landing. Here he began to come to himself, wiped his brow, and at
length, seizing Somerset's hand in both of his, began to utter his
acknowledgments.
'This seals it,' said he. 'Ours is a life and death connection.
You have plucked me from the jaws of death; and if I were before
attracted by your character, judge now of the ardour of my
gratitude and love! But I perceive I am still greatly shaken.
Lend me, I beseech you, lend me your arm as far as my apartment.'
A dram of spirits restored the plotter to something of his
customary self-possession; and he was standing, glass in hand and
genially convalescent, when his eye was attracted by the dejection
of the unfortunate young man.
'Good heavens, dear Somerset,' he cried, 'what ails you? Let me
offer you a touch of spirits.'
But Somerset had fallen below the reach of this material comfort.
'Let me be,' he said. 'I am lost; you have caught me in the toils.
Up to this moment, I have lived all my life in the most reckless
manner, and done exactly what I pleased, with the most perfect
innocence. And now - what am I? Are you so blind and wooden that
you do not see the loathing you inspire me with? Is it possible
you can suppose me willing to continue to exist upon such terms?
To think,' he cried, 'that a young man, guilty of no fault on earth
but amiability, should find himself involved in such a damned
imbroglio!' And placing his knuckles in his eyes, Somerset rolled
upon the sofa.
'My God,' said Zero, 'is this possible? And I so filled with
tenderness and interest! Can it be, dear Somerset, that you are
under the empire of these out-worn scruples? or that you judge a
patriot by the morality of the religious tract? I thought you were
a good agnostic.'
'Mr. Jones,' said Somerset, 'it is in vain to argue. I boast
myself a total disbeliever, not only in revealed religion, but in
the data, method, and conclusions of the whole of ethics. Well!
what matters it? what signifies a form of words? I regard you as a
reptile, whom I would rejoice, whom I long, to stamp under my heel.
You would blow up others? Well then, understand: I want, with
every circumstance of infamy and agony, to blow up you!'
'Somerset, Somerset!' said Zero, turning very pale, 'this is wrong;
this is very wrong. You pain, you wound me, Somerset.'
'Give me a match!' cried Somerset wildly. 'Let me set fire to this
incomparable monster! Let me perish with him in his fall!'
'For God's sake,' cried Zero, clutching hold of the young man, 'for
God's sake command yourself! We stand upon the brink; death yawns
around us; a man - a stranger in this foreign land - one whom you
have called your friend - '
'Silence!' cried Somerset, 'you are no friend, no friend of mine.
I look on you with loathing, like a toad: my flesh creeps with
physical repulsion; my soul revolts against the sight of you.'
Zero burst into tears. 'Alas!' he sobbed, 'this snaps the last
link that bound me to humanity. My friend disowns - he insults me.
I am indeed accurst.'
Somerset stood for an instant staggered by this sudden change of
front. The next moment, with a despairing gesture, he fled from
the room and from the house. The first dash of his escape carried
him hard upon half-way to the next police-office: but presently
began to droop; and before he reached the house of lawful
intervention, he fell once more among doubtful counsels. Was he an
agnostic? had he a right to act? Away with such nonsense, and let
Zero perish! ran his thoughts. And then again: had he not
promised, had he not shaken hands and broken bread? and that with
open eyes? and if so how could he take action, and not forfeit
honour? But honour? what was honour? A figment, which, in the hot
pursuit of crime, he ought to dash aside. Ay, but crime? A
figment, too, which his enfranchised intellect discarded. All day,
he wandered in the parks, a prey to whirling thoughts; all night,
patrolled the city; and at the peep of day he sat down by the
wayside in the neighbourhood of Peckham and bitterly wept. His
gods had fallen. He who had chosen the broad, daylit, unencumbered
paths of universal scepticism, found himself still the bondslave of
honour. He who had accepted life from a point of view as lofty as
the predatory eagle's, though with no design to prey; he who had
clearly recognised the common moral basis of war, of commercial
competition, and of crime; he who was prepared to help the escaping
murderer or to embrace the impenitent thief, found, to the
overthrow of all his logic, that he objected to the use of
dynamite. The dawn crept among the sleeping villas and over the
smokeless fields of city; and still the unfortunate sceptic sobbed
over his fall from consistency.
