PART THREE OF A FOUR-PART NOVEL
By Murray Leinster
Seven United States Secret Service men have disappeared in South
America. Another is found--a screaming homicidal maniac. It is rumored
that they are victims of a diabolical poison which produces "murder
madness."
[Sidenote: More and more South Americans are stricken with the horrible
"murder madness" that lies in The Master's fearful poison. And Bell is
their one last hope as he fights to stem the swiftly rising tide of a
continent's utter enslavement.]
Charley Bell of the "Trade"--a secret service organization which does
not officially exist--discovers that a sinister system of slavery is
flourishing in South America, headed by a mysterious man known only as
The Master. This slavery is accomplished by means of a poison which
causes its victims to experience a horrible writhing of the hands,
followed by a madness to do murder, two weeks after it is taken.
The victims get relief only with an antidote supplied through Ribiera,
The Master's Chief Deputy; but in the antidote there is more of the
poison, which again in two weeks will take effect. And so it is that a
person who once receives the poison is forever enslaved.
Ribiera kidnaps Paula Canalejas, daughter of a Brazilian cabinet
minister who, on becoming a victim, has killed himself, preferring
death to "murder madness." Bell rescues Paula, and they flee from
Ribiera in a plane. They find The Master's hidden jungle stronghold, and
Bell destroys it with a bomb attack from the air. As he is getting away
his motor quits. Paula jumps for her life, and shortly afterwards Bell
follows, drifting straight down towards his enemies below.
CHAPTER XI
Bell was falling head-first when the 'chute opened, and the jerk was
terrific, the more so as he had counted not the customary ten, but
fifteen before pulling out the ring. But very suddenly he seemed to be
floating down with an amazing gentleness, with the ruddy blossom of a
parachute swaying against a background of lustrous stars very far indeed
over his head. Below him were masses of smoke and at least one huge
dancing mass of flame, where the storage tank for airplane gas had
exploded. It was unlikely in the extreme, he saw now, that anyone under
that canopy of smoke could look up to see plane or parachute against the
sky.
Clumsily enough, dangling as he was, Bell twisted about to look for
Paula. Sheer panic came to him before he saw her a little above him but
a long distance off. She looked horribly alone with the glare of the
fires upon her parachute, and smoke that trailed away into darkness
below her. She was farther from the flames than Bell, too. The light
upon her was dimmer. And Bell cursed that he had stayed in the plane to
make sure it would dive clear of her before he stepped off himself.
* * * * *
The glow on the blossom of silk above her faded out. The sky still
glared behind, but a thick and acrid fog enveloped Bell as he descended.
Still straining his eyes hopelessly, he crossed his feet and waited.
Branches reached up and lashed at him. Vines scraped against his sides.
He was hurled against a tree trunk with stunning force, and rebounded,
and swung clear, and then dangled halfway between earth and the jungle
roof. It was minutes before his head cleared, and then he felt at once
despairing and a fool. Dangling in his parachute harness when Paula
needed him.
The light in the sky behind him penetrated even the jungle growth as a
faint luminosity. Presently he writhed to a position in which he could
strike a match. A thick, matted mass of climbing vines swung from the
upper branches not a yard from his fingertips. Bell cursed again,
frantically, and clutched at it wildly. Presently his absurd kickings
set him to swaying. He redoubled his efforts and increased the arc in
which he swung. But it was a long time before his fingers closed upon
leaves which came away in his grasp, and longer still before he caught
hold of a wrist-thick liana which oozed sticky sap upon his hands.
But he clung desperately, and presently got his whole weight on it. He
unsnapped the parachute and partly let himself down, partly slid, and
partly tumbled to the solid earth below.
He had barely reached it when, muffled and many times reechoed among the
tree trunks, he heard two shots. He cursed, and sprang toward the sound,
plunging headlong into underbrush that strove to tear the flesh from his
bones. He fought madly, savagely, fiercely.
* * * * *
He heard two more shots. He fought the jungle in the darkness like a
madman, ploughing insanely through masses of creepers that should have
been parted by a machete, and which would have been much more easily
slipped through by separating them, but which he strove to penetrate by
sheer strength.
And then he heard two shots again.
Bell stopped short and swore disgustedly.
"What a fool I am!" he growled. "She's telling me where she is, and
I--"
He drew one of the weapons that seemed to bulge in every pocket of his
flying suit and fired two shots in the air in reply. A single one
answered him.
From that time Bell moved more sanely. The jungle is not designed,
apparently, for men to travel in. It is assuredly not intended for them
to travel in by night, and especially it is not planned, by whoever
planned it, for a man to penetrate without either machete or lights.
As nearly as he could estimate it afterward, it took Bell over an hour
to cover one mile in the blackness under the jungle roof. Once he
blundered into fire-ants. They were somnolent in the darkness, but one
hand stung as if in white-hot metal as he went on. And thorns tore at
him. The heavy flying suit protected him somewhat, but after the first
hundred yards he blundered on almost blindly, with his arms across his
face, stopping now and then to try to orient himself. Three times he
fired in the air, and three times an answering shot came instantly, to
guide him.
* * * * *
And then a voice called in the blackness, and he ploughed toward it, and
it called again, and again, and at last he struck a match with trembling
fingers and saw her, dangling as he had dangled, some fifteen feet from
the ground. She smiled waveringly, with a little gasp of relief, and he
heard something go slithering away, very furtively.
She clung to him desperately when he had gotten her down to solid earth.
But he was savage.
"Those shots--though I'm glad you fired them--may have been a tip-off to
the town. We've got to keep moving, Paula."
Her breath was coming quickly.
"They could trail us, Charles. By daylight we might not leave signs, but
forcing our way through the night...."
"Right, as usual," admitted Bell. "How about shells? Did you use all
you had?"
"Nearly. But I was afraid, Charles."
Bell felt in his pockets. Half a box. Perhaps twenty-five shells. With
the town nearby and almost certainly having heard their signals to each
other. Black rage invaded Bell. They would be hunted for, of course.
Dogs, perhaps, would trail them. And the thing would end when they were
at bay, ringed about by The Master's slaves, with twenty-five shells
only to expend.
The dim little glow in the sky between the jungle leaves kept up. It was
bright, and slowly growing brighter. There was a sudden flickering and
even the jungle grew light for an instant. A few seconds later there was
a heavy concussion.
"Something else went up then," growled Bell. "It's some satisfaction,
anyway, to know I did a lot of damage."
* * * * *
And then, quite abruptly, there was an obscure murmuring sound. It grew
stronger, and stronger still. If Bell had been aloft, he would have seen
the planes from The Master's hangars being rushed out of their shelters.
One of the long row of buildings had caught. And the plateau of Cuyaba
is very, very far from civilization. Tools, and even dynamos and
engines, could be brought toilsomely to it, but the task would be
terrific. Buildings would be made from materials on the spot, even the
shelters for the planes. It would be much more practical to carry the
parts for a saw mill and saw out the lumber on the spot than to attempt
to freight roofing materials and the like to Cuyaba. So that the
structures Bell had seen in the wing lights' glow were of wood, and
inflammable. The powerhouse that lighted the landing field was already
ablaze. The smaller shacks of the laborers perhaps would not be burnt
down, but the elaborate depot for communication by plane and wireless
was rapidly being destroyed. The reserve of gasoline had gone up in
smoke almost at the beginning, and in spreading out had extended the
disaster to nearly all the compact nerve-center of the whole conspiracy.
Presently the droning noise was tumultuous. Every plane in a condition
to fly was out on the landing field, now brightly lighted by the burning
buildings all about. There was frantic, hectic activity everywhere. The
secretaries of The Master were rescuing what records they could, and
growing cold with terror. In the confusion of spreading flames and the
noise of roaring conflagrations the stopping of the motor up aloft had
passed unnoticed. In the headquarters of The Master there was panic. An
attack had been made upon The Master. A person who could not be one of
his slaves had found his stronghold and attacked it terribly. And if one
man knew that location and dared attack it, then....
* * * * *
The hold of The Master upon all his slaves was based on one fact and its
corollary. The fact was, that those who had been given his poison would
go murder mad without its antidote. The corollary was that those who
obeyed him would be given that antidote and be safe. True, the antidote
was but a temporary one, and mixed with it for administration was a
further dosage of the poison itself. But the whole power of The Master
was based on his slaves' belief that as long as they obeyed him abjectly
there would be no failure of the antidote's supply. And Bell had given
that belief a sudden and horrible shock.
Orders came from one frightened man, who cursed much more from terror
than from rage. Ribiera had advised him. To do him justice, Ribiera felt
less fear than most. Nephew to The Master, and destined successor to The
Master's power, Ribiera dared not revolt, but at least he had little
fear of punishment for incompetence. It was his advice that set the many
aircraft motors warming up. It was his direction that assorted out the
brainwork staff. And Ribiera himself curtly took control, indifferently
abandoned the enslaved workers to the madness that would come upon them,
and took wing in the last of a stream of roaring things that swept
upward above the smoke and flame and vanished in the sky.
* * * * *
Bell and Paula were huddled in between the buttress roots of a jungle
giant, protected on three sides by the monster uprearings of solid wood,
and Bell was absorbedly feeding a tiny smudge fire. The smoke was thick
and choking, but it did keep off the plague of insects which make jungle
travel much less than the romantic adventure it is pictured. Bell heard
the heavy, thunderous buzzing from the town change timbre suddenly. A
single note of it grew loud and soared overhead.
