AT DUSK a group of men came along the valley path from the coffee terraces. They were followed by others in twos or threes and they all assembled at the far end of the forecourt, away from the house. Fifteen. Lewis counted them.
They wore rough, earth-stained labouring clothes. Some had thrown ponchos over their shoulders against the chill of the coming night, but none of them was like the natives of the Rosario district who normally picked the coffee berries. They were tall, strong fellows, different from the broad-built, big-lunged mountain men.
Lewis wondered. He had seen the type on the wharves of Santa Teresa. They might be stone-masons, builders, tough hands from the river steamers that made the tortuous way along the Medina between Trajano and the Pacific coast. Anyway, they were not coffee-pickers, for no one had gathered the red berries that day.
They lounged on the edge of the lawn, some of them resting their backs against one of the stone images. They smoked cigarettes, and the murmur of their voices reached the house. One of them sang a tired song in a nasal tenor. Manuel went out to them and they rose and stood at attention as if he were someone important. When he returned, they relaxed again, waiting.
Then, while there was still a little light in the sky, an open truck drove in from the roadway, backed and turned. The workers lined up and climbed on board, the driver switched on his head lights, and started off.
Lewis listened to the diminishing sound of the engine. A moment later he heard it whining in low gear as the truck climbed the steep gradient behind the house. The direction was away from Trajano. The men were being taken up into the wild highlands of the border country.
For quite a while the sound of the engine was audible. When it was finally lost in the distance the gods and warriors in the forecourt were vague black shapes in the night.
In the morning the truck brought the men back again, and they trudged off along the valley side. Perhaps Julian had given orders for more excavations and Benevides was seeing that the work was carried on. But it had always been a principle with Julian to employ the mountain men.
Lewis questioned Manuel. “They are hired to work,” the houseboy answered. “That is all I know. It is none of my business. There is always some work to be done.”
“There’s work here that is not done. Where are the coffee-pickers?”
“I am not the manager of this finca. The pickers will come some time. It is likely that your brother is not worrying. Why should you be?”
Instead of his usual mocking politeness, Manuel had assumed the truculent authority of a Benevides. The household was upset, and this might be the cause of the change. Benevides had not returned from Trajano. In a brief glimpse he had had of Leite, Lewis had seen that she was very worried, and he recalled Maria Josefa’s scathing remark about the goggle-wearer.
Leite’s anxiety pointed up the significance of it. Someone might recognise Benevides in spite of the dark glasses!
It was now nine o’clock and apparently nothing had been heard of him.
Leite, coming to breakfast, greeted Lewis with grave formality and at once spoke to Manuel.
“Did he say that he might be away all night?”
“No.” Manuel’s tone was as anxious as her own. “He expected to be back before midnight.”
“You’d better telephone Mauricio.”
“I have. They parted at eight. He is to call back at once if he hears anything.”
“What are you going to do?” She appealed to Manuel as if he were now in charge.
“Nothing,” he answered. “Nothing can be done till we have news.”
Leite turned to Lewis. “Forgive me, please. My brother is such a reckless driver and the road is not of the best.”
Lewis was inclined to express the hope that he had broken his neck. What he said was: “I trust nothing has happened to him.”
Manuel brought her toast and coffee. This time she spoke to him in English.
“Have you been for the mail?”
“I will drive down now, if you will excuse me, madame.” Manuel was the correct houseboy again.
Lewis said: “I’m expecting a cable from my daughter. Will it be delivered to the house?”
“Yes, sir. It will be telephoned to the local post office from Trajano. A messenger will bring it out.”
“The office is two kilometres from here,” Leite explained. “Telegrams are delivered, but the mail has to be collected.”
“Perhaps Manuel will post an air-letter for me?”
Manuel declined. “I am sorry. You will have to ask Don Pascual.”
“But he is not here. The letter is merely to my daughter in London.”
“I am sorry, señor.”
So there were to be no letters, except by favour of Benevides. Anne would have to wait for a full explanation of the cable cancelling her trip.
Julian was still in his coma, but Dr. Larreta, on his morning visit, expressed himself more hopefully. Perhaps by the night there would be a favourable turn.
