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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1053-0.txt b/1053-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd13c8d --- /dev/null +++ b/1053-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6810 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Within the Tides, by Joseph Conrad + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Within the Tides + Tales + + +Author: Joseph Conrad + + + +Release Date: January 5, 2011 [eBook #1053] +[This file was first posted on August 29, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITHIN THE TIDES*** + + +Scanned and proofed by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + WITHIN THE + TIDES + + + TALES + + . . . Go, make you ready. + + HAMLET _to the_ PLAYERS. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + * * * * * + + LONDON & TORONTO + J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. + PARIS: J. M. DENT ET. FILS + + * * * * * + +FIRST EDITION _February_ 1915 +REPRINTED _April_ 1915; _August_ 1919 + + * * * * * + + To + MR. AND MRS. RALPH WEDGWOOD + + THIS SHEAF OF CARE-FREE ANTE-BELLUM PAGES + IN GRATITUDE FOR THEIR CHARMING HOSPITALITY + IN THE LAST MONTH OF PEACE + + + + +Contents + + PAGE +THE PLANTER OF MALATA 3 +THE PARTNER 119 +THE INN OF THE TWO WITCHES 175 +BECAUSE OF THE DOLLARS 223 + +THE PLANTER OF MALATA + + +CHAPTER I + + +In the private editorial office of the principal newspaper in a great +colonial city two men were talking. They were both young. The stouter +of the two, fair, and with more of an urban look about him, was the +editor and part-owner of the important newspaper. + +The other’s name was Renouard. That he was exercised in his mind about +something was evident on his fine bronzed face. He was a lean, lounging, +active man. The journalist continued the conversation. + +“And so you were dining yesterday at old Dunster’s.” + +He used the word old not in the endearing sense in which it is sometimes +applied to intimates, but as a matter of sober fact. The Dunster in +question was old. He had been an eminent colonial statesman, but had now +retired from active politics after a tour in Europe and a lengthy stay in +England, during which he had had a very good press indeed. The colony +was proud of him. + +“Yes. I dined there,” said Renouard. “Young Dunster asked me just as I +was going out of his office. It seemed to be like a sudden thought. And +yet I can’t help suspecting some purpose behind it. He was very +pressing. He swore that his uncle would be very pleased to see me. Said +his uncle had mentioned lately that the granting to me of the Malata +concession was the last act of his official life.” + +“Very touching. The old boy sentimentalises over the past now and then.” + +“I really don’t know why I accepted,” continued the other. “Sentiment +does not move me very easily. Old Dunster was civil to me of course, but +he did not even inquire how I was getting on with my silk plants. Forgot +there was such a thing probably. I must say there were more people there +than I expected to meet. Quite a big party.” + +“I was asked,” remarked the newspaper man. “Only I couldn’t go. But +when did you arrive from Malata?” + +“I arrived yesterday at daylight. I am anchored out there in the bay—off +Garden Point. I was in Dunster’s office before he had finished reading +his letters. Have you ever seen young Dunster reading his letters? I +had a glimpse of him through the open door. He holds the paper in both +hands, hunches his shoulders up to his ugly ears, and brings his long +nose and his thick lips on to it like a sucking apparatus. A commercial +monster.” + +“Here we don’t consider him a monster,” said the newspaper man looking at +his visitor thoughtfully. + +“Probably not. You are used to see his face and to see other faces. I +don’t know how it is that, when I come to town, the appearance of the +people in the street strike me with such force. They seem so awfully +expressive.” + +“And not charming.” + +“Well—no. Not as a rule. The effect is forcible without being clear. . . . +I know that you think it’s because of my solitary manner of life away +there.” + +“Yes. I do think so. It is demoralising. You don’t see any one for +months at a stretch. You’re leading an unhealthy life.” + +The other hardly smiled and murmured the admission that true enough it +was a good eleven months since he had been in town last. + +“You see,” insisted the other. “Solitude works like a sort of poison. +And then you perceive suggestions in faces—mysterious and forcible, that +no sound man would be bothered with. Of course you do.” + +Geoffrey Renouard did not tell his journalist friend that the suggestions +of his own face, the face of a friend, bothered him as much as the +others. He detected a degrading quality in the touches of age which +every day adds to a human countenance. They moved and disturbed him, +like the signs of a horrible inward travail which was frightfully +apparent to the fresh eye he had brought from his isolation in Malata, +where he had settled after five strenuous years of adventure and +exploration. + +“It’s a fact,” he said, “that when I am at home in Malata I see no one +consciously. I take the plantation boys for granted.” + +“Well, and we here take the people in the streets for granted. And +that’s sanity.” + +The visitor said nothing to this for fear of engaging a discussion. What +he had come to seek in the editorial office was not controversy, but +information. Yet somehow he hesitated to approach the subject. Solitary +life makes a man reticent in respect of anything in the nature of gossip, +which those to whom chatting about their kind is an everyday exercise +regard as the commonest use of speech. + +“You very busy?” he asked. + +The Editor making red marks on a long slip of printed paper threw the +pencil down. + +“No. I am done. Social paragraphs. This office is the place where +everything is known about everybody—including even a great deal of +nobodies. Queer fellows drift in and out of this room. Waifs and strays +from home, from up-country, from the Pacific. And, by the way, last time +you were here you picked up one of that sort for your assistant—didn’t +you?” + +“I engaged an assistant only to stop your preaching about the evils of +solitude,” said Renouard hastily; and the pressman laughed at the +half-resentful tone. His laugh was not very loud, but his plump person +shook all over. He was aware that his younger friend’s deference to his +advice was based only on an imperfect belief in his wisdom—or his +sagacity. But it was he who had first helped Renouard in his plans of +exploration: the five-years’ programme of scientific adventure, of work, +of danger and endurance, carried out with such distinction and rewarded +modestly with the lease of Malata island by the frugal colonial +government. And this reward, too, had been due to the journalist’s +advocacy with word and pen—for he was an influential man in the +community. Doubting very much if Renouard really liked him, he was +himself without great sympathy for a certain side of that man which he +could not quite make out. He only felt it obscurely to be his real +personality—the true—and, perhaps, the absurd. As, for instance, in that +case of the assistant. Renouard had given way to the arguments of his +friend and backer—the argument against the unwholesome effect of +solitude, the argument for the safety of companionship even if +quarrelsome. Very well. In this docility he was sensible and even +likeable. But what did he do next? Instead of taking counsel as to the +choice with his old backer and friend, and a man, besides, knowing +everybody employed and unemployed on the pavements of the town, this +extraordinary Renouard suddenly and almost surreptitiously picked up a +fellow—God knows who—and sailed away with him back to Malata in a hurry; +a proceeding obviously rash and at the same time not quite straight. +That was the sort of thing. The secretly unforgiving journalist laughed +a little longer and then ceased to shake all over. + +“Oh, yes. About that assistant of yours. . . .” + +“What about him,” said Renouard, after waiting a while, with a shadow of +uneasiness on his face. + +“Have you nothing to tell me of him?” + +“Nothing except. . . .” Incipient grimness vanished out of Renouard’s +aspect and his voice, while he hesitated as if reflecting seriously +before he changed his mind. “No. Nothing whatever.” + +“You haven’t brought him along with you by chance—for a change.” + +The Planter of Malata stared, then shook his head, and finally murmured +carelessly: “I think he’s very well where he is. But I wish you could +tell me why young Dunster insisted so much on my dining with his uncle +last night. Everybody knows I am not a society man.” + +The Editor exclaimed at so much modesty. Didn’t his friend know that he +was their one and only explorer—that he was the man experimenting with +the silk plant. . . . + +“Still, that doesn’t tell me why I was invited yesterday. For young +Dunster never thought of this civility before. . . .” + +“Our Willie,” said the popular journalist, “never does anything without a +purpose, that’s a fact.” + +“And to his uncle’s house too!” + +“He lives there.” + +“Yes. But he might have given me a feed somewhere else. The +extraordinary part is that the old man did not seem to have anything +special to say. He smiled kindly on me once or twice, and that was all. +It was quite a party, sixteen people.” + +The Editor then, after expressing his regret that he had not been able to +come, wanted to know if the party had been entertaining. + +Renouard regretted that his friend had not been there. Being a man whose +business or at least whose profession was to know everything that went on +in this part of the globe, he could probably have told him something of +some people lately arrived from home, who were amongst the guests. Young +Dunster (Willie), with his large shirt-front and streaks of white skin +shining unpleasantly through the thin black hair plastered over the top +of his head, bore down on him and introduced him to that party, as if he +had been a trained dog or a child phenomenon. Decidedly, he said, he +disliked Willie—one of these large oppressive men. . . . + +A silence fell, and it was as if Renouard were not going to say anything +more when, suddenly, he came out with the real object of his visit to the +editorial room. + +“They looked to me like people under a spell.” + +The Editor gazed at him appreciatively, thinking that, whether the effect +of solitude or not, this was a proof of a sensitive perception of the +expression of faces. + +“You omitted to tell me their name, but I can make a guess. You mean +Professor Moorsom, his daughter and sister—don’t you?” + +Renouard assented. Yes, a white-haired lady. But from his silence, with +his eyes fixed, yet avoiding his friend, it was easy to guess that it was +not in the white-haired lady that he was interested. + +“Upon my word,” he said, recovering his usual bearing. “It looks to me +as if I had been asked there only for the daughter to talk to me.” + +He did not conceal that he had been greatly struck by her appearance. +Nobody could have helped being impressed. She was different from +everybody else in that house, and it was not only the effect of her +London clothes. He did not take her down to dinner. Willie did that. +It was afterwards, on the terrace. . . . + +The evening was delightfully calm. He was sitting apart and alone, and +wishing himself somewhere else—on board the schooner for choice, with the +dinner-harness off. He hadn’t exchanged forty words altogether during +the evening with the other guests. He saw her suddenly all by herself +coming towards him along the dimly lighted terrace, quite from a +distance. + +She was tall and supple, carrying nobly on her straight body a head of a +character which to him appeared peculiar, something—well—pagan, crowned +with a great wealth of hair. He had been about to rise, but her decided +approach caused him to remain on the seat. He had not looked much at her +that evening. He had not that freedom of gaze acquired by the habit of +society and the frequent meetings with strangers. It was not shyness, +but the reserve of a man not used to the world and to the practice of +covert staring, with careless curiosity. All he had captured by his +first, keen, instantly lowered, glance was the impression that her hair +was magnificently red and her eyes very black. It was a troubling +effect, but it had been evanescent; he had forgotten it almost till very +unexpectedly he saw her coming down the terrace slow and eager, as if she +were restraining herself, and with a rhythmic upward undulation of her +whole figure. The light from an open window fell across her path, and +suddenly all that mass of arranged hair appeared incandescent, chiselled +and fluid, with the daring suggestion of a helmet of burnished copper and +the flowing lines of molten metal. It kindled in him an astonished +admiration. But he said nothing of it to his friend the Editor. Neither +did he tell him that her approach woke up in his brain the image of +love’s infinite grace and the sense of the inexhaustible joy that lives +in beauty. No! What he imparted to the Editor were no emotions, but +mere facts conveyed in a deliberate voice and in uninspired words. + +“That young lady came and sat down by me. She said: ‘Are you French, Mr. +Renouard?’” + +He had breathed a whiff of perfume of which he said nothing either—of +some perfume he did not know. Her voice was low and distinct. Her +shoulders and her bare arms gleamed with an extraordinary splendour, and +when she advanced her head into the light he saw the admirable contour of +the face, the straight fine nose with delicate nostrils, the exquisite +crimson brushstroke of the lips on this oval without colour. The +expression of the eyes was lost in a shadowy mysterious play of jet and +silver, stirring under the red coppery gold of the hair as though she had +been a being made of ivory and precious metals changed into living +tissue. + +“. . . I told her my people were living in Canada, but that I was brought +up in England before coming out here. I can’t imagine what interest she +could have in my history.” + +“And you complain of her interest?” + +The accent of the all-knowing journalist seemed to jar on the Planter of +Malata. + +“No!” he said, in a deadened voice that was almost sullen. But after a +short silence he went on. “Very extraordinary. I told her I came out to +wander at large in the world when I was nineteen, almost directly after I +left school. It seems that her late brother was in the same school a +couple of years before me. She wanted me to tell her what I did at first +when I came out here; what other men found to do when they came out—where +they went, what was likely to happen to them—as if I could guess and +foretell from my experience the fates of men who come out here with a +hundred different projects, for hundreds of different reasons—for no +reason but restlessness—who come, and go, and disappear! Preposterous. +She seemed to want to hear their histories. I told her that most of them +were not worth telling.” + +The distinguished journalist leaning on his elbow, his head resting +against the knuckles of his left hand, listened with great attention, but +gave no sign of that surprise which Renouard, pausing, seemed to expect. + +“You know something,” the latter said brusquely. The all-knowing man +moved his head slightly and said, “Yes. But go on.” + +“It’s just this. There is no more to it. I found myself talking to her +of my adventures, of my early days. It couldn’t possibly have interested +her. Really,” he cried, “this is most extraordinary. Those people have +something on their minds. We sat in the light of the window, and her +father prowled about the terrace, with his hands behind his back and his +head drooping. The white-haired lady came to the dining-room window +twice—to look at us I am certain. The other guests began to go away—and +still we sat there. Apparently these people are staying with the +Dunsters. It was old Mrs. Dunster who put an end to the thing. The +father and the aunt circled about as if they were afraid of interfering +with the girl. Then she got up all at once, gave me her hand, and said +she hoped she would see me again.” + +While he was speaking Renouard saw again the sway of her figure in a +movement of grace and strength—felt the pressure of her hand—heard the +last accents of the deep murmur that came from her throat so white in the +light of the window, and remembered the black rays of her steady eyes +passing off his face when she turned away. He remembered all this +visually, and it was not exactly pleasurable. It was rather startling +like the discovery of a new faculty in himself. There are faculties one +would rather do without—such, for instance, as seeing through a stone +wall or remembering a person with this uncanny vividness. And what about +those two people belonging to her with their air of expectant solicitude! +Really, those figures from home got in front of one. In fact, their +persistence in getting between him and the solid forms of the everyday +material world had driven Renouard to call on his friend at the office. +He hoped that a little common, gossipy information would lay the ghost of +that unexpected dinner-party. Of course the proper person to go to would +have been young Dunster, but, he couldn’t stand Willie Dunster—not at any +price. + +In the pause the Editor had changed his attitude, faced his desk, and +smiled a faint knowing smile. + +“Striking girl—eh?” he said. + +The incongruity of the word was enough to make one jump out of the chair. +Striking! That girl striking! Stri . . .! But Renouard restrained his +feelings. His friend was not a person to give oneself away to. And, +after all, this sort of speech was what he had come there to hear. As, +however, he had made a movement he re-settled himself comfortably and +said, with very creditable indifference, that yes—she was, rather. +Especially amongst a lot of over-dressed frumps. There wasn’t one woman +under forty there. + +“Is that the way to speak of the cream of our society; the ‘top of the +basket,’ as the French say,” the Editor remonstrated with mock +indignation. “You aren’t moderate in your expressions—you know.” + +“I express myself very little,” interjected Renouard seriously. + +“I will tell you what you are. You are a fellow that doesn’t count the +cost. Of course you are safe with me, but will you never learn. . . .” + +“What struck me most,” interrupted the other, “is that she should pick me +out for such a long conversation.” + +“That’s perhaps because you were the most remarkable of the men there.” + +Renouard shook his head. + +“This shot doesn’t seem to me to hit the mark,” he said calmly. “Try +again.” + +“Don’t you believe me? Oh, you modest creature. Well, let me assure you +that under ordinary circumstances it would have been a good shot. You +are sufficiently remarkable. But you seem a pretty acute customer too. +The circumstances are extraordinary. By Jove they are!” + +He mused. After a time the Planter of Malata dropped a negligent— + +“And you know them.” + +“And I know them,” assented the all-knowing Editor, soberly, as though +the occasion were too special for a display of professional vanity; a +vanity so well known to Renouard that its absence augmented his wonder +and almost made him uneasy as if portending bad news of some sort. + +“You have met those people?” he asked. + +“No. I was to have met them last night, but I had to send an apology to +Willie in the morning. It was then that he had the bright idea to invite +you to fill the place, from a muddled notion that you could be of use. +Willie is stupid sometimes. For it is clear that you are the last man +able to help.” + +“How on earth do I come to be mixed up in this—whatever it is?” +Renouard’s voice was slightly altered by nervous irritation. “I only +arrived here yesterday morning.” + + + +CHAPTER II + + +His friend the Editor turned to him squarely. “Willie took me into +consultation, and since he seems to have let you in I may just as well +tell you what is up. I shall try to be as short as I can. But in +confidence—mind!” + +He waited. Renouard, his uneasiness growing on him unreasonably, +assented by a nod, and the other lost no time in beginning. Professor +Moorsom—physicist and philosopher—fine head of white hair, to judge from +the photographs—plenty of brains in the head too—all these famous +books—surely even Renouard would know. . . . + +Renouard muttered moodily that it wasn’t his sort of reading, and his +friend hastened to assure him earnestly that neither was it his +sort—except as a matter of business and duty, for the literary page of +that newspaper which was his property (and the pride of his life). The +only literary newspaper in the Antipodes could not ignore the fashionable +philosopher of the age. Not that anybody read Moorsom at the Antipodes, +but everybody had heard of him—women, children, dock labourers, cabmen. +The only person (besides himself) who had read Moorsom, as far as he +knew, was old Dunster, who used to call himself a Moorsomian (or was it +Moorsomite) years and years ago, long before Moorsom had worked himself +up into the great swell he was now, in every way. . . Socially too. +Quite the fashion in the highest world. + +Renouard listened with profoundly concealed attention. “A charlatan,” he +muttered languidly. + +“Well—no. I should say not. I shouldn’t wonder though if most of his +writing had been done with his tongue in his cheek. Of course. That’s +to be expected. I tell you what: the only really honest writing is to be +found in newspapers and nowhere else—and don’t you forget it.” + +The Editor paused with a basilisk stare till Renouard had conceded a +casual: “I dare say,” and only then went on to explain that old Dunster, +during his European tour, had been made rather a lion of in London, where +he stayed with the Moorsoms—he meant the father and the girl. The +professor had been a widower for a long time. + +“She doesn’t look just a girl,” muttered Renouard. The other agreed. +Very likely not. Had been playing the London hostess to tip-top people +ever since she put her hair up, probably. + +“I don’t expect to see any girlish bloom on her when I do have the +privilege,” he continued. “Those people are staying with the Dunster’s +_incog._, in a manner, you understand—something like royalties. They +don’t deceive anybody, but they want to be left to themselves. We have +even kept them out of the paper—to oblige old Dunster. But we shall put +your arrival in—our local celebrity.” + +“Heavens!” + +“Yes. Mr. G. Renouard, the explorer, whose indomitable energy, etc., and +who is now working for the prosperity of our country in another way on +his Malata plantation . . . And, by the by, how’s the silk +plant—flourishing?” + +“Yes.” + +“Did you bring any fibre?” + +“Schooner-full.” + +“I see. To be transhipped to Liverpool for experimental manufacture, eh? +Eminent capitalists at home very much interested, aren’t they?” + +“They are.” + +A silence fell. Then the Editor uttered slowly—“You will be a rich man +some day.” + +Renouard’s face did not betray his opinion of that confident prophecy. +He didn’t say anything till his friend suggested in the same meditative +voice— + +“You ought to interest Moorsom in the affair too—since Willie has let you +in.” + +“A philosopher!” + +“I suppose he isn’t above making a bit of money. And he may be clever at +it for all you know. I have a notion that he’s a fairly practical old +cove. . . . Anyhow,” and here the tone of the speaker took on a tinge of +respect, “he has made philosophy pay.” + +Renouard raised his eyes, repressed an impulse to jump up, and got out of +the arm-chair slowly. “It isn’t perhaps a bad idea,” he said. “I’ll +have to call there in any case.” + +He wondered whether he had managed to keep his voice steady, its tone +unconcerned enough; for his emotion was strong though it had nothing to +do with the business aspect of this suggestion. He moved in the room in +vague preparation for departure, when he heard a soft laugh. He spun +about quickly with a frown, but the Editor was not laughing at him. He +was chuckling across the big desk at the wall: a preliminary of some +speech for which Renouard, recalled to himself, waited silent and +mistrustful. + +“No! You would never guess! No one would ever guess what these people +are after. Willie’s eyes bulged out when he came to me with the tale.” + +“They always do,” remarked Renouard with disgust. “He’s stupid.” + +“He was startled. And so was I after he told me. It’s a search party. +They are out looking for a man. Willie’s soft heart’s enlisted in the +cause.” + +Renouard repeated: “Looking for a man.” + +He sat down suddenly as if on purpose to stare. “Did Willie come to you +to borrow the lantern,” he asked sarcastically, and got up again for no +apparent reason. + +“What lantern?” snapped the puzzled Editor, and his face darkened with +suspicion. “You, Renouard, are always alluding to things that aren’t +clear to me. If you were in politics, I, as a party journalist, wouldn’t +trust you further than I could see you. Not an inch further. You are +such a sophisticated beggar. Listen: the man is the man Miss Moorsom was +engaged to for a year. He couldn’t have been a nobody, anyhow. But he +doesn’t seem to have been very wise. Hard luck for the young lady.” + +He spoke with feeling. It was clear that what he had to tell appealed to +his sentiment. Yet, as an experienced man of the world, he marked his +amused wonder. Young man of good family and connections, going +everywhere, yet not merely a man about town, but with a foot in the two +big F’s. + +Renouard lounging aimlessly in the room turned round: “And what the +devil’s that?” he asked faintly. + +“Why Fashion and Finance,” explained the Editor. “That’s how I call it. +There are the three R’s at the bottom of the social edifice and the two +F’s on the top. See?” + +“Ha! Ha! Excellent! Ha! Ha!” Renouard laughed with stony eyes. + +“And you proceed from one set to the other in this democratic age,” the +Editor went on with unperturbed complacency. “That is if you are clever +enough. The only danger is in being too clever. And I think something +of the sort happened here. That swell I am speaking of got himself into +a mess. Apparently a very ugly mess of a financial character. You will +understand that Willie did not go into details with me. They were not +imparted to him with very great abundance either. But a bad +mess—something of the criminal order. Of course he was innocent. But he +had to quit all the same.” + +“Ha! Ha!” Renouard laughed again abruptly, staring as before. “So +there’s one more big F in the tale.” + +“What do you mean?” inquired the Editor quickly, with an air as if his +patent were being infringed. + +“I mean—Fool.” + +“No. I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t say that.” + +“Well—let him be a scoundrel then. What the devil do I care.” + +“But hold on! You haven’t heard the end of the story.” + +Renouard, his hat on his head already, sat down with the disdainful smile +of a man who had discounted the moral of the story. Still he sat down +and the Editor swung his revolving chair right round. He was full of +unction. + +“Imprudent, I should say. In many ways money is as dangerous to handle +as gunpowder. You can’t be too careful either as to who you are working +with. Anyhow there was a mighty flashy burst up, a sensation, and—his +familiar haunts knew him no more. But before he vanished he went to see +Miss Moorsom. That very fact argues for his innocence—don’t it? What +was said between them no man knows—unless the professor had the +confidence from his daughter. There couldn’t have been much to say. +There was nothing for it but to let him go—was there?—for the affair had +got into the papers. And perhaps the kindest thing would have been to +forget him. Anyway the easiest. Forgiveness would have been more +difficult, I fancy, for a young lady of spirit and position drawn into an +ugly affair like that. Any ordinary young lady, I mean. Well, the +fellow asked nothing better than to be forgotten, only he didn’t find it +easy to do so himself, because he would write home now and then. Not to +any of his friends though. He had no near relations. The professor had +been his guardian. No, the poor devil wrote now and then to an old +retired butler of his late father, somewhere in the country, forbidding +him at the same time to let any one know of his whereabouts. So that +worthy old ass would go up and dodge about the Moorsom’s town house, +perhaps waylay Miss Moorsom’s maid, and then would write to ‘Master +Arthur’ that the young lady looked well and happy, or some such cheerful +intelligence. I dare say he wanted to be forgotten, but I shouldn’t +think he was much cheered by the news. What would you say?” + +Renouard, his legs stretched out and his chin on his breast, said +nothing. A sensation which was not curiosity, but rather a vague nervous +anxiety, distinctly unpleasant, like a mysterious symptom of some malady, +prevented him from getting up and going away. + +“Mixed feelings,” the Editor opined. “Many fellows out here receive news +from home with mixed feelings. But what will his feelings be when he +hears what I am going to tell you now? For we know he has not heard yet. +Six months ago a city clerk, just a common drudge of finance, gets +himself convicted of a common embezzlement or something of that kind. +Then seeing he’s in for a long sentence he thinks of making his +conscience comfortable, and makes a clean breast of an old story of +tampered with, or else suppressed, documents, a story which clears +altogether the honesty of our ruined gentleman. That embezzling fellow +was in a position to know, having been employed by the firm before the +smash. There was no doubt about the character being cleared—but where +the cleared man was nobody could tell. Another sensation in society. +And then Miss Moorsom says: ‘He will come back to claim me, and I’ll +marry him.’ But he didn’t come back. Between you and me I don’t think +he was much wanted—except by Miss Moorsom. I imagine she’s used to have +her own way. She grew impatient, and declared that if she knew where the +man was she would go to him. But all that could be got out of the old +butler was that the last envelope bore the postmark of our beautiful +city; and that this was the only address of ‘Master Arthur’ that he ever +had. That and no more. In fact the fellow was at his last gasp—with a +bad heart. Miss Moorsom wasn’t allowed to see him. She had gone herself +into the country to learn what she could, but she had to stay downstairs +while the old chap’s wife went up to the invalid. She brought down the +scrap of intelligence I’ve told you of. He was already too far gone to +be cross-examined on it, and that very night he died. He didn’t leave +behind him much to go by, did he? Our Willie hinted to me that there had +been pretty stormy days in the professor’s house, but—here they are. I +have a notion she isn’t the kind of everyday young lady who may be +permitted to gallop about the world all by herself—eh? Well, I think it +rather fine of her, but I quite understand that the professor needed all +his philosophy under the circumstances. She is his only child now—and +brilliant—what? Willie positively spluttered trying to describe her to +me; and I could see directly you came in that you had an uncommon +experience.” + +Renouard, with an irritated gesture, tilted his hat more forward on his +eyes, as though he were bored. The Editor went on with the remark that +to be sure neither he (Renouard) nor yet Willie were much used to meet +girls of that remarkable superiority. Willie when learning business with +a firm in London, years before, had seen none but boarding-house society, +he guessed. As to himself in the good old days, when he trod the +glorious flags of Fleet Street, he neither had access to, nor yet would +have cared for the swells. Nothing interested him then but parliamentary +politics and the oratory of the House of Commons. + +He paid to this not very distant past the tribute of a tender, +reminiscent smile, and returned to his first idea that for a society girl +her action was rather fine. All the same the professor could not be very +pleased. The fellow if he was as pure as a lily now was just about as +devoid of the goods of the earth. And there were misfortunes, however +undeserved, which damaged a man’s standing permanently. On the other +hand, it was difficult to oppose cynically a noble impulse—not to speak +of the great love at the root of it. Ah! Love! And then the lady was +quite capable of going off by herself. She was of age, she had money of +her own, plenty of pluck too. Moorsom must have concluded that it was +more truly paternal, more prudent too, and generally safer all round to +let himself be dragged into this chase. The aunt came along for the same +reasons. It was given out at home as a trip round the world of the usual +kind. + +Renouard had risen and remained standing with his heart beating, and +strangely affected by this tale, robbed as it was of all glamour by the +prosaic personality of the narrator. The Editor added: “I’ve been asked +to help in the search—you know.” + +Renouard muttered something about an appointment and went out into the +street. His inborn sanity could not defend him from a misty creeping +jealousy. He thought that obviously no man of that sort could be worthy +of such a woman’s devoted fidelity. Renouard, however, had lived long +enough to reflect that a man’s activities, his views, and even his ideas +may be very inferior to his character; and moved by a delicate +consideration for that splendid girl he tried to think out for the man a +character of inward excellence and outward gifts—some extraordinary +seduction. But in vain. Fresh from months of solitude and from days at +sea, her splendour presented itself to him absolutely unconquerable in +its perfection, unless by her own folly. It was easier to suspect her of +this than to imagine in the man qualities which would be worthy of her. +Easier and less degrading. Because folly may be generous—could be +nothing else but generosity in her; whereas to imagine her subjugated by +something common was intolerable. + +Because of the force of the physical impression he had received from her +personality (and such impressions are the real origins of the deepest +movements of our soul) this conception of her was even inconceivable. +But no Prince Charming has ever lived out of a fairy tale. He doesn’t +walk the worlds of Fashion and Finance—and with a stumbling gait at that. +Generosity. Yes. It was her generosity. But this generosity was +altogether regal in its splendour, almost absurd in its lavishness—or, +perhaps, divine. + +In the evening, on board his schooner, sitting on the rail, his arms +folded on his breast and his eyes fixed on the deck, he let the darkness +catch him unawares in the midst of a meditation on the mechanism of +sentiment and the springs of passion. And all the time he had an abiding +consciousness of her bodily presence. The effect on his senses had been +so penetrating that in the middle of the night, rousing up suddenly, +wide-eyed in the darkness of his cabin, he did not create a faint mental +vision of her person for himself, but, more intimately affected, he +scented distinctly the faint perfume she used, and could almost have +sworn that he had been awakened by the soft rustle of her dress. He even +sat up listening in the dark for a time, then sighed and lay down again, +not agitated but, on the contrary, oppressed by the sensation of +something that had happened to him and could not be undone. + + + +CHAPTER III + + +In the afternoon he lounged into the editorial office, carrying with +affected nonchalance that weight of the irremediable he had felt laid on +him suddenly in the small hours of the night—that consciousness of +something that could no longer be helped. His patronising friend +informed him at once that he had made the acquaintance of the Moorsom +party last night. At the Dunsters, of course. Dinner. + +“Very quiet. Nobody there. It was much better for the business. I say +. . .” + +Renouard, his hand grasping the back of a chair, stared down at him +dumbly. + +“Phew! That’s a stunning girl. . . Why do you want to sit on that chair? +It’s uncomfortable!” + +“I wasn’t going to sit on it.” Renouard walked slowly to the window, +glad to find in himself enough self-control to let go the chair instead +of raising it on high and bringing it down on the Editor’s head. + +“Willie kept on gazing at her with tears in his boiled eyes. You should +have seen him bending sentimentally over her at dinner.” + +“Don’t,” said Renouard in such an anguished tone that the Editor turned +right round to look at his back. + +“You push your dislike of young Dunster too far. It’s positively +morbid,” he disapproved mildly. “We can’t be all beautiful after thirty. +. . . I talked a little, about you mostly, to the professor. He appeared +to be interested in the silk plant—if only as a change from the great +subject. Miss Moorsom didn’t seem to mind when I confessed to her that I +had taken you into the confidence of the thing. Our Willie approved too. +Old Dunster with his white beard seemed to give me his blessing. All +those people have a great opinion of you, simply because I told them that +you’ve led every sort of life one can think of before you got struck on +exploration. They want you to make suggestions. What do you think +‘Master Arthur’ is likely to have taken to?” + +“Something easy,” muttered Renouard without unclenching his teeth. + +“Hunting man. Athlete. Don’t be hard on the chap. He may be riding +boundaries, or droving cattle, or humping his swag about the back-blocks +away to the devil—somewhere. He may be even prospecting at the back of +beyond—this very moment.” + +“Or lying dead drunk in a roadside pub. It’s late enough in the day for +that.” + +The Editor looked up instinctively. The clock was pointing at a quarter +to five. “Yes, it is,” he admitted. “But it needn’t be. And he may +have lit out into the Western Pacific all of a sudden—say in a trading +schooner. Though I really don’t see in what capacity. Still . . . ” + +“Or he may be passing at this very moment under this very window.” + +“Not he . . . and I wish you would get away from it to where one can see +your face. I hate talking to a man’s back. You stand there like a +hermit on a sea-shore growling to yourself. I tell you what it is, +Geoffrey, you don’t like mankind.” + +“I don’t make my living by talking about mankind’s affairs,” Renouard +defended himself. But he came away obediently and sat down in the +arm-chair. “How can you be so certain that your man isn’t down there in +the street?” he asked. “It’s neither more nor less probable than every +single one of your other suppositions.” + +Placated by Renouard’s docility the Editor gazed at him for a while. +“Aha! I’ll tell you how. Learn then that we have begun the campaign. +We have telegraphed his description to the police of every township up +and down the land. And what’s more we’ve ascertained definitely that he +hasn’t been in this town for the last three months at least. How much +longer he’s been away we can’t tell.” + +“That’s very curious.” + +“It’s very simple. Miss Moorsom wrote to him, to the post office here +directly she returned to London after her excursion into the country to +see the old butler. Well—her letter is still lying there. It has not +been called for. Ergo, this town is not his usual abode. Personally, I +never thought it was. But he cannot fail to turn up some time or other. +Our main hope lies just in the certitude that he must come to town sooner +or later. Remember he doesn’t know that the butler is dead, and he will +want to inquire for a letter. Well, he’ll find a note from Miss +Moorsom.” + +Renouard, silent, thought that it was likely enough. His profound +distaste for this conversation was betrayed by an air of weariness +darkening his energetic sun-tanned features, and by the augmented +dreaminess of his eyes. The Editor noted it as a further proof of that +immoral detachment from mankind, of that callousness of sentiment +fostered by the unhealthy conditions of solitude—according to his own +favourite theory. Aloud he observed that as long as a man had not given +up correspondence he could not be looked upon as lost. Fugitive +criminals had been tracked in that way by justice, he reminded his +friend; then suddenly changed the bearing of the subject somewhat by +asking if Renouard had heard from his people lately, and if every member +of his large tribe was well and happy. + +“Yes, thanks.” + +The tone was curt, as if repelling a liberty. Renouard did not like +being asked about his people, for whom he had a profound and remorseful +affection. He had not seen a single human being to whom he was related, +for many years, and he was extremely different from them all. + +On the very morning of his arrival from his island he had gone to a set +of pigeon-holes in Willie Dunster’s outer office and had taken out from a +compartment labelled “Malata” a very small accumulation of envelopes, a +few addressed to himself, and one addressed to his assistant, all to the +care of the firm, W. Dunster and Co. As opportunity offered, the firm +used to send them on to Malata either by a man-of-war schooner going on a +cruise, or by some trading craft proceeding that way. But for the last +four months there had been no opportunity. + +“You going to stay here some time?” asked the Editor, after a longish +silence. + +Renouard, perfunctorily, did see no reason why he should make a long +stay. + +“For health, for your mental health, my boy,” rejoined the newspaper man. +“To get used to human faces so that they don’t hit you in the eye so hard +when you walk about the streets. To get friendly with your kind. I +suppose that assistant of yours can be trusted to look after things?” + +“There’s the half-caste too. The Portuguese. He knows what’s to be +done.” + +“Aha!” The Editor looked sharply at his friend. “What’s his name?” + +“Who’s name?” + +“The assistant’s you picked up on the sly behind my back.” + +Renouard made a slight movement of impatience. + +“I met him unexpectedly one evening. I thought he would do as well as +another. He had come from up country and didn’t seem happy in a town. +He told me his name was Walter. I did not ask him for proofs, you know.” + +“I don’t think you get on very well with him.” + +“Why? What makes you think so.” + +“I don’t know. Something reluctant in your manner when he’s in +question.” + +“Really. My manner! I don’t think he’s a great subject for +conversation, perhaps. Why not drop him?” + +“Of course! You wouldn’t confess to a mistake. Not you. Nevertheless I +have my suspicions about it.” + +Renouard got up to go, but hesitated, looking down at the seated Editor. + +“How funny,” he said at last with the utmost seriousness, and was making +for the door, when the voice of his friend stopped him. + +“You know what has been said of you? That you couldn’t get on with +anybody you couldn’t kick. Now, confess—is there any truth in the soft +impeachment?” + +“No,” said Renouard. “Did you print that in your paper.” + +“No. I didn’t quite believe it. But I will tell you what I believe. I +believe that when your heart is set on some object you are a man that +doesn’t count the cost to yourself or others. And this shall get printed +some day.” + +“Obituary notice?” Renouard dropped negligently. + +“Certain—some day.” + +“Do you then regard yourself as immortal?” + +“No, my boy. I am not immortal. But the voice of the press goes on for +ever. . . . And it will say that this was the secret of your great +success in a task where better men than you—meaning no offence—did fail +repeatedly.” + +“Success,” muttered Renouard, pulling-to the office door after him with +considerable energy. And the letters of the word PRIVATE like a row of +white eyes seemed to stare after his back sinking down the staircase of +that temple of publicity. + +Renouard had no doubt that all the means of publicity would be put at the +service of love and used for the discovery of the loved man. He did not +wish him dead. He did not wish him any harm. We are all equipped with a +fund of humanity which is not exhausted without many and repeated +provocations—and this man had done him no evil. But before Renouard had +left old Dunster’s house, at the conclusion of the call he made there +that very afternoon, he had discovered in himself the desire that the +search might last long. He never really flattered himself that it might +fail. It seemed to him that there was no other course in this world for +himself, for all mankind, but resignation. And he could not help +thinking that Professor Moorsom had arrived at the same conclusion too. + +Professor Moorsom, slight frame of middle height, a thoughtful keen head +under the thick wavy hair, veiled dark eyes under straight eyebrows, and +with an inward gaze which when disengaged and arriving at one seemed to +issue from an obscure dream of books, from the limbo of meditation, +showed himself extremely gracious to him. Renouard guessed in him a man +whom an incurable habit of investigation and analysis had made gentle and +indulgent; inapt for action, and more sensitive to the thoughts than to +the events of existence. Withal not crushed, sub-ironic without a trace +of acidity, and with a simple manner which put people at ease quickly. +They had a long conversation on the terrace commanding an extended view +of the town and the harbour. + +The splendid immobility of the bay resting under his gaze, with its grey +spurs and shining indentations, helped Renouard to regain his +self-possession, which he had felt shaken, in coming out on the terrace, +into the setting of the most powerful emotion of his life, when he had +sat within a foot of Miss Moorsom with fire in his breast, a humming in +his ears, and in a complete disorder of his mind. There was the very +garden seat on which he had been enveloped in the radiant spell. And +presently he was sitting on it again with the professor talking of her. +Near by the patriarchal Dunster leaned forward in a wicker arm-chair, +benign and a little deaf, his big hand to his ear with the innocent +eagerness of his advanced age remembering the fires of life. + +It was with a sort of apprehension that Renouard looked forward to seeing +Miss Moorsom. And strangely enough it resembled the state of mind of a +man who fears disenchantment more than sortilege. But he need not have +been afraid. Directly he saw her in a distance at the other end of the +terrace he shuddered to the roots of his hair. With her approach the +power of speech left him for a time. Mrs. Dunster and her aunt were +accompanying her. All these people sat down; it was an intimate circle +into which Renouard felt himself cordially admitted; and the talk was of +the great search which occupied all their minds. Discretion was expected +by these people, but of reticence as to the object of the journey there +could be no question. Nothing but ways and means and arrangements could +be talked about. + +By fixing his eyes obstinately on the ground, which gave him an air of +reflective sadness, Renouard managed to recover his self-possession. He +used it to keep his voice in a low key and to measure his words on the +great subject. And he took care with a great inward effort to make them +reasonable without giving them a discouraging complexion. For he did not +want the quest to be given up, since it would mean her going away with +her two attendant grey-heads to the other side of the world. + +He was asked to come again, to come often and take part in the counsels +of all these people captivated by the sentimental enterprise of a +declared love. On taking Miss Moorsom’s hand he looked up, would have +liked to say something, but found himself voiceless, with his lips +suddenly sealed. She returned the pressure of his fingers, and he left +her with her eyes vaguely staring beyond him, an air of listening for an +expected sound, and the faintest possible smile on her lips. A smile not +for him, evidently, but the reflection of some deep and inscrutable +thought. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +He went on board his schooner. She lay white, and as if suspended, in +the crepuscular atmosphere of sunset mingling with the ashy gleam of the +vast anchorage. He tried to keep his thoughts as sober, as reasonable, +as measured as his words had been, lest they should get away from him and +cause some sort of moral disaster. What he was afraid of in the coming +night was sleeplessness and the endless strain of that wearisome task. +It had to be faced however. He lay on his back, sighing profoundly in +the dark, and suddenly beheld his very own self, carrying a small bizarre +lamp, reflected in a long mirror inside a room in an empty and +unfurnished palace. In this startling image of himself he recognised +somebody he had to follow—the frightened guide of his dream. He +traversed endless galleries, no end of lofty halls, innumerable doors. +He lost himself utterly—he found his way again. Room succeeded room. At +last the lamp went out, and he stumbled against some object which, when +he stooped for it, he found to be very cold and heavy to lift. The +sickly white light of dawn showed him the head of a statue. Its marble +hair was done in the bold lines of a helmet, on its lips the chisel had +left a faint smile, and it resembled Miss Moorsom. While he was staring +at it fixedly, the head began to grow light in his fingers, to diminish +and crumble to pieces, and at last turned into a handful of dust, which +was blown away by a puff of wind so chilly that he woke up with a +desperate shiver and leaped headlong out of his bed-place. The day had +really come. He sat down by the cabin table, and taking his head between +his hands, did not stir for a very long time. + +Very quiet, he set himself to review this dream. The lamp, of course, he +connected with the search for a man. But on closer examination he +perceived that the reflection of himself in the mirror was not really the +true Renouard, but somebody else whose face he could not remember. In +the deserted palace he recognised a sinister adaptation by his brain of +the long corridors with many doors, in the great building in which his +friend’s newspaper was lodged on the first floor. The marble head with +Miss Moorsom’s face! Well! What other face could he have dreamed of? +And her complexion was fairer than Parian marble, than the heads of +angels. The wind at the end was the morning breeze entering through the +open porthole and touching his face before the schooner could swing to +the chilly gust. + +Yes! And all this rational explanation of the fantastic made it only +more mysterious and weird. There was something daemonic in that dream. +It was one of those experiences which throw a man out of conformity with +the established order of his kind and make him a creature of obscure +suggestions. + +Henceforth, without ever trying to resist, he went every afternoon to the +house where she lived. He went there as passively as if in a dream. He +could never make out how he had attained the footing of intimacy in the +Dunster mansion above the bay—whether on the ground of personal merit or +as the pioneer of the vegetable silk industry. It must have been the +last, because he remembered distinctly, as distinctly as in a dream, +hearing old Dunster once telling him that his next public task would be a +careful survey of the Northern Districts to discover tracts suitable for +the cultivation of the silk plant. The old man wagged his beard at him +sagely. It was indeed as absurd as a dream. + +Willie of course would be there in the evening. But he was more of a +figure out of a nightmare, hovering about the circle of chairs in his +dress-clothes like a gigantic, repulsive, and sentimental bat. “Do away +with the beastly cocoons all over the world,” he buzzed in his blurred, +water-logged voice. He affected a great horror of insects of all kinds. +One evening he appeared with a red flower in his button-hole. Nothing +could have been more disgustingly fantastic. And he would also say to +Renouard: “You may yet change the history of our country. For economic +conditions do shape the history of nations. Eh? What?” And he would +turn to Miss Moorsom for approval, lowering protectingly his spatulous +nose and looking up with feeling from under his absurd eyebrows, which +grew thin, in the manner of canebrakes, out of his spongy skin. For this +large, bilious creature was an economist and a sentimentalist, facile to +tears, and a member of the Cobden Club. + +In order to see as little of him as possible Renouard began coming +earlier so as to get away before his arrival, without curtailing too much +the hours of secret contemplation for which he lived. He had given up +trying to deceive himself. His resignation was without bounds. He +accepted the immense misfortune of being in love with a woman who was in +search of another man only to throw herself into his arms. With such +desperate precision he defined in his thoughts the situation, the +consciousness of which traversed like a sharp arrow the sudden silences +of general conversation. The only thought before which he quailed was +the thought that this could not last; that it must come to an end. He +feared it instinctively as a sick man may fear death. For it seemed to +him that it must be the death of him followed by a lightless, bottomless +pit. But his resignation was not spared the torments of jealousy: the +cruel, insensate, poignant, and imbecile jealousy, when it seems that a +woman betrays us simply by this that she exists, that she breathes—and +when the deep movements of her nerves or her soul become a matter of +distracting suspicion, of killing doubt, of mortal anxiety. + +In the peculiar condition of their sojourn Miss Moorsom went out very +little. She accepted this seclusion at the Dunsters’ mansion as in a +hermitage, and lived there, watched over by a group of old people, with +the lofty endurance of a condescending and strong-headed goddess. It was +impossible to say if she suffered from anything in the world, and whether +this was the insensibility of a great passion concentrated on itself, or +a perfect restraint of manner, or the indifference of superiority so +complete as to be sufficient to itself. But it was visible to Renouard +that she took some pleasure in talking to him at times. Was it because +he was the only person near her age? Was this, then, the secret of his +admission to the circle? + +He admired her voice as well poised as her movements, as her attitudes. +He himself had always been a man of tranquil tones. But the power of +fascination had torn him out of his very nature so completely that to +preserve his habitual calmness from going to pieces had become a terrible +effort. + +He used to go from her on board the schooner exhausted, broken, shaken +up, as though he had been put to the most exquisite torture. When he saw +her approaching he always had a moment of hallucination. She was a misty +and fair creature, fitted for invisible music, for the shadows of love, +for the murmurs of waters. After a time (he could not be always staring +at the ground) he would summon up all his resolution and look at her. +There was a sparkle in the clear obscurity of her eyes; and when she +turned them on him they seemed to give a new meaning to life. He would +say to himself that another man would have found long before the happy +release of madness, his wits burnt to cinders in that radiance. But no +such luck for him. His wits had come unscathed through the furnaces of +hot suns, of blazing deserts, of flaming angers against the weaknesses of +men and the obstinate cruelties of hostile nature. + +Being sane he had to be constantly on his guard against falling into +adoring silences or breaking out into wild speeches. He had to keep +watch on his eyes, his limbs, on the muscles of his face. Their +conversations were such as they could be between these two people: she a +young lady fresh from the thick twilight of four million people and the +artificiality of several London seasons; he the man of definite +conquering tasks, the familiar of wide horizons, and in his very repose +holding aloof from these agglomerations of units in which one loses one’s +importance even to oneself. They had no common conversational small +change. They had to use the great pieces of general ideas, but they +exchanged them trivially. It was no serious commerce. Perhaps she had +not much of that coin. Nothing significant came from her. It could not +be said that she had received from the contacts of the external world +impressions of a personal kind, different from other women. What was +ravishing in her was her quietness and, in her grave attitudes, the +unfailing brilliance of her femininity. He did not know what there was +under that ivory forehead so splendidly shaped, so gloriously crowned. +He could not tell what were her thoughts, her feelings. Her replies were +reflective, always preceded by a short silence, while he hung on her lips +anxiously. He felt himself in the presence of a mysterious being in whom +spoke an unknown voice, like the voice of oracles, bringing everlasting +unrest to the heart. + +He was thankful enough to sit in silence with secretly clenched teeth, +devoured by jealousy—and nobody could have guessed that his quiet +deferential bearing to all these grey-heads was the supreme effort of +stoicism, that the man was engaged in keeping a sinister watch on his +tortures lest his strength should fail him. As before, when grappling +with other forces of nature, he could find in himself all sorts of +courage except the courage to run away. + +It was perhaps from the lack of subjects they could have in common that +Miss Moorsom made him so often speak of his own life. He did not shrink +from talking about himself, for he was free from that exacerbated, timid +vanity which seals so many vain-glorious lips. He talked to her in his +restrained voice, gazing at the tip of her shoe, and thinking that the +time was bound to come soon when her very inattention would get weary of +him. And indeed on stealing a glance he would see her dazzling and +perfect, her eyes vague, staring in mournful immobility, with a drooping +head that made him think of a tragic Venus arising before him, not from +the foam of the sea, but from a distant, still more formless, mysterious, +and potent immensity of mankind. + + + +CHAPTER V + + +One afternoon Renouard stepping out on the terrace found nobody there. +It was for him, at the same time, a melancholy disappointment and a +poignant relief. + +The heat was great, the air was still, all the long windows of the house +stood wide open. At the further end, grouped round a lady’s work-table, +several chairs disposed sociably suggested invisible occupants, a company +of conversing shades. Renouard looked towards them with a sort of dread. +A most elusive, faint sound of ghostly talk issuing from one of the rooms +added to the illusion and stopped his already hesitating footsteps. He +leaned over the balustrade of stone near a squat vase holding a tropical +plant of a bizarre shape. Professor Moorsom coming up from the garden +with a book under his arm and a white parasol held over his bare head, +found him there and, closing the parasol, leaned over by his side with a +remark on the increasing heat of the season. Renouard assented and +changed his position a little; the other, after a short silence, +administered unexpectedly a question which, like the blow of a club on +the head, deprived Renouard of the power of speech and even thought, but, +more cruel, left him quivering with apprehension, not of death but of +everlasting torment. Yet the words were extremely simple. + +“Something will have to be done soon. We can’t remain in a state of +suspended expectation for ever. Tell me what do you think of our +chances?” + +Renouard, speechless, produced a faint smile. The professor confessed in +a jocular tone his impatience to complete the circuit of the globe and be +done with it. It was impossible to remain quartered on the dear +excellent Dunsters for an indefinite time. And then there were the +lectures he had arranged to deliver in Paris. A serious matter. + +That lectures by Professor Moorsom were a European event and that +brilliant audiences would gather to hear them Renouard did not know. All +he was aware of was the shock of this hint of departure. The menace of +separation fell on his head like a thunderbolt. And he saw the absurdity +of his emotion, for hadn’t he lived all these days under the very cloud? +The professor, his elbows spread out, looked down into the garden and +went on unburdening his mind. Yes. The department of sentiment was +directed by his daughter, and she had plenty of volunteered moral +support; but he had to look after the practical side of life without +assistance. + +“I have the less hesitation in speaking to you about my anxiety, because +I feel you are friendly to us and at the same time you are detached from +all these sublimities—confound them.” + +“What do you mean?” murmured Renouard. + +“I mean that you are capable of calm judgment. Here the atmosphere is +simply detestable. Everybody has knuckled under to sentiment. Perhaps +your deliberate opinion could influence . . .” + +“You want Miss Moorsom to give it up?” The professor turned to the young +man dismally. + +“Heaven only knows what I want.” + +Renouard leaning his back against the balustrade folded his arms on his +breast, appeared to meditate profoundly. His face, shaded softly by the +broad brim of a planter’s Panama hat, with the straight line of the nose +level with the forehead, the eyes lost in the depth of the setting, and +the chin well forward, had such a profile as may be seen amongst the +bronzes of classical museums, pure under a crested helmet—recalled +vaguely a Minerva’s head. + +“This is the most troublesome time I ever had in my life,” exclaimed the +professor testily. + +“Surely the man must be worth it,” muttered Renouard with a pang of +jealousy traversing his breast like a self-inflicted stab. + +Whether enervated by the heat or giving way to pent up irritation the +professor surrendered himself to the mood of sincerity. + +“He began by being a pleasantly dull boy. He developed into a +pointlessly clever young man, without, I suspect, ever trying to +understand anything. My daughter knew him from childhood. I am a busy +man, and I confess that their engagement was a complete surprise to me. +I wish their reasons for that step had been more naïve. But simplicity +was out of fashion in their set. From a worldly point of view he seems +to have been a mere baby. Of course, now, I am assured that he is the +victim of his noble confidence in the rectitude of his kind. But that’s +mere idealising of a sad reality. For my part I will tell you that from +the very beginning I had the gravest doubts of his dishonesty. +Unfortunately my clever daughter hadn’t. And now we behold the reaction. +No. To be earnestly dishonest one must be really poor. This was only a +manifestation of his extremely refined cleverness. The complicated +simpleton. He had an awful awakening though.” + +In such words did Professor Moorsom give his “young friend” to understand +the state of his feelings toward the lost man. It was evident that the +father of Miss Moorsom wished him to remain lost. Perhaps the +unprecedented heat of the season made him long for the cool spaces of the +Pacific, the sweep of the ocean’s free wind along the promenade decks, +cumbered with long chairs, of a ship steaming towards the Californian +coast. To Renouard the philosopher appeared simply the most treacherous +of fathers. He was amazed. But he was not at the end of his +discoveries. + +“He may be dead,” the professor murmured. + +“Why? People don’t die here sooner than in Europe. If he had gone to +hide in Italy, for instance, you wouldn’t think of saying that.” + +“Well! And suppose he has become morally disintegrated. You know he was +not a strong personality,” the professor suggested moodily. “My +daughter’s future is in question here.” + +Renouard thought that the love of such a woman was enough to pull any +broken man together—to drag a man out of his grave. And he thought this +with inward despair, which kept him silent as much almost as his +astonishment. At last he managed to stammer out a generous— + +“Oh! Don’t let us even suppose. . .” + +The professor struck in with a sadder accent than before— + +“It’s good to be young. And then you have been a man of action, and +necessarily a believer in success. But I have been looking too long at +life not to distrust its surprises. Age! Age! Here I stand before you +a man full of doubts and hesitation—_spe lentus_, _timidus futuri_.” + +He made a sign to Renouard not to interrupt, and in a lowered voice, as +if afraid of being overheard, even there, in the solitude of the terrace— + +“And the worst is that I am not even sure how far this sentimental +pilgrimage is genuine. Yes. I doubt my own child. It’s true that she’s +a woman. . . . ” + +Renouard detected with horror a tone of resentment, as if the professor +had never forgiven his daughter for not dying instead of his son. The +latter noticed the young man’s stony stare. + +“Ah! you don’t understand. Yes, she’s clever, open-minded, popular, +and—well, charming. But you don’t know what it is to have moved, +breathed, existed, and even triumphed in the mere smother and froth of +life—the brilliant froth. There thoughts, sentiments, opinions, +feelings, actions too, are nothing but agitation in empty space—to amuse +life—a sort of superior debauchery, exciting and fatiguing, meaning +nothing, leading nowhere. She is the creature of that circle. And I ask +myself if she is obeying the uneasiness of an instinct seeking its +satisfaction, or is it a revulsion of feeling, or is she merely deceiving +her own heart by this dangerous trifling with romantic images. And +everything is possible—except sincerity, such as only stark, struggling +humanity can know. No woman can stand that mode of life in which women +rule, and remain a perfectly genuine, simple human being. Ah! There’s +some people coming out.” + +He moved off a pace, then turning his head: “Upon my word! I would be +infinitely obliged to you if you could throw a little cold water. . . ” +and at a vaguely dismayed gesture of Renouard, he added: “Don’t be +afraid. You wouldn’t be putting out a sacred fire.” + +Renouard could hardly find words for a protest: “I assure you that I +never talk with Miss Moorsom—on—on—that. And if you, her father . . . ” + +“I envy you your innocence,” sighed the professor. “A father is only an +everyday person. Flat. Stale. Moreover, my child would naturally +mistrust me. We belong to the same set. Whereas you carry with you the +prestige of the unknown. You have proved yourself to be a force.” + +Thereupon the professor followed by Renouard joined the circle of all the +inmates of the house assembled at the other end of the terrace about a +tea-table; three white heads and that resplendent vision of woman’s +glory, the sight of which had the power to flutter his heart like a +reminder of the mortality of his frame. + +He avoided the seat by the side of Miss Moorsom. The others were talking +together languidly. Unnoticed he looked at that woman so marvellous that +centuries seemed to lie between them. He was oppressed and overcome at +the thought of what she could give to some man who really would be a +force! What a glorious struggle with this amazon. What noble burden for +the victorious strength. + +Dear old Mrs. Dunster was dispensing tea, looking from time to time with +interest towards Miss Moorsom. The aged statesman having eaten a raw +tomato and drunk a glass of milk (a habit of his early farming days, long +before politics, when, pioneer of wheat-growing, he demonstrated the +possibility of raising crops on ground looking barren enough to +discourage a magician), smoothed his white beard, and struck lightly +Renouard’s knee with his big wrinkled hand. + +“You had better come back to-night and dine with us quietly.” + +He liked this young man, a pioneer, too, in more than one direction. +Mrs. Dunster added: “Do. It will be very quiet. I don’t even know if +Willie will be home for dinner.” Renouard murmured his thanks, and left +the terrace to go on board the schooner. While lingering in the +drawing-room doorway he heard the resonant voice of old Dunster uttering +oracularly— + +“. . . the leading man here some day. . . . Like me.” + +Renouard let the thin summer portière of the doorway fall behind him. +The voice of Professor Moorsom said— + +“I am told that he has made an enemy of almost every man who had to work +with him.” + +“That’s nothing. He did his work. . . . Like me.” + +“He never counted the cost they say. Not even of lives.” + +Renouard understood that they were talking of him. Before he could move +away, Mrs. Dunster struck in placidly— + +“Don’t let yourself be shocked by the tales you may hear of him, my dear. +Most of it is envy.” + +Then he heard Miss Moorsom’s voice replying to the old lady— + +“Oh! I am not easily deceived. I think I may say I have an instinct for +truth.” + +He hastened away from that house with his heart full of dread. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +On board the schooner, lying on the settee on his back with the knuckles +of his hands pressed over his eyes, he made up his mind that he would not +return to that house for dinner—that he would never go back there any +more. He made up his mind some twenty times. The knowledge that he had +only to go up on the quarter deck, utter quietly the words: “Man the +windlass,” and that the schooner springing into life would run a hundred +miles out to sea before sunrise, deceived his struggling will. Nothing +easier! Yet, in the end, this young man, almost ill-famed for his +ruthless daring, the inflexible leader of two tragically successful +expeditions, shrank from that act of savage energy, and began, instead, +to hunt for excuses. + +No! It was not for him to run away like an incurable who cuts his +throat. He finished dressing and looked at his own impassive face in the +saloon mirror scornfully. While being pulled on shore in the gig, he +remembered suddenly the wild beauty of a waterfall seen when hardly more +than a boy, years ago, in Menado. There was a legend of a +governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, on official tour, committing +suicide on that spot by leaping into the chasm. It was supposed that a +painful disease had made him weary of life. But was there ever a +visitation like his own, at the same time binding one to life and so +cruelly mortal! + +The dinner was indeed quiet. Willie, given half an hour’s grace, failed +to turn up, and his chair remained vacant by the side of Miss Moorsom. +Renouard had the professor’s sister on his left, dressed in an expensive +gown becoming her age. That maiden lady in her wonderful preservation +reminded Renouard somehow of a wax flower under glass. There were no +traces of the dust of life’s battles on her anywhere. She did not like +him very much in the afternoons, in his white drill suit and planter’s +hat, which seemed to her an unduly Bohemian costume for calling in a +house where there were ladies. But in the evening, lithe and elegant in +his dress clothes and with his pleasant, slightly veiled voice, he always +made her conquest afresh. He might have been anybody distinguished—the +son of a duke. Falling under that charm probably (and also because her +brother had given her a hint), she attempted to open her heart to +Renouard, who was watching with all the power of his soul her niece +across the table. She spoke to him as frankly as though that miserable +mortal envelope, emptied of everything but hopeless passion, were indeed +the son of a duke. + +Inattentive, he heard her only in snatches, till the final confidential +burst: “. . . glad if you would express an opinion. Look at her, so +charming, such a great favourite, so generally admired! It would be too +sad. We all hoped she would make a brilliant marriage with somebody very +rich and of high position, have a house in London and in the country, and +entertain us all splendidly. She’s so eminently fitted for it. She has +such hosts of distinguished friends! And then—this instead! . . . My +heart really aches.” + +Her well-bred if anxious whisper was covered by the voice of professor +Moorsom discoursing subtly down the short length of the dinner table on +the Impermanency of the Measurable to his venerable disciple. It might +have been a chapter in a new and popular book of Moorsomian philosophy. +Patriarchal and delighted, old Dunster leaned forward a little, his eyes +shining youthfully, two spots of colour at the roots of his white beard; +and Renouard, glancing at the senile excitement, recalled the words heard +on those subtle lips, adopted their scorn for his own, saw their truth +before this man ready to be amused by the side of the grave. Yes! +Intellectual debauchery in the froth of existence! Froth and fraud! + +On the same side of the table Miss Moorsom never once looked towards her +father, all her grace as if frozen, her red lips compressed, the faintest +rosiness under her dazzling complexion, her black eyes burning +motionless, and the very coppery gleams of light lying still on the waves +and undulation of her hair. Renouard fancied himself overturning the +table, smashing crystal and china, treading fruit and flowers under foot, +seizing her in his arms, carrying her off in a tumult of shrieks from all +these people, a silent frightened mortal, into some profound retreat as +in the age of Cavern men. Suddenly everybody got up, and he hastened to +rise too, finding himself out of breath and quite unsteady on his feet. + +On the terrace the philosopher, after lighting a cigar, slipped his hand +condescendingly under his “dear young friend’s” arm. Renouard regarded +him now with the profoundest mistrust. But the great man seemed really +to have a liking for his young friend—one of those mysterious sympathies, +disregarding the differences of age and position, which in this case +might have been explained by the failure of philosophy to meet a very +real worry of a practical kind. + +After a turn or two and some casual talk the professor said suddenly: “My +late son was in your school—do you know? I can imagine that had he lived +and you had ever met you would have understood each other. He too was +inclined to action.” + +He sighed, then, shaking off the mournful thought and with a nod at the +dusky part of the terrace where the dress of his daughter made a luminous +stain: “I really wish you would drop in that quarter a few sensible, +discouraging words.” + +Renouard disengaged himself from that most perfidious of men under the +pretence of astonishment, and stepping back a pace— + +“Surely you are making fun of me, Professor Moorsom,” he said with a low +laugh, which was really a sound of rage. + +“My dear young friend! It’s no subject for jokes, to me. . . You don’t +seem to have any notion of your prestige,” he added, walking away towards +the chairs. + +“Humbug!” thought Renouard, standing still and looking after him. “And +yet! And yet! What if it were true?” + +He advanced then towards Miss Moorsom. Posed on the seat on which they +had first spoken to each other, it was her turn to watch him coming on. +But many of the windows were not lighted that evening. It was dark over +there. She appeared to him luminous in her clear dress, a figure without +shape, a face without features, awaiting his approach, till he got quite +near to her, sat down, and they had exchanged a few insignificant words. +Gradually she came out like a magic painting of charm, fascination, and +desire, glowing mysteriously on the dark background. Something +imperceptible in the lines of her attitude, in the modulations of her +voice, seemed to soften that suggestion of calm unconscious pride which +enveloped her always like a mantle. He, sensitive like a bond slave to +the moods of the master, was moved by the subtle relenting of her grace +to an infinite tenderness. He fought down the impulse to seize her by +the hand, lead her down into the garden away under the big trees, and +throw himself at her feet uttering words of love. His emotion was so +strong that he had to cough slightly, and not knowing what to talk to her +about he began to tell her of his mother and sisters. All the family +were coming to London to live there, for some little time at least. + +“I hope you will go and tell them something of me. Something seen,” he +said pressingly. + +By this miserable subterfuge, like a man about to part with his life, he +hoped to make her remember him a little longer. + +“Certainly,” she said. “I’ll be glad to call when I get back. But that +‘when’ may be a long time.” + +He heard a light sigh. A cruel jealous curiosity made him ask— + +“Are you growing weary, Miss Moorsom?” + +A silence fell on his low spoken question. + +“Do you mean heart-weary?” sounded Miss Moorsom’s voice. “You don’t know +me, I see.” + +“Ah! Never despair,” he muttered. + +“This, Mr. Renouard, is a work of reparation. I stand for truth here. I +can’t think of myself.” + +He could have taken her by the throat for every word seemed an insult to +his passion; but he only said— + +“I never doubted the—the—nobility of your purpose.” + +“And to hear the word weariness pronounced in this connection surprises +me. And from a man too who, I understand, has never counted the cost.” + +“You are pleased to tease me,” he said, directly he had recovered his +voice and had mastered his anger. It was as if Professor Moorsom had +dropped poison in his ear which was spreading now and tainting his +passion, his very jealousy. He mistrusted every word that came from +those lips on which his life hung. “How can you know anything of men who +do not count the cost?” he asked in his gentlest tones. + +“From hearsay—a little.” + +“Well, I assure you they are like the others, subject to suffering, +victims of spells. . . .” + +“One of them, at least, speaks very strangely.” + +She dismissed the subject after a short silence. “Mr. Renouard, I had a +disappointment this morning. This mail brought me a letter from the +widow of the old butler—you know. I expected to learn that she had heard +from—from here. But no. No letter arrived home since we left.” + +Her voice was calm. His jealousy couldn’t stand much more of this sort +of talk; but he was glad that nothing had turned up to help the search; +glad blindly, unreasonably—only because it would keep her longer in his +sight—since she wouldn’t give up. + +“I am too near her,” he thought, moving a little further on the seat. He +was afraid in the revulsion of feeling of flinging himself on her hands, +which were lying on her lap, and covering them with kisses. He was +afraid. Nothing, nothing could shake that spell—not if she were ever so +false, stupid, or degraded. She was fate itself. The extent of his +misfortune plunged him in such a stupor that he failed at first to hear +the sound of voices and footsteps inside the drawing-room. Willie had +come home—and the Editor was with him. + +They burst out on the terrace babbling noisily, and then pulling +themselves together stood still, surprising—and as if themselves +surprised. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +They had been feasting a poet from the bush, the latest discovery of the +Editor. Such discoveries were the business, the vocation, the pride and +delight of the only apostle of letters in the hemisphere, the solitary +patron of culture, the Slave of the Lamp—as he subscribed himself at the +bottom of the weekly literary page of his paper. He had had no +difficulty in persuading the virtuous Willie (who had festive instincts) +to help in the good work, and now they had left the poet lying asleep on +the hearthrug of the editorial room and had rushed to the Dunster mansion +wildly. The Editor had another discovery to announce. Swaying a little +where he stood he opened his mouth very wide to shout the one word +“Found!” Behind him Willie flung both his hands above his head and let +them fall dramatically. Renouard saw the four white-headed people at the +end of the terrace rise all together from their chairs with an effect of +sudden panic. + +“I tell you—he—is—found,” the patron of letters shouted emphatically. + +“What is this!” exclaimed Renouard in a choked voice. Miss Moorsom +seized his wrist suddenly, and at that contact fire ran through all his +veins, a hot stillness descended upon him in which he heard the blood—or +the fire—beating in his ears. He made a movement as if to rise, but was +restrained by the convulsive pressure on his wrist. + +“No, no.” Miss Moorsom’s eyes stared black as night, searching the space +before her. Far away the Editor strutted forward, Willie following with +his ostentatious manner of carrying his bulky and oppressive carcass +which, however, did not remain exactly perpendicular for two seconds +together. + +“The innocent Arthur . . . Yes. We’ve got him,” the Editor became very +business-like. “Yes, this letter has done it.” + +He plunged into an inside pocket for it, slapped the scrap of paper with +his open palm. “From that old woman. William had it in his pocket since +this morning when Miss Moorsom gave it to him to show me. Forgot all +about it till an hour ago. Thought it was of no importance. Well, no! +Not till it was properly read.” + +Renouard and Miss Moorsom emerged from the shadows side by side, a +well-matched couple, animated yet statuesque in their calmness and in +their pallor. She had let go his wrist. On catching sight of Renouard +the Editor exclaimed: + +“What—you here!” in a quite shrill voice. + +There came a dead pause. All the faces had in them something dismayed +and cruel. + +“He’s the very man we want,” continued the Editor. “Excuse my +excitement. You are the very man, Renouard. Didn’t you tell me that +your assistant called himself Walter? Yes? Thought so. But here’s that +old woman—the butler’s wife—listen to this. She writes: All I can tell +you, Miss, is that my poor husband directed his letters to the name of H. +Walter.” + +Renouard’s violent but repressed exclamation was lost in a general murmur +and shuffle of feet. The Editor made a step forward, bowed with +creditable steadiness. + +“Miss Moorsom, allow me to congratulate you from the bottom of my heart +on the happy—er—issue. . . ” + +“Wait,” muttered Renouard irresolutely. + +The Editor jumped on him in the manner of their old friendship. “Ah, +you! You are a fine fellow too. With your solitary ways of life you +will end by having no more discrimination than a savage. Fancy living +with a gentleman for months and never guessing. A man, I am certain, +accomplished, remarkable, out of the common, since he had been +distinguished” (he bowed again) “by Miss Moorsom, whom we all admire.” + +She turned her back on him. + +“I hope to goodness you haven’t been leading him a dog’s life, Geoffrey,” +the Editor addressed his friend in a whispered aside. + +Renouard seized a chair violently, sat down, and propping his elbow on +his knee leaned his head on his hand. Behind him the sister of the +professor looked up to heaven and wrung her hands stealthily. Mrs. +Dunster’s hands were clasped forcibly under her chin, but she, dear soul, +was looking sorrowfully at Willie. The model nephew! In this strange +state! So very much flushed! The careful disposition of the thin hairs +across Willie’s bald spot was deplorably disarranged, and the spot itself +was red and, as it were, steaming. + +“What’s the matter, Geoffrey?” The Editor seemed disconcerted by the +silent attitudes round him, as though he had expected all these people to +shout and dance. “You have him on the island—haven’t you?” + +“Oh, yes: I have him there,” said Renouard, without looking up. + +“Well, then!” The Editor looked helplessly around as if begging for +response of some sort. But the only response that came was very +unexpected. Annoyed at being left in the background, and also because +very little drink made him nasty, the emotional Willie turned malignant +all at once, and in a bibulous tone surprising in a man able to keep his +balance so well— + +“Aha! But you haven’t got him here—not yet!” he sneered. “No! You +haven’t got him yet.” + +This outrageous exhibition was to the Editor like the lash to a jaded +horse. He positively jumped. + +“What of that? What do you mean? We—haven’t—got—him—here. Of course he +isn’t here! But Geoffrey’s schooner is here. She can be sent at once to +fetch him here. No! Stay! There’s a better plan. Why shouldn’t you +all sail over to Malata, professor? Save time! I am sure Miss Moorsom +would prefer. . .” + +With a gallant flourish of his arm he looked for Miss Moorsom. She had +disappeared. He was taken aback somewhat. + +“Ah! H’m. Yes. . . . Why not. A pleasure cruise, delightful ship, +delightful season, delightful errand, del . . . No! There are no +objections. Geoffrey, I understand, has indulged in a bungalow three +sizes too large for him. He can put you all up. It will be a pleasure +for him. It will be the greatest privilege. Any man would be proud of +being an agent of this happy reunion. I am proud of the little part I’ve +played. He will consider it the greatest honour. Geoff, my boy, you had +better be stirring to-morrow bright and early about the preparations for +the trip. It would be criminal to lose a single day.” + +He was as flushed as Willie, the excitement keeping up the effect of the +festive dinner. For a time Renouard, silent, as if he had not heard a +word of all that babble, did not stir. But when he got up it was to +advance towards the Editor and give him such a hearty slap on the back +that the plump little man reeled in his tracks and looked quite +frightened for a moment. + +“You are a heaven-born discoverer and a first-rate manager. . . He’s +right. It’s the only way. You can’t resist the claim of sentiment, and +you must even risk the voyage to Malata. . . ” Renouard’s voice sank. “A +lonely spot,” he added, and fell into thought under all these eyes +converging on him in the sudden silence. His slow glance passed over all +the faces in succession, remaining arrested on Professor Moorsom, stony +eyed, a smouldering cigar in his fingers, and with his sister standing by +his side. + +“I shall be infinitely gratified if you consent to come. But, of course, +you will. We shall sail to-morrow evening then. And now let me leave +you to your happiness.” + +He bowed, very grave, pointed suddenly his finger at Willie who was +swaying about with a sleepy frown. . . . “Look at him. He’s overcome +with happiness. You had better put him to bed . . . ” and disappeared +while every head on the terrace was turned to Willie with varied +expressions. + +Renouard ran through the house. Avoiding the carriage road he fled down +the steep short cut to the shore, where his gig was waiting. At his loud +shout the sleeping Kanakas jumped up. He leaped in. “Shove off. Give +way!” and the gig darted through the water. “Give way! Give way!” She +flew past the wool-clippers sleeping at their anchors each with the open +unwinking eye of the lamp in the rigging; she flew past the flagship of +the Pacific squadron, a great mass all dark and silent, heavy with the +slumbers of five hundred men, and where the invisible sentries heard his +urgent “Give way! Give way!” in the night. The Kanakas, panting, rose +off the thwarts at every stroke. Nothing could be fast enough for him! +And he ran up the side of his schooner shaking the ladder noisily with +his rush. + +On deck he stumbled and stood still. + +Wherefore this haste? To what end, since he knew well before he started +that he had a pursuer from whom there was no escape. + +As his foot touched the deck his will, his purpose he had been hurrying +to save, died out within. It had been nothing less than getting the +schooner under-way, letting her vanish silently in the night from amongst +these sleeping ships. And now he was certain he could not do it. It was +impossible! And he reflected that whether he lived or died such an act +would lay him under a dark suspicion from which he shrank. No, there was +nothing to be done. + +He went down into the cabin and, before even unbuttoning his overcoat, +took out of the drawer the letter addressed to his assistant; that letter +which he had found in the pigeon-hole labelled “Malata” in young +Dunster’s outer office, where it had been waiting for three months some +occasion for being forwarded. From the moment of dropping it in the +drawer he had utterly forgotten its existence—till now, when the man’s +name had come out so clamorously. He glanced at the common envelope, +noted the shaky and laborious handwriting: H. Walter, Esqre. Undoubtedly +the very last letter the old butler had posted before his illness, and in +answer clearly to one from “Master Arthur” instructing him to address in +the future: “Care of Messrs. W. Dunster and Co.” Renouard made as if to +open the envelope, but paused, and, instead, tore the letter deliberately +in two, in four, in eight. With his hand full of pieces of paper he +returned on deck and scattered them overboard on the dark water, in which +they vanished instantly. + +He did it slowly, without hesitation or remorse. H. Walter, Esqre, in +Malata. The innocent Arthur—What was his name? The man sought for by +that woman who as she went by seemed to draw all the passion of the earth +to her, without effort, not deigning to notice, naturally, as other women +breathed the air. But Renouard was no longer jealous of her very +existence. Whatever its meaning it was not for that man he had picked up +casually on obscure impulse, to get rid of the tiresome expostulations of +a so-called friend; a man of whom he really knew nothing—and now a dead +man. In Malata. Oh, yes! He was there secure enough, untroubled in his +grave. In Malata. To bury him was the last service Renouard had +rendered to his assistant before leaving the island on this trip to town. + +Like many men ready enough for arduous enterprises Renouard was inclined +to evade the small complications of existence. This trait of his +character was composed of a little indolence, some disdain, and a +shrinking from contests with certain forms of vulgarity—like a man who +would face a lion and go out of his way to avoid a toad. His intercourse +with the meddlesome journalist was that merely outward intimacy without +sympathy some young men get drawn into easily. It had amused him rather +to keep that “friend” in the dark about the fate of his assistant. +Renouard had never needed other company than his own, for there was in +him something of the sensitiveness of a dreamer who is easily jarred. He +had said to himself that the all-knowing one would only preach again +about the evils of solitude and worry his head off in favour of some +forlornly useless protégé of his. Also the inquisitiveness of the Editor +had irritated him and had closed his lips in sheer disgust. + +And now he contemplated the noose of consequences drawing tight around +him. + +It was the memory of that diplomatic reticence which on the terrace had +stiffled his first cry which would have told them all that the man sought +for was not to be met on earth any more. He shrank from the absurdity of +hearing the all-knowing one, and not very sober at that, turning on him +with righteous reproaches— + +“You never told me. You gave me to understand that your assistant was +alive, and now you say he’s dead. Which is it? Were you lying then or +are you lying now?” No! the thought of such a scene was not to be borne. +He had sat down appalled, thinking: “What shall I do now?” + +His courage had oozed out of him. Speaking the truth meant the Moorsoms +going away at once—while it seemed to him that he would give the last +shred of his rectitude to secure a day more of her company. He sat +on—silent. Slowly, from confused sensations, from his talk with the +professor, the manner of the girl herself, the intoxicating familiarity +of her sudden hand-clasp, there had come to him a half glimmer of hope. +The other man was dead. Then! . . . Madness, of course—but he could not +give it up. He had listened to that confounded busybody arranging +everything—while all these people stood around assenting, under the spell +of that dead romance. He had listened scornful and silent. The glimmers +of hope, of opportunity, passed before his eyes. He had only to sit +still and say nothing. That and no more. And what was truth to him in +the face of that great passion which had flung him prostrate in spirit at +her adored feet! + +And now it was done! Fatality had willed it! With the eyes of a mortal +struck by the maddening thunderbolt of the gods, Renouard looked up to +the sky, an immense black pall dusted over with gold, on which great +shudders seemed to pass from the breath of life affirming its sway. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +At last, one morning, in a clear spot of a glassy horizon charged with +heraldic masses of black vapours, the island grew out from the sea, +showing here and there its naked members of basaltic rock through the +rents of heavy foliage. Later, in the great spilling of all the riches +of sunset, Malata stood out green and rosy before turning into a violet +shadow in the autumnal light of the expiring day. Then came the night. +In the faint airs the schooner crept on past a sturdy squat headland, and +it was pitch dark when her headsails ran down, she turned short on her +heel, and her anchor bit into the sandy bottom on the edge of the outer +reef; for it was too dangerous then to attempt entering the little bay +full of shoals. After the last solemn flutter of the mainsail the +murmuring voices of the Moorsom party lingered, very frail, in the black +stillness. + +They were sitting aft, on chairs, and nobody made a move. Early in the +day, when it had become evident that the wind was failing, Renouard, +basing his advice on the shortcomings of his bachelor establishment, had +urged on the ladies the advisability of not going ashore in the middle of +the night. Now he approached them in a constrained manner (it was +astonishing the constraint that had reigned between him and his guests +all through the passage) and renewed his arguments. No one ashore would +dream of his bringing any visitors with him. Nobody would even think of +coming off. There was only one old canoe on the plantation. And landing +in the schooner’s boats would be awkward in the dark. There was the risk +of getting aground on some shallow patches. It would be best to spend +the rest of the night on board. + +There was really no opposition. The professor smoking a pipe, and very +comfortable in an ulster buttoned over his tropical clothes, was the +first to speak from his long chair. + +“Most excellent advice.” + +Next to him Miss Moorsom assented by a long silence. Then in a voice as +of one coming out of a dream— + +“And so this is Malata,” she said. “I have often wondered . . .” + +A shiver passed through Renouard. She had wondered! What about? Malata +was himself. He and Malata were one. And she had wondered! She had . . . + +The professor’s sister leaned over towards Renouard. Through all these +days at sea the man’s—the found man’s—existence had not been alluded to +on board the schooner. That reticence was part of the general constraint +lying upon them all. She, herself, certainly had not been exactly elated +by this finding—poor Arthur, without money, without prospects. But she +felt moved by the sentiment and romance of the situation. + +“Isn’t it wonderful,” she whispered out of her white wrap, “to think of +poor Arthur sleeping there, so near to our dear lovely Felicia, and not +knowing the immense joy in store for him to-morrow.” + +There was such artificiality in the wax-flower lady that nothing in this +speech touched Renouard. It was but the simple anxiety of his heart that +he was voicing when he muttered gloomily— + +“No one in the world knows what to-morrow may hold in store.” + +The mature lady had a recoil as though he had said something impolite. +What a harsh thing to say—instead of finding something nice and +appropriate. On board, where she never saw him in evening clothes, +Renouard’s resemblance to a duke’s son was not so apparent to her. +Nothing but his—ah—bohemianism remained. She rose with a sort of +ostentation. + +“It’s late—and since we are going to sleep on board to-night . . .” she +said. “But it does seem so cruel.” + +The professor started up eagerly, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. +“Infinitely more sensible, my dear Emma.” + +Renouard waited behind Miss Moorsom’s chair. + +She got up slowly, moved one step forward, and paused looking at the +shore. The blackness of the island blotted out the stars with its vague +mass like a low thundercloud brooding over the waters and ready to burst +into flame and crashes. + +“And so—this is Malata,” she repeated dreamily, moving towards the cabin +door. The clear cloak hanging from her shoulders, the ivory face—for the +night had put out nothing of her but the gleams of her hair—made her +resemble a shining dream-woman uttering words of wistful inquiry. She +disappeared without a sign, leaving Renouard penetrated to the very +marrow by the sounds that came from her body like a mysterious resonance +of an exquisite instrument. + +He stood stock still. What was this accidental touch which had evoked +the strange accent of her voice? He dared not answer that question. But +he had to answer the question of what was to be done now. Had the moment +of confession come? The thought was enough to make one’s blood run cold. + +It was as if those people had a premonition of something. In the +taciturn days of the passage he had noticed their reserve even amongst +themselves. The professor smoked his pipe moodily in retired spots. +Renouard had caught Miss Moorsom’s eyes resting on himself more than +once, with a peculiar and grave expression. He fancied that she avoided +all opportunities of conversation. The maiden lady seemed to nurse a +grievance. And now what had he to do? + +The lights on the deck had gone out one after the other. The schooner +slept. + +About an hour after Miss Moorsom had gone below without a sign or a word +for him, Renouard got out of his hammock slung in the waist under the +midship awning—for he had given up all the accommodation below to his +guests. He got out with a sudden swift movement, flung off his sleeping +jacket, rolled his pyjamas up his thighs, and stole forward, unseen by +the one Kanaka of the anchor-watch. His white torso, naked like a +stripped athlete’s, glimmered, ghostly, in the deep shadows of the deck. +Unnoticed he got out of the ship over the knight-heads, ran along the +back rope, and seizing the dolphin-striker firmly with both hands, +lowered himself into the sea without a splash. + +He swam away, noiseless like a fish, and then struck boldly for the land, +sustained, embraced, by the tepid water. The gentle, voluptuous heave of +its breast swung him up and down slightly; sometimes a wavelet murmured +in his ears; from time to time, lowering his feet, he felt for the bottom +on a shallow patch to rest and correct his direction. He landed at the +lower end of the bungalow garden, into the dead stillness of the island. +There were no lights. The plantation seemed to sleep, as profoundly as +the schooner. On the path a small shell cracked under his naked heel. + +The faithful half-caste foreman going his rounds cocked his ears at the +sharp sound. He gave one enormous start of fear at the sight of the +swift white figure flying at him out of the night. He crouched in +terror, and then sprang up and clicked his tongue in amazed recognition. + +“Tse! Tse! The master!” + +“Be quiet, Luiz, and listen to what I say.” + +Yes, it was the master, the strong master who was never known to raise +his voice, the man blindly obeyed and never questioned. He talked low +and rapidly in the quiet night, as if every minute were precious. On +learning that three guests were coming to stay Luiz clicked his tongue +rapidly. These clicks were the uniform, stenographic symbols of his +emotions, and he could give them an infinite variety of meaning. He +listened to the rest in a deep silence hardly affected by the low, “Yes, +master,” whenever Renouard paused. + +“You understand?” the latter insisted. “No preparations are to be made +till we land in the morning. And you are to say that Mr. Walter has gone +off in a trading schooner on a round of the islands.” + +“Yes, master.” + +“No mistakes—mind!” + +“No, master.” + +Renouard walked back towards the sea. Luiz, following him, proposed to +call out half a dozen boys and man the canoe. + +“Imbecile!” + +“Tse! Tse! Tse!” + +“Don’t you understand that you haven’t seen me?” + +“Yes, master. But what a long swim. Suppose you drown.” + +“Then you can say of me and of Mr. Walter what you like. The dead don’t +mind.” + +Renouard entered the sea and heard a faint “Tse! Tse! Tse!” of concern +from the half-caste, who had already lost sight of the master’s dark head +on the overshadowed water. + +Renouard set his direction by a big star that, dipping on the horizon, +seemed to look curiously into his face. On this swim back he felt the +mournful fatigue of all that length of the traversed road, which brought +him no nearer to his desire. It was as if his love had sapped the +invisible supports of his strength. There came a moment when it seemed +to him that he must have swum beyond the confines of life. He had a +sensation of eternity close at hand, demanding no effort—offering its +peace. It was easy to swim like this beyond the confines of life looking +at a star. But the thought: “They will think I dared not face them and +committed suicide,” caused a revolt of his mind which carried him on. He +returned on board, as he had left, unheard and unseen. He lay in his +hammock utterly exhausted and with a confused feeling that he had been +beyond the confines of life, somewhere near a star, and that it was very +quiet there. + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Sheltered by the squat headland from the first morning sparkle of the sea +the little bay breathed a delicious freshness. The party from the +schooner landed at the bottom of the garden. They exchanged +insignificant words in studiously casual tones. The professor’s sister +put up a long-handled eye-glass as if to scan the novel surroundings, but +in reality searching for poor Arthur anxiously. Having never seen him +otherwise than in his town clothes she had no idea what he would look +like. It had been left to the professor to help his ladies out of the +boat because Renouard, as if intent on giving directions, had stepped +forward at once to meet the half-caste Luiz hurrying down the path. In +the distance, in front of the dazzlingly sunlit bungalow, a row of +dark-faced house-boys unequal in stature and varied in complexion +preserved the immobility of a guard of honour. + +Luiz had taken off his soft felt hat before coming within earshot. +Renouard bent his head to his rapid talk of domestic arrangements he +meant to make for the visitors; another bed in the master’s room for the +ladies and a cot for the gentleman to be hung in the room opposite +where—where Mr. Walter—here he gave a scared look all round—Mr. +Walter—had died. + +“Very good,” assented Renouard in an even undertone. “And remember what +you have to say of him.” + +“Yes, master. Only”—he wriggled slightly and put one bare foot on the +other for a moment in apologetic embarrassment—“only I—I—don’t like to +say it.” + +Renouard looked at him without anger, without any sort of expression. +“Frightened of the dead? Eh? Well—all right. I will say it myself—I +suppose once for all. . . .” Immediately he raised his voice very much. + +“Send the boys down to bring up the luggage.” + +“Yes, master.” + +Renouard turned to his distinguished guests who, like a personally +conducted party of tourists, had stopped and were looking about them. + +“I am sorry,” he began with an impassive face. “My man has just told me +that Mr. Walter . . .” he managed to smile, but didn’t correct himself . +. . “has gone in a trading schooner on a short tour of the islands, to +the westward.” + +This communication was received in profound silence. + +Renouard forgot himself in the thought: “It’s done!” But the sight of +the string of boys marching up to the house with suit-cases and +dressing-bags rescued him from that appalling abstraction. + +“All I can do is to beg you to make yourselves at home . . . with what +patience you may.” + +This was so obviously the only thing to do that everybody moved on at +once. The professor walked alongside Renouard, behind the two ladies. + +“Rather unexpected—this absence.” + +“Not exactly,” muttered Renouard. “A trip has to be made every year to +engage labour.” + +“I see . . . And he . . . How vexingly elusive the poor fellow has +become! I’ll begin to think that some wicked fairy is favouring this +love tale with unpleasant attentions.” + +Renouard noticed that the party did not seem weighed down by this new +disappointment. On the contrary they moved with a freer step. The +professor’s sister dropped her eye-glass to the end of its chain. Miss +Moorsom took the lead. The professor, his lips unsealed, lingered in the +open: but Renouard did not listen to that man’s talk. He looked after +that man’s daughter—if indeed that creature of irresistible seductions +were a daughter of mortals. The very intensity of his desire, as if his +soul were streaming after her through his eyes, defeated his object of +keeping hold of her as long as possible with, at least, one of his +senses. Her moving outlines dissolved into a misty coloured shimmer of a +woman made of flame and shadows, crossing the threshold of his house. + +The days which followed were not exactly such as Renouard had feared—yet +they were not better than his fears. They were accursed in all the moods +they brought him. But the general aspect of things was quiet. The +professor smoked innumerable pipes with the air of a worker on his +holiday, always in movement and looking at things with that mysteriously +sagacious aspect of men who are admittedly wiser than the rest of the +world. His white head of hair—whiter than anything within the horizon +except the broken water on the reefs—was glimpsed in every part of the +plantation always on the move under the white parasol. And once he +climbed the headland and appeared suddenly to those below, a white speck +elevated in the blue, with a diminutive but statuesque effect. + +Felicia Moorsom remained near the house. Sometimes she could be seen +with a despairing expression scribbling rapidly in her lock-up dairy. +But only for a moment. At the sound of Renouard’s footsteps she would +turn towards him her beautiful face, adorable in that calm which was like +a wilful, like a cruel ignoring of her tremendous power. Whenever she +sat on the verandah, on a chair more specially reserved for her use, +Renouard would stroll up and sit on the steps near her, mostly silent, +and often not trusting himself to turn his glance on her. She, very +still with her eyes half-closed, looked down on his head—so that to a +beholder (such as Professor Moorsom, for instance) she would appear to be +turning over in her mind profound thoughts about that man sitting at her +feet, his shoulders bowed a little, his hands listless—as if vanquished. +And, indeed, the moral poison of falsehood has such a decomposing power +that Renouard felt his old personality turn to dead dust. Often, in the +evening, when they sat outside conversing languidly in the dark, he felt +that he must rest his forehead on her feet and burst into tears. + +The professor’s sister suffered from some little strain caused by the +unstability of her own feelings toward Renouard. She could not tell +whether she really did dislike him or not. At times he appeared to her +most fascinating; and, though he generally ended by saying something +shockingly crude, she could not resist her inclination to talk with +him—at least not always. One day when her niece had left them alone on +the verandah she leaned forward in her chair—speckless, resplendent, and, +in her way, almost as striking a personality as her niece, who did not +resemble her in the least. “Dear Felicia has inherited her hair and the +greatest part of her appearance from her mother,” the maiden lady used to +tell people. + +She leaned forward then, confidentially. + +“Oh! Mr. Renouard! Haven’t you something comforting to say?” + +He looked up, as surprised as if a voice from heaven had spoken with this +perfect society intonation, and by the puzzled profundity of his blue +eyes fluttered the wax-flower of refined womanhood. She continued. +“For—I can speak to you openly on this tiresome subject—only think what a +terrible strain this hope deferred must be for Felicia’s heart—for her +nerves.” + +“Why speak to me about it,” he muttered feeling half choked suddenly. + +“Why! As a friend—a well-wisher—the kindest of hosts. I am afraid we +are really eating you out of house and home.” She laughed a little. +“Ah! When, when will this suspense be relieved! That poor lost Arthur! +I confess that I am almost afraid of the great moment. It will be like +seeing a ghost.” + +“Have you ever seen a ghost?” asked Renouard, in a dull voice. + +She shifted her hands a little. Her pose was perfect in its ease and +middle-aged grace. + +“Not actually. Only in a photograph. But we have many friends who had +the experience of apparitions.” + +“Ah! They see ghosts in London,” mumbled Renouard, not looking at her. + +“Frequently—in a certain very interesting set. But all sorts of people +do. We have a friend, a very famous author—his ghost is a girl. One of +my brother’s intimates is a very great man of science. He is friendly +with a ghost . . . Of a girl too,” she added in a voice as if struck for +the first time by the coincidence. “It is the photograph of that +apparition which I have seen. Very sweet. Most interesting. A little +cloudy naturally. . . . Mr. Renouard! I hope you are not a sceptic. +It’s so consoling to think. . .” + +“Those plantation boys of mine see ghosts too,” said Renouard grimly. + +The sister of the philosopher sat up stiffly. What crudeness! It was +always so with this strange young man. + +“Mr. Renouard! How can you compare the superstitious fancies of your +horrible savages with the manifestations . . . ” + +Words failed her. She broke off with a very faint primly angry smile. +She was perhaps the more offended with him because of that flutter at the +beginning of the conversation. And in a moment with perfect tact and +dignity she got up from her chair and left him alone. + +Renouard didn’t even look up. It was not the displeasure of the lady +which deprived him of his sleep that night. He was beginning to forget +what simple, honest sleep was like. His hammock from the ship had been +hung for him on a side verandah, and he spent his nights in it on his +back, his hands folded on his chest, in a sort of half conscious, +oppressed stupor. In the morning he watched with unseeing eyes the +headland come out a shapeless inkblot against the thin light of the false +dawn, pass through all the stages of daybreak to the deep purple of its +outlined mass nimbed gloriously with the gold of the rising sun. He +listened to the vague sounds of waking within the house: and suddenly he +became aware of Luiz standing by the hammock—obviously troubled. + +“What’s the matter?” + +“Tse! Tse! Tse!” + +“Well, what now? Trouble with the boys?” + +“No, master. The gentleman when I take him his bath water he speak to +me. He ask me—he ask—when, when, I think Mr. Walter, he come back.” + +The half-caste’s teeth chattered slightly. Renouard got out of the +hammock. + +“And he is here all the time—eh?” + +Luiz nodded a scared affirmative, but at once protested, “I no see him. +I never. Not I! The ignorant wild boys say they see . . . Something! +Ough!” + +He clapped his teeth on another short rattle, and stood there, shrunk, +blighted, like a man in a freezing blast. + +“And what did you say to the gentleman?” + +“I say I don’t know—and I clear out. I—I don’t like to speak of him.” + +“All right. We shall try to lay that poor ghost,” said Renouard +gloomily, going off to a small hut near by to dress. He was saying to +himself: “This fellow will end by giving me away. The last thing that I +. . . No! That mustn’t be.” And feeling his hand being forced he +discovered the whole extent of his cowardice. + + + +CHAPTER X + + +That morning wandering about his plantation, more like a frightened soul +than its creator and master, he dodged the white parasol bobbing up here +and there like a buoy adrift on a sea of dark-green plants. The crop +promised to be magnificent, and the fashionable philosopher of the age +took other than a merely scientific interest in the experiment. His +investments were judicious, but he had always some little money lying by, +for experiments. + +After lunch, being left alone with Renouard, he talked a little of +cultivation and such matters. Then suddenly: + +“By the way, is it true what my sister tells me, that your plantation +boys have been disturbed by a ghost?” + +Renouard, who since the ladies had left the table was not keeping such a +strict watch on himself, came out of his abstraction with a start and a +stiff smile. + +“My foreman had some trouble with them during my absence. They funk +working in a certain field on the slope of the hill.” + +“A ghost here!” exclaimed the amused professor. “Then our whole +conception of the psychology of ghosts must be revised. This island has +been uninhabited probably since the dawn of ages. How did a ghost come +here. By air or water? And why did it leave its native haunts. Was it +from misanthropy? Was he expelled from some community of spirits?” + +Renouard essayed to respond in the same tone. The words died on his +lips. Was it a man or a woman ghost, the professor inquired. + +“I don’t know.” Renouard made an effort to appear at ease. He had, he +said, a couple of Tahitian amongst his boys—a ghost-ridden race. They +had started the scare. They had probably brought their ghost with them. + +“Let us investigate the matter, Renouard,” proposed the professor half in +earnest. “We may make some interesting discoveries as to the state of +primitive minds, at any rate.” + +This was too much. Renouard jumped up and leaving the room went out and +walked about in front of the house. He would allow no one to force his +hand. Presently the professor joined him outside. He carried his +parasol, but had neither his book nor his pipe with him. Amiably serious +he laid his hand on his “dear young friend’s” arm. + +“We are all of us a little strung up,” he said. “For my part I have been +like sister Anne in the story. But I cannot see anything coming. +Anything that would be the least good for anybody—I mean.” + +Renouard had recovered sufficiently to murmur coldly his regret of this +waste of time. For that was what, he supposed, the professor had in his +mind. + +“Time,” mused Professor Moorsom. “I don’t know that time can be wasted. +But I will tell you, my dear friend, what this is: it is an awful waste +of life. I mean for all of us. Even for my sister, who has got a +headache and is gone to lie down.” + +He shook gently Renouard’s arm. “Yes, for all of us! One may meditate +on life endlessly, one may even have a poor opinion of it—but the fact +remains that we have only one life to live. And it is short. Think of +that, my young friend.” + +He released Renouard’s arm and stepped out of the shade opening his +parasol. It was clear that there was something more in his mind than +mere anxiety about the date of his lectures for fashionable audiences. +What did the man mean by his confounded platitudes? To Renouard, scared +by Luiz in the morning (for he felt that nothing could be more fatal than +to have his deception unveiled otherwise than by personal confession), +this talk sounded like encouragement or a warning from that man who +seemed to him to be very brazen and very subtle. It was like being +bullied by the dead and cajoled by the living into a throw of dice for a +supreme stake. + +Renouard went away to some distance from the house and threw himself down +in the shade of a tree. He lay there perfectly still with his forehead +resting on his folded arms, light-headed and thinking. It seemed to him +that he must be on fire, then that he had fallen into a cool whirlpool, a +smooth funnel of water swirling about with nauseating rapidity. And then +(it must have been a reminiscence of his boyhood) he was walking on the +dangerous thin ice of a river, unable to turn back. . . . Suddenly it +parted from shore to shore with a loud crack like the report of a gun. + +With one leap he found himself on his feet. All was peace, stillness, +sunshine. He walked away from there slowly. Had he been a gambler he +would have perhaps been supported in a measure by the mere excitement. +But he was not a gambler. He had always disdained that artificial manner +of challenging the fates. The bungalow came into view, bright and +pretty, and all about everything was peace, stillness, sunshine. . . . + +While he was plodding towards it he had a disagreeable sense of the dead +man’s company at his elbow. The ghost! He seemed to be everywhere but +in his grave. Could one ever shake him off? he wondered. At that moment +Miss Moorsom came out on the verandah; and at once, as if by a mystery of +radiating waves, she roused a great tumult in his heart, shook earth and +sky together—but he plodded on. Then like a grave song-note in the storm +her voice came to him ominously. + +“Ah! Mr. Renouard. . . ” He came up and smiled, but she was very +serious. “I can’t keep still any longer. Is there time to walk up this +headland and back before dark?” + +The shadows were lying lengthened on the ground; all was stillness and +peace. “No,” said Renouard, feeling suddenly as steady as a rock. “But +I can show you a view from the central hill which your father has not +seen. A view of reefs and of broken water without end, and of great +wheeling clouds of sea-birds.” + +She came down the verandah steps at once and they moved off. “You go +first,” he proposed, “and I’ll direct you. To the left.” + +She was wearing a short nankin skirt, a muslin blouse; he could see +through the thin stuff the skin of her shoulders, of her arms. The noble +delicacy of her neck caused him a sort of transport. “The path begins +where these three palms are. The only palms on the island.” + +“I see.” + +She never turned her head. After a while she observed: “This path looks +as if it had been made recently.” + +“Quite recently,” he assented very low. + +They went on climbing steadily without exchanging another word; and when +they stood on the top she gazed a long time before her. The low evening +mist veiled the further limit of the reefs. Above the enormous and +melancholy confusion, as of a fleet of wrecked islands, the restless +myriads of sea-birds rolled and unrolled dark ribbons on the sky, +gathered in clouds, soared and stooped like a play of shadows, for they +were too far for them to hear their cries. + +Renouard broke the silence in low tones. + +“They’ll be settling for the night presently.” She made no sound. Round +them all was peace and declining sunshine. Near by, the topmost pinnacle +of Malata, resembling the top of a buried tower, rose a rock, +weather-worn, grey, weary of watching the monotonous centuries of the +Pacific. Renouard leaned his shoulders against it. Felicia Moorsom +faced him suddenly, her splendid black eyes full on his face as though +she had made up her mind at last to destroy his wits once and for all. +Dazzled, he lowered his eyelids slowly. + +“Mr. Renouard! There is something strange in all this. Tell me where he +is?” + +He answered deliberately. + +“On the other side of this rock. I buried him there myself.” + +She pressed her hands to her breast, struggled for her breath for a +moment, then: “Ohhh! . . . You buried him! . . . What sort of man are +you? . . . You dared not tell! . . . He is another of your victims? . . . +You dared not confess that evening. . . . You must have killed him. What +could he have done to you? . . . You fastened on him some atrocious +quarrel and . . .” + +Her vengeful aspect, her poignant cries left him as unmoved as the weary +rock against which he leaned. He only raised his eyelids to look at her +and lowered them slowly. Nothing more. It silenced her. And as if +ashamed she made a gesture with her hand, putting away from her that +thought. He spoke, quietly ironic at first. + +“Ha! the legendary Renouard of sensitive idiots—the ruthless +adventurer—the ogre with a future. That was a parrot cry, Miss Moorsom. +I don’t think that the greatest fool of them all ever dared hint such a +stupid thing of me that I killed men for nothing. No, I had noticed this +man in a hotel. He had come from up country I was told, and was doing +nothing. I saw him sitting there lonely in a corner like a sick crow, +and I went over one evening to talk to him. Just on impulse. He wasn’t +impressive. He was pitiful. My worst enemy could have told you he +wasn’t good enough to be one of Renouard’s victims. It didn’t take me +long to judge that he was drugging himself. Not drinking. Drugs.” + +“Ah! It’s now that you are trying to murder him,” she cried. + +“Really. Always the Renouard of shopkeepers’ legend. Listen! I would +never have been jealous of him. And yet I am jealous of the air you +breathe, of the soil you tread on, of the world that sees you—moving +free—not mine. But never mind. I rather liked him. For a certain +reason I proposed he should come to be my assistant here. He said he +believed this would save him. It did not save him from death. It came +to him as it were from nothing—just a fall. A mere slip and tumble of +ten feet into a ravine. But it seems he had been hurt before +up-country—by a horse. He ailed and ailed. No, he was not a +steel-tipped man. And his poor soul seemed to have been damaged too. It +gave way very soon.” + +“This is tragic!” Felicia Moorsom whispered with feeling. Renouard’s +lips twitched, but his level voice continued mercilessly. + +“That’s the story. He rallied a little one night and said he wanted to +tell me something. I, being a gentleman, he said, he could confide in +me. I told him that he was mistaken. That there was a good deal of a +plebeian in me, that he couldn’t know. He seemed disappointed. He +muttered something about his innocence and something that sounded like a +curse on some woman, then turned to the wall and—just grew cold.” + +“On a woman,” cried Miss Moorsom indignantly. “What woman?” + +“I wonder!” said Renouard, raising his eyes and noting the crimson of her +ear-lobes against the live whiteness of her complexion, the sombre, as if +secret, night-splendour of her eyes under the writhing flames of her +hair. “Some woman who wouldn’t believe in that poor innocence of his. . +. Yes. You probably. And now you will not believe in me—not even in me +who must in truth be what I am—even to death. No! You won’t. And yet, +Felicia, a woman like you and a man like me do not often come together on +this earth.” + +The flame of her glorious head scorched his face. He flung his hat far +away, and his suddenly lowered eyelids brought out startlingly his +resemblance to antique bronze, the profile of Pallas, still, austere, +bowed a little in the shadow of the rock. “Oh! If you could only +understand the truth that is in me!” he added. + +She waited, as if too astounded to speak, till he looked up again, and +then with unnatural force as if defending herself from some unspoken +aspersion, “It’s I who stand for truth here! Believe in you! In you, +who by a heartless falsehood—and nothing else, nothing else, do you +hear?—have brought me here, deceived, cheated, as in some abominable +farce!” She sat down on a boulder, rested her chin in her hands, in the +pose of simple grief—mourning for herself. + +“It only wanted this. Why! Oh! Why is it that ugliness, ridicule, and +baseness must fall across my path.” + +On that height, alone with the sky, they spoke to each other as if the +earth had fallen away from under their feet. + +“Are you grieving for your dignity? He was a mediocre soul and could +have given you but an unworthy existence.” + +She did not even smile at those words, but, superb, as if lifting a +corner of the veil, she turned on him slowly. + +“And do you imagine I would have devoted myself to him for such a +purpose! Don’t you know that reparation was due to him from me? A +sacred debt—a fine duty. To redeem him would not have been in my power—I +know it. But he was blameless, and it was for me to come forward. Don’t +you see that in the eyes of the world nothing could have rehabilitated +him so completely as his marriage with me? No word of evil could be +whispered of him after I had given him my hand. As to giving myself up +to anything less than the shaping of a man’s destiny—if I thought I could +do it I would abhor myself. . . .” She spoke with authority in her deep +fascinating, unemotional voice. Renouard meditated, gloomy, as if over +some sinister riddle of a beautiful sphinx met on the wild road of his +life. + +“Yes. Your father was right. You are one of these aristocrats . . .” + +She drew herself up haughtily. + +“What do you say? My father! . . . I an aristocrat.” + +“Oh! I don’t mean that you are like the men and women of the time of +armours, castles, and great deeds. Oh, no! They stood on the naked +soil, had traditions to be faithful to, had their feet on this earth of +passions and death which is not a hothouse. They would have been too +plebeian for you since they had to lead, to suffer with, to understand +the commonest humanity. No, you are merely of the topmost layer, +disdainful and superior, the mere pure froth and bubble on the +inscrutable depths which some day will toss you out of existence. But +you are you! You are you! You are the eternal love itself—only, O +Divinity, it isn’t your body, it is your soul that is made of foam.” + +She listened as if in a dream. He had succeeded so well in his effort to +drive back the flood of his passion that his life itself seemed to run +with it out of his body. At that moment he felt as one dead speaking. +But the headlong wave returning with tenfold force flung him on her +suddenly, with open arms and blazing eyes. She found herself like a +feather in his grasp, helpless, unable to struggle, with her feet off the +ground. But this contact with her, maddening like too much felicity, +destroyed its own end. Fire ran through his veins, turned his passion to +ashes, burnt him out and left him empty, without force—almost without +desire. He let her go before she could cry out. And she was so used to +the forms of repression enveloping, softening the crude impulses of old +humanity that she no longer believed in their existence as if it were an +exploded legend. She did not recognise what had happened to her. She +came safe out of his arms, without a struggle, not even having felt +afraid. + +“What’s the meaning of this?” she said, outraged but calm in a scornful +way. + +He got down on his knees in silence, bent low to her very feet, while she +looked down at him, a little surprised, without animosity, as if merely +curious to see what he would do. Then, while he remained bowed to the +ground pressing the hem of her skirt to his lips, she made a slight +movement. He got up. + +“No,” he said. “Were you ever so much mine what could I do with you +without your consent? No. You don’t conquer a wraith, cold mist, stuff +of dreams, illusion. It must come to you and cling to your breast. And +then! Oh! And then!” + +All ecstasy, all expression went out of his face. + +“Mr. Renouard,” she said, “though you can have no claim on my +consideration after having decoyed me here for the vile purpose, +apparently, of gloating over me as your possible prey, I will tell you +that I am not perhaps the extraordinary being you think I am. You may +believe me. Here I stand for truth itself.” + +“What’s that to me what you are?” he answered. “At a sign from you I +would climb up to the seventh heaven to bring you down to earth for my +own—and if I saw you steeped to the lips in vice, in crime, in mud, I +would go after you, take you to my arms—wear you for an incomparable +jewel on my breast. And that’s love—true love—the gift and the curse of +the gods. There is no other.” + +The truth vibrating in his voice made her recoil slightly, for she was +not fit to hear it—not even a little—not even one single time in her +life. It was revolting to her; and in her trouble, perhaps prompted by +the suggestion of his name or to soften the harshness of expression, for +she was obscurely moved, she spoke to him in French. + +“_Assez_! _J’ai horreur de tout cela_,” she said. + +He was white to his very lips, but he was trembling no more. The dice +had been cast, and not even violence could alter the throw. She passed +by him unbendingly, and he followed her down the path. After a time she +heard him saying: + +“And your dream is to influence a human destiny?” + +“Yes!” she answered curtly, unabashed, with a woman’s complete assurance. + +“Then you may rest content. You have done it.” + +She shrugged her shoulders slightly. But just before reaching the end of +the path she relented, stopped, and went back to him. + +“I don’t suppose you are very anxious for people to know how near you +came to absolute turpitude. You may rest easy on that point. I shall +speak to my father, of course, and we will agree to say that he has +died—nothing more.” + +“Yes,” said Renouard in a lifeless voice. “He is dead. His very ghost +shall be done with presently.” + +She went on, but he remained standing stock still in the dusk. She had +already reached the three palms when she heard behind her a loud peal of +laughter, cynical and joyless, such as is heard in smoking-rooms at the +end of a scandalous story. It made her feel positively faint for a +moment. + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Slowly a complete darkness enveloped Geoffrey Renouard. His resolution +had failed him. Instead of following Felicia into the house, he had +stopped under the three palms, and leaning against a smooth trunk had +abandoned himself to a sense of an immense deception and the feeling of +extreme fatigue. This walk up the hill and down again was like the +supreme effort of an explorer trying to penetrate the interior of an +unknown country, the secret of which is too well defended by its cruel +and barren nature. Decoyed by a mirage, he had gone too far—so far that +there was no going back. His strength was at an end. For the first time +in his life he had to give up, and with a sort of despairing +self-possession he tried to understand the cause of the defeat. He did +not ascribe it to that absurd dead man. + +The hesitating shadow of Luiz approached him unnoticed till it spoke +timidly. Renouard started. + +“Eh? What? Dinner waiting? You must say I beg to be excused. I can’t +come. But I shall see them to-morrow morning, at the landing place. +Take your orders from the professor as to the sailing of the schooner. +Go now.” + +Luiz, dumbfounded, retreated into the darkness. Renouard did not move, +but hours afterwards, like the bitter fruit of his immobility, the words: +“I had nothing to offer to her vanity,” came from his lips in the silence +of the island. And it was then only that he stirred, only to wear the +night out in restless tramping up and down the various paths of the +plantation. Luiz, whose sleep was made light by the consciousness of +some impending change, heard footsteps passing by his hut, the firm tread +of the master; and turning on his mats emitted a faint Tse! Tse! Tse! of +deep concern. + +Lights had been burning in the bungalow almost all through the night; and +with the first sign of day began the bustle of departure. House boys +walked processionally carrying suit-cases and dressing-bags down to the +schooner’s boat, which came to the landing place at the bottom of the +garden. Just as the rising sun threw its golden nimbus around the purple +shape of the headland, the Planter of Malata was perceived pacing +bare-headed the curve of the little bay. He exchanged a few words with +the sailing-master of the schooner, then remained by the boat, standing +very upright, his eyes on the ground, waiting. + +He had not long to wait. Into the cool, overshadowed garden the +professor descended first, and came jauntily down the path in a lively +cracking of small shells. With his closed parasol hooked on his forearm, +and a book in his hand, he resembled a banal tourist more than was +permissible to a man of his unique distinction. He waved the disengaged +arm from a distance, but at close quarters, arrested before Renouard’s +immobility, he made no offer to shake hands. He seemed to appraise the +aspect of the man with a sharp glance, and made up his mind. + +“We are going back by Suez,” he began almost boisterously. “I have been +looking up the sailing lists. If the zephirs of your Pacific are only +moderately propitious I think we are sure to catch the mail boat due in +Marseilles on the 18th of March. This will suit me excellently. . . .” +He lowered his tone. “My dear young friend, I’m deeply grateful to you.” + +Renouard’s set lips moved. + +“Why are you grateful to me?” + +“Ah! Why? In the first place you might have made us miss the next boat, +mightn’t you? . . . I don’t thank you for your hospitality. You can’t be +angry with me for saying that I am truly thankful to escape from it. But +I am grateful to you for what you have done, and—for being what you are.” + +It was difficult to define the flavour of that speech, but Renouard +received it with an austerely equivocal smile. The professor stepping +into the boat opened his parasol and sat down in the stern-sheets waiting +for the ladies. No sound of human voice broke the fresh silence of the +morning while they walked the broad path, Miss Moorsom a little in +advance of her aunt. + +When she came abreast of him Renouard raised his head. + +“Good-bye, Mr. Renouard,” she said in a low voice, meaning to pass on; +but there was such a look of entreaty in the blue gleam of his sunken +eyes that after an imperceptible hesitation she laid her hand, which was +ungloved, in his extended palm. + +“Will you condescend to remember me?” he asked, while an emotion with +which she was angry made her pale cheeks flush and her black eyes +sparkle. + +“This is a strange request for you to make,” she said, exaggerating the +coldness of her tone. + +“Is it? Impudent perhaps. Yet I am not so guilty as you think; and bear +in mind that to me you can never make reparation.” + +“Reparation? To you! It is you who can offer me no reparation for the +offence against my feelings—and my person; for what reparation can be +adequate for your odious and ridiculous plot so scornful in its +implication, so humiliating to my pride. No! I don’t want to remember +you.” + +Unexpectedly, with a tightening grip, he pulled her nearer to him, and +looking into her eyes with fearless despair— + +“You’ll have to. I shall haunt you,” he said firmly. + +Her hand was wrenched out of his grasp before he had time to release it. +Felicia Moorsom stepped into the boat, sat down by the side of her +father, and breathed tenderly on her crushed fingers. + +The professor gave her a sidelong look—nothing more. But the professor’s +sister, yet on shore, had put up her long-handle double eye-glass to look +at the scene. She dropped it with a faint rattle. + +“I’ve never in my life heard anything so crude said to a lady,” she +murmured, passing before Renouard with a perfectly erect head. When, a +moment afterwards, softening suddenly, she turned to throw a good-bye to +that young man, she saw only his back in the distance moving towards the +bungalow. She watched him go in—amazed—before she too left the soil of +Malata. + +Nobody disturbed Renouard in that room where he had shut himself in to +breathe the evanescent perfume of her who for him was no more, till late +in the afternoon when the half-caste was heard on the other side of the +door. + +He wanted the master to know that the trader _Janet_ was just entering +the cove. + +Renouard’s strong voice on his side of the door gave him most unexpected +instructions. He was to pay off the boys with the cash in the office and +arrange with the captain of the _Janet_ to take every worker away from +Malata, returning them to their respective homes. An order on the +Dunster firm would be given to him in payment. + +And again the silence of the bungalow remained unbroken till, next +morning, the half-caste came to report that everything was done. The +plantation boys were embarking now. + +Through a crack in the door a hand thrust at him a piece of paper, and +the door slammed to so sharply that Luiz stepped back. Then approaching +cringingly the keyhole, in a propitiatory tone he asked: + +“Do I go too, master?” + +“Yes. You too. Everybody.” + +“Master stop here alone?” + +Silence. And the half-caste’s eyes grew wide with wonder. But he also, +like those “ignorant savages,” the plantation boys, was only too glad to +leave an island haunted by the ghost of a white man. He backed away +noiselessly from the mysterious silence in the closed room, and only in +the very doorway of the bungalow allowed himself to give vent to his +feelings by a deprecatory and pained— + +“Tse! Tse! Tse!” + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The Moorsoms did manage to catch the homeward mail boat all right, but +had only twenty-four hours in town. Thus the sentimental Willie could +not see very much of them. This did not prevent him afterwards from +relating at great length, with manly tears in his eyes, how poor Miss +Moorsom—the fashionable and clever beauty—found her betrothed in Malata +only to see him die in her arms. Most people were deeply touched by the +sad story. It was the talk of a good many days. + +But the all-knowing Editor, Renouard’s only friend and crony, wanted to +know more than the rest of the world. From professional incontinence, +perhaps, he thirsted for a full cup of harrowing detail. And when he +noticed Renouard’s schooner lying in port day after day he sought the +sailing master to learn the reason. The man told him that such were his +instructions. He had been ordered to lie there a month before returning +to Malata. And the month was nearly up. “I will ask you to give me a +passage,” said the Editor. + +He landed in the morning at the bottom of the garden and found peace, +stillness, sunshine reigning everywhere, the doors and windows of the +bungalow standing wide open, no sight of a human being anywhere, the +plants growing rank and tall on the deserted fields. For hours the +Editor and the schooner’s crew, excited by the mystery, roamed over the +island shouting Renouard’s name; and at last set themselves in grim +silence to explore systematically the uncleared bush and the deeper +ravines in search of his corpse. What had happened? Had he been +murdered by the boys? Or had he simply, capricious and secretive, +abandoned his plantation taking the people with him. It was impossible +to tell what had happened. At last, towards the decline of the day, the +Editor and the sailing master discovered a track of sandals crossing a +strip of sandy beach on the north shore of the bay. Following this track +fearfully, they passed round the spur of the headland, and there on a +large stone found the sandals, Renouard’s white jacket, and the Malay +sarong of chequered pattern which the planter of Malata was well known to +wear when going to bathe. These things made a little heap, and the +sailor remarked, after gazing at it in silence— + +“Birds have been hovering over this for many a day.” + +“He’s gone bathing and got drowned,” cried the Editor in dismay. + +“I doubt it, sir. If he had been drowned anywhere within a mile from the +shore the body would have been washed out on the reefs. And our boats +have found nothing so far.” + +Nothing was ever found—and Renouard’s disappearance remained in the main +inexplicable. For to whom could it have occurred that a man would set +out calmly to swim beyond the confines of life—with a steady stroke—his +eyes fixed on a star! + +Next evening, from the receding schooner, the Editor looked back for the +last time at the deserted island. A black cloud hung listlessly over the +high rock on the middle hill; and under the mysterious silence of that +shadow Malata lay mournful, with an air of anguish in the wild sunset, as +if remembering the heart that was broken there. + + * * * * * + +_Dec._ 1913. + + + + +THE PARTNER + + +“And that be hanged for a silly yarn. The boatmen here in Westport have +been telling this lie to the summer visitors for years. The sort that +gets taken out for a row at a shilling a head—and asks foolish +questions—must be told something to pass the time away. D’ye know +anything more silly than being pulled in a boat along a beach? . . . It’s +like drinking weak lemonade when you aren’t thirsty. I don’t know why +they do it! They don’t even get sick.” + +A forgotten glass of beer stood at his elbow; the locality was a small +respectable smoking-room of a small respectable hotel, and a taste for +forming chance acquaintances accounts for my sitting up late with him. +His great, flat, furrowed cheeks were shaven; a thick, square wisp of +white hairs hung from his chin; its waggling gave additional point to his +deep utterance; and his general contempt for mankind with its activities +and moralities was expressed in the rakish set of his big soft hat of +black felt with a large rim, which he kept always on his head. + +His appearance was that of an old adventurer, retired after many unholy +experiences in the darkest parts of the earth; but I had every reason to +believe that he had never been outside England. From a casual remark +somebody dropped I gathered that in his early days he must have been +somehow connected with shipping—with ships in docks. Of individuality he +had plenty. And it was this which attracted my attention at first. But +he was not easy to classify, and before the end of the week I gave him up +with the vague definition, “an imposing old ruffian.” + +One rainy afternoon, oppressed by infinite boredom, I went into the +smoking-room. He was sitting there in absolute immobility, which was +really fakir-like and impressive. I began to wonder what could be the +associations of that sort of man, his “milieu,” his private connections, +his views, his morality, his friends, and even his wife—when to my +surprise he opened a conversation in a deep, muttering voice. + +I must say that since he had learned from somebody that I was a writer of +stories he had been acknowledging my existence by means of some vague +growls in the morning. + +He was essentially a taciturn man. There was an effect of rudeness in +his fragmentary sentences. It was some time before I discovered that +what he would be at was the process by which stories—stories for +periodicals—were produced. + +What could one say to a fellow like that? But I was bored to death; the +weather continued impossible; and I resolved to be amiable. + +“And so you make these tales up on your own. How do they ever come into +your head?” he rumbled. + +I explained that one generally got a hint for a tale. + +“What sort of hint?” + +“Well, for instance,” I said, “I got myself rowed out to the rocks the +other day. My boatman told me of the wreck on these rocks nearly twenty +years ago. That could be used as a hint for a mainly descriptive bit of +story with some such title as ‘In the Channel,’ for instance.” + +It was then that he flew out at the boatmen and the summer visitors who +listen to their tales. Without moving a muscle of his face he emitted a +powerful “Rot,” from somewhere out of the depths of his chest, and went +on in his hoarse, fragmentary mumble. “Stare at the silly rocks—nod +their silly heads [the visitors, I presume]. What do they think a man +is—blown-out paper bag or what?