Part 27 (2/2)
However, that is all the better, as you will now have a long start. Now, senor, the first thing for you to do will be to put on the disguise Filippo has prepared for you in that bag on the table. Here is a piece of burnt cork for darkening your eyebrows and eyelashes, and a false moustache that will quite change your appearance. I will go into the next room with nurse; when you are dressed you can call, and I will come back.”
As soon as he was alone Stephen opened the bag and drew out an attire such as would be worn by a respectable Peruvian merchant. This he put on, darkened his eyebrows, and stuck on the moustache, and acknowledged when he viewed himself in a small mirror that he should not have known himself.
On his opening the door the girl came in from the other room again.
”We have talked over, Filippo and I, the way you had best go, and we both agree that the journey south would be altogether too dangerous. It will naturally be supposed that you have gone that way, and the news will be sent down by hors.e.m.e.n, so that the troops and the authorities will be on the look-out for you everywhere. We both think that, although the journey is very long and toilsome, your best plan will be to ride straight inland, cross the Andes, and come down into Brazil. You are not likely to be questioned on that line, which no one would imagine that you would be likely to take. You may meet with adventures on the way, but you English people are fond of adventures. At any rate that plan will be safer for you, and indeed for us.”
”Why for you, senorita?”
”If you were to be captured,” she said, ”you would be questioned as to who aided you, and there are means in these prisons by which they can wring the truth from the strongest and bravest. There are tortures, senor, that flesh and blood could not withstand.”
”You are right, Donna Inez,” Stephen said gravely. ”For myself I should be ready to run the risk of getting through to the south, but what you have said decides me. I would die rather than say a word that could betray you and your cousin. But no one can say what one would do under fiendish tortures; therefore I at once accept your plan.”
”That is right,” the girl said. ”Filippo said that he was sure that for our sake you would consent to it. Now for your instructions. Nurse will, in the first place, take me home; then she will return here; she will be back in half an hour. She will take away with her the things that you have worn, and will to-night cut them up and burn them, so that no trace may remain of your visit here. When she returns she will guide you through the town. At a cottage a quarter of a mile outside a muleteer with two animals is awaiting you; he does not know who you are, but believes you to be a Brazilian who has been on this side of the continent for some years, chiefly in Chili, and so speak that language, and now, being afraid to proceed by water, are about to return by the pa.s.ses. How far you will be able to get him to accompany you I cannot say, but at present he has promised to take you over the Andes. The best course to take then you can talk over with the muleteer. You will find many details of the various routes in a letter Filippo has given him for you. And now adieu, senor. We shall think of you often, and I shall pray for your safe return to your friends. Possibly we may meet again some day, for Filippo has a powerful relation who, it is expected, may some day be the Spanish amba.s.sador in London, and he says that he shall try and get him to take him on his staff.”
”I should indeed be glad if it could be so, senorita. I shall to the end of my life entertain the liveliest feelings of grat.i.tude to you and Don Filippo for your kindness. Have you a pencil and paper?”
The girl pointed to the table, on which stood writing materials. Stephen wrote his father's address upon it and handed it to her.
”That is my address in England,” he said. ”I pray you, when you return to Spain, to beg Don Filippo to write to me there, and I am sure to get it sooner or later. Directly I receive his letter I shall make a point of taking a pa.s.sage for Spain in order to thank you more fully and heartily than I can now do. It would be dangerous were I to write to you here.”
She nodded. ”Adieu, senor.”
”Adieu, senorita. May your life with Don Filippo be as happy as you both deserve!”
He put the hand she gave him to his lips. A minute later she and her nurse left the house, and Stephen remained wondering over the events that had happened.
”It is certainly the best plan,” he said to himself. ”I daresay there will be lots of hards.h.i.+ps to go through, but it will be a glorious trip. Fancy going down the Amazon from almost its source to the sea! The senorita said nothing about money, but Filippo has shown himself so thoughtful in every other way that I have no doubt he has not forgotten that for such a journey some money at least will be required. Happily I am now in a position to pay anything he may advance me, so I need not scruple to take it. He told me that his father was very rich, but that money was very little good to him in Peru, and that he had a very handsome allowance, but no means whatever of spending it, especially in such a place as San Carlos. I will write him a line or two now, and will give it to the old woman after I have read his letter.”
He sat down and wrote a note expressive of his warmest grat.i.tude to Filippo, and concluded: ”_In other matters too I am deeply your debtor, but this fortunately I can, as I told you, discharge far more easily than I can my debt of grat.i.tude. As soon as I reach England I will pay in the amount to a house having connections in Spain, and order them to have it placed to your account with some good firm there, with instructions to write to you saying that they hold it payable to your order. My name will not be mentioned, so that in case of any accident the money will not be traceable to me. My other and greater debt must for ever remain unpaid, but to the end of my life I shall remain the debtor of you and Donna Inez.
Wis.h.i.+ng you both a long life and every happiness together, I remain always your grateful friend._”
He folded the letter up and put it into his pocket, and then waited until he heard the three knocks on the door. Stephen blew out the candle, went along the pa.s.sage to the front door, opened it, and went out. Without a word the old woman turned and walked along the street. He followed at a short distance, and was presently in a busy thoroughfare. Twenty minutes walking took them beyond the town, and they presently stopped at a cottage where a candle was burning in the window.
”This is the house, senor,” she said, speaking for the first time.
She went up to the door and tapped at it. It was opened by a man in the attire of a muleteer.
”This is the senor who will accompany you, Gomez,” she said. ”Now, senor, my work is done.” And she turned to go.
”Wait a moment,” he said. ”Gomez has a letter for me, and I want to read it before I give you a note that I wish you to take back and to hand to Donna Inez.”
”Here is the letter, senor,” the muleteer said.
Stephen took it to the light and opened it. It was a long one, but he skipped the first part, which was full of directions and hints for the journey. Running his eye down it fell upon some figures, and he read: ”_Gomez will hand you a bag containing eight hundred dollars. This, I have no doubt, will be sufficient for your journey down the Amazon and to pay your pa.s.sage-money home. You are heartily welcome to it. Some day, if it please you, you can pay me back; but if aught befalls you on your way down do not let the thought of this paltry debt trouble you in any way. I know not whether this will ever reach your hands, but pray that it may do so, and that I may have the satisfaction of knowing that Inez and I have had some part in saving the life of a brave English gentleman._” Then with a few more words of adieu the letter closed.
Stephen had already felt that there was some money in the pockets of his trousers, and he now handed his letter to the old woman and pulled out some gold.
”No,” she said, drawing back; ”I would die to please my young mistress, but not one penny would I touch from the hand of a foreign heretic.”
A minute later and she was gone. The muleteer laughed at her outbreak.
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