At length, he rose and took the rising sun to witness. 'There is
no question as to fact,' he cried; 'right and wrong are but
figments and the shadow of a word; but for all that, there are
certain things that I cannot do, and there are certain others that
I will not stand.' Thereupon he decided to return to make one last
effort of persuasion, and, if he could not prevail on Zero to
desist from his infernal trade, throw delicacy to the winds, give
the plotter an hour's start, and denounce him to the police. Fast
as he went, being winged by this resolution, it was already well on
in the morning when he came in sight of the Superfluous Mansion.
Tripping down the steps, was the young lady of the various aliases;
and he was surprised to see upon her countenance the marks of anger
and concern.
'Madam,' he began, yielding to impulse and with no clear knowledge
of what he was to add.
But at the sound of his voice she seemed to experience a shock of
fear or horror; started back; lowered her veil with a sudden
movement; and fled, without turning, from the square.
Here then, we step aside a moment from following the fortunes of
Somerset, and proceed to relate the strange and romantic episode of
THE BROWN BOX.
DESBOROUGH'S ADVENTURE: THE BROWN BOX
Mr. Harry Desborough lodged in the fine and grave old quarter of
Bloomsbury, roared about on every side by the high tides of London,
but itself rejoicing in romantic silences and city peace. It was
in Queen Square that he had pitched his tent, next door to the
Children's Hospital, on your left hand as you go north: Queen
Square, sacred to humane and liberal arts, whence homes were made
beautiful, where the poor were taught, where the sparrows were
plentiful and loud, and where groups of patient little ones would
hover all day long before the hospital, if by chance they might
kiss their hand or speak a word to their sick brother at the
window. Desborough's room was on the first floor and fronted to
the square; but he enjoyed besides, a right by which he often
profited, to sit and smoke upon a terrace at the back, which looked
down upon a fine forest of back gardens, and was in turn commanded
by the windows of an empty room.
On the afternoon of a warm day, Desborough sauntered forth upon
this terrace, somewhat out of hope and heart, for he had been now
some weeks on the vain quest of situations, and prepared for
melancholy and tobacco. Here, at least, he told himself that he
would be alone; for, like most youths, who are neither rich, nor
witty, nor successful, he rather shunned than courted the society
of other men. Even as he expressed the thought, his eye alighted
on the window of the room that looked upon the terrace; and to his
surprise and annoyance, he beheld it curtained with a silken
hanging. It was like his luck, he thought; his privacy was gone,
he could no longer brood and sigh unwatched, he could no longer
suffer his discouragement to find a vent in words or soothe himself
with sentimental whistling; and in the irritation of the moment, he
struck his pipe upon the rail with unnecessary force. It was an
old, sweet, seasoned briar-root, glossy and dark with long
employment, and justly dear to his fancy. What, then, was his
chagrin, when the head snapped from the stem, leaped airily in
space, and fell and disappeared among the lilacs of the garden?
He threw himself savagely into the garden chair, pulled out the
story-paper which he had brought with him to read, tore off a
fragment of the last sheet, which contains only the answers to
correspondents, and set himself to roll a cigarette. He was no
master of the art; again and again, the paper broke between his
fingers and the tobacco showered upon the ground; and he was
already on the point of angry resignation, when the window swung
slowly inward, the silken curtain was thrust aside, and a lady,
somewhat strangely attired, stepped forth upon the terrace.
'Senorito,' said she, and there was a rich thrill in her voice,
like an organ note, 'Senorito, you are in difficulties. Suffer me
to come to your assistance.'
With the words, she took the paper and tobacco from his unresisting
hands; and with a facility that, in Desborough's eyes, seemed
magical, rolled and presented him a cigarette. He took it, still
seated, still without a word; staring with all his eyes upon that
apparition. Her face was warm and rich in colour; in shape, it was
that piquant triangle, so innocently sly, so saucily attractive, so
rare in our more northern climates; her eyes were large, starry,
and visited by changing lights; her hair was partly covered by a
lace mantilla, through which her arms, bare to the shoulder,
gleamed white; her figure, full and soft in all the womanly
contours, was yet alive and active, light with excess of life, and
slender by grace of some divine proportion.
'You do not like my cigarrito, Senor?' she asked. 'Yet it is
better made than yours.' At that she laughed, and her laughter
trilled in his ear like music; but the next moment her face fell.