He stared up instinctively, but saw nothing but leaves and branches and
many climbing things above him, dimly lighted by the smoky little blaze.
The roaring overhead went on, and dimmed. A second roaring came from the
town and rose to a monstrous growling and diminished. A third did
likewise, and a fourth.
At stated, even intervals the planes at headquarters of The Master took
off from the landing field, ringed about with blazing buildings, and
plunged through the darkness in a straight line. The steadier droning
from the town grew lighter as the jungles echoed for many miles with the
sounds of aircraft motors overhead.
* * * * *
At last a single plane rose upward and thundered over the jungle roof.
It went away, and away.... The town was silent, then, and only a faint
and dwindling murmur came from the line of aircraft headed south.
"They've deserted the town, by God!" said Bell, his eyes gleaming.
"Scared off!"
"And--and we--" said Paula, gazing at him.
"You can bet that every man who could crowd into a plane did so," said
Bell grimly. "Those that couldn't, if they have any brains, will be
trying to make it some other way to where they can subject themselves to
one of The Master's deputies and have a little longer time of sanity.
The poor devils that are left--well--they'll be _camaradas_, _peons_,
laborers, without the intelligence to know what they can do. They'll
wait patiently for their masters to come back. And presently their hands
will writhe.... And the town will be a hell."
"Then they won't be looking for us?"
Bell considered. And suddenly he laughed.
"If the fire has burned out before dawn," he said coldly, "I'll go
looking for them. It's going to be cold-blooded, and it's going to be
rather pitiful, I think, but there's nothing else to do. You try to get
some rest. You'll need it."
And for all the rest of the dark hours he crouched in the little angle
formed by the roots of the forest giant, and kept a thickly smoking
little fire going, and listened to the noises of the jungle all about
him.
* * * * *
It was more than a mile back to the town. It was nearer two. But it was
vastly less difficult to force a way through the thick growths by
daylight, even though then it was not easy. With machetes, of course,
Bell and Paula would have had no trouble, but theirs had been left in
the plane. Bell made a huge club and battered openings by sheer strength
where it was necessary. Sweat streamed down his face before he had
covered five hundred yards, but then something occurred to him and he
went more easily. If there were any of the intelligent class of The
Master's subjects left in the little settlement, he wanted to allow time
enough for them to start their flight. He wanted to find the place empty
of all but laborers, who would be accustomed to obey any man who spoke
arrogantly and in the manner of a deputy of The Master. Yet he did not
want to wait too long. Panic spreads among the _camarada_ class as
swiftly as among more intelligent folk, and it even more blind and
hysterical.
It was nearly eleven o'clock before they emerged upon a cleared field
where brightly blooming plants grew hugely. Bell regarded these grimly.
"These," he observed, "will be The Master's stock."
Paula touched his arm.
"I have heard," she said, and shuddered, "that the men who gather the
plants that go to make the poisons of the _Indios_ do not--do not dare
to sleep near the fresh-picked plants. They say that the odor is
dangerous, even the perfume of the blossoms."
"Very probably," said Bell. "I wish I could destroy the damned things.
But since we can't, why, we'll go around the edge of the field."
* * * * *
He went upwind, skirting the edge of the planted things. A path showed,
winding over half-heartedly cleared ground. He followed it, with Paula
close behind him. Smoke still curled heavily upward from the heaps of
ashes which he reached first of all. He looked upon them with an
unpleasant satisfaction. He had to pick his way between still smoking
heaps of embers to reach the huts about which laborers stood listlessly,
not working because not ordered to work, not yet frightened because not
yet realizing fully the catastrophe that had come upon them.
He was moving toward them, deliberately adopting an air of suppressed
rage, when a voice called whiningly.
"Senhor! Senhor!" And then pleadingly, in Portuguese, "I have news for
The Master! I have news for The Master!"
Bell jerked his head about. Bars of thick wood, cemented into heavy
timbers at top and bottom. A building that was solid wall on three
sides, and the fourth was bars. A white man in it, unshaven, haggard,
ragged, filthy. And on the floor of the cage....
There had been another such cage on a _fazenda_ back toward Rio. Bell
had looked into it, and had shot the gibbering Thing that had been its
occupant, as an act of pure mercy. But this man had been through horrors
and yet was sane.
"Don't look," said Bell sharply to Paula. He went close.
The figure pressed against the bars, whining. And suddenly it stopped
its fawning.
"The devil!" said the white man in the cage. "What in hell are you doing
here, Bell? Has that fiend caught you too?"
* * * * *
"Oh, my God!" gasped Bell. He went white with a cold rage. He'd known
this man before. A Secret Service man--one of the seven who had
vanished. "How's this place opened? I'll let you out."
"It may be dangerous," said the white man with a ghastly grin. "I'm one
of The Master's little victims. I've been trying to work a little game
in hopes of getting within arm's reach of him. How'd you get here? Has
he got you too?"
"I burned the damned town last night," snarled Bell, "and crashed up
after it. Where's that door?"
He found it, a solid mass of planks with a log bar fitted in such a way
that it could not possibly be opened from within. He dragged it wide.
The white man came out, holding to his self-control with an obvious
effort.
"I want to dance and sing because I'm out of there," he told Bell
queerly, "but I know you've done me no good. I've been fed The Master's
little medicine. I've been in that cage for weeks."
Bell, quivering with rage, handed him a revolver.
"I'm going to get some supplies and stuff and try to make it to
civilization," he said shortly. "If you want to help...."
"Hell, yes," said the white man drearily. "I might as well. Number
One-Fourteen was here.... He's The Master's little pet, now. Turned
traitor. Report it, if you ever get out."
"No," said Bell briefly. "He didn't turn." He told in a very few words
of the finding of the body of a man who had fallen or been thrown from a
plane into the jungle.
* * * * *
They were moving toward the rows of still standing shacks, then, and
faces were beginning to turn toward them, and there was a little stir of
apathetic puzzlement at sight of the white man who had been set free.
That white man looked suddenly at Paula, and then at Bell.
"I've been turned into a beast," he said wryly. "Look here, Bell. There
were as many as ten and fifteen of us in that cage at one time--men the
deputies sent up for the purpose. We were allowed to go mad, one and two
at a time, for the edification of the populace, to keep the _camaradas_
scared. And those of us who weren't going mad just then used to have to
band together and kill them. That cage has been the most awful hell on
earth that any devil ever contrived. They put three women in there once,
with their hands already writhing.... Ugh!..."
Bell's face was cold and hard is if carved from marble.
"I haven't lived through it," said the white man harshly, "by being
soft. And I've got less than no time to live--sane, anyhow. I was
thinking of shooting you in the back, because the young lady--"
He laughed as Bell's revolver muzzle stirred.
"I'm telling you," said the white man in ghastly merriment, "because I
thought--I thought One-Fourteen had set me the example of ditching the
Service for his own life. But now it's different."
* * * * *
He pointed.
"There's a launch in that house, with one of these outboard motors. It
was used to keep up communication with the boat gangs that sweat the
heavy supplies up the river. It'll float in three inches of water, and
you can pole it where the water's too shallow to let the propeller turn.
This rabble will mob you if you try to take it, because it'll have taken
them just about this long to realize that they're deserted. They'll
think you are a deputy, at least, to have dared release me. I'm going to
convince them of it, and use this gun to give you a start. I give you
two hours. It ought to be enough. And then...."
Bell nodded.
"I'm not Service," he said curtly, "but I'll see it's known."
The white man laughed again.
"'Some sigh for the glories of this world, and some for a prophet's
paradise to come,'" he quoted derisively. "I thought I was hard, Bell,
but I find I prefer to have my record clean in the Service--where nobody
will ever see it--than to take what pleasure I might snatch before I
die. Queer, isn't it? Old Omar was wrong. Now watch me bluff, flinging
away the cash for credit of doubtful value, and all for the rumble of a
distant drum--which will be muted!"
* * * * *
They were surrounded by swarming, fawning, frightened _camaradas_ who
implored the Senhor to tell them if he were a deputy of The Master, and
if he were here to make sure nothing evil befell them. They worked for
The Master, and they desired nothing save to labor all their lives for
The Master, only--only--The Master would allow no evil to befall them?
The white man waved his arms grandiloquently.
"The Senhor you behold," he proclaimed in the barbarous Portugese of the
hinterland of Brazil, "has released me from the cage in which you saw
me. He is the deputy of The Master himself, and is enraged because the
landing lights on the field were not burning, so that his airplane fell
down into the jungle. He bears news of great value from me to The
Master, which will make me finally a sub-deputy of The Master. And I
have a revolver, as you see, with which I could kill him, but he dares
not permit me to die, since I have given him news for The Master. I
shall wait here and he will go and send back an airplane with the grace
of The Master for me and for all of you."
Bell snarled an assent, in the arrogant fashion of the deputies of The
Master. He waited furiously while the Service man argued eloquently and
fluently. He fingered his revolver suggestively when a wave of panic
swept over the swarming mob for no especial reason. And then he watched
grimly while the light little metal-bottomed boat was carried to the
water's edge and loaded with food, and fuel, and arms, and ammunition,
and even mosquito bars.
The white man grinned queerly at Bell as he extended his hand in a last
handshake.
"'I, who am about to die, salute you!'" he said mockingly. "Isn't this a
hell of a world, Bell? I'm sure we could design a better one in some
ways."
