XVII
Binhart was moved that night up into the hills. There he was installed ina bungalow of an abandoned banana plantation and a doctor was brought tohis bedside. He was delirious by the time this doctor arrived, and hisravings through the night were a source of vague worry to his enemy. Onthe second day the sick man showed signs of improvement.
For three weeks Blake watched over Binhart, saw to his wants, journeyedto Chalavia for his food and medicines. When the fever was broken andBinhart began to gain strength the detective no longer made the trip toChalavia in person. He preferred to remain with the sick man.
He watched that sick man carefully, jealously, hour by hour and day byday. A peon servant was paid to keep up the vigil when Blake slept, assleep he must.
But the strain was beginning to tell on him. He walked heavily. Theasthmatic wheeze of his breathing became more audible. His earlier touchof malaria returned to him, and he suffered from intermittent chills andfever. The day came when Blake suggested it was about time for them tomove on.
"Where to?" asked Binhart. Little had passed between the two men, butduring all those silent nights and days each had been secretly yetassiduously studying the other.
"Back to New York," was Blake's indifferent-noted answer. Yet thisindifference was a pretense, for no soul had ever hungered more for awhite man's country than did the travel-worn and fever-racked Blake. Buthe had his part to play, and he did not intend to shirk it. They wentabout their preparations quietly, like two fellow excursionists makingready for a journey with which they were already over-familiar. It waswhile they sat waiting for the guides and mules that Blake addressedhimself to the prisoner.
"Connie," he said, "I'm taking you back. It doesn't make much differencewhether I take you back dead or alive. But I'm going to take you back."
The other man said nothing, but his slight head-movement was one ofcomprehension.
"So I just wanted to say there's no side-stepping, no four-flushing, atthis end of the trip!"
"I understand," was Binhart's listless response.
"I'm glad you do," Blake went on in his dully monotonous voice. "BecauseI got where I can't stand any more breaks."
"All right, Jim," answered Binhart. They sat staring at each other. Itwas not hate that existed between them. It was something more dormant,more innate. It was something that had grown ineradicable; as fixed asthe relationship between the hound and the hare. Each wore an air ofcareless listlessness, yet each watched the other, every move, everymoment.
It was as they made their way slowly down to the coast that Blake put anunexpected question to Binhart.
"Connie, where in hell did you plant that haul o' yours?"
This thing had been worrying Blake. Weeks before he had gone throughevery nook and corner, every pocket and crevice in Binhart's belongings.
The bank thief laughed a little. He had been growing stronger, day byday, and as his spirits had risen Blake's had seemed to recede.
"Oh, I left that up in the States, where it'd be safe," he answered.
"What'll you do about it?" Blake casually inquired.
"I can't tell, just yet," was Binhart's retort.
He rode on silent and thoughtful for several minutes. "Jim," he said atlast, "we're both about done for. There's not much left for either of us.We're going at this thing wrong. There's a lot o' money up there, forsomebody. And _you_ ought to get it!"
"What do you mean?" asked Blake. He resented the bodily weakness that wasmaking burro-riding a torture.
"I mean it's worth a hundred and fifty thousand dollars to you just tolet me drop out. I'd hand you over that much to quit the chase."
"It ain't me that's chasing you, Connie. It's the Law!" was Blake'squiet-toned response. And the other man knew he believed it.
"Well, you quit, and I'll stand for the Law!"
"But, can't you see, they'd never stand for you!"
"Oh, yes they would. I'd just drop out, and they'd forget about me. Andyou'd have that pile to enjoy life with!"
Blake thought it over, ponderously, point by point. For not one fractionof a second could he countenance the thought of surrendering Binhart. Yethe wanted both his prisoner and his prisoner's haul; he wanted his finalaccomplishment to be complete.
"But how'd we ever handle the deal?" prompted the tired-bodied man on theburro.
"You remember a woman called Elsie Verriner?"