'I see,' she cried. 'It is my manner that repels you. I am too
constrained, too cold. I am not,' she added, with a more engaging
air, 'I am not the simple English maiden I appear.'
'Oh!' murmured Harry, filled with inexpressible thoughts.
'In my own dear land,' she pursued, 'things are differently
ordered. There, I must own, a girl is bound by many and rigorous
restrictions; little is permitted her; she learns to be distant,
she learns to appear forbidding. But here, in free England - oh,
glorious liberty!' she cried, and threw up her arms with a gesture
of inimitable grace - 'here there are no fetters; here the woman may
dare to be herself entirely, and the men, the chivalrous men - is it
not written on the very shield of your nation, honi soit? Ah, it
is hard for me to learn, hard for me to dare to be myself. You
must not judge me yet awhile; I shall end by conquering this
stiffness, I shall end by growing English. Do I speak the language
well?'
'Perfectly - oh, perfectly!' said Harry, with a fervency of
conviction worthy of a graver subject.
'Ah, then,' she said, 'I shall soon learn; English blood ran in my
father's veins; and I have had the advantage of some training in
your expressive tongue. If I speak already without accent, with my
thorough English appearance, there is nothing left to change except
my manners.'
'Oh no,' said Desborough. 'Oh pray not! I - madam - '
'I am,' interrupted the lady, 'the Senorita Teresa Valdevia. The
evening air grows chill. Adios, Senorito.' And before Harry could
stammer out a word, she had disappeared into her room.
He stood transfixed, the cigarette still unlighted in his hand.
His thoughts had soared above tobacco, and still recalled and
beautified the image of his new acquaintance. Her voice re-echoed
in his memory; her eyes, of which he could not tell the colour,
haunted his soul. The clouds had risen at her coming, and he
beheld a new-created world. What she was, he could not fancy, but
he adored her. Her age, he durst not estimate; fearing to find her
older than himself, and thinking sacrilege to couple that fair
favour with the thought of mortal changes. As for her character,
beauty to the young is always good. So the poor lad lingered late
upon the terrace, stealing timid glances at the curtained window,
sighing to the gold laburnums, rapt into the country of romance;
and when at length he entered and sat down to dine, on cold boiled
mutton and a pint of ale, he feasted on the food of gods.
Next day when he returned to the terrace, the window was a little
ajar, and he enjoyed a view of the lady's shoulder, as she sat
patiently sewing and all unconscious of his presence. On the next,
he had scarce appeared when the window opened, and the Senorita
tripped forth into the sunlight, in a morning disorder, delicately
neat, and yet somehow foreign, tropical, and strange. In one hand
she held a packet.
'Will you try,' she said, 'some of my father's tobacco - from dear
Cuba? There, as I suppose you know, all smoke, ladies as well as
gentlemen. So you need not fear to annoy me. The fragrance will
remind me of home. My home, Senor, was by the sea.' And as she
uttered these few words, Desborough, for the first time in his
life, realised the poetry of the great deep. 'Awake or asleep, I
dream of it: dear home, dear Cuba!'
'But some day,' said Desborough, with an inward pang, 'some day you
will return?'
' Never!' she cried; 'ah, never, in Heaven's name!'
'Are you then resident for life in England?' he inquired, with a
strange lightening of spirit.
'You ask too much, for you ask more than I know,' she answered
sadly; and then, resuming her gaiety of manner: 'But you have not
tried my Cuban tobacco,' she said.
'Senorita,' said he, shyly abashed by some shadow of coquetry in
her manner, 'whatever comes to me - you - I mean,' he concluded,
deeply flushing, 'that I have no doubt the tobacco is delightful.'
'Ah, Senor,' she said, with almost mournful gravity, 'you seemed so
simple and good, and already you are trying to pay compliments - and
besides,' she added, brightening, with a quick upward glance, into
a smile, 'you do it so badly! English gentlemen, I used to hear,
could be fast friends, respectful, honest friends; could be
companions, comforters, if the need arose, or champions, and yet
never encroach. Do not seek to please me by copying the graces of
my countrymen. Be yourself: the frank, kindly, honest English
gentleman that I have heard of since my childhood and still longed
to meet.'
Harry, much bewildered, and far from clear as to the manners of the
Cuban gentlemen, strenuously disclaimed the thought of plagiarism.
