Show 0 UNDER PRESSURE 0 george agnew chamberlain by george agnew chamberlain I tat arvic 0 40 ad 6 ad CHAPTER IX 10 helm blackadder was already closeted with the ambassador who opened the interview by handing over a resume written in his own hand of the situation to date there you are mr blackadder and I 1 don t mind saying miss sew ell s escapade has managed to put the united states government as represented by my unfortunate self in a nasty hole you asked us for assistance I 1 now return the corn com aliment by calling upon you to help me out how asked blackadder that s the very question I 1 was going to put to you he said you have all the facts what do you suggests 9 find me a car and a man who knows the way to la barranca once I 1 get in there ill I 1 U guarantee to bring the girl out on what grounds do you intend to base your action she s a minor and authority has been delegated to me by her legal guardian said blackadder as though he were reciting a lesson you re sure she s under age interpolated the ambassador acx bously you probably know the laws of the state of new york better than 1 I do A girl becomes of age at eighteen for certain purposes and at twenty one for others I 1 in will ing to risk an assumption good enough said the ambas eador with a nod I 1 can t offer you an embassy car but ill have the town searched at once for a good one owned by somebody well ac quain quainter ted with the roads and the lo 10 cation of the hacienda when could you start at dawn tomorrow said black adder I 1 d go tonight but I 1 doubt if we d gain much time and it won t do me any harm to get some sleep he named his hotel and left the embassy at the exact moment ar naldo half across the city was be ing shown into the private study of the minister of war adan my friend exclaimed the minister holding out both hands arnaldo dodged the embrace but grinned showing a gleam of white teeth how much is it going to cost me he asked from the welcome ill I 1 U bet it runs into thou sands you ve guessed it said the mm min ister but the wrong way round thousands for you I 1 cant can t believe it spread the map sit down and I 1 will it s a mat ter of buying off a young girl at anything up to 50 you might talk her into signing for 30 20 or 10 with your tongue and looks you might get her to do it for nothing however you manage it the balance is yours and no questions asked adan turned his head in a pe culiar gesture of alertness who s the girl what s her she s a young american boize sewell arnaldo threw out his hands and rose you re too late too late by a lot of hours why what do you know about it she went to la barranca a cou pie of days ago how long would it take dorado to cook her goose figure it out for yourself dorado I 1 gasped the minister stifling a laugh apparently you haven t read this morning s pa pers he thrust forward the same newspaper clipping he had shown the ambassador cast your eye over that arnaldo read the single para graph his expression changing at almost every line when he reached the end he burst into a roar of laughter pepe of all people you think it its s funny said the minister funny it s so funny I 1 in going to have sore ribs for the rest of my life he folded the clipping and put it in his wallet and marga rida fonseca told me the girl had gone to plead with him to throw herself on his mercy margarida Mar ganda Fon fonseca secal 1 cried the minister suddenly going tense and leaning forward sure and what of it ita the minister sank back the plot gets thicker he explained and when I 1 say plot I 1 mean plot but I 1 begin to see the light and by it the finger of onelia the time has come for you to declare your self which are you for him or mea me you said adan A d a n promptly now tell me what it s all about after ten minutes talk the mm min ister picked up a signed slip of pa per and read its contents aloud As minister of war and with the consent of my government I 1 guar antee the payment of an amount not to exceed 50 in case the seno nta rita joyce sewell daughter and heir of cutler sewell signs a quitclaim to the property known as la bar ranca aranca and leaves the republic of mexico within two weeks of the date hereof he passed it to arnaldo and asked with pardonable pride you notice the simple wording whoever brings in the quitclaim together with this order gets the money provided the girl has left mex ico yes yes of course we don t care to have the job ob of expelling her but once she s across the bor der we 11 undertake to see she doesn doean t come back what about it adana t it look like easy money moneys on the face of it said arnaldo slowly it does too easy where s the catch for a man like you and with your resources said the minister there s no catch whatever there can t be what s your answer will you take it on or nota adan stood staring at the paper in his hand without seeing it go he declared finally they shook hands and he started out but before he reached the door the telephone rang with such in sis tency he paused A moment lat er the minister was holding up his IA I 1 see I 1 said blackadder frowning thoughtfully hand ordering him to wait the conversation began with yes ex cel lency and ended with the same phrase he relinquished the appa ratus and sat back well adan you have a rival the ambassador is sending his own emissary a compatriot with the strange name of blackadder good said adan blackadder it sounds like a snake then that let s me out on the contrary it doubles the importance of your mission my thinking of you was a stroke of genius because the more gringos get mixed in this business the worse it is for us besides I 1 feel the ambassador s choice chasn t a chance of success by the way arnaldo said sud denly what do I 1 get out of it I 1 told youl gasped the minister isn t fifty thousand that s for the girl said arnal do coolly if I 1 lick onelia save your neck attend to dorado and keep a couple of countries out of war it s going to cost you fifty thou sand more Is it agreed I 1 suppose so said the minister after a long pause do you want me to put it in writing 7 9 why should you youa asked arnal do with a thin gleam of chinin shinin shining 9 teeth once I 1 ve heard it you and I 1 know your word is as good as your bond once I 1 ve heard it he departed arnaldo knew when to rush to a job and when to take it easy he got away around seven in the morn ing curled up in the back seat and disposed himself for slumber juan ito his daredevil driver knew little of speed under 60 miles an hour consequently adan s nap ended vio bently a little after eight 0 clock for a moment he thought it was an earthquake then realized it was merely the difference between the road before and after toluca he climbed into the front seat and pres antly was dangling from the over head struts as joyce had done As they rounded a low butte the white blot of la barranca burst into view yet neither of them saw it instinctively juanito slowed even before adan could tap his wrist directly before them possibly a lit tie tle over halfway to the distant