Captain from Castile (29 page)

I d rather tackle Beelzebub," someone was muttering. "The Cao-tam got off lucky." 

"Five—six," Velasquez counted.

Pedro braced himself. Evidently Velasquez had given Garcia a certain time in which to surrender, but he was calling numbers to a deaf man.

"Seven. . . . Damn you, Garcia, I'll not have our fellows murdered by a maniac. Don't make me give the order. You can't stop a steel bolt. I don't want to kill you, you fool. Drop that sword!"

Velasquez de Leon might be a good soldier, but he was no psychologist. In a voice Pedro had never heard, Garcia raged back: "Damn you and your obscenity bolts! I don't give a piece of dung for 'em. I'll slit your blasted throats in the name of God. Indian dogs! Dirty man-eaters! I'll give your hearts to Seiior Witchywolves, by'r Lady!"

He started a slov/, menacing advance. His delusion was plain, but Velasquez had no time for argument.

"Eight—nine. Ready, Sanchez?"

"Yes, sir."

"Ten!"

Knocked up of a sudden, the weapon discharged its bolt into the ceiling.

"The devil!" roared Velasquez. "What in hell—"

Disregarding him, Pedro stepped forward to meet Garcia.

"Cuidado!" hissed a voice from behind. "Look out!"

Pedro paid no attention.

"Don't you know me, Juan? Come! You haven't forgotten Pedrito?"

"Look to yourself, Indian!"

The sword wheeled back, but at the top of its arc, it wavered, stopped. Garcia stood like an axman delaying the downstroke. The glazed eyes quickened slightly.

Pedro stood motionless. "Companero" he said.

The blade sank slowly. Garcia drew a hand across his face. "You're not an Indian," he growled. "Why, you're—"

He dropped the sword, threw his arms around Pedro. "Lord, boy! I knew I could count on you. This cursed jungle . . . lost my way . . . about spent. Damn savages! They'll not take us to the sacrifice. Shoulder to shoulder now!"

He flung loose, staring at the group in front of the door.

"They're friends, Juan."

"Where's the sword?" Garcia was looking blindly around him. . . . "Your arm!" he said thickly. "I'm spent." His face had gone white.

Pedro caught him around the waist. He collapsed unconscious on the floor.

"Holy saints!" said Velasquez, mopping his forehead. "That was

close. YouVe got nerve, Redhead. I'm grateful to you. It would have been a shame to kill him. But what the deuce! He was bent on murder."

The onlookers trooped in, gathered round; voices were loud in contrast to the previous hush. A bucket of water was brought.

"No," said Pedro. "Let him sleep it off. He'll be all right."

Velasquez, eager to make amends, helped carry Garcia into a corner of the room and stuck a mat under his head. "He can stay here tonight," he added. "And leave that bucket near him. He'll have fire in his mouth when he comes to."

Pedro drew off Garcia's boots. He found his hands trembling. Now that the danger was past, he felt almost weak from relief. Then he remembered that the danger wasn't altogether past.

Facing the others, he said: "A word, senores. You've known Juan Garcia as a sober man and good comrade. Because two crackpots found out his weakness and made a joke of it is no cause for scandal. Will you favor him and me by keeping this to yourselves? If the General heard of it, he'd have to take measures. Understand?"

A ready murmur of assent answered.

"Hell!" said a man. ''Trim my heard, and Fll trim your topknot, It'd be a poor thing if we couldn't do that much for the Bull. He wouldn't blab on us. Wish I didn't have more on my conscience than a good drunk."

"And, gentlemen," said Pedro, "not a word about me in this. I'm supposed to be on guard."

The turbulent Velasquez burst out: "What do you take us for. Redhead? Get back to your post. I'll cut the ears off of any loose-talker."

Reassured by the gang spirit in the company, which did not encourage talebearing, Pedro now returned across the increasingly silent courtyard; but he breathed freer on catching sight of Nino and Navarro still on guard in front of the treasure room. They reported all well. Pledging them to secrecy, as he had the others, Pedro told them briefly about Garcia. Then, unlocking the door, he went inside to inspect the chests.

The mastiff, Tigre, nosed him as he entered. Everything was in order. He congratulated himself on the happy ending of what might have been a fatal mess. All that remained now was to comfort the remorseful Garcia in the morning and to make sure that he stuck to water from then on. As if reflecting the general serenity, Tigre sank down and went to sleep.

