Romance

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