A Bitter Heritage

"Who are you?" asked the officer in command of the constabulary, bending down from his horse to look at the newcomer, and observing that he was a half-caste. "Do you belong to this property?"

"I did," that newcomer said, looking up at the other. "I did-but not now. Now I belong to you. To the Government, the police."

"So! You desire to give information. Is that it?

"Yes. That is it."

"What can you tell?"

"That the Englishman not there-that he taken away already, I think-"

"It is not so," a voice whispered close to his ear, yet one sufficiently loud to be heard by all. "It is not so." And, looking round, every one saw the dark, starlike eyes of Zara gleaming through the darkness at them. "He is there-but he will not be for long if you do not make haste."

From one of her hearers-from Beatrix-there came a gasp; from the rest only a few muttered sentences that there was no time to be lost; that they must attack the house at once, and call on the inhabitants to come forth and give an account of themselves. Then, once more, the order was issued for the cavalcade to advance. And silently they did so, Beatrix being placed in the rear, so that if any violence should be offered, or any resistance, she should not be exposed to it more than was necessary.

But there was little or no sign at present of the likelihood of such resistance being made. Instead, Desolada presented now an appearance worthy of its mournful name. For all was darkened in and around it; the windows of the lower floor, especially the windows of the great saloon, from which, or from its veranda, the light of the lamp had streamed forth nightly, were all closed and shuttered; nowhere was a glimmer to be seen. And also the door in the middle of the veranda was closed-a circumstance that certainly during the summer, would have been unusual in any abode in British Honduras.

All were close to the steps of the veranda now, and the officer in command of the constabulary, dismounting from his horse, strode up on to the latter, while beating upon the door with his clenched fist, he called out that he required to see Mr. Ritherdon at once. A summons to which no answer was returned.

"If," this person said, looking around on those behind him, and whose forms he could but dimly see-"if no answer is returned, we shall be forced to break the door down or blow the lock off. Into the house we must get."

"There is now," said Mr. Spranger, who had also dismounted and joined him, "a figure on the balcony of the floor above. It has come out from one of the windows. But I cannot see whether it is man or woman."

"A figure!" cried the other, darting out at once on to the path beneath, so that thus he could gaze up to the higher balcony. "A figure!" and then, raising his eyes, he saw that Mr. Spranger had spoken accurately. For, against the darkness of the night, and the darkness of the house too, there was perceptible some other darker, deeper blur which was undoubtedly the form of a person gazing down at them. A form surmounted by something that was a little, though not much, whiter than its surroundings; something that all who gazed upon it knew to be a human face.

CHAPTER XXX

BEYOND PASSION'S BOUND

A human face was gazing down on them from where the body beneath crouched, as though kneeling against the rails of the veranda-a face from which more than one in that band thought they could see the eyes glistening. Yet, from it no sound issued, only-only-still the white face grew more perceptible and stood out more clearly in the blackness, as the others continued to stare at it, and the eyes seemed to glitter with a greater intensity.

"Come down," cried up the officer now, directing his voice toward where it lurked, "come down and let us in. We have important business with Mr. Ritherdon."

But still no reply nor sound was heard.

"Come down," the other said again, "and at once, or we shall force an entrance; we shall lose no time."

Then from that dark, indistinct mass there did come some whispered words; words clear enough, however, to be heard by those below.

"Who are you?" that voice demanded, "and what do you want?"

"We want," the officer replied, "Mr. Ritherdon. And also, Madame Carmaux, his housekeeper, and the Englishman who has been staying here."

"The Englishman has gone away, back to England, and Mr. Ritherdon is at Belize-"

"Liar!" all heard another voice murmur in their midst, while looking around, they saw that Zara was still there, standing beside the horses and gazing up toward the balcony. "Liar! Both are in the house."

Then in a moment she had crept away, and stolen toward where Beatrix, who had also left the saddle, stood, while, seizing her arm she whispered, "Follow me. Now is the time."

"To him?"

"Yes," Zara said-"yes, to him. To him you love. You do love him, do you not?"

"Ah, yes! Ah, yes! Oh, save him! Save him!"

