wrongs are cleverly committed by clever men in his name!'
Ten minutes later, the blind thinker raised his head, sniffed the air, and gestured the girl to pause. Taking her cue from him, she, too, sniffed:
'Perhaps it is the lamp, Just One,' she suggested.
'It is burning oil,' he said. 'But it is not the lamp. It is from far away. Also, have I heard shooting in the canyons.'
'I heard nothing' she began.
'Daughter, you who see have not the need to hear that I have. There have been many shots fired in the canyons. Order my children to investigate and make report.'
Bowing reverently to the old man who could not see but who, by keen-trained hearing and conscious timing of her every muscular action, knew that she had bowed, the young woman lifted the curtain of blankets and passed out into the day. At either side the cave-mouth sat a man of the peon class. Each was armed with rifle and machete, while through their girdles were thrust naked-bladed knives. At the girl's order, both arose and bowed, not to her, but to the command and the invisible source of the command. One of them tapped with the back of his machete against the stone upon which he had been sitting, then laid his ear to the stone and listened. In truth, the stone was but the out— jut of a vein of metalliferous ore that extended across and through the heart of the mountain. And beyond, on the opposite slope, in an eyrie commanding the magnificent panorama of the descending slopes of the Cordilleras, sat another peon who first listened with his ear pressed to similar metalliferous quartz, and next tapped response with his machete. After that, he stepped half a dozen paces to a tall tree, half-dead, reached into the hollow heart of it, and pulled on the rope within as a man might pull who was ringing a steeple bell.
But no sound was evoked. Instead, a lofty branch, fifty feet above his head, sticking out from the main-trunk like a semaphore arm, moved up and down like the semaphore arm it was. Two miles away, on a mountain crest, the branch of a similar semaphore tree replied. Still beyond that, and farther down the slopes, the flashing of a hand-mirror in the sun heliographed the relaying of the blind man's message from the cave. And all that portion of the Cordilleras became voluble with coded speech of vibrating ore-veins, sun-flashings, and waving tree- branches.
While Enrico Sola-no, slenderly erect on his horse as an Indian youth and convoyed on either side by his sons, Alesandro and Kicardo, hanging to his saddle trappings, made the best of the time afforded them by Francis' rearguard battle with the gendarmes, Leoncia, on her mount, and Henry Morgan, lagged behind. One or the other was continually glancing back for the sight of Francis overtaking them. Watching his opportunity, Henry took the backtrail. Five minutes afterward, Leoncia, no less anxious than he for Francis' safety, tried to turn her horse about. But the animal, eager for the companionship of its mate ahead, refused to obey the rein, cut up and pranced, and then deliberately settled into a balk. Dismounting and throwing her reins on the ground in the Panamanian method of tethering a saddle horse, Leoncia took the back trail on foot. So rapidly did she follow Henry, that she was almost treading on his heels when he encountered Francis and the peon. The next moment, both Henry and Francis were chiding her for her conduct; but in both their voices was the involuntary tenderness of love, which pleased neither to hear the other uttering.
Their hearts more active than their heads, they were caught in total surprise by the party of haciendados that dashed out upon them with covering rifles from the surrounding jungle. Despite the fact that they had thus captured the runaway peon, whom they proceeded to kick and cuff, all would have been well with Leoncia and the two Morgans had the owner of the peon, the old-time friend of the Solano family, been present. But an attack of the malarial fever, which was his due every third day, had stretched him out in a chill near the burning oilfield.
Nevertheless, though by their blows they reduced the peon to weepings and pleadings on his knees, the haciendados were courteously gentle to Leoncia and quite decent to Francis and Henry, even though they tied the hands of the latter two behind them in preparation for the march up the ravine slope to where the horses had been left. But upon the peon, with Latin-American cruelty, they continued to reiterate their rage.
