AS it turned out, this same paralysis of despair which fell on me after hearing my terrible sentence proved the means of saving me. I had tried to explain who I was and had been silenced, and any attempt during the proceedings would have failed in the same way.
But as I was being taken out, my condition of helplessness led the warders to believe I was too feeble to offer any sort of resistance, and their hold of me was very slight.
Just as I reached the door, through which Pia had already passed, my wits awoke and my energy quickened in obedience to an instinct of self-preservation. The Conte de Sama had been one of those to whom the Marquis de Pinsara had introduced me on the night of the reception, and the conte had written me subsequently that his brother, General de Sama, the Governor of the prison, was anxious to co-operate with me.
I sprang back from the gaolers’ loose hold of me, therefore, and darting toward the Governor I rushed out the words: “There is a mistake. I am Ralph Donnington, the Englishman who seeks the Beira Concessions. Your brother, Conte de Sama——”
I had no chance to finish, for I was collared by the warders, one of whom silenced me as Pia had been silenced.
Captain Moros was furious and put himself in front of the Governor, as if to protect him from my violence and ordered the men to drag me away instantly.
But I had appealed to a far higher force than the law—the cupidity of this Portuguese notable; and he had heard enough to rouse his fear of losing a chance of fortune.
“Wait,” he said quickly to his companion. “Remain here with your prisoner,” he ordered the gaolers; and then, as if to conceal his personal interest in my statement, he was shrewd enough to cover it with a reference to the law. “If the prisoner is an Englishman, Captain Moros, as he says, you will see there may be somewhat serious complications. I must question him. Have the female prisoner brought back.”
“May I sit down?” I asked abruptly. My legs were trembling under me and I was feeling faint from want of food and quite used up. He consented and a warder placed a chair for me.
“If you are an Englishman”—and he affected to have forgotten my name, stumbling over it—“how is it I find you here?”
“Ralph Donnington is my name. I was arrested last night by mistake as a political suspect. I passed the night in this prison, and when Captain Moros entered it this morning, I told him who I was and asked him for some food. He ordered me to be silent. I then asked for some food for the women who were lying ill from the effects of the awful night we had all endured. His reply was a blow on the mouth, and I lost my temper and grappled with him.”
The captain tried several times to interrupt me with furious outbursts, but the Governor—thinking no doubt of the concessions—would not let him interfere.
“If your statement is true, it puts a very different complexion on the matter. You must see that, Captain Moros.”
“It is a pack of lies,” he declared.
“All the prisoners heard and saw what passed. Interrogate them singly and they will corroborate every word. I have the honour of the friendship of M. Volheno and I shall appeal to him to do so. I have requested to be allowed to communicate both with him and with the representatives of my country, but no notice has been taken. If your Excellency will send to M. Volheno, you will be immediately convinced that I am what I say—Ralph Donnington, an Englishman of great wealth, enjoying the friendship of the Marquis de Pinsara and many other prominent men in Lisbon, and here for the purpose of acquiring very valuable concessions in your African Colony.”
The concessions won hands down, and the victory extended even to little Pia who had been brought back and stood listening in amazement.
“This must be inquired into, of course,” said the Governor after a pause. “Free the prisoner’s hands,” he added. Then to me: “Do you know anything of the girl at your side?”
“I will answer for her as for myself. I know her to be innocent of any wrong, and that she is about to leave the country. I am indeed interested in making arrangements for her to do so.”
Pia moved restlessly and was about to protest, I think, so I placed my hand on her shoulder and looked into her eyes: “You will bear out what I say?”
To deny would compromise me, and that I was sure she would not do. After a slight pause, she said simply: “That is so.”
At my mention of Volheno’s name the Governor had scribbled a line and handed it to a subordinate who took it away.
“I am compelled to protest against this, your Excellency,” said the captain at this point. “And having made this protest, I will, with your permission, return to my duties.”
