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J >> Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer >> Romance




I said, "This is absurd. A hundred witnesses can say that I am John
Kemp...."

"That may be true," the _Juez_ said dryly, and then to his clerk:

"Write here, 'John Kemp, of noble British family, called, on the scene
of his crimes, Nikola el Escoces, otherwise El Demonio.'"

I shrugged my shoulders. I did not, at the moment, realize to what this
all tended.

The judge said to the clerk, "Read the Act of Accusation. Read here...."
He was pointing to a paragraph of the papers the clerk had brought in.
They were the Act of Accusation, prepared long before, against the man
Nichols.

This particular villainy suddenly became grotesquely and portentously
plain. The clerk read an appalling catalogue of sordid crimes, working
into each other like kneaded dough--the testimony of witnesses who had
signed the record. Nikola had looted fourteen ships, and had apparently
murdered twenty-two people with his own hand--two of them women--and
there was the affair of Rowley's boats. "The pinnace," the clerk read,
"of the British came within ten yards. The said Nikola then exclaimed,
'Curse the bloodthirsty hounds,' and fired the grapeshot into the boat.
Seven were killed by that discharge. This I saw with my own eyes....
Signed, Isidoro Alemanno." And another swore, "The said Nikola was
below, but he came running up, and with one blow of his knife severed
the throat of the man who was kneeling on the deck...."

There was no doubt that Nikola had committed these crimes; that the
witnesses had sworn to them and signed the deposition.... The old judge
had evidently never seen him, and now O'Brien and the _Lugareno_ had
sworn that I was Nikola el Escoces, alias El Demonio.

My first impulse was to shout with rage; but I checked it because I knew
I should be silenced. I said:

"I am not Nikola el Escoces. That I can easily prove."

The Judge of the First Instance shrugged his shoulders and looked, with
implicit trust, up into O'Brien's face.

"That man," I pointed at the _Lugareno_, "is a pirate. And, what is
more, he is in the pay of the Senor Juez O'Brien. He was the lieutenant
of a man called Manuel-del-Popolo, who commanded the _Lugarenos_ after
Nikola left Rio Medio."

"You know very much about the pirates," the _Juez_ said, with the
sardonic air of a very stupid man. "Without doubt you were intimate with
them. I sign now your order for committal to the _carcel_ of the Marine
Court."

I said, "But I tell you I am not Nikola...."

The _Juez_ said impassively, "You pass out of my hands into those of the
Marine Court. I am satisfied that you are a person deserving of a trial.
That is the limit of my responsibility."

I shouted then, "But I tell you this O'Brien is my personal enemy."

The old man smiled acidly.

"The senor need fear nothing of our courts. He will be handed over to
his own countrymen. Without doubt of them he will obtain justice." He
signed to the _Lugareno_ to go, and rose, gathering up his papers;
he bowed to O'Brien. "I leave the criminal at the disposal of your
worship," he said, and went out with his clerk.

O'Brien sent out the two soldiers after him, and stood there alone. He
had never been so near his death. But for sheer curiosity, for my sheer
desire to know what he _could_ say, I would have smashed in his brains
with the clerk's stool. I was going to do it; I made one step towards
the stool. Then I saw that he was crying.

"The curse--the curse of Cromwell on you," he sobbed suddenly. "You send
me back to hell again." He writhed his whole body. "Sorrow!" he said, "I
know it. But what's this? What's _this?_"

The many reasons he had for sorrow flashed on me like a procession of
sombre images.

"Dead and done with a man can bear," he muttered. "But this--Not to
know--perhaps alive--perhaps hidden--She may be dead...." With a change
like a flash he was commanding me.

"Tell me how you escaped."

I had a vague inspiration of the truth.

"You aren't fit for a decent man's speaking to," I said.

"You let her drown."

It gave me suddenly the measure of his ignorance; he did not know
anything--nothing. His hell was uncertainty. Well, let him stay there.

"Where is she?" he said. "Where is she?"

"Where she's no need to fear you," I answered.

He had a sudden convulsive gesture, as if searching for a weapon.

"If you'll tell me she's alive..." he began.

"Oh, I'm not dead," I answered.

"Never a drowned puppy was more," he said, with a flash of vivacity.
"You hang here--for murder--or in England for piracy."

"Then I've little to want to live for," I sneered at him.

"You let her drown," he said. "You took her from that house, a young
girl, in a little boat. And you can hold up your head."

"I was trying to save her from you," I answered.

"By God," he said. "These English--I've seen them, spit the child on the
mother's breast. I've seen them set fire to the thatch of the widow and
childless. But this.... But this.... I can save you, I tell you."