"Come," said Zara-and Beatrix thought that as the other spoke now, her voice had changed. As, indeed it had. For (still thinking that the English girl could have but one man in her thoughts, and he the one whom she herself loved and hated alternately-the latter passion being testified by the manner in which she had, in a moment of impulse, given him the physic-nut oil and the poisoned mullet) her blood had coursed like wildfire through her veins at hearing Beatrix's avowal, and her voice had become choked. For Beatrix had forgotten in the excitement of the last few hours to undeceive the girl; had forgotten, indeed, the cross-purposes at which they had been that morning in the garden at "Floresta;" and thus Zara still deemed that they were rivals-deemed, too, that this white-faced rival was the favoured one.

"She loves him," she muttered to herself, her heart and brain racked with torture and with passion; "she loves him. She loves him. And he loves her! But-she shall never have him, nor he her. Come," she cried again, savagely this time. "Come, then, and see him. And-love him. It will not be for long," she added to herself.

Whereupon she drew Beatrix away toward the back of the house, going around by the farthest side of it, and on, until, at last, they stood at the foot of the stairs outside that gave access to the floor above, on that farthest side. Here, they were quite remote from the parley that was going on between those who were in the front and the dark shrouded figure on the veranda above; yet Beatrix noticed that, still, they were not alone. For, as they approached those outside stairs she saw three or four dark forms vanish away from them, and steal farther into the obscurity of the night.

"Who are those?" she asked timorously, nervously, as she watched their retreating figures.

"Men," said Zara, "who to-night will take the Englishman, tied and bound, out to the sea in Sebastian's boat, and sink him."

"Oh, my God!" wailed Beatrix, nearly fainting. "Oh! Oh!"

"If we do not prevent it. If I do not prevent it."

Then, suddenly, before Beatrix could put her foot on the steps as Zara had directed her to do, as well as ascend them, she felt her arm grasped by the latter, and heard her whisper:

"Stop! Before we mount to where he is-tell me-tell me truthfully, has-has he told you he loves you?"

"No-"

"You lie!"

"I do not lie," Beatrix replied, hotly, scornfully; "I never lie. But, since you will have the truth-I cannot understand why, what affair it is of yours-although he has not told me, I know it. Love can be made known without words."

Her own words struck like a dagger to the other's heart-nay, they did worse than that. They communicated a spark to the heated, maddening passions which until now, or almost until now, had lain half-slumbering and dormant in that heart; they roused the bitterest, most savage feelings that Zara's half-savage heart had nurtured.

"She scorns me," she said to herself, "she despises me because she knows she possesses his love, the love made known without words. Because she is sure of him. Ay, and so she shall be-but not in life. 'What affair is it of mine?'" she brooded. "She shall see. She shall see."

Then, as once more she motioned Beatrix to follow her up those stairs, she, unseen by the latter, dropped her right hand into the bosom of her dress, and touched something that lay within it.

"She shall see," she said again. "She shall see."

Above, in that obscure, gloomy corridor to which they now entered-the corridor which more than once had struck a chill even to the bold heart of Julian Ritherdon, when he sojourned in the house-all was silent and sombre, so that one might have thought that they stood upon the first floor of some long-neglected mansion from which the inhabitants had departed years before; while the darkness was intense. And, whatever might have been the effect of the weirdness of the place upon the nerves of Zara, strung up as those nerves now were to tragic pitch, upon Beatrix, at least, it was intense. A great black bat, the wind from whose passing wing fanned her cheek and caused her to utter a startled exclamation, added some feeling of ghastly terror to the surroundings, while, also, the company in which she was, the company of a half-Indian savage girl charged with tempestuous passions, contributed to her alarm.

Yet, on the silence there broke now some sounds, they coming from the front part of the house; the sound of voices, of a hurried conversation, of sentences rapidly exchanged.

"You hear," hissed Zara in the other's ear-"you hear-and understand? 'Tis she-Carmaux. And, as ever, she lies. As her life has always been, so is her tongue now."

Then Beatrix heard Madame Carmaux saying from the balcony:

"He has returned. He is coming, I tell you. But just now he has ridden to the stables behind. He will be with you at once. He will explain all. Wait but a few moments more."

