For a moment there was anger in his face, and then it died out, leaving it curiously bleak and pale.
“I think that is a fair retort, Miss Dasent,” he said, and resumed his sombre constitutional.
Archie returned very early next day, not in the small Shark-Gladas, which was his usual means of travelling, but in one of the big Seaforths which were meant for bombing and load-carrying.
“I want to see Castor,” he told Barbara. “I think he liked Janet, and he can help a lot. I’ve told Hamilton to report here in an hour, for there isn’t much time to lose.”
The three sat in the mess-hut. The Gobernador had recovered his trimness of bearing, but the almost insolent detachment which had hitherto characterised him seemed to have gone. His air was restless, and his voice, when he spoke, had a sharper pitch. There was something angrily defensive in his manner, something uncertain in the eyes which searched the others’ faces.
“I want your help, sir,” Archie said in his new, quiet, toneless voice. “You and my wife were friends, and I don’t think you want her to come to any harm.”
“Help,” Castor broke out. “You make me impotent and then ask my help! I did not start this business. I am the victim of your absurdities. You have plunged this land into a war directed against myself. I am your prisoner, though you call me your leader. You have brought me into a world which is utterly unfamiliar. I have no mastery in it. I am accustomed to organise and govern, but I cannot organise the confusion you call war. I am a reasonable man, and this is the domain of the wildest unreason… Then the crash comes, and you ask my help. You fools! You have made me more powerless than the rudest vaquero.”
“I know, I know,” said Archie soothingly. “I have no business to ask you for favours, but I don’t think you will refuse all the same. You see, it is your old organisation that we have to fear, not the Olifa army. I do not think you want Janet to suffer at their hands.”
“You have evidence?”
“A little. Enough to act upon.”
“But I cannot control them. I am cut off… “
“No. But you can give me the benefit of your knowledge. Listen, sir. Our Intelligence have their own sources of news, and they are positive that Janet is not in Olifa. How they know I cannot tell, but we have never found them wrong. Further, they say that there are none of the Conquistadors or the Bodyguard now in Olifa. We may take it that the raiders belonged to one or the other. That is your own view, I think. Now, what facts have we? She was carried off in a launch—that we know. If she was not taken to Olifa, she may be hidden somewhere along the coast. That is possible, but not very likely—for two reasons. The first is that our own people know the coast, and my information is that there is no place on the whole line of shore under the mountains where any permanent camp could be made. If they landed Janet, it could only be for a day or a night—it can’t be her final destination. The same is true of the low coastland farther south between the hills and Olifa, where there are nothing but malarial swamps. Janet may be there, but it is not likely, because of my second reason. Whoever carried her off wanted her for in purpose. They came for you, and took her instead, and they can only have taken her as a hostage. To use her as such she must have been taken to some place in touch with the Olifa army, and that must mean either Olifa or the Gran Seco plateau.”
“But how could she reach the Gran Seco except by Olifa?”
“It is only a guess, but yesterday afternoon Peters reported from Pacheco that a plane had been seen flying eastward. It was marked like our own planes, and was flying high. Enemy planes are not allowed in that quarter, and, seeing it bore our own markings, no further notice was taken of it. But it was observed that it was a sea-plane, and since up to yesterday our army had no sea-planes, and Peters knew that, he thought it worth while to mention the fact.”
“Well?”
“We have no sea-planes. That plane was not ours, though it pretended to be. It may have been Lossberg’s, in which case he has diddled us. But I am inclined to think it was somebody else’s. Janet was carried off in a launch. Why should not her captors somewhere out at sea have arranged for a sea-plane to meet them?”
Castor rose and walked to the big wall map.
“Show me the exact spot where the sea-plane was seen,” he said.
Archie pointed with his finger.
“It was flying east?”
“East with a point of south.”
“It was undoubtedly D’Ingraville. I think you are right, Sir Archibald. D’Ingraville met the launch and he has taken your wife with him.”
“Where? Can you help me to that?”
Castor looked at the map again.
“It is the direction of the Pais de Venenos. You have heard of it?”
Archie nodded. “That was my own guess. Tell me more, sir.”
“I can tell you very little. I have been there, but once only, and long ago. My colleagues, whom you call the Conquistadors, know it well. D’Ingraville, especially, and Pasquali. And Romanes—above all Romanes, who should by now have returned from Europe… There is a drug there which they depend upon.” The Gobernador spoke hesitatingly, like a man loath to divulge something of which he is scarcely proud.
“I know about astura. I am told that without it they will die.”
“No—not die—not at once. But they will be unhappy. I have always believed that the Conquistadors would make some violent effort to replenish their supply. They will attempt to open up communications with the Pais Venenos.”
“You think they have gone there—with Janet?”
“I do not think that. It is not a place where which men can dwell. The Conquistadors perhaps—they are immune—but not the Bodyguard. Besides, I do not think a plane could land there, for it is a desperate country of gorges and forests. Somewhere adjacent, perhaps—from which the Pais could be visited.”
Archie was on his feet, striding about excitedly.
“Somewhere adjacent!” he cried, and his voice was harsh with pain. “But where? There are thousands of miles of unexplored country. Somewhere where a plane could land—the sea-plane may have an under-carriage… That must be in the hills. But Peters has all the Pacheco country patrolled, and beyond that the mountains rise like a wall… If only I could get Luis, but Luis has disappeared on some job of his own… Things aren’t going too well with us at the moment, you know. We’re terribly short of supplies, and Lossberg is getting cautious and won’t stick out his head to let us hit it… You’ve told me all you can think of. Excellency? Well, I’m off. Hamilton should be here to report.”
Outside the door stood Geordie Hamilton, the same stocky, impassive figure that had stumped heavily through four years of fighting in France, his blue eyes looking sullenly forth from a mahogany face.
“You’re coming with me, Hamilton,” said Archie. “Got your kit? Full marching order. We don’t know when we will be back.”
“Where are you going?” Castor asked.
“To look for Janet.” The young man’s face seemed to Barbara to have regained a kind of peace. He would not return alone. Moved by a sudden impulse, she kissed his cheek.
“Thank you, Babs dear,” he said. Then he held out his hand to Castor. “Good-bye, I think you wish me well, sir.”
It was the first time that any of the party had shaken hands with the Gobernador.
IX
The