NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES ||||||||||||| 3 34.33 O7492970 8 'l-S*:. WS$m^ 0 t-VA\-- >!' f- ■" ,»'-**', :"*'■,, :A:;.v '! ■•v., v- \/4/ '^ ■M'PX^ 1 w s |-------- – — | –|- |-|- * ·- - · ·|- |- · --------|- ,- , ！ ----|-… · ：- -|- · · ---- ---- |-|- ---- · ！· ！|- → · *_- |- ， ！ |- |- ， ，· ， ，|- | · |-， ！ _■·* |×, ， |----- |- …º -|-*· |-|- -------- ---- |-|- · |- …-- |-|- …-- |- |- |- ·º … - → º-- ---- - • ---- ---- · |- - - - - ：* · · · · |-（~~ |-|- |- → + |-----|- ----· º ， ！ ~！ ！！ ~~ ---- * ---- -~~~~---- ~ ·|-- ·|- ~~|-|-|- --~）;|- - |-|----- |-|-- -|-|- |-|-|- *_：：-|- · |--- - ~~|----- |-· - |-*, ！ ： * |- |-- … • |----- *- ----|-|- |-|-«）|- |-|-|----- -- -|-– .· ·; -|- |-/ ！ ， *：|- • ' .|-* ，|- |-- ：* -|- |-|- | |-·-，|- ·~|- |- |-|-|-• ---- ~ ！|-： • • |-|-|- |-~ ~~ .* - |----- |-·---- • •----|----- |-/|-|× （~）…º|-（ -）· ~|------ ，----|-_°·|-|- |-|-|-|- }，|-· |-|×-|-! - . ！”-------- |-|-|-|-_■ *-~）; - - ----|-|-| - |-|- -*--|- -- _··---- ---- ~~，， ！ ----|- |- |-|---------|- ~♥~ |-|-|-…|- |----- · |- |-- - v.|-|×|-|- |- |-|- |-|-， ， |---~！ 7 - - -*|-！ |-----|-|-|- |- - -： |-|-|-|- ----*|-|×----|- |- i., ， ， ， ， ----|- * ·* ·|- · ! |- |-|- |-|- --------- -----------！ ~~ ~~ |-* |-|-|-· |-·|- * ----|- ！ 7|- ··---- |- |-|-|- |-- - ---- |-|- |-•• *|-|- ， ！ ！· ， ！ - - - ！|- -----|- ~*~ |- |-~ ~ ！---- - - �|- ----： |-|- |- · |-|- |-· · ae|- *----|- Pippletons' Cown amo Country TLibrary No. 272 A BITTER HERITAGE By J. BLOUNDELLE»BURTON. Each, i2rtio, cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents. A Bitter Heritage. "Mr. Bloundelle-Burton is one of the most successful of the purveyors <>r historical romance who have started up in the wake of Stanley Weymnn and Conan Doyle. He has a keen eye for the picturesque, a happy instinct for a dramatic vor more generally a melodtamaticj situation, and he is apt and careful in his historic paraphernalia. He usually succeeds, therefore, in producing an effective story."—Charleston News and Courier. Fortune's my Foe. "The story moves briskly, and there is plenty of dra- matic action."—Philadelphia Telegraph. The Clash of Arms. "Well written, and the interest is sustained from the beginning to the end of the tale."—Brooklyn Eagle. "Vividness of detail and rare descriptive power give the story life and excitement." J>o$t. n Herald. Denounced. "A story of the critical times of the vagrant and ambi- tious Charles I, it is so replete with incident and realistic happenings that one seems translated to the very scenes and days of that troublous era in English history.*'—Boston Courier, The Scourge of God, "The story is one of the best in style, construction, in- formation, and graphic power, that have been written in recent years."— Dial, Chicago. In the Day of Adversity. "Mr. Burton's creative skill is of the kind which must fasrinate those who revel in the narratives of Stevenson, Rider Haggard, and Stanley Weyman. Kven the author of 'A Gentleman of France' has not surpassed the writer of ' In the Day of Adversity ' in the moving interest of his tale."—St. yames's Gazette. D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. A BITTER HERITAGE A MODERN STORY OF LOVE AND ADVENTURE BY JOHN BLOUNDELLE-BURTON AUTHOR OF THE SEAFARERS, FORTUNE'S MY FOE, THE CLASH OF ARMS, IN THE DAY OF ADVERSITY, DENOUNCED, THE SCOURGE OF GOD, ETC. NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1 sandwiches, divided it equally, and then filled the - horn cup with the liquid from the bottle, which, after draining, he refilled and handed to his com- panion. "I'm sorry it isn't iced, my lily-white friend," he said; "it does seem rather warm from con- tinual contact with the mustang's back, but I daresay you can manage it. Eh?" "THE LAND OF THE GOLDEN SUN." 27 "Manage anything," the negro replied firm- ly, his mouth full of sandwich, "anything. Al- ways" "Yes, I know. 'Thirsty, hungry, want to- bacco and money.' I tell you, old chap, you're lost in this place. London's the spot for you. You're fitted for a more advanced state of civili- zation than this." "Hoop. Hoop," again grunted the negro, and again giving the huge smile—" want" "This is getting monotonous, Sambo," Ju- lian exclaimed. "Come, let's settle up; " where- on he again replenished the guide's cup, and then drew forth from his pocket two American dol- lars, which are by now the standard coin of the colony. "One dollar was the sum arranged or," Julian said, " but because you are a merry soul, and also because a dollar extra isn't ruinous, you shall have two. And in years to come, my daisy, you can bless the name of Mr. Ritherdon as that of a man both just and generous. Re- member those words, ' just and generous.'" The negro of many sobriquets—at each of which he had laughed like a child, as in abso- lute fact the negro is when not (which is ex- 28 A BITTER HERITAGE. tremely rare!) a vicious brute—seemed, however, to be struck more forcibly by some other words than those approving ones suggested by Julian as suitable for recollection, and, after shaking his woolly head a good deal, muttered: "Rith- erdon, Ritherdon," adding afterwards, "Deso- lada." Then he continued: "Hard man, Massa Ritherdon. Hard man, Massa Ritherdon. Hard man. Cruel man. Beat Blacky. Beat Whity, too, sometimes. Hard man. Cruel man." "Sambo," said Julian, feeling (even as he spoke still jocularly to the creature—a pleasant way being the only one in which to converse with the African) that he would sooner not have heard these remarks in connection with his fa- ther, "Sambo, you should not say these things to people about their relatives. That would not do for London;" while at the same time he re- flected that it would be little use telling his guide of the old Latin proverb suggesting that one should say nothing but good of the dead. "You relative of Massa Ritherdon!" the other grunted now, though still with the unfail- ing display of ivories. "You relative. Oh! I "THE LAND OF THE GOLDEN SUN." 20/ know not that. Now," he said, thinking perhaps it was time he departed, and before existing ami- cable arrangements should be disturbed, "now, I go. Back to Belize. Good afternoon to you, sir. Good - bye. I hope you like Desolada. Fifteen miles further on;" and making a kind of shambling bow, he departed back upon the road they had come. Yet not without turning at every other three or four steps he took, and waving his hand gracefully as well as cordially to his late employer. "A simple creature is the honest black!" es- pecially when no longer a dweller in his original equatorial savagery. "Like it," murmured Julian to himself. "Yes, I hope so. Since it is undoubtedly my chief inheritance, I hope I shall!" He had left Belize that morning, by follow- ing a route which the negro knew of, had arrived in the neighbourhood of a place called Com- merce Bight—a spot given up to the cultivation of the cocoanut-tree. And having proceeded thus far, he knew that by nightfall he would be at Desolada—the dreary hacienda from which, twenty-six years before, his uncle had ruthlessly / 3o A BITTER HERITAGE. kidnapped him from his father—the father who, he had learnt since he arrived in the colony, had been dead three months. Also he knew that this property called Desolada lay some dozen miles or so beyond a village named All Pines, and on the other side of a river termed the Sittee, and, as he still sat beneath the palm-trees on the knoll where they had halted for the midday meal, he wondered what he would find when he arrived there. "It is strange," he mused to himself now, as from out of that cool, refreshing shade he gazed across groves upon groves of mangroves at his feet, to where, sparkling in the brilliant cobalt- coloured Caribbean Sea, countless little reefs and islets—as well as one large reef—dotted the sur- face of the ocean, " strange that, at Belize, I could gather no information of my late father. No! not even when I told the man who kept the inn that I was come on a visit to Desolada. Why, I wonder, why was it so? My appearance seemed to freeze them into silence, almost to startle them. Why? Why—this reticence on their part? Can it be that he was so hated all about here that none will mention him? Is that "THE LAND OF THE GOLDEN SUN." 31 it? Remembering what the negro said of him, of his brutality to black and white, can that be it? Yet my uncle hinted at nothing of the kind." Still thinking of this, still musing on what lay before him, he adjusted the saddle (which he had previously loosened to ease the mustang) once more upon the animal's back. Then, as his foot was in the stirrup there came, swift as a flash of lightning, an idea into his mind. "I must be like him," he almost whispered to himself, "so like him, must bear such a re- semblance to him, that they are thunderstruck. And, if any who saw me can recollect that, twenty-six years ago, his newborn child was stolen from him on the night his wife died, it is no wonder that they were thunderstruck. That is, if I do resemble him so much." But here his meditations ceased, he under- standing that his name, which he had inscribed in the visitor's book lying on the marble table of the hotel, would be sufficient to cause all who learnt it to refrain from speaking about the recently dead man—his namesake. "Yet all the same," he muttered to himself, as now the mule bore him along a more or less 32 A BITTER HERITAGE. good road which traversed copses of oleanders and henna plants, allamandas and Cuban Royal palms—the latter of which formed occasionally a grateful shade from the glare of the sun—" all the same, I wish that darkey had not spoken about my father's cruelty. I should have pre- ferred never to learn that he bore such a charac- ter. He must have been very different from my uncle, who, in spite of the one error of his life, was the gentlest soul that ever lived." All the way out from England to New Orleans, and thence to Belize by a different steamer, his thoughts had been with that dear uncle—who survived the disclosure he had made but eight days—he being found dead in his bed on the morning of the ninth day—and those thoughts were with him now. Gentle memories, too, and kindly, with in them never a strain of reproach for what had been done by him in his hour of madness and desire for revenge; and with no other current of ideas running through his reflections but one of pity and regret for the unhappiness his real father must have experi- enced at finding himself bereft at once of both wife and child. Regret and sorrow, too, for the "THE LAND 6f THE GOLDEN SUN." 33 years which that father must have spent in mourning for him, perhaps in praying that, as month followed month, his son might in some way be restored to him. And now he—that son —was in the colony; here, in the very locality where the bereaved man must have passed so many sad and melancholy years! Here, but too late! Ere he died, George Ritherdon had bidden his nephew make his way to British Honduras and proclaim himself as what he was; also he had provided him with that very written state- ment which he had spoken of as being in prepa- ration for Julian's own information in case he should die suddenly, ere the latter returned home. "With that in your possession," he had said, two days before his death actually occurred, "what's there that can stand in the way of your being acknowledged as his son? He cannot have forgotten my handwriting; and even if he has, the proofs of what I say are contained in the intimate knowledge that I testify in this paper of all our surroundings and habits out there. That paper is a certificate of who you are." 34 A BITTER HERITAGE. "Suppose he is dead when I get there, or that he should have married again. What then?" "He may be dead, but he has not mar- ried again. Remember what I told you last night. I know my brother has remained a wid- ower." "I wonder the paper did not also say that his son was stolen from him many years ago, or that there was no heir to his property, or something to that effect." "It is strange perhaps that such a state of things is not mentioned. Yet, the Picayune's correspondent may have forgotten it, or not known it, or not have thought it worth mention —or have had other news which required to be published. Half a hundred things might have occurred to prevent mention of that one." "And," said Julian, " presuming I do go out to British Honduras if I can get leave from the Admiralty, on ' urgent private affairs'" "You must go out. It is a fortune for you. Your father cannot be worth less than forty thou- sand pounds. You must go out, even though you have to leave the navy to do so." Julian vowed inwardly that in no circum- 36 A BITTER HERITAGE. as soon as possible. If I am alive when you set out, I will give you the necessary documents; if I die before you start, they are here," and as he spoke he touched lightly the desk at which he always wrote. CHAPTER IV. AN ENCOUNTER. And now Julian Ritherdon was here, in Brit- ish Honduras, within ten or fifteen miles of the estate known as Desolada—a name which had been given to the place by some original Span- ish settlers years before his father and uncle had ever gone out to the colony. He was here, and that father and uncle were dead; here, and on the way to what was undoubtedly his own property; a property to which no one could dispute his right, since George Ritherdon, his uncle, had been the only other heir his father had ever had. Yet, even as the animal which bore him con- tinued to pace along amid all the rich tropical vegetation around them; even, too, as the yel- low-headed parrots and the curassows chattered above his head and the monkeys leapt from branch to branch, he mused as to whether he was 37 38 A BITTER HERITAGE. doing a wise thing in progressing towards Deso- lada—the place where he was born, as he re- flected with a strange feeling of incredulity in his mind. "For suppose," he thought to himself, " that when I get to it I find it shut up or in the occu- pation of some other settler—what am I to do then? How explain my appearance on the scene? I cannot very well ride up to the house on this animal and summon the garrison to sur- render, like some knight-errant of old, and I can't stand parleying on the steps explaining who I am. I believe I have gone the wrong way to work after all! I ought to have gone and seen the Governor or the Chief Justice, or taken some advice, after stating who I was. Or Mr. Spran- ger! Confound it, why did I not present that letter of introduction to him before starting off here?" The latter gentleman was a well-known plan- ter and merchant living on the south side of Be- lize, to whom Julian had been furnished with a letter of introduction by a retired post-captain whom he had run against in London prior to his departure, and with whom he had dined at a AN ENCOUNTER. 39 Service Club. And this officer had given him so flattering an account of Mr. Spranger's hospital- ity, as well as the prominent position which that personage held in the little capital, that he now regretted considerably that he had not availed himself of the chance which had come in his way. More especially he regretted it, too, when there happened to come into his recollection the fact that the gallant sailor had stated with much en- thusiasm—after dinner—that Beatrix Spranger, the planter's daughter, was without doubt the prettiest as well as the nicest girl in the whole colony. However, he comforted himself with the re- flection that the journey which he was now tak- ing might easily serve as one of inspection sim- ply, and that, as there was no particular hurry, he could return to Belize and then, before making any absolute claim upon his father's es- tate, take the advice of the most important peo- ple in the town. "All of which," he said to himself, " I ought to have thought of before and decided upon. However, it doesn't matter! A week hence will do just as well as now, and, meanwhile, I shall 4Q A BITTER HERITAGE. have had a look at the place which must un- doubtedly belong to me." As he arrived at this conclusion, the mustang emerged from the forest-like copse they had been passing through, and ahead of him he saw, upon the flat plain, a little settlement or village. "Which," thought Julian, "must be All Pines. Especially as over there are the queer- shaped mountains called the 'Cockscomb,' of which the negro told me." Then he began to consider the advisability of finding accommodation at this place for a day or so while he made that inspection of the estate and residence of Desolada which he had on his ride decided upon. All Pines, to which he now drew very near, presented but a bare and straggling appearance, and that not a particularly flourishing one either. A factory fallen quite into disuse was passed by Julian as he approached the village; while al- though his eyes were able to see that, on its out- skirts, there was more than one large sugar es- tate, the place itself was a poor one. Yet there was here that which the traveller finds every- where, no matter to what part of the world he di- AN ENCOUNTER. 41 rects his footsteps and no matter how small the place he arrives at may be—an inn. An inn, outside which there were standing four or five saddled mules and mustangs, and one fairly good-looking horse in excellent condition. A horse, however, that a person used to such ani- mals might consider as showing rather more of the hinder white of its eye than was desirable, and which twitched its small, delicate ears in a manner equally suspicious. There seemed very little sign of life about this inn in spite of these animals, however, as Julian made his way into it, after tying up his own mus- tang to a nail in a tree—since a dog asleep out- side in the sun and a negro asleep inside in what might be, and probably was, termed the entrance hall, scarcely furnished such signs. All the same, he heard voices, and pretty loud ones too, in some room close at hand, as well as some- thing else, also—a sound which seemed familiar enough to his ears; a sound that he—who had been all over the world more than once as a sailor —had heard in diverse places. In Port Said to wit, in Shanghai, San Francisco, Lisbon, and Monte Carlo. The hum of a wheel, the click 42 A BITTER HERITAGE. and rattle of a ball against brass, and then a soft voice—surely it was a woman's!—murmuring a number, a colour, a chance! "So, so!" said Julian to himself, " Madame la Roulette, and here, too. Ah! well, madame is everywhere; why shouldn't she favour this place as well as all others that she can force her way into?" Then he pushed open a swing door to his right, a door covered with cocoanut matting nailed on to it, perhaps to keep the place cool, perhaps to deaden sound—the sound of Madame la Roulette's clicking jaws—though surely this was scarcely necessary in such an out-of-the-way spot, and entered the room whence the noise proceeded. The place was darkened by matting and Per- sians; again, perhaps, to exclude the heat or deaden sound; and was, indeed, so dark that, until his eyes became accustomed to the dull gloom of the room—vast and sparsely furnished —he could scarcely discern what was in it. He was, however, able to perceive the forms of four or five men seated round a table, to see coins glit- tering on it; and a girl at the head of the table AN ENCOUNTER. 43 (so dark that, doubtless, she was of usual mixed Spanish and Indian blood common to the colony) who was acting as croupier—a girl in whose hair was an oleander flower that gleamed like a star in the general duskiness of her surroundings. While, as he gazed, she twirled the wheel, mur- muring softly: "Plank it down before it is too late," as well as, " Make your game," and spun the ball; while, a moment later, she flung out pieces of gold and silver to right and left of her and raked in similar pieces, also from right and left of her. But the sordid, dusty room, across which the motes glanced in the single ray of sunshine that stole in and streamed across the table, was not— it need scarcely be said—a prototype of the gild- ed palace that smiles over the blue waters of the Mediterranean, nor of the great gambling chambers in the ancient streets behind the Cathe- dral in Lisbon, nor of the white and airy saloons of San Francisco—instead, it was mean, dusty, and dirty, while over it there was the foetid, sick- ly, tropical atmosphere that pervades places to which neither light nor constant air is often admitted. 44 A BITTER HERITAGE. Himself unseen for the moment—since, as he entered the room, a wrangle had suddenly sprung up among all at the table over the disputed ownership of a certain stake—he stared in amaze- ment into the gloomy den. Yet that amazement was not occasioned by the place itself (he had seen worse, or at least as bad, in other lands), but by the face of a man who was seated behind the half-caste girl acting as croupier, evidently under his directions. Where had he seen that face, or one like it, before? That was what he was asking himself now; that was what was causing his amazement! Where? Where? For the features were known to him—the face was familiar, some trick or turn in it was not strange. Where had he done so, and what did it mean? Almost he was appalled, dismayed, at the sight of that face. The nose straight, the eyes full and clear, the chin clear cut; nothing in it unfamiliar to him except a certain cruel, deter- mined look that he did not recognise. The dispute waxed stronger between the gamblers; the half-caste girl laughed and chat- tered like one of the monkeys outside in the AN ENCOUNTER. 45 woods, and beat the table more than once with her lithe, sinuous hand and summoned them to put down fresh stakes, to recommence the game; the men squabbled and wrangled between themselves, and one pointed significantly to his blouse—open at the breast; so significantly, in- deed, that none who saw the action could doubt what there was inside that blouse, lying ready to his right hand. That action of the man—a little wizened fellow, himself half Spaniard, half Indian, with perhaps a drop or two of the tar-bucket also in his veins—brought things to an end, to a climax. For the other man whose face was puzzling Julian Ritherdon's brain, and puzzling him with a bewilderment that was almost weird and un- canny, suddenly sprang up from beside, or rather behind, the girl croupier and cried— "Stop it! Cease, I say. It is you, Jaime, you who always makes these disputes. Come! I'll have no more of it. And keep your hand from the pistol or" But his threat was ended by his action, which was to seize the man he had addressed by the 46 A BITTER HERITAGE. scruff of his neck, after which he commenced to haul him towards the door. Then he—then all of them—saw the intrud- er, Julian Ritherdon, standing there by that door, looking at them calmly and unruffled— calm and unruffled, that is to say, except for his bewilderment at the sight of the other man's face. They all saw him in a moment as they turned, and in a moment a fresh uproar, a new disturb- ance, arose; a disturbance that seemed to bode ominously for Julian. For, now, in each man's hands there was a revolver, drawn like lightning from the breast of each shirt or blouse. "Who are you? What are you?" all cried together, except the girl, who was busily sweep- ing up the gold and silver on the table into her pockets. "Who? One of the constabulary from Belize? A spy! Shoot him!" "No," exclaimed the man who bore the fea- tures that so amazed Julian Ritherdon, " no, this is not one of the constabulary;" while, as he spoke, his eyes roved over the tropical naval clothes, or "whites," in which the former was clad for coolness. "Neither do I believe he is AN ENCOUNTER. 47 a spy. Yet," he continued, " what are you do- ing here? Who are you?" Neither their pistols nor their cries had any power to alarm Julian, who, young as he was, had already won the Egyptian medal and the Albert medal for saving life; wherefore, looking his in- terrogator calmly in the face, he said— "I am on a visit to the colony, and my name is Julian Ritherdon." "Julian Ritherdon!" the other exclaimed, "Julian Ritherdon!" and as he spoke the owner of that name could see the astonishment on all their faces. "Julian Ritherdon," he repeated again. "That is it. Doubtless you know it here- abouts. May I be so bold as to ask what yours is?" The man gave a hard, dry laugh—a strange laugh it was, too; then he replied, "Certainly you may. Especially as mine is by chance much the same as your own. My name is Sebastian Leigh Ritherdon." "What! Your name is Ritherdon? You a Ritherdon? Who in Heaven's name are you, then?" f 48 A BITTER HERITAGE. "I happen to be the owner of a property near here called Desolada. The owner, because I am the son of the late Mr. Ritherdon and of his wife, Isobel Leigh, who died after giving me birth!" CHAPTER V. "A HALF-BREED NAMED ZARA." To describe Julian as being startled—amazed —would not convey the actual state of mind into which the answer given by the man who said that his name was Sebastian Leigh Ritherdon, plunged him. It was indeed something more than that; something more resembling a shock of conster- nation which now took possession of him. What did it mean?—he asked himself, even as he stood face to face with that other bearer of the name of Ritherdon. What? And to this question he could find but one answer: his uncle in England must, for some reason—the reason being in all probability that his hatred for the deceit practised on him years ago had never really become extinguished—have invented the whole story. Yet, of what use such an inven- tion! How could he hope that he, Julian, should 49 5o A BITTER HERITAGE. profit by such a fabrication, by such a falsehood; why should he have bidden him go forth to a dis- tant country there to assert a claim which could never be substantiated? Then, even in that moment, while still he stood astounded before the other Ritherdon, there flashed into his mind a second thought, another supposition; the thought that George Ritherdon had been a madman. That was— must be—the solution. None but a madman would have conceived such a story. If it were untrue! Yet, now, he could not pursue this train of thought; he must postpone reflection for the time being; he had to act, to speak, to give some account of himself. As to who he was, who, bearing the name of Ritherdon, had suddenly appeared in the very spot where Ritherdon was such a well-known and, probably, such an in- fluential name. "I never knew," the man who had an- nounced himself as being the heir of the late Mr. Ritherdon was saying now, " that there were any other Ritherdons in existence except my late father and myself; except myself now since his 'A HALF-BREED—NAMED ZARA.' 51 death. And," he continued, "it is a little strange, perhaps, that I should learn such to be the case here in Honduras. Is it not?" As he spoke to Julian, both his tone and man- ner were such as would not have produced an un- favourable impression upon any one who was witness to them. At the gaming-table, when seated behind the half-caste girl, his appearance would have probably been considered by some as sinister, while, when he had fallen upon the dis- putatious gambler, and had commenced—very roughly to hustle him towards the door, he had presented the appearance of a hectoring bully. Also, his first address to Julian on discovering him in the room had been by no means one that promised well for the probable events of the next few moments. But now—now—his manner and whole bearing were in no way aggressive, even though his words expressed that a certain doubt in his mind accompanied them. "Surely," he continued, "we must be con- nections of some sort. The presence of a Rith- erdon in Honduras, within an hour's ride of my property, must be owing to something more than coincidence." 52 A BITTER HERITAGE. "It is owing to something more than coinci- dence," Julian replied, scorning to take refuge in an absolute falsehood, though acknowledging to himself that, in the position in which he now found himself—and until he could think matters out more clearly, as well as obtain some light on the strange circumstances in which he was sud- denly involved—diplomacy if not evasion—a hateful word!—was necessary. "More than coincidence. You may have heard of George Ritherdon, your uncle, who once lived here in the colony with your father." "Yes," Sebastian Ritherdon answered, his eyes still on the other. "Yes, I have heard my father speak of him. Yet, that was years ago. Nearly thirty, I think. Is he here, too? In the colony?" "No; he is dead. But I am his son. And, being on leave from my profession, which is that of an officer in her Majesty's navy, it has suited me to pay a visit to a place of which he had spoken so often." As he gave this answer. Julian was able to console himself with the reflection that, although "A HALF-BREED—NAMED ZARA." 57 there was evasion in it, at least there was no falsehood. For had he not always believed him- self to be George Ritherdon's son until a month or so ago; had he not been brought up and entered for the navy as his son? Also, was he sure now that he was not his son? He had lis- tened to a story from the dying man telling how he, Julian, had been kidnapped from his father's house, and how the latter had been left childless and desolate; yet now, when he was almost at the threshold of that house, he found himself face to face with a man, evidently well known in all the district, who proclaimed himself to be the actual son—a man who also gave, with some dis- tinctness in his tone, the name of Isobel Leigh as that of his mother. She Sebastian Ritherdon's mother! the woman who was, he had been told, his own mother: the woman who, dying in giv- ing birth to her first son, could consequently have never been the mother of a second. Was it not well, therefore, that, as he had always been, so he should continue to be, certainly for the present, the son of George Ritherdon, and not of Charles? For, to proclaim himself here, in Honduras, as the offspring of the latter would be 54 A BITTER HERITAGE. to bring down upon him, almost of a surety, the charge of being an impostor. y “I knew,” exclaimed Sebastian, while in his look and manner there was expressed consider- able cordiality; “I knew we must be akin. I was certain of it. Even as you stood in that doorway, and as the ray of sunlight streamed across the room, I felt sure of it before you men- tioned your name.” “Why?” asked Julian surprised; perhaps, too, a little agitated. “Why! Can you not understand? Not recognise why—at once? Man alive! We are alike / ?’ Alike! Alike! The words fell on Julian with startling force. Alike! Yes, so they were! They were alike. And in an instant it seemed as if some veil, some web had fallen away from his mental vision; as if he understood what had hitherto puzzled him. He understood his be- wilderment as to where he had seen that face and those features before! For now he knew. He had seen them in the looking-glass! “No doubt about the likeness!” exclaimed one of the gamblers who had remained in the "A HALF-BREED—NAMED ZARA." 55 room, a listener to the conference; while the half-breed stared from first one face to the other with her large eyes wide open. "No doubt about that. As much like brothers as cousins, I should say." And the girl who (since Julian's intrusion, and since, also, she had discovered that it was not the constabulary from Belize who had sud- denly raided their gambling den), had preserved a stolid silence—glancing ever and anon with dusky eyes at each, muttered also that none who saw those two men together could doubt that they were kinsmen, or, as she termed it, parienti. "Yes," Julian answered bewildered, almost stunned, as one thing after another seemed— with crushing force—to be sweeping away for ever all possibility of George Ritherdon's story having had any foundation in fact, any likelihood of being aught else but the chimera of a dis- traught brain; "yes, I can perceive it. I—I— wondered where I had seen your face before, when I first entered the room. Now I know." "And," Sebastian exclaimed, slapping his newly found kinsmen somewhat boisterously on the back, "and we are cousins. So much the 56 A BITTER HERITAGE. better! For my part I am heartily glad to meet a relation. Now—come—let us be off to Deso- lada. You were on your way there, no doubt. Well! you shall have a cordial welcome. The best I can offer. You know that the Spaniards always call their house 'their guests' house.' And my house shall be yours. For as long as you like to make it so." "You are very good," Julian said haltingly, feeling, too, that he was no longer master of himself, no longer possessed of all that ease which he had, until to-day, imagined himself to be in full possession of. "Very good indeed. And what you say is the case. I was on my way —I—had a desire to see the place in which your and my father lived." "You shall see it, you shall be most welcome. And," Sebastian continued, " you will find it big enough. It is a vast rambling place, half wood, half brick, constructed originally by Spanish set- tlers, so that it is over a hundred years old. The name is a mournful one, yet it has always been retained. And once it was appropriate enough. There was scarcely another dwelling near it for miles—as a matter of fact, there are hardly any "A HALF-BREED—NAMED ZARA." 57 now. The nearest, which is a place called ' La Superba,' is five miles farther on." They went out together now to the front of the inn—Julian observing that still the negro slept on in the entrance-hall and still the dog slept on in the sun outside—and here Sebastian, finding the good-looking horse, began to un- tether it, while Julian did the same for his mus- tang. They were the only two animals now left standing in the shade thrown by the house, since all the men—including he who had stayed last and listened to their conversation—were gone. The girl, however, still remained, and to her Sebastian spoke, bidding her make her way through the bypaths of the forest to Desolada and state that he and his guest were coming. "Who is she?" asked Julian, feeling that it was incumbent on him to evince some interest in this new-found " cousin's " affairs; while, as was not surprising, he really felt too dazed to heed much that was passing around him. The aston- ishment, the bewilderment that had fallen on him owing to the events of the last half-hour, the startling information he had received, all of which tended, if it did anything, to disprove 58 A BITTER HERITAGE. every word that George Ritherdon had uttered prior to his death—were enough to daze a man of even cooler instincts than he possessed. "She," said Sebastian, with a half laugh, a laugh in which contempt was strangely dis- cernible, "she, oh! she's a half-breed—Spanish and native mixed—named Zara. She was born on our place and turns her hand to anything re- quired, from milking the goats to superintending the negroes." "She seems to know how to turn her hand to a roulette wheel also," Julian remarked, still endeavouring to frame some sentences which should pass muster for the ordinary courteous attention expected from a newly found relation, who had also, now, assumed the character of guest. "Yes," Sebastian answered. "Yes, she can do that too. I suppose you were surprised at finding all the implements of a gambling room here! Yet, if you lived in the colony it would not seem so strange. We planters, especially in the wild parts, must have some amusement, even though it's illegal. Therefore, we meet three times a week at the inn, and the man who is will- "A HALF-BREED-NAMED ZARA." 50 ing to put down the most money takes the bank. It happened to me to-day." "And, as in the case of most hot countries," said Julian, forcing himself to be interested, "a servant is used for that portion of the game which necessitates exertion. I understand! In some tropical countries I have known, men bring their servants to deal for them at whist and mark their game." "You have seen a great deal of the world as a sailor?" the other asked, while they now wended their way through a thick mangrove wood in which the monkeys and parrots kept up such an incessant chattering that they could scarcely hear themselves talk. "I have been round it three times," Julian replied; "though, of course, sailor-like, I know the coast portions of different countries much better than I do any of the interiors." "And I have never been farther away than New Orleans. My mother ca—my mother al- ways wanted to go there and see it." "•Was she—your mother from New Or- leans?" Julian asked, on the alert at this mo- ment, he hardly knew why. 6q A BITTER HERITAGE. "My mother. Oh! no. She was the daughter of Mr. Leigh, an English merchant at Belize. But, as you will discover, New Orleans means the world to us—we all want to go there sometimes." CHAPTER VI. "KNOWLEDGE IS NOT ALWAYS PROOF." If there was one desire more paramount than another in Julian's mind—as now they threaded a campeachy wood dotted here and there with clumps of cabbage palms while, all around, in the underbrush and pools, the Caribbean lily grew in thick and luxurious profusion—that de- sire was to be alone. To be able to reflect and to think uninterruptedly, and without being obliged at every moment to listen to his com- panion's flow of conversation—which was so un- ceasing that it seemed forced—as well as obliged to answer questions and to display an interest in all that was being said. Julian felt, perhaps, this desire the more strongly because, by now, he was gradually be- coming able to collect himself, to adjust his thoughts and reflections and, thereby, to bring a more calm and clear insight to bear upon the s 61 62 A BITTER HERITAGE. discovery—so amazing and surprising—which had come to his knowledge but an hour or so ago. If he were alone now, he told himself, if he could only get half-an-hour's entire and un- interrupted freedom for thought, he could, he felt sure, review the matter with coolness and judgment. Also, he could ponder over one or two things which, at this moment, struck him with a force they had not done at the time when they had fallen with stunning—because unex- pected—force upon his brain. Things—namely words and statements—that might go far to- wards explaining, if not towards unravelling, much that had hitherto seemed inexplicable. Yet, all the same, he was obliged to confess to himself that one thing seemed absolutely in- capable of explanation. That was, how this man could be the child of Charles Ritherdon, the late owner of the vast property through which they were now riding, if his brother George had been neither demented nor a liar. And that Sebastian should have invented his statement was obviously incredible for the plain and simple reasons that he had made it before several wit- nesses, and that he was in full possession, as "KNOWLEDGE IS NOT ALWAYS PROOF.1 63 recognised heir, of all that the dead planter had left behind. It was impossible, however, that he could meditate—and, certainly, he could not follow any train of thought—amid the unfailing flow of conversation in which his companion in- dulged. That flow gave him the impression, as it must have given any other person who might by chance have overheard it, that it was conver- sation made for conversation's sake, or, in other words, made with a determination to preclude all reflection on Julian's part. From one thing to another this man, called Sebastian Ritherdon, wandered—from the trade of the colony to its products and vegetation, to the climate, the mel- ancholy and loneliness of life in the whole district, the absence of news and of excitement, the stag- nation of everything except the power of making money by exportation. Then, when all these topics appeared to be thoroughly beaten out and exhausted, Sebastian Ritherdon recurred to a remark made during the earlier part of their ride, and said: "So you have a letter of introduction to the Sprangers? Well! you should present it. Old 64 A BITTER HERITAGE. Spranger is a pleasant, agreeable man, while as for Beatrix, his daughter, she is a beautiful girl. Wasted here, though." "Is she?" said Julian. "Are there, then, no eligible men in British Honduras who could prevent a beautiful girl from failing in what every beautiful girl hopes to accomplish—name- ly getting well settled?" "Oh, yes!" the other answered, and now it seemed to Julian as though in his tone there was something which spoke of disappointment, if not of regret, personal to the man himself. "Oh, yes! There are such men among us. Men well-to-do, large owners of remunerative estates, capitalists employing a good deal of labour, and so forth. Only—only" "Only what?" "Well—oh! I don't know; perhaps we are not quite her class, her style. In England the Sprangers are somebody, I believe, and Beatrix is consequently rather difficult to please. At any rate I know she has rejected more than one good offer. She will never marry any colo- nist." Then, as Julian turned his eyes on Sebas- "KNOWLEDGE IS NOT ALWAYS PROOF." 