No, he could not trust a single man. Only hope of plunder attached these marauders to him, and merely because he had education and imagination enough to provide what they wanted.
Anyone among them would murder and rob him if opportunity presented.
Now, how to keep his loot; how to get back to Europe with it, was the problem that confronted Quintana after robbing Darragh. And he determined to settle part of that question at once.
About five miles from Harrod Place, within a hundred rods of which he had held up Hal Smith, Quintana halted, seated himself on a rotting log, and waited until his men came up and gathered around him.
For a little while, in utter silence, his keen eyes travelled from one visage to the next, from Henri Picquet to Victor Georgiades, to Sanchez, to Sard. His intent scrutiny focussed on Sard; lingered.
If there were anybody he might trust, a little way, it would be Sard.
Then a polite, untroubled smile smoothed the pale, dark features of José Quintana:
"Bien, messieurs, the coup has been success. Yes? Ver' well; in turn, then, en accord with our custom, I shall dispose myse'f to listen to your good advice."
He looked at Henri Picquet, smiled and nodded invitation to speak.
Picquet shrugged: "For me, mon capitaine, eet ees ver' simple. We are five. Therefore, divide into five ze gems. After zat, each one for himself to make his way out – "
"Nick Salzar and Harry Beck are in the Drowned Valley," interrupted Quintana.
Picquet shrugged again; Sanchez laughed, saying: "If they are there it is their misfortune. Also, we others are in a hurry."
Picquet added: "Also five shares are sufficient division."
"It is propose, then, that we abandon our comrades Beck and Salzar to the rifle of Mike Clinch?"
"Why not?" demanded Georgiades sullenly; – "we shall have worse to face before we see the Place de l'Opéra."
"There remains, also, Eddie Abrams," remarked Quintana.
Crooks never betray their attorney. Everybody expressed a willingness to have the five shares of plunder properly assessed to satisfy the fee due to Mr. Abrams.
"Ver' well," nodded Quintana, "are you satisfy, messieurs, to divide an' disperse?"
Sard said, heavily, that they ought to stick together until they arrived in New York.
Sanchez sneered, accusing Sard of wanting a bodyguard to escort him to his own home. "In this accursed forest," he insisted, "five of us would attract attention where one alone, with sufficient stealth, can slip through into the open country."
"Two by two is better," said Picquet. "You, Sanchez, shall travel alone if you desire – "
"Divide the gems first," growled Georgiades, "and then let each do what pleases him."
"That," nodded Quintana, "is also my opinion. It is so settle. Attention!" Two pistols were in his hands as by magic. With a slight smile he laid them on the moss beside him.
He then spread a large white handkerchief flat on the ground; and, from his pockets, he poured out the glittering cascade. Yet, like a feeding panther, every sense remained alert to the slightest sound or movement elsewhere; and when Georgiades grunted from excess emotion, Quintana's right hand held a pistol before the grunt had ceased.
It was a serious business, this division of loot; every reckless visage reflected the strain of the situation.
Quintana, both pistols in his hands, looked down at the scintillating heap of jewels.
"I estimate two and one quartaire million of dollaires," he said simply. "It has been agree that I accep' for me the erosite gem known as The Flaming Jewel. In addition, messieurs, it has been agree that I accep' for myse'f one part in five of the remainder."
A fierce silence reigned. Every wolfish eye was on the leader. He smiled, rested his pair of pistols on either knee.
"Is there," he asked softly, "any gentleman who shall objec'?"
"Who," demanded Georgiades hoarsely, "is to divide for us?"
"It is for such purpose," explained Quintana suavely, "that my frien', Emanuel Sard, has arrive. Monsieur Sard is a brokaire of diamon's, as all know ver' well. Therefore, it shall be our frien' Sard who will divide for us what we have gain to-day by our – industry."
The savage tension broke with a laugh at the word chosen by Quintana to express their efforts of the morning.
Sard had been standing with one fat hand flat against the trunk of a tree. Now, at a nod from Quintana, he squatted down, and, with the same hand that had been resting against the tree, he spread out the pile of jewels into a flat layer.
As he began to divide this into five parts, still using the flat of his pudgy hand, something poked him lightly in the ribs. It was the muzzle of one of Quintana's pistols.
Sard, ghastly pale, looked up. His palm, sticky with balsam gum, quivered in Quintana's grasp.
