The Filibusters, Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne [best book clubs .TXT] 📗

us from the kettle especially if she knew she’d have to look on and see us stew. But to have her marry that stinking old billy-goat. By gad, no.”

“If the worst comes to the worst we can always jump out at the fellows when they come next, and make them kill us. We’re both as fit as can be again now, and we’re both pretty useful with our hands. With luck we should manage to make things so hot that they’d be obliged to give us knife in self-defence.”

“Oh, yes, there’s always that. But I’ve no notion of deliberately getting killed if there’s any other way out of the scrape.” He kicked his heel petulantly, and it hit against something under the bed. ” What’s that? A brazero, by Jove, with plenty of unburned charcoal. And I have matches. Phew! ” he whistled, and went off into thought again.

“Well,” I said at last, ” have you got an idea?”

“I have and I haven’t. But, my faith! If the chance comes somebody had better look out .

Yes, there’s a long iron holdfast in the wall above your head. Birch, that will pull out and do capitally. I shall not be delicate-minded in handling these brutes if that chance I want arrives my way.”

“There’s someone coming.”

“Lord! Footsteps by all that’s unlucky. Well, we aren’t ready, and we must do as we can. We’re quite powerless to help Delicia any way, and she must take care of herself. I guess we’re about on the edge of torture, and that’s not in my line at all. I’m not going out of this room.”

“I’ll fight it out with you, and old Maxillo can make soup of my dead carcase if he pleases. He-

“Stand back beside the door,” whispered Carew. ” Stand back, and don’t show fight, and risk it. That’s Delicia’s voice outside, and if we can get her into the room and gain a bit of time we may manage to have a better run for our money.”

It was Donna Delicia’s voice surely enough, and presently the door opened and we could hear what she said. She was delivering an ultimatum to no less a person than Maxillo himself.

“Understand clearly,” she was saying, ” that unless I go into that room alone I shall not speak. You will get nothing out of me neither proposal nor acceptance; you may kill these two Englishmen, and I cannot prevent it; but it will not bring you any forwarder. You know perfectly well that you cannot marry me unless I choose; I would kill myself sooner than be forced into it against my will: and if that happened, then look out for yourself, se�or. There are men in Sacaronduca who would pull down these mountains sooner than not get at you, and you know it.”

Maxillo gritted his teeth. ” If I let you go into that room alone you will plot with those men.”

“So ho! se�or. Then you are afraid of your poor prisoners?”

“Madame,” he said sourly, ” I am the least timorous of men. But I do not want to make the way open for more trouble.”

“Ah, then,” she retorted, ” take the advice of a woman who has once been married, and keep clear of married life. Senor, you are a brave man to push me so hard. I should lead you a terrible time of it once you were my lawful husband. You did me once the compliment (in your coarser moments) of admiring my teeth. You have got a small notion of what a tongue lies in at the back of them.”

“Ah, but I have,” said he, with a rueful face. “Well, take your way; but see to it things are arranged to my liking. If it will please you,” he said, ” to step into this poor room?” and bowed her towards the doorway.

She walked in, bowed to each of us formally, though with a shut lip, and then she turned and looked inquiringly towards the door. Maxillo was watching her with a lowering face.

She waited on, and then ” Your courtesy does not seem to run very deep, seflor,” she said.

Maxillo swore beneath his moustache, and “Shut the door! “he ordered. It slammed to with a force that shook the room.

In a moment her manner changed. Through the growing gloom of the chamber I could see her eyes grow full of pity and anxiety. She came across to us in her quick, bright way, and took a hand of each. ” My poor friends,” she said, “what a terrible plight to find you in. And all because of me. But it is just a ruse de guerre that I find you here as prisoners? Perhaps in your cleverness you have some of the force ambushed”

“Donna Delicia,” I broke in, ” please wait a minute. We didn’t come here to find you at all. We are just what you see, prisoners. We quarrelled; we left Dolores to fight a duel; we got picked up by brigands; and here we are. That is the gist of the tale. But by accident we find you here, and we are very much at your service.”

“A los pies de usted, se�ora,” said Carew.

“A duel! ” she said wonderingly.

“That is postponed for the present,” I said. “You see us here quite ready to do anything for your advantage.”

“Yes, but what can you do?”

“We are open to a suggestion.”

“And I never felt so much at a loss. Maxillo has been too clever for me.” She shuddered. “And he is a man to keep his word. He will be entirely ruthless.” She shuddered again.

