Too weak to stand and shaking with fear, yet I managed to clamber on to El Stedoro's back. I had hardly wiped the blood from my eyes when I saw Lord Tarlton rounding the bend on Eliza's bay. Behind him rode only Harvey. It seemed certain that he had forbidden his daughters to come on the scene, as well as any hostlers or servants. However, there would be one more witness as well as guard over me. Jim had run toward the scene by the shortest cut, which had brought him to the edge of the wood ahead of the rest. He had plunged through and took his post as Lord Tarlton rode up. It was about thirty feet from me. In his belt was the hunting knife he had brought from Africa. I knew now he had carried it concealed throughout our stay at Celtburrow.
The meeting of us four was creepily quiet. Lord Tarlton saw me mounted, Donald Dhu riderless, the wire still on the track, and something else at which he stared with glassy eyes. Then he asked a question in a low, incredulous tone.
"Is that Dick?"
"It's what's left of Dick's body."
"God in heaven."
It was a strange invoking. Deathly white, he got down and walked there and bent over and gazed. He did not reel and fall, but the thorn cane he carried dropped out of his hand. Then he looked at the forelegs of El Stedoro, bloody to the knees, and spoke once more.
"Your horse has the right name."
I shook my head, knowing only that this was not quite true.
"Ride him in and have Jim come with you. Harvey and I will bring in—Dick. Then I'll meet you in the drawing room. I'll give all you ask —accept any terms you impose. Only let me go—to the gallows or where you will—where I won't see your face."
I nodded and signaled to Jim. With him beside me, I rode to the stables; then while he stood guard, I washed the blood from El Stedoro's legs and hooves and muzzle. As I started up the stone steps of the manor house, Jim followed still.
"I want you with me, Jim, but unless Lord Tarlton goes mad, there's nothing more to fear."
"I ain't sho, Cap'n."
In my dressing room I bathed and changed my clothes, Jim standing at the door. Then when I had packed my belongings, I descended to the drawing room, not knowing yet what I would say to Lord Tarlton—aware of nothing I could say of any use, since I could do no more. There, too, I meant to speak to Sophia and Eliza. I would do so because I could not bring myself to leave without doing so, and because I hoped that when I saw them, something would come to my lips that would be worth saying. The great chamber was at present deserted. Jim posted himself at the door and once entered to tell me that a newcomer had just arrived on an almost exhausted horse. Jim had seen him through a window and thought he recognized him as a carriage driver from Lord Tarlton's establishment in London. I was too weary to take much interest in the incident, although surmising that it might have a part in the last play.
Exerting far more sway upon my mind was an object—a curio—indeed a palladium of the house I had seen before. It was the ship model in a glass case that had reposed on a teakwood table in the great chamber of Lepanto Palace, when first I went to dine with Captain Tarlton. Again it had the place of honor in the room. Once more I marked its perfect workmanship. She was a sloop of war under full sail, and a beautiful commemoration of Our Eliza.
In a few minutes Sophia and the vessel's namesake came into the room. Both looked white, their eyes big and dark-looking, their contrasted beauty unmistakable and touching. I rose and bowed my head.
"Will you sit, sir?" Sophia asked.
"Thank you."
They took seats, and Sophia tried again to speak, but her throat filled and then her eyes and she could not. Eliza spoke instead.
"We know fairly well what happened—long ago, and today," she said. "There's nothing we can say to express our sorrow and our shame. Sophia and I have had a dreadful shock today, but we're glad, a thousandfold, that Dick was killed instead of you. Papa has taken a wound from which he'll never recover. You may think it's light punishment for what he did, and although he lost his only son, you lost all those you loved and your youth and all you had. Still we ask you to be satisfied with this retribution, and be merciful."
As she said this last, my attention became divided. Facing me, with their backs to the open hallway door where Jim stood on guard, they did not see him turn to me and raise his hand in warning. At the same time I heard quick, light steps.
"We beg you, Holgar—" Eliza went on.
She was interrupted by Lord Tarlton brushing past Jim and making a regal entrance into the room. His skin looked gray and his white hands were empty and unsteady, but his eyes were coldly brilliant and his lips were curled in a malign smile dreadful to see. Behind him, pale with fright, came Harvey.
"You beg him, do you, silly child," said the little lord, in a bleak, biting voice. "My daughter begging a Yankee traitor. That's what he is. The only reason he didn't fight the king—and run with the rest of the pack when we burned their capital—he was a slave in Africa. His name's not Holgar Blackburn. It's Homer Whitman, as Sophia knows full well. Well, Yankee Doodle, what do you say now? Your horse went berserk after his spill and killed my son. Why he didn't pick you, with your Yankee stink, the devil only knows. 'Twas a bad blow to me, but it's the last. The next time you make trouble for me, I'll shoot you down, and the law will uphold me in it. Now, Homer Whitman, what do you say to that?"
"I think you've gone mad."
"Mad, am I? I was mad to believe that Julius was still alive on his way to London, but now I know he's dead, and I call your bluff. Eliza, that's a game the Yankees play. They're good at it, they think, making out that they carry cannon when all they've got is pop guns. What can you do now, Yank? You saw the wire, but who'd believe you and your black man? Do you think Pike would turn king's evidence? Eliza, hark to me and believe me. When I sent word to Lieutenant Holmes—master then of a Barbary frigate—to lay for the Vindictive, I was standing for our own kind against a pack of traitors. When a dog I thought was dead came back and tried to ruin us, anything I did was too good for him. I never intended—the devil take me if I did—for you to go with him. I let you think so for fear you'd give the game away—you were the bait to get him down here. My plans went wrong, and I've lost Dick, but I still have you, my joy, my life, my beautiful Eliza! You need never leave me now. We'll sail together to the last."
Lord Tarlton dropped into the chair, breathing hard. Then almost to my surprise I heard my voice rise in the hushed room.
"Eliza?"
The stricken girl half-wakened from her evil dream and looked at me.
"What is it?"
"It's true you never had to go with me, but you can go, if you wish."
"What's that?" Lord Tarlton demanded, gripping the arms of his chair. "Answer him, Eliza, as he deserves. Don't be a lady. It would be wasted on him. Spit in his ugly face!"
"Be still." Then, the glassy stare fading from her eyes, life coming back into her inert form, she spoke to me in a low, wondering voice. "Would you wish it, Holgar?"
"My name is Homer. I wish it very much."
"Why?"
"That I may live again."
"The main reason isn't to crush Papa?"
"That doesn't come into it at all."
"If I went with you, where would we go?"
"To America."
"Would we be very rich?"
"We'd not be rich at all. I've arranged to give back—it was taken from slaves and it will be used to fight slavery—all I have except my ship."