"I was going to scrape it off," he gasped. "The tree was sticky – "
Quintana, with the muzzle of his pistol, detached half a dozen diamonds and rubies that clung to the gum on Mr. Sard's palm.
"Wash!" he said drily.
Sard, sweating with fear, washed his right hand with whiskey from his pocket-flask, and dried it for general inspection.
"My God," he protested tremulously, "it was accidental, gentlemen. Do you think I'd try to get away with anything like that – "
Quintana coolly shoved him aside and with the barrel of his pistol he pushed the flat pile of gems into five separate heaps. Only he and Georgiades knew that a magnificent diamond had been lodged in the muzzle of his pistol. The eyes of the Greek flamed with rage at the trick, but he awaited the division before he should come to any conclusion.
Quintana coolly picked out The Flaming Jewel and pocketed it. Then, to each man he indicated the heap which was to be his portion.
A snarling wrangle instantly began, Sanchez objecting to rubies and demanding more emeralds, and Picquet complaining violently concerning the smallness of the diamonds allotted him.
Sard's trained eyes appraised every allotment. Without weighing, and, lacking time and paraphernalia for expert examination, he was inclined to think the division fair enough.
Quintana got to his feet lithely.
"For me," he said, "it is finish. With my frien' Sard I shall now depart. Messieurs, I embrace and salute you. A bientôt in Paris – if it be God's will! Donc – au revoir, les amis, et à la bonheur! Allons! Each for himself and gar' aux flics!"
Sard, seized with a sort of still terror, regarded Quintana with enormous eyes. Torn between dismay of being left alone in the wilderness, and a very natural fear of any single companion, he did not know what to say or do.
En masse, the gang were too distrustful of one another to unite on robbing any individual. But any individual might easily rob a companion when alone with him.
"Why – why can't we all go together," he stammered. "It is safer, surer – "
"I go with Quintana and you," interrupted Georgiades, smilingly; his mind on the diamond in the muzzle of Quintana's pistol.
"I do not invite you," said Quintana. "But come if it pleases you."
"I also prefer to come with you others," growled Sanchez. "To roam alone in this filthy forest does not suit me."
Picquet shrugged his shoulders, turned on his heel in silence. They watched him moving away all alone, eastward. When he had disappeared among the trees, Quintana looked inquiringly at the others.
"Eh, bien, non alors!" snarled Georgiades suddenly. "There are too many in your trupeau, mon capitaine. Bonne chance!"
He turned and started noisily in the direction taken by Picquet.
They watched him out of sight; listened to his careless trample after he was lost to view. When at length the last distant sound of his retreat had died away in the stillness, Quintana touched Sard with the point of his pistol.
"Go first," he said suavely.
"For God's sake, be a little careful of your gun – "
"I am, my dear frien'. It is of you I may become careless. You will mos' kin'ly face south, and you will be kin' sufficient to start immediate. Tha's what I mean… I thank you… Now, my frien', Sanchez! Tha's correc'! You shall follow my frien' Sard ver' close. Me, I march in the rear. So we shall pass to the eas' of thees Star Pon', then between the cross-road an' Ghos' Lake; an' then we shall repose; an' one of us, en vidette, shall discover if the Constabulary have patrol beyon'… Allons! March!"
IIGuided by Quintana's directions, the three had made a wide detour to the east, steering by compass for the cross-roads beyond Star Pond.
In a dense growth of cedars, on a little ridge traversing wet land, Quintana halted to listen.
Sard and Sanchez, supposing him to be at their heels, continued on, pushing their way blindly through the cedars, clinging to the hard ridge in terror of sink-holes. But their progress was very slow; and they were still in sight, fighting a painful path amid the evergreens, when Quintana suddenly squatted close to the moist earth behind a juniper bush.
At first, except for the threshing of Sard and Sanchez through the massed obstructions ahead, there was not a sound in the woods.
After a little while there was a sound – very, very slight. No dry stick cracked; no dry leaves rustled; no swish of foliage; no whipping sound of branches disturbed the intense silence.
But, presently, came a soft, swift rhythm like the pace of a forest creature in haste – a discreetly hurrying tread which was more a series of light earth-shocks than sound.
