CHAPTER XXV
A DÉNOUEMENT
By the same way that they had descended they now mounted to the floor above. Only, it was not Julian's intention to re-enter his room in the same manner he had left it; namely, by the door opening out of the corridor. To do that would be useless, unavailing. If the woman whom he suspected was in that room now, the first sound of his footstep outside, be it never so light, would serve to put her on the alert, to cause her to flee out on to the balcony and away round the whole length of it, and, thereby, with her knowledge of all the entrances and exits of the house, to evade him.
That, he reflected, would not do. If she escaped him now, then the determination he had arrived at, to this night bring matters to a climax, would be thwarted. Some other way must be found.
"Take me on to the veranda," he whispered to Paz; "to where I shall be outside the room I occupy. This time I will be the watcher gazing in, not the person who is watched."
"I take you," Paz said. "I show you. Same way I get there last night."
"Last night! So! That was you outside, lying low down? It was you?"
But Paz only gave him now that look which he had given before, while he seemed at the same time to be struggling with that bleating laugh of his-the laugh which would surely have betrayed his presence.
"Come," he said, "I put you in big room of all. Old man Ritherdon call it guest room. Sebastian born there."
"Was he?" Julian asked in a whisper, "was he? Was he born there?"
"He born there. Come."
So, doubtless, the half-caste believed-since who in all Honduras disputed it! Who-except Julian himself, and, perhaps, the woman he loved; perhaps, too, her father.
Yet, the information that he was now being led to the room in which he felt sure that it was he who had been born and not the other, filled him with a kind of mystic, weird feeling as they crept along side by side towards it. For the first time since he had come to Desolada, he was about to visit the spot in which he had been given birth-the spot in which his mother had died; the spot wherein he had been stolen from that dying mother's side by his uncle.
Thinking thus, as they approached the door, he wondered, too, if by his presence in that room any inspiration would come to him as to how this other man had been made to supersede him, to appear as himself in the eyes of the little world in which he moved and lived. A man received as being what he was not, without question and with his claim undisputed.
"Go in," Paz whispered now, as he turned the handle. "Go in. From the window you see all that pass-if anything pass. Or you easy get on balcony. Your room there to right, hers there to left. If she go from one to other-then-you surely see."
"You will not accompany me?" Julian asked, wondering for the moment if there was treachery lurking in the man's determination to leave him at so critical a time; wondering, too, if, after all, he was about to warn the woman whom he, Julian, now sought to entrap in some nefarious midnight proceeding, of her danger. Yet, he argued with himself, that must be impossible. If he intended to do that, would he have divulged how Zara had changed one dish of food for another, so that he who set the trap had himself been caught in it; would he have given him so real a sign as to what use the phial had been put to as by placing it, empty, in his hands?
And, even though now Paz should meditate treachery-as, in truth, he did not believe he meditated it-still he cared nothing. What he had resolved to do he would do. What he had begun he would go on with. Now-at once-this very night!
"No. No," Paz said, in answer to his question. "No. I come not with you. I live not here but in plantation mile away. If I found here-he-he-try kill me. But you he will not kill. You big, strong, brave. And," the man continued in a whisper that was in truth a hiss, "it is you who must kill. Kill! Kill! Remember the snake in bed, the shot in wood, the mountain mullet, the Amancay. Now, I go. This is the room."
Then almost imperceptibly he was gone, his form disappearing like a black blur on the still darker, denser blackness of the corridor.
Without hesitation, Julian softly turned the handle and entered the room that gave egress to the balcony which he wished to gain. And although it was as dark as night itself, there was a something, a feeling of space, quite perceptible to his highly-strung senses, which told him that it was a vast chamber-a room suitable for the birth of the son and heir of the great house and its belongings.
"Strange," he thought to himself, "that thus I should revisit the place in which I first saw the light-that I, who in the darkness was spirited away, should, in the darkness, return to it."