* * * * *
Bell felt a horrible, a ghastly shock. The hand that gripped his was
writhing in his grasp.
"Quite so," said the white man. "It started about five minutes ago. In
theory, I've about forty-eight hours. Actually, I don't dare wait that
long, if I'm to die like a white man. And a lingering vanity insists on
that. I hope you get out, Bell.... And if you want to do me a
favor,"--he grinned again, mirthlessly--"you might see that The Master
and as many of his deputies as you can manage join me in hell at the
earliest possible moment. I shan't mind so much if I can watch them."
He put his hands quickly in his pockets as the little outboard motor
caught and the launch went on down-river. He did not even look after
them. The last Bell saw of him he was swaggering back up the little
hillside above the river edge, surrounded by scared inhabitants of the
workmen's shacks, and scoffing in a superior fashion at their fears.
CHAPTER XII
It took Bell just eight days to reach the Paraguay, and those eight days
were like an age-long nightmare of toil and discomfort and more than a
little danger. The launch was headed downstream, of course, and with the
current behind it, it made good time. But the distances of Brazil are
infinite, and the jungles of Brazil are malevolent, and the route down
the Rio Laurenco was designed by the architect of hell. _Raudales_ lay
in wait to destroy the little boat. Insects swarmed about to destroy its
voyagers. And the jungle loomed above them, passively malignant, and
waited for them to die.
And as if physical sufferings were not enough, Bell saw Paula wilt and
grow pale. All the way down the river they passed little clearings at
nearly equal distances. And men came trembling out of the little houses
upon those _fazendas_ and fawned upon the Senhor who was in the launch
that had come from up-river and so must be in the service of The Master
himself. The clearings and the tiny houses had been placed upon the
river for the service of the terribly laboring boat gangs who brought
the heavier supplies up the river to The Master's central depot. Men at
these clearings had been enslaved and ordered to remain at their posts,
serving all those upon the business of The Master. They fawned abjectly
upon Bell, because he was of _os gentes_ and so presumably was
empowered, as The Master had empowered his more intelligent subjects, to
exact the most degraded of submission from all beneath him in the
horrible conspiracy. Once, indeed, Bell was humbly implored by a panic
stricken man to administer "the grace of The Master" to a moody and
irritable child of twelve or so.
"She sees the red spots, Senhor. It is the first sign. And I have served
The Master faithfully...."
* * * * *
And Bell could do nothing. He went on savagely. And once he passed a
gang of _camaradas_ laboring to get heavily loaded dugouts up a fiendish
_raudal_. They had ropes out and were hauling at them from the bank,
while some of their number were breast-deep in the rushing water,
pushing the dugouts against the stream.
"They're headed for the plantation," said Bell grimly, "and they'll need
the grace of The Master by the time they get there. And it's abandoned.
But if I tell them...."
Men with no hope at all are not to be trusted. Not when they are
mixtures of three or more races--white and black and red--and steeped in
ignorance and superstition and, moreover, long subject to such masters
as these men had had. Bell had to think of Paula.
He could have landed and haughtily ordered them to float or even carry
the light boat to the calmer waters below. They would have obeyed and
cringed before him. But he shot the rapids from above, with the little
motor roaring past rocks and walls of jungle beside the foaming water,
at a speed that chilled his blood.
* * * * *
Paula said nothing. She was white and listless. Bell, himself, was being
preyed upon by a bitter blend of horror and a deep-seated rage that
consumed him like a fever. He had fever itself, of course. He was
taking, and forcing Paula to take, five grains of quinine a day. It had
been included among his stores as a matter of course by those who had
loaded his boat. And with the fever working in his brain he found
himself holding long, imaginary conversations, in which one part of his
brain reproached the other part for having destroyed the plantation of
The Master. The laborers upon that plantation had been abandoned to the
murder madness because of his deed. The caretakers of the tiny _fazenda_
on the river bank were now ignored. Bell felt himself a murderer because
he had caused The Master's deputies to cast them off in a callous
indifference to their inevitable fate.
He suffered the tortures of the damned, and grew morose and bitter, and
could only escape that self torture by coddling his hatred of Ribiera
and The Master. He imagined torments to be inflicted upon them which
would adequately repay them for their crimes, and racked his feverish
brain for memories of the appalling atrocities which can be committed
upon the human body without destroying its capacity to suffer.
It was not normal. It was not sane. But it filled Bell's mind and
somehow kept him from suicide during the horrible passage of the river.
He hardly dared speak to Paula. There was a time when he counted the
days since he had been a guest at Ribiera's estate outside of Rio, and
frenziedly persuaded himself that he saw red spots before his eyes and
soon would have the murder madness come upon him. And then he thought of
the supplies in Ribiera's plane, in which they had escaped from Rio.
They had eaten that food.
* * * * *
It was almost unconsciously, then, that he saw the narrow water on which
the launch floated valiantly grow wider day by day. When at last it
debouched suddenly into a vast stream whereon a clumsy steamer plied
beneath a self made cloud of smoke, he stared dully at it for minutes
before he realized.
"Paula," he said suddenly, and listened in amazement to his voice. It
was hoarse and harsh and croaking. "Paula, we've made it. This must be
the Paraguay."
She roused herself and looked about like a person waking from a
lethargic sleep. And then her lips quivered, and she tried to speak and
could not, and tears fell silently from her eyes, and all at once she
was sobbing bitterly.
That sign of the terrific strain she had been under served more than
anything else to jolt Bell out of his abnormal state of mind. He moved
over to her and clumsily put his arm about her, and comforted her as
best he could. And she sat sobbing with her head on his shoulder,
gasping in a form of hysterical relief, until the engine behind them
sputtered, and coughed, and died.
When Bell looked, the last drop of gasoline was gone. But the motor had
served its purpose. It had run manfully on an almost infinitesimal
consumption of gasoline for eight days. It had not missed an explosion
save when its wiring was wetted by spray. And now....
* * * * *
Bell hauled the engine inboard and got out the oars from under the
seats. He got the little boat out to mid-stream, and they floated down
until a village of squalid huts appeared on the eastern bank. He landed,
there, and with much bargaining and a haughty demeanor disposed of the
boat to the skipper of a _batelao_ in exchange for passage down-river as
far as Corumba. The rate was outrageously high. But he had little
currency with him and dared go no farther on a vessel which carried a
boat of The Master's ownership conspicuously towed behind.
At Corumba he purchased clothes less obviously of _os gentes_, both for
himself and for Paula, and that same afternoon was able to arrange for
their passage to Asuncion as deck passengers on a river steamer going
downstream.
It was as two peasants, then, that they rode in sweltering heat amid a
swarming and odorous mass of fellow humanity downstream. But it was a
curious relief, in some ways. The people about them were gross and
unwashed and stupid, but they were human. There was none of that
diabolical feeling of terror all about. There were no strained, fear
haunted faces upon the deck reserved for deck passengers and other
cattle. The talk was ungrammatical and literal and of the earth. The
women were stolid-faced and reserved. But when the long rows of hammocks
were slung out in the open air, in the casual fashion of sleeping
arrangements in the back-country of all South America, it was blessedly
peaceful to realize that the folk who snored so lustily were merely
human; human animals, it might be, with no thought above their _farinha_
and _feijos_ on the morrow, but human.
* * * * *
And the second day they passed the old fort at Coimbra, and went on. The
passage into Paraguayan territory was signalized by an elaborate customs
inspection, and three days later Asuncion itself displayed its red-tiled
roofs and adobe walls upon the shore.
Bell had felt some confidence in his ability to pass muster with his
Spanish, though his Portuguese was limited, and it was a shock when the
captain of the steamer summoned him to his cabin with a gesture, before
the steamer docked. Bell left Paula among the other deck passengers and
went with the peasant's air of suspicious humility into the captain's
quarters. But the captain's pose of grandeur vanished at once when the
door closed.
"Senor," said the steamer captain humbly, "I have not spoken to you
before. I knew you would not wish it. But tell me, senor! Have you any
news of what The Master plans?"
Bell's eyes flickered, at the same time that a cold apprehension filled
him.
"Why do you speak to me of The Master?" he demanded sharply.
The steamer captain stammered. The man was plainly frightened at Bell's
tone. Bell relaxed, his flash of panic for Paula gone.
"I know," said the captain imploringly, "that the great _fazenda_ has
been deserted. On my last trip, down, senor, I brought many of the high
deputies who had been there. They warned me not to speak, senor, but I
saw that you were not what you seemed, and I thought you might be going
about to see who obeyed The Master's orders...."
* * * * *
Bell nodded.
"That is my mission," he said curtly. "Do not speak of it further--not
even to the deputy in Asuncion."
The captain stammered again.
"But I must see the Senor Francia," he said humbly. "I report to him
after every trip, and if he thought that I did not report all that I
learn...."
"It is my order," snapped Bell angrily. "If he reproaches you, say that
one who has orders from The Master himself gave them to you. And do not
speak of the destruction of the _fazenda_. I am searching especially for
the man who caused it. And--wait! I will take your name, and you shall
give me--say--a thousand pesos. I had need of money to bribe a fool I
could not waste time on, up-country. It will be returned to you."
And again the captain stammered, but Bell stared at him haughtily, and
he knelt abjectly before the ship's safe.
