第62章

The President's travelling carriage was a double-seated diligence covered with heavy hoods and with places on the box for two men.

Only one of the coachmen, the same man who had driven the State carriage from the review, had remained at the stables.As he knew the roads to Los Bocos, Clay ordered him up to the driver's seat, and MacWilliams climbed into the place beside him after first storing three rifles under the lap-robe.

Hope pulled open the leather curtains of the carriage and found Madame Alvarez where the men had laid her upon the cushions, weak and hysterical.The girl crept in beside her, and lifting her in her arms, rested the older woman's head against her shoulder, and soothed and comforted her with tenderness and sympathy.

Clay stopped with his foot in the stirrup and looked up anxiously at Langham who was already in the saddle.

``Is there no possible way of getting Hope out of this and back to the Palms?'' he asked.

``No, it's too late.This is the only way now.'' Hope opened the leather curtains and looking out shook her head impatiently at Clay.``I wouldn't go now if there were another way,'' she said.``I couldn't leave her like this.''

``You're delaying the game, Clay,'' cried Langham, warningly, as he stuck his spurs into his pony's side.

The people in the diligence lurched forward as the horses felt the lash of the whip and strained against the harness, and then plunged ahead at a gallop on their long race to the sea.As they sped through the gardens, the stables and the trees hid them from the sight of those in the palace, and the turf, upon which the driver had turned the horses for greater safety, deadened the sound of their flight.

They found the gates of the botanical gardens already opened, and Clay, in the street outside, beckoning them on.Without waiting for the others the two outriders galloped ahead to the first cross street, looked up and down its length, and then, in evident concern at what they saw in the distance, motioned the driver to greater speed, and crossing the street signalled him to follow them.At the next corner Clay flung himself off his pony, and throwing the bridle to Langham, ran ahead into the cross street on foot, and after a quick glance pointed down its length away from the heart of the city to the mountains.

The driver turned as Clay directed him, and when the man found that his face was fairly set toward the goal he lashed his horses recklessly through the narrow street, so that the murmur of the mob behind them grew perceptibly fainter at each leap forward.

The noise of the galloping hoofs brought women and children to the barred windows of the houses, but no men stepped into the road to stop their progress, and those few they met running in the direction of the palace hastened to get out of their way, and stood with their backs pressed against the walls of the narrow thoroughfare looking after them with wonder.

Even those who suspected their errand were helpless to detain them, for sooner than they could raise the hue and cry or formulate a plan of action, the carriage had passed and was disappearing in the distance, rocking from wheel to wheel like a ship in a gale.Two men who were so bold as to start to follow, stopped abruptly when they saw the outriders draw rein and turn in their saddles as though to await their coming.

Clay's mind was torn with doubts, and his nerves were drawn taut like the strings of a violin.Personal danger exhilarated him, but this chance of harm to others who were helpless, except for him, depressed his spirit with anxiety.He experienced in his own mind all the nervous fears of a thief who sees an officer in every passing citizen, and at one moment he warned the driver to move more circumspectly, and so avert suspicion, and the next urged him into more desperate bursts of speed.In his fancy every cross street threatened an ambush, and as he cantered now before and now behind the carriage, he wished that he was a multitude of men who could encompass it entirely and hide it.

But the solid streets soon gave way to open places, and low mud cabins, where the horses' hoofs beat on a sun-baked road, and where the inhabitants sat lazily before the door in the fading light, with no knowledge of the changes that the day had wrought in the city, and with only a moment's curious interest in the hooded carriage, and the grim, white-faced foreigners who guarded it.

Clay turned his pony into a trot at Langham's side.His face was pale and drawn.

As the danger of immediate pursuit and capture grew less, the carriage had slackened its pace, and for some minutes the outriders galloped on together side by side in silence.But the same thought was in the mind of each, and when Langham spoke it was as though he were continuing where he had but just been interrupted.

He laid his hand gently on Clay's arm.He did not turn his face toward him, and his eyes were still peering into the shadows before them.``Tell me?'' he asked.

``He was coming up the stairs,'' Clay answered.He spoke in so low a voice that Langham had to lean from his saddle to hear him.

``They were close behind; but when they saw her they stopped and refused to go farther.I called to him to come away, but he would not understand.They killed him before he really understood what they meant to do.He was dead almost before Ireached him.He died in my arms.'' There was a long pause.``Iwonder if he knows that?'' Clay said.

Langham sat erect in the saddle again and drew a short breath.

``I wish he could have known how he helped me,'' he whispered, ``how much just knowing him helped me.''

Clay bowed his head to the boy as though he were thanking him.

``His was the gentlest soul I ever knew,'' he said.

``That's what I wanted to say,'' Langham answered.``We will let that be his epitaph,'' and touching his spur to his horse he galloped on ahead and left Clay riding alone.