Part 39 (2/2)

”Look,” I told her. ”Bothwell is down there, locked up and guarded. He can't escape.”

The little group below came closer. I had noticed that the prisoner not in uniform was a white man and not a native. He carried himself with a distinction one could not miss. Even before he looked up both of us knew the man was Boris Bothwell.

He stopped in his tracks, white-lipped, a devil of hatred and rage burning out of his deep-set eyes. A dullard could not have missed his thoughts. He was a prisoner in this vile hole, while I had brought the woman he loved to mock at him. The girl and the treasure would both be mine. Before him lay no hope.

I felt a sense of shame at being an unexpected witness of his degradation. As I started to draw Evelyn back a guard prodded the Slav with his bayonet point. Bothwell whirled like a tiger and sprang for the throat of the fellow. They went down together. Other guards rushed to the rescue of their companion.

We waited to see no more.

It must have been a minute before either of us spoke.

”Bad as he is, I can't help being sorry for him. It's as if a splendid lion were being worried to death by a pack of coyotes,” Evelyn said with a shudder.

”Yes, there's something big even in his villainy. But you may take one bit of comfort: He can't get free to interfere with us--and he deserves all he'll get.”

”I know. My reason tells me that all will be well now, but I have a feeling as if the worst were not yet over.”

I tried to joke her out of it.

”It hasn't begun. You're not married to Jack Sedgwick yet.”

”No; but, dear, I can't get away from the thought that you are going into danger again,” she went on seriously.

”Tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink,” I quoted lightly.

”I dare say I'm a goose,” she admitted.

”You are. My opinion is that you're in as much danger as we shall be.”

”Is that why you are leaving me here?” she flashed back.

I laughed. In truth I did not quite believe what I had said. For I could see no danger at all that lay in wait for her. But the events proved that I had erred only in not putting the case strongly enough.

Before we returned to civilization she was to be in deadly peril.

CHAPTER XXI

A MESSAGE FROM BUCKS

In the forenoon we drew out from the harbor and followed the sh.o.r.e line toward the southwest, bound for that neck of the Isthmus which is known loosely as The Darien.

Before night had fallen we were rounding Brava Point into the Gulf of San Miguel, so named by Balboa because it was upon St. Michael's Day, 1513, that his eyes here first fell upon the blue waters of the Pacific.

We followed the north sh.o.r.e, along precipitous banks that grew higher the farther inland we went. The dense jungle came down to the water's edge and was unbroken by any sign of human habitation.

In the brilliant moonlight we pa.s.sed the South and the North bays, pus.h.i.+ng straight into the Darien Harbor by way of the Boco Chico. The tides here have a rise and fall of nearly twenty feet, but we found a little inlet close to a mangrove swamp that offered a good harborage for the night.

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