Part 62

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 recognised 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 in 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 can not 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, Señor 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.