65 tian Ritherdon, he felt as sure as if the man had told him so himself that he was one of the rejected. "I intend to present that letter of introduc- tion, you know," he said a moment later. "In fact I intended to do so from the first. Now, your description of Miss Spranger makes me the more eager." "You may suit her," the other replied. "I mean, of course, as a friend, a companion. You are a naval officer, consequently a gentleman in manners, a man of the world and of society. As for us, well, we may be gentlemen, too, only we don't, of course, know much about society man- ners." He paused a moment—it was indeed the longest pause he had made for some time; then he said, "When do you propose to go to see them?" "I rather thought I would go back to Belize to-morrow," Julian answered. "To-morrow!" "Yes. I—I—feel I ought not to be in the country and not present that letter." "To-morrow!" Sebastian Ritherdon said - 66 A BITTER HERITAGE. again. "To-morrow! That won't give me much of your society. And I'm your cousin." "Oh!" said Julian, forcing a smile, "you will have plenty of that—of my society—I'm afraid. I have a long leave, and if you will have me, I will promise to weary you sufficiently be- fore I finally depart. You will be tired enough of me ere then." To his surprise—since nothing that the other said (and not even the fact that the man was un- doubtedly regarded by all who knew him as the son and heir of Mr. Ritherdon and was in abso- lute fact in full possession of the rights of such an heir) could make Julian believe that his pres- ence was a welcome one—to his surprise, Se- bastian Ritherdon greeted his remark with effu- sion. None who saw his smile, and the manner in which his face lit up, could have doubted that the other's promise to stay as his guest for a con- siderable time gave him the greatest pleasure. Then, suddenly, while he was telling Julian so, they emerged from one more glade, leaving behind them all the chattering members of the animal and feathered world, and came out into a small open plain which was in a full state of "KNOWLEDGE IS NOT ALWAYS PROOF." 67 cultivation, while Julian observed a house, large, spacious and low before them. "There is Desolada—the House of Desola- tion as my poor father used to call it, for some reason of his own—there is my property, to which you will always be welcome." His property! Julian thought, even as he gazed upon the mansion (for such it was); his property! And he had left England, had trav- elled thousands of miles to reach it, thinking that, instead, it was his. That he would find it awaiting an owner—perhaps in charge of some Government official, but still awaiting an owner —himself. Yet, now, how different all was from what he had imagined—how different! In Eng- land, on the voyage, the journey from New York to New Orleans, nay! until four hours ago, he thought that he would have but to tell his story after taking a hasty view of Desolada and its surroundings to prove that he was the son who had suddenly disappeared a day or so after his birth: to show that he was the missing, kid- napped child. He would have but to proclaim himself and be acknowledged. But, lo! how changed all appeared now. 68 A BITTER HERITAGE. There was no missing, kidnapped heir—there could not be if the man by his side had spoken the truth—and how could he have spoken un- truthfully here, in this country, in this district, where a falsehood such as that statement would have been (if not capable of immediate and uni- versal corroboration), was open to instant denial? There must be hundreds of people in the colony who had known Sebastian Ritherdon from his infancy; every one in the colony would have been acquainted with such a fact as the kidnap- ping of the wealthy Mr. Ritherdon's heir if it had ever taken place, and, in such circumstances, there could have been no Sebastian. Yet here he was by Julian's side escorting him to his own house, proclaiming himself the owner of that house and property. Surely it was impossible that the statement could be untrue! Yet, if true, who was he himself? What! What could he be but a man who had been used by his dying father as one who, by an imposture, might be made the instrument of a long-con- ceived desire for vengeance—a vengeance to be worked out by fraud? A man who would at once have been branded as an impostor had "KNOWLEDGE IS NOT ALWAYS PROOF." 69 he but made the claim he had quitted England with the intention of making. Under the palms—which grew in groves and were used as shade trees—beneath the um- brageous figs, through a garden in which the oleanders flowered luxuriously, and the plants and mignonette-trees perfumed deliciously the evening air, while flamboyants—bearing masses of scarlet, bloodlike flowers—allamandas, and temple-plants gave a brilliant colouring to the scene, they rode up to the steps of the house, around the whole of which there was a wooden balcony. Standing upon that balcony, which was made to traverse the vast mansion so that, no matter where the sun happened to be, it could be avoided, was a woman, smiling and waving her hand to Sebastian, although it seemed that, in the salutation, the newcomer was included. A woman who, in the shadow which enveloped her, since now the sun had sunk away to the back, appeared so dark of complexion as to sug- gest that in her veins there ran the dark blood of Africa. Yet, a moment later, as Sebastian Ritherdon presented Julian to her, terming him "a new- jO A BITTER HERITAGE. found cousin," the latter was able to perceive that the shadows of the coming tropical night had played tricks with him. In this woman's veins there ran no drop of black blood; instead, she was only a dark, handsome Creole—one who, in her day, must have been even more than handsome—must have possessed superb beauty. But that day had passed now, she evidently being near her fiftieth year, though the clear ivory complexion, the black curling hair, in which scarcely a grey streak was visible, the soft rounded features and the dark eyes, still full of lustre, proclaimed distinctly what her beauty must have been in long past days. Also, Julian noticed, as she held out a white slim hand and murmured some words of cordial welcome to him, that her figure, lithe and sinuous, was one that might have become a woman young enough to have been her daughter. Only—he thought —it was almost too lithe and sinuous: it re- minded him too much of a tiger he had once stalked in India, and of how he had seen the striped body creeping in and out of the jungle. "This is Madame Carmaux," Sebastian said "KNOWLEDGE IS NOT ALWAYS PROOF." yi to Julian, as the latter bowed before her, "a re- lation of my late mother. She has been here many years—even before that mother died. And—she has been one to me as well as fulfilling all the duties of the lady of the house both for my father and, now, for myself." Then, after Julian had muttered some suit- able words and had once more received a gra- cious smile from the owner of those dark eyes, Sebastian said, "Now, you would like to make some kind of toilette, I suppose, before the even- ing meal. Come, I will show you your room." And he led the way up the vast campeachy-wood staircase to the floor above. Tropical nights fall swiftly directly the sun has disappeared, as it had now done behind the still gilded crests of the Cockscomb range, and Julian, standing on his balcony after the other had left him and gazing out on all around, won- dered what was to be the outcome of this visit to Honduras. He pondered, too, as he had pon- dered before, whether George Ritherdon had in truth been a madman or one who had plotted a strange scheme of revenge against his brother; a scheme which now could never be perfected. '" 72 A BITTER HERITAGE. Or—for he mused on this also—had George Ritherdon spoken the truth, had Sebastian The current of his thoughts was broken, even as he arrived at this point, by hearing be- neath him on the under balcony the voice of Se- bastian speaking in tones low but clear and dis- tinct—by hearing that voice say, as though in answer to another's question: "Know—of course he must know! But knowledge is not always proof." CHAPTER VII. MADAME CARMAUX TAKES A NAP. On that night when Sebastian Ritherdon es- corted Julian once more up the great campeachy- wood staircase to the room allotted to him, he had extorted a promise from his guest that he would stay at least one day before breaking his visit by another to Sprangers. "For," he had said before, down in the vast dining-room—which would almost have served for a modern Continental hotel—and now said again ere he bid his cousin "good-night," "for what does one day matter? And, you know, you can return to Belize twice as fast as you came here." "How so?" asked Julian, while, as he spoke, his eyes were roaming round the great desolate corridors of the first floor, and he was, almost unknowingly to himself, peering down those cor- ridors amid the shadows which the lamp that r 73 74 A BITTER HERITAGE. Sebastian carried scarcely served to illuminate. "How so?" "Why, first, you know your road now. Then, next, I can mount you on a good swift trotting horse that will do the journey in a third of the time that mustang took to get you along. How ever did you become possessed of such a creature? We rarely see them here." "I hired it from the man who kept the hotel. He said it was the proper thing to do the journey with." "Proper thing, indeed! More proper to as- sist the bullocks and mules in transporting the mahogany and campeachy, or the fruits, from the interior to the coast. However, you shall have a good trotting Spanish horse to take you into Belize, and I'll send your creature back later." Then, after wishing each other good-night, Julian entered the room, Sebastian handing him the lamp he had carried upstairs to light the way. "I can find my own way down again in the dark very well," the latter said. "I ought to be able to do so in the house I was born in and have lived in all my life. Good-night." 76 A BITTER HERITAGE. "Now," he went on to himself, " for a good long think, as the paymaster of the Mongoose always used to say before he fell asleep in the wardroom and drove everybody else out of it with his snores. Only, first there are one or two other little things to be done." Whereon he walked out on to the balcony— the windows of course being open—and gave a long and searching glance around, above, and below him. Below, to where was the veranda of the lower or ground floor, with, standing about, two or three Singapore chairs covered with chintz, a small table and, upon it, a bottle of spirits and some glasses as well as a large carafe of water. All these things were perfectly visible because, from the room beneath him, there streamed out a strong light from the oil lamp which stood on the table within that room, while, even though such had not been the case, Julian was perfectly well aware that they were there. He and Sebastian had sat in those chairs for more than an hour talking after the evening meal, while Madame Carmaux, whose other name he learnt was Miriam, had sat in another, MADAME CARMAUX TAKES A NAP. jy perusing by the light of the lamp the Belize Advertiser. Yet, now and again, it had seemed to Julian as though, while those dark eyes had been fixed on the sheet, their owner's attention had been otherwise occupied, or else that she read very slowly. For once, when he had been giving a very guarded description of George Ritherdon's life in England during the last few years, he had seen them rest momentarily upon his face, and then be quickly withdrawn. Also, he had observed, the newspaper had never been turned once. "Now," he said again to himself, "now, let us think it all out and come to some decision as to what it all means. Let us see. Let me go over everything that has happened since I pulled up outside that inn—or gambling house!" He was, perhaps, a little more methodical than most young men; the habit being doubt- less born of many examinations at Greenwich, of a long course in H.M.S. Excellent, and, pos- sibly, of the fact that he had done what sailors call a lot of "logging" in his time, both as watchkeeper and when in command of a de- stroyer. Therefore, he drew from his pocket a 78 A BITTER HERITAGE. rather large, but somewhat unbusinesslike- looking pocketbook—since it was bound in crushed morocco and had its leaves gilt-edged— and, ruthlessly tearing out a sheet of paper, he withdrew the pencil from its place and prepared to make notes. "No orders as to ' lights out,' " he muttered to himself before beginning. "I suppose I may sit up as long as I like." Then, after a few moments' reflection, he jotted down: "S. didn't seem astonished to see me. (Qy?) Ought to have done so, if I came as a surprise to him. Can't ever have heard of me before. Consequently it was a surprise. Said who he was, and was particularly careful to say who his mother was, viz. I. S. R. (Qy?) Isn't that odd? Known many people who tell you who their father was. Never knew 'em lug in their mother's name, though, except when very swag- ger. Says Madame Carmaux relative of his mother, yet Isobel Leigh was daughter of Eng- lish planter. C's not a full-bred Englishwoman, and her name's French. That's nothing, though. Perhaps married a Frenchman." MADAME CARMAUX TAKES A NAP. 79 These little notes—which filled the detached sheet of the ornamental pocket-book—being written down, Julian, before taking another, sat back in his chair to ponder; yet his musings were not satisfactory, and, indeed, did not tend to enlighten him very much, which, as a matter of fact, they were not very likely to do. "He must be the right man, after all, and I must be the wrong one," he said to himself. "It is impossible the thing can be otherwise. A child kidnapped would make such a sensation in a place like this that the affair would furnish gossip for the next fifty years. Also, if a child was kidnapped, how on earth has this man grown up here and now inherited the property? If I was actually the child I certainly didn't grow up here, and if he was the child and did grow up here then there was no kidnapping." Indeed, by the time that Julian had arrived at this rather complicated result, he began to feel that his brain was getting into a whirl, and he came to a hasty resolution. That resolution was that he would abandon this business alto- gether; that, on the next day but one, he would go to Belize and pay his visit to the Sprangers, 8q A BITTER HERITAGE. while, when that visit was concluded, he would, instead of returning to Desolada, set out on his return journey to England. "Even though my uncle—if he was my uncle and not my father—spoke the truth and told everything exactly as it occurred, how is it to be proved? How can any legal power on earth dispossess a man who has been brought up here from his infancy, in favour of one who comes without any evidence in his favour, since that certificate of my baptism in New Orleans, although it states me to be the son of the late owner of this place, cannot be substantiated? Any man might have taken any child and had such an entry as that made. And if he—he my uncle, or my father—could conceive such a scheme as he revealed to me—or such a scheme as he did not reveal to me—then, the entry at New Orleans would not present much difficulty to one like him. It is proof—proof that it be" He stopped in his meditations—stopped, won- dering where he had heard something said about "proof" before on this evening. Then, in a moment, he recalled the almost whispered words; the words that in absolute fact MADAME CARMAUX TAKES A NAP. 81 were whispered from the balcony below, before he went down to take his seat at the supper table; the utterance of Sebastian: "Know—of course he must know. But knowledge is not always proof." How strange it was, he thought, that, while he had been indulging in his musings, jotting down his little facts on the sheet of paper, he should have forgotten those words. "Knowledge is not always proof." What knowledge? Whose? Whose could it be but his! Whose knowledge that was not proof had Sebastian referred to? Then again, in a mo- ment—again suddenly—he came to another de- termination, another resolve. He did possess some knowledge that this man, Sebastian could not dispute—for it would have been folly to im- agine he had been speaking of any one else but him—though he had no proof. So be it, only, now, he would endeavour to discover a proof that should justify such knowledge. He would not slink away from the colony until he had ex- hausted every attempt to discover that proof. If it was to be found he would find it. Perhaps, after all, his uncle was his uncle, 82 A BITTER HERITAGE. perhaps that uncle had undoubtedly uttered the truth. He rose now, preparing to go to bed, and as he did so a slight breeze rattled the slats of the green persianas, or, as they are called in Eng- land, Venetian blinds—a breeze that in tropical land often rises as the night goes on. It was a cooling pleasant one, and he remembered that he had heard it rustling the slats before, when he was engaged in making his notes. Yet, now, regarding those green strips of wood, he felt a little astonished at what he saw. He had carefully let the blinds of both windows down and turned the laths so that neither bats nor moths, nor any of the flying insect world which are the curse of the tropics at night, should force their way in, attracted by the flame of the lamp; but now, one of those laths was turned—turned, so that, instead of being down- wards and forming with the others a compact screen from the outside, it was in a flat or hori- zontal position, leaving an open space of an inch between it and the one above and the next be- low. A slat that was above five feet from the bottom of the blind. MADAME CARMAUX TAKES A NAP. 83 He stood there regarding it for a moment; then, dropping the revolver into his pocket, he went towards the window and with his finger and thumb put back the lath into the position he had originally placed it, feeling as he did so that it did not move smoothly, but, instead, a little stiffly. "There has been no wind coming up from the sea that would do that," he reflected, "and, if it had come, then it would have turned more than one. I wonder whether," and now he felt a slight sensation of creepiness coming over him, "if I had raised my eyes as I sat writing, I should have met another pair of eyes looking in on me. Very likely. The turning of that one lath made a peep-hole." He pulled the blind up now without any at- tempt at concealing the noise it caused—that well-known clatter made by such blinds as they are hastily drawn up—and walked out on to the long balcony and peered over on to the one be- neath, seeing that Madame Carmaux was asleep in the wicker chair which she had sat in during the evening, and that the newspaper lay in her lap. He saw, too, that Sebastian Ritherdon was 84 A BITTER HERITAGE. also sitting in his chair, but that, aroused by the noise of the blind, he had bent his body back- wards over the veranda rail and, with upturned face, was regarding the spot at which Julian might be expected to appear. "Not gone to bed, yet, old fellow," he called out now, on seeing the other lean over the bal- cony rail; while Julian observed that Madame Carmaux opened her eyes with a dazzled look— the look which those have on their faces who are suddenly startled out of a light nap. And for some reason—since he was growing suspicious—he believed that look to have been assumed as well as the slumber which had ap- parently preceded it. CHAPTER VIII. A MIDNIGHT VISITOR. "Not yet," Julian called down in answer to the other's remark, " though I am going directly. Only it is so hot. I hope I am not disturbing the house." "Not at all. Do what you like. We often sit here till long after midnight, since it is the only cool time of the twenty-four hours. Will you come down again and join us?" "No, if you'll excuse me. I'll take a turn or two here and then go to bed." Whereon as he spoke, he began to walk up and down the balcony. It ran (as has been said of the lower one on which Sebastian and Madame Carmaux were seated) round the whole of the house, so that, had Julian desired to do so, he could have com- menced a tour of the building which, by being 85 86 A BITTER HERITAGE. continued, would eventually have brought him back to the spot where he now was. He con- tented himself, however, with commencing to walk towards the right-hand corner of the great rambling mansion, proceeding as far upon it as led to where the balcony turned at the angle, then, after a glance down its—at that place —darkened length, he retraced his steps, meaning to proceed to the opposite or left-hand corner. Doing so, however, and coming thus in front of his bedroom window, from which, since the blind was up, the light of his lamp streamed out on to the broad wooden floor of the balcony, he saw lying at his feet a small object which formed a patch of colour on the dark boards. A patch which was of a pale roseate hue, the thing being, indeed, a little spray, now dry and faded, of the oleander flower. And he knew, felt sure, where he had seen that spray before. "I know now," he said to himself, "who turned the slat—who stood outside my window looking in on me." Picking up the withered thing, he, neverthe- less, continued his stroll along the balcony until A MIDNIGHT VISITOR. 87 he arrived at the left angle of the house, when he was able to glance down the whole of that side of it, this being as much in the dark and un- relieved by any light from within as the corre- sponding right side had been. Unrelieved, that is, by any light except the gleam of the great stars which here glisten with an incandescent whiteness; and in that gleam he saw sitting on the floor of the balcony—her back against the wall, her arms over her knees and her head sunk on those arms—the half-caste girl, Zara, the croupier of the gambling-table to which Sebas- tian had supplied the "bank" that morning at All Pines. "You have dropped this flower from your hair," he said, tossing it lightly down to her, while she turned up her dark, dusky eyes at him and, picking up the withered spray, tossed it in her turn contemptuously over the balcony. But she said nothing and, a moment later, let her head droop once more towards her arms. "Do you pass the night here?" he said now. "Surely it is not wholesome to keep out in open air like this." "I sit here often," she replied, "before go- 88 A BITTER HERITAGE. ing to bed in my room behind. The rooms are too warm. I disturb no one." For a moment he felt disposed to say that it would disturb him if she should again take it into her head to turn his blinds, but, on second con- siderations, he held his peace. To know a thing and not to divulge one's knowledge is, he re- flected, sometimes to possess a secret—a clue— a warning worth having; to possess, indeed, something that may be of use to us in the fu- ture if not now, while, for the rest—well! the returning of the spray to her had, doubtless, in- formed the girl sufficiently that he was acquaint- ed with the fact of how she had been outside his window, and that it was she who had opened his blind wide enough to allow her to peer in on him. "Good-night," he said, turning away. "Good-night," and without waiting to hear whether she returned the greeting or not, he went back to the bedroom. Yet, before he en- tered it, he bent over the balcony and called down another " good-night " to Sebastian, who, he noticed, had now been deserted by Madame Carmaux. A MIDNIGHT VISITOR. 91 in subdued whispers was unintelligible to him; beyond a word here and there nothing reached his ears. With the feeling of conviction growing stronger and stronger in his mind that there was some deception about the whole affair—that, plausible as Sebastian's possession of all which the dead man had left behind appeared; plausi- ble, too, as was his undoubted position here and had been from his very earliest days, Julian would have given much now to overhear their conversation—a conversation which, he felt certain, in spite of it taking place thirty feet be- low where he was supposed to be by now asleep, related to his appearance on the scene. Would it be possible? Could he in any way manage to thus overhear it? If he were nearer to the persianas, his ear close to the slats, his head placed down low, close to the boards of the room and of the balcony as well—what might not be overheard? Thinking thus, he resolved to make the at- tempt, even while he told himself that in no other circumstances would he—a gentleman, a man of honour—resort to such a scheme of prying in- S 92 A BITTER HERITAGE. terference. But—for still the certainty in- creased in his mind that there was some deceit, some fraud in connection with Sebastian Rith- erdon's possession of Desolada and all that Deso- lada represented in value—he did not hesitate now. As once he, with some of his bluejackets, had tracked slavers from the sea for miles inland and into the coast swamps and fever-haunted in- terior of the great Black Continent, so now he would track this man's devious and doubtful ex- istence, as, remembering George Ritherdon's story, it seemed to him to be. If he had wronged Sebastian, if he had formed a false esti- mate of his possession of this place and of his right to the name he bore, no harm would be done. For then he would go away from Hon- duras for ever, leaving the man in peaceable pos- session of all that was rightly his. But, if his suspicions were not wrong He let himself down to the floor from the chair on which he had been sitting in the dark for now nearly an hour, and, quietly, noiselessly, he progressed along that solid floor—one so well laid in the past that no board either creaked or made any noise—and thus he reached the bal- A MIDNIGHT VISITOR. 93 cony, there interposing nothing now between him and it but the lowered blind. Then when he had arrived there, he heard their voices plainly; heard every word that fell from their lips—the soft murmur of the woman's tones, the deeper, more guttural notes of the man. Only—he might as well have been a mile away from where they sat, he might as well have been stone deaf as able to thus easily overhear those words. For Sebastian and his companion were speaking in a tongue that was unknown to him; a tongue that, in spite of the Spanish surround- ings and influences which still linger in all places forming parts of Central America, was not Span- ish. Of this language he, like most sailors, knew something; therefore he was aware that it was not that, as well as he was aware that it was not French. Perhaps 'twas Maya, which he had been told in Belize was the native jargon, or Carib, which was spoken along the coast. And almost,, as he recognised how he was baffled, could he have laughed bitterly at himself. "What a fool I must have been," he thought, 94 A BITTER HERITAGE. "to suppose that if they had any confidences to make to each other, any secrets to talk over in which I was concerned they would discuss them in a language I should be likely to understand." But there are some words, especially those which express names, which cannot be translated into a foreign tongue. Among such, Ritherdon would be one. Julian, too, is another, with only the addition of the letter "o" at the end in Spanish (and perhaps also in Maya or Carib), and George, which, though spelt Jorge, has, in speaking, nearly the same pronunciation. And these names met his ear as did others: Inglaterra —the name of the woman Isobel Leigh, whom Julian believed to have been his mother, but whom Sebastian asserted to have been his; also the name of that fair American city lying to the north of them—New Orleans—it being referred to, of course, in the Spanish tongue. "So," he thought to himself, "it is of me they are talking. Of me—which would not, perhaps, be strange, since a guest so suddenly received into the house and having the name of Ritherdon might well furnish food for conversa- tion. But, when coupled with George Rither- A MIDNIGHT VISITOR. 95 don, with New Orleans, above all with the name of Isobel Leigh" Even as that name was in his mind, he heard it again mentioned below by the woman—Ma- dame Carmaux. Mentioned, too, in conjunction with and followed by a light, subdued laugh; a laugh in which his acuteness could hear an undercurrent of bitterness—perhaps of derision. "And she was this woman's relative," he thought, "her relative! Yet now she is jeered at, spoken scornfully of by" In amazement he paused, even while his re- flections arrived at this stage. In front of where his eyes were, low down to the floor of the balcony, something dark and sombre passed, then returned and stopped be- fore him, blotting from his eyes all that lay in front of them—the tops of the palms, the woods beyond the garden, the dark sea beyond that. Like a pall it rested before his vision, obscuring, blurring everything. And, a moment later, he recognised that it was a woman's dress which thus impeded his view, while, as he did so, he heard some five feet above him a light click made by one of the slats. g6 A BITTER HERITAGE. Then, with an upward glance of his eyes, that glance being aided by a noiseless turn of his head, he saw that a finger was holding back the lath, and knew—felt sure—that into the dark- ness of the room two other eyes were gazing. CHAPTER IX. BEATRIX. Thirty-six hours later Julian Ritherdon sat among very different surroundings from those of Desolada; certainly very different ones from those of his first night in the gloomy, mysterious house owned by that other man who bore his name. He was seated now in a wicker chair placed beneath the cool shadow cast by a vast clump of "shade-trees," as the royal palm, the thatch palm, and, indeed, almost every kind and species of that form of vegetation are denominated. These shade trees grew in the pretty and luxu- riant garden of Mr. Spranger's house on the southern outskirts of Belize, a garden in which, for some years now, Beatrix Spranger had passed the greater part of her days, and sometimes when the hot simoon was on, as it was now, and 97 98 A BITTER HERITAGE. the temperature scarcely ever fell below 850, a good deal of the early part of her nights. She, too, was seated in that garden now, talking to Julian, while between them there lay two or three books and London magazines (three or four months old), a copy of the Times of the same ancient date, and another of the Belize Advertiser fresh from the local press. Yet neither the news from London which had long since been published, nor that of the im- mediate neighbourhood, which was quite new but not particularly exciting, seemed to have been able to secure much of their attention. And this for a reason which was a simple one and easily to be understood. All their attention was at the present moment concentrated on each other. "You cannot think," Beatrix Spranger was saying now, "what a welcome event the arrival of a stranger is to us here, who regard ourselves more or less as exiles for the time being. More- over," she continued, without any of that false shame which a young lady at home in England might have thought necessary to assume, even though she did not actually feel it, " it seems to BEATRIX. gg me that you are a very interesting person, Lieu- tenant Ritherdon. You have dropped down into a place where your name happens to be ex- tremely well known, yet in which no one ever imagined that there was any other Ritherdon in existence anywhere, except the late and the present owners of Desolada." "People, even exiles, have relatives some- times in other parts of the world," Julian mur- mured rather languidly—the effect of the heat and the perfume of the flowers in the garden being upon him—" and you know" "Oh! yes," the girl said, with an answering smile. "I do know all that. Only I happen to know something else, too. You see we—that is, father and I—are acquainted with your cousin, and we knew his father before him. And it is a rather singular thing that they have always given us to understand that, so far as they were aware, they hadn't a relation in the world." "They had, though, you see, all the same. Indeed, they had two until a short time ago; namely, when my father, Mr. George Rither- don, was alive." 