The Flaming Jewel. Chambers Robert William
it.
But she had thought only of the packet at the moment of surprise. And now she wondered whether, when freed, she could ever again find that rotting log.
Up, up, always up along the wet gully, deep with silt and frost-splintered rock, she toiled, the heavy gasping of men behind her. Twice she was jerked to a halt while her escort rested.
Once, without turning, she said unsteadily: "Who are you? What have I done to you?"
There was no reply.
"What are you going to do to me – " she began again, and was shaken by the shoulder until silent.
At last the vast arch of the eastern sky sprang out ahead, where stunted spruces stood out against the sunshine and the intense heat of midday fell upon a bare table-land of rock and moss and fern.
As she came out upon the level, the man behind her took both her arms and pulled them back and somebody bandaged her eyes. Then a hand closed on her left arm and, so guided, she stumbled and crept forward across the rocks for a few moments until her guide halted her and forced her into a sitting position on a smooth, flat boulder.
She heard the crunching of heavy feet all around her, whispering made hoarse by breath exhausted, movement across rock and scrub, retreating steps.
For an interminable time she sat there alone in the hot sun, drenched to the skin in sweat, listening, thinking, striving to find a reason for this lawless outrage.
After a long while she heard somebody coming across the rocks, stiffened as she listened with some vague presentiment of evil.
Somebody had halted beside her. After a pause she was aware of nimble fingers busy with the bandage over her eyes.
At first, when freed, the light blinded her. By degrees she was able to distinguish the rocky crest of Star Peak, with the tops of tall trees appearing level with the rocks from depths below.
Then she turned, slowly, and looked at the man who had seated himself beside her.
He wore a white mask over a delicate, smoothly shaven face.
His soft hat and sporting clothes were dark grey, evidently new. And she noticed his hands – long, elegantly made, smooth, restless, playing with a pencil and some sheets of paper on his knees.
As she met his brilliant eyes behind the mask, his delicate, thin lips grew tense in what seemed to be a smile – or a soundless sort of laugh.
"Veree happee," he said, "to make the acquaintance. Pardon my unceremony, miss, but onlee necissitee compels. Are you, perhaps, a little rested?"
"Yes."
"Ah! Then, if you permit, we proceed with affairs of moment. You will be sufficiently kind to write down what I say. Yes?"
He placed paper and pencil in Eve's hand. Without demurring or hesitation she made ready to write, her mind groping wildly for the reason of it all.
"Write," he said, with his silent laugh which was more like the soundless snarl of a lynx unafraid:
"To Mike Clinch, my fathaire, from his child, Eve… I am hostage, held by José Quintana. Pay what you owe him and I go free.
"For each day delay he sends to you one finger which will be severed from my right hand – "
Eve's slender fingers trembled; she looked up at the masked man, stared steadily into his brilliant eyes.
"Proceed miss, if you are so amiable," he said softly.
She wrote on: " – One finger for every day's delay. The whole hand at the week's end. The other hand then, finger by finger. Then, alas! the right foot – "
Eve trembled.
"Proceed," he said softly.
She wrote: "If you agree you shall pay what you owe to José Quintana in this manner: you shall place a stick at the edge of the Star Pond where the Star rivulet flows out. Upon this stick you shall tie a white rag. At the foot of the stick you shall lay the parcel which contains your indebt to José Quintana.
"Failing this, by to-night one finger at sunset."
The man paused: Eve waited, dumb under the surging confusion in her brain. A sort of incredulous horror benumbed her, through which she still heard and perceived.
"Be kind enough to sign it with your name," said the man pleasantly.
Eve signed.
Then the masked man took the letter, got up, removed his hat.
"I am Quintana," he said. "I keep my word. A thousand thanks and apologies, miss. I trust that your detention may be brief and not too disagreeable. I place at your feet my humble respects."
He bowed, put on his hat, and walked quickly away. And she saw him descend the rocks to the eastward, where the peak slopes.
When Quintana had disappeared behind the summit scrub and rocks, Eve slowly stood up and looked about her at the rocky pulpit so familiar.
There was only one way out. Quintana had gone that way. His men no doubt guarded it. Otherwise, sheer precipices confronted her.
She walked to the western edge where a sheet of slippery reindeer moss clothed the rock. Below the mountain fell away to the valley where she had been made prisoner.
She looked out over the vast panorama of wilderness and mountain, range on range stretching blue to the horizon. She looked down into the depths of the valley where deep under the flaming foliage of October, somewhere, a State Trooper was sitting, cheek on hand, beside a waterfall – or, perhaps, riding slowly through a forest which she might never gaze upon again.
There was a noise on the rocks behind her. A masked man came out of the spruce scrub, laid a blanket on the rocks, placed a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a tin pail full of water upon it, motioned her, and went away through the dwarf spruces.
Eve walked slowly to the blanket. She drank out of the tin pail. Then she set aside the food, lay down, and buried her quivering face in her arms.
The sun was half way between zenith and horizon when she heard somebody coming, and rose to a sitting posture. Her visitor was Quintana.
He came up to her quite close, stood with glittering eyes intent upon her.
After a moment he handed her a letter.
She could scarcely unfold it, she trembled so:
"Girlie, for God's sake give that packet to Quintana and come on home. I'm near crazy with it all. What the hell's anything worth beside you girlie. I don't give a damn for nothing only you, so come on quick. Dad."
After a little while she lifted her eyes to Quintana.
"So," he said quietly, "you are the little she-fox that has learned tricks already."
"What do you mean?"
"Where is that packet?"
"I haven't it."
"Where is it?"
She shook her head slightly.
"You had a packet," he insisted fiercely. "Look here! Regard!" and he spread out a penciled sheet in Clinch's hand:
"José Quintana:
"You win. She's got that stuff with her. Take your damn junk and let my girl go.
"Well," said Quintana, a thin, strident edge to his tone.
"My father is mistaken. I haven't any packet."
The man's visage behind his mask flushed darkly. Without warning or ceremony he caught Eve by the throat and tore open her shirt. Then, hissing and cursing and panting with his own violence, he searched her brutally and without mercy – flung her down and tore off her spiral puttees and even her shoes and stockings, now apparently beside himself with fury, puffing, gasping, always with a fierce, nasal sort of whining undertone like an animal worrying its kill.
"Cowardly beast!" she panted, fighting him with all her strength – "filthy, cowardly beast! – " striking at him, wrenching his grasp away, snatching