"I haven't taken countless middle watches for nothing in my time," he said to himself; "another won't hurt me. If I do drop asleep, I imagine I shall wake up pretty easily."
He was on the alert now, and not only on the alert as to any one who might be disposed to pay him a nocturnal visit, but, also, mentally wary as to what might be the truth concerning Sebastian Ritherdon and himself. For, strange to say, there was a singular revulsion of feeling going on in his mind at this time; strange because, at present, scarcely anything of considerable importance, scarcely anything sufficiently tangible, had occurred to produce this new conviction that Sebastian's story was untrue, and that the other story told by his uncle before his death was the right one.
All the same, the conviction was growing in his mind; growing steadily, although perhaps without any just reason or cause for its growth. Meanwhile, his ears now told him that, although Madame Carmaux was absent when he glanced over the balcony to wish Sebastian that last greeting, she undoubtedly had not gone to bed. From below, in the intense stillness of the tropic night-a stillness broken only occasionally by the cry of some bird from the plantation beyond the cultivated gardens, he heard the soft luscious tones of the woman herself-and those who are familiar with the tones of southern women will recall how luscious the murmur can be; he heard, too, the deeper notes of the man. Yet what they said to each other in subdued whispers was unintelligible to him; beyond a word here and there nothing reached his ears.
With the feeling of conviction growing stronger and stronger in his mind that there was some deception about the whole affair-that, plausible as Sebastian's possession of all which the dead man had left behind appeared; plausible, too, as was his undoubted position here and had been from his very earliest days, Julian would have given much now to overhear their conversation-a conversation which, he felt certain, in spite of it taking place thirty feet below where he was supposed to be by now asleep, related to his appearance on the scene.
Would it be possible? Could he in any way manage to thus overhear it? If he were nearer to the persianas, his ear close to the slats, his head placed down low, close to the boards of the room and of the balcony as well-what might not be overheard?
Thinking thus, he resolved to make the attempt, even while he told himself that in no other circumstances would he-a gentleman, a man of honour-resort to such a scheme of prying interference. But-for still the certainty increased in his mind that there was some deceit, some fraud in connection with Sebastian Ritherdon's possession of Desolada and all that Desolada represented in value-he did not hesitate now. As once he, with some of his bluejackets, had tracked slavers from the sea for miles inland and into the coast swamps and fever-haunted interior of the great Black Continent, so now he would track this man's devious and doubtful existence, as, remembering George Ritherdon's story, it seemed to him to be. If he had wronged Sebastian, if he had formed a false estimate of his possession of this place and of his right to the name he bore, no harm would be done. For then he would go away from Honduras for ever, leaving the man in peaceable possession of all that was rightly his. But, if his suspicions were not wrong-
He let himself down to the floor from the chair on which he had been sitting in the dark for now nearly an hour, and, quietly, noiselessly, he progressed along that solid floor-one so well laid in the past that no board either creaked or made any noise-and thus he reached the balcony, there interposing nothing now between him and it but the lowered blind.
Then when he had arrived there, he heard their voices plainly; heard every word that fell from their lips-the soft murmur of the woman's tones, the deeper, more guttural notes of the man.
Only-he might as well have been a mile away from where they sat, he might as well have been stone deaf as able to thus easily overhear those words.
For Sebastian and his companion were speaking in a tongue that was unknown to him; a tongue that, in spite of the Spanish surroundings and influences which still linger in all places forming parts of Central America, was not Spanish. Of this language he, like most sailors, knew something; therefore he was aware that it was not that, as well as he was aware that it was not French. Perhaps 'twas Maya, which he had been told in Belize was the native jargon, or Carib, which was spoken along the coast.
And almost, as he recognised how he was baffled, could he have laughed bitterly at himself. "What a fool I must have been," he thought, "to suppose that if they had any confidences to make to each other, any secrets to talk over in which I was concerned they would discuss them in a language I should be likely to understand."
But there are some words, especially those which express names, which cannot be translated into a foreign tongue. Among such, Ritherdon would be one. Julian, too, is another, with only the addition of the letter "o" at the end in Spanish (and perhaps also in Maya or Carib), and George, which, though spelt Jorge, has, in speaking, nearly the same pronunciation. And these names met his ear as did others: Inglaterra-the name of the woman Isobel Leigh, whom Julian believed to have been his mother, but whom Sebastian asserted to have been his; also the name of that fair American city lying to the north of them-New Orleans-it being referred to, of course, in the Spanish tongue.
"So," he thought to himself, "it is of me they are talking. Of me-which would not, perhaps, be strange, since a guest so suddenly received into the house and having the name of Ritherdon might well furnish food for conversation. But, when coupled with George Ritherdon, with New Orleans, above all with the name of Isobel Leigh-"
Even as that name was in his mind, he heard it again mentioned below by the woman-Madame Carmaux. Mentioned, too, in conjunction with and followed by a light, subdued laugh; a laugh in which his acuteness could hear an undercurrent of bitterness-perhaps of derision.
"And she was this woman's relative," he thought, "her relative! Yet now she is jeered at, spoken scornfully of by-"
In amazement he paused, even while his reflections arrived at this stage.
In front of where his eyes were, low down to the floor of the balcony, something dark and sombre passed, then returned and stopped before him, blotting from his eyes all that lay in front of them-the tops of the palms, the woods beyond the garden, the dark sea beyond that. Like a pall it rested before his vision, obscuring, blurring everything. And, a moment later, he recognised that it was a woman's dress which thus impeded his view, while, as he did so, he heard some five feet above him a light click made by one of the slats.
Then, with an upward glance of his eyes, that glance being aided by a noiseless turn of his head, he saw that a finger was holding back the lath, and knew-felt sure-that into the darkness of the room two other eyes were gazing.
CHAPTER IX
BEATRIX
Thirty-six hours later Julian Ritherdon sat among very different surroundings from those of Desolada; certainly very different ones from those of his first night in the gloomy, mysterious house owned by that other man who bore his name.
He was seated now in a wicker chair placed beneath the cool shadow cast by a vast clump of "shade-trees," as the royal palm, the thatch palm, and, indeed, almost every kind and species of that form of vegetation are denominated. These shade-trees grew in the pretty and luxuriant garden of Mr. Spranger's house on the southern outskirts of Belize, a garden in which, for some years now, Beatrix Spranger had passed the greater part of her days, and sometimes when the hot simoon was on, as it was now, and the temperature scarcely ever fell below 85°, a good deal of the early part of her nights.
She, too, was seated in that garden now, talking to Julian, while between them there lay two or three books and London magazines (three or four months old), a copy of the Times of the same ancient date, and another of the Belize Advertiser fresh from the local press. Yet neither the news from London which had long since been published, nor that of the immediate neighbourhood, which was quite new but not particularly exciting, seemed to have been able to secure much of their attention. And this for a reason which was a simple one and easily to be understood. All their attention was at the present moment concentrated on each other.
"You cannot think," Beatrix Spranger was saying now, "what a welcome event the arrival of a stranger is to us here, who regard ourselves more