* * * * *
Asuncion, as everybody knows, is a city of sixty thousand people, and
the capital of a republic which enjoyed the rule of a family of
hereditary dictators for sixty years; which rule ended in a war wherein
four-fifths of the population was wiped out. And since that beginning it
has averaged eight revolutions to Mexico's three, has had the joy of
knowing seven separate presidents in five years--none of them
elected--and now boasts a population approximately two-thirds
illegitimate and full of pride in its intellectual and artistic tastes.
Bell and Paula made their way along the cobbled streets away from the
river, surrounded by other similarly peasant-seeming folk. Bell told her
curtly what had happened with the steamer captain.
"It's the devil," he said coldly, "because this whole republic is under
The Master's thumb. Except among the peasants we can count on nearly
everybody being on the lookout for us, if they so much as suspect we're
alive. And they may because I burned their damned _fazenda_. So...."
Paula smiled at him, rather wanly.
"What are you going to do, Charles?"
"Get a boat," said Bell curtly. "One with three or four men, if I can.
If I can buy it with the skipper's money, I will. But I can't take you
to go bargaining. It would look suspicious."
They had reached the central plaza of the town. The market swarmed with
brown skinned folk and seemed to overflow with fruits. A man was
unconcernedly shoveling oranges out of a cart with a shovel, as if they
had been so much coal. A market woman as unconcernedly dropped some of
the same golden fruit within a small pen where a piglet awaited a
purchaser. To the left, there were rows of unshaded stalls where the
infinitely delicate handmade Paraguayan lace was exposed for sale.
"I--think," said Paula, "I think I will go in the cathedral. I will be
very devout, Charles, and you will find me there when you return. I will
be safe there, certainly."
* * * * *
He walked with her across the crowded plaza. He should have known that
your peasant does not stride with head up, but regarding the ground.
That a man who works heavily droops his shoulders with weariness at the
end of a day. And especially he should have realized that Paraguay is
not, strictly speaking, a Latin-American nation. It is Latin-Indian, in
which the population graduates very definitely from a sub-stratum of
nearly or quite pure Indian race to an aristocracy of nearly or quite
pure Spanish descent, and that the color of a man's skin fixes his place
in society. Both Bell and Paula were too light of skin for the peasant's
clothes they wore. They aroused curiosity at once. If it was not an
active curiosity, it was nevertheless curiosity of a sort.
But Bell left her in the shadowy, cool interior of the cathedral which
seems so pitifully small to be the center of religion for a nation. He
saw her move toward one of the little candle-lit niches in the wall and
fall quite simply on her knees there.
And he moved off, to wander aimlessly down to the river shore and stare
about and presently begin a desultory conversation with sleepy boatmen.
* * * * *
It was three hours and more before he returned to the Cathedral, and
Paula was talking to someone. More, talking to a woman in the most
discreet of mantilla'd church-going costumes. Paula saw him in the
doorway, and uttered a little cry of relief. She came hurrying to him.
"Charles! I have found a friend! Isabella Ybarra. We were schoolmates in
the United States and she has just come back from Paris! So you see, she
cannot--"
"I see," said Bell very quietly.
Paula was speaking swiftly and very softly.
"We went to school together, Charles. I trust her. You must trust her
also. There is no danger, this time. Isabella has never even heard of
The Master. So you see...."
"I see that you need someone you can trust," said Bell grimly. "_I_
found that the captain of the steamer had gone to The Master's deputy
here. While I was talking to some boatmen a warning was given to look
out for a man and woman, together, who may try to buy a boat. We're
described, and only the fact that I was alone kept me from being
suspected. Police, soldiers--everybody is looking out for us. Paraguay's
under The Master's thumb more completely than any other nation on the
continent."
The figure to which Paula had been talking was moving slowly toward
them. A smiling, brown-eyed face twinkled at them.
"You must be Charles!" said a warm and cluckling voice. "Paula has
raved, Senor. Now I am going to take her off in my carriage. She is my
maid. And you will follow the carriage on foot and I will have the
major-domo let you in the servants' entrance, and the three of us will
conspire."
* * * * *
It was incongruous to hear the English of a girl's finishing school from
the mantilla'd young woman who beamed mischievously at him. She had the
delighted air of one aiding a romance. It was doubly incongruous because
of the dark and shadowy Cathedral in which they were, and the raucous
noises of the market in the plaza without. Bell had a sense of utter
unreality as Isabella's good humored voice went on:
"Do you remember, Paula, the time the French teacher caught us in the
pantry? I shall feel just like that time."
"This is dangerous," said Bell, steadily, "and it is very serious
indeed."
"Pooh!" said Isabella comfortably. "Paula, you didn't even know I was
married! A whole year and a half! And he's a darling, really. I'm the
Senora Isabella Ybarra de Zuloaga, if you please! Bow gracefully!" She
chuckled. "Jaime came all the way to Rio to meet me last month. I'm wild
about him, Paula.... But come on! Follow me humbly, like a nice little
_mestizo_ girl who wants to be my maid, and I'll let you ride with the
_cochero_ and Charles shall follow behind us."
She swept out of the Cathedral with the air of a grande dame suppressing
a giggle, and Paula went humbly behind her.
And Bell trudged through the dust and the blistering sun while the
highly polished carriage jolted over cobble stones and the youthful
Senora Isabella Ybarra de Zuloaga beamed blissfully at the universe
which did not realize that she was a conspirator, and Paula sat modestly
beside the brown skinned _cochero_.
* * * * *
It was not a long ride nor a long walk, though the sun was insufferable.
The capital of Paraguay is not large. It is a sleepy, somnolent little
town in which the most pretentious building was begun as the
Presidential Palace and wound up as the home of a bank. But there are
bullet marks on the facade of the _Museo Nacional_, and there is still
an empty pedestal here and there throughout the city where the heroes of
last year's revolution, in bronze, have been pulled down and the heroes
of this year's uprising of the people have not yet been set up. Red
tiled roofs give the city color, and the varying shades of its populace
give it variety, and the fact that below the whiter class of inhabitants
_Guarani_ is spoken instead of Spanish adds to the individuality of its
effect.
But the house into which the carriage turned could have been built in
Rio or Buenos Aires without comment on its architecture. It had the
outer bleakness of most private homes of South America, but if it was
huge and its windows were barred, the patio into which Bell was ushered
by a bewildered and suspicious major-domo made up in color and in charm
for all that the exterior lacked.
A fountain played amid flowers, and macaws and parrots and myriad other
caged birds hung in their cages about the colonnade around the court,
and Bell found Paula being introduced to a pale young man in the stiff
collar and unspeakably formal morning clothes of the South American who
is of the upper class.
"Jaime," said Isabella, beaming. "And this is Charles, whom Paula is to
marry! It is romantic! It is fascinating! And I depend on you to give
him clothes so that all our servants won't stare goggle-eyed at him, and
I am going to take Paula off at once and dress her! They are our guests!
And, Jaime, you must threaten all the servants terribly so they will
keep it very secret--that we have two such terrible people with us."
* * * * *
Paula smiled at Bell, and he saw that she felt utterly safe and wholly
at peace. Something was hammering at Bell's brain, warning him, and he
could not understand what it was. But he exchanged the decorous limp
handshake which is conventional south of Panama, and followed his
unsmiling host to rooms where a servant laid out a bewildering
assortment of garments. They were all rather formal, the sort of
clothing that is held to be fitting for a man of position where Spanish
is the official if not the common tongue.
His host retired, without words, and Bell came out later to find him
sipping moodily at a drink, waiting for him. He wiped his forehead.
"Be seated, Senor," he said heavily, "until the ladies join us."
He wiped his forehead again and watched somberly while Bell poured out a
drink.
"Isabella...." He seemed to find it difficult to speak. "She has told me
a little, but there has been no time for more than a little: I do not
wish to have her tell me too much. She does not understand. She was
educated in North America, where customs are different. She demands that
I assist you and the senorita--it is the senorita?"
Bell stiffened. In all Spanish America the conventions are strict. For a
man and woman to travel together, even perforce and for a short
distance, automatically damns the woman.
"Go on," said Bell grimly.
His host was very pale indeed.
"She demands that I assist you and the senorita to escape the police and
the government. Provided that you do not tell me who you are, I will
attempt it. But--"
"I wonder," said Bell quietly, "if you have ever seen red spots dancing
before your eyes."
His host went utterly livid.
* * * * *
Zuloaga looked down at his hands, as if expecting unguessable things of
them. And then he shrugged, and said harshly:
"I have, Senor. So you see that Isabella, who does not know, is asking
me to risk, not only my life, but her honor."
Bell said nothing for a moment. He was a little pale.
"And your honor?" he asked quietly.
The pallor on the face of the Senor Jaime Zuloaga was horrible. He tried
to speak, and could not. He stood up, and managed to say:
"So much I will risk, because you have been my guest. Until to-morrow
morning you are safe, unless the Senor Francia has his spies within my
own house. I--I will attempt, even to procure a boat. But--"
Something made Bell turn. The major-domo was moving quickly out of
sight. Like a flash Bell was upon him, and like a flash a knife came
out.
Bell's host gasped. The fact that his servant had spied was more than
obvious, and he had spoke treason against The Master. He leaned against
the table, sick and trembling and mumbling of despair, while there were
crashes in the room into which Bell had plunged, while bodies thrashed
about on the floor, and while stertorous breathing grew less, and
stopped....