"You can't make me go through worse than I've borne," I answered. Sorrow
and all he might wish on my head, my life was too precious to him till I
spoke. I wasn't going to speak.

"I'll search every ship in the harbour," he said passionately.

"Do," I said. "Bring your _Lugarenos_ to the task."

Upon the whole, I wasn't much afraid. Unless he got definite evidence he
couldn't--in the face of the consul's protests, and the presence of the
admiral--touch the _Lion_ again. He fixed his eyes intently upon me.

"You came in the American brigantine," he said. "It's known you landed
in her boat."

I didn't answer him; it was plain enough that the _drogher's_ arrival
had either not been reported to him, or it had been searched in vain.

"In her boat," he repeated. "I tell you I know she is not dead; even
you, an Englishman, must have a different face if she were."

"I don't at least ask you for life," I said, "to enjoy with her."

"She's alive," he said. "Alive! As for where, it matters little. I'll
search every inch of the island, every road, every _hacienda_. You don't
realize my power."

"Then search the bottom of the sea," I shouted.

"Let's look at the matter in the right light."

He had mastered his grief, his incertitude. He was himself again, and
the smile had returned--as if at the moment he forced his features to
their natural lines.

"Send one of your friars to heaven--you'll never go there yourself to
meet her."

"If you will tell me she's alive, I'll save you."

I made a mute, obstinate gesture.

"If she's alive, and you don't tell me, I can't but find her. And I'll
make you know the agonies of suspense--a long way from here."

I was silent.

"If she's dead, and you'll tell me, I'll save you some trouble. If she's
dead and you don't, you'll have your own remorse and the rest, too."

I said, "You're too Irish mysterious for me to understand. But you've a
choice of four evils for me--choose yourself."

He continued with a quivering, taut good-humour: "Prove to me she's
dead, and I'll let you die sharply and mercifully."

"You won't believe!" I said; but he took no notice.

"I tell you plainly," he smiled. "If we find... if we find her dear
body--and I can't help; but I've men on the watch all along the
shores--I'll give you up to your admiral for a pirate. You'll have
a long slow agony of a trial; I know what English justice is. And a
disgraceful felon's death."

I was thinking that, in any case, a day or so might be gained, the
_Lion_ would be gone; they could not touch her while the flagship
remained outside. I certainly didn't want to be given up to the admiral;
I might explain the mistaken identity. But there was the charge of
treason in Jamaica. I said:

"I only ask to be given up; but you daren't do it for your own credit. I
can show you up."

He said, "Make no mistake! If he gets you, he'll hang you. He's going
home in disgrace. Your whole blundering Government will work to hang
you."

"They know pretty well," I answered, "that there are queer doings in
Havana. I promise you, I'll clear things up. I know too much...."

He said, with a sudden, intense note of passion, "Only tell me where her
grave is, I'll let you go free. You couldn't, you dare not, dastard that
you are, go away from where she died--without... without making sure."

"Then search all the new graves in the island," I said, "I'll tell you
nothing.... Nothing!"

He came at me again and again, but I never spoke after that. He made all
the issues clearer and clearer--his own side involuntarily and all the
griefs I had to expect. As for him, he dared not kill me--and he dared
not give me up to the admiral. In his suspense, since, for him, I was
the only person in the world who knew Seraphina's fate, he dared not let
me out of his grip. And all the while he had me he must keep the admiral
there, waiting for the surrender either of myself or of some other poor
devil whom he might palm off as Nikola el Escoces. While the admiral was
there the _Lion_ was pretty safe from molestation, and she would sail
pretty soon.

At the same time, except for the momentary sheer joy of tormenting a
man whom I couldn't help regarding as a devil, I had more than enough to
fear. I had suffered too much; I wanted rest, woman's love, slackening
off. And here was another endless coil--endless. If it didn't end in a
knife in the back, he might keep me for ages in Havana; or he might
get me sent to England, where it would take months, an endless time, to
prove merely that I wasn't Nikola el Escoces. I should prove it; but,
in the meantime, what would become of Sera-phina? Would she follow me to
England? Would she even know that I had gone there? Or would she think
me dead and die herself? O'Brien knew nothing; his spies might report a
hundred uncertainties. He was standing rigidly still now, as if afraid
to move for fear of breaking down. He said suddenly:

"You came in some ship; you can't deceive me, I shall have them all
searched again."

I said desperately, "Search and be damned--whatever ships you like."

