"And now," she cried, "now they will kill him to-night, get rid of him forever, if, before night comes, help does not reach him."
"What will they do?" asked Beatrix, white to the lips, and trembling all over as she had trembled from the first. "Poison him with that hateful Amancay--or--or----"
"I know not, but they will kill him. They will not keep him there. Instead, perhaps, carry him to one of the lagoons where the alligators are, or to the sea where the white sharks are, or----"
"Come, come!" cried Beatrix, with a shriek of horror. "Come at once to my father in the city. Oh! in mercy, come--there is not an hour, not a moment, to be lost!"
She had seen, almost directly after Zara had made her appearance, the groom come out from the house, and understood that he was approaching to tell her that the buggy was prepared, but by a motion of her hand she had made the man understand that she was not ready. But, now, she must go at once, and she must take this girl with her--that was all important. For surely, when some of the legal authorities in Belize had heard the tale which Zara could tell, they would instantly send assistance to Julian.
"Come!" she cried again. "Come! we must go to the city at once."
"It will save--him?" Zara asked, her thoughts still upon the man who must be prevented at all hazards from committing a horrible crime, and supposing in her ignorance that it was also the desire to prevent that man from committing this crime which made Beatrix so anxious. "It will save--him?"
"Yes," Beatrix answered. "Yes. It will save him."
The night had come, suddenly, swiftly, as it always does in Southern lands. Half an hour earlier a band of twenty people had been riding as swiftly as the heat would permit along the dusty white thread, which was the road that led past All Pines on toward Desolada--now the same band was progressing beneath the swift-appearing stars overhead. The breeze, too, which, not long before, had burnt them with its fiery sun-struck breath, came cool and fresh and grateful at this time, since it was no longer laden with heat; while from all the wealth of vegetation around, there were, distilled by the night dews, the luscious scents and odours that the flowers of the region possess.
A band of twenty people--of eighteen men and two women--who, now that night had fallen, rode more swiftly than they had done before, the trot of the horses being accompanied by the clang of scabbard against boot and spur, of jangling bridle and bridle-chain. For among them was a small troop of constabulary headed by an officer, as well as a handful of the police. Also, Mr. Spranger formed one of the number. The two women were Beatrix and Zara, the former having insisted on her father allowing her to accompany the force.