Bell came back, breathing hard. The front of his coat was slashed open.
"He's dead," he said harshly. "He'd have reported what you said, so I
killed him.... And now we've got to do something with his body."
He helped in the horrible task, while his host grew more and more
shaken. No other servants came near. And Bell could almost read the
thoughts that went through Zuloaga's brain. One servant had spied, to
report his treason. And that meant assassination for himself, as the
least of punishments, and for his wife....
But there would be no punishment if he went first to the deputy and said
that Bell had killed the major-domo.
Bell left the house before dusk, desperately determined to steal a craft
of some sort, return for Paula, and get away from Asuncion before dawn.
He returned after an hour. In the morning a man would be found bound and
gagged, with five hundred pesos stuffed into his pockets. His boat would
have vanished.
But there was a commotion before the house where Paula waited fearfully.
A carriage stood there, with a company of mounted soldiers about it.
Someone was being put into it. As Bell broke into a run toward the house
the carriage started up and the soldiers trotted after it.
Paula was taken.
CHAPTER XIII
That night Bell turned burglar. To attempt a rescue of Paula was simply
out of the question. He was entirely aware that he would be expected to
do just such a thing, and that it would be adequately guarded against.
Therefore he prepared for a much more desperate enterprise by
burglarizing a bookstore in the particularly neat method in which
members of The Trade are instructed. The method was invented by a member
of The Trade who was an ex-cabinet maker, and who perished disreputably.
He killed a certain courier of a certain foreign government, thereby
preventing a minor war and irritating two governments excessively, and
was hanged.
The method, of course, is simplicity itself. One removes the small nails
which hold the molding of a door panel in place. The molding comes out.
So does the panel. One enters through the panel, commits one's burglary,
and comes out, replacing the molding and the nails with reasonable care.
Depending upon the care with which the replacing is done, the means of
entrance is more or less undiscoverable. But it is usually used when it
is not intended that the burglary ever be discussed.
Bell abstracted two books, wrapping paper and twine. He departed, using
great care. He walked three miles out of town and to the banks of the
Paraguay. There he carefully saturated the pages of both books in
water, carefully keeping the bindings from being wetted. Then he tore
one book to pieces, saving the leaves and inserting them between the
leaves of the other book. Then, with a brazil nut candle for
illumination, he began to write.
* * * * *
You see, when two thoroughly wetted pieces of paper are placed one above
the other with a hard surface such as the cover of another book under
them, you can write upon the top one with a stick. The writing will show
dark against the gray of the saturated paper. You then remove the top
sheet and end the writing reproduced on the bottom sheet. And then you
can dry the second sheet and find the marking vanished--until it is
wetted again. It is, in fact, a method of water-marking paper. And it is
the simplest of all methods of invisible writing.
Bell wrote grimly for hours. The book he had chosen was an old one, an
ancient copy of one of Lope de Vega's plays, and the pages were wrinkled
and yellow from age alone. When, by dawn, the last page was dried out,
there was no sign that anything other than antiquity had affected the
paper. And Bell wrapped it carefully, and addressed it to an elderly
senora of literary tastes in San Juan, Porto Rico, and enclosed an
affectionate letter to his very dear aunt, and signed it with an
entirely improbable name.
It was mailed before sunrise, the necessary stamps having been filched
from the burglarized bookstore and the price thereof being carefully
inserted in the till. Bell had made a complete and painstaking report of
every fact he had himself come upon in the matter of The Master and his
slaves and appended to it a copy of the report of the dead Secret
Service operative Number One-Fourteen. He destroyed that after copying
it. And he concluded that since he had been given dismissal by Jamison
in Rio, he considered himself at liberty to take whatever steps he saw
fit. And since the Senhorina Paula Canalejas had been kidnapped by
agents of The Master, he intended to take steps which might possibly
bring about her safety, but would almost certainly cause his death.
The report should at least be of assistance if the Trade set to work to
combat The Master. Bell had no information whatever about that still
mysterious and still more horrible person himself. But what he knew
about The Master's agents he sent to a lady in Porto Rico who has an
astonishingly large number of far ranging nephews. And then Bell got
himself adequately shaved, bought a hearty breakfast, and, after one or
two heartening drinks, was driven grandly to the residence of the Senor
Francia, deputy of The Master for the republic of Paraguay.
* * * * *
The servants who admitted him gazed blankly when he gave his name. A
door was hastily closed behind him. He was ushered into an elaborate
reception room and, after an agitated pause, no less than six separate
frock-coated persons appeared and pointed large revolvers at him while a
seventh searched him exhaustively. Bell submitted amusedly.
"And now," he said dryly, "I suppose the Senor Francia will receive me?"
There was more agitation. The six men remained; with their weapons
pointed at him. The seventh departed, and Bell re-dressed himself in a
leisurely fashion.
Ten minutes later a slender, dark skinned man with impeccably waxed
moustaches entered, regarded Bell with an entirely impersonal interest,
took one of the revolvers from one of the six frock-coated gentlemen,
and seated himself comfortably. He waved his hand and they filed
uneasily from the room. So far, not one word had been spoken.
* * * * *
Bell retrieved his cigarette case and lighted up with every appearance
of ease.
"I have come," he said casually, "to request that I be sent to The
Master. I believe that he is anxious to meet me."
The dark eyes scrutinized him coldly. Then Francia smiled.
"_Pero si_," he said negligently, "he is very anxious to see you. I
suppose you know what fate awaits you?"
His smile was amiable and apparently quite friendly, but Bell shrugged.
"I suppose," he said dryly, "he wants to converse with me. I have been
his most successful opponent to date, I think."
Francia smiled again. It was curious how his smile, which at first
seemed so genuine and so friendly, became unspeakably unpleasant on its
repetition.
"Yes." Francia seemed to debate some matter of no great importance. "You
have been very annoying, Senor Bell. The Senhor Ribiera asked that you
be sent to him. It was his intention to execute you, privately. He
described a rather amusing method to me. And I must confess that you
have annoyed me, likewise. Since the Cuyaba plantation was destroyed my
subjects have been much upset. They have been frightened, and even
stubborn. Only last week"--he smiled pleasantly, and the effect was
horrible--"only last week I desired the society of a lady who is my
subject. And her husband considered that, since the _fazenda_ was
destroyed, The Master would be powerless to extend his grace before
long, in any event. So he shot his wife and himself. It annoyed me
enough to make me feel that it would be a pleasure to kill you."
* * * * *
He raised the revolver meditatively.
"Well?" said Bell coldly.
Francia lowered the weapon and laughed.
"Oh, I shall not do it. I think The Master would be displeased. You seem
to have the type of courage he most desires in his deputies. And it may
yet be that I shall greet you as my fellow deputy or perhaps my fellow
viceroy. So I shall send you to him. I would say that you have about an
even chance of dying very unpleasantly or of being a deputy. Therefore I
offer you such courtesies as I may."
Bell puffed a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling.
"I'm about out of cigarettes," he said mildly.
"They shall be supplied. And--er--if you would desire feminine society,
I will have some of my pretty subjects...."
"No," said Bell bluntly. "I would like to speak to the Senhorina
Canalejas, though."
Francia chuckled.
"She left for Buenos Aires last night. The Senhor Ribiera sent a most
impatient message for her to be sent on at once. I regretted it, but he
had The Master's authority. I thought her charming, myself."
The skin about Bell's knuckles was white. His hands had clenched
savagely.
"In that event," he said coldly, "the only other courtesy I would ask is
that of following her as soon as possible."
Francia rose languidly. The revolver dangled by his side, but his grip
upon it was firm. He smiled at Bell with the same effect of a horrible,
ghastly geniality.
"Within the hour, Senor," he said urbanely. "With the guard I shall
place over you it is no harm, I am sure, to observe that The Master is
at his retreat in Punta Arenas. You will go there to-morrow, as I go
to-night."
He moved toward the door, and smiled again, and added pleasantly:
"The Senhorina was delivered to the Senhor Ribiera this morning."
* * * * *
Matters moved swiftly after that. A servant brought cigarettes and a
tray of liquors--which Bell did not touch. There was the sound of
movement, the scurrying, furtive haste which seems always to imply a
desperate sort of fear. Bell waited in a terrible calmness, while rage
hammered at his temples.
Then the clattering of horses' hoofs outside. A carriage was being
brought. Soldiers came in and a man beckoned curtly. Bell stuffed his
pockets with smokes and followed languidly. He was realizing that there
was little pretense of secrecy about the power of The Master's deputy
here. Police and soldiers.... But Paraguay, of all the nations of the
southern continent, has learned a certain calm realism about
governmental matters.
The man who has power is obeyed. The man who has not power is not
obeyed. Titles are of little importance, though it is the custom for the
man with the actual power eventually to assume the official rank of
authority. Since the President in Asuncion was no more than a figurehead
who called anxiously upon the Senor Francia every morning for
instructions concerning the management of the nation, Francia
indifferently ignored him whenever he chose and gave orders directly.
There would be very little surprise and no disorder whatever when The
Master proclaimed Paraguay a viceroyalty of his intended empire.
* * * * *
The carriage went smartly through the cobbled streets with a cavalry
escort all about it. An officer sat opposite Bell with his hand on his
revolver.
"I am receiving at least the honors of royalty," Bell commented coldly
to him, in Spanish.
"Senor," said the officer harshly, "this is the state in which the
deputies of The Master were escorted."
