Tales of Mysteries & Espionage - John Buchan Edition. Buchan John
Why had Janet not been awakened by the noise—Janet, the lightest sleeper of them all? It was a mild blue morning after the rain, so she slipped on a dressing-gown and ran across to Janet’s hut. To her surprise the door stood open, unlatched. The bed had been slept in, but the occupant had clearly got up and dressed. There was a faint smell which puzzled her, till she realised that it was powder; a shot had been fired in the place during the night. Then she noticed that the floor around the doorway was muddied, and that some of the furniture looked as if it had been violently pushed aside. Lastly, on one of the rafters she observed a jagged splinter which could only have been done by a bullet.
With terror in her heart she hurried to find Roger Grayne and in five minutes the camp was astir. The tracks of the raiders were clear on the road to the sea, except when they had been overlaid by those of Hamilton’s men. The Indian trailers had no difficulty in pointing to the very place where they had taken cover, and in deciding that there had been three men in the business, three men who, in departing, had been encumbered with a burden… The very spot was found where they had circumvented Hamilton’s garrison on their way up. At Post No. 1 it was discovered that one of the scouts had not come back, and his body was presently found in the thicket at the turn of the road. Down on the shore Corbett reported the absence of one of the mestizos who had gone on patrol to the head of the gulf. The section where the cliffs dropped straight to the sea was searched, and blood was found on the reef by the water’s edge. The Indians scattered among the shore thickets, and soon reported that they had discovered the tracks of the raiders, both those going and those returning, and across the gulf evidence was found that a petrol-driven vessel had landed recently. The story was plain in all its details. Their base had been raided, and Janet had beer carried off.
“They did not come for her.” Barbara with tragic eyes clutched Grayne’s arm.
“I guess they didn’t. They came for the Gobernador. Some swine has double-crossed us and given away his exact location, only he didn’t know that his Excellency was sick. They were certainly fooled about that… But, my God! Miss Babs, we can’t sit down under this. It’s maybe bad strategy, but I’d rather they’d taken twenty Gobernadors than that little lady. Say, what do they want with her? A hostage, I guess. Who’d have thought Lossberg would be so bright?”
“But where is she?” Barbara cried. All the colour had gone out of her cheeks, and her face was a waxen mask of misery.
“Olifa, maybe. Yes, I guess she’s in Olifa. Don’t worry, Miss Babs. She can’t come to any hurt. We’re not fighting with savages who torture their prisoners. I wonder what Lossberg’s next move will be?”
Grayne went off to give orders for the strengthening of the guards at the sea-ravine, since there lay their Achilles-heel, and Barbara bathed her face and tidied herself to meet Castor. This awful thing must be faced with a stiff lip, at any rate in the presence of the enemy. She was possessed with a cold fury against him. The enemy—his side—had made war on women and stolen that woman whom she had come to love best in the world.
Some rumour had already reached him, for he was in the mess-hut, evidently dressed in a hurry, since he had a scarf round his neck instead of a collar. She did not know what she expected to find in him—triumph perhaps, or a cynical amusement. Instead she found a haggard man with bleared eyes—no doubt the consequence of his feverish chill. He startled her by his peremptoriness. “Have you found her?” he cried. “Lady Roylance?… What has happened?… Tell me quick, for God’s sake.”
To her amazement he appeared to be suffering.
“No news—except that Janet has gone. We found the track to the water’s edge, and there must have been a launch… They murdered two of the guards… “
She stopped, for something in his eyes took away her breath. It was suffering, almost torment. She had never known him as Janet knew him, and had regarded him as a creature of a strange and unintelligible world, though she had reluctantly admitted his power. Now the power remained, but the strangeness had gone. He had suddenly become human, terribly human. She had come to upbraid and accuse; instead she wanted to pity. She found one who shared to the full in her misery.
“Oh, Mr Castor,” she cried, “where have they taken her?”
“How can I tell?” he asked fiercely. “Have you sent for her husband?”
She nodded. “Sir Archie is at Loa. He will be here before luncheon.”
“And Lord Clanroyden?”
“He is at the other end of the Gran Seco. He is busy with a big movement. He will be told, but I do not think he can come.”
“But he must. What does his imbecile war matter?… Oh, you miserable children! You have played with fire and you will be burned.”
There was so much pain in his voice that Barbara tried to comfort him. “But surely in Olifa she can come to no harm?”
“Olifa! Why do you think she is there?”
“She was carried off by sea. Where else could General Lossberg… ?”
“Lossberg! What has he to do with it? Lossberg is not the man to waste time on such a business. He has no desire for my company.”
“But who?”
“There are others besides Lossberg—a far more deadly foe than the Olifa army. I warned Lord Clanroyden. I warned him that the true danger was not in the field… Lossberg is not the man for midnight escapades. He is too stiff. Regular soldiers do not climb ravines by night and stick knives between the shoulders. That is another kind of war. That is the way of the Conquistadors. Remember that D’Ingraville, who first found us out, is one of them.”
Barbara’s face had become as haggard as his own.
“Then where can they have taken her?”
“I do not know,” he said, “but not to Olifa—no, not to Olifa.”
Archie arrived a little after midday. He looked suddenly much older, and Barbara noticed that his limp had grow heavier. He was very quiet, so quiet that it seemed him possible for anyone to express sympathy. In a level, almost toneless voice he asked questions, and carefully went over all the ground between the camp and the ravine-foot. He had a talk alone with Castor, and announced that he was going back to the Gran Seco, and would return some time on the morrow.
Luis de Marzaniga, it seemed, had one foot in the theatre of war and one in Olifa; it might be possible for him to discover whether Janet had been taken to Olifa city. Also Sandy must be seen. He had cut the railway again, and was now engaged in worrying that section of Lossberg’s army which lay around the Mines. Ammunition, it appeared, was getting low, and it was important to replenish the store by captures. It was necessary that Sandy should be consulted, and his Intelligence department might be able to help.
He flew off in the evening, a calm, self-contained, stricken figure, the sight of whom made Barbara want to howl. Once again it was halcyon weather, and the sight of smoke rising in straight spires in the blue twilight against the flaming background of the west almost broke her heart. About this time Janet should have been coming in from her evening gallop, shouting for her bath… There was no dinner in he mess-tent that night, for no one could face a formal meal. Castor had kept indoors all day, and was now occupied in striding round the central square in the way passengers take exercise on board ship. He stalked across to Barbara.
“Lord Clanroyden must come at once,” he said.
“He can’t,” she said. “Sir Archie says that he is needed most desperately where he is. He is conducting a war.”
“You know him well. You have influence over him. Cannot you bring him here?”
The girl for a moment coloured.
“I do not think I have any influence with him, and if I had I would not use it to take him away from his duty.”
“Duty!” he said bitterly. “What duty is there in such fool concern? He has started a fire which he cannot control, and soon it will burn