who have breathed for years in the very
air? You fool--you little, wretched fool! For years sleeping, and
waking, and working...."

"And intriguing," I broke in, "and plotting, and deceiving--for years."

This calmed him altogether. "I am a man; you are but a boy; or else I
would not have to tell you that your love"--he choked at the word--"is
to mine like--like--"

His eyes fell on a cut-glass water-ewer, and, with a convulsive sweep
of his arm, he sent it flying far away from the table. It fell heavily,
shattering itself with the unringing thud of a piece of ice. "Like
this." He remained for some time with his eyes fixed on the table, and
when he looked up at me it was with a sort of amused incredulity. His
tone was not resentful. He spoke in a business-like manner, a little
contemptuously. I had only Don Carlos to thank for the position in which
I found myself. What the "poor devil over there" expected from me, he,
O'Brien, would not inquire. It was a ridiculous boy-and-girl affair. If
those two--meaning Carlos and Seraphina--had not been so mighty clever,
I should have been safe now in Jamaica jail, on a charge of treasonable
practices. He seemed to find the idea funny. Well, anyhow, he had meant
no worse by me than my own dear countrymen. When he, O'Brien, had found
how absurdly he had been hoodwinked by Don Carlos--the poor devil--and
misled by Ramon--he would make him smart for it, yet--all he had
intended to do was to lodge me in Havana jail. On his word of honour...

"Me in jail!" I cried angrily. "You--you would dare! On what charge? You
could not...."

"You don't know what Pat O'Brien can do in Cuba."

The little country solicitor came out in a flash from under the Spanish
lawyer. Then he frowned slightly at me. "You being an Englishman, I
would have had you taken up on a charge of stealing."

Blood rushed to my face. I lost control over myself. "Mr. O'Brien," I
said, "I dare say you could have trumped up anything against me. You are
a very great scoundrel."

"Why? Because I don't lie about my motives, as you all do? I would wish
you to know that I would scorn to lie either to myself or to you."

I touched the haft of the sword on the table. It was lying with the
point his way.

"I had been thinking," said I, in great heat, "to propose to you that we
should fight it out between us two, man to man, rebel and traitor as you
have been."

"The devil you have!" he muttered.

"But really you are too