Bautista’s head had disappeared. It had been blown away by Harper’s seven-barreled gun with which Bautista had committed suicide. The gun lay on his trunk that had spilled so much blood onto the floorboards. Some blood had matted in the fur of the bed’s coverlet, but most had puddled on the floor and run through the cracks between the ancient boards.
All around the room’s outer edge were boxes. Plain wooden boxes. Between the boxes was a corridor which led to an open door. Sharpe had been told there was only the one entrance to the tower, but he had found a second. The stone around this second door had a raw, new appearance, as though it had only recently been laid. Sharpe, still holding his weapons, walked between the boxes and through the new doorway, and found himself in Captain Marquinez’s quarters—the very same rooms in which the handsome Captain had received them on their first day in Valdivia.
Marquinez was sitting on his bed, holding a pistol to his head. He was shaking with fear.
“Put the gun down,” Sharpe said quietly.
“He made me promise! He said he couldn’t live without me!”
Sharpe opened his mouth, did not know what to say, so closed it again. Harper, who had stepped into the room behind Sharpe, said something under his breath.
“I loved him!” Marquinez wailed the declaration.
“Oh, Jesus,” Sharpe said, then he crossed the room and lifted the pistol from Marquinez’s nerveless fingers. “Where’s Bias Vivar?”
“I don’t know, senor, I don’t know.” Marquinez was in tears now. He had begun to shake, then slid down to his knees so that he was at Sharpe’s feet where he wrapped his arms around Sharpe’s legs like a slave beseeching for life. “I don’t know!”
Sharpe reached down and disengaged the arms, then gestured toward the tower. “What’s in the boxes, Marquinez?”
“Gold, plate, pearls, coin. We were going to take it back to Spain. We were going to live in Madrid and be great men.” He was weeping again. “It was all going to be so wonderful!”
Sharpe gripped Marquinez’s black hair and tipped the man’s tearful face back. “Is Bias Vivar here?”
“No, senor, I swear it!”
“Did your lover ambush Vivar?”
“No, senor.”
“So where is he?”
“We don’t know! No one knows!”
Sharpe twisted his grip, tugging Marquinez’s hair painfully. “But you were the one who took the dog to Puerto Crucero and buried it?”
“Yes, senor, yes!”
“Why?”
“Because he ordered me to. Because it was embarrassing that we could not find the Captain-General’s body. Because Madrid was demanding to know what had happened to General Vivar! We didn’t know, but we thought he must be dead, so I found a dead dog and put that in a box instead. At least the box would smell right!” Marquinez paused. “I don’t know where he is! Please! We would have killed him, if we could, because General Vivar had found out about us, and he was threatening to tell the church of our sin, but then he vanished! Miguel said it had to be the rebels, but we never found out! It wasn’t our doing! It wasn’t!”
Sharpe released Marquinez’s hair. “Bugger,” he said. He released the flint on his pistol and pushed the weapon back into his belt. “Bugger!”
“But look,” seriorr Marquinez had climbed to his feet and, eager as a puppy for approval, edged into the tower room which had been his secret trysting place. “Look, senor, gold! And we have your sword, see?” He ran to a box, opened it, and drew out Sharpe’s sword. Harper was opening other boxes and whistling with astonishment, though he was not so astonished to forget to fill his pockets with coins. “Here, senor.” Marquinez held out Sharpe’s sword.
Sharpe took it, unbuckled the borrowed scabbard, and strapped his own sword in its place. He drew the familiar blade. It looked very dull in the dim lantern light.
“No, senor!” Marquinez thought Sharpe was going to kill him.
“I’m not going to kill you, Marquinez. I might kill someone else, but not you. Tell me where Bautista’s quarters are.”
Sharpe left Harper in his Aladdin’s cave, went through Marquinez’s rooms, across a landing, down a long corridor, and into a stark, severe chamber. The walls were white, the furniture functional, the bed nothing but a campaign cot covered with thin blankets. This was how Bautista wanted the world to see him, while the tower had been his secret and his fantasy. Now Lord Cochrane sat at Bautista’s plain table with two pieces of paper in front of him. Three of Cochrane’s sailors were searching the room’s cupboards, but were evidently finding nothing of great value. Cochrane grinned as Sharpe came through the door. “You found me! Well done. Any news of Bautista?”