"Why?" asked Julian surprised; perhaps, too, a little agitated.
"Why! Can you not understand? Not recognise why-at once? Man alive! We are alike!"
Alike! Alike! The words fell on Julian with startling force. Alike! Yes, so they were! They were alike. And in an instant it seemed as if some veil, some web had fallen away from his mental vision; as if he understood what had hitherto puzzled him. He understood his bewilderment as to where he had seen that face and those features before! For now he knew. He had seen them in the looking-glass!
"No doubt about the likeness!" exclaimed one of the gamblers who had remained in the room, a listener to the conference; while the half-breed stared from first one face to the other with her large eyes wide open. "No doubt about that. As much like brothers as cousins, I should say."
And the girl who (since Julian's intrusion, and since, also, she had discovered that it was not the constabulary from Belize who had suddenly raided their gambling den), had preserved a stolid silence-glancing ever and anon with dusky eyes at each, muttered also that none who saw those two men together could doubt that they were kinsmen, or, as she termed it, parienti.
"Yes," Julian answered bewildered, almost stunned, as one thing after another seemed-with crushing force-to be sweeping away for ever all possibility of George Ritherdon's story having had any foundation in fact, any likelihood of being aught else but the chimera of a distraught brain; "yes, I can perceive it. I-I-wondered where I had seen your face before, when I first entered the room. Now I know."
"And," Sebastian exclaimed, slapping his newly found kinsmen somewhat boisterously on the back, "and we are cousins. So much the better! For my part I am heartily glad to meet a relation. Now-come-let us be off to Desolada. You were on your way there, no doubt. Well! you shall have a cordial welcome. The best I can offer. You know that the Spaniards always call their house 'their guests' house.' And my house shall be yours. For as long as you like to make it so."
"You are very good," Julian said haltingly, feeling, too, that he was no longer master of himself, no longer possessed of all that ease which he had, until to-day, imagined himself to be in full possession of. "Very good indeed. And what you say is the case. I was on my way-I-had a desire to see the place in which your and my father lived."
"You shall see it, you shall be most welcome. And," Sebastian continued, "you will find it big enough. It is a vast rambling place, half wood, half brick, constructed originally by Spanish settlers, so that it is over a hundred years old. The name is a mournful one, yet it has always been retained. And once it was appropriate enough. There was scarcely another dwelling near it for miles-as a matter of fact, there are hardly any now. The nearest, which is a place called 'La Superba,' is five miles farther on."
They went out together now to the front of the inn-Julian observing that still the negro slept on in the entrance-hall and still the dog slept on in the sun outside-and here Sebastian, finding the good-looking horse, began to untether it, while Julian did the same for his mustang. They were the only two animals now left standing in the shade thrown by the house, since all the men-including he who had stayed last and listened to their conversation-were gone. The girl, however, still remained, and to her Sebastian spoke, bidding her make her way through the bypaths of the forest to Desolada and state that he and his guest were coming.
"Who is she?" asked Julian, feeling that it was incumbent on him to evince some interest in this new-found "cousin's" affairs; while, as was not surprising, he really felt too dazed to heed much that was passing around him. The astonishment, the bewilderment that had fallen on him owing to the events of the last half-hour, the startling information he had received, all of which tended, if it did anything, to disprove every word that George Ritherdon had uttered prior to his death-were enough to daze a man of even cooler instincts than he possessed.
"She," said Sebastian, with a half laugh, a laugh in which contempt was strangely discernible, "she, oh! she's a half-breed-Spanish and native mixed-named Zara. She was born on our place and turns her hand to anything required, from milking the goats to superintending the negroes."
"She seems to know how to turn her hand to a roulette wheel also," Julian remarked, still endeavouring to frame some sentences which should pass muster for the ordinary courteous attention expected from a newly found relation, who had also, now, assumed the character of guest.
"Yes," Sebastian answered. "Yes, she can do that too. I suppose you were surprised at finding all the implements of a gambling room here! Yet, if you lived in the colony it would not seem so strange. We planters, especially in the wild parts, must have some amusement, even though it's illegal. Therefore, we meet three times a week at the inn, and the man who is willing to put down the most money takes the bank. It happened to me to-day."
"And, as in the case of most hot countries," said Julian, forcing himself to be interested, "a servant is used for that portion of the game which necessitates exertion. I understand! In some tropical countries I have known, men bring their servants to deal for them at whist and mark their game."
"You have seen a great deal of the world as a sailor?" the other asked, while they now wended their way through a thick mangrove wood in which the monkeys and parrots kept up such an incessant chattering that they could scarcely hear themselves talk.
"I have been round it three times," Julian replied; "though, of course, sailor-like, I know the coast portions of different countries much better than I do any of the interiors."
"And I have never been farther away than New Orleans. My mother ca-my mother always wanted to go there and see it."
"Was she-your mother from New Orleans?" Julian asked, on the alert at this moment, he hardly knew why.
"My mother. Oh! no. She was the daughter of Mr. Leigh, an English merchant at Belize. But, as you will discover, New Orleans means the world to us-we all want to go there sometimes."
CHAPTER VI
"KNOWLEDGE IS NOT ALWAYS PROOF."
If there was one desire more paramount than another in Julian's mind-as now they threaded a campeachy wood dotted here and there with clumps of cabbage palms while, all around, in the underbrush and pools, the Caribbean lily grew in thick and luxurious profusion-that desire was to be alone. To be able to reflect and to think uninterruptedly, and without being obliged at every moment to listen to his companion's flow of conversation-which was so unceasing that it seemed forced-as well as obliged to answer questions and to display an interest in all that was being said.
Julian felt, perhaps, this desire the more strongly because, by now, he was gradually becoming able to collect himself, to adjust his thoughts and reflections and, thereby, to bring a more calm and clear insight to bear upon the discovery-so amazing and surprising-which had come to his knowledge but an hour or so ago. If he were alone now, he told himself, if he could only get half-an-hour's entire and uninterrupted freedom for thought, he could, he felt sure, review the matter with coolness and judgment. Also, he could ponder over one or two things which, at this moment, struck him with a force they had not done at the time when they had fallen with stunning-because unexpected-force upon his brain. Things-namely words and statements-that might go far towards explaining, if not towards unravelling, much that had hitherto seemed inexplicable.
Yet, all the same, he was obliged to confess to himself that one thing seemed absolutely incapable of explanation. That was, how this man could be the child of Charles Ritherdon, the late owner of the vast property through which they were now riding, if his brother George had been neither demented nor a liar. And that Sebastian should have invented his statement was obviously incredible for the plain and simple reasons that he had made it before several witnesses, and that he was in full possession, as recognised heir, of all that the dead planter had left behind.
It was impossible, however, that he could meditate-and, certainly, he could not follow any train of thought-amid the unfailing flow of conversation in which his companion indulged. That flow gave him the impression, as it must have given any other person who might by chance have overheard it, that it was conversation made for conversation's sake, or, in other words, made with a determination to preclude all reflection on Julian's