Lewis walked along the valley again and this time went to the end of the coffee trees and halted at the beginning of the jungle path. He remembered how the path climbed steeply through the tangle to the high terrace where Julian had unearthed most of his gods. He remembered the fork that led to the place where the largest image had been excavated, the wide track cut through the dense growth so that the immense mass of stone could be trundled out to the clearing.
If there were new excavations in progress, the terrace would be the likely spot, and certainly it seemed that the path was being used.
Lewis advanced a few yards into the jungle, peering with the intensity of a tracker at the trampled surface of the narrow way. The stub of a cigarette was a sufficient sign that someone had been there quite recently, and he pushed on up the ascending cat-walk, brushed by the leaves of spindly saplings and the outflung fronds of ferns.
At the point where the path divided a man rose from a fallen tree-trunk to bar his way. Lewis was not surprised. Neither was the sentry. He held up a large forbidding hand in the manner of a policeman on point duty and shook his head. He smiled. He was a big, handsome lad with frank eyes.
Lewis pointed up the path to the terrace.
“No.” The sentry shook his head again.
Lewis shrugged and turned back. He had learned that the ascending way was overgrown. It had not been used for some time. But the track that forked off to the left through a stretch of level jungle was clear and much trampled.
Round the first bend on his retreat Lewis paused and listened. He could not have been more than fifty yards from the point where the solitary god had been found, but he heard nothing to indicate that work was in hand at that place; no talk, no thud of picks or rasp of shovels. The workers, he was sure, had gone that way, but the jungle had swallowed them and the jungle was being secretive about it. There was silence except for the chatter of birds.
When he reached the house, relaxed tension told him that Benevides had returned. Manuel was cheerful again, ready to be loquacious, and at lunch Leite tried to be friendly in an evidently genuine attempt to ease his situation. Now he found in her the quality that his imagination had given her on the plane trip from Cristobal. She might, in his view, be allied with her half-brother against him, but she was fundamentally warm-hearted. She saw how worried he was and wished to relieve him, yet when he spoke of Julian she was singularly detached and evasive, answering at second-hand. The doctor had said so-and-so, or her brother thought. . .
“You should have been spared all this,” she said, “but no one believed you would come all the way from England. Certainly Pascual would have warned you about Julian’s illness. He was very disturbed when your telegram arrived from Santa Teresa.”
“If I had heard of the illness, I would have come sooner.” Lewis watched her closely. “I can’t understand why I was not told of your marriage.”
“We decided rather suddenly.” She looked down at the table.
“Had you known each other very long?”
“Not . . .” She hesitated. Or she seemed to catch her breath. “Not very long.”
She raised her head and he saw tears in her eyes. She had seemed so remote from Julian when speaking of him that this sudden emotion surprised and moved him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Sorry?” She shrugged off the tears as if ashamed of them. “You have no occasion to be sorry for me.”
A curious creature. There was something like defiance in the still tearful eyes that met his solicitous gaze.
“I think it is I who must be sorry,” she added, and in the same breath asked him: “Did you get the cable you were expecting?”
“Not yet.”
“You are worried. It is something important?”
“Didn’t your brother tell you?”
She was puzzled. “What has my brother to do with it?”
Lewis explained. Naturally, he said, he was anxious to have an assurance that his daughter had cancelled her trip.
“She may have replied by night letter,” Leite suggested. “It should be delivered with the mail to-morrow morning.”
This was possible, he thought, and he continued to think so, but nothing came with the mail in the morning. Anne was sometimes negligent, a little irresponsible in practical matters, yet he had asked her to reply without delay.
All the day he remained in the house, hoping for a messenger from the local post office. Benevides had followed the workers along the valley and was away till late in the afternoon. Doña Leite, Manuel announced, was keeping to her room, worn out again.
The only caller was the doctor, and this time he discussed his patient with Lewis in fluent English. Again the signs were favourable. The pulse was more regular, the breathing easier.
