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Carlos and I looked at each other silently. "And his life hangs on a
thread," whispered the dying man with something like despair.

The crisis of all these years of plotting would come the moment the
old Don closed his eyes. Meantime, why was it that O'Brien did not show
himself in Rio Medio? What was it that kept him in Havana?

"Already I do not count, my Juan," Carlos would say. "And he prepares
all things for the day of my uncle's death."

The dark ways of that man were inscrutable. He must have known, of
course, that I was in Rio Medio. His presence was to be feared, and his
absence itself was growing formidable.

"But what do you think he will do? How do you think he will act?" I
would ask, a little bewildered by my responsibility.

Carlos could not tell precisely. It was not till some time after his
arrival from Europe that he became clearly aware of all the extent of
that man's ambition. At the same time, he had realized all his power.
That man aimed at nothing less than the whole Riego fortune, and, of
course, through Seraphina. I would feel a rage at this--a sort of rage
that made my head spin as if the ground had reeled. "He would have found
means of getting rid of me if he had not seen I was not long for this
world," Carlos would say. He had gained an unlimited ascendency over his
uncle's mind; he had made a solitude round this solemn dotage in which
ended so much power, a great reputation, a stormy life of romance and
passion--so picturesque and excessive even in his old man's love,
whose after-effect, as though the work of a Nemesis resenting so much
brilliance, was casting a shadow upon the fate of his daughter.

Small, fair, plump, concealing his Irish vivacity of intelligence under
the taciturn gravity of a Spanish lawyer, and backed by the influence
of two noble houses, O'Brien had attained to a remarkable reputation of
sagacity and unstained honesty. Hand in glove with the clergy, one of
the judges of the Marine Court, procurator to the cathedral chapter, he
had known how to make himself so necessary to the highest in the land
that everybody but the very highest looked upon him with fear. His
occult influence was altogether out of proportion to his official
position. His plans were carried out with an unswerving tenacity
of purpose. Carlos believed him capable of anything but a vulgar
peculation. He had been reduced to observe his action quietly, hampered
by the weakness of ill-health. As an instance of O'Brien's methods, he
related to me the manner in which, faithful to his purpose of making a
solitude about the Riegos, he had contrived to prevent overtures for an
alliance from the Salazar family. The young man Don Vincente himself was
impossible, an evil liver, Carlos said, of dissolute habits. Still, to
have even that shadow of a rival out of the way, O'Brien took advantage
of a sanguinary affray between that man and one of his boon companions
about some famous guitar-player girl. The encounter having taken place
under the wall of a convent, O'Brien had contrived to keep Don Vincente
in prison ever since--not on a charge of murder (which for a young man
of that quality would have been a comparatively venial offence), but
of sacrilege. The Salazars were a powerful family, but he was strong
enough to risk their enmity. "Imagine that, Juan!" Carlos would exclaim,
closing his eyes. What had caused him the greatest uneasiness was the
knowledge that Don Balthasar had been induced lately to write some
letter to the archbishop in Havana. Carlos was afraid it was simply
an expression of affection and unbounded trust in his intendente,
practically dictated to the old man by O'Brien. "Do you not see, Juan,
how such a letter would strengthen his case, should he ask the guardians
for Seraphina's hand?" And perhaps he was appointed one of the
guardians himself. It was impossible to know what, were the testamentary
dispositions; Father Antonio, who had learned many things in the
confessional, could tell us nothing, but, when the matter was mentioned,
only rolled his eyes up to heaven in an alarming manner. It was
startling to think of all the unholy forces awakened by the temptation
of Seraphina's helplessness and her immense fortune. Incorruptible
himself, that man knew how to corrupt others. There might have been
combined in one dark intrigue the covetousness of religious orders, the
avarice of high officials--God knows what conspiracy--to help O'Brien's
ambition, his passions. He could make himself necessary; he could bribe;
he could frighten; he was able to make use of the highest in the land
and of the lowest, from the present Captain-General to the _Lugarenos_.
In Havana he had for him the reigning powers; in Rio Medio the lowest
outcasts of the island.

