Bandit Love, Juanita Savage [best pdf reader for ebooks .TXT] 📗

on which she knew his head had rested. The fury of rage speedily exhausted itself, and Myra buried her face in her hands and sobbed fearlessly.

"He will come back," she thought distractedly. "He will come back to make mock of me, to gloat over me. Oh, if only I could get away! If only I could die!"

She sprang out of bed and began to dress in frantic haste, starting at every sound. She could not have explained what she intended to do or the reason for her haste. All she knew was that she must get out of the bedroom before Don Carlos returned.

Her hurried toilet completed, Myra with trembling fingers cautiously opened the bedroom door and peeped out. The rocky corridor was deserted, no sound came from the great cave, and the whole place seemed almost uncannily silent. With an effort of will Myra mastered her panic and tiptoed silently along the corridor towards the outer hall.

The corridor was lighted, but she found the hall, when she reached it, in darkness, save for one tiny light above the electric switch on the wall near the entrance. Myra pressed the switch and at once the apartment was flooded with light.

"Oh, God, help me to remember!" breathed Myra, after a swift glance around, to assure herself the place was untenanted. "Help me to get away—if only it is to die among the mountains."

She had watched Don Carlos closely a few hours previously as he manipulated the levers which opened the secret door when giving Standish his freedom, and the thought had flashed into her mind that she could manipulate the levers as he had done, and escape into the outer world.

Her first attempt was a failure, and she bit her lips in chagrin and hurt her delicate hands tugging vainly at various knobs and slides. But again and again she tried, and at last, when she was about to give up in despair, she heard a sudden click and the great door swung open!

CHAPTER XVIII

With a gasp of relief, Myra darted out, negotiated the narrow crevice which hid the door from view, and found herself in the open—and in brilliant sunshine. She paused for a moment, to collect herself, fancied she heard a noise behind her, and sped away like a startled doe.

There appeared to be no path, and she ran aimlessly and without the slightest sense of direction, clambering over rocks and slithering down slopes, several times narrowly escaping disaster, and once only escaping from plunging headlong over a precipice by clinging frantically to a boulder on the very verge. And the boulder, which must have been balanced like a logan stone, went crashing over the side of the precipice the moment she had released her hold on it and recovered her equilibrium.

Although she had, as it were, been courting death, Myra was so terrified that she could not proceed for several minutes, and she had to muster up all her courage to negotiate the perilous path. After that, she advanced with greater caution, and at last reached a little grassy plateau, a sort of oasis amid the bleak rocks, commanding a magnificent view of the mountain range and the country.

Far below her, Myra could see a twisted white ribbon—so it looked from a distance—which she knew must be a road, and on the white ribbon were ant-like moving objects which she knew must be horses and men—the civil guard and the military, in all probability, seeking for her and for "El Diablo Cojuelo."

"If only I can get to them, I shall be safe," said Myra aloud. "Oh, if only I knew the easiest and quickest way down! I think I can see other men climbing up as if they had seen me… I wonder if they have seen me? I wonder if they could hear me if I called?" She had lost some of her sense of proportion, forgotten how far away the men must be, and she gathered her breath and shouted as loud as she could:

"Help! help!"

Almost instantly there came an answering shout, but to Myra's consternation the shout came from somewhere above her, and not from below. She looked round and upwards, but at first could see no one, then she heard the shout again, heard the voice of Don Carlos cry: "Myra, where are you?" saw a head appear over the side of a rocky ledge about fifty feet above her, and panic seized her again.

From the little plateau there ran for a distance a sort of natural path, and down this Myra fled as fast as her feet would carry her—which was not fast, for already her thin shoes were almost in ribbons, and one foot had been badly cut by a sharp stone. But she was scarcely conscious of the pain in her anxiety to escape.

She could hear Don Carlos shouting to her to stop, and fancied she could hear him in close pursuit as she sped down the steep path. Again she came to the edge of a ravine, and she had to creep cautiously along the edge of a rough and treacherous path.

Glancing over her shoulder after she had crossed the most perilous part, Myra saw that Don Carlos was now close behind her, and that she must inevitably be overtaken. Almost she succumbed to a mad impulse to hurl herself to destruction into the ravine, but in the moment of hesitation before taking the fatal plunge she heard the sound of many voices ascending.

A great boulder blocked her view of the mountainside immediately below her, but on rounding the rock she saw, within a hundred yards of her, a company of men in uniform advancing in straggling order up the mountain. Myra cried out breathlessly, some of the men saw her and shouted excitedly and one who seemed to be an officer came running towards her and reached her side just as Don Carlos appeared behind her.

"Myra, Myra!" shouted Don Carlos. "Do not——"

Myra did not hear the rest of his shout. Excitedly she clutched the arm of the officer of the Guardia Civil.

"Save me! Save me!" she gasped. "That man is El Diablo Cojuelo! Don Carlos is El Diablo Cojuelo! Do you understand? Don't let him take me back."

"Yes, señorita," said the officer quickly in English. "I understand.
You alla right now from El Diablo Cojuelo."

