Chapter III

Inside Clinch's home Eve awoke with a start. Her ears were filled with a strange, rushing, cracking noise. A rosy glare danced and shook outside her windows.

As she sprang to the floor on bandaged feet, a shrill scream burst out of the ruddy darkness -- unearthly, horrible; and there came a thunderous battering from the burn.

The girl tore open her bedroom door. "Jack!" she cried in a terrified voice. "The barn's on fire!"

"Good Good!" he said, "-- my horse!"

He had already sprung from his chair outside her door. Now he ran downstairs, and she heard bolt and chain clash at the kitchen door and his spurred boots land on the porch.

"Oh," she whimpered, snatching a blanket wrapper from a peg and struggling into it. "Oh, the poor house! Jack! Jack! I'm coming to help! Don't risk your life! I'm coming -- I'm coming----"

Terror clutched her as she stumbled downstairs on bandaged feet.

As she reached the door a great flare of light almost blinded her.

"Jack!"

And at the same instant she saw him struggling with three masked men in the glare of the wagon-shed afire.

His rifle stood in the corridor outside her door. With one bound she was on the stairs again. There came the crash and splinter of wood and glass from the kitchen, and a man with a handkerchief over his face caught her on the landing.

Twice she wrenched herself loose and her fingers almost touched Stormont's rifle; she fought like a cornered lynx, tore the handkerchief from her assailant's face, recognised Quintana, hurled her very body at him, eyes flaming, small teeth bared.

Two other men laid hold. In another moment she had tripped Quintana, and all four fell, rolling over and over down the short flight of stairs, landing in the kitchen, still fighting.

Here, in darkness, she wriggled out, somehow, leaving her blanket wrapped in their clutches. In another instant she was up the stairs again, only to discover that the rifle was gone.

The red glare from the wagon-house lighted her bedroom; she sprang inside and bolted the door.

Her chamois jacket with its loops full of cartridges hung on a peg. She got into it, seized her rifle and ran to the window just as two masked men, pushing Stormont before them, entered the house by the kitchen way.

Her own door was resounding with kicks and blows, shaking, shivering under the furious impact of boot and rifle-butt.

She ran to the bed, thrust her hand under the pillow, pulled out the case containing the Flaming Jewel, and placed it in the breast pocket of her shooting jacket.

Again she crept to the window. Only the wagon-house was burning. Somebody, however, had led Stormont's horse from the barn, and had tied it to a tree at a safe distance. It stood there, trembling, its beautiful, nervous head turned toward the burning building.

The blows upon her bedroom door had ceased; there came a loud trampling, the sound of excited voices; Quintana's sarcastic tones, clear, dominant:

"Dios! The police! Why you bring me this gendarme? What am I to do with a gentleman of the Constabulary, eh? Do you think I am fool enough to cut his throat? Well, Senor Gendarme, what are you doing here in the Dump of Clinch?"

Then Stormont's voice, clear and quiet: "What are _you_ doing here? If you've a quarrel with Clinch, he's not here. There's only a young girl in this house."

"So?" said Quintana. "Well, that is what I expec', my frien'. It is thees lady upon whom I do myse'f the honour to call!"

Eve, listening, heard Stormont's rejoinder, still, calm, and very grave:

"The man who lays a finger on that young girl had better be dead. He's as good as dead the moment he touches her. There won't be a chance for him. ... Nor for any of you, if you harm her."

"Calm youse'f, my frien'," said Quintana. "I demand of thees young lady only that she return to me the property of which I have been rob by Monsieur Clinch."

"I knew nothing of any theft. Nor does she----"

"Pardon: Senor Clinch knows, and I know." His tone changed, offensively: "Senor Gendarme, am I permit to understan' that you are a frien' of thees young lady? -- a heart-frien', per'aps----"

"I am her friend," said Stormont bluntly.

"Ah," said Quintana, "then you shall persuade her to return to me thees packet of which Monsieur Clinch has rob me."

There was a short silence, then Quintana's voice again:

"I know thees packet is conceel in thees house. Peaceably, if possible, I would recover my property. ... If she refuse----"

Another pause.

