“Ramon here has told us you battered the admiral last night; and there’s
a warrant out already against you for attempted murder. You’re hand and
glove with the best of the Separationists in this island, I know, but
they won’t save you from being committed--for rebellion, perhaps. You
know it as well as I do. You were down here to take a passage to-day,
weren’t you, now?”
I remembered that the Island Loyalists said that the pirates and
Separationists worked together to bother the admiral and raise
discontent. Living in the centre of Separationist discontent with the
Macdonalds, I knew it was not true. But nothing was too bad to say
against the planters who clamoured for union with the United States.
O’Brien leaned forward. His voice had a note of disdain, and then took
one of deeper earnestness; it sank into his chest. He extended his hand;
his eyebrows twitched. He looked--he was--a conspirator.
“I tell you I do it for the sake of Ireland,” he said passionately.
“Every ship we take, every clamour they raise here, is a stroke and is
disgrace for them over there that have murdered us and ruined my own
dear land.” His face worked convulsively; I was in the presence of one
of the primeval passions. But he grew calm immediately after. “_You_
want Separation for reasons of your own. I don’t ask what they are. No
doubt you and your crony Macdonald and the rest of them will feather
your own nests; I don’t ask. But help me to be a thorn in their
sides--just a little--just a little longer. What do I put in your way?
Just what you want. Have your Jamaica joined to the United States.
You’ll be able to come back with your pockets full, and I’ll be
joyful--for the sake of my own dear land.”
I said suddenly and recklessly--if I had to face one race-passion, he
had to look at another; we were cat and dog--Celt and Saxon, as it was
in the beginning: “I am not a traitor to my country.” Then I realized
with sudden concern that I had probably awakened the old Don. He stirred
uneasily in his chair, and lifted one hand.
“The moment I go out from here I’ll denounce you,” I said very low; “I
swear I will. You’re here; you can’t get away; you’ll swing.”
O’Brien started. His eyes blazed at me. Then he frowned. “I’ve been
misled,” he muttered, with a dark glance at Carlos. And recovering his
jocular serenity, “Ye mean it?” he asked; “it’s not British heroics?”
The old Don stirred again and sighed. The young girl glided swiftly to
his side. “Señor O’Brien,” she said, “you have so irritated my English
cousin that he has awakened my father.”
O’Brien grinned gently. “’Tis ever the way,” he said sardonically. “The
English fools do the harm and the Irish fool gets the kicking.” He rose
to his feet, quite collected, a spick-and-span little man. “I suppose
I’ve said too much. Well, well! You are going to denounce the senior
judge of the Marine Court of Havana as a pirate. I wonder who will
believe you!” He went behind the old Don’s chair with the gliding motion
of a Spanish lawyer, and slipped down the open trap-hatch near the
window.
It was the disappearance of a shadow. I heard some guttural mutterings
come up through the hatch, a rustling, then silence. If he was afraid
of me at all he carried it off very well. I apologized to the young girl
for having awakened her father. Her colour was very high, and her eyes
sparkled. If she had not been so very beautiful I should have gone away
at once. She said angrily:
“He is odious to me, the Señor Juez. Too long my father has suffered his
insolence.” She was very small, but she had an extraordinary dignity of
command. “I could see, Señor, that he was annoying you. Why should you
consider such a creature?” Her head drooped. “But my father is very
old.”