CHAPTER XXXIV.

A LITTLE GOLD.

“I couldn’t help it,” said Andria, “they were too quick for me. I am slow-witted. I see now it was madness to have sent you away, and worse to send that dreadful old man after you. He might have saved us.”

“How long have I been laid up?” Heriot, pretty white and bloodless, lay propped with pillows on the sofa; he was stiff, and his wound was painful, but his mind was clear. “How did I get her ring?” for the green beryl glowed on his finger.

“Not a week,” replied Andria wretchedly, for by now the yacht must have reached England. “I told you every two or three times, but it didn’t seem to reach you.”

“It all seemed a part of the pain, I thought--‘beryls bring bad dreams,’” he quoted. “I wish this was one.”

“The old man must have put the ring on your finger. Oh, if he would only go away and not sit outside and moan!”

“Why? What is it to him?”

Even then she could not tell him. She turned away. “Call the man,” said Heriot sharply.

Andria never looked up as the forlorn wretch shambled in and stared at Heriot with lack-luster eyes. What would he tell? or, rather, what would Salome make of it in her translation?

“She is gone,” he said slowly in Spanish. “This time it is forever.”

Andria started.

Heriot understood--was answering him in as good Spanish as his own. Salome stood goggle-eyed, straining every nerve to comprehend. Only to Andria was it an incomprehensible medley of sounds.

“What does he say, Salome? Tell me,” she ordered frantically; but Salome only waved her aside and groaned aloud. It seemed hours as the words she could not understand went on.

“It’s a lie, Mr. Heriot!” broke out Salome fiercely. “She ain’t look like him; she ain’t be like him----” But the words died on her tongue remembered how the girl had mastered the jaguar as it ravened at the bars.

So the secret was out!

“Salome, hush--wait!” cried Andria frantically. “Mr. Heriot, stop him; tell me what he says.”

“He wanders,” said Heriot; his bloodless face was ghastly. “He’s mad; he’s--my God, he says she’s his daughter!”

“Then it was true.” Andria covered her face. “I knew; Egerton told me--let it slip,” she whispered. “But it is her mother who must have been his child, not she.”

She thought of the strange moods of the girl, her miraculous power over animals, of the strain that must be hereditary in her young blood.

“This is the story,” said Heriot. His face was set. “Erceldonne and another man came here in a yacht. The second man never came up to the house, apparently; certainly never had anything to do with the girl.” (Oh, the pity of that first girl’s silence about the man who truly never came to the house, but who met her in secret, unknown!) “And Erceldonne came every day, and the girl would have nothing to say to him--hated him. One day the old man heard her scream--not once--many times. He ran down to the shore, and was just in time to see Erceldonne put her into a boat and shove off with her. He had no boat himself, and I think he must have had a fit there in the sun. For all he knows after that is that he lost all his money in Brazilian bonds; he couldn’t follow her. The servants apparently all left him; he used to sit all day on the shore with his jaguars--and one day Erceldonne came back.”

“Well?” said Andria breathlessly, for Heriot paused.

“He said he never took the girl; that she left the yacht that same night with the other man--all lies, of course. He landed with men and guns, shot the jaguars--though two of them got off into the woods without his knowledge--and, of all things--offered to buy the house from the miserable father; wanted him to take the money and go and look for the girl.”

“De ole man crazy,” Salome burst in, “but cunning--oh, cunning! He says yes, he sell de place. He creep away into de woods to find his jaguars dat was left, and he sit and sit again to watch. One day he catch master, sure!”

Heriot nodded.

“Erceldonne gave him money--something adequate--but the poor soul threw it in that pool. ‘Gold,’ he said, ‘a little gold to pay for much flesh and blood,’ so he threw it away. But he got no chance at Erceldonne, for he went off again the next day. God knows why he wanted the place!”

“He wanted the crazy man to go on the track of the girl and her lover,” Andria cried. “The other man must----”

“Beryl,” said Heriot slowly, “is in some way the living image of Lord Erceldonne. No! Don’t say it; let me finish,” for he knew what was on her tongue.

“There were years after that when no one came to the island. Then one day Erceldonne came back, opened the house and put in it Salome and a lad of twenty and went away. The jaguars tore the boy to bits.”

Salome threw up her arms.

“It’s true,” she cried. “It’s true! I set here and hear dem in de broad day. After dat he brung Chloe and Amelia Jane, and why, I never knew. He brung me because--oh, missus, I had a child! I killed it in Jamaica because it had de master’s eyes. He bring me here and leave me because--oh!” wildly, “I couldn’t help myself. I was young den, and he took me for to keep house. I was mad wid de shame, wid de eyes ob de white child.” She cowered at Andria’s feet as she stood aghast. Was there no end to this man’s crimes?

The next moment she put her hand on the black woman. Who was Andria Erle, to judge her?

“Poor Salome! Poor soul!” she whispered.

“He brung me,” sobbed the woman. “He didn’t care whether I live or die. He say dey hang me if ever I dare leave dis place.”

Heriot said something under his breath. Jamaica had been his first abode when he left England; he remembered a queer story he had heard there about a woman named Salome who wanted to murder her child because it was white. She and her lover had fled, leaving the dead child where it lay, and afterward----

“Listen, Salome,” he said quickly, “the child was asleep, had slept all day. You were frightened and shook it----”

“I shook de life out of it; it died,” she said, with a hoarse groan. “It died.”

“It didn’t die,” returned Heriot, with a queer laugh. “A woman found it and ran with it to the doctor. It had been put to sleep with morphia; it’s alive now! And so is the chemist that sold the morphia to a white man. Your master had excellent reason on his own account to retire from Jamaica!

“I saw your boy running round selling papers in Kingston, and some man told me his history. Your shaking couldn’t have killed a boy like that, Salome, even when he was a baby.”

She could only stare at him. Then she broke out into incoherent words--into dreadful laughter.

“My soul’s clean!” she screeched, “clean! I’m free; I’m free!” laughing still. She rushed out of the house and leaped and danced in the blazing sun.

“Let her be,” said Heriot softly. “The man was an iniquitous devil, but he’s paid for it.”

“But Beryl----” Andria’s lips were white. Had the story of Beryl’s mother put her out of Heriot’s heart?

“I can’t travel for another week,” said Heriot simply, and a shame came over her at the matter-of-fact words. “Then we’ll take her away from Erle somehow.”

“But--if he’s married her?”

“He can’t. Don’t you see, she must be Erceldonne’s daughter?”

“He can’t be--his son! That must be what they whispered,” she was whispering herself. “Don’t you see that solves the whole thing? Her money will set them on their feet--oh! the money must be a lie to get Raimond to marry her. She can’t have any money--and neither have we. How are we to get to England?”

“That’s the easiest part,” Heriot added something to the old man who stood looking from one to the other, with eyes that were frightened but sane enough.

He leaped to his feet at the word and ran out after Salome.

“It’s the succession,” Andria cried, harking back to her own thoughts. “Raimond will be all right if he marries her.”

Heriot moved gingerly on his pillows; his face was pale, but his eyes were shining.

“I’m going to marry her myself,” he said quietly. “I don’t care if the devil’s her grandfather.”

The old man came running in and poured a stream of wet, green coins on Heriot’s bed.

They were Erceldonne’s own sovereigns!