CHAPTER XII

FOR THE “CAUSE”

“Aw, Rodriguez, you’re just feeling kind of low down, that’s all,” Hal soothed him. “In the morning you’ll be shipshape, you’ll see. Things are just sort of looking black to you.”

“I am dying, Señor Hal!” Rodriguez repeated. “You must listen or I shall not die peacefully!”

“Aw, all right, old top. If it eases you to tell me something, go ahead. But you’ll be as fit as a top in the morning. From what I know of Brazil-nuts, they’re pretty darn hard to crack,” Hal added facetiously.

The ghost of a smile flickered about Rodriguez’ ashen lips but soon he was grave again.

“I am for the _Cause_,” he said faintly; “I pledged my life, my honor for the _Cause_ if need be, Señor.”

“You don’t mean the rebels?” Hal asked, taking a moment to replenish the fire.

“Ah, you call it that, Señor. To us it is the _Cause_. We want freedom—political.”

“That’s what all you birds say. But go on, Rodriguez.”

“Señor Goncalves he is a comrade of mine, Señor—a comrade in the _Cause_. And Señor Pizella....”

“Aha, we’re getting somewhere,” Hal interposed, taking a sudden interest. “Pizella, huh, Rodriguez?”

“Yes, Señor. He was given command to follow your Señor uncle, for you were suspect to what you call—thwart?... yes, thwart General Ceara’s plans. The General he expect big munition shipment and your Señor uncle he was suspect to perhaps prevent the guns from coming. So Pizella he was told to find out if Señor Keen had letter and what it say about what he was going to do.”

“And it was Pizella who took that letter from my uncle when we were sleeping, huh?”

“Yes, Señor Hal. And that night when passengers are in saloon, Pizella he takes letter to Señor Goncalves’ cabin and leaves it there for him to decipher. They work together—no, Señor?”

“I hope to tell you they do,” Hal said thoughtfully. “Just as I suspected from the beginning, but Unk wouldn’t listen to anything about Goncalves. Yet he must have suspected something this afternoon ... but go on, Rodriguez.”

“Señor Goncalves he find out from letter that your Señor uncle is on trail of Ceara’s munition shipment—no? That Señor Goncalves is ordered by Ceara not to let happen. He must do anything, everything to prevent—yes? Señor Goncalves thinks one way—to invite your Señor uncle up in plane with me—the plane she is crippled over the jungle and what happens—no?”

“Yes,” Hal answered grimly. “I see. It was all a hoax—a plot, huh? Only I was the fly in the ointment. To get Unk to fly, you people had to get me interested, but it fell out anyway. Unk has probably found out everything from the interventor by now—I wouldn’t doubt but that they’re even suspecting foul play with me already. But Goncalves, they’ll get him....”

“Ah, if they can, Señor. But the Señor he was gone after noon today. He is now with the General Ceara and they are traveling toward a safe hiding place in the jungle.” Rodriguez gasped at this juncture and lay still a long time because of his extremely weakened condition.

Hal looked at him, sympathizing, yet doubting. Suddenly he leaned over the Brazilian.

“But why are you telling me all this, Rodriguez? Isn’t it against your famous _Cause_?”

“Ah, but yes,” answered the airman in such a whisper that Hal had to listen intently. “But when one is dying ... one’s sins against one’s brother man.... Señor Hal, my religion prompts this. My soul she would never rest unless I asked your forgiveness.”

“Rodriguez, old scout, I still insist you’re not going to die, but if it makes you get stronger, I’ll tell you that I have nothing in my heart toward you but good will. What have you done to me? Oh, I know I _could_ have been cracked up plenty, but the thing is, I’m not.”

“Not yet, not yet. But you are two hundred miles perhaps from white man, Señor. It is fever and jungle—no water, savage Indians before you get out. Señor Hal, you will die and I am the cause. I send you to it and it makes me afraid to die.”

“Bosh, old egg,” Hal said with a cheerfulness that he did not quite feel. “I’m a lean horse for a long race and, as I told you, I’ve been lost in the jungle before. Of course not quite as serious as this—I didn’t have a lot of bloodthirsty Indians to take into account. Still, I can handle that when I come to it. Where there’s a will, huh? But say, let’s not talk of gloomy things—tell me how you managed to get that plane crippled just at the crucial moment?”

“A powder, Señor, like sand,” he gasped. “She was poured into the oil—enough to make her grind up the engine in the hour—no?”

“I’ll say it would. Clever trick. A gritty substance, huh? Enough to completely disrupt the machinery. Well, it did all right. _And how!_ And you were supposed to try and save yourself as best you could with the chute, huh? Well, I’m sorry now we didn’t let you do it. You wouldn’t be feeling so rotten now. Carmichael’s the kind that can skim through things, I’m certain. I can’t believe he won’t get out.”

“It is my punishment, Señor, my religion she slaps back for thinking too much of the _Cause_ and not enough of human life ... _your life_!”

“As I told you before, Rodriguez, forget about me. I’m not holding it against you. I’m alive and kicking so far, and if I don’t keep it up, well, then I’m not as good a guy as I thought I was. I’ve got brains and the Indians haven’t. Fever and water and ... well, I haven’t got them yet, but if I do, I’ll pull through.”

“And if not, Señor Hal, would you curse José Rodriguez?” asked the airman pathetically. “Would you curse me if the Indians....”

“Absolutely not, old top,” Hal assured him. “You thought you were doing right for the _Cause_—doing as you thought was right. Why should I get peeved at _you_? Little Hal isn’t that way. Now rest yourself and forget your worries. You must be tired out after all that chatter. Close your eyes, old fellow.”

“I do not have the need, Señor Hal,” came the response. “Things are fading—even your face, your bright eyes. I can no longer see them. They are in a mist.”

Hal leaned forward, startled. Rodriguez’ hands were becoming colder, more limp, but he did not think it was so near. He could not believe it even then ... he had never seen anything just like it, never witnessed a death so calm, so apparently without effort.

Rodriguez must have sensed Hal’s thoughts, for he nodded his head feebly.

“One bleeds to death without pain, Señor Hal,” he whispered. “Do not worry I am suffering. The world becomes dimmer but something else comes in its place—a light that is bright and makes me happy. Since you have say you will not curse José Rodriguez I see it clear.”

Hal could not talk—he could only grasp tightly the limp, cold hands in his own. But Rodriguez seemed to understand, for his features relaxed, and when the lonely owl again sent its despairing call through the silent jungle night, he did not seem to start as before. His lips barely moved, but Hal caught the words.

“‘Death to Thee who hears me,’ cries ‘the mother of the moon,’” he was saying. “Death to me, Señor Hal; death to _you_! And when it comes, remember to say a prayer for the departed soul of José Rodriguez!”

Hal promised, choking back a tremor in his voice. Suddenly he heard a strange rustle in the tree opposite, and when he looked up, he saw a glassy pair of eyes staring down at them in the firelight. “The mother of the moon” had come to pay them a visit.

Hal shivered despite an effort to keep calm. The owl with its broad face and strange, glassy eyes looked eerie as it sat perched upon the swinging limb above them. Then, after what seemed an interminable time, it flapped its wings and flew into the blackness beyond.

Hal was suddenly aware then that the pilot’s hands had ceased to return his pressure. They became colder, limp. A sepulchral silence seemed to envelop the little camp in that moment; nothing stirred save the elfin breeze that whispered in the tree tops.

José Rodriguez was dead.