It was as though she invited him not so much to look into her eyes as through them and on, deep into her heart; as though these were gates, open to him, through which he might glimpse paradise. Zoraida, her look clinging to his pa.s.sionately, was seeking to offer the final argument. The case would have not been plainer had she whispered with her lips: "I, even I, Zoraida, love you! You shall be my master; I your willing slave. What you will, I will also. My beauty shall be yours; my wealth, my estate, my ambitions, my power, all those shall be my lord"s. Of a kingdom which shall be built you shall be king. You shall go far, you shall climb high. All because I, Zoraida, love you!"
She stood there watching him, her eyes burning into his. In her own mind were pictures made, pictures of pride and power and, as a mirror reflects the scene before it, so for a little did Jim Kendric"s mind hold an image of the thing in Zoraida"s. He felt her influence upon him; he felt that odd stirring of the blood; he stared back into her eyes like a man bewildered as pictures rose and swept magnificently by.
He saw the red of her parted lips and heard her soft breathing; for a certain length of time--long or short he had little conception--he was motionless and speechless under her spell.
He stirred restlessly. Those visions conjured up within him, either by Zoraida"s previous words and what had gone before or by the subtle workings of her mind now, were not unbroken. He thought of Twisty Barlow. Barlow had gone to her at the border town hotel; from his own experiences with her Kendric thought that he could imagine how she stood before the sailor, how she talked with him and looked at him, how in the first small point she won over him. He thought of an ancient tale of Circe and the swine. Was he a free man, a man"s man or was he a woman"s plaything? . . . It flashed over him again that it might be that Zoraida was mad. Even now, that he seemed to be reading her inmost soul, was she but playing the siren to his imaginings? Was this some barbaric whim of hers or was she, for the once, sincere? While appearing to be all yielding softness, was she but playing a game?
Would she, at one instant swaying toward a man"s arms, the next whip back from him, laughing at him?
Confused thoughts winging through his chaos of uncertainty held him where he was, his eyes staring at hers. Zoraida might read some of his mind but surely not all. What she realized was that she had offered much, everything, and that he stood, seemingly unmoved and frowned at her. Quick in all her emotions, now suddenly her cheeks flamed and the light in her eyes altered swiftly to blazing anger.
"Go!" she cried, pointing. She leaped to her feet, her eyes flaming.
"By the long vanished Huitzil, I swear that I am of a mind to let those dogs, Rios and Escobar, have their way with you! What! am I Zoraida Castelmar, of a race of kings, daughter of the Montezumas, to have a man stand up before me weighing me in the balance of his two eyes? Go!"
He turned to go, eager to be out in the open air. But as he moved she called out to him:
"Wait! At least I will say my say. You and that fool Barlow came here, into my land, seeking gold. Escobar comes slinking in like a desert wolf on the same errand. Oh, I know something of it as I know something of all that goes forward from end to end of a land that will one day all be mine. Juarez died from Escobar"s knife but his last gasp was for one of my agent"s ears. When you or Barlow or Escobar lay hand on the treasure of the Montezumas, it will be to step aside for the last Montezuma. It will be mine!"
Fury filled her eyes. The hands at her sides clenched until the knuckles shone white through the blaze of her rings. The great cat rose and yawned, showing its glistening teeth and red throat. Its eyes were no more merciless and cruel than its mistress"s. Kendric felt queerly as though he were looking back across dead centuries into ancient Mexico and upon the angry princess of the most cruel of all peoples, the blood-l.u.s.ting Aztecs.
"Go!" she panted.
With one after another of the doors thrown open before him Kendric hurried away.
CHAPTER VII
OF A GIRL HELD FOR RANSOM AND OF A TOAST DRUNK BY ONE INFATUATED
Jim Kendric returned straightway to the rooms allotted to him and Barlow, hoping to find his companion there. They must talk together, they must understand each the other; they must know, and know without delay, just in what and to what lengths friend could count on friend.
To the uttermost, Kendric would have said a week ago. Now he only pondered the matter, recalling that in some ways Barlow did not seem quite the old mate.
He found the rooms empty and threw himself into one of the big chairs to wait. As he regarded the situation it had little enough to recommend itself to a man of his stamp. He had not the least desire to meddle in any way with Mexican revolutionary politics; upheavals would come and come again, no doubt, for thus would a great country in due time work out its own salvation. But it was no affair of his. This fomenting nucleus into which he and Barlow had come was, he estimated, foredoomed to failure and worse; one fine day Ruiz Rios and Fernando Escobar and their outlaw followings would find themselves with their backs to an adobe wall and their faces set toward a line of rifles.