haci enda a troop of horsemen was swirling in contracting circles around a slowly moving car back up ordered arnaldo and hide her stick her nose against the hill juanito obeyed A moment later they were climbing the mound which was crowned by a growth of three kinds of cacti one of them a towering and many branched sam pie of the giant torch variety the horsemen having brought the car to a halt had gathered in a group ahead of it now a thickset thick set man stepped out of its and walked directly toward t them h e m scarcely had he left the car than its driver raced it backward into a Y turn reversed his gears and pres antly was shooting at top speed across the plain with his recent employer in a direct line between him and the bandits for once a coward saves his master s life murmured arnaldo I 1 don t get it said juanito the man you see down yonder is a gringo named blackadder do rado and his men would have filled him full of holes if his louse of a driver hadrit t created a diversion dorado 1 breathed juanito in an awed whisper blackadder was scarcely con of his driver s treachery sa absorbed was his attention by the gaping muzzles of two double action forty fives and the man who held them experience in many tough spots of the world notably mining camps and the diamond fields of lencses had taught him a gun at the level of the hip invariably means business besides dorado s pear shaped face presented such a vivid incarnation of brutality as to arouse doubt as to whether the six shooters might not in the long run turn out to be angels of mercy in helm raised both hands and kept them high without appearing to move a muscle dorado sent a searing bullet between the spread fingers of one of them put em down he ordered in guttural english then murmured instructions to two of his followers they dismounted frisked black adder for arms seized him by feet and wrists swung him into the sad die dle of one of their horses and trussed his ankles beneath its barrel so tightly he winced at the pain he started to protest in spanish but caught his tongue in time both men mounted the remaining rider less horse and the cavalcade was off dorado rode at its head at a mile eating hand gallop and the rest followed closely bunched around the prisoner the barranca was narrowing steadily three abandoned drifts gaped in the walls of the chasm two on the southern one on the northern side and along the stream for a distance of a hundred yards men could be seen busily sloshing wooden bateas for placer gold with a muttered order dorado dismount ed and passed into the recesses of the largest of the cave like open ings in a moment every rider had unsaddled and the freed horses were driven helter upstream into a cliff locked corral the nearest man to blackadder drew his sheath knife and slashed the taut thong connecting his ankles either by accident or on purpose the knife severed the girth and gashed the pony s hide as well the horse leaped in air hurling rider and saddle to the ground there was a roar of laughter finding himself unable to rise blackadder started to crawl on hands and knees to the brook intending to bathe his lacerated and half paralyzed legs in the cooling water at each slosh of the icy water his fury rose restoring his courage and determination to more than their normal level leaning far over he extracted passport and wallet from his breast pocket and managed to thrust them under a flat stone pres antly dorado called to him not loudly but the funnel of the drift acted like a megaphone come here cabron blackadder found he could barely walk he approached entered and at a gesture from dorado sank on a truss of hay with his back against the wall instantly his long tram train ing as a miner set his senses alert he deduced the fact that there must be a shaft small or large some where in the rear of the cave blackadder s nostrils informed him such was the case not by reason of any odor but because of an inde thinness in the air do rado straddled a camp stool you spik castellano 7 he asked no lied blackadder what is your name henry Gil falcon henrique heina you gringo americano no I 1 m british said blackam der but instantly regretted the falsehood io for r at the sudden harden ing of dorado s luminous eyes he realized it had not gone over I 1 think perhaps you lie said dorado softly when I 1 know you lie I 1 send a finger to the american ambassador one finger each week how much money you got I 1 did lie said blackadder and I 1 in sorry I 1 in an american but all my money everything I 1 had in the world was in my dispatch case in that car no money eh eha perhaps pretty soon somebody want to buy you for 25 pesos better write letter while you have enough fingers you w write rit e letter any time you like I 1 read it you say send money to t 0 general dorado mexico city I 1 see said blackadder frown ing thoughtfully something was stirring in his brain a seed an acorn that de in a flash to the size of a full grown oak roughly it could be framed in a single question why not substitute la barranca for the ransom of 25 pesos and thus kill four birds with one stone in spite of exhaustion he could no not t sleep tortured by the aching of his swollen ankles but toward dawn fell into a doze it proved a mis fortune since by the time he was roused dorado and his riders had already departed on their daily foray but the guards remained the day proved unlucky for dorado as well at hight nightfall fall wafted along within a blue cloud of blasphemy he was carried in on an improvised litter ater and laid on his cot the b bullet u ilet that am had pierced his thigh had k killed his horse CHAPTER X arnaldo had stayed crouched be side the trunk of the cactus much longer than ordinary caution re quiren thinking and thinking hard A full hour elapsed before he led the way back to the car and ordered juanito to proceed juanito never missed a chance to make speed and as the trail fre forked this way and that dodging the mud holes of the recent rainy season he was forced to come to some quick decisions such a choice now presented itself the fork to the left was undoubtedly the main road but the wheel marks to the right seemed fresher he chose the former yielding instinctively to the pull of memory for he had driven this way once before rec ol lection told him there would be a short bridge relic of more prosper ous times but there was no bridge it had been carried away in the last floods he jammed down both feet reached for the emergency brake and brought the car to a halt on the very lip of an arroyo fully 12 feet deep and twice as wide numskull growled arnaldo jump imbecile imbe cill slowly the car was nosing down and but for the emergency brake would have glided forward and then rushed arnaldo on one side and juanito on the other scrambled up the bank just in time to cross a steadily widening fissure the push of their feet was the last straw a great block of earth gave way with a dull rumble the car made a nose dive bounced and fell on its back its four wheels in air TO BE CONTINUED |