Part 27 (1/2)

”But who are you, then?” asked the girl. ”Listen. They are shouting through the house. Soon they will be making a search from room to room.”

Jack started. If that were true, when the searchers came to this locked door, what would happen? He thought for a moment. The daring idea to take the girl into his confidence and enlist her aid had been budding in his mind. He regarded her keenly for the first time. Would she help? Perhaps the romantic nature of his enterprise would appeal to her, even though he was fighting against her father. Well, it would do no harm to try.

”You asked who I am,” he said, ”and why I am here. Well, I shall tell you.”

And speaking rapidly in his fluent Spanish, in a few brief statements, he laid before her the main fact that Mr. Hampton, whom she doubtless knew, was his father, and that he had come to the rescue in an airplane.

”Only now,” he concluded mournfully, ”I have been discovered. I expect my chum will be forced to fly away. And it looks as if I were bound to fail.”

During his recital, the girl's eyes had grown bright with interest.

She leaned forward, listening with eager attention. As Jack ceased, apparently she was about to speak, but there came a tattoo of knuckles on the door which caused her to halt abruptly.

”Our deliverers,” murmured Donna Ana, who had never entirely ceased trembling, and she cast a spiteful glance at Jack. To the duenna, young men, and especially one so unceremonious, were terrible creatures.

”Silence,” hissed the girl, and the old duenna in evident fear of her imperious young mistress, trembled the more.

”Quick,” whispered Rafaela to Jack, ”get under here.”

Rising, she seized him by an arm and partly led, partly pushed him to the chair upon which she had been sitting. It was a wicker chair, with wicker-latticed sides extending clear to the floor. Lifting it, she ordered Jack to kneel down and crouch into as small a s.p.a.ce as possible. He complied. Then she clapped the chair over him. He was completely hidden, except in front, where the wicker latticing did not extend.

Seating herself calmly in the chair, Rafaela so disposed her skirts that Jack could not be seen. Then she picked up her pen and sat as if just interrupted at her writing.

The knocking on the door was repeated, louder this time, and the voice of the Don himself impatiently bade that the door be opened.

Bending low so that Jack could hear her words, the girl whispered:

”Have no fear. Trust me.”

To the duenna, she said:

”Open the door. And if you betray me----”

And she shot at Donna Ana a terrible glance, which caused the latter to cringe. Evidently, the duenna stood in considerable awe of her temperamental young mistress.

The old woman unlocked the door and stepped back, revealing on the threshold Don Fernandez with several armed retainers at his back.

”What does this mean?” he demanded, glaring at his daughter as he advanced a step or two into the room. ”Locked doors at so early an hour?”

”Why, papa, dear, we heard the shouts and several revolver shots,”

said his daughter. ”Was it not natural for two lone women to lock their door?”

”Humm!”

The Don glanced quickly about the room.

”Papa, what is the matter? What is the meaning of all this noise? Of those shots?” Rafaela anxiously inquired.

”Some man impersonating one of my lieutenants gained entrance,” said the Don. ”I believe him a government agent. He may have come to attempt my life.”