Part 76

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.

* * * * *