Yet were they destined to arrive nowhere, by themselves, with their captives. Shouts of joy heralded the debouchment upon the scene of the Jefe's gendarmes and of the Jefe and Alvarez Torres. Arose at once the rapid- fire, staccato, bastard-Latin of all men of both parties of pursuers, trying to explain and demanding explanation at one and the same time. And while the farrago of all talking simultaneously and of no one winning anywhere in understanding, made anarchy of speech, Torres, with a nod to Francis and a sneer of triumph to Henry, ranged before Leoncia and bowed low to her in true and deep hidalgo courtesy and respect.
'Listen!' he said, low-voiced, as she rebuffed him with an arm movement of repulsion. 'Do not misunderstand me. Do not mistake me. I am here to save you, and, no matter what may happen, to protect you. You are the lady of my dreams. I will die for you yes, and gladly, though far more gladly would I live for you.'
'I do not understand,' she replied curtly. 'I do not see life or death in the issue. We have done no wrong. I have done no wrong, nor has my father. Nor has Francis Morgan, nor has Henry Morgan. Therefore, sir, the matter is not a question of life or death.'
Henry and Francis, shouldering close to Leoncia, on either side, listened and caught through the hubble- bubble of many voices the conversation of Leoncia and Torres.
'It is a question absolute of certain death by execution for Henry Morgan,' Torres persisted. 'Proven beyond doubt is his conviction for the murder of Alfaro Solano, who was your own full-blood uncle and your father's own fullblood brother. There is no chance to save Henry Morgan. But Francis Morgan can I save in all surety, if-'
'If?' Leoncia queried, with almost the snap of jaws of a she-leopard.
'If… you prove kind to me, and marry me,' Torres said with magnificent steadiness, although two Gringos, helpless, their hands tied behind their backs, glared at him through their eyes their common desire for his immediate extinction.
Torres, in a genuine outburst of his passion, though his rapid glances had assured him of the helplessness of the two Morgans, seized her hands in his and urged:
'Leoncia, as your husband I might be able to do something for Henry. Even may it be jpossible for me to save his life and his neck, if he will yield to leaving Panama immediately.'
'You Spanish dog!' Henry snarled at him, struggling with his tied hands behind his back in an effort to free them.
'Gringo cur!' Torres retorted, as, with an open backhanded blow, he struck Henry on the mouth.
On the instant Henry's foot shot out, and the kick in Torres' side drove him staggering in the direction of Francis, who was no less quick with a kick of his own. Back and forth like a shuttlecock between the battledores, Torres was kicked from one man to the other, until the gendarmes seized the two Gringos and began to beat them in their helplessness. Torres not only urged the gendarmes on, but himself drew a knife; and a red tragedy might have happened with offended Latin-American blood up and raging, had not a score or more of armed men silently appeared and silently taken charge of the situation. Some of the mysterious newcomers were clad in cotton singlets and trousers, and others were in cowled gabardines of sackcloth.
The gendarmes and haciendados recoiled in fear, crossing themselves, muttering prayers and ejaculating: 'The Blind Brigand! ''The Cruel Just One! '' They are his people I' 'We are lost.'
But the much-beaten peon sprang forward and fell on his bleeding knees before a stern-faced man who appeared to be the leader of the Blind Brigand's men. From the mouth of the peon poured forth a stream of loud lamentation and outcry for justice.
'You know that justice to which you appeal?' the leader spoke gutturally.
'Yes, the Cruel Justice,' the peon replied. 'I know what it means to appeal to the Cruel Justice, yet do I appeal, for I seek justice and my cause is just.'
'I, too, demand the Cruel Justice!' Leoncia cried with flashing eyes, although she added in an undertone to Francis and Henry: 'Whatever the Cruel Justice is.'
'It will have to go some to be unfairer than the justice we can expect from Torres and the Jefe,' Henry replied in similar undertones, then stepped forward boldly before the cowled leader and said loudly: 'And I demand the Cruel Justice.'
The leader nodded.
'Me, too,' Francis murmured low, and then made loud demand.
The gendarmes did not seem to count in the matter, while the haciendados signified their willingness to abide by whatever justice the Blind Brigand might mete out to them. Only the Jefe objected.