Quintana, kneeling on one knee, lifted his pistol. He already felt the slight vibration of the ground on the hard ridge. The cedars were moving just beyond him now. He waited until, through the parted foliage, a face appeared.
The loud report of his pistol struck Sard with the horror of paralysis. Sanchez faced about with one spring, snarling, a weapon in either hand.
In the terrible silence they could hear something heavy floundering in the bushes, choking, moaning, thudding on the ground.
Sanchez began to creep back; Sard, more dead than alive, crawled at his heels. Presently they saw Quintana, waist deep in juniper, looking down at something.
And when they drew closer they saw Georgiades lying on his back under a cedar, the whole front of his shirt from chest to belly a sopping mess of blood.
There seemed no need of explanation. The dead Greek lay there where he had not been expected, and his two pistols lay beside him where they had fallen.
Sanchez looked stealthily at Quintana, who said softly:
"Bien sure… In his left side pocket, I believe."
Sanchez laid a cool hand on the dead man's heart; then, satisfied, rummaged until he found Georgiades' share of the loot.
Sard, hurriedly displaying a pair of clean but shaky hands, made the division.
When the three men had silently pocketed what was allotted to each, Quintana pushed curiously at the dead man with the toe of his shoe.
"Peste!" he remarked. "I had place, for security, a ver' large diamon' in my pistol barrel. Now it is within the interior of this gentleman…" He turned to Sanchez: "I sell him to you. One sapphire. Yes?"
Sanchez shook his head with a slight sneer: "We wait – if you want your diamond, mon capitaine."
Quintana hesitated, then made a grimace and shook his head.
"No," he said, "he has swallow. Let him digest. Allons! March!"
But after they had gone on – two hundred yards, perhaps – Sanchez stopped.
"Well?" inquired Quintana. Then, with a sneer: "I now recollec' that once you have been a butcher in Madrid… Suit your tas'e, l'ami Sanchez."
Sard gazed at Sanchez out of sickened eyes.
"You keep away from me until you've washed yourself," he burst out, revolted. "Don't you come near me till you're clean!"
Quintana laughed and seated himself. Sanchez, with a hang-dog glance at him, turned and sneaked back on the trail they had traversed. Before he was out of sight Sard saw him fish out a Spanish knife from his hip pocket and unclasp it.
Almost nauseated, he turned on Quintana in a sort of frightened fury:
"Come on!" he said hoarsely. "I don't want to travel with that man! I won't associate with a ghoul! My God, I'm a respectable business man – "
"Yaas," drawled Quintana, "tha's what I saw always myse'f; my frien' Sard he is ver' respec'able, an' I trus' him like I trus' myse'f."
However, after a moment, Quintana got up from the fallen tree where he had been seated.
As he passed Sard he looked curiously into the man's frightened eyes. There was not the slightest doubt that Sard was a coward.
"You shall walk behin' me," remarked Quintana carelessly. "If Sanchez fin' us, it is well; if he shall not, that also is ver' well… We go, now."
Sanchez made no effort to find them. They had been gone half an hour before he had finished the business that had turned him back.
After that he wandered about hunting for water – a rivulet, a puddle, anything. But the wet ground proved wet only on the surface moss. Sanchez needed more than damp moss for his toilet. Casting about him, hither and thither, for some depression that might indicate a stream, he came to a heavily wooded slope, and descended it.
There was a bog at the foot. With his fouled hands he dug out a basin which filled up full of reddish water, discoloured by alders.
But the water was redder still when his toilet ended.
As he stood there, examining his clothing, and washing what he could of the ominous stains from sleeve and shoe, very far away to the north he heard a curious noise – a far, faint sound such as he never before had heard.
If it were a voice of any sort there was nothing human about it… Probably some sort of unknown bird… Perhaps a bird of prey… That was natural, considering the attraction that Georgiades would have for such creatures… If it were a bird it must be a large one, he thought… Because there was a certain volume to the cry… Perhaps it was a beast, after all… Some unknown beast of the forest…
Sanchez was suddenly afraid. Scarcely knowing what he was doing he began to run along the edge of the bog.
First growth timber skirted it; running was unobstructed by underbrush.
With his startled ears full of the alarming and unknown sound, he ran through the woods under gigantic pines which spread a soft green twilight around him.
