CHAPTER XXIX
THE WATCHING FIGURE
With a gasp, Beatrix took a step toward the other, while as she did so the latter almost uttered a moan herself; though her agitation proceeded from a different cause-from, in truth, her appreciation of how wide a gulf there was between them. Between them who both loved the same man! Between this dainty English girl, who looked so fresh and fair, and was dressed in so spotless and cool a garb, and her who was black and swarthy, her who was clad almost in rags, and covered with the dust and grime of a long journey made partly on foot and partly on the mule's back. What chance was there for her, what hope, she asked herself, that Sebastian should ever love her instead of this other?
"Murder will be done!" Beatrix exclaimed, repeating Zara's words, even while a faintness stole over her that she thought must be like the faintness of coming death. "Murder will be done. To whom? To Mr. – to Lieutenant Ritherdon?"
"Yes," Zara answered, standing there before the other, and feeling ashamed as she did so of the appearance she must present to her rival, as she deemed her. "Yes, murder. The murder of Lieutenant Ritherdon. But, if you have courage, if you have any power, it may be prevented. And-and-you love him! I know it. There must be no crime. You love him!" she repeated fiercely.
Astonished that the girl should know her secret, unable to understand how she could have learned it, unless for some reason, Lieutenant Ritherdon might have hinted that he hoped such was the case; abashed at the secret being known, Beatrix could but stammer: "Yes-yes-I love him."
"I love him, too!" Zara exclaimed fiercely, hotly; she neither stammering, nor appearing to be put to shame. "I love him too. There must be no crime-"
"You love him!" Beatrix repeated, startled.
"With my whole heart and soul. Do you think our hot blood is not as capable of love as the cold blood that runs in your veins?"
But Beatrix could only whisper again, amazed, "You love him too!"
"I have loved him all my life," Zara said. "I have always loved him. And I will save him."
Then Beatrix understood how they were at cross-purposes, and that this half-savage girl was here, not to save Julian from being murdered so much as to save Sebastian from becoming a murderer.
"Tell me all," she said faintly, sinking into her chair, while she motioned to Zara to seat herself in one of the others that stood close by. "Tell me all that has happened. Then I shall know perhaps what I am to do."
And Zara, smothering in her heart the hatred that she felt against this other girl so much more fair and attractive than she, she who was but a peasant, almost a slave, while her rival had wealth and bright surroundings-told her all she knew.
She narrated how she had watched by day and night to see that no harm was done to the stranger staying at Desolada: how, sometimes, she had slept on the upper veranda and sometimes in the grounds and gardens, being ever on the watch. And then she told the story of all that had happened, of how Madame Carmaux had tried to shoot Julian in the copse and had herself been struck in the arm by a bullet from Paz's rifle, but to avoid suspicion had, on her return to the house, commenced arranging flowers in a bowl with one hand, she keeping the other, which Zara knew she had hastily bandaged up, out of sight. She told, too, the whole story of the Amancay poison, and described the final scene in the lower room which she had witnessed from the garden where she stood hidden.
"And now," she cried, "now they will kill him to-night, get rid of him forever, if, before night comes, help does not reach him."
"What will they do?" asked Beatrix, white to the lips, and trembling all over as she had trembled from the first. "Poison him with that hateful Amancay-or-or-"
"I know not, but they will kill him. They will not keep him there. Instead, perhaps, carry him to one of the lagoons where the alligators are, or to the sea where the white sharks are, or-"
"Come, come!" cried Beatrix, with a shriek of horror. "Come at once to my father in the city. Oh! in mercy, come-there is not an hour, not a moment, to be lost!"
She had seen, almost directly after Zara had made her appearance, the groom come out from the house, and understood that he was approaching to tell her that the buggy was prepared, but by a motion of her hand she had made the man understand that she was not ready. But, now, she must go at once, and she must take this girl with her-that was all important. For surely, when some of the legal authorities in Belize had heard the tale which Zara could tell, they would instantly send assistance to Julian.
"Come!" she cried again. "Come! we must go to the city at once."
