A Bitter Heritage: A Modern Story of Love and Adventure

by John Bloundelle-Burton

"No. No," Paz said, in answer to his question. "No. I come not with you. I live not here but in plantation mile away. If I found here--he--he--try kill me. But you he will not kill. You big, strong, brave. And," the man continued in a whisper that was in truth a hiss, "it is you who must kill. Kill! Kill! Remember the snake in bed, the shot in wood, the mountain mullet, the Amancay. Now, I go. This is the room."

Then almost imperceptibly he was gone, his form disappearing like a black blur on the still darker, denser blackness of the corridor.

Without hesitation, Julian softly turned the handle and entered the room that gave egress to the balcony which he wished to gain. And although it was as dark as night itself, there was a something, a feeling of space, quite perceptible to his highly-strung senses, which told him that it was a vast chamber--a room suitable for the birth of the son and heir of the great house and its belongings.

"Strange," he thought to himself, "that thus I should revisit the place in which I first saw the light--that I, who in the darkness was spirited away, should, in the darkness, return to it."

Yet, black, impenetrable as all around was, there was an inferior density of darkness at the other end of the great room, away where the window was; and towards that he directed his footsteps, knowing that there, between the laths of the persianas which it possessed in common with every other room in the house, would be his opportunity. There was the coign of vantage through which he could keep watch and make observations.

"For," he thought, "if I see her going from her room to mine I shall know enough, as also I shall do if I see her returning from mine to hers. While, if she does neither, then it will be easy enough to discover whether she has been to that room or is in it still."

He was close by the window now, having felt his way carefully to it; he proceeded slowly so as to stumble against no obstacle nor make any noise; and then he knew that, should any form, however shrouded, pass before this window he could not fail to observe it. It was not so dark outside as to prevent that; also the gleam of the stars was considerable. And as Paz had done outside on the balcony last night, so he did now inside the room. He lowered himself noiselessly to the floor, kneeling on the soft carpet which this, the principal bedchamber possessed, while through a slat a foot from the ground, which he turned gently with his finger, he gazed out.

At first nothing occurred. All was as still, as silent as death; save for sometimes the bark of a distant dog, the chatter of an aroused bird in the palms near by, and the occasional midnight howl of a baboon farther away.

Wonderfully still it was; so undisturbed, indeed, except for those sounds, that almost a breath of air might have been heard.

Then, after half an hour, he heard a noise. The noise being a gentle one, but still perceptible, of the rattle of the persianas belonging to some window a little distance off. And to the left of him. Surely to the left of him!