It wanted a half hour until the guard would change and Cristobal

de Gamboa, his fellow equerry, would relieve him. About to sit down on one of the chests, Pedro stood up again. Something different in their arrangement struck him. He thought he remembered this large one as more to the left, with a smaller box on top. Probably a quirk of memory or trick of the moonlight. The six chests were all there. Only he could have sworn—

As he hesitated, a faintly luminous zigzag on the blank rear wall of the room caught liis attention. What the deuce was that? It hadn't been there before. But when he strode across to look more closely, his heart turned to water.

The luminous arabesque was simply moonlight between the irregular edge and jamb of a concealed door in the masonry, which had not been entirely closed. Except for this, no one would have suspected the existence of the door, which fitted perfectly into the surrounding stonework.

Using the tips of his fingers, Pedro swung open the narrow entrance, and found himself looking out at an empty street behind the teocalli. Then, appalled, he closed it again and turned back to the chests. Whatever had happened, it was plain that someone had entered the room since he left it.

Various possibilities crossed his mind, as he tried the lids and padlocks. Perhaps a temple priest creeping back for some purpose of his own. But in that case the dog, who was trained to attack Indians— He glanced at the mastiff outstretched and asleep. A full meal? And yet Tigre wouldn't have taken meat from an Indian, at least not without a first challenge when the door opened. Or wouldn't he? Big, fighting dogs were often silent.

No, thank God, everything seemed all right. The lids were firm, the padlocks in place. He came to the last chest, the one containing the gold disc and the emeralds; fingered the padlocks. And at that moment, as he tried it again, one of them dropped off.

He crouched, staring, as if turned to stone, the sense of calamity holding him in a kind of vise. Weakly he tested the other padlock and found that it too was broken.

\Vith fingers trembling so that he could hardly manipulate the tinderbox and stump of candle which he drew from his wallet, he struck a light and raised the lid of the chest. The gleam of metal beneath reassured him. Too much weight for a thief to carr)-, thank heaven. Then he remembered the emeralds and looked for the doeskin pouch, which had been tucked into one corner between the edge of the disc and the chest. Yes, viva! It was still there.

He drew it out—and stopped breathing. The bag was empty. In his absorption, he did not hear the footstep behind him. "Hm-m," said a cold voice. "Since when have you taken the Hberty of opening these chests?"

Jerking around, Pedro looked up into the face of Hernan Cortes.

XXXI

No CRIMINAL had ever been more plainly caught in the act than Pedro de Vargas at that moment. He still held the limp pouch in one hand, his candle in the other; the golden contents of the open chest shone dully in the light; the broken padlocks lay on the floor.

"By your leave," said Cortes, taking the pouch. And when he found it empty, "Be good enough to hand over those stones."

His quietness gave a razor edge to the suppressed passion behind it.

"I don't have them, sir."

"No? Are you sure? Didn't you think this was the night to make your fortune in, while I was otherwise taken up? Well, my friend, it will be a cold night when I do not keep my eyes open for the profit of this company."

"But, Your Excellency, I had just discovered that the locks were broken—"

"Don't lie to me." The vibration of Gortes's voice had the quality of a taut bowstring. "I saw to the locks myself no later than three hours since. Have you the face to tell me that someone entered here while you were on guard, opened the chest, and departed, and that you then 'discovered' it? Do you take me for a fool?"

The truth had to come out. Damning as it might be, it was not so deadly as the charge of theft.

"Your pardon, sir," Pedro stammered, "the fact is that I was off guard for a while."

"Indeed? And why?"

Pedro equivocated. "Juan Garcia was ill. Velasquez de Leon summoned me."

"When?"

"A half hour ago. I've just returned."

Cortes digested this in hot silence. Then he said: "Very well. An officer in command of an important post walks off at his pleasure to hold the hand of a sick friend. Very charitable. We'll deal with that

in its place. What were your two men, Nino and Navarro, doing— not to speak of the watchdog?" He glanced at the mastiff, who had straightened up and was yawning at him. "Were they off for a stroll too? Or are you hinting that they rifled the chest?"

"Sefior, no. I locked the door when I left. The dog was inside. I found the men on guard and the lock untampered with."