"You cold, pitiless, English scoundrel," he shrieked suddenly. The
breaking down of his restraint had let him go right into madness. "You
have murdered her. You cared nothing; you came from nowhere. A beggarly
fool, too stupid to be even an adventurer. A miserable blunderer, coming
in blind; coming out blind; and leaving ruin and worse than hell. What
good have you done yourself? What could you? What did you see? What did
you hope?... Sorrow? Ruin? Death? I am acquainted with them. It is in
the blood; 'tis in the tone; in the entrails of us, in our mother's
milk. Your accursed land has brought always that on our own dear and
sorrowful country.... You waste, you ruin, you spoil. What for?... Tell
me what for? Tell me? Tell me? What did you gain? What will you ever
gain? An unending curse!... But, ah, ye've no souls."

He called very loudly, as if with a passionate relief, his voice giving
life to an unsuspected, misgiving echo:

"Guards! Soldiers!... You shall be shot, now!"

He was going to cut the knot that way. Two soldiers pushed the door
noisily open, their muskets advanced. He took no notice of them; and
they retained an attitude of military stupidity, their eyes upon him. He
whispered:

"No, no! Not yet!"

Then he looked at me searchingly, as if he still hoped to get some
certainty from my face, some inkling, perhaps some inspiration of what
would persuade me to speak. Then he shook his wrists violently, as if in
fear of himself.

"Take him away," he said. "Away! Out of reach of my hands. Out of reach
of my hands."

I was trembling a good deal; when the soldiers entered I thought I had
got to my last minute. But, as it was, he had not learnt a thing
from me. Not a thing. And I did not see where else he could go for
information.




CHAPTER TWO

The entrance to the common prison of Havana was a sort of lofty
tunnel, finished by great, iron-rusted, wooden gates. A civil guard was
exhibiting the judge's warrant for my committal to a white-haired man,
with a red face and blue eyes, that seemed to look through tumbled
bushes of silver eyebrows--the _alcayde_ of the prison. He bowed, and
rattled two farcically large keys. A practicable postern was ajar on the
yellow wood of the studded gates. It was as if it afforded a glimpse
of the other side of the world. The venerable turnkey, a gnome in
a steeple-crowned hat, protruded a blood-red hand backwards in the
direction of the postern.

"Senor Caballero," he croaked, "I pray you to consider this house your
own. My servants are yours."

Within was a gravel yard, shut in by portentous lead-white house-sides
with black window holes. Under each row of windows was a vast vaulted
tunnel, caged with iron bars, for all the world like beasts' dens. It
being day, the beasts were out and lounging about the _patio_. They had
an effect of infinite tranquillity, as if they were ladies and gentlemen
parading in a Sunday avenue. Perhaps twenty of them, in snowy white
shirts and black velvet knee-breeches, strutted like pigeons in a knot,
some with one woman on the arm, some with two. Bundles of variegated
rags lay against the walls, as if they were sweepings. Well, they were
the sweepings of Havana jail. The men in white and black were the great
thieves... and there were children, too--the place was the city
orphanage. For the fifth part of a second my advent made no difference.
Then, at the far end, one of the men in black and white separated
himself, and came swiftly to me across the sunny _patio_. The others
followed slowly, with pea-fowl steps, their women hanging to them
and whispering. The bundles of rags rose up towards me; others slunk
furtively out of the barred dens. The man who was approaching had the
head of a Julius Caesar of fifty, for all the world as if he had stolen a
bust and endowed it with yellow skin and stubby gray and silver hair.
He saluted me with intense gravity and an imperial glance of yellow
eyes along a hooked nose. His linen was the most spotless broidered and
embossed stuff; irom the crimson scarf round his waist protruded the
shagreen and silver handle of a long dagger. He said:

"Senor, I have the honour to salute you. I am Crisostomo Garcia. I ask
the courtesy of your trousers."

I did not answer him. I did not see what he wanted with my trousers,
which weren't anyway as valuable as his own. The others were closing
in on me like a solid wall. I leant back against the gate; I was not
frightened, but I was mightily excited. The man like Caesar looked
fiercely at me, swayed a long way back on his haunches, and imperiously
motioned the crowd to recede.

"Senor Inglesito," he said, "the gift I have the honour to ask of you is
the price of my protection. Without it these, my brothers, will tear you
limb from limb, there will nothing of you remain."

His brothers set up a stealthy, sinister growl, that went round among
the heads like the mutter of an obscene echo among the mountain-tops. I
wondered whether this, perhaps, was the man who, O'Brien said, would
put a knife in my back. I hadn't any knife; I might knock the fellow's
teeth down his throat, though.

The _alcayde_ thrust his immense hat, blood-red face, and long, ragged,
silver locks out of the little door. His features were convulsed with
indignation. He had been whispering with the Civil Guard.

