Captain from Castile (30 page)

"I'll do my best," he said. "Thank Your Excellency for the delay. Whatever happens, be assured that no one can judge me harder than I do myself. I deserve the consequences."

Cortes nodded. "Good luck to you."

"May I ask one favor?"

"Well?"

"That if I don't find the stones, if I can't clear myself, the news may be kept from my father."

"That can be managed," said Cortes.

The cadenced tramp of the relieving guard, coming on duty, sounded in the now silent enclosure. Automatically Pedro walked out to the platform and stood at attention, as the detail assigned to his post came up. It occurred to him that it might be the last time he played this part.

iJuien Vive:

"Cristobal de Gamboa, in command of the treasure guard."

"Watchword?"

"Santa Trinidad."

"Advance, Cristobal de Gamboa."

The two swords rose in salute; the soldiers handled their pikes. Gamboa mounted the platform and saluted Cortes, who appeared in the doorway.

"Sir," the General directed, "you will call additional men and convey the military chests to my quarters. You will mount guard there. I have reason to believe that this room is unsafe."

"Yes, Your Excellency."

Cortes glanced at Pedro. "You are dismissed, Seiior de Vargas. Your men will give a hand in conveying the chests."

"Yes, Your Excellency."

Pedro relayed the order—perhaps his last—to Nino and Navarro.

Dismissed! Gamboa would think nothing, but Pedro caught the dry note in Cortes's voice. Moving off, he watched furtively the transfer of the chests from the room which he had left undefended. Even if he recovered the stolen jewels, he felt that it would be a long time before the black mark against him was canceled.

A seething hatred for the thieves who had used him as a cat's-paw possessed him. If they could fill their dirty pockets, the disgrace or death of Garcia and himself meant nothing to them. Escudero and Cermefio: with every moment, Pedro felt more confident of their guilt. If he accomplished nothing else during his eighteen hours of respite, he vowed that he would make them pay for it.

And yet, practically considered, how? As he turned the problem over, it seemed more hopeless at each new angle. The five emeralds were easy to conceal and would no doubt be carefully hidden. They would not be carried about in the wallets of the thieves, who could expect a hue-and-cry as soon as the loss was discovered. How many men were involved in the robbery? Even if Pedro was right about Escudero and Cermefio, they were possibly in league with others, to whom they could hand on their booty. Or again, they might have acted only as decoys, while the real thief did the work.

But there was no use counting difficulties. Pedro had to follow the first obvious plan and trust to luck. It seemed to him, for lack of any better idea, that he must play the thief himself, gain admittance somehow that night to the suspects' quarters, and search their effects. The dangers of this were too plain to dwell upon; but a condemned man does not need to fear danger.

He knew that Escudero lodged in one of the temple rooms not far from Velasquez, but he was not entirely certain which, and he proceeded at once to reconnoiter. It was now ten o'clock and bedtime, for the army kept early hours even upon nights of celebration. The bridal parties in the captains' quarters had died out, leaving a drowsy aftermath of sound and a few loiterers straggling to their sleeping mats. The angles of the pyramid and of the temple enclosure, sharp in the moonlight, seemed to accentuate the quiet and the emptiness.

Pedro found Lazarillo Varela yawning on the steps of one of the apartment platforms.

"A hot night, Seiior de Vargas. Going to have a look at Juan Garcia? He's sleeping like a stone."

"No, I'm looking for Juan Escudero. Where's his place?"

Varela gave an understanding grin. "Oh, come, sir," he answered. "Nothing happened to Garcia. All's well that ends well. It was only a prank. No use making bad blood over it."

"Just the same, I'd like a word with him. Where's he quartered?"

Varela jerked his head backwards. "In here. There're ten of us together. Only you'll not find him and Cermeilo tonight; they're gone."

"Gone where? What do you mean?"

"Well," smiled Varela, "it may be they thought you'd like a word with them and they took a walk. They weren't waiting for trouble."

"A walk? Where?"

It was absolutely forbidden to leave the temple enclosure. Both for the safety of the army and to protect his Indian allies, Cortes permitted no Spaniards out of the camp.

