“Another damned double-crosser in the camp. Gave him liquor. Got their heads together while we were inside. Tie him.”
“But, Soames,” the Frenchman hesitated, “if we have to fight, it is not well to have half of us helpless, non. Perhaps Starrett he did nothing—”
“If we have to fight, two men will do as well as three,” said Soames. “I ain’t goin’ to let this thing slip through my fingers, Danc’. I don’t think we’ll have to do any fightin’. If they come, I think it’s goin’ to be a tradin’ job. Starrett’s turnin’ traitor, too. Tie him, I say.”
“Well, I don’t like it—” began Dancret; Soames made an impatient motion with his automatic; the little Frenchman went to the tent, returned with a coil of rope, and sidled up to Starrett.
“Put up your hands,” ordered Soames. Starrett swung them up. But in mid-swing they closed on Dancret, lifted him like a doll and held him between himself and the gaunt New Englander.
“Now shoot, damn you!” he cried, and bore down on Soames, meeting every move of his pistol arm with Dancret’s wriggling body. His own right hand swept down to the Frenchman’s belt, drew from the holster his automatic, leveled it over the twisting shoulder at Soames.
“Drop your gun, Yank,” grinned Starrett, triumphantly. “Or shoot if you want. But before your bullet’s half through Dancret here, by Christ, I’ll have you drilled clean.”
There was a momentary, sinister silence—it was broken by a sudden pealing of tiny golden bells.
Their chiming cleft through the murk of murder that had fallen on the camp; lightened it; dissolved it as the sunshine does a cloud. Soames’ pistol dropped; Starrett’s iron grip upon Dancret relaxed.
Through the trees, not a hundred yards away, came Suarra.
A cloak of green covered the girl from neck almost to slender feet. In her hair gleamed a twisted string of emeralds. Bandlets of gold studded with the same gems circled her wrists and ankles. Behind her a snow-white llama paced, sedately. There was a broad golden collar around its neck from which dropped strands of little golden bells. At each of its silvery sides a pannier hung, woven it seemed from shining yellow rushes.
And there was no warrior host around her. She had brought neither avengers nor executioners. At the llama’s side was a single attendant, swathed in a voluminous robe of red and yellow, the hood of which covered his face. His only weapon was a long staff, vermilion. He was bent, and he fluttered and danced as he came on, taking little steps backward and forward—movements that carried the suggestion that his robes clothed less a human being than some huge bird. They drew closer, and Graydon saw that the hand that clutched the staff was thin and white with the transparent pallor of old, old age.
He strained at his bonds, a sick horror at his heart. Why had she come back—like this? Without strong men to guard her? With none but this one ancient? And decked in jewels and gold? He had warned her; she could not be ignorant of what threatened her. It was as though she had come thus deliberately—to fan the lusts from which she had most to fear.
“Diable!” whispered Dancret—“the emeralds!”
“God—what a girl!” muttered Starrett, thick nostrils distended, a red flicker in his eyes.
Soames said nothing, perplexity and suspicion replacing the astonishment with which he had watched the approach. Nor did he speak as the girl and her attendants halted close beside him. But the doubt in his eyes grew, and he scanned the path along which they had come, searching every tree, every bush. There was no sign of movement, no sound.
“Suarra!” cried Graydon, despairingly, “Suarra, why did you return?”
She stepped over to him, and drew a dagger from beneath her cloak. She cut the thongs binding him to the tree. She slipped the blade beneath the cords that fettered his wrists and ankles; freed him. He staggered to his feet.
“Was it not well for you that I did come?” she asked, sweetly.
Before he could answer, Soames strode forward. And Graydon saw that he had come to some decision, had resolved upon some course of action. He made a low, awkward, mocking bow to the girl; then spoke to Graydon.
“All right,” he said, “you can stay loose—as long as you do what I want you to. The girl’s back and that’s the main thing. She seems to favor you a lot, Graydon. I reckon that gives us a way to persuade her to answer our questions. Yes, sir, and you favor her. That’s useful, too. I reckon you won’t want to be tied up an’ watch certain things happen to her, eh—” he leered at Graydon. “But there’s just one thing you’ve got to do if you want things to go along peaceable. Don’t do any talkin’ to her when I ain’t close by. Remember, I know the Aymara as well as you do. And I want to be right alongside listenin’ in all the time, do you see? That’s all.”
He turned to Suarra.
“Your visit has brought great happiness, maiden,” he spoke in the Aymara. “It will not be a short one, if we have our way—and I think we will have our way—” There was covert menace in the phrase, yet if she noted it she gave no heed. “You are strange to us, as we must be to you. There is much for us each to learn, one of the other.”
“That is true,” she answered, tranquilly. “I think though that your desire to learn of me is much greater than mine to learn of you—since, as you surely know, I have had one not too pleasant lesson.” She glanced at Starrett.
“The lessons,” he said, “shall be pleasant—or not pleasant, as you choose.”
This time there was no mistaking the menace in the words, nor did Suarra again let it pass. Her eyes blazed sudden wrath.
“Better not to threaten!” she warned. “I, Suarra, am not used to threats—and if you will take my counsel you will keep them to yourself hereafter!”
“Yeah, is that so?” Soames took a step toward her, face grown grim and ugly. There came a dry chuckling from the hooded figure in red and yellow. Suarra started; her wrath vanished, she became friendly once more.
“I was hasty,” she said to Soames. “Nevertheless, it is never wise to threaten unless you know the strength of what it is you menace. And remember—of me you know nothing. Yet I know all that you wish to learn. You wish to know how I came by this—and this—and this—” she touched her coronal, her bracelet, her anklets. “You wish to know where they came from, and if there are more of them there, and if so, how you may possess yourself of as much as you can carry away. Well, you shall know all that. I have come to tell you.”
At this announcement, so frank and open, all the doubt and suspicion returned to Soames. Again his eyes narrowed and he searched the trail up which Suarra had come.
“Soames,” Dancret gripped his arm, and his voice and hand were both shaking, “the baskets on the llama. They’re not rushes—they’re gold, pure gold, pure soft gold, woven like straw! Diable! Soames, what have we struck!”
Soames’s eyes glittered.
“Better go over and watch where they came up, Danc’,” he answered. “I don’t quite get this. It looks too cursed easy to be right. Take your rifle and squint out from the edge of the trees while I try to get down to what’s what.”
“There is nothing to fear,”