He was tired, or thought he was, but the alarming sounds were filling his ears now; the entire forest seemed full of them, echoing in all directions, coming in upon him from everywhere, so that he knew not in which direction to run.
But he could not stop. Demoralised, he darted this way and that; terror winged his feet; the air vibrated above and around him with the dreadful, unearthly sounds.
The next instant he fell headlong over a ledge, struck water, felt himself whirled around in the icy, rushing current, rolled over, tumbled through rapids, blinded, deafened, choked, swept helplessly in a vast green wall of water toward something that thundered in his brain an instant, then dashed it into roaring chaos.
Half a mile down the turbulent outlet of Star Pond, – where a great sheet of green water pours thirty feet into the tossing foam below, – and spinning, dipping, diving, bobbing up like a lost log after the drive, the body of Señor Sanchez danced all alone in the wilderness, spilling from soggy pockets diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, into crystal caves where only the shadows of slim trout stirred.
Very far away to the eastward Quintana stood listening, clutching Sard by one sleeve to silence him.
Presently he said: "My frien', somebody is hunting with houn's in this fores'.
"Maybe they are not hunting us… Maybe.… But, for me, I shall seek running water. Go you your own way! Houp! Vamose!"
He turned westward; but he had taken scarcely a dozen strides when Sard came panting after him:
"Don't leave me!" gasped the terrified diamond broker. "I don't know where to go – "
Quintana faced him abruptly – with a terrifying smile and glimmer of white teeth – and shoved a pistol into the fold of fat beneath Sard's double chin.
"You hear those dogs? Yes? Ver' well; I also. Run, now. I say to you run ver' damn quick. Hé! Houp! Allez vous en! Beat eet!"
He struck Sard a stinging blow on his fleshy ear with the pistol barrel, and Sard gave a muffled shriek which was more like the squeak of a frightened animal.
"My God, Quintana – " he sobbed. Then Quintana's eyes blazed murder: and Sard turned and ran lumbering through the thicket like a stampeded ox, crashing on amid withered brake, white birch scrub and brier, not knowing whither he was headed, crazed with terror.
Quintana watched his flight for a moment, then, pistol swinging, he ran in the opposite direction, eastward, speeding lithely as a cat down a long, wooded slope which promised running water at the foot.
Sard could not run very far. He could scarcely stand when he pulled up and clung to the trunk of a tree.
More dead than alive he embraced the tree, gulping horribly for air, every fat-incrusted organ labouring, his senses swimming.
As he sagged there, gripping his support on shaking knees, by degrees his senses began to return.
He could hear the dogs, now, vaguely as in a nightmare. But after a little while he began to believe that their hysterical yelping was really growing more distant.
Then this man whose every breath was an outrage on God, prayed.
He prayed that the hounds would follow Quintana, come up with him, drag him down, worry him, tear him to shreds of flesh and clothing.
He listened and prayed alternately. After a while he no longer prayed but concentrated on his ears.
Surely, surely, the diabolical sound was growing less distinct… It was changing direction too. But whether in Quintana's direction or not Sard could not tell. He was no woodsman. He was completely turned around.
He looked upward through a dense yellow foliage, but all was grey in the sky – very grey and still; – and there seemed to be no traces of the sun that had been shining.
He looked fearfully around: trees, trees, and more trees. No break, no glimmer, nothing to guide him, teach him. He could see, perhaps, fifty feet; no further.
In panic he started to move on. That is what fright invariably does to those ignorant of the forest. Terror starts them moving.
Sobbing, frightened almost witless, he had been floundering forward for over an hour, and had made circle after circle without knowing, when, by chance, he set foot in a perfectly plain trail.
Emotion overpowered him. He was too overcome to stir for a while. At length, however, he tottered off down the trail, oblivious as to what direction he was taking, animated only by a sort of madness – horror of trees – an insane necessity to see open ground, get into it, and lie down on it.
And now, directly ahead, he saw clear grey sky low through the trees. The wood's edge!
He began to run.
As he emerged from the edge of the woods, waist-deep in brush and weeds, wide before his blood-shot eyes spread Star Pond.
Even in his half-stupefied brain there was memory enough left for recognition.
He remembered the lake. His gaze travelled to the westward; and he saw Clinch's Dump standing below, stark, silent, the doors swinging open in the wind.