"It must be but a very few then," the girl heard in reply, she recognising the voice of the Commandant of the Constabulary. "Very few. He must indeed explain all. Otherwise we force our entrance. Not more than five minutes will be granted."

"You understand?" whispered Zara, "you understand? She begs time so that-so that-the Englishman shall be taken to his death. When he is gone, Sebastian will show himself." Though, to her own heart she added, "Never."

"I can bear no more," gasped Beatrix; "I must see him. Go to him."

"Nay," replied Zara, "he comes to you. Observe. Look behind you-the way we came."

And, looking behind her as the other bade, even while she trembled all over in her fear and excitement, she saw that Sebastian had himself mounted the stairs outside the house, and was preparing to pass along the passage; to pass by them.

Yet, ere he did so, she saw, too, that behind him were those misty forms of the natives which she had observed to vanish at their approach below; she heard him speak to them; heard, too, the words he said.

"When I whistle, come up and bear him away. You know the rest. To my yawl, then a mile out to sea and-then-sink him. Now go, but be ready."

Whereon he turned to proceed along the passage, and, even in her terror, Beatrix could see that he bore in his hand a little lantern from which the smallest of rays was emitted. A lantern with which, perhaps, he wished to observe if his victim still lived, since surely he, who had dwelt in this house all his life, needed no light to assist him in finding his way about it.

"He will see us. He will see us," murmured Beatrix.

"He will never see us again," answered Zara, and as she spoke, she drew the other into the deep doorway of one of the bedrooms. "Never again," while looking down at her from her greater height, Beatrix saw that her right hand was at her breast, and that in it something glistened.

And, now, Sebastian was close to them, going on to the room at the end of the passage. He was in front of them. He was passing them.

"It is your last farewell," said Zara. And ere. Beatrix could shriek, "No. No!" divining the girl's mistake; ere, too, she could make any attempt to restrain her, Zara had sprung forth from the embrasure of the doorway, the long dagger gleaming in her hand, as the sickly rays of Sebastian's lamp shone on it, and had buried it in his back, he springing around suddenly with a hoarse cry as she did so-his hands clenched and thrust out before him-in his eyes an awful glare. Then with a gasp he sank to the floor, the lamp becoming extinguished as he did so. Whereby, Zara did not understand that, lying close by the man whom she had slain, or attempted to slay, was Beatrix, who had swooned from horror, and then fallen prostrate.

Sebastian had carried his white drill jacket over his arm as he advanced along the passage, he having taken it off as he mounted the steps, perhaps with the view of being better able to assist the Indians in the task of removing Julian when he should summon them. And Zara, full of hate as she was; full, too, of rage and jealousy as she had been at the moment before she stabbed him, as well as at the moment when she did so, had observed such to be the case, when, instantly, there came into her astute brain an idea that, through this circumstance, might be wreaked a still more deadly vengeance on Sebastian for his infidelity to her.

"He would have sent that other to his death in the sea," she thought; "now-false-hearted jaguar-that death shall be yours. If the knife has not slain you, the water shall." Whereupon, quick as lightning, she seized the jacket and disappeared with it down the corridor, entering at the end of the latter a room in which Julian lay wounded and bound upon a bed. A room in which there burnt a candle, by the light of which she saw that he who was a prisoner there was asleep.

Without pausing to awaken him, she took from off a nail in the room the navy white jacket that Julian had worn-which like Sebastian's own was stained somewhat with blood-and, seizing it in one hand and the candle in the other, went back to where Sebastian lay.

"I cannot put it on him," she muttered, "as he lies thus; still, it will suffice. The Indians will think it is the other in this light, since both are so alike." After which she crept down the passage to the stairs, and, whistling softly, called up the men outside to her, there being five of them.

"He is here," she whispered as they approached Sebastian. "Here. Waste no time; away with him," while they, with one glance at the prostrate body, prepared to obey her, knowing how Sebastian confided many things to her.

But one of that five never took his eyes off the girl, and seeing that from beneath the jacket there protruded a hand on which was a ring-a ring well known by all around Desolada-he drew the jacket over that hand, covering it up. Yet, as he did so, he contrived also to disarrange the portion that lay over Sebastian's face-and-to see that face. Whereupon, upon his own there came an awful look of gloating, even as the Indians bent down and, lifting their burden, departed with it.