—go off pop like that when he’s hit—Damn +silly yarn—Hint indeed! . . . A lie?” + +You must imagine this statuesque ruffian enhaloed in the black rim of his +hat, letting all this out as an old dog growls sometimes, with his head +up and staring-away eyes. + +“Indeed!” I exclaimed. “Well, but even if untrue it _is_ a hint, +enabling me to see these rocks, this gale they speak of, the heavy seas, +etc., etc., in relation to mankind. The struggle against natural forces +and the effect of the issue on at least one, say, exalted—” + +He interrupted me by an aggressive— + +“Would truth be any good to you?” + +“I shouldn’t like to say,” I answered, cautiously. “It’s said that truth +is stranger than fiction.” + +“Who says that?” he mouthed. + +“Oh! Nobody in particular.” + +I turned to the window; for the contemptuous beggar was oppressive to +look at, with his immovable arm on the table. I suppose my unceremonious +manner provoked him to a comparatively long speech. + +“Did you ever see such a silly lot of rocks? Like plums in a slice of +cold pudding.” + +I was looking at them—an acre or more of black dots scattered on the +steel-grey shades of the level sea, under the uniform gossamer grey mist +with a formless brighter patch in one place—the veiled whiteness of the +cliff coming through, like a diffused, mysterious radiance. It was a +delicate and wonderful picture, something expressive, suggestive, and +desolate, a symphony in grey and black—a Whistler. But the next thing +said by the voice behind me made me turn round. It growled out contempt +for all associated notions of roaring seas with concise energy, then went +on— + +“I—no such foolishness—looking at the rocks out there—more likely call to +mind an office—I used to look in sometimes at one time—office in +London—one of them small streets behind Cannon Street Station. . . ” + +He was very deliberate; not jerky, only fragmentary; at times profane. + +“That’s a rather remote connection,” I observed, approaching him. + +“Connection? To Hades with your connections. It was an accident.” + +“Still,” I said, “an accident has its backward and forward connections, +which, if they could be set forth—” + +Without moving he seemed to lend an attentive ear. + +“Aye! Set forth. That’s perhaps what you could do. Couldn’t you now? +There’s no sea life in this connection. But you can put it in out of +your head—if you like.” + +“Yes. I could, if necessary,” I said. “Sometimes it pays to put in a +lot out of one’s head, and sometimes it doesn’t. I mean that the story +isn’t worth it. Everything’s in that.” + +It amused me to talk to him like this. He reflected audibly that he +guessed story-writers were out after money like the rest of the world +which had to live by its wits: and that it was extraordinary how far +people who were out after money would go. . . Some of them. + +Then he made a sally against sea life. Silly sort of life, he called it. +No opportunities, no experience, no variety, nothing. Some fine men came +out of it—he admitted—but no more chance in the world if put to it than +fly. Kids. So Captain Harry Dunbar. Good sailor. Great name as a +skipper. Big man; short side-whiskers going grey, fine face, loud voice. +A good fellow, but no more up to people’s tricks than a baby. + +“That’s the captain of the _Sagamore_ you’re talking about,” I said, +confidently. + +After a low, scornful “Of course” he seemed now to hold on the wall with +his fixed stare the vision of that city office, “at the back of Cannon +Street Station,” while he growled and mouthed a fragmentary description, +jerking his chin up now and then, as if angry. + +It was, according to his account, a modest place of business, not shady +in any sense, but out of the way, in a small street now rebuilt from end +to end. “Seven doors from the Cheshire Cat public house under the +railway bridge. I used to take my lunch there when my business called me +to the city. Cloete would come in to have his chop and make the girl +laugh. No need to talk much, either, for that. Nothing but the way he +would twinkle his spectacles on you and give a twitch of his thick mouth +was enough to start you off before he began one of his little tales. +Funny fellow, Cloete. C-l-o-e-t-e—Cloete.” + +“What was he—a Dutchman?” I asked, not seeing in the least what all this +had to do with the Westport boatmen and the Westport summer visitors and +this extraordinary old fellow’s irritable view of them as liars and +fools. “Devil knows,” he grunted, his eyes on the wall as if not to miss +a single movement of a cinematograph picture. “Spoke nothing but +English, anyway. First I saw him—comes off a ship in dock from the +States—passenger. Asks me for a small hotel near by. Wanted to be quiet +and have a look round for a few days. I took him to a place—friend of +mine. . . Next time—in the City—Hallo! You’re very obliging—have a +drink. Talks plenty about himself. Been years in the States. All sorts +of business all over the place. With some patent medicine people, too. +Travels. Writes advertisements and all that. Tells me funny stories. +Tall, loose-limbed fellow. Black hair up on end, like a brush; long +face, long legs, long arms, twinkle in his specs, jocular way of +speaking—in a low voice. . . See that?” + +I nodded, but he was not looking at me. + +“Never laughed so much in my life. The beggar—would make you laugh +telling you how he skinned his own father. He was up to that, too. A +man who’s been in the patent-medicine trade will be up to anything from +pitch-and-toss to wilful murder. And that’s a bit of hard truth for you. +Don’t mind what they do—think they can carry off anything and talk +themselves out of anything—all the world’s a fool to them. Business man, +too, Cloete. Came over with a few hundred pounds. Looking for something +to do—in a quiet way. Nothing like the old country, after all, says he. . . +And so we part—I with more drinks in me than I was used to. After a +time, perhaps six months or so, I run up against him again in Mr. George +Dunbar’s office. Yes, _that_ office. It wasn’t often that I . . . +However, there was a bit of his cargo in a ship in dock that I wanted to +ask Mr. George about. In comes Cloete out of the room at the back with +some papers in his hand. Partner. You understand?” + +“Aha!” I said. “The few hundred pounds.” + +“And that tongue of his,” he growled. “Don’t forget that tongue. Some +of his tales must have opened George Dunbar’s eyes a bit as to what +business means.” + +“A plausible fellow,” I suggested. + +“H’m! You must have it in your own way—of course. Well. Partner. +George Dunbar puts his top-hat on and tells me to wait a moment. . . +George always looked as though he were making a few thousands a year—a +city swell. . . Come along, old man! And he and Captain Harry go out +together—some business with a solicitor round the corner. Captain Harry, +when he was in England, used to turn up in his brother’s office regularly +about twelve. Sat in a corner like a good boy, reading the paper and +smoking his pipe. So they go out. . . Model brothers, says Cloete—two +love-birds—I am looking after the tinned-fruit side of this cozy little +show. . . Gives me that sort of talk. Then by-and-by: What sort of old +thing is that _Sagamore_? Finest ship out—eh? I dare say all ships are +fine to you. You live by them. I tell you what; I would just as soon +put my money into an old stocking. Sooner!” + + * * * * * + +He drew a breath, and I noticed his hand, lying loosely on the table, +close slowly into a fist. In that immovable man it was startling, +ominous, like the famed nod of the Commander. + +“So, already at that time—note—already,” he growled. + +“But hold on,” I interrupted. “The _Sagamore_ belonged to Mundy and +Rogers, I’ve been told.” + +He snorted contemptuously. “Damn boatmen—know no better. Flew the +firm’s _house-flag_. That’s another thing. Favour. It was like this: +When old man Dunbar died, Captain Harry was already in command with the +firm. George chucked the bank he was clerking in—to go on his own with +what there was to share after the old chap. George was a smart man. +Started warehousing; then two or three things at a time: wood-pulp, +preserved-fruit trade, and so on. And Captain Harry let him have his +share to work with. . . I am provided for in my ship, he says. . . But +by-and-by Mundy and Rogers begin to sell out to foreigners all their +ships—go into steam right away. Captain Harry gets very upset—lose +command, part with the ship he was fond of—very wretched. Just then, so +it happened, the brothers came in for some money—an old woman died or +something. Quite a tidy bit. Then young George says: There’s enough +between us two to buy the _Sagamore_ with. . . But you’ll need more money +for your business, cries Captain Harry—and the other laughs at him: My +business is going on all right. Why, I can go out and make a handful of +sovereigns while you are trying to get your pipe to draw, old man. . . +Mundy and Rogers very friendly about it: Certainly, Captain. And we will +manage her for you, if you like, as if she were still our own. . . Why, +with a connection like that it was good investment to buy that ship. +Good! Aye, at the time.” + +The turning of his head slightly toward me at this point was like a sign +of strong feeling in any other man. + +“You’ll mind that this was long before Cloete came into it at all,” he +muttered, warningly. + +“Yes. I will mind,” I said. “We generally say: some years passed. +That’s soon done.” + +He eyed me for a while silently in an unseeing way, as if engrossed in +the thought of the years so easily dealt with; his own years, too, they +were, the years before and the years (not so many) after Cloete came upon +the scene. When he began to speak again, I discerned his intention to +point out to me, in his obscure and graphic manner, the influence on +George Dunbar of long association with Cloete’s easy moral standards, +unscrupulously persuasive gift of humour (funny fellow), and +adventurously reckless disposition. He desired me anxiously to elaborate +this view, and I assured him it was quite within my powers. He wished me +also to understand that George’s business had its ups and downs (the +other brother was meantime sailing to and fro serenely); that he got into +low water at times, which worried him rather, because he had married a +young wife with expensive tastes. He was having a pretty anxious time of +it generally; and just then Cloete ran up in the city somewhere against a +man working a patent medicine (the fellow’s old trade) with some success, +but which, with capital, capital to the tune of thousands to be spent +with both hands on advertising, could be turned into a great +thing—infinitely better-paying than a gold-mine. Cloete became excited +at the possibilities of that sort of business, in which he was an expert. +I understood that George’s partner was all on fire from the contact with +this unique opportunity. + +“So he goes in every day into George’s room about eleven, and sings that +tune till George gnashes his teeth with rage. Do shut up. What’s the +good? No money. Hardly any to go on with, let alone pouring thousands +into advertising. Never dare propose to his brother Harry to sell the +ship. Couldn’t think of it. Worry him to death. It would be like the +end of the world coming. And certainly not for a business of that kind! +. . . Do you think it would be a swindle? asks Cloete, twitching his +mouth. . . George owns up: No—would be no better than a squeamish ass if +he thought that, after all these years in business. + +“Cloete looks at him hard—Never thought of _selling_ the ship. Expected +the blamed old thing wouldn’t fetch half her insured value by this time. +Then George flies out at him. What’s the meaning, then, of these silly +jeers at ship-owning for the last three weeks? Had enough of them, +anyhow. + +“Angry at having his mouth made to water, see. Cloete don’t get excited. . . +I am no squeamish ass, either, says he, very slowly. ’Tisn’t selling +your old _Sagamore_ wants. The blamed thing wants tomahawking (seems the +name _Sagamore_ means an Indian chief or something. The figure-head was +a half-naked savage with a feather over one ear and a hatchet in his +belt). Tomahawking, says he. + +“What do you mean? asks George. . . Wrecking—it could be managed with +perfect safety, goes on Cloete—your brother would then put in his share +of insurance money. Needn’t tell him exactly what for. He thinks you’re +the smartest business man that ever lived. Make his fortune, too. . . +George grips the desk with both hands in his rage. . . You think my +brother’s a man to cast away his ship on purpose. I wouldn’t even dare +think of such a thing in the same room with him—the finest fellow that +ever lived. . . Don’t make such noise; they’ll hear you outside, says +Cloete; and he tells him that his brother is the salted pattern of all +virtues, but all that’s necessary is to induce him to stay ashore for a +voyage—for a holiday—take a rest—why not? . . . In fact, I have in view +somebody up to that sort of game—Cloete whispers. + +“George nearly chokes. . . So you think I am of that sort—you think _me_ +capable—What do you take me for? . . . He almost loses his head, while +Cloete keeps cool, only gets white about the gills. . . I take you for a +man who will be most cursedly hard up before long. . . He goes to the +door and sends away the clerks—there were only two—to take their lunch +hour. Comes back . . . What are you indignant about? Do I want you to +rob the widow and orphan? Why, man! Lloyd’s a corporation, it hasn’t +got a body to starve. There’s forty or more of them perhaps who +underwrote the lines on that silly ship of yours. Not one human being +would go hungry or cold for it. They take every risk into consideration. +Everything I tell you. . . That sort of talk. H’m! George too upset to +speak—only gurgles and waves his arms; so sudden, you see. The other, +warming his back at the fire, goes on. Wood-pulp business next door to a +failure. Tinned-fruit trade nearly played out. . . You’re frightened, he +says; but the law is only meant to frighten fools away. . . And he shows +how safe casting away that ship would be. Premiums paid for so many, +many years. No shadow of suspicion could arise. And, dash it all! a +ship must meet her end some day. . . + +“I am not frightened. I am indignant,” says George Dunbar. + +“Cloete boiling with rage inside. Chance of a lifetime—his chance! And +he says kindly: Your wife’ll be much more indignant when you ask her to +get out of that pretty house of yours and pile in into a two-pair +back—with kids perhaps, too. . . + +“George had no children. Married a couple of years; looked forward to a +kid or two very much. Feels more upset than ever. Talks about an honest +man for father, and so on. Cloete grins: You be quick before they come, +and they’ll have a rich man for father, and no one the worse for it. +That’s the beauty of the thing. + +“George nearly cries. I believe he did cry at odd times. This went on +for weeks. He couldn’t quarrel with Cloete. Couldn’t pay off his few +hundreds; and besides, he was used to have him about. Weak fellow, +George. Cloete generous, too. . . Don’t think of my little pile, says +he. Of course it’s gone when we have to shut up. But I don’t care, he +says. . . And then there was George’s new wife. When Cloete dines there, +the beggar puts on a dress suit; little woman liked it; . . . Mr. Cloete, +my husband’s partner; such a clever man, man of the world, so amusing! . . . +When he dines there and they are alone: Oh, Mr. Cloete, I wish George +would do something to improve our prospects. Our position is really so +mediocre. . . And Cloete smiles, but isn’t surprised, because he had put +all these notions himself into her empty head. . . What your husband +wants is enterprise, a little audacity. You can encourage him best, Mrs. +Dunbar. . . She was a silly, extravagant little fool. Had made George +take a house in Norwood. Live up to a lot of people better off than +themselves. I saw her once; silk dress, pretty boots, all feathers and +scent, pink face. More like the Promenade at the Alhambra than a decent +home, it looked to me. But some women do get a devil of a hold on a +man.” + +“Yes, some do,” I assented. “Even when the man is the husband.” + +“My missis,” he addressed me unexpectedly, in a solemn, surprisingly +hollow tone, “could wind me round her little finger. I didn’t find it +out till she was gone. Aye. But she was a woman of sense, while that +piece of goods ought to have been walking the streets, and that’s all I +can say. . . You must make her up out of your head. You will know the +sort.” + +“Leave all that to me,” I said. + +“H’m!” he grunted, doubtfully, then going back to his scornful tone: “A +month or so afterwards the _Sagamore_ arrives home. All very jolly at +first. . . Hallo, George boy! Hallo, Harry, old man! . . . But by and by +Captain Harry thinks his clever brother is not looking very well. And +George begins to look worse. He can’t get rid of Cloete’s notion. It +has stuck in his head. . . There’s nothing wrong—quite well. . . Captain +Harry still anxious. Business going all right, eh? Quite right. Lots +of business. Good business. . . Of course Captain Harry believes that +easily. Starts chaffing his brother in his jolly way about rolling in +money. George’s shirt sticks to his back with perspiration, and he feels +quite angry with the captain. . . The fool, he says to himself. Rolling +in money, indeed! And then he thinks suddenly: Why not? . . . Because +Cloete’s notion has got hold of his mind. + +“But next day he weakens and says to Cloete . . . Perhaps it would be +best to sell. Couldn’t you talk to my brother? and Cloete explains to +him over again for the twentieth time why selling wouldn’t do, anyhow. +No! The _Sagamore_ must be tomahawked—as he would call it; to spare +George’s feelings, maybe. But every time he says the word, George +shudders. . . I’ve got a man at hand competent for the job who will do +the trick for five hundred, and only too pleased at the chance, says +Cloete. . . George shuts his eyes tight at that sort of talk—but at the +same time he thinks: Humbug! There can be no such man. And yet if there +was such a man it would be safe enough—perhaps. + +“And Cloete always funny about it. He couldn’t talk about anything +without it seeming there was a great joke in it somewhere. . . Now, says +he, I know you are a moral citizen, George. Morality is mostly funk, and +I think you’re the funkiest man I ever came across in my travels. Why, +you are afraid to speak to your brother. Afraid to open your mouth to +him with a fortune for us all in sight. . . George flares up at this: no, +he ain’t afraid; he will speak; bangs fist on the desk. And Cloete pats +him on the back. . . We’ll be made men presently, he says. + +“But the first time George attempts to speak to Captain Harry his heart +slides down into his boots. Captain Harry only laughs at the notion of +staying ashore. He wants no holiday, not he. But Jane thinks of +remaining in England this trip. Go about a bit and see some of her +people. Jane was the Captain’s wife; round-faced, pleasant lady. George +gives up that time; but Cloete won’t let him rest. So he tries again; +and the Captain frowns. He frowns because he’s puzzled. He can’t make +it out. He has no notion of living away from his _Sagamore_. . . + +“Ah!” I cried. “Now I understand.” + +“No, you don’t,” he growled, his black, contemptuous stare turning on me +crushingly. + +“I beg your pardon,” I murmured. + +“H’m! Very well, then. Captain Harry looks very stern, and George +crumples all up inside. . . He sees through me, he thinks. . . Of course +it could not be; but George, by that time, was scared at his own shadow. +He is shirking it with Cloete, too. Gives his partner to understand that +his brother has half a mind to try a spell on shore, and so on. Cloete +waits, gnawing his fingers; so anxious. Cloete really had found a man +for the job. Believe it or not, he had found him inside the very +boarding-house he lodged in—somewhere about Tottenham Court Road. He had +noticed down-stairs a fellow—a boarder and not a boarder—hanging about +the dark—part of the passage mostly; sort of ‘man of the house,’ a +slinking chap. Black eyes. White face. The woman of the house—a widow +lady, she called herself—very full of Mr. Stafford; Mr. Stafford this and +Mr. Stafford that. . . Anyhow, Cloete one evening takes him out to have a +drink. Cloete mostly passed away his evenings in saloon bars. No +drunkard, though, Cloete; for company; liked to talk to all sorts there; +just habit; American fashion. + +“So Cloete takes that chap out more than once. Not very good company, +though. Little to say for himself. Sits quiet and drinks what’s given +to him, eyes always half closed, speaks sort of demure. . . I’ve had +misfortunes, he says. The truth was they had kicked him out of a big +steam-ship company for disgraceful conduct; nothing to affect his +certificate, you understand; and he had gone down quite easily. Liked +it, I expect. Anything’s better than work. Lived on the widow lady who +kept that boarding-house.” + +“That’s almost incredible,” I ventured to interrupt. “A man with a +master’s certificate, do you mean?” + +“I do; I’ve known them ’bus cads,” he growled, contemptuously. “Yes. +Swing on the tail-board by the strap and yell, ‘tuppence all the way.’ +Through drink. But this Stafford was of another kind. Hell’s full of +such Staffords; Cloete would make fun of him, and then there would be a +nasty gleam in the fellow’s half-shut eye. But Cloete was generally kind +to him. Cloete was a fellow that would be kind to a mangy dog. Anyhow, +he used to stand drinks to that object, and now and then gave him half a +crown—because the widow lady kept Mr. Stafford short of pocket-money. +They had rows almost every day down in the basement. . . + +“It was the fellow being a sailor that put into Cloete’s mind the first +notion of doing away with the _Sagamore_. He studies him a bit, thinks +there’s enough devil in him yet to be tempted, and one evening he says to +him . . . I suppose you wouldn’t mind going to sea again, for a spell? . . . +The other never raises his eyes; says it’s scarcely worth one’s while +for the miserable salary one gets. . . Well, but what do you say to +captain’s wages for a time, and a couple of hundred extra if you are +compelled to come home without the ship. Accidents will happen, says +Cloete. . . Oh! sure to, says that Stafford; and goes on taking sips of +his drink as if he had no interest in the matter. + +“Cloete presses him a bit; but the other observes, impudent and languid +like: You see, there’s no future in a thing like that—is there? . . Oh! +no, says Cloete. Certainly not. I don’t mean this to have any future—as +far as you are concerned. It’s a ‘once for all’ transaction. Well, what +do you estimate your future at? he asks. . . The fellow more listless +than ever—nearly asleep.—I believe the skunk was really too lazy to care. +Small cheating at cards, wheedling or bullying his living out of some +woman or other, was more his style. Cloete swears at him in whispers +something awful. All this in the saloon bar of the Horse Shoe, Tottenham +Court Road. Finally they agree, over the second sixpennyworth of Scotch +hot, on five hundred pounds as the price of tomahawking the _Sagamore_. +And Cloete waits to see what George can do. + +“A week or two goes by. The other fellow loafs about the house as if +there had been nothing, and Cloete begins to doubt whether he really +means ever to tackle that job. But one day he stops Cloete at the door, +with his downcast eyes: What about that employment you wished to give me? +he asks. . . You see, he had played some more than usual dirty trick on +the woman and expected awful ructions presently; and to be fired out for +sure. Cloete very pleased. George had been prevaricating to him such a +lot that he really thought the thing was as well as settled. And he +says: Yes. It’s time I introduced you to my friend. Just get your hat +and we will go now. . . + +“The two come into the office, and George at his desk sits up in a sudden +panic—staring. Sees a tallish fellow, sort of nasty-handsome face, heavy +eyes, half shut; short drab overcoat, shabby bowler hat, very +careful—like in his movements. And he thinks to himself, Is that how +such a man looks! No, the thing’s impossible. . . Cloete does the +introduction, and the fellow turns round to look behind him at the chair +before he sits down. . . A thoroughly competent man, Cloete goes on . . . +The man says nothing, sits perfectly quiet. And George can’t speak, +throat too dry. Then he makes an effort: H’m! H’m! Oh +yes—unfortunately—sorry to disappoint—my brother—made other +arrangements—going himself. + +“The fellow gets up, never raising his eyes off the ground, like a modest +girl, and goes out softly, right out of the office without a sound. +Cloete sticks his chin in his hand and bites all his fingers at once. +George’s heart slows down and he speaks to Cloete. . . This can’t be +done. How can it be? Directly the ship is lost Harry would see through +it. You know he is a man to go to the underwriters himself with his +suspicions. And he would break his heart over me. How can I play that +on him? There’s only two of us in the world belonging to each other. . . + +“Cloete lets out a horrid cuss-word, jumps up, bolts away into his room, +and George hears him there banging things around. After a while he goes +to the door and says in a trembling voice: You ask me for an +impossibility. . . Cloete inside ready to fly out like a tiger and rend +him; but he opens the door a little way and says softly: Talking of +hearts, yours is no bigger than a mouse’s, let me tell you. . . But +George doesn’t care—load off the heart, anyhow. And just then Captain +Harry comes in. . . Hallo, George boy. I am little late. What about a +chop at the Cheshire, now? . . . Right you are, old man. . . And off they +go to lunch together. Cloete has nothing to eat that day. + +“George feels a new man for a time; but all of a sudden that fellow +Stafford begins to hang about the street, in sight of the house door. +The first time George sees him he thinks he made a mistake. But no; next +time he has to go out, there is the very fellow skulking on the other +side of the road. It makes George nervous; but he must go out on +business, and when the fellow cuts across the road-way he dodges him. He +dodges him once, twice, three times; but at last he gets nabbed in his +very doorway. . . What do you want? he says, trying to look fierce. + +“It seems that ructions had come in the basement of that boarding-house, +and the widow lady had turned on him (being jealous mad), to the extent +of talking of the police. _That_ Mr. Stafford couldn’t stand; so he +cleared out like a scared stag, and there he was, chucked into the +streets, so to speak. Cloete looked so savage as he went to and fro that +he hadn’t the spunk to tackle him; but George seemed a softer kind to his +eye. He would have been glad of half a quid, anything. . . I’ve had +misfortunes, he says softly, in his demure way, which frightens George +more than a row would have done. . . Consider the severity of my +disappointment, he says. . . + +“George, instead of telling him to go to the devil, loses his head. . . I +don’t know you. What do you want? he cries, and bolts up-stairs to +Cloete. . . . Look what’s come of it, he gasps; now we are at the mercy +of that horrid fellow. . . Cloete tries to show him that the fellow can +do nothing; but George thinks that some sort of scandal may be forced on, +anyhow. Says that he can’t live with that horror haunting him. Cloete +would laugh if he weren’t too weary of it all. Then a thought strikes +him and he changes his tune. . . Well, perhaps! I will go down-stairs +and send him away to begin with. . . He comes back. . . He’s gone. But +perhaps you are right. The fellow’s hard up, and that’s what makes +people desperate. The best thing would be to get him out of the country +for a time. Look here, the poor devil is really in want of employment. +I won’t ask you much this time: only to hold your tongue; and I shall try +to get your brother to take him as chief officer. At this George lays +his arms and his head on his desk, so that Cloete feels sorry for him. +But altogether Cloete feels more cheerful because he has shaken the ghost +a bit into that Stafford. That very afternoon he buys him a suit of blue +clothes, and tells him that he will have to turn to and work for his +living now. Go to sea as mate of the _Sagamore_. The skunk wasn’t very +willing, but what with having nothing to eat and no place to sleep in, +and the woman having frightened him with the talk of some prosecution or +other, he had no choice, properly speaking. Cloete takes care of him for +a couple of days. . . Our arrangement still stands, says he. Here’s the +ship bound for Port Elizabeth; not a safe anchorage at all. Should she +by chance part from her anchors in a north-east gale and get lost on the +beach, as many of them do, why, it’s five hundred in your pocket—and a +quick return home. You are up to the job, ain’t you? + +“Our Mr. Stafford takes it all in with downcast eyes. . . I am a +competent seaman, he says, with his sly, modest air. A ship’s chief mate +has no doubt many opportunities to manipulate the chains and anchors to +some purpose. . . At this Cloete thumps him on the back: You’ll do, my +noble sailor. Go in and win. . . + +“Next thing George knows, his brother tells him that he had occasion to +oblige his partner. And glad of it, too. Likes the partner no end. +Took a friend of his as mate. Man had his troubles, been ashore a year +nursing a dying wife, it seems. Down on his luck. . . George protests +earnestly that he knows nothing of the person. Saw him once. Not very +attractive to look at. . . And Captain Harry says in his hearty way, +That’s so, but must give the poor devil a chance. . . + +“So Mr. Stafford joins in dock. And it seems that he did manage to +monkey with one of the cables—keeping his mind on Port Elizabeth. The +riggers had all the cable ranged on deck to clean lockers. The new mate +watches them go ashore—dinner hour—and sends the ship-keeper out of the +ship to fetch him a bottle of beer. Then he goes to work whittling away +the forelock of the forty-five-fathom shackle-pin, gives it a tap or two +with a hammer just to make it loose, and of course that cable wasn’t safe +any more. Riggers come back—you know what riggers are: come day, go day, +and God send Sunday. Down goes the chain into the locker without their +foreman looking at the shackles at all. What does he care? He ain’t +going in the ship. And two days later the ship goes to sea. . . ” + + * * * * * + +At this point I was incautious enough to breathe out another “I see,” +which gave offence again, and brought on me a rude “No, you don’t”—as +before. But in the pause he remembered the glass of beer at his elbow. +He drank half of it, wiped his mustaches, and remarked grimly— + +“Don’t you think that there will be any sea life in this, because there +ain’t. If you’re going to put in any out of your own head, now’s your +chance. I suppose you know what ten days of bad weather in the Channel +are like? I don’t. Anyway, ten whole days go by. One Monday Cloete +comes to the office a little late—hears a woman’s voice in George’s room +and looks in. Newspapers on the desk, on the floor; Captain Harry’s wife +sitting with red eyes and a bag on the chair near her. . . Look at this, +says George, in great excitement, showing him a paper. Cloete’s heart +gives a jump. Ha! Wreck in Westport Bay. The _Sagamore_ gone ashore +early hours of Sunday, and so the newspaper men had time to put in some +of their work. Columns of it. Lifeboat out twice. Captain and crew +remain by the ship. Tugs summoned to assist. If the weather improves, +this well-known fine ship may yet be saved. . . You know the way these +chaps put it. . . Mrs. Harry there on her way to catch a train from +Cannon Street. Got an hour to wait. + +“Cloete takes George aside and whispers: Ship saved yet! Oh, damn! That +must never be; you hear? But George looks at him dazed, and Mrs. Harry +keeps on sobbing quietly: . . . I ought to have been with him. But I am +going to him. . . We are all going together, cries Cloete, all of a +sudden. He rushes out, sends the woman a cup of hot bovril from the shop +across the road, buys a rug for her, thinks of everything; and in the +train tucks her in and keeps on talking, thirteen to the dozen, all the +way, to keep her spirits up, as it were; but really because he can’t hold +his peace for very joy. Here’s the thing done all at once, and nothing +to pay. Done. Actually done. His head swims now and again when he +thinks of it. What enormous luck! It almost frightens him. He would +like to yell and sing. Meantime George Dunbar sits in his corner, +looking so deadly miserable that at last poor Mrs. Harry tries to comfort +him, and so cheers herself up at the same time by talking about how her +Harry is a prudent man; not likely to risk his crew’s life or his own +unnecessarily—and so on. + +“First thing they hear at Westport station is that the life-boat has been +out to the ship again, and has brought off the second officer, who had +hurt himself, and a few sailors. Captain and the rest of the crew, about +fifteen in all, are still on board. Tugs expected to arrive every +moment. + +“They take Mrs. Harry to the inn, nearly opposite the rocks; she bolts +straight up-stairs to look out of the window, and she lets out a great +cry when she sees the wreck. She won’t rest till she gets on board to +her Harry. Cloete soothes her all he can. . . All right; you try to eat +a mouthful, and we will go to make inquiries. + +“He draws George out of the room: Look here, she can’t go on board, but I +shall. I’ll see to it that he doesn’t stop in the ship too long. Let’s +go and find the coxswain of the life-boat. . . George follows him, +shivering from time to time. The waves are washing over the old pier; +not much wind, a wild, gloomy sky over the bay. In the whole world only +one tug away off, heading to the seas, tossed in and out of sight every +minute as regular as clockwork. + +“They meet the coxswain and he tells them: Yes! He’s going out again. +No, they ain’t in danger on board—not yet. But the ship’s chance is very +poor. Still, if the wind doesn’t pipe up again and the sea goes down +something might be tried. After some talk he agrees to take Cloete on +board; supposed to be with an urgent message from the owners to the +captain. + +“Whenever Cloete looks at the sky he feels comforted; it looks so +threatening. George Dunbar follows him about with a white face and +saying nothing. Cloete takes him to have a drink or two, and by and by +he begins to pick up. . . That’s better, says Cloete; dash me if it +wasn’t like walking about with a dead man before. You ought to be +throwing up your cap, man. I feel as if I wanted to stand in the street +and cheer. Your brother is safe, the ship is lost, and we are made men. + +“Are you certain she’s lost? asks George. It would be an awful blow +after all the agonies I have gone through in my mind, since you first +spoke to me, if she were to be got off—and—and—all this temptation to +begin over again. . . For we had nothing to do with this; had we? + +“Of course not, says Cloete. Wasn’t your brother himself in charge? +It’s providential. . . Oh! cries George, shocked. . . Well, say it’s the +devil, says Cloete, cheerfully. I don’t mind! You had nothing to do +with it any more than a baby unborn, you great softy, you. . . Cloete has +got so that he almost loved George Dunbar. Well. Yes. That was so. I +don’t mean he respected him. He was just fond of his partner. + +“They go back, you may say fairly skipping, to the hotel, and find the +wife of the captain at the open window, with her eyes on the ship as if +she wanted to fly across the bay over there. . . Now then, Mrs. Dunbar, +cries Cloete, you can’t go, but I am going. Any messages? Don’t be shy. +I’ll deliver every word faithfully. And if you would like to give me a +kiss for him, I’ll deliver that too, dash me if I don’t. + +“He makes Mrs. Harry laugh with his patter. . . Oh, dear Mr. Cloete, you +are a calm, reasonable man. Make him behave sensibly. He’s a bit +obstinate, you know, and he’s so fond of the ship, too. Tell him I am +here—looking on. . . Trust me, Mrs. Dunbar. Only shut that window, +that’s a good girl. You will be sure to catch cold if you don’t, and the +Captain won’t be pleased coming off the wreck to find you coughing and +sneezing so that you can’t tell him how happy you are. And now if you +can get me a bit of tape to fasten my glasses on good to my ears, I will +be going. . . + +“How he gets on board I don’t know. All wet and shaken and excited and +out of breath, he does get on board. Ship lying over, smothered in +sprays, but not moving very much; just enough to jag one’s nerve a bit. +He finds them all crowded on the deck-house forward, in their shiny +oilskins, with faces like sick men. Captain Harry can’t believe his +eyes. What! Mr. Cloete! What are you doing here, in God’s name? . . . +Your wife’s ashore there, looking on, gasps out Cloete; and after they +had talked a bit, Captain Harry thinks it’s uncommonly plucky and kind of +his brother’s partner to come off to him like this. Man glad to have +somebody to talk to. . . It’s a bad business, Mr. Cloete, he says. And +Cloete rejoices to hear that. Captain Harry thinks he had done his best, +but the cable had parted when he tried to anchor her. It was a great +trial to lose the ship. Well, he would have to face it. He fetches a +deep sigh now and then. Cloete almost sorry he had come on board, +because to be on that wreck keeps his chest in a tight band all the time. +They crouch out of the wind under the port boat, a little apart from the +men. The life-boat had gone away after putting Cloete on board, but was +coming back next high water to take off the crew if no attempt at getting +the ship afloat could be made. Dusk was falling; winter’s day; black +sky; wind rising. Captain Harry felt melancholy. God’s will be done. +If she must be left on the rocks—why, she must. A man should take what +God sends him standing up. . . Suddenly his voice breaks, and he squeezes +Cloete’s arm: It seems as if I couldn’t leave her, he whispers. Cloete +looks round at the men like a lot of huddled sheep and thinks to himself: +They won’t stay. . . Suddenly the ship lifts a little and sets down with +a thump. Tide rising. Everybody beginning to look out for the +life-boat. Some of the men made her out far away and also two more tugs. +But the gale has come on again, and everybody knows that no tug will ever +dare come near the ship. + +“That’s the end, Captain Harry says, very low. . . . Cloete thinks he +never felt so cold in all his life. . . And I feel as if I didn’t care to +live on just now, mutters Captain Harry . . . Your wife’s ashore, looking +on, says Cloete . . . Yes. Yes. It must be awful for her to look at the +poor old ship lying here done for. Why, that’s our home. + +“Cloete thinks that as long as the _Sagamore’s_ done for he doesn’t care, +and only wishes himself somewhere else. The slightest movement of the +ship cuts his breath like a blow. And he feels excited by the danger, +too. The captain takes him aside. . . The life-boat can’t come near us +for more than an hour. Look here, Cloete, since you are here, and such a +plucky one—do something for me. . . He tells him then that down in his +cabin aft in a certain drawer there is a bundle of important papers and +some sixty sovereigns in a small canvas bag. Asks Cloete to go and get +these things out. He hasn’t been below since the ship struck, and it +seems to him that if he were to take his eyes off her she would fall to +pieces. And then the men—a scared lot by this time—if he were to leave +them by themselves they would attempt to launch one of the ship’s boats +in a panic at some heavier thump—and then some of them bound to get +drowned. . . There are two or three boxes of matches about my shelves in +my cabin if you want a light, says Captain Harry. Only wipe your wet +hands before you begin to feel for them. . . + +“Cloete doesn’t like the job, but doesn’t like to show funk, either—and +he goes. Lots of water on the main-deck, and he splashes along; it was +getting dark, too. All at once, by the mainmast, somebody catches him by +the arm. Stafford. He wasn’t thinking of Stafford at all. Captain +Harry had said something as to the mate not being quite satisfactory, but +it wasn’t much. Cloete doesn’t recognise him in his oilskins at first. +He sees a white face with big eyes peering at him. . . Are you pleased, +Mr. Cloete . . . ? + +“Cloete is moved to laugh at the whine, and shakes him off. But the +fellow scrambles on after him on the poop and follows him down into the +cabin of that wrecked ship. And there they are, the two of them; can +hardly see each other. . . You don’t mean to make me believe you have had +anything to do with this, says Cloete. . . + +“They both shiver, nearly out of their wits with the excitement of being +on board that ship. She thumps and lurches, and they stagger together, +feeling sick. Cloete again bursts out laughing at that wretched creature +Stafford pretending to have been up to something so desperate. . . Is +that how you think you can treat me now? yells the other man all of a +sudden. . . + +“A sea strikes the stern, the ship trembles and groans all round them, +there’s the noise of the seas about and overhead, confusing Cloete, and +he hears the other screaming as if crazy. . . Ah, you don’t believe me! +Go and look at the port chain. Parted? Eh? Go and see if it’s parted. +Go and find the broken link. You can’t. There’s no broken link. That +means a thousand pounds for me. No less. A thousand the day after we +get ashore—prompt. I won’t wait till she breaks up, Mr. Cloete. To the +underwriters I go if I’ve to walk to London on my bare feet. Port cable! +Look at her port cable, I will say to them. I doctored it—for the +owners—tempted by a low rascal called Cloete. + +“Cloete does not understand what it means exactly. All he sees is that +the fellow means to make mischief. He sees trouble ahead. . . Do you +think you can scare me? he asks,—you poor miserable skunk. . . And +Stafford faces him out—both holding on to the cabin table: No, damn you, +you are only a dirty vagabond; but I can scare the other, the chap in the +black coat. . . + +“Meaning George Dunbar. Cloete’s brain reels at the thought. He doesn’t +imagine the fellow can do any real harm, but he knows what George is; +give the show away; upset the whole business he had set his heart on. He +says nothing; he hears the other, what with the funk and strain and +excitement, panting like a dog—and then a snarl. . . A thousand down, +twenty-four hours after we get ashore; day after to-morrow. That’s my +last word, Mr. Cloete. . . A thousand pounds, day after to-morrow, says +Cloete. Oh yes. And to-day take this, you dirty cur. . . He hits +straight from the shoulder in sheer rage, nothing else. Stafford goes +away spinning along the bulk-head. Seeing this, Cloete steps out and +lands him another one somewhere about the jaw. The fellow staggers +backward right into the captain’s cabin through the open door. Cloete, +following him up, hears him fall down heavily and roll to leeward, then +slams the door to and turns the key. . . There! says he to himself, that +will stop you from making trouble.” + +“By Jove!” I murmured. + +The old fellow departed from his impressive immobility to turn his +rakishly hatted head and look at me with his old, black, lack-lustre +eyes. + +“He did leave him there,” he uttered, weightily, returning to the +contemplation of the wall. “Cloete didn’t mean to allow anybody, let +alone a thing like Stafford, to stand in the way of his great notion of +making George and himself, and Captain Harry, too, for that matter, rich +men. And he didn’t think much of consequences. These patent-medicine +chaps don’t care what they say or what they do. They think the world’s +bound to swallow any story they like to tell. . . He stands listening for +a bit. And it gives him quite a turn to hear a thump at the door and a +sort of muffled raving screech inside the captain’s room. He thinks he +hears his own name, too, through the awful crash as the old _Sagamore_ +rises and falls to a sea. That noise and that awful shock make him clear +out of the cabin. He collects his senses on the poop. But his heart +sinks a little at the black wildness of the night. Chances that he will +get drowned himself before long. Puts his head down the companion. +Through the wind and breaking seas he can hear the noise of Stafford’s +beating against the door and cursing. He listens and says to himself: +No. Can’t trust him now. . . + +“When he gets back to the top of the deck-house he says to Captain Harry, +who asks him if he got the things, that he is very sorry. There was +something wrong with the door. Couldn’t open it. And to tell you the +truth, says he, I didn’t like to stop any longer in that cabin. There +are noises there as if the ship were going to pieces. . . Captain Harry +thinks: Nervous; can’t be anything wrong with the door. But he says: +Thanks—never mind, never mind. . . All hands looking out now for the +life-boat. Everybody thinking of himself rather. Cloete asks himself, +will they miss him? But the fact is that Mr. Stafford had made such poor +show at sea that after the ship struck nobody ever paid any attention to +him. Nobody cared what he did or where he was. Pitch dark, too—no +counting of heads. The light of the tug with the lifeboat in tow is seen +making for the ship, and Captain Harry asks: Are we all there? . . . +Somebody answers: All here, sir. . . Stand by to leave the ship, then, +says Captain Harry; and two of you help the gentleman over first. . . +Aye, aye, sir. . . Cloete was moved to ask Captain Harry to let him stay +till last, but the life-boat drops on a grapnel abreast the fore-rigging, +two chaps lay hold of him, watch their chance, and drop him into her, all +safe. + +“He’s nearly exhausted; not used to that sort of thing, you see. He sits +in the stern-sheets with his eyes shut. Don’t want to look at the white +water boiling all around. The men drop into the boat one after another. +Then he hears Captain Harry’s voice shouting in the wind to the coxswain, +to hold on a moment, and some other words he can’t catch, and the +coxswain yelling back: Don’t be long, sir. . . What is it? Cloete asks +feeling faint. . . Something about the ship’s papers, says the coxswain, +very anxious. It’s no time to be fooling about alongside, you +understand. They haul the boat off a little and wait. The water flies +over her in sheets. Cloete’s senses almost leave him. He thinks of +nothing. He’s numb all over, till there’s a shout: Here he is! . . . +They see a figure in the fore-rigging waiting—they slack away on the +grapnel-line and get him in the boat quite easy. There is a little +shouting—it’s all mixed up with the noise of the sea. Cloete fancies +that Stafford’s voice is talking away quite close to his ear. There’s a +lull in the wind, and Stafford’s voice seems to be speaking very fast to +the coxswain; he tells him that of course he was near his skipper, was +all the time near him, till the old man said at the last moment that he +must go and get the ship’s papers from aft; would insist on going +himself; told him, Stafford, to get into the life-boat. . . He had meant +to wait for his skipper, only there came this smooth of the seas, and he +thought he would take his chance at once. + +“Cloete opens his eyes. Yes. There’s Stafford sitting close by him in +that crowded life-boat. The coxswain stoops over Cloete and cries: Did +you hear what the mate said, sir? . . . Cloete’s face feels as if it were +set in plaster, lips and all. Yes, I did, he forces himself to answer. +The coxswain waits a moment, then says: I don’t like it. . . And he turns +to the mate, telling him it was a pity he did not try to run along the +deck and hurry up the captain when the lull came. Stafford answers at +once that he did think of it, only he was afraid of missing him on the +deck in the dark. For, says he, the captain might have got over at once, +thinking I was already in the life-boat, and you would have hauled off +perhaps, leaving me behind. . . True enough, says the coxswain. A minute +or so passes. This won’t do, mutters the coxswain. Suddenly Stafford +speaks up in a sort of hollow voice: I was by when he told Mr. Cloete +here that he didn’t know how he would ever have the courage to leave the +old ship; didn’t he, now? . . . And Cloete feels his arm being gripped +quietly in the dark. . . Didn’t he now? We were standing together just +before you went over, Mr. Cloete? . . . + +“Just then the coxswain cries out: I’m going on board to see. . . Cloete +tears his arm away: I am going with you. . . + +“When they get aboard, the coxswain tells Cloete to go aft along one side +of the ship and he would go along the other so as not to miss the +captain. . . And feel about with your hands, too, says he; he might have +fallen and be lying insensible somewhere on the deck. . . When Cloete +gets at last to the cabin companion on the poop the coxswain is already +there, peering down and sniffing. I detect a smell of smoke down there, +says he. And he yells: Are you there, sir? . . . This is not a case for +shouting, says Cloete, feeling his heart go stony, as it were. . . Down +they go. Pitch dark; the inclination so sharp that the coxswain, groping +his way into the captain’s room, slips and goes tumbling down. Cloete +hears him cry out as though he had hurt himself, and asks what’s the +matter. And the coxswain answers quietly that he had fallen on the +captain, lying there insensible. Cloete without a word begins to grope +all over the shelves for a box of matches, finds one, and strikes a +light. He sees the coxswain in his cork jacket kneeling over Captain +Harry. . . Blood, says the coxswain, looking up, and the match goes out. +. . + +“Wait a bit, says Cloete; I’ll make paper spills. . . He had felt the +back of books on the shelves. And so he stands lighting one spill from +another while the coxswain turns poor Captain Harry over. Dead, he says. +Shot through the heart. Here’s the revolver. . . He hands it up to +Cloete, who looks at it before putting it in his pocket, and sees a plate +on the butt with _H. Dunbar_ on it. . . His own, he mutters. . . Whose +else revolver did you expect to find? snaps the coxswain. And look, he +took off his long oilskin in the cabin before he went in. But what’s +this lot of burnt paper? What could he want to burn the ship’s papers +for? . . . + +Cloete sees all, the little drawers drawn out, and asks the coxswain to +look well into them. . . There’s nothing, says the man. Cleaned out. +Seems to have pulled out all he could lay his hands on and set fire to +the lot. Mad—that’s what it is—went mad. And now he’s dead. You’ll +have to break it to his wife. . . + +“I feel as if I were going mad myself, says Cloete, suddenly, and the +coxswain begs him for God’s sake to pull himself together, and drags him +away from the cabin. They had to leave the body, and as it was they were +just in time before a furious squall came on. Cloete is dragged into the +life-boat and the coxswain tumbles in. Haul away on the grapnel, he +shouts; the captain has shot himself. . . + +“Cloete was like a dead man—didn’t care for anything. He let that +Stafford pinch his arm twice without making a sign. Most of Westport was +on the old pier to see the men out of the life-boat, and at first there +was a sort of confused cheery uproar when she came alongside; but after +the coxswain has shouted something the voices die out, and everybody is +very quiet. As soon as Cloete has set foot on something firm he becomes +himself again. The coxswain shakes hands with him: Poor woman, poor +woman, I’d rather you had the job than I. . . + +“Where’s the mate?” asks Cloete. He’s the last man who spoke to the +master. . . Somebody ran along—the crew were being taken to the Mission +Hall, where there was a fire and shake-downs ready for them—somebody ran +along the pier and caught up with Stafford. . . Here! The owner’s agent +wants you. . . Cloete tucks the fellow’s arm under his own and walks away +with him to the left, where the fishing-harbour is. . . I suppose I +haven’t misunderstood you. You wish me to look after you a bit, says he. +The other hangs on him rather limp, but gives a nasty little laugh: You +had better, he mumbles; but mind, no tricks; no tricks, Mr. Cloete; we +are on land now. + +“There’s a police office within fifty yards from here, says Cloete. He +turns into a little public house, pushes Stafford along the passage. The +landlord runs out of the bar. . . This is the mate of the ship on the +rocks, Cloete explains; I wish you would take care of him a bit to-night. . . +What’s the matter with him? asks the man. Stafford leans against the +wall in the passage, looking ghastly. And Cloete says it’s nothing—done +up, of course. . . I will be responsible for the expense; I am the +owner’s agent. I’ll be round in an hour or two to see him. + +And Cloete gets back to the hotel. The news had travelled there already, +and the first thing he sees is George outside the door as white as a +sheet waiting for him. Cloete just gives him a nod and they go in. Mrs. +Harry stands at the head of the stairs, and, when she sees only these two +coming up, flings her arms above her head and runs into her room. Nobody +had dared tell her, but not seeing her husband was enough. Cloete hears +an awful shriek. . . Go to her, he says to George. + +“While he’s alone in the private parlour Cloete drinks a glass of brandy +and thinks it all out. Then George comes in. . . The landlady’s with +her, he says. And he begins to walk up and down the room, flinging his +arms about and talking, disconnected like, his face set hard as Cloete +has never seen it before. . . What must be, must be. Dead—only brother. +Well, dead—his troubles over. But we are living, he says to Cloete; and +I suppose, says he, glaring at him with hot, dry eyes, that you won’t +forget to wire in the morning to your friend that we are coming in for +certain. . . + +“Meaning the patent-medicine fellow. . . Death is death and business is +business, George goes on; and look—my hands are clean, he says, showing +them to Cloete. Cloete thinks: He’s going crazy. He catches hold of him +by the shoulders and begins to shake him: Damn you—if you had had the +sense to know what to say to your brother, if you had had the spunk to +speak to him at all, you moral creature you, he would be alive now, he +shouts. + +“At this George stares, then bursts out weeping with a great bellow. He +throws himself on the couch, buries his face in a cushion, and howls like +a kid. . . That’s better, thinks Cloete, and he leaves him, telling the +landlord that he must go out, as he has some little business to attend to +that night. The landlord’s wife, weeping herself, catches him on the +stairs: Oh, sir, that poor lady will go out of her mind. . . + +“Cloete shakes her off, thinking to himself: Oh no! She won’t. She will +get over it. Nobody will go mad about this affair unless I do. It isn’t +sorrow that makes people go mad, but worry. + +“There Cloete was wrong. What affected Mrs. Harry was that her husband +should take his own life, with her, as it were, looking on. She brooded +over it so that in less than a year they had to put her into a Home. She +was very, very quiet; just gentle melancholy. She lived for quite a long +time. + +“Well, Cloete splashes along in the wind and rain. Nobody in the +streets—all the excitement over. The publican runs out to meet him in +the passage and says to him: Not this way. He isn’t in his room. We +couldn’t get him to go to bed nohow. He’s in the little parlour there. +We’ve lighted him a fire. . . You have been giving him drinks too, says +Cloete; I never said I would be responsible for drinks. How many? . . . +Two, says the other. It’s all right. I don’t mind doing that much for a +shipwrecked sailor. . . Cloete smiles his funny smile: Eh? Come. He +paid for them. . . The publican just blinks. . . Gave you gold, didn’t +he? Speak up! . . . What of that! cries the man. What are you after, +anyway? He had the right change for his sovereign. + +“Just so, says Cloete. He walks into the parlour, and there he sees our +Stafford; hair all up on end, landlord’s shirt and pants on, bare feet in +slippers, sitting by the fire. When he sees Cloete he casts his eyes +down. + +“You didn’t mean us ever to meet again, Mr. Cloete, Stafford says, +demurely. . . That fellow, when he had the drink he wanted—he wasn’t a +drunkard—would put on this sort of sly, modest air. . . But since the +captain committed suicide, he says, I have been sitting here thinking it +out. All sorts of things happen. Conspiracy to lose the ship—attempted +murder—and this suicide. For if it was not suicide, Mr. Cloete, then I +know of a victim of the most cruel, cold-blooded attempt at murder; +somebody who has suffered a thousand deaths. And that makes the