Part 39 (1/2)
”You have had me brought here against my will, gentlemen, and it is very possible that you will have grounds for regretting it,” he said in English. ”It would be a favor if you will tell me what you want?”
The gentleman at the head of the table leaned forward in his chair. ”A little information--in the meanwhile,” he said quietly. ”You recognize the prisoner yonder?”
Dom Clemente translated, and Desmond carefully looked Ormsgill over.
”Well,” he said, ”I have certainly met him before--in Las Palmas--and other places. He doesn't seem to have thriven since then.”
”We would like to know what you were doing at the spot where the soldiers arrested you?”
”That,” said Desmond st.u.r.dily, ”is my own business; and a thing I have not the least intention of telling you.”
Two of the officers frowned, but the man at the table waved his hand.
”Well,” he said, ”we will try another question. It is desirable that we should know how a certain eight boys whom the prisoner brought down to the coast were smuggled out of the country.”
Desmond looked at Ormsgill, who nodded. ”I think you may as well tell him,” he said. ”There is reason for believing that our friend yonder who speaks excellent English”--and he indicated Dom Clemente--”is acquainted with it already. I don't think they can hold--you--responsible.”
Then Desmond spoke boldly, answering their questions until almost everything was explained. Dom Clemente's eyes twinkled, and his companion leaned back in his chair with a curious little smile.
”What I have heard is so extraordinary as to be almost incomprehensible,” he said. ”It seems that you and your friend must have spent a very large amount of money to set these fourteen boys at liberty.”
He waved his hand towards the squatting negroes. ”Senores,” he said turning to the officers, ”I would ask you to look at them, and tell me if the thing appears reasonable.”
The manner in which the officers smiled was very expressive. It was, they were a.s.sured, for these thick-lipped, woolly-haired bushmen crouching half-naked against the wall, without a spark of intelligence in their heavy animal-like faces, that the two English gentlemen had spent money broadcast, faced fatigue and peril, and hazarded the anger of the Government. The thing certainly appeared incomprehensible to them. Desmond guessed their thoughts, and a red flush crept into his sea-bronzed face and a little portentous glint into his eyes.
”I admit that it sounds nonsensical,” he said. ”Still, Senores, I have the honor of offering you my word.”
Then somewhat to the astonishment of all except Dom Clemente, who smiled, the man at the head of the table made Desmond a little punctilious inclination.
”Senor,” he said, ”I think your word would go a long way. In the meanwhile we will hear what the priest has to tell us.”
Ormsgill started a little when Father Tiebout was brought in a minute or two later. He sat down and nodded when Dom Clemente had spoken to him.
”Most of what I know is at your service,” he said. He commenced with the death of the trader Lamartine, and told his tale quietly but with a certain dramatic force. When he came to the point where he and Nares had written to Ormsgill after Domingo's raid he stopped a moment, and the pause was impressive.
”You will understand, Senores, that we had faith when we wrote to this man,” he said.
”You believed he would come back and undertake the task at his peril?”
”The thing,” said Father Tiebout quietly, ”was, to us at least, absolutely certain.”
There was blank astonishment in two of the officers' faces, but the man at the head of the table made a sign of concurrence, and once more a little gleam crept into Dom Clemente's eyes. Then the priest went on, and when at last he stopped there was a full minute's silence.
After that the man at the head of the table spoke to Ormsgill, and his voice had a curious note in it.
”How was it you did not ask us to send for this priest and hear him in your defense?” he said.
Ormsgill smiled dryly. ”It is not as a rule advisable for a missionary to meddle with affairs of State.”