Yet, black, impenetrable as all around was, there was an inferior density of darkness at the other end of the great room, away where the window was; and towards that he directed his footsteps, knowing that there, between the laths of the persianas which it possessed in common with every other room in the house, would be his opportunity. There was the coign of vantage through which he could keep watch and make observations.
"For," he thought, "if I see her going from her room to mine I shall know enough, as also I shall do if I see her returning from mine to hers. While, if she does neither, then it will be easy enough to discover whether she has been to that room or is in it still."
He was close by the window now, having felt his way carefully to it; he proceeded slowly so as to stumble against no obstacle nor make any noise; and then he knew that, should any form, however shrouded, pass before this window he could not fail to observe it. It was not so dark outside as to prevent that; also the gleam of the stars was considerable. And as Paz had done outside on the balcony last night, so he did now inside the room. He lowered himself noiselessly to the floor, kneeling on the soft carpet which this, the principal bedchamber possessed, while through a slat a foot from the ground, which he turned gently with his finger, he gazed out.
At first nothing occurred. All was as still, as silent as death; save for sometimes the bark of a distant dog, the chatter of an aroused bird in the palms near by, and the occasional midnight howl of a baboon farther away.
Wonderfully still it was; so undisturbed, indeed, except for those sounds, that almost a breath of air might have been heard.
Then, after half an hour, he heard a noise. The noise being a gentle one, but still perceptible, of the rattle of the persianas belonging to some window a little distance off. And to the left of him. Surely to the left of him!
"She is coming," he thought, holding his breath. "Coming. On her way to my room. To do what? What?"
But now the silence was again intense. Upon the boards of the veranda he could hear no footfall-Nothing. Not even the creak of one of the planks. Nothing! What had she done? What was she doing? Almost he thought that he could guess. Could divine how she-this woman of mystery, this midnight visitor who had crouched near his bed some twenty-four hours ago, who had stolen forth from his room into the storm as a thwarted murderess might have stolen-having now reached the veranda, was pausing to make sure that all was safe; to make sure that there was nothing to thwart her; to disturb her in the doing of that-whatever it might be-which she meditated.
Then there did fall a sound upon his ears, yet one which he only heard because it was close to him; because also all was so still. The sound of an indrawn breath, gentle as the sigh given in its sleep by a little child, yet issuing from a breast that had long been a stranger to the innocence of childhood. An indrawn breath, that was in truth-that must be-the effect of a supreme nervousness, of fear.
"Who is she?" he wondered to himself, while still-his own breath held-he watched and listened. "What is she to him? She is twice his age. Surely this is not the love of the hot, passionate Southern woman! What can she be to him that thus she jeopardizes her life? In my place many men would shoot her dead who caught her as-as-I-shall catch her-ere long."
For he knew now (as he could not doubt!) that no step was to be omitted which should remove him from Desolada, from existence.
"Sebastian and she both know that he fills my place. Well-to-night we come to an understanding. To-night I tell them that I know it too."
While he thus meditated, from far down at the front of the house there once more arose the trolling of a song in Sebastian's deep bass tones. A noisy song; a drinking, carousing song; one that should have had for its accompaniment the banging of drums and the braying of trombones.
"Bah!" muttered Julian to himself, "you are too late, vagabond! Shout and bellow as much as you choose-hoping thereby to drown all other sounds, such as those of stealthy feet and rattling window blinds, or to throw dust in my eyes. Shout as much as you like. She is here on her evil errand-a moment later she will be in my hands."
In truth it seemed to be so. Past where his eyes were, there went now, as that boisterous song uprose, a black substance which obscured the great gleaming stars from them-the lower part of a woman's gown. Amid the turmoil that proceeded from below, she was creeping on towards her goal.
Julian could scarcely restrain himself now-now that she had passed onward: almost was he constrained to thrust aside the blinds of this great window and spring out upon the woman. But he knew it was not yet the time, though it was at hand. She must be outside the window of his own room by now. The time was near.
