The Flaming Jewel, Robert W. Chambers [reading tree txt] 📗

cheek and burnished hair, dappling face and figure with moving, golden spots.

Instantly Darragh knew and trembled.

But Theodorica of Esthonia had known him only in his uniform.

As she came toward him, lovely in her lithe and rounded grace, only friendly curiosity gazed at him from her blue eyes.

Suddenly she knew him, went scarlet to her yellow hair, then white: and tried to speak—but had no control of the short, rosy upper lip which only quivered as he took her hands.

The forest was dead still around them save for the whisper of painted leaves sifting down from a sunlit vault above.

Finally she said in a ghost of a voice: "My—friend...."

"If you accept his friendship...."

"Friendship is to be shared.... Ours mingled—on that day.... Your share is—as much as pleases you."

"All you have to give me, then."

"Take it ... all I have...." Her blue eyes met his with a little effort. All courage is an effort.

Then that young man dropped on both knees at her feet and laid his lips to her soft hands.

In trembling silence she stood for a moment, then slowly sank on both knees to face him across their clasped hands.

So, in the gilded cathedral of the woods, pillared with silver, and azure-domed, the betrothal of these two was sealed with clasp and lip.

Awed, a little fearful, she looked into her lover's eyes with a gaze so chaste, so oblivious to all things earthly, that the still purity of her face seemed a sacrament, and he scarcely dared touch the childish lips she offered.

But when the sacrament of the kiss had been accomplished, she rested one hand on his shoulder and rose, and drew him with her.

Then his moment came: he drew the emblazoned case from his breast, opened it, and, in silence, laid it in her hands. The blaze of the jewels in the sunshine almost blinded them.

That was his moment.

The next moment was Quintana's.

Darragh hadn't a chance. Out of the bushes two pistols were thrust hard against his stomach. Quintana's face was behind them. He wore no mask, but the three men with him watched him over the edges of handkerchiefs,—over the sights of levelled rifles, too.

The youthful Grand Duchess had turned deadly white. One of Quintana's men took the morocco case from her hands and shoved her aside without ceremony.

Quintana leered at Darragh over his levelled weapons:

"My frien' Smith!" he exclaimed softly. "So it is you, then, who have twice try to rob me of my property!

"Ah! You recollec'? Yes? How you have rob me of a pacquet which contain only some chocolate?"

Darragh's face was burning with helpless rage.

"My frien', Smith," repeated Quintana, "do you recollec' what it was you say to me? Yes?... How often it is the onexpected which so usually happen? You are quite correc', l'ami Smith. It has happen."

He glanced at the open jewel box which one of the masked men held, then, like lightning, his sinister eyes focussed on Darragh.

"So," he said, "it was also you who rob me las' night of my property.... What you do to Nick Salzar, eh?"

"Killed him," said Darragh, dry lipped, nerved for death. "I ought to have killed you, too, when I had the chance. But—I'm white, you see."

At the insult flung into his face over the muzzles of his own pistols, Quintana burst into laughter.

"Ah! You should have shot me! You are quite right, my frien'. I mus' say you have behave ver' foolish."

He laughed again so hard that Darragh felt his pistols shaking against his body.

"So you have kill Nick Salzar, eh?" continued Quintana with perfect good humour. "My frien', I am oblige to you for what you do. You are surprise? Eh? It is ver' simple, my frien' Smith. What I want of a man who can be kill? Eh? Of what use is he to me? Voilà!"

He laughed, patted Darragh on the shoulder with one of his pistols.

"You, now—you could be of use. Why? Because you are a better man than was Nick Salzar. He who kills is better than the dead."

Then, swiftly his dark features altered:

"My frien' Smith," he said, "I have come here for my property, not to kill. I have recover my property. Why shall I kill you? To say that I am a better man? Yes, perhaps. But also I should be oblige to say that also I am a fool. Yaas! A poor damfool."

Without shifting his eyes he made a motion with one pistol to his men. As they turned and entered the thicket, Quintana's intent gaze became murderous.

"If I mus' kill you I shall do so. Otherwise I have sufficient trouble to keep me from ennui. My frien', I am going home to enjoy my property. If you live or die it signifies nothing to me. No! Why, for the pleasure of killing you, should I bring your dirty gendarmes on my heels?"

He backed away to the edge of the thicket, venturing one swift and evil glance at the girl who stood as though dazed.

"Listen attentively," he said to Darragh. "One of my men remains hidden very near. He is a dead shot. His aim is at your—sweetheart's—body. You understan'?"

"Yes."

"Ver' well. You shall not go away for one hour time. After that——" he took off his slouch hat with a sweeping bow—"you may go to hell!"

Behind him the bushes parted, closed.

José Quintana had made his adieux.

Episode Nine THE FOREST AND MR. SARD I

WHEN at last José Quintana had secured what he had been after for years, his troubles really began.

In his pocket he had two million dollars worth of gems, including the Flaming Jewel.

But he was in the middle of a wilderness ringed in by hostile men, and obliged to rely for aid on a handful of the most desperate criminals in Europe.

Those openly hostile to him had a wide net spread around him—wide of mesh too, perhaps; and it was through a mesh he meant to wriggle, but the net was intact from Canada to New York.

