CHAPTER XXX.

BEYOND PASSION'S BOUND.

A human face was gazing down on them from where the body beneath crouched, as though kneeling against the rails of the veranda--a face from which more than one in that band thought they could see the eyes glistening. Yet, from it no sound issued, only--only--still the white face grew more perceptible and stood out more clearly in the blackness, as the others continued to stare at it, and the eyes seemed to glitter with a greater intensity.

"Come down," cried up the officer now, directing his voice toward where it lurked, "come down and let us in. We have important business with Mr. Ritherdon."

But still no reply nor sound was heard.

"Come down," the other said again, "and at once, or we shall force an entrance; we shall lose no time."

Then from that dark, indistinct mass there did come some whispered words; words clear enough, however, to be heard by those below.

"Who are you?" that voice demanded, "and what do you want?"

"We want," the officer replied, "Mr. Ritherdon. And also, Madame Carmaux, his housekeeper, and the Englishman who has been staying here."

"The Englishman has gone away, back to England, and Mr. Ritherdon is at Belize----"

"Liar!" all heard another voice murmur in their midst, while looking around, they saw that Zara was still there, standing beside the horses and gazing up toward the balcony. "Liar! Both are in the house."

Then in a moment she had crept away, and stolen toward where Beatrix, who had also left the saddle, stood, while, seizing her arm she whispered, "Follow me. Now is the time."

"To him?"

"Yes," Zara said--"yes, to him. To him you love. You do love him, do you not?"

"Ah, yes! Ah, yes! Oh, save him! Save him!"

"Come," said Zara--and Beatrix thought that as the other spoke now, her voice had changed. As, indeed it had. For (still thinking that the English girl could have but one man in her thoughts, and he the one whom she herself loved and hated alternately--the latter passion being testified by the manner in which she had, in a moment of impulse, given him the physic-nut oil and the poisoned mullet) her blood had coursed like wildfire through her veins at hearing Beatrix's avowal, and her voice had become choked. For Beatrix had forgotten in the excitement of the last few hours to undeceive the girl; had forgotten, indeed, the cross-purposes at which they had been that morning in the garden at "Floresta;" and thus Zara still deemed that they were rivals--deemed, too, that this white-faced rival was the favoured one.

"She loves him," she muttered to herself, her heart and brain racked with torture and with passion; "she loves him. She loves him. And he loves her! But--she shall never have him, nor he her. Come," she cried again, savagely this time. "Come, then, and see him. And--love him. It will not be for long," she added to herself.

Whereupon she drew Beatrix away toward the back of the house, going around by the farthest side of it, and on, until, at last, they stood at the foot of the stairs outside that gave access to the floor above, on that farthest side. Here, they were quite remote from the parley that was going on between those who were in the front and the dark shrouded figure on the veranda above; yet Beatrix noticed that, still, they were not alone. For, as they approached those outside stairs she saw three or four dark forms vanish away from them, and steal farther into the obscurity of the night.

"Who are those?" she asked timorously, nervously, as she watched their retreating figures.

"Men," said Zara, "who to-night will take the Englishman, tied and bound, out to the sea in Sebastian's boat, and sink him."

"Oh, my God!" wailed Beatrix, nearly fainting. "Oh! Oh!"

"If we do not prevent it. If _I_ do not prevent it."

Then, suddenly, before Beatrix could put her foot on the steps as Zara had directed her to do, as well as ascend them, she felt her arm grasped by the latter, and heard her whisper:

"Stop! Before we mount to where he is--tell me--tell me truthfully, has--has he told you he loves you?"

"No----"

"You lie!"

"I do not lie," Beatrix replied, hotly, scornfully; "I never lie. But, since you will have the truth--I cannot understand why, what affair it is of yours--although he has not told me, I know it. Love can be made known without words."

Her own words struck like a dagger to the other's heart--nay, they did worse than that. They communicated a spark to the heated, maddening passions which until now, or almost until now, had lain half-slumbering and dormant in that heart; they roused the bitterest, most savage feelings that Zara's half-savage heart had nurtured.

"She scorns me," she said to herself, "she despises me because she knows she possesses his love, the love made known without words. Because she is sure of him. Ay, and so she shall be--but not in life. 'What affair is it of mine?'" she brooded. "She shall see. She shall see."

Then, as once more she motioned Beatrix to follow her up those stairs, she, unseen by the latter, dropped her right hand into the bosom of her dress, and touched something that lay within it.

"She shall see," she said again. "She shall see."

Above, in that obscure, gloomy corridor to which they now entered--the corridor which more than once had struck a chill even to the bold heart of Julian Ritherdon, when he sojourned in the house--all was silent and sombre, so that one might have thought that they stood upon the first floor of some long-neglected mansion from which the inhabitants had departed years before; while the darkness was intense. And, whatever might have been the effect of the weirdness of the place upon the nerves of Zara, strung up as those nerves now were to tragic pitch, upon Beatrix, at least, it was intense. A great black bat, the wind from whose passing wing fanned her cheek and caused her to utter a startled exclamation, added some feeling of ghastly terror to the surroundings, while, also, the company in which she was, the company of a half-Indian savage girl charged with tempestuous passions, contributed to her alarm.

