'Then, dare to look me in the face and tell me.'
He came to her, slowly and stood looking at her. The sunlight, entering the cabin, bathed her in light. The red shawl clutched about her shoulders was a garment of flame and the heavy masses of dark hair that fell about her pale, strained face, accentuated its almost transparent whiteness. With the bruises on her throat, she was as beautiful and tragic as sin. Beneath the folds of red cashmere, the breasts rose and fell with her emotion.
Jason said nothing but his eyes, as he studied the slender form before him, grew clouded and their expression was transformed slowly to one of impotent rage.
'Yes,' he said at last, reluctantly, 'I do still desire you. In spite of what you are, in spite of the revulsion I feel, I do have the misfortune to desire your body, because you're lovelier than any man could bear. But that, too, I shall overcome. I'll learn how to kill my desire…'
Marianne felt a thrill of joy and hope. Was it possible, after all, to round this tricky point? Was there victory to be won from the impossible?
'Wouldn't it be easier… and more sensible, to let me tell you everything?' she murmured. 'I swear by my hopes of salvation to conceal nothing of what happened to me… not even the worst! But give me a chance… only give me one single chance!'
She was longing now to plead her own cause, to tell him of all the suffocating horror built up in those past weeks. She sensed that she could still win him back to her. It was clear from the tormented, famished look on his face, the agony it revealed. She still possessed enormous power over Jason – if only he would listen.
But he refused to listen. Even now, the words she said did not seem to pierce through the armour he had built around himself. He was looking at her, yes, but with eyes that were strangely devoid of expression. Her voice did not reach him, and when at last he spoke, it was to himself, as though Marianne had been no more than a lovely statue, an effigy standing there.
'Oh yes, she's beautiful,' he said broodingly, 'beautiful and venomous, like the flowers of the Brazilian jungles that feed on insects and whose brilliant hearts smell only of rottenness. Nothing could be brighter than those eyes, or softer than that skin… those lips… nothing purer than that face or more captivating than that form… And yet it is all false… all vile! I know… and even now I cannot bring myself to believe it because I have not seen…'
While he spoke, his trembling hands were touching Marianne's face, her hair, her throat, but there was no light in his eyes, they were like the eyes of a dead man.
'Jason!' Marianne implored him. 'For pity's sake, listen to me! I love you, I have never loved anyone but you! Even if you were to kill me, my soul would not forget to love you. I am still yours, still worthy of you – even though you can't believe it for the present.'
She was wasting her breath. He did not hear her, lost as he was in a waking nightmare, where his dying love fought for survival.
'Perhaps if I had seen her in another's arms, seen her give herself to another man… vile, and contemptible… perhaps then I should be able to believe it.'
'Jason,' Marianne begged, almost in tears. 'Jason, stop… have pity!'
She was trying to grasp his hands, to get close to him and penetrate the icy fog which lay between them, but he shook her off and the colour darkened in his face under the pressure of a fresh wave of anger.
'I know,' he cried, 'I know how to combat the sirens' song! And I know how to destroy your power, too, she-devil!'
He sprang to the door and dragged it open, calling in a powerful voice:
'Kaleb! Come here!'
In the grip of an irrational terror, Marianne hurled herself at the door and tried to slam it shut but he flung her back into the room.
'What are you going to do?' she asked. 'Why are you calling him?'
'You'll see.'
The next moment, the Ethiopian entered the cabin and, despite her fear, Marianne was struck again by the splendour of that bronze face and body. He seemed to fill the narrow space with a kind of kingly majesty.
Unlike the other coloured men he did not bow to the white master. In response to Jason's order, he closed the door and then stood with folded arms before her, waiting quietly, but his light eyes went quickly from the privateer to the white-faced woman.
'Look at her, Kaleb,' Jason said, brutally, pointing. Tell me what you think of her. Is she beautiful?'
There was a moment's silence before Kaleb answered gravely: 'Very beautiful. Very frightened also.'
'A sham! That face is used to play-acting. She's an adventuress disguised as a princess, a singer trained to do anything for applause! She'll sleep with any man she fancies, but you're a handsome fellow – no reason why she shouldn't fancy you! Go on, take her! I give her to you!'
'Jason!' Marianne cried, horror-struck. 'Are you mad?'
The slave started and a quick frown creased his brows. Then his face hardened, giving him the look of some stern, basalt image of an ancient pharaoh. He shook his head and turned to go but pulled up short at a cry from Jason.
'Stay where you are! That's an order! She's yours, I said, so take her – here and now! Look!'
He reached out swiftly and snatched the cashmere shawl roughly from Marianne's shoulders. The light nightgown she wore was anything but concealing and a slow flush mounted to her cheeks as she crossed her arms over her breast to cover herself.
No trace of emotion was visible on the impassive features of the Ethiopian as he moved towards her.
Marianne shrank back, sensing a threat and terrified that the slave was going to obey. But Kaleb did not touch her. He merely bent and picked up the shawl as it lay on the deck. As he did so, his strangely blue eyes met hers for an instant. There was no bitterness in them, as might have been expected after the way she had recoiled from him, but only a kind of melancholy amusement.
With a rapid movement, he replaced the soft woollen stuff round her shivering shoulders. Marianne seized it and hugged it to her as though to glue it to her body. Then, turning to the captain who had watched frowning, Kaleb said simply:
'You gave me shelter, lord, and I am here to serve you – but not as your executioner.'
Jason's eyes flashed wrathfully but the Ethiopian met them without flinching, without insolence either, but with a dignity which Marianne found impressive. Then Jason waved him to the door.
'Get out. You're a fool!'
Kaleb smiled briefly.
'Am I? I'd not have left this room alive, had I obeyed you. You would have killed me.'
It was not a question. Simply a statement of fact and Jason did not offer to contradict it. He let the seaman go without another word, only his frown deepened. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, glancing at the girl who had her back to him now so that he should not see her tears. She was deeply hurt by what had happened, for her pride as well as her love was wounded. A man's jealousy might carry him so far but to be abused like this left bleeding scars in the very heart's tissue, scars which might never fully heal.
The sound of the door slamming violently told her that Jason had gone but there was small comfort to be had from the fact that it was followed by no click of the key turning in the lock. Now that he had judged her, Jason would hardly consider it worth while to lock her in. For one thing, the mere fact of being on a ship at sea constituted imprisonment enough, and for another, he must know that Marianne had no desire to leave him, that she was dreading the moment when the Athenian coast would rise above the horizon, bringing with it what looked like being an irrevocable parting. For whatever her grief, or possibly because of it, Marianne was determined not to utter another word in her own defence. The abominable treatment meted out to Jolival and Gracchus forbade it.