CHAPTER IX.

BEATRIX.

Thirty-six hours later Julian Ritherdon sat among very different surroundings from those of Desolada; certainly very different ones from those of his first night in the gloomy, mysterious house owned by that other man who bore his name.

He was seated now in a wicker chair placed beneath the cool shadow cast by a vast clump of "shade-trees," as the royal palm, the thatch palm, and, indeed, almost every kind and species of that form of vegetation are denominated. These shade-trees grew in the pretty and luxuriant garden of Mr. Spranger's house on the southern outskirts of Belize, a garden in which, for some years now, Beatrix Spranger had passed the greater part of her days, and sometimes when the hot simoon was on, as it was now, and the temperature scarcely ever fell below 85°, a good deal of the early part of her nights.

She, too, was seated in that garden now, talking to Julian, while between them there lay two or three books and London magazines (three or four months old), a copy of the Times of the same ancient date, and another of the Belize Advertiser fresh from the local press. Yet neither the news from London which had long since been published, nor that of the immediate neighbourhood, which was quite new but not particularly exciting, seemed to have been able to secure much of their attention. And this for a reason which was a simple one and easily to be understood. All their attention was at the present moment concentrated on each other.

"You cannot think," Beatrix Spranger was saying now, "what a welcome event the arrival of a stranger is to us here, who regard ourselves more or less as exiles for the time being. Moreover," she continued, without any of that false shame which a young lady at home in England might have thought necessary to assume, even though she did not actually feel it, "it seems to me that you are a very interesting person, Lieutenant Ritherdon. You have dropped down into a place where your name happens to be extremely well known, yet in which no one ever imagined that there was any other Ritherdon in existence anywhere, except the late and the present owners of Desolada."

"People, even exiles, have relatives sometimes in other parts of the world," Julian murmured rather languidly--the effect of the heat and the perfume of the flowers in the garden being upon him--"and you know----"

"Oh! yes," the girl said, with an answering smile. "I do know all that. Only I happen to know something else, too. You see we--that is, father and I--are acquainted with your cousin, and we knew his father before him. And it is a rather singular thing that they have always given us to understand that, so far as they were aware, they hadn't a relation in the world."

"They had, though, you see, all the same. Indeed, they had two until a short time ago; namely, when my father, Mr. George Ritherdon, was alive."

"Mr. Ritherdon, Sebastian's father, hadn't seen him for many years, had he? He didn't often speak of him, and always gave people the idea that his brother was dead. I suppose they had not parted the best of friends?"

"No," Julian answered quietly, "I don't think they had. As a matter of fact, my--George Ritherdon--was almost, indeed quite, as reticent about his brother Charles as Charles seems to have been about him." Then, suddenly changing the subject, he said: "Is Sebastian popular hereabouts. Is he liked?"

"No," the girl replied, rather more frankly than Julian had expected, while, as she did so, she lifted a pair of beautiful blue eyes to his face. "No, I don't think he is, since you ask me."

"Why not? You may tell me candidly, Miss Spranger, especially as you know that to-night I am going to have a rather serious interview with your father, and shall ask him for his advice and assistance on a matter in which I require his counsel."

"Oh! I don't know quite," the girl said now. "Only--only--well! you know--because you have told us that you saw him doing it--he--he--is too fond of play, of gambling. People say--different things. Some that he is ruining his brother planters, and others that he is ruining himself. Then he has the reputation of being very hard and cruel to some of his servants. You know, we have coolies and negroes and Caribs and natives here, and a good many of them are bound to the employers for a term of years--and--and--well--if one feels inclined to be cruel--they can be."

As she spoke of this, Julian recognised how he had been within an ace of discovering, some time before he reached the inn at All Pines, that the late Mr. Ritherdon had not died without leaving an heir, apparent or presumptive, as he had supposed when he landed at Belize. The negro guide on whom he had bestowed so many good-humoured sobriquets had spoken of Mr. Ritherdon as being a hard and cruel man, both to blacks and whites. But--in his ignorance, which was natural enough--he had supposed that the statement could only have applied to the one owner of Desolada of whom he had ever heard--the man lately dead.

Now, he reflected, he wished he had really understood to whom that negro referred. It might have made a difference in his plans, he thought; might have prevented him from going on farther on the road to All Pines and Desolada; from meeting this unexpected, unknown of, possessor of what he believed to be his, until those plans had become more matured. Until, too, he had had time to decide in what form, if any, he should present himself before the man who was called Sebastian Ritherdon.

However, it was done. He had presented himself and, if he knew anything of human nature, if he could read a character at all, his appearance had caused considerable excitement in the minds of both Sebastian Ritherdon and Madame Carmaux.