"To Villa Rica," answered Varela. "They left before Garcia got started."

Pedro flared up. "Don't joke with me, homhre."

"I'm not joking, sir. They got permission from the General. . . . It's something to do with the stores. . . . They got it this afternoon, but stayed on for a part of the fun."

"You mean to tell me that they left at night to walk twelve miles to Villa Rica?"

"Yes, sir. They said it was cooler at night." Varela turned to a soldier who had come up. "Ask Panchito here, if you don't believe me. He's been on duty at the gate."

The sentry nodded. "Yes, we passed them through."

"When?"

"Maybe an hour ago."

Pedro calculated. The time coincided exactly with his absence from the treasure room. They would have had a half hour in which to circle the teocalli from outside and commit the theft. No one could connect them with it, assuming, as they probably had, that the secret doorway remained undiscovered. Likely enough, Pedro's return had been earlier than they expected. This explained the imperfectly closed door, the one saving piece of luck in the whole afTair.

Suspicion of the two men had now become practical certainty; but at the same time Pedro found himself in a worse impasse than before. As long as Escudero and his companion were in Cempoala, he could have made an attempt, at least, to recover the jewels. Villa Rica was

another matter. He was shut up here, while they had every opportunity to dispose of the emeralds as they pleased.

For an instant he thought of turning to Cortes for permission to follow them, but that would be useless. He was under too dark a cloud to be given so obvious a chance of escape. Of course he might accuse Escudero and Cermeno; he might even prevail on Cortes to arrest them tomorrow; and torture might accomplish the rest of it. But they were not unimportant men; they were ringleaders of a faction that Cortes was trying to propitiate. People of that sort were not easily arrested and put to the question, especially not on the word of someone, like Pedro, who was bent on saving his own skin.

No, the upshot was that he must follow them to Villa Rica without permission. Having been condemned on one count, he might as well be condemned on two. His salvation anyhow consisted solely in recovering the emeralds.

These thoughts chased through his mind, as he stood looking vacantly at Panchito and Varela.

"Too bad, sir," grinned the latter. "But believe me it's better as it is. Remember the proverb: Hahlar sin pensar es tirar sin encarar. No use quarreling over a joke which did no harm. You'll feel cooler in the morning."

"Perhaps you're right," Pedro agreed.

He wished them good night and headed apparently toward his quarters; but, keeping in the shadow of the pyramid, he returned to the other side of the plaza, as close as possible to the treasure room. Because of the sentries at the main gate, he realized that the recently discovered secret door was his best, and perhaps his only, means of exit from the temple quarters—provided the room had not yet been padlocked on the courtyard side.

Fortunately the last of the chests had only just been removed; he could see the soldiers lugging it between them toward Cortes's apartment. Meanwhile, the door of the room stood open. Was anyone lingering inside? He would have to chance that. He would also have to chance being seen as he crossed over from the shadow of the pyramid. It could not but strike anyone as odd that de Vargas, having finished his guard duty, should return to the vacant treasure room.

With his heart in his mouth, and a heart-felt Dios lo quiera! on his lips, he took the plunge. . . . The room was empty.

Darting over to the wall, he began once more working at the concealed door. It came easier this time, but even so he heard footsteps approaching as he finally wrenched the panel open. Then, slipping

through, he closed it behind him and sped off down the shadowy side of the street. \

XXXIII

Not a breath stirred the saturated July air between the white-plastered house fronts of Cempoala. By the time Pedro emerged from the Indian city, he was dripping with sweat, and he drew off his doublet before continuing across the cultivated lands circling the town. Cumbered by his sword, he hitched up the baldric that supported it so as to free his legs.

But, however hot, he did not slacken his pace. He reckoned that Escudero and Cermeno had three quarters of an hour start, and he wished to cut down that lead as much as possible before reaching Villa Rica. The question of what he would do after that presented itself, but it was useless to make plans now. He must follow events and improvise when the time came.