"At last," he whispered to Zara, "at last. You not endure longer?"

"No," the girl replied. "No longer. He loved that-that-other-and-and-I slew him. Now, Paz, go-and-sink him beneath the sea forever."

"Yes. Yes. I sink him. He knew not Paz was near, but Paz never forget. I sink him deep. But, outside-I take ring away so that Indians not know. Oh, yes, he sink very deep. Paz never forget."

CHAPTER XXXI

"THE MAN I LOVE."

Recovering her consciousness, Beatrix perceived that she was alone. Yet, dimmed though her senses were by the swoon in which she had lain, she was able to observe that some change had taken place in the corridor since she fell prostrate. Sebastian Ritherdon's body was gone now, but the little lamp which he had carried lay close to the spot where she had seen him fall, while near to it, and standing on the floor, was a candlestick. Within it was a candle, which showed to her startled eyes something which almost caused her to faint again; something that formed a small pool upon the shiny, polished floor. And then as she saw the hateful thing, the recollection of all that had happened returned to her, as well as the recollection of other things.

"He was going to the end of the passage," she said to herself as, rising, she drew her skirts closely about her so that they should not come into contact with that shining, hideous pool at her feet; "therefore, Julian must be there. Oh, to reach him, to help him to escape from this horrid, awful house!" Whereon, snatching up the candlestick from the floor, she proceeded swiftly to the end of the corridor; while, seeing that, far down it, there was one door open, she naturally directed her footsteps to that.

Then, as she held the light above her head, she saw that on a bed there lay a man asleep, or in a swoon-or dead! A man whose eyes were closed and whose face was deadly white, yet who was beyond doubt Julian Ritherdon.

"Oh, Julian!" she gasped, yet with sufficient restraint upon herself to prevent her voice from awaking him. "Oh, Julian! To find you at last, but to find you thus," and she took a step forward toward where the bed was, meaning to gaze down upon him and to discover if he was in truth alive or not.

Yet she was constrained to stop and was stayed in her first attempt to cross the room, by the noise of swift footsteps behind her and by the entrance of Zara, whose wild beauty appeared now to have assumed an almost demoniacal expression.

For the girl's eyes gleamed as the eyes of those in a raging fever gleam; her features were working terribly, and her whole frame seemed shaken with emotion.

"It is done!" she cried exultingly-there being a tone of almost maniacal derision in her voice. "It is done. In two hours he will be dead. And I have kept my word to you. You loved him, and you desired to see him. Well, you have seen him! Did you take," she almost screamed in her frenzy, "a long, last farewell? I hope so, since you will never take another," and in her fury of despair she thrust her face forward and almost into the other's.

But, now, hers was not the only wild excitement in the room. For Beatrix, recognising to what an extreme the girl's jealousy had wrought her, and what terrible deed she had been guilty of, herself gave a slight scream as she heard the other's words, and then cried:

"Madwoman! Fool! You are deceived. You have deceived yourself. I never loved him. Nor thought of him. This man lying here, this man whom he would have murdered, is the one I love with all my heart; this is the man I came to save."

Then as she spoke, Julian-who was now either awake or had emerged from the torpor in which he had been lying-cried from out of the darkness: "Beatrix, Beatrix, oh, my darling!" Whereon she, forgetting that in her excitement she had proclaimed her love, forgetting all else but that her lover was safe, rushed toward where he lay, uttering words of thankfulness and delight at his safety. Yet, when a moment later they looked toward the place where Zara had been, they saw that she was gone. For, slight as was the glimmer from the candle, it served to show that she was no longer there; that in none of the deep shadows of the room was she lurking anywhere.

She had, indeed, rushed from the room on hearing Beatrix's avowal, a prey to fresh excitement now, and to fresh horrors.

"I have slain him in my folly," she muttered wildly to herself. "I have slain him. And-and, at last, I might have won him. God help me!"

