Hurricane (8 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Trapped

T
HE
Saint was on his feet, his chair falling away from him. Men were shouting to one another through the castle. Enrico’s calls were urgent but unintelligible.

The Saint whipped a
Colt .45
out of his jacket and sprinted after Enrico. Men came tumbling through the great hall, calling to one another, the light glancing from their bare backs.

A cyclone had been started with Spar’s room as its vortex. Everyone followed the Saint, yelling, looking to their weapons. They reminded Spar of sharks whisking off to devour a bloody prey.

The sharks might go, but the wolf was still there. In an instant the great hall was empty. The Saint’s voice was heard above all others. Spar wasted no time whatever.

Leaping down the steps, Spar rushed across the rough stone, his hammering feet lost in the discord of others’ making. He gripped the chains and bars of the big door, hurled them down. He slammed the entrance open and was fanned by a breath of moist air. For an instant he stared across the courtyard, down the path toward the beach. It would be so easy to go, to get away from the Saint.

But that was what they expected him to do. Spar turned back and vaulted up the steps three at a time until he was again at Peg Mannering’s door. He hammered on it with the rifle butt.

“It’s Spar! Open up for God’s sake!”

Because of the bedlam on the lower floor he could hear no movement in the room. He stood drowned in his own apprehensive sweat, expecting momentary discovery.

They were coming back now, back toward the great hall. And they came running, with the Saint in the lead. Spar looked at the impassive, double-barred panel which stood between him and momentary safety. This was the first place they’d come. And he could not live long enough to get Peg Mannering out if they found him against that door.

Why hadn’t he killed the Saint when he had the chance? It was too late now.

He heard the creak of a rusty hinge. A white face appeared in the crack. He pushed hurriedly through and slammed and bolted the door behind him.

Peg Mannering stood with her back against the wall, staring at him. To one who had been reared far from the sight and thought of violence, Spar presented a terrifying picture. His hair was rumpled, hanging in his eyes. His knuckles dripped blood. His shirt was torn open at the throat. And his silver gray eyes held the luminous light of the killer.

“Keep quiet,” ordered Spar. “They are looking for me. Do not open up for them on any pretext.”

He tucked the rifle under his arm and went to the window. Peg Mannering moved like a sleepwalker. She blew out the candle and then went back to the wall. The only light was that of the dark sky. Spar stood in the arched window, looking down upon the courtyard.

Hammering at the door made him start. Folston’s voice cried, “Spar! If you’re in there, come out! Peg! Open up before he kills you! He’s gone mad! He doesn’t understand this joke of mine. It’s only a joke, Peg. Open up!”

“He isn’t here,” said Peg Mannering in a firm voice.

The hammering stopped. Silence reigned for a moment. Then the door creaked under the pressure of strong shoulders. But the builder of that castle had thought of such things and the door was constructed of flinty ironwood.

After some moments, the pressure ceased and footsteps were heard going down the stairs. Then Spar, looking from the window, saw men dash across the courtyard in full cry, waving torches over their unkempt heads.

The Saint paused for an instant and shouted: “Fan out to the right and left. Find him! He’s somewhere about. He won’t make the
Venture
because of the guard on the cliffs.”

“So there’s a guard on the cliff,” muttered Spar. “Thank you, Saint, perhaps I’ll strangle you after all.”

The quiet intensity of his voice made Peg wince. But she moved closer to him, rested her hand on his shoulder, and looked down at the torches that danced like fireflies over the island.

“What happened?” said Peg.

“I killed my guard and they found the body before I could rescue you.”

“You killed a man?”

“You don’t call these beasts men, do you? Wait a bit. Maybe we can get out.” And then it was Spar’s turn to wince. Propped against the wall, tied with a sling and belt, Peg Mannering’s guard was certain to be discovered before the night was out. That would direct them straight to her door. Nothing would stop them. In their haste they had overlooked him once. They wouldn’t make the same mistake on closer inspection.

“We’ve got to get to the
Venture,
” said Spar. “They’ll know I’m here.”

“But can’t we take the others with us?”

“The others? I’m not interested in the others. I’ll send the navy back for them.” Spar looked at her with a frankness born of danger.

She backed away from him. “But you must!”

“You and I have a chance to get out. We can’t get out with Felice Bereau and that drunkard to give us away. They aren’t worth it.”

With a certain hauteur, she said, “You forget that I am engaged to marry Tom.”

“You had almost forgotten it. Forget it again. I’ve known from the moment I set eyes on you that someday I would tell you that I love you. I’m telling you now. I can get the two of us out, but not four. You are the one I take. Let Tom Perry rot.”

Stiffly, she replied, “I have given my word that I would marry him. I do not go back on my word. Do you take me for some street gamine?”

“I take you for a woman who will not listen to her own heart. You pretend that you are afraid of me, that you think me beneath you. Perhaps I am. But don’t forget that the Saint is watching you. Don’t forget that you are not choosing between Tom Perry and Captain Spar. You are choosing between Captain Spar and the Saint.”

“Count Folston . . . the Saint?”