A few scattered natives had passed him on the street, but they gave the white man a wide berth. Beyond the town nothing stirred except the creatures of the night. A hothouse perfume of roses and other flowers hung in the air, as Pedro crossed the garden land which supported the population of Cempoala. Then suddenly he was breathing the still hotter incense of the jungle. The track meandered between impenetrable walls reinforced by the interwoven vines of wild grape or convolvuluses. Ferns brushed him as he walked, and the tricky light splashed only here and there through the upper lacework of branches. The quick rustle of small, unseen animals, the occasional plunging of a larger beast, the flutter of awakened birds, echoed the wet sound of his footsteps.

He was grateful for the moonlight, without which walking would have been almost impossible, and he prayed that it might last until he reached the more open country beyond the woods. But he by no means took it for granted. In this season of the rains, it might be shut out at any moment by a black downpour.

Luck favored him, however. He cleared the jungle and had come within sight of an Indian village, pearl-pale on a distant slope, when the moon faded out, the sky darkened, and a deluge, accompanied by lightning and thunder, cut off the view. Fortunately a small wayside temple lay close, and he took refuge there, cursing the delay.

As he stood within the entrance of the shrine, lightning flashes cut across the vertical column of the rain and brought out with momentary distinctness the hideous features of the wooden god looming above the altar. Squatting with bared fangs and glowing eyes, it had all the attributes of Satan gloating over the bowl of penitential blood left by his worshipers. The come-and-go of light and darkness gave an effect of movement to the image. Pedro felt relieved when, as suddenly as it had begun, the rain stopped and the moon flooded out again.

Returning now to the trail, he sloshed on, past the Indian village, over the rolling country beyond, through an occasional stretch of thick woods, but in general downhill as the land sloped toward the coast. At his best speed, he reckoned that he could not make better than three miles an hour along the muddy and uneven path. This meant that he could not reach Villa Rica before two o'clock.

Hour followed hour. He kept hoping for a glimpse of the two men ahead of him, but saw no one. At last, what with the dense air and fatigue, he plodded on mechanically until, roused by a salt-laden breeze, he discovered sand dunes to his right and heard the throb of the sea.

Topping another rise, he could make out the Indian town of Quiauitztlan on its hill and, on the plain beneath, not far from the harbor, the few and unfinished walls of the Spanish fort. In the rays of the waning moon, he could see too the dark hulls of the eleven ships at anchor against the silver dappling on the water.

Having reached his journey's end, the necessity of deciding the next step imposed itself. The sentinel at the gate of the still roofless fort could tell him whether Escudero and his companion had arrived. If they had, he must invent an excuse to explain his own appearance and then sometime before morning attempt to search them. It was probable that they would sleep sound after the long road. He must try to get past the sentinel without their knowing it.

But from the top of the next dune, he noticed something that completely changed his plans and indeed put a stop to any plans at all. He saw a huddle of men on the beach of the harbor, engaged in launching a boat.

Keeping out of sight behind a low dune, he ran toward them as fast as possible, his footsteps muffled by the loose sand. Out of breath, he got to a point not more than fifty yards distant, just as the boat was being steadied through the upwash of the waves.

"All right," came a voice, which he recognized as Germeno's, "let her go."

The speaker was crouching in the stern \vith another man, probably Escudero, beside him. Four seamen, knee-deep in water, who had been steadying the boat, now gave a last shove and scrambled aboard. A moment later thev Were rowins; out.

Helplessly raging, Pedro gazed after it. He had overlooked this possibilit)'. Naturally Cermeiio, as one of the pilots, would sleep on board his ship, the Gallega, and not in the fort. Yes, the Gallega. Pedro saw them pass Alvarado's ship, the Sebastian, and Cortes's capitana; they were making for the small vessel on the extreme right. Manned by Peiiates from Gibraltar, who had been flogged by Cortes in Cozumel Island for stealing salt pork and who hated him in consequence, the sliip was known as a focal point of mutiny. Several of the Velasquez faction had sailed with her.

As the boat dwindled along the pathway of moonlight, Pedro's hopes faded out. He had no means of following it. Inland-bred, he was an indifferent s\vimmer, and besides the waters were shark-infested. It was the end of his quest for the jewels. Unless he could induce Cortes to seize the two men and examine them on no better grounds than his personal convictions, the emeralds were as safe on the Gallega as the worms in her hull.