'Your national seriousness of bearing best becomes you, Senor,'
said the lady. 'See!' marking a line with her dainty, slippered
foot, 'thus far it shall be common ground; there, at my window-
sill, begins the scientific frontier. If you choose, you may drive
me to my forts; but if, on the other hand, we are to be real
English friends, I may join you here when I am not too sad; or,
when I am yet more graciously inclined, you may draw your chair
beside the window and teach me English customs, while I work. You
will find me an apt scholar, for my heart is in the task.' She
laid her hand lightly upon Harry's arm, and looked into his eyes.
'Do you know,' said she, 'I am emboldened to believe that I have
already caught something of your English aplomb? Do you not
perceive a change, Senor? Slight, perhaps, but still a change? Is
my deportment not more open, more free, more like that of the dear
"British Miss" than when you saw me first?' She gave a radiant
smile; withdrew her hand from Harry's arm; and before the young man
could formulate in words the eloquent emotions that ran riot
through his brain - with an 'Adios, Senor: good-night, my English
friend,' she vanished from his sight behind the curtain.
The next day Harry consumed an ounce of tobacco in vain upon the
neutral terrace; neither sight nor sound rewarded him, and the
dinner-hour summoned him at length from the scene of
disappointment. On the next it rained; but nothing, neither
business nor weather, neither prospective poverty nor present
hardship, could now divert the young man from the service of his
lady; and wrapt in a long ulster, with the collar raised, he took
his stand against the balustrade, awaiting fortune, the picture of
damp and discomfort to the eye, but glowing inwardly with tender
and delightful ardours. Presently the window opened, and the fair
Cuban, with a smile imperfectly dissembled, appeared upon the sill.
'Come here,' she said, 'here, beside my window. The small verandah
gives a belt of shelter.' And she graciously handed him a folding-
chair.
As he sat down, visibly aglow with shyness and delight, a certain
bulkiness in his pocket reminded him that he was not come empty-
handed.
'I have taken the liberty,' said he, 'of bringing you a little
book. I thought of you, when I observed it on the stall, because I
saw it was in Spanish. The man assured me it was by one of the
best authors, and quite proper.' As he spoke, he placed the little
volume in her hand. Her eyes fell as she turned the pages, and a
flush rose and died again upon her cheeks, as deep as it was
fleeting. 'You are angry,' he cried in agony. 'I have presumed.'
'No, Senor, it is not that,' returned the lady. 'I - ' and a flood
of colour once more mounted to her brow - 'I am confused and ashamed
because I have deceived you. Spanish,' she began, and paused -
'Spanish is, of course, my native tongue,' she resumed, as though
suddenly taking courage; 'and this should certainly put the highest
value on your thoughtful present; but alas, sir, of what use is it
to me? And how shall I confess to you the truth - the humiliating
truth - that I cannot read?'
As Harry's eyes met hers in undisguised amazement, the fair Cuban
seemed to shrink before his gaze. 'Read?' repeated Harry. 'You!'
She pushed the window still more widely open with a large and noble
gesture. 'Enter, Senor,' said she. 'The time has come to which I
have long looked forward, not without alarm; when I must either
fear to lose your friendship, or tell you without disguise the
story of my life.'
It was with a sentiment bordering on devotion, that Harry passed
the window. A semi-barbarous delight in form and colour had
presided over the studied disorder of the room in which he found
himself. It was filled with dainty stuffs, furs and rugs and
scarves of brilliant hues, and set with elegant and curious
trifles-fans on the mantelshelf, an antique lamp upon a bracket,
and on the table a silver-mounted bowl of cocoa-nut about half full
of unset jewels. The fair Cuban, herself a gem of colour and the
fit masterpiece for that rich frame, motioned Harry to a seat, and
sinking herself into another, thus began her history.
