CHAPTER XVII
"SHE HATES HIM BECAUSE SHE LOVES HIM."
"It would be folly," said Julian to himself that night, "not to recognise at once that each moment I spend in this house, or, indeed in this locality, is full of danger to me. Therefore, from this moment I commence to take every precaution that is possible. Now let us think out how to do it."
On this occasion he was the sole occupant of the lower veranda, in spite of its being quite early in the evening, and owing to the fact that Sebastian was passing the night in Belize, while Madame Carmaux, having announced that she had a severe headache, had taken herself off to her own room before supper, he had partaken of that meal alone. So that he sat there quite by himself now, smoking; and, as a matter of fact, he was not at all sorry to do so.
He recognised that any attempt at conversation with the "gentle lady" as Paz had termed her-in an undoubtedly ironical and subacid manner-was the veriest make-believe; while, as to Sebastian, when he was at home-well, his conversation was absolutely uninteresting. He never talked of anything but gambling and the shortness of ready money, diversified occasionally by a torrent of questions as to what George Ritherdon had done and what he had said during the whole time of his life in England. While, as Julian reflected, or, indeed, now felt perfectly sure, that even this wearisome talk was but assumed as a mask or cloak to the other's real thoughts, it was not likely that Sebastian's absence to-night could be a cause of much regret.
"Let me think out how to do it," he said again, continuing his meditations; "let me regard the whole thing from its proper aspect. I am in danger. But of what at the worst? Well, at the worst-death. There is, it is very evident, a strong determination on the part of some people in this place to relieve the colony of my interesting presence. First, Sebastian tries to break my neck with an untrained horse; next, some one probably places a coral snake in my bed; while, thirdly, some creature of his endeavours to shoot me. Paz-who seems to have imbibed many ancient ideas from his Spanish and savage ancestors-appears, however, if I understand him, to imagine he was the person shot at, his wild and barbaric notions about the sacredness of the guest making him suppose, apparently that my life could not be the one aimed at. Well, let him think so. At any rate, his feelings of revenge and hatred are kept at boiling-pitch against some unknown enemy.
"Now," he went on, with still that light and airy manner of looking at difficulties (even difficulties that at this time seemed to be assuming a horrible, not to say, hideous, aspect) which had long since endeared him to countless comrades in the wardroom and elsewhere. "Now, I will take a little walk in the cool of the evening. Dear Madame Carmaux's headache has deprived her of the pearls of my conversation, wherefore I will, as her countrymen say, 'go and take the air.'"
Upon which he rose from his seat, and, pushing aside the wicker table on which stood a bottle of Bourbon whisky, a syphon, and also a pen and ink with some writing-paper, he took from off it a letter directed and stamped, and dropped it into the pocket of his white jacket.
"The creole negro-as they call those chaps here-passes the foot of the garden in five minutes' time," he said to himself, looking at a fine gold watch which he had gained as a prize at Greenwich, "and he will convey this to Spranger's hands. Afterwards, from to-night, I will make it my business to send one off from All Pines every day. I should like Spranger and Beat-I mean Miss Spranger-to receive a daily bulletin of my health henceforth.
"Sebastian," he continued to reflect, as now he made his way beneath the palms towards where the road ran, far down at the foot of the garden, "has meditations about being my heir-well, so have I about being his. Yet I think, I do really think, I would rather be Sebastian's if it's all the same to him. Nevertheless, in case anything uncomfortable should happen to me, I should like Spranger and Beat-Miss Spranger, to be acquainted with the fact. It might make the succession easier to-Sebastian."
He heard the "creole negro's" cart coming along, even as he reached the road; he heard also the chuckles and whoops with which the conveyer of her Majesty's mails urged on the flea-bitten, raw-boned creature that carried them; and then, the cart drew into sight and was pulled up suddenly as Julian emerged into the road.
"Hoop! Massa Sebastian, you give me drefful fright," the sable driver began, "thought it was your ghost, as I see you in Belize this berry morning-"
"So it would have been his ghost," remarked Julian, as he came close to the cart with the letter in his hand, "if you had happened to see him now. Meanwhile, kindly take this letter and put it in your mail-bag."
