'To part me from the man to whom I have given my heart. That you cannot do. Gomez, why do you not speak? Tell him, tell him!' cried Lesbia, with a voice strangled by sobs; 'tell him that I am to be your wife to-morrow, at Havre. Your wife!'
'Dear Lady Lesbia, that cannot be,' said Lord Hartfield, sorrowfully, pitying her in her helplessness, as he might have pitied a young bird in the fowler's net. 'I am assured upon undeniable authority that Señor Montesma has a wife living at Cuba; and even were this not so—were he free to marry you—his character and antecedents would for ever forbid such a marriage.'
'A wife! No, no, no!' shrieked Lesbia, looking wildly from one to the other. 'It is a lie—a lie, invented by my brother, who always hated me—by you, who fooled and deceived me! It is a lie, an infamous invention! Don Gomez, speak to them: for pity's sake answer them! Don't you see that they are driving me mad?'
She flung herself into his arms, she buried her dishevelled head upon his breast; she clung to him with hands that writhed convulsively in her agony.
Maulevrier sprang across the cabin and wrenched her from her lover's grasp.
'You shall not pollute her with your touch,' he cried; 'you have poisoned her mind already. Scoundrel, seducer, slave-dealer! Do you hear, Lesbia? Shall I tell you what this man is—what trade he followed yonder, on his native island—this Spanish hidalgo—this all-accomplished gentleman—lineal descendant of the Cid—fine flower of Andalusian chivalry? It was not enough for him to cheat at cards, to float bubble companies, bogus lotteries. His profligate extravagance, his love of sybarite luxury, required a larger resource than the petty schemes which enrich smaller men. A slave ship, which could earn nearly twenty thousand pounds on every voyage, and which could make two runs in a year—that was the trade for Don Gomez de Montesma, and he carried it on merrily for six or seven years, till the British cruisers got too keen for him, and the good old game was played out. You see that scar upon the hidalgo's forehead, Lesbia—a token of knightly prowess, you think, perhaps. No, my girl, that is the mark of an English cutlass in a scuffle on board a slaver. A merry trade, Lesbia—the living cargo stowed close under hatches have rather a bad time of it now and then—short rations of food and water, yellow Jack. They die like rotten sheep sometimes—bad then for the dealer. But if he can land the bulk of his human wares safe and sound the profits are enormous. The Captain-General takes his capitation fee, the blackies are drafted off to the sugar plantations, and everybody is satisfied; but I think, Lesbia, that your British prejudices would go against marriage with a slave-trader, were he ever so free to make you his wife, which this particular dealer in blackamoors is not.'
'Is this true, this part of their vile story?' demanded Lesbia, looking at her lover, who stood apart from them all now, his arms folded, his face deadly pale, the lower lip quivering under the grinding of his strong white teeth.
'There is some truth in it,' he answered, hoarsely. 'Everybody in Cuba had a finger in the African trade, before your British philanthropy spoiled it. Mr. Smithson made sixty thousand pounds in that line. It was the foundation of his fortune. And yet he had his misfortunes in running his cargo—a ship burnt, a freight roasted alive. There are some very black stories in Cuba against poor Smithson. He will never go there again.'
'Mr. Smithson may be a scoundrel; indeed, I believe he is a pretty bad specimen in that line,' said Lord Hartfield. 'But I doubt if there is any story that can be told of him quite so bad as the history of your marriage, and the events that went before it. I have been told the story of the beautiful Octoroon, who loved and trusted you, who shared your good and evil fortunes for the most desperate years of your life, was almost accepted as your wife, and whose strangled corpse was found in the harbour while the bells were ringing for your marriage with a rich planter's heiress—the lady who, no doubt, now patiently awaits your return to her native island.'
'She will wait a long time,' said Montesma, 'or fare ill if I go back to her. Lesbia, his lordship's story of the Octoroon is a fable—an invention of my Cuban enemies, who hate us old Spaniards with a poisonous hatred. But this much is true. I am a married man—bound, fettered by a tie which I abhor. Our Havre marriage would have been bigamy on my part, a delusion on yours. I could not have taken you to Cuba. I had planned our life in a fairer, more civilised world. I am rich enough to have surrounded you with all that makes life worth living. I would have given you love as true and as deep as ever man gave to woman. All that would have been wanting would have been the legality of the tie: and as law never yet made a marriage happy which lacked the elements of bliss, our lawless union need not have missed happiness. Lesbia, you said that you would hold by me, come what might. The worst has come, love; but it leaves me not the less your true lover.'