He watched Bell heavily, but with the desperate intentness of a man who
knows no excuses will be received if his prisoner escapes.
Out of the town to a flying field, where a multi-engined plane was
warming up. It was one of the ships that had been at The Master's
_fazenda_ of Cuyaba, one of the ships that had fled from the burning
plantation. Bell was ushered into it with a ceremonious suspicion.
Almost immediately he was handcuffed to his seat. Two men took their
place behind him. The big ship rolled forward, lifted, steadied, and
after a single circling set out to the southeast for Buenos Aires.
* * * * *
The whole performance had had been run off with the smoothly oiled
precision of an iron discipline exercised upon men in the grip of deadly
fear.
"One man, at least," reflected Bell grimly, "has some qualities that fit
him for his job."
And then, for hour after hour, the big ship went steadily southeast. It
flew over Paraguayan territory for two hours, soaring high over the Lago
Ypoa and on over the swampy country that extends to the Argentine
border. It ignored that border and all customs formalities. It went on,
through long hours of flight, while mountains rose before it. It rose
over those mountains and passed over the first railroad line--the first
real sign of civilization since leaving Asuncion--at Mercedes, and
reached the Uruguay river where the Mirinjay joins it. It went roaring
on down above the valley of the Rio Uruguay for long and tedious hours
more. At about noon, lunch was produced. The two men who guarded Bell
ate. Then, with drawn revolvers, they unlocked his handcuffs and offered
him food.
* * * * *
He ate, of exactly those foods he had seen them eat. He submitted
indifferently to the re-application of his fetters. He had reached a
state which was curiously emotionless. If Paula had been turned over to
Ribiera that morning, Paula was dead. And just as there is a state of
grief which stuns the mind past the realization of its loss, so there is
a condition of hatred which leads to an enormous calmness and an
unnatural absence of any tremor. Bell had reached that state. The
instinct of self-preservation had gone lax. Where a man normally thinks
first, if unconsciously, of the protection of his body from injury or
pain, Bell had come to think first, and with the same terrible clarity,
of the accomplishment of revenge.
He would accept The Master's terms, if The Master offered them. He would
become The Master's subject, accepting the poison of madness without a
qualm. He would act and speak and think as a subject of The Master,
until his opportunity came. And then....
His absolute calmness would have deceived most men. It may have deceived
his guards. Time passed. The Rio de la Plata spread out widely below the
roaring multi-engined plane and the vast expanse of buildings which is
Buenos Aires appeared far ahead in the gathering dusk. Little twinkling
lights blinked into being upon the water and the earth far away. Then
one of the two guards touched Bell on the shoulder.
"Senor," he said sharply above the motors' muffled roar, "we shall land.
A car will draw up beside the plane. There will be no customs
inspection. That has been arranged for. You can have no hope of escape.
I ask you if you will go quietly into the car?"
"Why not?" asked Bell evenly. "I went to Senor Francia of my own
accord."
* * * * *
The guard leaned back. The city of Buenos Aires spread out below them.
The tumbled, congested old business quarter glittered in all its
offices, and the broad Avenida de Mayo cut its way as a straight slash
of glittering light through the section of the city to eastward. By
contrast, from above, the far-flung suburbs seemed dark and somber.
The big plane roared above the city, settling slowly; banked steeply and
circled upon its farther side, and dipped down toward what seemed an
absurdly small area, which sprang into a pinkish glow on their descent.
That area spread but as the descent continued, though, and was a wide
and level field when the ship flattened out and checked and lumbered to
a stop.
A glistening black car came swiftly, humming into place alongside almost
before the clumsy aircraft ceased to roll. Its door opened. Two men got
out and waited. The hangars were quite two hundred yards away, and Bell
saw the glitter of weapons held inconspicuously but quite ready.
He stepped out of the cabin of the plane with a revolver muzzle pressing
into his spine. Other revolver muzzles pressed sharply into his sides as
he reached earth.
Smiling faintly, he took four steps, clambered up into the glistening
black car, and settled down comfortably into the seat. The two men who
had waited by the car followed him. The door closed, and Bell was in a
padded silence that was acutely uncomfortable for a moment. A dome light
glowed brightly, however, and he lighted nearly the last of the
cigarettes from Asuncion with every appearance of composure as the car
started off with a lurch.
* * * * *
The windows were blank. Thick, upholstered padding covered the spaces
where openings should have been, and there was only the muffled
vibration of the motor and the occasional curiously distinct noise of a
flexing spring.
"Just as a matter of curiosity," said Bell mildly, "what is the excuse
given on the flying field for this performance? Or is the entire staff
subject to The Master?"
Two revolvers were bearing steadily upon him and the two men watched him
with the unwavering attention of men whose lives depend upon their
vigilance.
"You, Senor," said one of them without expression or a smile, "are the
corpse of a prominent politician who died yesterday at his country
home."
And then for half an hour or more the car drove swiftly, and stopped,
and drove swiftly forward again as if in traffic. Then there were many
turns, and then a slow and cautious traverse of a relatively few feet.
It stopped, and then the engine vibration ceased.
"I advise you, Senor," said the same man who had spoken before, and in
the same emotionless voice, "not to have hope of escape in the moment of
alighting. We are in an enclosed court and there are two gates locked
behind us."
Bell shrugged as there was the clatter of a lock operating. The door
swung wide.
* * * * *
He stepped down into a courtyard surrounded by nearly bare walls. It had
once been the _patio_ of a private home of some charm. Now, however, it
was bleak and empty. A few discouraged flowers grew weedily in one
corner. The glow of light in the sky overhead assured Bell that he was
in the very heart of Buenos Aires, but only the most subdued of rumbles
spoke of the activity and the traffic of the city going on without.
"This way," said the man with the expressionless voice.
The other man followed. The chauffeur of the car stood aside as if some
formality required him neither to start the motor or return to his seat
until Bell was clear of the courtyard.
Through a heavy timber door. Along a passageway with the odor of
neglect. Up stairs which once had been impressive and ornamental. Into a
room without windows.
"You will have an interview with the Senorita Canalejas in five
minutes," said the emotionless voice.
The door closed, while Bell found every separate muscle in his body draw
taut. And while his brain at first was dazed with incredulous relief,
then it went dark with a new and ghastly terror.
"They know _yague_," he heard himself saying coldly, "which makes any
person obey any command. They may know other and more hellish ones yet."
* * * * *
He fought for self control, which meant the ability to conceal
absolutely any form of shock that might await him. That one was in store
he was certain. He paced grimly the length of the room and back
again....
Something on the carpet caught his eye. A bit of string. He stared at it
incredulously. The end was tied into a curious and an individual knot,
which looked like it might be the pastime of a sailor, and which looked
like it ought to be fairly easy to tie. But it was one of those knots
which wandering men sometimes tie absent mindedly in the presence of
stirring events. It was the recognition-knot of the Trade, one of those
signs by which men may know each other in strange and peculiar
situations. And there were many other knots tied along the trailing
length of the string. It seemed as if some nervous and distraught
prisoner in this room might have toyed abstractedly with a bit of cord.
Only, Bell drew it through his fingers. Double knot, single knot, double
knot.... They spelled out letters in the entirely simple Morse code of
the telegrapher, if one noticed.
"RBRA GN ON PLA HRE ST TGT J."
Your old-time telegrapher uses many abbreviations. Your short-wave fan
uses more. Mostly they are made by a simple omission of vowels in normal
English words. And when the recognition sign at the beginning was
considered, the apparently cryptic letters leaped into meaning.
"RiBeRA GoNe ON PauLA HeRe SiT TiGhT Jamison."
When the door opened again and a terribly pale Paula was ushered in,
Bell gave no sign of surprise. He simply took her in his arms and kissed
her, holding her very, very close.
CHAPTER XIV
Paula remained in the room with Bell for perhaps twenty minutes, and
Bell had the feeling of eyes upon them and of ears listening to their
every word. In their first embrace, in fact, he murmured a warning in
her ear and she gasped a little whispered word of comprehension. But it
was at least a relief to be sure that she was alive and yet unharmed.
Francia had been in error when he told Bell of Paula's delivery to the
Brazilian to be enslaved or killed as Ribiera found most amusing. Or
perhaps, of course, Francia had merely wanted to cause Bell all possible
discomfort.
It was clear, however, blessedly clear and evident, that Paula's pallor
was due to nothing more than terror--a terror which was now redoubled
because Bell was in The Master's toils with her. Forgetting his warning,
she whispered to him desperately that he must try to escape, somehow,
before The Master's poison was administered to him. Outside, he might do
something to release her. Here, a prisoner, he was helpless.
Bell soothed her, not daring either to confess the plan he had formed of
a feigned submission in order to wreak revenge, or to offer
encouragement because of the message knotted in the piece of string by
Jamison. And because of that caution she came to look at him with a
queer doubt, and presently with a terrible quiet grief.
"Charles--you--you have been poisoned like the rest?"
* * * * *
The feeling of watching eyes and listening ears was strong. Bell had a
part to play, and the necessity for playing that part was the greater
because now he was forced to hope. He hesitated, torn between the need
to play his role for the invisible eavesdroppers and the desire to spare
Paula.
Her hand closed convulsively upon his.
"V-very well, Charles," she said quietly, though her lips quivered.
"If--if you are going to serve The Master, I--I will serve him too, if
he will let me stay always near you. But if he--will not, then I can
always--die...."