Therefore, taking care that neither should his knees crack nor any other sound whatever be made by him, he rose to his feet. Then, he put his hand to the side of the laths to be ready to thrust them aside and follow her. But, perhaps, because that hand was not as steady as it should have been, those laths rattled the slightest. Had she heard? No! He knew that could not be, since now he heard the rattling of others-of those belonging to his own room. Those would drown the lesser noise that he had made-those-
He paused in his reflections, amazed. Down where his room was to the right he heard a sound greater than any which could be caused by the gentle pushing aside of a Venetian blind-he heard a smothered cry, and also something that resembled a person stumbling forward, falling!
Then in a moment he recollected. He knew what had happened. He had forgotten to remove the cord he had stretched across the window at midday ere he slept. He had left it there, and she had fallen forward over it.
In a moment he was, himself, on the veranda and outside the window of his own darkened room. In another he was in that room, had struck a match, and saw her-shrouded, hooded to the eyes-over by the door opening on to the corridor and endeavouring to unfasten it. He noticed, too, that one arm, above the wrist, was bandaged. But she was too late. He had caught her now.
"So," he said, "I know who my visitor is at last, Madame Carmaux. And I think I know your object here. Have you not dropped another phial in your fall and broken it? The room is full of the hateful odour of the Amancay poison."
She made him no answer, so that he felt sure she was determined not to let him hear her voice, but he felt that she was trembling all over, even as she writhed in his grasp, endeavouring to avoid it. Then, knowing that words were unnecessary, he opened the door into the corridor and bade her go forth.
"You know this house well and can find your way easily in the dark. Meanwhile, I am now going to descend to have an explanation with the master of Desolada."
CHAPTER XXVI
"YOU HAVE KILLED HIM!"
Before however, Julian descended to confront Sebastian he thought it was necessary to do two things; first, to light the lamp to see how much of that accursed Amancay had been spilt by the broken phial, and next-which was the more important-to recharge and look to his revolver. For he thought it very likely that after he had said all he intended to say to Sebastian, he might find the weapon useful.
When he had obtained a light by the aid of the matches which he was never without, he saw that his surmises were fully justified. Upon the floor there lay, glistening, innumerable pieces of broken glass and the half of a broken phial, while all around the débris was a small pool of liquid shining on the polished wooden floor. And from it there arose an odour so pungent and so fœtid, that he began almost at once to feel coming over him the hazy, drowsy stupefaction that he had been conscious of last night. So seizing his water-jug he unceremoniously sluiced the floor with its contents, washing away and subduing the noisome exhalation; when taking his revolver from his pocket and seeing carefully to its being charged, he dropped it into his pocket again. He took with him, too, the remnants of the broken phial.
"I shall only return here to pack my few things," he thought to himself, "but, all the same it is as well to have destroyed that stuff. Otherwise the room would have been poisoned with it."
And now-taking no light with him, for his experience of the last two hours had taught him, even had he not known it before, the way down to the garden-he descended, going out by the way that Paz had led him and so around to the lower veranda. A moment later he reached it, and mounting the steps, entered the saloon in which he expected to find Sebastian.
The man was there, he saw at once even before he stood close by the open window. He was there, sitting at the great table where the meals were partaken of; but looking dark and brooding now. Upon his face, as Julian could easily perceive, there was a scowl, and in his eyes an ominous look that might have warned a less bold man than the young sailor that he was in a dangerous mood.
"Has she been with him already," Julian wondered, "and informed him that their precious schemes are at an end, are discovered?"
"Ha!" exclaimed Sebastian, looking fixedly at him, as now Julian advanced into the room, "so you are well enough to come downstairs to-night. Yet-it is a little late. You have scarcely come to sing me those wardroom songs you spoke of, I suppose!"