thousand +pounds of which we spoke once a quite insignificant sum. Look how very +convenient this suicide is. . . + +“He looks up at Cloete then, who smiles at him and comes quite close to +the table. + +“You killed Harry Dunbar, he whispers. . . The fellow glares at him and +shows his teeth: Of course I did! I had been in that cabin for an hour +and a half like a rat in a trap. . . Shut up and left to drown in that +wreck. Let flesh and blood judge. Of course I shot him! I thought it +was you, you murdering scoundrel, come back to settle me. He opens the +door flying and tumbles right down upon me; I had a revolver in my hand, +and I shot him. I was crazy. Men have gone crazy for less. + +“Cloete looks at him without flinching. Aha! That’s your story, is it? +. . . And he shakes the table a little in his passion as he speaks. . . +Now listen to mine. What’s this conspiracy? Who’s going to prove it? +You were there to rob. You were rifling his cabin; he came upon you +unawares with your hands in the drawer; and you shot him with his own +revolver. You killed to steal—to steal! His brother and the clerks in +the office know that he took sixty pounds with him to sea. Sixty pounds +in gold in a canvas bag. He told me where they were. The coxswain of +the life-boat can swear to it that the drawers were all empty. And you +are such a fool that before you’re half an hour ashore you change a +sovereign to pay for a drink. Listen to me. If you don’t turn up day +after to-morrow at George Dunbar’s solicitors, to make the proper +deposition as to the loss of the ship, I shall set the police on your +track. Day after to-morrow. . . + +“And then what do you think? That Stafford begins to tear his hair. +Just so. Tugs at it with both hands without saying anything. Cloete +gives a push to the table which nearly sends the fellow off his chair, +tumbling inside the fender; so that he has got to catch hold of it to +save himself. . . + +“You know the sort of man I am, Cloete says, fiercely. I’ve got to a +point that I don’t care what happens to me. I would shoot you now for +tuppence. + +“At this the cur dodges under the table. Then Cloete goes out, and as he +turns in the street—you know, little fishermen’s cottages, all dark; +raining in torrents, too—the other opens the window of the parlour and +speaks in a sort of crying voice— + +“You low Yankee fiend—I’ll pay you off some day. + +“Cloete passes by with a damn bitter laugh, because he thinks that the +fellow in a way has paid him off already, if he only knew it.” + + * * * * * + +My impressive ruffian drank what remained of his beer, while his black, +sunken eyes looked at me over the rim. + +“I don’t quite understand this,” I said. “In what way?” + +He unbent a little and explained without too much scorn that Captain +Harry being dead, his half of the insurance money went to his wife, and +her trustees of course bought consols with it. Enough to keep her +comfortable. George Dunbar’s half, as Cloete feared from the first, did +not prove sufficient to launch the medicine well; other moneyed men +stepped in, and these two had to go out of that business, pretty nearly +shorn of everything. + +“I am curious,” I said, “to learn what the motive force of this tragic +affair was—I mean the patent medicine. Do you know?” + +He named it, and I whistled respectfully. Nothing less than Parker’s +Lively Lumbago Pills. Enormous property! You know it; all the world +knows it. Every second man, at least, on this globe of ours has tried +it. + +“Why!” I cried, “they missed an immense fortune.” + +“Yes,” he mumbled, “by the price of a revolver-shot.” + +He told me also that eventually Cloete returned to the States, passenger +in a cargo-boat from Albert Dock. The night before he sailed he met him +wandering about the quays, and took him home for a drink. “Funny chap, +Cloete. We sat all night drinking grogs, till it was time for him to go +on board.” + +It was then that Cloete, unembittered but weary, told him this story, +with that utterly unconscious frankness of a patent-medicine man stranger +to all moral standards. Cloete concluded by remarking that he, had “had +enough of the old country.” George Dunbar had turned on him, too, in the +end. Cloete was clearly somewhat disillusioned. + +As to Stafford, he died, professed loafer, in some East End hospital or +other, and on his last day clamoured “for a parson,” because his +conscience worried him for killing an innocent man. “Wanted somebody to +tell him it was all right,” growled my old ruffian, contemptuously. “He +told the parson that I knew this Cloete who had tried to murder him, and +so the parson (he worked among the dock labourers) once spoke to me about +it. That skunk of a fellow finding himself trapped yelled for mercy. . . +Promised to be good and so on. . . Then he went crazy . . . screamed and +threw himself about, beat his head against the bulkheads . . . you can +guess all that—eh? . . . till he was exhausted. Gave up. Threw himself +down, shut his eyes, and wanted to pray. So he says. Tried to think of +some prayer for a quick death—he was that terrified. Thought that if he +had a knife or something he would cut his throat, and be done with it. +Then he thinks: No! Would try to cut away the wood about the lock. . . +He had no knife in his pocket. . . he was weeping and calling on God to +send him a tool of some kind when suddenly he thinks: Axe! In most ships +there is a spare emergency axe kept in the master’s room in some locker +or other. . . Up he jumps. . . Pitch dark. Pulls at the drawers to find +matches and, groping for them, the first thing he comes upon—Captain +Harry’s revolver. Loaded too. He goes perfectly quiet all over. Can +shoot the lock to pieces. See? Saved! God’s providence! There are +boxes of matches too. Thinks he: I may just as well see what I am about. + +“Strikes a light and sees the little canvas bag tucked away at the back +of the drawer. Knew at once what that was. Rams it into his pocket +quick. Aha! says he to himself: this requires more light. So he pitches +a lot of paper on the floor, set fire to it, and starts in a hurry +rummaging for more valuables. Did you ever? He told that East-End +parson that the devil tempted him. First God’s mercy—then devil’s work. +Turn and turn about. . . + +“Any squirming skunk can talk like that. He was so busy with the drawers +that the first thing he heard was a shout, Great Heavens. He looks up +and there was the door open (Cloete had left the key in the lock) and +Captain Harry holding on, well above him, very fierce in the light of the +burning papers. His eyes were starting out of his head. Thieving, he +thunders at him. A sailor! An officer! No! A wretch like you deserves +no better than to be left here to drown. + +“This Stafford—on his death-bed—told the parson that when he heard these +words he went crazy again. He snatched his hand with the revolver in it +out of the drawer, and fired without aiming. Captain Harry fell right in +with a crash like a stone on top of the burning papers, putting the blaze +out. All dark. Not a sound. He listened for a bit then dropped the +revolver and scrambled out on deck like mad.” + +The old fellow struck the table with his ponderous fist. + +“What makes me sick is to hear these silly boat-men telling people the +captain committed suicide. Pah! Captain Harry was a man that could face +his Maker any time up there, and here below, too. He wasn’t the sort to +slink out of life. Not he! He was a good man down to the ground. He +gave me my first job as stevedore only three days after I got married.” + +As the vindication of Captain Harry from the charge of suicide seemed to +be his only object, I did not thank him very effusively for his material. +And then it was not worth many thanks in any case. + +For it is too startling even to think of such things happening in our +respectable Channel in full view, so to speak, of the luxurious +continental traffic to Switzerland and Monte Carlo. This story to be +acceptable should have been transposed to somewhere in the South Seas. +But it would have been too much trouble to cook it for the consumption of +magazine readers. So here it is raw, so to speak—just as it was told to +me—but unfortunately robbed of the striking effect of the narrator; the +most imposing old ruffian that ever followed the unromantic trade of +master stevedore in the port of London. + + * * * * * + +_Oct._ 1910. + + + + +THE INN OF THE TWO WITCHES +A FIND + + +This tale, episode, experience—call it how you will—was related in the +fifties of the last century by a man who, by his own confession, was +sixty years old at the time. Sixty is not a bad age—unless in +perspective, when no doubt it is contemplated by the majority of us with +mixed feelings. It is a calm age; the game is practically over by then; +and standing aside one begins to remember with a certain vividness what a +fine fellow one used to be. I have observed that, by an amiable +attention of Providence, most people at sixty begin to take a romantic +view of themselves. Their very failures exhale a charm of peculiar +potency. And indeed the hopes of the future are a fine company to live +with, exquisite forms, fascinating if you like, but—so to speak—naked, +stripped for a run. The robes of glamour are luckily the property of the +immovable past which, without them, would sit, a shivery sort of thing, +under the gathering shadows. + +I suppose it was the romanticism of growing age which set our man to +relate his experience for his own satisfaction or for the wonder of his +posterity. It could not have been for his glory, because the experience +was simply that of an abominable fright—terror he calls it. You would +have guessed that the relation alluded to in the very first lines was in +writing. + +This writing constitutes the Find declared in the sub-title. The title +itself is my own contrivance, (can’t call it invention), and has the +merit of veracity. We will be concerned with an inn here. As to the +witches that’s merely a conventional expression, and we must take our +man’s word for it that it fits the case. + +The Find was made in a box of books bought in London, in a street which +no longer exists, from a second-hand bookseller in the last stage of +decay. As to the books themselves they were at least twentieth-hand, and +on inspection turned out not worth the very small sum of money I +disbursed. It might have been some premonition of that fact which made +me say: “But I must have the box too.” The decayed bookseller assented +by the careless, tragic gesture of a man already doomed to extinction. + +A litter of loose pages at the bottom of the box excited my curiosity but +faintly. The close, neat, regular handwriting was not attractive at +first sight. But in one place the statement that in A.D. 1813 the writer +was twenty-two years old caught my eye. Two and twenty is an interesting +age in which one is easily reckless and easily frightened; the faculty of +reflection being weak and the power of imagination strong. + +In another place the phrase: “At night we stood in again,” arrested my +languid attention, because it was a sea phrase. “Let’s see what it is +all about,” I thought, without excitement. + +Oh! but it was a dull-faced MS., each line resembling every other line in +their close-set and regular order. It was like the drone of a monotonous +voice. A treatise on sugar-refining (the dreariest subject I can think +of) could have been given a more lively appearance. “In A.D. 1813, I was +twenty-two years old,” he begins earnestly and goes on with every +appearance of calm, horrible industry. Don’t imagine, however, that +there is anything archaic in my find. Diabolic ingenuity in invention +though as old as the world is by no means a lost art. Look at the +telephones for shattering the little peace of mind given to us in this +world, or at the machine guns for letting with dispatch life out of our +bodies. Now-a-days any blear-eyed old witch if only strong enough to +turn an insignificant little handle could lay low a hundred young men of +twenty in the twinkling of an eye. + +If this isn’t progress! . . . Why immense! We have moved on, and so you +must expect to meet here a certain naiveness of contrivance and +simplicity of aim appertaining to the remote epoch. And of course no +motoring tourist can hope to find such an inn anywhere, now. This one, +the one of the title, was situated in Spain. That much I discovered only +from internal evidence, because a good many pages of that relation were +missing—perhaps not a great misfortune after all. The writer seemed to +have entered into a most elaborate detail of the why and wherefore of his +presence on that coast—presumably the north coast of Spain. His +experience has nothing to do with the sea, though. As far as I can make +it out, he was an officer on board a sloop-of-war. There’s nothing +strange in that. At all stages of the long Peninsular campaign many of +our men-of-war of the smaller kind were cruising off the north coast of +Spain—as risky and disagreeable a station as can be well imagined. + +It looks as though that ship of his had had some special service to +perform. A careful explanation of all the circumstances was to be +expected from our man, only, as I’ve said, some of his pages (good tough +paper too) were missing: gone in covers for jampots or in wadding for the +fowling-pieces of his irreverent posterity. But it is to be seen clearly +that communication with the shore and even the sending of messengers +inland was part of her service, either to obtain intelligence from or to +transmit orders or advice to patriotic Spaniards, guerilleros or secret +juntas of the province. Something of the sort. All this can be only +inferred from the preserved scraps of his conscientious writing. + +Next we come upon the panegyric of a very fine sailor, a member of the +ship’s company, having the rating of the captain’s coxswain. He was +known on board as Cuba Tom; not because he was Cuban however; he was +indeed the best type of a genuine British tar of that time, and a +man-of-war’s man for years. He came by the name on account of some +wonderful adventures he had in that island in his young days, adventures +which were the favourite subject of the yarns he was in the habit of +spinning to his shipmates of an evening on the forecastle head. He was +intelligent, very strong, and of proved courage. Incidentally we are +told, so exact is our narrator, that Tom had the finest pigtail for +thickness and length of any man in the Navy. This appendage, much cared +for and sheathed tightly in a porpoise skin, hung half way down his broad +back to the great admiration of all beholders and to the great envy of +some. + +Our young officer dwells on the manly qualities of Cuba Tom with +something like affection. This sort of relation between officer and man +was not then very rare. A youngster on joining the service was put under +the charge of a trustworthy seaman, who slung his first hammock for him +and often later on became a sort of humble friend to the junior officer. +The narrator on joining the sloop had found this man on board after some +years of separation. There is something touching in the warm pleasure he +remembers and records at this meeting with the professional mentor of his +boyhood. + +We discover then that, no Spaniard being forthcoming for the service, +this worthy seaman with the unique pigtail and a very high character for +courage and steadiness had been selected as messenger for one of these +missions inland which have been mentioned. His preparations were not +elaborate. One gloomy autumn morning the sloop ran close to a shallow +cove where a landing could be made on that iron-bound shore. A boat was +lowered, and pulled in with Tom Corbin (Cuba Tom) perched in the bow, and +our young man (Mr. Edgar Byrne was his name on this earth which knows him +no more) sitting in the stern sheets. + +A few inhabitants of a hamlet, whose grey stone houses could be seen a +hundred yards or so up a deep ravine, had come down to the shore and +watched the approach of the boat. The two Englishmen leaped ashore. +Either from dullness or astonishment the peasants gave no greeting, and +only fell back in silence. + +Mr. Byrne had made up his mind to see Tom Corbin started fairly on his +way. He looked round at the heavy surprised faces. + +“There isn’t much to get out of them,” he said. “Let us walk up to the +village. There will be a wine shop for sure where we may find somebody +more promising to talk to and get some information from.” + +“Aye, aye, sir,” said Tom falling into step behind his officer. “A bit +of palaver as to courses and distances can do no harm; I crossed the +broadest part of Cuba by the help of my tongue tho’ knowing far less +Spanish than I do now. As they say themselves it was ‘four words and no +more’ with me, that time when I got left behind on shore by the +_Blanche_, frigate.” + +He made light of what was before him, which was but a day’s journey into +the mountains. It is true that there was a full day’s journey before +striking the mountain path, but that was nothing for a man who had +crossed the island of Cuba on his two legs, and with no more than four +words of the language to begin with. + +The officer and the man were walking now on a thick sodden bed of dead +leaves, which the peasants thereabouts accumulate in the streets of their +villages to rot during the winter for field manure. Turning his head Mr. +Byrne perceived that the whole male population of the hamlet was +following them on the noiseless springy carpet. Women stared from the +doors of the houses and the children had apparently gone into hiding. +The village knew the ship by sight, afar off, but no stranger had landed +on that spot perhaps for a hundred years or more. The cocked hat of Mr. +Byrne, the bushy whiskers and the enormous pigtail of the sailor, filled +them with mute wonder. They pressed behind the two Englishmen staring +like those islanders discovered by Captain Cook in the South Seas. + +It was then that Byrne had his first glimpse of the little cloaked man in +a yellow hat. Faded and dingy as it was, this covering for his head made +him noticeable. + +The entrance to the wine shop was like a rough hole in a wall of flints. +The owner was the only person who was not in the street, for he came out +from the darkness at the back where the inflated forms of wine skins hung +on nails could be vaguely distinguished. He was a tall, one-eyed +Asturian with scrubby, hollow cheeks; a grave expression of countenance +contrasted enigmatically with the roaming restlessness of his solitary +eye. On learning that the matter in hand was the sending on his way of +that English mariner toward a certain Gonzales in the mountains, he +closed his good eye for a moment as if in meditation. Then opened it, +very lively again. + +“Possibly, possibly. It could be done.” + +A friendly murmur arose in the group in the doorway at the name of +Gonzales, the local leader against the French. Inquiring as to the +safety of the road Byrne was glad to learn that no troops of that nation +had been seen in the neighbourhood for months. Not the smallest little +detachment of these impious _polizones_. While giving these answers the +owner of the wine-shop busied himself in drawing into an earthenware jug +some wine which he set before the heretic English, pocketing with grave +abstraction the small piece of money the officer threw upon the table in +recognition of the unwritten law that none may enter a wine-shop without +buying drink. His eye was in constant motion as if it were trying to do +the work of the two; but when Byrne made inquiries as to the possibility +of hiring a mule, it became immovably fixed in the direction of the door +which was closely besieged by the curious. In front of them, just within +the threshold, the little man in the large cloak and yellow hat had taken +his stand. He was a diminutive person, a mere homunculus, Byrne +describes him, in a ridiculously mysterious, yet assertive attitude, a +corner of his cloak thrown cavalierly over his left shoulder, muffling +his chin and mouth; while the broad-brimmed yellow hat hung on a corner +of his square little head. He stood there taking snuff, repeatedly. + +“A mule,” repeated the wine-seller, his eyes fixed on that quaint and +snuffy figure. . . “No, señor officer! Decidedly no mule is to be got in +this poor place.” + +The coxswain, who stood by with the true sailor’s air of unconcern in +strange surroundings, struck in quietly— + +“If your honour will believe me Shank’s pony’s the best for this job. I +would have to leave the beast somewhere, anyhow, since the captain has +told me that half my way will be along paths fit only for goats.” + +The diminutive man made a step forward, and speaking through the folds of +the cloak which seemed to muffle a sarcastic intention— + +“Si, señor. They are too honest in this village to have a single mule +amongst them for your worship’s service. To that I can bear testimony. +In these times it’s only rogues or very clever men who can manage to have +mules or any other four-footed beasts and the wherewithal to keep them. +But what this valiant mariner wants is a guide; and here, señor, behold +my brother-in-law, Bernardino, wine-seller, and alcade of this most +Christian and hospitable village, who will find you one.” + +This, Mr. Byrne says in his relation, was the only thing to do. A youth +in a ragged coat and goat-skin breeches was produced after some more +talk. The English officer stood treat to the whole village, and while +the peasants drank he and Cuba Tom took their departure accompanied by +the guide. The diminutive man in the cloak had disappeared. + +Byrne went along with the coxswain out of the village. He wanted to see +him fairly on his way; and he would have gone a greater distance, if the +seaman had not suggested respectfully the advisability of return so as +not to keep the ship a moment longer than necessary so close in with the +shore on such an unpromising looking morning. A wild gloomy sky hung +over their heads when they took leave of each other, and their +surroundings of rank bushes and stony fields were dreary. + +“In four days’ time,” were Byrne’s last words, “the ship will stand in +and send a boat on shore if the weather permits. If not you’ll have to +make it out on shore the best you can till we come along to take you +off.” + +“Right you are, sir,” answered Tom, and strode on. Byrne watched him +step out on a narrow path. In a thick pea-jacket with a pair of pistols +in his belt, a cutlass by his side, and a stout cudgel in his hand, he +looked a sturdy figure and well able to take care of himself. He turned +round for a moment to wave his hand, giving to Byrne one more view of his +honest bronzed face with bushy whiskers. The lad in goatskin breeches +looking, Byrne says, like a faun or a young satyr leaping ahead, stopped +to wait for him, and then went off at a bound. Both disappeared. + +Byrne turned back. The hamlet was hidden in a fold of the ground, and +the spot seemed the most lonely corner of the earth and as if accursed in +its uninhabited desolate barrenness. Before he had walked many yards, +there appeared very suddenly from behind a bush the muffled up diminutive +Spaniard. Naturally Byrne stopped short. + +The other made a mysterious gesture with a tiny hand peeping from under +his cloak. His hat hung very much at the side of his head. “Señor,” he +said without any preliminaries. “Caution! It is a positive fact that +one-eyed Bernardino, my brother-in-law, has at this moment a mule in his +stable. And why he who is not clever has a mule there? Because he is a +rogue; a man without conscience. Because I had to give up the _macho_ to +him to secure for myself a roof to sleep under and a mouthful of _olla_ +to keep my soul in this insignificant body of mine. Yet, señor, it +contains a heart many times bigger than the mean thing which beats in the +breast of that brute connection of mine of which I am ashamed, though I +opposed that marriage with all my power. Well, the misguided woman +suffered enough. She had her purgatory on this earth—God rest her soul.” + +Byrne says he was so astonished by the sudden appearance of that +sprite-like being, and by the sardonic bitterness of the speech, that he +was unable to disentangle the significant fact from what seemed but a +piece of family history fired out at him without rhyme or reason. Not at +first. He was confounded and at the same time he was impressed by the +rapid forcible delivery, quite different from the frothy excited +loquacity of an Italian. So he stared while the homunculus letting his +cloak fall about him, aspired an immense quantity of snuff out of the +hollow of his palm. + +“A mule,” exclaimed Byrne seizing at last the real aspect of the +discourse. “You say he has got a mule? That’s queer! Why did he refuse +to let me have it?” + +The diminutive Spaniard muffled himself up again with great dignity. + +“_Quien sabe_,” he said coldly, with a shrug of his draped shoulders. +“He is a great _politico_ in everything he does. But one thing your +worship may be certain of—that his intentions are always rascally. This +husband of my _defunta_ sister ought to have been married a long time ago +to the widow with the wooden legs.” {188} + +“I see. But remember that, whatever your motives, your worship +countenanced him in this lie.” + +The bright unhappy eyes on each side of a predatory nose confronted Byrne +without wincing, while with that testiness which lurks so often at the +bottom of Spanish dignity— + +“No doubt the señor officer would not lose an ounce of blood if I were +stuck under the fifth rib,” he retorted. “But what of this poor sinner +here?” Then changing his tone. “Señor, by the necessities of the times +I live here in exile, a Castilian and an old Christian, existing +miserably in the midst of these brute Asturians, and dependent on the +worst of them all, who has less conscience and scruples than a wolf. And +being a man of intelligence I govern myself accordingly. Yet I can +hardly contain my scorn. You have heard the way I spoke. A caballero of +parts like your worship might have guessed that there was a cat in +there.” + +“What cat?” said Byrne uneasily. “Oh, I see. Something suspicious. No, +señor. I guessed nothing. My nation are not good guessers at that sort +of thing; and, therefore, I ask you plainly whether that wine-seller has +spoken the truth in other particulars?” + +“There are certainly no Frenchmen anywhere about,” said the little man +with a return to his indifferent manner. + +“Or robbers—_ladrones_?” + +“_Ladrones en grande_—no! Assuredly not,” was the answer in a cold +philosophical tone. “What is there left for them to do after the French? +And nobody travels in these times. But who can say! Opportunity makes +the robber. Still that mariner of yours has a fierce aspect, and with +the son of a cat rats will have no play. But there is a saying, too, +that where honey is there will soon be flies.” + +This oracular discourse exasperated Byrne. “In the name of God,” he +cried, “tell me plainly if you think my man is reasonably safe on his +journey.” + +The homunculus, undergoing one of his rapid changes, seized the officer’s +arm. The grip of his little hand was astonishing. + +“Señor! Bernardino had taken notice of him. What more do you want? And +listen—men have disappeared on this road—on a certain portion of this +road, when Bernardino kept a _meson_, an inn, and I, his brother-in-law, +had coaches and mules for hire. Now there are no travellers, no coaches. +The French have ruined me. Bernardino has retired here for reasons of +his own after my sister died. They were three to torment the life out of +her, he and Erminia and Lucilla, two aunts of his—all affiliated to the +devil. And now he has robbed me of my last mule. You are an armed man. +Demand the _macho_ from him, with a pistol to his head, señor—it is not +his, I tell you—and ride after your man who is so precious to you. And +then you shall both be safe, for no two travellers have been ever known +to disappear together in these days. As to the beast, I, its owner, I +confide it to your honour.” + +They were staring hard at each other, and Byrne nearly burst into a laugh +at the ingenuity and transparency of the little man’s plot to regain +possession of his mule. But he had no difficulty to keep a straight face +because he felt deep within himself a strange inclination to do that very +extraordinary thing. He did not laugh, but his lip quivered; at which +the diminutive Spaniard, detaching his black glittering eyes from Byrne’s +face, turned his back on him brusquely with a gesture and a fling of the +cloak which somehow expressed contempt, bitterness, and discouragement +all at once. He turned away and stood still, his hat aslant, muffled up +to the ears. But he was not offended to the point of refusing the silver +_duro_ which Byrne offered him with a non-committal speech as if nothing +extraordinary had passed between them. + +“I must make haste on board now,” said Byrne, then. + +“_Vaya usted con Dios_,” muttered the gnome. And this interview ended +with a sarcastic low sweep of the hat which was replaced at the same +perilous angle as before. + +Directly the boat had been hoisted the ship’s sails were filled on the +off-shore tack, and Byrne imparted the whole story to his captain, who +was but a very few years older than himself. There was some amused +indignation at it—but while they laughed they looked gravely at each +other. A Spanish dwarf trying to beguile an officer of his majesty’s +navy into stealing a mule for him—that was too funny, too ridiculous, too +incredible. Those were the exclamations of the captain. He couldn’t get +over the grotesqueness of it. + +“Incredible. That’s just it,” murmured Byrne at last in a significant +tone. + +They exchanged a long stare. “It’s as clear as daylight,” affirmed the +captain impatiently, because in his heart he was not certain. And Tom +the best seaman in the ship for one, the good-humouredly deferential +friend of his boyhood for the other, was becoming endowed with a +compelling fascination, like a symbolic figure of loyalty appealing to +their feelings and their conscience, so that they could not detach their +thoughts from his safety. Several times they went up on deck, only to +look at the coast, as if it could tell them something of his fate. It +stretched away, lengthening in the distance, mute, naked, and savage, +veiled now and then by the slanting cold shafts of rain. The westerly +swell rolled its interminable angry lines of foam and big dark clouds +flew over the ship in a sinister procession. + +“I wish to goodness you had done what your little friend in the yellow +hat wanted you to do,” said the commander of the sloop late in the +afternoon with visible exasperation. + +“Do you, sir?” answered Byrne, bitter with positive anguish. “I wonder +what you would have said afterwards? Why! I might have been kicked out +of the service for looting a mule from a nation in alliance with His +Majesty. Or I might have been battered to a pulp with flails and +pitch-forks—a pretty tale to get abroad about one of your officers—while +trying to steal a mule. Or chased ignominiously to the boat—for you +would not have expected me to shoot down unoffending people for the sake +of a mangy mule. . . And yet,” he added in a low voice, “I almost wish +myself I had done it.” + +Before dark those two young men had worked themselves up into a highly +complex psychological state of scornful scepticism and alarmed credulity. +It tormented them exceedingly; and the thought that it would have to last +for six days at least, and possibly be prolonged further for an +indefinite time, was not to be borne. The ship was therefore put on the +inshore tack at dark. All through the gusty dark night she went towards +the land to look for her man, at times lying over in the heavy puffs, at +others rolling idle in the swell, nearly stationary, as if she too had a +mind of her own to swing perplexed between cool reason and warm impulse. + +Then just at daybreak a boat put off from her and went on tossed by the +seas towards the shallow cove where, with considerable difficulty, an +officer in a thick coat and a round hat managed to land on a strip of +shingle. + +“It was my wish,” writes Mr. Byrne, “a wish of which my captain approved, +to land secretly if possible. I did not want to be seen either by my +aggrieved friend in the yellow hat, whose motives were not clear, or by +the one-eyed wine-seller, who may or may not have been affiliated to the +devil, or indeed by any other dweller in that primitive village. But +unfortunately the cove was the only possible landing place for miles; and +from the steepness of the ravine I couldn’t make a circuit to avoid the +houses.” + +“Fortunately,” he goes on, “all the people were yet in their beds. It +was barely daylight when I found myself walking on the thick layer of +sodden leaves filling the only street. No soul was stirring abroad, no +dog barked. The silence was profound, and I had concluded with some +wonder that apparently no dogs were kept in the hamlet, when I heard a +low snarl, and from a noisome alley between two hovels emerged a vile cur +with its tail between its legs. He slunk off silently showing me his +teeth as he ran before me, and he disappeared so suddenly that he might +have been the unclean incarnation of the Evil One. There was, too, +something so weird in the manner of its coming and vanishing, that my +spirits, already by no means very high, became further depressed by the +revolting sight of this creature as if by an unlucky presage.” + +He got away from the coast unobserved, as far as he knew, then struggled +manfully to the west against wind and rain, on a barren dark upland, +under a sky of ashes. Far away the harsh and desolate mountains raising +their scarped and denuded ridges seemed to wait for him menacingly. The +evening found him fairly near to them, but, in sailor language, uncertain +of his position, hungry, wet, and tired out by a day of steady tramping +over broken ground during which he had seen very few people, and had been +unable to obtain the slightest intelligence of Tom Corbin’s passage. +“On! on! I must push on,” he had been saying to himself through the hours +of solitary effort, spurred more by incertitude than by any definite fear +or definite hope. + +The lowering daylight died out quickly, leaving him faced by a broken +bridge. He descended into the ravine, forded a narrow stream by the last +gleam of rapid water, and clambering out on the other side was met by the +night which fell like a bandage over his eyes. The wind sweeping in the +darkness the broadside of the sierra worried his ears by a continuous +roaring noise as of a maddened sea. He suspected that he had lost the +road. Even in daylight, with its ruts and mud-holes and ledges of +outcropping stone, it was difficult to distinguish from the dreary waste +of the moor interspersed with boulders and clumps of naked bushes. But, +as he says, “he steered his course by the feel of the wind,” his hat +rammed low on his brow, his head down, stopping now and again from mere +weariness of mind rather than of body—as if not his strength but his +resolution were being overtaxed by the strain of endeavour half suspected +to be vain, and by the unrest of his feelings. + +In one of these pauses borne in the wind faintly as if from very far away +he heard a sound of knocking, just knocking on wood. He noticed that the +wind had lulled suddenly. + +His heart started beating tumultuously because in himself he carried the +impression of the desert solitudes he had been traversing for the last +six hours—the oppressive sense of an uninhabited world. When he raised +his head a gleam of light, illusory as it often happens in dense +darkness, swam before his eyes. While he peered, the sound of feeble +knocking was repeated—and suddenly he felt rather than saw the existence +of a massive obstacle in his path. What was it? The spur of a hill? Or +was it a house! Yes. It was a house right close, as though it had risen +from the ground or had come gliding to meet him, dumb and pallid; from +some dark recess of the night. It towered loftily. He had come up under +its lee; another three steps and he could have touched the wall with his +hand. It was no doubt a _posada_ and some other traveller was trying for +admittance. He heard again the sound of cautious knocking. + +Next moment a broad band of light fell into the night through the opened +door. Byrne stepped eagerly into it, whereupon the person outside leaped +with a stifled cry away into the night. An exclamation of surprise was +heard too, from within. Byrne, flinging himself against the half closed +door, forced his way in against some considerable resistance. + +A miserable candle, a mere rushlight, burned at the end of a long deal +table. And in its light Byrne saw, staggering yet, the girl he had +driven from the door. She had a short black skirt, an orange shawl, a +dark complexion—and the escaped single hairs from the mass, sombre and +thick like a forest and held up by a comb, made a black mist about her +low forehead. A shrill lamentable howl of: “Misericordia!” came in two +voices from the further end of the long room, where the fire-light of an +open hearth played between heavy shadows. The girl recovering herself +drew a hissing breath through her set teeth. + +It is unnecessary to report the long process of questions and answers by +which he soothed the fears of two old women who sat on each side of the +fire, on which stood a large earthenware pot. Byrne thought at once of +two witches watching the brewing of some deadly potion. But all the +same, when one of them raising forward painfully her broken form lifted +the cover of the pot, the escaping steam had an appetising smell. The +other did not budge, but sat hunched up, her head trembling all the time. + +They were horrible. There was something grotesque in their decrepitude. +Their toothless mouths, their hooked noses, the meagreness of the active +one, and the hanging yellow cheeks of the other (the still one, whose +head trembled) would have been laughable if the sight of their dreadful +physical degradation had not been appalling to one’s eyes, had not +gripped one’s heart with poignant amazement at the unspeakable misery of +age, at the awful persistency of life becoming at last an object of +disgust and dread. + +To get over it Byrne began to talk, saying that he was an Englishman, and +that he was in search of a countryman who ought to have passed this way. +Directly he had spoken the recollection of his parting with Tom came up +in his mind with amazing vividness: the silent villagers, the angry +gnome, the one-eyed wine-seller, Bernardino. Why! These two unspeakable +frights must be that man’s aunts—affiliated to the devil. + +Whatever they had been once it was impossible to imagine what use such +feeble creatures could be to the devil, now, in the world of the living. +Which was Lucilla and which was Erminia? They were now things without a +name. A moment of suspended animation followed Byrne’s words. The +sorceress with the spoon ceased stirring the mess in the iron pot, the +very trembling of the other’s head stopped for the space of breath. In +this infinitesimal fraction of a second Byrne had the sense of being +really on his quest, of having reached the turn of the path, almost +within hail of Tom. + +“They have seen him,” he thought with conviction. Here was at last +somebody who had seen him. He made sure they would deny all knowledge of +the Ingles; but on the contrary they were eager to tell him that he had +eaten and slept the night in the house. They both started talking +together, describing his appearance and behaviour. An excitement quite +fierce in its feebleness possessed them. The doubled-up sorceress +flourished aloft her wooden spoon, the puffy monster got off her stool +and screeched, stepping from one foot to the other, while the trembling +of her head was accelerated to positive vibration. Byrne was quite +disconcerted by their excited behaviour. . . Yes! The big, fierce Ingles +went away in the morning, after eating a piece of bread and drinking some +wine. And if the caballero wished to follow the same path nothing could +be easier—in the morning. + +“You will give me somebody to show me the way?” said Byrne. + +“Si, señor. A proper youth. The man the caballero saw going out.” + +“But he was knocking at the door,” protested Byrne. “He only bolted when +he saw me. He was coming in.” + +“No! No!” the two horrid witches screamed out together. “Going out. +Going out!” + +After all it may have been true. The sound of knocking had been faint, +elusive, reflected Byrne. Perhaps only the effect of his fancy. He +asked— + +“Who is that man?” + +“Her _novio_.” They screamed pointing to the girl. “He is gone home to +a village far away from here. But he will return in the morning. Her +_novio_! And she is an orphan—the child of poor Christian people. She +lives with us for the love of God, for the love of God.” + +The orphan crouching on the corner of the hearth had been looking at +Byrne. He thought that she was more like a child of Satan kept there by +these two weird harridans for the love of the Devil. Her eyes were a +little oblique, her mouth rather thick, but admirably formed; her dark +face had a wild beauty, voluptuous and untamed. As to the character of +her steadfast gaze attached upon him with a sensuously savage attention, +“to know what it was like,” says Mr. Byrne, “you have only to observe a +hungry cat watching a bird in a cage or a mouse inside a trap.” + +It was she who served him the food, of which he was glad; though with +those big slanting black eyes examining him at close range, as if he had +something curious written on his face, she gave him an uncomfortable +sensation. But anything was better than being approached by these +blear-eyed nightmarish witches. His apprehensions somehow had been +soothed; perhaps by the sensation of warmth after severe exposure and the +ease of resting after the exertion of fighting the gale inch by inch all +the way. He had no doubt of Tom’s safety. He was now sleeping in the +mountain camp having been met by Gonzales’ men. + +Byrne rose, filled a tin goblet with wine out of a skin hanging on the +wall, and sat down again. The witch with the mummy face began to talk to +him, ramblingly of old times; she boasted of the inn’s fame in those +better days. Great people in their own coaches stopped there. An +archbishop slept once in the _casa_, a long, long time ago. + +The witch with the puffy face seemed to be listening from her stool, +motionless, except for the trembling of her head. The girl (Byrne was +certain she was a casual gipsy admitted there for some reason or other) +sat on the hearth stone in the glow of the embers. She hummed a tune to +herself, rattling a pair of castanets slightly now and then. At the +mention of the archbishop she chuckled impiously and turned her head to +look at Byrne, so that the red glow of the fire flashed in her black eyes +and on her white teeth under the dark cowl of the enormous overmantel. +And he smiled at her. + +He rested now in the ease of security. His advent not having been +expected there could be no plot against him in existence. Drowsiness +stole upon his senses. He enjoyed it, but keeping a hold, so he thought +at least, on his wits; but he must have been gone further than he thought +because he was startled beyond measure by a fiendish uproar. He had +never heard anything so pitilessly strident in his life. The witches had +started a fierce quarrel about something or other. Whatever its origin +they were now only abusing each other violently, without arguments; their +senile screams expressed nothing but wicked anger and ferocious dismay. +The gipsy girl’s black eyes flew from one to the other. Never before had +Byrne felt himself so removed from fellowship with human beings. Before +he had really time to understand the subject of the quarrel, the girl +jumped up rattling her castanets loudly. A silence fell. She came up to +the table and bending over, her eyes in his— + +“Señor,” she said with decision, “You shall sleep in the archbishop’s +room.” + +Neither of the witches objected. The dried-up one bent double was +propped on a stick. The puffy faced one had now a crutch. + +Byrne got up, walked to the door, and turning the key in the enormous +lock put it coolly in his pocket. This was clearly the only entrance, +and he did not mean to be taken unawares by whatever danger there might +have been lurking outside. + +When he turned from the door he saw the two witches “affiliated to the +Devil” and the Satanic girl looking at him in silence. He wondered if +Tom Corbin took the same precaution last might. And thinking of him he +had again that queer impression of his nearness. The world was perfectly +dumb. And in this stillness he heard the blood beating in his ears with +a confused rushing noise, in which there seemed to be a voice uttering +the words: “Mr. Byrne, look out, sir.” Tom’s voice. He shuddered; for +the delusions of the senses of hearing are the most vivid of all, and +from their nature have a compelling character. + +It seemed impossible that Tom should not be there. Again a slight chill +as of stealthy draught penetrated through his very clothes and passed +over all his body. He shook off the impression with an effort. + +It was the girl who preceded him upstairs carrying an iron lamp from the +naked flame of which ascended a thin thread of smoke. Her soiled white +stockings were full of holes. + +With the same quiet resolution with which he had locked the door below, +Byrne threw open one after another the doors in the corridor. All the +rooms were empty except for some nondescript lumber in one or two. And +the girl seeing what he would be at stopped every time, raising the smoky +light in each doorway patiently. Meantime she observed him with +sustained attention. The last door of all she threw open herself. + +“You sleep here, señor,” she murmured in a voice light like a child’s +breath, offering him the lamp. + +“_Buenos noches_, _senorita_,” he said politely, taking it from her. + +She didn’t return the wish audibly, though her lips did move a little, +while her gaze black like a starless night never for a moment wavered +before him. He stepped in, and as he turned to close the door she was +still there motionless and disturbing, with her voluptuous mouth and +slanting eyes, with the expression of expectant sensual ferocity of a +baffled cat. He hesitated for a moment, and in the dumb house he heard +again the blood pulsating ponderously in his ears, while once more the +illusion of Tom’s voice speaking earnestly somewhere near by was +specially terrifying, because this time he could not make out the words. + +He slammed the door in the girl’s face at last, leaving her in the dark; +and he opened it again almost on the instant. Nobody. She had vanished +without the slightest sound. He closed the door quickly and bolted it +with two heavy bolts. + +A profound mistrust possessed him suddenly. Why did the witches quarrel +about letting him sleep here? And what meant that stare of the girl as +if she wanted to impress his features for ever in her mind? His own +nervousness alarmed him. He seemed to himself to be removed very far +from mankind. + +He examined his room. It was not very high, just high enough to take the +bed which stood under an enormous baldaquin-like canopy from which fell +heavy curtains at foot and head; a bed certainly worthy of an archbishop. +There was a heavy table carved all round the edges, some arm-chairs of +enormous weight like the spoils of a grandee’s palace; a tall shallow +wardrobe placed against the wall and with double doors. He tried them. +Locked. A suspicion came into his mind, and he snatched the lamp to make +a closer examination. No, it was not a disguised entrance. That heavy, +tall piece of furniture stood clear of the wall by quite an inch. He +glanced at the bolts of his room door. No! No one could get at him +treacherously while he slept. But would he be able to sleep? he asked +himself anxiously. If only he had Tom there—the trusty seaman who had +fought at his right hand in a cutting out affair or two, and had always +preached to him the necessity to take care of himself. “For it’s no +great trick,” he used to say, “to get yourself killed in a hot fight. +Any fool can do that. The proper pastime is to fight the Frenchies and +then live to fight another day.” + +Byrne found it a hard matter not to fall into listening to the silence. +Somehow he had the conviction that nothing would break it unless he heard +again the haunting sound of Tom’s voice. He had heard it twice before. +Odd! And yet no wonder, he argued with himself reasonably, since he had +been thinking of the man for over thirty hours continuously and, what’s +more, inconclusively. For his anxiety for Tom had never taken a definite +shape. “Disappear,” was the only word connected with the idea of Tom’s +danger. It was very vague and awful. “Disappear!” What did that mean? + +Byrne shuddered, and then said to himself that he must be a little +feverish. But Tom had not disappeared. Byrne had just heard of him. +And again the young man felt the blood beating in his ears. He sat still +expecting every moment to hear through the pulsating strokes the sound of +Tom’s voice. He waited straining his ears, but nothing came. Suddenly +the thought occurred to him: “He has not disappeared, but he cannot make +himself heard.” + +He jumped up from the arm-chair. How absurd! Laying his pistol and his +hanger on the table he took off his boots and, feeling suddenly too tired +to stand, flung himself on the bed which he found soft and comfortable +beyond his hopes. + +He had felt very wakeful, but he must have dozed off after all, because +the next thing he knew he was sitting up in bed and trying to recollect +what it was that Tom’s voice had said. Oh! He remembered it now. It +had said: “Mr. Byrne! Look out, sir!” A warning this. But against +what? + +He landed with one leap in the middle of the floor, gasped once, then +looked all round the room. The window was shuttered and barred with an +iron bar. Again he ran his eyes slowly all round the bare walls, and +even looked up at the ceiling, which was rather high. Afterwards he went +to the door to examine the fastenings. They consisted of two enormous +iron bolts sliding into holes made in the wall; and as the corridor +outside was too narrow to admit of any battering arrangement or even to +permit an axe to be swung, nothing could burst the door open—unless +gunpowder. But while he was still making sure that the lower bolt was +pushed well home, he received the impression of somebody’s presence in +the room. It was so strong that he spun round quicker than lightning. +There was no one. Who could there be? And yet . . . + +It was then that he lost the decorum and restraint a man keeps up for his +own sake. He got down on his hands and knees, with the lamp on the +floor, to look under the bed, like a silly girl. He saw a lot of dust +and nothing else. He got up, his cheeks burning, and walked about +discontented with his own behaviour and unreasonably angry with Tom for +not leaving him alone. The words: “Mr. Byrne! Look out, sir,” kept on +repeating themselves in his head in a tone of warning. + +“Hadn’t I better just throw myself on the bed and try to go to sleep,” he +asked himself. But his eyes fell on the tall wardrobe, and he went +towards it feeling irritated with himself and yet unable to desist. How +he could explain to-morrow the burglarious misdeed to the two odious +witches he had no idea. Nevertheless he inserted the point of his hanger +between the two halves of the door and tried to prize them open. They +resisted. He swore, sticking now hotly to his purpose. His mutter: “I +hope you will be satisfied, confound you,” was addressed to the absent +Tom. Just then the doors gave way and flew open. + +He was there. + +He—the trusty, sagacious, and courageous Tom was there, drawn up shadowy +and stiff, in a prudent silence, which his wide-open eyes by their fixed +gleam seemed to command Byrne to respect. But Byrne was too startled to +make a sound. Amazed, he stepped back a little—and on the instant the +seaman flung himself forward headlong as if to clasp his officer round +the neck. Instinctively Byrne put out his faltering arms; he felt the +horrible rigidity of the body and then the coldness of death as their +heads knocked together and their faces came into contact. They reeled, +Byrne hugging Tom close to his breast in order not to let him fall with a +crash. He had just strength enough to lower the awful burden gently to +the floor—then his head swam, his legs gave way, and he sank on his +knees, leaning over the body with his hands resting on the breast of that +man once full of generous life, and now as insensible as a stone. + +“Dead! my poor Tom, dead,” he repeated mentally. The light of the lamp +standing near the edge of the table fell from above straight on the stony +empty stare of these eyes which naturally had a mobile and merry +expression. + +Byrne turned his own away from them. Tom’s black silk neckerchief was +not knotted on his breast. It was gone. The murderers had also taken +off his shoes and stockings. And noticing this spoliation, the exposed +throat, the bare up-turned feet, Byrne felt his eyes run full of tears. +In other respects the seaman was fully dressed; neither was his clothing +disarranged as it must have been in a violent struggle. Only his checked +shirt had been pulled a little out the waistband in one place, just +enough to ascertain whether he had a money belt fastened round his body. +Byrne began to sob into his handkerchief. + +It was a nervous outburst which passed off quickly. Remaining on his +knees he contemplated sadly the athletic body of as fine a seaman as ever +had drawn a cutlass, laid a gun, or passed the weather earring in a gale, +lying stiff and cold, his cheery, fearless spirit departed—perhaps +turning to him, his boy chum, to his ship out there rolling on the grey +seas off an iron-bound coast, at the very moment of its flight. + +He perceived that the six brass buttons of Tom’s jacket had been cut off. +He shuddered at the notion of the two miserable and repulsive witches +busying themselves ghoulishly about the defenceless body of his friend. +Cut off. Perhaps with the same knife which . . . The head of one +trembled; the other was bent double, and their eyes were red and bleared, +their infamous claws unsteady. . . It must have been in this very room +too, for Tom could not have been killed in the open and brought in here +afterwards. Of that Byrne was certain. Yet those devilish crones could +not have killed him themselves even by taking him unawares—and Tom would +be always on his guard of course. Tom was a very wide awake wary man +when engaged on any service. . . And in fact how did they murder him? +Who did? In what way? + +Byrne jumped up, snatched the lamp off the table, and stooped swiftly +over the body. The light revealed on the clothing no stain, no trace, no +spot of blood anywhere. Byrne’s hands began to shake so that he had to +set the lamp on the floor and turn away his head in order to recover from +this agitation. + +Then he began to explore that cold, still, and rigid body for a stab, a +gunshot wound, for the trace of some killing blow. He felt all over the +skull anxiously. It was whole. He slipped his hand under the neck. It +was unbroken. With terrified eyes he peered close under the chin and saw +no marks of strangulation on the throat. + +There were no signs anywhere. He was just dead. + +Impulsively Byrne got away from the body as if the mystery of an +incomprehensible death had changed his pity into suspicion and dread. +The lamp on the floor near the set, still face of the seaman showed it +staring at the ceiling as if despairingly. In the circle of light Byrne +saw by the undisturbed patches of thick dust on the floor that there had +been no struggle in that room. “He has died outside,” he thought. Yes, +outside in that narrow corridor, where there was hardly room to turn, the +mysterious death had come to his poor dear Tom. The impulse of snatching +up his pistols and rushing out of the room abandoned Byrne suddenly. For +Tom, too, had been armed—with just such powerless weapons as he himself +possessed—pistols, a cutlass! And Tom had died a nameless death, by +incomprehensible means. + +A new thought came to Byrne. That stranger knocking at the door and +fleeing so swiftly at his appearance had come there to remove the body. +Aha! That was the guide the withered witch had promised would show the +English officer the shortest way of rejoining his man. A promise, he saw +it now, of dreadful import. He who had knocked would have two bodies to +deal with. Man and officer would go forth from the house together. For +Byrne was certain now that he would have to die before the morning—and in +the same mysterious manner, leaving behind him an unmarked body. + +The sight of a smashed head, of a throat cut, of a gaping gunshot wound, +would have been an inexpressible relief. It would have soothed all his +fears. His soul cried within him to that dead man whom he had never +found wanting in danger. “Why don’t you tell me what I am to look for, +Tom? Why don’t you?” But in rigid immobility, extended on his back, he +seemed to preserve an austere silence, as if disdaining in the finality +of his awful knowledge to hold converse with the living. + +Suddenly Byrne flung himself on his knees by the side of the body, and +dry-eyed, fierce, opened the shirt wide on the breast, as if to tear the +secret forcibly from that cold heart which had been so loyal to him in +life! Nothing! Nothing! He raised the lamp, and all the sign +vouchsafed to him by that face which used to be so kindly in expression +was a small bruise on the forehead—the least thing, a mere mark. The +skin even was not broken. He stared at it a long time as if lost in a +dreadful dream. Then he observed that Tom’s hands were clenched as +though he had fallen facing somebody in a fight with fists. His +knuckles, on closer view, appeared somewhat abraded. Both hands. + +The discovery of these slight signs was more appalling to Byrne than the +absolute absence of every mark would have been. So Tom had died striking +against something which could be hit, and yet could kill one without +leaving a wound—by a breath. + +Terror, hot terror, began to play about Byrne’s heart like a tongue of +flame that touches and withdraws before it turns a thing to ashes. He +backed away from the body as far as he could, then came forward +stealthily casting fearful glances to steal another look at the bruised +forehead. There would perhaps be such a faint bruise on his own +forehead—before the morning. + +“I can’t bear it,” he whispered to himself. Tom was for him now an +object of horror, a sight at once tempting and revolting to his fear. He +couldn’t bear to look at him. + +At last, desperation getting the better of his increasing horror, he +stepped forward from the wall against which he had been leaning, seized +the corpse under the armpits, and began to lug it over to the bed. The +bare heels of the seaman trailed on the floor noiselessly. He was heavy +with the dead weight of inanimate objects. With a last effort Byrne +landed him face downwards on the edge of the bed, rolled him over, +snatched from under this stiff passive thing a sheet with which he +covered it over. Then he spread the curtains at head and foot so that +joining together as he shook their folds they hid the bed altogether from +his sight. + +He stumbled towards a chair, and fell on it. The perspiration poured +from his face for a moment, and then his veins seemed to carry for a +while a thin stream of half, frozen blood. Complete terror had +possession of him now, a nameless terror which had turned his heart to +ashes. + +He sat upright in the straight-backed chair, the lamp burning at his +feet, his pistols and his hanger at his left elbow on the end of the +table, his eyes turning incessantly in their sockets round the walls, +over the ceiling, over the floor, in the expectation of a mysterious and +appalling vision. The thing which could deal death in a breath was +outside that bolted door. But Byrne believed neither in walls nor bolts +now. Unreasoning terror turning everything to account, his old time +boyish admiration of the athletic Tom, the undaunted Tom (he had seemed +to him invincible), helped to paralyse his faculties, added to his +despair. + +He was no longer Edgar Byrne. He was a tortured soul suffering more +anguish than any sinner’s body had ever suffered from rack or boot. The +depth of his torment may be measured when I say that this young man, as +brave at least as the average of his kind, contemplated seizing a pistol +and firing into his own head. But a deadly, chilly, langour was +spreading over his limbs. It was as if his flesh had been wet plaster +stiffening slowly about his ribs. Presently, he thought, the two witches +will be coming in, with crutch and stick—horrible, grotesque, +monstrous—affiliated to the devil—to put a mark on his forehead, the tiny +little bruise of death. And he wouldn’t be able to do anything. Tom had +struck out at something, but he was not like Tom. His limbs were dead +already. He sat still, dying the death over and over again; and the only +part of him which moved were his eyes, turning round and round in their +sockets, running over the walls, the floor, the ceiling, again and again +till suddenly they became motionless and stony—starting out of his head +fixed in the direction of the bed. + +He had seen the heavy curtains stir and shake as if the dead body they +concealed had turned over and sat up. Byrne, who thought the world could +hold no more terrors in store, felt his hair stir at the roots. He +gripped the arms of the chair, his jaw fell, and the sweat broke out on +his brow while his dry tongue clove suddenly to the roof of his mouth. +Again the curtains stirred, but did not open. “Don’t, Tom!” Byrne made +effort to shout, but all he heard was a slight moan such as an uneasy +sleeper may make. He felt that his brain was going, for, now, it seemed +to him that the ceiling over the bed had moved, had slanted, and came +level again—and once more the closed curtains swayed gently as if about +to part. + +Byrne closed his eyes not to see the awful apparition of the seaman’s +corpse coming out animated by an evil spirit. In the profound silence of +the room he endured a moment of frightful agony, then opened his eyes +again. And he saw at once that the curtains remained closed still, but +that the ceiling over the bed had risen quite a foot. With the last +gleam of reason left to him he understood that it was the enormous +baldaquin over the bed which was coming down, while the curtains attached +to it swayed softly, sinking gradually to the floor. His drooping jaw +snapped to—and half rising in his chair he watched mutely the noiseless +descent of the monstrous canopy. It came down in short smooth rushes +till lowered half way or more, when it took a run and settled swiftly its +turtle-back shape with the deep border piece fitting exactly the edge of +the bedstead. A slight crack or two of wood were heard, and the +overpowering stillness of the room resumed its sway. + +Byrne stood up, gasped for breath, and let out a cry of rage and dismay, +the first sound which he is perfectly certain did make its way past his +lips on this night of terrors. This then was the death he had escaped! +This was the devilish artifice of murder poor Tom’s soul had perhaps +tried from beyond the border to warn him of. For this was how he had +died. Byrne was certain he had heard the voice of the seaman, faintly +distinct in his familiar phrase, “Mr. Byrne! Look out, sir!” and again +uttering words he could not make out. But then the distance separating +the living from the dead is so great! Poor Tom had tried. Byrne ran to +the bed and attempted to lift up, to push off the horrible lid smothering +the body. It resisted his efforts, heavy as lead, immovable like a +tombstone. The rage of vengeance made him desist; his head buzzed with +chaotic thoughts of extermination, he turned round the room as if he +could find neither his weapons nor the way out; and all the time he +stammered awful menaces. . . + +A violent battering at the door of the inn recalled him to his soberer +senses. He flew to the window pulled the shutters open, and looked out. +In the faint dawn he saw below him a mob of men. Ha! He would go and +face at once this murderous lot collected no doubt for his undoing. +After his struggle with nameless terrors he yearned for an open fray with +armed enemies. But he must have remained yet bereft of his reason, +because forgetting his weapons he rushed downstairs with a wild cry, +unbarred the door while blows were raining on it outside, and flinging it +open flew with his bare hands at the throat of the first man he saw +before him. They rolled over together. Byrne’s hazy intention was to +break through, to fly up the mountain path, and come back presently with +Gonzales’ men to exact an exemplary vengeance. He fought furiously till +a tree, a house, a mountain, seemed to crash down upon his head—and he +knew no more. + + * * * * * + +Here Mr. Byrne describes in detail the skilful manner in which he found +his broken head bandaged, informs us that he had lost a great deal of +blood, and ascribes the preservation of his sanity to that circumstance. +He sets down Gonzales’ profuse apologies in full too. For it was +Gonzales who, tired of waiting for news from the English, had come down +to the inn with half his band, on his way to the sea. “His excellency,” +he explained, “rushed out with fierce impetuosity, and, moreover, was not +known to us for a friend, and so we . . . etc., etc. When asked what had +become of the witches, he only pointed his finger silently to the ground, +then voiced calmly a moral reflection: “The passion for gold is pitiless +in the very old, señor,” he said. “No doubt in former days they have put +many a solitary traveller to sleep in the archbishop’s bed.” + +“There was also a gipsy girl there,” said Byrne feebly from the +improvised litter on which he was being carried to the coast by a squad +of guerilleros. + +“It was she who winched up that infernal machine, and it was she too who +lowered it that night,” was the answer. + +“But why? Why?” exclaimed Byrne. “Why should she wish for my death?” + +“No doubt for the sake of your excellency’s coat buttons,” said politely +the saturnine Gonzales. “We found those of the dead mariner concealed on +her person. But your excellency may rest assured that everything that is +fitting has been done on this occasion.” + +Byrne asked no more questions. There was still another death which was +considered by Gonzales as “fitting to the occasion.” The one-eyed +Bernardino stuck against the wall of his wine-shop received the charge of +six escopettas into his breast. As the shots rang out the rough bier +with Tom’s body on it went past carried by a bandit-like gang of Spanish +patriots down the ravine to the shore, where two boats from the ship were +waiting for what was left on earth of her best seaman. + +Mr. Byrne, very pale and weak, stepped into the boat which carried the +body of his humble friend. For it was decided that Tom Corbin should +rest far out in the bay of Biscay. The officer took the tiller and, +turning his head for the last look at the shore, saw on the grey hillside +something moving, which he made out to be a little man in a yellow hat +mounted on a mule—that mule without which the fate of Tom Corbin would +have remained mysterious for ever. + + * * * * * + +_June_, 1913. + + + + +BECAUSE OF THE DOLLARS + + +CHAPTER I + + +While we were hanging about near the water’s edge, as sailors idling +ashore will do (it was in the open space before the Harbour Office of a +great Eastern port), a man came towards us from the “front” of business +houses, aiming obliquely at the landing steps. He attracted my attention +because in the movement of figures in white drill suits on the pavement +from which he stepped, his costume, the usual tunic and trousers, being +made of light grey flannel, made him noticeable. + +I had time to observe him. He was stout, but he was not grotesque. His +face was round and smooth, his complexion very fair. On his nearer +approach I saw a little moustache made all the fairer by a good many +white hairs. And he had, for a stout man, quite a good chin. In passing +us he exchanged nods with the friend I was with and smiled. + +My friend was Hollis, the fellow who had so many adventures and had known +so many queer people in that part of the (more or less) gorgeous East in +the days of his youth. He said: “That’s a good man. I don’t mean good +in the sense of smart or skilful in his trade. I mean a really _good_ +man.” + +I turned round at once to look at the phenomenon. The “really _good_ +man” had a very broad back. I saw him signal a sampan to come alongside, +get into it, and go off in the direction of a cluster of local steamers +anchored close inshore. + +I said: “He’s a seaman, isn’t he?” + +“Yes. Commands that biggish dark-green steamer: ‘_Sissie_—Glasgow.’ He +has never commanded anything else but the ‘_Sissie_—Glasgow,’ only it +wasn’t always the same _Sissie_. The first he had was about half the +length of this one, and we used to tell poor Davidson that she was a size +too small for him. Even at that time Davidson had bulk. We warned him +he would get callosities on his shoulders and elbows because of the tight +fit of his command. And Davidson could well afford the smiles he gave us +for our chaff. He made lots of money in her. She belonged to a portly +Chinaman resembling a mandarin in a picture-book, with goggles and thin +drooping moustaches, and as dignified as only a Celestial knows how to +be. + +“The best of Chinamen as employers is that they have such gentlemanly +instincts. Once they become convinced that you are a straight man, they +give you their unbounded confidence. You simply can’t do wrong, then. +And they are pretty quick judges of character, too. Davidson’s Chinaman +was the first to find out his worth, on some theoretical principle. One +day in his counting-house, before several white men he was heard to +declare: ‘Captain Davidson is a good man.’ And that settled it. After +that you couldn’t tell if it was Davidson who belonged to the Chinaman or +the Chinaman who belonged to Davidson. It was he who, shortly before he +died, ordered in Glasgow the new _Sissie_ for Davidson to command.” + +We walked into the shade of the Harbour Office and leaned our elbows on +the parapet of the quay. + +“She was really meant to comfort poor Davidson,” continued Hollis. “Can +you fancy anything more naïvely touching than this old mandarin spending +several thousand pounds to console his white man? Well, there she is. +The old mandarin’s sons have inherited her, and Davidson with her; and he +commands her; and what with his salary and trading privileges he makes a +lot of money; and everything is as before; and Davidson even smiles—you +have seen it? Well, the smile’s the only thing which isn’t as before.” + +“Tell me, Hollis,” I asked, “what do you mean by good in this +connection?” + +“Well, there are men who are born good just as others are born witty. +What I mean is his nature. No simpler, more scrupulously delicate soul +had ever lived in such a—a—comfortable envelope. How we used to laugh at +Davidson’s fine scruples! In short, he’s thoroughly humane, and I don’t +imagine there can be much of any other sort of goodness that counts on +this earth. And as he’s that with a shade of particular refinement, I +may well call him a ‘_really_ good man.’” + +I knew from old that Hollis was a firm believer in the final value of +shades. And I said: “I see”—because I really did see Hollis’s Davidson +in the sympathetic stout man who had passed us a little while before. +But I remembered that at the very moment he smiled his placid face +appeared veiled in melancholy—a sort of spiritual shadow. I went on. + +“Who on earth has paid him off for being so fine by spoiling his smile?” + +“That’s quite a story, and I will tell it to you if you like. Confound +it! It’s quite a surprising one, too. Surprising in every way, but +mostly in the way it knocked over poor Davidson—and apparently only +because he is such a good sort. He was telling me all about it only a +few days ago. He said that when he saw these four fellows with their +heads in a bunch over the table, he at once didn’t like it. He didn’t +like it at all. You mustn’t suppose that Davidson is a soft fool. These +men— + +“But I had better begin at the beginning. We must go back to the first +time the old dollars had been called in by our Government in exchange for +a new issue. Just about the time when I left these parts to go home for +a long stay. Every trader in the islands was thinking of getting his old +dollars sent up here in time, and the demand for empty French wine +cases—you know the dozen of vermouth or claret size—was something +unprecedented. The custom was to pack the dollars in little bags of a +hundred each. I don’t know how many bags each case would hold. A good +lot. Pretty tidy sums must have been moving afloat just then. But let +us get away from here. Won’t do to stay in the sun. Where could we—? I +know! let us go to those tiffin-rooms over there.” + +We moved over accordingly. Our appearance in the long empty room at that +early hour caused visible consternation amongst the China boys. But +Hollis led the way to one of the tables between the windows screened by +rattan blinds. A brilliant half-light trembled on the ceiling, on the +whitewashed walls, bathed the multitude of vacant chairs and tables in a +peculiar, stealthy glow. + +“All right. We will get something to eat when it’s ready,” he said, +waving the anxious Chinaman waiter aside. He took his temples touched +with grey between his hands, leaning over the table to bring his face, +his dark, keen eyes, closer to mine. + +“Davidson then was commanding the steamer _Sissie_—the little one which +we used to chaff him about. He ran her alone, with only the Malay serang +for a deck officer. The nearest approach to another white man on board +of her was the engineer, a Portuguese half-caste, as thin as a lath and +quite a youngster at that. For all practical purposes Davidson was +managing that command of his single-handed; and of course this was known +in the port. I am telling you of it because the fact had its influence +on the developments you shall hear of presently. + +“His steamer, being so small, could go up tiny creeks and into shallow +bays and through reefs and over sand-banks, collecting produce, where no +other vessel but a native craft would think of venturing. It is a paying +game, often. Davidson was known to visit in her places that no one else +could find and that hardly anybody had ever heard of. + +“The old dollars being called in, Davidson’s Chinaman thought that the +_Sissie_ would be just the thing to collect them from small traders in +the less frequented parts of the Archipelago. It’s a good business. +Such cases of dollars are dumped aft in the ship’s lazarette, and you get +good freight for very little trouble and space. + +“Davidson, too, thought it was a good idea; and together they made up a +list of his calls on his next trip. Then Davidson (he had naturally the +chart of his voyages in his head) remarked that on his way back he might +look in at a certain settlement up a mere creek, where a poor sort of +white man lived in a native village. Davidson pointed out to his +Chinaman that the fellow was certain to have some rattans to ship. + +“‘Probably enough to fill her forward,’ said Davidson. ‘And that’ll be +better than bringing her back with empty holds. A day more or less +doesn’t matter.’ + +“This was sound talk, and the Chinaman owner could not but agree. But if +it hadn’t been sound it would have been just the same. Davidson did what +he liked. He was a man that could do no wrong. However, this suggestion +of his was not merely a business matter. There was in it a touch of +Davidsonian kindness. For you must know that the man could not have +continued to live quietly up that creek if it had not been for Davidson’s +willingness to call there from time to time. And Davidson’s Chinaman +knew this perfectly well, too. So he only smiled his dignified, bland +smile, and said: ‘All right, Captain. You do what you like.’ + +“I will explain presently how this connection between Davidson and that +fellow came about. Now I want to tell you about the part of this affair +which happened here—the preliminaries of it. + +“You know as well as I do that these tiffin-rooms where we are sitting +now have been in existence for many years. Well, next day about twelve +o’clock, Davidson dropped in here to get something to eat. + +“And here comes the only moment in this story where accident—mere +accident—plays a part. If Davidson had gone home that day for tiffin, +there would be now, after twelve years or more, nothing changed in his +kindly, placid smile. + +“But he came in here; and perhaps it was sitting at this very table that +he remarked to a friend of mine that his next trip was to be a +dollar-collecting trip. He added, laughing, that his wife was making +rather a fuss about it. She had begged him to stay ashore and get +somebody else to take his place for a voyage. She thought there was some +danger on account of the dollars. He told her, he said, that there were +no Java-sea pirates nowadays except in boys’ books. He had laughed at +her fears, but he was very sorry, too; for when she took any notion in +her head it was impossible to argue her out of it. She would be worrying +herself all the time he was away. Well, he couldn’t help it. There was +no one ashore fit to take his place for the trip. + +“This friend of mine and I went home together in the same mail-boat, and +he mentioned that conversation one evening in the Red Sea while we were +talking over the things and people we had just left, with more or less +regret. + +“I can’t say that Davidson occupied a very prominent place. Moral +excellence seldom does. He was quietly appreciated by those who knew him +well; but his more obvious distinction consisted in this, that he was +married. Ours, as you remember, was a bachelor crowd; in spirit anyhow, +if not absolutely in fact. There might have been a few wives in +existence, but if so they were invisible, distant, never alluded to. For +what would have been the good? Davidson alone was visibly married. + +“Being married suited him exactly. It fitted him so well that the +wildest of us did not resent the fact when it was disclosed. Directly he +had felt his feet out here, Davidson sent for his wife. She came out +(from West Australia) in the _Somerset_, under the care of Captain +Ritchie—you know, Monkey-face Ritchie—who couldn’t praise enough her +sweetness, her gentleness, and her charm. She seemed to be the +heaven-born mate for Davidson. She found on arrival a very pretty +bungalow on the hill, ready for her and the little girl they had. Very +soon he got for her a two-wheeled trap and a Burmah pony, and she used to +drive down of an evening to pick up Davidson, on the quay. When +Davidson, beaming, got into the trap, it would become very full all at +once. + +“We used to admire Mrs. Davidson from a distance. It was a girlish head +out of a keepsake. From a distance. We had not many opportunities for a +closer view, because she did not care to give them to us. We would have +been glad to drop in at the Davidson bungalow, but we were made to feel +somehow that we were not very welcome there. Not that she ever said +anything ungracious. She never had much to say for herself. I was +perhaps the one who saw most of the Davidsons at home. What I noticed +under the superficial aspect of vapid sweetness was her convex, obstinate +forehead, and her small, red, pretty, ungenerous mouth. But then I am an +observer with strong prejudices. Most of us were fetched by her white, +swan-like neck, by that drooping, innocent profile. There was a lot of +latent devotion to Davidson’s wife hereabouts, at that time, I can tell +you. But my idea was that she repaid it by a profound suspicion of the +sort of men we were; a mistrust which extended—I fancied—to her very +husband at times. And I thought then she was jealous of him in a way; +though there were no women that she could be jealous about. She had no +women’s society. It’s difficult for a shipmaster’s wife unless there are +other shipmasters’ wives about, and there were none here then. I know +that the dock manager’s wife called on her; but that was all. The +fellows here formed the opinion that Mrs. Davidson was a meek, shy little +thing. She looked it, I must say. And this opinion was so universal +that the friend I have been telling you of remembered his conversation +with Davidson simply because of the statement about Davidson’s wife. He +even wondered to me: ‘Fancy Mrs. Davidson making a fuss to that extent. +She didn’t seem to me the sort of woman that would know how to make a +fuss about anything.’ + +“I wondered, too—but not so much. That bumpy forehead—eh? I had always +suspected her of being silly. And I observed that Davidson must have +been vexed by this display of wifely anxiety. + +“My friend said: ‘No. He seemed rather touched and distressed. There +really was no one he could ask to relieve him; mainly because he intended +to make a call in some God-forsaken creek, to look up a fellow of the +name of Bamtz who apparently had settled there.’ + +“And again my friend wondered. ‘Tell me,’ he cried, ‘what connection can +there be between Davidson and such a creature as Bamtz?’ + +“I don’t remember now what answer I made. A sufficient one could have +been given in two words: ‘Davidson’s goodness.’ _That_ never boggled at +unworthiness if there was the slightest reason for compassion. I don’t +want you to think that Davidson had no discrimination at all. Bamtz +could not have imposed on him. Moreover, everybody knew what Bamtz was. +He was a loafer with a beard. When I think of Bamtz, the first thing I +see is that long black beard and a lot of propitiatory wrinkles at the +corners of two little eyes. There was no such beard from here to +Polynesia, where a beard is a valuable property in itself. Bamtz’s beard +was valuable to him in another way. You know how impressed Orientals are +by a fine beard. Years and years ago, I remember, the grave Abdullah, +the great trader of Sambir, unable to repress signs of astonishment and +admiration at the first sight of that imposing beard. And it’s very well +known that Bamtz lived on Abdullah off and on for several years. It was +a unique beard, and so was the bearer of the same. A unique loafer. He +made a fine art of it, or rather a sort of craft and mystery. One can +understand a fellow living by cadging and small swindles in towns, in +large communities of people; but Bamtz managed to do that trick in the +wilderness, to loaf on the outskirts of the virgin forest. + +“He understood how to ingratiate himself with the natives. He would +arrive in some settlement up a river, make a present of a cheap carbine +or a pair of shoddy binoculars, or something of that sort, to the Rajah, +or the head-man, or the principal trader; and on the strength of that +gift, ask for a house, posing mysteriously as a very special trader. He +would spin them no end of yarns, live on the fat of the land, for a +while, and then do some mean swindle or other—or else they would get +tired of him and ask him to quit. And he would go off meekly with an air +of injured innocence. Funny life. Yet, he never got hurt somehow. I’ve +heard of the Rajah of Dongala giving him fifty dollars’ worth of trade +goods and paying his passage in a prau only to get rid of him. Fact. +And observe that nothing prevented the old fellow having Bamtz’s throat +cut and the carcase thrown into deep water outside the reefs; for who on +earth would have inquired after Bamtz? + +“He had been known to loaf up and down the wilderness as far north as the +Gulf of Tonkin. Neither did he disdain a spell of civilisation from time +to time. And it was while loafing and cadging in Saigon, bearded and +dignified (he gave himself out there as a bookkeeper), that he came +across Laughing Anne. + +“The less said of her early history the better, but something must be +said. We may safely suppose there was very little heart left in her +famous laugh when Bamtz spoke first to her in some low café. She was +stranded in Saigon with precious little money and in great trouble about +a kid she had, a boy of five or six. + +“A fellow I just remember, whom they called Pearler Harry, brought her +out first into these parts—from Australia, I believe. He brought her out +and then dropped her, and she remained knocking about here and there, +known to most of us by sight, at any rate. Everybody in the Archipelago +had heard of Laughing Anne. She had really a pleasant silvery laugh +always at her disposal, so to speak, but it wasn’t enough apparently to +make her fortune. The poor creature was ready to stick to any +half-decent man if he would only let her, but she always got dropped, as +it might have been expected. + +“She had been left in Saigon by the skipper of a German ship with whom +she had been going up and down the China coast as far as Vladivostok for +near upon two years. The German said to her: ‘This is all over, _mein +Taubchen_. I am going home now to get married to the girl I got engaged +to before coming out here.’ And Anne said: ‘All right, I’m ready to go. +We part friends, don’t we?’ + +“She was always anxious to part friends. The German told her that of +course they were parting friends. He looked rather glum at the moment of +parting. She laughed and went ashore. + +“But it was no laughing matter for her. She had some notion that this +would be her last chance. What frightened her most was the future of her +child. She had left her boy in Saigon before going off with the German, +in the care of an elderly French couple. The husband was a doorkeeper in +some Government office, but his time was up, and they were returning to +France. She had to take the boy back from them; and after she had got +him back, she did not like to part with him any more. + +“That was the situation when she and Bamtz got acquainted casually. She +could not have had any illusions about that fellow. To pick up with +Bamtz was coming down pretty low in the world, even from a material point +of view. She had always been decent, in her way; whereas Bamtz was, not +to mince words, an abject sort of creature. On the other hand, that +bearded loafer, who looked much more like a pirate than a bookkeeper, was +not a brute. He was gentle—rather—even in his cups. And then, despair, +like misfortune, makes us acquainted with strange bed-fellows. For she +may well have despaired. She was no longer young—you know. + +“On the man’s side this conjunction is more difficult to explain, +perhaps. One thing, however, must be said of Bamtz; he had always kept +clear of native women. As one can’t suspect him of moral delicacy, I +surmise that it must have been from prudence. And he, too, was no longer +young. There were many white hairs in his valuable black beard by then. +He may have simply longed for some kind of companionship in his queer, +degraded existence. Whatever their motives, they vanished from Saigon +together. And of course nobody cared what had become of them. + +“Six months later Davidson came into the Mirrah Settlement. It was the +very first time he had been up that creek, where no European vessel had +ever been seen before. A Javanese passenger he had on board offered him +fifty dollars to call in there—it must have been some very particular +business—and Davidson consented to try. Fifty dollars, he told me, were +neither here nor there; but he was curious to see the place, and the +little _Sissie_ could go anywhere where there was water enough to float a +soup-plate. + +“Davidson landed his Javanese plutocrat, and, as he had to wait a couple +of hours for the tide, he went ashore himself to stretch his legs. + +“It was a small settlement. Some sixty houses, most of them built on +piles over the river, the rest scattered in the long grass; the usual +pathway at the back; the forest hemming in the clearing and smothering +what there might have been of air into a dead, hot stagnation. + +“All the population was on the river-bank staring silently, as Malays +will do, at the _Sissie_ anchored in the stream. She was almost as +wonderful to them as an angel’s visit. Many of the old people had only +heard vaguely of fire-ships, and not many of the younger generation had +seen one. On the back path Davidson strolled in perfect solitude. But +he became aware of a bad smell and concluded he would go no farther. + +“While he stood wiping his forehead, he heard from somewhere the +exclamation: ‘My God! It’s Davy!’ + +“Davidson’s lower jaw, as he expressed it, came unhooked at the crying of +this excited voice. Davy was the name used by the associates of his +young days; he hadn’t heard it for many years. He stared about with his +mouth open and saw a white woman issue from the long grass in which a +small hut stood buried nearly up to the roof. + +“Try to imagine the shock: in that wild place that you couldn’t find on a +map, and more squalid than the most poverty-stricken Malay settlement had +a right to be, this European woman coming swishing out of the long grass +in a fanciful tea-gown thing, dingy pink satin, with a long train and +frayed lace trimmings; her eyes like black coals in a pasty-white face. +Davidson thought that he was asleep, that he was delirious. From the +offensive village mudhole (it was what Davidson had sniffed just before) +a couple of filthy buffaloes uprose with loud snorts and lumbered off +crashing through the bushes, panic-struck by this apparition. + +“The woman came forward, her arms extended, and laid her hands on +Davidson’s shoulders, exclaiming: ‘Why! You have hardly changed at all. +The same good Davy.’ And she laughed a little wildly. + +“This sound was to Davidson like a galvanic shock to a corpse. He +started in every muscle. ‘Laughing Anne,’ he said in an awe-struck +voice. + +“‘All that’s left of her, Davy. All that’s left of her.’ + +“Davidson looked up at the sky; but there was to be seen no balloon from +which she could have fallen on that spot. When he brought his distracted +gaze down, it rested on a child holding on with a brown little paw to the +pink satin gown. He had run out of the grass after her. Had Davidson +seen a real hobgoblin his eyes could not have bulged more than at this +small boy in a dirty white blouse and ragged knickers. He had a round +head of tight chestnut curls, very sunburnt legs, a freckled face, and +merry eyes. Admonished by his mother to greet the gentleman, he finished +off Davidson by addressing him in French. + +“‘_Bonjour_.’ + +“Davidson, overcome, looked up at the woman in silence. She sent the +child back to the hut, and when he had disappeared in the grass, she +turned to Davidson, tried to speak, but after getting out the words, +‘That’s my Tony,’ burst into a long fit of crying. She had to lean on +Davidson’s shoulder. He, distressed in the goodness of his heart, stood +rooted to the spot where she had come upon him. + +“What a meeting—eh? Bamtz had sent her out to see what white man it was +who had landed. And she had recognised him from that time when Davidson, +who had been pearling himself in his youth, had been associating with +Harry the Pearler and others, the quietest of a rather rowdy set. + +“Before Davidson retraced his steps to go on board the steamer, he had +heard much of Laughing Anne’s story, and had even had an interview, on +the path, with Bamtz himself. She ran back to the hut to fetch him, and +he came out lounging, with his hands in his pockets, with the detached, +casual manner under which he concealed his propensity to cringe. +Ya-a-as-as. He thought he would settle here permanently—with her. This +with a nod at Laughing Anne, who stood by, a haggard, tragically anxious +figure, her black hair hanging over her shoulders. + +“‘No more paint and dyes for me, Davy,’ she struck in, ‘if only you will +do what he wants you to do. You know that I was always ready to stand by +my men—if they had only let me.’ + +“Davidson had no doubt of her earnestness. It was of Bamtz’s good faith +that he was not at all sure. Bamtz wanted Davidson to promise to call at +Mirrah more or less regularly. He thought he saw an opening to do +business with rattans there, if only he could depend on some craft to +bring out trading goods and take away his produce. + +“‘I have a few dollars to make a start on. The people are all right.’ + +“He had come there, where he was not known, in a native prau, and had +managed, with his sedate manner and the exactly right kind of yarn he +knew how to tell to the natives, to ingratiate himself with the chief +man. + +“‘The Orang Kaya has given me that empty house there to live in as long +as I will stay,’ added Bamtz. + +“‘Do it, Davy,’ cried the woman suddenly. ‘Think of that poor kid.’ + +“‘Seen him? ’Cute little customer,’ said the reformed loafer in such a +tone of interest as to surprise Davidson into a kindly glance. + +“‘I certainly can do it,’ he declared. He thought of at first making +some stipulation as to Bamtz behaving decently to the woman, but his +exaggerated delicacy and also the conviction that such a fellow’s +promises were worth nothing restrained him. Anne went a little distance +down the path with him talking anxiously. + +“‘It’s for the kid. How could I have kept him with me if I had to knock +about in towns? Here he will never know that his mother was a painted +woman. And this Bamtz likes him. He’s real fond of him. I suppose I +ought to thank God for that.’ + +“Davidson shuddered at any human creature being brought so low as to have +to thank God for the favours or affection of a Bamtz. + +“‘And do you think that you can make out to live here?’ he asked gently. + +“‘Can’t I? You know I have always stuck to men through thick and thin +till they had enough of me. And now look at me! But inside I am as I +always was. I have acted on the square to them all one after another. +Only they do get tired somehow. Oh, Davy! Harry ought not to have cast +me off. It was he that led me astray.’ + +“Davidson mentioned to her that Harry the Pearler had been dead now for +some years. Perhaps she had heard? + +“She made a sign that she had heard; and walked by the side of Davidson +in silence nearly to the bank. Then she told him that her meeting with +him had brought back the old times to her mind. She had not cried for +years. She was not a crying woman either. It was hearing herself called +Laughing Anne that had started her sobbing like a fool. Harry was the +only man she had loved. The others— + +“She shrugged her shoulders. But she prided herself on her loyalty to +the successive partners of her dismal adventures. She had never played +any tricks in her life. She was a pal worth having. But men did get +tired. They did not understand women. She supposed it had to be. + +“Davidson was attempting a veiled warning as to Bamtz, but she +interrupted him. She knew what men were. She knew what this man was +like. But he had taken wonderfully to the kid. And Davidson desisted +willingly, saying to himself that surely poor Laughing Anne could have no +illusions by this time. She wrung his hand hard at parting. + +“‘It’s for the kid, Davy—it’s for the kid. Isn’t he a bright little +chap?’ + + + +CHAPTER II + + +“All this happened about two years before the day when Davidson, sitting +in this very room, talked to my friend. You will see presently how this +room can get full. Every seat’ll be occupied, and as you notice, the +tables are set close, so that the backs of the chairs are almost +touching. There is also a good deal of noisy talk here about one +o’clock. + +“I don’t suppose Davidson was talking very loudly; but very likely he had +to raise his voice across the table to my friend. And here accident, +mere accident, put in its work by providing a pair of fine ears close +behind Davidson’s chair. It was ten to one against, the owner of the +same having enough change in his pockets to get his tiffin here. But he +had. Most likely had rooked somebody of a few dollars at cards +overnight. He was a bright creature of the name of Fector, a spare, +short, jumpy fellow with a red face and muddy eyes. He described himself +as a journalist, as certain kind of women give themselves out as +actresses in the dock of a police-court. + +“He used to introduce himself to strangers as a man with a mission to +track out abuses and fight them whenever found. He would also hint that +he was a martyr. And it’s a fact that he had been kicked, horsewhipped, +imprisoned, and hounded with ignominy out of pretty well every place +between Ceylon and Shanghai, for a professional blackmailer. + +“I suppose, in that trade, you’ve got to have active wits and sharp ears. +It’s not likely that he overheard every word Davidson said about his +dollar collecting trip, but he heard enough to set his wits at work. + +“He let Davidson go out, and then hastened away down to the native slums +to a sort of lodging-house kept in partnership by the usual sort of +Portuguese and a very disreputable Chinaman. Macao Hotel, it was called, +but it was mostly a gambling den that one used to warn fellows against. +Perhaps you remember? + +“There, the evening before, Fector had met a precious couple, a +partnership even more queer than the Portuguese and the Chinaman. One of +the two was Niclaus—you know. Why! the fellow with a Tartar moustache +and a yellow complexion, like a Mongolian, only that his eyes were set +straight and his face was not so flat. One couldn’t tell what breed he +was. A nondescript beggar. From a certain angle you would think a very +bilious white man. And I daresay he was. He owned a Malay prau and +called himself The Nakhoda, as one would say: The Captain. Aha! Now you +remember. He couldn’t, apparently, speak any other European language +than English, but he flew the Dutch flag on his prau. + +“The other was the Frenchman without hands. Yes. The very same we used +to know in ’79 in Sydney, keeping a little tobacco shop at the lower end +of George Street. You remember the huge carcase hunched up behind the +counter, the big white face and the long black hair brushed back off a +high forehead like a bard’s. He was always trying to roll cigarettes on +his knee with his stumps, telling endless yarns of Polynesia and whining +and cursing in turn about ‘_mon malheur_.’ His hands had been blown away +by a dynamite cartridge while fishing in some lagoon. This accident, I +believe, had made him more wicked than before, which is saying a good +deal. + +“He was always talking about ‘resuming his activities’ some day, whatever +they were, if he could only get an intelligent companion. It was evident +that the little shop was no field for his activities, and the sickly +woman with her face tied up, who used to look in sometimes through the +back door, was no companion for him. + +“And, true enough, he vanished from Sydney before long, after some +trouble with the Excise fellows about his stock. Goods stolen out of a +warehouse or something similar. He left the woman behind, but he must +have secured some sort of companion—he could not have shifted for +himself; but whom he went away with, and where, and what other companions +he might have picked up afterwards, it is impossible to make the remotest +guess about. + +“Why exactly he came this way I can’t tell. Towards the end of my time +here we began to hear talk of a maimed Frenchman who had been seen here +and there. But no one knew then that he had foregathered with Niclaus +and lived in his prau. I daresay he put Niclaus up to a thing or two. +Anyhow, it was a partnership. Niclaus was somewhat afraid of the +Frenchman on account of his tempers, which were awful. He looked then +like a devil; but a man without hands, unable to load or handle a weapon, +can at best go for one only with his teeth. From that danger Niclaus +felt certain he could always defend himself. + +“The couple were alone together loafing in the common-room of that +infamous hotel when Fector turned up. After some beating about the bush, +for he was doubtful how far he could trust these two, he repeated what he +had overheard in the tiffin-rooms. + +“His tale did not have much success till he came to mention the creek and +Bamtz’s name. Niclaus, sailing about like a native in a prau, was, in +his own words, ‘familiar with the locality.’ The huge Frenchman, walking +up and down the room with his stumps in the pockets of his jacket, +stopped short in surprise. ‘_Comment_? _Bamtz_! _Bamtz_!’ + +“He had run across him several times in his life. He exclaimed: +‘_Bamtz_! _Mais je ne connais que ca_!’ And he applied such a +contemptuously indecent epithet to Bamtz that when, later, he alluded to +him as ‘_une chiffe_’ (a mere rag) it sounded quite complimentary. ‘We +can do with him what we like,’ he asserted confidently. ‘Oh, yes. +Certainly we must hasten to pay a visit to that—’ (another awful +descriptive epithet quite unfit for repetition). ‘Devil take me if we +don’t pull off a coup that will set us all up for a long time.’ + +“He saw all that lot of dollars melted into bars and disposed of +somewhere on the China coast. Of the escape after the _coup_ he never +doubted. There was Niclaus’s prau to manage that in. + +“In his enthusiasm he pulled his stumps out of his pockets and waved them +about. Then, catching sight of them, as it were, he held them in front +of his eyes, cursing and blaspheming and bewailing his misfortune and his +helplessness, till Niclaus quieted him down. + +“But it was his mind that planned out the affair and it was his spirit +which carried the other two on. Neither of them was of the bold +buccaneer type; and Fector, especially, had never in his adventurous life +used other weapons than slander and lies. + +“That very evening they departed on a visit to Bamtz in Niclaus’s prau, +which had been lying, emptied of her cargo of cocoanuts, for a day or two +under the canal bridge. They must have crossed the bows of the anchored +_Sissie_, and no doubt looked at her with interest as the scene of their +future exploit, the great haul, _le grand coup_! + +“Davidson’s wife, to his great surprise, sulked with him for several days +before he left. I don’t know whether it occurred to him that, for all +her angelic profile, she was a very stupidly obstinate girl. She didn’t +like the tropics. He had brought her out there, where she had no +friends, and now, she said, he was becoming inconsiderate. She had a +presentiment of some misfortune, and notwithstanding Davidson’s +painstaking explanations, she could not see why her presentiments were to +be disregarded. On the very last evening before Davidson went away she +asked him in a suspicious manner: + +“‘Why is it that you are so anxious to go this time?’ + +“‘I am not anxious,’ protested the good Davidson. ‘I simply can’t help +myself. There’s no one else to go in my place.’ + +“‘Oh! There’s no one,’ she said, turning away slowly. + +“She was so distant with him that evening that Davidson from a sense of +delicacy made up his mind to say good-bye to her at once and go and sleep +on board. He felt very miserable and, strangely enough, more on his own +account than on account of his wife. She seemed to him much more +offended than grieved. + +“Three weeks later, having collected a good many cases of old dollars +(they were stowed aft in the lazarette with an iron bar and a padlock +securing the hatch under his cabin-table), yes, with a bigger lot than he +had expected to collect, he found himself homeward bound and off the +entrance of the creek where Bamtz lived and even, in a sense, flourished. + +“It was so late in the day that Davidson actually hesitated whether he +should not pass by this time. He had no regard for Bamtz, who was a +degraded but not a really unhappy man. His pity for Laughing Anne was no +more than her case deserved. But his goodness was of a particularly +delicate sort. He realised how these people were dependent on him, and +how they would feel their dependence (if he failed to turn up) through a +long month of anxious waiting. Prompted by his sensitive humanity, +Davidson, in the gathering dusk, turned the _Sissie’s_ head towards the +hardly discernible coast, and navigated her safety through a maze of +shallow patches. But by the time he got to the mouth of the creek the +night had come. + +“The narrow waterway lay like a black cutting through the forest. And as +there were always grounded snaggs in the channel which it would be +impossible to make out, Davidson very prudently turned the _Sissie_ +round, and with only enough steam on the boilers to give her a touch +ahead if necessary, let her drift up stern first with the tide, silent +and invisible in the impenetrable darkness and in the dumb stillness. + +“It was a long job, and when at the end of two hours Davidson thought he +must be up to the clearing, the settlement slept already, the whole land +of forests and rivers was asleep. + +“Davidson, seeing a solitary light in the massed darkness of the shore, +knew that it was burning in Bamtz’s house. This was unexpected at this +time of the night, but convenient as a guide. By a turn of the screw and +a touch of the helm he sheered the _Sissie_ alongside Bamtz’s wharf—a +miserable structure of a dozen piles and a few planks, of which the +ex-vagabond was very proud. A couple of Kalashes jumped down on it, took +a turn with the ropes thrown to them round the posts, and the _Sissie_ +came to rest without a single loud word or the slightest noise. And just +in time too, for the tide turned even before she was properly moored. + +“Davidson had something to eat, and then, coming on deck for a last look +round, noticed that the light was still burning in the house. + +“This was very unusual, but since they were awake so late, Davidson +thought that he would go up to say that he was in a hurry to be off and +to ask that what rattans there were in store should be sent on board with +the first sign of dawn. + +“He stepped carefully over the shaky planks, not being anxious to get a +sprained ankle, and picked his way across the waste ground to the foot of +the house ladder. The house was but a glorified hut on piles, unfenced +and lonely. + +“Like many a stout man, Davidson is very lightfooted. He climbed the +seven steps or so, stepped across the bamboo platform quietly, but what +he saw through the doorway stopped him short. + +“Four men were sitting by the light of a solitary candle. There was a +bottle, a jug and glasses on the table, but they were not engaged in +drinking. Two packs of cards were lying there too, but they were not +preparing to play. They were talking together in whispers, and remained +quite unaware of him. He himself was too astonished to make a sound for +some time. The world was still, except for the sibilation of the +whispering heads bunched together over the table. + +“And Davidson, as I have quoted him to you before, didn’t like it. He +didn’t like it at all. + +“The situation ended with a scream proceeding from the dark, interior +part of the room. ‘O Davy! you’ve given me a turn.’ + +“Davidson made out beyond the table Anne’s very pale face. She laughed a +little hysterically, out of the deep shadows between the gloomy mat +walls. ‘Ha! ha! ha!’ + +“The four heads sprang apart at the first sound, and four pairs of eyes +became fixed stonily on Davidson. The woman came forward, having little +more on her than a loose chintz wrapper and straw slippers on her bare +feet. Her head was tied up Malay fashion in a red handkerchief, with a +mass of loose hair hanging under it behind. Her professional, gay, +European feathers had literally dropped off her in the course of these +two years, but a long necklace of amber beads hung round her uncovered +neck. It was the only ornament she had left; Bamtz had sold all her +poor-enough trinkets during the flight from Saigon—when their association +began. + +“She came forward, past the table, into the light, with her usual groping +gesture of extended arms, as though her soul, poor thing! had gone blind +long ago, her white cheeks hollow, her eyes darkly wild, distracted, as +Davidson thought. She came on swiftly, grabbed him by the arm, dragged +him in. ‘It’s heaven itself that sends you to-night. My Tony’s so +bad—come and see him. Come along—do!’ + +“Davidson submitted. The only one of the men to move was Bamtz, who made +as if to get up but dropped back in his chair again. Davidson in passing +heard him mutter confusedly something that sounded like ‘poor little +beggar.’ + +“The child, lying very flushed in a miserable cot knocked up out of +gin-cases, stared at Davidson with wide, drowsy eyes. It was a bad bout +of fever clearly. But while Davidson was promising to go on board and +fetch some medicines, and generally trying to say reassuring things, he +could not help being struck by the extraordinary manner of the woman +standing by his side. Gazing with despairing expression down at the cot, +she would suddenly throw a quick, startled glance at Davidson and then +towards the other room. + +“‘Yes, my poor girl,’ he whispered, interpreting her distraction in his +own way, though he had nothing precise in his mind. ‘I’m afraid this +bodes no good to you. How is it they are here?’ + +“She seized his forearm and breathed out forcibly: ‘No good to me! Oh, +no! But what about you! They are after the dollars you have on board.’ + +“Davidson let out an astonished ‘How do they know there are any dollars?’ + +“She clapped her hands lightly, in distress. ‘So it’s true! You have +them on board? Then look out for yourself.’ + +“They stood gazing down at the boy in the cot, aware that they might be +observed from the other room. + +“‘We must get him to perspire as soon as possible,’ said Davidson in his +ordinary voice. ‘You’ll have to give him hot drink of some kind. I will +go on board and bring you a spirit-kettle amongst other things.’ And he +added under his breath: ‘Do they actually mean murder?’ + +“She made no sign, she had returned to her desolate contemplation of the +boy. Davidson thought she had not heard him even, when with an unchanged +expression she spoke under her breath. + +“‘The Frenchman would, in a minute. The others shirk it—unless you +resist. He’s a devil. He keeps them going. Without him they would have +done nothing but talk. I’ve got chummy with him. What can you do when +you are with a man like the fellow I am with now. Bamtz is terrified of +them, and they know it. He’s in it from funk. Oh, Davy! take your ship +away—quick!’ + +“‘Too late,’ said Davidson. ‘She’s on the mud already.’ + +“If the kid hadn’t been in this state I would have run off with him—to +you—into the woods—anywhere. Oh, Davy! will he die?’ she cried aloud +suddenly. + +“Davidson met three men in the doorway. They made way for him without +actually daring to face his glance. But Bamtz was the only one who +looked down with an air of guilt. The big Frenchman had remained lolling +in his chair; he kept his stumps in his pockets and addressed Davidson. + +“‘Isn’t it unfortunate about that child! The distress of that woman +there upsets me, but I am of no use in the world. I couldn’t smooth the +sick pillow of my dearest friend. I have no hands. Would you mind +sticking one of those cigarettes there into the mouth of a poor, harmless +cripple? My nerves want soothing—upon my honour, they do.’ + +“Davidson complied with his naturally kind smile. As his outward +placidity becomes only more pronounced, if possible, the more reason +there is for excitement; and as Davidson’s eyes, when his wits are hard +at work, get very still and as if sleepy, the huge Frenchman might have +been justified in concluding that the man there was a mere sheep—a sheep +ready for slaughter. With a ‘_merci bien_’ he uplifted his huge carcase +to reach the light of the candle with his cigarette, and Davidson left +the house. + +“Going down to the ship and returning, he had time to consider his +position. At first he was inclined to believe that these men +(Niclaus—the white Nakhoda—was the only one he knew by sight before, +besides Bamtz) were not of the stamp to proceed to extremities. This was +partly the reason why he never attempted to take any measures on board. +His pacific Kalashes were not to be thought of as against white men. His +wretched engineer would have had a fit from fright at the mere idea of +any sort of combat. Davidson knew that he would have to depend on +himself in this affair if it ever came off. + +“Davidson underestimated naturally the driving power of the Frenchman’s +character and the force of the actuating motive. To that man so +hopelessly crippled these dollars were an enormous opportunity. With his +share of the robbery he would open another shop in Vladivostok, Haïphong, +Manila—somewhere far away. + +“Neither did it occur to Davidson, who is a man of courage, if ever there +was one, that his psychology was not known to the world at large, and +that to this particular lot of ruffians, who judged him by his +appearance, he appeared an unsuspicious, inoffensive, soft creature, as +he passed again through the room, his hands full of various objects and +parcels destined for the sick boy. + +“All the four were sitting again round the table. Bamtz not having the +pluck to open his mouth, it was Niclaus who, as a collective voice, +called out to him thickly to come out soon and join in a drink. + +“‘I think I’ll have to stay some little time in there, to help her look +after the boy,’ Davidson answered without stopping. + +“This was a good thing to say to allay a possible suspicion. And, as it +was, Davidson felt he must not stay very long. + +“He sat down on an old empty nail-keg near the improvised cot and looked +at the child; while Laughing Anne, moving to and fro, preparing the hot +drink, giving it to the boy in spoonfuls, or stopping to gaze motionless +at the flushed face, whispered disjointed bits of information. She had +succeeded in making friends with that French devil. Davy would +understand that she knew how to make herself pleasant to a man. + +“And Davidson nodded without looking at her. + +“The big beast had got to be quite confidential with her. She held his +cards for him when they were having a game. Bamtz! Oh! Bamtz in his +funk was only too glad to see the Frenchman humoured. And the Frenchman +had come to believe that she was a woman who didn’t care what she did. +That’s how it came about they got to talk before her openly. For a long +time she could not make out what game they were up to. The new arrivals, +not expecting to find a woman with Bamtz, had been very startled and +annoyed at first, she explained. + +“She busied herself in attending to the boy; and nobody looking into that +room would have seen anything suspicious in those two people exchanging +murmurs by the sick-bedside. + +“‘But now they think I am a better man than Bamtz ever was,’ she said +with a faint laugh. + +“The child moaned. She went down on her knees, and, bending low, +contemplated him mournfully. Then raising her head, she asked Davidson +whether he thought the child would get better. Davidson was sure of it. +She murmured sadly: ‘Poor kid. There’s nothing in life for such as he. +Not a dog’s chance. But I couldn’t let him go, Davy! I couldn’t.’ + +“Davidson felt a profound pity for the child. She laid her hand on his +knee and whispered an earnest warning against the Frenchman. Davy must +never let him come to close quarters. Naturally Davidson wanted to know +the reason, for a man without hands did not strike him as very formidable +under any circumstances. + +“‘Mind you don’t let him—that’s all,’ she insisted anxiously, hesitated, +and then confessed that the Frenchman had got her away from the others +that afternoon and had ordered her to tie a seven-pound iron weight (out +of the set of weights Bamtz used in business) to his right stump. She +had to do it for him. She had been afraid of his savage temper. Bamtz +was such a craven, and neither of the other men would have cared what +happened to her. The Frenchman, however, with many awful threats had +warned her not to let the others know what she had done for him. +Afterwards he had been trying to cajole her. He had promised her that if +she stood by him faithfully in this business he would take her with him +to Haïphong or some other place. A poor cripple needed somebody to take +care of him—always. + +“Davidson asked her again if they really meant mischief. It was, he told +me, the hardest thing to believe he had run up against, as yet, in his +life. Anne nodded. The Frenchman’s heart was set on this robbery. Davy +might expect them, about midnight, creeping on board his ship, to steal +anyhow—to murder, perhaps. Her voice sounded weary, and her eyes +remained fastened on her child. + +“And still Davidson could not accept it somehow; his contempt for these +men was too great. + +“‘Look here, Davy,’ she said. ‘I’ll go outside with them when they +start, and it will be hard luck if I don’t find something to laugh at. +They are used to that from me. Laugh or cry—what’s the odds. You will +be able to hear me on board on this quiet night. Dark it is too. Oh! +it’s dark, Davy!—it’s dark!’ + +“‘Don’t you run any risks,’ said Davidson. Presently he called her +attention to the boy, who, less flushed now, had dropped into a sound +sleep. ‘Look. He’ll be all right.’ + +“She made as if to snatch the child up to her breast, but restrained +herself. Davidson prepared to go. She whispered hurriedly: + +“‘Mind, Davy! I’ve told them that you generally sleep aft in the hammock +under the awning over the cabin. They have been asking me about your +ways and about your ship, too. I told them all I knew. I had to keep in +with them. And Bamtz would have told them if I hadn’t—you understand?’ + +“He made a friendly sign and went out. The men about the table (except +Bamtz) looked at him. This time it was Fector who spoke. ‘Won’t you +join us in a quiet game, Captain?’ + +“Davidson said that now the child was better he thought he would go on +board and turn in. Fector was the only one of the four whom he had, so +to speak, never seen, for he had had a good look at the Frenchman +already. He observed Fector’s muddy eyes, his mean, bitter mouth. +Davidson’s contempt for those men rose in his gorge, while his placid +smile, his gentle tones and general air of innocence put heart into them. +They exchanged meaning glances. + +“‘We shall be sitting late over the cards,’ Fector said in his harsh, low +voice. + +“‘Don’t make more noise than you can help.’ + +“‘Oh! we are a quiet lot. And if the invalid shouldn’t be so well, she +will be sure to send one of us down to call you, so that you may play the +doctor again. So don’t shoot at sight.’ + +“‘He isn’t a shooting man,’ struck in Niclaus. + +“‘I never shoot before making sure there’s a reason for it—at any rate,’ +said Davidson. + +“Bamtz let out a sickly snigger. The Frenchman alone got up to make a +bow to Davidson’s careless nod. His stumps were stuck immovably in his +pockets. Davidson understood now the reason. + +“He went down to the ship. His wits were working actively, and he was +thoroughly angry. He smiled, he says (it must have been the first grim +smile of his life), at the thought of the seven-pound weight lashed to +the end of the Frenchman’s stump. The ruffian had taken that precaution +in case of a quarrel that might arise over the division of the spoil. A +man with an unsuspected power to deal killing blows could take his own +part in a sudden scrimmage round a heap of money, even against +adversaries armed with revolvers, especially if he himself started the +row. + +“‘He’s ready to face any of his friends with that thing. But he will +have no use for it. There will be no occasion to quarrel about these +dollars here,’ thought Davidson, getting on board quietly. He never +paused to look if there was anybody about the decks. As a matter of +fact, most of his crew were on shore, and the rest slept, stowed away in +dark corners. + +“He had his plan, and he went to work methodically. + +“He fetched a lot of clothing from below and disposed it in his hammock +in such a way as to distend it to the shape of a human body; then he +threw over all the light cotton sheet he used to draw over himself when +sleeping on deck. Having done this, he loaded his two revolvers and +clambered into one of the boats the _Sissie_ carried right aft, swung out +on their davits. Then he waited. + +“And again the doubt of such a thing happening to him crept into his +mind. He was almost ashamed of this ridiculous vigil in a boat. He +became bored. And then he became drowsy. The stillness of the black +universe wearied him. There was not even the lapping of the water to +keep him company, for the tide was out and the _Sissie_ was lying on soft +mud. Suddenly in the breathless, soundless, hot night an argus pheasant +screamed in the woods across the stream. Davidson started violently, all +his senses on the alert at once. + +“The candle was still burning in the house. Everything was quiet again, +but Davidson felt drowsy no longer. An uneasy premonition of evil +oppressed him. + +“‘Surely I am not afraid,’ he argued with himself. + +“The silence was like a seal on his ears, and his nervous inward +impatience grew intolerable. He commanded himself to keep still. But +all the same he was just going to jump out of the boat when a faint +ripple on the immensity of silence, a mere tremor in the air, the ghost +of a silvery laugh, reached his ears. + +“Illusion! + +“He kept very still. He had no difficulty now in emulating the stillness +of the mouse—a grimly determined mouse. But he could not shake off that +premonition of evil unrelated to the mere danger of the situation. +Nothing happened. It had been an illusion! + +“A curiosity came to him to learn how they would go to work. He wondered +and wondered, till the whole thing seemed more absurd than ever. + +“He had left the hanging lamp in the cabin burning as usual. It was part +of his plan that everything should be as usual. Suddenly in the dim glow +of the skylight panes a bulky shadow came up the ladder without a sound, +made two steps towards the hammock (it hung right over the skylight), and +stood motionless. The Frenchman! + +“The minutes began to slip away. Davidson guessed that the Frenchman’s +part (the poor cripple) was to watch his (Davidson’s) slumbers while the +others were no doubt in the cabin busy forcing off the lazarette hatch. + +“What was the course they meant to pursue once they got hold of the +silver (there were ten cases, and each could be carried easily by two +men) nobody can tell now. But so far, Davidson was right. They were in +the cabin. He expected to hear the sounds of breaking-in every moment. +But the fact was that one of them (perhaps Fector, who had stolen papers +out of desks in his time) knew how to pick a lock, and apparently was +provided with the tools. Thus while Davidson expected every moment to +hear them begin down there, they had the bar off already and two cases +actually up in the cabin out of the lazarette. + +“In the diffused faint glow of the skylight the Frenchman moved no more +than a statue. Davidson could have shot him with the greatest ease—but +he was not homicidally inclined. Moreover, he wanted to make sure before +opening fire that the others had gone to work. Not hearing the sounds he +expected to hear, he felt uncertain whether they all were on board yet. + +“While he listened, the Frenchman, whose immobility might have but +cloaked an internal struggle; moved forward a pace, then another. +Davidson, entranced, watched him advance one leg, withdraw his right +stump, the armed one, out of his pocket, and swinging his body to put +greater force into the blow, bring the seven-pound weight down on the +hammock where the head of the sleeper ought to have been. + +“Davidson admitted to me that his hair stirred at the roots then. But +for Anne, his unsuspecting head would have been there. The Frenchman’s +surprise must have been simply overwhelming. He staggered away from the +lightly swinging hammock, and before Davidson could make a movement he +had vanished, bounding down the ladder to warn and alarm the other +fellows. + +“Davidson sprang instantly out of the boat, threw up the skylight flap, +and had a glimpse of the men down there crouching round the hatch. They +looked up scared, and at that moment the Frenchman outside the door +bellowed out ‘_Trahison_—_trahison_!’ They bolted out of the cabin, +falling over each other and swearing awfully. The shot Davidson let off +down the skylight had hit no one; but he ran to the edge of the cabin-top +and at once opened fire at the dark shapes rushing about the deck. These +shots were returned, and a rapid fusillade burst out, reports and +flashes, Davidson dodging behind a ventilator and pulling the trigger +till his revolver clicked, and then throwing it down to take the other in +his right hand. + +“He had been hearing in the din the Frenchman’s infuriated yells +‘_Tuez-le_! _tuez-le_!’ above the fierce cursing of the others. But +though they fired at him they were only thinking of clearing out. In the +flashes of the last shots Davidson saw them scrambling over the rail. +That he had hit more than one he was certain. Two different voices had +cried out in pain. But apparently none of them were disabled. + +“Davidson leaned against the bulwark reloading his revolver without +haste. He had not the slightest apprehension of their coming back. On +the other hand, he had no intention of pursuing them on shore in the +dark. What they were doing he had no idea. Looking to their hurts +probably. Not very far from the bank the invisible Frenchman was +blaspheming and cursing his associates, his luck, and all the world. He +ceased; then with a sudden, vengeful yell, ‘It’s that woman!—it’s that +woman that has sold us,’ was heard running off in the night. + +“Davidson caught his breath in a sudden pang of remorse. He perceived +with dismay that the stratagem of his defence had given Anne away. He +did not hesitate a moment. It was for him to save her now. He leaped +ashore. But even as he landed on the wharf he heard a shrill shriek +which pierced his very soul. + +“The light was still burning in the house. Davidson, revolver in hand, +was making for it when another shriek, away to his left, made him change +his direction. + +“He changed his direction—but very soon he stopped. It was then that he +hesitated in cruel perplexity. He guessed what had happened. The woman +had managed to escape from the house in some way, and now was being +chased in the open by the infuriated Frenchman. He trusted she would try +to run on board for protection. + +“All was still around Davidson. Whether she had run on board or not, +this silence meant that the Frenchman had lost her in the dark. + +“Davidson, relieved, but still very anxious, turned towards the +river-side. He had not made two steps in that direction when another +shriek burst out behind him, again close to the house. + +“He thinks that the Frenchman had lost sight of the poor woman right +enough. Then came that period of silence. But the horrible ruffian had +not given up his murderous purpose. He reasoned that she would try to +steal back to her child, and went to lie in wait for her near the house. + +“It must have been something like that. As she entered the light falling +about the house-ladder, he had rushed at her too soon, impatient for +vengeance. She had let out that second scream of mortal fear when she +caught sight of him, and turned to run for life again. + +“This time she was making for the river, but not in a straight line. Her +shrieks circled about Davidson. He turned on his heels, following the +horrible trail of sound in the darkness. He wanted to shout ‘This way, +Anne! I am here!’ but he couldn’t. At the horror of this chase, more +ghastly in his imagination than if he could have seen it, the +perspiration broke out on his forehead, while his throat was as dry as +tinder. A last supreme scream was cut short suddenly. + +“The silence which ensued was even more dreadful. Davidson felt sick. +He tore his feet from the spot and walked straight before him, gripping +the revolver and peering into the obscurity fearfully. Suddenly a bulky +shape sprang from the ground within a few yards of him and bounded away. +Instinctively he fired at it, started to run in pursuit, and stumbled +against something soft which threw him down headlong. + +“Even as he pitched forward on his head he knew it could be nothing else +but Laughing Anne’s body. He picked himself up and, remaining on his +knees, tried to lift her in his arms. He felt her so limp that he gave +it up. She was lying on her face, her long hair scattered on the ground. +Some of it was wet. Davidson, feeling about her head, came to a place +where the crushed bone gave way under his fingers. But even before that +discovery he knew that she was dead. The pursuing Frenchman had flung +her down with a kick from behind, and, squatting on her back, was +battering in her skull with the weight she herself had fastened to his +stump, when the totally unexpected Davidson loomed up in the night and +scared him away. + +“Davidson, kneeling by the side of that woman done so miserably to death, +was overcome by remorse. She had died for him. His manhood was as if +stunned. For the first time he felt afraid. He might have been pounced +upon in the dark at any moment by the murderer of Laughing Anne. He +confesses to the impulse of creeping away from that pitiful corpse on his +hands and knees to the refuge of the ship. He even says that he actually +began to do so. . . + +“One can hardly picture to oneself Davidson crawling away on all fours +from the murdered woman—Davidson unmanned and crushed by the idea that +she had died for him in a sense. But he could not have gone very far. +What stopped him was the thought of the boy, Laughing Anne’s child, that +(Davidson remembered her very words) would not have a dog’s chance. + +“This life the woman had left behind her appeared to Davidson’s +conscience in the light of a sacred trust. He assumed an erect attitude +and, quaking inwardly still, turned about and walked towards the house. + +“For all his tremors he was very determined; but that smashed skull had +affected his imagination, and he felt very defenceless in the darkness, +in which he seemed to hear faintly now here, now there, the prowling +footsteps of the murderer without hands. But he never faltered in his +purpose. He got away with the boy safely after all. The house he found +empty. A profound silence encompassed him all the time, except once, +just as he got down the ladder with Tony in his arms, when a faint groan +reached his ears. It seemed to come from the pitch-black space between +the posts on which the house was built, but he did not stop to +investigate. + +“It’s no use telling you in detail how Davidson got on board with the +burden Anne’s miserably cruel fate had thrust into his arms; how next +morning his scared crew, after observing from a distance the state of +affairs on board, rejoined with alacrity; how Davidson went ashore and, +aided by his engineer (still half dead with fright), rolled up Laughing +Anne’s body in a cotton sheet and brought it on board for burial at sea +later. While busy with this pious task, Davidson, glancing about, +perceived a huge heap of white clothes huddled up against the corner-post +of the house. That it was the Frenchman lying there he could not doubt. +Taking it in connection with the dismal groan he had heard in the night, +Davidson is pretty sure that his random shot gave a mortal hurt to the +murderer of poor Anne. + +“As to the others, Davidson never set eyes on a single one of them. +Whether they had concealed themselves in the scared settlement, or bolted +into the forest, or were hiding on board Niclaus’s prau, which could be +seen lying on the mud a hundred yards or so higher up the creek, the fact +is that they vanished; and Davidson did not trouble his head about them. +He lost no time in getting out of the creek directly the _Sissie_ +floated. After steaming some twenty miles clear of the coast, he (in his +own words) ‘committed the body to the deep.’ He did everything himself. +He weighted her down with a few fire-bars, he read the service, he lifted +the plank, he was the only mourner. And while he was rendering these +last services to the dead, the desolation of that life and the atrocious +wretchedness of its end cried aloud to his compassion, whispered to him +in tones of self-reproach. + +“He ought to have handled the warning she had given him in another way. +He was convinced now that a simple display of watchfulness would have +been enough to restrain that vile and cowardly crew. But the fact was +that he had not quite believed that anything would be attempted. + +“The body of Laughing Anne having been ‘committed to the deep’ some +twenty miles S.S.W. from Cape Selatan, the task before Davidson was to +commit Laughing Anne’s child to the care of his wife. And there poor, +good Davidson made a fatal move. He didn’t want to tell her the whole +awful story, since it involved the knowledge of the danger from which he, +Davidson, had escaped. And this, too, after he had been laughing at her +unreasonable fears only a short time before. + +“‘I thought that if I told her everything,’ Davidson explained to me, +‘she would never have a moment’s peace while I was away on my trips.’ + +“He simply stated that the boy was an orphan, the child of some people to +whom he, Davidson, was under the greatest obligation, and that he felt +morally bound to look after him. Some day he would tell her more, he +said, and meantime he trusted in the goodness and warmth of her heart, in +her woman’s natural compassion. + +“He did not know that her heart was about the size of a parched pea, and +had the proportional amount of warmth; and that her faculty of compassion +was mainly directed to herself. He was only startled and disappointed at +the air of cold surprise and the suspicious look with which she received +his imperfect tale. But she did not say much. She never had much to +say. She was a fool of the silent, hopeless kind. + +“What story Davidson’s crew thought fit to set afloat in Malay town is +neither here nor there. Davidson himself took some of his friends into +his confidence, besides giving the full story officially to the Harbour +Master. + +“The Harbour Master was considerably astonished. He didn’t think, +however, that a formal complaint should be made to the Dutch Government. +They would probably do nothing in the end, after a lot of trouble and +correspondence. The robbery had not come off, after all. Those +vagabonds could be trusted to go to the devil in their own way. No +amount of fuss would bring the poor woman to life again, and the actual +murderer had been done justice to by a chance shot from Davidson. Better +let the matter drop. + +“This was good common sense. But he was impressed. + +“‘Sounds a terrible affair, Captain Davidson.’ + +“‘Aye, terrible enough,’ agreed the remorseful Davidson. But the most +terrible thing for him, though he didn’t know it yet then, was that his +wife’s silly brain was slowly coming to the conclusion that Tony was +Davidson’s child, and that he had invented that lame story to introduce +him into her pure home in defiance of decency, of virtue—of her most +sacred feelings. + +“Davidson was aware of some constraint in his domestic relations. But at +the best of times she was not demonstrative; and perhaps that very +coldness was part of her charm in the placid Davidson’s eyes. Women are +loved for all sorts of reasons and even for characteristics which one +would think repellent. She was watching him and nursing her suspicions. + +“Then, one day, Monkey-faced Ritchie called on that sweet, shy Mrs. +Davidson. She had come out under his care, and he considered himself a +privileged person—her oldest friend in the tropics. He posed for a great +admirer of hers. He was always a great chatterer. He had got hold of +the story rather vaguely, and he started chattering on that subject, +thinking she knew all about it. And in due course he let out something +about Laughing Anne. + +“‘Laughing Anne,’ says Mrs. Davidson with a start. ‘What’s that?’ + +“Ritchie plunged into circumlocution at once, but she very soon stopped +him. ‘Is that creature dead?’ she asks. + +“‘I believe so,’ stammered Ritchie. ‘Your husband says so.’ + +“‘But you don’t know for certain?’ + +“‘No! How could I, Mrs. Davidson!’ + +“‘That’s all wanted to know,’ says she, and goes out of the room. + +“When Davidson came home she was ready to go for him, not with common +voluble indignation, but as if trickling a stream of cold clear water +down his back. She talked of his base intrigue with a vile woman, of +being made a fool of, of the insult to her dignity. + +“Davidson begged her to listen to him and told her all the story, +thinking that it would move a heart of stone. He tried to make her +understand his remorse. She heard him to the end, said ‘Indeed!’ and +turned her back on him. + +“‘Don’t you believe me?’ he asked, appalled. + +“She didn’t say yes or no. All she said was, ‘Send that brat away at +once.’ + +“‘I can’t throw him out into the street,’ cried Davidson. ‘You don’t +mean it.’ + +“‘I don’t care. There are charitable institutions for such children, I +suppose.’ + +“‘That I will never do,’ said Davidson. + +“‘Very well. That’s enough for me.’ + +“Davidson’s home after this was like a silent, frozen hell for him. A +stupid woman with a sense of grievance is worse than an unchained devil. +He sent the boy to the White Fathers in Malacca. This was not a very +expensive sort of education, but she could not forgive him for not +casting the offensive child away utterly. She worked up her sense of her +wifely wrongs and of her injured purity to such a pitch that one day, +when poor Davidson was pleading with her to be reasonable and not to make +an impossible existence for them both, she turned on him in a chill +passion and told him that his very sight was odious to her. + +“Davidson, with his scrupulous delicacy of feeling, was not the man to +assert his rights over a woman who could not bear the sight of him. He +bowed his head; and shortly afterwards arranged for her to go back to her +parents. That was exactly what she wanted in her outraged dignity. And +then she had always disliked the tropics and had detested secretly the +people she had to live amongst as Davidson’s wife. She took her pure, +sensitive, mean little soul away to Fremantle or somewhere in that +direction. And of course the little girl went away with her too. What +could poor Davidson have done with a little girl on his hands, even if +she had consented to leave her with him—which is unthinkable. + +“This is the story that has spoiled Davidson’s smile for him—which +perhaps it wouldn’t have done so thoroughly had he been less of a good +fellow.” + +Hollis ceased. But before we rose from the table I asked him if he knew +what had become of Laughing Anne’s boy. + +He counted carefully the change handed him by the Chinaman waiter, and +raised his head. + +“Oh! that’s the finishing touch. He was a bright, taking little chap, as +you know, and the Fathers took very special pains in his bringing up. +Davidson expected in his heart to have some comfort out of him. In his +placid way he’s a man who needs affection. Well, Tony has grown into a +fine youth—but there you are! He wants to be a priest; his one dream is +to be a missionary. The Fathers assure Davidson that it is a serious +vocation. They tell him he has a special disposition for mission work, +too. So Laughing Anne’s boy will lead a saintly life in China somewhere; +he may even become a martyr; but poor Davidson is left out in the cold. +He will have to go downhill without a single human affection near him +because of these old dollars.” + + * * * * * + +_Jan._ 1914 + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + * * * * * + + * * * * * + + THE LONDON AND NORWICH PRESS LIMITED, LONDON AND NORWICH, ENGLAND + + + + +Footnotes + + +{188} The gallows, supposed to be widowed of the last executed criminal +and waiting for another. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITHIN THE TIDES*** + + +******* This file should be named 1053-0.txt or 1053-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/5/1053 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Within the Tides + Tales + + +Author: Joseph Conrad + + + +Release Date: January 5, 2011 [eBook #1053] +[This file was first posted on August 29, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITHIN THE TIDES*** +</pre> +<p>Scanned and proofed by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>WITHIN THE<br /> +TIDES</h1> +<p style="text-align: center">TALES</p> +<blockquote><p>. . . Go, make you ready.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Hamlet</span> +<i>to the</i> <span class="smcap">Players</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p0b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Decorative graphic" +title= +"Decorative graphic" +src="images/p0s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">london & +toronto</span><br /> +J. M. DENT & SONS LTD.<br /> +PARIS: J. M. DENT ET. FILS</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">First Edition</span></p> +</td> +<td><p><i>February</i> 1915</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Reprinted</span></p> +</td> +<td><p><i>April</i> 1915; <i>August</i> 1919</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">To<br /> +<span class="smcap">Mr. and Mrs.</span> RALPH WEDGWOOD</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">this sheaf of +care-free ante-bellum pages</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">in gratitude for their charming +hospitality</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">in the last month of peace</span></p> +<h2>Contents</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="smcap">page</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Planter of Malata</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page3">3</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Partner</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page119">119</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Inn of the Two Witches</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page175">175</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Because of the Dollars</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page223">223</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><!-- page 3--><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +3</span>THE PLANTER OF MALATA</h2> +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> +<p>In the private editorial office of the principal newspaper in +a great colonial city two men were talking. They were both +young. The stouter of the two, fair, and with more of an +urban look about him, was the editor and part-owner of the +important newspaper.</p> +<p>The other’s name was Renouard. That he was +exercised in his mind about something was evident on his fine +bronzed face. He was a lean, lounging, active man. +The journalist continued the conversation.</p> +<p>“And so you were dining yesterday at old +Dunster’s.”</p> +<p>He used the word old not in the endearing sense in which it is +sometimes applied to intimates, but as a matter of sober +fact. The Dunster in question was old. He had been an +eminent colonial statesman, but had now retired from active +politics after a tour in Europe and a lengthy stay in England, +during which he had had a very good press indeed. The +colony was proud of him.</p> +<p>“Yes. I dined there,” said Renouard. +“Young Dunster asked me just as I was going out of his +office. It seemed to be like a sudden thought. And +yet I can’t help suspecting some purpose behind it. +He was very pressing. He swore that his uncle would be very +pleased to see me. Said his uncle had mentioned lately that +the granting to me of the Malata concession was the last act of +his official life.”</p> +<p>“Very touching. The old boy sentimentalises over +the past now and then.”</p> +<p>“I really don’t know why I accepted,” +continued the other. “Sentiment does not move me very +easily. Old Dunster was civil to me of course, but he did +not even inquire how I was getting on with my silk plants. +Forgot there was such a thing probably. I must say there +were more people there than I expected to meet. Quite a big +party.”</p> +<p>“I was asked,” remarked the newspaper man. +“Only I couldn’t go. But when did you arrive +from Malata?”</p> +<p>“I arrived yesterday at daylight. I am anchored +out there in the bay—off Garden Point. I was in +Dunster’s office before he had finished reading his +letters. Have you ever seen young Dunster reading his +letters? I had a glimpse of him through the open +door. He holds the paper in both hands, hunches his +shoulders up to his ugly ears, and brings his long nose and his +thick lips on to it like a sucking apparatus. A commercial +monster.”</p> +<p>“Here we don’t consider him a monster,” said +the newspaper man looking at his visitor thoughtfully.</p> +<p>“Probably not. You are used to see his face and to +see other faces. I don’t know how it is that, when I +come to town, the appearance of the people in the street strike +me with such force. They seem so awfully +expressive.”</p> +<p>“And not charming.”</p> +<p>“Well—no. Not as a rule. The effect is +forcible without being clear. . . . I know that you think +it’s because of my solitary manner of life away +there.”</p> +<p>“Yes. I do think so. It is +demoralising. You don’t see any one for months at a +stretch. You’re leading an unhealthy life.”</p> +<p>The other hardly smiled and murmured the admission that true +enough it was a good eleven months since he had been in town +last.</p> +<p>“You see,” insisted the other. +“Solitude works like a sort of poison. And then you +perceive suggestions in faces—mysterious and forcible, that +no sound man would be bothered with. Of course you +do.”</p> +<p>Geoffrey Renouard did not tell his journalist friend that the +suggestions of his own face, the face of a friend, bothered him +as much as the others. He detected a degrading quality in +the touches of age which every day adds to a human +countenance. They moved and disturbed him, like the signs +of a horrible inward travail which was frightfully apparent to +the fresh eye he had brought from his isolation in Malata, where +he had settled after five strenuous years of adventure and +exploration.</p> +<p>“It’s a fact,” he said, “that when I +am at home in Malata I see no one consciously. I take the +plantation boys for granted.”</p> +<p>“Well, and we here take the people in the streets for +granted. And that’s sanity.”</p> +<p>The visitor said nothing to this for fear of engaging a +discussion. What he had come to seek in the editorial +office was not controversy, but information. Yet somehow he +hesitated to approach the subject. Solitary life makes a +man reticent in respect of anything in the nature of gossip, +which those to whom chatting about their kind is an everyday +exercise regard as the commonest use of speech.</p> +<p>“You very busy?” he asked.</p> +<p>The Editor making red marks on a long slip of printed paper +threw the pencil down.</p> +<p>“No. I am done. Social paragraphs. +This office is the place where everything is known about +everybody—including even a great deal of nobodies. +Queer fellows drift in and out of this room. Waifs and +strays from home, from up-country, from the Pacific. And, +by the way, last time you were here you picked up one of that +sort for your assistant—didn’t you?”</p> +<p>“I engaged an assistant only to stop your preaching +about the evils of solitude,” said Renouard hastily; and +the pressman laughed at the half-resentful tone. His laugh +was not very loud, but his plump person shook all over. He +was aware that his younger friend’s deference to his advice +was based only on an imperfect belief in his wisdom—or his +sagacity. But it was he who had first helped Renouard in +his plans of exploration: the five-years’ programme of +scientific adventure, of work, of danger and endurance, carried +out with such distinction and rewarded modestly with the lease of +Malata island by the frugal colonial government. And this +reward, too, had been due to the journalist’s advocacy with +word and pen—for he was an influential man in the +community. Doubting very much if Renouard really liked him, +he was himself without great sympathy for a certain side of that +man which he could not quite make out. He only felt it +obscurely to be his real personality—the true—and, +perhaps, the absurd. As, for instance, in that case of the +assistant. Renouard had given way to the arguments of his +friend and backer—the argument against the unwholesome +effect of solitude, the argument for the safety of companionship +even if quarrelsome. Very well. In this docility he +was sensible and even likeable. But what did he do +next? Instead of taking counsel as to the choice with his +old backer and friend, and a man, besides, knowing everybody +employed and unemployed on the pavements of the town, this +extraordinary Renouard suddenly and almost surreptitiously picked +up a fellow—God knows who—and sailed away with him +back to Malata in a hurry; a proceeding obviously rash and at the +same time not quite straight. That was the sort of +thing. The secretly unforgiving journalist laughed a little +longer and then ceased to shake all over.</p> +<p>“Oh, yes. About that assistant of yours. . . +.”</p> +<p>“What about him,” said Renouard, after waiting a +while, with a shadow of uneasiness on his face.</p> +<p>“Have you nothing to tell me of him?”</p> +<p>“Nothing except. . . .” Incipient grimness +vanished out of Renouard’s aspect and his voice, while he +hesitated as if reflecting seriously before he changed his +mind. “No. Nothing whatever.”</p> +<p>“You haven’t brought him along with you by +chance—for a change.”</p> +<p>The Planter of Malata stared, then shook his head, and finally +murmured carelessly: “I think he’s very well where he +is. But I wish you could tell me why young Dunster insisted +so much on my dining with his uncle last night. Everybody +knows I am not a society man.”</p> +<p>The Editor exclaimed at so much modesty. Didn’t +his friend know that he was their one and only +explorer—that he was the man experimenting with the silk +plant. . . .</p> +<p>“Still, that doesn’t tell me why I was invited +yesterday. For young Dunster never thought of this civility +before. . . .”</p> +<p>“Our Willie,” said the popular journalist, +“never does anything without a purpose, that’s a +fact.”</p> +<p>“And to his uncle’s house too!”</p> +<p>“He lives there.”</p> +<p>“Yes. But he might have given me a feed somewhere +else. The extraordinary part is that the old man did not +seem to have anything special to say. He smiled kindly on +me once or twice, and that was all. It was quite a party, +sixteen people.”</p> +<p>The Editor then, after expressing his regret that he had not +been able to come, wanted to know if the party had been +entertaining.</p> +<p>Renouard regretted that his friend had not been there. +Being a man whose business or at least whose profession was to +know everything that went on in this part of the globe, he could +probably have told him something of some people lately arrived +from home, who were amongst the guests. Young Dunster +(Willie), with his large shirt-front and streaks of white skin +shining unpleasantly through the thin black hair plastered over +the top of his head, bore down on him and introduced him to that +party, as if he had been a trained dog or a child +phenomenon. Decidedly, he said, he disliked +Willie—one of these large oppressive men. . . .</p> +<p>A silence fell, and it was as if Renouard were not going to +say anything more when, suddenly, he came out with the real +object of his visit to the editorial room.</p> +<p>“They looked to me like people under a spell.”</p> +<p>The Editor gazed at him appreciatively, thinking that, whether +the effect of solitude or not, this was a proof of a sensitive +perception of the expression of faces.</p> +<p>“You omitted to tell me their name, but I can make a +guess. You mean Professor Moorsom, his daughter and +sister—don’t you?”</p> +<p>Renouard assented. Yes, a white-haired lady. But +from his silence, with his eyes fixed, yet avoiding his friend, +it was easy to guess that it was not in the white-haired lady +that he was interested.</p> +<p>“Upon my word,” he said, recovering his usual +bearing. “It looks to me as if I had been asked there +only for the daughter to talk to me.”</p> +<p>He did not conceal that he had been greatly struck by her +appearance. Nobody could have helped being impressed. +She was different from everybody else in that house, and it was +not only the effect of her London clothes. He did not take +her down to dinner. Willie did that. It was +afterwards, on the terrace. . . .</p> +<p>The evening was delightfully calm. He was sitting apart +and alone, and wishing himself somewhere else—on board the +schooner for choice, with the dinner-harness off. He +hadn’t exchanged forty words altogether during the evening +with the other guests. He saw her suddenly all by herself +coming towards him along the dimly lighted terrace, quite from a +distance.</p> +<p>She was tall and supple, carrying nobly on her straight body a +head of a character which to him appeared peculiar, +something—well—pagan, crowned with a great wealth of +hair. He had been about to rise, but her decided approach +caused him to remain on the seat. He had not looked much at +her that evening. He had not that freedom of gaze acquired +by the habit of society and the frequent meetings with +strangers. It was not shyness, but the reserve of a man not +used to the world and to the practice of covert staring, with +careless curiosity. All he had captured by his first, keen, +instantly lowered, glance was the impression that her hair was +magnificently red and her eyes very black. It was a +troubling effect, but it had been evanescent; he had forgotten it +almost till very unexpectedly he saw her coming down the terrace +slow and eager, as if she were restraining herself, and with a +rhythmic upward undulation of her whole figure. The light +from an open window fell across her path, and suddenly all that +mass of arranged hair appeared incandescent, chiselled and fluid, +with the daring suggestion of a helmet of burnished copper and +the flowing lines of molten metal. It kindled in him an +astonished admiration. But he said nothing of it to his +friend the Editor. Neither did he tell him that her +approach woke up in his brain the image of love’s infinite +grace and the sense of the inexhaustible joy that lives in +beauty. No! What he imparted to the Editor were no +emotions, but mere facts conveyed in a deliberate voice and in +uninspired words.</p> +<p>“That young lady came and sat down by me. She +said: ‘Are you French, Mr. Renouard?’”</p> +<p>He had breathed a whiff of perfume of which he said nothing +either—of some perfume he did not know. Her voice was +low and distinct. Her shoulders and her bare arms gleamed +with an extraordinary splendour, and when she advanced her head +into the light he saw the admirable contour of the face, the +straight fine nose with delicate nostrils, the exquisite crimson +brushstroke of the lips on this oval without colour. The +expression of the eyes was lost in a shadowy mysterious play of +jet and silver, stirring under the red coppery gold of the hair +as though she had been a being made of ivory and precious metals +changed into living tissue.</p> +<p>“. . . I told her my people were living in Canada, but +that I was brought up in England before coming out here. I +can’t imagine what interest she could have in my +history.”</p> +<p>“And you complain of her interest?”</p> +<p>The accent of the all-knowing journalist seemed to jar on the +Planter of Malata.</p> +<p>“No!” he said, in a deadened voice that was almost +sullen. But after a short silence he went on. +“Very extraordinary. I told her I came out to wander +at large in the world when I was nineteen, almost directly after +I left school. It seems that her late brother was in the +same school a couple of years before me. She wanted me to +tell her what I did at first when I came out here; what other men +found to do when they came out—where they went, what was +likely to happen to them—as if I could guess and foretell +from my experience the fates of men who come out here with a +hundred different projects, for hundreds of different +reasons—for no reason but restlessness—who come, and +go, and disappear! Preposterous. She seemed to want +to hear their histories. I told her that most of them were +not worth telling.”</p> +<p>The distinguished journalist leaning on his elbow, his head +resting against the knuckles of his left hand, listened with +great attention, but gave no sign of that surprise which +Renouard, pausing, seemed to expect.</p> +<p>“You know something,” the latter said +brusquely. The all-knowing man moved his head slightly and +said, “Yes. But go on.”</p> +<p>“It’s just this. There is no more to +it. I found myself talking to her of my adventures, of my +early days. It couldn’t possibly have interested +her. Really,” he cried, “this is most +extraordinary. Those people have something on their +minds. We sat in the light of the window, and her father +prowled about the terrace, with his hands behind his back and his +head drooping. The white-haired lady came to the +dining-room window twice—to look at us I am certain. +The other guests began to go away—and still we sat +there. Apparently these people are staying with the +Dunsters. It was old Mrs. Dunster who put an end to the +thing. The father and the aunt circled about as if they +were afraid of interfering with the girl. Then she got up +all at once, gave me her hand, and said she hoped she would see +me again.”</p> +<p>While he was speaking Renouard saw again the sway of her +figure in a movement of grace and strength—felt the +pressure of her hand—heard the last accents of the deep +murmur that came from her throat so white in the light of the +window, and remembered the black rays of her steady eyes passing +off his face when she turned away. He remembered all this +visually, and it was not exactly pleasurable. It was rather +startling like the discovery of a new faculty in himself. +There are faculties one would rather do without—such, for +instance, as seeing through a stone wall or remembering a person +with this uncanny vividness. And what about those two +people belonging to her with their air of expectant +solicitude! Really, those figures from home got in front of +one. In fact, their persistence in getting between him and +the solid forms of the everyday material world had driven +Renouard to call on his friend at the office. He hoped that +a little common, gossipy information would lay the ghost of that +unexpected dinner-party. Of course the proper person to go +to would have been young Dunster, but, he couldn’t stand +Willie Dunster—not at any price.</p> +<p>In the pause the Editor had changed his attitude, faced his +desk, and smiled a faint knowing smile.</p> +<p>“Striking girl—eh?” he said.</p> +<p>The incongruity of the word was enough to make one jump out of +the chair. Striking! That girl striking! Stri . +. .! But Renouard restrained his feelings. His friend +was not a person to give oneself away to. And, after all, +this sort of speech was what he had come there to hear. As, +however, he had made a movement he re-settled himself comfortably +and said, with very creditable indifference, that yes—she +was, rather. Especially amongst a lot of over-dressed +frumps. There wasn’t one woman under forty there.</p> +<p>“Is that the way to speak of the cream of our society; +the ‘top of the basket,’ as the French say,” +the Editor remonstrated with mock indignation. “You +aren’t moderate in your expressions—you +know.”</p> +<p>“I express myself very little,” interjected +Renouard seriously.</p> +<p>“I will tell you what you are. You are a fellow +that doesn’t count the cost. Of course you are safe +with me, but will you never learn. . . .”</p> +<p>“What struck me most,” interrupted the other, +“is that she should pick me out for such a long +conversation.”</p> +<p>“That’s perhaps because you were the most +remarkable of the men there.”</p> +<p>Renouard shook his head.</p> +<p>“This shot doesn’t seem to me to hit the +mark,” he said calmly. “Try again.”</p> +<p>“Don’t you believe me? Oh, you modest +creature. Well, let me assure you that under ordinary +circumstances it would have been a good shot. You are +sufficiently remarkable. But you seem a pretty acute +customer too. The circumstances are extraordinary. By +Jove they are!”</p> +<p>He mused. After a time the Planter of Malata dropped a +negligent—</p> +<p>“And you know them.”</p> +<p>“And I know them,” assented the all-knowing +Editor, soberly, as though the occasion were too special for a +display of professional vanity; a vanity so well known to +Renouard that its absence augmented his wonder and almost made +him uneasy as if portending bad news of some sort.</p> +<p>“You have met those people?” he asked.</p> +<p>“No. I was to have met them last night, but I had +to send an apology to Willie in the morning. It was then +that he had the bright idea to invite you to fill the place, from +a muddled notion that you could be of use. Willie is stupid +sometimes. For it is clear that you are the last man able +to help.”</p> +<p>“How on earth do I come to be mixed up in +this—whatever it is?” Renouard’s voice +was slightly altered by nervous irritation. “I only +arrived here yesterday morning.”</p> +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> +<p>His friend the Editor turned to him squarely. +“Willie took me into consultation, and since he seems to +have let you in I may just as well tell you what is up. I +shall try to be as short as I can. But in +confidence—mind!”</p> +<p>He waited. Renouard, his uneasiness growing on him +unreasonably, assented by a nod, and the other lost no time in +beginning. Professor Moorsom—physicist and +philosopher—fine head of white hair, to judge from the +photographs—plenty of brains in the head too—all +these famous books—surely even Renouard would know. . . +.</p> +<p>Renouard muttered moodily that it wasn’t his sort of +reading, and his friend hastened to assure him earnestly that +neither was it his sort—except as a matter of business and +duty, for the literary page of that newspaper which was his +property (and the pride of his life). The only literary +newspaper in the Antipodes could not ignore the fashionable +philosopher of the age. Not that anybody read Moorsom at +the Antipodes, but everybody had heard of him—women, +children, dock labourers, cabmen. The only person (besides +himself) who had read Moorsom, as far as he knew, was old +Dunster, who used to call himself a Moorsomian (or was it +Moorsomite) years and years ago, long before Moorsom had worked +himself up into the great swell he was now, in every way. . . +Socially too. Quite the fashion in the highest world.</p> +<p>Renouard listened with profoundly concealed attention. +“A charlatan,” he muttered languidly.</p> +<p>“Well—no. I should say not. I +shouldn’t wonder though if most of his writing had been +done with his tongue in his cheek. Of course. +That’s to be expected. I tell you what: the only +really honest writing is to be found in newspapers and nowhere +else—and don’t you forget it.”</p> +<p>The Editor paused with a basilisk stare till Renouard had +conceded a casual: “I dare say,” and only then went +on to explain that old Dunster, during his European tour, had +been made rather a lion of in London, where he stayed with the +Moorsoms—he meant the father and the girl. The +professor had been a widower for a long time.</p> +<p>“She doesn’t look just a girl,” muttered +Renouard. The other agreed. Very likely not. +Had been playing the London hostess to tip-top people ever since +she put her hair up, probably.</p> +<p>“I don’t expect to see any girlish bloom on her +when I do have the privilege,” he continued. +“Those people are staying with the Dunster’s +<i>incog.</i>, in a manner, you understand—something like +royalties. They don’t deceive anybody, but they want +to be left to themselves. We have even kept them out of the +paper—to oblige old Dunster. But we shall put your +arrival in—our local celebrity.”</p> +<p>“Heavens!”</p> +<p>“Yes. Mr. G. Renouard, the explorer, whose +indomitable energy, etc., and who is now working for the +prosperity of our country in another way on his Malata plantation +. . . And, by the by, how’s the silk +plant—flourishing?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“Did you bring any fibre?”</p> +<p>“Schooner-full.”</p> +<p>“I see. To be transhipped to Liverpool for +experimental manufacture, eh? Eminent capitalists at home +very much interested, aren’t they?”</p> +<p>“They are.”</p> +<p>A silence fell. Then the Editor uttered +slowly—“You will be a rich man some day.”</p> +<p>Renouard’s face did not betray his opinion of that +confident prophecy. He didn’t say anything till his +friend suggested in the same meditative voice—</p> +<p>“You ought to interest Moorsom in the affair +too—since Willie has let you in.”</p> +<p>“A philosopher!”</p> +<p>“I suppose he isn’t above making a bit of +money. And he may be clever at it for all you know. I +have a notion that he’s a fairly practical old cove. . . . +Anyhow,” and here the tone of the speaker took on a tinge +of respect, “he has made philosophy pay.”</p> +<p>Renouard raised his eyes, repressed an impulse to jump up, and +got out of the arm-chair slowly. “It isn’t +perhaps a bad idea,” he said. “I’ll have +to call there in any case.”</p> +<p>He wondered whether he had managed to keep his voice steady, +its tone unconcerned enough; for his emotion was strong though it +had nothing to do with the business aspect of this +suggestion. He moved in the room in vague preparation for +departure, when he heard a soft laugh. He spun about +quickly with a frown, but the Editor was not laughing at +him. He was chuckling across the big desk at the wall: a +preliminary of some speech for which Renouard, recalled to +himself, waited silent and mistrustful.</p> +<p>“No! You would never guess! No one would +ever guess what these people are after. Willie’s eyes +bulged out when he came to me with the tale.”</p> +<p>“They always do,” remarked Renouard with +disgust. “He’s stupid.”</p> +<p>“He was startled. And so was I after he told +me. It’s a search party. They are out looking +for a man. Willie’s soft heart’s enlisted in +the cause.”</p> +<p>Renouard repeated: “Looking for a man.”</p> +<p>He sat down suddenly as if on purpose to stare. +“Did Willie come to you to borrow the lantern,” he +asked sarcastically, and got up again for no apparent reason.</p> +<p>“What lantern?” snapped the puzzled Editor, and +his face darkened with suspicion. “You, Renouard, are +always alluding to things that aren’t clear to me. If +you were in politics, I, as a party journalist, wouldn’t +trust you further than I could see you. Not an inch +further. You are such a sophisticated beggar. Listen: +the man is the man Miss Moorsom was engaged to for a year. +He couldn’t have been a nobody, anyhow. But he +doesn’t seem to have been very wise. Hard luck for +the young lady.”</p> +<p>He spoke with feeling. It was clear that what he had to +tell appealed to his sentiment. Yet, as an experienced man +of the world, he marked his amused wonder. Young man of +good family and connections, going everywhere, yet not merely a +man about town, but with a foot in the two big F’s.</p> +<p>Renouard lounging aimlessly in the room turned round: +“And what the devil’s that?” he asked +faintly.</p> +<p>“Why Fashion and Finance,” explained the +Editor. “That’s how I call it. There are +the three R’s at the bottom of the social edifice and the +two F’s on the top. See?”</p> +<p>“Ha! Ha! Excellent! Ha! Ha!” Renouard +laughed with stony eyes.</p> +<p>“And you proceed from one set to the other in this +democratic age,” the Editor went on with unperturbed +complacency. “That is if you are clever enough. +The only danger is in being too clever. And I think +something of the sort happened here. That swell I am +speaking of got himself into a mess. Apparently a very ugly +mess of a financial character. You will understand that +Willie did not go into details with me. They were not +imparted to him with very great abundance either. But a bad +mess—something of the criminal order. Of course he +was innocent. But he had to quit all the same.”</p> +<p>“Ha! Ha!” Renouard laughed again abruptly, staring +as before. “So there’s one more big F in the +tale.”</p> +<p>“What do you mean?” inquired the Editor quickly, +with an air as if his patent were being infringed.</p> +<p>“I mean—Fool.”</p> +<p>“No. I wouldn’t say that. I +wouldn’t say that.”</p> +<p>“Well—let him be a scoundrel then. What the +devil do I care.”</p> +<p>“But hold on! You haven’t heard the end of +the story.”</p> +<p>Renouard, his hat on his head already, sat down with the +disdainful smile of a man who had discounted the moral of the +story. Still he sat down and the Editor swung his revolving +chair right round. He was full of unction.</p> +<p>“Imprudent, I should say. In many ways money is as +dangerous to handle as gunpowder. You can’t be too +careful either as to who you are working with. Anyhow there +was a mighty flashy burst up, a sensation, and—his familiar +haunts knew him no more. But before he vanished he went to +see Miss Moorsom. That very fact argues for his +innocence—don’t it? What was said between them +no man knows—unless the professor had the confidence from +his daughter. There couldn’t have been much to +say. There was nothing for it but to let him go—was +there?—for the affair had got into the papers. And +perhaps the kindest thing would have been to forget him. +Anyway the easiest. Forgiveness would have been more +difficult, I fancy, for a young lady of spirit and position drawn +into an ugly affair like that. Any ordinary young lady, I +mean. Well, the fellow asked nothing better than to be +forgotten, only he didn’t find it easy to do so himself, +because he would write home now and then. Not to any of his +friends though. He had no near relations. The +professor had been his guardian. No, the poor devil wrote +now and then to an old retired butler of his late father, +somewhere in the country, forbidding him at the same time to let +any one know of his whereabouts. So that worthy old ass +would go up and dodge about the Moorsom’s town house, +perhaps waylay Miss Moorsom’s maid, and then would write to +‘Master Arthur’ that the young lady looked well and +happy, or some such cheerful intelligence. I dare say he +wanted to be forgotten, but I shouldn’t think he was much +cheered by the news. What would you say?”</p> +<p>Renouard, his legs stretched out and his chin on his breast, +said nothing. A sensation which was not curiosity, but +rather a vague nervous anxiety, distinctly unpleasant, like a +mysterious symptom of some malady, prevented him from getting up +and going away.</p> +<p>“Mixed feelings,” the Editor opined. +“Many fellows out here receive news from home with mixed +feelings. But what will his feelings be when he hears what +I am going to tell you now? For we know he has not heard +yet. Six months ago a city clerk, just a common drudge of +finance, gets himself convicted of a common embezzlement or +something of that kind. Then seeing he’s in for a +long sentence he thinks of making his conscience comfortable, and +makes a clean breast of an old story of tampered with, or else +suppressed, documents, a story which clears altogether the +honesty of our ruined gentleman. That embezzling fellow was +in a position to know, having been employed by the firm before +the smash. There was no doubt about the character being +cleared—but where the cleared man was nobody could +tell. Another sensation in society. And then Miss +Moorsom says: ‘He will come back to claim me, and +I’ll marry him.’ But he didn’t come +back. Between you and me I don’t think he was much +wanted—except by Miss Moorsom. I imagine she’s +used to have her own way. She grew impatient, and declared +that if she knew where the man was she would go to him. But +all that could be got out of the old butler was that the last +envelope bore the postmark of our beautiful city; and that this +was the only address of ‘Master Arthur’ that he ever +had. That and no more. In fact the fellow was at his +last gasp—with a bad heart. Miss Moorsom wasn’t +allowed to see him. She had gone herself into the country +to learn what she could, but she had to stay downstairs while the +old chap’s wife went up to the invalid. She brought +down the scrap of intelligence I’ve told you of. He +was already too far gone to be cross-examined on it, and that +very night he died. He didn’t leave behind him much +to go by, did he? Our Willie hinted to me that there had +been pretty stormy days in the professor’s house, +but—here they are. I have a notion she isn’t +the kind of everyday young lady who may be permitted to gallop +about the world all by herself—eh? Well, I think it +rather fine of her, but I quite understand that the professor +needed all his philosophy under the circumstances. She is +his only child now—and brilliant—what? Willie +positively spluttered trying to describe her to me; and I could +see directly you came in that you had an uncommon +experience.”</p> +<p>Renouard, with an irritated gesture, tilted his hat more +forward on his eyes, as though he were bored. The Editor +went on with the remark that to be sure neither he (Renouard) nor +yet Willie were much used to meet girls of that remarkable +superiority. Willie when learning business with a firm in +London, years before, had seen none but boarding-house society, +he guessed. As to himself in the good old days, when he +trod the glorious flags of Fleet Street, he neither had access +to, nor yet would have cared for the swells. Nothing +interested him then but parliamentary politics and the oratory of +the House of Commons.</p> +<p>He paid to this not very distant past the tribute of a tender, +reminiscent smile, and returned to his first idea that for a +society girl her action was rather fine. All the same the +professor could not be very pleased. The fellow if he was +as pure as a lily now was just about as devoid of the goods of +the earth. And there were misfortunes, however undeserved, +which damaged a man’s standing permanently. On the +other hand, it was difficult to oppose cynically a noble +impulse—not to speak of the great love at the root of +it. Ah! Love! And then the lady was quite +capable of going off by herself. She was of age, she had +money of her own, plenty of pluck too. Moorsom must have +concluded that it was more truly paternal, more prudent too, and +generally safer all round to let himself be dragged into this +chase. The aunt came along for the same reasons. It +was given out at home as a trip round the world of the usual +kind.</p> +<p>Renouard had risen and remained standing with his heart +beating, and strangely affected by this tale, robbed as it was of +all glamour by the prosaic personality of the narrator. The +Editor added: “I’ve been asked to help in the +search—you know.”</p> +<p>Renouard muttered something about an appointment and went out +into the street. His inborn sanity could not defend him +from a misty creeping jealousy. He thought that obviously +no man of that sort could be worthy of such a woman’s +devoted fidelity. Renouard, however, had lived long enough +to reflect that a man’s activities, his views, and even his +ideas may be very inferior to his character; and moved by a +delicate consideration for that splendid girl he tried to think +out for the man a character of inward excellence and outward +gifts—some extraordinary seduction. But in +vain. Fresh from months of solitude and from days at sea, +her splendour presented itself to him absolutely unconquerable in +its perfection, unless by her own folly. It was easier to +suspect her of this than to imagine in the man qualities which +would be worthy of her. Easier and less degrading. +Because folly may be generous—could be nothing else but +generosity in her; whereas to imagine her subjugated by something +common was intolerable.</p> +<p>Because of the force of the physical impression he had +received from her personality (and such impressions are the real +origins of the deepest movements of our soul) this conception of +her was even inconceivable. But no Prince Charming has ever +lived out of a fairy tale. He doesn’t walk the worlds +of Fashion and Finance—and with a stumbling gait at +that. Generosity. Yes. It was her +generosity. But this generosity was altogether regal in its +splendour, almost absurd in its lavishness—or, perhaps, +divine.</p> +<p>In the evening, on board his schooner, sitting on the rail, +his arms folded on his breast and his eyes fixed on the deck, he +let the darkness catch him unawares in the midst of a meditation +on the mechanism of sentiment and the springs of passion. +And all the time he had an abiding consciousness of her bodily +presence. The effect on his senses had been so penetrating +that in the middle of the night, rousing up suddenly, wide-eyed +in the darkness of his cabin, he did not create a faint mental +vision of her person for himself, but, more intimately affected, +he scented distinctly the faint perfume she used, and could +almost have sworn that he had been awakened by the soft rustle of +her dress. He even sat up listening in the dark for a time, +then sighed and lay down again, not agitated but, on the +contrary, oppressed by the sensation of something that had +happened to him and could not be undone.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER III</h3> +<p>In the afternoon he lounged into the editorial office, +carrying with affected nonchalance that weight of the +irremediable he had felt laid on him suddenly in the small hours +of the night—that consciousness of something that could no +longer be helped. His patronising friend informed him at +once that he had made the acquaintance of the Moorsom party last +night. At the Dunsters, of course. Dinner.</p> +<p>“Very quiet. Nobody there. It was much +better for the business. I say . . .”</p> +<p>Renouard, his hand grasping the back of a chair, stared down +at him dumbly.</p> +<p>“Phew! That’s a stunning girl. . . Why do +you want to sit on that chair? It’s +uncomfortable!”</p> +<p>“I wasn’t going to sit on it.” +Renouard walked slowly to the window, glad to find in himself +enough self-control to let go the chair instead of raising it on +high and bringing it down on the Editor’s head.</p> +<p>“Willie kept on gazing at her with tears in his boiled +eyes. You should have seen him bending sentimentally over +her at dinner.”</p> +<p>“Don’t,” said Renouard in such an anguished +tone that the Editor turned right round to look at his back.</p> +<p>“You push your dislike of young Dunster too far. +It’s positively morbid,” he disapproved mildly. +“We can’t be all beautiful after thirty. . . . I +talked a little, about you mostly, to the professor. He +appeared to be interested in the silk plant—if only as a +change from the great subject. Miss Moorsom didn’t +seem to mind when I confessed to her that I had taken you into +the confidence of the thing. Our Willie approved too. +Old Dunster with his white beard seemed to give me his +blessing. All those people have a great opinion of you, +simply because I told them that you’ve led every sort of +life one can think of before you got struck on exploration. +They want you to make suggestions. What do you think +‘Master Arthur’ is likely to have taken +to?”</p> +<p>“Something easy,” muttered Renouard without +unclenching his teeth.</p> +<p>“Hunting man. Athlete. Don’t be hard +on the chap. He may be riding boundaries, or droving +cattle, or humping his swag about the back-blocks away to the +devil—somewhere. He may be even prospecting at the +back of beyond—this very moment.”</p> +<p>“Or lying dead drunk in a roadside pub. It’s +late enough in the day for that.”</p> +<p>The Editor looked up instinctively. The clock was +pointing at a quarter to five. “Yes, it is,” he +admitted. “But it needn’t be. And he may +have lit out into the Western Pacific all of a sudden—say +in a trading schooner. Though I really don’t see in +what capacity. Still . . . ”</p> +<p>“Or he may be passing at this very moment under this +very window.”</p> +<p>“Not he . . . and I wish you would get away from it to +where one can see your face. I hate talking to a +man’s back. You stand there like a hermit on a +sea-shore growling to yourself. I tell you what it is, +Geoffrey, you don’t like mankind.”</p> +<p>“I don’t make my living by talking about +mankind’s affairs,” Renouard defended himself. +But he came away obediently and sat down in the arm-chair. +“How can you be so certain that your man isn’t down +there in the street?” he asked. “It’s +neither more nor less probable than every single one of your +other suppositions.”</p> +<p>Placated by Renouard’s docility the Editor gazed at him +for a while. “Aha! I’ll tell you +how. Learn then that we have begun the campaign. We +have telegraphed his description to the police of every township +up and down the land. And what’s more we’ve +ascertained definitely that he hasn’t been in this town for +the last three months at least. How much longer he’s +been away we can’t tell.”</p> +<p>“That’s very curious.”</p> +<p>“It’s very simple. Miss Moorsom wrote to +him, to the post office here directly she returned to London +after her excursion into the country to see the old butler. +Well—her letter is still lying there. It has not been +called for. Ergo, this town is not his usual abode. +Personally, I never thought it was. But he cannot fail to +turn up some time or other. Our main hope lies just in the +certitude that he must come to town sooner or later. +Remember he doesn’t know that the butler is dead, and he +will want to inquire for a letter. Well, he’ll find a +note from Miss Moorsom.”</p> +<p>Renouard, silent, thought that it was likely enough. His +profound distaste for this conversation was betrayed by an air of +weariness darkening his energetic sun-tanned features, and by the +augmented dreaminess of his eyes. The Editor noted it as a +further proof of that immoral detachment from mankind, of that +callousness of sentiment fostered by the unhealthy conditions of +solitude—according to his own favourite theory. Aloud +he observed that as long as a man had not given up correspondence +he could not be looked upon as lost. Fugitive criminals had +been tracked in that way by justice, he reminded his friend; then +suddenly changed the bearing of the subject somewhat by asking if +Renouard had heard from his people lately, and if every member of +his large tribe was well and happy.</p> +<p>“Yes, thanks.”</p> +<p>The tone was curt, as if repelling a liberty. Renouard +did not like being asked about his people, for whom he had a +profound and remorseful affection. He had not seen a single +human being to whom he was related, for many years, and he was +extremely different from them all.</p> +<p>On the very morning of his arrival from his island he had gone +to a set of pigeon-holes in Willie Dunster’s outer office +and had taken out from a compartment labelled +“Malata” a very small accumulation of envelopes, a +few addressed to himself, and one addressed to his assistant, all +to the care of the firm, W. Dunster and Co. As opportunity +offered, the firm used to send them on to Malata either by a +man-of-war schooner going on a cruise, or by some trading craft +proceeding that way. But for the last four months there had +been no opportunity.</p> +<p>“You going to stay here some time?” asked the +Editor, after a longish silence.</p> +<p>Renouard, perfunctorily, did see no reason why he should make +a long stay.</p> +<p>“For health, for your mental health, my boy,” +rejoined the newspaper man. “To get used to human +faces so that they don’t hit you in the eye so hard when +you walk about the streets. To get friendly with your +kind. I suppose that assistant of yours can be trusted to +look after things?”</p> +<p>“There’s the half-caste too. The +Portuguese. He knows what’s to be done.”</p> +<p>“Aha!” The Editor looked sharply at his +friend. “What’s his name?”</p> +<p>“Who’s name?”</p> +<p>“The assistant’s you picked up on the sly behind +my back.”</p> +<p>Renouard made a slight movement of impatience.</p> +<p>“I met him unexpectedly one evening. I thought he +would do as well as another. He had come from up country +and didn’t seem happy in a town. He told me his name +was Walter. I did not ask him for proofs, you +know.”</p> +<p>“I don’t think you get on very well with +him.”</p> +<p>“Why? What makes you think so.”</p> +<p>“I don’t know. Something reluctant in your +manner when he’s in question.”</p> +<p>“Really. My manner! I don’t think +he’s a great subject for conversation, perhaps. Why +not drop him?”</p> +<p>“Of course! You wouldn’t confess to a +mistake. Not you. Nevertheless I have my suspicions +about it.”</p> +<p>Renouard got up to go, but hesitated, looking down at the +seated Editor.</p> +<p>“How funny,” he said at last with the utmost +seriousness, and was making for the door, when the voice of his +friend stopped him.</p> +<p>“You know what has been said of you? That you +couldn’t get on with anybody you couldn’t kick. +Now, confess—is there any truth in the soft +impeachment?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Renouard. “Did you print +that in your paper.”</p> +<p>“No. I didn’t quite believe it. But I +will tell you what I believe. I believe that when your +heart is set on some object you are a man that doesn’t +count the cost to yourself or others. And this shall get +printed some day.”</p> +<p>“Obituary notice?” Renouard dropped +negligently.</p> +<p>“Certain—some day.”</p> +<p>“Do you then regard yourself as immortal?”</p> +<p>“No, my boy. I am not immortal. But the +voice of the press goes on for ever. . . . And it will say that +this was the secret of your great success in a task where better +men than you—meaning no offence—did fail +repeatedly.”</p> +<p>“Success,” muttered Renouard, pulling-to the +office door after him with considerable energy. And the +letters of the word PRIVATE like a row of white eyes seemed to +stare after his back sinking down the staircase of that temple of +publicity.</p> +<p>Renouard had no doubt that all the means of publicity would be +put at the service of love and used for the discovery of the +loved man. He did not wish him dead. He did not wish +him any harm. We are all equipped with a fund of humanity +which is not exhausted without many and repeated +provocations—and this man had done him no evil. But +before Renouard had left old Dunster’s house, at the +conclusion of the call he made there that very afternoon, he had +discovered in himself the desire that the search might last +long. He never really flattered himself that it might +fail. It seemed to him that there was no other course in +this world for himself, for all mankind, but resignation. +And he could not help thinking that Professor Moorsom had arrived +at the same conclusion too.</p> +<p>Professor Moorsom, slight frame of middle height, a thoughtful +keen head under the thick wavy hair, veiled dark eyes under +straight eyebrows, and with an inward gaze which when disengaged +and arriving at one seemed to issue from an obscure dream of +books, from the limbo of meditation, showed himself extremely +gracious to him. Renouard guessed in him a man whom an +incurable habit of investigation and analysis had made gentle and +indulgent; inapt for action, and more sensitive to the thoughts +than to the events of existence. Withal not crushed, +sub-ironic without a trace of acidity, and with a simple manner +which put people at ease quickly. They had a long +conversation on the terrace commanding an extended view of the +town and the harbour.</p> +<p>The splendid immobility of the bay resting under his gaze, +with its grey spurs and shining indentations, helped Renouard to +regain his self-possession, which he had felt shaken, in coming +out on the terrace, into the setting of the most powerful emotion +of his life, when he had sat within a foot of Miss Moorsom with +fire in his breast, a humming in his ears, and in a complete +disorder of his mind. There was the very garden seat on +which he had been enveloped in the radiant spell. And +presently he was sitting on it again with the professor talking +of her. Near by the patriarchal Dunster leaned forward in a +wicker arm-chair, benign and a little deaf, his big hand to his +ear with the innocent eagerness of his advanced age remembering +the fires of life.</p> +<p>It was with a sort of apprehension that Renouard looked +forward to seeing Miss Moorsom. And strangely enough it +resembled the state of mind of a man who fears disenchantment +more than sortilege. But he need not have been +afraid. Directly he saw her in a distance at the other end +of the terrace he shuddered to the roots of his hair. With +her approach the power of speech left him for a time. Mrs. +Dunster and her aunt were accompanying her. All these +people sat down; it was an intimate circle into which Renouard +felt himself cordially admitted; and the talk was of the great +search which occupied all their minds. Discretion was +expected by these people, but of reticence as to the object of +the journey there could be no question. Nothing but ways +and means and arrangements could be talked about.</p> +<p>By fixing his eyes obstinately on the ground, which gave him +an air of reflective sadness, Renouard managed to recover his +self-possession. He used it to keep his voice in a low key +and to measure his words on the great subject. And he took +care with a great inward effort to make them reasonable without +giving them a discouraging complexion. For he did not want +the quest to be given up, since it would mean her going away with +her two attendant grey-heads to the other side of the world.</p> +<p>He was asked to come again, to come often and take part in the +counsels of all these people captivated by the sentimental +enterprise of a declared love. On taking Miss +Moorsom’s hand he looked up, would have liked to say +something, but found himself voiceless, with his lips suddenly +sealed. She returned the pressure of his fingers, and he +left her with her eyes vaguely staring beyond him, an air of +listening for an expected sound, and the faintest possible smile +on her lips. A smile not for him, evidently, but the +reflection of some deep and inscrutable thought.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3> +<p>He went on board his schooner. She lay white, and as if +suspended, in the crepuscular atmosphere of sunset mingling with +the ashy gleam of the vast anchorage. He tried to keep his +thoughts as sober, as reasonable, as measured as his words had +been, lest they should get away from him and cause some sort of +moral disaster. What he was afraid of in the coming night +was sleeplessness and the endless strain of that wearisome +task. It had to be faced however. He lay on his back, +sighing profoundly in the dark, and suddenly beheld his very own +self, carrying a small bizarre lamp, reflected in a long mirror +inside a room in an empty and unfurnished palace. In this +startling image of himself he recognised somebody he had to +follow—the frightened guide of his dream. He +traversed endless galleries, no end of lofty halls, innumerable +doors. He lost himself utterly—he found his way +again. Room succeeded room. At last the lamp went +out, and he stumbled against some object which, when he stooped +for it, he found to be very cold and heavy to lift. The +sickly white light of dawn showed him the head of a statue. +Its marble hair was done in the bold lines of a helmet, on its +lips the chisel had left a faint smile, and it resembled Miss +Moorsom. While he was staring at it fixedly, the head began +to grow light in his fingers, to diminish and crumble to pieces, +and at last turned into a handful of dust, which was blown away +by a puff of wind so chilly that he woke up with a desperate +shiver and leaped headlong out of his bed-place. The day +had really come. He sat down by the cabin table, and taking +his head between his hands, did not stir for a very long +time.</p> +<p>Very quiet, he set himself to review this dream. The +lamp, of course, he connected with the search for a man. +But on closer examination he perceived that the reflection of +himself in the mirror was not really the true Renouard, but +somebody else whose face he could not remember. In the +deserted palace he recognised a sinister adaptation by his brain +of the long corridors with many doors, in the great building in +which his friend’s newspaper was lodged on the first +floor. The marble head with Miss Moorsom’s +face! Well! What other face could he have dreamed +of? And her complexion was fairer than Parian marble, than +the heads of angels. The wind at the end was the morning +breeze entering through the open porthole and touching his face +before the schooner could swing to the chilly gust.</p> +<p>Yes! And all this rational explanation of the fantastic +made it only more mysterious and weird. There was something +daemonic in that dream. It was one of those experiences +which throw a man out of conformity with the established order of +his kind and make him a creature of obscure suggestions.</p> +<p>Henceforth, without ever trying to resist, he went every +afternoon to the house where she lived. He went there as +passively as if in a dream. He could never make out how he +had attained the footing of intimacy in the Dunster mansion above +the bay—whether on the ground of personal merit or as the +pioneer of the vegetable silk industry. It must have been +the last, because he remembered distinctly, as distinctly as in a +dream, hearing old Dunster once telling him that his next public +task would be a careful survey of the Northern Districts to +discover tracts suitable for the cultivation of the silk +plant. The old man wagged his beard at him sagely. It +was indeed as absurd as a dream.</p> +<p>Willie of course would be there in the evening. But he +was more of a figure out of a nightmare, hovering about the +circle of chairs in his dress-clothes like a gigantic, repulsive, +and sentimental bat. “Do away with the beastly +cocoons all over the world,” he buzzed in his blurred, +water-logged voice. He affected a great horror of insects +of all kinds. One evening he appeared with a red flower in +his button-hole. Nothing could have been more disgustingly +fantastic. And he would also say to Renouard: “You +may yet change the history of our country. For economic +conditions do shape the history of nations. Eh? +What?” And he would turn to Miss Moorsom for +approval, lowering protectingly his spatulous nose and looking up +with feeling from under his absurd eyebrows, which grew thin, in +the manner of canebrakes, out of his spongy skin. For this +large, bilious creature was an economist and a sentimentalist, +facile to tears, and a member of the Cobden Club.</p> +<p>In order to see as little of him as possible Renouard began +coming earlier so as to get away before his arrival, without +curtailing too much the hours of secret contemplation for which +he lived. He had given up trying to deceive himself. +His resignation was without bounds. He accepted the immense +misfortune of being in love with a woman who was in search of +another man only to throw herself into his arms. With such +desperate precision he defined in his thoughts the situation, the +consciousness of which traversed like a sharp arrow the sudden +silences of general conversation. The only thought before +which he quailed was the thought that this could not last; that +it must come to an end. He feared it instinctively as a +sick man may fear death. For it seemed to him that it must +be the death of him followed by a lightless, bottomless +pit. But his resignation was not spared the torments of +jealousy: the cruel, insensate, poignant, and imbecile jealousy, +when it seems that a woman betrays us simply by this that she +exists, that she breathes—and when the deep movements of +her nerves or her soul become a matter of distracting suspicion, +of killing doubt, of mortal anxiety.</p> +<p>In the peculiar condition of their sojourn Miss Moorsom went +out very little. She accepted this seclusion at the +Dunsters’ mansion as in a hermitage, and lived there, +watched over by a group of old people, with the lofty endurance +of a condescending and strong-headed goddess. It was +impossible to say if she suffered from anything in the world, and +whether this was the insensibility of a great passion +concentrated on itself, or a perfect restraint of manner, or the +indifference of superiority so complete as to be sufficient to +itself. But it was visible to Renouard that she took some +pleasure in talking to him at times. Was it because he was +the only person near her age? Was this, then, the secret of +his admission to the circle?</p> +<p>He admired her voice as well poised as her movements, as her +attitudes. He himself had always been a man of tranquil +tones. But the power of fascination had torn him out of his +very nature so completely that to preserve his habitual calmness +from going to pieces had become a terrible effort.</p> +<p>He used to go from her on board the schooner exhausted, +broken, shaken up, as though he had been put to the most +exquisite torture. When he saw her approaching he always +had a moment of hallucination. She was a misty and fair +creature, fitted for invisible music, for the shadows of love, +for the murmurs of waters. After a time (he could not be +always staring at the ground) he would summon up all his +resolution and look at her. There was a sparkle in the +clear obscurity of her eyes; and when she turned them on him they +seemed to give a new meaning to life. He would say to +himself that another man would have found long before the happy +release of madness, his wits burnt to cinders in that +radiance. But no such luck for him. His wits had come +unscathed through the furnaces of hot suns, of blazing deserts, +of flaming angers against the weaknesses of men and the obstinate +cruelties of hostile nature.</p> +<p>Being sane he had to be constantly on his guard against +falling into adoring silences or breaking out into wild +speeches. He had to keep watch on his eyes, his limbs, on +the muscles of his face. Their conversations were such as +they could be between these two people: she a young lady fresh +from the thick twilight of four million people and the +artificiality of several London seasons; he the man of definite +conquering tasks, the familiar of wide horizons, and in his very +repose holding aloof from these agglomerations of units in which +one loses one’s importance even to oneself. They had +no common conversational small change. They had to use the +great pieces of general ideas, but they exchanged them +trivially. It was no serious commerce. Perhaps she +had not much of that coin. Nothing significant came from +her. It could not be said that she had received from the +contacts of the external world impressions of a personal kind, +different from other women. What was ravishing in her was +her quietness and, in her grave attitudes, the unfailing +brilliance of her femininity. He did not know what there +was under that ivory forehead so splendidly shaped, so gloriously +crowned. He could not tell what were her thoughts, her +feelings. Her replies were reflective, always preceded by a +short silence, while he hung on her lips anxiously. He felt +himself in the presence of a mysterious being in whom spoke an +unknown voice, like the voice of oracles, bringing everlasting +unrest to the heart.</p> +<p>He was thankful enough to sit in silence with secretly +clenched teeth, devoured by jealousy—and nobody could have +guessed that his quiet deferential bearing to all these +grey-heads was the supreme effort of stoicism, that the man was +engaged in keeping a sinister watch on his tortures lest his +strength should fail him. As before, when grappling with +other forces of nature, he could find in himself all sorts of +courage except the courage to run away.</p> +<p>It was perhaps from the lack of subjects they could have in +common that Miss Moorsom made him so often speak of his own +life. He did not shrink from talking about himself, for he +was free from that exacerbated, timid vanity which seals so many +vain-glorious lips. He talked to her in his restrained +voice, gazing at the tip of her shoe, and thinking that the time +was bound to come soon when her very inattention would get weary +of him. And indeed on stealing a glance he would see her +dazzling and perfect, her eyes vague, staring in mournful +immobility, with a drooping head that made him think of a tragic +Venus arising before him, not from the foam of the sea, but from +a distant, still more formless, mysterious, and potent immensity +of mankind.