CHAPTER I
THE CONSPIRACY

"Forty thousand pounds is a pretty sum of money."

"Bribery is not a pretty word."

"No – there should be a better name for private transactions when the amount involved assumes proportions of such dignity." The speaker smiled and glanced covertly at his companion.

"Darcy is our man without doubt. Can you land him? He may hold out for the lion's share and then refuse on the ground of – honour."

"Darcy and honour! That is a far call."

"There is much unsuspected honesty going around."

"Perhaps – but not Darcy."

"But what if he refuse?"

"He cannot."

"Why not?"

"That's my secret. I force Darcy's hand for you, and in return I expect fair recognition."

"You have our promise, but it must be to-night. There is no time to lose. I'll go on to the house. Where will you see Darcy?"

"Leave that to me. Until morning —adios," and he vanished among the deep shadows and dark shrubbery.

The sun had sunk red and fiery below the edge of the waving mesa, and a full tropical moon shed its glory over the landscape, making dark and mysterious the waving fields of cane, which surrounded the whitewashed courts of the palatial hacienda. The building was brilliantly lighted within, and from it came such sounds of discordant merriment as could be produced only by a singularly inferior native orchestra. Through one of the long French windows which gave on to the veranda of the house, there stepped forth the figure of a man. He stood for a moment taking long breaths of the heavy miasmatic air, as if it were grateful and refreshing after the stifling atmosphere of the ballroom. Had he not worn the uniform of a British officer he would still have been unmistakably military in appearance, standing six feet or over, a fine specimen of an animal, and handsome to look upon. But it was a weak face for a soldier, in spite of its bronze and scars, a weakness which was accentuated by the traces of a recent illness. To judge from his pallor it had been severe. The man had a pair of shifty grey eyes, which never by any chance looked you straight in the face, and now expressed ill-concealed ennui and annoyance. Not the countenance of a joyful bridegroom certainly, and yet, he had but that moment left the side of his wife of a few hours, the most beautiful woman in that South American State, and the only child and sole heiress of its most famous planter, Señor De Costa.

Up to that day the progress of his suit and the many obstacles which might intervene to prevent its successful consummation, had given a certain zest to the game. Now that he had won, he was heartily sick and tired of the whole affair. Seizing a moment when his wife was dancing with one of her relations, he had stolen out on the broad veranda to be alone, and to pull himself together in order that he might play out the rest of what was, to him, a little comedy; and to the woman within – well, time would show. The soft moonlight tempted him. His place was in the ballroom, he knew, but he put one foot off the edge of the piazza, and as it pressed the soft grass under his feet, he fell a willing victim to the spell of the night, and strolled slowly off into the darkness.

His meditations were not, however, destined to remain uninterrupted. He had gone scarcely thirty yards when a lithe figure rose suddenly out of a clump of bushes, and touching him softly on the arm, whispered in perfect English, without the faintest touch of Spanish accent: —

"Hist, Señor Darcy. A word with you, and speak softly."

"Who the devil are you?" demanded Colonel Darcy, instinctively feeling for his revolver, for in this remote and not over well-governed section, a night encounter did not always have a pleasant termination.

"I mean you no harm," said the stranger, "only good."

"Then why couldn't you come to the house and see me there?" demanded the officer brusquely.

"It was out of consideration for your Excellency," replied the stranger quietly. "I had the honour to serve under your Excellency some years ago, in England."

"Impossible!" said the Colonel. "You are Spanish, but – "

"Of Spanish parents, Señor, but English-born. I joined the regiment at Blankhampton. My room-mate was Sergeant Tom Mannis."

Darcy drew in his breath sharply.

"Your Excellency may remember he died of fever."

"I never saw or heard of your friend!"

"Though he was your Excellency's body-servant," suggested the stranger.

Darcy bit his moustache.

"When he died," continued the speaker, "he bequeathed certain papers to me, containing evidence of a ceremony performed over a certain officer of his regiment, then stationed in Ireland, in the month of August three years ago."

"Ah," said the Colonel, "I think I see the drift of your remarks, my friend. You wish to have a little chat with me, eh?"

The man nodded.

"It is a pleasant night," continued Darcy, "suppose we stroll a trifle farther from the house." He slipped his hand furtively behind him.

"With pleasure," acquiesced the other. "But," he added, as they took their first step forward, "the Señor will find only blank cartridges in his revolver. It is a matter that I attended to personally."

Darcy swore under his breath. Aloud he said, simply: —

"Say what you have to say, and be quick. I shall be missed from the ballroom."

The man nodded again, and plunged abruptly into his narration.

"There is an island at the mouth of the X – River, off the coast of this country, as you have probably heard. It contains large manufactories for the sale of a staple article, which we produce. Owing to an amiable arrangement between the heads of the firm in England and our Government, a monopoly of this article is secured to them, in return for which certain officials in this country receive thousands of pesetas a year. As your Excellency may remember, a treaty is pending between this country and Great Britain, looking to the secession of the island to the latter. If the treaty succeeds, the monopoly, owing to your accursed free-trade principles, will cease, and the island and its products be thrown open to competition."

