CHAPTER LIII.

A WOMAN’S VENGEANCE.

The cigarette falls from the Spanish captain’s nerveless fingers and his face turns gray.

“Who are you?” he gasps.

“My name is Phillip Van Zandt. I don’t wonder, Ralph Felton, that you fail to recognize me by that name, though it is my true one. But you will understand why I have sought you and why I exult in now standing face to face with you, when I breathe the name of Ernest Stanley!”

“You are Ernest Stanley?”

“I was Ernest Stanley. Now, I am his avenger. Listen to me,” commands Van Zandt, as Felton strives to speak. “When the doors of that New England prison closed upon me, nearly three years ago, I swore that I would be avenged upon the scoundrel who put me there. Until a month ago I did not know his name. Until to-day I was not sure that the father was an accomplice to the villainy of the son. But when I did learn who the coward was for whom I suffered I told myself that this world, vast as it is, was too small to hold him and me. Do you understand? You cur! Do you understand?”

Felton glances about the cafe. The soldier at the table near by has again picked up his newspaper and is absorbed in its columns. But any one who might take the pains to investigate would discover that he is not reading the paper. The score or more of others are occupied in their drink, jest and song.

Felton has regained his composure and lights a cigarette with a steady hand.

“Are you aware, Senor Van Zandt, that at one word from me my men would cut you to pieces?” he sneers.

“I know that one such word will mean your instant death,” is the stern response.

“Well, I shall not utter it,” says Felton, coolly. “I am competent to take care of myself. A moment ago you called me a coward. I will prove to you that I am not. You seek satisfaction?”

A bitter smile flits over Van Zandt’s face. “Satisfaction!” he murmurs. “Ay, I demand satisfaction for two years of utter misery and, by heavens, I shall have it!”

“You shall! I swear it!”

“Ah! And when?”

“At once. This is my only opportunity to accommodate you at present, as I am ordered to Cienfuegos to-morrow. Come, I will wait for you without.” So saying, Felton turns on his heel.

Van Zandt regards him with a look in which suspicion is mingled with a trace of admiration for his sang froid.

“You will attempt no treachery?” he says, sternly.

“I tell you, sir, I am not a coward,” answers Felton, haughtily.

“That he is not,” mutters the soldier with the scarred forehead, and he adds, as if addressing the newspaper in his hand: “This is a devilish unfortunate affair. I must have a hand in it. Hello! Was not that a woman’s scream?” He rises and, throwing open the door leading to the rear of the cafe, steps out upon the veranda. An instant later he dashes the door shut with an ejaculation of amazement.

Standing at the further end of the veranda, terror depicted in her colorless cheeks, is Louise Hathaway. A dozen feet from her is one of the troopers, who has strolled out upon the veranda, and, while much the worse for liquor, has plainly insulted the American girl. When the new-comer arrives on the scene, he sees the caballero wiping the blood from a long, deep scratch across his rage-contorted face. Between insulter and insulted Cyrus Felton interposes a feeble barrier.

With a muttered malediction the baffled Spaniard turns and re-enters the cafe, followed by the scarred soldier, whose timely arrival has doubtless saved Miss Hathaway from further affront.

“Jove! I shall have my hands full for a few minutes,” that individual soliloquizes. “Ah, one moment,” as Van Zandt attempts to brush by him. “You have some friends out here, senor.”

“Well?” demands Van Zandt, with a stare.

“Get them away at once, or these devils in here may make it hot for them.”

“I do not understand.”

“You have no time to listen to a lengthy explanation. Do as I direct. Send your friends to the consul’s and have them avoid the main road. There is a path through the garden, and beyond that a trail down the hillside to the beach. It is but a mile to the consul’s residence by that route. They’ll be safe at the consul’s.”

All this is delivered in low, rapid tones and as Van Zandt moves away the soldier turns and sees the drunken cavalier standing within a few feet of him, a malicious smile upon his evil face. “Hello! What the devil are you playing the spy for?” cries he of the scar, and passes on with the muttered thought: “I wonder if the chap understands English.”

When Van Zandt rejoins Mr. Felton and Louise he finds the old man as white as death and his head sunk upon his breast, while Miss Hathaway is in a semi-hysterical condition.

“I’m so glad you have returned,” says the latter, as she comes forward to greet him and she tells him of the encounter with the Spaniard.

“The scoundrel!” grits Van Zandt, starting toward the cafe. But he remembers that he has more serious business on hand than thrashing a drunken trooper, and he turns gravely to his companions:

“Miss Hathaway, and you, Mr. Felton, I must ask you to proceed immediately to the residence of the American consul. I have a little matter that demands my presence here for another half-hour, and meanwhile it will not be safe for you to remain. Nor will it be well to go by the main road. The city is in the hands of a mob. The scoundrel who insulted you is a fair example. I was warned by one of the men within—an Englishman, I should judge from his voice and manner.”

