"Who's done this?" cried Butler, who had been somewhere forward when Don Christoval's wild death-shriek had sounded.
Mariana, with a paralytic gesture, pointed to Miss Noble's berth.
"Who's done it?" repeated Butler, in a voice strong and hoarse with horror.
"The girl whom these Spaniards have driven mad," said I. I turned to Mariana. "Did you see Don Christoval stabbed?"
"Ah, Dios! yes," he answered; and in language which is to be as little conveyed as his voice, or the expressions which chased his face, which at every instant gave a new character to his ugliness, he contrived to make us understand this: that Don Christoval had entered the lady's room, where he, Mariana, heard him address her soothingly; that the door was suddenly flung open, and that, at the same moment, even as the Spaniard stood on the threshold, the girl buried the knife in his side.
"How did she come by the knife?" cried Butler.
Mariana, trembling violently, with his eyes fixed upon the door of Miss Noble's berth, as though at every moment he expected to behold it thrown open, made us understand that the negro boy, some time during the morning, had left a basket of the cabin cutlery upon the table, and that the girl must have looked out and possessed herself of a knife at some moment when the two Spaniards were on deck, and when he—Mariana—had quitted his post of sentry to enter Don Christoval's berth. This was conjecture on the fellow's part, but beyond doubt it was accurate.
Don Lazarillo continued to gaze at us through the skylight with an expression as of a horrible sneer upon his face. I again stooped over the form of Don Christoval, felt his pulse, and examined his half-closed, fast-glazing eyes, then bade a couple of the seamen pick the body up and convey it to the cabin the Spaniard had occupied. While this was doing, I grasped the handle of the door of Miss Noble's room.
"Mind!" shrieked Don Lazarillo from above. Mariana ran on deck. I felt the idleness of announcing myself by knocking. More knives than one it was possible she might have concealed; I therefore at first held the door but a little way open and looked in.