307981A y IOO A BITTER HERITAGE. "Mr. Ritherdon, Sebastian's father, hadn't seen him for many years, had he? He didn't often speak of him, and always gave people the idea that his brother was dead. I suppose they had not parted the best of friends?" "No," Julian answered quietly, "I don't think they had. As a matter of fact, my— George Ritherdon—was almost, indeed quite, as reticent about his brother Charles as Charles seems to have been about him. Then, sudden- ly changing the subject, he said: "Is Sebastian popular hereabouts. Is he liked?" "No," the girl replied, rather more frankly than Julian had expected, while, as she did so, she lifted a pair of beautiful blue eyes to his face. "No, I don't think he is, since you ask me." "Why not? You may tell me candidly, Miss Spranger, especially as you know that to- night I am going to have a rather serious inter- view with your father, and shall ask him for his advice and assistance on a matter in which I require his counsel." "Oh! I don't know quite," the girl said now. "Only—only—well! you know—be- cause you have told us that you saw him doing BEATRIX. IOI it—he—he—is too fond of play, of gambling. People say—different things. Some that he is ruining his brother planters, and others that he is ruining himself. Then he has the reputation of being very hard and cruel to some of his serv- ants. You know, we have coolies and negroes and Caribs and natives here, and a good many of them are bound to the employers for a term of years—and—and—well—if one feels inclined to be cruel—they can be." As she spoke of this, Julian recognised how he had been within an ace of discovering, some time before he reached the inn at All Pines, that the late Mr. Ritherdon had not died without leaving an heir, apparent or presumptive, as he had supposed when he landed at Belize. The negro guide on whom he had bestowed so many good-humoured sobriquets had spoken of Mr. Ritherdon as being a hard and cruel man, both to blacks and whites. But—in his igno- rance, which was natural enough—he had sup- posed that the statement could only have ap- plied to the one owner of Desolada of whom he had ever heard—the man lately dead. Now, he reflected, he wished he had really 102 A BITTER HERITAGE. understood to whom that negro referred. It might have made a difference in his plans, he thought; might have prevented him from going on farther on the road to All Pines and Deso- lada; from meeting this unexpected, unknown of, possessor of what he believed to be his, until those plans had become more matured. Until, too, he had had time to decide in what form, if any, he should present himself before the man who was called Sebastian Ritherdon. However, it was done. He had presented himself and, if he knew anything of human na- ture, if he could read a character at all, his ap- pearance had caused considerable excitement in the minds of both Sebastian Ritherdon and Ma- dame Carmaux. "Do you like Sebastian?" he asked now, and he could scarcely have explained why he was anxious to hear a denial of any liking for that person on the part of Beatrix Spranger. It may have been, he thought, because this girl, with her soft English beauty, which the climate of British Honduras during some years of resi- dence had—certainly, as yet—had no power to impair, seemed to him far too precious a thing 104 A BITTER HERITAGE. You are a man of mystery, Lieutenant Rither- don. Why! you won't even tell us how it hap- pens that you arrived here from Desolada with that round your arm," and as she spoke she di- rected her blue eyes to a sling around his neck in which his arm reposed. "Nor that," she added, nodding now towards his forehead, where, on the left side, were affixed two or three pieces of sticking-plaster. "Yes," he said, " I will tell you that. I feel, indeed, that I ought to do so, if only as an apol- ogy for presenting myself before you in such a guise. You see, it is so easy to explain this, that it is not worth making any mystery about it. It all comes from the fact that I am a sailor, and sailors are proverbial for being very bad riders," and as he spoke he accompanied his words with another smile. But Beatrix did not smile in return. In- stead, she said, half gravely, perhaps almost half severely: "Go on, Lieutenant Ritherdon, if you please. I wish to hear how the accident happened," while she added impressively, "on your journey from Desolada to Belize." "I'm a bad rider," he said again, but once BEATRIX. 105 more meeting her glance, he altered his mode of speech and said: "Well, you see, Miss Spranger, it happened this way. I set out on my journey of inspec- tion, on my road to Desolada, on a rather an- cient mustang which the worthy landlord of the hotel with a queer Spanish name recommended to me as the proper thing to do the journey easily on. Later, when I had made Sebastian's acquaintance, he rather ridiculed my good Rosi- nante." "Did he!" Beatrix interjected calmly "He did, indeed. In fact he said such crea- tures were scarcely ever used in the colony ex- cept for draught purposes. Then he said he would mount me on a good horse of Spanish breed, such as I believe you use a great deal here; so that when I was returning to Belize yesterday to present myself before you and Mr. Spranger, I should be able to make the journey rapidly and comfortably." "That was very kind of him," Beatrix ex- claimed. "Though, as you did not arrive until nine o'clock at night, you hardly seem to have made it very rapidly, and those things," Io6 A BITTER HERITAGE. with again a glance at the sling and the plasters, , "are not usually adjuncts to comfort." "Well, you see, I'm a sailor and not a good ri" "Go on, please." "Yes, certainly. I started under favourable circumstances at six in the morning, receiving, I believe, a kind of blessing or benediction from Sebastian and Madame Carmaux, as well as ^strong injunctions to return as soon as possible." people are hospitable in this country," Beatrix agaajn interrupted. "We got artong very well, anyhow, for a time; at a gentle tirpt, of course, because al- ready it was getting hoX and as we neared All Pines I was just thinking s# gy ^e way you seem to know the manners'. an(j customs of the animals in this country, Miss Spranger" "I know that many lives art. ]ost [n ^is country," the girl said gravely now, « owing to unbroken horses being ridden too yoUt^^. horses, too, that are sometimes full of vice. The 'J BEATRIX. I07 landlord of the hotel here did you a better ser- vice than your cousin." "Perhaps this was one of those horses," Julian remarked. "But, anyhow, it bolted. Then, a little later, it did something else. It stopped dead in a gallop and, after nearly shoot- ing me over its head, it reared upright and did absolutely throw me off it backwards. Fortu- nately, I fell at the side of the road on to a sort of undergrowth full of ferns and interspersed with lovely flowering shrubs; so I got off with what you see. The horse, however, had killed itself. It fell over on its back with a tremendous sort of backward bound and, when I got up and looked at it, it was just dying Later, I came on from All Pines in a kind of cart—that is, when I had been bandaged up. Perhaps, however, it wouldn't have happened if I had not been such a bad rider and" "It would have happened," Beatrix said, de- cisively, "if you had been a circus rider or a cowboy. That is, unless you had been well ac- quainted with the horse, and, even then, it would probably have happened just the same." After this they were silent for a little while, 8 108 A BITTER HERITAGE. Julian availing himself of Beatrix's permission to smoke, and she sitting meditatively behind her huge fan. And, although he did not tell her so, Julian agreed with her that the accident would probably have happened even though he had been a circus rider or a cowboy, as she had said. CHAPTER X. MR. SPRANGER OBTAINS INFORMATION. Mr. Spranger was at home later in the afternoon, his business for the day being done, and in the evening they all sat down to dinner in the now almost cool and airy dining-room of his house. And, at this meal, Julian thought that Beatrix looked even prettier than she had done in the blue-and-white striped dress worn by her during the day. She had on now one of those dinner jackets which young ladies oc- casionally assume when not desirous of donning the fullest of evening gowns, and, as he sat there observing the healthy sunburn of her cheeks (which was owing to her living so much in the open air) that contrasted markedly with the whiteness of her throat, he thought she was one of the most lovely girls he had ever seen. Which from him, who had met so much beauty in different parts of the world, was a very con- 109 no A BITTER HERITAGE. siderable compliment—if she had but known it. Also, if the truth must be told, her piquant shrewdness and vivacity—which she had mani- fested very considerably during Julian's descrip- tion of the vagaries of the animal lent to him by his cousin—appealed very much to him, so that he could not help reflecting how, should this girl eventually be made acquainted with all the doubts and difficulties which now perplexed him as to his birthright, she might possibly become a very valuable counsellor. "She has ideas about my worthy cousin for some reason," he thought to himself more than once during dinner, "and most certainly she suspects him of—well of not having been very careful about the mount he placed at my dis- posal. So do I, as a matter of fact—only per- haps it is as well not to say so just at present." Moreover, now was not the time to take her into his confidence; the evening was required for something else, namely, the counsel and ad- vice of her father. He had made Mr. Spranger's acquaintance overnight on his arrival, and, in the morning of the present day, before that gen- tleman had departed to his counting house in MR. SPRANGER OBTAINS INFORMATION. m Belize, he had asked if he would, in the evening, allow him to have his counsel on some impor- tant reasons connected with his appearance in British Honduras. Whereon, Mr. Spranger having told him very courteously that any ad- vice or assistance which he could give should be at his service, Julian knew that the time had arrived for him to take that gentleman into his confidence. Arrived, because now, Beatrix, rising from the table, made her way out to the lawn, where, already, a negro servant had placed a lamp on the rustic table by which she always sat; she saying that when they had done their conference they would find her there. "Now, my boy," said Mr. Spranger, who was a hale, jovial Englishman, on whom neither climate nor exile had any depressing influence, and who, besides, was delighted to have as his guest a young man who, as well as being a gen- tleman, could furnish him with some news of that far-off world from which he expected to be separated for still some years. "Now, help yourself to some more claret—it is quite sound and wholesome—and let me see what I can do for you." H2 A BITTER HERITAGE. "It will take some time in the telling," Ju- lian said. "It is a long story and a strange one." "It may take till midnight, if you choose," the other answered. "We sit up late in this country, so as to profit by the coolest hours of the day." "But—Miss Spranger. Will she not think me very rude to detain you so long?" "No," he replied. "If we do not join her soon, she will understand that our conversation is of importance." It was nearly midnight when Julian had con- cluded the whole of his narrative, he telling Mr. Spranger everything that had occurred from the time when George Ritherdon had unfolded that strange story in his Surrey home, until the hour when he himself had arrived at the house in which he now was, with his arm bandaged up and his head dressed. Of course there had been interruptions to the flow of the narrative. Once they had gone out onto the lawn to bid Beatrix good-night and to chat with her for a few moments during 'MR. SPRANGER OBTAINS INFORMATION, nj which Julian had been amply apologetic for pre- venting her father from joining her, as well as for not doing so himself—and, naturally, Mr. Spranger had himself interrupted the course of the recital by exclamations of astonishment and with many questions. But that recital was finished now, and still the elder man's bewilderment was extreme. "It is the most extraordinary story I ever heard in my life! A romance. And it seems such a tangled web! How, in Heaven's name, can your father's, or uncle's, account be the right one?" "You do not believe his story?" Julian asked; "you believe Sebastian is, in absolute fact, Charles Ritherdon's son?" "What am I to believe? Just think! That young man has been brought up here ever since he was a baby; there must be hundreds upon hundreds of people who can recollect his birth, twenty-six years ago, his christening, his bap- tism. And Charles Ritherdon—whom I knew very well indeed—recognised him, treated him in every way, as his son. He died leaving him his heir. What can stand against that?" ii4 A BITTER HERITAGE. "Doubtless it is a mystery. Yet—yet—in spite of, all, I cannot believe that George Rither- don would have invented such a falsehood. Re- member, Mr. Spranger, I had known him all my life and knew every side and shade of his character. And—he was dying when he told it all to me. Would a man go to his grave fab- ricating, uttering such a lie as that?" For a moment Mr. Spranger did not reply, but sat with his eyes turned up towards the ceil- ing of the room—and with, upon his face, that look which all have seen upon the faces of those who are thinking deeply. Then at last he said— "Come, let us understand each other. You have asked my advice, my opinion, as the only man you can consult freely. Now, are we to talk frankly—am I to talk without giving of- fence?" "That is what I want," Julian said, "what I desire. I must get to the bottom of this mys- tery. Heaven knows I don't wish to claim an- other man's property—I have no need for it— there is my profession and some little money left by George Ritherdon. On the other hand, I don't desire to think of him as dying with such MR. SPRANGER OBTAINS INFORMATION. "5 a deception in his heart. I want to justify him in my eyes." Then, because Mr. Spranger still kept si- lence, he said again: "Pray, pray tell me what you do think. Pray be frank. No matter what you say." "No," Mr. Spranger said now. "No. Not yet at least. First let us look at facts. I was not in the colony twenty-six years ago, but of course, I am acquainted with scores of people who were. And those people knew old Rither- don as well as they know me; also they have known Sebastian all his life. And, you must re- member, there are such things as registers of births, registers kept of baptism, and so forth. What would you say if you saw the register of Sebastian's birth, as well as the register of your —of Mrs. Ritherdon's death?" "What could .1 say in such circumstances? Only—why, then, the attempt to make me break my neck on that horse? Why the half-caste girl watching me through the night, and why the conversation which I overheard, the contemptu- ous laugh of Madame Carmaux at my mother's —at Isobel Leigh's name? Why all that, n6 A BITTER HERITAGE. coupled with the name of George Ritherdon, of myself, of New Orleans—where he said he had me baptized when he fled there after kidnapping me?" As Julian spoke, as he mentioned the name of New Orleans, he saw a light upon Mr. Spon- ger's face—that look which comes upon all our faces when something strikes us and, itself, throws a light upon our minds; also he saw a slight start given by the elder man. "What is it?" Julian asked, observing both these things. "What?" "New Orleans," Mr. Spranger said now, musingly, contemplatively, with, about him, the manner of one endeavouring to force recollec- tion to come to his aid. "New Orleans—and Madame Carmaux. Why do those names—the names of that city—of that woman—connect themselves together in my mind. Why?" Then suddenly he exclaimed, " I know! I have it! Madame Carmaux is a New Orleans woman." "A New Orleans woman!" Julian repeated. "A New Orleans woman! Yet he, Sebastian, said when we met—that—that—she was a con- MR. SPRANGER OBTAINS INFORMATION. 117 nection of Isobel Leigh; 'a relative of my late mother,' were his words. How could she have been a relative of hers, if Mr. Leigh came out from England to this place bringing with him his English wife and the child that was Isobel Leigh, as George Ritherdon told me he did? Also" "Also what?" Mr. Spranger asked now. "Also what? Though take time—exert your memory to the utmost. There is something strange in the discrepancy between George Ritherdon's statement made in England and Se- bastian's made here. What else is it that has struck you?" "This. As we rode towards Desolada he was telling me that he had never been farther away from Honduras than New Orleans. Then he began to say—I am sure he did—that his mother came from there, but he broke off to modify the statement for another to the effect that she had always desired to visit that city. And when I asked him if his mother came from New Orleans, he said: "Oh, no! She was the daughter of Mr. Leigh, an English merchant at Belize." H8 A BITTER HERITAGE. "You must have misunderstood him," Mr. Spranger said; "have misunderstood the first part of his remark at any rate." "Perhaps," Julian said quietly, "perhaps." But, nevertheless, he felt perfectly sure that he had not done so. Then suddenly he said— "You knew Mr. Ritherdon of Desolada. Tell me, do I bear any resemblance to him?" "Yes," Mr. Spranger answered gravely, very gravely. "So much of a resemblance that you might well be his son. As great a resemblance to him as you do in a striking manner to Sebas- tian. You and he might absolutely be broth- ers. "Only," said Julian, " such a thing is impos- sible. Mrs. Ritherdon did not become the mother of twins, and she died within a day or so of giving her first child birth. She could never have borne another." "That," Spranger acquiesced, "is beyond doubt." They prepared to separate now for the night, yet before they did so, his host said a word to Julian. "To-morrow," he told him, "when I am in the city, I will speak to one or two people MR. SPRANGER OBTAINS INFORMATION, ug who have known all about the Desolada house- hold ever since the place became the property of Mr. Ritherdon. And, as perhaps you do not know, twenty-five years ago all births along the coast, and far beyond Desolada, were registered in Belize. Now, they are thus registered at All Pines—but it is only in later days that such has been the case." And next morning, when Mr. Spranger had been gone from his home some two or three hours, and Julian happened to be sitting alone in Beatrix's favourite spot in the garden—she be- ing occupied at the moment with her household duties—a half-caste messenger from the city brought him a letter from Mr. Spranger, or, rather, a piece of paper, on which was written— "Miriam Carmaux's maiden name was Gar- delle and she came from New Orleans. She married Carmaux in despair, after, it is said, be- ing jilted by Charles Ritherdon (who had once been in love with her). Her marriage took place about the same time as Mr. Ritherdon's with Miss Leigh, but her husband was killed by a snake bite a few months afterwards. Sebas- s CHAPTER XL A VISIT OF CONDOLENCE. The remainder of that day was passed by Julian in the society of Beatrix—since Mr. Spranger never came back to his establishment —which was called "Floresta "—until he re- turned for good in the evening; the summer noontide heat causing a drive to and from Belize for lunch to be a journey too full of discom- fort to be worth undertaking. Therefore, this young man and woman were drawn into a com- panionship so close that, ere long, it seemed to each of them that they had been acquainted for a considerable time, while to Beatrix it began to appear that when once Lieutenant Ritherdon should have taken his departure, the cool shady garden of her abode would prove a vastly more desolate place than it had ever done before. But, while these somewhat dreary medita- tions occupied her thoughts, Julian was himself 122 A BITTER HERITAGE. revolving in his own mind a determination to which he had almost, if not quite, arrived at as yet—a determination that she should be ,made a confidante of what engrossed now the greater part of his reflections, i. e., the mystery which surrounded both his own birth and that of Se- bastian Ritherdon. The greater part, but not the whole of these reflections! because he soon observed that one other form—a form far differ- ent from the handsome but somewhat rough and saturnine figure and personality of his cousin Sebastian—was ever present in his mind and, if not absolutely present before his actual eyes, was never absent from his thoughts. That form was the tall, graceful figure of Beatrix, surmounted by the shapely head and beautiful features of the girl; the head crowned by masses of fair curling hair, from beneath which those calm and clear blue eyes gazed out through the thick and somewhat darker lashes. "I must do it," he was musing to himself now, as they sat in the shade when the light luncheon was over, and while around them were all the languorous accompaniments of a tropic summer day, with, also, the cloying, balmy 'A VISIT OF CONDOLENCE. 123 odours of the tropic summer atmosphere; "I must do it, must take her into my confidence, obtain her opinion as well as her father's. She can see as far as any one, as she showed plainly enough by her manner when I told her about my ride on that confounded horse. She might in this case perhaps, see something, divine some- thing of that which at present is hidden from her father and from me." Yet, although he had by now arrived at the determination to impart to her all that now so agitated him, he also resolved that he would not do so until he had taken her father's opinion on the subject. "He will not refuse, I imagine," he thought to himself. "Why should he? Especially when I represent to him that, by excluding her from the various confidences which he and I must exchange on the matter—since he has evi- dently thrown himself heart and soul into un- ravelling the mystery—we shall also be dooming her to a great many hours of dulness and lack of companionship.'' But this, perhaps, savoured a little of sophis- try—although probably imperceptibly so to him- 124 A BITTER HERITAGE. self—since it must be undoubted that he also recognised how great a lack of her companion- ship he was likewise dooming himself to if she was not allowed to participate in their conver- sation on the all important subject. Young people are, however, sometimes more or less of sophists, especially those who, inde- pendently of all other concerns of importance, are experiencing a certain attractiveness that is being exercised by members of the other sex into whose companionship they are much thrown by chance. The day drew on; above them the heat—that subtle tropical heat which has been justly com- pared with the atmosphere of a Turkish bath or the engine room of a steamer—was exerting its full and irresistible power on all and everything that was subject to its influence. Even the yel- low-headed parrots had now ceased their chat- tering and clacking; while Beatrix's pet mon- key, whose home was on the lower branches of a huge thatch-palm, presented a mournful ap- pearance of senile exhaustion, as it sat with its head bowed on its breast and its now drawn- down, wizened features a picture of absolute but A VISIT OF CONDOLENCE. 125 resigned despair. And even those two human beings, each ordinarily so full of life and youth and vigour, appeared as if—despite all laws of good breeding to the effect that friends and acquaintances should not go to sleep in each other's presence—they were about to yield to the atmospheric influence. Julian knew that he was nodding, even while, as he glanced to where Beatrix's great fan had now ceased to sway, he was still wide awake enough to suspect that his were not the only eyes that were strug- gling to keep open. As thus all things human and animal suc- cumbed, or almost succumbed, to the dead, un- ruffled atmosphere, and while, too, the scarlet flowers of the flamboyants and the lilac-coloured blossoms of the oleanders drooped, across the lawn so carefully sown with English grass seeds every spring and mowed and watered regularly, there fell a heavy footstep on the ears of Beatrix and Julian—footsteps proclaimed clearly by the jingle of spurs, if in no other way. And, a mo- ment later, a sonorous voice was heard, express- ing regret for thus disturbing so grateful a siesta and for intruding at all. I26 A BITTER HERITAGE. "Good afternoon, Mr. Ritherdon," Julian said, somewhat coldly, as now Sebastian came close to them; while Beatrix—her face as calm as though no downsiness had come near her since the past night—greeted him with a civility that might almost have been termed glacial, and was, undoubtedly, distant. "I suppose you have heard of my little adventure on the horse you so kindly exchanged for my mustang?" "It is for that that I am here," the other an- swered, dropping into a basket-chair towards which Beatrix coldly waved her hand. "I can- not tell you what my feelings, my remorse, were on hearing what had befallen you. Good Heavens! think—just think—how I should have felt if any real, any serious accident had befallen you! Yet, it was not my fault." "No?" asked Julian. "No? Did you not know the animal's peculiarities, then?" "Of course. Naturally. But, owing to the carelessness of one of the stable hands, you were given the wrong one. I can tell you that that fellow has had the best welting he ever had in his life and has been sent off the estate. You won't see him there when you return to me." A VISIT OF CONDOLENCE. 127 "No," thought Beatrix to herself, " he won't. And what's more he never would have seen him, unless he has the power of creating imaginary people out of those who have no actual exist- ence." While, although her lips did not move, there was in her eyes a look—conveyed by a hasty glance towards Julian, which told him as plainly as words could have done, what her thoughts were. "We had bought a new draft of horses," Se- bastian went on, "and by a mistake this one— the one on which you rode—got into the wrong stall, the stall properly belonging to the animal you ought to have had. Heavens!" he ex- claimed again, "when I heard that it had been found lying dead near All Pines and that you had been attended to there—your injuries being exaggerated, I am thankful to see—I thought I should have gone mad. You, my guest, my cousin, to be treated thus." "It doesn't matter. Only, when I come to see you, I hope your stableman will be more careful." As he spoke of returning to Desolada once more, the other man's face lit up with a look of 128 A BITTER HERITAGE. pleasure in the same manner that it had done on a previous occasion. Any one regarding him now would have said that there was a generous, hospitable host, to whom no greater satisfaction could be afforded than to hear that his invita- tions were sought after and acceptable. He did not deceive either of his listeners, however; not Julian, who now had reason to suspect many things in connection with this man's existence and possession of Desolada; nor Beatrix who, without knowing what Julian knew, had always disliked Sebastian and, since the affair of the horse, had formed the most un- favourable opinions concerning his good faith. Probably, however, Sebastian, who also had good reasons for doubting whether either of them was likely to believe his explanations, scarcely expected that they should be deceived. He expressed, nevertheless, the greatest, indeed the most vivid, satisfaction at Julian's words, and exclaimed, "Ah! when next you come to see me? That is it—what I desire. You shall be well treated, I can assure you—the honoured relative, and all that kind of thing. Now fix the date, Mr. Rither—cousin Julian." 130 A BITTER HERITAGE. ist; in short, he was determined to accept Se- bastian's invitation. Purposely avoiding Beatrix's glance, there- fore, while meaning to explain his reason for doing so later on, when they should be.alone, he said now to his cousin— "You are very good, and, of course, I shall be delighted to come back and stay with you. As to the date, well! Mr. and Miss Spranger are so kind and hospitable that you must let me avail myself of their welcome for a little longer. I suppose a day need not be actually fixed just now?" "Why, no, my dear fellow," Sebastian ex- claimed, with that almost boisterous cordiality which he had unfailingly evinced since they had first met, and which might be either real or assumed. "Why, no, of course not. Indeed, there is no need to fix any date at all. There is the house and everything in it, and there am I. Come when you like and you will find a wel- come, rough as it must needs be in this country, but at any rate sincere." After which there was nothing more for Julian to do than to mutter courteous thanks for A VISIT OF CONDOLENCE. I3I such proffered hospitality and to promise that, ere long, he would again become a guest at Desolada. They walked with Sebastian now to the stable, where his horse was awaiting him, Bea- trix proffering refreshment—to omit which courtesy to a visitor would have been contrary to all the established, though unwritten, laws of Honduras, as well as, one may say, of most colo- nies—but Sebastian, refusing this, rode off to Belize, where he said he had business. And Julian could not help wondering to himself if that business could possibly have any connection with the same affairs which had brought him out from England. "You either didn't see my signals, or mis- understood them," Beatrix said, as now they returned once more to the coolness of the garden. "Pardon me," Julian replied, " I did. Only, it is necessary—absolutely necessary, I think— that I should pay another visit to my cousin's house. To-night your father and I are going to invite your opinion on a matter between Sebastian and me. Then I think you will 132 A BITTER HERITAGE. also agree that it is necessary for me to return to Desolada." "I may do so," Beatrix said, "but all the same I don't like the idea of your being an in- habitant of that place—of your being under his roof again." CHAPTER XII. THE REMINISCENCES OF A FRENCH GENTLEMAN. A week later Julian was once more on his way towards Desolada, and upon a journey which he was fully determined should either re- sult in satisfying him that Sebastian did not properly occupy the position which he now held openly in the eyes of the whole colony, or should be his last one. He did not 'come to this decision without much anxious consideration being given to the subject by himself, by Mr. Spranger, and by Beatrix—who had been taken into the confi- dence of the others on the evening following Se- bastian's visit to "Floresta." Nor had he ar- rived at the decision to again become his cousin's guest without taking their opinions on that sub- ject as well. And the result was—when briefly stated— that he was on his road once more. 133 134 A BITTER HERITAGE. Now, as he rode along a second time on the mule (which had been returned to its owner by a servant from Desolada), because it was at least a safe and trusty animal although not speedy— such a qualification being, indeed, unnecessary, in a country where few people ride swiftly be- cause of the heat—he was musing deeply on all that the past weeks had brought forth. "First," he reflected, " it has done one thing which was not to be expected, and may or may not have a bearing on what I am in this place for. It has caused me to fall over head and ears in love. Some people would say, ' That's good.' Others that it is bad, since it might distract my attention from more serious "matters. So it would be bad, for me, if she doesn't feel the same way. I suppose I shall have courage to tell her all about it some day, but at present I'm sure I couldn't do it. And, anyhow, we will first of all see who and what I am. As the owner of Desolada I should be a more suitable match than as a lieutenant of five years' seniority with a few thousand pounds in various colonial securities." Whereupon, since the animal had by now reached the knoll where he had halted with his REMINISCENCES OF A FRENCH GENTLEMAN. 135 guide for luncheon upon the occasion of his for- mer journey along the same road, he dismounted and, drawing out of his haversack a packet of sandwiches prepared for him by Beatrix's cook, commenced, while eating them to reconsider all that had taken place during the past week. What had taken place needs, indeed, to be set down here, since the passage of the last few days had brought to light more than one dis- crepancy in connection not only with Sebastian's first statements to Julian, but also with his pos- session of all that the late Mr. Ritherdon had left him the sole possessor of. Mr. Spranger had brought home with him to ■dinner, on the night following that when Beatrix had been informed of the strange vari- ance between the statement made by George Ritherdon in England, and the recognised posi- tion held by Sebastian in British Honduras, an elderly gentleman who filled a position in one of the principal schools established by the Gov- ernment and in receipt of Government aid, in the city; while, before doing so, he had sug- gested to Julian that he should keep his ears open but say as little as possible. To his daugh- I36 A BITTER HERITAGE. ter he had also made the same suggestion, which was, as a matter of fact, unnecessary, since that young lady had now thrown herself heart and soul into the unravelling of a mystery which she said was more interesting than the plot of any novel she had read for many a long day. Also, it need scarcely be said to which side her opin- ions inclined, or in which quarter her sympathies were enlisted. Julian had wondered later, as he ate his lunch on the knoll, whether the affection which had sprung up in his heart for this girl was ever likely to be returned; but, had he been able to peer closely into that mystical receptacle of conglomerate feelings—a woman's heart—his wonderment might, perhaps, have ceased to exist. With considerable skill, Mr. Spranger led the conversation at dinner to the old residents in the colony and, at last, by more or less devious ways, to the various personages who at one time or another had been inhabitants of Desolada. Then, when he and his guest were, to use a hunt- ing metaphor, in full cry over a fine open coun- try, he casually remarked that, among others, Madame Carmaux had herself held a consider- REMINISCENCES OF A FRENCH GENTLEMAN. 