I WAS busy with the final touches to my shooting rig when Burroughs returned bringing Miralda’s promise to do what I asked.
“She is going to stop him somehow, Ralph. I think she’ll drug him if he gives any trouble. He was evidently gloriously drunk last night and he turned up this morning—his friends of the Rampallo took him back—and is all to pieces, she told me. He had already let out enough to scare her out of her senses almost, and she jumped at the chance of saving him from trouble.”
“Did she want to know things?”
“Well, what do you think? She has a way with her, too; and I was glad to get out of fire of her eyes—or she’d have had the whole business out of me.”
“Any message for me?” I asked casually.
“No, nothing particular, of course,” he replied in the same tone, with a grin. “I don’t wonder you’re willing to do things now. Hanged if I wouldn’t be. She wanted to know that you weren’t running any risks; but she didn’t seem to fancy that a rough sort of sea-dog like me was the sort of message carrier she ought to choose, so she made a postman of me;” and he put down a letter and went out of the room saying he wanted to tell Simmons something.
It was the first letter I had ever received from Miralda, and I did what I suppose nine out of ten mooncalves would have done. I just sat staring at the envelope for a while, as if it were an amulet with a thousand mystic virtues, and looking round to make sure I was alone, I kissed it—yes, and more than once, before I thought of such a commonplace thing as opening it.
It was very simply worded.
“I will of course do what you ask; and I think I am half disappointed you have asked so little of me—a something to help others, not you yourself. Your friend’s manner shows me that he at any rate recognizes the dangers of the task you are attempting, whatever that may be. I know it would be useless to try and dissuade you from it; and I suppose I cannot help you. But I can pray for you. With all my heart and soul I do. God keep you safe and unharmed, and give you success.
“MIRALDA.”
It is difficult even to suggest how this letter moved me.
Like a pause of peace and hope and love in the midst of the strenuous hurly-burly of the struggle, it seemed; a favour on the lance of a knight setting out to battle for the woman of his heart; a kiss imprinted on the shield with love’s whispered blessing. For the moment all else in the world was nothing, and Miralda was all in all. Everything was forgotten as my thoughts wandered among the fairy groves of that mystic domain of ecstatic oblivion—the rhapsody of a lover who knows that he may hope.
“Shall I sew these shot pads together, sir?”
It was Bryant’s respectful voice, and it brought me to earth as if I had dropped from a balloon.
“Eh? Oh. Yes. No. I’ll see to it in a moment,” I muttered incoherently, as my thoughts were knitting themselves together. “Don’t go, Bryant;” and with an effort I told him what I wished and sent him away.
The dream was broken, but I folded Miralda’s letter and was putting it next my heart, when common sense prevailed over romance. I might fail. If I did and were searched, the letter, instead of an amulet protecting me from danger, might prove a serious peril for her. So I lit a match, and kissed the paper once more, and burnt it.
Then Burroughs returned to discuss where we had better have the launch in waiting for him to get back to the Stella. This proved to be, however, only the preface to a change he wished to make in the plan.
“You don’t seem to think that you’ll be in any danger while you’re in the hands of these fellows on the Rampallo, Ralph?”
“No. I shall take a revolver with me, of course. There’ll be plenty of chance of concealing it under all that padding.”
“Well, I’ve thought of something. When the time comes for us to hail their boat in the morning, it would give them a much bigger scare if it was you who hailed them. I’m afraid of that part of the business, you know.”
He spoke with such earnestness that he showed his meaning at once. “Why not say it plump out, Jack?” I asked with a smile.
“Confound you, don’t you understand? That part of the affair will need a longer head than mine to manage.”
“What I do understand is that you don’t agree with me about there being no danger for the prisoner on the Rampallo and that you want to be the prisoner instead of me. Don’t you think it’s like your infernal conceit to want to cast yourself for the star part?”
“Oh, come off,” he growled. “There’s no earthly good in your keeping the star part for yourself.”
“Didn’t you give me the cheering opinion that I should find a bullet in my head when they discovered me?”
“Well then, answer me this. If I’m right and there is no danger, I run no risk. And if you’re right and there is danger, why should I shove you into it instead of myself?”
“Fifty reasons. If anything happened to you the whole thing would be spoilt.”