"It will save-him?" Zara asked, her thoughts still upon the man who must be prevented at all hazards from committing a horrible crime, and supposing in her ignorance that it was also the desire to prevent that man from committing this crime which made Beatrix so anxious. "It will save-him?"
"Yes," Beatrix answered. "Yes. It will save him."
The night had come, suddenly, swiftly, as it always does in Southern lands. Half an hour earlier a band of twenty people had been riding as swiftly as the heat would permit along the dusty white thread, which was the road that led past All Pines on toward Desolada-now the same band was progressing beneath the swift-appearing stars overhead. The breeze, too, which, not long before, had burnt them with its fiery sun-struck breath, came cool and fresh and grateful at this time, since it was no longer laden with heat; while from all the wealth of vegetation around, there were, distilled by the night dews, the luscious scents and odours that the flowers of the region possess.
A band of twenty people-of eighteen men and two women-who, now that night had fallen, rode more swiftly than they had done before, the trot of the horses being accompanied by the clang of scabbard against boot and spur, of jangling bridle and bridle-chain. For among them was a small troop of constabulary headed by an officer, as well as a handful of the police. Also, Mr. Spranger formed one of the number. The two women were Beatrix and Zara, the former having insisted on her father allowing her to accompany the force.
When Beatrix had caused Zara to go with her to Mr. Spranger's offices, and then to tell him her tale-a tale supplemented by the former's own account of the letter from Sebastian accompanied by Julian's luggage-that gentleman had at once agreed that there was no time to be lost if Julian was to be saved from any further designs against him. Of course, he and all the Government officials were well acquainted with each other, the Governor included, but it was to the Chief Justice that he at once made his way, accompanied by Zara, who had to tell her tale for a second time to that representative of authority and law.
Then the rest was easy-instructions were given to the Commandant of Constabulary and the Superintendent of Police, and the force set out. Meanwhile, the latter was provided with a warrant (although neither Beatrix nor Zara was aware that such was the case) for the arrest of both Sebastian Ritherdon and Madame Carmaux on a charge of attempted murder.
And now as the little band passed All Pines, Zara, who rode close by Beatrix's side, whispered in the latter's ear that she was about to quit them; she knew, she said, bypaths that she could thread which the others could not do, or in doing, would only make very slow progress.
"But," she concluded, still in a whisper, and with her dark face as close to the fair one of the English girl as she could place it-"I shall be there when you all arrive. And by then I shall know what has been done, or what is to be done. He must not kill him; we must stop that. We love him too well for that."
And, ere Beatrix could answer, the other had disappeared into the denseness of the forest, it seeming as though she had power to impart to the beast which she bestrode her own mysterious and subtle methods of movement.
At first, she was not missed by any of the others, Mr. Spranger being the earliest to do so; but by the time he had observed that she was gone, they had drawn so near to the object of their visit that, even if her absence was noticed, very little remark was made. For now they were, as most in the band knew, on the outskirts of the plantations around Desolada; soon they would be within those plantations and threading their way toward the house itself. What was noticed, however, as now their horses trod on the soft luxurious grass beneath their feet-so gently that the thud of their hoofs became entirely deadened-was that a man, who had certainly not accompanied them from Belize, was doing so at this moment, and that, as they wended their way slowly, this man, who was on foot, walked side by side with them.
"Who are you?" asked the officer in command of the constabulary, bending down from his horse to look at the newcomer, and observing that he was a half-caste. "Do you belong to this property?"
"I did," that newcomer said, looking up at the other. "I did-but not now. Now I belong to you. To the Government, the police."
"So! You desire to give information. Is that it?
"Yes. That is it."
"What can you tell?"
"That the Englishman not there-that he taken away already, I think-"
"It is not so," a voice whispered close to his ear, yet one sufficiently loud to be heard by all. "It is not so." And, looking round, every one saw the dark, starlike eyes of Zara gleaming through the darkness at them. "He is there-but he will not be for long if you do not make haste."
