JULIAN'S EYES ARE OPENED.
Julian's slumbers of the past night having been more or less disturbed
by the various incidents of, first, his drowsy delirium, then of those
figures of the watcher and the watched, as well as by the storm and
the sight of the departing form of the latter individual, he decided
that, during the course of the present day, he would endeavour to
obtain some sleep. Especially he determined thus because, now, he knew
that there must be no more sleeping at night for him.
Whether he remained in Desolada for the next four nights as he had
consented to do, or whether he decided to follow Zara's suggestion and
find some excuse for departing at once, he understood plainly that to
sleep again when night was over all the house might be fraught with
deadly risk to him. What that risk was, what the tangible shape which
it would be likely later on to assume, he was not yet able to
conclude--but that it existed he had no doubt. Bright and _insouciant_
as he was, with also in his composition a total absence of fear, he
was still sufficiently cool, as well as sufficiently intelligent to
understand that here, in Desolada, he was not only regarded as an
inconvenient interloper, but one who must be got rid of somehow.
"Which proves, if it proves anything," he thought, "that Sebastian
knows all about why I am in this country; and also that, secure as his
position seems, there is some flaw in it which, if brought to light,
will destroy that position. I know it, too, now, am certain that
George Ritherdon's story is true--and, somehow, I am going to prove it
so. I have muddled the time away too long; now I am going to be a man
of action. When I get back to Belize that action begins. Mr. Spranger
said I ought to confide in a lawyer, and in a lawyer I will confide.
Henceforth, we'll thresh this thing out thoroughly."
Zara had come in again and removed the remnants of the breakfast, and
as he had told her that he meant to sleep as long as ever it was
possible, she had promised him that he should not be disturbed.
Wherefore, he now proceeded to darken the room in every way that he
could, without thoroughly excluding the air; namely, by letting down
the curtains of the windows as well as by closing the persianas.
"I suppose," he thought to himself, "there is no likelihood of my
visitor coming in, in the broad daylight, yet, all the same, I will
endeavour to make sure." Upon which he proceeded to put in practise an
old trick which in his gunroom days he had often played upon his
brother middies (and had had played upon himself); while remembering,
as he did so, the merry shouts which had run along the gangway of the
lower deck on dark nights over its successful accomplishment. He took
a piece of stout cord and tied it across from one side of the window
to the other at about a foot and a half from the floor.
"Now," he said, "If any one tries to come in here to-day--well! if
they don't break their legs they'll make such a din as will lead to
their falling into my hands."
It was almost midday when he laid himself down on the sofa to obtain
his much needed rest--midday, and with the sun streaming down
vertically and making the apartment, in spite of its being darkened,
more like the engine room of a steamer than anything else; yet, soon,
he was in a deep refreshing sleep in spite of this disadvantage. A
slumber so calm and refreshing that he slept on and on, until, at
last, the room grew cool; partly by aid of a gentle breeze which was
now blowing down from the summits of the Cockscomb Mountains and
partly by the coming of the swift tropical darkness.
Then he awoke, not knowing where he was nor being able to recall that
fact even for a moment or so after he was awake, nor to understand
why he lay there in the dark. Yet, as gradually he returned to his
every-day senses, he became aware that he did not alone owe his
awakening to the fact that he had exhausted his desire for slumber,
but also to a sound which fell upon his ears. The sound of a slight
tapping on his bedroom door.
Astonished at the darkness, which now enveloped the room, more than at
anything else--for the tapping he attributed to Zara having brought
him his evening meal--he went to the door and turned the key, he
having been careful to lock the former securely before going to sleep.
Then, to his surprise, when he had opened the door and peered into the
passage, which was also now enveloped in the shadow of night, he saw a
figure standing there which was not that of Zara, but, instead, of the
half-caste Paz.
"What is it?" he asked, staring at the man and wondering what he
wanted. "What! Is anything the matter?"
"Nothing very much," the half-caste answered, his eyes having a
strange glitter in them as they rested on Julian's face. "Only, think
you like to see funny sight. You like see Señor Sebastian look very
funny. You come with me. Quietly."
"What do you mean, Paz?" Julian asked, wondering if this was some ruse
whereby to beguile him into danger. "What is it?"
"I show you Massa Sebastian very funny. He very strange. Don't think
he find mountain mullet very good for him; don't think he like drink
very much with physic-nut oil in it," and he gave that little bleating
laugh which Julian had heard before and marvelled at.
Mountain mullet! Physic-nut oil! The very things that Sebastian had
suggested to Julian that morning, yet of which Julian had not
partaken. The mullet, although Zara had said the men had not caught
any for a long time. The phial which he had brought to the room, but
the oil of which he had not touched!
"There was no mountain mullet caught--" he began, but Paz interrupted
him with that bleating laugh once more, though subdued as befitted the
circumstances.
"Ho!" he said. "Nice mountain mullet in Desolada this morning. He
order it cook for you. Only--Zara good girl. She love Sebastian, so
she give it him and give you trout. Very good girl. But--it make him
funny. So, too, physic-nut oil. But that wrong name. Physic-nut oil
very much. Not good if mixed with drop of Amancay."
Amancay! Where had Julian heard that name before! Then, swift as
lightning, he remembered. He recalled a conversation he had had with
Mr. Spranger one evening over the various plants and herbs of the
colony, and also how he had listened to stories of the deadly powers
of many of them--of the Manzanillo, or Manchineel, of the Florispondio
and the Cojon del gato--above all, of the Amancay, a plant whose juice
caused first delirium; then, if taken continually, raving madness, and
then--death. A plant, too, whose juice could work its deadly
destruction not only by being taken inwardly, but by being inhaled.