"Yes," acknowledged Blake, with a pang of regret which he could notfathom, at the mention of the name.
"Well, we could fix it through her."
"Does Elsie Verriner know where that pile is?" the detective inquired.His withered hulk of a body was warmed by a slow glow of anticipation.There was a woman, he remembered, whom he could count on swinging to hisown ends.
"No, but she could get it," was Binhart's response.
"And what good would that do _me_?"
"The two of us could go up to New Orleans. We could slip in there withoutany one being the wiser. She could meet us. She'd bring the stuff withher. Then, when you had the pile in your hand, I could just fade off themap."
Blake rode on again in silence.
"All right," he said at last. "I'm willing."
"Then how'll you prove it? How'd I know you'd make good?" demandedBinhart.
"That's not up to me! You're the man that's got to make good!" wasBlake's retort.
"But you'll give me the chance?" half pleaded his prisoner.
"Sure!" replied Blake, as they rode on again. He was wondering how manymore miles of hell he would have to ride through before he could rest. Hefelt that he would like to sleep for days, for weeks, without any thoughtof where to-morrow would find him or the next day would bring him.
It was late that day as they climbed up out of a steaming valley intohigher ground that Binhart pulled up and studied Blake's face.
"Jim, you look like a sick man to me!" he declared. He said it withoutexultation; but there was a new and less passive timber to his voice.
"I've been feeling kind o' mean this last day or two," confessed Blake.His own once guttural voice was plaintive, as he spoke. It was almost aquavering whine.
"Hadn't we better lay up for a few days?" suggested Binhart.
"Lay up nothing!" cried Blake, and he clenched that determination by anoutburst of blasphemous anger. But he secretly took great doses of quininand drank much native liquor. He fought against a mental lassitude whichhe could not comprehend. Never before had that ample machinery of thebody failed him in an emergency. Never before had he known an illnessthat a swallow or two of brandy and a night's rest could not scatter tothe four winds. It bewildered him to find his once capable framerebelling against its tasks. It left him dazed, as though he had beenconfronted by the sudden and gratuitous treachery of a life-long servant.
He grew more irritable, more fanciful. He changed guides at the nextnative village, fearing that Binhart might have grown too intimate withthe old ones. He was swayed by an ever-increasing fear of intrigues. Hecoerced his flagging will into a feverish watchfulness. He became morearbitrary in his movements and exactions. When the chance came, hepurchased a repeating Lee-Enfield rifle, which he packed across hissweating back on the trail and slept with under his arm at night. When amorning came when he was too weak and ill to get up, he lay back on hisgrass couch, with his rifle across his knees, watching Binhart, alwayswatching Binhart.
He seemed to realize that his power was slipping away, and he brooded onsome plan for holding his prisoner, on any plan, no matter what it mightcost.
He even pretended to sleep, to the end that Binhart might make an effortto break away--and be brought down with a bullet. He prayed that Binhartwould try to go, would give him an excuse for the last move that wouldleave the two of them lying there together. Even to perish there side byside, foolishly, uselessly, seemed more desirable than the thought thatBinhart might in the end get away. He seemed satisfied that the two ofthem should lie there, for all tim
e, each holding the other down, liketwo embattled stags with their horns inextricably locked. And he waitedthere, nursing his rifle, watching out of sullenly feverish eyes, markingeach movement of the passive-faced Binhart.
But Binhart, knowing what he knew, was content to wait.
He was content to wait until the fever grew, and the poisons of the bloodnarcotized the dulled brain into indifference, and then goaded it intodelirium. Then, calmly equipping himself for his journey, he buried therepeating rifle and slipped away in the night, carrying with him Blake'squinin and revolver and pocket-filter. He traveled hurriedly, bearingsoutheast towards the San Juan. Four days later he reached the coast,journeyed by boat to Bluefields, and from that port passed on into theouter world, where time and distance swallowed him up, and no sign of hiswhereabouts was left behind.