Page:Dumas - Tales of Strange adventure (Methuen, 1907).djvu/108

96 shedding balmy odours, and some of the multitude of blossoms that covered it fell about me like snowflakes inviting me to rest upon the soft and fragrant carpet they formed. Although, as you may have observed, my nature is far from poetical, I could not but feel the charm of the lovely night, and if I have a regret at this moment of speaking, it is to be talking to you like an old sea-dog as I am, and not like a poet, as you are, or a painter, as your friend is."

We bowed, both of us, Biard and myself.

"I do assure you, Père Olifus," I told him, "you are wrong to depreciate your merits; you tell a story as well as Monsieur Bernardin de Saint-Pierre."

"I thank you," Père Olifus replied, "for although I do not know who Monsieur Bernardin de Saint-Pierre may be, I gather it is a compliment you are paying me. Now I will go on with my story.

"I had been waiting about a quarter of an hour when I heard a rustling of silk, the sound of footsteps, and presently made out a figure timidly approaching. I called softly, and on hearing my voice the other came straight towards me, threw me one end of her girdle while she held the other, and, walking before me, led me without a word towards the house.

"The building, except for two or three windows through which the light from inside filtered by the interstices of the jalousies, was in complete darkness and looked still blacker from the fact that, being painted red, its outlines were lost in the gloom. The threshold crossed, it grew doubly dark. Then the duenna drew in the girdle towards her till she found my hand; taking this she led me up a staircase and along a corridor. Finally, opening a door from which poured a flood of light, she pushed me into a room in which a woman of twenty or twenty-two, and extremely pretty, was lying upon a mattress covered with magnificent china silk and resting upon a couch of bamboo. In the middle of the room, which was cooled by a great punkah hanging from the ceiling, that seemed to swing of its own accord, stood a table loaded with conserves and pastry.

"In these days I was young, good-looking and the reverse of shy. I paid my greetings to the lady, who received me as might be expected from a woman who after all had invited me to come. I took a seat beside her. In Ceylon and at Buenos-Ayres I had learnt to chatter a little Spanish more or less badly. Now Spanish and Portuguese are close akin; then, besides the language of words, which you don't always understand, there is a language of signs, which is always comprehensible. She pointed to the collation, which, she said, had been waiting for me a whole hour. I told her that if it had been waiting for me so long we ought not to keep it waiting any longer; and thereupon we took our places. There was only one glass between us, as is usual at such-like tête-à-têtes in Spain and Portugal. The port and madeira sparkled in two decanters, one like ruby the other like topaz. I had just tasted the two wines, which I found excellent, and was proceeding to attack the pastry and conserves when suddenly the duenna rushed in panic-stricken and whispered two words in her mistress's ear.

"'Halloa!' I asked, 'what is the matter?'

"'Nothing,' my fair companion answered quietly; 'it is only my husband, who was to have stayed at Gondapore three or four days longer, but who comes bursting in on us like a bombshell; he always does like that, the hideous half-caste!'

"'Oh, ho!' said I, ' and is he jealous by any chance, your husband?'

"'As jealous as a tiger.'

"'So that if he found me here . . .*

"'He would kill you.'

"'It is as well to know,' I said, drawing my dagger from my bosom and laying it on the table; 'no harm in taking precautions.'

"'Why, what are you doing?' she exclaimed.

"'Well, you know, there is a proverb that says, better kill the devil than let the devil kill you.'

"'Oh, there is no need to kill anybody,' she said, laughing, and showing as she laughed a row of pearls beside which those I had in my pocket would have looked black.

"'How so?'

"'I will make it all right.'

"'Oh, very well then.'

"'Only go into that closet—it gives on a balcony—and don't lose sight of what is going to happen in this room. If my husband takes a single step towards the closet,