Mr. Felton and Miss Hathaway regard Van Zandt apprehensively, and Louise wonders at the pallor of his face and the strange look in his eyes.

“You know where the residence of the consul is. You must follow yonder path through the garden, and strike the trail down the hillside to the sea; it is only a short walk. I will rejoin you there within the hour—if I live,” says Van Zandt, with a significance not understood by his auditors.

Without a word Cyrus Felton rises and, followed by Miss Hathaway, starts off through the garden in the direction indicated by Van Zandt’s outstretched arm.

While all this has taken place Ralph Felton has been leaning in the doorway at the front of the cafe. He looks up when Sanchez, the besotted subaltern, comes in from his encounter with the American girl, and signals to him.

“Sanchez, I have a little affair of honor to settle within the hour,” he says. “If I do not return, you are second in command. You understand?”

“Is it ‘a la mort’?” inquires Sanchez.

Felton nods and turns away, and Sanchez goes back into the cafe in season to hear the last words of the warning extended to Van Zandt by the soldier with the scar.

Felton lights another cigarette and awaits indifferently the appearance of his implacable foe.

“I am ready, sir,” says a stern voice at his elbow.

“And I have been ready for some minutes. Come.” And Felton leads the way across the road and into a path to the woods.

The soldier with the scar walks out into the dooryard and watches the disappearing figures. “That duel must not take place,” he says. “But how on earth am I to prevent it? Hello! What’s this?”

His attention is attracted by an ejaculation within the cafe. Two men are whispering by the window next the entrance.

“What deviltry is this?” he scowls, bending his head. And as he listens the scowl deepens on his face, and his fingers clutch at his pistol stock. “By heavens! I must prevent that duel now,” he mutters.

Simultaneous with a command given to the half-intoxicated Sanchez, he of the scar hears the sound of a shot over in the woods.

“Treachery!” he exclaims, and bounds away in the direction of the report.

* * * * *

Felton and Van Zandt proceed silently into the thicket. A short distance from the entrance to the woods is a cleared spot.

“This will probably suit our purpose,” remarks Felton, and, coolly, he measures off ten paces.

“That will be distance enough, will it not?” he asks. Van Zandt nods.

“Will you give the word, Mr. Van Zandt?”

“As you please. We will fire at the word ‘Three.’” Both men draw their revolvers.

“One moment,” interrupts Felton. “In the event of a second fire?”

“There will be no second fire,” is the grim rejoinder. “I shall kill you with the first.”

“And I will endeavor not to waste mine. Well, sir, I am waiting.”

“One!” Two arms are raised, and not a tremor in either.

“Two!” The pistols click.

The word “Three” is trembling on Van Zandt’s lips, when a shot rings out from the thicket. Felton clasps his hand to his abdomen, with an exclamation of pain, sways a moment and pitches headlong to the earth.

The bushes part and a woman, heavily veiled, steps forth, smoking pistol in hand and walks to where Felton lies.

She looks upon the body for a moment in silence, and hisses:

“You cowardly hound! Your end is fitting!” Then, throwing back her veil, she reveals the face of Isabel Harding.

“I have saved you, Phillip,” she says, with a calmness that is very near madness.

“You have cheated me of my vengeance,” he replies, looking gloomily upon the body of her victim.

“My wrongs called for greater vengeance than yours,” cries the woman, her eyes glittering feverishly and her voice breaking hysterically. “I followed him here. I saw through the cafe window your meeting with him, and I exulted that I was in time—in time to save the man I loved! Phillip! Phillip,” sobs Isabel, sinking on one knee beside him, “I told you that some day you would realize how much I loved you!”

But Van Zandt, with a shudder and expression of utter aversion, turns away.

“Ah, I see I am too late,” remarks a quiet voice, and Van Zandt looks up to see the friendly soldier with the scar.

“To the consul’s if you would save the American girl,” says the latter. “I’ll look after these obsequies. Come, be off,” as Van Zandt stares at him in surprise. “A plot is afoot, headed by that precious Lieut. Sanchez, and you have no time to lose.”

“But the consul—”

“The consul was at his office in the city two hours ago, and is doubtless there yet. Ah, you are too late.” The clatter of departing hoof-beats is borne upon their ears. “No; you can reach the consul’s ahead of them, by the short-cut down the hillside. Here! Take my revolver! You may need more than one. And mind, don’t waste any ammunition,” shouts the soldier, as Van Zandt dashes off.

Then he turns to the scene of the tragedy. He kneels beside Felton’s body and makes a brief examination. Then he straightens up.

“Go!” he says sternly, to Mrs. Harding. “Your work is done!”

She stares at him a moment, with her glittering eyes; then, with a little shudder, tosses the revolver into the bushes, turns and walks slowly away.

The caballero watches her out of sight and again turns to the body of the Spanish captain.

“Humph!” he grunts, as he lifts the limp form from the ground. “He is worth a dozen dead men, or my name isn’t John Barker.”