“Not a bit of it. We should still have wrecked this little revolutionary move and you could carry out the rest of the plan with the much stronger card that these beggars would have to answer for what they might have done to me.”
“Yes, but hang it all, man, there’s—there’s the girl,” he said, hesitatingly and almost nervously.
“You don’t want to make me jealous, do you?”
“Don’t rot, Ralph. I’m in earnest.”
“The offer is just what I should expect from you, but I must see the thing through myself. If there is any risk, it must be mine.”
“I’d much rather——”
“No, Jack,” I interposed, shaking my head. His offer moved me deeply. It was just like his whole-hearted friendship to wish to take the risk, especially as he believed it to be much more serious than I did. Big or little, however, that risk must be mine. But his disappointment was both genuine and keen.
“I must go out now,” I said a moment later. “I have to see Dagara, and while I’m away, you’d better take Bryant down to the landing-stage and put him through his paces.”
He got up with a smile and a heave of his broad shoulders. “You’re an obstinate devil, Ralph,” he said: “and it would serve you right if I chucked the whole thing.”
“Look here. I’ll put it another way. If our positions were reversed, would you let me take the star part?”
“I don’t want any of your conundrums,” he grunted, and went off to call Bryant.
Acting on my resolve to avoid even remote risks, I took Simmons with me to M. Volheno’s bureau.
I found Dagara on the look-out for me, and the moment I asked for M. Volheno, he came out of an adjoining room.
“M. Volheno is not in, Mr. Donnington,” he said, for the benefit of the clerks round. “Can I be of any assistance?”
“I only wished to ask a simple question.”
“Will you come into my room?” and he led the way.
“Well? Have you any further information for me?” I asked as soon as he had closed the door carefully behind us.
“No, Mr. Donnington.”
“There is no change in the arrangements for His Majesty’s arrival to-night?”
“None whatever, but—but I want to speak to you. I can’t bear this any longer. I have decided to tell M. Volheno everything.”
If he did anything of the sort, of course there was an end to all my plans, and therefore to all my hopes of getting Miralda out of the trouble. But it would not do to let him see it.
“I think you are quite right.”
He was as much surprised as I intended him to be. “I scarcely expected you to agree so readily. But after my promise to you, I felt I must let you know first.”
“I am not involved, M. Dagara. You are in a very trying position—purgatory, as you term it—but your ruin and imprisonment cannot in any way affect any one but yourself and your wife and children, of course.”
“My wife and children?” he echoed blankly.
“No, not your children, perhaps. Your friends will no doubt be able to take care of them. Your wife, only, I should have said.”
“But she has had nothing to do with this betrayal of information.”
I perceived then that he had not decided to confess, but was only contemplating the step. “You are rather shortsighted, surely, if you think that those whom you are going to give up to justice will not retaliate. You must reckon that they will do their utmost to be revenged, and that utmost will include your wife.”
“You don’t think I should confess, then?”
“On the contrary, I think you should have told everything long ago; but you might have taken the precaution of sending your wife out of the country. Is she strong enough to bear imprisonment? You know what hells your Portuguese prisons are.”
“It would kill her in a week,” he groaned.
“It is clearly your duty, but I am sorry for her.”
“I have not the means to send her away. O God, I’d kill myself if I dared, but that would only leave her destitute and at the mercy of the men who have destroyed me.”
“You have destroyed yourself,” I said sternly. “But I have no time to discuss this with you. So far as I am concerned, I prefer that you include every detail of our interview yesterday in your confession to M. Volheno. Hide nothing, for I have nothing to fear.”
Having made him believe that I was indifferent, I rose and turned to the door, and then paused.
“I don’t know that I have quite understood one thing you said—about not having means to send your wife away. Does that mean that you have no money.”
“Yes,” he replied disconsolately. “My salary is not large and I cannot save.”
“Oh, if that’s all, you must allow my pity for your wife and children to take a practical shape. How much money would she require?”
“I don’t know,” he said, wringing his hands fatuously.
“Try and think it out, then;” and while he was doing this I turned my side of the matter over and came to the conclusion that as his presence was a menace to Miralda’s safety, the sooner he was out of Lisbon the better. The moment this abduction plot failed, a dozen informers were certain to offer evidence, and he and his wife would certainly be accused.