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER V</h3> +<p>One afternoon Renouard stepping out on the terrace found +nobody there. It was for him, at the same time, a +melancholy disappointment and a poignant relief.</p> +<p>The heat was great, the air was still, all the long windows of +the house stood wide open. At the further end, grouped +round a lady’s work-table, several chairs disposed sociably +suggested invisible occupants, a company of conversing +shades. Renouard looked towards them with a sort of +dread. A most elusive, faint sound of ghostly talk issuing +from one of the rooms added to the illusion and stopped his +already hesitating footsteps. He leaned over the balustrade +of stone near a squat vase holding a tropical plant of a bizarre +shape. Professor Moorsom coming up from the garden with a +book under his arm and a white parasol held over his bare head, +found him there and, closing the parasol, leaned over by his side +with a remark on the increasing heat of the season. +Renouard assented and changed his position a little; the other, +after a short silence, administered unexpectedly a question +which, like the blow of a club on the head, deprived Renouard of +the power of speech and even thought, but, more cruel, left him +quivering with apprehension, not of death but of everlasting +torment. Yet the words were extremely simple.</p> +<p>“Something will have to be done soon. We +can’t remain in a state of suspended expectation for +ever. Tell me what do you think of our chances?”</p> +<p>Renouard, speechless, produced a faint smile. The +professor confessed in a jocular tone his impatience to complete +the circuit of the globe and be done with it. It was +impossible to remain quartered on the dear excellent Dunsters for +an indefinite time. And then there were the lectures he had +arranged to deliver in Paris. A serious matter.</p> +<p>That lectures by Professor Moorsom were a European event and +that brilliant audiences would gather to hear them Renouard did +not know. All he was aware of was the shock of this hint of +departure. The menace of separation fell on his head like a +thunderbolt. And he saw the absurdity of his emotion, for +hadn’t he lived all these days under the very cloud? +The professor, his elbows spread out, looked down into the garden +and went on unburdening his mind. Yes. The department +of sentiment was directed by his daughter, and she had plenty of +volunteered moral support; but he had to look after the practical +side of life without assistance.</p> +<p>“I have the less hesitation in speaking to you about my +anxiety, because I feel you are friendly to us and at the same +time you are detached from all these sublimities—confound +them.”</p> +<p>“What do you mean?” murmured Renouard.</p> +<p>“I mean that you are capable of calm judgment. +Here the atmosphere is simply detestable. Everybody has +knuckled under to sentiment. Perhaps your deliberate +opinion could influence . . .”</p> +<p>“You want Miss Moorsom to give it up?” The +professor turned to the young man dismally.</p> +<p>“Heaven only knows what I want.”</p> +<p>Renouard leaning his back against the balustrade folded his +arms on his breast, appeared to meditate profoundly. His +face, shaded softly by the broad brim of a planter’s Panama +hat, with the straight line of the nose level with the forehead, +the eyes lost in the depth of the setting, and the chin well +forward, had such a profile as may be seen amongst the bronzes of +classical museums, pure under a crested helmet—recalled +vaguely a Minerva’s head.</p> +<p>“This is the most troublesome time I ever had in my +life,” exclaimed the professor testily.</p> +<p>“Surely the man must be worth it,” muttered +Renouard with a pang of jealousy traversing his breast like a +self-inflicted stab.</p> +<p>Whether enervated by the heat or giving way to pent up +irritation the professor surrendered himself to the mood of +sincerity.</p> +<p>“He began by being a pleasantly dull boy. He +developed into a pointlessly clever young man, without, I +suspect, ever trying to understand anything. My daughter +knew him from childhood. I am a busy man, and I confess +that their engagement was a complete surprise to me. I wish +their reasons for that step had been more naïve. But +simplicity was out of fashion in their set. From a worldly +point of view he seems to have been a mere baby. Of course, +now, I am assured that he is the victim of his noble confidence +in the rectitude of his kind. But that’s mere +idealising of a sad reality. For my part I will tell you +that from the very beginning I had the gravest doubts of his +dishonesty. Unfortunately my clever daughter +hadn’t. And now we behold the reaction. +No. To be earnestly dishonest one must be really +poor. This was only a manifestation of his extremely +refined cleverness. The complicated simpleton. He had +an awful awakening though.”</p> +<p>In such words did Professor Moorsom give his “young +friend” to understand the state of his feelings toward the +lost man. It was evident that the father of Miss Moorsom +wished him to remain lost. Perhaps the unprecedented heat +of the season made him long for the cool spaces of the Pacific, +the sweep of the ocean’s free wind along the promenade +decks, cumbered with long chairs, of a ship steaming towards the +Californian coast. To Renouard the philosopher appeared +simply the most treacherous of fathers. He was +amazed. But he was not at the end of his discoveries.</p> +<p>“He may be dead,” the professor murmured.</p> +<p>“Why? People don’t die here sooner than in +Europe. If he had gone to hide in Italy, for instance, you +wouldn’t think of saying that.”</p> +<p>“Well! And suppose he has become morally +disintegrated. You know he was not a strong +personality,” the professor suggested moodily. +“My daughter’s future is in question here.”</p> +<p>Renouard thought that the love of such a woman was enough to +pull any broken man together—to drag a man out of his +grave. And he thought this with inward despair, which kept +him silent as much almost as his astonishment. At last he +managed to stammer out a generous—</p> +<p>“Oh! Don’t let us even suppose. . +.”</p> +<p>The professor struck in with a sadder accent than +before—</p> +<p>“It’s good to be young. And then you have +been a man of action, and necessarily a believer in +success. But I have been looking too long at life not to +distrust its surprises. Age! Age! Here I stand +before you a man full of doubts and hesitation—<i>spe +lentus</i>, <i>timidus futuri</i>.”</p> +<p>He made a sign to Renouard not to interrupt, and in a lowered +voice, as if afraid of being overheard, even there, in the +solitude of the terrace—</p> +<p>“And the worst is that I am not even sure how far this +sentimental pilgrimage is genuine. Yes. I doubt my +own child. It’s true that she’s a woman. . . . +”</p> +<p>Renouard detected with horror a tone of resentment, as if the +professor had never forgiven his daughter for not dying instead +of his son. The latter noticed the young man’s stony +stare.</p> +<p>“Ah! you don’t understand. Yes, she’s +clever, open-minded, popular, and—well, charming. But +you don’t know what it is to have moved, breathed, existed, +and even triumphed in the mere smother and froth of +life—the brilliant froth. There thoughts, sentiments, +opinions, feelings, actions too, are nothing but agitation in +empty space—to amuse life—a sort of superior +debauchery, exciting and fatiguing, meaning nothing, leading +nowhere. She is the creature of that circle. And I +ask myself if she is obeying the uneasiness of an instinct +seeking its satisfaction, or is it a revulsion of feeling, or is +she merely deceiving her own heart by this dangerous trifling +with romantic images. And everything is +possible—except sincerity, such as only stark, struggling +humanity can know. No woman can stand that mode of life in +which women rule, and remain a perfectly genuine, simple human +being. Ah! There’s some people coming +out.”</p> +<p>He moved off a pace, then turning his head: “Upon my +word! I would be infinitely obliged to you if you could +throw a little cold water. . . ” and at a vaguely dismayed +gesture of Renouard, he added: “Don’t be +afraid. You wouldn’t be putting out a sacred +fire.”</p> +<p>Renouard could hardly find words for a protest: “I +assure you that I never talk with Miss +Moorsom—on—on—that. And if you, her +father . . . ”</p> +<p>“I envy you your innocence,” sighed the +professor. “A father is only an everyday +person. Flat. Stale. Moreover, my child would +naturally mistrust me. We belong to the same set. +Whereas you carry with you the prestige of the unknown. You +have proved yourself to be a force.”</p> +<p>Thereupon the professor followed by Renouard joined the circle +of all the inmates of the house assembled at the other end of the +terrace about a tea-table; three white heads and that resplendent +vision of woman’s glory, the sight of which had the power +to flutter his heart like a reminder of the mortality of his +frame.</p> +<p>He avoided the seat by the side of Miss Moorsom. The +others were talking together languidly. Unnoticed he looked +at that woman so marvellous that centuries seemed to lie between +them. He was oppressed and overcome at the thought of what +she could give to some man who really would be a force! +What a glorious struggle with this amazon. What noble +burden for the victorious strength.</p> +<p>Dear old Mrs. Dunster was dispensing tea, looking from time to +time with interest towards Miss Moorsom. The aged statesman +having eaten a raw tomato and drunk a glass of milk (a habit of +his early farming days, long before politics, when, pioneer of +wheat-growing, he demonstrated the possibility of raising crops +on ground looking barren enough to discourage a magician), +smoothed his white beard, and struck lightly Renouard’s +knee with his big wrinkled hand.</p> +<p>“You had better come back to-night and dine with us +quietly.”</p> +<p>He liked this young man, a pioneer, too, in more than one +direction. Mrs. Dunster added: “Do. It will be +very quiet. I don’t even know if Willie will be home +for dinner.” Renouard murmured his thanks, and left +the terrace to go on board the schooner. While lingering in +the drawing-room doorway he heard the resonant voice of old +Dunster uttering oracularly—</p> +<p>“. . . the leading man here some day. . . . Like +me.”</p> +<p>Renouard let the thin summer portière of the doorway +fall behind him. The voice of Professor Moorsom +said—</p> +<p>“I am told that he has made an enemy of almost every man +who had to work with him.”</p> +<p>“That’s nothing. He did his work. . . . Like +me.”</p> +<p>“He never counted the cost they say. Not even of +lives.”</p> +<p>Renouard understood that they were talking of him. +Before he could move away, Mrs. Dunster struck in +placidly—</p> +<p>“Don’t let yourself be shocked by the tales you +may hear of him, my dear. Most of it is envy.”</p> +<p>Then he heard Miss Moorsom’s voice replying to the old +lady—</p> +<p>“Oh! I am not easily deceived. I think I may +say I have an instinct for truth.”</p> +<p>He hastened away from that house with his heart full of +dread.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3> +<p>On board the schooner, lying on the settee on his back with +the knuckles of his hands pressed over his eyes, he made up his +mind that he would not return to that house for dinner—that +he would never go back there any more. He made up his mind +some twenty times. The knowledge that he had only to go up +on the quarter deck, utter quietly the words: “Man the +windlass,” and that the schooner springing into life would +run a hundred miles out to sea before sunrise, deceived his +struggling will. Nothing easier! Yet, in the end, +this young man, almost ill-famed for his ruthless daring, the +inflexible leader of two tragically successful expeditions, +shrank from that act of savage energy, and began, instead, to +hunt for excuses.</p> +<p>No! It was not for him to run away like an incurable who +cuts his throat. He finished dressing and looked at his own +impassive face in the saloon mirror scornfully. While being +pulled on shore in the gig, he remembered suddenly the wild +beauty of a waterfall seen when hardly more than a boy, years +ago, in Menado. There was a legend of a governor-general of +the Dutch East Indies, on official tour, committing suicide on +that spot by leaping into the chasm. It was supposed that a +painful disease had made him weary of life. But was there +ever a visitation like his own, at the same time binding one to +life and so cruelly mortal!</p> +<p>The dinner was indeed quiet. Willie, given half an +hour’s grace, failed to turn up, and his chair remained +vacant by the side of Miss Moorsom. Renouard had the +professor’s sister on his left, dressed in an expensive +gown becoming her age. That maiden lady in her wonderful +preservation reminded Renouard somehow of a wax flower under +glass. There were no traces of the dust of life’s +battles on her anywhere. She did not like him very much in +the afternoons, in his white drill suit and planter’s hat, +which seemed to her an unduly Bohemian costume for calling in a +house where there were ladies. But in the evening, lithe +and elegant in his dress clothes and with his pleasant, slightly +veiled voice, he always made her conquest afresh. He might +have been anybody distinguished—the son of a duke. +Falling under that charm probably (and also because her brother +had given her a hint), she attempted to open her heart to +Renouard, who was watching with all the power of his soul her +niece across the table. She spoke to him as frankly as +though that miserable mortal envelope, emptied of everything but +hopeless passion, were indeed the son of a duke.</p> +<p>Inattentive, he heard her only in snatches, till the final +confidential burst: “. . . glad if you would express an +opinion. Look at her, so charming, such a great favourite, +so generally admired! It would be too sad. We all +hoped she would make a brilliant marriage with somebody very rich +and of high position, have a house in London and in the country, +and entertain us all splendidly. She’s so eminently +fitted for it. She has such hosts of distinguished +friends! And then—this instead! . . . My heart really +aches.”</p> +<p>Her well-bred if anxious whisper was covered by the voice of +professor Moorsom discoursing subtly down the short length of the +dinner table on the Impermanency of the Measurable to his +venerable disciple. It might have been a chapter in a new +and popular book of Moorsomian philosophy. Patriarchal and +delighted, old Dunster leaned forward a little, his eyes shining +youthfully, two spots of colour at the roots of his white beard; +and Renouard, glancing at the senile excitement, recalled the +words heard on those subtle lips, adopted their scorn for his +own, saw their truth before this man ready to be amused by the +side of the grave. Yes! Intellectual debauchery in +the froth of existence! Froth and fraud!</p> +<p>On the same side of the table Miss Moorsom never once looked +towards her father, all her grace as if frozen, her red lips +compressed, the faintest rosiness under her dazzling complexion, +her black eyes burning motionless, and the very coppery gleams of +light lying still on the waves and undulation of her hair. +Renouard fancied himself overturning the table, smashing crystal +and china, treading fruit and flowers under foot, seizing her in +his arms, carrying her off in a tumult of shrieks from all these +people, a silent frightened mortal, into some profound retreat as +in the age of Cavern men. Suddenly everybody got up, and he +hastened to rise too, finding himself out of breath and quite +unsteady on his feet.</p> +<p>On the terrace the philosopher, after lighting a cigar, +slipped his hand condescendingly under his “dear young +friend’s” arm. Renouard regarded him now with +the profoundest mistrust. But the great man seemed really +to have a liking for his young friend—one of those +mysterious sympathies, disregarding the differences of age and +position, which in this case might have been explained by the +failure of philosophy to meet a very real worry of a practical +kind.</p> +<p>After a turn or two and some casual talk the professor said +suddenly: “My late son was in your school—do you +know? I can imagine that had he lived and you had ever met +you would have understood each other. He too was inclined +to action.”</p> +<p>He sighed, then, shaking off the mournful thought and with a +nod at the dusky part of the terrace where the dress of his +daughter made a luminous stain: “I really wish you would +drop in that quarter a few sensible, discouraging +words.”</p> +<p>Renouard disengaged himself from that most perfidious of men +under the pretence of astonishment, and stepping back a +pace—</p> +<p>“Surely you are making fun of me, Professor +Moorsom,” he said with a low laugh, which was really a +sound of rage.</p> +<p>“My dear young friend! It’s no subject for +jokes, to me. . . You don’t seem to have any notion of your +prestige,” he added, walking away towards the chairs.</p> +<p>“Humbug!” thought Renouard, standing still and +looking after him. “And yet! And yet! +What if it were true?”</p> +<p>He advanced then towards Miss Moorsom. Posed on the seat +on which they had first spoken to each other, it was her turn to +watch him coming on. But many of the windows were not +lighted that evening. It was dark over there. She +appeared to him luminous in her clear dress, a figure without +shape, a face without features, awaiting his approach, till he +got quite near to her, sat down, and they had exchanged a few +insignificant words. Gradually she came out like a magic +painting of charm, fascination, and desire, glowing mysteriously +on the dark background. Something imperceptible in the +lines of her attitude, in the modulations of her voice, seemed to +soften that suggestion of calm unconscious pride which enveloped +her always like a mantle. He, sensitive like a bond slave +to the moods of the master, was moved by the subtle relenting of +her grace to an infinite tenderness. He fought down the +impulse to seize her by the hand, lead her down into the garden +away under the big trees, and throw himself at her feet uttering +words of love. His emotion was so strong that he had to +cough slightly, and not knowing what to talk to her about he +began to tell her of his mother and sisters. All the family +were coming to London to live there, for some little time at +least.</p> +<p>“I hope you will go and tell them something of me. +Something seen,” he said pressingly.</p> +<p>By this miserable subterfuge, like a man about to part with +his life, he hoped to make her remember him a little longer.</p> +<p>“Certainly,” she said. “I’ll be +glad to call when I get back. But that ‘when’ +may be a long time.”</p> +<p>He heard a light sigh. A cruel jealous curiosity made +him ask—</p> +<p>“Are you growing weary, Miss Moorsom?”</p> +<p>A silence fell on his low spoken question.</p> +<p>“Do you mean heart-weary?” sounded Miss +Moorsom’s voice. “You don’t know me, I +see.”</p> +<p>“Ah! Never despair,” he muttered.</p> +<p>“This, Mr. Renouard, is a work of reparation. I +stand for truth here. I can’t think of +myself.”</p> +<p>He could have taken her by the throat for every word seemed an +insult to his passion; but he only said—</p> +<p>“I never doubted the—the—nobility of your +purpose.”</p> +<p>“And to hear the word weariness pronounced in this +connection surprises me. And from a man too who, I +understand, has never counted the cost.”</p> +<p>“You are pleased to tease me,” he said, directly +he had recovered his voice and had mastered his anger. It +was as if Professor Moorsom had dropped poison in his ear which +was spreading now and tainting his passion, his very +jealousy. He mistrusted every word that came from those +lips on which his life hung. “How can you know +anything of men who do not count the cost?” he asked in his +gentlest tones.</p> +<p>“From hearsay—a little.”</p> +<p>“Well, I assure you they are like the others, subject to +suffering, victims of spells. . . .”</p> +<p>“One of them, at least, speaks very +strangely.”</p> +<p>She dismissed the subject after a short silence. +“Mr. Renouard, I had a disappointment this morning. +This mail brought me a letter from the widow of the old +butler—you know. I expected to learn that she had +heard from—from here. But no. No letter arrived +home since we left.”</p> +<p>Her voice was calm. His jealousy couldn’t stand +much more of this sort of talk; but he was glad that nothing had +turned up to help the search; glad blindly, +unreasonably—only because it would keep her longer in his +sight—since she wouldn’t give up.</p> +<p>“I am too near her,” he thought, moving a little +further on the seat. He was afraid in the revulsion of +feeling of flinging himself on her hands, which were lying on her +lap, and covering them with kisses. He was afraid. +Nothing, nothing could shake that spell—not if she were +ever so false, stupid, or degraded. She was fate +itself. The extent of his misfortune plunged him in such a +stupor that he failed at first to hear the sound of voices and +footsteps inside the drawing-room. Willie had come +home—and the Editor was with him.</p> +<p>They burst out on the terrace babbling noisily, and then +pulling themselves together stood still, surprising—and as +if themselves surprised.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3> +<p>They had been feasting a poet from the bush, the latest +discovery of the Editor. Such discoveries were the +business, the vocation, the pride and delight of the only apostle +of letters in the hemisphere, the solitary patron of culture, the +Slave of the Lamp—as he subscribed himself at the bottom of +the weekly literary page of his paper. He had had no +difficulty in persuading the virtuous Willie (who had festive +instincts) to help in the good work, and now they had left the +poet lying asleep on the hearthrug of the editorial room and had +rushed to the Dunster mansion wildly. The Editor had +another discovery to announce. Swaying a little where he +stood he opened his mouth very wide to shout the one word +“Found!” Behind him Willie flung both his hands +above his head and let them fall dramatically. Renouard saw +the four white-headed people at the end of the terrace rise all +together from their chairs with an effect of sudden panic.</p> +<p>“I tell you—he—is—found,” the +patron of letters shouted emphatically.</p> +<p>“What is this!” exclaimed Renouard in a choked +voice. Miss Moorsom seized his wrist suddenly, and at that +contact fire ran through all his veins, a hot stillness descended +upon him in which he heard the blood—or the +fire—beating in his ears. He made a movement as if to +rise, but was restrained by the convulsive pressure on his +wrist.</p> +<p>“No, no.” Miss Moorsom’s eyes stared +black as night, searching the space before her. Far away +the Editor strutted forward, Willie following with his +ostentatious manner of carrying his bulky and oppressive carcass +which, however, did not remain exactly perpendicular for two +seconds together.</p> +<p>“The innocent Arthur . . . Yes. We’ve got +him,” the Editor became very business-like. +“Yes, this letter has done it.”</p> +<p>He plunged into an inside pocket for it, slapped the scrap of +paper with his open palm. “From that old woman. +William had it in his pocket since this morning when Miss Moorsom +gave it to him to show me. Forgot all about it till an hour +ago. Thought it was of no importance. Well, no! +Not till it was properly read.”</p> +<p>Renouard and Miss Moorsom emerged from the shadows side by +side, a well-matched couple, animated yet statuesque in their +calmness and in their pallor. She had let go his +wrist. On catching sight of Renouard the Editor +exclaimed:</p> +<p>“What—you here!” in a quite shrill +voice.</p> +<p>There came a dead pause. All the faces had in them +something dismayed and cruel.</p> +<p>“He’s the very man we want,” continued the +Editor. “Excuse my excitement. You are the very +man, Renouard. Didn’t you tell me that your assistant +called himself Walter? Yes? Thought so. But +here’s that old woman—the butler’s +wife—listen to this. She writes: All I can tell you, +Miss, is that my poor husband directed his letters to the name of +H. Walter.”</p> +<p>Renouard’s violent but repressed exclamation was lost in +a general murmur and shuffle of feet. The Editor made a +step forward, bowed with creditable steadiness.</p> +<p>“Miss Moorsom, allow me to congratulate you from the +bottom of my heart on the happy—er—issue. . . +”</p> +<p>“Wait,” muttered Renouard irresolutely.</p> +<p>The Editor jumped on him in the manner of their old +friendship. “Ah, you! You are a fine fellow +too. With your solitary ways of life you will end by having +no more discrimination than a savage. Fancy living with a +gentleman for months and never guessing. A man, I am +certain, accomplished, remarkable, out of the common, since he +had been distinguished” (he bowed again) “by Miss +Moorsom, whom we all admire.”</p> +<p>She turned her back on him.</p> +<p>“I hope to goodness you haven’t been leading him a +dog’s life, Geoffrey,” the Editor addressed his +friend in a whispered aside.</p> +<p>Renouard seized a chair violently, sat down, and propping his +elbow on his knee leaned his head on his hand. Behind him +the sister of the professor looked up to heaven and wrung her +hands stealthily. Mrs. Dunster’s hands were clasped +forcibly under her chin, but she, dear soul, was looking +sorrowfully at Willie. The model nephew! In this +strange state! So very much flushed! The careful +disposition of the thin hairs across Willie’s bald spot was +deplorably disarranged, and the spot itself was red and, as it +were, steaming.</p> +<p>“What’s the matter, Geoffrey?” The +Editor seemed disconcerted by the silent attitudes round him, as +though he had expected all these people to shout and dance. +“You have him on the island—haven’t +you?”</p> +<p>“Oh, yes: I have him there,” said Renouard, +without looking up.</p> +<p>“Well, then!” The Editor looked helplessly +around as if begging for response of some sort. But the +only response that came was very unexpected. Annoyed at +being left in the background, and also because very little drink +made him nasty, the emotional Willie turned malignant all at +once, and in a bibulous tone surprising in a man able to keep his +balance so well—</p> +<p>“Aha! But you haven’t got him here—not +yet!” he sneered. “No! You haven’t +got him yet.”</p> +<p>This outrageous exhibition was to the Editor like the lash to +a jaded horse. He positively jumped.</p> +<p>“What of that? What do you mean? +We—haven’t—got—him—here. Of +course he isn’t here! But Geoffrey’s schooner +is here. She can be sent at once to fetch him here. +No! Stay! There’s a better plan. Why +shouldn’t you all sail over to Malata, professor? +Save time! I am sure Miss Moorsom would prefer. . +.”</p> +<p>With a gallant flourish of his arm he looked for Miss +Moorsom. She had disappeared. He was taken aback +somewhat.</p> +<p>“Ah! H’m. Yes. . . . Why not. A +pleasure cruise, delightful ship, delightful season, delightful +errand, del . . . No! There are no objections. +Geoffrey, I understand, has indulged in a bungalow three sizes +too large for him. He can put you all up. It will be +a pleasure for him. It will be the greatest +privilege. Any man would be proud of being an agent of this +happy reunion. I am proud of the little part I’ve +played. He will consider it the greatest honour. +Geoff, my boy, you had better be stirring to-morrow bright and +early about the preparations for the trip. It would be +criminal to lose a single day.”</p> +<p>He was as flushed as Willie, the excitement keeping up the +effect of the festive dinner. For a time Renouard, silent, +as if he had not heard a word of all that babble, did not +stir. But when he got up it was to advance towards the +Editor and give him such a hearty slap on the back that the plump +little man reeled in his tracks and looked quite frightened for a +moment.</p> +<p>“You are a heaven-born discoverer and a first-rate +manager. . . He’s right. It’s the only +way. You can’t resist the claim of sentiment, and you +must even risk the voyage to Malata. . . ” Renouard’s +voice sank. “A lonely spot,” he added, and fell +into thought under all these eyes converging on him in the sudden +silence. His slow glance passed over all the faces in +succession, remaining arrested on Professor Moorsom, stony eyed, +a smouldering cigar in his fingers, and with his sister standing +by his side.</p> +<p>“I shall be infinitely gratified if you consent to +come. But, of course, you will. We shall sail +to-morrow evening then. And now let me leave you to your +happiness.”</p> +<p>He bowed, very grave, pointed suddenly his finger at Willie +who was swaying about with a sleepy frown. . . . “Look at +him. He’s overcome with happiness. You had +better put him to bed . . . ” and disappeared while every +head on the terrace was turned to Willie with varied +expressions.</p> +<p>Renouard ran through the house. Avoiding the carriage +road he fled down the steep short cut to the shore, where his gig +was waiting. At his loud shout the sleeping Kanakas jumped +up. He leaped in. “Shove off. Give +way!” and the gig darted through the water. +“Give way! Give way!” She flew past the +wool-clippers sleeping at their anchors each with the open +unwinking eye of the lamp in the rigging; she flew past the +flagship of the Pacific squadron, a great mass all dark and +silent, heavy with the slumbers of five hundred men, and where +the invisible sentries heard his urgent “Give way! +Give way!” in the night. The Kanakas, panting, rose +off the thwarts at every stroke. Nothing could be fast +enough for him! And he ran up the side of his schooner +shaking the ladder noisily with his rush.</p> +<p>On deck he stumbled and stood still.</p> +<p>Wherefore this haste? To what end, since he knew well +before he started that he had a pursuer from whom there was no +escape.</p> +<p>As his foot touched the deck his will, his purpose he had been +hurrying to save, died out within. It had been nothing less +than getting the schooner under-way, letting her vanish silently +in the night from amongst these sleeping ships. And now he +was certain he could not do it. It was impossible! +And he reflected that whether he lived or died such an act would +lay him under a dark suspicion from which he shrank. No, +there was nothing to be done.</p> +<p>He went down into the cabin and, before even unbuttoning his +overcoat, took out of the drawer the letter addressed to his +assistant; that letter which he had found in the pigeon-hole +labelled “Malata” in young Dunster’s outer +office, where it had been waiting for three months some occasion +for being forwarded. From the moment of dropping it in the +drawer he had utterly forgotten its existence—till now, +when the man’s name had come out so clamorously. He +glanced at the common envelope, noted the shaky and laborious +handwriting: H. Walter, Esqre. Undoubtedly the very last +letter the old butler had posted before his illness, and in +answer clearly to one from “Master Arthur” +instructing him to address in the future: “Care of Messrs. +W. Dunster and Co.” Renouard made as if to open the +envelope, but paused, and, instead, tore the letter deliberately +in two, in four, in eight. With his hand full of pieces of +paper he returned on deck and scattered them overboard on the +dark water, in which they vanished instantly.</p> +<p>He did it slowly, without hesitation or remorse. H. +Walter, Esqre, in Malata. The innocent Arthur—What +was his name? The man sought for by that woman who as she +went by seemed to draw all the passion of the earth to her, +without effort, not deigning to notice, naturally, as other women +breathed the air. But Renouard was no longer jealous of her +very existence. Whatever its meaning it was not for that +man he had picked up casually on obscure impulse, to get rid of +the tiresome expostulations of a so-called friend; a man of whom +he really knew nothing—and now a dead man. In +Malata. Oh, yes! He was there secure enough, +untroubled in his grave. In Malata. To bury him was +the last service Renouard had rendered to his assistant before +leaving the island on this trip to town.</p> +<p>Like many men ready enough for arduous enterprises Renouard +was inclined to evade the small complications of existence. +This trait of his character was composed of a little indolence, +some disdain, and a shrinking from contests with certain forms of +vulgarity—like a man who would face a lion and go out of +his way to avoid a toad. His intercourse with the +meddlesome journalist was that merely outward intimacy without +sympathy some young men get drawn into easily. It had +amused him rather to keep that “friend” in the dark +about the fate of his assistant. Renouard had never needed +other company than his own, for there was in him something of the +sensitiveness of a dreamer who is easily jarred. He had +said to himself that the all-knowing one would only preach again +about the evils of solitude and worry his head off in favour of +some forlornly useless protégé of his. Also +the inquisitiveness of the Editor had irritated him and had +closed his lips in sheer disgust.</p> +<p>And now he contemplated the noose of consequences drawing +tight around him.</p> +<p>It was the memory of that diplomatic reticence which on the +terrace had stiffled his first cry which would have told them all +that the man sought for was not to be met on earth any +more. He shrank from the absurdity of hearing the +all-knowing one, and not very sober at that, turning on him with +righteous reproaches—</p> +<p>“You never told me. You gave me to understand that +your assistant was alive, and now you say he’s dead. +Which is it? Were you lying then or are you lying +now?” No! the thought of such a scene was not to be +borne. He had sat down appalled, thinking: “What +shall I do now?”</p> +<p>His courage had oozed out of him. Speaking the truth +meant the Moorsoms going away at once—while it seemed to +him that he would give the last shred of his rectitude to secure +a day more of her company. He sat on—silent. +Slowly, from confused sensations, from his talk with the +professor, the manner of the girl herself, the intoxicating +familiarity of her sudden hand-clasp, there had come to him a +half glimmer of hope. The other man was dead. Then! . +. . Madness, of course—but he could not give it up. +He had listened to that confounded busybody arranging +everything—while all these people stood around assenting, +under the spell of that dead romance. He had listened +scornful and silent. The glimmers of hope, of opportunity, +passed before his eyes. He had only to sit still and say +nothing. That and no more. And what was truth to him +in the face of that great passion which had flung him prostrate +in spirit at her adored feet!</p> +<p>And now it was done! Fatality had willed it! With +the eyes of a mortal struck by the maddening thunderbolt of the +gods, Renouard looked up to the sky, an immense black pall dusted +over with gold, on which great shudders seemed to pass from the +breath of life affirming its sway.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3> +<p>At last, one morning, in a clear spot of a glassy horizon +charged with heraldic masses of black vapours, the island grew +out from the sea, showing here and there its naked members of +basaltic rock through the rents of heavy foliage. Later, in +the great spilling of all the riches of sunset, Malata stood out +green and rosy before turning into a violet shadow in the +autumnal light of the expiring day. Then came the +night. In the faint airs the schooner crept on past a +sturdy squat headland, and it was pitch dark when her headsails +ran down, she turned short on her heel, and her anchor bit into +the sandy bottom on the edge of the outer reef; for it was too +dangerous then to attempt entering the little bay full of +shoals. After the last solemn flutter of the mainsail the +murmuring voices of the Moorsom party lingered, very frail, in +the black stillness.</p> +<p>They were sitting aft, on chairs, and nobody made a +move. Early in the day, when it had become evident that the +wind was failing, Renouard, basing his advice on the shortcomings +of his bachelor establishment, had urged on the ladies the +advisability of not going ashore in the middle of the +night. Now he approached them in a constrained manner (it +was astonishing the constraint that had reigned between him and +his guests all through the passage) and renewed his +arguments. No one ashore would dream of his bringing any +visitors with him. Nobody would even think of coming +off. There was only one old canoe on the plantation. +And landing in the schooner’s boats would be awkward in the +dark. There was the risk of getting aground on some shallow +patches. It would be best to spend the rest of the night on +board.</p> +<p>There was really no opposition. The professor smoking a +pipe, and very comfortable in an ulster buttoned over his +tropical clothes, was the first to speak from his long chair.</p> +<p>“Most excellent advice.”</p> +<p>Next to him Miss Moorsom assented by a long silence. +Then in a voice as of one coming out of a dream—</p> +<p>“And so this is Malata,” she said. “I +have often wondered . . .”</p> +<p>A shiver passed through Renouard. She had +wondered! What about? Malata was himself. He +and Malata were one. And she had wondered! She had . +. .</p> +<p>The professor’s sister leaned over towards +Renouard. Through all these days at sea the +man’s—the found man’s—existence had not +been alluded to on board the schooner. That reticence was +part of the general constraint lying upon them all. She, +herself, certainly had not been exactly elated by this +finding—poor Arthur, without money, without +prospects. But she felt moved by the sentiment and romance +of the situation.</p> +<p>“Isn’t it wonderful,” she whispered out of +her white wrap, “to think of poor Arthur sleeping there, so +near to our dear lovely Felicia, and not knowing the immense joy +in store for him to-morrow.”</p> +<p>There was such artificiality in the wax-flower lady that +nothing in this speech touched Renouard. It was but the +simple anxiety of his heart that he was voicing when he muttered +gloomily—</p> +<p>“No one in the world knows what to-morrow may hold in +store.”</p> +<p>The mature lady had a recoil as though he had said something +impolite. What a harsh thing to say—instead of +finding something nice and appropriate. On board, where she +never saw him in evening clothes, Renouard’s resemblance to +a duke’s son was not so apparent to her. Nothing but +his—ah—bohemianism remained. She rose with a +sort of ostentation.</p> +<p>“It’s late—and since we are going to sleep +on board to-night . . .” she said. “But it does +seem so cruel.”</p> +<p>The professor started up eagerly, knocking the ashes out of +his pipe. “Infinitely more sensible, my dear +Emma.”</p> +<p>Renouard waited behind Miss Moorsom’s chair.</p> +<p>She got up slowly, moved one step forward, and paused looking +at the shore. The blackness of the island blotted out the +stars with its vague mass like a low thundercloud brooding over +the waters and ready to burst into flame and crashes.</p> +<p>“And so—this is Malata,” she repeated +dreamily, moving towards the cabin door. The clear cloak +hanging from her shoulders, the ivory face—for the night +had put out nothing of her but the gleams of her hair—made +her resemble a shining dream-woman uttering words of wistful +inquiry. She disappeared without a sign, leaving Renouard +penetrated to the very marrow by the sounds that came from her +body like a mysterious resonance of an exquisite instrument.</p> +<p>He stood stock still. What was this accidental touch +which had evoked the strange accent of her voice? He dared +not answer that question. But he had to answer the question +of what was to be done now. Had the moment of confession +come? The thought was enough to make one’s blood run +cold.</p> +<p>It was as if those people had a premonition of +something. In the taciturn days of the passage he had +noticed their reserve even amongst themselves. The +professor smoked his pipe moodily in retired spots. +Renouard had caught Miss Moorsom’s eyes resting on himself +more than once, with a peculiar and grave expression. He +fancied that she avoided all opportunities of conversation. +The maiden lady seemed to nurse a grievance. And now what +had he to do?</p> +<p>The lights on the deck had gone out one after the other. +The schooner slept.</p> +<p>About an hour after Miss Moorsom had gone below without a sign +or a word for him, Renouard got out of his hammock slung in the +waist under the midship awning—for he had given up all the +accommodation below to his guests. He got out with a sudden +swift movement, flung off his sleeping jacket, rolled his pyjamas +up his thighs, and stole forward, unseen by the one Kanaka of the +anchor-watch. His white torso, naked like a stripped +athlete’s, glimmered, ghostly, in the deep shadows of the +deck. Unnoticed he got out of the ship over the +knight-heads, ran along the back rope, and seizing the +dolphin-striker firmly with both hands, lowered himself into the +sea without a splash.</p> +<p>He swam away, noiseless like a fish, and then struck boldly +for the land, sustained, embraced, by the tepid water. The +gentle, voluptuous heave of its breast swung him up and down +slightly; sometimes a wavelet murmured in his ears; from time to +time, lowering his feet, he felt for the bottom on a shallow +patch to rest and correct his direction. He landed at the +lower end of the bungalow garden, into the dead stillness of the +island. There were no lights. The plantation seemed +to sleep, as profoundly as the schooner. On the path a +small shell cracked under his naked heel.</p> +<p>The faithful half-caste foreman going his rounds cocked his +ears at the sharp sound. He gave one enormous start of fear +at the sight of the swift white figure flying at him out of the +night. He crouched in terror, and then sprang up and +clicked his tongue in amazed recognition.</p> +<p>“Tse! Tse! The master!”</p> +<p>“Be quiet, Luiz, and listen to what I say.”</p> +<p>Yes, it was the master, the strong master who was never known +to raise his voice, the man blindly obeyed and never +questioned. He talked low and rapidly in the quiet night, +as if every minute were precious. On learning that three +guests were coming to stay Luiz clicked his tongue rapidly. +These clicks were the uniform, stenographic symbols of his +emotions, and he could give them an infinite variety of +meaning. He listened to the rest in a deep silence hardly +affected by the low, “Yes, master,” whenever Renouard +paused.</p> +<p>“You understand?” the latter insisted. +“No preparations are to be made till we land in the +morning. And you are to say that Mr. Walter has gone off in +a trading schooner on a round of the islands.”</p> +<p>“Yes, master.”</p> +<p>“No mistakes—mind!”</p> +<p>“No, master.”</p> +<p>Renouard walked back towards the sea. Luiz, following +him, proposed to call out half a dozen boys and man the +canoe.</p> +<p>“Imbecile!”</p> +<p>“Tse! Tse! Tse!”</p> +<p>“Don’t you understand that you haven’t seen +me?”</p> +<p>“Yes, master. But what a long swim. Suppose +you drown.”</p> +<p>“Then you can say of me and of Mr. Walter what you +like. The dead don’t mind.”</p> +<p>Renouard entered the sea and heard a faint “Tse! Tse! +Tse!” of concern from the half-caste, who had already lost +sight of the master’s dark head on the overshadowed +water.</p> +<p>Renouard set his direction by a big star that, dipping on the +horizon, seemed to look curiously into his face. On this +swim back he felt the mournful fatigue of all that length of the +traversed road, which brought him no nearer to his desire. +It was as if his love had sapped the invisible supports of his +strength. There came a moment when it seemed to him that he +must have swum beyond the confines of life. He had a +sensation of eternity close at hand, demanding no +effort—offering its peace. It was easy to swim like +this beyond the confines of life looking at a star. But the +thought: “They will think I dared not face them and +committed suicide,” caused a revolt of his mind which +carried him on. He returned on board, as he had left, +unheard and unseen. He lay in his hammock utterly exhausted +and with a confused feeling that he had been beyond the confines +of life, somewhere near a star, and that it was very quiet +there.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3> +<p>Sheltered by the squat headland from the first morning sparkle +of the sea the little bay breathed a delicious freshness. +The party from the schooner landed at the bottom of the +garden. They exchanged insignificant words in studiously +casual tones. The professor’s sister put up a +long-handled eye-glass as if to scan the novel surroundings, but +in reality searching for poor Arthur anxiously. Having +never seen him otherwise than in his town clothes she had no idea +what he would look like. It had been left to the professor +to help his ladies out of the boat because Renouard, as if intent +on giving directions, had stepped forward at once to meet the +half-caste Luiz hurrying down the path. In the distance, in +front of the dazzlingly sunlit bungalow, a row of dark-faced +house-boys unequal in stature and varied in complexion preserved +the immobility of a guard of honour.</p> +<p>Luiz had taken off his soft felt hat before coming within +earshot. Renouard bent his head to his rapid talk of +domestic arrangements he meant to make for the visitors; another +bed in the master’s room for the ladies and a cot for the +gentleman to be hung in the room opposite where—where Mr. +Walter—here he gave a scared look all round—Mr. +Walter—had died.</p> +<p>“Very good,” assented Renouard in an even +undertone. “And remember what you have to say of +him.”</p> +<p>“Yes, master. Only”—he wriggled +slightly and put one bare foot on the other for a moment in +apologetic embarrassment—“only +I—I—don’t like to say it.”</p> +<p>Renouard looked at him without anger, without any sort of +expression. “Frightened of the dead? Eh? +Well—all right. I will say it myself—I suppose +once for all. . . .” Immediately he raised his voice +very much.</p> +<p>“Send the boys down to bring up the luggage.”</p> +<p>“Yes, master.”</p> +<p>Renouard turned to his distinguished guests who, like a +personally conducted party of tourists, had stopped and were +looking about them.</p> +<p>“I am sorry,” he began with an impassive +face. “My man has just told me that Mr. Walter . . +.” he managed to smile, but didn’t correct himself . +. . “has gone in a trading schooner on a short tour of the +islands, to the westward.”</p> +<p>This communication was received in profound silence.</p> +<p>Renouard forgot himself in the thought: “It’s +done!” But the sight of the string of boys marching +up to the house with suit-cases and dressing-bags rescued him +from that appalling abstraction.</p> +<p>“All I can do is to beg you to make yourselves at home . +. . with what patience you may.”</p> +<p>This was so obviously the only thing to do that everybody +moved on at once. The professor walked alongside Renouard, +behind the two ladies.</p> +<p>“Rather unexpected—this absence.”</p> +<p>“Not exactly,” muttered Renouard. “A +trip has to be made every year to engage labour.”</p> +<p>“I see . . . And he . . . How vexingly elusive the poor +fellow has become! I’ll begin to think that some +wicked fairy is favouring this love tale with unpleasant +attentions.”</p> +<p>Renouard noticed that the party did not seem weighed down by +this new disappointment. On the contrary they moved with a +freer step. The professor’s sister dropped her +eye-glass to the end of its chain. Miss Moorsom took the +lead. The professor, his lips unsealed, lingered in the +open: but Renouard did not listen to that man’s talk. +He looked after that man’s daughter—if indeed that +creature of irresistible seductions were a daughter of +mortals. The very intensity of his desire, as if his soul +were streaming after her through his eyes, defeated his object of +keeping hold of her as long as possible with, at least, one of +his senses. Her moving outlines dissolved into a misty +coloured shimmer of a woman made of flame and shadows, crossing +the threshold of his house.</p> +<p>The days which followed were not exactly such as Renouard had +feared—yet they were not better than his fears. They +were accursed in all the moods they brought him. But the +general aspect of things was quiet. The professor smoked +innumerable pipes with the air of a worker on his holiday, always +in movement and looking at things with that mysteriously +sagacious aspect of men who are admittedly wiser than the rest of +the world. His white head of hair—whiter than +anything within the horizon except the broken water on the +reefs—was glimpsed in every part of the plantation always +on the move under the white parasol. And once he climbed +the headland and appeared suddenly to those below, a white speck +elevated in the blue, with a diminutive but statuesque +effect.</p> +<p>Felicia Moorsom remained near the house. Sometimes she +could be seen with a despairing expression scribbling rapidly in +her lock-up dairy. But only for a moment. At the +sound of Renouard’s footsteps she would turn towards him +her beautiful face, adorable in that calm which was like a +wilful, like a cruel ignoring of her tremendous power. +Whenever she sat on the verandah, on a chair more specially +reserved for her use, Renouard would stroll up and sit on the +steps near her, mostly silent, and often not trusting himself to +turn his glance on her. She, very still with her eyes +half-closed, looked down on his head—so that to a beholder +(such as Professor Moorsom, for instance) she would appear to be +turning over in her mind profound thoughts about that man sitting +at her feet, his shoulders bowed a little, his hands +listless—as if vanquished. And, indeed, the moral +poison of falsehood has such a decomposing power that Renouard +felt his old personality turn to dead dust. Often, in the +evening, when they sat outside conversing languidly in the dark, +he felt that he must rest his forehead on her feet and burst into +tears.</p> +<p>The professor’s sister suffered from some little strain +caused by the unstability of her own feelings toward +Renouard. She could not tell whether she really did dislike +him or not. At times he appeared to her most fascinating; +and, though he generally ended by saying something shockingly +crude, she could not resist her inclination to talk with +him—at least not always. One day when her niece had +left them alone on the verandah she leaned forward in her +chair—speckless, resplendent, and, in her way, almost as +striking a personality as her niece, who did not resemble her in +the least. “Dear Felicia has inherited her hair and +the greatest part of her appearance from her mother,” the +maiden lady used to tell people.</p> +<p>She leaned forward then, confidentially.</p> +<p>“Oh! Mr. Renouard! Haven’t you +something comforting to say?”</p> +<p>He looked up, as surprised as if a voice from heaven had +spoken with this perfect society intonation, and by the puzzled +profundity of his blue eyes fluttered the wax-flower of refined +womanhood. She continued. “For—I can +speak to you openly on this tiresome subject—only think +what a terrible strain this hope deferred must be for +Felicia’s heart—for her nerves.”</p> +<p>“Why speak to me about it,” he muttered feeling +half choked suddenly.</p> +<p>“Why! As a friend—a well-wisher—the +kindest of hosts. I am afraid we are really eating you out +of house and home.” She laughed a little. +“Ah! When, when will this suspense be relieved! +That poor lost Arthur! I confess that I am almost afraid of +the great moment. It will be like seeing a +ghost.”</p> +<p>“Have you ever seen a ghost?” asked Renouard, in a +dull voice.</p> +<p>She shifted her hands a little. Her pose was perfect in +its ease and middle-aged grace.</p> +<p>“Not actually. Only in a photograph. But we +have many friends who had the experience of +apparitions.”</p> +<p>“Ah! They see ghosts in London,” mumbled +Renouard, not looking at her.</p> +<p>“Frequently—in a certain very interesting +set. But all sorts of people do. We have a friend, a +very famous author—his ghost is a girl. One of my +brother’s intimates is a very great man of science. +He is friendly with a ghost . . . Of a girl too,” she added +in a voice as if struck for the first time by the +coincidence. “It is the photograph of that apparition +which I have seen. Very sweet. Most +interesting. A little cloudy naturally. . . . Mr. +Renouard! I hope you are not a sceptic. It’s so +consoling to think. . .”</p> +<p>“Those plantation boys of mine see ghosts too,” +said Renouard grimly.</p> +<p>The sister of the philosopher sat up stiffly. What +crudeness! It was always so with this strange young +man.</p> +<p>“Mr. Renouard! How can you compare the +superstitious fancies of your horrible savages with the +manifestations . . . ”</p> +<p>Words failed her. She broke off with a very faint primly +angry smile. She was perhaps the more offended with him +because of that flutter at the beginning of the +conversation. And in a moment with perfect tact and dignity +she got up from her chair and left him alone.</p> +<p>Renouard didn’t even look up. It was not the +displeasure of the lady which deprived him of his sleep that +night. He was beginning to forget what simple, honest sleep +was like. His hammock from the ship had been hung for him +on a side verandah, and he spent his nights in it on his back, +his hands folded on his chest, in a sort of half conscious, +oppressed stupor. In the morning he watched with unseeing +eyes the headland come out a shapeless inkblot against the thin +light of the false dawn, pass through all the stages of daybreak +to the deep purple of its outlined mass nimbed gloriously with +the gold of the rising sun. He listened to the vague sounds +of waking within the house: and suddenly he became aware of Luiz +standing by the hammock—obviously troubled.</p> +<p>“What’s the matter?”</p> +<p>“Tse! Tse! Tse!”</p> +<p>“Well, what now? Trouble with the boys?”</p> +<p>“No, master. The gentleman when I take him his +bath water he speak to me. He ask me—he +ask—when, when, I think Mr. Walter, he come +back.”</p> +<p>The half-caste’s teeth chattered slightly. +Renouard got out of the hammock.</p> +<p>“And he is here all the time—eh?”</p> +<p>Luiz nodded a scared affirmative, but at once protested, +“I no see him. I never. Not I! The +ignorant wild boys say they see . . . Something! +Ough!”</p> +<p>He clapped his teeth on another short rattle, and stood there, +shrunk, blighted, like a man in a freezing blast.</p> +<p>“And what did you say to the gentleman?”</p> +<p>“I say I don’t know—and I clear out. +I—I don’t like to speak of him.”</p> +<p>“All right. We shall try to lay that poor +ghost,” said Renouard gloomily, going off to a small hut +near by to dress. He was saying to himself: “This +fellow will end by giving me away. The last thing that I . +. . No! That mustn’t be.” And feeling his +hand being forced he discovered the whole extent of his +cowardice.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER X</h3> +<p>That morning wandering about his plantation, more like a +frightened soul than its creator and master, he dodged the white +parasol bobbing up here and there like a buoy adrift on a sea of +dark-green plants. The crop promised to be magnificent, and +the fashionable philosopher of the age took other than a merely +scientific interest in the experiment. His investments were +judicious, but he had always some little money lying by, for +experiments.</p> +<p>After lunch, being left alone with Renouard, he talked a +little of cultivation and such matters. Then suddenly:</p> +<p>“By the way, is it true what my sister tells me, that +your plantation boys have been disturbed by a ghost?”</p> +<p>Renouard, who since the ladies had left the table was not +keeping such a strict watch on himself, came out of his +abstraction with a start and a stiff smile.</p> +<p>“My foreman had some trouble with them during my +absence. They funk working in a certain field on the slope +of the hill.”</p> +<p>“A ghost here!” exclaimed the amused +professor. “Then our whole conception of the +psychology of ghosts must be revised. This island has been +uninhabited probably since the dawn of ages. How did a +ghost come here. By air or water? And why did it +leave its native haunts. Was it from misanthropy? Was +he expelled from some community of spirits?”</p> +<p>Renouard essayed to respond in the same tone. The words +died on his lips. Was it a man or a woman ghost, the +professor inquired.</p> +<p>“I don’t know.” Renouard made an +effort to appear at ease. He had, he said, a couple of +Tahitian amongst his boys—a ghost-ridden race. They +had started the scare. They had probably brought their +ghost with them.</p> +<p>“Let us investigate the matter, Renouard,” +proposed the professor half in earnest. “We may make +some interesting discoveries as to the state of primitive minds, +at any rate.”</p> +<p>This was too much. Renouard jumped up and leaving the +room went out and walked about in front of the house. He +would allow no one to force his hand. Presently the +professor joined him outside. He carried his parasol, but +had neither his book nor his pipe with him. Amiably serious +he laid his hand on his “dear young friend’s” +arm.</p> +<p>“We are all of us a little strung up,” he +said. “For my part I have been like sister Anne in +the story. But I cannot see anything coming. Anything +that would be the least good for anybody—I mean.”</p> +<p>Renouard had recovered sufficiently to murmur coldly his +regret of this waste of time. For that was what, he +supposed, the professor had in his mind.</p> +<p>“Time,” mused Professor Moorsom. “I +don’t know that time can be wasted. But I will tell +you, my dear friend, what this is: it is an awful waste of +life. I mean for all of us. Even for my sister, who +has got a headache and is gone to lie down.”</p> +<p>He shook gently Renouard’s arm. “Yes, for +all of us! One may meditate on life endlessly, one may even +have a poor opinion of it—but the fact remains that we have +only one life to live. And it is short. Think of +that, my young friend.”</p> +<p>He released Renouard’s arm and stepped out of the shade +opening his parasol. It was clear that there was something +more in his mind than mere anxiety about the date of his lectures +for fashionable audiences. What did the man mean by his +confounded platitudes? To Renouard, scared by Luiz in the +morning (for he felt that nothing could be more fatal than to +have his deception unveiled otherwise than by personal +confession), this talk sounded like encouragement or a warning +from that man who seemed to him to be very brazen and very +subtle. It was like being bullied by the dead and cajoled +by the living into a throw of dice for a supreme stake.</p> +<p>Renouard went away to some distance from the house and threw +himself down in the shade of a tree. He lay there perfectly +still with his forehead resting on his folded arms, light-headed +and thinking. It seemed to him that he must be on fire, +then that he had fallen into a cool whirlpool, a smooth funnel of +water swirling about with nauseating rapidity. And then (it +must have been a reminiscence of his boyhood) he was walking on +the dangerous thin ice of a river, unable to turn back. . . . +Suddenly it parted from shore to shore with a loud crack like the +report of a gun.</p> +<p>With one leap he found himself on his feet. All was +peace, stillness, sunshine. He walked away from there +slowly. Had he been a gambler he would have perhaps been +supported in a measure by the mere excitement. But he was +not a gambler. He had always disdained that artificial +manner of challenging the fates. The bungalow came into +view, bright and pretty, and all about everything was peace, +stillness, sunshine. . . .</p> +<p>While he was plodding towards it he had a disagreeable sense +of the dead man’s company at his elbow. The +ghost! He seemed to be everywhere but in his grave. +Could one ever shake him off? he wondered. At that moment +Miss Moorsom came out on the verandah; and at once, as if by a +mystery of radiating waves, she roused a great tumult in his +heart, shook earth and sky together—but he plodded +on. Then like a grave song-note in the storm her voice came +to him ominously.</p> +<p>“Ah! Mr. Renouard. . . ” He came up +and smiled, but she was very serious. “I can’t +keep still any longer. Is there time to walk up this +headland and back before dark?”</p> +<p>The shadows were lying lengthened on the ground; all was +stillness and peace. “No,” said Renouard, +feeling suddenly as steady as a rock. “But I can show +you a view from the central hill which your father has not +seen. A view of reefs and of broken water without end, and +of great wheeling clouds of sea-birds.”</p> +<p>She came down the verandah steps at once and they moved +off. “You go first,” he proposed, “and +I’ll direct you. To the left.”</p> +<p>She was wearing a short nankin skirt, a muslin blouse; he +could see through the thin stuff the skin of her shoulders, of +her arms. The noble delicacy of her neck caused him a sort +of transport. “The path begins where these three +palms are. The only palms on the island.”</p> +<p>“I see.”</p> +<p>She never turned her head. After a while she observed: +“This path looks as if it had been made +recently.”</p> +<p>“Quite recently,” he assented very low.</p> +<p>They went on climbing steadily without exchanging another +word; and when they stood on the top she gazed a long time before +her. The low evening mist veiled the further limit of the +reefs. Above the enormous and melancholy confusion, as of a +fleet of wrecked islands, the restless myriads of sea-birds +rolled and unrolled dark ribbons on the sky, gathered in clouds, +soared and stooped like a play of shadows, for they were too far +for them to hear their cries.</p> +<p>Renouard broke the silence in low tones.</p> +<p>“They’ll be settling for the night +presently.” She made no sound. Round them all +was peace and declining sunshine. Near by, the topmost +pinnacle of Malata, resembling the top of a buried tower, rose a +rock, weather-worn, grey, weary of watching the monotonous +centuries of the Pacific. Renouard leaned his shoulders +against it. Felicia Moorsom faced him suddenly, her +splendid black eyes full on his face as though she had made up +her mind at last to destroy his wits once and for all. +Dazzled, he lowered his eyelids slowly.</p> +<p>“Mr. Renouard! There is something strange in all +this. Tell me where he is?”</p> +<p>He answered deliberately.</p> +<p>“On the other side of this rock. I buried him +there myself.”</p> +<p>She pressed her hands to her breast, struggled for her breath +for a moment, then: “Ohhh! . . . You buried him! . . . What +sort of man are you? . . . You dared not tell! . . . He is +another of your victims? . . . You dared not confess that +evening. . . . You must have killed him. What could he have +done to you? . . . You fastened on him some atrocious quarrel and +. . .”</p> +<p>Her vengeful aspect, her poignant cries left him as unmoved as +the weary rock against which he leaned. He only raised his +eyelids to look at her and lowered them slowly. Nothing +more. It silenced her. And as if ashamed she made a +gesture with her hand, putting away from her that thought. +He spoke, quietly ironic at first.</p> +<p>“Ha! the legendary Renouard of sensitive +idiots—the ruthless adventurer—the ogre with a +future. That was a parrot cry, Miss Moorsom. I +don’t think that the greatest fool of them all ever dared +hint such a stupid thing of me that I killed men for +nothing. No, I had noticed this man in a hotel. He +had come from up country I was told, and was doing nothing. +I saw him sitting there lonely in a corner like a sick crow, and +I went over one evening to talk to him. Just on +impulse. He wasn’t impressive. He was +pitiful. My worst enemy could have told you he wasn’t +good enough to be one of Renouard’s victims. It +didn’t take me long to judge that he was drugging +himself. Not drinking. Drugs.”</p> +<p>“Ah! It’s now that you are trying to murder +him,” she cried.</p> +<p>“Really. Always the Renouard of shopkeepers’ +legend. Listen! I would never have been jealous of +him. And yet I am jealous of the air you breathe, of the +soil you tread on, of the world that sees you—moving +free—not mine. But never mind. I rather liked +him. For a certain reason I proposed he should come to be +my assistant here. He said he believed this would save +him. It did not save him from death. It came to him +as it were from nothing—just a fall. A mere slip and +tumble of ten feet into a ravine. But it seems he had been +hurt before up-country—by a horse. He ailed and +ailed. No, he was not a steel-tipped man. And his +poor soul seemed to have been damaged too. It gave way very +soon.”</p> +<p>“This is tragic!” Felicia Moorsom whispered with +feeling. Renouard’s lips twitched, but his level +voice continued mercilessly.</p> +<p>“That’s the story. He rallied a little one +night and said he wanted to tell me something. I, being a +gentleman, he said, he could confide in me. I told him that +he was mistaken. That there was a good deal of a plebeian +in me, that he couldn’t know. He seemed +disappointed. He muttered something about his innocence and +something that sounded like a curse on some woman, then turned to +the wall and—just grew cold.”</p> +<p>“On a woman,” cried Miss Moorsom +indignantly. “What woman?”</p> +<p>“I wonder!” said Renouard, raising his eyes and +noting the crimson of her ear-lobes against the live whiteness of +her complexion, the sombre, as if secret, night-splendour of her +eyes under the writhing flames of her hair. “Some +woman who wouldn’t believe in that poor innocence of his. . +. Yes. You probably. And now you will not believe in +me—not even in me who must in truth be what I am—even +to death. No! You won’t. And yet, +Felicia, a woman like you and a man like me do not often come +together on this earth.”</p> +<p>The flame of her glorious head scorched his face. He +flung his hat far away, and his suddenly lowered eyelids brought +out startlingly his resemblance to antique bronze, the profile of +Pallas, still, austere, bowed a little in the shadow of the +rock. “Oh! If you could only understand the +truth that is in me!” he added.</p> +<p>She waited, as if too astounded to speak, till he looked up +again, and then with unnatural force as if defending herself from +some unspoken aspersion, “It’s I who stand for truth +here! Believe in you! In you, who by a heartless +falsehood—and nothing else, nothing else, do you +hear?—have brought me here, deceived, cheated, as in some +abominable farce!” She sat down on a boulder, rested +her chin in her hands, in the pose of simple grief—mourning +for herself.