Romance Part 54

I walked between my captors across the street amongst hooting knots of people, and up the steps of the portico, as if in a frightful dream.

In the gloomy, chilly hall they made me wait. A soldier stood on each side of me, and there, absolutely before my eyes on a little table, reposed Mrs. Williams' shawl and Sebright's cap. This was the very hall of the Palace of Justice of which Sebright had spoken. It was more than ever like an absurd dream, now. But I had the leisure to collect my wits. I could not claim the Consul's protection simply because I should have to give him a truthful account of myself, and that would mean giving up Seraphina. The Consul could not protect her. But the _Lion_ would sail on the morrow. Sebright would understand it if Williams did not. I trusted Sebright's sagacity. Yes, she would sail tomorrow evening. A day and a half. If I could only keep the knowledge of Seraphina from O'Brien till then--she was safe, and I should be safe, too, for my lips would be unsealed. I could claim the protection of my Consul and proclaim the villainy of the _Juez_.

"Go in there now, Senor, to be confronted with your accuser," said the official in black, appearing before me. He pointed at a small door to the left. My heart was beating steadily. I felt a sort of intrepid resignation.

PART FIFTH -- THE LOT OF MAN

CHAPTER ONE

"Why have I been brought here, your wors.h.i.+ps?" I asked, with a great deal of firmness.

There were two figures in black, the one beside, the other behind a large black table. I was placed in front of them, between two soldiers, in the centre of a large, gaunt room, with bare, dirty walls, and the arms of Spain above the judge's seat.

"You are before the _Juez de la Primiera Instancia_," said the man in black beside the table. He wore a large and shadowy tricorn. "Be silent, and respect the procedure."

It was, without doubt, excellent advice. He whispered some words in the ear of the Judge of the First Instance. It was plain enough to me that the judge was a quite inferior official, who merely decided whether there were any case against the accused; he had, even to his clerk, an air of timidity, of doubt.

I said, "But I insist on knowing...."

The clerk said, "In good time...." And then, in the same tone of disinterested official routine, he spoke to the _Lugareno_, who, from beside the door, rolled very frightened eyes from the judges and the clerk to myself and the soldiers--"Advance."

The judge, in a hurried, perfunctory voice, put questions to the _Lugareno_; the clerk scratched with a large quill on a sheet of paper.

"Where do you come from?"

"The town of Rio Medio, Excellency."

"Of what occupation?"

"Excellency--a few goats...."

"Why are you here?"

"My daughter, Excellency, married Pepe of the posada in the Calle...."

The judge said, "Yes, yes," with an unsanguine impatience. The _Lugareno's_ dirty hands jumped nervously on the large rim of his limp hat.

"You lodge a complaint against the senor there."

The clerk pointed the end of his quill towards me.

"I? G.o.d forbid, Excellency," the _Lugareno_ bleated. "The _Alguazil_ of the Criminal Court instructed me to be watchful.

"You lodge an information, then?" the _juez_ said.

"Maybe it is an information, Excellency," the _Lugareno_ answered, "as regards the senor there."

The _Alguazil_ of the Criminal Court had told him, and many other men of Rio Medio, to be on the watch for me, "undoubtedly touching what had happened, as all the world knew, in Rio Medio."

He looked me full in the face with stupid insolence, and said:

"At first I much doubted, for all the world said this man was dead--though others said worse things. Perhaps, who knows?"

He had seen me, he said, many times in Rio Medio, outside the Casa; on the balcony of the Casa, too. And he was sure that I was a heretic and an evil person.

It suddenly struck me that this man--I was undoubtedly familiar with his face--must be the lieutenant of Manuel-del-Popolo, his boon companion.

Without doubt, he had seen me on the balcony of the Casa.

He had gained a lot of a.s.surance from the conciliatory manner of the _Juez_, and said suddenly, in a tentative way:

"An evil person; a heretic? Who knows? Perhaps it was he who incited some people there to murder his senoria, the ill.u.s.trious Don."

I said almost contemptuously, "Surely the charge against me is most absurd? Everyone knows who I am."

The old judge made a gentle, tired motion with his hand.

"Senor," he said, "there is no charge against you--except that no one knows who you are. You were in a place where very lamentable and inexplicable things happened; you are now in Havana: you have no pa.s.sport. I beg of you to remain calm. These things are all in order."

I hadn't any doubt that, as far as he knew, he was speaking the truth.

He was a man, very evidently, of a weary and nave simplicity. Perhaps it was really true--that I should only have to explain; perhaps it was all over.

O'Brien came into the room with the casual step of an official from an office entering another's room.

It was as if seeing me were a thing that he very much disliked--that he came because he wanted to satisfy himself of my existence, of my ident.i.ty, and my being alone. The slow stare that he gave me did not mitigate the leisureliness of his entry. He walked behind the table; the judge rose with immense deference; with his eternal smile, and no word spoken, he motioned the judge to resume the examination; he stood looking at the clerk's notes meditatively, the smile still round lips that had a nervous tremble, and eyes that had dark marks beneath them.

He seemed as if he were still smiling just after having been violently shaken.

The judge went on examining the _Lugareno_.

"Do you know whence the senor came?"

"Excellency, Excellency...." The man stuttered, his eyes on O'Brien's face.

"Nor how long he was in the town of Rio Medio?" the judge went on.

O'Brien suddenly drooped towards his ear. "All those things are known, senor, my colleague," he said, and began to whisper.

The old judge showed signs of very nave astonishment and joy.

"Is it possible?" he exclaimed. "This man? He is very young to have committed such crimes."

The clerk hurriedly left the room. He returned with many papers.

O'Brien, leaning over the judge's shoulder, emphasized words with one finger. What new villainies could O'Brien be meditating? It wasn't possibly the _Lugareno's_ suggestion that I had lured men to murder Don Balthasar? Was it merely that I had infringed some law in carrying off Seraphina?