Part 72 (1/2)

'You can talk at your ease here,' said Montesma, facing the two men with a diabolical recklessness and insolence of manner. 'Not one of these fellows on board knows a dozen sentences of English.'

'I would rather talk below, if it is all the same to you, Senor; and I should be glad to speak to Lady Lesbia alone.'

'That you shall not do unless she desires it,' answered Montesma.

'No, he shall hear all that you have to say. He shall hear how I answer you,' said Lesbia.

Lord Hartfield shrugged his shoulders.

'As you please,' he said. 'It will make the disclosure a little more painful than it need have been; but that cannot be helped.'

CHAPTER XLIV.

'OH, SAD KISSED MOUTH, HOW SORROWFUL IT IS!'

They all went down to the saloon, where Lady Kirkbank sat, looking the image of despair, which changed to delighted surprise at sight of Lord Hartfield and his friend.

'Did you give your consent to my sister's elopement with this man, Lady Kirkbank?' Maulevrier asked, brusquely.

'I give my consent! Good gracious! no. He has eloped with me ever so much more than with your sister. She knew all about it, I've no doubt: but the wretch ran away with me in my sleep.'

'I am glad, for your own self-respect, that you had no hand in this disgraceful business,' replied Maulevrier; and then turning to Lord Hartfield, he said, 'Hartfield, will you tell my sister who and what this man is? Will you make her understand what kind of pitfall she has escaped? Upon my soul, I cannot speak of it.'

'I recognise no right of Lord Hartfield's to interfere with my actions, and I will hear nothing that he may have to say,' said Lesbia, standing by her lover's side, with head erect and eyes dark with anger.

'Your sister's husband has the strongest right to control your actions, Lady Lesbia, when the family honour is at stake,' answered Hartfield, with grave authority. 'Accept me at least as a member of your family, if you will not accept me as your disinterested and devoted friend.'

'Friend!' echoed Lesbia, scornfully. 'You might have been my friend once. Your friends.h.i.+p then would have been of some value to me, if you had told me the truth, instead of approaching me with a lie upon your lips. You talk of honour, Lord Hartfield; you, who came to my grandmother's house as an impostor, under a false name!'

'I went there as a man standing on his own merits, a.s.suming no rank save that which G.o.d gave him among his fellow-men, claiming to be possessed of no fortune except intellect and industry. If I could not win a wife with such credentials, it were better for me never to marry at all, Lady Lesbia. But we have no time to speak of the past. I am here as your brother's friend, here to save you.'

'To part me from the man to whom I have given my heart. That you cannot do. Gomez, why do you not speak? Tell him, tell him!' cried Lesbia, with a voice strangled by sobs; 'tell him that I am to be your wife to-morrow, at Havre. Your wife!'

'Dear Lady Lesbia, that cannot be,' said Lord Hartfield, sorrowfully, pitying her in her helplessness, as he might have pitied a young bird in the fowler's net. 'I am a.s.sured upon undeniable authority that Senor Montesma has a wife living at Cuba; and even were this not so--were he free to marry you--his character and antecedents would for ever forbid such a marriage.'

'A wife! No, no, no!' shrieked Lesbia, looking wildly from one to the other. 'It is a lie--a lie, invented by my brother, who always hated me--by you, who fooled and deceived me! It is a lie, an infamous invention! Don Gomez, speak to them: for pity's sake answer them! Don't you see that they are driving me mad?'

She flung herself into his arms, she buried her dishevelled head upon his breast; she clung to him with hands that writhed convulsively in her agony.

Maulevrier sprang across the cabin and wrenched her from her lover's grasp.

'You shall not pollute her with your touch,' he cried; 'you have poisoned her mind already. Scoundrel, seducer, slave-dealer! Do you hear, Lesbia? Shall I tell you what this man is--what trade he followed yonder, on his native island--this Spanish hidalgo--this all-accomplished gentleman--lineal descendant of the Cid--fine flower of Andalusian chivalry? It was not enough for him to cheat at cards, to float bubble companies, bogus lotteries. His profligate extravagance, his love of sybarite luxury, required a larger resource than the petty schemes which enrich smaller men. A slave s.h.i.+p, which could earn nearly twenty thousand pounds on every voyage, and which could make two runs in a year--that was the trade for Don Gomez de Montesma, and he carried it on merrily for six or seven years, till the British cruisers got too keen for him, and the good old game was played out. You see that scar upon the hilalgo's forehead, Lesbia--a token of knightly prowess, you think, perhaps. No, my girl, that is the mark of an English cutla.s.s in a scuffle on board a slaver. A merry trade, Lesbia--the living cargo stowed close under hatches have rather a bad time of it now and then--short rations of food and water, yellow Jack. They die like rotten sheep sometimes--bad then for the dealer. But if he can land the bulk of his human wares safe and sound the profits are enormous. The Captain-General takes his capitation fee, the blackies are drafted off to the sugar plantations, and everybody is satisfied; but I think, Lesbia, that your British prejudices would go against marriage with a slave-trader, were he ever so free to make you his wife, which this particular dealer in blackamoors is not.'

'Is this true, this part of their vile story?' demanded Lesbia, looking at her lover, who stood apart from them all now, his arms folded, his face deadly pale, the lower lip quivering under the grinding of his strong white teeth.

'There is some truth in it,' he answered, hoa.r.s.ely. 'Everybody in Cuba had a finger in the African trade, before your British philanthropy spoiled it. Mr. Smithson made sixty thousand pounds in that line. It was the foundation of his fortune. And yet he had his misfortunes in running his cargo--a s.h.i.+p burnt, a freight roasted alive. There are some very black stories in Cuba against poor Smithson. He will never go there again.'

'Mr. Smithson may be a scoundrel; indeed, I believe he is a pretty bad specimen in that line,' said Lord Hartfield. 'But I doubt if there is any story that can be told of him quite so bad as the history of your marriage, and the events that went before it. I have been told the story of the beautiful Octoroon, who loved and trusted you, who shared your good and evil fortunes for the most desperate years of your life, was almost accepted as your wife, and whose strangled corpse was found in the harbour while the bells were ringing for your marriage with a rich planter's heiress--the lady who, no doubt, now patiently awaits your return to her native island.'