CHAPTER XXV.

A DÉNOUEMENT.

By the same way that they had descended they now mounted to the floor above. Only, it was not Julian's intention to re-enter his room in the same manner he had left it; namely, by the door opening out of the corridor. To do that would be useless, unavailing. If the woman whom he suspected was in that room now, the first sound of his footstep outside, be it never so light, would serve to put her on the alert, to cause her to flee out on to the balcony and away round the whole length of it, and, thereby, with her knowledge of all the entrances and exits of the house, to evade him.

That, he reflected, would not do. If she escaped him now, then the determination he had arrived at, to this night bring matters to a climax, would be thwarted. Some other way must be found.

"Take me on to the veranda," he whispered to Paz; "to where I shall be outside the room I occupy. This time I will be the watcher gazing in, not the person who is watched."

"I take you," Paz said. "I show you. Same way I get there last night."

"Last night! So! That was you outside, lying low down? It was you?"

But Paz only gave him now that look which he had given before, while he seemed at the same time to be struggling with that bleating laugh of his--the laugh which would surely have betrayed his presence.

"Come," he said, "I put you in big room of all. Old man Ritherdon call it guest room. Sebastian born there."

"Was he?" Julian asked in a whisper, "was he? Was he born there?"

"He born there. Come."

So, doubtless, the half-caste believed--since who in all Honduras disputed it! Who--except Julian himself, and, perhaps, the woman he loved; perhaps, too, her father.

Yet, the information that he was now being led to the room in which he felt sure that it was he who had been born and not the other, filled him with a kind of mystic, weird feeling as they crept along side by side towards it. For the first time since he had come to Desolada, he was about to visit the spot in which he had been given birth--the spot in which his mother had died; the spot wherein he had been stolen from that dying mother's side by his uncle.

Thinking thus, as they approached the door, he wondered, too, if by his presence in that room any inspiration would come to him as to how this other man had been made to supersede him, to appear as himself in the eyes of the little world in which he moved and lived. A man received as being what he was not, without question and with his claim undisputed.

"Go in," Paz whispered now, as he turned the handle. "Go in. From the window you see all that pass--if anything pass. Or you easy get on balcony. Your room there to right, hers there to left. If she go from one to other--then--you surely see."

"You will not accompany me?" Julian asked, wondering for the moment if there was treachery lurking in the man's determination to leave him at so critical a time; wondering, too, if, after all, he was about to warn the woman whom he, Julian, now sought to entrap in some nefarious midnight proceeding, of her danger. Yet, he argued with himself, that must be impossible. If he intended to do that, would he have divulged how Zara had changed one dish of food for another, so that he who set the trap had himself been caught in it; would he have given him so real a sign as to what use the phial had been put to as by placing it, empty, in his hands?

And, even though now Paz should meditate treachery--as, in truth, he did not believe he meditated it--still he cared nothing. What he had resolved to do he would do. What he had begun he would go on with. Now--at once--this very night!

"No. No," Paz said, in answer to his question. "No. I come not with you. I live not here but in plantation mile away. If I found here--he--he--try kill me. But you he will not kill. You big, strong, brave. And," the man continued in a whisper that was in truth a hiss, "it is you who must kill. Kill! Kill! Remember the snake in bed, the shot in wood, the mountain mullet, the Amancay. Now, I go. This is the room."

Then almost imperceptibly he was gone, his form disappearing like a black blur on the still darker, denser blackness of the corridor.

Without hesitation, Julian softly turned the handle and entered the room that gave egress to the balcony which he wished to gain. And although it was as dark as night itself, there was a something, a feeling of space, quite perceptible to his highly-strung senses, which told him that it was a vast chamber--a room suitable for the birth of the son and heir of the great house and its belongings.

"Strange," he thought to himself, "that thus I should revisit the place in which I first saw the light--that I, who in the darkness was spirited away, should, in the darkness, return to it."

Yet, black, impenetrable as all around was, there was an inferior density of darkness at the other end of the great room, away where the window was; and towards that he directed his footsteps, knowing that there, between the laths of the persianas which it possessed in common with every other room in the house, would be his opportunity. There was the coign of vantage through which he could keep watch and make observations.

"For," he thought, "if I see her going from her room to mine I shall know enough, as also I shall do if I see her returning from mine to hers. While, if she does neither, then it will be easy enough to discover whether she has been to that room or is in it still."

He was close by the window now, having felt his way carefully to it; he proceeded slowly so as to stumble against no obstacle nor make any noise; and then he knew that, should any form, however shrouded, pass before this window he could not fail to observe it. It was not so dark outside as to prevent that; also the gleam of the stars was considerable. And as Paz had done outside on the balcony last night, so he did now inside the room. He lowered himself noiselessly to the floor, kneeling on the soft carpet which this, the principal bedchamber possessed, while through a slat a foot from the ground, which he turned gently with his finger, he gazed out.