From one of her hearers-from Beatrix-there came a gasp; from the rest only a few muttered sentences that there was no time to be lost; that they must attack the house at once, and call on the inhabitants to come forth and give an account of themselves. Then, once more, the order was issued for the cavalcade to advance. And silently they did so, Beatrix being placed in the rear, so that if any violence should be offered, or any resistance, she should not be exposed to it more than was necessary.
But there was little or no sign at present of the likelihood of such resistance being made. Instead, Desolada presented now an appearance worthy of its mournful name. For all was darkened in and around it; the windows of the lower floor, especially the windows of the great saloon, from which, or from its veranda, the light of the lamp had streamed forth nightly, were all closed and shuttered; nowhere was a glimmer to be seen. And also the door in the middle of the veranda was closed-a circumstance that certainly during the summer, would have been unusual in any abode in British Honduras.
All were close to the steps of the veranda now, and the officer in command of the constabulary, dismounting from his horse, strode up on to the latter, while beating upon the door with his clenched fist, he called out that he required to see Mr. Ritherdon at once. A summons to which no answer was returned.
"If," this person said, looking around on those behind him, and whose forms he could but dimly see-"if no answer is returned, we shall be forced to break the door down or blow the lock off. Into the house we must get."
"There is now," said Mr. Spranger, who had also dismounted and joined him, "a figure on the balcony of the floor above. It has come out from one of the windows. But I cannot see whether it is man or woman."
"A figure!" cried the other, darting out at once on to the path beneath, so that thus he could gaze up to the higher balcony. "A figure!" and then, raising his eyes, he saw that Mr. Spranger had spoken accurately. For, against the darkness of the night, and the darkness of the house too, there was perceptible some other darker, deeper blur which was undoubtedly the form of a person gazing down at them. A form surmounted by something that was a little, though not much, whiter than its surroundings; something that all who gazed upon it knew to be a human face.
CHAPTER XXX
BEYOND PASSION'S BOUND
A human face was gazing down on them from where the body beneath crouched, as though kneeling against the rails of the veranda-a face from which more than one in that band thought they could see the eyes glistening. Yet, from it no sound issued, only-only-still the white face grew more perceptible and stood out more clearly in the blackness, as the others continued to stare at it, and the eyes seemed to glitter with a greater intensity.
"Come down," cried up the officer now, directing his voice toward where it lurked, "come down and let us in. We have important business with Mr. Ritherdon."
But still no reply nor sound was heard.
"Come down," the other said again, "and at once, or we shall force an entrance; we shall lose no time."
Then from that dark, indistinct mass there did come some whispered words; words clear enough, however, to be heard by those below.
"Who are you?" that voice demanded, "and what do you want?"
"We want," the officer replied, "Mr. Ritherdon. And also, Madame Carmaux, his housekeeper, and the Englishman who has been staying here."
"The Englishman has gone away, back to England, and Mr. Ritherdon is at Belize-"
"Liar!" all heard another voice murmur in their midst, while looking around, they saw that Zara was still there, standing beside the horses and gazing up toward the balcony. "Liar! Both are in the house."
Then in a moment she had crept away, and stolen toward where Beatrix, who had also left the saddle, stood, while, seizing her arm she whispered, "Follow me. Now is the time."
"To him?"
"Yes," Zara said-"yes, to him. To him you love. You do love him, do you not?"
"Ah, yes! Ah, yes! Oh, save him! Save him!"
"Come," said Zara-and Beatrix thought that as the other spoke now, her voice had changed. As, indeed it had. For (still thinking that the English girl could have but one man in her thoughts, and he the one whom she herself loved and hated alternately-the latter passion being testified by the manner in which she had, in a moment of impulse, given him the physic-nut oil and the poisoned mullet) her blood had coursed like wildfire through her veins at hearing Beatrix's avowal, and her voice had become choked. For Beatrix had forgotten in the excitement of the last few hours to undeceive the girl; had forgotten, indeed, the cross-purposes at which they had been that morning in the garden at "Floresta;" and thus Zara still deemed that they were rivals-deemed, too, that this white-faced rival was the favoured one.
