P. C. Wren - The Collected Works of P. C. Wren - Complete Beau Geste Series, Novels & Short Stories

"You won't bring anybody else? You won't tell anybody else? Not a word?" he begged.

"Not a soul. Not a word," I replied. "You wait for us in the far clump of palms beyond the well," and I went after Michael.

As soon as I could speak to him alone, I told him about Bolidar.

"Good," said Michael. "We'll hear what the merchant's got to say before we tackle Schwartz. The bold Bolidar evidently wants to hedge a bit, for some reason. . . . 'When rogues fall out.' . . . Let's go straight back before he changes what he calls his mind."

Michael ran on and asked St. André and the others to wait a little while and do nothing until he returned.

We then went back to the oasis, and as we passed near the well, I whistling " Avez-vous vu la casquette de Père Bougeaud? " Bolidar joined us, trembling with fear and fever.

We went and sat down together with a high sand-hill between us and the oasis.

At first, Bolidar was incoherent and almost incomprehensible, but soon it was quite clear that the wretched creature was turning to us as a last hope and last resort in his extremity of anxiety, suspense, and terror.

Realising what it was that drove him to unburden himself to us--sheer cowardly fear for his own wretched skin--we never for one instant doubted the truth of what he said.

He oozed truth as he did abject funk, from every pore, and he showed it in every gleam of his bloodshot rolling yellow eyes, and in every gesticulation of his trembling dirty yellow hands.

"My friends," he gabbled, "I must confess to you and I must save you. I can bear it no longer. My conscience. . . . My rectitude. . . . My soul. . . . My sense of gratitude. . . ."

Michael winked at me. We did not value Bolidar's conscience and gratitude as highly as we did his state of trembling fright, when estimating his motives for "confession." . . .

"On that terrible night when I was so cruelly misjudged and so cruelly treated, you tried to save me. . . . Yes, even though it was you whom I was supposed to be trying to rob. . . . An absurd idea, of course . . ." and he laughed nervously.

There was no doubting the fact that the gentle dago was in a rare state of terror. His convulsive swallowings, drawn yellow features, tremblings and twitchings, clenched hands and wild eyes, were really distressing.

"Most absurd idea, of course," murmured Michael. "What is it you want to tell us?"

"Your diamond! Your diamond!" whispered Bolidar hoarsely, gripping Michael's wrist and staring into his eyes.

"Ah--my diamond. And what about it?" said Michael gently.

"Lejaune! Lejaune means to get it," he hissed. "And he'll kill me! He'll kill me! If he doesn't, Schwartz will. . . . Or Boldini. . . . What shall I do! What can I do!" he screamed.

Michael patted the poor rascal's shoulder.

"There! There! Never mind. No one's going to kill you," he soothed him, almost as though he had been a baby. "Now tell us all about it and we'll see what can be done. . . . You join our party and you'll be safe enough."

" Your party?" asked Bolidar. "What is your party? And what are you going to do?"

"Oh--we are a party all right. The stoutest fellows in the garrison--and we're going to warn Lejaune--if Schwartz doesn't agree to give up the murder part of the plot," replied Michael.

"You're going to do what ?" asked Bolidar, open-eyed and open-mouthed.

"Going to warn Lejaune," repeated Michael.

Bolidar threw his hands up and shook with mirthless laughter.

" But he knows!-- He knows! He knows all about it, and who's in it--and when it's to be--and every word that's said in the place! " cackled Bolidar in a kind of broken, hoarse voice.

Michael and I stared at each other aghast.

"Who tells him?" asked Michael.

" I do ," was the proud reply of this shameless animal. "And when he has got your diamond, he will kill me," he snivelled.

I was absolutely staggered. If Lejaune knew all about it, what of our precious threat to Schwartz? And what was our position now?

"Why doesn't Lejaune do something then?" asked Michael.

"Oh, he'll do something all right," said Bolidar. "He'll do a good deal, the night before Schwartz and his fools intend to strike."

"Why does he wait?" we asked simultaneously.

"To see what you two are going to do," was the reply. "If you join Schwartz you'll be killed with Schwartz, the night before the mutiny is due--and I'm to secure the diamond. It is not really supposed that you'll join him though. And if you don't join Schwartz you are to be killed in the attack on him instead."

"By whom?" asked Michael.

" By me ," replied Bolidar. "You see, if you should join Schwartz, I am to be loyal and enter the barrack-room with Lejaune and the others on the night. As we cover the mutineers with our rifles, mine is to go off and kill you. . . . If you don't join Schwartz, I am to be a mutineer, and when you enter the barrack-room with Lejaune and the loyal party, in the night, I am to shoot you from my bed. . . . Either way you are to die--and I am perfectly sure that I shall die too. . . . Oh, God! Oh, Jesus Christ! Oh, Holy Virgin! Oh, Saints in Heaven!" he blubbered.

"And suppose I refuse to give Schwartz any answer, and remain perfectly neutral?" asked Michael.

"Then I am to harangue the mutineers and urge them to kill you as a non-supporter! You and any others that won't join them, so that it will not look as though I have any personal motive or feeling with regard to you specially. Then I am to offer to 'execute' you. . . . Having done it, I am to get the diamond and give it to Lejaune. . . . Yes," he added with another whispered gasp, "Lejaune is going to shoot me if you are killed without my securing the jewel for him . . ." and he rocked his body to and fro in despair.

"He ought to have an apron to throw over his head and cry into--like an old peasant woman whose cow has died," said Michael in English.

"Yes," I agreed. "Let's get all we can out of the brute before we let him go."

"Is Boldini in this?" Michael asked Bolidar. "I mean, are he and Lejaune working together?"

"Well--Boldini knows that Lejaune knows," was the reply. "And those two are going to use Dupré and St. André and Cordier and Maris and you two, for the arrest of the unarmed mutineers in the middle of the night. That is, if you refuse to join Schwartz as they anticipate. . . . But I doubt if Boldini and Lejaune quite trust each other. Guantaio says they don't. He thinks that Boldini intends to get the diamond for himself, and that Lejaune suspects as much. At least that is what Guantaio tells me--but I don't wholly trust him. . . ."

"Don't you really?" said Michael.

"No. I don't think he's absolutely honest," said Bolidar doubtfully.

"You surprise me," admitted Michael. "The dirty dog!"

"He has made proposals to me which I have rejected with contempt," said Bolidar.

"Dangerous?" asked Michael.

"Absurdly," replied Bolidar. "Besides, how was I to know that I should get my share! It's bad enough to have to trust Lejaune as one is compelled to do--without risking things with a rascal like Guantaio."

"Has Boldini made--er--proposals which you rejected with contempt?" Michael enquired.

"Oh, yes. But as I pointed out to him--Lejaune is adjudant while Boldini is only caporal ."

"And what did he say to that?" asked Michael.

"That a live caporal is better than a dead adjudant ," was the interesting reply.

"Sounds sinister," I observed in English.

"Nice little crowd," said Michael in the same language. "One really doesn't know where one is, nor where to start on the job of making head or tail of the business.