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 without any letter coming from him. And then--then--while the girl had become almost maddened, almost distraught with nervous agitation and forebodings as to some terrible calamity having 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 herself as, beneath the shade of the great palms, she sat musing; "what! what! Oh! if father would only counsel me; yet, instead, he reiterates his opinion that nothing can be intended against him--that he must have gone on some sporting expedition inland, or is on his way here. If I could only believe that! If I could think so! But I know it is not the case. It cannot be. He vowed that nothing should prevent him from writing every other day so long as he was alive or well enough to crawl to the gate and intercept the mail driver; and he would keep his word. What, what," she almost wailed, "can have happened to him? Can they have murdered him?"

Even as the horrid word "murder" rose to her thoughts--a word horrid, horrible, when uttered in the most civilized and well-protected spots on earth, but one seeming still more terrible and ominous when thought of in lawless places--there came an interruption to her direful forebodings. The parrots roosting in the branches during the burning midday heat plumed themselves, and opened their startled, staring eyes and clucked faintly, while Beatrix's pet monkey--still, as ever, presenting an appearance 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 person. Yet when Beatrix, aroused, cast her own eyes across the yellow grass, she observed that the newcomer 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 advanced towards the black with outstretched hand.

Yet she was doomed to disappointment when, after many bows and smirks and a removal of his Panama hat, so that he stood bareheaded in the broiling sun (which is, however, not a condition of things harmful to negroes, even in such tropical lands), the man had given her the letter, and she saw that the superscription 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 sensation.

"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 gentleman go in it to get to England. Read letter, missy, perhaps that tell you all."

The advice was as good as the greatest wiseacre could have given Beatrix, in spite of its proceeding 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 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 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 missive.

Dear Miss Spranger (it ran): Doubtless, you have heard from Cousin Julian (who, I understand, 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 sportsman, and said he must have one or two days' excitement with the jaguars, so he left us yesterday morning early, in company with a rather villainous servant of mine, named Paz, and, as I promised him I would do, I now send on his luggage 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.

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 determinate, 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 woman, your accomplice, we will outwit you yet." And she went forward swiftly beneath the shade of the trees to the house.

"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 continued:

"That is well. Be sure not to forget the message. Now, have you brought in the luggage?"

For answer the other glanced down the long, darkened, and consequently more or less cool hall, and she, following that glance, saw standing 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 indeed, as she felt sure beyond the shadow of a doubt, Julian Ritherdon was in some mortal peril (that he was dead she did not dare to, would not allow herself to, think nor believe) no time must be wasted, she gave orders that the buggy should be got ready at once to take her into the city to her father's offices.

"He," she thought, "is the only person who can counsel me as to what is best, to do. And surely, surely, he will not attempt to prevent me from sending, nay, from taking assistance, to Julian. And if he does, then--then--I must tell him that I love----" But, appalled even at the thought of having to make use of such a revelation, she would not conclude the sentence, though there were none to hear it. Instead, she walked back into the garden, and, seating herself, resolved that she would think of nothing that might unnerve her or cause her undue agitation before she saw her father; and so sat waiting calmly until they should come to tell her that the carriage was ready.

But she did not know, as of course it was impossible that she should know, that drawing near to her was another woman who would bring her such information of what had recently taken place at Desolada as would put all surmises and speculations as to why Sebastian Ritherdon's letter 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 incapable of further crimes.

A woman--Zara--who almost from daybreak 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 commission of a crime which, once accomplished, could never be undone. Yet, also, in her scheming, half-Indian brain, there had arisen other thoughts, other hopes.

"She loves him; this cold, pale-faced English girl loves Sebastian," she thought, still cherishing that delusion as she made her way sometimes 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 theirs; the negro women alone with whom they will never wed. Ah! Sebastian," she murmured, "I must save you from a crime and--from her."

And so she went on and on, seeing the daffodil 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.