STORY OF THE FAIR CUBAN
I am not what I seem. My father drew his descent, on the one hand,
from grandees of Spain, and on the other, through the maternal
line, from the patriot Bruce. My mother, too, was the descendant
of a line of kings; but, alas! these kings were African. She was
fair as the day: fairer than I, for I inherited a darker strain of
blood from the veins of my European father; her mind was noble, her
manners queenly and accomplished; and seeing her more than the
equal of her neighbours, and surrounded by the most considerate
affection and respect, I grew up to adore her, and when the time
came, received her last sigh upon my lips, still ignorant that she
was a slave, and alas! my father's mistress. Her death, which
befell me in my sixteenth year, was the first sorrow I had known:
it left our home bereaved of its attractions, cast a shade of
melancholy on my youth, and wrought in my father a tragic and
durable change. Months went by; with the elasticity of my years, I
regained some of the simple mirth that had before distinguished me;
the plantation smiled with fresh crops; the negroes on the estate
had already forgotten my mother and transferred their simple
obedience to myself; but still the cloud only darkened on the brows
of Senor Valdevia. His absences from home had been frequent even
in the old days, for he did business in precious gems in the city
of Havana; they now became almost continuous; and when he returned,
it was but for the night and with the manner of a man crushed down
by adverse fortune.
The place where I was born and passed my days was an isle set in
the Caribbean Sea, some half-hour's rowing from the coasts of Cuba.
It was steep, rugged, and, except for my father's family and
plantation, uninhabited and left to nature. The house, a low
building surrounded by spacious verandahs, stood upon a rise of
ground and looked across the sea to Cuba. The breezes blew about
it gratefully, fanned us as we lay swinging in our silken hammocks,
and tossed the boughs and flowers of the magnolia. Behind and to
the left, the quarter of the negroes and the waving fields of the
plantation covered an eighth part of the surface of the isle. On
the right and closely bordering on the garden, lay a vast and
deadly swamp, densely covered with wood, breathing fever, dotted
with profound sloughs, and inhabited by poisonous oysters, man-
eating crabs, snakes, alligators, and sickly fishes. Into the
recesses of that jungle, none could penetrate but those of African
descent; an invisible, unconquerable foe lay there in wait for the
European; and the air was death.
One morning (from which I must date the beginning of my ruinous
misfortune) I left my room a little after day, for in that warm
climate all are early risers, and found not a servant to attend
upon my wants. I made the circuit of the house, still calling:
and my surprise had almost changed into alarm, when coming at last
into a large verandahed court, I found it thronged with negroes.
Even then, even when I was amongst them, not one turned or paid the
least regard to my arrival. They had eyes and ears for but one
person: a woman, richly and tastefully attired; of elegant
carriage, and a musical speech; not so much old in years, as worn
and marred by self-indulgence: her face, which was still
attractive, stamped with the most cruel passions, her eye burning
with the greed of evil. It was not from her appearance, I believe,
but from some emanation of her soul, that I recoiled in a kind of
fainting terror; as we hear of plants that blight and snakes that
fascinate, the woman shocked and daunted me. But I was of a brave
nature; trod the weakness down; and forcing my way through the
slaves, who fell back before me in embarrassment, as though in the
presence of rival mistresses, I asked, in imperious tones: 'Who is
this person?'
A slave girl, to whom I had been kind, whispered in my ear to have
a care, for that was Madam Mendizabal; but the name was new to me.
In the meanwhile the woman, applying a pair of glasses to her eyes,
studied me with insolent particularity from head to foot.
'Young woman,' said she, at last, 'I have had a great experience in
refractory servants, and take a pride in breaking them. You really
tempt me; and if I had not other affairs, and these of more
importance, on my hand, I should certainly buy you at your father's
sale.'
'Madam - ' I began, but my voice failed me.
'Is it possible that you do not know your position?' she returned,
with a hateful laugh. 'How comical! Positively, I must buy her.
Accomplishments, I suppose?' she added, turning to the servants.
Several assured her that the young mistress had been brought up
like any lady, for so it seemed in their inexperience.
'She would do very well for my place of business in Havana,' said
the Senora Mendizabal, once more studying me through her glasses;
'and I should take a pleasure,' she pursued, more directly
addressing myself, 'in bringing you acquainted with a whip.' And
she smiled at me with a savoury lust of cruelty upon her face.
At this, I found expression. Calling by name upon the servants, I
bade them turn this woman from the house, fetch her to the boat,
and set her back upon the mainland. But with one voice, they
protested that they durst not obey, coming close about me, pleading
and beseeching me to be more wise; and, when I insisted, rising
higher in passion and speaking of this foul intruder in the terms
she had deserved, they fell back from me as from one who had
blasphemed. A superstitious reverence plainly encircled the
stranger; I could read it in their changed demeanour, and in the
paleness that prevailed upon the natural colour of their faces; and
their fear perhaps reacted on myself. I looked again at Madam
Mendizabal. She stood perfectly composed, watching my face through
her glasses with a smile of scorn; and at the sight of her assured
superiority to all my threats, a cry broke from my lips, a cry of
rage, fear, and despair, and I fled from the verandah and the
house.