"Well?" inquired Stormont, coolly.

"Ah! It is ver' painful to say. Alas, Senor Gendarme, I mus' have my property. ... If she refuse, then I mus' sever one of her pretty fingers. ... An' if she still refuse -- I sever her pretty fingers one by one, until----"

"You know what would happen to _you?_" interrupted Stormont, in a voice that quivered in spite of himself.

"I take my chance. Senor Gendarme, she is within that room. If you are her frien', you shall advise her to return to me my property."

After another silence.

"Eve!" he called sharply.

She placed her lips to the door: "Yes, Jack."

He said: "There are five masked men out here who say that Clinch robbed them and they are here to recover their property. ... Do you know anything about this?"

"I know they lie. My father is not a thief. ... I have my rifle and plenty of ammunition. I shall kill every man who enters this room."

For a moment nobody stirred or spoke. Then Quintana strode to the bolted door and struck it with the butt of his rifle.

"You, in there," he said in a menacing voice, "-- you listen once to _me!_ You open your door and come out. I give you one minute!" He struck the door again: "_One_ minute, senorita! -- or I cut from your frien', here, the hand from his right arm!"

There was a deathly silence. Then the sound of bolts. The door opened. Slowly the girl limped forward, still wearing the hunting jacket over her night-dress.

Quintana made her an elaborate and ironical bow, slouch hat in hand; another masked man took her rifle.

"Senorita," said Quintana with another sweep of his hat, "I ask pardon that I trouble you for my packet of which your father has rob me for ver' long time."

Slowly the girl lifted her blue eyes to Stormont. He was standing between two masked men. Their pistols were pressed slightly against his stomach.

Stormont reddened painfully:

"It was not for myself that I let you open your door," he said. "They would not have ventured to lay hands on _me._"

"Ah," said Quintana with a terrifying smile, "you would not have been the first gendarme who had -- _accorded me his hand!_"

Two of the masked men laughed loudly.

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Outside in the rag-weed patch, Smith rose, stole across the grass to the kitchen door and slipped inside.

"Now, senorita," said Quintana gaily, "my packet, if you please, -- and we leave you to the caresses of your faithful gendarme, -- who should thank God that he still possesses the good two hands to fondle you! Allons! Come then! My packet!"

One of the masked men said: "Take her downstairs and lock her up somewhere or she'll shoot us from her window."

"Lead out that gendarme, too!" added Quintana, grasping Eve by the arm.

Down the stairs tramped the men, forcing their prisoners with them.

In the big kitchen the glare from the burning out-house fell dimly; the place was full of shadows.

"Now," said Quintana, "I take my property and my leave. Where is the packet hidden?"

She stood for a moment with drooping head, amid the sombre shadows, then, slowly, she drew the emblazoned morocco case form her breast pocket.

What followed occurred in the twinkling of an eye: for, as Quintana extended his arm to grasp the case, a hand snatched it, a masked figure sprang through the doorway, and ran toward the barn.

Somebody recognized the hat and red bandanna:

"Salzar!" he yelled. "Nick Salzar!"

"A traitor, by God!" shouted Quintana. Even before he had reached the door, his pistol flashed twice, deafening all the semi-darkness, choking them with stifling fumes.

A masked man turned on Stormont, forcing him back into the pantry at pistol-point. Another man pushed Eve after him, slammed the pantry door and bolted it.

Through the iron bars of the pantry window, Stormont saw a man, wearing a red bandanna tied under his eyes, run up and untie his horse and fling himself astride under a shower of bullets.

As he wheeled the horse and swung him into the clearing toward the foot of Star Pond, his seat and horsemanship were not to be mistaken.

He was gone, now, the gallop stretching into a dead run; and Quintana's men still following, shooting, hallooing in the starlight like a pack of leaping shapes from hell.

But Quintana had not followed far. When he had emptied his automatic he halted.

Something about the transaction suddenly checked his fury, stilled it, summoned his brain into action.

For a full minute he stood unstirring, every atom of intelligence in terrible concentration.

Presently he put his left hand into his pocket, fitted another clip to his pistol, turned on his heel and walked straight back to the house.

