“I might have waited there till these men had gone by,” he thought.
He turned the situation over in his mind.
Alexander and his wife were the guardians of the week. There was no woman in San Salvador better able to take care of the house than Alexander’s wife. She knew every signal, was prompt and courageous. Above all, she would do exactly as she was ordered to do if the skies should fall on her for it. And both he and her husband had charged her not to leave her signal-post a minute, and to give instant notice to San Salvador of anything that might happen.
“I wish I had asked if the door was unbarred,” he thought uneasily. It occurred to him that the men inside would have left San Salvador early in the morning, before it was known that these strangers were at the Olives. Alexander and his wife had not known it till he told them that morning. “When he passed the evening before, stopping purposely that they might observe well his companions, they had been occupied in receiving orders from San Salvador, and had not known that he was not alone.
He grew more uneasy every moment.
“Of course they wouldn’t unbar the door till it was needed,” he muttered. “And of course Alexander spoke to them before he started. But I might have waited.”
In fact, Alexander had called to the men; but they were out of sight and hearing. They had retired to a more convenient place to wait, knowing that they would not be needed for several hours.
“I wish that I had waited!” Pierre repeated over and over. “I could have waited.”
He recollected stories of men who had been faithful even to death to interests committed to their charge; and when had greater interests been at stake than this of the secret of San Salvador!
Texts of gold wrote themselves in the air all about him, and on the dark earth under his feet.