CHAPTER XXVIII
“YOU SHALL DIE”
I WAS not left alone very long, but it was quite enough for me to curse my own folly for having allowed myself to be trapped in this way. I ought never to have entered the house at all without taking ample precautions. I could have brought half a dozen of the Stella’s men with me. That was the first stupid blunder; but even in the house itself, I had acted like an idiot.
I could see the whole business plainly enough now. Everything had been done to secure delay. The instant I had arrived Inez had sent for Barosa, and her talk to me had been merely intended to create delay until he arrived. Then in order that the two might consult together, Miralda had been brought to me.
They had filled her with the fear of arrest, calculating that she would hesitate long enough to serve their purpose; but of course they had never intended to allow her to leave the house. Then as their preparations were not complete, Barosa had come to me to cause more delay.
He had first detained me with a threat in order to gain more time; and as soon as the trap for me was ready, he had affected to submit to defeat. This was to learn precisely how matters were on the Rampallo, and the steps necessary to secure the freedom of his companions.
He had gulled me so completely that I had been within an ace of giving him the authority to the skipper, which would have sent the Stella racing off to bring the men back to the city, while I was kept a prisoner.
Fortunately I had pulled up in time to checkmate that move, and thus was still so far master of the position.
What would be Barosa’s next step? What did he mean to do with me? It would not do him much good to keep me a prisoner. Nor, so far as his conspiracy was concerned, would he gain anything even by knocking me on the head or putting a bullet in it.
I had rubbed the fact in well that, if anything happened to me, there were others who would give the information which would blow his plans into the air and send him flying for his life. There was a certain amount of grim satisfaction that I was worth more to him alive than dead; and in my present plight any consolation at all was welcome.
There was another source of consolation, too. Bryant knew where I was, and when I did not return to him he would do something. He was a sharp fellow, and quite shrewd enough to make matters unpleasant for my gaolers. Fortunately, I had told him that I was coming to the house in search of Miralda; and as he knew about Barosa and the attempt the latter and Henriques had made, he would soon scent danger.
He would be in a desperate fix, however, what to do and when to do it; urged, on the one hand, to immediate action by his alarm for me, but restrained on the other by fear of acting too soon and so interfering with my plans. But I might safely reckon that he would not let many hours pass without taking some vigorous measures on my behalf. In that case I might still escape without any more serious trouble than those hours of discomfort.
Barosa was ignorant of the fact that Bryant knew of my presence in the house, and thus would not have the very strong incentive to hurry matters which that knowledge would have given him. If my guess was right—that his object was to force me to send an order to Captain Bolton to go after the Rampallo and set the prisoners at liberty—he would be chary of doing me any injury which would prevent my sending for them.
I had reached that point in my speculations when the door was unbolted, and two or three persons entered. They carefully examined the cords on my arms, and then hauled me to my feet, and half led, half carried me up several flights of stairs to a room where the gag and cloth over my head were taken off.
I found myself in a small room, the one window of which was barred. A pallet bed stood in one corner with a mattress, but without sheets or blankets, and by the window a chair and a small table with writing materials on it.
I lay down on the bed, intensely glad to be able to breathe freely once more, but both sick and dizzy from the pressure of the gag. I recognized the men who had brought me upstairs. I had seen them on the night of the “test,” and I judged that they had been intentionally selected by Barosa in order that I might see I was in the hands of men who would have scant mercy for a traitor.
He meant to play on my fears, and the writing materials ready to hand showed me I had guessed his purpose. I was to be forced to write the necessary instructions to the skipper.
Not a word was spoken by the men. As soon as they had finished with me they went outside, leaving the door open and remained close to it.
Some few minutes passed, and then Barosa came into the room and closed the door.
“Now, Mr. Donnington, you must understand what we require you to do,” he said very peremptorily. “You have chosen to interfere in our plans, and your interference has brought you to this pass. You are absolutely in our power; and I tell you at once and frankly, that your life will depend upon your decision. You will write the instructions to Captain Bolton to go after the Rampallo, and take our friends to Oporto with all speed. As soon as they are safe, you shall be set at liberty. Not here in Lisbon; but you will go on board a steamer which will take you straight back to England, and you will have to give your word of honour not to speak a word of anything you know until you reach your country. You will also order your captain to take your yacht straight to England the moment that our friends are landed.”
“I shall do nothing of the sort, Dr. Barosa.”
“I think you will change your mind. The penalty of refusal will be—death,” he replied, as sternly and impressively as he could speak.
“Very well. I refuse absolutely,” I said, in quite as firm a tone as his. As a matter of fact, I did not believe in his threat. His object was to get his friends at liberty with the least trouble and in the quickest time, and he was bluffing me.
But if it was only bluff, he made it very realistic. “I shall give you five minutes in which to do what I require, and at the end of that time if you persist in your refusal you shall die. That I declare solemnly on my honour.”
With that he called in a couple of men and ordered them to unfasten my right hand and bind my left arm to my side, and as soon as they had done so, he sent them out again.
“I will tell you what you do not seem to know. The attempt last night on the king has become known, many arrests have been made, and we are all in danger of the same fate. At present the men who have brought you up here do not know the part you have played in betraying them; but when they learn it you know enough of them to judge how they will feel towards you, and what they will be eager to do in revenge. If on my return in five minutes from now those instructions are not written, I shall tell them everything.”