Then she directed her footsteps toward where she knew Madame Carmaux was, toward where her ears told her that, below the balcony on which the woman stood, they were making preparations to break into the house. Already, she could hear the hammering and beating on the great door from without; and, so hearing, thought they must be using some tree or sapling wherewith to break it in. She recognised, too, the Commandant's voice, as he gave orders to one of his men to blow the lock off with his carbine.

But without pause, without stopping for one instant, she rushed into the room and out upon the balcony where, seizing Madame Carmaux by the arm, she cried:

"Let them come in. It matters not. Sebastian is dead, or will be dead ere long. I deemed him false to me, as in truth he was. I have sent him to his doom. The Indians have taken him away to drown him, thinking he is that other."

Then from a second woman in that house there arose that night a piercing heartbroken cry, the cry of a woman who has heard the most awful news that could come to her, a cry followed by the words-as, throwing her hands up above her head, she sank slowly down on to the floor of the veranda-

"You have slain him-you have sent him to his doom? Oh, Sebastian! Oh, my son!"

"Yes, your son," said Zara. "Your son."

"It is impossible," they both heard a voice say behind them, the voice of Julian, as now he entered the room with Beatrix. "You are mistaken. Madame Carmaux never had a son, but instead a daughter."

"No," said still another voice, and now it was Mr. Spranger who spoke, all the party from outside having entered the house at last. "No. She never had a daughter, though it suited her purpose well enough to pretend that such was the case, and that that daughter was dead; the birth of her son being thus disguised."

"You hear this," the man in command of the police said, addressing the crouching woman. "Is it true?"

But Madame Carmaux, giving him but one glance from her upturned eyes, uttered no word.

"I have a warrant for your arrest and for this man called Sebastian Ritherdon," the sergeant said. "If he is not dead we shall have him."

"Then I pray God he is dead," Madame Carmaux cried, "for if you arrest him you will arrest an innocent man."

In answer to which the sergeant merely shrugged his shoulders, while addressing one of his force he bade him keep close to her.

"Was he in truth her son?" Julian asked, turning to where a moment before Zara had been standing. But once more, as so often she had done in the course of this narrative, the girl had vanished. Vanished, that is, so far as Julian and one or two others observed now, yet being seen by some of those who were standing near the door to creep out hurriedly and then to rush madly down the corridor.

"No," said Madame Carmaux, glaring at him with a glance which, had she had the power, would have slain him where he stood. "Though I often called him so. It is a lie."

"Is it?" said Julian quietly. "It would hardly seem so. Here is a paper which was written in England ere I set out for Honduras by the man whom I thought to be my father, and in which he tells in writing the whole story he told me by word of mouth. I looked for that paper after his death-and-I have found it here-in the pocket of Sebastian's jacket."

Such was indeed the case. When Zara had run into the room where Julian was, and had possessed herself of his jacket with the naval buttons on it-she meaning by its use to more thoroughly deceive the Indians who were to take Sebastian away in his stead-she had left behind her the other jacket which the latter had carried over his arm. And that, in the obscurity of a room lit only by the one candle, Julian should have hastily donned another jacket so like his own, and which he found in the place where he had lain for three nights, was not a surprising thing. But he recognised the exchange directly when, happening to put his hand into the pocket, he discovered the very missing papers which Mr. Ritherdon said he was going to leave behind for Julian's guidance, but which he must undoubtedly have forwarded to his brother, as an explanation-an account-of his sin against him in years gone by.

"Whoever's son he was," said Mr. Spranger, "he was undoubtedly not the son of Charles Ritherdon and his wife, Isobel Leigh. There can be no possibility of that. Who, therefore, can he have been-he who was so like you?" while, even as he gazed into Julian's eyes, there was still upon his face the look of incredulity which had always appeared there whenever he discussed the latter's claim to be the heir of Desolada.

"If she," said Beatrix now, with a glance toward where Madame Carmaux sat, rigid as a statue and almost as lifeless, except for her sparkling, glaring eyes-"if she never had a daughter, but did have a son, why may he not be that son? Some imposture may have been practised upon Mr. Ritherdon."

"It is impossible," her father said. "He knew his own child was lost-his brother's narrative tells that; she could not have palmed off on him another child-her own child-in the place of his."