Her face seemed to be lighted by her terrible eyes, and from her robe one lean hand crept, half curved as though to claw. It seemed as if at any instant she might scream and clutch him and something must be done forthwith. Jim returned her gaze soberly, but not defiantly, and there was no fear in his eyes. For a moment she paused, a curious questioning showing in her glance.
"I wish to see and speak to a young girl who has been brought to this place," he said quietly. "I am her friend, and would do neither one of you any harm. You see many things and you believe me and know that I speak the truth."
That was a simple speech, but there was more wisdom in it than appears on the surface. It was spoken directly and was phrased to grip with confidence the woman's poor broken mind; and notice also, that there was nothing to unduly excite her by a show of sympathy or to arouse her by denouncing her oppressors, for she was no doubt another victim who had been held for a ransom that had not been forthcoming.
She made no direct reply to Jim, but only threw her head back and laughed noiselessly with wide opened mouth. Then leaving the spot she glided to the staircase and bent down listening intently. As if satisfied she returned in a moment and beckoned Jim to follow her, which he was only too willing to do.
She was a strange guide and might lead him to his destruction, but he was determined to follow her at all hazards for he must find the señorita and that quickly. So he kept only a short distance behind the gray crouching figure.
Going through the main hall they came to a fairly broad staircase, leading to the third floor, thence along a hall dimly lighted to a narrow winding stair, that brought the two of them to a round platform of stone with rooms on three sides. This place was badly lit by a tallow candle, held by a miner's holder, stuck into the wall.
The woman crouched in front of one of the doors, with a wicket in it, whence Jim heard a low voice repeating something over and over, and the sound of it thrilled him for he recognized it as the voice of the Señorita Cordova, praying softly for deliverance. It pierced through Jim's heart, the pity and the pathos of it, and for a moment his eyes were blinded with tears. The next moment he was himself again, as he well needs be. He pushed gently aside the grating covering the aperture in the door itself, so that he was able to see in. It did not require much of a slit for that purpose, and he was able to get a good look at the interior, which was like a cell, with low arched, white-washed ceiling.
It was not a forbidding room either, for at one end was a latticed window with diamond panes, and in the ivy that grew outside it you might imagine the little birds twittering in the summer time. The floor was covered with a heavy rug and a candelabra of a dozen candles gave a pleasant light. The room or cell was heated by coals glowing in an old-fashioned brazier.
Although there were two persons visible, what fastened Jim's eyes was the figure of the Señorita da Cordova. She was kneeling before a prie dieu near the casemented window, in evening dress such as she wore when she got into the carriage. She had supposed that she was going to be taken to her father, and instead had been brought to this desperate castle. Her dress of white was ornamented with lace, and there was a bracelet of odd antique design on her rounded arm that made Jim gasp.
He knew where she had got that. It was his present to her, one of the many treasures that he and the other Frontier Boys had found in that mysterious mountain in the interior of Mexico. Why did she wear it? But in regard to that interesting question he had no time to think at this juncture. She looked pale as she knelt there, but hers was a natural pallor and did not mean fear. The graceful figure with a rope of pearls twined in the dark hair was to remain in James Darlington's memory for many a year.