He bent down. “Fool! on yourself.”
A vast and towering shadow ran along the wall.
There wasn’t a sound. The face of Salazar appeared behind him, and an
uplifted hand grasping a knife. O’Brien saw the horror in my eyes. I
gasped to him: “Look....” and before he could move the knife went softly
home between neck and shoulder. Salazar glided to the door and turned to
wave his hand at me. O’Brien’s lips were pressed tightly together, the
handle of the knife was against his ear, the lanthorn hung at the end of
his rigid arm for a moment. As he lowered it, the blood spurted from
his shoulder as if from a burst stand-pipe, only black and warm. It fell
over my face, over my hands, everywhere. For a minute of eternity his
agonized eyes searched my features, as if to discern whether I had
connived, whether I condoned.
I had started up, my face coming right against his. I felt an immense
horror. What did it mean? What had he done? He had been such a power for
so long, so inevitably, over my whole life that I could not even begin
to understand that this was not some new subtle villainy of his. He
shook his head slowly, his ear disturbing the knife.
Then he turned jerkily on his heel, the lanthorn swinging round and
leaving me in his shadow. There were ten paces to reach the door. It
was like the finish of a race whether he would cover the remaining seven
after the first three steps. The dangling lanthorn shed small patches of
light through the holes in the metal top, like sunlight through leaves,
upon the gloom of the remote ceiling. At the fifth step he pressed his
hand spasmodically to his mouth; at the sixth he wavered to one side.
I made a sudden motion as if to save him from falling. He was dying!
He was dying! I hardly realized what it meant. This immense weight was
being removed from me. I had no need to fear him any more. I couldn’t
understand, I could only look. This was his passing. This....
He sank, knelt down, placing the Ian thorn on the floor. He covered his
face with his hands and began to cough incessantly, like a man dying of
consumption. The glowing top of the lanthorn hissed and sputtered out in
little sharp blows, like hammer strokes... Carlos had coughed like that.
Carlos was dead. Now O’Brien! He was going. I should escape. It was all
over. Was it all over? He bowed stiffly forward, placing his hands on
the stones, then lay over on his side with his face to the light, his
eyes glaring at it. I sat motionless, watching him. The lanthorn lit
the carved leg of the black table and a dusty circle of the flags.
The spurts of blood from his shoulder grew less long in answer to the
pulsing of his heart; his fists unclenched, he drew his legs up to
his body, then sank down. His eyes looked suddenly at mine and, as the
features slowly relaxed, the smile seemed to come back, enigmatic, round
his mouth.
He was dead; he was gone; I was free! He would never know where she was;
never! He had gone, with the question on his lips; with the agony of
uncertainty in his eyes. From the door came an immense, grotesque, and
horrible chuckle.
“Aha!-Aha! I have saved you, Señor, I have protected you. We are as
brothers.”
Against the tenuous blue light of the dawn Salazar was gesticulating in
the doorway. I felt a sudden repulsion; a feeling of intense disgust.
O’Brien lying there, I almost wished alive again--I wanted to have
him again, rather than that I should have been relieved of him by that
atrocious murder. I sat looking at both of them.
Saved! By that lunatic? I suddenly appreciated the agony of mind that
alone could have brought O’Brien, the cautious, the all-seeing, into
this place--. to ask me a question that for him was answered now.
Answered for him more than for me.
Where was Seraphina? Where? How should I come to her? O’Brien was dead.
And I.... Could I walk out of this place and go to her? O’Brien was
dead. But I...
I suddenly realized that now I was the pirate Nikola el Escoces--that
now he was no more there, nothing could save me from being handed over
to the admiral. Nothing.
Salazar outside the door began to call boastfully towards the sound of
approaching footsteps.’
“Aha! Aha! Come all of you! See what I have done! Come, Señor Alcayde!
Come, brave soldiers...”
In that way died this man whose passion had for so long hung over my
life like a shadow. Looking at the matter now, I am, perhaps, glad that
he fell neither by my hand nor in my quarrel. I assuredly had injured
him the first; I had come upon his ground; I had thwarted him; I had
been a heavy weight at a time when his fortunes had been failing.
Failing they undoubtedly were. He had run his course too far.
And, if his death removed him out of my path, the legacy of his intrigue
caused me suffering enough. Had he lived, there is no knowing what he
might have done. He was bound to deliver someone to the British--either
myself or Nichols. Perhaps, at the last moment, he would have kept me in
Havana. There is no saying.
Undoubtedly he had not wished to deliver Nichols; either because he
really knew too much or because he had scruples. Nichols had certainly
been faithful to him. And, with his fine irony, it was delightful to him
to think that I should die a felon’s death in England. For those reasons
he had identified me with Nikola el Escoces, intending to give up
whichever suited him at the last moment.
Now that was settled for him and for me. The delivery was to take
place at dawn, and O’Brien not to be found, the old Judge of the First
Instance had been sent to identify the prisoner. He selected me, whom,
of course, he recognized. There was no question of Nichols, who had been
imprisoned on a charge of theft trumped up by O’Brien.
Salazar, whether he would have gone to the Captain-General or not, was
now entirely useless. He was retained to answer the charge of murder.
And to any protestations I could make, the old _Juez_ was entirely deaf.
“The senor must make representations to his own authorities,” he said.
“I have warrant for what I have done.”
It was impossible to expose O’Brien to him. The soldiers of the escort,
in the dawn before the prison gates, simply laughed at me.
They marched me down through the gray mists, to the water’s edge. Two
soldiers held my arms; O’Brien’s blood was drying on my face and on my
clothes. I was, even to myself, a miserable object. Among the négresses
on the slimy boat-steps a thick, short man was asking questions. He
opened amazed eyes at the sight of me. It was Williams--the _Lion_ was
not yet gone then. If he spoke to me, or gave token of connection with
Seraphina, the Spaniards would understand. They would take her from him
certainly; perhaps immure her in a convent. And now that I was bound
irrevocably for England, she must go, too. He was shouldering his way
towards my guards.
“Silence!” I shouted, without looking at him. “Go away, make sail....
Tell Sebright....”
My guards seemed to think I had gone mad; they laid hands upon me. I
didn’t struggle, and we passed down towards the landing steps, brushing
Williams aside. He stood perturbedly gazing after me; then I saw him
asking questions of a civil guard. A man-of-war’s boat, the ensign
trailing in the glassy water, the glazed hats of the seamen bobbing like
clockwork, was flying towards us. Here was England! Here was home! I
should have to clear myself of felony, to strain every nerve and cheat
the gallows. If only Williams understood, if only he did not make a fool
of himself. I couldn’t see him any more; a jabbering crowd all round
us was being kept at a distance by the muskets of the soldiers. My only
chance was Sebright’s intelligence. He might prevent Williams making a
fool of himself. The commander of the guard said to the lieutenant from
the flagship, who had landed, attended by the master-at-arms:
“I have the honour to deliver to your worship’s custody the prisoner
promised to his excellency the English admiral. Here are the papers
disclosing his crimes to the justice. I beg for a receipt.”
A shabby _escrivano_ from the prison advanced bowing, with an inkhorn,
shaking a wet goose-quill. A _guardia civil_ offered his back. The
lieutenant signed a paper hastily, then looking hard at me, gave the
order:
“Master-at-arms, handcuff one of the prisoner’s hands to your own wrist.
He is a desperate character.”