Yet, on the silence there broke now some sounds, they coming from the front part of the house; the sound of voices, of a hurried conversation, of sentences rapidly exchanged.

"You hear," hissed Zara in the other's ear--"you hear--and understand? 'Tis she--Carmaux. And, as ever, she lies. As her life has always been, so is her tongue now."

Then Beatrix heard Madame Carmaux saying from the balcony:

"He has returned. He is coming, I tell you. But just now he has ridden to the stables behind. He will be with you at once. He will explain all. Wait but a few moments more."

"It must be but a very few then," the girl heard in reply, she recognising the voice of the Commandant of the Constabulary. "Very few. He must indeed explain all. Otherwise we force our entrance. Not more than five minutes will be granted."

"You understand?" whispered Zara, "you understand? She begs time so that--so that--the Englishman shall be taken to his death. When he is gone, Sebastian will show himself." Though, to her own heart she added, "Never."

"I can bear no more," gasped Beatrix; "I must see him. Go to him."

"Nay," replied Zara, "he comes to you. Observe. Look behind you--the way we came."

And, looking behind her as the other bade, even while she trembled all over in her fear and excitement, she saw that Sebastian had himself mounted the stairs outside the house, and was preparing to pass along the passage; to pass by them.

Yet, ere he did so, she saw, too, that behind him were those misty forms of the natives which she had observed to vanish at their approach below; she heard him speak to them; heard, too, the words he said.

"When I whistle, come up and bear him away. You know the rest. To my yawl, then a mile out to sea and--then--sink him. Now go, but be ready."

Whereon he turned to proceed along the passage, and, even in her terror, Beatrix could see that he bore in his hand a little lantern from which the smallest of rays was emitted. A lantern with which, perhaps, he wished to observe if his victim still lived, since surely he, who had dwelt in this house all his life, needed no light to assist him in finding his way about it.

"He will see us. He will see us," murmured Beatrix.

"He will never see us again," answered Zara, and as she spoke, she drew the other into the deep doorway of one of the bedrooms. "Never again," while looking down at her from her greater height, Beatrix saw that her right hand was at her breast, and that in it something glistened.

And, now, Sebastian was close to them, going on to the room at the end of the passage. He was in front of them. He was passing them.

"It is your last farewell," said Zara. And ere. Beatrix could shriek, "No. No!" divining the girl's mistake; ere, too, she could make any attempt to restrain her, Zara had sprung forth from the embrasure of the doorway, the long dagger gleaming in her hand, as the sickly rays of Sebastian's lamp shone on it, and had buried it in his back, he springing around suddenly with a hoarse cry as she did so--his hands clenched and thrust out before him--in his eyes an awful glare. Then with a gasp he sank to the floor, the lamp becoming extinguished as he did so. Whereby, Zara did not understand that, lying close by the man whom she had slain, or attempted to slay, was Beatrix, who had swooned from horror, and then fallen prostrate.

Sebastian had carried his white drill jacket over his arm as he advanced along the passage, he having taken it off as he mounted the steps, perhaps with the view of being better able to assist the Indians in the task of removing Julian when he should summon them. And Zara, full of hate as she was; full, too, of rage and jealousy as she had been at the moment before she stabbed him, as well as at the moment when she did so, had observed such to be the case, when, instantly, there came into her astute brain an idea that, through this circumstance, might be wreaked a still more deadly vengeance on Sebastian for his infidelity to her.

"He would have sent that other to his death in the sea," she thought; "now--false-hearted jaguar--that death shall be yours. If the knife has not slain you, the water shall." Whereupon, quick as lightning, she seized the jacket and disappeared with it down the corridor, entering at the end of the latter a room in which Julian lay wounded and bound upon a bed. A room in which there burnt a candle, by the light of which she saw that he who was a prisoner there was asleep.

Without pausing to awaken him, she took from off a nail in the room the navy white jacket that Julian had worn--which like Sebastian's own was stained somewhat with blood--and, seizing it in one hand and the candle in the other, went back to where Sebastian lay.

"I cannot put it on him," she muttered, "as he lies thus; still, it will suffice. The Indians will think it is the other in this light, since both are so alike." After which she crept down the passage to the stairs, and, whistling softly, called up the men outside to her, there being five of them.

"He is here," she whispered as they approached Sebastian. "Here. Waste no time; away with him," while they, with one glance at the prostrate body, prepared to obey her, knowing how Sebastian confided many things to her.

But one of that five never took his eyes off the girl, and seeing that from beneath the jacket there protruded a hand on which was a ring--a ring well known by all around Desolada--he drew the jacket over that hand, covering it up. Yet, as he did so, he contrived also to disarrange the portion that lay over Sebastian's face--and--to see that face. Whereupon, upon his own there came an awful look of gloating, even as the Indians bent down and, lifting their burden, departed with it.

"At last," he whispered to Zara, "at last. You not endure longer?"

"No," the girl replied. "No longer. He loved that--that--other--and--and--I slew him. Now, Paz, go--and--sink him beneath the sea forever."

"Yes. Yes. I sink him. He knew not Paz was near, but Paz never forget. I sink him deep. But, outside--I take ring away so that Indians not know. Oh, yes, he sink very deep. Paz never forget."