I ran I knew not where, but it was towards the beach. As I went,
my head whirled; so strange, so sudden, were these events and
insults. Who was she? what, in Heaven's name, the power she
wielded over my obedient negroes? Why had she addressed me as a
slave? why spoken of my father's sale? To all these tumultuary
questions I could find no answer; and in the turmoil of my mind,
nothing was plain except the hateful leering image of the woman.
I was still running, mad with fear and anger, when I saw my father
coming to meet me from the landing-place; and with a cry that I
thought would have killed me, leaped into his arms and broke into a
passion of sobs and tears upon his bosom. He made me sit down
below a tall palmetto that grew not far off; comforted me, but with
some abstraction in his voice; and as soon as I regained the least
command upon my feelings, asked me, not without harshness, what
this grief betokened. I was surprised by his tone into a still
greater measure of composure; and in firm tones, though still
interrupted by sobs, I told him there was a stranger in the island,
at which I thought he started and turned pale; that the servants
would not obey me; that the stranger's name was Madam Mendizabal,
and, at that, he seemed to me both troubled and relieved; that she
had insulted me, treated me as a slave (and here my father's brow
began to darken), threatened to buy me at a sale, and questioned my
own servants before my face; and that, at last, finding myself
quite helpless and exposed to these intolerable liberties, I had
fled from the house in terror, indignation, and amazement.
'Teresa,' said my father, with singular gravity of voice, 'I must
make to-day a call upon your courage; much must be told you, there
is much that you must do to help me; and my daughter must prove
herself a woman by her spirit. As for this Mendizabal, what shall
I say? or how am I to tell you what she is? Twenty years ago, she
was the loveliest of slaves; to-day she is what you see her -
prematurely old, disgraced by the practice of every vice and every
nefarious industry, but free, rich, married, they say, to some
reputable man, whom may Heaven assist! and exercising among her
ancient mates, the slaves of Cuba, an influence as unbounded as its
reason is mysterious. Horrible rites, it is supposed, cement her
empire: the rites of Hoodoo. Be that as it may, I would have you
dismiss the thought of this incomparable witch; it is not from her
that danger threatens us; and into her hands, I make bold to
promise, you shall never fall.'
'Father!' I cried. 'Fall? Was there any truth, then, in her
words? Am I - O father, tell me plain; I can bear anything but this
suspense.'
'I will tell you,' he replied, with merciful bluntness. 'Your
mother was a slave; it was my design, so soon as I had saved a
competence, to sail to the free land of Britain, where the law
would suffer me to marry her: a design too long procrastinated;
for death, at the last moment, intervened. You will now understand
the heaviness with which your mother's memory hangs about my neck.'
I cried out aloud, in pity for my parents; and in seeking to
console the survivor, I forgot myself.
'It matters not,' resumed my father. 'What I have left undone can
never be repaired, and I must bear the penalty of my remorse. But,
Teresa, with so cutting a reminder of the evils of delay, I set
myself at once to do what was still possible: to liberate
yourself.'
I began to break forth in thanks, but he checked me with a sombre
roughness.
'Your mother's illness,' he resumed, 'had engaged too great a
portion of my time; my business in the city had lain too long at
the mercy of ignorant underlings; my head, my taste, my unequalled
knowledge of the more precious stones, that art by which I can
distinguish, even on the darkest night, a sapphire from a ruby, and
tell at a glance in what quarter of the earth a gem was
disinterred - all these had been too long absent from the conduct of
affairs. Teresa, I was insolvent.'
'What matters that?' I cried. 'What matters poverty, if we be left
together with our love and sacred memories?'
'You do not comprehend,' he said gloomily. 'Slave, as you are,
young - alas! scarce more than child! - accomplished, beautiful with
the most touching beauty, innocent as an angel - all these qualities
that should disarm the very wolves and crocodiles, are, in the eyes
of those to whom I stand indebted, commodities to buy and sell.
You are a chattel; a marketable thing; and worth - heavens, that I
should say such words! - worth money. Do you begin to see? If I
were to give you freedom, I should defraud my creditors; the
manumission would be certainly annulled; you would be still a
slave, and I a criminal.'
