRios gave them scant attention. He was watching Zoraida as though hislife itself depended on his reading her wild heart aright.
Slowly, as though he had been half stunned, Bruce rose from the floor.Once more his face was white and looked sick. He had in his eyes thestartled expression of a man rudely awakened from profound slumber. Hewalked with dragging feet across the room and dropped wearily into achair. He put his elbows on his knees and his head into his hands.
Zoraida, seeing that Kendric would not come to her, caught up her gownand leaped lightly down, landing softly like a cat. She put into hereyes what she pleased, a confusion of messages, a swooning passion, amaidenly tenderness, a joy that seemed to peep forth shyly. Ontiptoes, as though she would not break the hush of the room, she wentto the hall door, smiling a little in her backward look. A moment shewhispered to the serving man at the door; then she was gone and theyheard only the light patter of her slippers.
The man to whom Zoraida had whispered spoke in an undertone to hisfellows. One of them went out swiftly; the others threw wide the threedoors and then gathered up the fallen gold. It was replaced in its boxand gravely presented to Kendric. He threw back the lid, thrust intohis pocket without counting what he deemed equal to the amount he hadplayed and tossed the box back to the servant.
"Divide with your friends," he said shortly, and turned toward Betty.But already, with the doors open, she had sought escape. He saw thewhisk of her skirt and marked the erect carriage of her head of brownhair as she went out.
Jim Kendric stood looking about him and cursed himself for a fool.Headlong he had always been, plunging ever into deep waters that werenot over clear, but he could not recall the time he had been a greaterblunderer. He had no more than decided that the one thing for him todo was to simplify matters than here he went already interfering inother people's business and making a mess of the whole thing. Bettyadjudged him being desirous of becoming Zoraida's lover; Bruce soughthis death; Rios's eyes were like knives; Barlow still sent his sullenglances from the box of gold in a servant's hands to the door throughwhich Zoraida had passed. Kendric went to where Bruce still sat andput his hand gently on the slack shoulder.
"Bruce, old man----" he said.
But Bruce, though with little spirit in the movement, shook the handaway.
"There's no call for talk between you and me, Jim," he said wearily."Talk can't change things. Just now I wanted to kill you!" Heshuddered.
The man with whom Zoraida had whispered was speaking quietly with Rios.Kendric, seeing them beyond Bruce's bowed head, saw a fire of rebellionburning in Rios's eyes. Then, surprising him when he expected anoutburst, Rios merely shrugged his shoulders and left the room. Theservant came on to Barlow. Again he whispered. Barlow heard himthrough stolidly, then for the first time looked long and steadily atKendric. Kendric guessed from the workings of his face that he wasstruggling with his own problem. Gradually the sailor closed his mouthuntil at last the teeth were clamped tight, the muscles at the cornersof his jaw bulging.
"Barlow," said Kendric then, "there's too infernally much whispering incorners in this house. Even if we three seem to be at cross purposesnow we have been friends----"
"You talk of friendship!" Barlow spoke with cold bitterness. "Whenhere I crawl around with a hole in my shoulder; when West there in hischair has just tried to bore you and got smashed in the face for histrouble? After what's happened tonight, man, you and me are done." Hestalked off to the door. But at the threshold he paused long enough toturn and mutter: "We all know what we are after, I guess. Don't foolyourself, Jim Kendric, that everything's landslidin' you [Transcriber'snote: your?] way."
Plainly Zoraida's orders had been intended to clear the room save forKendric. For the servant came to Bruce when Barlow had gone and spoketo him. Kendric tri
ed to catch the words but could not. But he sawBruce suddenly jerk up his head and watched a slow return of color intothe drawn face. Then Bruce, eyeing Kendric with suspicion and in openhostility, quitted him in a silence that was ominous.
Kendric's anger, ever ready like his mirth, burned hot through him. Hehad shot Barlow in Bruce's quarrel, not knowing Barlow in the dark, andfor this Barlow hated him. Bruce had sought to kill him, and for thisBruce hated him. He had sought to befriend Betty, and Betty hated him.He had played fair with them all, and now all of them were set againsthim.
"Devil take the whole outfit!" he cried out passionately. "From nowon, Jim Kendric, you feather your own nest and hit the one-man trailfor the open."
The servingman, whom Zoraida's commands had constituted a sort ofmaster of ceremonies, came to Kendric, his look curious but notunfriendly. The box with its gold was still in his hands.
"You will follow me, senor?" he invited. "_La Senorita Reinita_awaits you."
"I'll do nothing of the sort," snapped Kendric. "I am going outsidefor a smoke and you can tell your lady queen so with my compliments."
But the man stood in front of him, shaking his head dubiously. Helooked distressed. In his simple mind orders from Zoraida were ordersabsolute, and yet such largesse as Jim's bought respect and somethingakin to affection.
"Later you will smoke outside, senor," he urged. "Now it would bebest--oh, surely, best, senor!--to follow me to La Senorita."