This last was the most dangerous aspect of his power for us, and
also his weakest point. This was the touch of something fanciful and
imaginative; a certain grim childishness in the idea of making war on
the British Empire; a certain disregard of risk; a bizarre illusion
of his hate for the abhorred Saxon. That he risked his position by his
connection with such a nest of scoundrels, there could be no doubt. It
was he who had given them such organization as they had, and he stood
between them and the law. But whatever might have been suspected of him,
he was cautious enough not to go too far. He never appeared personally;
his agents directed the action--men who came from Havana rather
mysteriously. They were of all sorts; some of them were friars. But the
rabble, who knew him really only as the intendente of the great man,
stood in the greatest dread of him. Who was it procured the release of
some of them who had got into trouble in Havana? The intendente. Who was
it who caused six of their comrades, who had been taken up on a matter
of street-brawling in the capital, to be delivered to the English
as pirates? Again, the intendente, the terrible man, the Juez, who
apparently had the power to pardon and condemn.

In this way he was most dangerous to us in Rio Medio. He had that
rabble at his beck and call. He could produce a rising of cut-throats by
lifting his little finger. He was not very likely to do that, however.
He was intriguing in Havana--but how could we unmask him there? "He has
cut us off from the world," Carlos would say. "It is so, my Juan, that,
if I tried to write, no letter of mine would reach its destination; it
would fall into his hands. And if I did manage to make my voice heard,
he would appeal to my uncle himself in his defence."

Besides, to whom could he write?--who would believe him? O'Brien would
deny everything, and go on his way. He had been accepted too long, had
served too many people and known so many secrets. It was terrible.
And if I went myself to Havana, no one would believe me. But I should
disappear; they would never see me again. It was impossible to
unmask that man unless by a long and careful action. And for this
he--Carlos--had no time; and I--I had no standing, no relations, no
skill even....

"But what is my line of conduct, Carlos?" I insisted; while Father
Antonio, from whom Carlos had, of course, no secrets, stood by the bed,
his round, jolly face almost comical in its expression of compassionate
concern.

Carlos passed his thin, wasted hand over a white brow pearled with the
sweat of real anguish.

Carlos thought that while Don Balthasar lived, O'Brien would do nothing
to compromise his influence over him. Neither could I take any action;
I must wait and watch. O'Brien would, no doubt, try to remove me; but
as long as I kept within the Casa, he thought I should be safe. He
recommended me to try to please his cousin, and even found strength
to smile at my transports. Don Balthasar liked me for the sake of his
sister, who had been so happy in England. I was his kinsman and his
guest. From first to last, England, the idea of my country, of my home,
played a great part in my life then; it seemed to rest upon all our
thoughts. To me it was but my boyhood, the farm at the foot of the
downs--Rooksby's Manor--all within a small nook between the quarry by
the side of the Canterbury road and the shingle beach, whose regular
crashing under the feet of a smuggling band was the last sound of my
country I had heard. For Carlos it was the concrete image of stability,
with the romantic feeling of its peace and of Veronica's beauty; the
unchangeable land where he had loved. To O'Brien's hate it loomed up
immense and odious, like the form of a colossal enemy. Father Antonio,
in the naive benevolence of his heart, prayed each night for its
conversion, as if it were a loved sinner. He believed this event to
be not very far off accomplishment, and told me once, with an amazing
simplicity of certitude, that "there will be a great joy amongst the
host of heaven on that day." It is marvellous how that distant land,
from which I had escaped as if from a prison to go in search of romance,
appeared romantic and perfect in these days--all things to all men! With
Seraphina I talked of it and its denizens as of a fabulous country.
I wonder what idea she had formed of my father, of my mother, my
sister--"Senora Dona Veronica Rooksby," she called her--of the
landscape, of the life, of the sky. Her eyes turned to me seriously.
Once, stooping, she plucked an orange marigold for her hair; and at last
we came to talk of our farm as the only perfect refuge for her.




CHAPTER THREE

One evening Carlos, after a silence of distress, had said, "There's
nothing else for it. When the crisis comes, you must carry her off from
this unhappiness and misery that hangs over her head. You must take her
out of Cuba; there is no safety for her here."

This took my breath away. "But where are we to go, Carlos?" I asked,
bending over him.

"To--to England," he whispered.

He was utterly worn out that evening by all the perplexities of his
death-bed. He made a great effort and murmured a few words more--about
the Spanish ambassador in London being a near relation of the Riegos;
then he gave it up and lay still under my amazed eyes. The nun was
approaching, alarmed, from the shadows. Father Antonio, gazing sadly
upon his beloved penitent, signed me to withdraw.

Castro had not gone away yet; he greeted me in low tones outside the big
door.

