Part 3 (2/2)
And he looks down at her with a queer expression. Every moment lost is a nail in his coffin; yet he is wasting those precious moments gazing into a pair of dark eyes.
She nestles close to his side. ”I hate it so when you are away. And I am always afraid you may get killed, or catch that terrible fever over there, and never come back to me at all.”
”Listen now, Anita,” he says, gravely. ”I must go away again--now-- to-night, or my life is not worth a pebble, and I don't feel inclined to throw it away for the benefit of those brutes.” Then he tells her about the fate of Sharkey, and the unmistakable signs he had read among his a.s.sociates of their deadly intentions towards him.
The girl trembles with horror and apprehension as she listens.
”You must indeed go, and immediately. You can do nothing against them, and there are so many of them; and--Ah, I may as well die,” she breaks off in a wail of despair.
”Don't say that, little one. You will soon learn to do without me; but I am afraid you will forget all your English. And you were getting on with it so nicely, too.”
The girl is silent; but looks up at him with a stricken, hopeless expression that goes to his heart. She is very lovely, standing there in the starlight, lovely in the rich, southern, voluptuous type. She is quite young--barely sixteen--but the delicate arched features are fully formed. As regards education or mental culture, Anita de Castro is a wild flower indeed. Her father is the head of this slave-dealing colony. Formerly a merchant in the Portuguese settlement of Delagoa Bay, his rascalities have landed him in outlawry, and he has taken his daughter with him into exile. Such is the girl who had attracted the attention of the Englishman Lidwell, who in her had found the one redeeming feature in his present reckless life. He had to a certain extent, and in a desultory sort of way, educated this girl; at any rate had moulded her into something better than a mere mental blank; and the process had been to him a real recreation, a refuge from the disgust which he increasingly felt for his cold-blooded and lawless occupation.
And she? Here, on the threshold of budding womanhood, this stranger, who looked upon her as a mere plaything, possessed her whole heart. How it was she could not tell, even had she asked herself the question.
Juarez, her sworn admirer, was softer of speech and far more deferential; whereas Lidwell sometimes seemed to ignore her very existence. Yet she would with a heavy heart antic.i.p.ate the absence of the latter on long and perilous expeditions, and look forward so anxiously and so joyfully to his return. And now he has returned only to leave again immediately, and well she knew that she would see him no more. Suddenly she throws herself on his breast in a fit of pa.s.sionate weeping.
”Ah, love! I shall never see you again. Never--never.”
A wave of wild temptation sweeps over the man. Why should he not take her with him? She is beautiful enough in face and form, and it suddenly strikes him that she is not the child he has. .h.i.therto been wont to consider her. She is in his arms now. He has only to say the word and she will stay there. But Lidwell is gifted with a cool head, and a strong one. He knows the world well enough, and he also knows his own nature. He will not sacrifice this girl to a pa.s.sing impulse, however powerful. So he resists the momentary temptation, and--it is the saving of his life.
He strokes back the soft hair from her forehead. ”Anita, child--you must not grieve like this for me--I don't say forget the times we have spent together. What I do say is, you are, made for something better than this kind of life; leave it as soon as you are able, and--”
”Hus.h.!.+”
She has heard something. With a quick gesture she draws herself from him, and stands erect and listening intently. A glow suffuses the sky, and the golden moon peeps above the tree-tops. And now the sound of stealthy footsteps and smothered voices may be heard approaching.
”Go!” exclaims the girl, imprinting a shower of kisses upon his lips.
”Go--quick. They are coming. You shall not die here. Good-bye, love.
I shall never see you again. Go.” And, as she pushes him from her, the advancing voices are very near indeed. She has barely time to regain the house before several men are knocking at the door. Feigning to be half asleep, she opens.
”Well, father, what has gone wrong?”
”Oh, nothing, Anita. Has Lidwell been here? We want him down at the camp. He promised to help us through with the wine,” answers De Castro.
”The Englishman? No, he hasn't been here. He must be in his own hut.”
A glance goes round the group.
”But he must have been here, senorita,” replies Juarez. ”He was seen to come in this direction.”
A thought strikes the girl. She must gain time. So with an admirably-feigned glance of uneasiness at a side door leading into another room, she reiterates that she has not seen him.
”Ah, well, comrades, I have some old wine in here,” says her father, advancing towards this door. ”We will try it.” He turns the handle; but the door is locked. ”The key, Anita, the key!”
”The key? Oh, here it is,” and after a pretended search she finds the key. They throw open the door suddenly, and stand staring in stupid surprise into an empty room.
”Juarez,” said the girl, calling him apart from the rest--”keep quiet now. Do you want the Englishman? You shall take him.”
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