"Huah! huah!" grunted the negro, while he held out his great black hand for the missive and, opening the mouth of the bag which was in the cart behind him, thrust it in on the top of all the others he had collected on his route along the coast; "he get there all right about two o'clock this morning. But, massa, you berry like Massa Sebastian. In um white jacket you passy well for um ghost or brudder."
"So they tell me," Julian answered lightly. "But, you see, we happen to be cousins, and, sometimes, cousins are as much alike as brothers. My friend," he said, changing the subject, "are you a teetotaller?"
"Hoop! Huah! Teetotallum. Huah! Teetotallum! Yes, massa, when I've no money. Then berry good teetotallum. Berry good."
"Well, now see, here is some money," and he gave the man a small piece of silver. "Take a drink at All Pines as you go by; it will keep this limekiln sort of air out of your throat-or wash it down. Off with you, only take two drinks. Have the second when you get to Belize."
Profuse in thanks, the darkey drove off, wishing Julian good-night, while the latter's cheery, "Good-night, fair nymph," seemed to him so exquisite a piece of humour that, for some paces along the road, the former could hear him chuckling and murmuring in his musical bass: "Fair nymph. Hoah! Fair nymph. Hoah! Fair nymph. That's me."
"Now," Julian said to himself as he strolled along the road, "we shall see if Spranger comes to meet me as he said he would if I wanted his assistance. If he doesn't, then bang goes this one into the All Pines post-box to-morrow;" the "this one" being an exact duplicate of the letter which the negro postman had at that moment in his mail-bag.
"I'm getting incredibly cunning," Julian murmured to himself, "shockingly so. Yet, what is one to do? One must meet ruse with ruse and cunning with cunning, and I do believe Sebastian is as artful as a waggon-load of monkeys. However, if things go wrong with me, if I should get ill-Sebastian says the climate is bad and lays a good deal of stress on the fact, although other people say it's first-rate-or disappear, or furnish a subject for a first-class funeral, there is one consolation. Spranger, on not hearing from me, will soon begin to make inquiries and, as the novelists say, 'I shall not die unavenged.' That's something."
It is permissible for those who record veracious chronicles such as this present one, to do many things that in ordinary polite society would not be tolerated. Thus, we have accompanied Julian to his bedchamber on more than one occasion, and now we will look over his shoulder as, an hour before this period, he indited the letter to Mr. Spranger (which at the present moment is in the Belize post-cart), and afterwards made a copy of it for posting the next day at All Pines.
It was not a lengthy document-since the naval officer generally writes briefly, succinctly and to the purpose-and simply served to relate the various startling "incidents" which had occurred after he had returned to Desolada. And he told Mr. Spranger that, henceforth, a letter would be posted for him at All Pines every day, which, so long as it conveyed no tidings of ill news, required no answer; but that, if such letter should fail to come, then Spranger might imagine that he stood in need of succour. It concluded by saying that if this gentleman had a few hours to spare next day and could meet him half-way betwixt Belize and Desolada-say, opposite a spot called Commerce Bight-he would take it as a favour-would meet him, say, in the early morning, about ten o'clock, before the heat was too great.
"Sebastian," the letter ended, "seems to harp more, now, on the fact that he's my heir than on anything else. He evidently imagines that I have more to leave than I have. But, however that may be, I don't want him to inherit yet."
He was thinking about this letter, and its duplicate which was to follow to-morrow, if the first one did not bring his friend from Belize, when he heard voices near him-voices that were pitched low and coming closer with every step he took, and then, suddenly, he came upon the girl, Zara, and the man, Ignacio Paz, walking along the road side by side.
"Well, my Queen of Night," he said to the former, "and how are you? You heard that I found the snake after all, I suppose?"
"Yes, I heard," the girl said, her dark slumbrous eyes gleaming at him in the light of the stars. "I heard. Better always look. This is a dangerous land. Very dangerous to white men."