"The Indians," Mr. Spranger had said, "content themselves with that.
If they can only get the opportunity of sprinkling it on the earth
where their enemy lies, or of smearing his tent canvas with it, or his
clothes, the trick is done. And that enemy's only chance is that he,
too, should know of its properties. Then he is safe. For the odour it
emits is such that none who have ever smelt it once can fail to
recognise its presence. But on those who are unacquainted with those
properties--well! God help them!"
He wondered as he recalled those words if he had turned white, so
white that, even in the dusk of the corridor, the man standing by his
side could perceive it; he wondered, too, if his features had assumed
a stern, set expression in keeping with the determination that now was
dominant in his mind. The determination to descend to where Sebastian
Ritherdon was, to stand face to face with him, to ask him whether it
was he who had sprinkled his jacket and his waistcoat, as well as the
pillow on which he nightly slept, with the accursed, infernal juice of
the deadly Amancay. Ask! Bah! what use to ask, only to receive a lie
in return! What need at all to ask? _He knew!_
"Come," he said to Paz, even as he went back into the room for his
revolver. "Come, take me to where this fellow is. Yet," he said
pausing, "you say I shall see a funny sight. What is it? Is he mad--or
dying?"
"He funny. He eat mountain mullet, he drink physic-nut oil in wine.
Zara love him dearly, he----"
"Come," Julian again said, speaking sternly. "Come."
Then they both went along the corridor and down the great staircase.
"Let us go out garden, to veranda," Paz whispered. "Then we look in
over veranda through open window. See funny things. Hear funny words."
Whereupon accompanied by Julian, he went out by a side door of the
long hall, and so came around into the garden in front of the great
saloon in which Sebastian always sat in the evening.
Sheltering themselves behind a vast bush of flamboyants which grew
close up to where the veranda ran, they were both able to see into the
room, when in truth the sight of Sebastian was enough to make the
beholders deem him mad.
His coat was off, flung across the back of the chair, but in his hand
he had a large white pocket handkerchief with which he incessantly
wiped his face, down which the perspiration was pouring. Yet, even as
he did so, it was plain to observe that he was seeking eagerly for
something which he could not find. A large campeachy-wood cabinet
stood up against the wall exactly facing the spot where the window
was, and the doors of this were now set open, showing all the drawers
dragged out of their places and the contents turned out pell-mell.
While the man, lurching unsteadily all the time and with a stumbling,
heavy motion in his feet which seemed familiar enough to Julian (since
only last night he had stumbled and lurched in the same way), was
seizing little bottles and phials and holding them up to the light,
and wrenching the corks out of them to sniff at the contents, and then
hurling them away from him with an action of despair and rage.
"He look for counter-poison," Paz said, using the Spanish expression,
which Julian understood well enough. "Maybe, he not find it. Then he
die," and the bleating laugh sounded now very much like a gloating
chuckle. "Then he die," he repeated.
"Is there, then, an antidote?" Julian asked.
"Yes. Yes," Paz whispered. "Yes, antidoty, if he find it. If he has
not taken too much."
"How can he have taken too much? Why take any?"
For answer Paz said nothing, but instead, looked at Julian. And, in
the light that now streamed out across the veranda to where they
stood, dimmed and shaded as it might be by the thick foliage and
flower of the flamboyant bush, the latter could see that the
half-caste's eyes glittered demoniacally and that his fingers were
twitching, and judged that it was only by great constraint that the
latter suppressed the laugh he indulged in so often.
Then, while no word was spoken between them, Julian felt the long slim
fingers of Paz touch his and push something into his hand, something
that he at once recognised to be the phial of physic-nut oil; or,
rather, the phial that had once contained the physic-nut oil, diluted
with the juice of the murderous Amancay.
"All love Sebastian here," the semi-savage hissed, his remaining white
teeth shining horribly in the flickering gleam through the flamboyant.
"Love him, oh! so dear."
"He find it. He find it," he muttered excitedly an instant afterwards.
"Look! Look! Look!"
And Julian did look; fascinated by Sebastian's manner.
For the other held now a small bottle in his hand which he had
unearthed from some drawer in the interior of the great cabinet, and
was holding it between his eyes and the globe of the lamp, gazing as
steadily as he could at the mixture which it doubtless contained. As
steadily as he could, because he still swayed about a good deal while
he stood there; perhaps because, too, his hands trembled. Then, with a
look of exultation on his features and in his bloodshot eyes, plainly
to be observed from where the two men stood outside, he tore the
stopper out with his teeth, smelt the contents, and instantly seizing
a tumbler emptied them into that, drenched it with water, and drank
the draught down.
Yet, a moment later, Sebastian performed another action equally
extraordinary--he seeming to remember--as they judged by the look of
dawning recollection on his face--something he had forgotten! He came,
still lurching, a little nearer to the open window, and then in a loud
voice--a voice that was evidently intended to be heard at some
distance--said:
"Well, good-night, Miriam. Good-night, I am so thankful to think that
you are better! Good night."
And as he uttered those words, Julian understood.
"I see his ruse, his trick," he muttered. "He thinks that I am still
upstairs, that he is deceiving me, making me believe she is down here.
But, though I am not up there, she is! And perhaps in my room again.
Quick, Paz! Come. Follow me!"