herhands, listening.
Suddenly she heard Quintana's step in the kitchen. Cautiously sheturned the pantry key from inside.
Stormont heard her, and instantly came to her. At the same momentQuintana unbolted the door from the outside and tried to open it.
"Come out," he said coldly, "or it will not go well with you when my menreturn."
"You've got what you say is your property," replied Stormont. "What doyou want now?"
"I tell you what I want ver' damn quick. Who was he, thees man whorides with my property on your horse away? Eh? Because it was not NickSalzar! No! Salzar cannot ride thees way. No! Alors?"
"I can't tell you who he was," replied Stormont. "That's your affair,not ours."
"No? Ah! Ver' well, then. I shall tell you Senor Flic! He was one of_yours._ I understan'. It is a trap, a cheat -- what you call a_plant!_ Thees man who rode your horse he is disguise! Yes! He alsois a gendarme! Yes! You think I let a gendarme rob me? I got youwhere I want you now. You shall write your gendarme frien' that hereturn to me my property, _one day's time,_ or I send him by parcel posttwo nice, fresh-out right-hands -- your sweetheart's and your own!"
Stormont drew Eve's head close to his:
"This man is blood mad or out of his mind! I'd better go out and take achance at him before the others come back."
But the girl shook her head violently, caught him by the arm and drewhim toward the mouth of the tile down which Clinch always emptied hishootch when the Dump was raided.
But now, it appeared that the tile which protruded from the cement floorwas removable.
In silence she began to unscrew it, and he, seeing what she was tryingto do, helped her.
Together they lifted the heavy tile and laid it on the floor.
"You open thees door!" shouted Quintana in a paroxysm of fury. "I giveyou one minute! Then, by God, I kill you both!"
Eve lifted a screen of wood through which the tile had been set. Underit a black hole yawned. It was a tunnel made of three-foot aqueducttiles; and it led straight into star Pond, two hundred feet away.
Now, as she straightened up and looked silently at Stormont, they heardthe trample of boots in the kitchen, voices, the bang of gun-stocks.
"Does that drain lead into the lake?" whispered Stormont.
She nodded.
"Will you follow me, Eve?"
She pushed him aside, indicating that he was to follow her.
As she stripped the hunting jacket from her, a hot colour swept herface. But she dropped on both knees, crept straight into the tile andslipped out of sight.
As she disappeared, Quintana shouted something in Portuguese, and firedat the lock.
With the smash of splintering wood in his ears, Stormont slid into thesmooth tunnel.
In an instant he was shooting down a polished toboggan slide, and inanother moment was under the icy water of Star Pond.
Shocked, blinded, fighting his way to the surface, he felt his spurredboots dragging at him like a ton of iron. Then to him came her helpinghand.
"I can make it," he gasped.
But his clothing and his boots and the icy water began to tell on him inmid-lake.
Swimming without effort beside him, watching his every stroke, presentlyshe sank a little and glided under him and a little ahead, so that hishands fell upon her shoulders.
He let them rest, so, aware now that it was no burden to such a swimmer.Supple and silent as a swimming otter, the girl slipped lithely throughthe chilled water, which washed his body to the nostrils and numbed hislegs till he could scarcely move them.
And now, of a sudden, his feet touched gravel. He stumbled forward inthe shadow of overhanging trees and saw her wading shoreward, adripping, silvery shape on the shoal.
Then, as he staggered up to her, breathless, where she was standing onthe pebbled shore, he saw her join both hands, cup-shape, and lift themto her lips.
And out of her mouth poured diamond, sapphire, and emerald in a dazzlingstream, -- and among them, one great, flashing gem blazing in thestarlight, -- the Flaming Jewel!
Like a naiad of the lake she stood, white, slim, silent, the heaped gemsglittering in her snowy hands, her face framed by the curling masses ofher wet hair.
Then, slowly she turned her head to Stormont.
"These are what Quintana came for," she said. "Could you put them intoyour pocket?"
* * * * *
Episode Eight
Cup and Lip
* * * * *
I
Two miles beyond Clinch's Dump, Hal Smith pulled Stormont's horse to awalk. He was tremendously excited.
