CHAPTER XXII.
WHO? GRAMONT?
As he scrambled through the window--as I let him down by his hands, so that, with the length of his arm and mine together, his feet were not more than a yard from the ground--I heard those others outside the door. Heard also the woman shriek:
"There is none in here, I tell you--pigs, idiots! If they have escaped, 'tis to the street or to the roof. Search those rooms first. This is my chamber. Diôs! Are you men to enter thus a woman's apartment!"
"So be it," the leader said. "We will. But, remember, if we find them not we will search this room. Remember!" and we heard him and the others striding off to some other part of the house.
By this time I was myself half out of the window. From the creature I had felled to the floor there came no sound; but from the door outside I heard the woman whisper:
"Renato, come forth. Quick, I say! If they find you here you are lost. You will be taken--sent to the colonies. Come forth!"
Then I waited to hear no more, understanding clearly enough that the woman had herself been sheltering in her own room some malefactor, probably some lover. And, doubtless, he had thought we were seeking for him, had found him in that darkened room--that we were the alguazils. His presence was explained.
Taking Juan by the hand, I passed rapidly by the stables as we went away from the street and up into the garden beyond--a small place, neglected and dirty, in which I had noticed, when we arrived, numbers of enormous turnips growing--vegetables much used in the country.
Then, a moment later, we were close by a low, whitewashed wall--'twas not so high as my head--over which I helped Juan, following instantly myself.
"Heaven knows," I said, "where we are now, except that we have left the inn behind. This may be the garden of some great residéncia, or of another inn. Well, we must get through somehow into the street beyond."
"And afterward?" Juan asked, his face close to mine, as though trying to see me in the dark of the night. "Afterward?"
"God knows what--afterward! We shall never get out of the gates, 'tis certain. There are five--all are doubtless warned by now. Pity 'tis we did not follow our friend's suggestion and disguise ourselves. That way, we might have been safe. I as a monk, you as a woman, we should never have been recognised."
"'Tis too late," said Juan. "Too late now. We must go on; on to the end. Yet I wonder where that friend, Jaime, is. Perhaps taken, his disguise seen through."
We had reached the house to which this garden belonged by now--a different one from the neglected thing we had lately left, well cared for, and with great tubs of oleanders and orange trees placed about it at regular intervals, as we could now see by the rising moon, which was peeping over the chimney tops and casting its rays along a broad path which we had followed; were close up to the house, a great white one, with this, its garden side, full of windows covered with persianas, or jalousies, and from some of them lights streaming.
"'Tis an inn, for sure," I said, "and full of--hark! whose voice is that?"
Yet there was no need to ask; 'twas a voice not easily forgotten which was speaking now; the voice of the man, Señor, or "Father," Jaime.
"Ay," we heard in those rich, sonorous tones, "alive, and here to call you to account."
And following this we heard another voice, supplicating, wailing, screaming, almost: "No! No! No! Mercy! Pardon!"
Beneath the moon's increasing rays we gazed into each other's eyes, then quickly, together--as if reading each other's thoughts also--we moved toward where those sounds proceeded from.
Toward a room in the angle of the great white house, with a door opening on to the garden in which we stood--'twas open now, though half across it hung a heavy curtain of some thick material. It was easy enough to guess how 'twas that curtain was thrown half back and the door stood open.
That way Jaime had come upon his prey.
Standing behind that door, behind that heavy half-fallen curtain, this was what we saw: The man Jaime, with in his hand a drawn sword--doubtless he had hidden it beneath his monk's gown since he returned to the assumption of the latter.
In front of Jaime, upon his knees, his hands clasped, his white hair streaming behind him, was the man whose name I had deemed to be Carstairs, or Cuddiford, but which Juan had averred was in truth James Eaton.
"Alive!" Jaime went on. "Alive. Villain, answer for your treachery ere I slay you. Where is my wealth--my child's wealth. Where is my daughter?"
As he spoke I heard a gasp, a moan beside me, felt a trembling. And, looking down, I saw Juan staring into the room, his eyes distended as though he was fascinated.
"My child," Jaime went on. "My child. Where is she?"
"I--I--do not know," the old man muttered--hissed in a whisper. "I do--not know. She left me--years ago. Yet--I loved her."
"Liar. I have heard of you in the Indies. You stole the wealth I left in your hands for her--you drove her forth. Answer. Is she dead?"
"I lost all in trade," Eaton moaned again, "all, all. I thought to double it--you were dead--they said so--would never come back. I--I----"
"Look," whispered Juan in my ear. "Look behind you."
At his words I turned, and then I knew that we were lost, indeed. Lost forever.
The men from Chantada, accompanied by those of Lugo, were in this garden--had followed us over the wall, had found out our way of escape.
We were doomed! The garrote--the stake--were very near now.
They saw us at once, in an instant--doubtless our forms stood out clearly enough in the beams of the lamp as they poured forth into the garden--and made straight for us, their swords drawn, the unbrowned barrels of their musketoons and pistols gleaming in the moonlight. And the leader shouted, as he ran slightly ahead of the others: "You cannot escape again. Move and we fire on you!"
Yet we heeded him not, but with a bound leapt into the room where those two were--leapt in while I cried: "Jaime, we are undone. Assist us again."
Then swift as lightning I shut the door to, let fall the curtain and drew my sword. "I will never yield to them," I said. "Juan and I escape or die here together."
