Daughter of the Sun Part 16

He s.n.a.t.c.hed the flowers down angrily, trampled on them, ground them under foot. They seemed to him a bit of Zoraida herself; they taunted him, they bore the message she sent. They were her summons to come back to her. He jerked free the tie rope and swung up into the saddle, eager and anxious to go back to her the swiftest way in order that the time might come the more swiftly when he could fulfil his word and be free to leave her. He'd get a rifle from Bruce; with that and his revolver he'd take his chance, let all of her infernal rabble bar the way.

From the rear of the house he called to Bruce.

"I've found my horse; they left him behind," he said as Bruce came out.

"I've got to go back, so back I go the quickest I know how. Take decent care of Barlow; he was a real man once and may be again, if he can shake that d.a.m.ned woman off. Lend me a rifle if you can spare it.

I'll see you again as soon as the Lord lets me. So long."

"So long, Jim," returned Bruce drearily. He brought out a rifle, holding it out wordlessly. And Kendric rode away into the night.

In the mountains, though in another narrow pa.s.s, he was stopped as he had been this morning. A lantern was flashed in his face and over his horse. Then he was allowed to go on while from the darkness a voice cried after him:

"_Viva La Senorita_!"

From afar he saw lights burning down in the valley and recognized them as the lamps in the four wall towers. The gates were closed but at his call a man appeared from the shadows and opened to him. He rode in; dismounting, he let the rifle slip into a hiding place in the shrubbery; another man at the front corridor took his horse. At about midnight he again entered the old adobe building. The main hall into which he stepped through the front door was still brightly lighted with its several lamps; through open doors he saw that nowhere in the house were lights out. Yet it was very quiet; he heard neither voice nor step.

He knew where Zoraida was; no doubt Rios and Escobar were with her. He had kept his word and returned to his prison like a good dog; what reason why he should not take advantage of what appeared an unusual opportunity and make his attempt at escape? Zoraida would not have counted on his returning so early; he carried a revolver under his arm pit and hidden in the garden was a rifle. To be sure there were risks to be run; but now, if ever, struck him as the time to run them.

If he could only find where Betty Gordon slept. He must give her a word of hope before he left her here among these devils; a.s.suring her that he would return for her and bring the law with him. Or, if she had the nerve and the desire to attempt escape with him now, that was her right and he would go as far as a man could to bring her through to safety. Noiselessly he crossed the room. He would pa.s.s through the music room and down the hall toward the living quarters of the house.

If luck were with him he would find her.

It was only when he was about to pa.s.s out of the music room door going to the hallway that he heard voices for the first time. They came from a distance, dulled and deadened by the oak doors, but he knew them for the voices of men, raised in anger. A louder word now and then brought him recognition of Ruiz Rios's voice; a sharp answer might have been from Escobar. He stopped and considered. If these men quarreled, how would it affect him? Quarrel they would, soon or late, he knew. For both were truculent and in the looks he had seen pa.s.s between them there was no friends.h.i.+p. Two rebellious spirits held in check by the will of Zoraida Castelmar. But now Zoraida was away.

Then for the moment he forgot them and his conjectures. He had heard a faint sound and turning quickly saw for the first time that he was not alone in the music room. In a dim corner beyond the piano was a cus.h.i.+oned seat and on it, her hands clasped in her lap, her eyes wide with the sleeplessness and anxiety of the night, crouched Betty Gordon.

He took a quick step toward her. She drew back, pressed tight against the wall, her look one of terror. Terror of him!

But he came on until he stood over her, looking down into her raised face. He felt no end of pity for her, she looked so small and helpless and hopeless. Big gray eyes pleaded with him and he read and understood that she asked only that he go and leave her. An impulse which was utterly new to him surged over him now, the impulse to gather her up into his arms as one would a child and comfort her. Not that she was just a child. She had done her s.h.i.+ning brown hair high up on her head; she fought wildly for an air of serene dignity; he judged her at the last of her teens. But she was none the less flower-like, all that a true woman should be according to the beliefs of certain men of the type of Jim Kendric, a true descendant of her sweet, old-fas.h.i.+oned grandmothers. Her little high-heeled slippers, her dainty blue dress, the flower which even in her distress she had tucked away in her hair, were quite as he would have had them.

"Betty Gordon," he said softly so that his words would not carry to other ears, "I want to help you if you will let me. Will you?"

Her clasped hands tightened; he saw the lips tremble before she could command her utterance.

"I--I don't know what to do," she faltered. Her eyes clung to his frankly, filled with s.h.i.+ning eagerness to read the heart under the outer man. For the first time Jim was conscious of his several days'

growth of beard; he supposed that it was rather more than an even chance that his face was grimy and perhaps still carried evidences of the fight at Bruce West's ranch. To a.s.sure her of his honorable intentions toward her he could have wished for a bath and a shave.