"Well, then—God give me patience!—would you have me believe that someone walked through solid masonry into this room and took the jewels, while the dog kept quiet? Would you palm off a phantom on me, when I find you With the chest open and the jewel pouch in your hand? Find a better tale." The cold sarcasm dropped suddenly. "Meanwhile, hand me those stones, and you can romance later."

Cortes's eyes blazed. Taking a step forward, he caught Pedro's doublet close to the throat in a steel grip.

"Do you want me to call the guards and have you stripped?"

Until then Pedro's bewilderment had half-paralyzed his tongue, but the General's words and action brought him to himself. His pride rebelled. A de Vargas was no thief. Cortes might be a hidalgo, but so was he, and his honor hung in the balance. His hand closed on the General's \vrist.

"Kindly unloose me, sir, and listen," he said.

"I'm listening." But Cortes did not relax his hold. "Make it short."

Pedro played his trump card. "Whoever it was came through the door in that wall. It was ajar when I got back. That's how I knew—"

"AVhat door?" Cortes turned his head to look. "I see none."

Nor could Pedro. He remembered now that he had closed it: and that part of the wall looked as solid as the rest.

"A moment, sir, by your leave."

Cortes dropped his hand, and Pedro, hurr\dng over to the wall, looked in vain for indications of the door. His fingers moved here and there between the stones, prying, attempting to get a purchase. The wall remained blank as before.

"My faith, you're a poor liar, de Vargas! It Would have been likelier to have had your thief drop through the roof. At least that's not of stone."

Frantically Pedro fingered and pried, straining his nails between the cracks. "I'm not lying. On my honor, sir, there's a door—"

"Don't talk of honor," snapped Cortes. "We've wasted time enough." But he broke off in amazement. "By my soul—"

Whether Pedro had at last found the outline of the door, or whether by accident he had pressed the secret release, in any case a crack

now showed, and he was able to swing back the irregular stone panel.

"By my soul," Cortes repeated. "You're right."

He looked out thoughtfully into the street, then examined the door and closed it, taking care to mark its position by several smudges from Pedro's candle.

"The mastiff?" he pondered.

"I think he was well fed by the thief," Pedro ventured—"from the looks of him."

"So it probably wasn't an Indian." Cortes picked up one of the broken padlocks. "Filed," he nodded. "The Indians have no steel."

Closing the still open chest, he walked to the main doorway. Pedro heard him questioning Navarro as to whether the dog had given tongue during Seiior de Vargas's absence.

"No, my General. At least nothing but a growl or two; we thought nothing of it."

When the man had returned to his post, Cortes re-entered and, seating himself on one of the chests, fell into thought. Everything considered, Pedro wondered at the General's self-control. Others of the captains, Alvarado, for instance, or Olid, would by this time have stirred up a commotion; but so far not even the men outside knew that the chest had been opened. Cortes sat fingering his beard, his face expressionless except for the occasional glancing of his eyes. With the sense of fault weighing upon him, Pedro stood shifting from foot to foot.

He started when Cortes remarked suddenly, "I shall hate to hang you, de Vargas." And as Pedro could find nothing to answer, "But, I have no doubt, that will be the decision of the captains—unless these jewels are recovered. They are the property of His Majesty. As you well know, they are a chief item of the treasure intended to incline the Sovereigns to our petition. Be the thief who he will, you were responsible. You deserted your post without leave from me. Because of that desertion, the robbery was possible."

Step by step, Pedro could follow the perfect logic of the accusation. He could not refute one article of it, and he realized that any military court must find him guilty. A cold numbness crept over him.

"Unless the jewels are found . . ." Cortes repeated. "They were your charge. Perhaps you can recover them. I give you until tomorrow night. Until then I shall say nothing of this. But tomorrow night, you understand?"

"Your Excellency, how—"

"Use your wits. It's your affair since your neck depends on it."

A light flashed in Pedro's mind. Was Escudero's baiting of Garcia, who made no secret of his weakness, a practical joke, after all? Trouble would almost certainly follow from Garcia's drinking. In that case, it was natural that Pedro should be turned to. The messenger, Varela, might even have been tipped off to summon him. Escudero was a partizan of the Governor of Cuba and a reputed enemy of Cortes. He had opposed the secession of the army from the jurisdiction of Cuba; he opposed the projected march across the mountains; he opposed sending the treasure to Spain. He and Cermeno headed a group of the same stripe. Of course Pedro might be on the wrong track; but in his present straits, it seemed by all odds the likeliest.