“Would you trust a damned Irish rebel?” he asked.
“You are wrong in your surmise. I would have nothing to do with a rebel,
even in my thoughts and suppositions. I think that the Intendente of Don
Balthasar Riego would look twice before murdering in a bedroom the guest
of the house--a relation, a friend of the family.”
“That’s sensible,” he said, with that unalterable air of good nature,
which sometimes was like the most cruel mockery of humour. “And do you
think that even a relation of the Riegos would escape the scaffold for
killing Don Patricio O’Brien, one of the Royal Judges of the Marine
Court, member of the Council, Procurator to the Chapter....”
“Intendente of the Casa,” I threw in.
“That’s my gratitude,” he said gravely. “So you see....”
“Supreme chief of thieves and picaroons,” I suggested again.
He answered this by a gesture of disdainful superiority.
“I wonder if you---if any of you English--would have the courage to risk
your all--ambition, pride, position, wealth, peace of mind, your dearest
hope, your self-respect--like this. For an idea.”
His tone, that revealed something exalted and sad behind everything that
was sordid and base in the acts of that man’s villainous tools,
struck me with astonishment. I beheld, as an inseparable whole, the
contemptible result, the childishness of his imagination, the danger of
his recklessness, and something like loftiness in his pitiful illusion.
“Nothing’s too hot, too dirty, too heavy. Any way to get at you English;
any means. To strike! That’s the thing. I would die happy if I knew I
had helped to detach from you one island--one little island of all the
earth you have filched away, stolen, taken by force, got by lying....
Don’t taunt me with your taunts of thieves. What weapons better worthy
of you could I use? Oh, I am modest. I am modest. This is a little
thing, this Jamaica. What do I care for the Separationist blatherskite
more than for the loyal fools? You are all English to me. If I had my
way, your Empire would die of pin-pricks all over its big, overgrown
body. Let only one bit drop off. If robbing your ships may help it,
then, as you see me standing here, I am ready to go myself in a leaky
boat. I tell you Jamaica’s gone. And that may be the beginning of the
end.”
He lifted his arm not at me, but at England, if I may judge from his
burning stare. It was not to me he was speaking. There we were, Irish
and English, face to face, as it had been ever since we had met in the
narrow way of the world that had never been big enough for the tribes,
the nations, the races of man.
“Now, Mr. O’Brien, I don’t know what you may do to me, but I won’t
listen to any of this,” I said, very red in the face.
“Who wants you to listen?” he muttered absently, and went away from the
table to look out of the loophole, leaving me there with the sword and
the pistol.
Whatever he might have said of the scaffold, this was very imprudent
of him. It was characteristic of the man--of that impulsiveness which
existed in him side by side with his sagacity, with his coolness in
intrigue, with his unmerciful and revengeful temper. By my own feelings
I understood what an imprudence it was. But he was turning his back on
me, and how could I?... His imprudence was so complete that it made for
security. He did not, I am sure, remember my existence. I would just as
soon have jumped with a dagger upon a man in the dark.
He was really stirred to his depths--to the depths of his hate, and of
his love--by seeing me, an insignificant youth (I was no more), surge up
suddenly in his path. He turned where he stood at last, and contemplated
me with a sort of thoughtful surprise, as though he had tried to account
to himself for my existence.
“No,” he said, to himself really, “I wonder when I look at you. How did
you manage to get that pretty reputation over there? Ramon’s a fool. He
shall know it to his cost. But the craftiness of that Carlos! Or is it
only my confounded willingness to believe?”
He was putting his finger nearly on the very spot. I said nothing.
“Why,” he exclaimed, “when it’s all boiled down, you are only an English
beggar boy.”
“I’ve come to a man’s estate since we met last,” I said meaningly.
He seemed to meditate over this. His face never changed, except,
perhaps, to an even more amused benignity of expression.
“You have lived very fast by that account,” he remarked artlessly.
“Is it possible now? Well, life, as you know, can’t last forever; and,
indeed, taking a better look at you in this poor light, you do seem to
be very near death.”