The lights of my candelabrum had gone out. I stood the two candlesticks on a table, and the shadows of the room, uplifted above the two flames as high as the ceiling, filled the corners heavily like gathered draperies, descended to the foot of the four walls in the shape of a military tent, in which warlike objects vaguely gleamed: a trophy of ancient arquebuses and conquering swords, arranged with bows, spears, the stick and stone weapons of an extinct race, a war collar of shells or pebbles, a round wickerwork shield in a halo of arrows, with a matchlock piece on each side—of the sort that had to be served by two men.
I had left the door of my room open on purpose, so that he should know I was back there, and ready for him. I took down a long straight blade, like a rapier, with a basket hilt. It was a cumbrous weapon, and with a blunt edge; still, it had a point, and I was ready to thrust and parry against the world. I called upon my foes. No enemy appeared, and by the light of two candles, with a sword in my hand, I lost myself in the foreshadowings of the future.
It was positive and uncertain. I wandered in it like a soul outside the gates of paradise, with an anticipation of bliss, and the pain of my exclusion. There was only one man in the way. I was certain he had been watching us across the blackness of the patio. He must have seen the dimly-lit dumb show of our parting at Seraphina’s door. I hoped he had understood, and that my shadow, bearing the two lights, had struck him as triumphant and undismayed, walking upon air. I strained my ears. I had heard. …
Somebody was coming towards me along the silent galleries. It was he; I knew it. He was coming nearer and nearer. In the profound, tomb-like stillness of the great house, I had heard the sound of his footsteps on the tessellated pavement from afar. Now he had turned the corner, and the calm, strolling pace of his approach was enough to strike awe into an adversary’s heart. It never hesitated, not once; never hurried; never slowed till it stopped. He stood in the doorway.
I suppose, in that big room, by the light of two candles, I must have presented an impressive picture of a menacing youth all in black, with a tense face, and holding a naked, long rapier in his hand. At any rate, he stood still, eyeing me from the doorway, the picture of a dapper Spanish lawyer in a lofty frame; all in black, also, with a fair head and a well-turned leg advanced in a black silk stocking. He had taken off his riding boots. For the rest, I had never seen him dressed otherwise. There was no weapon in his hand, or at his side.
I lowered the point, and, seeing he remained on the doorstep, as if not willing to trust himself within, I said disdainfully:
“You don’t suppose I would murder a defenceless man.”
“Am I defenceless?” He had a slight lift of the eyebrows. “That is news, indeed. It is you who are supposing. I have been a very certain man for this many a year.”
“How can you know how an English gentleman would feel and act? I am neither a murderer nor yet an intriguer.”
He walked right in rapidly, and, getting round to the other side of the table, drew a small pistol out of his breeches pocket.
“You see—I am not trusting too much to your English generosity.”
He laid the pistol negligently on the table. I had turned about on my heels. As we stood, by lunging between the two candlesticks, I should have been able to run him through the body before he could cry out.
I laid the sword on the table.
“Would you trust a damned Irish rebel?” he asked.
“You are wrong in your surmise. I would have nothing to do with a rebel, even in my thoughts and suppositions. I think that the Intendente of Don Balthasar Riego would look twice before murdering in a bedroom the guest of the house—a relation, a friend of the family.”
“That’s sensible,” he said, with that unalterable air of good nature, which sometimes was like the most cruel mockery of humour. “And do you think that even a relation of the Riegos would escape the scaffold for killing Don Patricio O’Brien, one of the Royal Judges of the Marine Court, member of the Council, Procurator to the Chapter. …”
“Intendente of the Casa,” I threw in.
“That’s my gratitude,” he said gravely. “So you see. …”
“Supreme chief of thieves and picaroons,” I suggested again.
He answered this by a gesture of disdainful superiority.
“I wonder if you—if any of you English—would have the courage to risk your all—ambition, pride, position, wealth, peace of mind, your dearest hope, your self-respect—like this. For an idea.”
His tone, that revealed something exalted and sad behind everything that was sordid and base in the acts of that man’s villainous tools, struck me with astonishment. I beheld, as an inseparable whole, the contemptible result, the childishness of his imagination, the danger of his recklessness, and something like loftiness in his pitiful illusion.
“Nothing’s too hot, too dirty, too heavy. Any way to get at you English; any means. To strike! That’s the thing. I would die happy if I knew I had helped to detach from you one island—one little island of all the earth you have filched away, stolen, taken by force, got by lying. … Don’t taunt me with your taunts of thieves. What weapons better worthy of you could I use? Oh, I am modest. I am modest. This is a little thing, this Jamaica. What do I care