137 able place of trust in the establishment for a great many years. "Yes, yes," said the old gentleman, who was himself a French-American from Florida, "yes, a long time. Miriam Carmaux! Ha! Miriam Carmaux—Miriam Gardelle as she was when she arrived here from New Orleans and sought a place as governess. A beautiful girl then; oh! my faith, she was beautiful." "Did she get a place as governess?" Mr. Spranger asked, filling Monsieur Lemaire's glass. "Well, you see, she did and she did not. She got lessons in families, but no posts, no. No posts. Then, of course, she married poor Car- maux. Oh! these snakes—ah! mon Dieu, that coral-snake, and the tommy-goff—there are dreadful creatures for you! It was a tommy- goff that killed poor Jules Carmaux." "Was it, though? And what was poor Car- maux?" "Ah!" said Monsieur Lemaire, shaking his head most mournfully, " he was not a solid man, not steady. Oh! no, not at all steady. Car- maux loved pleasure too much: all kinds of 138 A BITTER HERITAGE. pleasure. He loved cards, and—and—excuse me, Miss Spranger—but he loved this also," while as he spoke the old gentleman shook his head reprovingly at the claret jugs. "Also he loved sport—shooting the curassow, hunting the racoon and the jaguar—ah! he did not love work. Oh, no! Work and he were never the best of friends. Then the tommy-goff killed him in the woods." "Perhaps," remarked Beatrix with one of her bright smiles, " as a punishment for his not loving work." "But," said Mr. Spranger, "he must have been a poor husband for that young lady, Mademoiselle Gardelle, as she was then. If he would not work, how did he support a wife?" "Ah!" said Monsieur Lemaire with a very emphatic shake of his head now, so that Beatrix wondered he did not get quite warm over the exertion, " Ah! they did say that he thought she might earn the money to support him." And still he wagged his head. "I wonder," exclaimed Julian, who had been listening to all this with considerable interest, REMINISCENCES OF A FRENCH GENTLEMAN. 139 "that she should have married him. He seems to have been a useless sort of man." "Ah! Ah! There were reasons, very sad reasons. You see, she had been in love with another man. Ah! mon Dieu, these love affairs. Another man, Mr. Ritherdon, was supposed to have been the object of her affections." "Dear! dear," said Mr. Spranger. "Yes. Only—" and now Monsieur Le- maire made a sort of apologetic, old-court-life-in- France style of bow to Beatrix, as though be- seeching pardon for the errors of his own sex— sinking his voice, too, to a kind of pleading one, as well as one reprobating the late Mr. Rither- don's conduct—" only he jilted her." "Good gracious!" exclaimed the girl, feel- ing it necessary to say something in return for the old Frenchman's politeness, while, as a mat- ter of fact, she had heard the story from her fa- ther only a night or so before. "Good gra- cious!" "Ah! yes. Ah! yes," Lemaire continued. "It was so indeed. Indeed it was. Then, they do say "And now he sank his voice so much that he might have been reciting the history of 140 A BITTER HERITAGE. some most awful and soul-stirring Greek trag- edy, "they do say that in her rage and despair she flung herself away on Carmaux. But the tommy-goff killed him after he trod on it in the woods—and, so, she was free." Then his voice rose crescendo, as though the mention of the tragedy being concluded, a lighter tone was per- missible. "Take some more claret," said Mr. Spran- ger; " help yourself." While as the old gentle- man did so, he continued— "But how in such circumstances did she be- come a resident in Mr. Ritherdon's house? One would have thought that was the last place she would be found in next." "Ah!" said Monsieur Lemaire, "then the woman's heart, the heart of all good women "— and he bowed solemnly now to Beatrix—" ex- erted its sway. She was bereft, even the little girl, the poor little daughter that had been born to her after Carmaux's death—when the tommy- goff killed him—was dead and buried" "So she had had a daughter?" said Mr. Spranger. "Poor woman, yes. But what—what was I REMINISCENCES OF A FRENCH GENTLEMAN. i4I saying. The good woman's heart prompted her, and, smothering her own griefs, forgetting her own wrongs, knowing the stupendous misery which had fallen on the man who had jilted her through the loss of his wife, she went to him and offered to look after the poor little mother- less Sebastian; to be a guide and nurse to it. Ah! a noble woman was Miriam Carmaux, a woman who buried her own griefs in assuaging those of others." "She went to Desolada," Julian said, "after Mrs. Ritherdon's death? She did that? After Mrs. Ritherdon's death?" "Si. After her death. Soon. Very soon. As soon as her own sorrows, her own loss, were more or less softened." That night, when Monsieur Lemaire had been driven back into the city in Mr. Spranger's buggy, the latter gentleman, his daughter and Julian, sat out on the lawn, inhaling the cool breeze which comes up from the sea at sunset as well as watching the fireflies dancing. All were quite silent now, for all were occupied with their own thoughts: Julian in reflecting on what Monsieur Lemaire had said; Beatrix in wonder- 142 A BITTER HERITAGE. ing whether George Ritherdon's dying disclos- ures could possibly have been true; Mr. Spran- ger in feeling positive that they were false. Everything, he told himself, or almost every- thing, pointed to such being the case. The registration of Sebastian's birth by the late Mr. Ritherdon; the acknowledgment of the young man during all the dead man's remaining years as his heir: the knowledge which countless peo- ple possessed in the colony of Sebastian's whole life having been passed at Desolada! And against this, what set-off was there? Only the falsehood—for such it must have been—told by Sebastian to the effect that Miri- am Carmaux was his mother's relative, which, since she was a French Creole, was impossible. Nothing much more than that; nothing tangible. As for the slip made by him to Julian, the words, " My mother ca—I mean my mother al- ways wanted to go there and see it," (New Or- leans being the place referred to) well, there was nothing in that. It was a slip any one might easily have made. And no living soul in British Honduras had ever heard a whisper of any stolen REMINISCENCES OF A FRENCH GENTLEMAN. 143 child. Surely that was enough to settle all doubt. Then, breaking in upon the silence around, he and his daughter heard Julian saying: "If Monsieur Lemaire's facts are accurate, Sebastian made another misstatement to me. He said that Madame Carmaux had been at Desolada for many years, even before his mother died. That could not have been so." "And," said Beatrix, emerging now from the silence which she had preserved so long, " it was perhaps with reference to that subject that he had uttered the words which you overheard, to the effect that you must know something, but that knowledge was not always proof." "All the same," said Mr. Spranger now, "it is a blank wall, a wall against which you will push in vain, I fear. Honestly, I see no outlet." "Nor I," answered Julian, "yet all the same I mean to try and find one. At present I am groping in the dark; perhaps the light will come some day." "I cannot believe it," Mr. Spranger said, "much as I might like to do so. If—if Charles Ritherdon's child had been stolen from its fa- 144 A BITTER HERITAGE. ther's house how could it be that, in so small a place as this, the thing would never have been heard of? And if it was stolen, if you were stolen, how could another, a substitute, take your place?" "Heaven only knows," Julian replied. "It is to find out this that I am going back to Deso- lada," while as he spoke, he saw again on Bea- trix's face the look of dissent to that proposed journey which, a day or two before, she had sig- nalled to him through her eyes. So—determinate, resolved to fathom the mystery, if mystery there were; refusing, too, to believe that George Ritherdon's story could have been one huge fabrication, one hideous falsehood from beginning to end, and that a fab- rication, a falsehood, which must ere long be disproved, directly it was challenged—he did set out and was by now drawing near the end of his journey. "Only," said Beatrix to him on the morning of his departure, " I do so wish you would let me persuade you not to go. I dread-." "What?" "Oh!" she said, raising her hands to her REMINISCENCES OF A FRENCH GENTLEMAN. ^5 hair with a bewildered movement—a movement that perhaps expressed regret as to the destina- tion for which he was about to depart. "I do not know. Yet—still—I fear. Sebastian Rith- erdon is cruel—fierce—if—if—he thought you were about to cross his path—if—he knows any- thing that you do not know, then I dread what the end may be. And, I shall think always of that half-caste girl—peering in—glaring into your room, with perhaps, if she is a creature, a tool of his, murder in her heart." "Fear nothing, I beseech you," he said deeply moved at her sympathy. "I can be very firm—very resolute—when occasion needs. Fear nothing." CHAPTER XIII. A CHANGE OF APARTMENTS. A boisterous welcome from Sebastian, a cordial grasp of the hand, accompanied by a smile from the dark eyes of Madame Carmaux (which latter would have appeared more sincere to Julian had the corners of the mouth been less drawn down and the eyelids closed a little less, while the eyes behind those lids glittering with a light that seemed to him unnatural, did not, to use a metaphor, throw any dust in his own eyes. For long reflection on everything that had occurred since first George Ritherdon had made his statement in the Surrey home until now, when Julian stood once more in the house in which he believed himself to have been born, had only served to produce in his mind one con- viction—the firm conviction that George Rither- don was his uncle and had spoken the truth; 146 A CHANGE OF APARTMENTS. f that Sebastian was—in spite of all evidence seeming to point in a totally different direction —occupying a position which was not rightly his. A belief that, before long, he was resolved at all hazards to himself to justify and disprove once and for all. The hilarious welcome on the part of Sebas- tian did not deceive him, therefore; the greeting of Madame Carmaux was, he felt, insincere. And feeling thus he knew that in the latter was one against whom he would have to be doubly on his guard. And on his guard, against both the man and the woman, he commenced to be from the moment when he once more entered the pre- cincts of Desolada. That night at dinner, which was here called supper, but which only varied from the former meal in name, he observed a most palpable desire on the part of both his hosts to extract from him all that he had done while staying with the Sprangers—as well as an even stronger desire to discover into what society he might have been introduced, or what acquaintances he might happen to have made. 148 A BITTER HERITAGE. "I made one acquaintance," he replied to Madame Carmaux, who was by far the most per- tinacious in her inquiries, "the hearing about whom may interest you considerably. A gen- tleman who knew you long ago." "Indeed!" she said, "and who might that be?" She asked the question lightly, almost indif- ferently, yet—unless the flicker of the lamp in the middle of the table was playing tricks with his vision—there came suddenly a look of nerv- ousness, of apprehension, upon her face. A look controlled yet not altogether to be subdued. "It was Monsieur Lemaire," he replied, "the professor of modern languages at the Vic- toria College. He said he knew you very well once, before your marriage." "Yes," she replied, "he did," and now he saw that, whatever nervousness she might be ex- periencing, she was exerting a strong power of suppression of any visible outward sign of her feelings. "Monsieur Lemaire was very good to me. He enabled me to find employment as a teacher in various houses. What did he tell you besides?" A CHANGE OF APARTMENTS. 149 "He mentioned the sad ending to your mar- riage. Also the death of your little Ex- cuse me," he broke off, "but you have upset your glass. Allow me," and from where he sat he bent forward, and with his napkin sopped up the spilt water which had been in that glass. "It was very clumsy," she muttered. "My loose sleeves are always knocking things over. Thank you. But what was it you said he men- tioned? The death of my" "Little daughter," Julian replied softly, feel- ing sorry—and indeed, annoyed with himself— at what he now considered a lack of delicacy and consideration. A lack of feeling, because he thought it very possible that, even after a long lapse of time, this poor widowed woman might still lament bitterly the death of her little child. "Ah! yes," she said, though why now her face should brighten considerably he did not understand. "Ah! yes. Poor little thing, it did not live long, only a very little while. Poor little baby!" Looking still under the lamp and feeling still a little disconcerted at the reflection that he had 150 A BITTER HERITAGE. quite unintentionally recalled unhappy recollec- tions to Madame Carmaux, he saw that Sebas- tion was also regarding her with a strange, al- most bewildered look in his eyes. What that look meant, Julian was not sufficiently a judge of expression to fathom; yet, had he been com- pelled there and then to describe what feeling that glance most suggested to him, he would probably have termed it one of surprise. Surprise, perhaps, that Madame Carmaux should have been so emotional as to exhibit such tenderness at the recollection being brought to her mind of her little infant daughter, dead twenty-five years ago and almost at the hour of its birth. No more was said, however, on the subject and an adjournment was made directly the meal was over to the veranda, that place on which in British Honduras almost all people pass the hours of the evening; none staying indoors more than is absolutely necessary. And here their conversation became of the most or- dinary kind for some time, its commonplace na- ture only being varied occasionally by divers questions put to Julian by both Sebastian and A CHANGE OF APARTMENTS. 151 Madame Carmaux as to what George Rither- don's existence had been since he quitted Hon- duras to return to England. "It was a quiet enough one," replied Julian, carefully weighing every word he uttered and forcing himself to be on his guard over every sentence. "Quiet enough. He took to Eng- land some capital from this part of the world, as I have always understood, and he was enabled to make a sufficient living by the use of it to provide for us both. He was never rich, yet since his desires were not inordinate, we did well enough. At any rate, he was able to place me in the only calling I was particularly desirous of following, without depriving himself of any- thing." "And he left money behind?" Madame Car- maux asked, while, even as she did so, Julian could not but observe that her manner was list- less and absent, as well as to perceive that she only threw in a remark now and again with a view of appearing to be interested in the con- versation. "Yes," he replied, "he left money behind him. Not much; some few thousand pounds 152 A BITTER HERITAGE. fairly well invested. Enough, anyhow, for a sailor who, at the worst, can live on his pay." "All the same," Sebastian said, " a few thou- sand pounds is a mighty good thing to have handy. I wish I had a few." "You!" exclaimed Julian, looking at him in surprise. "Why! I should have thought you had any amount. This is a big property, even for the colonies, and Mr. Ritherdon—your father—has left the reputation behind him in Belize of being one of the richest planters in the place." "Ay," said Sebastian, "rich in produce, stores, cattle, and so forth, but no money. No ready money. Not sufficient to work a large place like this. Why, look here, Julian, as a matter of fact, you and I are each other's heirs, yet I expect I'd sooner come in for your few thousands than you would for Desolada. One can do a lot with a few thousands. I wish I had some." "Didn't your father leave any ready money, then?" Julian asked. "Oh, yes! He did. But it's all sunk in the place already." A CHANGE OF APARTMENTS. 153 Such a conversation as this would, in ordi- nary circumstances, have been one of no impor- tance and certainly not worth recording, had it not—short as it was—furnished Julian with some further food for reflections. And among other shapes which those reflections took, one was that he did not believe that all the money which Mr. Ritherdon was stated to have died possessed of had been sunk in the estate. He, the late Mr. Ritherdon, had been able to put by money out of the products of that estate—it scarcely stood to reason, therefore, that his suc- cessor would have instantly invested all that money in it. Wherefore Julian at once came to the conclusion that if it was really gone—van- ished—it had done so in Sebastian's gambling transactions. Then, as to their being each other's heirs! Well, that view had never occurred to him— certainly it had never occurred to him that by any chance Sebastian could be his heir. Yet, if Sebastian was in truth Charles Ritherdon's son and he, Julian, was absolutely George Rither- don's son, such was the case. And, if anything should happen to him while staying here at s !J4 A BITTER HERITAGE. Desolada, where he had announced himself plainly as the son of George Ritherdon, he could scarcely doubt that Sebastian would put in a claim as that heir. If anything should happen to him! Well! it might! One could never tell. It might! Especially as, when Sebastian had ut- tered those words, he had seen a flash from Ma- dame Carmaux's eyes and had observed a light spring into them which told plainly enough that she had never regarded matters in that aspect before; that this new view of the state of things had startled her. If anything should happen to him! Well, to prevent anything doing so he must be doubly careful of himself. That was all. The evening—like most evenings spent in the tropics and away from the garish amuse- ments and gaieties of tropical towns—was passed more or less monotonously, it being got through by scraps of conversation, by two or three cool- ing drinks being partaken of by Julian and Se- bastian, and by Madame Garmaux in falling asleep in her chair. Though, Julian thought, her slumbers could neither have been very sound A CHANGE OF APARTMENTS. 155 nor refreshing, seeing that, whenever he chanced to turn his eyes towards her, he observed how hers were open and fixed on him, though shut immediately that she perceived he had noticed that they were unclosed. "Come," exclaimed Sebastian now, spring- ing from out of his chair with as much alacrity as is ever testified in the tropics, while as he did so Madame Carmaux became wide-awake in the most perfect manner. "Come, this won't do. Early to bed you know—and all the rest of it. We practise that good old motto here." "I thought you practised stopping up rather late when I was here last," Julian remarked quietly. "As I told you, I heard your voices and saw you sitting in the balcony long after I had turned in." "But to-night we must be off to bed early," Sebastian replied. "I have to start for Belize to-morrow in good time, as I remarked to you at supper, and you are going to take a gun and try for some shooting in the Cockscomb moun- tains. Early to bed, my boy, early, and, also, an early breakfast." After which Julian and Madame Carmaux iS6 A BITTER HERITAGE. made their adieux to each other for the night, while Sebastian, as he had done before, escorted his cousin up the vast stairs to his room. This room was, however, a different one from that occupied previously by Julian, it being on the other side of the house and looking towards those Cockscomb mountains which, gun in hand, he was to explore on the morrow. "It is a better room," said Sebastian, "than the other, as you see; although not so large. And the sun will not bother you here in the morning, nor will our chatter on the balcony be- neath or inside the room do so either. Good night, sleep well. To-morrow, breakfast at six." "Good-night," replied Julian as he entered the room, and, after Sebastian was out of earshot (as he calculated), turned.the key in the lock. Then, as he sat himself down in his chair, after again producing his revolver and placing it by his side, he thought to himself: "Yes! he spoke truly. Their conversation below will not disturb me, nor will there be any chance of my overhearing it. All right, Sebas- tian, you understand the old proverb about one A CHANGE OF APARTMENTS. 157 for me and two for yourself. But you have for- gotten a little fact, namely, that a sailor can move about almost as lightly as a cat when he chooses, and, if I think you and your respected housekeeper have anything to say that it will be worth my while to hear—why, I shall be a cat for the time being." CHAPTER XIV. The truth was, as the reader is by now very well aware, that Julian no more believed in either Sebastian's lawful possession of Desolada or in his being the son of Charles Ritherdon, than he believed that George Ritherdon had concocted the whole of that story which he narrated ere his death. "For," said the young man to himself, "if it were true, his manner and her manner— that of the superb Madame Carmaux—would not be what they are. 'Think it out/ our old naval instructor in the Brit, used to say, 'an- alyze, compare, exercise the few brains Heaven has mercifully given you.' Well, I will—or, rather, I have." And he had done so. He had thought it all over and over again—Sebastian's manner, Ma- dame Carmaux's manner, Sebastian's slight in- accuracies of statement, Madame Carmaux's 158 "THIS LAND IS FULL OF SNAKES." 159 pretence of being asleep when she was awake, and her strange side-glances at him when she thought he was not observing her. "I played Hamlet once at an amateur show in the Leviathan," he mused. "It was an awful performance, and, if it had been for more than one act, I should undoubtedly have been hissed out of the ship. All the same it taught me some- thing. What was it the poor chap said? 'I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pounds.' Well, I'll take my uncle's word—for uncle he was and he was telling the truth—for a thou- sand pounds, too. Only, how to prove it? That is the question—which, by-the-bye, Ham- let also remarked." That was indeed the question. How to prove it! "That fellow is no more Charles Ritherdon's son than I'm a soldier," he went on, " and I am the son. That I'm sure of! Everything, every fresh look on their faces, every word they say, convinces me only the more certainly. Even this shifting of the room I am to occupy: why, Lord bless me! does he think I'm a fool? Yet, all the same, I don't see how it is to be proved. 162 A BITTER HERITAGE. "Don't move. Stop where you are—there —outside that blind till I come to you. If you do move I will scatter your brains on the floor of the veranda!" And as he rose and went towards the per- sianas he could see that his instructions were— through fear—obeyed. The eyes, now white, horrible, almost chalky in their glare of fright, instead of being dusky as he had once seen them, stared with a hideous expression of terror into the room. Also, the brown finger which was crooked over the blind-slat trembled. He pulled the persianas up with his left hand, still keeping his right hand extended with the revolver in it (of course only with the intention of frightening the girl into making no attempt to fly); then, when he had fastened the pulley he took her unceremoniously by the upper part of the arm and led her into the room. "Now, Mademoiselle Zara, as I understand your name to be, kindly give me an explanation of why, whenever I am in my room in this house, you honour me with these attentions. My man- ly beauty can be observed at any time in the day- light much better than at night, and" "THIS LAND IS FULL OF SNAKES." 163 "Don't tell him," the girl whispered, and he felt as he still held her arm that she was trem- bling, while, also, he saw that she was deathly pale, her usual coffee-and-milk complexion be- ing more of the latter than the former now. "Oh, don't tell him!" "Don't tell whom?" he asked astonished. Astonished at first, since he had deemed her an emissary of his host, sent to pry in on him for some reason best known to both of them. Then, he reflected, this was only some ruse hatched in her scheming, half-Indian brain, whereby to escape from his clutches; upon which he said: "Now, look here. No lies. What do you come peeping and prying in on me for in the middle of the night. Perhaps you're not aware that I saw you do so the last time I was here." "I came to see," she said inconsequeritly, "if you were comfortable; I am a servant" But now Julian laughed so loudly at this ridiculous statement that the girl in hasty terror —and if it was assumed, she must be a good ac- tress, he thought—put up her hand as though she intended to clap it over his mouth. 164 A BITTER HERITAGE. "Oh!" she whispered, "don't! Don't! He will hear you—or she will" "Well, what if they do! I suppose they know you are here just as much as I do. Come," he continued, "come, don't look so frightened, I'm not going to shoot you or harm you in any way. Though, mind you, my dark beauty, you might have got shot if you had timed your visit at a later hour and startled me out of a heavy slumber, or if I had seen those eyes looking in on me in the dead of night. However, out with the explanation. Quick." For a moment the girl paused as though thinking deeply, then she looked up at him with all the deep tropical glow once more in her som- bre eyes, and said: "I won't tell you. No. But" "But what?" "I—will you believe what I say?" "Perhaps. That depends. I might, if it sounded likely." "Listen, then. I don't come here to do you any harm. My visits won't hurt you. Only— only—this is a dangerous house in more ways than one. It is a very old one—strange things "THIS LAND IS FULL OF SNAKES." 165 happen sometimes in it. How," she said, and now her voice which had been sunk to a whisper became even lower, "how would you like to die in it?" Perhaps the slow mysterious tones of that voice—the something weird and wizard in the elf-like appearance of this dusky girl who was, in truth, beautiful with that beauty often found in the half-caste Indian—was what caused Julian to feel a sort of creepiness to come over him in spite of the warm, bath-like temperature of the night. "Neither in this house nor elsewhere, just at present," he remarked, steadying his nerves. "But," he continued, " I don't suppose there is much likelihood of that. Who is going to cause me to die?" For answer the girl cast those marvellous orbs of hers all around the room, taking, mean- while, as she did so, the mosquito curtains in her hands and shaking them with a swish away from the floor on which they drooped in festoons; she looking also behind the bedposts and in other places. "No one—to-night," she said, "but—but— 166 A BITTER HERITAGE. if I may not come here again, if you will not let me, then do this always. And—perhaps—some night you will know." After which she moved off towards the win- dow, her lithe, graceful figure seeming to glide without the assistance of any movement from her feet towards the open space; and made as though she meant to retire. Yet, as she stood within the framework of that window, she turned and looked back at him, her finger slightly raised as though impressing silence. Then she stepped outside on to the boards of the veranda and peered over the front of it down towards the garden from which, now, there rose the countless perfumes exhaled by the Caribbean wealth of flowers. Also, she crept along to either side of the window, glancing to right and left of her until, at that moment, borne on the soft night breeze, there came from the front of the house, a harsh, strident, and con- temptuous laugh—the laugh of Sebastian Rith- erdon. When, seemingly reassured by this, she returned again towards the open window and said: "You go to-morrow to the Cockscomb "THIS LAND IS FULL OF SNAKES." 167 mountains shooting. Yet, when there, be care- ful. Danger is there, too. This land is full of snakes, the coral snake—which kills instantly, even like the fer de lance of the islands, the rattle- snake, the tamagusa, or, as you English say, the 'tommy-goff.' One killed him—her husband," and she pointed down to where Madame Car- maux might be supposed to be sitting at this moment, while as she did so he saw in her eyes a look so startling—since they blazed with fire— that he stared amazed. Was she, this half-sav- age girl, gloating over the horrid death of a man which must have taken place ere she was born? Or—or—what? "In all the land," she went on, "there are snakes. Those I tell you of—and—others. You understand? And others." "I almost understand," Julian muttered hoarsely—though he knew not why "And others. Is that—? ah! yes—I do understand. Yet tell me further, tell" But she was gone; the window frame was empty of the dark shadowy figure it had en- shrouded. Gone, as he saw when he stepped out on to the balcony and observed a sombre r 168 A BITTER HERITAGE. form stealing along betwixt the bright gleams of the low-lying stars and himself. "Why does she warn me thus," he muttered to himself as now he began to undress slowly, "why? She is that man's servant—almost, as servants go here, his slave. Why warn me— she whom I deemed his creature—she who does his dirty work as croupier at a gambling hell? And she gloated over Carmaux's death in days of long ago—why that also? Does she hate this woman who governs here as mistress of the house?" With some degree of horror on him now, with some sort of mystic terror creeping over him at unknown and spectrelike dangers that might be surrounding his existence, he turned down the light serape stretched over the bed for coverlet, and threw back the upper sheet Then he started away with a hoarse exclamation at what he saw. For, lying coiled up in the middle of the bed, yet with a hideous flat head raised and vibrating, while from out that head gleamed a pair of p threatening and scintillating emerald eyes, was a small, red coral-coloured snake—a snake that "THIS LAND IS FULL OF SNAKES." 169 next unwound itself slowly with horribly lithe and sinuous movements which caused Julian to turn cold, warm as the night was. "So," he whispered to himself, as now he seized a rifle that he had brought out from Eng- land with him, and, after beating the reptile on to the floor, used the stock as a bat and sent the thing flying out of the window; "this is what she was looking for, what she expected to find. But where are the others? The other snakes she hinted at? I think I can guess." CHAPTER XV. RECOLLECTIONS OF SEBASTIAN'S BIRTH. It is forty miles inland to where the Cocks- comb mountains rear their appropriately named crests, but not half that distance to where ob- liquely from north to south there run spurs and ridges which, though they do not rise to the four thousand feet that is attained by the highest peak or summit of the range, are still lofty mountains. Here, amidst these spurs and ridges, which dom- inate and break up what is otherwise a country, or lowland, almost as flat as Holland (and which until a few years ago was marked on the maps as "unexplored country "), Nature presents a dif- ferent aspect from elsewhere in the colony. The country becomes wild and rugged; the copses of mangroves are superseded by woods and for- ests of prickly bamboos and umbrageous figs; vast clumps of palms of all denominations clus- ter together, forming in their turn other little 170 RECOLLECTIONS OF SEBASTIAN'S BIRTH. iy\ woods, while rivers, whose sources are drawn from the great lagoons inland, roll swiftly to- wards the sea. Here, upon the bank of one of those lagoons, Julian sat next day beneath the shadow of a clump of locust-trees, in which were inter- mingled other trees of salm-wood, braziletto, and turtle-bone, as well as many others almost unknown of and unheard of by Europeans, with at his feet a fowling-piece, while held across his knees was a safety repeating rifle. This was the rifle with which he had overnight beaten out on to the veranda (where this morning he had left it dead and crushed) the coral snake, and which he had provided himself with ere he left England in case opportunities for sport should arise. The gun, an old-fashioned thing lent him by Se- bastian, he had not used against any of the feath- ered inhabitants of the woods, although many opportunities had arisen of shooting partridges, wild pigeons, whistling ducks, quails, and others. Had not used it because, remembering one or two other incidents, such as that of the horse and that of the coral-snake (which might have crept into his bed for extra warmth, as such reptiles 12 172 A BITTER HERITAGE. will do even in the hottest climates, but on the other hand might have reached that spot by dif- ferent means), and because since also he was now full of undefined suspicion, he thought it very likely that if used it would burst in his hands. He was not alone, as by his side, there sat now a man whose features, as well as his spare, supple frame, bespoke him one of that tribe of half-breeds, namely, Spanish and Carib Indian, which furnishes so large a proportion of the labourers to the whole of Central America. He was an elderly man, this—a man nearer sixty than fifty, with snow-white hair; yet any one who should have regarded him from behind, or watched his easy strides from a distance, or his method of mounting an incline, might well have been excused for considering him to be about thirty-five. "What did Mr. Ritherdon strike you for this morning?" Julian asked now, while, as he spoke he raised his rifle off his knee, and, with it ready to be brought to the shoulder, sat watch- ing a number of ripples which appeared a hun- dred and fifty yards away in the lagoon. "Because he is a cruel man," his companion, J74 A BITTER HERITAGE. himself: "This is a new phase in these mysteri- ous surroundings. My life doesn't seem just now one that the insurance companies would be very glad to get hold of, while also my beloved cousin's doesn't appear to be a very good one. Lively place, this!" "He very much hated," the half-breed an- swered. "Very cruel. Some day tommy- goffy give him a nice bite, or half-breed gentle- man put a knife in his liver." "The snakes don't hate him, do they? He can't be cruel to them." The other gave a laugh at this; it was indeed a laugh which was something between the bleat- ing of a sheep and the (so-called) terrible war- whoop of a North-American Indian; then he re- plied: "Easy enough make tommy-goffy hate him. Take tommy into room where a man sloops, wrapped up in a serape with his head out, thou put him mouth to man's arm. Tommy do the rost. Gentleman want no breakfast." "This is a nice country!" Julian thought. "I'm blessed if some of these chaps couldn't give the natives in India, or the dear old Chinese, a tip or two." RECOLLECTIONS OF SEBASTIAN'S BIRTH. 175 While as he so reflected, he also thought: "Easy enough, too, to put tommy-goff into a man's bed. Then that man wouldn't want any breakfast either. It's rather a good job that I found myself with an appetite this morning." "Here he comes," the man, whose name was Paz, exclaimed, now suddenly referring to the alligator. "Hit him in the eye if you can, sefior, or mouth. If he gets on shore we shall have to run." While, as he spoke, from out of the la- goon there rose the head of an enormous alli- gator, which seemed to have touched bottom since it was waddling ashore. "I shall never hit him in the eye," Julian said, taking deliberate aim, however. "Gather up the traps, Paz, and get further away. I'll have a shot at him; and, then if he comes on land, I'll have another. Here goes." But now, even as he prepared to fire, the beast gave him a chance, since, either from wish- ing to draw breath or from excitement at seeing a probable meal, it suddenly began opening and shutting its vast jaws as it came along, so that the hideous rows of yellow teeth, and the whity- pink roof of its mouth were plainly visible. 