"Senor," he went on, "I make my report usually to his Senoria Don
Carlos; only I have not been admitted to-day into his rooms at all. But
what I have to say is for your ear, also. There has arrived a friar from
a Havana convent amongst the _Lugarenos_ of the bay. I have known him
come like this before."

I remembered that in the morning, while dressing, I had glanced out
of the narrow outside window of my room, and had seen a brown, mounted
figure passing on the sands. Its sandalled feet dangled against the
flanks of a powerful mule.

Castro shook his head. "Malediction on his green eyes! He baptizes the
offspring of this vermin sometimes, and sits for hours in the shade
before the door of Domingo's posada telling his beads as piously as a
devil that had turned monk for the greater undoing of us Christians.
These women crowd there to kiss his oily paw. What else they------
_Basta!_ Only I wanted to tell you, Senor, that this evening (I just
come from taking a _pasear_ that way) there is much talk in the villages
of an evil-intentioned heretic that has introduced himself into this our
town; of an _Inglez_ hungry for men to hang--of you, in short."

The moon, far advanced in its first quarter, threw an ashen, bluish
light upon one-half of the courtyard; and the straight shadow upon the
other seemed to lie at the foot of the columns, black as a broad stroke
of Indian ink.

"And what do you think of it, Castro?" I asked.

"I think that Domingo has his orders. Manuel has made a song already.
And do you know its burden, Senor? Killing is its burden. I would the
devil had all these _Improvisadores_. They gape round him while he
twangs and screeches, the wind-bag! And he knows what words to sing to
them, too. He has talent. _Maladetta!_"

"Well, and what do you advise?"

"I advise the senor to keep, now, within the Casa. No songs can give
that vermin the audacity to seek the senor here. The gate remains
barred; the firearms are always loaded; and Cesar is a sagacious
African. But methinks this moon would fall out of the heaven first
before they would dare.... Keep to the Casa, I say--I, Tomas Castro."

He flung the corner of his cloak over his left shoulder, and preceded me
to the door of my room; then, after a "God guard you, Senor," continued
along the colonnade. Before I had shut my door it occurred to me that
he was going on towards the part of the gallery on which Seraphina's
apartments opened. Why? What could he want there?

I am not so much ashamed of my sudden suspicion of him--one did not know
whom to trust--but I am a little ashamed to confess that, kicking off my
shoes, I crept out instantly to spy upon him.

This part of the house was dark in the inky flood of shadow; and before
I had come to a recess in the wall, I heard the discreet scratching of a
finger-nail on a door. A streak of light darted and disappeared, like a
signal for the murmurs of two voices.

I recognized the woman's at once. It belonged to one of Seraphina's
maids, a pretty little quadroon--a favourite of hers--called La Chica.
She had slipped out, and her twitter-like whispering reached me in the
still solemnity of the quadrangle. She addressed Castro as "His Worship"
at every second word, for the saturnine little man, in his unbrushed
cloak and battered hat, was immensely respected by the household. Had he
not been sent to Europe to fetch Don Carlos? He was in the confidence of
the masters--their humble friend. The little tire-woman twittered of her
mistress. The senorita had been most anxious all day--ever since she had
heard the friar had come. Castro muttered:

"Tell the Excellency that her orders have been obeyed. The English
_caballero_ has been warned. I have been sleepless in my watchfulness
over the guest of the house, as the senorita has desired--for the honour
of the Riegos. Let her set her mind at ease."

The girl then whispered to him with great animation. Did not his worship
think that it was the senorita's heart which was not at ease?

Then the quadrangle became dumb in its immobility, half sheen, half
night, with its arcades, the soothing plash of water, with its expiring
lights, in a suggestion of Castilian severity, enveloped by the exotic
softness of the air.

"What folly!" uttered Castro's sombre voice. "You women do not mind how
many corpses come into your imaginings of love. The mere whisper of such
a thing------"

She murmured swiftly. He interrupted her.

"Thine eyes, La Chica--thine eyes see only the silliness of thine own
heart. Think of thine own lovers, _nina. Por Dios!_"--he changed to a
tone of severe appreciation--"thy foolish face looks well by moonlight."

I believe he was chucking her gravely under the chin. I heard her
soft, gratified cooing in answer to the compliment; the streak of light
flashed on the polished shaft of a pillar; and Castro went on, going
round to the staircase, evidently so as not to pass again before my open
door.

