Part 72 (2/2)

'She will wait a long time,' said Montesma, 'or fare ill if I go back to her. Lesbia, his lords.h.i.+p's story of the Octoroon is a fable--an invention of my Cuban enemies, who hate us old Spaniards with a poisonous hatred. But this much is true. I am a married man--bound, fettered by a tie which I abhor. Our Havre marriage would have been bigamy on my part, a delusion on yours. I could not have taken you to Cuba. I had planned our life in a fairer, more civilised world. I am rich enough to have surrounded you with all that makes life worth living. I would have given you love as true and as deep as ever man gave to woman. All that would have been wanting would have been the legality of the tie: and as law never yet made a marriage happy which lacked the elements of bliss, our lawless union need not have missed happiness.

Lesbia, you said that you would hold by me, come what might. The worst has come, love; but it leaves me not the less your true lover.'

She looked at him with wild despairing eyes, and then, with a hoa.r.s.e strange cry, rushed from the cabin, and up the companion, with a desperate swiftness which seemed like the flight of a bird. Montesma, Hartfield, Maulevrier, all followed her, heedless of everything except the dire necessity of arresting her flight. Each in his own mind had divined her purpose.

They were not too late. It was Hartfield's strong arm that caught her, held her as in a vice, dragged her away from the edge of the deck, just where there was a s.p.a.ce open to the waves. Another instant and she would have flung herself overboard. She fell back into Lord Hartfield's arms, with a wild choking cry: 'Let me go! Let me go!' Another moment, and a flood of crimson stained his s.h.i.+rt-front, as she lay upon his breast, with closed eyelids and blood-bedabbled lips, in blessed unconsciousness.

They carried her on to the steam-yacht, and down to the cabin, where there was ample accommodation and some luxury, although not the elegance of Bond Street upholstery. Rilboche, Lady Kirkbank, Kibble, luggage of all kinds were transferred from one yacht to the other, even to the vellum bound Keats which lay face downwards on the deck, just where Lesbia had flung it when the _Cayman_ was boarded. The crew of the steam-yacht _Philomel_ helped in the transfer: there were plenty of hands, and the work was done quickly; while the Meztizoes, Yucatekes, Caribs, or whatever they were, looked on and grinned; and while Montesma stood leaning against the mast, with folded arms and sombre brow, a cigarette between his lips.

When the women and all their belongings were on board the _Philomel_, Lord Hartfield addressed himself to Montesma.

'If you consider yourself ent.i.tled to call me to account for this evening's work you know where to find me,' he said.

Montesma shrugged his shoulders, and threw away his cigarette with a contemptuous gesture.

_'Ce n'est pas la peine,'_ he said; 'I am a dead shot, and should be pretty sure to send a bullet through you if you gave me the chance; but I should not be any nearer winning her if I killed you: and it is she and she only that I want. You may think me an adventurer--swindler--gambler--slave-dealer--what you will--but I love her as I never thought to love a woman, and I should have been true as steel, if she had been plucky enough to trust me. But, as I told her an hour ago, women have not lion hearts. They can talk tall while the sky is clear and the sun s.h.i.+nes, but at the first crack of thunder--_va te promener_.'

'If you have killed her--' began Hartfield.

'Killed her! No. Some small bloodvessel burst in the agitation of that terrible scene. She will be well in a week, and she will forget me. But I shall not forget her. She is the one flower that has sprung on the barren plain of my life. She was my Picciola.'

He turned his back on Lord Hartfield and walked to the other end of the deck. Something in his face, in the vibration of his deep voice, convinced Hartfield of his truth. A bad man undoubtedly--steeped to the lips in evil--and yet so far true that he had pa.s.sionately, deeply, devotedly loved this one woman.

It was the dead of night when Lesbia recovered consciousness, and even then she lay silent, taking no heed of those around her, in a state of utter prostration. Kibble nursed her carefully, tenderly, all through the night; Maulevrier hardly left the cabin, and Lady Kirkbank, always more or less a victim to the agonies of sea-sickness, still found time to utter lamentations and wailings over the ruin of her protegee's fortune.

'Never had a girl such a chance,' she moaned. 'Quite the best match in society. The house in Park Lane alone cost a fortune. Her diamonds would have been the finest in London.'

'They would have been stained with the blood of the n.i.g.g.e.rs he traded in out yonder,' answered Maulevrier. 'Do you think I would have let my sister marry a slave-dealer?'

'I don't believe a syllable of it,' protested Lady Kirkbank, dabbing her brow with a handkerchief steeped in eau de Cologne. 'A vile fabrication of Montesma's, who wanted to blacken poor Smithson's character in order to extenuate his own crimes.'

'Well, we won't go into that question,' said Maulevrier wearily. 'The Smithson match is off, anyhow; and it matters very little to us whether he made most money out of n.i.g.g.e.rs or bubble companies, or lotteries or gaming h.e.l.ls.'

'I am convinced that Smithson made his fortune in a thoroughly gentlemanlike manner,' argued Lady Kirkbank. 'Look at the people who visit him, and the houses he goes to. And I don't see why the match need be off. I'm sure, if Lesbia plays her cards properly, he will look over this--this--little escapade.'

Maulevrier contemplated the worldly old face with infinite scorn.

'Does she look like a girl who will play her cards in your fas.h.i.+on?' he asked, pointing to his sister, whose white face upon the pillow seemed like a mask cut out of marble. 'Upon my soul, Lady Kirkbank, I consider my sister's elopement with this Spanish adventurer, with whom she was over head and ears in love, a far more respectable act than her engagement to Smithson, for whom she cared not a straw.'

'Well, I hope if you so approve of her conduct you will help her to pay her dressmaker, and the rest of them,' retorted Lady Kirkbank. 'She has been plunging rather deeply, I believe, under the impression that Smithson would pay all her bills when she was married. Your grandmother may not quite like the budget.'

'I will do all I can for her,' answered Maulevrier. 'I would do a great deal to save her from the degradation to which your teaching has brought her.'

Lady Kirkbank looked at him for a moment or so with reproachful eyes, and then shrugged her shoulders contemptuously.

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