Bell groaned. And the door opened silently, and there were men standing
without. An emotionless voice said:
"Senorita, the Senor Ortiz will interview the Senor Bell."
"I'm coming," said Paula quietly.
She went, walking steadily. Two men detached themselves from the group
about the door and followed her. The others waited for Bell. And Bell
clenched his hands and squared his shoulders and marched grimly with
them.
* * * * *
Again long passages, descending to what must have been a good deal below
the surface of the earth. And then a massive door was opened, and light
shone through, and Bell found himself standing on a rug of the thickest
possible pile in a room of quite barbaric luxury, and facing a desk from
which a young man was rising to greet him. This young man was no older
than Bell himself, and he greeted Bell in a manner in which mockery was
entirely absent, but in which defiance was peculiarly strong. A bulky,
round shouldered figure wrote laboriously at a smaller desk to one side.
"Senor Bell," said the young man bitterly, "I do not ask you to shake
hands with me. I am Julio Ortiz, the son of the man you befriended upon
the steamer _Almirante Gomez_. I am also, by the command of The Master,
your jailer. Will you be seated?"
Bell's eyes flickered. The older Ortiz had died by his own hand in the
first stages of the murder madness The Master's poison produced. He had
died gladly and, in Bell's view, very gallantly. And yet his son.... But
of course The Master's deputies made a point of enslaving whole families
when it was at all possible. It gave a stronger hold upon each member.
"I beg of you," said young Ortiz bitterly, "to accept my invitation. I
wish to offer you a much qualified friendship, which I expect you to
refuse."
Bell sat down and crossed his knees. He lit a cigarette thoughtfully,
thinking swiftly.
"I remember, and admired, your father," he said slowly. "I think that
any man who died as bravely as he did is to be envied."
* * * * *
The younger Ortiz had reseated himself as Bell sat down, and now he
fingered nervously, wretchedly, the objects on his desk. A penholder
broke between his fingers and he flung it irritably into the
wastebasket.
"You understand," he said harshly, "the obligations upon me. I am the
subject of The Master. You will realize that if you desire to escape, I
cannot permit it. But you did my father a very great kindness. Much of
it I was able to discover from persons on the boat. More, from the
wireless operator who is also the subject of The Master. You were not
acting, Senor, as a secret service operative in your attempt to help my
father. You bore yourself as a very honorable gentleman. I wish to thank
you."
"I imagine," said Bell dryly, "that anyone would have done what I did."
He seemed to be quite at ease, but he was very tense indeed. The bulky,
round shouldered figure at the other desk was writing busily with a very
scratchy pen. It was an abominable pen. Its sputtering was loud enough
to be noticeable under any circumstances, but Bell was unusually alert,
just now, and suddenly he added still more drily:
"Helping a man in trouble is quite natural. One always gets it back.
It's a sort of dealing with the future in which there is a profit on
every trade."
He put the slightest emphasis on the last word and waited, looking at
young Ortiz, but listening with all his soul to the scratching of the
pen. And that scratching sound ceased abruptly. The pen seemed to write
smoothly all of an instant. Bell drew a deep breath of satisfaction. In
the Trade, when in doubt, one should use the word "Trade" in one's first
remark to the other man. Then the other man will ask your trade, and you
reply impossibly. It is then up to the other man to speak frankly,
first. But circumstances alter even recognition-signs.
Ortiz had not noticed any by-play, of course. It would have been rather
extraordinary if he had. A pen that scratches so that the sound is
Morse code for "Bell, play up. J." is just unlikely enough to avoid all
notice.
* * * * *
Ortiz drummed upon the desk. "Now, Senor, what can I do that will serve
you? I cannot release you. You know that. I am not the deputy here.
There has been a set-back to The Master's plans and all the deputies are
called to his retreat to receive instructions and to discuss. I have
merely been ordered to carry out the deputy's routine labors until he
returns. However, I will be obeyed in any matter. I can, and will, do
anything that will make you more comfortable or will amuse you, from a
change in your accommodations to providing you with companions. You
observe," he added with exquisite bitterness, "that the limit of my
capacity to prove my friendship is to offer my services as a pander."
Bell gazed at the tip of his cigarette, letting his eyes wander about
the room for an instant, and permitting them to rest for the fraction of
a second upon the round shouldered, writing form by the side wall.
"I am sufficiently amused," he said mildly. "I asked to be sent to The
Master. He intends to make me an offer, I understand. Or he did. He may
have changed his mind. But I am curious. Your father told me a certain
thing that seemed to indicate he did not enjoy the service of The
Master. Your tone is quite loyal, but unhappy. Why do you serve him?
Aside, of course, from the fact of having been poisoned by his deputy."
* * * * *
Internally, Bell was damning Jamison feverishly. If he was to play up to
Ortiz, why didn't Jamison give him some sign of how he was to do it?
Some tip....
"Herr Wiedkind," said Ortiz wearily, "perhaps you can explain."
The round shouldered figure swung about and bowed profoundly to Bell.
"Der Senor Ortiz," he said gutturally, and in a sepulchral profundity,
"he does not understand himself. I haff nefer said it before. But he
serfs Der Master because he despairs, andt he will cease to serf Der
Master when he hopes. And I--I serf Der Master because I hope, andt I
will cease to serf him when I despair."
Ortiz looked curiously and almost suspiciously at the Germanic figure
which regarded him soberly through thick spectacles.
"It is not customary, Herr Wiedkind," he said slowly, "to speak of
ceasing to serve The Master."
"Idt is not customary to speak of many necessary things," said the round
shouldered figure dryly. "Of our religions, for example. Of der women we
lofe. Of our gonsciences. Of various necessary biological functions. But
in der presence of der young man who is der enemy of Der Master we can
speak freely, you and I who serf him. We know that maybe der deputies
serf because they enjoy it. But der subjects? Dey serf because dey fear.
Andt fear is intolerable. A man who is afraid is in an unstable
gondition. Sooner or later he is going to stop fearing because he gets
used to it--when Der Master will haff no more hold on him--or else he is
going to stop fearing because he will kill himself."
* * * * *
To an outsider the spectacle of the three men in their talk would have
been very odd indeed. Two men who served The Master, and one who had
been his only annoying opponent, talking of the service of The Master
quite amicably and without marked disagreement.
Ortiz stirred and drummed nervously on the desk. The round shouldered
figure put the tips of its fingers together.
"How did you know," demanded Ortiz suddenly, "that I serve because I
despair?"
Bell watched keenly. He began to see where the talk was trending, and
waited alertly for the moment for him to speak. This was a battlefield,
this too luxurious room in which young Ortiz seemed an alien. Rhetoric
was the weapon which now would serve the best.
"Let us talk frankly," said the placid German voice. "You andt I, Senor
Ortiz, haff worked together. You are not a defil like most of the
deputies, and I do not regret hafing been sent here to help you. And I
am not a scoundtrel like most of those who help the deputies, so you
haff liked me a little. Let us talk frankly. I was trapped. I am a
capable segretary. I speak seferal languages. I haff no particular
ambitions or any loyalties. I am useful. So I was trapped. But you,
Senor Ortiz, you are different."
Ortiz suddenly smiled bitterly.
"It is a saying in Brazil, if I recall the words, '_A cauda do demonio e
de rendas._' 'The devil's tail is made of lace.' That is the story."
Bell said quietly:
"No."
Ortiz stared at him. He was very pale. And suddenly he laughed without
any amusement whatever.
"True," said Ortiz. He smiled in the same bitterness. "I had forgotten.
I am a slave, and the Herr Wiedkind is a slave, and you, Senor Bell, are
the enemy of our master. But I had forgotten that we are gentlemen. In
the service of The Master one does forget that there are gentlemen."
* * * * *
He laughed again and lighted a cigarette with hands that shook a little.
"I loved a girl," he said in a cynical amusement. "It is peculiar that
one should love any woman, _senores_--or do you, Senor Bell, find it
natural? I loved this girl. It pleased my father. She was of a family
fully equal to my own: their wealth, their position, their traditions
were quite equal, and it was a most suitable match. Most remarkable of
all, I loved her as one commonly loves only when no such considerations
exist. It is amusing to me now, to think how deeply, and how truly, and
how terribly I loved her...."
Young Ortiz's pallor deepened as he smiled at them. His eyes, so dark as
to be almost black, looked at them from a smiling mask of whiteness.
"There was no flaw anywhere. A romance of the most romantic, my father
very happy, her family most satisfied and pleased, and I--I walked upon
air. And then my father suddenly departed for the United States, quite
without warning. He left a memorandum for me, saying that it was a
matter of government, a secret matter. He would explain upon his return.
I did not worry. I haunted the house of my fiancee. The habits of her
family are of the most liberal. I saw her daily, almost hourly, and my
infatuation grew. And suddenly I grew irritable and saw red spots before
my eyes....
"Her father took me to task about my nervousness. He led me kindly to a
man of high position, who poured out for me a little potion.... And
within an hour all my terrible unease had vanished. And then they told
me of The Master, of the poison I had been given in the house of my
fiancee herself. They informed me that if I served The Master I would be
provided with the antidote which would keep me sane. I raged.... And
then the father of my fiancee told me that he and all his family served
The Master. That the girl I loved, herself, owed him allegiance. And
while I would possibly have defied them and death itself, the thought of
that girl not daring to wed me because of the poison in her veins.... I
saw, then, that she was in terror. I imagined the two of us comforting
each other beneath the shadow of the most horrible of fates...."