"It has been suggested by certain patriotically disposed personages, with a desire for their country's good, that a prearranged disposition of forty thousand pounds in gold among a majority of the members of the Cabinet who are to pass upon the treaty some six months hence, might result in its rejection."

"Well," said Darcy, shortly, "what of that?"

"The only difficulty that remains, is the transportation of the bullion from England to our capital. Those interested in the matter have felt that if an Englishman of undoubted integrity," there was just a suspicion of sarcasm in the speaker's tones, "who is so highly connected in this country that the usual customs formalities would be omitted on his re-entry, I say, if this Englishman could see his way to bringing over the gold, things might be satisfactorily arranged."

"A very interesting little plot," said the officer. "And what would the philanthropic Englishman receive for his services?"

"He would receive at the hands of the president of the company a packet of papers, formally the property of Sergeant Tom Mannis, of her Britannic Majesty's – th Fusiliers, lately deceased."

"And what would prevent the philanthropic but muscular Englishman from wringing the neck of the low-down sneak who has proposed this plan to him, and taking the papers out of his inside pocket?"

"Because, Excellency, they are now in the safe of the manufacturing company."

"And the president of that company?"

"Is a guest at your Excellency's wedding."

Darcy clenched his hands nervously. He was battling silently, skilfully, not to betray the dread which was unnerving him. The music floated out from the house – fitful and discordant.

"An Englishman," he said slowly, "never gives way to a threat, but of course, if he could be brought to see the purely philanthropic side of the argument, and receive – well, say, five per cent. of the bullion carried, for his travelling expenses, he might see his way to sacrifice his personal interests for the good of his adopted country."

"Good," said the stranger. "The president will meet you the day after to-morrow, at three o'clock in the afternoon, at the capital in the San Carlos Club."

"Very well," said Darcy. "Go. Someone's coming!"

The figure of the stranger faded into the darkness, and a moment later the soft footsteps of a woman approached.

"Ah, mia carrissima," he said, taking her in his arms. "You have missed me."

"Yes," she said, with a little sigh of satisfied relief, as she felt his strong embrace about her. "But why did you leave me? I do not understand."

"The air of the room oppressed me. I came out to breathe."

"I did not know," she said. "I was frightened." And as she raised her face to him, he saw that she had been crying.

She might well have commanded any man's attention. Tall and slight, lissome in every movement of her exquisitely shaped figure, barely thirty, and very fair withal. Even the tears which sparkled on her long lashes could not obscure the superb black eyes full of a passion which betrayed Castilian parentage as surely as did those finely-chiselled features, and that silky crown of hair which, unbound, must have descended to her feet. Half Spanish, half Greek, she was a woman to be looked upon and loved.

"But, Inez, surely you trusted me?" came the suave tones of expostulation from her husband.

"Trusted you, my knight? Have I not trusted you this day with my soul, with my whole life? You have been so near to death's door, and I have been so near to losing you, that I fear now, every moment you are out of my sight."

"Oh, I don't think there is any danger," he said, laughing. "I am strong enough now, though I daresay I should never have pulled through without such a plucky nurse."

"Ah, yes," she said. "I can shut my eyes and see you now, how frightfully ill and worn you were, when you came to my father's house that night, three months ago, invalided home from India."

"Yes," he said. "It was the greatest stroke of luck in my life that I should have lost my way and have been obliged to beg your hospitality for the night."

"And then the fever. The next morning you were delirious. For days you knew nothing, understood nothing, yet you talked, talked, always."

Colonel Darcy shifted uneasily.

"One generally does that," he said. "The raving of delirium."

"You said things that meant nothing usually. But one name you were always repeating, a strange English name of a woman."

"And it was?" he murmured, stroking her hair.

"Belle. La Belle, I think you meant. And the other name, I do not remember. It sounded harsh, and I did not like it."

He laughed nervously.

"There is nothing for you to be jealous about, cara mia," he said. "It was the name of a playmate of my childhood. I had not heard or thought of it for years. But that is the way in fever. The forgotten things, the things of no importance come uppermost in the mind."

"And then," she went on, "came that happy day when you knew us, and then you grew stronger and better, and I realised that you would be going away from us for ever."

"Did you think?" he asked softly, "that I could ever have forgotten my nurse?"

"I had been unhappy and very lonely. I feared to hope for joy again, till the day that you told me you loved me." And she hid her face on his shoulder to hide her blushes.

"Come," he said. "We must think of the present. I have a little surprise for you. I have been going over my affairs, and I do not think it will be necessary to take you away from home for so long a time as I had first thought. I hope that in six months we may be able to return."

"Oh!" she cried. "That is indeed good news! I dread your England. It is so far away, and so strange."

"I shall try to teach you to love it. But we must be returning to the house. Our guests will miss us."

"Oh, yes," she replied. "I meant to have told you. The president of some great manufacturing company has arrived to pay his respects, and is anxious to speak with you."