"No," Julian said, "it is not to sing songs that I am here. But to talk about serious matters. Sebastian Ritherdon-if you are Sebastian Ritherdon, which I think doubtful-you have got to give me an explanation to-night, not only of who you really are, but also of the reason why, during the time I have been in this locality, you have four times attempted my life, or caused it to be attempted."
"Are you mad?" the other exclaimed, staring at him with still that ominous look upon his face. "You must be to talk to me like this."
"No," Julian replied. "Instead, perfectly sane. I was, perhaps, more or less demented last night when under the influence of the fumes of the Amancay plant which had been sprinkled on my pillow, as well as on my jacket and waistcoat; and you also were more or less demented to-night when you had by an accident taken some of the poison into your system, owing to you making a meal of the doctored mountain mullet you had prepared for me-your guest. But-now-we are both recovered and-an explanation is needed."
"My God!" exclaimed Sebastian, "you must be mad!"
Yet, in his own heart, he knew well enough that never was the calm, determined-looking man before him-the man who, hitherto, had been so bright and careless, but who now stood stern as Nemesis at the other end of the table-further removed from madness than he was this night. He knew and felt that it was not with a lunatic but an avenger that he had to deal.
"I am not mad," Julian replied calmly. "Meanwhile, take your right hand out of that drawer by your side, and keep it out. Pistol shots will disturb the whole house, and, if you do not do as I bid you I shall have to fire first," and he tapped his breast significantly as he spoke, so that the other could be in no doubt of his meaning.
"Now," he continued, when Sebastian had obeyed him, he laughing with a badly assumed air of contempt as he did so, all the same, laying his large brown hand upon the table-"now," said Julian, "I will tell you all that I believe to be the case in connection with you and with me, all that I know to have been the case in connection with your various attempts to injure me, and, also, all that I intend to do, to-morrow, when I reach Belize and have taken the most eminent lawyer in the place into my confidence."
As he mentioned the word "lawyer," Sebastian started visibly; then, once more, he assumed the contemptuous expression he had previously endeavoured to exhibit, but beyond saying roughly again that Julian was a madman, he made no further remark for the moment, and sat staring, or rather glaring, at the other man before him. Yet, had that other man been able to thoroughly comprehend, or follow, that glance-which, owing to the lamp being between them, he was not entirely able to do-he would have seen that, instead of resting on his face, it was directed to beyond where he stood. That it went past him to away down to the farther end of the room; to where the open window was.
"Charles Ritherdon," said Julian now, "had a son born in this house twenty-six years ago, and that son was stolen within two or three days of his birth by his uncle, George Ritherdon. You are not that son, and you know it. Yet you know who is. You know that I am."
"You lie," Sebastian said with an oath; "you are an impostor. And even if what you say is true-who am I? I," he said, his voice rising now, either with anger or excitement, "who have lived here all my life, who have been known from a child by dozens of people still alive? Who am I, I say?"
"That at present I do not know. Perhaps the lawyer to whom I confide my case will be able to discover."
"Lawyer! Bah! A curse for your lawyers. What can you tell him, what proof produce?"
And still, as he spoke, he kept his eyes fixed, as Julian thought, upon him, but in absolute fact upon that portion of the room which was in shadow behind where the latter stood.
Upon, too-although Julian knew it not, and did not, indeed, for one moment suspect such to be the case-a white face, that, peeping round the less white curtains which hung by the window, never moved the dark eyes that shone out of it from off the back of the man who confronted Sebastian. Fixed upon, too, the form to which that face belonged, which, even as Sebastian had raised his voice, had drawn itself a few feet nearer to the other; finding shelter now behind the curtains of the next or nearest window.
"I can at least produce the proofs," Julian replied, his eyes still regarding the other, and knowing nothing of that creeping listener behind, "that my presence in Honduras-at Desolada as your invited guest-caused you so much consternation, so much dismay, that you hesitated at nothing which might remove me from your path. What will the law believe, what will these people who have known you from your infancy-as you say-think, when they learn that three times at least, if not more, you have attempting my life?"
