Part 44 (1/2)
”By all that's holy,” I cried, ”I shall force him to come out and fight fair--and kill him as an English gentleman may.”
”Not that! Not that!” she interrupted me. She did not mean me to do that. It was what she feared. It would be delivering myself into that man's hands. Did I think what that meant? It would be delivering her, too, into that man's power. She would not survive it. And if I desired her to live on, I must keep out of O'Brien's clutches.
”In my thoughts I have bound my life to yours, Juan, so fast that the stroke which cuts yours, cuts mine, too. No death can separate us.”
”No,” I said.
And she took my head in her hands, and looked into my eyes.
”No more mourning,” she whispered rapidly. ”No more. I am too young to have a lover's grave in my life--and too proud to submit....”
”Never,” I protested ardently. ”That couldn't be.”
”Therefore look to it, Juan, that you do not sacrifice your life which is mine, either to your love--or--or--to revenge.” She bowed her head; the falling hair concealed her face. ”For it would be in vain.”
”The cloak is perfectly dry now, Senorita,” said Castro, reclining on his elbow on the edge of the darkness.
We two stepped out towards the entrance, leaving her on her knees, in silent prayer, with her hands clasped on her forehead, and leaning against the rugged wall of rock. Outside, the earth, enveloped in fire and uproar, seemed to have been given over to the fury of a devil.
Yes. She was right. O'Brien was a formidable and deadly enemy. I wished ourselves on board the _Lion_ chaperoned by Mrs. Williams, and in the middle of the Atlantic. Nothing could make us really safe from his hatred but the vastness of the ocean. Meantime we had a shelter, for that night, at least, in this cavern that seemed big enough to contain, in its black gloom of a burial vault, all the dust and pa.s.sions and hates of a nation....
Afterwards Castro and I sat murmuring by the diminished fire. He had much to say about the history of this cave. There was a tradition that the ancient buccaneers had held their revels in it. The stone on which the senorita had been sitting was supposed to have been the throne of their chief. A ferocious band they were, without the fear of G.o.d or devil--mostly English. The Rio Medio picaroons had used this cavern, occasionally, up to a year or so ago. But there were always ugly affairs with the people on the estate--the _vaqueros_. In his younger days Don Balthasar, having whole leagues of gra.s.s land here, had introduced a herd of cattle; then, as the Africans are useless for that work, he had ordered some peons from Mexico to be brought over with their families--ignorant men, who hardly knew how to make the sign of the cross. The quarrels had been about the cattle, which the _Lugarenos_ killed for meat. The peons rode over them, and there were many wounds on both sides. Then, the last time a Rio Medio schooner was lying here (after looting a s.h.i.+p outside), there was some gambling going on (they played round this very stone), and Manuel--(_Si, Senor_, this same Manuel the singer--_Bestia!_)--in a dispute over the stakes, killed a peon, striking him unexpectedly with a knife in the throat. No vengeance was taken for this, because the _Lugarenos_ sailed away at once; but the widow made a great noise, and some rumours came to the ears of Don Balthasar himself--for he, Castro, had been honoured with a mission to visit the estate. That was even the first occasion of Manuel's hate for him--Castro. And, as usual, the Intendente after all settled the matter as he liked, and nothing was done to Manuel. Don Balthasar was old, and, besides, too great a n.o.ble to be troubled with the doings of such vermin.... And Castro began to yawn.
At daybreak--he explained--he would start for the _hacienda_ early, and return with mules for Seraphina and myself. The buildings of the estate were nearly three leagues away. All this tract of the country on the side of the sea was very deserted, the sugar-cane fields worked by the slaves lying inland, beyond the habitations. Here, near the coast, there were only the herds of cattle ranging the _savannas_ and the peons looking after them, but even they sometimes did not come in sight of the sea for weeks together. He had no fear of being seen by anybody on his journey; we, also, could start without fear in daylight, as soon as he brought the mules. For the rest, he would make proper arrangements for secrecy with the husband of Seraphina's nurse--Enrico, he called him: a silent Galician; a graybeard worthy of confidence.
One of his first cares had been to grub out of his soaked clothes a handful of tobacco, and now he turned over the little drying heap critically. He hunted up a fragment of maize leaf somewhere upon his bosom. His face brightened. ”_Bueno_,” he muttered, very pleased.