I forgot to shut it. I did not stop until I was in the middle of
my room; and then I stood still for a long time in a self-forgetful
ecstasy, while the many wax candles of the high candelabrum burned
without a flicker in a rich cluster of flames, as if lighted to throw
the splendour of a celebration upon the pageant of my thoughts.

For the honour of the Riegos!

I came to myself. Well, it was sweet to be the object of her anxiety and
care, even on these terms--on any terms. And I felt a sort of profound,
inexpressible, grateful emotion, as though no one, never, on no day, on
no occasion, had taken thought of me before.

I should not be able to sleep. I went to the window, and leaned my
forehead on the iron bar. There was no glass; the heavy shutter was
thrown open; and, under the faint crescent of the moon I saw a small
part of the beach, very white, the long streak of light lying mistily
on the bay, and two black shapes, cloaked, moving and stopping all of a
piece like pillars, their immensely long shadows running away from their
feet, with the points of the hats touching the wall of the Casa Riego.
Another, a shorter, thicker shape, appeared, walking with dignity. It
was Castro. The other two had a movement of recoil, then took off their
hats.

"_Buenas noches, caballeros_," his voice said, with grim politeness.
"You are out late."

"So is your worship. _Vaya, Senor, con Dios_. We are taking the air."

They walked away, while Castro remained looking after them. But I,
from my elevation, noticed that they had suddenly crouched behind some
scrubby bushes growing on the edge of the sand. Then Castro, too, passed
out of my sight in the opposite direction, muttering angrily.

I forgot them all. Everything on earth was still, and I seemed to be
looking through a casement out of an enchanted castle standing in the
dreamland of romance. I breathed out the name of Seraphina into the
moonlight in an increasing transport. "Seraphina! Seraphina! Seraphina!"
The repeated beauty of the sound intoxicated me. "Seraphina!" I cried
aloud, and stopped, astounded at myself. And the moonlight of romance
seemed to whisper spitefully from below:

"Death to the traitor! Vengeance for our brothers dead on the English
gallows!" "Come away, Manuel."

"No. I am an artist. It is necessary for my soul..."

"Be quiet!"

Their hissing ascended along the wall from under the window. The two
_Lugarenos_ had stolen in unnoticed by me. There was a stifled metallic
ringing, as of a guitar carried under a cloak.

"Vengeance on the heretic _Inglez!_"

"Come away! They may suddenly open the gate and fall upon us with
sticks."

"My gentle spirit is roused to the accomplishment of great things.
I feel in me a valiance, an inspiration. I am no vulgar seller of
_aguardiente_, like Domingo. I was born to be the _capataz_ of the
_Lugarenos_."

"We shall be set upon and beaten, oh, thou Manuel. Come away!"

There were no footsteps, only a noiseless flitting of two shadows, and a
distant voice crying:

"Woe, woe, woe to the traitor!"

I had not needed Castro's warning to understand the meaning of this.
O'Brien was setting his power to work, only this Manuel's restless
vanity had taught me exactly how the thing was to be done. The friar
had been exciting the minds of this rabble against me; awakening their
suspicions, their hatred, their fears.

I remained at the casement, lost in rather sombre reflections. I was now
a prisoner within the walls of the Casa. After all, it mattered little.
I did not want to go away unless I could carry off Seraphina with me.
What a dream! What an impossible dream! Alone, without friends, with no
place to go to, without means of going; without, by Heaven, the right of
even as much as speaking of it to her. Carlos--Carlos dreamed--a
dream of his dying hours. England was so far, the enemy so near;
and--Providence itself seemed to have forgotten me.

A sound of panting made me turn my head. Father Antonio was mopping his
brow in the doorway. Though a heavy man, he was noiseless of foot. A
wheezing would be heard along the dark galleries some time before his
black bulk approached you with a gliding motion. He had the outward
placidity of corpulent people, a natural artlessness of demeanour
which was amusing and attractive, and there was something shrewd in his
simplicity. Indeed, he must have displayed much tact and shrewdness to
have defeated all O'Brien's efforts to oust him from his position of
confessor to the household. What had helped him to hold his ground was
that, as he said to me once, "I, too, my son, am a legacy of that truly
pious and noble lady, the wife of Don Riego. I was made her spiritual
director soon after her marriage, and I may say that she showed more
discretion in the choice of her confessor than in that of her man of
affairs. But what would you have? The best of us, except for Divine
grace, is liable to err; and, poor woman, let us hope that, in her
blessed state, she is spared the knowledge of the iniquities going on
here below in the Casa."