And Zoraida Castelmar had best think upon that, too. For turbulent times had borne women along with men to a quick undoing.
All this was clear to him. But here clarity gave way to groping uncertainty. Less than anything else did he have a stomach for being bottled up in any house in the world, Zoraida"s house least of all, and denied the freedom of the open. It looked as though he, who had never done another man"s command, must now do a girl"s. At call she had fifty, perhaps a hundred retainers, ugly-looking devils all and no lovers of Americans who came unbidden into their country.
"There"s always a way out of a mess like this," he told himself, determined to find it. "But right now I don"t see it."
There was also the lodestone toward which he and Barlow had steered and which had drawn Fernando Escobar. And that amazing creature who coolly laid claim to the royal blood of the Montezumas, laid claim as well to their treasure trove. Just how any of them could make a move toward it without her knowledge baffled him. And hence, more than ever before, did his desire mount to get his own hands on it.
When presently Barlow entered, Kendric looked up at him thoughtfully.
Barlow bore along with him a subdued air of excitement.
"You"ve just left Rios?" asked Kendric.
"Yes." Barlow came in and closed the door, looking quickly and questioningly at his friend. He appeared to hesitate, then said hurriedly: "There are big things ahead, old Headlong! Big!"
"Shoot," answered Kendric sharply. "What"s the play, man?"
Again Barlow hesitated, plainly in doubt just how far Kendric might be in sympathy with him.
"It wouldn"t make you mad to fill your pockets, Headlong, would it?" he asked. "Bulgin" full? And you wouldn"t mind a sc.r.a.p or two and a blow or two in the job, would you?"
"Watch your step, Twisty, old timer," said Kendric. "Rios has been talking revolution to you, has he? Sometimes an uprising down here is a nasty mess that it"s easier to get into than out of again. And, if we get our hooks on the loot that brought us down here, why should we want to mix it with the federal government?"
Barlow began tugging at his forelock.
"I"m up a tree, Jim," he muttered at last. "Clean up a tree."
"Then look out you light on your feet instead of on your head when you decide to come down. It would be easy to make a mistake right now."
"Yes, easy; dead easy.--Old Headlong counseling caution!" Barlow laughed but with little genuine mirth.
"I want a straight talk with you, Twisty," said Kendric soberly. "I for one don"t like the lay-out here and I"m going to break for the open. You and I have fallen among a pack of d.a.m.ned thieves, to draw it mild. It strikes me we"d better understand each other."
"Right!" cried Barlow eagerly. "Let"s talk straight from the shoulder."
But events, or rather Zoraida Castelmar who sought to usurp destiny"s prerogatives here, ruled otherwise. There came a quiet rap at the door, then the voice of one of the housemaids, saying:
"La Senorita Zoraida desires immediately to speak with Senor Barlow."
Barlow, just easing himself into a chair, jumped up.
"Coming," he called.
Kendric, too, sprang up, his hand locking hard upon Barlow"s arm.
"Twisty," he said, "hold on a minute. The house isn"t on fire."
"Well?" Barlow"s impatience glared out of his eyes. "What is it?"
"I"ve got a very large, life-sized suspicion that it would be just as well if you sent back word you couldn"t come. At least, not until we"ve had our talk."
"She said immediately," said Barlow. And then, "You don"t want me to see her? Why?"
"Because, it you want to know, she isn"t good for you. She"ll seek to draw you in on this fool scheme of hers, and if you don"t look out you"ll do just what she says do. There never was a mere woman like her. She"s uncanny, man! She will give you the same line of mad talk she gave me, she will make you the same sorts of offers----"
"You"ve seen her then? Tonight? While I was out with Rios you were with her?"
"Yes. And not because I found any pleasure in her company, either."
Barlow jerked free, laughing his disbelief, his look at once unpleasant and suspicious.
"Tell that to the marines," he jeered. He threw the door open and went out. In the hall Kendric could hear his steps sounding quick and eager. Kendric returned to his chair, perplexed. Then again he sprang up, throwing out his hands, shaking his shoulders as though to rid them of a troublesome weight.
"Too much thinking isn"t good for a man," he told himself lightly.
"The game"s made; let her roll!"