176 A BITTER HERITAGE. And, at that moment, from the repeating rifle rang out a report, while, after the smoke had drifted away, it was easy to perceive that the monster had received a deadly wound. It was now spread-eagled out upon the rim of the la- goon's bank, its short, squat legs endeavouring to grip the sand, its eyes rolled up in its head and a stream of blood pouring from its open mouth. "Though," said Julian, as now he ap- proached close to the .creature, and, taking steady aim, delivered another bullet into its eye which instantly gave it the coup de grace; "though I don't know why I should have killed the poor beast either. It couldn't have done me any harm." Then he thought, " I might as well have reserved the fire for something that threat- ened danger to me." He had had enough sport for the day by now, having done that which every visitor to Central America is told he ought to do, namely, kill a jaguar and an alligator; wherefore, bidding Paz go on with the skinning of the former (which the man had already began earlier) since the spotted coat of this creature is worth pre- serving, he took a last look at the dead reptile RECOLLECTIONS OF SEBASTIAN'S BIRTH, ijj lying half in and half out of the lagoon, and then made preparations for their return to Desolada. These preparations consisted of readjusting the saddle on the mustang, which he was still the temporary proprietor of, and in also saddling Paz's mule for him. Then, when the operation of skinning was finished, they took their way back towards the coast. Among other questions which Julian had asked this man during the morning with refer- ence to the owner of the above abode, was one as to how long he had been present on the estate —a question which had remained unanswered owing to the killing of the jaguar having oc- curred ere it could be answered. But now— now that they were riding easily forward, the skin of the creature hanging like a horse-cloth over the tail of the half-breed's mule, he returned to it. "How long did you say you had known Mr. Ritherdon and his household?" he asked, re- ferring of course to the late owner of the prop- erty to the borders of which they were now ap- proaching. i;8 A BITTER HERITAGE. "Didn't say anything," Paz replied, "be- cause then we killed him," and he touched the fast drying skin of the dead animal. "But I know Desolada for over thirty years. Before Massa Ritherdon come." "Then you've known the present Mr. Rith- erdon all his life—since the day he was born." "Yes. Yes. Oh, yes. Since that day. Always remember that. Same day my poor old mother die. She Carib from Tortola." "Did you know his—mother—too; the lady who had been Miss Leigh?" "Yes. Yes. Oh, yes. I know her. I re- member she beautiful young girl—English missy. With the blue eye and the skin like the peach and the hair like the wheat. Oh, yes. I remember her. Very beautiful." "Blue eyes, skin like a peach, hair like the wheat," thought Julian to himself; "his sup- posed mother, my own mother as before Heaven I believe. Yet he, Sebastian, speaks of this woman Carmaux, this woman of French origin hailing from New Orleans, as a near relative of hers. Bah! it is impossible." "Also I remember," Paz went on, "when— RECOLLECTIONS OF SEBASTIAN'S BIRTH. iyg when—his brother—the man who Sebastian tell us the other day was your father—love her too. And she love him. Only old man Leigh he say that no good. Old man ruin very much. They say constabulary and old man Eng- lish Chief Justice very likely to arrest him. Then Missy Leigh save her father and marry Massa Ritherdon when Massa George's back turned." Julian nodded as he heard all this—nodded as though confirming Paz's story. Though, in fact, it was Paz's story which confirmed that which the dead man in England had told him. "You knew her and her father, Mr. Leigh?" he asked now. "Know him! Know him! I worked for him at the Essex hacienda" "Essex hacienda!" "Yes, he gave it that name because he love it. 'All my family, Paz,' he say to me one day when I was painting the name on waggon—' all my family come from Essex many, many long years. All born there—grandmother, father, mother, myself, and daughter Isobel, Paz. All; j80 a bitter heritage. every one. Oh! Paz,' he say to me, ' England always been good enough for us till my turn come. Then I very bad young man—very dis —dis—dis—something he say. Now, he say, I have to be the first exile of family, I and poor little Isobel. No Leigh ever have to live abroad before!" "Did he say all that, Paz? Is this the truth?" "Truff, sir! Sir, my father Spanish gen- tleman, my mother Carib lady. Very fine lady." "All right. I beg your pardon. Never mind, I did not mean that. And so you remem- ber when this Mr. Ritherdon was born, eh? Did the old gentleman seem pleased?" "He very pleased about the son—very sad about the poor wife. He weep much, oh! many weeps. But he give us all money to drink Se- bastian's health, and he tell us that as his poor wife dead, Mam Carmaux come keep the house and bring up little boy." "Did he?" said Julian, and then lapsed into silence as they rode along. Yet, to himself he said continually: "What is this mystery? CHAPTER XVI. A DROP OF BLOOD. They were drawing near the coast now as the sun sank slowly away over the crest of the Cockscomb mountains towards Guatemala; and already there were signs that the night—the swift night that comes to all spots which lie be- twixt Capricorn and Cancer—was drawing near. The sun, although now hidden behind the topmost ridge of the Cockscombs, was still an hour above the blue horizon, yet nevertheless the signs were apparent that he would soon be gone altogether. The parrots and the monkeys were becoming still and quiet in the branches— that is to say, as still and quiet as these screech- ing and chattering creatures ever do become in their native state—in dark and shade places where now the evening glow scarce penetrated, the fireflies gleamed little sparks and specks of molten gold; while, above all, there rose now 182 A DROP OF BLOOD. 183 from the earth that true tropical sign of coming night, the incense exuded by countless flowers and shrubs, as well as the cool damp of the earth when refreshed by the absence of the burning sun. Sometimes, too, across their path, an un- made one, or only made by the tracks of wild deer or the mountain cow, two or three of the former would glide swiftly and gracefully, seek- ing their lair, or the iguana would scuttle be- fore their animals into the nearest copse, while the quash and gibonet were often visible. They rode slowly, not only because of the heat, but also because none could progress at a swift rate through those tangled copses, the trees of which were often hung with masses of wild vines whose tendrils met and interlaced with each other, so that sometimes almost a wall of network was encountered. Also they rode slowly, because Desolada was but a mile or so off now, and they would be within its precincts ere the sun was quite gone for the day. And as they did so in silence, Julian was acknowledging to himself that, with every fresh person he en- countered and every fresh question he asked, his bewilderment was increased. !84 A BITTER HERITAGE. For now, by his side, rode this man, half Spaniard, half Indian, named Ignacio Paz, who not only had been present at the birth of Mr. Ritherdon's son, but also had known that son's mother before she was married. And, Julian asked himself, how did the knowledge now pro- claimed by this man—this man who, if he pos- sessed any feelings towards Sebastian possessed only those of hatred—this man who had prophe- sied for him a violent death as the reward of his brutality and cruelty—how did that knowledge make for or against the story told by George Ritherdon? Let him see. It served above all to corroborate, to estab- lish, Sebastian's position as the true son and in- heritor of Charles Ritherdon. So truly an ac- knowledged son and inheritor that, undoubtedly no contrary proof could ever be brought of suf- ficiently powerful nature to overwhelm all that the evidence of the last twenty-five or twenty- six years affirmed. Had not this man, Paz, been one of those who had received money from Mr. Ritherdon to drink Sebastian's health? Surely .—surely, therefore, the old man was satisfied that this was his son. And A DROP OF BLOOD. 185 if he, Sebastian, was his son, who then was he, Julian? On the other hand, the half-breed proved by old Mr. Leigh's conversation that there was some inaccuracy—perhaps an intentional inac- curacy—in Sebastian's statement that Miriam Carmaux, or Gardelle, was a relative of Isobel Leigh. That was undoubted! There was an inaccuracy. Old Leigh had definitely said that he was the first of his family who had ever been forced to earn a living in exile—yet she, this woman, with a French maiden, as well as mar- ried, name, was a native of New Orleans, was a Frenchwoman. Was it not enormous odds, therefore, against her being any connection of the English girl with the fair, wheat-coloured hair, the peachlike complexion, and the blue eyes who had been brought as an infant from Essex to Honduras? Also, was it not immeasurably unlikely that, even if then the women were connected by blood, such coincidences should have occurred that both should have come to the colony at almost an identical time; that Mr. Ritherdon's wander- ing heart should have chanced to be captivated 186 A BITTER HERITAGE. by each of those women; that he should have jilted the one for the other, and that eventually one, the jilted woman, should have dropped into the place of mistress of the household which death had caused the other to resign? What would the doctrine of chances say in connection with these facts, he would like to know? "One other thing perplexes me, too," he thought to himself, as now they reached an open glade across which the swift departing sun streamed horizontally, "perplexes me marvel- lously. Does Sebastian know, does he dream, that against his position and standing such a story has been told as that narrated to me in England by my uncle—as still I believe him to be. And if—if there is some chicanery, some dark secret in connection with his and my birth, does he know of it—or is he inno" He paused, startled now at an incident that had happened, an incident that drove all reflec- tion from his mind. Across that glade there had come trotting easily, and evidently without any fear on its part, one of the red deer common enough in British Honduras. Only this deer was not as those are A DROP OF BLOOD. 187 which sportsmen and hunters penetrate into the forests and the mountains to shoot and destroy; instead, it was one which Julian had himself seen roaming about the parklike grounds and sur- roundings of Desolada, the territory of which began on the other side of the open glade. Yet this was not the incident, nor the por- tion of the incident which startled both him and Paz. Not that, but something else more seri- ous than a tame deer crossing an open grass- land a few hundred yards in diameter each way. There was nothing to startle in that—though much to do so in what followed. What followed being that as the deer, still slowly trotting over the broad-leaved grass, which here forms so luxurious a pasture for all kinds of cattle, came into line with Julian and Paz riding almost side by side, though with the latter somewhat ahead of the former—there came from out of the mangrove trees on the other side of the little opening, a spit of flame, a puff of smoke, and the sharp crack of a rifle, while, a second later, from off the side of a log- wood tree close by them there fell a strip of bark to the ground. 13 188 A BITTER HERITAGE. "By Jove!" exclaimed Julian, his accus- tomed coolness not deserting him even at this agitating moment, "the gallant sportsman is a reckless kind of gentleman. One would think we were the game he is after and not the deer which, by-the-bye, has departed like a streak of greased lightning. I say, Paz, that bullet passed about three inches behind your head and not many more in front of my nose. People don't go out shooting human beings here as they do partridges at home, do they?" and he turned his eyes on his companion. If, as an extra excitement to add to the in- cident, he had desired to observe now a speci- men of native-born ferocity, he would have been gratified as he thus regarded Paz. For the man in whose veins ran the hot blood of a Spaniard, mixed with the still more hot and tempestuous blood of the Indian, seemed almost beside him- self now with rage and fury. His dark cofTee- hued skin had turned livid, his eyes glared like those of a maddened wolf, and his hands, which were now unstrapping the rifle that he too car- ried slung to his saddle, resembled masses of vibrating cords. Yet they became calm enough A DROP OF BLOOD. 189 as, the antique long-barrelled weapon being re- leased, he raised that rifle quickly, brought it to the shoulder and fired towards the exact spot whence they had observed the flame and smoke of the previous rifle to come. "Are you mad?" exclaimed Julian, horri- fied at the act. "Great Heavens! Do you want to commit a murder? If the person who let drive at that deer has not moved away yet, you have very likely taken a human life." But Paz, who seemed now to have recovered his equanimity and to have relieved his feelings entirely by that savage idea of retaliation, which had been not only sprung into his mind, but had also been instantly put into practice, only shrugged his shoulders indifferently while he re- strapped his rifle. Then he pointed a long lean finger at the spot across the glade where the first discharge had taken place, directing the digit next to the spot where the deer had been, after which he pointed next to their heads and then to the tree, in which they could see the hole where the bullet was uuried two or three inches. Hav- ing done all which, ht- muttered: "Fired at the deer. At the deer! The deer igo A BITTER HERITAGE. was there—there—there," and he directed his eyes to a spot five yards off the line which would be drawn between the other side of the glade whence the fire had come and the deer, " and we are here. Tree here, too." "What do you suspect?" Julian asked, white to the lips now himself—appalled at some hitherto unsuspected horror. "What? Whom?" And as he spoke his lips seemed to take the form of a name which, still, he hesitated to give utterance to. "No," the half-caste said in reply, his quick intelligence grasping without the aid of any speech the identity of the man to whom Julian's expression pointed. "No. He is in Belize by now. He must be there. He has money— much money—to pay to lawyer this morning. Not him. Not him." After which the mysteri- ous creature laughed in a manner that set Ju- lian's mind reflecting on how he had heard the Indians of old laughed at the tortures endured by their victims. "Come," he said now, feejjr.g suddenly cold and chilled, as he had felt Once or twice before in Desolada and its surroundings. "Come, let us A DROP OF BLOOD. IO,i go ho back to the house," and he started the mustang forward on the route they had been following. "No," Paz exclaimed, "however, not that way now. Other way. Quite as near. Also," and his dark eyes glistened strangely as he fas- tened them on Julian, "lead to hacienda. To Desolada. Come. We go through wood— over glade. Very nice wood." "What do you expect to do there?" Julian asked, divining all the same. "Oh! oh!" Paz said, his face alight with a demoniacal gleam. "Oh! oh! Perhaps find a body. Who knows? Gunny he shoot very straight. Perhaps a wounded man. Who knows?" So they crossed the glade, making straight for the spot whence the murderous belch of flame had sprung forth, and, pushing aside flowering cacti and oleanders as well as other lightly knit- ted together shrubs and bushes, looked all around them. But, except that there were signs of footmarks on the bruised leaves of some of the greater shrubs and also that the undergrowth was a little trodden down, they saw nothing. \g2 A BITTER HERITAGE. Certainly nobody lay there, struck to death by Paz's bullet. The keen eyes of the half-caste—glinting here and there and everywhere—and looking like dark topazes as the rays of the evening sun danced in them—seemed, however, to penetrate each inch of the surrounding shrubbery. And, at last, Julian heard him give a little gasp—it was almost a bleat—and saw him point with his fin- ger at something about three feet from the ground. At a leaf—a leaf of the wild oleander—on which was a speck that looked like a ladybird. Only—it was not that! But, instead, a drop of blood. A drop that glistened, as his eyes had glistened in the sun; a drop that a step or two further onward had a fellow. Then—nothing further. "I hit him," Paz said, "somewhere. Only —did not kill." While, instantly he wheeled round and gazed full into Julian's eyes—his face expressing a very storm of demoniacal hate against the late owner of that drop. "That," he almost hissed, "will keep. For a later day. When I know him." CHAPTER XVII. "It would be folly," said Julian to himself that night, "not to recognise at once that each moment I spend in this house, or, indeed in this locality, is full of danger to me. Therefore, from this moment I commence to take every precaution that is possible. Now let us think out how to do it." On this occasion he was the sole occupant of the lower veranda, in spite of its being quite early in the evening, and owing to the fact that Sebastian was passing the night in Belize, while Madame Carmaux, having announced that she had a severe headache, had taken herself off to her own room before supper, he had partaken of that meal alone. So that he sat there quite by himself now, smoking; and, as a matter of fact, he was not at all sorry to do so. He recognised that any attempt at conversa- 194 SHE HATES HIM BECAUSE SHE LOVES HIM. 195 tion'with the "gentle lady " as Paz had termed her—in an undoubtedly ironical and subacid manner—was the veriest make-believe; while, as to Sebastian, when he was at home—well, his conversation was absolutely uninteresting. He never talked of anything but gambling and the shortness of ready money, diversified occasion- ally by a torrent of questions as to what George Ritherdon had done and what he had said dur- ing the whole time of his life in England. While, as Julian reflected, or, indeed, now felt perfectly sure, that even this wearisome talk was but assumed as a mask or cloak to the other's real thoughts, it was not likely that Sebastian's absence to-night could be a cause of much regret. "Let me think out how to do it," he said again, continuing his meditations; "let me re- gard the whole thing from its proper aspect. I am in danger. But of what at the worst? Well, at the worst—death. There is, it is very evi- dent, a strong determination on the part of some people in this place to relieve the colony of my interesting presence. First, Sebastian tries to break my neck with an untrained horse; next, jo6 a bitter heritage. some one probably places a coral snake in my bed; while, thirdly, some creature of his endeav- ours to shoot me. Paz—who seems to have im- bibed many ancient ideas from his Spanish and savage ancestors—appears, however, if I under- stand him, to imagine he was the person shot at, his wild and barbaric notions about the sacred- ness of the guest making him suppose, apparently that my life could not be the one aimed at. Well, let him think so. At any rate, his feelings of revenge and hatred are kept at boiling-pitch against some unknown enemy. "Now," he went on, with still that light and airy manner of looking at difficulties (even dif- ficulties that at this time seemed to be assuming a horrible, not to say, hideous, aspect) which had long since endeared him to countless comrades in the wardroom and elsewhere. "Now, I will take a little walk in the cool of the evening. Dear Madame Carmaux's headache has deprived her of the pearls of my conversation, wherefore I will, as her countrymen say, 'go and take the air.'" Upon which he rose from his seat, and, push- ing aside the wicker table on which stood a bot- SHE HATES HIM BECAUSE SHE LOVES HIM. 197 tie of Bourbon whisky, a syphon, and also a pen and ink with some writing-paper, he took from off it a letter directed and stamped, and dropped it into the pocket of his white jacket. "The creole negro—as they call those chaps here—passes the foot of the garden in five min- utes' time," he said to himself, looking at a fine gold watch which he had gained as a prize at Greenwich, "and he will convey this to Spran- ger's hands. Afterwards, from to-night, I will make it my business to send one off from All Pines every day. I should like Spranger and Beat—I mean Miss Spranger—to receive a daily bulletin of my health henceforth. "Sebastian," he continued to reflect, as now he made his way beneath the palms towards where the road ran, far down at the foot of the garden, " has meditations about being my heir- well, so have I about being his. Yet I think, I do really think, I would rather be Sebastian's if it's all the same to him. Nevertheless, in case anything uncomfortable should happen to me, I should like Spranger and Beat—Miss Spran- ger, to be acquainted with the fact. It might make the succession easier to—Sebastian." 198 A BITTER HERITAGE. He heard the "Creole negro's" cart coming along, even as he reached the road; he heard also the chuckles and whoops with which the con- veyer of her Majesty's mails urged on the flea- bitten, raw-boned creature that carried them; and then, the cart drew into sight and was pulled up suddenly as Julian emerged into the road. "Hoop! Massa Sebastian, you give me dref- ful fright," the sable driver began, "thought it was your ghost, as I see you in Belize this berry morning" "So it would have been his ghost," re- marked Julian, as he came close to the cart with the letter in his hand, "if you had happened to see him now. Meanwhile, kindly take this let- ter and put it in your mail-bag." "Huah! huah!" grunted the negro, while he held out his great black hand for the missive and, opening the mouth of the bag which was in the cart behind him, thrust it in on the top of all the others he had collected on his route along the coast; "he get there all right about two o'clock this morning. But, massa, you berry like Massa Sebastian. In um white jacket you passy well for um ghost or brudder." SHE HATES HIM BECAUSE SHE LOVES HIM. 199 "So they tell me," Julian answered lightly. "But, you see, we happen to be cousins, and, sometimes, cousins are as much alike as broth- ers. My friend," he said, changing the subject, "are you a teetotaller?" "Hoop! Huah! Teetotallum. Huah! Teetotallum! Yes, massa, when I've no money. Then berry good teetotallum. Berry good." "Well, now see, here is some money," and he gave the man a small piece of silver. "Take a drink at All Pines as you go by; it will keep this limekiln sort of air out of your throat—or wash it down. Off with you, only take two drinks. Have the second when you get to Be- lize." Profuse in thanks, the darkey drove off, wishing Julian good-night, while the latter's cheery, "Good-night, fair nymph," seemed to him so exquisite a piece of humour that, for some paces along the road, the former could hear him chuckling and murmuring in his musi- cal bass: "Fair nymph. Hoah! Fair nymph. Hoah! Fair nymph. That's'me." "Now," Julian said to himself as he strolled along the road, " we shall see if Spranger comes SHE HATES HIM BECAUSE SHE LOVES HIM. 2OI one occasion, and now we will look over his shoulder as, an hour before this period, he in- dited the letter to Mr. Spranger (which at the present moment is in the Belize post-cart), and afterwards made a copy of it for posting the next day at All Pines. It was not a lengthy document—since the naval officer generally writes briefly, succinctly and to the purpose—and simply served to relate the various startling "incidents" which had occurred after he had returned to Desolada. And he told Mr. Spranger that, henceforth, a letter would be posted for him at All Pines every day, which, so long as it conveyed no tidings of ill news, required no answer; but that, if such letter should fail to come, then Spranger might imagine that he stood in need of succour. It concluded by saying that if this gentleman had a few hours to spare next day and could meet him half-way betwixt Belize and Desolada—say, opposite a spot called Commerce Bight—he would take it as a favour—would meet him, say, in the early morning, about ten o'clock, before the heat was too great. "Sebastian," the letter ended, "seems to 202 A BITTER HERITAGE. harp more, now, on the fact that he's my heir than on anything else. He evidently imagines that I have more to leave than I have. But, however that may be, I don't want him to inherit yet." He was thinking about this letter, and its duplicate which was to follow to-morrow, if the first one did not bring his friend from Belize, when he heard voices near him—voices that were pitched low and coming closer with every step he took, and then, suddenly, he came upon the girl, Zara, and the man, Ignacio Paz, walk- ing along the road side by side. "Well, my Queen of Night," he said to the former, "and how are you? You heard that I found the snake after all, I suppose?" "Yes, I heard," the girl said, her dark slum- brous eyes gleaming at him in the light of the stars. "I heard. Better always look. This is a dangerous land. Very dangerous to white men." "So Sebastian tells me. Thank you, Zara. Henceforth I will be sure to look. I am going to take a great deal of care of my precious health while I am in this neighbourhood." SHE HATES HIM BECAUSE SHE LOVES HIM. 203 "That is well," the girl said; then, having noticed his bantering manner, she added, "you may laugh—make joke, but it is no joke. Take care," and a moment later she was gone swiftly up to the house, leaving him and his companion of the morning standing together in the dusty road. "I wonder why Zara is such a good friend of mine?" Julian asked meditatively now, look- ing into the eyes of Paz, which themselves gleamed brightly. "You wonder?" the half-caste said, with that bleating little laugh which always sounded so strangely in Julian's ears. "Do you wonder? Can't you guess? Do you wonder, too, why I'm a friend of yours?" "You, Paz! Why we've only known each other about fifteen hours. Though I'm glad to hear it, all the same." "Friends long enough to nearly get killed together to-day," the man replied. "That's one reason." "And the other—Zara's reasons? What are they?" Again the man's eyes glistened in the star- 204 A BITTER HERITAGE. light; then he put out his long lithe finger, which, Indianlike, he used to emphasize most of his remarks. "She hates him. So do I." "You I can understand. He beat you this morning. But—Zara! I thought she was his faithful adherent." "She hates him because," the man replied laconically, " she loves him." "Loves him. And he? Well—what?" "Not love her. He love 'nother. English missy. You know her." "I do," Julian answered emphatically. "I do. Now, I'll add my share to this little love story. She, the English missy, does not love him." "Zara think she do. Thinks he with her now. Go Belize, see her." "Bah! Bosh! The English missy wouldn't —why, Paz," he broke off suddenly, "what's this in your hand? Haven't you had enough sport to-day—or are you going out shooting the owls to-night for a change?" while as he spoke he pointed to a small rifle the half-caste held in his hand. "Though," he added, "one doesn't shoot birds with rifles." SHE HATES HIM BECAUSE SHE LOVES HIM. 205 "No," the other replied, with again the bleat, and with, now, his eyes blazing—" no. Shoot men with him. Nearly shoot one to-day. I find him near where I find drop of blood this afternoon. Hid away under ferns. I take a little walk this evening in the cool. Then I find him." CHAPTER XVIII. SEBASTIAN IS DISTURBED. "This knoll is becoming historic," Julian said to himself the next morning, as he halted the mustang where twice he had halted it before, when he had been journeying the other way from that which he had now come. "When, some day, the life and adventures of Admiral Ritherdon, K.C.B., and so forth, are given to an admiring world, it must figure in them. Make a pretty frontispiece, too, with its big shady palms and the blue sea beyond the man- groves down below." In spite, however, of his bright and buoyant nature, which refused to be depressed or sub- dued by the atmosphere of doubt or suspicion— to give that atmosphere no more important name—he recognised very clearly that matters were serious with him. He knew, too, that the calamities which had approached, without J 206 SEBASTIAN IS DISTURBED. 207 lutely overwhelming him—so far—were some- thing more than coincidences; natural enough as each by itself might have been in a country which, even now, can scarcely be called anything else than a wild and unsettled one. "I was once flung off a horse, a buck- jumper," he reflected, "in Western Australia when I was a ' sub '; I found a snake in my bed in Burmah; and a chap shot at me once in Vera Cruz—but—but," and he nodded his head medi- tatively over his recollections, " the whole lot did not happen together in Australia or Burmah or Vera Cruz. If they had done so, it would have appeared rather pointed. And—well—they have all happened together here. That looks rather pointed, too." "All the same," Julian went on reflectively, as now he tethered the mustang to a bush where it could stand in the shade, and also drew himself well under the spreading branches of the palms —" all the same, I can't and won't believe that Sebastian sees danger to his very firmly-estab- lished rights by my presence here. He said on that first night to Madame Carmaux, 'Knowl- edge is not proof,' and what proof have I against SEBASTIAN IS DISTURBED. 209 case he did not live to see me. And—and— later—after he had told me all, on the next day, he remarked that the whole account was written down; that when—poor old fellow! he was gone I should find it in his desk; that it would serve to refresh my memory. But—I never did find it, and, I suppose, he thought it was best de- stroyed. I wish, however, he hadn't done it; even his handwriting would have been some cor- roboration of the statement. At least it would have shown, if I ever do make the statement public, that I had not invented it." While he had been indulging in these medita- tions he had kept his eyes fixed on the long, white, dusty road that stretched from where the knoll was on which he sat toward Belize; a road which, through this flat country, could be traced for two or three miles, it looking like a white thread lying on a dark green car- pet the colour of which had been withered by the sun. And now, as he looked, he saw upon the far- thest end of that thread a speck, even whiter than itself—a speck, that is to say, white above and black beneath—which was gradually travel- r 2IO A BITTER HERITAGE. ling along the road, coming nearer and growing bigger each moment. "It may be Mr. Spranger," he thought to himself, still watching the oncoming party-col- oured patch as it continued to loom larger; "probably is. Yet for a man of his time of life, and in such a baker's oven as that road is, he is a bold rider. I hope he won't get a sunstroke or a touch of heat apoplexy in his efforts to come and meet me." At last, however, the person, whoever it was, drew so near that the rider's white tropical jacket stood out quite distinct from the black coat of the animal he bestrode; while, also, the great white sombrero on the man's head was distinctly visible. "That's not Spranger," Julian said to him- self, " but a much younger man. By Jove!" he exclaimed, "it's Sebastian. And I might have expected it to be him. Of course. It is about the time he would be returning to Desolada." His recognition of his cousin was scarcely ac- complished beyond all doubt, when Sebastian's horse began to slow down in its stride, owing to having commenced the ascent of the incline that SEBASTIAN IS DISTURBED. 211 led up to the knoll where Julian sat, and in a very few more moments the animal, emitting great gusts from its nostrils, had brought . its rider close to where he was. While, true to his determination to exhibit no outward sign of any- thing he might suspect concerning Sebastian's designs toward him, as well as to resolve to assume a light and cheerful manner, and also a friendly one, Julian called out pleasantly: "Halloa, Sebastian! How are you this fine morning? Rather a hot ride from Belize, isn't it?" If, however, he had expected an equally cor- dial greeting in return, or, to put it in other and more appropriate words, a similar piece of acting on Sebastian's part, he was very considerably mistaken. For, instead of his cousin returning his cheerful salutation in a corresponding man- ner, his reception of it betokened something that might very well have been considered to be dis- may. Indeed, he reined his horse up so suddenly as almost to throw the panting creature on its haunches, in spite of the ascent it was making; while his face, sunbrowned and burned as it was, seemed to grow nearly livid behind the bronze. r 212 A BITTER HERITAGE. His eyes also had in them the startled expres- sion which might possibly be observed in those of a man who had suddenly been confronted by a spectre. "Why!" he said, a moment later, after peer- ing about and around and into all the rich lux- uriant vegetation which grew on the knoll, as though he might have expected to see some other person sitting among the wild allaman- das or ixoras—" why, what on earth are you do- ing here, Julian? I—I thought you were at Desolada, or—or perhaps out shooting again. By the way, I had left Desolada before you were up yesterday morning; what sort of a day did you have of it?" "Most exciting," Julian replied, himself as cool as ice. "Quite a field-day." And then he went on to give his cousin, who had by now dismounted and was sitting near him, a resume of the whole day's adventures—not forgetting to tell him also of the interesting discovery of the coral snake in his bed. "If," he thought to himself, "he.wants to see how little he can frighten one of her Maj- esty's sailors, he shall see it now." SEBASTIAN IS DISTURBED. 213 He had, however, some slight hesitation in narrating the retaliation of Paz upon the un- known, would-be assassin—for such the person must have been who had fired at where the deer was not—he being in some doubt as to how this fact would be received. At first it was listened to in silence, Sebastian only testifying how much he was impressed at the recountal by the manner in which he kept his eyes fixed on Julian—and also by the white- ness of his lips, to which the circulation seemed unable to find its way. Also, it seemed as though, when he heard of the drop of blood upon the leaf, once more the blood in his own veins was impeded—and as if his heart was stand- ing still. Then, when the recital was concluded, he said: "Paz did right. It was a cowardly affair. I wish he had killed the villain. I suppose it was some enemies of his. Some fellow half-caste. Paz has enemies," he added. "Probably," said Julian quietly. "And," went on Sebastian now in a voice of considerable equanimity, though still his bronze and sunburn were not what they usually were; 214 A BITTER HERITAGE. "and how did you leave Madame Carmaux? Was she not horrified at such a dastardly out- rage?" "I did not have much time with her. Not time enough indeed to tell her. She went to bed directly I got back" "Went to bed! Why?" "She was not well. Said she had a head- ache, or rather sent word to that effect. Nor did she come down to breakfast. Rather slow, you know, all alone by myself, so I thought I'd come on here for a ride. Must do something with one's time." "Of course! Of course! I told you Deso- lada was Liberty Hall. Went to bed, eh? I hope she is not really ill. I don't know what I should do without her," and as he spoke Julian observed that, if anything, he was whiter than before. Evidently he was very much distressed at Madame Carmaux's suffering from even so trifling an ailment as a headache. "I think I'll get on now," Sebastian said, rising from where he was sitting. "If she is laid up I shall have a good deal of extra work to do. I suppose it really is a headache." SEBASTIAN IS DISTURBED. 