CHAPTER XXIX.

THE WATCHING FIGURE.

With a gasp, Beatrix took a step toward the other, while as she did so the latter almost uttered a moan herself; though her agitation proceeded from a different cause--from, in truth, her appreciation of how wide a gulf there was between them. Between them who both loved the same man! Between this dainty English girl, who looked so fresh and fair, and was dressed in so spotless and cool a garb, and her who was black and swarthy, her who was clad almost in rags, and covered with the dust and grime of a long journey made partly on foot and partly on the mule's back. What chance was there for her, what hope, she asked herself, that Sebastian should ever love her instead of this other?

"Murder will be done!" Beatrix exclaimed, repeating Zara's words, even while a faintness stole over her that she thought must be like the faintness of coming death. "Murder will be done. To whom? To Mr.--to Lieutenant Ritherdon?"

"Yes," Zara answered, standing there before the other, and feeling ashamed as she did so of the appearance she must present to her rival, as she deemed her. "Yes, murder. The murder of Lieutenant Ritherdon. But, if you have courage, if you have any power, it may be prevented. And--and--you love him! I know it. There must be no crime. You love him!" she repeated fiercely.

Astonished that the girl should know her secret, unable to understand how she could have learned it, unless for some reason, Lieutenant Ritherdon might have hinted that he hoped such was the case; abashed at the secret being known, Beatrix could but stammer: "Yes--yes--I love him."

"I love him, too!" Zara exclaimed fiercely, hotly; she neither stammering, nor appearing to be put to shame. "I love him too. There must be no crime----"

"You love him!" Beatrix repeated, startled.

"With my whole heart and soul. Do you think our hot blood is not as capable of love as the cold blood that runs in your veins?"

But Beatrix could only whisper again, amazed, "You love him too!"

"I have loved him all my life," Zara said. "I have always loved him. And I will save him."

Then Beatrix understood how they were at cross-purposes, and that this half-savage girl was here, not to save Julian from being murdered so much as to save Sebastian from becoming a murderer.

"Tell me all," she said faintly, sinking into her chair, while she motioned to Zara to seat herself in one of the others that stood close by. "Tell me all that has happened. Then I shall know perhaps what I am to do."

And Zara, smothering in her heart the hatred that she felt against this other girl so much more fair and attractive than she, she who was but a peasant, almost a slave, while her rival had wealth and bright surroundings--told her all she knew.

She narrated how she had watched by day and night to see that no harm was done to the stranger staying at Desolada: how, sometimes, she had slept on the upper veranda and sometimes in the grounds and gardens, being ever on the watch. And then she told the story of all that had happened, of how Madame Carmaux had tried to shoot Julian in the copse and had herself been struck in the arm by a bullet from Paz's rifle, but to avoid suspicion had, on her return to the house, commenced arranging flowers in a bowl with one hand, she keeping the other, which Zara knew she had hastily bandaged up, out of sight. She told, too, the whole story of the Amancay poison, and described the final scene in the lower room which she had witnessed from the garden where she stood hidden.

"And now," she cried, "now they will kill him to-night, get rid of him forever, if, before night comes, help does not reach him."

"What will they do?" asked Beatrix, white to the lips, and trembling all over as she had trembled from the first. "Poison him with that hateful Amancay--or--or----"

"I know not, but they will kill him. They will not keep him there. Instead, perhaps, carry him to one of the lagoons where the alligators are, or to the sea where the white sharks are, or----"

"Come, come!" cried Beatrix, with a shriek of horror. "Come at once to my father in the city. Oh! in mercy, come--there is not an hour, not a moment, to be lost!"

She had seen, almost directly after Zara had made her appearance, the groom come out from the house, and understood that he was approaching to tell her that the buggy was prepared, but by a motion of her hand she had made the man understand that she was not ready. But, now, she must go at once, and she must take this girl with her--that was all important. For surely, when some of the legal authorities in Belize had heard the tale which Zara could tell, they would instantly send assistance to Julian.

"Come!" she cried again. "Come! we must go to the city at once."

"It will save--him?" Zara asked, her thoughts still upon the man who must be prevented at all hazards from committing a horrible crime, and supposing in her ignorance that it was also the desire to prevent that man from committing this crime which made Beatrix so anxious. "It will save--him?"

"Yes," Beatrix answered. "Yes. It will save him."

The night had come, suddenly, swiftly, as it always does in Southern lands. Half an hour earlier a band of twenty people had been riding as swiftly as the heat would permit along the dusty white thread, which was the road that led past All Pines on toward Desolada--now the same band was progressing beneath the swift-appearing stars overhead. The breeze, too, which, not long before, had burnt them with its fiery sun-struck breath, came cool and fresh and grateful at this time, since it was no longer laden with heat; while from all the wealth of vegetation around, there were, distilled by the night dews, the luscious scents and odours that the flowers of the region possess.

