Part 26 (1/2)

His was the longer and more difficult route, and I had intended at first to take it myself, for reasons that have nothing at all to do with this tale; but he was so insistent, and at one stage threatened so much unpleasantness, that I gave into him, if only for the sake of peace.

Before we started I had another talk with Moira and endeavored to dissuade her from accompanying us, but she very calmly told me that she had additional reasons now for going with us. There was sure to be trouble, she admitted that much; but then wasn't her place by my side, more especially if things weren't all they should be? Her logic left much to be desired, but it had the one merit of achieving its object. It was devastating; it completely crushed all my arguments and left me without a leg to stand on.

The late March of the year 1919 saw the three of us at the rendezvous, which we had reached without incident of any sort. Contrary to our expectations the other party had not been sighted, and the outlook was certainly auspicious. For all that I felt worried. Everything was going along too swimmingly, and I had a queer feeling that we would meet with trouble very shortly, if only to even things up. Ease and success can only be won after much expenditure of blood and tears; there is not a thing in life worth trying for that can be bought with a minimum of effort. The greater the prize, the greater the price one must pay; always one pays, with health, with limbs, sometimes with life itself.

During the time Moira and I had been travelling together I had slept of a night with one eye more or less open, and the strain of being constantly on the alert was just beginning to tell on me. As a consequence I was very pleased when c.u.mshaw suggested that we should take watch and watch about. I agreed, with the reservation that I must always be on guard for the dawn-watch. I didn't explain why I was so anxious to take that particular watch, and, though I noticed Moira looking curiously at me, she made no remark. I knew from experience that men are at their sleepiest about four o'clock in the morning, and an attack can be successfully launched then that would fail at any other hour of the day or night. I had yet to test c.u.mshaw on active service, so I claimed the four o'clock stretch for my own. It doesn't hurt to be careful; I've never yet met anyone who was sorry he had taken precautions.

We camped within a hundred yards of the creek, and after supper c.u.mshaw and I sprawled on the gra.s.s and talked. Moira had retired to an improvised tent we had fas.h.i.+oned for her, and, as it was just out of earshot, we were free to speak our thoughts. I had not seen c.u.mshaw for the better part of two weeks--he had started from his own place and come right on from there without calling on me again--and I hoped that he might have some further news for me. I asked him casually how his father was getting on.

”Right enough,” he said, blowing a cloud of smoke out of his mouth.

”Some days you wouldn't think there was a thing wrong with him. He'll talk pretty lucidly at times, but it isn't anything that can be of any use to us. He doesn't seem to have taken much notice of the position of the valley, he apparently thought at the time that it would be very simple to pick it up again, and I fancy that Bradby must have confirmed him in that view. He couldn't have taken into account the way they had twisted about in the mountains. It's the simplest thing in the world to lose yourself here, the more so if you're confident you know your way.”

”You've about struck it there,” I said. ”I just want to give you a little piece of advice, and I hope you won't take it amiss. I don't want to talk about this expedition any more than I can help for two reasons.

One's this: I don't wish to cause Miss Drummond any more uneasiness than is absolutely necessary. You know as well as I do that there's a big chance of the lot of us being wiped out just about the time we get within sight of the end. I wouldn't be surprised if they let us walk into a trap and finished us at their leisure. As for the other reason--well, it's never safe to say that you're alone anywhere. If we raise our voices above whispers here we might be giving away valuable information. So just let us keep watch on our tongues. More hopes have been ruined and more chances of success spoilt by gabbling tongues than by any other dozen causes all rolled together.”

”I can quite understand that,” c.u.mshaw said, between puffs at his pipe.

It was one of those neat little affairs with a round bowl, a spick-and-span pipe that had burnt an even color and that shone as brightly as the day he bought it. My pipe was a sorrier article; it was battered and blackened, and one side of the bowl was down beneath the level of the other, showing that it had been lighted oftener with a blazing brand than with the orthodox matches. In a way it was like its owner; it had been tested by fire and had survived the test. If I were philosophical--but then I wasn't, and that's about all there is to it.

”I didn't go to Landsborough,” c.u.mshaw said after a pause. ”I missed my train at Ararat, and so I came on to Great Western. It's much the shorter way. I wish you had known of it before.”

”I'm all the better pleased you came that way,” I told him. ”It will help to disorganise the chase.”

He bent over, picked up a live coal in his bare fingers and applied it to his pipe before replying.

”I rather think,” he said slowly, ”that it will have just the opposite effect.”

”You can't have any nerves in those fingertips of yours,” I said. ”Why will it?”

”I don't seem to have any, do I? I think I saw one of the men at Great Western.”

”You don't know them,” I said. ”How could you?”

”Mr. Bryce described them in his letter,” c.u.mshaw answered. ”This man fitted the description of one of them, a dark sort of chap.”

”Spanish type?” I queried.

c.u.mshaw nodded. ”I wonder why it is,” he ran on, ”that we're always more suspicious of that sort of man than, say, a fair type?”

”Relic of the Armada, I suppose,” I suggested. ”Tell me all about the man you saw.”

”I was coming along the roadside,” c.u.mshaw began, ”past one of the vineyards, when I noticed a man working close at hand. I was just going to pa.s.s by when it struck me that he was the only person about. I thought that rather queer and I gave him a second look. Then I saw that he wasn't digging, as I had thought at first, but that he was scratching aimlessly at the ground. One of those queer feelings that seem altogether unrelated to fact crept over me. Call it second sight or any other fancy name you please, the fact remains that I suddenly knew--not thought, mind you; I knew--that he did not want me to notice him and that he was pretending to be one of the workmen, just so that I would pa.s.s him by without more than a cursory glance. When I came to think it over afterwards, I remembered that it struck me when first I saw him that he was the only man I had seen in the vineyards for miles. Of course I had that idea in my mind when I looked at him the second time.

That doesn't explain how I understood that I was the very man he did not want to see. He had his head bent down naturally, his hat well drawn over his face, and he went on scratching and sc.r.a.ping as if his very life depended on the energy with which he worked. I didn't get more than a pa.s.sing glimpse of him, and that wasn't too good--you can't go over to a man and pull off his hat just because he looks suspicious--but I'd swear on a stack of Bibles that he's one of the men we'll have to deal with.”

”Perhaps so,” I said. ”At any rate I'm not going to allow chance workers in the fields to rob me of my night's rest.”

”No more am I,” a.s.sented c.u.mshaw. ”So you don't think there's any likelihood----.”

”I don't think anything at all,” I cut in. ”I take proper precautions, that's all.”