When terror had subsided in a measure and some of his trembling strength returned, he got up out of the clump of rag-weeds where he had lain down, and earnestly nosed the unpainted house, listening with all his ears.
There was not a sound save the soughing of autumn winds and the delicate rattle of falling leaves in the woods behind him.
He needed food and rest. He gazed earnestly at the house. Nothing stirred there save the open doors swinging idly in every vagrant wind.
He ventured down a little way – near enough to see the black cinders of the burned barn, and close enough to hear the lake waters slapping the sandy shore.
If he dared —
And after a long while he ventured to waddle nearer, slinking through brush and frosted weed, creeping behind boulders, edging always closer and closer to that silent house where nothing moved except the wind-blown door.
And now, at last, he set a furtive foot upon the threshold, stood listening, tip-toed in, peered here and there, sidled to the dining-room, peered in.
When, at length, Emanuel Sard discovered that Clinch's Dump was tenantless, he made straight for the pantry. Here was cheese, crackers, an apple pie, half a dozen bottles of home-brewed beer.
He loaded his arms with all they could carry, stole through the dance-hall out to the veranda, which overlooked the lake.
Here, hidden in the doorway, he could watch the road from Ghost Lake and survey the hillside down which an intruder must come from the forest.
And here Sard slaked his raging thirst and satiated the gnawing appetite of the obese, than which there is no crueller torment to an inert liver and distended paunch.
Munching, guzzling, watching, Sard squatted just within the veranda doorway, anxiously considering his chances.
He knew where he was. At the foot of the lake, and eastward, he had been robbed by a highwayman on the forest road branching from the main highway. Southwest lay Ghost Lake and the Inn.
Somewhere between these two points he must try to cross the State Road… After that, comparative safety. For the miles that still would lie between him and distant civilisation seemed as nothing to the horror of that hell of trees.
He looked up now at the shaggy fringing woods, shuddered, opened another bottle of beer.
In all that panorama of forest, swale, and water the only thing that had alarmed him at all by moving was something in the water. When first he noticed it he almost swooned, for he took it to be a swimming dog.
In his agitation he had risen to his feet; and then the swimming creature almost frightened Sard out of his senses, for it tilted suddenly and went down with a report like the crack of a pistol.
However, when Sard regained control of his wits he realised that a swimming dog doesn't dive and doesn't whack the water with its tail.
He dimly remembered hearing that beavers behaved that way.
Watching the water he saw the thing out there in the lake again, swimming in erratic circles, its big, dog-like head well out of the water.
It certainly was no dog. A beaver, maybe. Whatever it was, Sard didn't care any longer.
Idly he watched it. Sometimes, when it swam very near, he made a sudden motion with his fat arm; and crack! – with a pistol-shot report down it dived. But always it reappeared.
What had a creature like that to do with him? Sard watched it with failing interest, thinking of other things – of Quintana and the chances that the dogs had caught him, – of Sanchez, the Ghoul, hoping that dire misfortune might overtake him, too; – of the dead man sprawling under the cedar-tree, all sopping crimson – Faugh!
Shivering, Sard filled his mouth with apple-pie and cheese and pulled the cork from another bottle of home-brewed beer.
IIIAbout that time, a mile and a half to the southward, James Darragh came out on the rocky and rushing outlet to Star Pond.
Over his shoulder was a rifle, and all around him ran dogs, – big, powerful dogs, built like foxhounds but with the rough, wiry coats of Airedales, even rougher of ear and features.
The dogs, – half a dozen or so in number, – seemed very tired. All ran down eagerly to the water and drank and slobbered and panted, lolling their tongues, and slaking their thirst again and again along the swirling edge of a deep trout pool.
Darragh's rifle lay in the hollow of his left arm; his khaki waistcoat was set with loops full of cartridges. From his left wrist hung a raw-hide whip.
Now he laid aside his rifle and whip, took from the pocket of his shooting coat three or four leather dog-leashes, went down among the dogs and coupled them up.
They followed him back to the bank above. Here he sat down on a rock and inspected his watch.
He had been seated there for ten minutes, possibly, with his tired dogs lying around him, when just above him he saw a State Trooper emerge from the woods on foot, carrying a rifle over one shoulder.
"Jack!" he called in a guarded voice.
Trooper Stormont turned, caught sight of Darragh, made a signal of recognition, and came toward him.
