CHAPTER XXIV.

THE MADMAN.

He might well have run at that cry, for nothing but sheer terror had forced it from Beryl Corselas.

Half from real dislike of the man, half from wanton mischief, she had dexterously slipped away from Erle and vanished like a spirit into an opening in the thick bush. Full of laughter, she had run and doubled like a hare, while he crashed after her through the scrub, till, angry and crestfallen, he had flung himself into his boat and departed.

Breathless, Beryl sat down on a convenient stone and chuckled.

“How cross he was! And that was a horrid lie about Andria expecting me. But he has lovely eyes, and he is--yes, he is amusing! But I don’t think I like him. I don’t like men at all,” she said, with sudden gravity. “I hate Mr. Egerton, for I don’t believe a word he says, and Mr. Heriot treats me like a child. Mr. Erle doesn’t do that.” She got up crossly and began to saunter homeward. She was almost sorry she had not gone with Erle in spite of that lie. It was dull at home, where Heriot seemed only to care to talk to Andria.

“I never would have stirred a foot with Mr. Erle if Andria and Mr. Heriot had not gone off and left me like that,” she thought, with an unreasonable lump in her throat, her short-lived joy at having outwitted Erle all gone.

It was pitch-dark in the woods as she began to walk back to the house. She had run and doubled so that she was not too sure where she was, and an uneasy feeling came over her that she was not on the right path. There was a queer rustling, too, in the bushes, and she listened, her heart going like a frightened bird’s.

“It must be my cats,” she thought determinedly, and with a voice that was not too steady she began her queer calling croon. But not a stealthy footstep sounded anywhere; no yellow-green eyes looked from the bushes; no cubs bounded from the black underbrush. Instead there fell in the wood a sudden, deathlike silence, far more threatening to the girl than the sight of those beasts who were tame for all their fierce looks.

“The man!” Her heart gave a rending bound. “That crazy, jabbering man. And he’s hunting me!”

Wild with terror she looked round her, and had no idea which way to run. She was lost, alone in the trackless scrub; it was so dark she could not even see where she walked. And only one thing could keep the cats away if there were in sound of her call--their master’s voice that was stronger than hers, meaningless jabber though it was.

In desperation she pushed straight before her, tearing through the thick bushes; stumbling, great drops of perspiration on her face from the airless heat. As she crashed forward, making noise enough to wake the dead, her ears caught above all the sounds of crackling branches and tearing vines that slight, slight rustling, as of feet that were keeping pace with her, very close beside her.

She turned sharply and burst through a screen of bushes, to find herself standing by the clear pool she had seen one morning. The moon shone down as bright as day, after the dreadful darkness of the woods the clear sheet of water looked like home; and then she screamed, a long, wailing shriek that had turned Heriot cold.

At her side, almost touching her, was the apelike thing that had bitten Andria to the bone. The next instant its long claws of fingers were on hers. In utter despair she shut her eyes and waited for the horror that was coming. Would the thing tear her limb from limb?

But except for that hand on hers it was not touching her, and as she stood, sick and stony with fear, a hoarse voice spoke to her.

“Dearest of my soul,” it said in Spanish; “dearest of my soul.”

With a cry of astonishment she opened her eyes. The man was not dumb, then, nor utterly dangerous! For he was down on his knees by her, kissing the hem of her garment. The soft language she had learned by stealth in the convent came back to her like a flash.

“Who are you?” she cried. “What do you want? Why do you frighten us so?”

“You have come home; come back to me!” The voice was the voice of an old man, the kneeling figure pitifully thin and ragged. “I am the old man who loves you--don’t you remember me? It was I gave you that ring!” He touched the green beryl on her finger pleadingly.

She stared at him; yet she dared not say she had found the ring.

“You frightened me, you hurt my governess last night,” she cried angrily. “Go away and let me alone!”

“I did not know you liked her. I thought she was his servant,” the old man whimpered. He began to beg her pardon a hundred times.

“I to frighten you, I that love you!” he cried. “I will never touch a hair of any one that belongs to you. I’ll never leave you again.”

“You must go away--and never come back,” cried Beryl, stamping her foot, seeing no meaning in the words Andria would have understood too well.