“He has got to put us in the pot before he can make soup of us,” said Carew, ” and he may find that difficult. I know I for one have not the least intention of being boiled alive, and I believe Birch has similar scruples. The only thing is, if we get killed, my dear lady, that doesn’t help you, does it? You’d have to marry the old goat sooner or later, all the same.”

“I could kill myself also.”

“Oh, dear no! That would be a terrible waste of good material.”

“I see no other way out of the trouble,” she said, smiling bravely.

“Well,” drawled Carew, “you might marry me, you know.”

She started, and for the first time looked (I think) a trifle scared. ” Sir William,” she said, “I suppose this is a joke, and I think it a poor one. Any way I do not see the point. As you must know, I am promised to marry your master, General Briggs.”

“He’s no master of mine, madam. Birch here will guarantee you that. No, I’ve chucked Briggs finally and for always, and I had thought of chipping in with Maxillo. Maxillo, however, is not polite; refuses to have me, in fact, on any terms; and so here am I a lone lorn orphan, so to speak, and out on the world on my own hook. Now, Delicia, you admire success, and you want to be wife to the President of Sacaronduca. Well, I’m going to bid for the berth myself, and there’s only one thing that will stop me, and that’s my own funeral; and I tell you I’m not dead yet, or anywhere near it. There’s no denying you’re in a bad hole here, and you see no way out of it. Isn’t that so?”

“Yes, yes. Go on.”

“Well, as I say, marry me, and then I’ll clear out suddenly. Once you’ve got a husband, Maxillo’s scheme falls to the ground. He daren’t illtreat you, and if he doesn’t let you go out of sheer disgust at being sold I’ll find some way of hooking you out of his grip. In the meanwhile, if Briggs remains President of Sacaronduca he’ll only do it by knocking me on the head, in which case you’ll be quite free to marry him when things have settled down. On the other hand, if I get to the head of the country, you’ll find yourself the wife of the biggest man Central America has ever seen.”

Now I was watching Donna Delicia pretty narrowly whilst Carew was making this extraordinary proposal, and it was clear to see that she was moved. But she by no means showed a sign of giving way at once. She wanted to gain a little time for consideration probably, and so, womanlike, she opened up a side issue.

“You seem to be showing a change of object,” she said. ” When you first came to this country, Sir William, I thought you stated somewhat openly that you only did it for the money you could gather to carry home again. I seem to have learned too that at that time you professed an utter contempt for all political advantage.”

“I hadn’t seen you then,” said Carew. ” I may remark that it is you who want the political eminence, and that’s why I am ready to get it for you for the pair of us, in fact. I never looked upon a woman with an eye to marriage before, but, by God, Delicia,” he burst out, ” I want you, and if this sort of thing is what you care about, you shall have not only Sacaronduca but half these wretched little Central American states tacked on at the back of it. Nothing shall stop us. You shall have a kingdom worthy of a queen. Being near, you makes one equally ambitious with yourself.”

Donna Delicia’s eyes were sparkling now, and her cheeks were pink; but she did not offer either a “yes” or a “no.” “You do not ask love from me?” she said, almost shyly.

“I shall earn that by service. As for my own feelings on the matter I do not choose to parade them.”

“And if I give way to your proposal you will understand that circumstances press me on?”

“If,” retorted Carew, “you had stayed in Dolores, I should probably not have asked you to marry me. At least not yet. Being here; being, as I may say, in an extremely tight place, I throw out the suggestion as a possible means of escape from worse evils. Hang it, Delicia, whatever’s wrong with me I’m a better specimen than that old goat Maxillo.”

Donna Delicia looked him in the face, and then let her glance fall.

“I should like to annoy Maxillo,” she said rather coyly.

“We’ll shake hands on that,” said Carew, and they did so heartily, just as two friends might have done. ” And now,” said he, ” we’ll get ready for the wedding.” |

He pulled out the brazero from under the bed, scraped a match, lit the charcoal, and with his breath blew it into a smoulder. Then he wrenched the long iron holdfast from the wall, pushed its tip well into the glowing embers, and stood up again.

Donna Delicia and I had been watching him in silence, wondering what it was all about, but instinctively trusting to his wit for the next move. However, he did not explain just then. Still when he stood up out of the gloom of the floor, and the moon’s rays pouring in through the window fell upon his face, I saw there a look of pleased certainty which comforted me more than anything I had come across for many a weary hour. He was a man, as I had learned already, of extraordinary resourcefulness.

“I must ask you, Delicia,” he said, ” to go into the corridor and send for Father Jupe. Get him in here, and get him in alone. Say that we have arrived at a compromise over this marriage question, and want his help to get Maxillo to accept it. That will be quite true, and should appeal to