Hearts of Three 24

Hearts of Three 24

But no sound was evoked. Instead, a lofty branch, fifty feet above his

head, sticking out from the main-trunk like a semaphore arm, moved up

and down like the semaphore arm it was. Two miles away, on a mountain

crest, the branch of a similar semaphore tree replied. Still beyond

that, and farther down the slopes, the flashing of a hand-mirror in the

sun heliographed the relaying of the blind man’s message from the cave.

And all that portion of the Cordilleras became voluble with coded speech

of vibrating ore-veins, sun-flashings, and waving tree-branches.

 

* * * * *

 

While Enrico Solano, slenderly erect on his horse as an Indian youth and

convoyed on either side by his sons, Alesandro and Ricardo, hanging to

his saddle trappings, made the best of the time afforded them by

Francis’ rearguard battle with the gendarmes, Leoncia, on her mount, and

Henry Morgan, lagged behind. One or the other was continually glancing

back for the sight of Francis overtaking them. Watching his opportunity,

Henry took the back-trail. Five minutes afterward, Leoncia, no less

anxious than he for Francis’ safety, tried to turn her horse about. But

the animal, eager for the companionship of its mate ahead, refused to

obey the rein, cut up and pranced, and then deliberately settled into a

balk. Dismounting and throwing her reins on the ground in the Panamanian

method of tethering a saddle horse, Leoncia took the back-trail on foot.

So rapidly did she follow Henry, that she was almost treading on his

heels when he encountered Francis and the peon. The next moment, both

Henry and Francis were chiding her for her conduct; but in both their

voices was the involuntary tenderness of love, which pleased neither to

hear the other uttering.

 

Their hearts more active than their heads, they were caught in total

surprise by the party of haciendados that dashed out upon them with

covering rifles from the surrounding jungle. Despite the fact that they

had thus captured the runaway peon, whom they proceeded to kick and

cuff, all would have been well with Leoncia and the two Morgans had the

owner of the peon, the old-time friend of the Solano family, been

present. But an attack of the malarial fever, which was his due every

third day, had stretched him out in a chill near the burning oilfield.

 

Nevertheless, though by their blows they reduced the peon to weepings

and pleadings on his knees, the haciendados were courteously gentle to

Leoncia and quite decent to Francis and Henry, even though they tied the

hands of the latter two behind them in preparation for the march up the

ravine slope to where the horses had been left. But upon the peon, with

Latin-American cruelty, they continued to reiterate their rage.

 

Yet were they destined to arrive nowhere, by themselves, with their

captives. Shouts of joy heralded the debouchment upon the scene of the

Jefe’s gendarmes and of the Jefe and Alvarez Torres. Arose at once the

rapid-fire, staccato, bastard-Latin of all men of both parties of

pursuers, trying to explain and demanding explanation at one and the

same time. And while the farrago of all talking simultaneously and of no

one winning anywhere in understanding, made anarchy of speech, Torres,

with a nod to Francis and a sneer of triumph to Henry, ranged before

Leoncia and bowed low to her in true and deep hidalgo courtesy and

respect.

 

“Listen!” he said, low-voiced, as she rebuffed him with an arm movement

of repulsion. “Do not misunderstand me. Do not mistake me. I am here to

save you, and, no matter what may happen, to protect you. You are the

lady of my dreams. I will die for you—yes, and gladly, though far more

gladly would I live for you.”

 

“I do not understand,” she replied curtly. “I do not see life or death

in the issue. We have done no wrong. I have done no wrong, nor has my

father. Nor has Francis Morgan, nor has Henry Morgan. Therefore, sir,

the matter is not a question of life or death.”

 

Henry and Francis, shouldering close to Leoncia, on either side,

listened and caught through the hubble-bubble of many voices the

conversation of Leoncia and Torres.

 

“It is a question absolute of certain death by execution for Henry

Morgan,” Torres persisted. “Proven beyond doubt is his conviction for

the murder of Alfaro Solano, who was your own full-blood uncle and your

father’s own full-blood brother. There is no chance to save Henry

Morgan. But Francis Morgan can I save in all surety, if——”

 

“If?” Leoncia queried, with almost the snap of jaws of a she-leopard.

 

“If ... you prove kind to me, and marry me,” Torres said with

magnificent steadiness, although two Gringos, helpless, their hands tied

behind their backs, glared at him through their eyes their common desire

for his immediate extinction.