Between the two locked in the pantry not a word had passed. Stormont still peered out between the iron bars, striving to catch a glimpse of what was going on. Eve crouched at the pantry doors, her face in her hands, listening.

Suddenly she heard Quintana's step in the kitchen. Cautiously she turned the pantry key from inside.

Stormont heard her, and instantly came to her. At the same moment Quintana unbolted the door from the outside and tried to open it.

"Come out," he said coldly, "or it will not go well with you when my men return."

"You've got what you say is your property," replied Stormont. "What do you want now?"

"I tell you what I want ver' damn quick. Who was he, thees man who rides with my property on your horse away? Eh? Because it was not Nick Salzar! No! Salzar cannot ride thees way. No! Alors?"

"I can't tell you who he was," replied Stormont. "That's your affair, not ours."

"No? Ah! Ver' well, then. I shall tell you Senor Flic! He was one of _yours._ I understan'. It is a trap, a cheat -- what you call a _plant!_ Thees man who rode your horse he is disguise! Yes! He also is a gendarme! Yes! You think I let a gendarme rob me? I got you where I want you now. You shall write your gendarme frien' that he return to me my property, _one day's time,_ or I send him by parcel post two nice, fresh-out right-hands -- your sweetheart's and your own!"

Stormont drew Eve's head close to his:

"This man is blood mad or out of his mind! I'd better go out and take a chance at him before the others come back."

But the girl shook her head violently, caught him by the arm and drew him toward the mouth of the tile down which Clinch always emptied his hootch when the Dump was raided.

But now, it appeared that the tile which protruded from the cement floor was removable.

In silence she began to unscrew it, and he, seeing what she was trying to do, helped her.

Together they lifted the heavy tile and laid it on the floor.

"You open thees door!" shouted Quintana in a paroxysm of fury. "I give you one minute! Then, by God, I kill you both!"

Eve lifted a screen of wood through which the tile had been set. Under it a black hole yawned. It was a tunnel made of three-foot aqueduct tiles; and it led straight into star Pond, two hundred feet away.

Now, as she straightened up and looked silently at Stormont, they heard the trample of boots in the kitchen, voices, the bang of gun-stocks.

"Does that drain lead into the lake?" whispered Stormont.

She nodded.

"Will you follow me, Eve?"

She pushed him aside, indicating that he was to follow her.

As she stripped the hunting jacket from her, a hot colour swept her face. But she dropped on both knees, crept straight into the tile and slipped out of sight.

As she disappeared, Quintana shouted something in Portuguese, and fired at the lock.

With the smash of splintering wood in his ears, Stormont slid into the smooth tunnel.

In an instant he was shooting down a polished toboggan slide, and in another moment was under the icy water of Star Pond.

Shocked, blinded, fighting his way to the surface, he felt his spurred boots dragging at him like a ton of iron. Then to him came her helping hand.

"I can make it," he gasped.

But his clothing and his boots and the icy water began to tell on him in mid-lake.

Swimming without effort beside him, watching his every stroke, presently she sank a little and glided under him and a little ahead, so that his hands fell upon her shoulders.

He let them rest, so, aware now that it was no burden to such a swimmer. Supple and silent as a swimming otter, the girl slipped lithely through the chilled water, which washed his body to the nostrils and numbed his legs till he could scarcely move them.

And now, of a sudden, his feet touched gravel. He stumbled forward in the shadow of overhanging trees and saw her wading shoreward, a dripping, silvery shape on the shoal.

Then, as he staggered up to her, breathless, where she was standing on the pebbled shore, he saw her join both hands, cup-shape, and lift them to her lips.

And out of her mouth poured diamond, sapphire, and emerald in a dazzling stream, -- and among them, one great, flashing gem blazing in the starlight, -- the Flaming Jewel!

Like a naiad of the lake she stood, white, slim, silent, the heaped gems glittering in her snowy hands, her face framed by the curling masses of her wet hair.

Then, slowly she turned her head to Stormont.

"These are what Quintana came for," she said. "Could you put them into your pocket?"

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Episode Eight

Cup and Lip

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