“Yes, the Saint. You’ve heard of him, I see. If your choice is not correct, you’ll hear more of him, much more.”

“You take a great deal for granted, Captain Spar,” she replied. “Such vanity should be rewarded. And are you implying that you are so lacking in gallantry that you require me to buy my freedom with my hand?”

Spar looked at her uncertainly for a moment and then abruptly laughed. “We are both being very noble. You are taking the side of a worthless, drunken wretch and I am taking the part of a half-mad convict. Perhaps it would be better if we were to consider the best for everyone concerned. I can get out of here with you only. Four cannot move as quickly or as silently as two. We must do something. And the best we can do is to get aboard the
Venture
and sail for Martinique, to bring the French authorities here.”

“But wouldn’t they . . . ?”

“Yes, they’d send me back. But you are thinking of your promise, and, strangely, so am I. I can do nothing. I might as well do the only decent thing. I killed those two men in Martinique, not Tom.”

“You?”

“Yes, Folston pinned it on Tom to get him here. It was all planned. I was to be the corpse, but I let two killers substitute for me. I’ll see to it that everything goes off like clockwork. All shipshape. Come on, we haven’t much time.”

He started to the door, but she snatched at his arm and held him back. “No, no. That is not a good plan. Can’t we hide on the island for a time, let Folston do what he wants, and get away by stealing some small boat? You can’t give yourself up!”

Spar faced her, looked into her eyes and saw there the expression ladies reserve for the man they love. Suddenly he swept her into his arms and kissed her. She offered no resistance for a moment, and then she pushed him away.

“No,” she said, “I’m the one who is half-mad. We must get Tom out of here, no matter what it costs. I have given my promise.”

Spar unbarred the door. The stairway was empty and so, apparently, was the great hall beyond. Closely followed by Peg, he went slowly down, listening at each step.

A shot rapped outside, swallowed instantly by a chorus of yells and another report.

“They’re shooting at shadows,” whispered Spar. “They’ve forgotten they need a captain.”

He went halfway across the great hall before he saw the guard at the door. The ex-convict, naked to the waist and gripping a rifle barrel, was staring out at the courtyard as though anxious to be in on the excitement and perhaps have the pleasure of killing Spar.

Spar held Peg back, mutely pointing. Then, cat-footed, he went forward, rifle ready. Some sixth sense, possessed by jungle cats and criminals alike, must have warned the sentry of his danger. When Spar was still ten feet from him, the man whirled about, open-mouthed in his surprise. Then in the same second he dropped into a crouch and swiftly whipped up his weapon. A shark was facing the wolf.

Spar held Peg back, mutely pointing. Then, cat-footed,
he went forward, rifle ready.

Spar had also stopped, realizing the bridge was too wide to traverse in the instant still remaining to him. His rifle butt dropped in a blur, described a half circle and, speeding forward like a javelin, streaked toward the sentry’s chest.

The man tried to dodge, but he was blinded by the light he faced and paralyzed by the suddenness of the move. The steel-shod butt caught him in the ribs and he dropped with a hoarse groan.

Spar turned and took Peg by the hand. He led her over the inert body, stooped and retrieved his rifle, and then went on into the courtyard.

Another shot beat through the roar of the surf and the shouts. Spar instinctively ducked and then stood up when he realized that a shadow had been the target.

“I’d rather be the quarry than a searcher,” muttered Spar. “They’re like the
gingham dog and the calico cat
. They’ll eat each other up.”

Peg, small in his big shadow, looked inquiringly at him, mystified by a man who could kill and quote child’s poetry in the same breath. She began to realize that man is, at best, a predatory beast and that, in civilization as in the Ice Age, killing is sometimes necessary. She saw things clearly, without any distortion, for the first time in her life. And seeing life so cheaply bought, she responded with an atavistic disregard for anything which might interfere with their safety.

Spar flanked the trail, going through the thin brush. Once he stopped and crept ahead. When he returned to her and led her forward, she saw a smoking torch, fallen from an outstretched, slowly contracting hand. She did not wince.

With shouts on every side of them, with lights bobbing all about them, they came to the top of the cliff trail. Once more, Spar left her to crouch in the shelter of a rock.

He groped forward, feeling for the guard he knew to be there. Inch by inch, stone by stone, he made his way down the trail, striving to pierce the gloom.

Ahead he heard a sharp tinkle of metal against metal. A man had moved somewhere close to him. Spar went more slowly than before, hands describing a slow arc all about him.

Suddenly he touched cloth. In the same instant the guard jerked down with the rifle butt and caught Spar across the face. The rifle rose for a second blow, but Spar went in under it and reached for the throat.

Caught in each other’s sinewy embrace, they rocked on the edge, each one trying to throw the other to one side. The guard was strong, almost too strong. Spar closed in, tighter, more relentlessly.

The guard screamed for help. Screamed again. Spar picked him bodily from the cliff face and dropped him into space. The scream went on for a long, long time, growing less and less. Then the greedy sucking of the surf in the rocks gobbled the sound.