“The matter has taken a very grave turn, Captain Moros; you will be good enough to remain until we know more. This may be serious for you.” The subordinate returned then and handed a packet to the Governor who whispered with him, and sent him away again. “I find that you gave your name on being brought in last night, Mr. Donnington. Here is what was found upon you. I shall return all except a paper which I may have to deal with differently. I revoke both sentences.”
This was, of course, the confession of Gompez and the rest. “May I ask that some of the money may be used to buy food for the wretched prisoners in that cell?”
He granted the request and sent some one away for the purpose.
“I have telephoned to M. Volheno, and have no doubt, from what he says, that all is as you represent. He desires to see you as soon as possible.”
“May we go then? I have had no food since yesterday morning.”
“There is still one formality,” he replied. He turned then to Captain Moros and said something which made the brute go white and set him trembling, as he protested. But the protest was evidently unavailing, and after some further words, he rose and went out at the back of the room. I learnt afterwords that he was made the scapegoat for my treatment and dismissed from his position.
Just as this incident ended, the door by which we had entered opened and another prisoner was brought in. To my amazement I saw it was Bryant.
“Do you recognize any one here, prisoner?” the Governor asked him.
Bryant stared all round. “Only my master, Mr. Donnington.”
“Was that the formality, your Excellency?” I asked.
“M. Volheno said you two were to be confronted, and I had no option but to do so. You are now at liberty to leave.”
“And my servant?”
“Certainly. I trust you will let this most regrettable and unintelligible series of mistakes pass out of your mind. Here are the things taken from you—the paper I am sending to M. Volheno. And now,” he added, as he offered me his hand; “I shall be glad if at some time convenient to yourself you will afford me an opportunity of discussing with you the matter in which you so interested my brother.”
Pia was at a loss what to do. So I laid my hand on her arm. “Come,” I said.
“But——” she began.
“Come,” I repeated, more insistently, and she yielded, leaving the place as if she where walking in her sleep. But as soon as we were in the street and the gloomy gates had closed behind us, she paused to take two or three deep breaths, her face raised skywards and her eyes shining brightly in rapture, and then smiled, as if the very air itself were at once the symbol and the proof of the liberty so unexpectedly regained.
After that she turned and held out her hand to me.
“You are out of prison, Pia, but you are not free,” I said, shaking my head. “I have answered for you; and you cannot return to your associates here without falsifying my pledge.”
Her eyes clouded in embarrassment. “What can I do?”
“In the first place you are going to put absolute confidence in your new gaoler and let him look after your future, as soon as he knows what you wish to do. He is a very stern gaoler and will take no refusals,” I added, interrupting a threatened protest.
“If you are anything like as famished as I am, your first desire will be to eat something;” and we turned into the first hotel we reached.
Some objection was taken to our appearance—we were like three towsled tramps—but money soon overcame that, and while I was doing what I could to get rid of the results of the night’s imprisonment—Pia having gone off with a servant for a similar purpose—I listened to Bryant’s account of his experience.
It was pretty much what I anticipated, but with an unexpected result. He had waited for me outside Inez’ house for some hours and had then contrived to send a message to Captain Bolton. Together they had agreed that the skipper should go and tell the police about my disappearance, while Bryant remained on watch.
But in some way the abduction plot had become known. The police had jumbled the two things up and, on reaching Inez’ house, their first act was to arrest Bryant himself on suspicion, refusing to believe or even listen to his explanation; and he had been in prison up to the moment of his being brought in to identify me.
It turned out that Captain Bolton had been making inquiries everywhere both for me and for Bryant; and Volheno had heard of the latter’s imprisonment and had been on the point of ordering his release when General Sama had communicated with him about me.
I told Bryant to hurry his breakfast and go down to the quay to send word to the skipper that we were both at liberty, and then drive to Miralda’s house for news of her, and bring me the result of his inquiry to my rooms.
