Part 24 (1/2)

Benicia saw the little glint in his dark eyes, but she met his gaze.

She was clever enough to realize that there was only one course open to her.

”Ah,” she said, ”I almost think you know.”

The man made a little gesture. ”At least, I do not know how the affair concerns you.”

Benicia sat down in the nearest chair, and a faint warmth crept into her face, for this was the last point she desired to make clear, and Dom Clemente's eyes were still fixed upon her. It was evident that he expected an answer, and it said a good deal for her courage that her voice was steady.

”You are aware that I have spoiled your plans?” she said.

”That,” said Dom Clemente dryly, ”is another matter. I am not sure that you have spoiled them. I would, however, like to hear your reasons for meddling with them.”

It was the same question in a different guise, and she nerved herself to face it.

”The Senor Ormsgill is doing a very chivalrous thing,” she said. ”It is one in which he has my sympathy--one could almost fancy that he has yours, too.”

This was a bold venture, but she saw the man's faint smile. ”I have a duty here, and that counts for most,” he said. ”Then it was sympathy with this man Ormsgill that influenced you?”

”Not altogether. I hate the Chefe at San Roque. You know why that is natural, and, after all, it was you who had him sent there. Apart from that, is it not clear that he and the trader Herrero and Domingo play into each other's hands up yonder? The traffic they are engaged in is authorized, but the way in which it is carried out is an iniquity.”

There were, as it happened, men in that country who held similar views, but the other reason the girl had proffered seemed to Dom Clemente the most obvious one, though he fancied it did not go quite far enough. It was conceivable that she should hate Dom Erminio, who had been sent up into the bush after bringing discredit upon himself as well as certain friends of hers. Still, he realized that this was a matter on which she would never fully enlighten him, and he recognized his disabilities. It was, perhaps, one of his strong points that he usually did recognize them, and seldom attempted the impossible. As the result of this he generally carried out what he took in hand. Dom Clemente was first of all a soldier, and not one who shone in civilized society or cared to scheme for preferment by social influence, which was probably why he had been sent out to a secondary command in Africa. He had friends who said he might have gone further had he been less faithful to his dead wife's memory.

”Well,” he said, ”it was certainly my intention to arrest this man Ormsgill. I admit that I have a certain sympathy with him, and that is partly why I am a little anxious to keep him from involving himself in useless difficulties.”

”Do you think a man of his kind would be grateful for that?”

Dom Clemente made a little gesture of indifference. ”I do not know. It is, after all, not a point that very much concerns me, though he is doing a perilous thing by meddling with our affairs, especially in the bush yonder.”

”Ah,” said Benicia, ”then is n.o.body to meddle, and is this iniquity to go on?”

Dom Clemente smiled dryly. ”I almost think,” he said, ”that when the time is ripe there will, as usual, be a man ready to take the affair in hand. In the meanwhile it would be a very undesirable thing that any one should point to you as a friend of this rash Englishman.”

He rose, and buckling on his sword went down the outer stairway, while Benicia sat still with her cheeks burning. She fancied Dom Clemente had meant a good deal more than he had said, but, after all, that did not greatly trouble her. She was not one who counted the cost, and it was not quite clear that she had failed, though she knew troops had been dispatched to head off Ormsgill from the coast. It was possible that he had slipped past them, and the _Palestrina_ would be waiting at the Bahia Santiago, and then it flashed upon her that it would not be difficult for her father to send the man in command of the troops instructions to proceed direct to the Bahia by a fast messenger. While she considered the point it happened that the officer he had handed the instructions to came up the stairway.

”I wonder if you know where the messenger Pacheco is, Senorita?” he said. ”I have an urgent errand for him.”

Benicia saw that he had a packet in his hand, and a swift glance at the table showed her that the writing materials were not exactly as they had been laid out an hour or two earlier. Somebody, it seemed, had written a letter, and she could make a shrewd guess at its purport. For a moment she stood looking at the officer, and thinking hard. It was evident that her father had a certain liking for Ormsgill, but she felt that he would probably not allow it to influence him to any great extent. He was apparently working out some cleverly laid plan of his own, and it was evident that she would incur a heavy responsibility by meddling with it, but after all Ormsgill's safety stood first with her.

”I am not sure, but I think he is in the house,” she said.

She left the officer waiting, and entering her own room hastily wrote a note. Then she went down the inner stairway with it in her hand, and crossing the patio glanced up for a moment at the bal.u.s.trade above.

Fortunately, the officer was not leaning over it, and did not see her slip into a store room where a big dusky man was talking to the negress cook, with whom, as it happened, he was a favorite. Western Africa is indifferently supplied with telegraphic and postal facilities and messages are still usually carried by native runners.

There were none of them anywhere about that city as fast or trusty as Pacheco, and Benicia smiled as she looked at him. He was lean and hard and muscular, a man who had made famous journeys in the service of the Government, which was exactly why she did not wish him to be available for another one.

”I have a message for the Senora Blanco,” she said. ”I should like her to get it before she goes to sleep in the afternoon, and you will start now, but if it is very hot you need make no great haste in bringing me back the answer.”

Pacheco rose with a grin. ”It is only two leagues to the plantation,”

he said. ”Though the road is rough, that is nothing to me.”