Tales of Mysteries & Espionage - John Buchan Edition. Buchan John
flat he found no sign of impending departure. Lariarty, washed and perfumed, was wearing a smoking-suit of silk, and in the buttonhole of his jacket was a yellow picotee, such as Archie had remarked in the Gran Seco visitors the first night in the Olifa hotel. He was improvising on his piano. The nervousness of the afternoon had gone, and he seemed to be at ease with the world.
“Hullo, Senor,” Luis cried. “You’ll be late. We start in twenty minutes.”
Lariarty smiled and went on playing.
“I am not coming. Not at present. I have been reconsidering the matter, and I think that it is my business to remain here. Here or at Olifa. My duty is to the Mines, and my knowledge may be needed.”
Something had happened that evening, some news had reached the Conquistadors, which had caused them to change their plans. It would be as well, Luis thought, if they all remained in the city; he had not approved of Blenkiron’s consent to Lariarty’s departure, which seemed to have been the unthinking decision of an overpressed man. But did this mean that all would stay behind? Was there no chance of a blunder in this midnight retirement? The last four days had been too feverish to allow of strict attention to the ritual of surveillance which had looked on paper so perfect. The thought made Luis hurry to the northern barrier.
The outlets from the city were few, and all were carefully barricaded. It was now midnight, and the troops were by this time safely out of the trench lines, where now a rearguard was conducting a noisy camouflage. The place was as bright as day with the great arc lights on their tall standards, and in their glare a mounted army was assembling, as shaggy a force as ever followed Timour or Genghiz. They had for the most part come straight from the line, and there was no sleep for them till they had put many thirsty miles between themselves and the Olifa van. Yet they were a cheerful crowd and drank black coffee out of bottles and smoked their little acrid cigarettes before they jogged off, each squadron to its appointed place.
The officer in charge of the business, a young analytic chemist, saluted him.
“All goes smoothly, sir,” he said. “The staff leaves in a quarter of an hour. The road is being kept clear for cars. Your advance party got off half an hour ago.”
“Advance party!” Luis stammered.
“Yes, sir. They presented your instructions and I countersigned them, as your telephone message directed.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Were their passes all right? I was afraid they might be slow in reaching them.”
“They were all in order, with the Chief’s signature.”
“One car, you say?”
“They packed into one car. Rather a tight fit for six of them.”
“Who was driving?”
“Mr Suvorin. He was the only one I recognised.”
“A good car?”
“One of the new Administration Packards. There’s nothing wrong, sir?”
“Nothing. I was just wondering when we would over-take them.”
IV
In the Courts of the Morning there was still peace. The brooding heats, the dust-storms, the steaming deluges of the lowlands were unknown. The air was that of a tonic and gracious autumn slowly moving to the renewal of spring. The mornings were chilly, with a sea-fog crawling over the rim of the plateau; the days were bright and dry as old wine, the nights blue and starlit. There was peace in that diamond ether, but it was not the peace of lethargy but of ordered action. The place was as busy as ever, but it had no longer the air of a headquarters. It was now a base, a depot, and the poste de commandement was some—where far below in the broken levels which spread dizzily towards the southern sky-line.
The Gobernador had been given his choice. “I can take you with me,” Sandy had said. “It won’t be a comfortable life, but you don’t mind that. Or you can stay here in the watch-tower and follow our doings on the map.”
“I am free to decide?” Castor had asked, and was told “Perfectly.” He had considered for a little and had finally chosen to remain. “I am your enemy,” he said, “and we should be at too close quarters for comfort. I shall stay here till something happens.”
Sandy laughed. “I know what you mean. Well, I hope it won’t, but if my luck gives out don’t imagine that the show is over. You’re the only one in your class, but I’ve heaps of alternatives in mine. Archie will keep you posted and I’ll look in every now and then.”
But Sandy did not come back… The crowded days’ work went on; horse and mule convoys came daily up the mountain paths and departed with their burdens; the receivers ticked busily in the wireless station; aeroplanes—fewer than before, for the fighting machines were mostly at advanced headquarters—departed at dawn and returned often after nightfall, while flares like forest fires burned to guide them to their landing-places. There was a special activity in the glen which led to the sea; it seemed as if its defenders had reached the conclusion that that port to the outer world would soon be discovered and closed, for almost every night some kind of tramp put in and unloaded and stole out before the following daylight. Busiest of all were the two girls. Barbara was in charge of the hospital stores, and it seemed that these were now urgently needed, for in the plains below men were suffering. With her staff of peons she worked early and late, with Janet as an unskilled assistant.
The latter had another duty laid upon her, and that was to provide company for the Gobernador. With Sandy’s departure he had become the prey of moods. His former equability had gone, and he appeared to swing between profound abstraction, when he seemed unconscious of his surroundings, and a feverish interest in them.
For example, he visited constantly the top of the ravine and would spend an hour gazing into the green depths which ended in a sapphire patch of sea. Once, when Janet accompanied him, he turned to her sharply.
“This place could be forced,” he said. “Olifa has a navy… It would take a week—ten days perhaps—and he would lose a thousand men, but it could be done. Then his sanctuary of yours would fall. How would you escape?”
“I suppose by the hill roads to the south,” Janet answered.
“But they will be blocked. It might be hard to force a way up here from that side, but Olifa could block the exits. What then?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. I don’t believe both disasters could happen at once.”
“Why not?”
“Simply because things don’t work out that way.”
He laughed angrily. “You are all children. You trust childishly to fortune. That’s well enough for Clanroyden and the others. They are soldiers and take chances. But what is to become of you?”
“Barbara and I went into this with our eyes open.”
“You were a fool, then. And your husband was a fool to let you.”
There were many similar occasions when his face looked sharp and anxious and there was a hard edge to his voice.
But there were others, when the mountain spaces seemed to work on him as an opiate and he fell into a mood of reflection. From these fits he would emerge with cheerfulness almost, certainly with philosophy. At such times he seemed to enjoy Janet’s company and would detain her in talk from her many duties. He would ask her questions about herself, her home, her views on life, with an engaging ingenuousness, as if he had discovered a new type of mortal and was labouring to understand it. He had a natural good-breeding which robbed his questions of all impertinence, and in this novel sphere Janet felt that she could regard him as an equal.
“This hill-top is bad for me,” he once told her. “I have no facts to work upon