215 "I suppose it is," Julian said, "it is not likely to be much else. She was arranging flowers in a vase when Paz and I returned." "Was she!" Sebastian exclaimed, almost gleefully; "was she! Oh, well! then there can't be much the matter with her, can there? I am glad to hear that. But, anyhow, I'll go on now. You'll be back by sundown, I suppose. You know it's bad to be out just at sunset. The climate is a tricky one." "So I have heard you say. Never mind, I'll be back in the evening, or before. Meanwhile I may wander into the woods and shoot a monkey or so." "Shoot! Why! you haven't got a gun with you," Sebastian exclaimed, looking on the ground and at the mustang's back where, prob- ably, such a thing would have been strapped. "No, I haven't. But I've always got this," and he showed the handle of his revolver in an inside pocket. "You're a wise man. Though, if you knew the colony better, you'd understand there isn't much danger to human life here." "There was yesterday. And Paz has taught 2i6 A BITTER HERITAGE. me a trick or two. If any one fired at me now I should do just what he did, and, perhaps, I too might find a leaf with a drop of blood on it after- wards." "You're a cool fish!" exclaimed Sebastian after bursting out into a loud laugh which, some- how, didn't seem to have much of the ring of mirth in it. Upon my word you are. Well, so long! Don't go committing murder, that's all." "No, I won't. Bye-bye. I'll be back to- night." After which exchange of greetings, Sebas- tian got on his horse and prepared to continue his journey to Desolada. "By the way," he said, however, before do- ing so, " about that snake! How could it have got into your bed?" "/ don't know," Julian replied with a half laugh. "How should I? The coral snake is a new acquaintance, though I've known other specimens in my time. It got there somehow, didn't it?" "Of course! They love warmth, you know. Perhaps it climbed up the legs of the bed and crept in where it would be covered up." SEBASTIAN IS DISTURBED. 217 "It was rather rude to do such a thing in a visitor's bed though, wasn't it? It isn't as though I was one of the residents. And it must have been a clever chap, too, because it got in without disarranging the mosquito curtains the least little bit. That was clever, when you come to think of it!" At which Sebastian gave a rather raucous kind of laugh, and then set his horse in motion. "Au revoir!" said Julian. "I hope you'll find Madame Carmaux much better when you get back." 'A PLEASANT MEETING. 219 him with rather a piteous sort of look, "what's the matter with you? You don't want to start back and get a sunstroke, do you? Oh! I know. Of course!" and he rose from his seat and, going further into the bushes behind the knoll, began to use both his eyes and his ears. For it had not taken him a moment to divine— he who had been round the world three times! that the creature required that which in all tropi- cal lands is wanted by man and animal more than anything else—namely, the wherewithal to quench their thirst. Presently, he heard the grateful sound of trickling water, which in British Honduras is bountifully supplied by Providence, and discov- ered a swift-flowing rivulet on its way to the sea below—it being, in fact, a little tributary of Mullin's River—when, going back for the crea- ture, he led it to where the water was, while, tying its bridle to some reeds, he left it there to quench its thirst. After which he returned to the summit of the knoll to continue his lookout along the road from Belize. But now he saw that, during his slight ab- sence, some signs of other riders had appeared, is 220 A BITTER HERITAGE. there being at this present moment two black- and-white blurs upon the white dusty thread. Two that progressed side by side, and presented a duplicate, party-coloured imitation of that which, earlier, Sebastian Ritherdon and his steed had offered to his view. "If that's Mr. Spranger," Julian thought to himself, " he has brought a companion with him, or has picked up a fellow traveller. By Jove though! one's a darkey and, well! I declare, the other's a woman. Oh!" he exclaimed sudden- ly, joyfully too; "it's Miss Spranger. Here's luck!" and with that, regardless of the sun's rays and all the calamities that those rays can bring in such a land, he jumped into the road and began waving his handkerchief violently. The signal, he saw, was returned at once; from beneath the huge green umbrella held over the young lady's head—and his own—by the negro accompanying her, he observed an an- swering handkerchief waved, and then the mass of white material which formed a veil thrown back, as though she was desirous that he who was regarding her should not be in any doubt as to who was approaching. Yet, she need not A PLEASANT MEETING. 221 have been thus desirous. There is generally one form (as the writer has been told by those who know) which, when we are young, or sometimes even, no longer boys and girls, we recognise easily enough, no matter how much it may be disguised by veils or dust-coats or other similar impediments to our sight. Naturally, Beatrix and her sable companion rode slowly—to ride fast here on such a morning means death, or something like it—but they reached the knoll at last, and then, after mutual greetings had been exchanged and Julian had lifted Miss Spranger off her horse—one may suppose how tenderly!—she said: "Father was sorry, but he could not come. So I came instead. I hope you don't mind." "Mind!" he said, while all the time he was thinking how pretty she looked in her white dress, and how fascinating the line which marked the distinction between the sunburn of her face and the whiteness of her throat made her ap- pear—"mind!" Then, words seeming some- how to fail him (who rarely was at a loss for such things, either for the purpose of jest or earnest) at this moment, he contented himself 222 A BITTER HERITAGE. with a glance only, and in preparing for her a suitable seat in the shade. Yet, all the same, he was impelled directly afterwards to tell her again and again how much he felt her goodness in coming at all. "Jupiter," she said to the negro now, " bring the horses in under the shade and unsaddle and unbridle them. And, find some'water for them. I am going to stay quite a time, you know," she went on, addressing Julian. "I can't go back till sunset, or near sunset, so you will have to put up with my company for a whole day. I suppose you didn't happen to think of bringing any lunch or other provisions?" "The mere man is forgetful," he replied contritely, finding his tongue once more, so "So I am aware. Therefore, I have brought some myself. Oh! yes, quite enough for two, Mr. Ritherdon; therefore you need not begin to say you are not hungry or anything of that sort. Later, Jupiter shall unpack it. Mean- while, we have other things* to think and talk about. Now, please, go on with that," and she pointed to the pipe in his hand which he had let A PLEASANT MEETING. 223 go out in her presence, " and tell me everything. Everything from the time you left us." Obedient to her orders and subject to no evesdropping by the discreet Jupiter—who, hav- ing been told by Julian where the rivulet was, had conducted the two fresh horses there and was now seated on the bank crooning a mournful ditty which, the former thought, might have been sung by some African sorcerer to his bar- baric ancestors—he did tell her everything. He omitted nothing, from the finding of the coral- snake in his bed to his last meeting with Sebas- tian half an hour ago. While the girl sitting there by his side, her pure clear eyes sometimes fixed on the narra- tor's face and sometimes gazing meditatively on the sapphire Caribbean sparkling a mile off in front of them, listened to and drank in and weighed every word. "Lieutenant Ritherdon," she said, when he had concluded, and placing her hand boldly, and without any absurd false shame, upon his sleeve, "you must give me a promise—a solemn prom- ise—that you will never go back to that place again." 224 A BITTER HERITAGE. "But!" he exclaimed startled, "I must go back. I cannot leave and give up my quest like that. And," he added, a little gravely, "re- member I am a sailor, an officer. I cannot allow myself to be frightened away from my search in such a manner." "Not for "she began interrupting. "Not for what?" he asked eagerly, feeling that if she said, "not for my sake?" he must comply. "Not for your life? Its safety? Not for that?" she concluded, almost to his disappoint- ment. "May you not retreat to preserve your life?" "No," he answered a moment later. "No, not even for that. For my own self-respect, my own self-esteem I must not do so. Miss Spran- ger," he continued, speaking almost rapidly now, "I know well enough that I shall do no good there; I have come to understand at last that I shall never discover the truth of the matter. Yet I do believe all the same that George Rither- don was my uncle, that Charles Ritherdon was my father, that Sebastian Ritherdon is a—well, that there is some tricking, some knavery in it A PLEASANT MEETING. 225 all. But," he continued bitterly, "the trickery- has been well played, marvellously well man- aged, and I shall never unearth the method by which it has been done." "Yet, thinking this, you will not retreat! You will jeopardize your life?" "I have begun," he said, "and I cannot re- treat, short of absolute, decisive failure. Of cer- tain failure! And, oh! you must see why, you must understand why, I can not—it is because my life is in jeopardy that I cannot do so. I embarked on this quest expecting to find no dif- ficulties, no obstacles in my way; I came to this country and, at once, I learned that my appear- ance here, at Desolada, meant deadly peril to me. And, because of that deadly peril, I must, I will, go on. I will not draw back; nor be fright- ened by any danger. If I did I should hate my- self forever afterwards; I should know myself unworthy to ever wear her Majesty's uniform again. I will never draw back," he repeated emphatically, "while the danger continues to exist." As he had spoken, Julian Ritherdon—the bright, cheery Englishman, full of joke and quip, 226 A BITTER HERITAGE. had disappeared: in his place had come another Julian—the Englishman of stern determination, of iron nerve; the man who, because peril stared him in the face and environed his every foot- step, was resolute to never retreat before that danger. While she, the girl sitting by his side, her eyes beaming with admiration (although he did not see them), knew that, as he had said, so he would do. This man—fair, young, good-look- ing, and insouciant—was, beneath all that his in- tercourse with the world and society had shaped him into being, as firm as steel, as solid as a rock. What could she answer in return? "If you are so determined," she said now, controlling her voice for fear that, through it, she should betray her admiration for his strength and courage, " you will, at least take every meas- ure for your self-preservation. Write every day, as you have said you will in your letter to my father, be ever on your guard—by night and day. Oh!" she went on, thrusting her hands through the beautiful hair from which she had removed her large Panama hat for coolness while in the shade, " I sicken with apprehension when I think A PLEASANT MEETING. 227 of you alone in that mournful, mysterious house." "You need not," he said, and now he too ventured to touch her sleeve as she had previ- ously touched his—" you need not do so. Re- member, it is man to man at the worst; Sebas- tian Ritherdon—if he is Sebastian Ritherdon— against Julian. And I, at least, am used to fac- ing risks and dangers. It is my trade." "No," she answered, almost with a shudder, while her lustrous eyes expressed something that was very nearly, if not quite, horror—" no! it is not. It is a man and a woman—and that a crafty, scheming woman—against a man. Against you. Lieutenant Ritherdon," she cried, "can you doubt who—who" "Hush," he said, " hush. Not yet. Let us judge no one yet. Though I—believe me—/ doubt nothing. /, too, can understand. But," he went on a little more lightly now, "remem- ber, Sebastian is not the only one possessed of a female auxiliary, of female support. Remem- ber, I have Zara." "Zara," she repeated meditatively, "Zara. The girl with whom he amused himself by mak- 228 A BITTER HERITAGE. ing believe that he loved her; made her believe that, when this precious Madame Carmaux should be removed, she might reign over his house as his wife." "Did he do that?" "He did. If all accounts are true he led her to believe he loved her until he thought another woman—a woman who would not have let him serve her as a groom—might look favourably on his pretensions." "Therefore," said Julian, ignoring the latter part of her remark, though understanding not only it, but the deep contempt of her tone, "therefore, now she hates him. May she not be a powerful ally of mine, in consequence. That is, if she does hate him, as my other ally—Paz —says." "Yes, yes," Beatrix said, still musing, still reflectively. "Yet, if so, why those mysterious visits to your bedroom window, why that haunt- ing the neighbourhood of your room at mid- night?" "I understand those visits now, I think I understand them, since the episode of the coral snake. I believe she was constituting herself a A PLEASANT MEETING. 229 watch, a guard over me. That she knows much —that—that she suspects more. That she will at the worst, if it comes, help me to—to thwart him." "Ah! if it were so. If I could believe it." "And Paz, too. Sebastian told me to-day that Paz has enemies. Well! doubtless he has —only, I would rather be Paz than one of those enemies. You would think so yourself if you had seen the blaze of the man's eyes, the look upon his face, when that shot was fired, and, later, when he showed me the rifle which he had found close by the spot. No; I should not like to be one of Paz's enemies nor—a false lover of Zara's." "If I could feel as confident as you!" Beatrix exclaimed. "Oh! if I could. Then— then—" but she could find no ending for her sentence. f" CHAPTER XX. love's blossom. A fortnight had elapsed since that meeting on the palm-clad knoll, and Julian was still an inmate of Desolada. But each day as it came and went—while it only served to intensify his certainty that some strange trickery had been practised at the time when he was gone and when George Ritherdon had stolen him from his dying, or dead, mother's side—served also to convince him that he would never find out the manner in which the deceit had been practised, nor unravel the clue to that deceit. He had, too, almost decided to take his farewell of Deso- lada and it inmates, to shake the dust of the place off his shoes, and to abandon any idea of endeav- ouring to obtain further corroboration of his uncle's statement. For he had come to believe, to fear, that no corroboration was to be found. Every one in 230 LOVE'S BLOSSOM. 231 British Honduras regarded Sebastian as the un- doubted child and absolute heir of the late Charles Ritherdon, while, in addition, there were still scores of persons alive, black and white and half-caste, who remembered the birth of the boy, though not one individual could be discovered who had heard even a whisper of any kidnapping having ever taken place. Once, Julian had thought that a journey to New Orleans and a verification of the copy of his baptismal certifi- cate with the original might be of some use, but on reflection he had decided that this, as against the certificate of Sebastian's baptism in Belize, would be of no help whatever. "It is indeed a dead wall, a solid rock, against which I am pushing, as Mr. Spranger said," he muttered to himself again and again. "And it is too firm for me. I shall have to retreat—not because I fear my foe, but because that foe has no tangible shape against which to contend." He had not returned to Desolada on the night that followed his meeting with, first, Se- bastian on the knoll and then with Beatrix; he making his appearance at that place about dawn on the following morning. The reason whereof 232 A BITTER HERITAGE. was, that, after passing the whole day with Miss Spranger on that spot (the lunch she had brought with her being amply sufficient to provide an afternoon, or evening, meal), he had insisted on escorting her back to her father's house. At first she protested against his doing this, she declaring that Jupiter was quite sufficient cavalier for her, but he would take no denial and was firm in his resolve to do so. He did not tell her, though (as perhaps, there was no neces- sity for him to do, since, if all accounts are true, young ladies are very apt at discovering the in- ward workings of those whom they like and by whom they are liked), that he regarded this op- portunity as a most fortuitous one, and, as such, not to be missed Who is there amongst us all who, given youth and strength and the near presence of a woman whom we are fast begin- ning to love with our whole heart, would not sacrifice a night's rest to ride a score of miles by her side? Not one who is worthy to win that woman's love! So through the tropical night—where high above them blazed the constellations of the Southern Crown, the Peacock, and the Archer, * V 234 A BITTER HERITAGE. evil befell Julian at Desolada, Beatrix might not be long unaware of the evil. "Perhaps," Julian said, as now they were drawing near Belize—" perhaps it will not be necessary that I should apprise you each day of my safety, of the fact that everything is all right with me. Therefore" "I must know frequently! hear often," Beatrix said, turning her eyes on him. "I must. Oh! Mr. Ritherdon, forty-eight hours will appear an eternity to me, knowing, as I shall know, that you are in that dreadful house. Alone, too, and with none to help you. What may they not attempt against you next!" "Whatever they attempt," he replied, "will, I believe, be thwarted. I take Paz and Zara— especially Zara, now that you tell me she is a jilted woman—against Sebastian and Madame Carmaux. But, to return to my communica- tions with you." "Yes," she said, with an inward catching of her breath—" yes, your communications with me." "Let it be this way. If you do not hear from me at the end of every forty-eight hours, LOVE'S BLOSSOM. 235 then begin to think that things may be going wrong with me; while if, at the end of a second forty-eight hours, you have still heard nothing from me, well! consider that they have gone very wrong indeed. Shall it be like that?" "Oh!" the girl exclaimed with almost a gasp, "I am appalled. Appalled even at the thought that such an arrangement, such precau- tions, should have to be made." "Of course, they may not be necessary," he said; "after all, we may be misjudging Sebas- tian." "We are not," she answered emphatically. "I feel it; I know it. I mistrust that man—I have always disliked him. I feel as sure as it is possible to be that he meditates harm to you. And—and—" she almost sobbed, " what is to be done if the second forty-eight hours have passed, and still I have heard nothing from or of you." "Then," he said with a light laugh—" then I think I should warn some of those gentry whom we have seen loafing about Belize in a light and tasteful uniform—the constabulary, aren't they?—that a little visit to Desolada might be useful." 16 236 A BITTER HERITAGE. "Oh!" Beatrix cried again now, "don't make a joke of it, Mr. Ritherdon! Don't, pray don't. You cannot understand how I feel, nor what my fears are. If four days went by and I heard no tidings of you, I should begin to think that—that" "No," he said, interrupting her. "No. Don't think that! Whatever Sebastian may suspect me of knowing, he would not do what you imagine. He would not" "Kill you, you would say! Why, then, should he mount you on that horse? And—and was—there no intention of killing you when the coral snake was found in your bed—a deadly, venomous reptile, whose bite is always fatal with- in the hour—nor when that shot was fired at you?" "Is there not a chance," Julian said now, asking a question instead of answering one, "that, after all, we are entirely on a wrong tack, granting even that Sebastian is in a false posi- tion—a position that by right is mine?" "What can you mean? How can we be on a false tack?" "In this way. Even should it be as I sug- ^ LOVE'S BLOSSOM. 237 gest, namely, that he is—well, the wrong man, how is it possible that he should be aware of it; above all, how is it possible that he should know that I am aware of it? He has been at Desolada, and held the position of heir to—to—to my fa- ther ever since he was a boy, a baby. If wrong has been done, he was not and could not be the doer of it. Therefore, why should he suspect me of being the right man, and consequently wish to injure me?" "Surely the answer is clear enough," Beatrix replied. "However innocent he may once have been of all knowledge of a wrong having been done, he possesses that knowledge now—in some way. And," the girl went on, turning her face towards him as she spoke, so that he could see her features plainly in the starlight, "he knows that it is to you it has been done. Would not that suffice to make him meditate harm to you?" "Yet, granting this, how—how can it be? How can he have discovered the wrongdoing. A wrongdoing that his father—his supposed fa- ther—died without suspecting." "Yes, that is it; that is what puzzles me 238 A BITTER HERITAGE. more than all else," Beatrix exclaimed, "that Mr. Ritherdon should have 'died without sus- pecting.' That is it. It is indeed marvellous that he could have been imposed upon from first to last." Then for a time they rode on in silence, each deep in their own thoughts: a silence broken at last by Beatrix saying— "Whatever the secret is, I am convinced that one other person knows it besides himself." "Madame Carmaux?" "Yes, Madame Carmaux. If we could find out what her influence over him is, or rather what makes her so strong an ally of his, then I feel sure that all would be as clear as day." These conversations caused Julian ample food for meditation as he rode back towards Desolada in the coolness of the dawn—a roseate and primrose hued dawn—after having left Beatrix Spranger at her father's house. What was Madame Carmaux's influence over Sebastian? Why was she so strong an ally of his? And for answer to his self-communings, he could find only one. The answer that this woman, who had been bereft in one short year 240 A BITTER HERITAGE. perhaps, far advanced as the night was, Sebas- tian had not yet sought his bed. Instead, he seemed to have decided on taking whatever rest he might require in the great saloon in which he seemed to pass the principal part of his time when at home. He was asleep now in the large Singapore chair he always sat in—it being in- side the room at this time instead of outside on the veranda—possibly for fear of any night dews that—even in this climate—will sometimes arise; he being near the table on which was the never- failing bottle of Bourbon whisky. "The young man's companion," as Sebastian had more than once hilariously termed it. But that was not the only bottle, the only liquid, on the table by his side. For there stood also by Sebastian's hand a stumpy, neckless bottle which looked as if it might once have been part of the stock-in-trade of some chemist's shop—a bottle which was half full of a liquid of the faintest amber or hay-col- our. And, to his astonishment, he likewise saw standing on the table a small retort, a thing he had never supposed was likely to be known to Sebastian. LOVE'S BLOSSOM. 241 "Well!" he thought to himself as he moved slowly along the balcony to the open door, not being desirous of waking the sleeping man, "you are indeed a strange man, if ' strange' is the word to apply to you. I wonder what you are dabbling in chemistry for now? Probably no good!" JULIAN FEELS STRANGE. 243 he said to himself, Sebastian's pursuits were no concern whatever of his, and at any rate the lat- ter's absence left him free to do whatever he chose with his own time. To shoot curassows, wild turkeys, and sometimes monkeys, or, at least, to appear to go out shooting them; though, as often as not, the expedition ended at All Pines, to which place Julian made his way every other day to post a letter to Beatrix. Now, after a fortnight had been spent in this manner, during the whole of which period he had not set his eyes on Madame Carmaux, who still kept her room and was reported to be suf- fering from a bilious fever, the two men sat upon the veranda of the lower floor after the evening meal had been concluded, both of them having their pipes in their mouths. While, close to Se- bastian's hand, was a large tumbler which con- tained a very good modicum of Bourbon whisky, slightly dashed with water. "You don't drink at all now," that gentle- man said to his cousin, as he always called him. "Don't you like the stuff, or what? If that's what it is, I can get something else, you know, from Belize." 244 A BITTER HERITAGE. "No," Julian replied, " that is not what it is. But of late, for a week or so now, I have not been feeling well, and perhaps abstinence from that is the best thing," and he nodded his head towards where the Bourbon whisky bottle stood. "I told you so," Sebastian exclaimed; "only you wouldn't believe me. You were sure to feel seedy sooner or later. Every one does at first, when they come to this precious colony." "I ought to be pretty well climate-hardened all the same," Julian remarked, " after the places I've been in. Burmah isn't considered quite the sweetest thing in the way of health resorts, yet I got through that all right." "I hope you are not going to have a fever or anything wrong with your liver. Those are the things people suffer from here, intermittent and remittent fevers especially. I must give you some medicine." "No, thanks," Julian replied; "I think I can do very well without it at present. Besides, the time has come for me to bring my visit to a close, you know. You have been very kind and hos- pitable, but there is such a thing as overstaying one's welcome." JULIAN FEELS STRANGE. 245 To his momentary astonishment, since he quite expected that Sebastian was looking for- ward to his departure with considerable eager- ness and was extremely desirous of seeing the last of him, this announcement was not received at all as he expected. In actual truth, Julian had imagined that his decision would be ac- cepted with the faintest of protests which a host could make, while, instead, he perceived that Sebastian was absolutely overcome with some- thing that, if not dismay, was very like it. His face fell, as the light of the lamp (round which countless moths buzzed and circled in the sickly night air) testified plainly, and he uttered an ex- clamation that was one of unfeigned disappoint- ment, if not regret. "Oh!" he said, "but I can't allow that. I can't, indeed. Going away because you feel queer. Nonsense, man! You'll be all right in a day or so. And to go away after a visit of two or three weeks only! Why! when people come such a journey as you have done from England to here, we expect them to stop six months." "That in any case would be impossible. My leave of absence only covers that space of time, 246 A BITTER HERITAGE. and cannot be exceeded. But," Julian con- tinued, "don't think, all the same, that I am afraid of fever or anything of that sort. That wouldn't frighten me away." "I can't see what you came for, then. What the deuce," he said, speaking roughly now as though his temper was rising, "could have brought you to Honduras if you weren't going to stay above a month in the place?" "I wanted to see the place where my father lived," the other replied, and as he did so he watched Sebastian's features carefully. For al- though, of course, he was supposed to be the son pf George Ritherdon who had lived at Deso- lada once, he thought it most probable that this remark might cause his cousin some disturbance. Whether it did so or not, he could, how- ever, scarcely tell, since, as he made it, Sebastian, who was relighting his pipe with a match, let the latter fall, and instantly leant forward to pick it up again. "Oh!" he exclaimed, when he had done so, "of course, if you only wanted to do that, two or three weeks are long enough. Yet, I must say, I think it is an uncommon short stay. " JULIAN FEELS STRANGE. 247 However, I suppose even now you don't mean to go off in a wonderful hurry?" "To-day," said Julian, "is Wednesday. Suppose, as you are so kind, that we fix next Monday for my departure." "Next Monday. Next' Monday," and by the movement of Sebastian's lips, the other could see that he was making some kind of calculation. "Next Monday. Four clear days. Ah!" and his face brightened very much as he spoke. "Well! that's something, isn't it? Four clear days." Upstairs, when Julian had reached his room, he found himself meditating upon why Sebas- tian should have seemed so undoubtedly pleased at the knowledge that he was going to stay for another " four clear days." "We haven't seen such a wonderful lot of each other," he reflected, " except for an hour or so after supper; and as I have spent my time use- lessly in mooning about this place and the neigh- bourhood, he can't suppose that it's very lively for me. Especially as—as there have been risks." "As—as—as there have been—risks," he re- r 248 A BITTER HERITAGE. peated a few moments afterwards. Then, while still he sat on in his chair, gazing, as he recog- nised, vaguely out of the window, he noticed that his mind seemed to have got into a dull, sodden state—that it was not active. "As—there—have—been risks," he re- peated once more. And now he pushed his chair on one side as he rose from it, exclaim- ing: "This won't do. There's something wrong with me. As—there—have—no!—no! I don't want to keep on repeating this phrase over and over again. What is the matter with me? Have I got a fever?" Thinking this, though as he did so he recog- nised that his head was by no means clear and that he felt dull and heavy, as a man might do who had not slept for some nights, he thought, too, that it would be best for him to go to bed. Doubtless his liver was affected by the climate; doubtless, also, he would be well enough in the morning. "There is," he said to himself, "a chemist's in the village of All Pines—I will get him to give me a draught in the morning. I wonder if Zara JULIAN FEELS STRANGE. 249 ever takes a draught—I—I—mean Beatrix. What rot I am talking!" he murmured to him- self, " and now, to add to other things the lamp is going out." Whereon he made a step towards where the lamp stood on the table, and turning up the wicks gently saw that, in a moment, the flames were leaping up the glass chimney and blacken- ing it. "I thought it was going out," he said to him- self, turning the wicks down again rapidly; "I seem to be getting blind too. There is no doubt that I have got a fever. Let me see." As he spoke he put his hand into his trousers pocket to draw out his keys, it being his inten- tion to open his Gladstone bag and get out a little medicine casket he always carried with him when out of England, and especially when in tropical places; and, in doing so, he leant his head a little to the side that the pocket was on, his chin drooping somewhat towards the lapel of his white jacket. "I suppose," he muttered, "that my sense of smell's affected too, now. Or else—jacket's getting—some beastly old—old—old tropical 250 A BITTER HERITAGE. smell that clings to everything—in—in such countries. Never mind. Here's keys." He drew them forth, regarding the bunch with a stare as though it was something he was unacquainted with, and then, instead of putting into the lock of the bag the long slim key which is usual, he endeavoured to insert a large one that really belonged to a trunk he had left behind at the shipping office in Belize as not being wanted. Reflection served, however, to call to his mind that this key was not very likely to open the bag, and at last, after giving an inane smile at the mistake, he succeeded in his endeavour and was able to get out the contents, and to with- draw the little medicine casket. "Quinine," he said, spelling the word letter by letter as he held the phial under the lamp. "Quinine. That's it. Don't let's make a mis- take. Q-u-i-n-i-n-e. That's all right. Can't go wrong now." By the aid of the contents of the water-bottle and his glass he was enabled to swallow two quinine pills of two grains each, and then he re- solved—in a hazy, uncertain kind of way—to go * 252 A BITTER HERITAGE. jacket and removed the weapon from the inside pocket." "A nasty smell these tropical places have," he muttered as he did so. "There's the smell of India—no one ever forgets that—and also the smell of Africa. Well! strikes me Honduras can go one better than either of them." Then he got into bed. Dizzy, stupefied as he felt, however, it did not seem as if his stupefaction or semi-delirium, or whatever it was which had overcome him, was likely to plunge him into a heavy, dull sleep. Instead, he found himself lying there with his eyes wide open, and, although his brain felt like a lump of lead, while there was a weight at his forehead as if something were pressing on it, he was conscious that one of his senses was very acute—namely, the sense of smell. Either that, or else some very peculiar phase in the fever which he was experiencing, was causing a strange sense of disgust in his nostrils. "This bed smells just like a temple I went into in Burmah once," he thought to himself. "What the deuce is the matter with me—or it? Anyhow, I can't stand it." And, determined JULIAN FEELS STRANGE. 