I caught his hand in mine, kissed it, and moaned in pity for
myself, in sympathy for my father.
'How I have toiled,' he continued, 'how I have dared and striven to
repair my losses, Heaven has beheld and will remember. Its
blessing was denied to my endeavours, or, as I please myself by
thinking, but delayed to descend upon my daughter's head. At
length, all hope was at an end; I was ruined beyond retrieve; a
heavy debt fell due upon the morrow, which I could not meet; I
should be declared a bankrupt, and my goods, my lands, my jewels
that I so much loved, my slaves whom I have spoiled and rendered
happy, and oh! tenfold worse, you, my beloved daughter, would be
sold and pass into the hands of ignorant and greedy traffickers.
Too long, I saw, had I accepted and profited by this great crime of
slavery; but was my daughter, my innocent unsullied daughter, was
SHE to pay the price? I cried out - no! - I took Heaven to witness
my temptation; I caught up this bag and fled. Close upon my track
are the pursuers; perhaps to-night, perhaps to-morrow, they will
land upon this isle, sacred to the memory of the dear soul that
bore you, to consign your father to an ignominious prison, and
yourself to slavery and dishonour. We have not many hours before
us. Off the north coast of our isle, by strange good fortune, an
English yacht has for some days been hovering. It belongs to Sir
George Greville, whom I slightly know, to whom ere now I have
rendered unusual services, and who will not refuse to help in our
escape. Or if he did, if his gratitude were in default, I have the
power to force him. For what does it mean, my child - what means
this Englishman, who hangs for years upon the shores of Cuba, and
returns from every trip with new and valuable gems?'
'He may have found a mine,' I hazarded.
'So he declares,' returned my father; 'but the strange gift I have
received from nature, easily transpierced the fable. He brought me
diamonds only, which I bought, at first, in innocence; at a second
glance, I started; for of these stones, my child, some had first
seen the day in Africa, some in Brazil; while others, from their
peculiar water and rude workmanship, I divined to be the spoil of
ancient temples. Thus put upon the scent, I made inquiries. Oh,
he is cunning, but I was cunninger than he. He visited, I found,
the shop of every jeweller in town; to one he came with rubies, to
one with emeralds, to one with precious beryl; to all, with this
same story of the mine. But in what mine, what rich epitome of the
earth's surface, were there conjoined the rubies of Ispahan, the
pearls of Coromandel, and the diamonds of Golconda? No, child,
that man, for all his yacht and title, that man must fear and must
obey me. To-night, then, as soon as it is dark, we must take our
way through the swamp by the path which I shall presently show you;
thence, across the highlands of the isle, a track is blazed, which
shall conduct us to the haven on the north; and close by the yacht
is riding. Should my pursuers come before the hour at which I look
to see them, they will still arrive too late; a trusty man attends
on the mainland; as soon as they appear, we shall behold, if it be
dark, the redness of a fire, if it be day, a pillar of smoke, on
the opposing headland; and thus warned, we shall have time to put
the swamp between ourselves and danger. Meantime, I would conceal
this bag; I would, before all things, be seen to arrive at the
house with empty hands; a blabbing slave might else undo us. For
see!' he added; and holding up the bag, which he had already shown
me, he poured into my lap a shower of unmounted jewels, brighter
than flowers, of every size and colour, and catching, as they fell,
upon a million dainty facets, the ardour of the sun.
I could not restrain a cry of admiration.
'Even in your ignorant eyes,' pursued my father, 'they command
respect. Yet what are they but pebbles, passive to the tool, cold
as death? Ingrate!' he cried. 'Each one of these - miracles of
nature's patience, conceived out of the dust in centuries of
microscopical activity, each one is, for you and me, a year of
life, liberty, and mutual affection. How, then, should I cherish
them! and why do I delay to place them beyond reach! Teresa,
follow me.'
He rose to his feet, and led me to the borders of the great jungle,
where they overhung, in a wall of poisonous and dusky foliage, the
declivity of the hill on which my father's house stood planted.
