AN ENCOUNTER.
And now Julian Ritherdon was here, in British Honduras, within ten or
fifteen miles of the estate known as Desolada--a name which had been
given to the place by some original Spanish settlers years before his
father and uncle had ever gone out to the colony. He was here, and
that father and uncle were dead; here, and on the way to what was
undoubtedly his own property; a property to which no one could dispute
his right, since George Ritherdon, his uncle, had been the only other
heir his father had ever had.
Yet, even as the animal which bore him continued to pace along amid
all the rich tropical vegetation around them; even, too, as the
yellow-headed parrots and the curassows chattered above his head and
the monkeys leapt from branch to branch, he mused as to whether he was
doing a wise thing in progressing towards Desolada--the place where he
was born, as he reflected with a strange feeling of incredulity in his
mind.
"For suppose," he thought to himself, "that when I get to it I find it
shut up or in the occupation of some other settler--what am I to do
then? How explain my appearance on the scene? I cannot very well ride
up to the house on this animal and summon the garrison to surrender,
like some knight-errant of old, and I can't stand parleying on the
steps explaining who I am. I believe I have gone the wrong way to work
after all! I ought to have gone and seen the Governor or the Chief
Justice, or taken some advice, after stating who I was. Or Mr.
Spranger! Confound it, why did I not present that letter of
introduction to him before starting off here?"
The latter gentleman was a well-known planter and merchant living on
the south side of Belize, to whom Julian had been furnished with a
letter of introduction by a retired post-captain whom he had run
against in London prior to his departure, and with whom he had dined
at a Service Club. And this officer had given him so flattering an
account of Mr. Spranger's hospitality, as well as the prominent
position which that personage held in the little capital, that he now
regretted considerably that he had not availed himself of the chance
which had come in his way. More especially he regretted it, too, when
there happened to come into his recollection the fact that the gallant
sailor had stated with much enthusiasm--after dinner--that Beatrix
Spranger, the planter's daughter, was without doubt the prettiest as
well as the nicest girl in the whole colony.
However, he comforted himself with the reflection that the journey
which he was now taking might easily serve as one of inspection
simply, and that, as there was no particular hurry, he could return to
Belize and then, before making any absolute claim upon his father's
estate, take the advice of the most important people in the town.
"All of which," he said to himself, "I ought to have thought of before
and decided upon. However, it doesn't matter! A week hence will do
just as well as now, and, meanwhile, I shall have had a look at the
place which must undoubtedly belong to me."
As he arrived at this conclusion, the mustang emerged from the
forest-like copse they had been passing through, and ahead of him he
saw, upon the flat plain, a little settlement or village.
"Which," thought Julian, "must be All Pines. Especially as over there
are the queer-shaped mountains called the 'Cockscomb,' of which the
negro told me."
Then he began to consider the advisability of finding accommodation at
this place for a day or so while he made that inspection of the estate
and residence of Desolada which he had on his ride decided upon.
All Pines, to which he now drew very near, presented but a bare and
straggling appearance, and that not a particularly flourishing one
either. A factory fallen quite into disuse was passed by Julian as he
approached the village; while although his eyes were able to see that,
on its outskirts, there was more than one large sugar estate, the
place itself was a poor one. Yet there was here that which the
traveller finds everywhere, no matter to what part of the world he
directs his footsteps and no matter how small the place he arrives at
may be--an inn. An inn, outside which there were standing four or five
saddled mules and mustangs, and one fairly good-looking horse in
excellent condition. A horse, however, that a person used to such
animals might consider as showing rather more of the hinder white of
its eye than was desirable, and which twitched its small, delicate
ears in a manner equally suspicious.
There seemed very little sign of life about this inn in spite of these
animals, however, as Julian made his way into it, after tying up his
own mustang to a nail in a tree--since a dog asleep outside in the sun
and a negro asleep inside in what might be, and probably was, termed
the entrance hall, scarcely furnished such signs. All the same, he
heard voices, and pretty loud ones too, in some room close at hand, as
well as something else, also--a sound which seemed familiar enough to
his ears; a sound that he--who had been all over the world more than
once as a sailor--had heard in diverse places. In Port Said to wit, in
Shanghai, San Francisco, Lisbon, and Monte Carlo. The hum of a wheel,
the click and rattle of a ball against brass, and then a soft
voice--surely it was a woman's!--murmuring a number, a colour, a
chance!
"So, so!" said Julian to himself, "Madame la Roulette, and here, too.
Ah! well, madame is everywhere; why shouldn't she favour this place as
well as all others that she can force her way into?"
Then he pushed open a swing door to his right, a door covered with
cocoanut matting nailed on to it, perhaps to keep the place cool,
perhaps to deaden sound--the sound of Madame la Roulette's clicking
jaws--though surely this was scarcely necessary in such an
out-of-the-way spot, and entered the room whence the noise proceeded.
