Читать книгу A Thousand Miles an Hour - Herbert Strang - Страница 6

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BOLA drove the Irishman's canoe on until he brought it alongside that in which Juan stood.

"You'll leave this to me, boys," Heneky had said as they approached: "if you please of course. I'm more than double your age, I guess, and have maybe ten times your experience, and I've a notion of putting a question or two to that half-breed"

"We'll be only too glad," said Derrick. "I never liked the fellow."

Heneky gave a few sharp words of command to the occupants of the other two canoes in their own dialect. Without hesitation they paddled to the left bank of the river, and kept their craft stationary by holding on to overhanging branches.

"Now you," Heneky went on in English, addressing Juan: "slide yourself into this canoe, and be quick about it."

The man looked darkly at the speaker as if meditating a refusal; it was probably a dangerous glint in the Irishman's eyes, and the set of his square jaw, that prompted obedience. He threw a leg over the side of his own canoe into the other, and slid to the bottom; whereupon Heneky ordered the Indians in the craft he had left to join their companions, while Bola paddled just sufficiently to prevent the lighter vessel from drifting down on the tide.

"Now then, you'll tell me a thing or two," Heneky went on. "You left these gentlemen when they were hunting tapir yesterday, and I'll have ye tell me why."

"I will tell, sure," said the man glibly. "I was behind; they go too fast; I lose sight of them. All at once, presto, I am attacked by wild Indians. What can I? I run quick, as quick as I can; they run after me; how can I escape? I cry for help: there is none to hear; I run; they howl like wolves. I stop; I turn and fire at them through the trees; ah! that is good; they wait; I run again, but they come still after me. Yet I run more quick, for it is my life I save, and I come at last to the camp, and then-yes, they are cowards; they come no more; they go back: I am safe."

"And then?" asked Heneky curtly.

"Ah! Then I wait for the señores. It grows dark; I have great fears; are the señores alive? I know not; I wait; if they are alive, they come back, sure. But they come not back; all the night I shake with fear; in the morning, I think, they will come. But they come not: the Indians have killed them; all the men say so; what use to wait more? We must make ourselves safe; and so!"

"And the machinery you dumped in the river?" "The men; the lazy men! They say the load too heavy for us to go quick, and so!"

The man had spoken with apparent candour, his arms working like a marionette's. Heneky nodded, pressed his lips tightly together, then ordered Bola to paddle to the trees under which the other canoes lay. Throwing a quick glance over the dark faces of their crews, Heneky picked out, as he afterwards explained, the most intelligent-looking of the men, and held a short conversation with him in his own language. While the Indian was speaking, Derrick noticed that Juan grew more and more uneasy. He scowled, bit his lips, looked around as though searching for a refuge. Heneky's face was expressionless. Presently he turned to Juan.

"Give me your rifle," he said, and as Juan hesitated, the Irishman, with a sudden movement, drew the strap over his head. He examined the barrel. Again he spoke to the Indian, asking two or three brief questions, each of which the man answered in a word.

"Get back into your dug-out," said Heneky curtly.

Juan held out his hand for his rifle.

"No, I'll keep that," said the Irishman. "And don't try to get away, or maybe you'll get a bullet in your back."

He ordered Bola to let the canoe drift a few yards downstream, then once more to bring it to rest under a tree, out of earshot.

"That's a grand liar of yours," he said to the boys. "You heard him say he fired at the Indians that were chasing him? Well, his rifle's as clean as clean. I asked that Indian fellow which of the crew cleaned it. 'None of them,' says he. I asked if Juan had cleaned it himself. He had not, says the man. The rifle had not been fired at all. And what's more, the story he told us is not what he told your crews. He told them that he'd seen ye killed in the forest. And he didn't wait for darkness, but dropped downstream at once to the fork, and spent the night under the bank of this very river. A grand liar! 'Twas he that ordered the men to throw your machinery overboard."

"But what on earth is the fellow's motive?" asked Derrick. "What has he to gain?"

"Indeed that's what's puzzling me," said Heneky. "Have ye an enemy in your parts?" he asked Pedro. "Among the mine-owners, I mean."

"No. There's no other mine anywhere near us; no neighbours at all for a good many miles."

"It came into my head that if ye'd an enemy he might have bought this fellow to lose your machinery for you. But 'tis worse than that. The man misled you, for 'tis this arm of the river you ought to have taken yesterday, not t'other: he knew that well enough. And 'tis clear he'd have been delighted to lose the two of you, and indeed thought he had lost you. I'd be after calling him a murderer as well as a liar."

"I never liked him, but I can hardly believe that," said Derrick.

"I could believe anything of him," said Pedro, warm with indignation. "You don't know the half-breeds as I do. Not that they are all blackguards, of course, but when they are bad they are-horrid isn't strong enough. Yet, like you, I can't see any motive for the wretch's villainy. It's clear we can't trust him an inch farther; what are we to do with him?"

"I say turn him adrift in the forest," said Heneky bluntly, "I'd serve him as he wished to serve you. 'Tis the law of the jungle."

"We can't do that," said Derrick.

"I don't see why not," said Pedro. "It's not English, but out here—"

"You don't really mean it, old chap," said Derrick. "It's not cricket: you went to school in England, and know that. Why shouldn't we hand him over to the Bolivian authorities nearest your place?"

