"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."