CHAPTER XXIX

To the Rescue

When Phil had flung his radio message out into the night he knew that he had but a slender chance. Suppose static interfered and prevented the reception of his signals. Suppose Steve had been called away from his post. Suppose he were asleep. A score of suppositions forced their way into his tortured brain.

Still, it was a chance, and after he finished his first message he strove to get a grip on himself while he waited for a possible answer.

A click! There it was! And then a perfect delirium of delight swept through him as he spelled out the words:

“We got you, Phil. Thank God you’re still alive!”

There they were, his tried friends and comrades, Dick and Tom and Steve, alert, excited, “wild to be after you.” And the captain was there too, ready with his gallant Rangers to come to his help.

The reaction was so great from despair to hope that he almost lost control of himself. Then by a mighty effort he pulled himself together and continued the interchange of messages.

When these were finished he turned off the batteries and flung himself down and tried to sleep. But his brain was in a whirl and sleep was a long time in coming.

Radio! That blessed radio. The most wonderful thing in the world. Doc Denby had called it that one time, and Phil had rather felt inclined to smile at his enthusiasm. Now he was ready to agree with him.

He dropped off to sleep at last, a sleep filled with dreams, in which he seemed to hear the roar of the airplane and the thud of hoofs as the troop of Rangers rode to his rescue. But he heard screams too of tortured men driven over the precipice, he saw the ghoulish vultures tearing at their prey. And many times there rose before him the face of Espato with that livid scar on his forehead, his eyes gleaming with ferocity, his lips parted in a fiendish grin full of cruelty and menace.

It was late when he awoke from his feverish slumber and opened his eyes upon the day that was to be the most momentous in his life. What did that day hold in store for him? Would it see him restored to friends and freedom? Or would it mark the vanishing of his last hope?

Even if the Rangers came, he was still environed by hideous peril. At the first warning of attack, Espato would probably kill him instantly. Everything depended upon an absolute surprise.

Marked by alternate hopes and fears the day wore on. To Phil it had never seemed so long. He craved the coming of the night as men athirst in the desert crave water.

Dusk came at last and deepened into darkness.

Phil was waiting, every nerve strained to the highest point of tension, when the door opened to admit one of the brigands, who ordered him to follow him into the presence of Espato.

For hours the bandit chief had been drinking heavily. Ever since he had been forced to drop his eyes before the cold defiant stare in the eyes of Phil, the incident had rankled in his mind like so much poison. He had been used to seeing only fright and pleading in the eyes of his helpless prisoners. Yet here was this young Americano, bound, utterly in his power, who had outfaced him—him, the great Espato—and had made him lower his eyes. It was intolerable. Would he tamely endure such an affront and not wreak his rage on the beardless youth who had offered it? No! Por Madre de Dios, no!

The more he dwelt on it the more he worked himself into a hot fury, until he could restrain himself no longer and ordered the prisoner to be brought into his presence.

The more cautious Arigo, with his eye on the expected ransom, sought to appease his chief.

“Wait,” he urged. “The messenger ought to be back tomorrow. If he has the money, well and good. Then you can work your will on the prisoner. But perhaps there will be conditions. It may be that we can do more with a live body than with a dead one. Revenge is sweet but money—ten thousand dollars in American money—ah, it is much.”

“Fool,” snarled the chief, “I shall not kill him—not yet. That would be too quick and easy. Tonight I shall play with him as the cat plays with the mouse. I shall make him want to die, but I will not let him die. I shall make him scream. I shall make him beg. I shall break his courage. I shall teach him that it is not good to stare into the eyes of Espato.”

When Phil came before the bandit leader, he saw at once the drunken rage that looked through his reddened eyes, and drew from it the conclusion that at last his hour had come. But he braced himself to meet the ordeal, and there was no sign of blenching in the look he turned on his captor.

Once more Espato glared into Phil’s eyes, and once more, after an interval, his own wavered before the indomitable light in the eyes of his captive.

“Take him to that tree,” he ordered, his face congested and the veins standing out turgidly on his forehead, “and tie him fast. I do not want him to squirm too much when I get busy with him,” he added, drawing his knife from his belt and testing its edge with his thumb.

Phil was dragged roughly away and tied to the tree indicated, which stood just at the edge of the zone of light cast by the fire about which the bandits were sprawled, drinking and waiting with keen zest for the next move of their chief.

The latter sat brooding, his brows drawn into a heavy scowl, enjoying his vengeance in anticipation and planning how he might inflict the most exquisite torture on the prisoner. There was no hurry, as he wanted Phil to suffer the agony of suspense while he awaited the will of his captor.

Phil’s hands had been drawn back by a rope that was fastened on the further side of the tree. His feet were fastened in similar fashion. The cords cut into him cruelly, but his physical pain was as nothing to his mental anguish.

If only one more day had intervened! Already the Rangers must be nearing the mountain stronghold. But hours might elapse before they got there and in those hours—

What was that? The wind soughing through the trees? No, there was not a breath of air stirring. Still that hum, that soft steady hum that persisted for a while and then died away into silence.

Phil’s heart gave a tremendous leap. The airplane! That hum came from the motor of the _Arrow_. And the silence that had followed meant that the engine had been shut off and that Dick and Tom had made a landing. And if the airplane was there, the Rangers were there too, for Phil knew that they would keep pace with each other.

He glanced toward the chief and his followers. Had they heard anything? A moment and he was reassured. They were too absorbed in their drunken revelry to notice anything, and as for Espato, he was too deep in his schemes of torture to think of anything else.

Perhaps half an hour dragged by while Phil listened intensely for any sound that might come from the surrounding forest. But not a rustle broke the silence.

At last the bandit chief arose and came toward his prisoner, knife in hand. Within a foot of him he paused, his eyes glowing with the baleful ferocity of a wild beast.

His followers had risen and stood at a respectful distance behind him, intent on the new and devilish entertainment which they felt sure was coming.

“Now,” hissed Espato, as he fondled the haft of his knife caressingly, “listen to the screams of the Americano as I carve my name on his forehead in payment for the gash he dared to cut in mine. Six letters—E-S-P-A-T-O. It will take a long time to do the carving, for the letters will be wide and the cutting will be deep.”

He raised his knife.

A rifle cracked and from the shattered wrist of the bandit chief the knife clattered to the ground.

Then came the shrill sound of a bugle, and out of the woods and into the clearing the Texas Rangers came charging in a wild rush that swept everything before them!