With that he went out, leaving me extremely perplexed and profoundly uncomfortable. Every one knows the trying effect of suspense on one’s nerves; and he had no doubt carefully calculated how it would act upon mine.
Did he mean to make his threat good, or was it a blank cartridge? I did not believe that the attempted abduction had been discovered, and that statement of his threw doubt on everything else. Moreover, he had told and acted lie after lie in the former interview, and had done so cleverly enough to hoodwink me completely.
He had declared on his honour that he was in earnest now, and his manner had been tremendously earnest. But a man who could lie as he had would probably not hold his word of honour much more highly than his word without such a pledge. So I put that aside as a mere touch of play-acting.
As I thought it all over, it seemed to me that he had overplayed his part. If he had meant to shoot me, that reference to his associates founded, as I believed it to be, on a lie about the plot having been discovered, was an unnecessary exaggeration of my danger, intended to appeal to my fears.
Yet, if I were wrong, my shrift was to be a very short one. To form a judgment on a man’s probable motives, when the penalty of a mistake means death, is a very ugly task, and I seemed to have scarcely begun to think when he came back.
I was still sitting on the bed and a glance at the paper showed him it was blank.
“You persist in refusing, then?”
“I haven’t had time to decide.”
“I won’t give you any longer,” he said, very sternly.
“There’s one point you must clear up. About Mademoiselle Dominguez,” I said firmly.
“I will answer you with your own words this morning. It is for me, not you, to impose conditions. But her safety will be secured.”
“Then you can have my decision. As soon as she and I are across the frontier, you can have the letter you want.”
“You mean you will not write it otherwise? I warn you.”
“I mean I will not write it otherwise,” I replied; “I’ll see you hanged first. Do what you will.”
He called in the three men who were waiting at the door, and in a very few words told them the part I had taken on the previous night, and that I intended to betray everything I knew to the authorities.
Before he had half finished there was no question about their verdict. I read it in faces dark and fierce as a cyclone cloud; in the threatening looks from eyes ablaze with wrath; in the execrations hissed and growled between teeth clenched fast in hate, and in the gleam of the half-drawn weapons as the strenuous fingers clutched at them instinctively.
White-hot with passion they were, and possessed with but one common motive and resolve—to defend themselves by exacting the uttermost penalty for my treachery. Jury and judges and executioners in one, Barosa knew how to play upon their feelings, and I saw that I was condemned and sentenced almost as soon as the first words had left his lips.
They were some of those who had been suspicious of me when the “test” of my good faith had been made, one of them being the young fellow who on that night had endeavoured to draw a statement from me by pretending that he had been arrested and had turned informer. He was the most vindictive of them all now; and while Barosa was still speaking, he broke in with a loud fierce oath, and, carried away by his rage, he drew his revolver and fired point-blank at my head.
Barosa saw him and struck up his arm. “Marco!” he thundered. “Are you the sole judge?”
“The dog shall die,” he growled, in a muttered snarl of hate; and the other two scowlingly agreed with fierce and savage oaths.
Barosa turned on them, his eyes snapping with rage. “Do you follow your own lead or mine?”
“He shall die,” said Marco sullenly, and was raising his revolver again when Barosa snatched it from him and flung it to the ground.
All three quailed before his fierce look and masterful assertion of his leadership; and Marco fell back a couple of paces, his gaze at me more vengeful and bitter than before, as if I had been the cause of his humiliation.
I could understand Barosa’s action. With men of this class among his followers his rule must be absolute and inflexible. Independent action, even when amounting to no more than an anticipation of his orders, could only be fraught with danger in such a cause as his; and for his own sake and that of the end he had in view, he was bound to exact literal and implicit obedience.
For a few seconds there was dead silence.
“Well, is it my lead or yours?” he asked them.
There was no longer sign or sound of disobedience.
“Pick up your weapon, Marco.”
The young fellow obeyed and put it back in his pocket.
“Now your decision?” he asked.
“Death,” all three exclaimed together.
“Bind his free hand,” he ordered next.
But I was not going to submit tamely. I sprang to my feet and seized the chair. If I was to die it should be in hot blood, not like a sheep.
“Resistance is useless, Mr. Donnington. You must see that.”
My reply was not in words. I swung the chair up—it was a stout heavy wooden one—and struck at him with all my force. He jumped back and escaped most of the blow, but one of the legs struck him on the side of the head; and then a very hot five minutes followed. I laid the young fellow, Marco, senseless, and gave the other two something to remember me by before the chair was torn out of my grip, and I was seized and my right arm bound to my side and my legs lashed together.
Barosa had kept carefully out of the fight, but as soon as I was helpless he saw that the cords were tied very securely.
“Stand him against the wall there,” he said, indicating a spot at the foot of the bed.
They placed me as directed and then drew back.
He stooped over Marco, who was only stunned for the moment, drew the revolver from his pocket and handed it to one of the men. “You have yours,” he said to the other.
The fellow drew it out with a swift under glance at me, full of sinister thirst for revenge and gloating satisfaction.
Then Barosa looked across at me. “We are all agreed that this is our only course, Mr. Donnington.”
I met his look firmly. “You can murder me if you will, but it will not help you. You know that,” I replied.
“Will you write what I require?”
“No.”
“Now,” he said sharply to the others.
They looked to see that the revolvers were loaded, glanced at each other and raised them slowly, pointing them at my head and waiting for the word to fire.
“I give you one last chance, Mr. Donnington,” said Barosa.