The thing crouched at her feet.

“Little dearest, I will go,” said the broken old voice, and tears of pity came to Beryl’s eyes. “But if he comes,” it was fierce again, “call me and I will send him away. He shall never steal you again.”

“Beryl! Where are you?” The sudden shout was stern and yet anxious. “Answer me.”

Heriot’s voice. What should she do? She looked at the crazy face beside her, in an instant all the humanity had been wiped off it as the man scrambled to his feet.

“I will call my cats,” he whispered, with the leering grin that had terrified Andria. “They will claw him.”

“No!” she said hastily. She stooped and put her hand on those bent, repulsive shoulders. “No. Listen--this man who’s coming is my friend, look at him well. When I call you, you and your cats can claw--but never him nor my governess. If you hurt them I’ll never let you see me again.”

He winced pitifully.

“My soul is yours,” he said. “I will not come near the house nor let the cats come--till you call us with the song I taught you. I will keep away from the house. But, _querida mia_, do not go with him again! This time I will be quicker, and save you.”

“Go!” said the girl in a frantic whisper, hearing Heriot breaking through the bushes. “Go, till I do call you.”

Almost as she spoke Heriot sprang out into the open space. Was he dreaming, or did he see beside the girl in her white gown a crouching thing like an ape?

He ran to her, round the pool. There should be an end of this thing that hunted women! Mad or sane, the man deserved no more mercy than a venomous beast. But as he reached the girl he stopped short. She was absolutely alone.

“Run to the house!” he cried. “That brute’s behind you, and I’m going to finish him once for all. Did he hurt you?” he cried savagely.

She lifted her face, and he saw she was crying.

“No, no,” she said as gently as Andria might. “Nothing hurt me. And--there’s no one here!”

“But I saw him,” replied Heriot grimly. “And I heard you scream.”

She laid a quick hand on his arm as he would have passed her.

“There’s no one here; if there was, he’s gone,” she said. “I did not mean to scream. Did I frighten Andria?”

“What was it?” he insisted almost roughly, for he was certain he had seen that crouching, wizened figure at her side, though there was no sign of it now, nor even a leaf stirring in the warm moonlight.

Instead of answering she looked him in the face with the moonlight full on her strange, tawny eyes till they looked like wells of light, deep and golden. Something in them seemed to strike him like a blow. Yesterday they had been a child’s eyes, careless, almost shallow. To-night--Heriot’s heart began to pound. The girl had come into her birthright of womanhood, of a marvelous witchery that would be a snare to the feet of men.

“What made you scream, Beryl?” and this time he did not speak as to a child. “Tell me.”

“I lost myself. It was dark. I meant to call, and I suppose I screamed.” She could not tell the truth, for the old shame that was on her that beasts and strange creatures loved and obeyed her.

“Why did you leave Erle?” though Heaven knew it was no business of his! “You were in his charge. What did he mean by letting you come back by yourself?”

“He couldn’t help it,” she said, with a laugh in her eyes. “I led him a dance, you know. He went away disgusted, for he couldn’t find me.”

“Do you like him?” asked Heriot. There was a curious look in the handsome face that had seldom darkened for any woman’s words.

“I don’t know,” said Beryl, with provocation. “When I find out shall I tell you?”

There was the faintest stir in the thicket, and suddenly Heriot knew that whatever the evening’s adventures had been she did not mean him to know them.

“Oh, I!” he said lightly; “just as you like.” He led the way up the path in silence till they reached the open ground and could see the house.

“I’ll watch you safely in,” and he took off his cap; “you’ll be all right from here. Good night.”

“Aren’t you coming to dinner? They won’t be back.”

“No!” he returned, for to be hidden in Erceldonne’s house and eat his bread any longer was impossible.

“You had better. You won’t see us much longer,” she said coolly. “Do you know Mr. Egerton’s going to take us away?”

“If----” he stopped himself. It was no business of his. If she chose to marry Erle, regardless of his past and Andria’s, that was her affair. Till Andria told her, he had no right to.

“If what?”

“Nothing,” he said awkwardly.