253 not to endure the unpleasantness any longer, he got up from the bed, while wrapping himself in the dark coverlet he went over to an old rickety sofa that ran along the opposite side of the room and lay down upon it. And here, at least, the odour was not appar- ent. The old horsehair bolster and pillow did emit, it is true, the peculiar stuffy flavour which such things will do even in temperate climates; but beyond that nothing else. The acrid, loath- some odour which he had smelt for the first time when he leant his head slightly as he felt for his keys, and which he had perceived in a far more intensified form when he lay down in the bed, was not at all apparent now. It seemed as if he was, at last, likely to fall asleep. r CHAPTER XXII. IN THE DARK. Julian supposed when he was awakened later on, and felt that he was drenched with a warm perspiration which caused his light tropical clothes to stick to him with a hot clammy feel- ing, that he must have slept for two hours. For now, as he lay on the sofa facing the window, he could see through the slats of the persianas, which he had forgotten to turn down, that, peep- ing round the window-frame there came an edge of the moon, which he seemed to recollect—dim- ly, hazily, and indistinctly—had risen late last night. And that moon—which stole more and more into his view as he regarded it—was casting now a long ray into the bedroom, so that there came across the floor a streak of light of about the breadth of nine inches. Yet—once his bemused brain had grasped 254 IN THE DARK. 255 the fact that this ray was there, while, at the same time, that brain was still clear enough to comprehend that every moment the flood of light was becoming larger, so that soon the apartment would be filled with it—he paid no further attention to the matter, nor to the distant rumbling of thunder far away—thunder that told of a tropical storm taking place at a dis- tance. Instead, he was endeavouring to argue silently with himself as to the actual state in which his mind was; as to whether he was in a dreamy kind of delirium, or whether, in spite of any fever that might be upon him, he was still able to distinctly understand his surroundings. If, as he hoped earnestly, the latter was the case; if he was not delirious, but only numbed by some ailment that had insidiously taken possession of him—then—why then—surely! he was in deadly peril of some immediate attack upon him—upon his life perhaps. For, outside those persianas there was an- other light, two other lights glittering in upon him that were not cast by the moon, but that (because now and again her rays were thrown upon them) he discovered to be a pair of eyes. IN THE DARK. 257 household dog which had chosen this spot for its night's repose? Yet—yet—if such was the cast, why did it not sleep curled up or stretched out, instead of peering through the latticework with its eyes close to the slats, as though determined to see all that was in the room and all that was going on in it. No! it could not be that, while, also it was not what he had deemed it might be a few minutes ago—the eyes of a snake. It was impossible, since the eyes of a snake would have been much closer together. They were—there could be no doubt about it! the eyes of a human being, man or woman. And they were not Zara's. He was sure of that. But still they glared into the room, glared through the dusky sombreness of the lower part of it, of that part of the floor which, even now, the moonlight was not illuminating. And then to his astonishment he saw, as the light flooded the apartment more and more, that those eyes were staring not at him but towards another portion of the room; towards where the bed stood enveloped in the long hanging folds of the mosquito curtains, which, to his distempered mind, seemed in the weird light of the tropical 258 A BITTER HERITAGE. night to look like the hangings that enshroud a catafalque—a funeral canopy. His hand, shaky though he knew it was from whatever ailed him, was on his revolver; for a moment or so he lay there asking himself if he should fire at that wizard thing, that creepy mys- tery outside his room; if he should aim fair be- tween those glistening eyeballs and trust to for- tune to kill or disable the mysterious watcher? But still, however, he refrained; for, if his senses were still in his own possession, if his mind was still able to understand anything, it understood that near the bed in which he should have been sleeping had it not been for the evil odours ex- haled from it to-night, there was something that might be a more fitting object of his discharge than the creature outside. "If," he thought to himself, "I am neither mad nor delirious nor drenched with fever, those eyes are watching something in this room, and that something is not myself." Should he turn his head; could he turn it towards that dark patch behind the mosquito curtains which was not illuminated with the moon's rays? Could he do it as a man turns in IN THE DARK. 259 his sleep—restlessly—so that in the action there might be nothing which should alarm whatever lurked in the darkness over there; the thing that, having got into his room in the night full of evil intentions towards him, was now itself being watched, suspected, perhaps trapped. Could he do it? As he meditated thus, feeling sure now that his stupor, his density of mind, was not what it had been—recognising with a feeling of devout thankfulness that, whatever his state might hith- erto have been, his mind was now becoming clear and his intellect collected, he prepared to put this determination into practise. He would roll over on to his right side, as he had seen sleepy sailors roll over on to theirs in the watch below; he would roll over too, with his hand securely on the butt of his revolver. And then—if—if, as he felt certain was the case, there was some dark skulking thing hiding behind his bedhead, if he should see another pair of eyes gleaming out in the rays of the moon—why, then, woe befall it! He had had enough of these midnight hauntings from one visitant or another in this house of mystery; he would fire straight at that figure, IN THE DARK. 26l should be up so late. It must be two o'clock, at least." With a glance from his eye towards the lower part of the window, which still he could see from the position in which he lay, he observed that the mysterious watcher outside was gone. Those eyes, at least, no longer gleamed from low down by the floor; through the slats of the blind he perceived that the spot where they had lately been was now a void. The watcher was gone! But what of the one who had been watched, of the lurking creature that was near his bed, and that had gasped with fear even as he turned over on the sofa? What of that? Well, it was still there. He was alone with it. His thumb drew back the trigger of the re- volver, the well-known click was heard—the click which can never be disguised or silenced. A click that many a man has listened to with mortal agony and terror of soul, knowing that it sounds his knell. Then again on his ears there fell that gasp, that indrawn catching of the breath, which told of a terrified object close by his side. And it could not be Sebastian who had ut- 262 A BITTER HERITAGE. tered it; Sebastian, the one person alone who had reason to meditate the worst towards him that one human being can desire for another. It could not be he. For was he not still singing boisterously below in the front of the house? It could not be he. And, Julian reflected, he was about to take a life, the life of some one whom he himself did not know, of some one whose pres- ence in his room even at night, at such an hour of the night, might yet be capable of explanation; that might not, in absolute fact, bode evil to him. Suppose, that after all, it should be Zara, and that again she was there for some purpose of serving his interest as he had told Beatrix he be- lieved she had been more than once before. Suppose that, and that now he should fire and kill her! How would he feel then! What would his remorse be? No! He would not do it. Instead, therefore, he whispered the words, "Zara, what is it?" Even as he did so, even as he spoke, he no- ticed that a change had come over the room. It was quite dark now; the moon's rays no longer gleamed in; the moon itself was gone, IN THE DARK. 263 obscured. What had happened? In a moment the question was answered. Upon the balcony outside there came a rattle as though a deluge of small stones had been hurled down upon it, and he, who knew well what the violence of tropical storms is, recog- nized that one had broken over Desolada, and that the rain, if not hail, was descending in a deluge. A moment later there came, too, a flash of purple, gleaming lightning which was gone before he could turn his eyes into the quarter of the room where lurked the thing that he sus- pected, felt sure was there. Then, over all, there burst the roar of the thunder from above, rever- berating, pealing all around, rumbling, and re- echoing a moment later in the Cockscomb Mountains. "Zara!" he called louder now, so as to make himself heard above the din of the storm— "Zara, why do you not answer me? I mean you no harm." But, if amid this tumult any answer was given, he did not hear it. For now the crash of the thunder, the downpour of the rain, the screaming of the parrots, and the demoniacal y■ CHAPTER XXIII. WARNED. Blue as the deepest gleam within the sap- phire's depth were the heavens; bright as mol- ten gold were the sun's rays the next morning when the storm was past—leaving, however, in its track some marks of its passage. For the flowers in the gardens round the house were beaten down now with the weight of water that had fallen on them; beneath the oleanders and the flamboyants, the allamandas and ixoras, the blossoms strewed the pampas grass in masses; while many crabs—which wander up from the seacoast in search of succulent plants whereon to feed—lay dead near the roots of the bushes and shrubs. Yet a day's scorching sun, to be followed perhaps by an entire absence of further rain for a month, would soon cause fresh masses of bloom to take the place of those which were destroyed, 266 WARNED. 267 especially as now they had received the moisture so necessary to their existence. And Julian, standing on his balcony and wondering who that strange nocturnal visitor was who had fled on to this very balcony a few hours before, thought that during his stay in this mysterious place he had never seen its surroundings look so fair. Whether it was that he had received con- siderable benefit from the quinine which he had taken overnight, or whether it was from the total change of clothing which he had now assumed in place of the garments he had worn up to now, or perhaps from his not having lain through the night upon the bed which, particularly of late, had seemed so malodorous, he felt very much better this morning. His brain no longer ap- peared numbed nor his mind hazy, nor had he any headache. "Which," he said to himself, "is a mighty good thing. For now I want all my wits about me. This affair has got to be brought to a con- clusion somehow, and Julian Ritherdon is the man to do it. Only," he said, with now a smile on his face—" only, no more of the simple trust- ing individual you have been, my friend—if you ' 18 WARNED. 271 some of my wardroom songs, you'll be sur- prised." "Right," said Sebastian, with a laugh; "the sooner the better," whereon he took himself off. "I didn't hear the silvery tones of Madame Carmaux, all the same," Julian thought to him- self after the other was gone, "neither do I re- member that I heard her return his ' good-night.' However, Sebastian's own tones are somewhat stentorian when he lets himself go, or as our Irish doctor used to say of the bo'sun's, 'enough to split a pitcher,' so I suppose that isn't very strange." He took down his jacket now, and indeed the whole of his white drill suit which he had discarded for an exactly similar one that he had in his large Gladstone bag, and began to roll it up preparatory to packing it away. Though, as he did so, he again perceived the horrible foetid odour which it had emitted overnight—the same odour that had also been so perceptible when he had laid his head upon the pillow. The revolt- ing smell that had driven him from the bed to seek repose on that sofa. "Faugh!" he exclaimed, "it is loathsome. 272 A BITTER HERITAGE. Even now, with the room full of the fresh morn- ing air, I feel as if I were getting giddy and be- mused again." Whereon, and while uttering some remarks that were by no means compli- mentary to Honduras and some of its perfumes, he began rolling the clothes up as quickly as he could. Yet while he did so, being now engaged with the jacket, his eye was attracted by the lapel of the collar, the white surface of which was dis- coloured—though only in the faintest degree discoloured—a yellowish, grey colour. Each lapel, down to where the topmost button was! Then, after a close inspection of the jacket all over, he perceived that nowhere else was it simi- larly stained. His curiosity becoming excited by this, since in no way could he account for such a thing (he distinctly remembered that there had been no stain, however faint, on the lapel before), he re- garded the waistcoat next; and there, on the small lapel of that—both left and right—were the same marks. "Strange," he muttered, "strange. Very strange. One might say that the washerwoman had spilt something on coat and waistcoat—pur- WARNED. 273 posely. Something, too, that smells uncom- monly nasty." For, by inspection, or rather test with his nostrils, he was easily able to perceive that no other part of his discarded clothing emitted any such disagreeable odour While, too, as he ap- plied his nose again and again to the faint stains, he also perceived that in his brain there came once more the giddiness and haziness from which he had suffered so much last night—as well as the feeling of stupid density amounting almost to dreaminess or delirium. "If that stuff was under my nose all day long yesterday, and perhaps for a week or so before," he reflected, " I don't wonder that at last I be- came almost wandering in my mind, as well as stupefied." Then, a thought striking him, he went over to the pillow on the bed and gazed down on it. And there, upon it, on either side, was the same stain—faint, yellow, and emitting the same acrid, loathsome odour. "So, so," he said to himself, "I begin to understand. I begin to understand very well, and to comprehend Sebastian's chemical experi- ments. The woman who washed my jacket and 274 A BITTER HERITAGE. waistcoat in England is not the same woman who washed that pillow-case in British Hon- duras. Yet the same stain and the same odour are on both. All right! A good deal may hap- pen in the next four days." Then, as he thus meditated, he opened the little phial of physic-nut oil, which Sebastian had thoughtfully brought him and left behind with injunctions that he should take three or four drops of it in his coffee, and smelt it. After which he said, " Certainly, I won't fail to do so. All right, Sebastian, it's full speed ahead now!" A little later, Zara arrived bearing in her hands a large tray on which were all the neces- saries for a breakfast that would have satisfied a hungry man, let alone an "invalid." There were, of course, innumerable other servants about this vast house, but Zara always seemed to perform the principal duties of waiting upon those who constituted the superiors, and in many cases to issue orders to the others, in much such a way as a butler in England issues orders to his underlings. Now, having deposited the tray upon the table, which she cleared for the purpose, she un- WARNED. 275 covered the largest dish and submitted to Ju- lian's gaze a good-sized trout reposing in it and looking extremely appetizing. "But," said Julian, as he regarded the fish, "that isn't what Sebastian promised me. He said he would send one of those delicious moun- tain mullet we had the other night." For a moment the half-caste girl's lustrous eyes dwelt almost meditatively, as it seemed, on him; then she said, " There are none. The men have not caught any for a long time." "But Mr. Ritherdon said there were. That the men" "He was wrong," she interrupted, her eyes roaming all round the room, while it seemed al- most to Julian as though, particularly, they sought the spot where the pillow was. "He was wrong. You eat that," looking at the dish. "That will do you no—will do you good." And it appeared to Julian, now thoroughly on the qui vive as to everything that went on around him as well as to every word that was uttered, as though she emphasized the word "that." "I'm glad to hear Madame Carmaux is so WARNED. 277 spirit which seemed almost likely to end in an outbreak, Julian said quietly, seriously, "No, Zara, I am neither a fool nor a madman. Look here,' I believe you are a good, honest, straight- forward girl. Therefore, I will be plain with you. I have told Mr. Ritherdon that I am going on Monday. In four days" "Go at once! " she interrupted again. "At once. Get news from Belize, somehow, that calls you away. Leave Desolada. Begone!" she continued in her quaint, stilted English, which she spoke well enough except when obliged to use either a Spanish or Carib word. "Begone!" And as she said this it seemed al- most to Julian that, with those dark gleaming eyes of hers, she was endeavouring to convey some intelligence to him which she would not put into words. "That," he said, referring to her last sen- tence, "is what I am thinking about doing. Only, even then, I shall not have done with Desolada and its inhabitants. There is more for me to do yet, Zara." CHAPTER XXIV. Julian's eyes are opened. Julian's slumbers of the past night having been more or less disturbed by the various inci- dents of, first, his drowsy delirium, then of those figures of the watcher and the watched, as well as by the storm and the sight of the departing form of the latter individual, he decided that, during the course of the present day, he would endeavour to obtain some sleep. Especially he determined thus because, now, he knew that there must be no more sleeping at night for him. Whether he remained in Desolada for the next four nights as he had consented to do, or whether he decided to follow Zara's suggestion and find some excuse for departing at once, he understood plainly that to sleep again when night was over all the house might be fraught with deadly risk to him. What that risk was, what the tangible shape which it would be likely 278 JULIAN'S EYES ARE OPENED. 279 later on to assume, he was not yet able to con- clude—but that it existed he had no doubt. Bright and insouciant as he was, with also in his composition a total absence of fear, he was still sufficiently cool, as well as sufficiently intelligent to understand that here, in Desolada, he was not only regarded as an inconvenient interloper, but one who must be got rid of somehow. "Which proves, if it proves anything," he thought, " that Sebastian knows all about why I am in this country; and also that, secure as his position seems, there is some flaw in it which, if brought to light, will destroy that position. I know it, too, now, am certain that George Rith- erdon's story is true—and, somehow, I am going to prove it so. I have muddled the time away too long; now I am going to be a man of action. When I get back to Belize that action begins. Mr. Spranger said I ought to confide in a lawyer, and in a lawyer I will confide. Henceforth, we'll thresh this thing out thoroughly." Zara had come in again and removed the remnants of the breakfast, and as he had told her that he meant to sleep as long as ever it was pos- sible, she had promised him that he should not 28o A BITTER HERITAGE. be disturbed. Wherefore, he now proceeded to darken the room in every way that he could, without thoroughly excluding the air; namely, by letting down the curtains of the windows as well as by closing the persianas. "I suppose," he thought to himself, "there is no likelihood of my visitor coming in, in the broad daylight, yet, all the same, I will endeav- our to make sure." Upon which he proceeded to put in practise an old trick which in his gun- room days he had often played upon his brother middies (and had had played upon himself); while remembering, as he did so, the merry shouts which had run along the gangway of the lower deck on dark nights over its successful ac- complishment. He took a piece of stout cord and tied it across from one side of the window to the other at about a foot and a half from the floor. "Now," he said, " If any one tries to come in here to-day—well! if they don't break their legs they'll make such a din as will lead to their fall- ing into my hands." It was almost midday when he laid himself down on the sofa to obtain his much needed rest 282 A BITTER HERITAGE. door and turned the key, he having been careful to lock the former securely before going to sleep. Then, to his surprise, when he had opened the door and peered into the passage, which was also now enveloped in the shadow of night, he saw a figure standing there which was not that of Zara, but, instead, of the half-caste Paz. "What is it?" he asked, staring at the man and wondering what he wanted. "What! Is anything the matter?" "Nothing very much," the half-caste an- swered, his eyes having a strange glitter in them as they rested on Julian's face. "Only, think you like to see funny sight. You like see Sefior Sebastian look very funny. You come with me. Quietly." "What do you mean, Paz?" Julian asked, wondering if this was some ruse whereby to be- guile him into danger. "What is it?" "I show you Massa Sebastian very funny. He very strange. Don't think he find moun- tain mullet very good for him; don't think he like drink very much with physic-nut oil in it," and he gave that little bleating laugh which Ju- lian had heard before and marvelled at. JULIAN'S EYES ARE OPENED. 283 Mountain mullet! Physic-nut oil! The very things that Sebastian had suggested to Ju- lian that morning, yet of which Julian had not partaken. The mullet, although Zara had said the men had not caught any for a long time. The phial which he had brought to the room, but the oil of which he had not touched! "There was no mountain mullet caught—" he began, but Paz interrupted him with that bleating laugh once more, though subdued as befitted the circumstances. "Ho!" he said. "Nice mountain mullet in Desolada this morning. He order it cook for you. Only—Zara good girl. She love Sebas- tian, so she give it him and give you trout. Very good girl. But—it make him funny. So, too, physic-nut oil. But that wrong name. Physic-nut oil very much Not good if mixed with drop of Amancay." Amancay! Where had Julian heard that name before! Then, swift as lightning, he re- membered. He recalled a conversation he had had with Mr. Spranger one evening over the various plants and herbs of the colony, and also how he had listened to stories of the deadly pow- 19 284 A BITTER HERITAGE. ers of many of them—of the Manzanillo, or Man- chineel, of the Florispondio and the Cojon del gato—above all, of the Amancay, a plant whose juice caused first delirium; then, if taken con- tinually, raving madness, and then—death. A plant, too, whose juice could work its deadly destruction not only by being taken inwardly, but by being inhaled. "The Indians," Mr. Spranger had q^id, "content themselves with that. If they can only get the opportunity of sprinkling it on the earth where their enemy lies, or of smearing his tent canvas with it, or his clothes, the trick is. done. And that enemy's only chance is that he, too, should know of its properties. Then he is safe. For the odour it emits is such that none who have ever smelt it once can fail to recognise its presence. But on those who are unacquainted with those properties—well! God help them!" He wondered as he recalled those words if he had turned white, so white that, even in the dusk of the corridor, the man standing by his side could perceive it; he wondered, too, if his fea- tures had assumed a stern, set expression in JULIAN'S EYES ARE OPENED. 285 keeping with the determination that now was dominant in his mind. The determination to descend to where Sebastian Ritherdon was, to stand face to face with him, to ask him whether it was he who had sprinkled his jacket and his waistcoat, as well as the pillow on which he nightly slept, with the accursed, infernal juice of the deadly Amancay. Ask! Bah! what use to ask, only to receive a lie in return! What need at all to ask? He knew! "Come," he said to Paz, even as he went back into the room for his revolver. "Come, take me to where this fellow is. Yet," he said pausing, "you say I shall see a funny sight. What is it? Is he mad—or dying?" "He funny. He eat mountain mullet, he drink physic-nut oil in wine. Zara love him dearly, he" "Come," Julian again said, speaking sternly. "Come." Then they both went along the corridor and down the great staircase. "Let us go out garden, to veranda," Paz whispered. "Then we look in over veranda through open window. See funny things. JULIAN'S EYES ARE OPENED. 287 which seemed familiar enough to Julian (since only last night he had stumbled and lurched in the same way), was seizing little bottles and phials and holding them up to the light, and wrenching the corks out of them to sniff at the contents, and then hurling them away from him with an action of despair and rage. "He look for counter-poison," Paz said, using the Spanish expression, which Julian un- derstood well enough. "Maybe, he not find it. Then he die," and the bleating laugh sounded now very much like a gloating chuckle. "Then he die," he repeated. "Is there, then, an antidote?" Julian asked. "Yes. Yes," Paz whispered. "Yes, anti- doty, if he find it. If he has not taken too much." "How can he have taken too much? Why take any?" For answer Paz said nothing, but instead, looked at Julian. And, in the light that now streamed out across the veranda to where they stood, dimmed and shaded as it might be by the thick foliage and flower of the flamboyant bush, the latter could see that the half-caste's eyes glit- 288 A BITTER HERITAGE. tered demoniacally and that his fingers were twitching, and judged that it was only by great constraint that the latter suppressed the laugh he indulged in so often. Then, while no word was spoken between them, Julian felt the long slim fingers of Paz touch his and push something into his hand, something that he at once recognised to be the phial of physic-nut oil; or, rather, the phial that had once contained the physic- nut oil, diluted with the juice of the murder- ous Amancay. "All love Sebastian here," the semi-savage hissed, his remaining white teeth shining hor- ribly in the flickering gleam through the flam- boyant. "Love him, oh! so dear." "He find it. He find it," he muttered ex- citedly an instant afterwards. "Look! Look! Look!" And Julian did look; fascinated by Sebas- tian's manner. For the other held now a small bottle in his hand which he had unearthed from some drawer in the interior of the great cabinet, and was hold- ing it between his eyes and the globe of the JULIAN'S EYES ARE OPENED. 289 lamp, gazing as steadily as he could at the mix- ture which it doubtless contained. As steadily as he could, because he still swayed about a good deal while he stood there; perhaps because, too, his hands trembled. Then, with a look of exul- tation on his features and in his bloodshot eyes, plainly to be observed from where the two men stood outside, he tore the stopper out with his teeth, smelt the contents, and instant- ly seizing a tumbler emptied them into that, drenched it with water, and drank the draught down. Yet, a moment later, Sebastian performed another action equally extraordinary—he seem- ing to remember—as they judged by the look of dawning recollection on his face—something he had forgotten! He came, still lurching, a little nearer to the open window, and then in a loud voice—a voice that was evidently intended to be heard at some distance—said: "Well, good-night, Miriam. Good-night, I am so thankful to think that you are better! Good night." And as he uttered those words, Julian under- stood. 290 A BITTER HERITAGE. "I see his ruse, his trick," he muttered. "He thinks that I am still upstairs, that he is de- ceiving me, making me believe she is down here. But, though I am not up there, she is! And per- haps in my room again. Quick, Paz! Come. Follow me!" 294 A BITTER HERITAGE. 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 impos- sible. 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 him- self 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 ques- tion. "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! Re- member the snake in bed, the shot in wood, the A DENOUEMENT. 295 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 al- though 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 r 296 a bitter heritage. 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 noise- lessly 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, A DENOUEMENT. 297 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 mid- night howl of a baboon farther away. Wonderfully still it was; so undisturbed, in- deed, 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 percep- tible, 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 visi- tor 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 A- . 298 A BITTER HERITAGE. might have stolen—having now reached the ve- randa, 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 medi- tated. 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!) A DENOUEMENT. 299 that no step was to be omitted which should re- move him from Desolada, from existence. "Sebastian and she both know that he fills my place. Well—to-night we come to an un- derstanding. 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 ''- 30o A BITTER HERITAGE. that proceeded from below, she was creeping on towards her goal. t 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, per- haps, because that hand was not as steady as it should have been, those laths rattled the slight- est. 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 A DENOUEMENT. 301 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 re- move the cord he had stretched across the win- dow 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 an- other 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, 302 A BITTER HERITAGE. even as she writhed in his grasp, endeavouring to avoid it. Then, knowing that words were un- necessary, 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 con- front 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 Se- bastian, 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 debris was a small pool of liquid shining on the polished wooden floor. And from it there arose an odour so pungent and so foetid, that he began almost at once to feel com- 303 "YOU HAVE KILLED HIM!" 305 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 pre- cious schemes are at an end, are discovered?" "Ha!" exclaimed Sebastian, looking fixed- ly 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 mat- ters. Sebastian Ritherdon—if you are Sebas- tian 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, "YOU HAVE KILLED HIM" 399 "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 win- dow, never moved the dark eyes that shone out of it from off the back of the man who con- fronted 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 be- hind, " that my presence in Honduras—at Deso- lada as your invited guest—caused you so much consternation, so much dismay, that you hesi- tated at nothing which might remove me from 3 Io A BITTER HERITAGE. your path. What will the law believe, what will these people who have known you from your in- fancy—as you say—think, when they learn that three times at least, if not more, you have at- tempting 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 fa- ther, 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 poi- soned 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 mut- tered hoarsely, raucously. “Nothing.” “Can I not? I have two witnesses.” “Two witnesses!” the other whispered, and "YOU HAVE KILLED HIM!' 3" now indeed he looked dismayed. "Two wit- nesses. 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 dis- carded sweetheart of my father's, that wom- an 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—" si- lence, 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 3i2 A BITTER HERITAGE. 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 oc- curred? 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 con- cussion 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 "YOU HAVE KILLED HIM!" 313 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 table- cloth, 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 inter- vals 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 CHAPTER XXVII. "I WILL SAVE YOU." Beatrix Spranger sat alone in her garden at "Floresta," and was the prey to disquieting, nay, to horrible, emotions and doubts. For, by this time, not only had forty-eight hours passed since she had heard from Julian—forty-eight hours, which were to mark the limit of the period when, as had been arranged, she was to consider that all was still well with the latter at Desolada!. but also another twelve hours had gone by with- out any letter coming from him. And then— then—while the girl had become almost mad- dened, almost distraught with nervous agitation and forebodings as to some terrible calamity hav- ing occurred to the man she had learned to love —still another twelve hours had gone by, it being now three days since any news had reached her "What shall I do?" she whispered to her- 21 315 "I WILL SAVE YOU." 317 pearance of misery and dark despair and woe— opened its own eyes and gazed mournfully across the parched lawn. For these creatures had seen or heard that which the girl sitting there had not perceived, and had become aware that the noontide stillness was being broken by the advent of another per- son. Yet when Beatrix, aroused, cast her own eyes across the yellow grass, she observed that the new-comer was no more important person than a great negro, who carried in one hand a long whip such as the teamsters of the locality use, and in the other a letter held between his black finger and thumb. "He has written!" she exclaimed to herself, "and has sent it by this man. He is safe. Oh! thank God!" while, even as she spoke, she ad- vanced towards the black with outstretched hand. Yet she was doomed to disappointment when, after many bows and smirks and a remov- al of his Panama hat, so that he stood bare- headed in the broiling sun (which is, however, not a condition of things harmful to negroes, even in such tropical lands), the man had given 3l8 A BITTER HERITAGE. her the letter, and she saw that the superscrip- tion was not in the handwriting of Julian, but in that of his supposed cousin, Sebastian. "What does it mean?" she murmured half aloud and half to herself, while, as she did so, the hand holding the letter fell by her side. "What does it mean?" Then, speaking more loudly and clearly to the negro, " have you brought this straight from Desolada? "—the very mention of that place giving her a weird and creepy sensa- tion. "Bring him with •the gentleman's luggage, missy," the man replied, with the never-failing grin of his race. "Gentleman finish visit there, then come on here pay little visit. Steamer go back New Orleans to-morrow, missy, and gentle- man go in it to get to England. Read letter, missy, perhaps that tell you all." The advice was as good as the greatest wise- acre could have given Beatrix, in spite of its pro- ceeding from no more astute Solomon than this poor black servant, yet the girl did not at first profit by it. For, indeed, she was too stunned, almost it might be said, too paralyzed, to do that which, besides the negro's suggestion, her own 'I WILL SAVE YOU. 319 common sense would naturally prompt her to do. Instead, she stood staring at the messenger, her hand still hanging idly by her side, her face as white as the healthy tan upon it would permit it to become. And though she did not utter her thoughts aloud, inwardly she repeated again and again to herself, " His luggage! His luggage! And he is going back to England to-morrow. Without one word to me in all these hours that have passed, and after—after—oh! Without one word to me! How can he treat me so!" She had turned her face away from the negro as she thought thus, not wishing that even this poor creature should be witness of the distress she knew must be visible upon it, but now she turned towards him, saying: "Go to the house and tell the servants to give you some refreshment, and wait till I come to you. I shall know what to do when I have read this letter." Then she went back to her basket-chair and, sitting in the shade, tore open Sebastian's note. Yet, even as she did so, she murmured to herself, "It cannot be. It cannot be. He would not 320 A BITTER HERITAGE. go and leave me like this. Like this! After that day we spent together." But resolutely, now, she forced herself to the perusal of the mis- sive. Dear Miss Spranger (it ran): Doubtless, you have heard from Cousin Julian (who, I un- derstand, writes frequently to you) that he has been called back suddenly to England to join his ship, and leaves Belize to-morrow, by the Carib Queen for New Orleans. But, as you also know, he is an ardent sports- man, and said he must have one or two days' ex- citement with the jaguars, so he left us yester- day morning early, in company with a rather vil- lainous servant of mine, named Paz, and, as I promised him I would do, I now send on his lug- gage to your father's house, where doubtless he will make his appearance in the course of the day. I wish, however, he could have been induced to stay a little longer with us, and I also wish he had not taken Paz, who is a bad character, and, I believe, does not like him. However, Ju is a big, powerful fellow, and can, of course, take care of himself. - "I WILL SAVE YOU." 321 With kind regards to Mr. Spranger and yourself, I am, always yours sincerely, Sebastian Ritherdon. Beatrix let the note fall into her lap and lie there for a moment, while in her clear eyes there was a look of intense thought as they stared fixedly at the thirsty, drooping flamboyants and almandas around her: then suddenly she started to her feet, standing erect and determi- nate, the letter crushed in her hand. "It is a lie," she said to herself, "a lie from beginning to end. Written to hoodwink me— to throw dust in my eyes—to—to—keep me quiet. 'Paz does not like him,' she went on, 'Paz does not like him.' No, Sebastian, it is you whom he does not like, and to use Jul—Mr. Ritherdon's own quaint expression—you have 'given yourself away.' Well! so be it. Only if you—you treacherous snake! have not killed him with the help of that other snake, that wom- an, your accomplice, we will outwit you yet." And she went forward swiftly beneath the shade of the trees to the house. 