CHAPTER XIX

The Seducer’s Terrible End.

A few nights after Blodget’s escape found him walking the streets of San Francisco, but disguised as he thought too effectually to be recognized by any eye, however sharp.

There was a cloud upon Blodget’s brow as he emerged from the court into the semi-obscurity of Montgomery street, and his mind was evidently ill at ease. He tried to hum a fashionable opera air when he had walked a little distance, but there seemed something in his throat which choked him, and the sounds died upon his lips. Then he quickened his pace, when a young female emerged from a street which he was passing, and laid her hand upon his arm. He turned his head, and beheld Carlotta.

She was thinner than when he had seen her last, and looked as if she had recently been ill; but her dark eyes were as lustrous as then, and there was the same gloss upon her raven hair. At the moment that she emerged from the shade of the court, and laid her hand upon his, there was a strange and almost indescribable expression upon her dark countenance, but it passed away as quickly as a flight of birds over a stream, and when Blodget’s eyes met hers, they read nothing therein but pleasure at meeting him again.

‘Ah, my little wild rose of the islands!’ said he, ‘what are you doing at this hour of the night, when all such pretty wild birds should be in their nests.’

‘Well, I can’t say I was looking for you,’ returned Carlotta, ‘but I am glad that I have met you, nevertheless. But I should ask you where you have been wandering, you naughty man?’

‘Oh, I have been to the theatre, and then walked this way with a friend,’ returned Blodget. ‘But where are you staying—can you take me home with you?’

‘Fie!’ said Carlotta, playfully.

‘I really cannot part with you, my charmer,’ said Blodget. ‘If you cannot take me to your quarters, wherever they may be, you must come somewhere with me.’

‘You must not think of going where my people are,’ observed the Chilean girl, ‘remember how near the detection of our amour was costing our lives.’

‘Then come with me, my beauty,’ said Blodget. ‘There is a house not far from here which will suit our purpose, and I shall not part with you until daylight.’

‘Then I go with you, Blodget,’ said Carlotta. ‘Promise me that you will not seek to detain me more than an hour, and I will not refuse you the happiness you covet.’

Blodget promised, and the Chilean girl accompanied him to an accommodation-house in the neighborhood, where they were conducted to a neatly furnished bedchamber on the first floor.

‘We shall have time to drink a bottle of champagne in the hour that you have promised to remain with me,’ observed Blodget, and he gave the girl, who had preceded them with a light, some silver to procure it.

They sat down, and Blodget threw his arm round the waist of his dark-eyed companion, and drawing her towards him, impressed a kiss upon her lips. She smiled upon him, but her lips did not give back the kiss, and there was a glitter in her night dark eyes at the moment which was not the radiance which springs from happiness or love. Blodget, however, failed to detect anything unusual or peculiar in the expression of that glance. The wine was brought, and placed upon a small round table convenient to Blodget’s hand, and he filled the glasses, handing one to Carlotta and taking one himself.

‘The sparkling juice will bring back to your dark cheeks a glow that seems wanting there,’ said he, as he sat down the glasses and immediately refilled them.

‘Come, drink,’ he cried.

‘It will be the last time we’ll drink together.’

‘Why, what the deuce makes you think so?’ said Blodget.

‘I don’t know,’ replied the girl, ‘but I have said it, and you’ll see if it don’t come to pass.’

‘D—d nonsense,’ cried Blodget, laughing, and then he drew his companion on his knee, and kissed her repeatedly and eagerly.

Carlotta was silent, but she reclined her dark cheek against her seducer’s, and quietly and adroitly drew from her pocket a little phial containing some liquid. Concealing the phial in her hand, she then threw her arm over Blodget’s shoulder, and noiselessly drawing the tiny cork, poured the contents of the phial into his glass.

‘Another glass of champagne, my glow-worm,’ said Blodget, ‘and the soft delights of love, the thrilling joys of warm and impassioned nature are ours.’

Carlotta removed her arm from his shoulder as he turned slightly to reach his wine, and while she kept her eyes upon the glasses to observe that he gave her the one that she had drank from before, she returned the empty phial to her pocket.

‘I suppose nothing unpleasant came of our dalliance?’ said Blodget, in a half interrogative tone, as he handed the girl her glass.

‘Why do you suppose so? Ought you not rather to suppose just the reverse? Was not something unpleasant naturally to be expected?’

‘Well, perhaps I might have supposed so,’ returned Blodget, deprecatingly, and a little disconcerted by the girl’s reply.

There was a moment’s pause, and both sat with their glasses in their hands, Blodget’s eyes fixed upon the floor, the girl surveying the countenance of her seducer, as if she were trying to read his thoughts.

‘Well, what was it?’ Blodget at length inquired.

‘A boy,’ returned Carlotta. ‘It died, and I was glad of it, for if it had lived it might have been as faithless as his father.’

‘Do you want to quarrel?’

‘No.’

‘For heaven’s sake cease,’ exclaimed Blodget, suddenly raising the wineglass to his lips, and emptying it at a draught.

Carlotta drank her wine quickly as he spoke, and rose from his knee, where she had contrived to sit while upbraiding him with his inconstancy and duplicity. Her dark eyes were fixed upon his countenance, which changed the moment he had swallowed the wine, his lips becoming white, and the expression of his features becoming ghastly and cadaverous.

‘You are a dead man and I am avenged!’ exclaimed the girl in a hissing whisper; and then she glided towards the door, and turned the key in the lock.

A faint groan which seemed to struggle feebly and faintly upwards, was the only sign of vitality which Blodget gave, and then his head fell upon his breast and his arms fell powerless at his side.

Quickly and silently Carlotta drew the sheets from the bed, knotted them together, and then fastened one end securely to the bedpost nearest the window; this done, she noiselessly raised the sash, and looked out. The night was dark and foggy, but she could see that there was a small yard below, with a door in the wall, which opened into a court at the rear of the house. Dropping one end of the sheets from the window, she immediately got out upon the sill, and grasping the sheet firmly with both hands, descended in safety into the yard. She could hear laughter and the tinkling of glasses in the back parlor, but the shutters were closed, and noiselessly unbolting the door in the yard fence, she hurried swiftly out, and in a few minutes was far away.

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