CHAPTER XXVI.

A SEALED PACKET.

Reassure herself as she might, Andria fairly fled through the empty passages to Beryl’s room.

“I’m worn out,” she thought; “I’m beginning to imagine things. It couldn’t have been Egerton’s laugh I heard, for he wouldn’t dare come here at night--and he couldn’t have known he’d any reason to watch us.” But argue as she liked, some sound had shaken her nerves till she dared not strike a light lest some watcher outside might see.

“Beryl,” she said, standing by the girl’s bed in the dark, “Beryl!”

“Hush!” said a voice, “I’m here,” and Andria made out a white figure by the window, and groped to the girl’s side. “Something woke me, I thought. Andria, I thought I heard a shot! Where’s Mr. Heriot?”

“A shot!” Andria turned cold, till she remembered she had watched him safely out of sight and not a sound had broken the stillness. “You couldn’t have,” she said, bringing all her common sense to her aid; “you must have been dreaming! He’s gone away, Beryl. I made him go.”

“Gone! Where--what for?” she stared in the dark.

“I sent him. I was afraid to let him stay. Beryl, we’re in a dreadful place. His going was the only chance to save us.”

“What do you mean he’s to save us from?” cried Beryl, stamping her bare foot. “If there’s anything to save us from he’d better be here.” She was wild with misery. That was what his half-hearted answer had meant, and he did not care enough even to bid her good-by.

“He couldn’t do anything here. They’d kill him if they found him. Do you know what I heard to-night?”

But the girl did not answer. She was putting on her clothes in the dark.

“Why did you send him--what for?” she asked harshly.

“I sent him to a town--he says there is one--to get a boat and come back and take us away. It’s all we can do. Egerton isn’t Egerton at all, he only calls himself that, and he means to carry you off and marry you to Mr. Erle or leave you here to die.”

“I’ll never go with him. Why did you send Mr. Heriot away? There’d be time after we’re left here to run away in a boat.”

“There’d be no time for anything, for Heriot and me.” But the words did not touch the girl. For the first time a distrust of Andria seized her.

“You sent him away because he loves me!” she cried. “I don’t believe Mr. Erle wants to marry me. I’ve believed everything you say, like a fool, and I don’t even know why you call yourself Holbeach. For all I know your name may be Heriot. He knew you when he came here.”

“My God!” said Andria Erle. No blow of her life had ever hurt her like this one. She pulled a sealed envelope from the bosom of her dress and thrust it passionately into Beryl’s hand.

“Look at that, and you’ll see my name,” she cried, “and may God forgive you! I swear before Him that Heriot is not and never was anything to me.”

Something in the utter agony of the voice broke through the suspicion, the jealousy, of Beryl Corselas’ heart.

“Andria, Andria!” she cried. “Forgive me! I don’t want to know who you are, I don’t care, except that you’re my Andria. I’m wild; if Heriot loved me he wouldn’t have gone, and he may have gone to his death. I must go out and find the old man and his cats. I’m frightened what they may do.”

“Not love you--Heriot! He loves you enough not to care that you’re----” she stopped. She could not tell and there was no chance now, for the girl was past her like a whirlwind.

If she had known, she could have found a better way, and now it might be too late. These very jaguars she had kissed and stroked might even now be tearing Heriot’s flesh out on the hillside. With a throat that was dry with fear for him, she stood in the garden and quavered out her strange, crooning song. She believed Andria, and yet, oh! if Heriot would only come back and swear to her that he loved her!

The moon had set, and in the hushed darkness that comes before dawn the woods lay silent and terrible. Trembling and desperate the girl crooned on, and presently from far away there came a low, wailing cry. It was so far off that she shook for fear she was too late. Staring vainly into the darkness in the direction Heriot must have taken, she almost cried out as a cold hand touched hers from behind. The old man, bent almost double, was at her feet, his dreadful pets behind him.

“Where have you been?” she cried, agonized loathing in her voice. “What have you done?”

“Little dearest,” he answered submissively, “you told me to go and I went. I was asleep; my cats were tired, for it is nearly dawn.”

“Have you seen any one?” her strong young hand gripped him fiercely. “Tell me!”