322 A BITTER HERITAGE. "Where is that man?" she asked of another servant, one of her own and as ebony as he who had brought the luggage and the letter; "send him to me at once." Then, when the messenger from Desolada stood before her, she said: "Tell Mr. Ritherdon you have delivered his letter, and that I have read and understand it. You remember those words?" The negro grinned and bowed and, perhaps to show his marvellous intelligence and memory, repeated the words twice, whereon Beatrix con- tinued: "That is well. Be sure not to forget the message. Now, have you brought in the lug- gage?" For answer the other glanced down the long, darkened, and consequently more or less cool hall, and she, following that glance, saw stand- ing at the end of it a cabin trunk with, upon it, a Gladstone bag as well as a rifle. Then, after asking the man if he had been provided with food and drink, she bade him begone. Yet, recognising that if, as she feared, if in- deed, as she felt sure beyond the shadow of a doubt, Julian Ritherdon was in some mortal peril 324 A BITTER HERITAGE. speculations as to why Sebastian Ritherdon's let- ter had been written-—the lying letter, as she had accurately described it—into the shade. A woman who would tell her that if murder had not yet been done in the remote and melancholy house, it was intended to be done, was brewing; would be done ere long, if Julian Ritherdon did not succumb to the injuries inflicted on him by Madame Carmaux. One who would give her such information that she would be justified in calling upon the authorities of Belize to instantly take steps to proceed to Desolada, and (then and there) to render Sebastian and his accomplice in- capable of further crimes. A woman—Zara—who almost from day- break had set out from the lonely hacienda with the determination of reaching Belize somehow and of warning Beatrix, the Englishman's friend, of the danger that threatened that Englishman; above all, and this the principal reason, with the determination of saving Sebastian from the com- mission of a crime which, once accomplished, could never be undone. Yet, also, in her schem- ing, half-Indian brain, there had arisen other thoughts, other hopes. "I WILL SAVE YOU." 325 "She loves him; this cold, pale-faced Eng- lish girl loves Sebastian," she thought, still cher- ishing that delusion as she made her way some- times along the dusty road, sometimes through copses and groves and thickets, all the paths of which she knew. "She loves him. But," and as this reflection rose in her mind her scarlet lips parted with a bitter smile, and her little pearl-like teeth glistened, " when she knows, when I show her how cruel, how wicked he has intended to be to that other man, so like him yet so different, then—then—ah! then, she will hate him." And again she smiled, even as she pursued her way. "She will hate him—these English can hate, though they know not what real love means— and then when he finds he has lost her, he will— perhaps—love me. Ah!" And at the thought of the love she longed so for, her eyes gleamed more softly, more starlike, in the dim dawn of the forest glade. "I shall save him—I shall save him from a crime—then—he—will—love me." And still the look upon her face was ecstatic. "Will marry me. My blood is Indian, not negro—'tis that alone with which these English will not mix 326 A BITTER HERITAGE. theirs; the negro women alone with whom they will never wed. Ah! Sebastian," she mur- mured, "I must save you from a crime and— from her." And so she went on and on, seeing the daffo- dil light of the coming day spreading itself all around; feeling the rays of the swift-rising sun striking through the forests, and parching everything with their fierceness, but heeding nothing of her surroundings. For she thought only of making the "cold, pale-faced English girl" despise the man whom she hungered for herself, and of one other thing—the means whereby to prevent him from doing that which might deprive him of his liberty—of his life— and—also, deprive her of him. 328 A BITTER HERITAGE. she could only pray in her half-savage way that there might be none about who would see her, while, even as she did so, she knew that her chances of escaping observation were of the smallest. In such broiling lands as those of which Honduras formed one, the earliest and the latest hours of the day are the hours which are the most utilized because of their comparative coolness and consequently few are asleep after sunrise. Yet, she told herself, perhaps after all it was not of extreme importance whether she was recognised or not. By to-night, if all went well, and if the pale-faced English girl and her father had any spirit in them, they would have taken some steps to prevent that which was meditated at Desolada on this very night. And, if they had not that spirit, then she herself would utter some warning, would herself see the " old judge man," and tell him her story. Perhaps he would listen to it and believe her even though she was but half-breed trash, as those of her race were termed contemptuously as often as not. But, now, as she drew nearer to the village street, and to where the inn stood, she started in 33Q A BITTER HERITAGE. the street until at last she was nearly in front of the inn door. Then, lithe and agile as a cat, she stole behind a great barn which stood facing the plaza, and so was enabled to watch the opposite house without any possibility of being herself seen from it. That something of an exciting nature had been taking place within the house (even as Zara had sought the shelter behind which she was now ensconced) she had been made aware by the loud voices and cries she heard—voices, too, that were familiar to her, as she thought. And about one of those voices she had no doubt—could have no doubt—since it was that of the man she loved, Sebastian. Then, presently, even as she watched the inn through a crack in the old and sun-baked barn- door, the turmoil increased; she heard a scuf- fling in the passage, more cries and shouts, Se- bastian's objurgations rising above all, and, a moment later, the girl saw the latter dragging Paz out into the open space in front of the inn. And he was shaking him as a mastiff might shake a rat that had had the misfortune to find itself in his jaws. "I LIVE—TO KILL HIM." 331 "You hound!" he cried, even as he did so; "you will lurk about Desolada, will you, at night; prying and peering everywhere, as though there were something to find out. And because you are reproved, you endeavour to run away to Belize. What for, you treacherous dog? What for? Answer me, I say," and again he shook the half-caste with one hand, while with the other he rained down blows upon his almost grey head. But, since the man was extremely lithe, in spite of his age, many of the blows missed their mark; while taking advantage of the twists and turns which he, eel-like, was making in his mas- ter's hands, he managed during one of them to wrench himself free from Sebastian. And then, then—Zara had to force her hands over her mouth to prevent herself from screaming out in terror. And she had to exercise supreme con- trol over herself also so that she should not rush forth from her hiding-place and spring at Paz. For, freed from his tyrant's clutches, he had darted back from him, and a second later, with a swift movement of his hand to his back, had drawn forth a long knife that glistened in the morning sun. r 22 332 A BITTER HERITAGE. What he said, what his wild words were, can- not be written down, since most of them were ut- tered in the Maya dialect; yet amid them were some that were well understood by Zara and Sebastian; perhaps also by the landlord of the inn and the two or three half-caste servants hud- dled near him, all of them giving signs of the most intense excitement and fear. And Zara, hearing those words, threw up her hands and covered her face, while Sebastian, his own face white as that of a corpse's in its shroud, stag- gered back trembling and shuddering. "You know," the latter whispered, "you know that! You know?" And his hand stole into his open shirt. Yet he drew nothing forth; he did not produce that which Zara dreaded each instant to see. In truth the man was paralyzed, partly by Paz's words—yet, doubtless, even more so by the look upon his face—and by his actions. For now Paz was creeping toward the other, even as the panther creeps through the jungle toward the victim it is about to spring upon; the knife clutched in his hand, upon his face a gleam of hate so hideous, a look in his topaz eyes so horrible, that Sebastian stood rooted to the 'I LIVE—TO KILL HIM." 333 ground. While from his white and foam-flecked lips, the man hissed: "Shoot. Shoot, curse you! but shoot straight. Into either my heart or head—for if you miss me!—if you miss me—" and he sprang full on the other, the knife raised aloft. Sprang at him as the wild cat springs at the hunter who has tracked it to the tree it has taken refuge in, and when it recognises that for it there is no further shelter—his face a very hell of savage rage and spite; his scintillating, sparkling eyes the eyes of an infuriated devil. And Sebastian, cowed—struck dumb with apprehension of such a foe—a thing half-human and half a savage beast—forgot to draw his re- volver from his breast and seemed mad with dis- may and terror. Yet he must do something, he knew, or that long glittering blade would be through and through him, with probably his throat cut from ear to ear the moment he was down. He must do something to defend, to save himself. Recognising this even in his mortal terror, he struck out blindly—whirling, too, his arms around in a manner that would have caused an 334 A BITTER HERITAGE. English boxer to roar with derision, had he not also been paralyzed with the horror of Paz's face and actions. He struck out blindly, therefore, not knowing what he was doing, and dreading every instant that he would feel the hot bite of the steel in his flesh, and—so—saved himself. For in one of those wild, uncalculated blows, his right fist alighted on Paz's jaw, and, because of his strength, which received accession from his maddened fury and fear, felled the half-caste to the earth, where he lay stunned and moaning; the deadly knife beneath him in the dust. For an instant Sebastian paused, his trem- bling and bleeding hand again seeking his breast, and his fury prompting him to pistol the man as he lay there before him. But he paused only for a moment, while as he did so, he reflected that if he slew the man who was at his mercy now it would be murder—and that murder done before witnesses—then turned away to where his horse stood, and, flinging himself into the saddle, rode off swiftly to Desolada. As he disappeared, Zara came forth from be- hind the door where she had been lurking, an ob- server of all that had taken place, and forgetting, "I LIVE—TO KILL HIM.1 335 or perhaps heedless, of whether she was now seen or not, ran toward Paz and lifted his head up in her arms. "Paz, Paz," she whispered in their own jar- gon. "Paz, has he killed you? Answer." From beneath her the man looked up bewil- dered still, and half-stunned by the blow; then, after a moment or so, he muttered, " No, no! I live—to—to kill him yet." And Zara hearing those words shuddered, for since they were both of the same half wild and savage blood, she knew that unless she could persuade him to forego his revenge, he would do just as he had said, even though he waited twenty years for its accom- plishment. "No," she said, " no. You must not. Not yet, at least, Paz, promise me you will not. I—I —you know—I love him. For my sake—mine, Paz, promise." "I do worse," said Paz, " I ruin him—drive him away. Zara, I know his secret—now." "What secret?" "Who he is. Ah!—" for Zara had clapped her little brown hand over his mouth, as though she feared he was going to shout out that secret 'I LIVE—TO KILL HIM." 337 There," and he glanced towards the stables. "Take him. He go fast." "I will take him," she replied, "but—but— promise me, Paz, that you will do nothing until I return. Nothing—no harm to him. Else I will not go." "I will promise," the man said, rising now to his feet, and staggering a little from his gid- diness. "I will promise—you. Yet, I look after him—I take care he do very little more harm now." "Keep him but from evil till to-night—till to- morrow, let him not hurt Mr. Ritherdon, then all will be well." And accompanied by Paz, she went toward the stable where his mule was. It took but little time for the girl to spring to its back, to ride it out at a sharp trot from the open plaza, and, having again extorted a promise from Paz, to be once more on her road toward Belize—she not heeding now the fierceness of the rays of the sun, which was by this time mounting high in the heavens. And so at last she drew near to " Floresta," which she knew well enough was Mr. Spranger's abode; near to where the other girl was causing 338 A BITTER HERITAGE. preparations to be made for reaching her father and telling him what she had learned through the arrival of the negro—she never dreaming of the further revelations that were so soon to be made to her. Revelations by the side of which the lying letter and the lying action of Sebastian in sending forward Julian's luggage would sink into insignificance. She sat on in her garden, waiting now for the groom to come and tell her that the buggy was ready—sat on amid all the drowsy noontide heat, and then, when once more the parrots rustled their feathers, and the monkey opened its mourn- ful eyes, she heard behind her a footstep on the r^rass; a footstep coming not from the house but behind her, from an entrance far down at the end of the tropical garden. And, looking around, she saw close to her the girl Zara, her face almost white now, and her clothes covered with dust. "What is it?" Beatrix cried, springing to her feet. "What brings you here? I know you, you are Zara; you come from Desolada." "Yes," the other answered, "I come from Desolada. From Desolada, where to-night murder will be done—if it is not prevented." CHAPTER XXIX. THE WATCHING FIGURE. With a gasp, Beatrix took a step toward the other, while as she did so the latter almost ut- tered a moan herself; though her agitation pro- ceeded 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 Sebas- tian 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 339 340 A BITTER HERITAGE. 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 pre- vented. 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 se- cret, 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 >* 342 A BITTER HERITAGE. stranger staying at Desolada: how, sometimes, she had slept on the upper veranda and some- times 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 re- turn 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 THE WATCHING FIGURE. 343 are, or to the sea where the white sharks are, or" "Come, comel" 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 approach- ing 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 pre- vented at all hazards from committing a horrible crime, and supposing in her ignorance that it was also the desire to prevent that man from THE WATCHING FIGURE. 345 gling 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 ac- company 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 accom- panied 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 de- signs 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 * 346 A BITTER HERITAGE. a warrant (although neither Beatrix nor Zara was aware that such was the case) for the arrest of both Sebastian Ritherdon and Madame Car- maux on a charge of attempted murder. And now as the little band passed All Pines, Zara, who rode close by Beatrix's side, whis- pered in the latter's ear that she was about to quit them; she knew, she said, by-paths 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 mysteri- ous 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 350 A BITTER HERITAGE. 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 fig- ure!" 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. 352 A BITTER HERITAGE. 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. Rither- don. And also, Madame Carmaux, his house- keeper, and the Englishman who has been stay- ing 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 whis- pered, " 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!" BEYOND PASSION'S BOUND. 353 "Come," said Zara—and Beatrix thought that as the other spoke now, her voice had changed. As, indeed it had. For (still think- ing that the English girl could have but one man in her thoughts, and he the one whom she her- self loved and hated alternately—the latter pas- sion 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 be- come choked. For Beatrix had forgotten in the excitement of the last few hours to unde- ceive the girl; had forgotten, indeed, the cross- purposes at which they had been that morn- ing 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— r BEYOND PASSION'S BOUND. 355 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, scorn- fully; "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, mad- dening passions which until now, or almost until now, had lain half-slumbering and dormant in that heart; they roused the bitterest, most sav- age 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 r 356 A BITTER HERITAGE. love, the love made known without words. Be- cause 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 lat- ter, dropped her right hand into the bosom of her dress, and touched something that lay with- in 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 so- journed 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 man- sion 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 BEYOND PASSION'S BOUND. 357 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 tempestu- ous 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 con- versation, of sentences rapidly exchanged. "You hear," hissed Zara in the other's ear— "you hear—and understand? 'Tis she—Car- maux. And, as ever, she lies. As her life has always been, so is her tongue now." Then Beatrix heard Madame Carmaux say- ing 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 358 A BITTER HERITAGE. 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 be- low; 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 BEYOND PASSION'S BOUND. 359 a mile out to sea and—then—sink him. Now go, but be ready." Whereon he turned to proceed along the pas- sage, 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 lan- tern 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 glis- tened. And, now, Sebastian was close to them, go- ing 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 360 A BITTER HERITAGE. 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 at- tempted 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 as- sist 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 BEYOND PASSION'S BOUND. 363 "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." 24 CHAPTER XXXI. "THE MAN I LOVE." Recovering her consciousness, Beatrix per- ceived that she was alone. Yet, dimmed though her senses were by the swoon in which she had lain, she was able to observe that some change had taken place in the corridor since she fell prostrate. Sebastian Ritherdon's body was gone now, but the little lamp which he had car- ried lay close to the spot where she had seen him fall, while near to it, and standing on the floor, was a candlestick. Within it was a candle, which showed to her startled eyes something which almost caused her to faint again; some- thing that formed a small pool upon the shiny, polished floor. And then as she saw the hateful thing, the recollection of all that had happened returned to her, as well as the recollection of other things. "He was going to the end of the passage," 364 "THE MAN I LOVE." 365 she said to herself as, rising, she drew her skirts closely about her so that they should not come into contact with that shining, hideous pool at her feet; "therefore, Julian must be there. Oh, to reach him, to help him to escape from this hor- rid, awful house!" Whereon, snatching up the candlestick from the floor, she proceeded swiftly to the end of the corridor; while, seeing that, far down it, there was one door open, she naturally directed her footsteps to that. Then, as she held the light above her head, she saw that on a bed there lay a man asleep, or in a swoon—or dead! A man whose eyes were closed and whose face was deadly white, yet who was beyond doubt Julian Ritherdon. "Oh, Julian!" she gasped, yet with suffi- cient restraint upon herself to prevent her voice from awaking him. "Oh, Julian! To find you at last, but to find you thus," and she took a step forward toward where the bed was, meaning to gaze down upon him and to discover if he was in truth alive or not. Yet she was constrained to stop and was stayed in her first attempt to cross the room, by the noise of swift footsteps behind her and by .■" 366 A BITTER HERITAGE. the entrance of Zara, whose wild beauty ap- peared now to have assumed an almost demonia- cal expression. For the girl's eyes gleamed as the eyes of those in a raging fever gleam; her features were working terribly, and her whole frame seemed shaken with emotion. "It is done!" she cried exultingly—there being a tone of almost maniacal derision in her voice. "It is done. In two hours he will be dead. And I have kept my word to you. You loved him, and you desired to see him. Well, you have seen him! Did you take," she almost screamed in her frenzy, "a long, last farewell? I hope so, since you will never take another," and in her fury of despair she thrust her face for- ward and almost into the other's. But, now, hers was not the only wild excite- ment in the room. For Beatrix, recognising to what an extreme the girl's jealousy had wrought her, and what terrible deed she had been guilty of, herself gave a slight scream as she heard the other's words, and then cried: "Madwoman! Fool! You are deceived. "THE MAN I LOVE." 367 You have deceived yourself. I never loved him. Nor thought of him. This man lying here, this man whom he would have murdered, is the one I love with all my heart; this is the man I came to save." Then as she spoke, Julian—who was now either awake or had emerged from the torpor in which he had been lying—cried from out of the darkness: "Beatrix, Beatrix, oh, my darling!" Whereon she, forgetting that in her excitement she had proclaimed her love, forgetting all else but that her lover was safe, rushed toward where he lay, uttering words of thankfulness and de- light at his safety. Yet, when a moment later they looked toward the place where Zara had been, they saw that she was gone. For, slight as was the glimmer from the candle, it served to show that she was no longer there; that in none of the deep shadows of the room was she lurking anywhere. She had, indeed, rushed from the room on hearing Beatrix's avowal, a prey to fresh excite- ment now, and to fresh horrors. "I have slain him in my folly," she muttered wildly to herself. "I have slain him. And— 368 A BITTER HERITAGE. and, at last, I might have won him. God help me!" Then she directed her footsteps toward where she knew Madame Carmaux was, toward where her ears told her that, below the balcony on which the woman stood, they were making prep- arations to break into the house. Already, she could hear the hammering and beating on the great door from without; and, so hearing, thought they must be using some tree or sapling wherewith to break it in. She recognised, too, the Commandant's voice, as he gave orders to one of his men to blow the lock off with his car- bine. But without pause, without stopping for one instant, she rushed into the room and out upon the balcony where, seizing Madame Carmaux by the arm, she cried: "Let them come in. It matters not. Se- bastian is dead, or will be dead ere long. I deemed him false to me, as in truth he was. I have sent him to his doom. The Indians have taken him away to drown him, thinking he is that other." Then from a second woman in that house "THE MAN I LOVE." 373 pered Julian in Mr. Spranger's ear. "How can that be accounted for? Can it be—is it possible —that in truth two children were born to him at the same time?" "No,".said Mr. Spranger. "No. If such had been the case, your uncle, the man you were brought up to believe in for years as your father, must have known of it." "Then," said Julian, "the mystery is as much unsolved as ever, and is likely to remain so. She," directing his own glance to Madame Car- maux, " will never tell—and—well, Heaven help him! Sebastian is probably dead by now." "In which case," said the other, always emi- nently practical, " you are the owner of Desolada all the same. If Sebastian was the rightful heir, and he is dead, you, as Mr. Ritherdon's nephew, come next." "Nevertheless," replied Julian, "I am not his nephew. I am his son. I feel it; am sure of it." But, even as he spoke, he noticed—had no- ticed indeed, already—that there was some stir in the direction where Madame Carmaux was. He had seen that, as he uttered the words 374 A BITTER HERITAGE. "Heaven help him! Sebastian is'probably dead by now," she had sprung to her feev, while uttering a piteous cry as she did so, and had stood scowling at Julian as though it was he who had sent the other to his doom. Then, too, he had seen that, in spite of the sergeant of police and one or two of his men having endeavoured to prevent her, she had brushed them on one side and was cross- ing the room to where he, with Mr. Spranger and Beatrix, stood. A moment later, she was before them; facing them. "You have said," she exclaimed, "that he is probably dead by now," and they saw that her face was white and drawn; that it was, indeed, ghastly. "But," she continued, "if he is not dead—if yet he should be saved, if the scheme of that devil incarnate, Zara, should have failed— will you—will you hold him harmless—if—if—I tell all? Will you hold him harmless! For my- self I care not, you may do with me what you will." "Yes," said Julian. . " Yes—if you will" "No," said the sergeant of police. "That is impossible. You cannot give such a promise. He has to answer to the law." • THE SHARK'S TOOTH REEF. 377 passage might be made, and the coast thereby reached at last. Zara knew also each of those passages well, and threaded them now with the confidence born of familiarity; with, too, the stern determination to arrive at the end she had sworn to attain, if such attainment were possible. She had left the room where Madame Car- maux had been confronted, not only by her but by all the others, in the manner described; had left it suddenly, though mysteriously, even as to her maddened brain a thought had sprung, dis- pelling for the moment all the agony and passion with which that brain was racked. The thought that, as she had sent the man she loved to his doom, so, also, it might not yet be too late to avert that doom—to save him. The Indians who were bearing him to the old ramshackle sailing-boat he possessed (a thing half yawl and half lugger—a thing, too, which she supposed those men had been instructed to pierce and bore so that it would begin to fill from the first, and should, thereby, sink by the time it was in deep water) must necessarily go slowly, owing to the burden they had to carry, - THE SHARK'S TOOTH REEF. 385 last; "to see him, to be able to tell him that though I sent him to his doom I loved him," while roused by the thought, she still struggled on, buffeted and beaten by the waves; breath- less, almost lifeless—but still unconquered and unconquerable. Suddenly she gave a gasp, a shriek. Close by her, rising up some twenty feet from the sea, there was a cone-shaped rock, jagged and ser- rated at its summit; black, too, and glistening as, in the rays of the fast rising young moon, the water streaming from off it. It was the Shark's Tooth Reef, so called because, from its long length of some fifty yards (a length also serrated and jagged like the under jaw of a dog), there rose that cone-shaped thing which resembled what it was named from. And again she shrieked as, looking beyond the base of the cone, peering through the hurt- ling waves and white filmy spume and spray, she saw upon the further edge of the base of the reef a black, indistinct mass being beaten to and fro. She heard, too, the grinding of that mass against the reef, as well as its thumps as it was flung on and dragged off it by the swirling of the sea; 386 A BITTER HERITAGE. she heard, how each time, the force of the im- pact became louder and more deadly. "To reach him at last," she cried, "to die with him! To die together." Then it seemed that into that quivering, nervous frame there came a giant's strength; it seemed as though the cords and sinews of her arms had become steel and iron, as though the little hands were vises in the power of their grip. "To die together," she thought again, as, with superhuman efforts, she forced her boat toward the battered, broken yawl. Now, she was close to it—now!—then, with a crash her own boat was dashed against the larger one, its bow crushed in, in a moment, its stem lifted into the air. But, catlike, desperate, too, fighting fate with the determination of de- spair, she had seized the top of the yawl's side; had clung to it one moment while the sea thun- dered and broke against her feet below, and had then drawn herself up onto the deck over the side. And he was there, lying half-in, half-out the little forecastle cuddy, bound and corded—in- sensible. CHAPTER XXXIII. MADAME CARMAUX TELLS ALL. Calmly—almost contemptuously—as though she were in truth mistress of Desolada and a woman who conferred honour upon those who followed her, instead of one who was in actual fact their prisoner, Madame Carmaux led the way to that parlour wherein she had promised to divulge all; to reveal the secret of how another man had usurped for so long the place and po- sition which rightfully belonged to Julian Rither- don. And they who followed her, observing how rigid, how masklike were the handsome fea- tures; how the soft, dark eyes gleamed now with a hard, determined look, knew that as she had said, so she would do; so she would perform. They recognised that she would not falter in her task, she deeming that what she divulged would tell in Sebastian's favour. 388 39° A BITTER HERITAGE. in. Let them hear, too. I care neither for what they may think of me, nor what testimony they may bear against me in the future. Call in whom you will." For a moment the two men before her looked into each other's faces; then Mr. Spranger said: •' Perhaps it would be as well to have another witness, especially as Mr. Ritherdon is the most interested person. My daughter is outside, if— if your story contains nothing she may not hear" "It contains nothing," Madame Carmaux answered, there being a tone of contempt in it which she did not endeavour to veil, "but the story of a crime, a fraud, worked out by a de- serted, heartbroken woman. Call her in." Then, summoned by Julian, Beatrix entered the room, and, taking a seat between her father and her lover, was an ear-witness to all that the other woman had to tell. For a moment it seemed as if Madame Car- maux scarce knew how to commence; for a few moments she stood before them, her eyes some- times cast down upon the floor, sometimes seek- ing theirs. Then, suddenly, she said: MADAME CARMAUX TELLS ALL. 395 'And if she does not know, then no one else can know,' he cried. 'While,' he said, 'if that unutterable villain, George, thinks to profit by this theft, I will thwart him. He may rob me of my child, he may murder the poor innocent babe —but he at least shall never be my heir,' and as he spoke his eyes fell on my child in my arms. 'Cover it up,' he whispered, ' show its face only, otherwise the clothes it wears will betray it. Cover it up.'" "If this is true, the crime was his," whispered Julian. "That crime was his," said Madame Car- maux, "the rest was mine. But—let me con- tinue. As Charles spoke, the nurse was at the door—a negro woman who died six months afterward—a moment later she was in the room. Yet not before I had had time to whisper a word in his ear, to say, ' If I do this, it is forever? If your child is never found, is mine to remain in its place? '—and with a glance he seemed to an- swer, ' Yes.' "None ever knew of that substitution, no living soul ever knew that the child growing up as his, its birth registered by him at Belize as his, 26 MADAME CARMAUX TELLS ALL. 397 "But when George Ritherdon's statement came, and with it the information that you were in existence, Charles determined to tell Sebastian everything. He would have done so, too, but that the illness he was suffering from took a fatal termination almost directly afterward—doubt- less from the shock of learning what he did. Yet it made no difference, for the day after his death Sebastian found the paper and so discovered all." "He knew then," said Julian—though as he spoke his voice was not harsh, he recognising how cruel had been this woman's lot from the first, and how doubly cruel must have been the blow which fell on her when, after twenty- five years of possession, the son whom she had loved so, and had schemed so for, was about to be dispossessed—" he knew then who I was when we first met, and—and—God forgive him! —from that moment commenced to plot my death." "No!" cried Madame Carmaux. "No! Have I not said that he was innocent? It was I —I—who plotted—alas! he was my son. Will not a mother do all for her only child? It was I who changed the horses in their stalls, putting r 398 A BITTER HERITAGE. his, which none but he could ride in safety, in place of the sure-footed one he had destined for you; it was I—God help and pardon me! who put the coral snake in your bed—I—I—who did the rest you know of." "And did you, too, procure the Indians who were to take me out to sea and drown me?" asked Julian with a doubtful glance at her. "Surely not. There was a man's hand in that. And it was Sebastian who was advancing along the passage when Zara's knife struck him down." "By instigation I did it," Madame Carmaux cried, determined to the last to shield the son she still hoped to meet again in this world—" the suggestion, the plot was mine alone. While be- cause he was weak, because from the first he has ever yielded to me, he yielded now. Spare him!" she■ cried, and flung herself upon her knees before that listening trio, her calmness, her contemptuousness, vanished now. "Spare him, and do with me what you will." So the story was told, so the discovery of all was made at last. Julian knew now upon how simple a thing—the fact of Madame Carmaux having taken that strange determination to go 402 A BITTER HERITAGE. same remark about twenty times daily. While, since, loving and gentle as she was, she was also possessed of a considerable amount of feminine perspicacity, she supposed that he reiterated the phrase upon the principle that the constant drop of water which falls upon a stone will at last wear it away. "Though," the girl would say to herself in those soft hours of maiden meditation, " he need not fear He cannot but think that his longing is also shared by me." Aloud, however, when once more he repeated what had become almost a set phrase, she said: "You know that you have taken an unfair advantage of me. Indeed, though it was only by chance, you have put me to terrible mortifi- cation. You overheard my avowal to that un- happy girl, my avowal that—that—I loved you." And Beatrix blushed most beautifully as she soft- . ly uttered the words. "Think what an avowal it was. To be made by a woman for a man who had never asked for her love." "Had he not," Julian said, "had he not, Beatrix? Never asked for that love on one happy day spent alone by that woman's side, CONTENTMENT. 409 course, were here clad in their "whites" and straw hats. But, because rumour ever runneth swift of foot, even in so small a colony as this—where, naturally, its feet have not so much ground to cover—and in so small a capital as Belize, with its six thousand inhabitants, the church was also filled with many others drawn from the various races, mixed and pure, who dwell therein. For, by now, there was scarcely a person in either the colony or capital to whose ears there had not come the news that the handsome young officer who was in a few moments to become the hus- band of Miss Spranger, was, in truth, the right- ful owner of Desolada. Likewise, all knew that Sebastian had never been that owner, but that he was the son of Carmaux, who had perished by the fangs of the tommy-gofr, and of the dark, mysterious beauty who had come among them as Miriam Gardelle and had married him. And they knew, too, that this marriage was to be the reward and crown of dangers run by Julian, of more than one attempt upon his life, as well as that it was the outcome of a deep fraud perpe- trated and kept dark for many years. 6\. *… -- | \ ** «* * · * , ſ. -- -