"You're in the hands of a rather bad crowd," he said when he saw that she had no further words but was waiting for him. "I thought that at least it would be a relief to know that you had one friend on the job.

And an American at that," he concluded heartily.

"How am I to know who is a friend?" She s.h.i.+vered and pressed tight against the wall. "That terrible man named Escobar spoke to me of friends.h.i.+p, and he is the one who gave orders to bring me here! And the other man, Rios, he spoke words that did not go with the look in his eyes. And you--you----"

"Well? What about me?"

"You are one of them. I find you staying in their house. You are the lover of Senorita Castelmar and she is terrible! Oh, I don't know what to do."

"Who told you that?" he demanded sharply. "That I was Zoraida's lover?"

"One of the maids, Rosita. She told me that Zoraida is mad about you.

And that you are a great adventurer and have killed many men and are a professional gambler."

"Rosita lied. I am just a prisoner here, like you."

Sheer disbelief shone in Betty's eyes.

"You rode away, alone, this morning," she said. "I saw you through my window. You come in alone tonight. You are not a prisoner."

"I was allowed to leave the house only when I promised to come back.

Can't you tell when a man is speaking the truth? Good Lord, why should I want to lie to you?"

Betty hesitated a long time, her hands nervous, her eyes unfaltering on his. She looked at once drawn and repelled, fascinated like a little bird fluttering under the baleful eyes of a snake.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked finally.

"I, for one," he retorted, "refuse to squat here like a fool because I'm told. I'm going to make a break for it. You can take the chance with me or you may remain here and know that I'll do what can be done outside."

Betty shook her head, sighing.

"I don't know what to do," she said miserably.

Jim pondered and frowned. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

"It's up to you, Betty Gordon," he said. "You're old enough to think for yourself. I can't decide for you. But if you were mine, my sister for instance, I'd grab you up and make a bolt for it. A clean bullet is a d.a.m.ned sight more to my liking than the dirty paws of such as Rios and Escobar and their following. They've got a guard around the house which they seem to think sufficient" Again he shrugged. "I've got my notion we can slip through and make the mountains at the rear."

"If I only knew I could trust you," moaned Betty.

A glint of anger shone in Jim's eyes.

"Suit yourself," he told her curtly. "I can promise you it will be a lot easier for me in a scrimmage and a get-away without a woman to look out for."

Immediately he was ashamed of having been brusque with her. For she was only a little slip of a girl after all and obviously one who had never been thrown out into the current of life where it ran strongest.

More than ever she made him think of the girl of olden times, the girl hard to find in our modern world. All of her life she had had others to turn to, men whom she loved to lean upon. Her father, her brothers would have done everything for her; she would have done her purely feminine part in making home homey. That was what she was born for, the lot of the sweet tender girl who is quite content to let other girls wear mannish clothing and do mannish work. Kendric knew instinctively that Betty Gordon could have made the daintiest thing imaginable in dresses, that she would tirelessly and cheerfully nurse a sick man, that she would fight every inch of the way for his life, that she would stand by a father driven to the wall, broken financially, that she would put hope into him and bear up bravely and with a tender smile under adversity--but that she would call to a man to kill a spider for her. G.o.d had not fas.h.i.+oned her to direct a military campaign. And thinking thus of her, he thought also of Zoraida. Betty Gordon, just as she was, was infinitely more to his liking.

"I can only give you my word of honor, my dear," he said gently, and again he felt as though he were addressing a poor little kid of a girl in short dresses, "that I wouldn't harm a hair of your head for all Mexico."

Betty, though this was her first rude experience with outlaws, was not without both discernment and intuition. Perhaps the maid Rosita had lied to her, carried away by a natural relish in telling all that she knew and more. A look of brightening hope surged up in Betty's gray eyes; her pretty lips were parting when a rude interruption made her forget to say the words which were just forming.

Fitfully voices had come to them from the _patio_ where Ruiz Rios and the rebel captain were arguing, but Jim and Betty with their own problem occupying their minds had paid scant attention. Now a sudden exclamation arrested both words and thought, a sharp cry of bitter anger and more than anger; there was rage and menace in the intonation.

And then came the shot, a revolver no doubt but sounding louder as it echoed through the rooms. Betty started up in terror, both hands grasping Kendric's arm. His own hand had gone its swift way to the gun slung under his coat.

They waited a moment, both tense. Then Jim patted her hand rea.s.suringly, removed it from his sleeve and said quietly:

"Wait a second. I'll see which one it was."

But before he could cross the room the door was thrown open and Ruiz Rios stood looking in on them queerly.

"Senor Escobar has shot himself," he said. "Through the heart."

Betty fell back from him, step by step, her eyes staring, her face white. Then she looked pleadingly to Kendric. When he went to her side, she whispered: