cassock.
'Have you any plan?'
When he came back, walking very slowly, I said, 'None.'
At this next turn I pronounced rapidly, 'I should like to see Carlos.'
He frowned over the edge of the book. I understood that he refused to let me in. And, after all, why should I disturb that dying man? The news about him was that he felt stronger that day. But he was preparing for eternity. Father Antonio's business was to save souls. I felt horribly crushed and alone. The priest asked, hardly moving his lips: 'What do you trust to?'
I had the time to meditate my reply. 'Tell Carlos I think of escape by sea.'
He made a little sign of assent, turned off towards the staircase, and went back to the sick room.
'The folly of it,' I thought. How could I think of it? Escape where? I dared not even show myself outside the Casa. My safety within depended on old Cesar more than on anybody else. He had the key of the gate, and the gate was practically the only thing between me and a miserable death at the hands of the first ruffian I met outside. And with the thought I seemed to stifle in that
That gate seemed to cut off the breath of life from me. I was there, as if in a trap. Should I—I asked myself— try to enlighten Don Balthasar? Why not? He would understand me. I would tell him that in his own town, as he always called Rio Medio, there lurked assassination for his guest. That would move him if anything could.
He was then walking with O'Brien after dinner, as he had walked with me on the day of my arrival. Only Seraphina had not appeared, and we three men had sat out the silent meal alone.
They stopped as I approached, and Don Balthasar listened to me benignantly. 'Ah, yes, yes! Times have changed.' But there was no reason for alarm. There were some undesirable persons. Had they not arrived lately? He turned to O'Brien, who stood by, in readiness to resume the walk, and answered, 'Yes, quite lately. Very undesirable,' in a matter-of-fact tone. The excellent Don Patricio would take measures to have them removed, the old man soothed me. But it was not really dangerous for any one to go out. Again he addressed O'Brien, who only smiled gently, as much as to say, 'What an absurdity!' I must not forget, continued the old man, the veneration for the very name of Riego that still, thank Heaven, survived in these godless and revolutionary times in the Riegos' own town. He straightened his back a little, looking at me with dignity, and then glanced at the other, who inclined his head affirmatively. The utter and complete hopelessness of the position appalled me for a moment. The old man had not put foot outside his door for years, not even to go to church. Father Antonio said Mass for him every day in the little chapel next the dining room. When O'Brien—for his own purposes, and the better to conceal his own connection with the Rio Medio piracies—had persuaded him to go to Jamaica officially, he had been rowed in state to the ship waiting outside. For many years now it had been impossible to enlighten him as to the true condition of affairs. He listened to people's talk as though it had been children's prattle. I have related how he received Carlos' denunciations. If one insisted, he would draw himself up in displeasure. But in his decay he had preserved a great dignity, a grave firmness that intimidated me a little.
I did not, of course, insist that evening, and, after giving me my dismissal in a gesture of blessing, he resumed his engrossing conversation with O'Brien. It related to the services commemorating his wife's death, those services that, once every twelve months, draped in black all the churches in Havana. A hundred masses, no less, had to be said that day; a distribution of alms had to be made. O'Brien was charged with all the arrangements, and I caught, as they crept past me up and down the
I saw Don Balthasar smile with an ineffable satisfaction; he thanked O'Brien for his zeal, and seemed to lean more familiarly on his arm. His voice trembled with eagerness. 'And now, my excellent Don Patricio, as to the number of candles....'
I stood for a while as if rooted to the spot, overwhelmed by my insignificance. O'Brien never once looked my way. Then, hanging my head, I went slowly up the white staircase towards my room.
Cesar, going his rounds along the gallery, shuffled his silk-clad shanks smartly between two young negroes balancing lanthorns suspended on the shafts of their halberds. That little group had a mediaeval and outlandish aspect. Cesar carried a bunch of keys in one hand, his staff of office in the other. He stood aside, in his maroon velvet and gold lace, holding the three-cornered hat under his arm, bowing his gray, woolly head—the most venerable and deferential of majordomos. His attendants, backing against the wall, grounded their halberds heavily at my approach.
He stepped out to intercept me, and, with great discretion, 'Senor, a word,' he said in his subdued voice. 'A moment ago I have been called within the door of our senorita's apartments. She has given me this for your worship, together with many compliments. It is a seal. The Senor will understand.'
I took it; it was a tiny seal with her monogram on it. 'Yes,' I said.
'And Senorita Dona Seraphina has charged me to repeat'—he made a stealthy sign, as if to counteract an evil influence—'the words, 'Two lives—one death.' The Senor will understand.'
'Yes,' I said, looking away with a pang at my heart. He touched my elbow. 'And to trust Cesar. Senor, I dandled her when she was quite little. Let me most earnestly urge upon your worship not to go near the windows, especially if there is light in your worship's room. Evil men are gazing upon the house, and I have seen myself the glint of a musket at the end of the street. The moon grows fast, too. The senorita begs you to trust Cesar.'
'Are there many men?' I asked.
'Not many in sight; I have seen only one. But by signs, open to a man of my experience, I suspect many more to be about.' Then, as I looked down on the ground, he added parenthetically, 'They are poor shots, one and all, lacking the very firmness of manhood necessary to discharge a piece with a good aim. Still, Senor, I am ordered to entreat you to be cautious. Strange it is that to-night, from the great revelry at the Aldea Bajo, one might think they had just visited an English ship outside.'
A ship! a ship! of any sort. But how to get out of the Casa? Murder forbade me even as much as to look out of the windows. Was there a ship outside? Cesar was positive there was not—not since I had arrived. Besides, the empty sea itself was unattainable, it seemed. I pressed the seal to my lips. 'Tell the senorita how I received her gift,' I said; and the old negro inclined his head lower still. 'Tell her that as the letters of her name are graved on this, so are all the words she has spoken graven on my heart.'
They went away busily, the lanthorns swinging about the ax-heads of the halberds, Cesar's staff tapping the stones.