“No one.”

“Oh, listen!” Beryl said, tears of relief in her hot eyes, for the man spoke quite sanely and there was truth in his voice. “I told you to-night you must not hurt that man who came to me----”

“We have not touched him, _querida mia_,” he answered, cringing under her hard grasp. “Was that why you called?”

“No,” she sobbed. “Try to understand. I sent him to the town--there is a town?”

“Yes,” he muttered, “a town of cruelty, where animals are beaten until they die, and men laugh at you if you ask for bread.”

“Well, he’s gone there, to get a boat and come back for me. You must catch him and bring him back now. Tell him if he loves me he must come back, but not to the house. You and he must hide near it, for that man in the yacht wants to carry me off.”

The dawn had come on them as she spoke, and in the sudden, wan light, she saw his face flush with sudden fury.

“Do you understand?” she cried sharply. “You must make him hide, or we shall all be killed. But you must be ready to fight for me when I call you.”

“Fight!” the crazy old voice rang out with a sound that made the two great beasts behind him bristle up and lash their tails. “We will kill! My cats will kill. We would have fought for you last time, but we were too late. Now you have come back he shall never get you again.” He began to leer and jabber at her until, brave as she was, she feared him. Would a thing so crazy ever distinguish between Heriot and another?

“If you save me you shall never leave me again,” she said very slowly, and with that same touch with which she made the jaguars obey her, she laid her hand on his wrinkled, repulsive forehead.

“_Querida mia!_” he stammered, and for the first time he met her eyes.

“See,” he said painfully, “I understand. This is your lover in the woods, but you will not leave the old man for him. And the black-eyed one shall not steal you as he did before. We, your lover and I, will hide near the house with the cats. When we are there you will hear my cats laughing, laughing loud, till the black-eyed one’s blood turns to water. And when you call us we will come. We will not let him get you.”

“Not me, nor the woman with red hair.”

“I bit her. I will never bite her again,” he shuffled with shame. “I will go now.”

“Wait!” she cried. “Can you speak English?”

“English?” he clenched his hands. “No, no English! It was English took you away.”

“Then take this,” she pulled the beryl ring off her finger, “and tell him to come back. He must know Spanish enough for that.”

“At noon we will be back. My cats will sleep there in the shade,” he pointed to an oleander thicket. “But first they shall laugh till you hear them.”

He turned and ran, bent so low that he might have been a beast like the sinuous, spotted things that followed him. Almost before she could draw breath they had all disappeared in the scrub. Oh, it was an ill-omened messenger to send! And yet Beryl was certain that to let Heriot go would mean his coming back to an empty house--or worse.

“Did you find Heriot?” said Andria, when the girl returned, pale and soaked with dew.

“I didn’t try.” She turned her face away as she told what she had done.

“Andria,” she whispered, wan in the first sun rays, “I wish I knew who I was! For I can’t help thinking I--I remember that crazy man’s face. I can’t be anything to him. Oh, tell me I can’t!”

Andria could not answer. For pity could not tell this girl who played with jaguars that her mother, the madman’s daughter, had done the same.

“You dreamed it,” she faltered, “you could never have seen him. You were too little when you came to the convent to remember anything,” but as she lied she turned away, sick at heart.

Erle would marry the girl for his own ends. He would not care one straw for the madness in her blood. But if she found out, would she ever let Heriot call her wife? Child as she was, Andria knew that was beyond her.

“Aren’t you going to take what I gave you?” she said, pointing to that big envelope on the floor.

“Yes,” replied Beryl deliberately, “but only to remind myself I was a beast. I won’t open it. I’ll keep it. It’s none of my business why you call yourself Holbeach.”

Even then Andria could not bring her shame to her lips. Beryl should never know if she could help it. If not, she had the envelope; it would save her if Heriot were not back and Raimond got her. He might swear till he was black in the face and his own handwriting would damn him.

“We may just have a scene and be left here,” thought Andria, “but somehow I don’t think so.” She looked from her bedroom window with weary eyes and saw there was no sign of any one coming off the yacht. “I wish I knew just what they meant to do.”

But it would have comforted her very little if any one had told her that Brian Heriot had known these two hours past.