"Together!" Juan echoed, drawing also his weapon forth.
There was but time to see a still more frightened glance on Eaton's face than before--if added terror could come into a man's eyes more than had been when those eyes had glinted up at Jaime as he stood over him, it came now as Juan sprang to my side, his hat fallen off and his hair dishevelled--while those men were at the door giving on to the garden. And in an instant it was burst open by them--'twas but a poor frail thing!--they were in the room.
"Yield!" the leader cried, "yield, or you die here at once!"
But now Jaime was by our side; three blades were flashing in their faces; we were driving them back, assisted also by a fourth--the negro servant of Eaton, who had sprung into the room from another door. Yet that assistance lasted but a second. Doubtless the unhappy wretch preferred it, thinking it was his master who was in danger! A pistol was fired by some one, and I saw him reel back, falling heavily on the floor, dead, with a bullet between his eyes. And, as he did so, from Eaton there came a scream, while he flung himself over the creature's body.
With those others pistols were now the order of the day, fired ineffectually at first, while still I and the leader fought hand-to-hand around the room. And I had him safe. I knew if I was not cut down from behind that he was mine. My blade was under and over his guard. I prepared for the last lunge, when--curses on the luck!--a bullet took me in the right forearm; there ran through that arm, up to my shoulder, a feeling of numbness, a burning twinge; my sword fell with a clang to the floor.
And in another moment two of them had sprung on and secured me; two others had grasped Juan, and disarmed him, too.
And now there was none on our side to oppose himself to them but Jaime.
"Shoot him down! Kill him!" the leader cried. Then added: "You fool, there is naught against you, yet, if you court fate, receive it."
But, great fighter as he was, what could he do against all those? One hung upon his sword arm, another clasped a leg, a third was dragging at his neck from behind, a fourth holding his monkish gown.
In another moment he, too, was disarmed. We were beaten--prisoners! The lives of all of us were at an end. None could doubt that!
The leader drew a long breath, then turned to where, at the open door of the passage, were gathered the landlord, as I supposed; several facchinos and some trembling women servants, white to the lips, and said:
"Observe, all you. I take these men--these asasinos within your house. I denounce these two," and he indicated Juan and me, "the one as an English spy and a man who fought against us at Vigo, this other one, this boy, as his comrade and accomplice. Bear witness to my words, also to their deeds of blood."
From that crowd in the passage there came murmurs and revilings in reply: "You should have slain them here," some said; "Better the garrote or the flames in the plaza da Mercado," said others.
"As for this monk, this false monk--for such I know him now to be--easy enough to recognise him as one of the brigands we fought with the other night--had he not joined in this fray he had been safe. We sought him not. Now, also, the flames or the garrote for him." Then, breaking off, he exclaimed: "Who is this--and that black slave lying dead there?" and he pointed to Eaton and the other. "Who are they?"
"A gentleman and his servant staying in this, my house," the landlord said, speaking for the first time, "doubtless assaulted by the vagabundos. Oh! 'tis terrible."
"Off with these three," the leader said. "To the prison in the ramparts to-night--the judge to-morrow."
And as he gave his orders his men and the men of Lugo with him formed round us, prepared to obey.
But, now, for the first time Eaton spoke, approaching the leader fawningly, speaking in a soft voice.
"Señor," he said, "ere you take them away, a word. This one," looking at me, "you knew already--at Chantada; I have told you who and what he is. For the boy it matters not. He is but a follower."
Yet as he spoke I noticed he carefully avoided Juan's eyes, fixed full blaze on him as they flamed from out of his now white, marble face.
"These, I say, you know," he went on. "But for this other one--this pretended monk, this brigand of the night--you do not know him; nor who he is and what has been. Let me tell you."
"Viper," Jaime murmured. "Villain. Thief! Yet," he continued, "I stoop not to ask your silence. Speak. Tell all. But, James Eaton, beware. Caged tigers sometimes break their bars and get free."
"Yours will never be broken," the leader said, looking at the same time with a wondering glance from one to the other.
"'Tis true. 'Tis very true," Eaton went on, his voice oily, treacherous as before. "Yet since you might break yours, I give this gentleman a double reason for binding you faster. Sir," turning to him whom he so addressed, "this monk, this brigand as he appears, would be an innocent man were he that alone, in comparison with what he really is."
"Who in the name of all the fiends is he, then? Answer quick."
"A murderer," the old man hissed now, raising his voice, "not four-fold, but four thousand-fold. See," and he pointed his fingers at Jaime, "see in him the man who sacked Maracaibo, Guayaquil, Campeachy; the man who has burnt men and women alive in their houses like pigs in a stye, sunk countless Spanish and French ships, plundered, murdered, ravished--the arch-villain of the Caribbean Sea--not dead, but alive, and trapped at last. The buccaneer, filibuster, pirate--Gramont!"
Amidst their voices--their shouts and cries--for all in Spain had known that awful name, though its owner had long been deemed dead and lost at sea--I heard a cry--it was a scream--from Juan; I saw him reel as he stood by my left side, then stagger heavily against me, supported from falling to the floor only by my unwounded arm around him.
He had fainted.
And, as I held up the drooping form, I learnt the secret hidden from me for so many days. I knew now what it was that Sir George Rooke had earlier learnt. I penetrated the disguise of Juan Belmonte.