“Once we disperse the coma, there should be an improvement. Then, with normal feeding, the recovery should be rapid. But I must warn you, señor, that you may find the mental attitude changed, the sort of change that is sometimes the sequel to encephalitis lethargica.”
“Is that what it is?” Lewis asked hastily.
“There were symptoms of it in the early stage, following the first acute attack of malaria. We have here, in San Mateo, a leading authority on sleeping sickness. I have consulted him, but we were unable to reach a definite conclusion.”
Dr. Larreta blinked and looked away. “If I tell you that I, myself, am recognised as an authority on tropical diseases, you will understand that it is with the wish to reassure you. I have given many years to research in these diseases, particularly malaria. That is why señor Benevides insists that I remain in charge of the case.”
“How long has my brother been in this coma?”
“Since one day before your arrival. Previously there were periods of stupor and some delirium. But to-day I am encouraged. Perhaps we are now at the turning point.”
Dr. Larreta relaxed and smiled. “You are in good health yourself, Mr. Page. That I can see. But beware of our climate. The sudden changes at this altitude are sometimes dangerous to the stranger.” He picked up his worn visiting-bag and turned towards his car. “Well, my friend, if anything goes wrong, send for me at once.”
Lewis said: “Will you post a letter for me, please?”
“I would be happy, but I do not go that way. You should ask Manuel.”
Once more the slam of the prison gate.
Lewis watched the elderly Buick receding down the drive. It seemed to him then that Larreta had treated him like the inmate of an insane asylum, humouring him with a lot of talk that might not mean a thing. Unless it had been designed to allay suspicion.
In the evening Benevides joined his sister and Lewis at the dining-table. He was in high spirits. He joked with Manuel, attended Leite with a show of affection, and was mockingly affable towards Lewis.
“The best wine in the house, Manuel,” he ordered. “To-night we celebrate.”
Leite was unresponsive. “What do we celebrate?” she asked sombrely.
“Discovery. We have success at last. Everything is turning out as I foresaw.”
He had been with the workers all day, but it was not possible that he could be so elated over the finding of another stone image. Unless he was another fanatic, like Julian.
For a moment a look in Leite’s eyes suggested that she, too, might have her fanaticism. The puzzled Lewis observed a succession of emotions in her. Relief followed triumph, but more he could not define.
She exclaimed rapidly in Spanish and all Lewis could catch was a suggestion that now things would be different.
The more deliberate reply of Benevides was easier to follow. “There will be no change. We go on as we have arranged.”
“I will talk to you later.”
“There is nothing to talk about.” Benevides frowned.
“Later!” She looked to Lewis as a means of changing the subject. “Did you hear from your daughter, Mr. Page?”
“No.” Anxiety was immediately uppermost again. “Perhaps to-morrow.”
“But there has been time.” She turned to Benevides. “Pascual, did you send that cablegram for Mr. Page?”
“What cablegram?” Pascual asked good-humouredly.
Lewis jerked his head back. “The one I gave you two days ago,” he said protestingly.
“I have no recollection of any cablegram.”
“You were starting for Trajano.” Lewis shouted in sudden anger. “You promised to send it for me.”
“Trajano?” Benevides affected bewilderment. “I was very busy that day. I must have forgotten. No doubt it is still in my pocket. Was it very important?”
“You know how important it was.” Leite stared at him coldly. “If the girl is now on the way, it is through your fault.”
“My fault?” Benevides put indignation into it.
“What has it to do with me if Mr. Page wants to bring his daughter to San Mateo? She has not cabled that she is coming. Perhaps she has decided for herself to stay at home.”
“I have warned you, Pascual. I . . .”
“Keep quiet!” An ominous leap in his voice was accompanied by the thud of his fist on the table.
“You will not talk to me like that.” Her own voice was cold and hard. “I have warned you how far I will go.”
“All the devils! What is this girl to you? If she comes, she will be looked after. You shall have the ordering of it. She will be happy to make the acquaintance of her new aunt, no doubt. That is enough.”
“Why did you not send the cable?”
“Enough!” His fist crashed on the table again. “Manuel!” he shouted. “Where is that wine?”
Lewis got up and walked from the room.