”Senor--good-night,” he said, more humanized than I had supposed possible; or was it only that I was getting to know him better? ”And thanks. There's that in life which even an old tired man.... Here I, Castro... old and sad, Senor. Yes, Senor--nothing of mine in all the world--and yet.... But what a death! Ouch! the brute water... _Caramba!_ Altogether improper for a man who has escaped from a great many battles and the winter of Russia.... The snow, Senor....”
He drowsed, garrulous, with the blackened end of his cigarette hanging from his lower lip, swayed sideways--and let himself go over gently, pillowing his head on the stump of his arm. The thin, viperish blade, stuck upwards from under his temple, gleamed red before the sinking fire.
I raised a handful of flaring twigs to look at Sera-phina. A terrible night raged over the land; the inner arch of the opening growled, winking bluishly time after time, and, like an enchanted princess enveloped in a beggar's cloak, she was lying profoundly asleep in the heart of her dominions.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The first thing I noted, on opening my eyes, was that Castro had gone already; I was annoyed. He might have called me. However, we had arranged everything the evening before. The broad day, penetrating through the pa.s.sage, diffused a semicircle of twilight over the flooring. It extended as far as the emplacement of the fire, black and cold now with a gray heap of ashes in the middle. Farther away in the darkness, beyond the reach of light, Seraphina on her bed of leaves did not stir. But what was that hat doing there? Castro's hat. It a.s.serted its existence more than it ever did on the head of its master; black and rusty, like a battered cone of iron, reposing on a wide f.l.a.n.g.e near the ashes. Then he was not gone. He would not start to walk three leagues, bare-headed. He would appear presently; and I waited, vexed at the loss of time. But he did not appear. ”Castro,” I cried in an undertone. The leaves rustled; Seraphina sat up.
We were pleased to be with each other in an inexpugnable retreat, to hear our voices untinged by anxiety; and, going to the outer end of the short pa.s.sage, we breathed with joy the pure air. The tops of the bushes below glittered with drops of rain, the sky was clear, and the sun, to us invisible, struck full upon the face of the rock on the other side of the ravine. A great bird soared, all was light and silence, and we forgot Castro for a time. I threw my legs over the sill, and sitting on the stone surveyed the cornice. The bright day robbed the ravine of half its horrors. The path was rather broad, though there was a frightful sheer drop of ninety feet at least. Two men could have walked abreast on that ledge, and with a hand-rail one would have thought nothing of it.
The most dangerous part yet was at the entrance, where it ended in a rounded projection not quite so wide as the rest. I bantered Seraphina as to going out. She said she was ready. She would shut her eyes, and take hold of my hand. Englishmen, she had heard, were good at climbing.
Their heads were steady. Then we became silent. There were no signs of Castro. Where could he have gone? What could he be doing? It was unimaginable.
I grew nervous with anxiety at last, and begged Seraphina to go in.
She obeyed without a word, and I remained just within the entrance, watching. I had no means to tell the time, but it seemed to me that an hour or two pa.s.sed. Hadn't we better, I thought, start at once on foot for the _hacienda?_ I did not know the way, but by descending the ravine again to the sea, and walking along the bank of the little river, I was sure to reach it. The objection to this was that we should miss Castro.
Hang Castro! And yet there was something mysterious and threatening in his absence. Could he--could he have stepped out for some reason in the dark, perhaps, and tumbled off the cornice? I had seen no traces of a slip--there would be none on the rock; the twigs of the growth below the edge would spring back, of course. But why should he fall? The footing was good--however, a sudden attack of vertigo.... I tried to look at it from every side. He was not a somnambulist, as far as I knew. And there was nothing to eat--I felt hungry already--or drink. The want of water would drive us out very soon to the spring bubbling out at the head of the ravine, a mile in the open. Then why not go at once, drink, and return to our lair as quickly as possible?
But I did not like to think of her going up and down the cornice. I remembered that we had a flask, and went in hastily to look for it.
First, I looked near the hat; then, Seraphina and I, bent double with our eyes on the ground examined every square inch of twilight; we even wandered a long way into the darkness, feeling about with our hands.
It was useless! I called out to her, and then we desisted, and coming together, wondered what might have become of the thing. He had taken it--that was clear.