"Do _you_ like Sebastian?" he asked now, and he could scarcely have explained why he was anxious to hear a denial of any liking for that person on the part of Beatrix Spranger. It may have been, he thought, because this girl, with her soft English beauty, which the climate of British Honduras during some years of residence had--certainly, as yet--had no power to impair, seemed to him far too precious a thing to be wasted on a man such as Sebastian was--rough, a gambler, and possessing cruel instincts.

"Do you think I should like him?" she asked in her turn, and again the eyes which he thought were so beautiful glanced at him from beneath their thick lashes, "after what I have told you of the character he bears? What I have told you, perhaps, far too candidly, saying more than I ought to have done."

"Do not think that," he made haste to exclaim. "To-night I am going to be even more frank with Mr. Spranger. I am going to tell him one or two things in connection with my 'cousin,' when I ask him for his assistance and advice, which will make your father at least imagine that I have not formed a very favourable impression of my new-found relative."

"And mayn't I be told, too--now?" she asked, thoroughly womanlike.

"Not yet," he answered, with a smile. "Not yet. Later--perhaps."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, with something that might almost be described as a pout. "Oh! Not even after my candour about your cousin! You _are_ a man of mystery, Lieutenant Ritherdon. Why! you won't even tell us how it happens that you arrived here from Desolada with that round your arm," and as she spoke she directed her blue eyes to a sling around his neck in which his arm reposed. "Nor that," she added, nodding now towards his forehead, where, on the left side, were affixed two or three pieces of sticking-plaster.

"Yes," he said, "I will tell you that. I feel, indeed, that I ought to do so, if only as an apology for presenting myself before you in such a guise. You see, it is so easy to explain this, that it is not worth making any mystery about it. It all comes from the fact that I am a sailor, and sailors are proverbial for being very bad riders," and as he spoke he accompanied his words with another smile.

But Beatrix did not smile in return. Instead, she said, half gravely, perhaps almost half severely: "Go on. Lieutenant Ritherdon, if you please. I wish to hear how the accident happened," while she added impressively, "on your journey from Desolada to Belize."

"I'm a bad rider," he said again, but once more meeting her glance, he altered his mode of speech and said:

"Well, you see, Miss Spranger, it happened this way. I set out on my journey of inspection, on my road to Desolada, on a rather ancient mustang which the worthy landlord of the hotel with a queer Spanish name recommended to me as the proper thing to do the journey easily on. Later, when I had made Sebastian's acquaintance, he rather ridiculed my good Rosinante."

"Did he!" Beatrix interjected calmly.

"He did, indeed. In fact he said such creatures were scarcely ever used in the colony except for draught purposes. Then he said he would mount me on a good horse of Spanish breed, such as I believe you use a great deal here; so that when I was returning to Belize yesterday to present myself before you and Mr. Spranger, I should be able to make the journey rapidly and comfortably."

"That was very kind of him," Beatrix exclaimed. "Though, as you did not arrive until nine o'clock at night, you hardly seem to have made it very rapidly, and those things," with again a glance at the sling and the plasters, "are not usually adjuncts to comfort."

"Well, you see, I'm a sailor and not a good ri----"

"Go on, please."

"Yes, certainly. I started under favourable circumstances at six in the morning, receiving, I believe, a kind of blessing or benediction from Sebastian and Madame Carmaux, as well as strong injunctions to return as soon as possible."

"People are hospitable in this country," Beatrix again interrupted.

"We got along very well, anyhow, for a time; at a gentle trot, of course, because already it was getting hot, and as we neared All Pines I was just thinking of slowing down to a walk when----"

"The creature bolted? Was that it?"

"As a matter of fact it was. By the way, you seem to know the manners and customs of the animals in this country, Miss Spranger."

"I know that many lives are lost in this country," the girl said gravely now, "owing to unbroken horses being ridden too young horses, too, that are sometimes full of vice. The landlord of the hotel here did you a better service than your cousin."

"Perhaps this was one of those horses," Julian remarked. "But, anyhow, it bolted. Then, a little later, it did something else. It stopped dead in a gallop and, after nearly shooting me over its head, it reared upright and did absolutely throw me off it backwards. Fortunately, I fell at the side of the road onto a sort of undergrowth full of ferns and interspersed with lovely flowering shrubs; so I got off with what you see. The horse, however, had killed itself. It fell over on its back with a tremendous sort of backward bound and, when I got up and looked at it, it was just dying. Later, I came on from All Pines in a kind of cart--that is, when I had been bandaged up. Perhaps, however, it wouldn't have happened if I had not been such a bad rider and----"

"It would have happened," Beatrix said, decisively, "if you had been a circus rider or a cowboy. That is, unless you had been well acquainted with the horse, and, even then, it would probably have happened just the same."

After this they were silent for a little while, Julian availing himself of Beatrix's permission to smoke, and she sitting meditatively behind her huge fan. And, although he did not tell her so, Julian agreed with her that the accident would probably have happened even though he had been a circus rider or a cowboy, as she had said.