Pia’s story was soon told. She had no living relatives. She and her only brother had lived together until he had been led to join the revolutionary party. His arrest had soon followed through the betrayal of a false friend who had tried to make love to her and in revenge for his defeat had betrayed him. The brother, feeble and delicate in health, had been questioned as to the plans and names of his companions, and Pia declared that his refusal to speak had been punished with the lash. He had died in prison, and this had driven her into hot rebellion against those whom she termed his murderers.
She had been hunted for by the police; but her arrest on the previous night had been an accident—she was caught as I had once been—in the thick of a fracas between the police and the people. She had not given her right name, but, feeling sure she would be identified, she looked forward to sharing the same fate as her brother.
This fact explained the readiness of the Governor to liberate her.
“You have no friends anywhere?” I asked.
“I have only one friend in the world; but when my brother was arrested, he had to fly for his life. That was almost on the eve of the day we were to have been married,” she said simply.
“And where is he?”
“In America.”
“That settles it then. You will go out to him.”
She tossed up her hands. “Some day, perhaps.”
“There is no ‘perhaps’ about it and no ‘some day.’ Do you know that if it had not been for you I should have had that lash this morning. If you had not mentioned the Governor’s name, I should not have known him and been able to do what I did. You will go out to New York by the first boat you can catch, and you will leave Lisbon for Paris to-day, and go to an address I will give you to wait in safety until that boat starts.”
“Monsieur!” she cried tremulously.
“I am your gaoler, remember, and responsible for you. You must let me persuade you to do what I say. And now, I must go. Hurry your preparations and return to me here;” and I gave her the address of my flat.
“But I—I cannot accept your money, monsieur.”
“But you can use it. I shall lend it to you, and when you are married in the new world, you will soon be able to repay me. There is a place for such a woman as you in the world and good work waiting to be done by you. You promise to come to me?”
She could not speak. The tears, which no persecution, nor the horrors of the past night, nor even the almost certain prospect of the lash itself had been able to draw from her, were standing thick in her eyes as I left her and hurried to my rooms.
I decided to go to Volheno as soon as I had changed into some decent clothes, and secure a pardon for Miralda in return for a full statement of what I knew, and then obtain his assistance in searching for her. There was a faint chance that Bryant would bring back some news of her from the vicontesse; but he did not arrive before I was ready to go to Volheno.
I found him studying the paper which General de Sama had sent to him from the prison, and his first question was about it.
“Why have you made prisoners of some of His Majesty’s officers?” he asked.
“I have much to tell you and of very grave importance, but there is a condition,” I replied. I told him enough to convince him that my information was such as to place clues in his hand strong enough to enable him to break up the whole revolutionary movement so far as the Pretender’s friends were concerned; and then named my condition.
Without mentioning their names I described at length the means which had been adopted to force Miralda, Vasco and Dagara into the scheme and how they had helped me to thwart it, and asked for a written assurance of pardon for them all.
He fought hard and tried every means to get the names from me. A long and at times very heated altercation followed, in which I declared that I would make all the trouble I could on the score of my own treatment, and finally that I would seek an audience of the king himself and lay all the facts before him.
I won the victory in the end, and I had the assurance in my pocket when I gave him the story, confining my statement to what I had overheard on the Rampallo and all that had followed from it. We then arranged for the Stella to go out at once to pick up the Rampallo and to carry out Government agents to take over charge of her and the officers.
I purposely abstained from mentioning Inez, but the fact that I had been arrested in her house led Volheno to question me about her. I found that the house had been raided through a blunder of the police who had mixed up some information they had received with Captain Bolton’s statement that I was a prisoner there. Volheno had nothing definite against her, and I would not give him any information.
Of Miralda’s whereabouts he knew no more than I. She had not been arrested, however; and I returned to my rooms to learn the result of Bryant’s visit to her house.
He brought no news of her. He had seen the viscontesse who was almost prostrate with grief and anxiety at her absence.
There was only one inference to draw. Miralda must still be with Barosa; and where to look for them baffled me.