With naive sincerity he believed that what he had done on the spur ofthe moment had been the only thing to do.
By snatching the Flaming Jewel from Quintana's very fingers he haddiverted that vindictive bandit's fury from Eve, from Clinch, fromStormont, and had centred it upon himself.
More than that, he had sown the seeds of suspicion among Quintana's ownpeople. they never could discover Salzar's body. Always they mustbelieve that it was Nicolas Salzar and no other who so treacherouslyrobbed them, and who rode away in a rain of bullets, shaking theemblazoned morocco case above his masked head in triumph, derision anddefiance.
At the recollection of what had happened, Hal Smith drew bridle, and,sitting his saddle there in the false dawn, threw back his handsome headand laughed until the fading stars overhead swam in his eyes throughtears of sheerest mirth.
For he was still young enough to have had the time of his life. Nothingin the Great War had so thrilled him. For, in what had just happened,there was humour. There had been none in the Great Grim Drama.
Still, Smith began to realise that he had taken the long, long chance ofthe opportunist who rolls the bones with Death. He had kept his pledgeto the little Grand Duchess. It was a clean job. It was even gooddrama----
The picturesque angle of the affair shook Hal Smith with renewedlaughter. As a moving picture hero he thought himself the funniestthing on earth.
From the time he ha poked a pistol against Sard's fat paunch, to thisbullet-pelted ride for life, life had become one ridiculously excitingepisode after another.
He had come through like the hero in a best-seller. ... Lacking only aheroine. ... If there had been any heroine it was Eve Strayer. Dramahad gone wrong in that detail. ... So perhaps, after all, it was reallife he had been living and not drama. Drama, for the masses, must havea definite beginning and ending. Real life lacks the latter. In lifenothing is finished. It is always a premature curtain which is yankedby that doddering old stage-hand, Johnny Death.
* * * * *
Smith sat in his saddle, thinking, beginning to be sobered now by theinevitable reaction which follows excitement and mirth as relentlesslyas care dogs the horseman.
He had a fine time, -- save for the horror of the Rock-trail. ... Heshuddered. ... Anyway, at worst he had not shirked a clean deal in thatghastly game. ... It was God's mercy that he was not lying where Salzarlay, ten feet -- twenty -- a hundred deep, perhaps -- in immemorialslime----
He shook himself in his saddle as though to be rid of the creepinghorror, and wiped his clammy face.
Now, in the false dawn, a blue-jay awoke somewhere among the oaks andfilled the misty silence with harsh grace-notes.
Then reaction, setting in like a tide, stirred more sombre depths in theheart of this young man.
He thought of Riga; and of the Red Terror; of murder at noon-day, andoutrage by night. He remembered his only encounter with a lovely child-- once Grand Duchess of Esthonia -- then a destitute refugee in silkenrags.
What a day that had been. ... Only one day and one evening. ... Andnever had he been so near in love in all his life. ...
That one day and evening had been enough for her to confide in anAmerican officer her entire life's history. ... Enough for him to pledgehimself to her service while life endured. ... And if emotion had sweptevery atom of reason out of his youthful hea
d, there in the turmoil andalarm -- there in the terrified, riotous city jammed with refugees,reeking with disease, halt frantic from famine and the filthy, risingflood of war -- if really it all had been merely romantic impulse,ardour born of overwrought sentimentalism, nevertheless, what he hadpledged that day to a little Grand Duchess in rags, he had fulfilled tothe letter within the hour.
As the false dawn began to fade, he loosened hunting coat and cartridgesling, drew from his shirt-bosom the morocco case. It bore the arms andcrest of the Grand Duchess Theodorica of Esthonia.
His fingers trembled slightly as he pressed the jewelled spring. Itopened on an empty casket.
In the sudden shock of horror and astonishment, his convulsive clutch onthe spring started a tiny bell ringing. Then, under his very nose, theempty tray slid aside revealing another tray underneath, set solidlywith brilliants. A rainbow glitter streamed from the unset gems in thesilken tray. Like an incredulous child he touched them. They weremagnificently