A band of twenty people--of eighteen men and two women--who, now that night had fallen, rode more swiftly than they had done before, the trot of the horses being accompanied by the clang of scabbard against boot and spur, of jangling bridle and bridle-chain. For among them was a small troop of constabulary headed by an officer, as well as a handful of the police. Also, Mr. Spranger formed one of the number. The two women were Beatrix and Zara, the former having insisted on her father allowing her to accompany the force.

When Beatrix had caused Zara to go with her to Mr. Spranger's offices, and then to tell him her tale--a tale supplemented by the former's own account of the letter from Sebastian accompanied by Julian's luggage--that gentleman had at once agreed that there was no time to be lost if Julian was to be saved from any further designs against him. Of course, he and all the Government officials were well acquainted with each other, the Governor included, but it was to the Chief Justice that he at once made his way, accompanied by Zara, who had to tell her tale for a second time to that representative of authority and law.

Then the rest was easy--instructions were given to the Commandant of Constabulary and the Superintendent of Police, and the force set out. Meanwhile, the latter was provided with a warrant (although neither Beatrix nor Zara was aware that such was the case) for the arrest of both Sebastian Ritherdon and Madame Carmaux on a charge of attempted murder.

And now as the little band passed All Pines, Zara, who rode close by Beatrix's side, whispered in the latter's ear that she was about to quit them; she knew, she said, bypaths that she could thread which the others could not do, or in doing, would only make very slow progress.

"But," she concluded, still in a whisper, and with her dark face as close to the fair one of the English girl as she could place it--"I shall be there when you all arrive. And by then I shall know what has been done, or what is to be done. He must not kill him; we must stop that. We love him too well for that."

And, ere Beatrix could answer, the other had disappeared into the denseness of the forest, it seeming as though she had power to impart to the beast which she bestrode her own mysterious and subtle methods of movement.

At first, she was not missed by any of the others, Mr. Spranger being the earliest to do so; but by the time he had observed that she was gone, they had drawn so near to the object of their visit that, even if her absence was noticed, very little remark was made. For now they were, as most in the band knew, on the outskirts of the plantations around Desolada; soon they would be within those plantations and threading their way toward the house itself. What was noticed, however, as now their horses trod on the soft luxurious grass beneath their feet--so gently that the thud of their hoofs became entirely deadened--was that a man, who had certainly not accompanied them from Belize, was doing so at this moment, and that, as they wended their way slowly, this man, who was on foot, walked side by side with them.

"Who are you?" asked the officer in command of the constabulary, bending down from his horse to look at the newcomer, and observing that he was a half-caste. "Do you belong to this property?"

"I did," that newcomer said, looking up at the other. "I did--but not now. Now I belong to you. To the Government, the police."

"So! You desire to give information. Is that it?

"Yes. That is it."

"What can you tell?"

"That the Englishman not there--that he taken away already, I think----"

"It is not so," a voice whispered close to his ear, yet one sufficiently loud to be heard by all. "It is not so." And, looking round, every one saw the dark, starlike eyes of Zara gleaming through the darkness at them. "He is there--but he will not be for long if you do not make haste."

From one of her hearers--from Beatrix--there came a gasp; from the rest only a few muttered sentences that there was no time to be lost; that they must attack the house at once, and call on the inhabitants to come forth and give an account of themselves. Then, once more, the order was issued for the cavalcade to advance. And silently they did so, Beatrix being placed in the rear, so that if any violence should be offered, or any resistance, she should not be exposed to it more than was necessary.

But there was little or no sign at present of the likelihood of such resistance being made. Instead, Desolada presented now an appearance worthy of its mournful name. For all was darkened in and around it; the windows of the lower floor, especially the windows of the great saloon, from which, or from its veranda, the light of the lamp had streamed forth nightly, were all closed and shuttered; nowhere was a glimmer to be seen. And also the door in the middle of the veranda was closed--a circumstance that certainly during the summer, would have been unusual in any abode in British Honduras.

All were close to the steps of the veranda now, and the officer in command of the constabulary, dismounting from his horse, strode up on to the latter, while beating upon the door with his clenched fist, he called out that he required to see Mr. Ritherdon at once. A summons to which no answer was returned.

"If," this person said, looking around on those behind him, and whose forms he could but dimly see--"if no answer is returned, we shall be forced to break the door down or blow the lock off. Into the house we must get."

"There is now," said Mr. Spranger, who had also dismounted and joined him, "a figure on the balcony of the floor above. It has come out from one of the windows. But I cannot see whether it is man or woman."

"A figure!" cried the other, darting out at once on to the path beneath, so that thus he could gaze up to the higher balcony. "A figure!" and then, raising his eyes, he saw that Mr. Spranger had spoken accurately. For, against the darkness of the night, and the darkness of the house too, there was perceptible some other darker, deeper blur which was undoubtedly the form of a person gazing down at them. A form surmounted by something that was a little, though not much, whiter than its surroundings; something that all who gazed upon it knew to be a human face.