"Are you mad, gentlemen?" he said. "Do you wish to visit hell before
your times? Do you know who the senor is? Did you ever hear of Carlos el
Demonio? This is the _Inglesito_ of Rio Medio!"

It was plain that my deeds, such as they were, reported by O'Brien
spies, by the _Lugarenos_, by all sorts of credulous gossipers, had got
me the devil of a reputation in the _patio_ of the jail. Men detached
themselves from the crowd, and went running about to announce my
arrival. The _alcayde_ drew his long body into the _patio_, and turned
to lock the little door with an immense key. In the crowd all sorts
of little movements happened. Women crossed themselves, and furtively
thrust pairs of crooked, skinny, brown, black-nailed fingers in my
direction. The man like Caesar said:

"I ask your pardon, Senor Caballero. I did not know. How could I tell?
You are free of all the _patios_ in this land."

The tall _alcayde_ finished grinding the immense key in the lock, and
touched me on the arm.

"If the senor will follow me," he said. "I will do the honours of this
humble mansion, and indicate a choice of rooms where he may be free from
the visits of these gentry."

We went up steps, and through long, shadowy corridors, with here and
there a dark, lounging figure, like a stag seen in the dim aisles of a
wood. The _alcayde_ threw open a door.

The room was like a blazing oblong-box, filled with light, but without
window or chimney. Two men were fencing in the illumination of some
twenty candles stuck all round the mildewed white walls on lumps of
clay. There was a blaze of silver things, like an altar of a wealthy
church, from a black, carved table in the far corner. The two men, in
shirts and breeches, revolved round each other, their rapiers clinking,
their left arms scarved, holding buttoned daggers. The _alcayde_
proclaimed:

"Don Vincente Salazar, I have the honour to announce an English senor."

The man with his face to me tossed his rapier impatiently into a corner.
He was a plump, dark Cuban, with a brooding truculence. The other faced
round quickly. His cheeks shone in the candle-light like polished yellow
leather, his eyes were narrow slits, his face lugubrious. He scrutinized
me intently, then drawled:

"My! You?... Hang me if I didn't think it would be you!"

He had the air of surveying a monstrosity, and pulled the neck of his
dirty print shirt open, panting. He slouched out into the corridor, and
began whispering eagerly to the _alcayde_. The little Cuban glowered at
me; I said I had the honour to salute him.

He muttered something contemptuous between his teeth. Well, if he didn't
want to talk to me, I didn't want to talk to him. It had struck me that
the tall, sallow man was undoubtedly the second mate of the _Thames_.
Nicholas, the real Nikola el Escoces! The Cuban grumbled suddenly:

"You, Senor, are without doubt one of the spies of that friend of the
priests, that O'Brien. Tell him to beware--that I bid him beware. I, Don
Vincente Salazar de Valdepefias y Forli y..."

I remembered the name; he was once the suitor of Seraphina--the man
O'Brien had put out of the way. He continued with a grotesque frown of
portentous significance:

"To-morrow I leave this place. And your compatriot is very much afraid,
Senor. Let him fear! Let him fear! But a thousand spies should not save
him."

The tall _alcayde_ came hurriedly back and stood bowing between us. He
apologized abjectly to the Cuban for intruding me upon him. But the room
was the best in the place at the disposal of the prisoners of the Juez
O'Brien. And I was a noted _caballero_. Heaven knows what I had not done
in Rio Medio. Burnt, slain, ravished.... The Senor Juez was understood
to be much incensed against me. The gloomy Cuban at once rushed upon me,
as if he would have taken me into his arms.

"The _Inglesito_ of Rio Medio!" he said. "Ha, ha! Much have I heard of
you. Much of the senor's valiance! Many tales! That foul eater of the
carrion of the priests wishes your life! Ah, but let him beware! I shall
save you, Senor--I, Don Vincente Salazar."

He presented me with the room--a remarkably bare place but for his
properties: silver branch candlesticks, a silver chafing-dish as large
as a basin. They might have been chased by Cellini--one used to find
things like that in Cuba in those days, and Salazar was the person
to have them. Afterwards, at the time of the first insurrection, his
eight-mule harness was sold for four thousand pounds in Paris--by reason
of the gold and pearls upon it. The atmosphere, he explained, was fetid,
but his man was coming to burn sandal-wood and beat the air with fans.

"And to-morrow!" he said, his eyes rolling. Suddenly he stopped.
"Senor," he said, "is it true that my venerated friend, my more than
father, has been murdered--at the instigation of that fiend? Is it true
that the senorita has disappeared? These tales are told."