He used to talk to me in that strain, coming in almost every evening
on his way from the sick room. He, too, had his own perplexities, which
made him wipe his forehead repeatedly; afterwards he used to spread his
red bandanna handkerchief over his knees.

He sympathized with Carlos, his beloved penitent, with Seraphina, his
dear daughter, whom he had baptized and instructed in the mysteries of
"our holy religion," and he allowed himself often to drop the remark
that his "illustrious spiritual son," Don Balthasar, after a stormy
life of which men knew only too much, had attained to a state of truly
childlike and God-fearing innocence--a sign, no doubt, of Heaven's
forgiveness for those excesses. He ended, always, by sighing heartily,
to sit with his gaze on the floor.

That night he came in silently, and after shutting the door with care,
took his habitual seat, a broad wooden armchair.

"How did your reverence leave Don Carlos?" I asked.

"Very low," he said. "The disease is making terrible ravages, and my
ministrations------I ought to be used to the sight of human misery,
but------" He raised his hands; a genuine emotion overpowered him; then,
uncovering his face to stare at me, "He is lost, Don Juan," he
exclaimed.

"Indeed, I fear we are about to lose him, your reverence," I said,
surprised at this display. It seemed inconceivable that he should have
been in doubt up to this very moment.

He rolled his eyes painfully. I was forgetting the infinite might of
God. Still, nothing short of a miracle------But what had we done to
deserve miracles?

"Where is the ancient piety of our forefathers which made Spain so
great?" he apostrophized the empty air, a little wildly, as if in
distraction. "No, Don Juan; even I, a true servant of our faith, am
conscious of not having had enough grace for my humble ministrations to
poor sailors and soldiers--men naturally inclined to sin, but simple.
And now--there are two great nobles, the fortune of a great house...."

I looked at him and wondered, for he was, in a manner, wringing his
hands, as if in immense distress.

"We are all thinking of that poor child--_mas que_, Don Juan, imagine
all that wealth devoted to the iniquitous purposes of that man. Her
happiness sacrificed."

"I cannot imagine this--I will not," I interrupted, so violently that he
hushed me with both hands uplifted.

"To these wild enterprises against your own country," he went on
vehemently, disregarding my exasperated and contemptuous laugh. "And she
herself, the _nina_ I have baptized her; I have instructed her; and a
more noble disposition, more naturally inclined to the virtues and
proprieties of her sex------But, Don Juan, she has pride, which
doubtless is a gift of God, too, but it is made a snare of by Satan,
the roaring lion, the thief of souls. And what if her feminine
rashness--women are rash, my son," he interjected with unction--"and her
pride were to lead her into--I am horrified at the thought--into an act
of mortal sin for which there is no repentance?"

"Enough!" I shouted at him.

"No repentance," he repeated, rising to his feet excitedly, and I stood
before him, my arms down my sides, with my fists clenched.

Why did the stupid priest come to talk like this to me, as if I had not
enough of my own unbearable thoughts?

He sat down and began to flourish his handkerchief. There was depicted
on his broad face--depicted simply and even touchingly--the inward
conflict of his benevolence and of his doubts.

"I observe your emotion, my son," he said. I must have been as pale
as death. And, after a pause, he meditated aloud, "And, after all, you
English are a reverent nation. You, a scion of the nobility, have been
brought up in deplorable rebellion against the authority of God on this
earth; but you are not a scoffer--not a scoffer. I, a humble
priest------But, after all, the Holy Father himself, in his inspired
wisdom------I have prayed to be enlightened...."

He spread the square of his damp handkerchief on his knees, and bowed
his head. I had regained command over myself, but I did not understand
in the least. I had passed from my exasperation into a careworn fatigue
of mind that was like utter darkness.

"After all," he said, looking up naively, "the business of us priests is
to save souls. It is a solemn time when death approaches. The affairs of
this world should be cast aside. And yet God surely does not mean us to
abandon the living to the mercy of the wicked."

A sadness came upon his face, his eyes; all the world seemed asleep. He
made an effort. "My son," he said with decision, "I call you to follow
me to the bedside of Don Carlos at this very hour of night. I, a humble
priest, the unworthy instrument of God's grace, call upon you to bring
him a peace which my ministrations cannot give. His time is near."

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