"So Sebastian tells me. Thank you, Zara. Henceforth I will be sure to look. I am going to take a great deal of care of my precious health while I am in this neighbourhood."
"That is well," the girl said; then, having noticed his bantering manner, she added, "you may laugh-make joke, but it is no joke. Take care," and a moment later she was gone swiftly up to the house, leaving him and his companion of the morning standing together in the dusty road.
"I wonder why Zara is such a good friend of mine?" Julian asked meditatively now, looking into the eyes of Paz, which themselves gleamed brightly.
"You wonder?" the half-caste said, with that bleating little laugh which always sounded so strangely in Julian's ears. "Do you wonder? Can't you guess? Do you wonder, too, why I'm a friend of yours?"
"You, Paz! Why we've only known each other about fifteen hours. Though I'm glad to hear it, all the same."
"Friends long enough to nearly get killed together to-day," the man replied. "That's one reason."
"And the other-Zara's reasons? What are they?"
Again the man's eyes glistened in the starlight; then he put out his long lithe finger, which, Indianlike, he used to emphasize most of his remarks.
"She hates him. So do I."
"You I can understand. He beat you this morning. But-Zara! I thought she was his faithful adherent."
"She hates him because," the man replied laconically, "she loves him."
"Loves him. And he? Well-what?"
"Not love her. He love 'nother. English missy. You know her."
"I do," Julian answered emphatically. "I do. Now, I'll add my share to this little love story. She, the English missy, does not love him."
"Zara think she do. Thinks he with her now. Go Belize, see her."
"Bah! Bosh! The English missy wouldn't-why, Paz," he broke off suddenly, "what's this in your hand? Haven't you had enough sport to-day-or are you going out shooting the owls to-night for a change?" while as he spoke he pointed to a small rifle the half-caste held in his hand. "Though," he added, "one doesn't shoot birds with rifles."
"No," the other replied, with again the bleat, and with, now, his eyes blazing-"no. Shoot men with him. Nearly shoot one to-day. I find him near where I find drop of blood this afternoon. Hid away under ferns. I take a little walk this evening in the cool. Then I find him."
CHAPTER XVIII
SEBASTIAN IS DISTURBED
"This knoll is becoming historic," Julian said to himself the next morning, as he halted the mustang where twice he had halted it before, when he had been journeying the other way from that which he had now come. "When, some day, the life and adventures of Admiral Ritherdon, K.C.B., and so forth, are given to an admiring world, it must figure in them. Make a pretty frontispiece, too, with its big shady palms and the blue sea beyond the mangroves down below."
In spite, however, of his bright and buoyant nature, which refused to be depressed or subdued by the atmosphere of doubt or suspicion-to give that atmosphere no more important name-he recognised very clearly that matters were serious with him. He knew, too, that the calamities which had approached, without absolutely overwhelming him-so far-were something more than coincidences; natural enough as each by itself might have been in a country which, even now, can scarcely be called anything else than a wild and unsettled one.
"I was once flung off a horse, a buckjumper," he reflected, "in Western Australia when I was a 'sub'; I found a snake in my bed in Burmah; and a chap shot at me once in Vera Cruz-but-but," and he nodded his head meditatively over his recollections, "the whole lot did not happen together in Australia or Burmah or Vera Cruz. If they had done so, it would have appeared rather pointed. And-well-they have all happened together here. That looks rather pointed, too."
"All the same," Julian went on reflectively, as now he tethered the mustang to a bush where it could stand in the shade, and also drew himself well under the spreading branches of the palms-"all the same, I can't and won't believe that Sebastian sees danger to his very firmly-established rights by my presence here. He said on that first night to Madame Carmaux, 'Knowledge is not proof,' and what proof have I against him? This copy of my baptism at New Orleans which I possess can't outweigh that entry of his birth which Spranger has seen in Belize. And there is nothing else. Nothing! Except George Ritherdon's statement to me, which nobody would believe. My own opinion is," he concluded, "that Sebastian, who at the best is a rough, untutored specimen of the remote colonist, with very little knowledge of the world beyond, thinks that if anything happened to me he would only have to put in a claim to whatever I have in England, prove his cousinship, and be put in possession of my few thousands. What a sublime confidence he must have in the simplicity of the English laws!"