"She loves him," she muttered to herself, her heart and brain racked with torture and with passion; "she loves him. She loves him. And he loves her! But-she shall never have him, nor he her. Come," she cried again, savagely this time. "Come, then, and see him. And-love him. It will not be for long," she added to herself.
Whereupon she drew Beatrix away toward the back of the house, going around by the farthest side of it, and on, until, at last, they stood at the foot of the stairs outside that gave access to the floor above, on that farthest side. Here, they were quite remote from the parley that was going on between those who were in the front and the dark shrouded figure on the veranda above; yet Beatrix noticed that, still, they were not alone. For, as they approached those outside stairs she saw three or four dark forms vanish away from them, and steal farther into the obscurity of the night.
"Who are those?" she asked timorously, nervously, as she watched their retreating figures.
"Men," said Zara, "who to-night will take the Englishman, tied and bound, out to the sea in Sebastian's boat, and sink him."
"Oh, my God!" wailed Beatrix, nearly fainting. "Oh! Oh!"
"If we do not prevent it. If I do not prevent it."
Then, suddenly, before Beatrix could put her foot on the steps as Zara had directed her to do, as well as ascend them, she felt her arm grasped by the latter, and heard her whisper:
"Stop! Before we mount to where he is-tell me-tell me truthfully, has-has he told you he loves you?"
"No-"
"You lie!"
"I do not lie," Beatrix replied, hotly, scornfully; "I never lie. But, since you will have the truth-I cannot understand why, what affair it is of yours-although he has not told me, I know it. Love can be made known without words."
Her own words struck like a dagger to the other's heart-nay, they did worse than that. They communicated a spark to the heated, maddening passions which until now, or almost until now, had lain half-slumbering and dormant in that heart; they roused the bitterest, most savage feelings that Zara's half-savage heart had nurtured.
"She scorns me," she said to herself, "she despises me because she knows she possesses his love, the love made known without words. Because she is sure of him. Ay, and so she shall be-but not in life. 'What affair is it of mine?'" she brooded. "She shall see. She shall see."
Then, as once more she motioned Beatrix to follow her up those stairs, she, unseen by the latter, dropped her right hand into the bosom of her dress, and touched something that lay within it.
"She shall see," she said again. "She shall see."
Above, in that obscure, gloomy corridor to which they now entered-the corridor which more than once had struck a chill even to the bold heart of Julian Ritherdon, when he sojourned in the house-all was silent and sombre, so that one might have thought that they stood upon the first floor of some long-neglected mansion from which the inhabitants had departed years before; while the darkness was intense. And, whatever might have been the effect of the weirdness of the place upon the nerves of Zara, strung up as those nerves now were to tragic pitch, upon Beatrix, at least, it was intense. A great black bat, the wind from whose passing wing fanned her cheek and caused her to utter a startled exclamation, added some feeling of ghastly terror to the surroundings, while, also, the company in which she was, the company of a half-Indian savage girl charged with tempestuous passions, contributed to her alarm.
Yet, on the silence there broke now some sounds, they coming from the front part of the house; the sound of voices, of a hurried conversation, of sentences rapidly exchanged.
"You hear," hissed Zara in the other's ear-"you hear-and understand? 'Tis she-Carmaux. And, as ever, she lies. As her life has always been, so is her tongue now."
Then Beatrix heard Madame Carmaux saying from the balcony:
"He has returned. He is coming, I tell you. But just now he has ridden to the stables behind. He will be with you at once. He will explain all. Wait but a few moments more."
"It must be but a very few then," the girl heard in reply, she recognising the voice of the Commandant of the Constabulary. "Very few. He must indeed explain all. Otherwise we force our entrance. Not more than five minutes will be granted."
"You understand?" whispered Zara, "you understand? She begs time so that-so that-the Englishman shall be taken to his death. When he is gone, Sebastian will show himself." Though, to her own heart she added, "Never."
"I can bear no more," gasped Beatrix; "I must see him. Go to him."
"Nay," replied Zara, "he comes to you. Observe. Look behind you-the way we came."
And, looking behind her as the other bade, even while she trembled all over in her fear and excitement, she saw that Sebastian had himself mounted the stairs outside the house, and was preparing to pass along the passage; to pass by them.