"Again I say it is a lie!" Sebastian muttered hoarsely.
"And I can prove that it is the truth. I can prove that this woman, this accomplice of yours-this woman whom my father-not your father, but my father-jilted, threw away, so that he might marry Isobel Leigh, my mother-fired at me with a rifle known to be hers and used by her on small game. I can prove that she poisoned the meal that was to be partaken of by me; that even so late as to-night she drenched the floor of my room-as she meant again to drench the pillow on which I slept-with the deadly juice of the Amancay-with this," and he held before Sebastian the broken phial he had found above.
"You can prove nothing," Sebastian muttered hoarsely, raucously. "Nothing."
"Can I not? I have two witnesses."
"Two witnesses!" the other whispered, and now indeed he looked dismayed. "Two witnesses. Yet-what of that, of them! Even though they could prove this-which they can not-what else can they prove? Even though I am not Charles Ritherdon's son and you are-even though such were the case-which it is not-how prove it?"
"That remains to be seen. But, though it should never be proved; even though you and that murderous accomplice of yours, that discarded sweetheart of my father's, that woman who I believe, as I believe there is a God in Heaven, was the prime mover in this plot-"
"Silence!" cried Sebastian, springing to his feet now, yet still with that look in his eyes which Julian did not follow; that look towards where the white corpse-faced creature was by this time-namely, five feet nearer still to Julian-"silence, I say. That woman is not, shall not, be defamed by you. Neither here or elsewhere. She-she-is-ah! God, she has been my guardian angel-has repaid evil for good. My father threw her off-discarded her-and she came here, forgiving him at the last in his great sorrow. She helped to rear me-his son-to-"
"Now," said Julian, still calmly, "it is you who lie, and the lie is the worse because you know it. Some trick was played on him whom you still dare to call your father, on him who was mine-never will I believe he was a party to it! – and before Heaven I do believe that it was she who played it. She never forgave him for his desertion of her; she, this would be murderess-this poisoner-and-and-ah!"
What had happened to him? What had occurred? As he uttered the last words, accusing that woman of being a murderess in intention, if not in fact-a poisoner-he felt a terrible concussion at the nape of his neck, a blow that sent him reeling forward towards the other side of that table against which Sebastian had sat, and at which he now stood confronting him. And, dazed, numbed as this blow had caused him to become, so that now the features of the man before him-those features that were so like his own! – were confused and blurred, though with still a furious, almost demoniacal expression in them, he scarcely understood as he gave that cry that in his nostrils was once more the sickening overpowering odour of the Amancay-that it was suffocating, stifling him.
Then with another cry, which was not an exclamation this time, but instead, a moan, he fell forward, clutching with his hands at the tablecloth, and almost dragging the lamp from off the table. Fell forward thus, then sank to his knees, and next rolled senseless, oblivious to everything, upon the floor.
"You have killed him!" muttered Sebastian hoarsely, and with upon his face now a look of terror. "You have killed him! My God! if any others should be outside, should have seen" – while, forgetting that what he was about to do would be too late if those others might be outside of whom he had spoken, he rushed to both the windows and hastily closed the great shutters, which, except in the most violent tempests that at scarce intervals break over British Honduras, were rarely used.
And she, that woman standing there above her victim with her face still white as is the corpse's in its shroud, her lips flecked with specks of foam, her hands quivering, muttered in tones as hoarse as Sebastian's:
"Killed him. Ay! I hope so. Curse him, there has been enough of his prying, his seeking to discover the truth of our secret. And-and-if it were not so-then, still, I would have done it. You heard-you heard-how he sneered, gloated over my despair, my abandonment by Charles Ritherdon, so that he might marry that child-that chit-Isobel Leigh. The woman who cursed, who broke my life. Killed him, Sebastian! Killed him! Yes! That at least is what I meant to do. Because, Heaven help me! you were not man enough to do it yourself."