“You are treating me like a child again, just as I had begun to like you!” she cried pettishly, and the very childlike ring of her voice appealed to him. Yet he stood utterly silent.

If he, a broken man, a penniless adventurer, should make love to a girl who eavesdropping had told him was an heiress, the thing would not be called by a pretty name. He did not care two straws for the mystery about her if only she were the waif she seemed.

“Yet after all,” he thought swiftly, “even a broken-down devil like me would make her a better husband than Erle--supposing he’s free, which I don’t believe! Because she may have money and I have none am I going to hand her over to the first roué who wants her? By George! I’m going to do no such thing.” But even he dared not tell her what he knew about Raimond Erle.

In the moonlight she stepped to his side like a lovely ghost, and as she brushed him in passing, a quick rapture ran through him. There was no sense in reasoning, he loved her--for life and death and the world to come. At a word from her he would sweep Erle and his father from her path like straws. He would not tell her the trap she was in, she must choose for herself freely and without bias. But he would not let her go. If she should learn to love Erle--and Heaven knew why, but many women did--what would she feel when Andria made the scene she was sure to do?

“Why don’t you speak?” she broke out petulantly. “I know what you’re thinking--that if Mr. Egerton is going to take us away you’re going to start off through the bush to-night and try for the town there is across the island! You’re going to wash your hands of Andria and me.”

“What else can I do, if you’re going back with him?” and his voice was utterly grim.

“You can go with us.”

“In the first place I wouldn’t go, and in the second they wouldn’t take me. No; if you’re going in the yacht I should be off to-night, if it weren’t for leaving you and Mrs.--Miss Holbeach to that crazy brute I let in last night.”

The girl recoiled as if he had struck her. Heriot cursed himself for having haggled at Andria’s name. But it was not that.

“Oh,” cried Beryl, with a sob of shame, “he won’t come! He’ll never come any more, nor his cats, either. Don’t speak to me, don’t ask me why, Andria knows,” she was crying bitterly, “that all queer animals and things come to me. And I met him to-night, and I did scream, though I told you a lie! He was so old--and so pitiful--I couldn’t let you hurt him. But he was there all the time I said he was gone.”

“Darling!” said Heriot softly. “Little brave darling, don’t cry.” He put his arm round the bowed shoulders as gently as a woman, and with as self-forgetful a tenderness. He knew no other girl would have pitied a man who filled her with terror, who had bitten like a beast before her eyes only last night.

“Don’t cry!” he repeated. “And why do you mind that animals trust you and miserable things come to you? I loved you for it the very first day I saw you.”

“Mother Felicitas said I wasn’t human! I was half a beast,” she sobbed. “And it makes me afraid of--who I am.”

“Beryl, look at me,” said the man softly.

She stopped crying; just in time, if she had known it, to keep her sobs from jealous ears close by.

“Do you know,” Heriot said, “why things like that trust you? Because you love them and have no fear of them. I would give half my life to have dumb animals come to me as they do to you. Don’t you know that no wild thing will come to any one who isn’t so good that they know it?”

“No!” she whispered.

He nodded gravely.

“There is something else just as true,” he said very low. “I love you, too,” he stooped his handsome head and kissed her hands.

At the light touch of his lips she shivered.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. For his life he could not speak above his breath.

“You can’t!” she cried. “No one does but Andria.”

“Look at me,” he repeated more gently than ever, and as she raised her eyes the sweetness and truth in his overmastered her. “Tell me, can’t you love me--only a little?”

“I don’t know;” but she had loved him madly, jealously, since the very day he came. “I don’t know.”

“I think you do.” He had seen her eyes. “Beryl!”

She clung to him suddenly.

“They would murder you! Salome said so. Oh! take me away from this place--from Mr. Egerton.”

“I’ll try!” said Heriot soberly. And suddenly the task before him flashed out in its true colors. He realized that unless he could be outwitted Erceldonne would kill the girl before he let her get away.

“You can do it if you want to!” Somehow she was disappointed, taken aback. The slow words that were so much better than a rash promise had chilled her almost to distrust. Before he could answer she had broken away from him and was scudding across the grass to the house.