A MIDNIGHT VISITOR.
"Not yet," Julian called down in answer to the other's remark, "though
I am going directly. Only it is so hot. I hope I am not disturbing the
house."
"Not at all. Do what you like. We often sit here till long after
midnight, since it is the only cool time of the twenty-four hours.
Will you come down again and join us?"
"No, if you'll excuse me. I'll take a turn or two here and then go to
bed."
Whereon as he spoke, he began to walk up and down the balcony.
It ran (as has been said of the lower one on which Sebastian and
Madame Carmaux were seated) round the whole of the house, so that, had
Julian desired to do so, he could have commenced a tour of the
building which, by being continued, would eventually have brought him
back to the spot where he now was. He contented himself, however, with
commencing to walk towards the right-hand corner of the great rambling
mansion, proceeding as far upon it as led to where the balcony turned
at the angle, then, after a glance down its--at that place--darkened
length, he retraced his steps, meaning to proceed to the opposite or
left-hand corner.
Doing so, however, and coming thus in front of his bedroom window,
from which, since the blind was up, the light of his lamp streamed out
on to the broad wooden floor of the balcony, he saw lying at his feet
a small object which formed a patch of colour on the dark boards. A
patch which was of a pale roseate hue, the thing being, indeed, a
little spray, now dry and faded, of the oleander flower. And he knew,
felt sure, where he had seen that spray before.
"I know now," he said to himself, "who turned the slat--who stood
outside my window looking in on me."
Picking up the withered thing, he, nevertheless, continued his stroll
along the balcony until he arrived at the left angle of the house,
when he was able to glance down the whole of that side of it, this
being as much in the dark and unrelieved by any light from within as
the corresponding right side had been. Unrelieved, that is, by any
light except the gleam of the great stars which here glisten with an
incandescent whiteness; and in that gleam he saw sitting on the floor
of the balcony--her back against the wall, her arms over her knees and
her head sunk on those arms--the half-caste girl, Zara, the croupier
of the gambling-table to which Sebastian had supplied the "bank" that
morning at All Pines.
"You have dropped this flower from your hair," he said, tossing it
lightly down to her, while she turned up her dark, dusky eyes at him
and, picking up the withered spray, tossed it in her turn
contemptuously over the balcony. But she said nothing and, a moment
later, let her head droop once more towards her arms.
"Do you pass the night here?" he said now. "Surely it is not wholesome
to keep out in open air like this."
"I sit here often," she replied, "before going to bed in my room
behind. The rooms are too warm. I disturb no one."
For a moment he felt disposed to say that it would disturb him if she
should again take it into her head to turn his blinds, but, on second
considerations, he held his peace. To know a thing and not to divulge
one's knowledge is, he reflected, sometimes to possess a secret--a
clue--a warning worth having; to possess, indeed, something that may
be of use to us in the future if not now, while, for the rest--well!
the returning of the spray to her had, doubtless, informed the girl
sufficiently that he was acquainted with the fact of how she had been
outside his window, and that it was she who had opened his blind wide
enough to allow her to peer in on him.
"Good-night," he said, turning away. "Good-night," and without waiting
to hear whether she returned the greeting or not, he went back to the
bedroom. Yet, before he entered it, he bent over the balcony and
called down another "good-night" to Sebastian, who, he noticed, had
now been deserted by Madame Carmaux.
For some considerable time after this he walked about his room; long
enough, indeed, to give Sebastian the idea that he was preparing for
bed, then, although he had removed none of his clothing except his
boots, he put out the lamp.
"If the young lady is desirous of observing me again," he reflected,
"she can do so. Yet if she does, it will not be without my knowing it.
And if she should pay me another visit--why, we shall see."
But, all the same, and because he thought it not at all unlikely that
some other visitor than the girl might make her way, not only to the
blind itself but even to the room, he laid his right arm along the
table so that his fingers were touching the revolver that he had now
placed on that table.
"I haven't taken countless middle watches for nothing in my time," he
said to himself; "another won't hurt me. If I do drop asleep, I
imagine I shall wake up pretty easily."
He was on the alert now, and not only on the alert as to any one who
might be disposed to pay him a nocturnal visit, but, also, mentally
wary as to what might be the truth concerning Sebastian Ritherdon and
himself. For, strange to say, there was a singular revulsion of
feeling going on in his mind at this time; strange because, at
present, scarcely anything of considerable importance, scarcely
anything sufficiently tangible, had occurred to produce this new
conviction that Sebastian's story was untrue, and that the other story
told by his uncle before his death was the right one.
All the same, the conviction was growing in his mind; growing
steadily, although perhaps without any just reason or cause for its
growth. Meanwhile, his ears now told him that, although Madame Carmaux
was absent when he glanced over the balcony to wish Sebastian that
last greeting, she undoubtedly had not gone to bed. From below, in the
intense stillness of the tropic night--a stillness broken only
occasionally by the cry of some bird from the plantation beyond the
cultivated gardens, he heard the soft luscious tones of the woman
herself--and those who are familiar with the tones of southern women
will recall how luscious the murmur can be; he heard, too, the deeper
notes of the man. Yet what they said to each other in subdued whispers
was unintelligible to him; beyond a word here and there nothing
reached his ears.
