"That is well. Be sure not to forget the message. Now, have you brought in the luggage?"
For answer the other glanced down the long, darkened, and consequently more or less cool hall, and she, following that glance, saw standing at the end of it a cabin trunk with, upon it, a Gladstone bag as well as a rifle. Then, after asking the man if he had been provided with food and drink, she bade him begone.
Yet, recognising that if, as she feared, if indeed, as she felt sure beyond the shadow of a doubt, Julian Ritherdon was in some mortal peril (that he was dead she did not dare to, would not allow herself to, think nor believe) no time must be wasted, she gave orders that the buggy should be got ready at once to take her into the city to her father's offices.
"He," she thought, "is the only person who can counsel me as to what is best, to do. And surely, surely, he will not attempt to prevent me from sending, nay, from taking assistance, to Julian. And if he does, then--then--I must tell him that I love----" But, appalled even at the thought of having to make use of such a revelation, she would not conclude the sentence, though there were none to hear it. Instead, she walked back into the garden, and, seating herself, resolved that she would think of nothing that might unnerve her or cause her undue agitation before she saw her father; and so sat waiting calmly until they should come to tell her that the carriage was ready.
But she did not know, as of course it was impossible that she should know, that drawing near to her was another woman who would bring her such information of what had recently taken place at Desolada as would put all surmises and speculations as to why Sebastian Ritherdon's letter had been written--the lying letter, as she had accurately described it--into the shade. A woman who would tell her that if murder had not yet been done in the remote and melancholy house, it was intended to be done, was brewing; would be done ere long, if Julian Ritherdon did not succumb to the injuries inflicted on him by Madame Carmaux. One who would give her such information that she would be justified in calling upon the authorities of Belize to instantly take steps to proceed to Desolada, and (then and there) to render Sebastian and his accomplice incapable of further crimes.
A woman--Zara--who almost from daybreak had set out from the lonely hacienda with the determination of reaching Belize somehow and of warning Beatrix, the Englishman's friend, of the danger that threatened that Englishman; above all, and this the principal reason, with the determination of saving Sebastian from the commission of a crime which, once accomplished, could never be undone. Yet, also, in her scheming, half-Indian brain, there had arisen other thoughts, other hopes.
"She loves him; this cold, pale-faced English girl loves Sebastian," she thought, still cherishing that delusion as she made her way sometimes along the dusty road, sometimes through copses and groves and thickets, all the paths of which she knew. "She loves him. But," and as this reflection rose in her mind her scarlet lips parted with a bitter smile, and her little pearl-like teeth glistened, "when she knows, when I show her how cruel, how wicked he has intended to be to that other man, so like him yet so different, then--then--ah! then, she will hate him." And again she smiled, even as she pursued her way."She will hate him--these English can hate, though they know not what real love means--and then when he finds he has lost her, he will--perhaps--love me. Ah!" And at the thought of the love she longed so for, her eyes gleamed more softly, more starlike, in the dim dawn of the forest glade.
"I shall save him--I shall save him from a crime--then--he--will--love me." And still the look upon her face was ecstatic. "Will marry me. My blood is Indian, not negro--'tis that alone with which these English will not mix theirs; the negro women alone with whom they will never wed. Ah! Sebastian," she murmured, "I must save you from a crime and--from her."
And so she went on and on, seeing the daffodil light of the coming day spreading itself all around; feeling the rays of the swift-rising sun striking through the forests, and parching everything with their fierceness, but heeding nothing of her surroundings. For she thought only of making the "cold, pale-faced English girl" despise the man whom she hungered for herself, and of one other thing--the means whereby to prevent him from doing that which might deprive him of his liberty--of his life and--also, deprive her of him.