The place was darkened by matting and Persians; again, perhaps, to
exclude the heat or deaden _sound_; and was, indeed, so dark that,
until his eyes became accustomed to the dull gloom of the room--vast
and sparsely furnished--he could scarcely discern what was in it. He
was, however, able to perceive the forms of four or five men seated
round a table, to see coins glittering on it; and a girl at the head
of the table (so dark that, doubtless, she was of usual mixed Spanish
and Indian blood common to the colony) who was acting as croupier--a
girl in whose hair was an oleander flower that gleamed like a star in
the general duskiness of her surroundings. While, as he gazed, she
twirled the wheel, murmuring softly: "Plank it down before it is too
late," as well as, "Make your game," and spun the ball; while, a
moment later, she flung out pieces of gold and silver to right and
left of her and raked in similar pieces, also from right and left of
her.
But the sordid, dusty room, across which the motes glanced in the
single ray of sunshine that stole in and streamed across the table,
was not--it need scarcely be said--a prototype of the gilded palace
that smiles over the blue waters of the Mediterranean, nor of the
great gambling chambers in the ancient streets behind the Cathedral in
Lisbon, nor of the white and airy saloons of San Francisco--instead,
it was mean, dusty, and dirty, while over it there was the f[oe]tid,
sickly, tropical atmosphere that pervades places to which neither
light nor constant air is often admitted.
Himself unseen for the moment--since, as he entered the room, a
wrangle had suddenly sprung up among all at the table over the
disputed ownership of a certain stake--he stared in amazement into the
gloomy den. Yet that amazement was not occasioned by the place itself
(he had seen worse, or at least as bad, in other lands), but by the
face of a man who was seated behind the half-caste girl acting as
croupier, evidently under his directions.
Where had he seen that face, or one like it, before? That was what he
was asking himself now; that was what was causing his amazement!
Where? Where? For the features were known to him--the face was
familiar, some trick or turn in it was not strange.
Where had he done so, and what did it mean?
Almost he was appalled, dismayed, at the sight of that face. The nose
straight, the eyes full and clear, the chin clear cut; nothing in it
unfamiliar to him except a certain cruel, determined look that he did
not recognise.
The dispute waxed stronger between the gamblers; the half-caste girl
laughed and chattered like one of the monkeys outside in the woods,
and beat the table more than once with her lithe, sinuous hand and
summoned them to put down fresh stakes, to recommence the game; the
men squabbled and wrangled between themselves, and one pointed
significantly to his blouse--open at the breast; so significantly,
indeed, that none who saw the action could doubt what there was inside
that blouse, lying ready to his right hand.
That action of the man--a little wizened fellow, himself half
Spaniard, half Indian, with perhaps a drop or two of the tar-bucket
also in his veins--brought things to an end, to a climax.
For the other man whose face was puzzling Julian Ritherdon's brain,
and puzzling him with a bewilderment that was almost weird and
uncanny, suddenly sprang up from beside, or rather behind, the girl
croupier and cried--
"Stop it! Cease, I say. It is you, Jaime, you who always makes these
disputes. Come! I'll have no more of it. And keep your hand from the
pistol or----"
But his threat was ended by his action, which was to seize the man he
had addressed by the scruff of his neck, after which he commenced to
haul him towards the door.
Then he--then all of them--saw the intruder, Julian Ritherdon,
standing there by that door, looking at them calmly and
unruffled--calm and unruffled, that is to say, except for his
bewilderment at the sight of the other man's face.
They all saw him in a moment as they turned, and in a moment a fresh
uproar, a new disturbance, arose; a disturbance that seemed to bode
ominously for Julian. For, now, in each man's hands there was a
revolver, drawn like lightning from the breast of each shirt or
blouse.
"Who are you? What are you?" all cried together, except the girl, who
was busily sweeping up the gold and silver on the table into her
pockets. "Who? One of the constabulary from Belize? A spy! Shoot him!"
"No," exclaimed the man who bore the features that so amazed Julian
Ritherdon, "no, this is not one of the constabulary;" while, as he
spoke, his eyes roved over the tropical naval clothes, or "whites," in
which the former was clad for coolness. "Neither do I believe he is a
spy. Yet," he continued, "what are you doing here? Who are you?"
Neither their pistols nor their cries had any power to alarm Julian,
who, young as he was, had already won the Egyptian medal and the
Albert medal for saving life; wherefore, looking his interrogator
calmly in the face, he said--
"I am on a visit to the colony, and my name is Julian Ritherdon."
"Julian Ritherdon!" the other exclaimed, "Julian Ritherdon!" and as he
spoke the owner of that name could see the astonishment on all their
faces. "Julian Ritherdon," he repeated again.
"That is it. Doubtless you know it hereabouts. May I be so bold as to
ask what yours is?"
The man gave a hard, dry laugh--a strange laugh it was, too; then he
replied, "Certainly you may. Especially as mine is by chance much the
same as your own. My name is Sebastian Leigh Ritherdon."
"What! Your name is Ritherdon? You a Ritherdon? Who in Heaven's name
are you, then?"
"I happen to be the owner of a property near here called Desolada. The
owner, because I am the son of the late Mr. Ritherdon and of his wife,
Isobel Leigh, who died after giving me birth!"