Even, however, as he thought all this, there came to him a recollection, a revived memory, of something that had struck him after George Ritherdon's death-something that, in the passage of so many other stirring events, had of late vanished from his mind.
"He said," Julian murmured to himself-"my uncle said in the letter I received when we got back to Portsmouth, that he had commenced to write down the error, the crime of his life, in case he did not live to see me. And-and-later-after he had told me all, on the next day, he remarked that the whole account was written down; that when-poor old fellow! he was gone I should find it in his desk; that it would serve to refresh my memory. But-I never did find it, and, I suppose, he thought it was best destroyed. I wish, however, he hadn't done it; even his handwriting would have been some corroboration of the statement. At least it would have shown, if I ever do make the statement public, that I had not invented it."
While he had been indulging in these meditations he had kept his eyes fixed on the long, white, dusty road that stretched from where the knoll was on which he sat toward Belize; a road which, through this flat country, could be traced for two or three miles, it looking like a white thread lying on a dark green carpet the colour of which had been withered by the sun.
And now, as he looked, he saw upon the farthest end of that thread a speck, even whiter than itself-a speck, that is to say, white above and black beneath-which was gradually travelling along the road, coming nearer and growing bigger each moment.
"It may be Mr. Spranger," he thought to himself, still watching the oncoming party-coloured patch as it continued to loom larger; "probably is. Yet for a man of his time of life, and in such a baker's oven as that road is, he is a bold rider. I hope he won't get a sunstroke or a touch of heat apoplexy in his efforts to come and meet me."
At last, however, the person, whoever it was, drew so near that the rider's white tropical jacket stood out quite distinct from the black coat of the animal he bestrode; while, also, the great white sombrero on the man's head was distinctly visible.
"That's not Spranger," Julian said to himself, "but a much younger man. By Jove!" he exclaimed, "it's Sebastian. And I might have expected it to be him. Of course. It is about the time he would be returning to Desolada."
His recognition of his cousin was scarcely accomplished beyond all doubt, when Sebastian's horse began to slow down in its stride, owing to having commenced the ascent of the incline that led up to the knoll where Julian sat, and in a very few more moments the animal, emitting great gusts from its nostrils, had brought its rider close to where he was. While, true to his determination to exhibit no outward sign of anything he might suspect concerning Sebastian's designs toward him, as well as to resolve to assume a light and cheerful manner, and also a friendly one, Julian called out pleasantly:
"Halloa, Sebastian! How are you this fine morning? Rather a hot ride from Belize, isn't it?"
If, however, he had expected an equally cordial greeting in return, or, to put it in other and more appropriate words, a similar piece of acting on Sebastian's part, he was very considerably mistaken. For, instead of his cousin returning his cheerful salutation in a corresponding manner, his reception of it betokened something that might very well have been considered to be dismay. Indeed, he reined his horse up so suddenly as almost to throw the panting creature on its haunches, in spite of the ascent it was making; while his face, sunbrowned and burned as it was, seemed to grow nearly livid behind the bronze. His eyes also had in them the startled expression which might possibly be observed in those of a man who had suddenly been confronted by a spectre.
"Why!" he said, a moment later, after peering about and around and into all the rich luxuriant vegetation which grew on the knoll, as though he might have expected to see some other person sitting among the wild allamandas or ixoras-"why, what on earth are you doing here, Julian? I-I thought you were at Desolada, or-or perhaps out shooting again. By the way, I had left Desolada before you were up yesterday morning; what sort of a day did you have of it?"
"Most exciting," Julian replied, himself as cool as ice. "Quite a field-day." And then he went on to give his cousin, who had by now dismounted and was sitting near him, a résumé of the whole day's adventures-not forgetting to tell him also of the interesting discovery of the coral snake in his bed.
