He lifted his arm not at me, but at England, if I may judge from his burning stare. It was not to me he was speaking. There we were, Irish and English, face to face, as it had been ever since we had met in the narrow way of the world that had never been big enough for the tribes, the nations, the races of man.
“Now, Mr. O’Brien, I don’t know what you may do to me, but I won’t listen to any of this,” I said, very red in the face.
“Who wants you to listen?” he muttered absently, and went away from the table to look out of the loophole, leaving me there with the sword and the pistol.
Whatever he might have said of the scaffold, this was very imprudent of him. It was characteristic of the man—of that impulsiveness which existed in him side by side with his sagacity, with his coolness in intrigue, with his unmerciful and revengeful temper. By my own feelings I understood what an imprudence it was. But he was turning his back on me, and how could I? … His imprudence was so complete that it made for security. He did not, I am sure, remember my existence. I would just as soon have jumped with a dagger upon a man in the dark.
He was really stirred to his depths—to the depths of his hate, and of his love—by seeing me, an insignificant youth (I was no more), surge up suddenly in his path. He turned where he stood at last, and contemplated me with a sort of thoughtful surprise, as though he had tried to account to himself for my existence.
“No,” he said, to himself really, “I wonder when I look at you. How did you manage to get that pretty reputation over there? Ramon’s a fool. He shall know it to his cost. But the craftiness of that Carlos! Or is it only my confounded willingness to believe?”
He was putting his finger nearly on the very spot. I said nothing.
“Why,” he exclaimed, “when it’s all boiled down, you are only an English beggar boy.”
“I’ve come to a man’s estate since we met last,” I said meaningly.
He seemed to meditate over this. His face never changed, except, perhaps, to an even more amused benignity of expression.
“You have lived very fast by that account,” he remarked artlessly. “Is it possible now? Well, life, as you know, can’t last forever; and, indeed, taking a better look at you in this poor light, you do seem to be very near death.”
I did not flinch; and, with a very dry mouth, I uttered defiantly:
“Such talk means nothing.”
“Bravely said. But this is not talk. You’ve gone too fast. I am giving you a chance to turn back.”
“Not an inch,” I said fiercely. “Neither in thought, in deed; not even in semblance.”
He seemed as though he wanted to swallow a bone in his throat.
“Believe me, there is more in life than you think. There is at your age, more than …” he had a strange contortion of the body, as though in a sudden access of internal pain; that humorous smile, that abode in the form of his lips, changed into a ghastly, forced grin … “than one love in a life—more than one woman.”
I believe he tried to leer at me, because his voice was absolutely dying in his throat. My indignation was boundless. I cried out with the fire of deathless conviction:
“It is not true. You know it is not true.”
He was speechless for a time; then, shaking and stammering with that inward rage that seemed to heave like molten lava in his breast, without ever coming to the surface of his face:
“What! Is it I, then, who have to go back? For—for you—a boy—come from devil knows where—an English, beggarly. … For a girl’s whim. … I—a man.”
He calmed down. “No; you are mad. You are dreaming. You don’t know. You can’t—you! You don’t know what a man is; you with your calf-love a day old. How dare you look at me who have breathed for years in the very air? You fool—you little, wretched fool! For years sleeping, and waking, and working. …”
“And intriguing,” I broke in, “and plotting, and deceiving—for years.”
This calmed him altogether. “I am a man; you are but a boy; or else I would not have to tell you that your love”—he choked at the word—“is to mine like—like—”
His eyes fell on a cut-glass water-ewer, and, with a convulsive sweep of his arm, he sent it flying far away from the table. It fell heavily, shattering itself with the unringing thud of a piece of ice. “Like this.” He remained for some time with his eyes fixed on the table, and when he looked up at me it was with a sort of amused incredulity. His tone was not resentful. He spoke in a businesslike manner, a little contemptuously. I had only Don Carlos to thank for the position in which I found myself. What the “poor devil over there” expected from me, he, O’Brien, would not inquire. It was a ridiculous boy-and-girl affair. If those two—meaning Carlos and Seraphina—had not been so mighty clever, I should have been safe now in Jamaica jail, on a charge of treasonable practices. He seemed to find the idea funny. Well, anyhow, he had meant no worse by me than my own dear countrymen. When he, O’Brien, had found how absurdly he had been hoodwinked by Don Carlos—the poor devil—and misled by Ramon—he would make him smart for it, yet—all he had intended