Yet, ere he did so, she saw, too, that behind him were those misty forms of the natives which she had observed to vanish at their approach below; she heard him speak to them; heard, too, the words he said.
"When I whistle, come up and bear him away. You know the rest. To my yawl, then a mile out to sea and-then-sink him. Now go, but be ready."
Whereon he turned to proceed along the passage, and, even in her terror, Beatrix could see that he bore in his hand a little lantern from which the smallest of rays was emitted. A lantern with which, perhaps, he wished to observe if his victim still lived, since surely he, who had dwelt in this house all his life, needed no light to assist him in finding his way about it.
"He will see us. He will see us," murmured Beatrix.
"He will never see us again," answered Zara, and as she spoke, she drew the other into the deep doorway of one of the bedrooms. "Never again," while looking down at her from her greater height, Beatrix saw that her right hand was at her breast, and that in it something glistened.
And, now, Sebastian was close to them, going on to the room at the end of the passage. He was in front of them. He was passing them.
"It is your last farewell," said Zara. And ere. Beatrix could shriek, "No. No!" divining the girl's mistake; ere, too, she could make any attempt to restrain her, Zara had sprung forth from the embrasure of the doorway, the long dagger gleaming in her hand, as the sickly rays of Sebastian's lamp shone on it, and had buried it in his back, he springing around suddenly with a hoarse cry as she did so-his hands clenched and thrust out before him-in his eyes an awful glare. Then with a gasp he sank to the floor, the lamp becoming extinguished as he did so. Whereby, Zara did not understand that, lying close by the man whom she had slain, or attempted to slay, was Beatrix, who had swooned from horror, and then fallen prostrate.
Sebastian had carried his white drill jacket over his arm as he advanced along the passage, he having taken it off as he mounted the steps, perhaps with the view of being better able to assist the Indians in the task of removing Julian when he should summon them. And Zara, full of hate as she was; full, too, of rage and jealousy as she had been at the moment before she stabbed him, as well as at the moment when she did so, had observed such to be the case, when, instantly, there came into her astute brain an idea that, through this circumstance, might be wreaked a still more deadly vengeance on Sebastian for his infidelity to her.
"He would have sent that other to his death in the sea," she thought; "now-false-hearted jaguar-that death shall be yours. If the knife has not slain you, the water shall." Whereupon, quick as lightning, she seized the jacket and disappeared with it down the corridor, entering at the end of the latter a room in which Julian lay wounded and bound upon a bed. A room in which there burnt a candle, by the light of which she saw that he who was a prisoner there was asleep.
Without pausing to awaken him, she took from off a nail in the room the navy white jacket that Julian had worn-which like Sebastian's own was stained somewhat with blood-and, seizing it in one hand and the candle in the other, went back to where Sebastian lay.
"I cannot put it on him," she muttered, "as he lies thus; still, it will suffice. The Indians will think it is the other in this light, since both are so alike." After which she crept down the passage to the stairs, and, whistling softly, called up the men outside to her, there being five of them.
"He is here," she whispered as they approached Sebastian. "Here. Waste no time; away with him," while they, with one glance at the prostrate body, prepared to obey her, knowing how Sebastian confided many things to her.
But one of that five never took his eyes off the girl, and seeing that from beneath the jacket there protruded a hand on which was a ring-a ring well known by all around Desolada-he drew the jacket over that hand, covering it up. Yet, as he did so, he contrived also to disarrange the portion that lay over Sebastian's face-and-to see that face. Whereupon, upon his own there came an awful look of gloating, even as the Indians bent down and, lifting their burden, departed with it.
"At last," he whispered to Zara, "at last. You not endure longer?"
"No," the girl replied. "No longer. He loved that-that-other-and-and-I slew him. Now, Paz, go-and-sink him beneath the sea forever."
"Yes. Yes. I sink him. He knew not Paz was near, but Paz never forget. I sink him deep. But, outside-I take ring away so that Indians not know. Oh, yes, he sink very deep. Paz never forget."