"If," he thought to himself, "he wants to see how little he can frighten one of her Majesty's sailors, he shall see it now."
He had, however, some slight hesitation in narrating the retaliation of Paz upon the unknown, would-be assassin-for such the person must have been who had fired at where the deer was not-he being in some doubt as to how this fact would be received.
At first it was listened to in silence, Sebastian only testifying how much he was impressed at the recountal by the manner in which he kept his eyes fixed on Julian-and also by the whiteness of his lips, to which the circulation seemed unable to find its way. Also, it seemed as though, when he heard of the drop of blood upon the leaf, once more the blood in his own veins was impeded-and as if his heart was standing still. Then, when the recital was concluded, he said:
"Paz did right. It was a cowardly affair. I wish he had killed the villain. I suppose it was some enemies of his. Some fellow half-caste. Paz has enemies," he added.
"Probably," said Julian quietly.
"And," went on Sebastian now in a voice of considerable equanimity, though still his bronze and sunburn were not what they usually were; "and how did you leave Madame Carmaux? Was she not horrified at such a dastardly outrage?"
"I did not have much time with her. Not time enough indeed to tell her. She went to bed directly I got back-"
"Went to bed! Why?"
"She was not well. Said she had a headache, or rather sent word to that effect. Nor did she come down to breakfast. Rather slow, you know, all alone by myself, so I thought I'd come on here for a ride. Must do something with one's time."
"Of course! Of course! I told you Desolada was Liberty Hall. Went to bed, eh? I hope she is not really ill. I don't know what I should do without her," and as he spoke Julian observed that, if anything, he was whiter than before. Evidently he was very much distressed at Madame Carmaux's suffering from even so trifling an ailment as a headache.
"I think I'll get on now," Sebastian said, rising from where he was sitting. "If she is laid up I shall have a good deal of extra work to do, I suppose it really is a headache."
"I suppose it is," Julian said, "it is not likely to be much else. She was arranging flowers in a vase when Paz and I returned."
"Was she!" Sebastian exclaimed, almost gleefully; "was she! Oh, well! then there can't be much the matter with her, can there? I am glad to hear that. But, anyhow, I'll go on now. You'll be back by sundown, I suppose. You know it's bad to be out just at sunset. The climate is a tricky one."
"So I have heard you say. Never mind, I'll be back in the evening, or before. Meanwhile I may wander into the woods and shoot a monkey or so."
"Shoot! Why! you haven't got a gun with you," Sebastian exclaimed, looking on the ground and at the mustang's back where, probably, such a thing would have been strapped.
"No, I haven't. But I've always got this," and he showed the handle of his revolver in an inside pocket.
"You're a wise man. Though, if you knew the colony better, you'd understand there isn't much danger to human life here."
"There was yesterday. And Paz has taught me a trick or two. If any one fired at me now I should do just what he did, and, perhaps, I too might find a leaf with a drop of blood on it afterwards."
"You're a cool fish!" exclaimed Sebastian after bursting out into a loud laugh which, somehow, didn't seem to have much of the ring of mirth in it. "Upon my word you are. Well, so long! Don't go committing murder, that's all."
"No, I won't. Bye-bye. I'll be back to-night."
After which exchange of greetings, Sebastian got on his horse and prepared to continue his journey to Desolada.
"By the way," he said, however, before doing so, "about that snake! How could it have got into your bed?"
"I don't know," Julian replied with a half laugh. "How should I? The coral snake is a new acquaintance, though I've known other specimens in my time. It got there somehow, didn't it?"
"Of course! They love warmth, you know. Perhaps it climbed up the legs of the bed and crept in where it would be covered up."
"It was rather rude to do such a thing in a visitor's bed though, wasn't it? It isn't as though I was one of the residents. And it must have been a clever chap, too, because it got in without disarranging the mosquito curtains the least little bit. That was clever, when you come to think of it!"
At which Sebastian gave a rather raucous kind of laugh, and then set his horse in motion.
"Au revoir!" said Julian. "I hope you'll find Madame Carmaux much better when you get back."