[CHAPTER XVII.]
"SHE HATES HIM BECAUSE SHE LOVES HIM."
"It would be folly," said Julian to himself that night, "not to recognise at once that each moment I spend in this house, or, indeed in this locality, is full of danger to me. Therefore, from this moment I commence to take every precaution that is possible. Now let us think out how to do it."
On this occasion he was the sole occupant of the lower veranda, in spite of its being quite early in the evening, and owing to the fact that Sebastian was passing the night in Belize, while Madame Carmaux, having announced that she had a severe headache, had taken herself off to her own room before supper, he had partaken of that meal alone. So that he sat there quite by himself now, smoking; and, as a matter of fact, he was not at all sorry to do so.
He recognised that any attempt at conversation with the "gentle lady" as Paz had termed her--in an undoubtedly ironical and subacid manner--was the veriest make-believe; while, as to Sebastian, when he was at home--well, his conversation was absolutely uninteresting. He never talked of anything but gambling and the shortness of ready money, diversified occasionally by a torrent of questions as to what George Ritherdon had done and what he had said during the whole time of his life in England. While, as Julian reflected, or, indeed, now felt perfectly sure, that even this wearisome talk was but assumed as a mask or cloak to the other's real thoughts, it was not likely that Sebastian's absence to-night could be a cause of much regret.
"Let me think out how to do it," he said again, continuing his meditations; "let me regard the whole thing from its proper aspect. I am in danger. But of what at the worst? Well, at the worst--death. There is, it is very evident, a strong determination on the part of some people in this place to relieve the colony of my interesting presence. First, Sebastian tries to break my neck with an untrained horse; next, some one probably places a coral snake in my bed; while, thirdly, some creature of his endeavours to shoot me. Paz--who seems to have imbibed many ancient ideas from his Spanish and savage ancestors--appears, however, if I understand him, to imagine he was the person shot at, his wild and barbaric notions about the sacredness of the guest making him suppose, apparently that my life could not be the one aimed at. Well, let him think so. At any rate, his feelings of revenge and hatred are kept at boiling-pitch against some unknown enemy.
"Now," he went on, with still that light and airy manner of looking at difficulties (even difficulties that at this time seemed to be assuming a horrible, not to say, hideous, aspect) which had long since endeared him to countless comrades in the wardroom and elsewhere. "Now, I will take a little walk in the cool of the evening. Dear Madame Carmaux's headache has deprived her of the pearls of my conversation, wherefore I will, as her countrymen say, 'go and take the air.'"
Upon which he rose from his seat, and, pushing aside the wicker table on which stood a bottle of Bourbon whisky, a syphon, and also a pen and ink with some writing-paper, he took from off it a letter directed and stamped, and dropped it into the pocket of his white jacket.
"The creole negro--as they call those chaps here--passes the foot of the garden in five minutes' time," he said to himself, looking at a fine gold watch which he had gained as a prize at Greenwich, "and he will convey this to Spranger's hands. Afterwards, from to-night, I will make it my business to send one off from All Pines every day. I should like Spranger and Beat--I mean Miss Spranger--to receive a daily bulletin of my health henceforth.
"Sebastian," he continued to reflect, as now he made his way beneath the palms towards where the road ran, far down at the foot of the garden, "has meditations about being my heir--well, so have I about being his. Yet I think, I do really think, I would rather be Sebastian's if it's all the same to him. Nevertheless, in case anything uncomfortable should happen to me, I should like Spranger and Beat--Miss Spranger, to be acquainted with the fact. It might make the succession easier to--Sebastian."