At first nothing occurred. All was as still, as silent as death; save for sometimes the bark of a distant dog, the chatter of an aroused bird in the palms near by, and the occasional midnight howl of a baboon farther away.

Wonderfully still it was; so undisturbed, indeed, except for those sounds, that almost a breath of air might have been heard.

Then, after half an hour, he heard a noise. The noise being a gentle one, but still perceptible, of the rattle of the persianas belonging to some window a little distance off. And to the left of him. Surely to the left of him!

"She is coming," he thought, holding his breath. "Coming. On her way to my room. To do what? What?"

But now the silence was again intense. Upon the boards of the veranda he could hear no footfall--Nothing. Not even the creak of one of the planks. Nothing! What had she done? What was she doing? Almost he thought that he could guess. Could divine how she--this woman of mystery, this midnight visitor who had crouched near his bed some twenty-four hours ago, who had stolen forth from his room into the storm as a thwarted murderess might have stolen--having now reached the veranda, was pausing to make sure that all was safe; to make sure that there was nothing to thwart her; to disturb her in the doing of that--whatever it might be--which she meditated.

Then there did fall a sound upon his ears, yet one which he only heard because it was close to him; because also all was so still. The sound of an indrawn breath, gentle as the sigh given in its sleep by a little child, yet issuing from a breast that had long been a stranger to the innocence of childhood. An indrawn breath, that was in truth--that must be--the effect of a supreme nervousness, of fear.

"Who is she?" he wondered to himself, while still--his own breath held--he watched and listened. "What is she to him? She is twice his age. Surely this is not the love of the hot, passionate Southern woman! What can she be to him that thus she jeopardizes her life? In my place many men would shoot her dead who caught her as--as--I--shall catch her--ere long."

For he knew now (as he could not doubt!) that no step was to be omitted which should remove him from Desolada, from existence.

"Sebastian and she both know that he fills my place. Well--to-night we come to an understanding. To-night I tell them that I know it too."

While he thus meditated, from far down at the front of the house there once more arose the trolling of a song in Sebastian's deep bass tones. A noisy song; a drinking, carousing song; one that should have had for its accompaniment the banging of drums and the braying of trombones.

"Bah!" muttered Julian to himself, "you are too late, vagabond! Shout and bellow as much as you choose--hoping thereby to drown all other sounds, such as those of stealthy feet and rattling window blinds, or to throw dust in my eyes. Shout as much as you like. She is here on her evil errand--a moment later she will be in my hands."

In truth it seemed to be so. Past where his eyes were, there went now, as that boisterous song uprose, a black substance which obscured the great gleaming stars from them--the lower part of a woman's gown. Amid the turmoil that proceeded from below, she was creeping on towards her goal.

Julian could scarcely restrain himself now--now that she had passed onward: almost was he constrained to thrust aside the blinds of this great window and spring out upon the woman. But he knew it was not yet the time, though it was at hand. She must be outside the window of his own room by now. The time was near.

Therefore, taking care that neither should his knees crack nor any other sound whatever be made by him, he rose to his feet. Then, he put his hand to the side of the laths to be ready to thrust them aside and follow her. But, perhaps, because that hand was not as steady as it should have been, those laths rattled the slightest. Had she heard? No! He knew that could not be, since now he heard the rattling of others--of those belonging to his own room. Those would drown the lesser noise that he had made--those----

He paused in his reflections, amazed. Down where his room was to the right he heard a sound greater than any which could be caused by the gentle pushing aside of a Venetian blind--he heard a smothered cry, and also something that resembled a person stumbling forward, falling!

Then in a moment he recollected. He knew what had happened. He had forgotten to remove the cord he had stretched across the window at midday ere he slept. He had left it there, and she had fallen forward over it.

In a moment he was, himself, on the veranda and outside the window of his own darkened room. In another he was in that room, had struck a match, and saw her--shrouded, hooded to the eyes--over by the door opening on to the corridor and endeavouring to unfasten it. He noticed, too, that one arm, above the wrist, was bandaged. But she was too late. He had caught her now.

"So," he said, "I know who my visitor is at last, Madame Carmaux. And I think I know your object here. Have you not dropped another phial in your fall and broken it? The room is full of the hateful odour of the Amancay poison."

She made him no answer, so that he felt sure she was determined not to let him hear her voice, but he felt that she was trembling all over, even as she writhed in his grasp, endeavouring to avoid it. Then, knowing that words were unnecessary, he opened the door into the corridor and bade her go forth.

"You know this house well and can find your way easily in the dark. Meanwhile, I am now going to descend to have an explanation with the master of Desolada."