Guy Boothby - In Strange Company - A Story of Chili and the Southern Seas

Without another word she lifted his hand, which lay upon the arm of her chair, and examined it carefully. The flickering candle-light fell upon her bent head, and danced amid the luxuriant tangle of her hair.

"Shall I tell you everything I see?" she asked. He saw that her face had grown suddenly very serious.

"Why not?" he replied.

"Because I am frightened, Marcos," she answered, shuddering, "because there is something terrible written on your hand."

"In what way?"

"Treachery, Marcos, and for a large sum of money!"

He snatched his hand angrily away, and to cover his embarrassment affected entire disbelief.

"You are indeed a fortune-teller! You will accuse me of having assassinated the President directly. And pray what else did you see?"

"I had better not tell you, you will only be angry with me."

"Angry with you! Never!"

"Marcos, I saw on your hand more than you dream. Hush, listen to me; you are contemplating flight."

"That is not a difficult thing to see. If things do not improve here, many of us will be driven into clearing out. You must be smarter than that, Juanita."

"Oh, but that is not all. I see that you have sent great treasure away to a far country, and that you intend to follow it."

"This is beautiful! What – what else?"

"That your professed love for me is only lip service, for you intend to desert me."

"That is about as true as the rest. Have you anything further?"

"That your treasure amounts to over £200,000 of English money, and that it is directed to a – let me see," – here she pretended to study his hand again, – "Sir Benjamin Plowden (bah! your English names!) who lives in the East India Avenue of your great smoky London. Is that true? Ah! I see it is."

There was a ring of triumph in her voice. She had played a doubtful card, and scored a victory. For the moment Veneda was totally unnerved; his face, pale before, was now snow-white; large beads of perspiration covered his forehead.

"How did you learn all that nonsense?" he stammered.

"Why, from your hand, of course," came the mocking reply. "And is it such nonsense? Marcos, Marcos, I have always said you were a clever man, but you must be cleverer still to deceive me. Woman's wit – you know the proverb. Will you have more? Shall I tell you, for instance, what Macklin and the Society would say of it, and what key guards your treasure-chamber?"

"By all means, if there is such a thing," he cried, his nervousness lifting his voice almost to a falsetto. Meanwhile his eyes seemed to be attempting to read her very soul. Perhaps his scrutiny relieved him, for the expression on his face changed.

"I knew you couldn't do it," he said quietly. "I return your compliment; you're very clever, but you must be cleverer still to deceive me."

"How do you know that I don't understand it?" she inquired, with just a suspicion of nervousness now in her voice. "Since I can tell so much, how do you know that I can't tell all?"

"Because, my dear" – he had quite recovered himself by this time, and was bitterly regretting having betrayed his feelings so openly – "even if I had any such business on hand, I am certain you don't know what you pretend, otherwise you would have it in your eyes. Ah!"

His attention was attracted to a small writing-table standing in a corner of the room. The blotting-book lay upon it turned upside down. Seizing it, he fell to turning the leaves. One was missing.

"Ha! ha! my little sorceress!" he cried mockingly, "you are discovered. It is an old trick and a good one. I remember blotting the first two sides of the letter on a fresh page. To obtain your information, you have simply torn that out, and held it against the light. But the rest, the most important part, was not blotted at all. So you can do me no harm after all."

"Why should you think I wish to harm you?"

"I don't think you do; I only think you might. And you see, of £200,000, two hundred thousand pounds' worth of care must be taken. By the way, since you know so much, I doubt if it would be prudent to let you out of this house again."

Ignoring the threat entirely, she continued the conversation as if it had not been uttered.

"At least you might have trusted me, Marcos."

"Have I said that I do not?"

"You have not said so in so many words, but I know you don't. Besides, you are leaving Chili to-morrow night."

"How do you know that?"

"I forget, but it's true, isn't it, Marcos? – and you will take me with you, won't you? Even if you no longer love me, you will have pity on me? You will not leave me to their mercy? I am so tired of this life of spying and conspiracy, and I would be so faithful to you."

Her voice trembled. He stopped his restless pacing up and down the room, and looked at her. As far as he could see there was only a great love for himself shining in her eyes. She looked wondrously beautiful. It was a temptation and a danger; yet perhaps, all things considered, it was the safest course. A second later he had made up his mind, and as he did so a corresponding light came into his eyes. It would have been hard to tell which was more in earnest. Resuming his seat beside her, he said —

"Juanita, I do love you, and I believe I can trust you; come what may, we will go together."

"My own dear love!"

He took her hand and gravely kissed it. The crisis was past.

Both felt they had scored a victory, but both felt it would require very little to overthrow it. Five minutes later she was speeding home unaccompanied, for she would not hear of his being seen in the streets with her. In the security of her own room she regarded herself in her glass, and as she did so she said half aloud —

"He did his very best to put me off the scent, but I beat him in the end. One thing is certain, he carries the piece of paper that is to authorize the payment of the money about with him, in a large locket fastened round his neck with a double chain. I felt it when my head rested on his breast. Two hundred thousand pounds – it's the greatest stake I ever played for. With that I should be a free woman again. Come what may, my Marcos, I'll never desert you till I have shared it with you or relieved you of it."

When she had left him, Veneda threw up his window, and leant out into the night. The rain had ceased. He could see watch-fires gleaming all along the heights, and myriads of lights twinkling among the shipping in the harbour; but though he looked at them, I don't think he was conscious that he saw them. He was reviewing in his mind all he had passed through that evening, and wondering whether or not the balance stood in his favour.

From the consideration of his present position, his thoughts passed out across the open ocean to a mail-boat homeward bound. And so piercing was the gaze of his mind's eye, that it penetrated even through iron and timber to the vessel's bullion-room, where reposed a certain chest, with which his fortunes were not altogether unconnected. Then dropping the good ship behind it, as if she were standing still, on his fancy sped across the seas to the land he had not known for fifteen years. There in a smiling valley, nestling among beech woods, he found for himself a home, a life of honest independence, of love, of respect, and, above all things, of forgetfulness of Chili and the past! His imagination painted it for him with realistic touches, but would it ever come true? With Goethe he might very well have said, "When, how, and where? That is the question!"

After a while he drew in his head, and shut the window. Then from round his neck he took a locket. Opening it, a curious slip of ragged paper fell to the floor. Picking it up, he gazed at it for a few seconds, and then replaced it, saying to himself —

"Boulger's squared – the Island Queen is ready, and with to-morrow night's tide I bid good-bye to Chili for ever and a day. They'll never think of looking for me in the South Pacific, and I'll work my way home by Australia and the East. Confound Juanita! I ought to have anticipated this trick of hers. It's the deuce and all, but there's no other way out of it, I must take her with me. It would be madness to leave her behind to act with the Albino and the Society against me; but before I get to the other side, if I don't hit out some plan to rid myself of her, my name's not Marmaduke Plowden!"