“About two hundred and fifty milreis, Mr. Donnington,” he said, looking up at last.
“Well, you asked my advice just now, and I’ll give it you. You are ill both in mind and body. Any one can see that, and in such a condition, no one can form a calm judgment. Ask M. Volheno to give you a fortnight’s holiday and leave the country to-night. I will give you double the sum you ask for now. Go to Paris and give your address to M. Madrillo, at the Spanish Embassy. He will let me know it and I will send you another two hundred and fifty milreis, and will let you know the position here.”
I put the money on the table and the tears were in his eyes as he seized my hand and pressed it in both of his.
“Don’t give way, man. If I find that it is not safe for you to return here, I will interest myself to find you employment either in Paris or elsewhere. Don’t thank me, but prove your gratitude by going straight for the future;” and I hurried away. It was worth many times the money to secure the delay for Miralda, and his excessive gratitude tended to make me feel rather mean.
Burroughs and Bryant had not returned when I reached my rooms, so I went once more carefully over every detail of my scheme in a kind of mental rehearsal. There was only one point which gave me any qualms now. We three had to get into the shed on the wharf without being seen and conceal ourselves, and yet be able to learn the precise moment of the king’s arrival.
Burroughs had been worrying over the same thing, it turned out, and had not been idle.
“We’ve made a useful friend, Ralph,” he said when he arrived. “Got hold of the wharf watchman. He’s a Spaniard, and Bryant’s Spanish came in very handy. He managed to find out how things go down there. He shuts the big shed at seven o’clock and we must be inside before then. We can manage it all right. That Bryant has his head screwed on the right way. He promised to go to the man’s house to-night at nine o’clock; so that if we show up about half-past six, he’s going to meet him and take him away while he explains why he can’t keep the appointment. We shall slip in then, and Bryant will get rid of him and join us by the back entrance. A screwdriver will do the rest.”
“A screwdriver.”
“We had a good look at the lock on that back door and five minutes will have it off.”
“I’d been worrying about that part of the thing. But time’s getting on. We’d better have something to eat and get ready.”
The business of dressing occupied some time. We all wore the hunting rigs over our ordinary clothes; as both Burroughs and Bryant were to get rid of theirs as soon as possible after the purpose for which they were needed was achieved.
We sent Simmons and Foster off to the yacht and locked the flat up for the night.
We looked rather like three squat square Dutchmen as we set off; but the long grey dustcoats rendered us sufficiently inconspicuous, and as the weather had changed and the light was bad, we attracted no attention in the streets.
The wind was rising and a light rain falling, and there was every promise of a somewhat dirty night. This was all the better for our purpose.
When we were near the landing-stage, Bryant went on ahead in search of the new friend he had made and presently we saw the two together close to the sheds. They stood talking for a few minutes and then walked away, and disappeared round the end of the further building.
“He lives over that way,” said Burroughs. “We may safely go.”
The rain was falling fast now and the wind coming in gusty squalls across the bay and not a soul was to be seen as we slipped into the shed.
We hid ourselves among a large quantity of hay, and were scarcely settled when some one else entered the shed, and I heard him clamber among some big packing cases. I jumped to the conclusion that either we had been seen or that Volheno had decided to put a police agent on the watch.
I dared not speak to Burroughs, and in this trying uncertainty we waited until the watchman entered, gave a casual glance round with his lantern, and then locked the doors.
I racked my wits to know what to do about the unwelcome interloper. Bryant might come to the back entrance at any minute, and we should be instantly discovered.
Then to my profound relief I heard his voice.
“Are you there, sir?” he asked in a whisper.
“Phew, how that shook me up!” exclaimed Burroughs. “How did you get in, Bryant?”
“I got rid of the man at his house door as he was going to fetch his overalls, so I came on at once, sir.”
“All right. But I wish you had said who you were. Get to work with that lock.”
In a few minutes all was ready and we waited anxiously for the sound of the king’s approach.
We heard the arrival of the officers in the adjoining shed and could even catch the low hum of their voices.
The suspense was not a little trying; and I was intensely glad when the whistle of a launch announced that the king was coming.