The comandante surveyed him for a moment, as though still disturbed by the interruption, and then shook his head impatiently.``You can hire a mule from one Pulido Paul, at the corner of the plaza,'' he said.And as MacWilliams still stood uncertainly, he added, ``You say you have come from Los Bocos.Did you meet any one on your way?''
The two younger men looked up at him anxiously, but before he could answer, the instrument began to tick out the signal, and they turned their eyes to it again, and one of them began to take its message down on paper.
The instrument spoke to MacWilliams also, for he was used to sending telegrams daily from the office to the mines, and could make it talk for him in either English or Spanish.So, in his effort to hear what it might say, he stammered and glanced at it involuntarily, and the comandante, without suspecting his reason for doing so, turned also and peered over the shoulder of the man who was receiving the message.Except for the clicking of the instrument, the room was absolutely still; the three men bent silently over the table, while MacWilliams stood gazing at the ceiling and turning his hat in his hands.The message MacWilliams read from the instrument was this: ``They are reported to have left the city by the south, so they are going to Para, or San Pedro, or to Los Bocos.She must be stopped--take an armed force and guard the roads.If necessary, kill her.She has in the carriage or hidden on her person, drafts for five million sols.You will be held responsible for every one of them.Repeat this message to show you understand, and relay it to Los Bocos.If you fail--''
MacWilliams could not wait to hear more; he gave a curt nod to the men and started toward the stairs.``Wait,'' the comandante called after him.
MacWilliams paused with one hand on top of the banisters balancing himself in readiness for instant flight.
``You have not answered me.Did you meet with any one on your ride here from Los Bocos?''
``I met several men on foot, and the mail carrier passed me a league out from the coast, and oh, yes, I met a carriage at the cross roads, and the driver asked me the way of San Pedro Sula.''
``A carriage?--yes--and what did you tell him?''
``I told him he was on the road to Los Bocos, and he turned back and--''
``You are sure he turned back?''
``Certainly, sir.I rode behind him for some distance.He turned finally to the right into the trail to San Pedro Sula.''
The man flung himself across the railing.
``Quick,'' he commanded, ``telegraph to Morales, Comandante San Pedro Sula--''
He had turned his back on MacWilliams, and as the younger man bent over the instrument, MacWilliams stepped softly down the stairs, and mounting his pony rode slowly off in the direction of the capital.As soon as he had reached the outskirts of the town, he turned and galloped round it and then rode fast with his head in air, glancing up at the telegraph wire that sagged from tree-trunk to tree-trunk along the trail.At a point where he thought he could dismount in safety and tear down the wire, he came across it dangling from the branches and he gave a shout of relief.He caught the loose end and dragged it free from its support, and then laying it across a rock pounded the blade of his knife upon it with a stone, until he had hacked off a piece some fifty feet in length.Taking this in his hand he mounted again and rode off with it, dragging the wire in the road behind him.He held it up as he rejoined Clay, and laughed triumphantly.``They'll have some trouble splicing that circuit,'' he said, ``you only half did the work.What wouldn't we give to know all this little piece of copper knows, eh?''
``Do you mean you think they have telegraphed to Los Bocos already?''
``I know that they were telegraphing to San Pedro Sula as I left and to all the coast towns.But whether you cut this down before or after is what I should like to know.''
``We shall probably learn that later,'' said Clay, grimly.
The last three miles of the journey lay over a hard, smooth road, wide enough to allow the carriage and its escort to ride abreast.
It was in such contrast to the tortuous paths they had just followed, that the horses gained a fresh impetus and galloped forward as freely as though the race had but just begun.
Madame Alvarez stopped the carriage at one place and asked the men to lower the hood at the back that she might feel the fresh air and see about her, and when this had been done, the women seated themselves with their backs to the horses where they could look out at the moonlit road as it unrolled behind them.
Hope felt selfishly and wickedly happy.The excitement had kept her spirits at the highest point, and the knowledge that Clay was guarding and protecting her was in itself a pleasure.She leaned back on the cushions and put her arm around the older woman's waist, and listened to the light beat of his pony's hoofs outside, now running ahead, now scrambling and slipping up some steep place, and again coming to a halt as Langham or MacWilliams called, ``Look to the right, behind those trees,'' or ``Ahead there! Don't you see what I mean, something crouching?''
She did not know when the false alarms would turn into a genuine attack, but she was confident that when the time came he would take care of her, and she welcomed the danger because it brought that solace with it.
Madame Alvarez sat at her side, rigid, silent, and beyond the help of comfort.She tortured herself with thoughts of the ambitions she had held, and which had been so cruelly mocked that very morning; of the chivalric love that had been hers, of the life even that had been hers, and which had been given up for her so tragically.When she spoke at all, it was to murmur her sorrow that Hope had exposed herself to danger on her poor account, and that her life, as far as she loved it, was at an end.Only once after the men had parted the curtains and asked concerning her comfort with grave solicitude did she give way to tears.