Canadian police and secret agents held it on the north: this he had learned from Jake Kloon long since.

East, west and south he knew he had the troopers of the New York State Constabulary to deal with, and in addition every game warden and fire warden in the State Forests, a swarm of plain clothes men from the Metropolis, and the rural constabulary of every town along the edges of the vast reservation.

Just who was responsible for this enormous conspiracy to rob him of what he considered his own legitimate loot Quintana did not know.

Sard's attorney, Eddie Abrams, believed that the French police instigated it through agents of the United States Secret Service.

Of one thing Quintana was satisfied, Mike Clinch had nothing to do with stirring up the authorities. Law-breakers of his sort don't shout for the police or invoke State or Government aid.

As for the status of Darragh—or Hal Smith, as he supposed him to be—Quintana took him for what he seemed to be, a well-born young man gone wrong. Europe was full of that kind. To Quintana there was nothing suspicious about Hal Smith. On the contrary, his clever recklessness confirmed that polished bandit's opinion that Smith was a gentleman degenerated into a crook. It takes an educated imagination for a man to do what Smith had done to him. If the common crook has any imagination at all it never is educated.

Another matter worried José Quintana: he was not only short on provisions, but what remained was cached in Drowned Valley; and Mike Clinch and his men were guarding every outlet to that sinister region, excepting only the rocky and submerged trail by which he had made his exit.

That was annoying; it cut off provisions and liquor from Canada, for which he had arranged with Jake Kloon. For Kloon's hootch-runners now would be stopped by Clinch; and not one among them knew about the rocky trail in.

All these matters were disquieting enough: but what really and most deeply troubled Quintana was his knowledge of his own men.

He did not trust one among them. Of international crookdom they were the cream. Not one of them but would have murdered his fellow if the loot were worth it and the chances of escape sufficient.

There was no loyalty to him, none to one another, no "honour among thieves"—and it was José Quintana who knew that only in romance such a thing existed.

No, he could not trust a single man. Only hope of plunder attached these marauders to him, and merely because he had education and imagination enough to provide what they wanted.

Anyone among them would murder and rob him if opportunity presented.

Now, how to keep his loot; how to get back to Europe with it, was the problem that confronted Quintana after robbing Darragh. And he determined to settle part of that question at once.

About five miles from Harrod Place, within a hundred rods of which he had held up Hal Smith, Quintana halted, seated himself on a rotting log, and waited until his men came up and gathered around him.

For a little while, in utter silence, his keen eyes travelled from one visage to the next, from Henri Picquet to Victor Georgiades, to Sanchez, to Sard. His intent scrutiny focussed on Sard; lingered.

If there were anybody he might trust, a little way, it would be Sard.

Then a polite, untroubled smile smoothed the pale, dark features of José Quintana:

"Bien, messieurs, the coup has been success. Yes? Ver' well; in turn, then, en accord with our custom, I shall dispose myse'f to listen to your good advice."

He looked at Henri Picquet, smiled and nodded invitation to speak.

Picquet shrugged: "For me, mon capitaine, eet ees ver' simple. We are five. Therefore, divide into five ze gems. After zat, each one for himself to make his way out——"

"Nick Salzar and Harry Beck are in the Drowned Valley," interrupted Quintana.

Picquet shrugged again; Sanchez laughed, saying: "If they are there it is their misfortune. Also, we others are in a hurry."

Picquet added: "Also five shares are sufficient division."

"It is propose, then, that we abandon our comrades Beck and Salzar to the rifle of Mike Clinch?"

"Why not?" demanded Georgiades sullenly;—"we shall have worse to face before we see the Place de l'Opéra."

"There remains, also, Eddie Abrams," remarked Quintana.

Crooks never betray their attorney. Everybody expressed a willingness to have the five shares of plunder properly assessed to satisfy the fee due to Mr. Abrams.

"Ver' well," nodded Quintana, "are you satisfy, messieurs, to divide an' disperse?"

Sard said, heavily, that they ought to stick together until they arrived in New York.

Sanchez sneered, accusing Sard of wanting a bodyguard to escort him to his own home. "In this accursed forest," he insisted, "five of us would attract attention where one alone, with sufficient stealth, can slip through into the open country."

"Two by two is better," said Picquet. "You, Sanchez, shall travel alone if you desire——"

"Divide the gems first," growled Georgiades, "and then let each do what pleases him."

"That," nodded Quintana, "is also my opinion. It is so settle. Attention!" Two pistols were in his hands as by magic. With a slight smile he laid them on the moss beside him.

He then spread a large white handkerchief flat on the ground; and, from his pockets, he poured out the glittering cascade. Yet, like a feeding panther, every sense remained alert to the slightest sound or movement elsewhere; and when Georgiades grunted from excess emotion, Quintana's right hand held a pistol before the grunt had ceased.

It was a serious business, this division of loot; every reckless visage reflected the strain of the situation.

Quintana, both pistols in his hands, looked down at the scintillating heap of jewels.

"I estimate two and one quartaire million of dollaires," he said simply. "It has been agree that I accep' for me the erosite gem known as The Flaming Jewel. In addition, messieurs, it has