"You do not understand," gasped Myra half-frantically, pointing at Don
Carlos, now only a few yards away from her. "That man is El Diablo
Cojuelo. Don Carlos de Ruiz is El Diablo Cojuelo. Arrest him!"

It seemed to her that as she spoke the words denouncing Don Carlos the whole world went suddenly pitch dark, and she felt herself falling, falling through space. What actually happened was that she fainted, and the officer of the Civil Guard was just in time to catch her ere she fell.

She recovered consciousness to find a swarthy, weather-beaten man supporting her head and holding a water-bottle to her lips, and to see many dark eyes regarding her with sympathetic curiosity. Until her brain cleared she could not realise where she was and what had been happening, and she felt horribly scared. Then she heard the voice of Don Carlos and she remembered everything.

"Don't let him take me back!" she cried, sitting up. "I tell you, he is El Diablo Cojuelo!"

"Alla right, señorita, you secure from El Diablo Cojuelo now," said the officer.

"Yes, you are safe from El Diablo Cojuelo now, Myra," said Don Carlos, moving nearer, "and explanations can wait until we get to the Castle."

Myra realised that it would be rather absurd to continue to try to make the officer, who had but an imperfect knowledge of English, understand that Don Carlos and El Diablo Cojuelo were one man.

Still feeling faint and shaken, Myra was assisted down the mountain-side after a little while, and was eventually lifted on to a mule. The journey to the high road that ran through the heart of the Sierras was accomplished without untoward incident, and by great good fortune a motor car, carrying two high officials of the Guardia Civil, drove up just as the party reached the road. Into the car Myra and Don Carlos were invited, after some voluble explanations on the part of their escort, and were speedily conveyed to El Castillo de Ruiz.

"Welcome home, Myra, my wife," whispered Don Carlos, as he stepped out of the car and proffered his hand. "When you have recovered, we will discuss the question of taking vengeance on El Diablo Cojuelo," he added. "He is now entirely at your mercy."

"And I shall not spare him!" responded Myra.

* * *

"I am simply aching with curiosity, Myra," said Lady Fermanagh a few hours later. "Do, please, tell me everything. Tony has been talking strangely, and Don Carlos is reticent about what happened at the bandit's lair, but I suppose it was he who rescued you."

"Has he said so?" asked Myra.

She had collapsed on reaching the Castillo de Ruiz, but was now feeling better after a long rest, a warm bath, and a dainty meal.

"Not in so many words," answered Lady Fermanagh. "He seems desperately worried, and so does Tony, who says he will have to return to England to-morrow. I can't make out what has been happening, Myra. Do tell me."

"It is difficult to explain, Aunt," said Myra slowly, after much hesitation. "El Diablo Cojuelo professed to have fallen in love with me at first sight, and I was crazy enough to promise to become his wife if Tony offered to renounce me. Tony did renounce me when he was threatened with torture, and I was married to El Diablo Cojuelo in his presence last night. Tony failed me, and now I hate and despise him."

"Myra!" gasped Lady Fermanagh in horrified amazement. "Married to the brigand! You—you don't mean actually married?"

"I don't believe it could have been a proper marriage, although Don—er—Cojuelo swore the man who performed the service was an ordained priest," said Myra, avoiding her aunt's eyes. "I don't suppose it matters much now whether I am Cojuelo's wife—or only his mistress."

"His mistress!" Lady Fermanagh was white to the lips as she repeated the words. "You mean that he——?"

The hot colour stained Myra's pale face as she met her aunt's eyes, and nodded her red-gold head in shamed assent.

"Myra, you are ruined!" Lady Fermanagh almost wailed, wringing her be-ringed hands. "What madness possessed you to offer to marry the brigand?"

"He taunted me—and Tony failed me," Myra answered, oddly reluctant to explain everything. "I wish I were dead."

"Does Don Carlos know?" asked her aunt, and again Myra flushed as she nodded assent.

"Yes, he alone knows, Aunt," she said, "and he alone knows whether the marriage service was a mockery or not."

Lady Fermanagh, still wringing her hands, rose and paced agitatedly up and down the room, her nimble brain busy trying to think of some way of saving the situation.

"I will see Don Carlos, Myra, beg him to keep your secret, beg him to assert that the so-called marriage was a farce and a mockery," she announced suddenly, after a long pause. "He is a chivalrous gentleman, and I know he will lie if necessary, to save your honour…. Why do you sneer, child? … Don't you realise that everything depends on Don Carlos, and how you behave towards Tony?"

"I have nothing but contempt for Tony now. I despise him."

"Don't be a little fool," snapped Lady Fermanagh. "Your only hope of saving yourself is to forgive Tony for his cowardice and marry him. He will be grateful to you all his life. Don Carlos can tell him that the marriage ceremony was only a farce, and that he arranged with the bandit for your liberation immediately afterwards, or else explain that he helped you to escape. How did you escape, by the way? You have not told me. Did Don Carlos help?"

"Don Carlos showed me the way to open the secret door," answered Myra.
"Aunt Clarissa, nothing will induce me to marry Tony Standish now."

"But