Tales of Mysteries & Espionage - John Buchan Edition. Buchan John
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Название: Tales of Mysteries & Espionage - John Buchan Edition
Автор: Buchan John
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 9788075833488
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The men were Indians, but of a type which Archie had never seen before. They were not of the Gran Seco breed, for those were bullet-headed and muscular, whereas these were of a leanness which made them seem inhumanly tall, and their heads were the heads of white men. Instead of the dull beady eyes of the Gran Seco, the eyes of these men were large and bright and lustrous, as if they lived in a perpetual in fever. Their faces were so emaciated as to be almost skulls. Unlike the Indians of Olifa and the Gran Seco who favoured black ponchos, the ponchos of these men were of a dark red—the colour of the raw earth in the Pais del Venenos.
Yet, to his surprise, Archie felt no shrinking from them. They were armed—with blow-pipes and slender lances—but they seemed to have no hostile purpose. They stood in a circle looking down gravely at the awakened sleepers.
Archie scrambled to his feet, and held out his hand as the best gesture of friendship which he could think of. But there was no movement in response. Their hands hung stiffly by their sides.
He tried them in Spanish. He told them that he had flown thither from the Gran Seco, and pointed to the sea-plane to illustrate his mode of travel. He asked them if they had seen any white man in the neighbourhood—especially if they had seen a white woman. Archie’s Spanish was apt to be of a biblical simplicity, and he explained his meaning with an elaborate pantomime. He was like a man who has a desperate message to deliver, but who finds himself stricken with partial aphasia.
It appeared that they understood something of what he said, for they began to speak among themselves, in voices pitched so low that they sounded like the murmuring of insects. Then one, who seemed to be their leader, spoke. It was a kind of Spanish, oddly pronounced and very hard to follow, but Archie gathered that he was ordered to accompany them. The speaker pointed down the ravine towards which the stream from the lake flowed.
“Right, my lad,” said Archie, “I’ll go with you fast enough,” and he nodded and grinned and waved his hand.
Then one of them bent over Hamilton, who had lain back on the ground again with his hands pressed to his head. It looked as if these strange people knew something of medical science, for the man felt his pulse and the beating of his heart. He spoke to the others, and they moved apart. In a few minutes a little fire had been made of driftwood and thorn-scrub, while two of them took charge of Hamilton. They stripped off his great-coat and tunic, and bared him to the waist, and then they proceeded to knead and pinch certain muscles, while his head hung limply over their knees. Then they prepared a queer little greyish pill which they induced him to swallow.
Meantime an iron girdle had been put on the fire, and on it a number of little dried kernels roasted. Archie was given a share, and found them palatable: they tasted like crayfish, but may have been a kind of caterpillar. Then a rough litter was made, out of their lances and the tarpaulin, and Hamilton, now in a deep sleep, was hoisted thereon.
Archie made a last effort to get some news to allay his anxiety and nourish his hopes. “White woman,” he repeated, pointing down the glen of the stream. But he got no answer. The leader, whom he addressed, faced him steadily with his bright, inscrutable eyes. But before they moved off they did the thing which Archie had decided against. They spilled petrol over the wings of the sea-plane and applied to them a flaming brand from the fire. As Archie looked back, he saw beside the blue lake in the serene sunshine the bonfire burning garishly, like a sacrifice before the altar of the immemorial tower.
XI
The third day after Archie’s departure, the threat to the Courts of the Morning became urgent. The first word came from Escrick’s Intelligence; there had been a succession of small fights in the Loa district, and Grayne was warned to extra vigilance. His planes patrolled in a wide radius, and Grayne himself was confident that no enemy machine could reach them. “D’Ingraville might, if he isn’t otherwise engaged,” he said, “but they’ve gotten nobody else of his class.” But definite news came by was of Olifa that there would presently be an attack in force from the sea, and that Lossberg had relinquished his Fabian tactics and was now clearly pushing northward. Loa might have to be abandoned any hour, and then would come the advance up the shelves of the foothills. It might be made a slow and costly business, but in the end it could not succeed, for the defence could not indefinitely oppose his superior numbers, his Schneider batteries, and his ample machine guns. The time was drawing near when they must give up their mountain base.
The strangest thing about the new situation was its effect on the Gobernador. It might have been expected that the approach of his friends would put him into a state of extreme restlessness, that he would wait eagerly for news of each stage and welcome the hope of escape. Instead he seemed to resent it. He spoke of it with irritation, as if impious hands were being laid on something sacred. He was resentful, too, of Sandy’s failure—for he was certain that he had failed.
“Lossberg has got his skirts clear.” he told Barbara. “He feels himself strong and secure enough to take the offensive. That means that Lord Clanroyden’s scheme has miscarried. Lossberg, in spite of his pinpricks, is getting all the supplies he wants, and has leisure to make a bold attack on our base. He is neither rattled nor embarrassed, and he has no notion of making peace. Clanroyden’s was an ingenious plan, but it was bluff, and the bluff has been called. Once it fails, we have no second string. It is our turn to be driven from post to pillar… and there’s far more against us than Lossberg. We have no news of Lady Roylance?”
There was more than exasperation in his tone as he spoke, there was an aching anxiety. Barbara, who in these last lays had become a tense, silent being, looked at him curiously.
“I think that we have succeeded in one thing, Excellency,” she said.
“What?”
“We have made you an ally. This war was directed against you. Now you speak as if you were sorry that it was not going better.”
“Nonsense,” he said sharply. “I am anxious about Lady Roylance.”
Next day there was disquieting information. Loa had been evacuated in the night owing to Lossberg’s pressure, and that general was now beginning his movement northward on scientific lines. His mounted troops were clearing and guarding his flanks, his pioneers were pushed forward to improve the roads for his batteries, and two of his mechanised battalions were already in the foothills. Their progress could be delayed, but with Sandy and the bulk of his force engaged at the other side of the Gran Seco it could not be seriously opposed. Sandy had long ago decided that it was no part of his business to resist any movement of Lossberg’s too long.
Grayne rapidly calculated.
“He will take four days at the earliest to get here. We could lengthen them out to six, but it isn’t worth it. That gives us plenty of time, for we’ve got all the details of the evacuation settled long ago. The stuff we’re taking with us has already begun to leave for Magdalena… No, Miss Babs, I guess Lossberg can’t hit off that road, It’s our covered Valley of Virginia, and he could no more stop our using it than General Banks could stop Stonewall Jackson. It’s way out of the reach of his patrols. But we can’t cut it too fine. Before his first troops get to the place they call Three Fountains, every soul here has to be on the road to Magdalena and this place one big bonfire.”
Barbara asked about the sea-ravine.
“We’ll get early news of that from the air,” was the answer. “I’m not going to waste one solitary man on holding it. We’ve СКАЧАТЬ