"Indeed and you're a tenderfoot," said Heneky, with a slight smile. "Bolivian authorities, begore! I've had some dealings with the Bolivian officials, and sorra a bit of justice ye'll get out of them, except maybe you buy it. Besides, what'll ye charge the fellow with? He's a liar; well, all men are that, as one said of old. He could tell a plausible story, one that would go down well with your Bolivian officials. No, indeed; turn him out to grass, that's my advice to ye."

"Quite impossible," said Derrick. "And I want to fathom the man's motive. If your suspicions are well founded, there's something behind all this, and it's mere self-interest to keep a hold of the man until we know more."

"And there's truth in that," Heneky admitted. "Well then, you and me are not to part company yet awhile, for I wouldn't feel easy to leave such lambs unprotected. I must see you safe to the end of your journey."

"But we should be giving you trouble-taking you out of your way."

"Trouble! 'Tis what a man's born to. My way! My way's every way. Roving Pat they call me-them as knows. But if ye don't want me, sure ye've only to say the word: Pat Heneky will not force his company on any mortal soul."

"Of course we shall be delighted, shan't we, Pedro?" said Derrick. "We couldn't wish for anything better, only we owe you so much already."

"Indeed 'tis a trifle," said Heneky. "And believe you me, there's a fate in it. 'Tis appointed I am to be your guide."

"Thank you ever so much. And you'll take command? The Indians will obey you."

"I'll not be surprised if they will," said the Irishman, complacently. "So we'll set off now, and first retrieve your machinery-a job for Juan. Them as lose can find."

Returning to the stationary canoes, Heneky told the men curtly that they were to paddle back to their encampment of the previous day. As if by an afterthought, he ordered Juan to take one of the paddles.

"But it is not the work for me," the man protested hotly. "I am-I am a gentleman. I do no work of Indians."

"Indeed now, 'tis not so dirty as all that. And I'll be telling you, Mister Juan, you'll do as I bid you, and without grumbling, or I'll put you ashore by your lone self. Make up your mind to it."

The half-breed's eyes darted venom, but he picked up the paddle in sullen silence, and when the word was given to go, plunged it with a vicious dig into the water.

Heneky sent the dug-outs in line ahead, Juan being in the one immediately in front of the birch-bark canoe, which Bola paddled alone. It was a quick run downstream to the fork, but when they turned into the northern branch, and had to contend with the full force of the current, the heavier craft made slow progress. Juan, who had quite truthfully said that he was unused to work commonly done by the natives, was soon sweating freely, and began to flag.

"'Tis my notion of a gentleman that he won't be beat by them as haven't got blood to boast of," remarked Heneky drily. "Put your back into it, Mister; you're blocking the traffic. You ought to set an example to my poor Indian; he has not had your advantages, indeed he has not. But he's too polite to pass you; and what's more, I wouldn't dream of leaving you behind; so dig your paddle deep, Mister; the sooner we're upstream, the sooner we'll be down again."

Goaded by the Irishman's sarcastic admonitions, Juan plied his paddle with as much vigour as he was capable of, and earned by and by a word of patronising approval.

Arriving at the place where the packages of machinery had been thrown overboard, the men were set to haul them out of the bed of the stream. Juan sat down on the bank, and began to wipe his hot face with the sleeve of his shirt.

"No, no, that won't do at all," said Heneky, who had stepped on to the bank with the boys. "'Twas a little mistake, to be sure; an error of judgment which I'm sure you are sorry for, like a gentleman; and so you'll lend these poor ignorant fellows a hand."

"I will not," retorted the half-breed savagely. "I melt; my arms have pain; see, on my hands are blisters. I do no more."

He folded his arms and dug his feet resolutely into the soft earth. Heneky quickly moved to a tree nearby, and taking his knife from his belt, cut a stout switch from a low-lying branch. Then, swishing it through the air, he returned and stood over the seated man.

"Now, you treacherous hound!" he said in Spanish, not raising his voice. "You owe your life to these young men whose destruction you plotted. I would have put you ashore to meet the fate you intended for them. They had mercy on you. But now you must work. You dumped that stuff in the river, and by all the saints you shall help to haul it out. Ah! you would!"

Juan had made a quick snatch at his belt, from which the haft of a long knife protruded. Heneky, by nature a man of slow and deliberate movement, now showed himself capable of extraordinarily rapid action. The switch in his hand hissed through the air and fell unerringly on Juan's fingers as they closed on the haft. The man let out a yell of pain and rage; the knife dropped to the ground. At the same moment Heneky grasped him by the collar and hauled him to his feet; then, holding him at arm's length, in spite of furious struggles punctuated by screams and oaths, he silently dealt him half a dozen cuts on the back with all the strength of an exceedingly muscular arm. Without loosing his grip on his writhing victim, he quietly asked:

"More?"

For a moment the man made no reply. Fear and hate contended in his distorted face. Then, swallowing in his throat, he breathed out a sullen "No!"

"Then set about your job," said Heneky, releasing him. At the same time he kicked the knife far into the river.

Juan stood for a moment with fists clenched, his features quivering. Then, without waiting to pull off his boots, he splashed into the water, and with frenzied energy began to lug the heavy packages from their muddy resting-place.