I said it was very true.

"They shall be avenged," he declared, "to-morrow! I shall seek out the
senorita. I shall find her. I shall find her! For me she was destined by
my venerable friend."

He snatched a black velvet jacket from the table and put it on.

"Afterwards, Senor, you shall relate. Have no fear. I shall save you. I
shall save all men oppressed by this scourge of the land. For the moment
afford me the opportunity to meditate." He crossed his arms, and dropped
his round head. "Alas, yes!" he meditated.

Suddenly he waved towards the door. "Senor," he said swiftly, "I must
have air; I stifle. Come with me to the corridor...."

He went towards the window giving on to the _patio_; he stood in the
shadow, his arms folded, his head hanging dejectedly. At the moment it
grew suddenly dark, as if a veil had been thrown over a lamp. The sun
had set outside the walls. A drum began to beat. Down below in the
obscurity the crowd separated into three strings and moved slowly
towards the barren tunnels. Under our feet the white shirts disappeared;
the ragged crowd gravitated to the left; the small children strung into
the square cage-door. The drum beat again and the crowd hurried. Then
there was a clang of closing grilles and lights began to show behind the
bars from deep recesses. In a little time there was a repulsive hash of
heads and limbs to be seen under the arches vanishing a long way within,
and a little light washed across the gravel of the _patio_ from within.

"Senor," the Cuban said suddenly, "I will pronounce his panegyric.
He was a man of a great gentleness, of an inevitable nobility, of an
invariable courtesy. Where, in this degenerate age, shall we find the
like!" He stopped to breathe a sound of intense exasperation.

"When I think of these Irish,..." he said. "Of that O'Brien...."
A servant was arranging the shining room that we had left. Salazar
interrupted himself to give some orders about a banquet, then returned
to me. "I tell you I am here for introducing my knife to the spine of
some sort of Madrid _embustero_, a man who was insolent to my _amiga_
Clara. Do you believe that for that this O'Brien, by the influence of
the priests whose soles he licks with his tongue, has had me inclosed
for many months? Because he feared me! Aha! I was about to expose him to
the noble don who is now dead! I was about to wed the Senorita who
has disappeared. But to-morrow... I shall expose his intrigue to the
Captain-General. You, Senor, shall be my witness! I extend my protection
to you...." He crossed his arms and spoke with much deliberation.
"Senor, this Irishman incommodes me, Don Vincente Salazar de Valdepenas
y Forli...." He nodded his head expressively. "Senor, we offered these
Irish the shelter of our robe for that your Government was making
martyrs of them who were good Christians, and it behoves us to act in
despite of your Government, who are heretics and not to be tolerated
upon God's Christian earth. But, Senor, if they incommoded your
Government as they do us, I do not wonder that there was a desire to
remove them. Senor, the life of that man is not worth the price of eight
mules, which is the price I have paid for my release. I might walk free
at this moment, but it is not fitting that I should slink away under
cover of darkness. I shall go out in the daylight with my carriage. And
I will have an offering to show my friends who, like me, are incommoded
by this...." The man was a monomaniac; but it struck me that, if I had
been O'Brien, I should have felt uncomfortable.

In the dark of the corridor a long shape appeared, lounging. The Cuban
beside me started hospitably forward.

"_Vamos_," he said briskly; "to the banquet...." He waved his hand
towards the shining door and stood aside. We entered.

The other man was undoubtedly the Nova Scotian mate of the _Thames_, the
man who had dissuaded me from following Carlos on the day we sailed into
Kingston Harbour. He was chewing a toothpick, and at the ruminant motion
of his knife-jaws I seemed to see him, sitting naked to the waist in
his bunk, instead of upright there in red trousers and a blue shirt--an
immense lank-length of each. I pieced his history together in a sort of
flash. He was the true Nikola el Escoces; his name was Nichols, and he
came from Nova Scotia. He had been the chief of O'Brien's _Lugarenos_.
He surveyed me now with a twinkle in his eyes, his yellow jaws as
shiny-shaven as of old; his arms as much like a semaphore. He said
mockingly:

"So you went there, after all?"

But the Cuban was pressing us towards his banquet; there was _gaspacho_
in silver plates, and a man in livery holding something in a napkin. It
worried me. We surveyed each other in silence. I wondered what Nichols
knew; what it would be safe to tell him; how much he could help me? One
or other of these men undoubtedly might. The Cuban was an imbecile; but
he might have some influence--and if he really were going out on the
morrow, and really did go to the Captain-General, he certainly could
further his own revenge on O'Brien by helping me.... But as for
Nichols....

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