Jim shoved by him toward the door. The fellow looked a trifleuncertain, his small calibre brain confused by two contending impulses.But in an instant long habit and an old fear that was greater than hisnew liking, asserted themselves. He slipped between Kendric and thedoor and at his glance the other servant joined him. The two glancedat each other and then at Kendric's set and determined face and thenlooked swiftly down the long hallway behind them. This look waseloquent and Kendric guessed its meaning; that way had their companiongone hastily when Zoraida had left; that way, perhaps, would he bereturning presently with others of her hireling pack at his heels.
"Stand aside," commanded Jim. "I'm on my way."
They were stalwart men and they did not stand aside. Rather theystepped closer together, shoulder to shoulder, grim in their stubbornobedience to the orders they had been given. Sick of waiting and wordsand obstructions, Kendric bore down on them, vowing to go throughthough they might raise an outcry and double their strength. They wereready for him and stood up to him. But their impulse of obedience androutine duty was a pale weak motive before his rage at eternalhindrance. He charged them like a mad bull; he struck to right andleft with the mighty blows of lusty battle-joy, and though they struckback and sought to grapple with him he hurled one of them against thewall with a bleeding mouth and sent the other toppling backward,crashing to the floor in the hall. And through he went, growlingsavagely. But only to confront the third man returning with half adozen sullen-eyed half breeds at his heels, only to see beyond them thebright interested eyes of Zoraida.
"Call your hound dogs off," he roared at her. "I'm going through."
Zoraida clapped her hands.
"_Muchachos_," she commanded them, "tame me this wild man! But nopistols or knives, mind you!"
She drew up close to one wall and watched; she might have been anexcited child at a three-ring circus. Kendric found time to marvel ather even as he shot by her, hurling the whole of his compact weightinto the mass of bodies defying him passageway. And as flesh struckflesh, Zoraida clapped her hands again and watched eagerly.
"One against six--seven," she whispered. "One against nine!" sheadded, for already the two men who had sought to hold Kendric back fromthe hallway were up and after him. "He is a mad fool--and yet, by thebreath of God, he is a man!"
And a man's fight did he treat her to, carried out of himself, gone forthe moment the madman she had named him. It was Jim Kendric's way tofight in silence, but now he shouted as he struck, defying them,cursing them, striking as hard as God had given him strength, reckingnot in the least of blows received, heart and mind centered alone onthe pulsing, throbbing prayer to feel a bone crack before him, to see ahead snap back, to feel blood gush forth from a battered face. A mantripped him cunningly from the side and he all but fell. But he struckback with his boot and steadied himself by hurling his toppling bodyagainst a resisting body and crashed on. Yes, and through, though theyclutched at him and dragged after him! A man hung to his belt and hedragged him four or five steps; then he turned and drove his fist intothe man's neck and freed himself and bore on. So he came to the end ofthe hall and to a locked door and turned with his back to the wall.And again Zoraida's hound dogs were in front of him.
He laughed at them and taunted them and reviled them. They were ninemen and upon many of the dark faces were signs of his passing. And asthey came closer there was respect as well as caution in their look.They meant to beat him down; in their minds was no doubt of theultimate outcome, for were they not nine to one? But they had felt hisfists and had no joy in the memory. So they drew on slowly.
Kendric watched them narrowly. In the eyes of the nearest man he saw asudden flickering; it flashed over him that the fellow meant trickeryand no fair man-to-man fight. He stood with his back to the door; hesaw the approaching man's eyes switch to it briefly. Then it flashedupon Kendric that he was to be attacked from behind--
But even as the thought came and before he could leap aside, the doorwas jerked open and from behind he felt arms about him. He struggledand strained in a tensing grip. Not just one man was there behind him;two at the very least and maybe three. He heard them muttering. Thenthe men in front came on in a flying body and with a dozen men pilingover him Jim Kendric at last went down. And once down, being the manto know when he had played out his string, he lay still.
"Will _el senor_ Jim come with me?" Zoraida was above him, smilingcuriously. "Or shall I have him carried along by my men?"
"I'll come," he answered shortly. "Having no choice. Call them offbefore I stifle."
Zoraida ordered, the men fell back and Kendric rose. She made a quicksignal and they filed out through a further door.
"Come," she said to him. She caught up a cloak which had slipped fromher shoulders, a thing of silken scarlet, and led the way down the hall.
He followed, ready and eager for a talk with her which would be thelast. He fully meant to make a break for the open tonight. And alone.He was assuring himself that he drew a vast pleasure from thatconsideration--that he was free from now on to play out his own hand inhis own way without reference to others. What he did not admit tohimself was that he was trumping up an explanation of the fact that,while he was following Zoraida, he was thinking of Betty. He waswondering where Betty had gone in such a flurry, when he should havebeen asking himself where Zoraida was taking him and for what purposeof her own.