 

Torres, in a genuine outburst of his passion, though his rapid glances

had assured him of the helplessness of the two Morgans, seized her hands

in his and urged:

 

“Leoncia, as your husband I might be able to do something for Henry.

Even may it be possible for me to save his life and his neck, if he will

yield to leaving Panama immediately.”

 

“You Spanish dog!” Henry snarled at him, struggling with his tied hands

behind his back in an effort to free them.

 

“Gringo cur!” Torres retorted, as, with an open backhanded blow, he

struck Henry on the mouth.

 

On the instant Henry’s foot shot out, and the kick in Torres’ side drove

him staggering in the direction of Francis, who was no less quick with a

kick of his own. Back and forth like a shuttlecock between the

battledores, Torres was kicked from one man to the other, until the

gendarmes seized the two Gringos and began to beat them in their

helplessness. Torres not only urged the gendarmes on, but himself drew a

knife; and a red tragedy might have happened with offended

Latin-American blood up and raging, had not a score or more of armed men

silently appeared and silently taken charge of the situation. Some of

the mysterious newcomers were clad in cotton singlets and trousers, and

others were in cowled gabardines of sackcloth.

 

The gendarmes and haciendados recoiled in fear, crossing themselves,

muttering prayers and ejaculating: “The Blind Brigand!” “The Cruel Just

One!” “They are his people!” “We are lost.”

 

But the much-beaten peon sprang forward and fell on his bleeding knees

before a stern-faced man who appeared to be the leader of the Blind

Brigand’s men. From the mouth of the peon poured forth a stream of loud

lamentation and outcry for justice.

 

“You know that justice to which you appeal?” the leader spoke

gutturally.

 

“Yes, the Cruel Justice,” the peon replied. “I know what it means to

appeal to the Cruel Justice, yet do I appeal, for I seek justice and my

cause is just.”

 

“I, too, demand the Cruel Justice!” Leoncia cried with flashing eyes,

although she added in an undertone to Francis and Henry: “Whatever the

Cruel Justice is.”

 

“It will have to go some to be unfairer than the justice we can expect

from Torres and the Jefe,” Henry replied in similar undertones, then

stepped forward boldly before the cowled leader and said loudly: “And I

demand the Cruel Justice.”

 

The leader nodded.

 

“Me, too,” Francis murmured low, and then made loud demand.

 

The gendarmes did not seem to count in the matter, while the haciendados

signified their willingness to abide by whatever justice the Blind

Brigand might mete out to them. Only the Jefe objected.

 

“Maybe you don’t know who I am,” he blustered. “I am Mariano Vercara è

Hijos, of long illustrious name and long and honorable career. I am Jefe

Politico of San Antonio, the highest friend of the governor, and high in

the confidence of the government of the Republic of Panama. I am the

law. There is but one law and one justice, which is of Panama and not

the Cordilleras. I protest against this mountain law you call the Cruel

Justice. I shall send an army against your Blind Brigand, and the

buzzards will peck his bones in San Juan.”

 

“Remember,” Torres sarcastically warned the irate Jefe, “that this is

not San Antonio, but the bush of Juchitan. Also, you have no army.”

 

“Have these two men been unjust to any one who has appealed to the Cruel

Justice?” the leader asked abruptly.

 

“Yes,” asseverated the peon. “They have beaten me. Everybody has beaten

me. They, too, have beaten me and without cause. My hand is bloody. My

body is bruised and torn. Again I appeal to the Cruel Justice, and I

charge these two men with injustice.”

 

The leader nodded and to his own men indicated the disarming of the

prisoners and the order of the march.

 

“Justice!—I demand equal justice!” Henry cried out. “My hands are tied

behind my back. All hands should be so tied, or no hands be so tied.

Besides, it is very difficult to walk when one is so tied.”

 

The shadow of a smile drifted the lips of the leader as he directed his

men to cut the lashings that invidiously advertised the inequality

complained of.

 

“Huh!” Francis grinned to Leoncia and Henry. “I have a vague memory that

somewhere around a million years ago I used to live in a quiet little

old burg called New York, where we foolishly thought we were the wildest

and wickedest that ever cracked at a golf ball, electrocuted an

Inspector of Police, battled with Tammany, or bid four nullos with five

sure tricks in one’s own hand.”

 

“Huh!” Henry vouchsafed half an hour later, as the trail, from a lesser

crest, afforded a view of higher crests beyond. “Huh! and hell’s bells!

These gunny-sack chaps are not animals of savages. Look, Henry! They are

semaphoring! See that near tree there, and that big one across the

canyon. Watch the branches wave.”