For some while he skirted, with attentive eyes, the margin of the
thicket. Then, seeming to recognise some mark, for his countenance
became immediately lightened of a load of thought, he paused and
addressed me. 'Here,' said he, 'is the entrance of the secret path
that I have mentioned, and here you shall await me. I but pass
some hundreds of yards into the swamp to bury my poor treasure; as
soon as that is safe, I will return.' It was in vain that I sought
to dissuade him, urging the dangers of the place; in vain that I
begged to be allowed to follow, pleading the black blood that I now
knew to circulate in my veins: to all my appeals he turned a deaf
ear, and, bending back a portion of the screen of bushes,
disappeared into the pestilential silence of the swamp.
At the end of a full hour, the bushes were once more thrust aside;
and my father stepped from out the thicket, and paused and almost
staggered in the first shock of the blinding sunlight. His face
was of a singular dusky red; and yet for all the heat of the
tropical noon, he did not seem to sweat.
'You are tired,' I cried, springing to meet him. 'You are ill.'
'I am tired,' he replied; 'the air in that jungle stifles one; my
eyes, besides, have grown accustomed to its gloom, and the strong
sunshine pierces them like knives. A moment, Teresa, give me but a
moment. All shall yet be well. I have buried the hoard under a
cypress, immediately beyond the bayou, on the left-hand margin of
the path; beautiful, bright things, they now lie whelmed in slime;
you shall find them there, if needful. But come, let us to the
house; it is time to eat against our journey of the night: to eat
and then to sleep, my poor Teresa: then to sleep.' And he looked
upon me out of bloodshot eyes, shaking his head as if in pity.
We went hurriedly, for he kept murmuring that he had been gone too
long, and that the servants might suspect; passed through the airy
stretch of the verandah; and came at length into the grateful
twilight of the shuttered house. The meal was spread; the house
servants, already informed by the boatmen of the master's return,
were all back at their posts, and terrified, as I could see, to
face me. My father still murmuring of haste with weary and
feverish pertinacity, I hurried at once to take my place at table;
but I had no sooner left his arm than he paused and thrust forth
both his hands with a strange gesture of groping. 'How is this?'
he cried, in a sharp, unhuman voice. 'Am I blind?' I ran to him
and tried to lead him to the table; but he resisted and stood
stiffly where he was, opening and shutting his jaws, as if in a
painful effort after breath. Then suddenly he raised both hands to
his temples, cried out, 'My head, my head!' and reeled and fell
against the wall.
I knew too well what it must be. I turned and begged the servants
to relieve him. But they, with one accord, denied the possibility
of hope; the master had gone into the swamp, they said, the master
must die; all help was idle. Why should I dwell upon his
sufferings? I had him carried to a bed, and watched beside him.
He lay still, and at times ground his teeth, and talked at times
unintelligibly, only that one word of hurry, hurry, coming
distinctly to my ears, and telling me that, even in the last
struggle with the powers of death, his mind was still tortured by
his daughter's peril. The sun had gone down, the darkness had
fallen, when I perceived that I was alone on this unhappy earth.
What thought had I of flight, of safety, of the impending dangers
of my situation? Beside the body of my last friend, I had
forgotten all except the natural pangs of my bereavement.
The sun was some four hours above the eastern line, when I was
recalled to a knowledge of the things of earth, by the entrance of
the slave-girl to whom I have already referred. The poor soul was
indeed devotedly attached to me; and it was with streaming tears
that she broke to me the import of her coming. With the first
light of dawn a boat had reached our landing-place, and set on
shore upon our isle (till now so fortunate) a party of officers
bearing a warrant to arrest my father's person, and a man of a
gross body and low manners, who declared the island, the
plantation, and all its human chattels, to be now his own. 'I
think,' said my slave-girl, 'he must be a politician or some very
powerful sorcerer; for Madam Mendizabal had no sooner seen them
coming, than she took to the woods.'
'Fool,' said I, 'it was the officers she feared; and at any rate
why does that beldam still dare to pollute the island with her
presence? And O Cora,' I exclaimed, remembering my grief, 'what
matter all these troubles to an orphan?'
'Mistress,' said she, 'I must remind you of two things. Never
speak as you do now of Madam Mendizabal; or never to a person of
colour; for she is the most powerful woman in this world, and her
real name even, if one durst pronounce it, were a spell to raise
the dead. And whatever you do, speak no more of her to your
unhappy Cora; for though it is possible she may be afraid of the
police (and indeed I think that I have heard she is in hiding), and
though I know that you will laugh and not believe, yet it is true,