Romance

'Mind ye, it's an organized thing, I have something to say in it. It hurts Mr. Canning's Government at home, the curse of Cromwell on him and them. They will be dropping some of their own colonies directly. And as you are a Separationist, small blame to you, and I am an Irishman, we shan't cry our eyes out over it. Come, Mr. Kemp, 'tis all for the good of the Cause.... And there's nothing low. You are a gentleman, and I wouldn't propose anything that was. The very best people in Havana are interested in the matter. Our schooners lie in Rio Medio, but I can't be there all the time myself.'

Surprise deprived me of speech. I glanced at Carlos. He was watching us inscrutably. The young girl touched the lizard gently, but it was too frightened to move. O'Brien, with shrewd glances, rocked his chair.... What did I want? he inquired. To see life? What he proposed was the life for a fine young fellow like me. Moreover, I was half Scotch. Had I forgotten the wrongs of my own country? Had I forgotten the '45?

'You'll have heard tell of a Scotch Chief Justice whose son spent in Amsterdam the money his father earned on the justice seat in Edinb'ro'—money paid for rum and run silks . . .'

Of course I had heard of it; everybody had; but it had been some years before.

'We're backwards hereabouts,' O'Brien jeered. 'But over there they winked and chuckled at the judge, and they do the same in Havana at us.'

Suddenly from behind us the voice of the young girl said, 'Of what do you discourse, my English cousin?'

O'Brien interposed deferentially. 'Senorita, I ask him to come to Rio,' he said.

She turned her large dark eyes scrutinizingly upon me, then dropped them again. She was arranging some melon seeds in a rayed circle round the lizard that looked motionlessly at her.

'Do not speak very loudly, lest you awaken my father,' she warned us.

The old Don's face was still turned to the ceiling. Carlos, standing behind his chair, opened his mouth a little in a half smile. I was really angry with O'Brien by that time, with his air of omniscience, superiority, and self-content, as if he were talking to a child or someone very credulous and weak-minded.

'What right have you to speak for me, Senor Juez?' I said in the best Spanish I could.

The young girl looked at me once more, and then again looked down.

'Oh, I can speak for you,' he answered in English, 'because I know. Your position's this.' He sat down in his rocking chair, crossed his legs, and looked at me as if he expected me to show signs of astonishment at his knowing so much. 'You're in a hole. You must leave this island of Jamaica—surely it's as distressful as my own dear land— and you can't go home, because the runners would be after you. You're 'wanted' here as well as there, and you've nowhere to go.'

I looked at him, quite startled by this view of my case. He extended one plump hand towards me, and still further lowered his voice.

'Now, I offer you a good berth, a snug berth. And 'tis a pretty spot.' He got a sort of languorous honey into his voice, and drawled out, 'The—the Senorita's.' He took an air of businesslike candour. 'You can help us, and we you; we could do without you better than you without us. Our undertaking—there's big names in it, just as in the Free Trading you know so well, don't be saying you don't—is worked from Havana. What we need is a man we can trust. We had one—Nichols. You remember the mate of the ship you came over in. He was Nicola el Demonio; he won't be any longer—I can't tell you why, it's too long a story.'

I did remember very vividly that cadaverous Nova Scotian mate of the Thames, who had warned me with truculent menaces against showing my face in Rio Medio. I remembered his sallow, shiny cheeks, and the exaggerated gestures of his claw-like hands.

O'Brien smiled. 'Nichols is alive right enough, but no more good than if he were dead. And that's the truth. He pretends his nerve's gone; he was a devil among tailors for a time, but he's taken to crying now. It was when your blundering old admiral's boats had to be beaten off that his zeal cooled. He thinks the British Government will rise in its strength.' There was a bitter contempt in his voice, but he regained his calm business tone. 'It will do nothing of the sort. I've given them those seven poor devils that had to die to-day without absolution. So Nichols is done for, as far as we are concerned. I've got him put away to keep him from blabbing. You can have his place—and better than his place. He was only a sailor, which you are not. However, you know enough of ships, and what we want is a man with courage, of course, but also a man we can trust. Any of the Creoles would bolt into the bush the moment they'd five dollars in hand. We'll pay you well; a large share of all you take.'

I laughed outright. 'You're quite mistaken in your man,' I said. 'You are, really.'

He shook his head gently, and brushed an invisible speck from his plump black knees.

'You must go somewhere,' he said. 'Why not go with us?'

I looked at him, puzzled by his tenacity and assurance.

'Ramon here has told us you battered the admiral last night; and there's a warrant out already against you for attempted murder. You're hand and glove with the best of the Separationists in this island, I know, but they won't save you from being committed—for rebellion, perhaps. You know it as well as I do. You were down here to take a passage to-day, weren't you, now?'

I remembered that the Island Loyalists said that the pirates and Separationists worked together to bother the admiral and raise discontent. Living in the centre of Separationist discontent with the Macdonalds, I knew it was not true. But nothing was too bad to say against the planters who clamoured for union with the United States.

O'Brien leaned forward. His voice had a note of disdain, and then took one of deeper earnestness; it sank into his chest. He extended his hand; his eyebrows twitched. He looked—he was—a conspirator.

'I tell you I do it for the sake of Ireland,' he said passionately. 'Every ship we take, every clamour they raise here, is a stroke and is disgrace for them over there that have murdered us and ruined my own dear land.' His face worked convulsively; I was in the presence of one of the primeval passions. But he grew calm immediately after. 'You want Separation for reasons of your own. I don't ask what they are. No doubt you and your crony Macdonald and the rest of them will feather your own nests; I don't ask. But help me to be a thorn in their sides—just a little—just a little longer. What do I put in your way? Just what you want. Have your Jamaica joined to the United States. You'll be able to come back with your pockets full, and I'll be joyful—for the sake of my own dear land.'

I said suddenly and recklessly—if I had to face one race-passion, he had to look at another; we were cat and dog—Celt and Saxon, as it was in the beginning: 'I am not a traitor to my country.' Then I realized with sudden concern that I had probably awakened the old Don. He stirred uneasily in his chair, and lifted one hand.