With the feeling of conviction growing stronger and stronger in his
mind that there was some deception about the whole affair--that,
plausible as Sebastian's possession of all which the dead man had left
behind appeared; plausible, too, as was his undoubted position here
and had been from his very earliest days, Julian would have given much
now to overhear their conversation--a conversation which, he felt
certain, in spite of it taking place thirty feet below where he was
supposed to be by now asleep, related to his appearance on the scene.
Would it be possible? Could he in any way manage to thus overhear it?
If he were nearer to the persianas, his ear close to the slats, his
head placed down low, close to the boards of the room and of the
balcony as well--what might not be overheard?
Thinking thus, he resolved to make the attempt, even while he told
himself that in no other circumstances would he--a gentleman, a man of
honour--resort to such a scheme of prying interference. But--for still
the certainty increased in his mind that there was some deceit, some
fraud in connection with Sebastian Ritherdon's possession of Desolada
and all that Desolada represented in value--he did not hesitate now.
As once he, with some of his bluejackets, had tracked slavers from the
sea for miles inland and into the coast swamps and fever-haunted
interior of the great Black Continent, so now he would track this
man's devious and doubtful existence, as, remembering George
Ritherdon's story, it seemed to him to be. If he had wronged
Sebastian, if he had formed a false estimate of his possession of this
place and of his right to the name he bore, no harm would be done. For
then he would go away from Honduras for ever, leaving the man in
peaceable possession of all that was rightly his. But, if his
suspicions were not wrong----
He let himself down to the floor from the chair on which he had been
sitting in the dark for now nearly an hour, and, quietly, noiselessly,
he progressed along that solid floor--one so well laid in the past
that no board either creaked or made any noise--and thus he reached
the balcony, there interposing nothing now between him and it but the
lowered blind.
Then when he had arrived there, he heard their voices plainly; heard
every word that fell from their lips--the soft murmur of the woman's
tones, the deeper, more guttural notes of the man.
Only--he might as well have been a mile away from where they sat, he
might as well have been stone deaf as able to thus easily overhear
those words.
For Sebastian and his companion were speaking in a tongue that was
unknown to him; a tongue that, in spite of the Spanish surroundings
and influences which still linger in all places forming parts of
Central America, was not Spanish. Of this language he, like most
sailors, knew something; therefore he was aware that it was not that,
as well as he was aware that it was not French. Perhaps 'twas Maya,
which he had been told in Belize was the native jargon, or Carib,
which was spoken along the coast.
And almost, as he recognised how he was baffled, could he have laughed
bitterly at himself. "What a fool I must have been," he thought, "to
suppose that if they had any confidences to make to each other, any
secrets to talk over in which I was concerned they would discuss them
in a language I should be likely to understand."
But there are some words, especially those which express names, which
cannot be translated into a foreign tongue. Among such, Ritherdon
would be one. Julian, too, is another, with only the addition of the
letter "o" at the end in Spanish (and perhaps also in Maya or Carib),
and George, which, though spelt Jorge, has, in speaking, nearly the
same pronunciation. And these names met his ear as did others:
Inglaterra--the name of the woman Isobel Leigh, whom Julian believed
to have been his mother, but whom Sebastian asserted to have been
his; also the name of that fair American city lying to the north of
them--New Orleans--it being referred to, of course, in the Spanish
tongue.
"So," he thought to himself, "it is of me they are talking. Of
me--which would not, perhaps, be strange, since a guest so suddenly
received into the house and having the name of Ritherdon might well
furnish food for conversation. But, when coupled with George
Ritherdon, with New Orleans, above all with the name of Isobel
Leigh----"
Even as that name was in his mind, he heard it again mentioned below
by the woman--Madame Carmaux. Mentioned, too, in conjunction with and
followed by a light, subdued laugh; a laugh in which his acuteness
could hear an undercurrent of bitterness--perhaps of derision.
"And she was this woman's relative," he thought, "her relative! Yet
now she is jeered at, spoken scornfully of by----"
In amazement he paused, even while his reflections arrived at this
stage.
In front of where his eyes were, low down to the floor of the balcony,
something dark and sombre passed, then returned and stopped before
him, blotting from his eyes all that lay in front of them--the tops of
the palms, the woods beyond the garden, the dark sea beyond that. Like
a pall it rested before his vision, obscuring, blurring everything.
And, a moment later, he recognised that it was a woman's dress which
thus impeded his view, while, as he did so, he heard some five feet
above him a light click made by one of the slats.
Then, with an upward glance of his eyes, that glance being aided by a
noiseless turn of his head, he saw that a finger was holding back the
lath, and knew--felt sure--that into the darkness of the room two
other eyes were gazing.