* * * * *
Ortiz was silent for what seemed to be a long time, smiling mirthlessly
at nothing. When his lips parted, it was to laugh, a horribly discordant
laughter.
"I agreed," he said in ghastly amusement. "For the sake of my loved
one, I agreed to serve The Master that I might comfort her. And plans
for our wedding, which had been often and inexplicably delayed, were set
in train at once. And the deputy of The Master entertained me often. I
plied him with drink, striving to learn all that I could, hoping against
hope that there would be some way of befooling him and securing the
antidote without the poison.... And at last, when very drunken, he
laughed at me for my intention of marriage. He advised me tipsily to
serve The Master zealously and receive promotion in his service. Then,
he told me amusedly, I would not care for marriage. My fiancee would be
at my disposal without such formalities. In fact--while I stood rigid
with horror--he sent a command for her to attend him immediately. He
commanded me to go to an apartment in his dwelling. And soon--within
minutes, it seemed--the girl I loved came there to me...."
Bell did not move. This was no moment to interrupt. Ortiz's fixed and
cynical smile wavered and vanished. His voice was harsh.
"She was at my disposal, as an act of drunken friendship by the deputy
of The Master. She confessed to me, weeping, that she had been at the
disposal of the deputy himself. Of any other person he cared to divert
or amuse.... Oh! _Dios!_"
Ortiz stopped short and said, in forced calmness:
"That also was the night that my father died."
* * * * *
Silence fell. Bell sat very still. The Teutonic figure spoke quietly
after the clock had ticked for what seemed an interminable period.
"You didt know, then, that your father's death was arranged?"
Ortiz turned stiffly to look at him.
"Here," said the placid voice, quaintly sympathetic. "Look at these."
A hand extended a thick envelope. Ortiz took it, staring with wide,
distended eyes. The round shouldered figure stood up and seemed to
shake itself. The stoop of its shoulders straightened out. One of the
seemingly pudgy hands reached up and removed the thick spectacles. A
bushy gray eyebrow peeled off. A straggly beard was removed. The other
eyebrow.... Jamison nodded briefly to Bell, and turned to watch Ortiz.
And Ortiz was reading the contents of the envelope. His hands began to
shake violently. He rested them on the desk-top so that he could
continue to read. When he looked up his eyes were flaming.
"The real Herr Wiedkind," said Jamison dryly, "came up from Punta Arenas
with special instructions from The Master. You have talents, Senor
Ortiz, which The Master wished to use. Also you have considerable wealth
and the prestige of an honorable family. But you were afflicted with
ideas of honor and decency, which are disadvantageous in deputies of The
Master. The real Herr Wiedkind had remarkable gifts in eradicating those
ideas."
* * * * *
Jamison sat down and crossed his knees carefully.
"I looked you up because I knew The Master had killed your father," he
added mildly, "and I thought you'd either be hunting The Master or he'd
be hunting you. My name's Jamison. I killed the real Wiedkind and took
his identification papers. He was a singularly unpleasant beast. His
idea of pleasure made him seem a fatherly sort of person, very much like
my make-up. He was constantly petting children, and appeared very
benign. I am very, very glad that I killed him."
Ortiz tore at his collar, suddenly. He seemed to be choking.
"This--this says.... It is The Master's handwriting! I know it! And it
says--"
"It says," Jamison observed calmly, "that since your father killed the
previous deputy in an attempt to save you from The Master's poison, that
you are to be prepared for the work your father had been assigned. Herr
Wiedkind is given special orders about your--ah--moral education. In
passing, I might say that your father was sent to the United States
because it was known he'd killed the previous deputy. He told Bell he'd
done that killing. And he was allowed to grow horribly nervous on his
return. He was permitted to see the red spots, because he was
officially--even as far as you were concerned--to commit suicide.
"It was intended that his nervousness was to be noticed. And a plane
tried to deliver a message to him. Your father thought the parcel
contained the antidote to the poison that was driving him mad. Actually,
it was very conventional prussic acid. Your father would have drunk it
and dropped dead, a suicide, after a conspicuous period of nervousness
and worry."
* * * * *
Bell felt his cigarette burning his fingers. He had sat rigid until the
thing burned short. He crushed out the coal, looking at Ortiz.
And Ortiz seemed to gasp for breath. But with an almost superhuman
effort he calmed himself outwardly.
"I--think," he said with some difficulty, "that I should thank you. I
do. But I do not think that you told me all of this without some motive.
I abandon the service of The Master. But what is it that you wish me to
do? You know, of course, that I can order both of you killed...."
Bell put down the stub of his cigarette very carefully.
"The only thing you can do," he said quietly, "is to die."
"True," said Ortiz with a ghastly smile. "But I would like my death to
perform some service. The Master has no enemies save you two, and those
of us who die on becoming his enemies. I would like, in dying, to do him
some harm."
"I will promise," said Jamison grimly, "to see that The Master dies
himself if you will have Bell and myself put in a plane with fuel to
Punta Arenas and a reasonable supply of weapons. I include the Senorita
Canalejas as a matter of course."
* * * * *
Ortiz looked from one to the other. And suddenly he smiled once more. It
was queer, that smile. It was not quite mirthless.
"You were right, just now," he observed calmly, "when as the Herr
Wiedkind you said that I would quit the service of The Master when I
ceased to despair. I begin to have hopes. You two men have done the
impossible. You have fought The Master, you have learned many of his
secrets, and you have corrupted a man to treason when treason means
suicide. Perhaps, Senores, you will continue to achieve the impossible,
and assassinate The Master."
He stood up, and though deathly pale continued to smile.
"I suggest, Senor, that you resume your complexion. And you, Senor Bell,
you will be returned to your confinement. I will make the necessarily
elaborate arrangements for my death."
Bell rose. He liked this young man. He said quietly:
"You said just now you wouldn't ask me to shake hands. May I ask
you?..." He added almost apologetically as Ortiz's fingers closed upon
his: "You see, when your father died I thought that I would be very glad
if I felt that I would die as well. But I think"--he smiled wryly--"I
think I'll have two examples to think of when my time comes."
* * * * *
In the morning a bulky, round shouldered figure entered the room in
which Bell was confined.
"You will follow me," said a harsh voice.
Bell shrugged. He was marched down long passageways and many steps. He
came out into the courtyard, where the glistening black car with the
blank windows waited. At an imperious gesture, he got in and sat down
with every appearance of composure, as of a man resignedly submitting
to force he cannot resist. The thick spectacles of the Herr Wiedkind
regarded him with a gogglelike effect. There was a long pause. Then the
sound of footsteps. Paula appeared, deathly pale. She was ushered into
the vehicle--and only Bell's swift gesture of a finger to his lips
checked her cry of relief.
Voices outside. The guttural Spanish of the Herr Wiedkind. Other,
emotionless voices replying. The Herr Wiedkind climbed heavily into the
car and sat down, producing a huge revolver which bore steadily upon
Bell. The door closed, and he made a swift gesture of caution.
"Idt may be," said the Germanic voice harshly, "that you and the young
ladty haff much to say to each other. But idt can wait. And I warn you,
_mein Herr_, that at the first movement I shall fire."
Bell relaxed. There was the purring of the motor. The car moved off.
Obviously there was some microphonic attachment inside the tonneau which
carried every word within the locked vehicle to the ears of the two men
upon the chauffeur's seat. An excellent idea for protection against
treachery. Bell smiled, and moved so that his lips were a bare half-inch
from Paula's ears.
"Try to weep, loudly," he said in the faintest of whispers. "This man is
a friend."
* * * * *
But Paula could only stare at the bulky figure sitting opposite until he
suddenly removed the spectacles, and smiled dryly, and then reached in
his pockets and handed Bell two automatic pistols, and extended a tiny
but very wicked weapon to Paula. He motioned to her to conceal it.
Jamison--moving to make the minimum of noise--handed Bell a sheet of
stiff cardboard. It passed into Bell's fingers without a rustle. He
showed it silently to Paula.
We were overheard last night by someone. We don't know who or how
much he heard. Dictaphone in the room we talked in. Can't find out
who it was or what action he's taken. We may be riding into a trap
now. Ortiz has disappeared. He may be dead. We can only wait and
see.
The car was moving as if in city traffic, a swift dash forward and a
sudden stop, and then another swift dash. But the walls within were
padded so that no sound came from without save the faint vibration of
the motor and now and then the distinct flexing of a spring. Then the
car turned a corner. It went more rapidly. It turned another corner. And
another....
In the light of the bright dome light, Bell saw beads of sweat coming
out on Jamison's face. He did not dare to speak, but be formed words
with his lips.
"He's turning wrong! This isn't the way to the field!"
Bell's jaws clenched. He took out his two automatics and looked at them
carefully. And then, much too short a time from the departure for the
flying field to have been reached, the car checked. It went over rough
cobblestones, and Bell himself knew well that there had been no cobbled
roadway between the flying field and his prison. And then the car went
up a sort of ramp, a fairly steep incline which by the feel of the motor
was taken in low, and on for a short distance more. Then the car stopped
and the motor was cut off.
Keys rattled in the lock outside. The door opened. The blunt barrel of
an automatic pistol peered in.
(_To be concluded in the next issue._)
* * * * *
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