</p> +<p>“It only wanted this. Why! Oh! Why is +it that ugliness, ridicule, and baseness must fall across my +path.”</p> +<p>On that height, alone with the sky, they spoke to each other +as if the earth had fallen away from under their feet.</p> +<p>“Are you grieving for your dignity? He was a +mediocre soul and could have given you but an unworthy +existence.”</p> +<p>She did not even smile at those words, but, superb, as if +lifting a corner of the veil, she turned on him slowly.</p> +<p>“And do you imagine I would have devoted myself to him +for such a purpose! Don’t you know that reparation +was due to him from me? A sacred debt—a fine +duty. To redeem him would not have been in my power—I +know it. But he was blameless, and it was for me to come +forward. Don’t you see that in the eyes of the world +nothing could have rehabilitated him so completely as his +marriage with me? No word of evil could be whispered of him +after I had given him my hand. As to giving myself up to +anything less than the shaping of a man’s destiny—if +I thought I could do it I would abhor myself. . . .” +She spoke with authority in her deep fascinating, unemotional +voice. Renouard meditated, gloomy, as if over some sinister +riddle of a beautiful sphinx met on the wild road of his +life.</p> +<p>“Yes. Your father was right. You are one of +these aristocrats . . .”</p> +<p>She drew herself up haughtily.</p> +<p>“What do you say? My father! . . . I an +aristocrat.”</p> +<p>“Oh! I don’t mean that you are like the men +and women of the time of armours, castles, and great deeds. +Oh, no! They stood on the naked soil, had traditions to be +faithful to, had their feet on this earth of passions and death +which is not a hothouse. They would have been too plebeian +for you since they had to lead, to suffer with, to understand the +commonest humanity. No, you are merely of the topmost +layer, disdainful and superior, the mere pure froth and bubble on +the inscrutable depths which some day will toss you out of +existence. But you are you! You are you! You +are the eternal love itself—only, O Divinity, it +isn’t your body, it is your soul that is made of +foam.”</p> +<p>She listened as if in a dream. He had succeeded so well +in his effort to drive back the flood of his passion that his +life itself seemed to run with it out of his body. At that +moment he felt as one dead speaking. But the headlong wave +returning with tenfold force flung him on her suddenly, with open +arms and blazing eyes. She found herself like a feather in +his grasp, helpless, unable to struggle, with her feet off the +ground. But this contact with her, maddening like too much +felicity, destroyed its own end. Fire ran through his +veins, turned his passion to ashes, burnt him out and left him +empty, without force—almost without desire. He let +her go before she could cry out. And she was so used to the +forms of repression enveloping, softening the crude impulses of +old humanity that she no longer believed in their existence as if +it were an exploded legend. She did not recognise what had +happened to her. She came safe out of his arms, without a +struggle, not even having felt afraid.</p> +<p>“What’s the meaning of this?” she said, +outraged but calm in a scornful way.</p> +<p>He got down on his knees in silence, bent low to her very +feet, while she looked down at him, a little surprised, without +animosity, as if merely curious to see what he would do. +Then, while he remained bowed to the ground pressing the hem of +her skirt to his lips, she made a slight movement. He got +up.</p> +<p>“No,” he said. “Were you ever so much +mine what could I do with you without your consent? +No. You don’t conquer a wraith, cold mist, stuff of +dreams, illusion. It must come to you and cling to your +breast. And then! Oh! And then!”</p> +<p>All ecstasy, all expression went out of his face.</p> +<p>“Mr. Renouard,” she said, “though you can +have no claim on my consideration after having decoyed me here +for the vile purpose, apparently, of gloating over me as your +possible prey, I will tell you that I am not perhaps the +extraordinary being you think I am. You may believe +me. Here I stand for truth itself.”</p> +<p>“What’s that to me what you are?” he +answered. “At a sign from you I would climb up to the +seventh heaven to bring you down to earth for my own—and if +I saw you steeped to the lips in vice, in crime, in mud, I would +go after you, take you to my arms—wear you for an +incomparable jewel on my breast. And that’s +love—true love—the gift and the curse of the +gods. There is no other.”</p> +<p>The truth vibrating in his voice made her recoil slightly, for +she was not fit to hear it—not even a little—not even +one single time in her life. It was revolting to her; and +in her trouble, perhaps prompted by the suggestion of his name or +to soften the harshness of expression, for she was obscurely +moved, she spoke to him in French.</p> +<p>“<i>Assez</i>! <i>J’ai horreur de tout +cela</i>,” she said.</p> +<p>He was white to his very lips, but he was trembling no +more. The dice had been cast, and not even violence could +alter the throw. She passed by him unbendingly, and he +followed her down the path. After a time she heard him +saying:</p> +<p>“And your dream is to influence a human +destiny?”</p> +<p>“Yes!” she answered curtly, unabashed, with a +woman’s complete assurance.</p> +<p>“Then you may rest content. You have done +it.”</p> +<p>She shrugged her shoulders slightly. But just before +reaching the end of the path she relented, stopped, and went back +to him.</p> +<p>“I don’t suppose you are very anxious for people +to know how near you came to absolute turpitude. You may +rest easy on that point. I shall speak to my father, of +course, and we will agree to say that he has died—nothing +more.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Renouard in a lifeless voice. +“He is dead. His very ghost shall be done with +presently.”</p> +<p>She went on, but he remained standing stock still in the +dusk. She had already reached the three palms when she +heard behind her a loud peal of laughter, cynical and joyless, +such as is heard in smoking-rooms at the end of a scandalous +story. It made her feel positively faint for a moment.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3> +<p>Slowly a complete darkness enveloped Geoffrey Renouard. +His resolution had failed him. Instead of following Felicia +into the house, he had stopped under the three palms, and leaning +against a smooth trunk had abandoned himself to a sense of an +immense deception and the feeling of extreme fatigue. This +walk up the hill and down again was like the supreme effort of an +explorer trying to penetrate the interior of an unknown country, +the secret of which is too well defended by its cruel and barren +nature. Decoyed by a mirage, he had gone too far—so +far that there was no going back. His strength was at an +end. For the first time in his life he had to give up, and +with a sort of despairing self-possession he tried to understand +the cause of the defeat. He did not ascribe it to that +absurd dead man.</p> +<p>The hesitating shadow of Luiz approached him unnoticed till it +spoke timidly. Renouard started.</p> +<p>“Eh? What? Dinner waiting? You must +say I beg to be excused. I can’t come. But I +shall see them to-morrow morning, at the landing place. +Take your orders from the professor as to the sailing of the +schooner. Go now.”</p> +<p>Luiz, dumbfounded, retreated into the darkness. Renouard +did not move, but hours afterwards, like the bitter fruit of his +immobility, the words: “I had nothing to offer to her +vanity,” came from his lips in the silence of the +island. And it was then only that he stirred, only to wear +the night out in restless tramping up and down the various paths +of the plantation. Luiz, whose sleep was made light by the +consciousness of some impending change, heard footsteps passing +by his hut, the firm tread of the master; and turning on his mats +emitted a faint Tse! Tse! Tse! of deep concern.</p> +<p>Lights had been burning in the bungalow almost all through the +night; and with the first sign of day began the bustle of +departure. House boys walked processionally carrying +suit-cases and dressing-bags down to the schooner’s boat, +which came to the landing place at the bottom of the +garden. Just as the rising sun threw its golden nimbus +around the purple shape of the headland, the Planter of Malata +was perceived pacing bare-headed the curve of the little +bay. He exchanged a few words with the sailing-master of +the schooner, then remained by the boat, standing very upright, +his eyes on the ground, waiting.</p> +<p>He had not long to wait. Into the cool, overshadowed +garden the professor descended first, and came jauntily down the +path in a lively cracking of small shells. With his closed +parasol hooked on his forearm, and a book in his hand, he +resembled a banal tourist more than was permissible to a man of +his unique distinction. He waved the disengaged arm from a +distance, but at close quarters, arrested before Renouard’s +immobility, he made no offer to shake hands. He seemed to +appraise the aspect of the man with a sharp glance, and made up +his mind.</p> +<p>“We are going back by Suez,” he began almost +boisterously. “I have been looking up the sailing +lists. If the zephirs of your Pacific are only moderately +propitious I think we are sure to catch the mail boat due in +Marseilles on the 18th of March. This will suit me +excellently. . . .” He lowered his tone. +“My dear young friend, I’m deeply grateful to +you.”</p> +<p>Renouard’s set lips moved.</p> +<p>“Why are you grateful to me?”</p> +<p>“Ah! Why? In the first place you might have +made us miss the next boat, mightn’t you? . . . I +don’t thank you for your hospitality. You can’t +be angry with me for saying that I am truly thankful to escape +from it. But I am grateful to you for what you have done, +and—for being what you are.”</p> +<p>It was difficult to define the flavour of that speech, but +Renouard received it with an austerely equivocal smile. The +professor stepping into the boat opened his parasol and sat down +in the stern-sheets waiting for the ladies. No sound of +human voice broke the fresh silence of the morning while they +walked the broad path, Miss Moorsom a little in advance of her +aunt.</p> +<p>When she came abreast of him Renouard raised his head.</p> +<p>“Good-bye, Mr. Renouard,” she said in a low voice, +meaning to pass on; but there was such a look of entreaty in the +blue gleam of his sunken eyes that after an imperceptible +hesitation she laid her hand, which was ungloved, in his extended +palm.</p> +<p>“Will you condescend to remember me?” he asked, +while an emotion with which she was angry made her pale cheeks +flush and her black eyes sparkle.</p> +<p>“This is a strange request for you to make,” she +said, exaggerating the coldness of her tone.</p> +<p>“Is it? Impudent perhaps. Yet I am not so +guilty as you think; and bear in mind that to me you can never +make reparation.”</p> +<p>“Reparation? To you! It is you who can offer +me no reparation for the offence against my feelings—and my +person; for what reparation can be adequate for your odious and +ridiculous plot so scornful in its implication, so humiliating to +my pride. No! I don’t want to remember +you.”</p> +<p>Unexpectedly, with a tightening grip, he pulled her nearer to +him, and looking into her eyes with fearless despair—</p> +<p>“You’ll have to. I shall haunt you,” +he said firmly.</p> +<p>Her hand was wrenched out of his grasp before he had time to +release it. Felicia Moorsom stepped into the boat, sat down +by the side of her father, and breathed tenderly on her crushed +fingers.</p> +<p>The professor gave her a sidelong look—nothing +more. But the professor’s sister, yet on shore, had +put up her long-handle double eye-glass to look at the +scene. She dropped it with a faint rattle.</p> +<p>“I’ve never in my life heard anything so crude +said to a lady,” she murmured, passing before Renouard with +a perfectly erect head. When, a moment afterwards, +softening suddenly, she turned to throw a good-bye to that young +man, she saw only his back in the distance moving towards the +bungalow. She watched him go in—amazed—before +she too left the soil of Malata.</p> +<p>Nobody disturbed Renouard in that room where he had shut +himself in to breathe the evanescent perfume of her who for him +was no more, till late in the afternoon when the half-caste was +heard on the other side of the door.</p> +<p>He wanted the master to know that the trader <i>Janet</i> was +just entering the cove.</p> +<p>Renouard’s strong voice on his side of the door gave him +most unexpected instructions. He was to pay off the boys +with the cash in the office and arrange with the captain of the +<i>Janet</i> to take every worker away from Malata, returning +them to their respective homes. An order on the Dunster +firm would be given to him in payment.</p> +<p>And again the silence of the bungalow remained unbroken till, +next morning, the half-caste came to report that everything was +done. The plantation boys were embarking now.</p> +<p>Through a crack in the door a hand thrust at him a piece of +paper, and the door slammed to so sharply that Luiz stepped +back. Then approaching cringingly the keyhole, in a +propitiatory tone he asked:</p> +<p>“Do I go too, master?”</p> +<p>“Yes. You too. Everybody.”</p> +<p>“Master stop here alone?”</p> +<p>Silence. And the half-caste’s eyes grew wide with +wonder. But he also, like those “ignorant +savages,” the plantation boys, was only too glad to leave +an island haunted by the ghost of a white man. He backed +away noiselessly from the mysterious silence in the closed room, +and only in the very doorway of the bungalow allowed himself to +give vent to his feelings by a deprecatory and pained—</p> +<p>“Tse! Tse! Tse!”</p> +<h3>CHAPTER XII</h3> +<p>The Moorsoms did manage to catch the homeward mail boat all +right, but had only twenty-four hours in town. Thus the +sentimental Willie could not see very much of them. This +did not prevent him afterwards from relating at great length, +with manly tears in his eyes, how poor Miss Moorsom—the +fashionable and clever beauty—found her betrothed in Malata +only to see him die in her arms. Most people were deeply +touched by the sad story. It was the talk of a good many +days.</p> +<p>But the all-knowing Editor, Renouard’s only friend and +crony, wanted to know more than the rest of the world. From +professional incontinence, perhaps, he thirsted for a full cup of +harrowing detail. And when he noticed Renouard’s +schooner lying in port day after day he sought the sailing master +to learn the reason. The man told him that such were his +instructions. He had been ordered to lie there a month +before returning to Malata. And the month was nearly +up. “I will ask you to give me a passage,” said +the Editor.</p> +<p>He landed in the morning at the bottom of the garden and found +peace, stillness, sunshine reigning everywhere, the doors and +windows of the bungalow standing wide open, no sight of a human +being anywhere, the plants growing rank and tall on the deserted +fields. For hours the Editor and the schooner’s crew, +excited by the mystery, roamed over the island shouting +Renouard’s name; and at last set themselves in grim silence +to explore systematically the uncleared bush and the deeper +ravines in search of his corpse. What had happened? +Had he been murdered by the boys? Or had he simply, +capricious and secretive, abandoned his plantation taking the +people with him. It was impossible to tell what had +happened. At last, towards the decline of the day, the +Editor and the sailing master discovered a track of sandals +crossing a strip of sandy beach on the north shore of the +bay. Following this track fearfully, they passed round the +spur of the headland, and there on a large stone found the +sandals, Renouard’s white jacket, and the Malay sarong of +chequered pattern which the planter of Malata was well known to +wear when going to bathe. These things made a little heap, +and the sailor remarked, after gazing at it in silence—</p> +<p>“Birds have been hovering over this for many a +day.”</p> +<p>“He’s gone bathing and got drowned,” cried +the Editor in dismay.</p> +<p>“I doubt it, sir. If he had been drowned anywhere +within a mile from the shore the body would have been washed out +on the reefs. And our boats have found nothing so +far.”</p> +<p>Nothing was ever found—and Renouard’s +disappearance remained in the main inexplicable. For to +whom could it have occurred that a man would set out calmly to +swim beyond the confines of life—with a steady +stroke—his eyes fixed on a star!</p> +<p>Next evening, from the receding schooner, the Editor looked +back for the last time at the deserted island. A black +cloud hung listlessly over the high rock on the middle hill; and +under the mysterious silence of that shadow Malata lay mournful, +with an air of anguish in the wild sunset, as if remembering the +heart that was broken there.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><i>Dec.</i> 1913.</p> +<h2><!-- page 119--><a name="page119"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 119</span>THE PARTNER</h2> +<p>“And that be hanged for a silly yarn. The boatmen +here in Westport have been telling this lie to the summer +visitors for years. The sort that gets taken out for a row +at a shilling a head—and asks foolish questions—must +be told something to pass the time away. D’ye know +anything more silly than being pulled in a boat along a beach? . +. . It’s like drinking weak lemonade when you aren’t +thirsty. I don’t know why they do it! They +don’t even get sick.”</p> +<p>A forgotten glass of beer stood at his elbow; the locality was +a small respectable smoking-room of a small respectable hotel, +and a taste for forming chance acquaintances accounts for my +sitting up late with him. His great, flat, furrowed cheeks +were shaven; a thick, square wisp of white hairs hung from his +chin; its waggling gave additional point to his deep utterance; +and his general contempt for mankind with its activities and +moralities was expressed in the rakish set of his big soft hat of +black felt with a large rim, which he kept always on his +head.</p> +<p>His appearance was that of an old adventurer, retired after +many unholy experiences in the darkest parts of the earth; but I +had every reason to believe that he had never been outside +England. From a casual remark somebody dropped I gathered +that in his early days he must have been somehow connected with +shipping—with ships in docks. Of individuality he had +plenty. And it was this which attracted my attention at +first. But he was not easy to classify, and before the end +of the week I gave him up with the vague definition, “an +imposing old ruffian.”</p> +<p>One rainy afternoon, oppressed by infinite boredom, I went +into the smoking-room. He was sitting there in absolute +immobility, which was really fakir-like and impressive. I +began to wonder what could be the associations of that sort of +man, his “milieu,” his private connections, his +views, his morality, his friends, and even his wife—when to +my surprise he opened a conversation in a deep, muttering +voice.</p> +<p>I must say that since he had learned from somebody that I was +a writer of stories he had been acknowledging my existence by +means of some vague growls in the morning.</p> +<p>He was essentially a taciturn man. There was an effect +of rudeness in his fragmentary sentences. It was some time +before I discovered that what he would be at was the process by +which stories—stories for periodicals—were +produced.</p> +<p>What could one say to a fellow like that? But I was +bored to death; the weather continued impossible; and I resolved +to be amiable.</p> +<p>“And so you make these tales up on your own. How +do they ever come into your head?” he rumbled.</p> +<p>I explained that one generally got a hint for a tale.</p> +<p>“What sort of hint?”</p> +<p>“Well, for instance,” I said, “I got myself +rowed out to the rocks the other day. My boatman told me of +the wreck on these rocks nearly twenty years ago. That +could be used as a hint for a mainly descriptive bit of story +with some such title as ‘In the Channel,’ for +instance.”</p> +<p>It was then that he flew out at the boatmen and the summer +visitors who listen to their tales. Without moving a muscle +of his face he emitted a powerful “Rot,” from +somewhere out of the depths of his chest, and went on in his +hoarse, fragmentary mumble. “Stare at the silly +rocks—nod their silly heads [the visitors, I +presume]. What do they think a man is—blown-out paper +bag or what?—go off pop like that when he’s +hit—Damn silly yarn—Hint indeed! . . . A +lie?”</p> +<p>You must imagine this statuesque ruffian enhaloed in the black +rim of his hat, letting all this out as an old dog growls +sometimes, with his head up and staring-away eyes.</p> +<p>“Indeed!” I exclaimed. “Well, but even +if untrue it <i>is</i> a hint, enabling me to see these rocks, +this gale they speak of, the heavy seas, etc., etc., in relation +to mankind. The struggle against natural forces and the +effect of the issue on at least one, say, +exalted—”</p> +<p>He interrupted me by an aggressive—</p> +<p>“Would truth be any good to you?”</p> +<p>“I shouldn’t like to say,” I answered, +cautiously. “It’s said that truth is stranger +than fiction.”</p> +<p>“Who says that?” he mouthed.</p> +<p>“Oh! Nobody in particular.”</p> +<p>I turned to the window; for the contemptuous beggar was +oppressive to look at, with his immovable arm on the table. +I suppose my unceremonious manner provoked him to a comparatively +long speech.</p> +<p>“Did you ever see such a silly lot of rocks? Like +plums in a slice of cold pudding.”</p> +<p>I was looking at them—an acre or more of black dots +scattered on the steel-grey shades of the level sea, under the +uniform gossamer grey mist with a formless brighter patch in one +place—the veiled whiteness of the cliff coming through, +like a diffused, mysterious radiance. It was a delicate and +wonderful picture, something expressive, suggestive, and +desolate, a symphony in grey and black—a Whistler. +But the next thing said by the voice behind me made me turn +round. It growled out contempt for all associated notions +of roaring seas with concise energy, then went on—</p> +<p>“I—no such foolishness—looking at the rocks +out there—more likely call to mind an office—I used +to look in sometimes at one time—office in London—one +of them small streets behind Cannon Street Station. . . +”</p> +<p>He was very deliberate; not jerky, only fragmentary; at times +profane.</p> +<p>“That’s a rather remote connection,” I +observed, approaching him.</p> +<p>“Connection? To Hades with your connections. +It was an accident.”</p> +<p>“Still,” I said, “an accident has its +backward and forward connections, which, if they could be set +forth—”</p> +<p>Without moving he seemed to lend an attentive ear.</p> +<p>“Aye! Set forth. That’s perhaps what +you could do. Couldn’t you now? There’s +no sea life in this connection. But you can put it in out +of your head—if you like.”</p> +<p>“Yes. I could, if necessary,” I said. +“Sometimes it pays to put in a lot out of one’s head, +and sometimes it doesn’t. I mean that the story +isn’t worth it. Everything’s in +that.”</p> +<p>It amused me to talk to him like this. He reflected +audibly that he guessed story-writers were out after money like +the rest of the world which had to live by its wits: and that it +was extraordinary how far people who were out after money would +go. . . Some of them.</p> +<p>Then he made a sally against sea life. Silly sort of +life, he called it. No opportunities, no experience, no +variety, nothing. Some fine men came out of it—he +admitted—but no more chance in the world if put to it than +fly. Kids. So Captain Harry Dunbar. Good +sailor. Great name as a skipper. Big man; short +side-whiskers going grey, fine face, loud voice. A good +fellow, but no more up to people’s tricks than a baby.</p> +<p>“That’s the captain of the <i>Sagamore</i> +you’re talking about,” I said, confidently.</p> +<p>After a low, scornful “Of course” he seemed now to +hold on the wall with his fixed stare the vision of that city +office, “at the back of Cannon Street Station,” while +he growled and mouthed a fragmentary description, jerking his +chin up now and then, as if angry.</p> +<p>It was, according to his account, a modest place of business, +not shady in any sense, but out of the way, in a small street now +rebuilt from end to end. “Seven doors from the +Cheshire Cat public house under the railway bridge. I used +to take my lunch there when my business called me to the +city. Cloete would come in to have his chop and make the +girl laugh. No need to talk much, either, for that. +Nothing but the way he would twinkle his spectacles on you and +give a twitch of his thick mouth was enough to start you off +before he began one of his little tales. Funny fellow, +Cloete. C-l-o-e-t-e—Cloete.”</p> +<p>“What was he—a Dutchman?” I asked, not +seeing in the least what all this had to do with the Westport +boatmen and the Westport summer visitors and this extraordinary +old fellow’s irritable view of them as liars and +fools. “Devil knows,” he grunted, his eyes on +the wall as if not to miss a single movement of a cinematograph +picture. “Spoke nothing but English, anyway. +First I saw him—comes off a ship in dock from the +States—passenger. Asks me for a small hotel near +by. Wanted to be quiet and have a look round for a few +days. I took him to a place—friend of mine. . . Next +time—in the City—Hallo! You’re very +obliging—have a drink. Talks plenty about +himself. Been years in the States. All sorts of +business all over the place. With some patent medicine +people, too. Travels. Writes advertisements and all +that. Tells me funny stories. Tall, loose-limbed +fellow. Black hair up on end, like a brush; long face, long +legs, long arms, twinkle in his specs, jocular way of +speaking—in a low voice. . . See that?”</p> +<p>I nodded, but he was not looking at me.</p> +<p>“Never laughed so much in my life. The +beggar—would make you laugh telling you how he skinned his +own father. He was up to that, too. A man who’s +been in the patent-medicine trade will be up to anything from +pitch-and-toss to wilful murder. And that’s a bit of +hard truth for you. Don’t mind what they +do—think they can carry off anything and talk themselves +out of anything—all the world’s a fool to them. +Business man, too, Cloete. Came over with a few hundred +pounds. Looking for something to do—in a quiet +way. Nothing like the old country, after all, says he. . . +And so we part—I with more drinks in me than I was used +to. After a time, perhaps six months or so, I run up +against him again in Mr. George Dunbar’s office. Yes, +<i>that</i> office. It wasn’t often that I . . . +However, there was a bit of his cargo in a ship in dock that I +wanted to ask Mr. George about. In comes Cloete out of the +room at the back with some papers in his hand. +Partner. You understand?”</p> +<p>“Aha!” I said. “The few hundred +pounds.”</p> +<p>“And that tongue of his,” he growled. +“Don’t forget that tongue. Some of his tales +must have opened George Dunbar’s eyes a bit as to what +business means.”</p> +<p>“A plausible fellow,” I suggested.</p> +<p>“H’m! You must have it in your own +way—of course. Well. Partner. George +Dunbar puts his top-hat on and tells me to wait a moment. . . +George always looked as though he were making a few thousands a +year—a city swell. . . Come along, old man! And he +and Captain Harry go out together—some business with a +solicitor round the corner. Captain Harry, when he was in +England, used to turn up in his brother’s office regularly +about twelve. Sat in a corner like a good boy, reading the +paper and smoking his pipe. So they go out. . . Model +brothers, says Cloete—two love-birds—I am looking +after the tinned-fruit side of this cozy little show. . . Gives +me that sort of talk. Then by-and-by: What sort of old +thing is that <i>Sagamore</i>? Finest ship out—eh? I +dare say all ships are fine to you. You live by them. +I tell you what; I would just as soon put my money into an old +stocking. Sooner!”</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>He drew a breath, and I noticed his hand, lying loosely on the +table, close slowly into a fist. In that immovable man it +was startling, ominous, like the famed nod of the Commander.</p> +<p>“So, already at that +time—note—already,” he growled.</p> +<p>“But hold on,” I interrupted. “The +<i>Sagamore</i> belonged to Mundy and Rogers, I’ve been +told.”</p> +<p>He snorted contemptuously. “Damn +boatmen—know no better. Flew the firm’s +<i>house-flag</i>. That’s another thing. +Favour. It was like this: When old man Dunbar died, Captain +Harry was already in command with the firm. George chucked +the bank he was clerking in—to go on his own with what +there was to share after the old chap. George was a smart +man. Started warehousing; then two or three things at a +time: wood-pulp, preserved-fruit trade, and so on. And +Captain Harry let him have his share to work with. . . I am +provided for in my ship, he says. . . But by-and-by Mundy and +Rogers begin to sell out to foreigners all their ships—go +into steam right away. Captain Harry gets very +upset—lose command, part with the ship he was fond +of—very wretched. Just then, so it happened, the +brothers came in for some money—an old woman died or +something. Quite a tidy bit. Then young George says: +There’s enough between us two to buy the <i>Sagamore</i> +with. . . But you’ll need more money for your business, +cries Captain Harry—and the other laughs at him: My +business is going on all right. Why, I can go out and make +a handful of sovereigns while you are trying to get your pipe to +draw, old man. . . Mundy and Rogers very friendly about it: +Certainly, Captain. And we will manage her for you, if you +like, as if she were still our own. . . Why, with a connection +like that it was good investment to buy that ship. +Good! Aye, at the time.”</p> +<p>The turning of his head slightly toward me at this point was +like a sign of strong feeling in any other man.</p> +<p>“You’ll mind that this was long before Cloete came +into it at all,” he muttered, warningly.</p> +<p>“Yes. I will mind,” I said. “We +generally say: some years passed. That’s soon +done.”</p> +<p>He eyed me for a while silently in an unseeing way, as if +engrossed in the thought of the years so easily dealt with; his +own years, too, they were, the years before and the years (not so +many) after Cloete came upon the scene. When he began to +speak again, I discerned his intention to point out to me, in his +obscure and graphic manner, the influence on George Dunbar of +long association with Cloete’s easy moral standards, +unscrupulously persuasive gift of humour (funny fellow), and +adventurously reckless disposition. He desired me anxiously +to elaborate this view, and I assured him it was quite within my +powers. He wished me also to understand that George’s +business had its ups and downs (the other brother was meantime +sailing to and fro serenely); that he got into low water at +times, which worried him rather, because he had married a young +wife with expensive tastes. He was having a pretty anxious +time of it generally; and just then Cloete ran up in the city +somewhere against a man working a patent medicine (the +fellow’s old trade) with some success, but which, with +capital, capital to the tune of thousands to be spent with both +hands on advertising, could be turned into a great +thing—infinitely better-paying than a gold-mine. +Cloete became excited at the possibilities of that sort of +business, in which he was an expert. I understood that +George’s partner was all on fire from the contact with this +unique opportunity.</p> +<p>“So he goes in every day into George’s room about +eleven, and sings that tune till George gnashes his teeth with +rage. Do shut up. What’s the good? No +money. Hardly any to go on with, let alone pouring +thousands into advertising. Never dare propose to his +brother Harry to sell the ship. Couldn’t think of +it. Worry him to death. It would be like the end of +the world coming. And certainly not for a business of that +kind! . . . Do you think it would be a swindle? asks Cloete, +twitching his mouth. . . George owns up: No—would be no +better than a squeamish ass if he thought that, after all these +years in business.</p> +<p>“Cloete looks at him hard—Never thought of +<i>selling</i> the ship. Expected the blamed old thing +wouldn’t fetch half her insured value by this time. +Then George flies out at him. What’s the meaning, +then, of these silly jeers at ship-owning for the last three +weeks? Had enough of them, anyhow.</p> +<p>“Angry at having his mouth made to water, see. +Cloete don’t get excited. . . I am no squeamish ass, +either, says he, very slowly. ’Tisn’t selling +your old <i>Sagamore</i> wants. The blamed thing wants +tomahawking (seems the name <i>Sagamore</i> means an Indian chief +or something. The figure-head was a half-naked savage with +a feather over one ear and a hatchet in his belt). +Tomahawking, says he.</p> +<p>“What do you mean? asks George. . . Wrecking—it +could be managed with perfect safety, goes on Cloete—your +brother would then put in his share of insurance money. +Needn’t tell him exactly what for. He thinks +you’re the smartest business man that ever lived. +Make his fortune, too. . . George grips the desk with both hands +in his rage. . . You think my brother’s a man to cast away +his ship on purpose. I wouldn’t even dare think of +such a thing in the same room with him—the finest fellow +that ever lived. . . Don’t make such noise; they’ll +hear you outside, says Cloete; and he tells him that his brother +is the salted pattern of all virtues, but all that’s +necessary is to induce him to stay ashore for a voyage—for +a holiday—take a rest—why not? . . . In fact, I have +in view somebody up to that sort of game—Cloete +whispers.</p> +<p>“George nearly chokes. . . So you think I am of that +sort—you think <i>me</i> capable—What do you take me +for? . . . He almost loses his head, while Cloete keeps cool, +only gets white about the gills. . . I take you for a man who +will be most cursedly hard up before long. . . He goes to the +door and sends away the clerks—there were only two—to +take their lunch hour. Comes back . . . What are you +indignant about? Do I want you to rob the widow and +orphan? Why, man! Lloyd’s a corporation, it +hasn’t got a body to starve. There’s forty or +more of them perhaps who underwrote the lines on that silly ship +of yours. Not one human being would go hungry or cold for +it. They take every risk into consideration. +Everything I tell you. . . That sort of talk. +H’m! George too upset to speak—only gurgles and +waves his arms; so sudden, you see. The other, warming his +back at the fire, goes on. Wood-pulp business next door to +a failure. Tinned-fruit trade nearly played out. . . +You’re frightened, he says; but the law is only meant to +frighten fools away. . . And he shows how safe casting away that +ship would be. Premiums paid for so many, many years. +No shadow of suspicion could arise. And, dash it all! a +ship must meet her end some day. . .</p> +<p>“I am not frightened. I am indignant,” says +George Dunbar.</p> +<p>“Cloete boiling with rage inside. Chance of a +lifetime—his chance! And he says kindly: Your +wife’ll be much more indignant when you ask her to get out +of that pretty house of yours and pile in into a two-pair +back—with kids perhaps, too. . .</p> +<p>“George had no children. Married a couple of +years; looked forward to a kid or two very much. Feels more +upset than ever. Talks about an honest man for father, and +so on. Cloete grins: You be quick before they come, and +they’ll have a rich man for father, and no one the worse +for it. That’s the beauty of the thing.</p> +<p>“George nearly cries. I believe he did cry at odd +times. This went on for weeks. He couldn’t +quarrel with Cloete. Couldn’t pay off his few +hundreds; and besides, he was used to have him about. Weak +fellow, George. Cloete generous, too. . . Don’t think +of my little pile, says he. Of course it’s gone when +we have to shut up. But I don’t care, he says. . . +And then there was George’s new wife. When Cloete +dines there, the beggar puts on a dress suit; little woman liked +it; . . . Mr. Cloete, my husband’s partner; such a clever +man, man of the world, so amusing! . . . When he dines there and +they are alone: Oh, Mr. Cloete, I wish George would do something +to improve our prospects. Our position is really so +mediocre. . . And Cloete smiles, but isn’t surprised, +because he had put all these notions himself into her empty head. +. . What your husband wants is enterprise, a little +audacity. You can encourage him best, Mrs. Dunbar. . . She +was a silly, extravagant little fool. Had made George take +a house in Norwood. Live up to a lot of people better off +than themselves. I saw her once; silk dress, pretty boots, +all feathers and scent, pink face. More like the Promenade +at the Alhambra than a decent home, it looked to me. But +some women do get a devil of a hold on a man.”</p> +<p>“Yes, some do,” I assented. “Even when +the man is the husband.”</p> +<p>“My missis,” he addressed me unexpectedly, in a +solemn, surprisingly hollow tone, “could wind me round her +little finger. I didn’t find it out till she was +gone. Aye. But she was a woman of sense, while that +piece of goods ought to have been walking the streets, and +that’s all I can say. . . You must make her up out of your +head. You will know the sort.”</p> +<p>“Leave all that to me,” I said.</p> +<p>“H’m!” he grunted, doubtfully, then going +back to his scornful tone: “A month or so afterwards the +<i>Sagamore</i> arrives home. All very jolly at first. . . +Hallo, George boy! Hallo, Harry, old man! . . . But by and +by Captain Harry thinks his clever brother is not looking very +well. And George begins to look worse. He can’t +get rid of Cloete’s notion. It has stuck in his head. +. . There’s nothing wrong—quite well. . . Captain +Harry still anxious. Business going all right, eh? +Quite right. Lots of business. Good business. . . Of +course Captain Harry believes that easily. Starts chaffing +his brother in his jolly way about rolling in money. +George’s shirt sticks to his back with perspiration, and he +feels quite angry with the captain. . . The fool, he says to +himself. Rolling in money, indeed! And then he thinks +suddenly: Why not? . . . Because Cloete’s notion has got +hold of his mind.</p> +<p>“But next day he weakens and says to Cloete . . . +Perhaps it would be best to sell. Couldn’t you talk +to my brother? and Cloete explains to him over again for the +twentieth time why selling wouldn’t do, anyhow. +No! The <i>Sagamore</i> must be tomahawked—as he +would call it; to spare George’s feelings, maybe. But +every time he says the word, George shudders. . . I’ve got +a man at hand competent for the job who will do the trick for +five hundred, and only too pleased at the chance, says Cloete. . +. George shuts his eyes tight at that sort of talk—but at +the same time he thinks: Humbug! There can be no such +man. And yet if there was such a man it would be safe +enough—perhaps.</p> +<p>“And Cloete always funny about it. He +couldn’t talk about anything without it seeming there was a +great joke in it somewhere. . . Now, says he, I know you are a +moral citizen, George. Morality is mostly funk, and I think +you’re the funkiest man I ever came across in my +travels. Why, you are afraid to speak to your +brother. Afraid to open your mouth to him with a fortune +for us all in sight. . . George flares up at this: no, he +ain’t afraid; he will speak; bangs fist on the desk. +And Cloete pats him on the back. . . We’ll be made men +presently, he says.</p> +<p>“But the first time George attempts to speak to Captain +Harry his heart slides down into his boots. Captain Harry +only laughs at the notion of staying ashore. He wants no +holiday, not he. But Jane thinks of remaining in England +this trip. Go about a bit and see some of her people. +Jane was the Captain’s wife; round-faced, pleasant +lady. George gives up that time; but Cloete won’t let +him rest. So he tries again; and the Captain frowns. +He frowns because he’s puzzled. He can’t make +it out. He has no notion of living away from his +<i>Sagamore</i>. . .</p> +<p>“Ah!” I cried. “Now I +understand.”</p> +<p>“No, you don’t,” he growled, his black, +contemptuous stare turning on me crushingly.</p> +<p>“I beg your pardon,” I murmured.</p> +<p>“H’m! Very well, then. Captain Harry +looks very stern, and George crumples all up inside. . . He sees +through me, he thinks. . . Of course it could not be; but George, +by that time, was scared at his own shadow. He is shirking +it with Cloete, too. Gives his partner to understand that +his brother has half a mind to try a spell on shore, and so +on. Cloete waits, gnawing his fingers; so anxious. +Cloete really had found a man for the job. Believe it or +not, he had found him inside the very boarding-house he lodged +in—somewhere about Tottenham Court Road. He had +noticed down-stairs a fellow—a boarder and not a +boarder—hanging about the dark—part of the passage +mostly; sort of ‘man of the house,’ a slinking +chap. Black eyes. White face. The woman of the +house—a widow lady, she called herself—very full of +Mr. Stafford; Mr. Stafford this and Mr. Stafford that. . . +Anyhow, Cloete one evening takes him out to have a drink. +Cloete mostly passed away his evenings in saloon bars. No +drunkard, though, Cloete; for company; liked to talk to all sorts +there; just habit; American fashion.</p> +<p>“So Cloete takes that chap out more than once. Not +very good company, though. Little to say for himself. +Sits quiet and drinks what’s given to him, eyes always half +closed, speaks sort of demure. . . I’ve had misfortunes, he +says. The truth was they had kicked him out of a big +steam-ship company for disgraceful conduct; nothing to affect his +certificate, you understand; and he had gone down quite +easily. Liked it, I expect. Anything’s better +than work. Lived on the widow lady who kept that +boarding-house.”</p> +<p>“That’s almost incredible,” I ventured to +interrupt. “A man with a master’s certificate, +do you mean?”</p> +<p>“I do; I’ve known them ’bus cads,” he +growled, contemptuously. “Yes. Swing on the +tail-board by the strap and yell, ‘tuppence all the +way.’ Through drink. But this Stafford was of +another kind. Hell’s full of such Staffords; Cloete +would make fun of him, and then there would be a nasty gleam in +the fellow’s half-shut eye. But Cloete was generally +kind to him. Cloete was a fellow that would be kind to a +mangy dog. Anyhow, he used to stand drinks to that object, +and now and then gave him half a crown—because the widow +lady kept Mr. Stafford short of pocket-money. They had rows +almost every day down in the basement. . .</p> +<p>“It was the fellow being a sailor that put into +Cloete’s mind the first notion of doing away with the +<i>Sagamore</i>. He studies him a bit, thinks there’s +enough devil in him yet to be tempted, and one evening he says to +him . . . I suppose you wouldn’t mind going to sea again, +for a spell? . . . The other never raises his eyes; says +it’s scarcely worth one’s while for the miserable +salary one gets. . . Well, but what do you say to captain’s +wages for a time, and a couple of hundred extra if you are +compelled to come home without the ship. Accidents will +happen, says Cloete. . . Oh! sure to, says that Stafford; and +goes on taking sips of his drink as if he had no interest in the +matter.</p> +<p>“Cloete presses him a bit; but the other observes, +impudent and languid like: You see, there’s no future in a +thing like that—is there? . . Oh! no, says Cloete. +Certainly not. I don’t mean this to have any +future—as far as you are concerned. It’s a +‘once for all’ transaction. Well, what do you +estimate your future at? he asks. . . The fellow more listless +than ever—nearly asleep.—I believe the skunk was +really too lazy to care. Small cheating at cards, wheedling +or bullying his living out of some woman or other, was more his +style. Cloete swears at him in whispers something +awful. All this in the saloon bar of the Horse Shoe, +Tottenham Court Road. Finally they agree, over the second +sixpennyworth of Scotch hot, on five hundred pounds as the price +of tomahawking the <i>Sagamore</i>. And Cloete waits to see +what George can do.</p> +<p>“A week or two goes by. The other fellow loafs +about the house as if there had been nothing, and Cloete begins +to doubt whether he really means ever to tackle that job. +But one day he stops Cloete at the door, with his downcast eyes: +What about that employment you wished to give me? he asks. . . +You see, he had played some more than usual dirty trick on the +woman and expected awful ructions presently; and to be fired out +for sure. Cloete very pleased. George had been +prevaricating to him such a lot that he really thought the thing +was as well as settled. And he says: Yes. It’s +time I introduced you to my friend. Just get your hat and +we will go now. . .</p> +<p>“The two come into the office, and George at his desk +sits up in a sudden panic—staring. Sees a tallish +fellow, sort of nasty-handsome face, heavy eyes, half shut; short +drab overcoat, shabby bowler hat, very careful—like in his +movements. And he thinks to himself, Is that how such a man +looks! No, the thing’s impossible. . . Cloete does +the introduction, and the fellow turns round to look behind him +at the chair before he sits down. . . A thoroughly competent man, +Cloete goes on . . . The man says nothing, sits perfectly +quiet. And George can’t speak, throat too dry. +Then he makes an effort: H’m! H’m! Oh +yes—unfortunately—sorry to disappoint—my +brother—made other arrangements—going himself.</p> +<p>“The fellow gets up, never raising his eyes off the +ground, like a modest girl, and goes out softly, right out of the +office without a sound. Cloete sticks his chin in his hand +and bites all his fingers at once. George’s heart +slows down and he speaks to Cloete. . . This can’t be +done. How can it be? Directly the ship is lost Harry +would see through it. You know he is a man to go to the +underwriters himself with his suspicions. And he would +break his heart over me. How can I play that on him? +There’s only two of us in the world belonging to each +other. . .</p> +<p>“Cloete lets out a horrid cuss-word, jumps up, bolts +away into his room, and George hears him there banging things +around. After a while he goes to the door and says in a +trembling voice: You ask me for an impossibility. . . Cloete +inside ready to fly out like a tiger and rend him; but he opens +the door a little way and says softly: Talking of hearts, yours +is no bigger than a mouse’s, let me tell you. . . But +George doesn’t care—load off the heart, anyhow. +And just then Captain Harry comes in. . . Hallo, George +boy. I am little late. What about a chop at the +Cheshire, now? . . . Right you are, old man. . . And off they go +to lunch together. Cloete has nothing to eat that day.</p> +<p>“George feels a new man for a time; but all of a sudden +that fellow Stafford begins to hang about the street, in sight of +the house door. The first time George sees him he thinks he +made a mistake. But no; next time he has to go out, there +is the very fellow skulking on the other side of the road. +It makes George nervous; but he must go out on business, and when +the fellow cuts across the road-way he dodges him. He +dodges him once, twice, three times; but at last he gets nabbed +in his very doorway. . . What do you want? he says, trying to +look fierce.</p> +<p>“It seems that ructions had come in the basement of that +boarding-house, and the widow lady had turned on him (being +jealous mad), to the extent of talking of the police. +<i>That</i> Mr. Stafford couldn’t stand; so he cleared out +like a scared stag, and there he was, chucked into the streets, +so to speak. Cloete looked so savage as he went to and fro +that he hadn’t the spunk to tackle him; but George seemed a +softer kind to his eye. He would have been glad of half a +quid, anything. . . I’ve had misfortunes, he says softly, +in his demure way, which frightens George more than a row would +have done. . . Consider the severity of my disappointment, he +says. . .</p> +<p>“George, instead of telling him to go to the devil, +loses his head. . . I don’t know you. What do you +want? he cries, and bolts up-stairs to Cloete. . . . Look +what’s come of it, he gasps; now we are at the mercy of +that horrid fellow. . . Cloete tries to show him that the fellow +can do nothing; but George thinks that some sort of scandal may +be forced on, anyhow. Says that he can’t live with +that horror haunting him. Cloete would laugh if he +weren’t too weary of it all. Then a thought strikes +him and he changes his tune. . . Well, perhaps! I will go +down-stairs and send him away to begin with. . . He comes back. . +. He’s gone. But perhaps you are right. The +fellow’s hard up, and that’s what makes people +desperate. The best thing would be to get him out of the +country for a time. Look here, the poor devil is really in +want of employment. I won’t ask you much this time: +only to hold your tongue; and I shall try to get your brother to +take him as chief officer. At this George lays his arms and +his head on his desk, so that Cloete feels sorry for him. +But altogether Cloete feels more cheerful because he has shaken +the ghost a bit into that Stafford. That very afternoon he +buys him a suit of blue clothes, and tells him that he will have +to turn to and work for his living now. Go to sea as mate +of the <i>Sagamore</i>. The skunk wasn’t very +willing, but what with having nothing to eat and no place to +sleep in, and the woman having frightened him with the talk of +some prosecution or other, he had no choice, properly +speaking. Cloete takes care of him for a couple of days. . +. Our arrangement still stands, says he. Here’s the +ship bound for Port Elizabeth; not a safe anchorage at all. +Should she by chance part from her anchors in a north-east gale +and get lost on the beach, as many of them do, why, it’s +five hundred in your pocket—and a quick return home. +You are up to the job, ain’t you?</p> +<p>“Our Mr. Stafford takes it all in with downcast eyes. . +. I am a competent seaman, he says, with his sly, modest +air. A ship’s chief mate has no doubt many +opportunities to manipulate the chains and anchors to some +purpose. . . At this Cloete thumps him on the back: You’ll +do, my noble sailor. Go in and win. . .</p> +<p>“Next thing George knows, his brother tells him that he +had occasion to oblige his partner. And glad of it, +too. Likes the partner no end. Took a friend of his +as mate. Man had his troubles, been ashore a year nursing a +dying wife, it seems. Down on his luck. . . George protests +earnestly that he knows nothing of the person. Saw him +once. Not very attractive to look at. . . And Captain Harry +says in his hearty way, That’s so, but must give the poor +devil a chance. . .</p> +<p>“So Mr. Stafford joins in dock. And it seems that +he did manage to monkey with one of the cables—keeping his +mind on Port Elizabeth. The riggers had all the cable +ranged on deck to clean lockers. The new mate watches them +go ashore—dinner hour—and sends the ship-keeper out +of the ship to fetch him a bottle of beer. Then he goes to +work whittling away the forelock of the forty-five-fathom +shackle-pin, gives it a tap or two with a hammer just to make it +loose, and of course that cable wasn’t safe any more. +Riggers come back—you know what riggers are: come day, go +day, and God send Sunday. Down goes the chain into the +locker without their foreman looking at the shackles at +all. What does he care? He ain’t going in the +ship. And two days later the ship goes to sea. . . +”</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>At this point I was incautious enough to breathe out another +“I see,” which gave offence again, and brought on me +a rude “No, you don’t”—as before. +But in the pause he remembered the glass of beer at his +elbow. He drank half of it, wiped his mustaches, and +remarked grimly—</p> +<p>“Don’t you think that there will be any sea life +in this, because there ain’t. If you’re going +to put in any out of your own head, now’s your +chance. I suppose you know what ten days of bad weather in +the Channel are like? I don’t. Anyway, ten +whole days go by. One Monday Cloete comes to the office a +little late—hears a woman’s voice in George’s +room and looks in. Newspapers on the desk, on the floor; +Captain Harry’s wife sitting with red eyes and a bag on the +chair near her. . . Look at this, says George, in great +excitement, showing him a paper. Cloete’s heart gives +a jump. Ha! Wreck in Westport Bay. The +<i>Sagamore</i> gone ashore early hours of Sunday, and so the +newspaper men had time to put in some of their work. +Columns of it. Lifeboat out twice. Captain and crew +remain by the ship. Tugs summoned to assist. If the +weather improves, this well-known fine ship may yet be saved. . . +You know the way these chaps put it. . . Mrs. Harry there on her +way to catch a train from Cannon Street. Got an hour to +wait.</p> +<p>“Cloete takes George aside and whispers: Ship saved +yet! Oh, damn! That must never be; you hear? +But George looks at him dazed, and Mrs. Harry keeps on sobbing +quietly: . . . I ought to have been with him. But I am +going to him. . . We are all going together, cries Cloete, all of +a sudden. He rushes out, sends the woman a cup of hot +bovril from the shop across the road, buys a rug for her, thinks +of everything; and in the train tucks her in and keeps on +talking, thirteen to the dozen, all the way, to keep her spirits +up, as it were; but really because he can’t hold his peace +for very joy. Here’s the thing done all at once, and +nothing to pay. Done. Actually done. His head +swims now and again when he thinks of it. What enormous +luck! It almost frightens him. He would like to yell +and sing. Meantime George Dunbar sits in his corner, +looking so deadly miserable that at last poor Mrs. Harry tries to +comfort him, and so cheers herself up at the same time by talking +about how her Harry is a prudent man; not likely to risk his +crew’s life or his own unnecessarily—and so on.</p> +<p>“First thing they hear at Westport station is that the +life-boat has been out to the ship again, and has brought off the +second officer, who had hurt himself, and a few sailors. +Captain and the rest of the crew, about fifteen in all, are still +on board. Tugs expected to arrive every moment.</p> +<p>“They take Mrs. Harry to the inn, nearly opposite the +rocks; she bolts straight up-stairs to look out of the window, +and she lets out a great cry when she sees the wreck. She +won’t rest till she gets on board to her Harry. +Cloete soothes her all he can. . . All right; you try to eat a +mouthful, and we will go to make inquiries.</p> +<p>“He draws George out of the room: Look here, she +can’t go on board, but I shall. I’ll see to it +that he doesn’t stop in the ship too long. +Let’s go and find the coxswain of the life-boat. . . George +follows him, shivering from time to time. The waves are +washing over the old pier; not much wind, a wild, gloomy sky over +the bay. In the whole world only one tug away off, heading +to the seas, tossed in and out of sight every minute as regular +as clockwork.</p> +<p>“They meet the coxswain and he tells them: Yes! +He’s going out again. No, they ain’t in danger +on board—not yet. But the ship’s chance is very +poor. Still, if the wind doesn’t pipe up again and +the sea goes down something might be tried. After some talk +he agrees to take Cloete on board; supposed to be with an urgent +message from the owners to the captain.</p> +<p>“Whenever Cloete looks at the sky he feels comforted; it +looks so threatening. George Dunbar follows him about with +a white face and saying nothing. Cloete takes him to have a +drink or two, and by and by he begins to pick up. . . +That’s better, says Cloete; dash me if it wasn’t like +walking about with a dead man before. You ought to be +throwing up your cap, man. I feel as if I wanted to stand +in the street and cheer. Your brother is safe, the ship is +lost, and we are made men.</p> +<p>“Are you certain she’s lost? asks George. It +would be an awful blow after all the agonies I have gone through +in my mind, since you first spoke to me, if she were to be got +off—and—and—all this temptation to begin over +again. . . For we had nothing to do with this; had we?</p> +<p>“Of course not, says Cloete. Wasn’t your +brother himself in charge? It’s providential. . . Oh! +cries George, shocked. . . Well, say it’s the devil, says +Cloete, cheerfully. I don’t mind! You had +nothing to do with it any more than a baby unborn, you great +softy, you. . . Cloete has got so that he almost loved George +Dunbar. Well. Yes. That was so. I +don’t mean he respected him. He was just fond of his +partner.</p> +<p>“They go back, you may say fairly skipping, to the +hotel, and find the wife of the captain at the open window, with +her eyes on the ship as if she wanted to fly across the bay over +there. . . Now then, Mrs. Dunbar, cries Cloete, you can’t +go, but I am going. Any messages? Don’t be +shy. I’ll deliver every word faithfully. And if +you would like to give me a kiss for him, I’ll deliver that +too, dash me if I don’t.</p> +<p>“He makes Mrs. Harry laugh with his patter. . . Oh, dear +Mr. Cloete, you are a calm, reasonable man. Make him behave +sensibly. He’s a bit obstinate, you know, and +he’s so fond of the ship, too. Tell him I am +here—looking on. . . Trust me, Mrs. Dunbar. Only shut +that window, that’s a good girl. You will be sure to +catch cold if you don’t, and the Captain won’t be +pleased coming off the wreck to find you coughing and sneezing so +that you can’t tell him how happy you are. And now if +you can get me a bit of tape to fasten my glasses on good to my +ears, I will be going. . .</p> +<p>“How he gets on board I don’t know. All wet +and shaken and excited and out of breath, he does get on +board. Ship lying over, smothered in sprays, but not moving +very much; just enough to jag one’s nerve a bit. He +finds them all crowded on the deck-house forward, in their shiny +oilskins, with faces like sick men. Captain Harry +can’t believe his eyes. What! Mr. Cloete! +What are you doing here, in God’s name? . . . Your +wife’s ashore there, looking on, gasps out Cloete; and +after they had talked a bit, Captain Harry thinks it’s +uncommonly plucky and kind of his brother’s partner to come +off to him like this. Man glad to have somebody to talk to. +. . It’s a bad business, Mr. Cloete, he says. And +Cloete rejoices to hear that. Captain Harry thinks he had +done his best, but the cable had parted when he tried to anchor +her. It was a great trial to lose the ship. Well, he +would have to face it. He fetches a deep sigh now and +then. Cloete almost sorry he had come on board, because to +be on that wreck keeps his chest in a tight band all the +time. They crouch out of the wind under the port boat, a +little apart from the men. The life-boat had gone away +after putting Cloete on board, but was coming back next high +water to take off the crew if no attempt at getting the ship +afloat could be made. Dusk was falling; winter’s day; +black sky; wind rising. Captain Harry felt +melancholy. God’s will be done. If she must be +left on the rocks—why, she must. A man should take +what God sends him standing up. . . Suddenly his voice breaks, +and he squeezes Cloete’s arm: It seems as if I +couldn’t leave her, he whispers. Cloete looks round +at the men like a lot of huddled sheep and thinks to himself: +They won’t stay. . . Suddenly the ship lifts a little and +sets down with a thump. Tide rising. Everybody +beginning to look out for the life-boat. Some of the men +made her out far away and also two more tugs. But the gale +has come on again, and everybody knows that no tug will ever dare +come near the ship.</p> +<p>“That’s the end, Captain Harry says, very low. . . +. Cloete thinks he never felt so cold in all his life. . . And I +feel as if I didn’t care to live on just now, mutters +Captain Harry . . . Your wife’s ashore, looking on, says +Cloete . . . Yes. Yes. It must be awful for her to +look at the poor old ship lying here done for. Why, +that’s our home.</p> +<p>“Cloete thinks that as long as the +<i>Sagamore’s</i> done for he doesn’t care, and only +wishes himself somewhere else. The slightest movement of +the ship cuts his breath like a blow. And he feels excited +by the danger, too. The captain takes him aside. . . The +life-boat can’t come near us for more than an hour. +Look here, Cloete, since you are here, and such a plucky +one—do something for me. . . He tells him then that down in +his cabin aft in a certain drawer there is a bundle of important +papers and some sixty sovereigns in a small canvas bag. +Asks Cloete to go and get these things out. He hasn’t +been below since the ship struck, and it seems to him that if he +were to take his eyes off her she would fall to pieces. And +then the men—a scared lot by this time—if he were to +leave them by themselves they would attempt to launch one of the +ship’s boats in a panic at some heavier thump—and +then some of them bound to get drowned. . . There are two or +three boxes of matches about my shelves in my cabin if you want a +light, says Captain Harry. Only wipe your wet hands before +you begin to feel for them. . .</p> +<p>“Cloete doesn’t like the job, but doesn’t +like to show funk, either—and he goes. Lots of water +on the main-deck, and he splashes along; it was getting dark, +too. All at once, by the mainmast, somebody catches him by +the arm. Stafford. He wasn’t thinking of +Stafford at all. Captain Harry had said something as to the +mate not being quite satisfactory, but it wasn’t +much. Cloete doesn’t recognise him in his oilskins at +first. He sees a white face with big eyes peering at him. . +. Are you pleased, Mr. Cloete . . . ?</p> +<p>“Cloete is moved to laugh at the whine, and shakes him +off. But the fellow scrambles on after him on the poop and +follows him down into the cabin of that wrecked ship. And +there they are, the two of them; can hardly see each other. . . +You don’t mean to make me believe you have had anything to +do with this, says Cloete. . .</p> +<p>“They both shiver, nearly out of their wits with the +excitement of being on board that ship. She thumps and +lurches, and they stagger together, feeling sick. Cloete +again bursts out laughing at that wretched creature Stafford +pretending to have been up to something so desperate. . . Is that +how you think you can treat me now? yells the other man all of a +sudden. . .</p> +<p>“A sea strikes the stern, the ship trembles and groans +all round them, there’s the noise of the seas about and +overhead, confusing Cloete, and he hears the other screaming as +if crazy. . . Ah, you don’t believe me! Go and look +at the port chain. Parted? Eh? Go and see if +it’s parted. Go and find the broken link. You +can’t. There’s no broken link. That means +a thousand pounds for me. No less. A thousand the day +after we get ashore—prompt. I won’t wait till +she breaks up, Mr. Cloete. To the underwriters I go if +I’ve to walk to London on my bare feet. Port +cable! Look at her port cable, I will say to them. I +doctored it—for the owners—tempted by a low rascal +called Cloete.</p> +<p>“Cloete does not understand what it means exactly. +All he sees is that the fellow means to make mischief. He +sees trouble ahead. . . Do you think you can scare me? he +asks,—you poor miserable skunk. . . And Stafford faces him +out—both holding on to the cabin table: No, damn you, you +are only a dirty vagabond; but I can scare the other, the chap in +the black coat. . .</p> +<p>“Meaning George Dunbar. Cloete’s brain reels +at the thought. He doesn’t imagine the fellow can do +any real harm, but he knows what George is; give the show away; +upset the whole business he had set his heart on. He says +nothing; he hears the other, what with the funk and strain and +excitement, panting like a dog—and then a snarl. . . A +thousand down, twenty-four hours after we get ashore; day after +to-morrow. That’s my last word, Mr. Cloete. . . A +thousand pounds, day after to-morrow, says Cloete. Oh +yes. And to-day take this, you dirty cur. . . He hits +straight from the shoulder in sheer rage, nothing else. +Stafford goes away spinning along the bulk-head. Seeing +this, Cloete steps out and lands him another one somewhere about +the jaw. The fellow staggers backward right into the +captain’s cabin through the open door. Cloete, +following him up, hears him fall down heavily and roll to +leeward, then slams the door to and turns the key. . . There! +says he to himself, that will stop you from making +trouble.”</p> +<p>“By Jove!” I murmured.</p> +<p>The old fellow departed from his impressive immobility to turn +his rakishly hatted head and look at me with his old, black, +lack-lustre eyes.</p> +<p>“He did leave him there,” he uttered, weightily, +returning to the contemplation of the wall. “Cloete +didn’t mean to allow anybody, let alone a thing like +Stafford, to stand in the way of his great notion of making +George and himself, and Captain Harry, too, for that matter, rich +men. And he didn’t think much of consequences. +These patent-medicine chaps don’t care what they say or +what they do. They think the world’s bound to swallow +any story they like to tell. . . He stands listening for a +bit. And it gives him quite a turn to hear a thump at the +door and a sort of muffled raving screech inside the +captain’s room. He thinks he hears his own name, too, +through the awful crash as the old <i>Sagamore</i> rises and +falls to a sea. That noise and that awful shock make him +clear out of the cabin. He collects his senses on the +poop. But his heart sinks a little at the black wildness of +the night. Chances that he will get drowned himself before +long. Puts his head down the companion. Through the +wind and breaking seas he can hear the noise of Stafford’s +beating against the door and cursing. He listens and says +to himself: No. Can’t trust him now. . .</p> +<p>“When he gets back to the top of the deck-house he says +to Captain Harry, who asks him if he got the things, that he is +very sorry. There was something wrong with the door. +Couldn’t open it. And to tell you the truth, says he, +I didn’t like to stop any longer in that cabin. There +are noises there as if the ship were going to pieces. . . Captain +Harry thinks: Nervous; can’t be anything wrong with the +door. But he says: Thanks—never mind, never mind. . . +All hands looking out now for the life-boat. Everybody +thinking of himself rather. Cloete asks himself, will they +miss him? But the fact is that Mr. Stafford had made such +poor show at sea that after the ship struck nobody ever paid any +attention to him. Nobody cared what he did or where he +was. Pitch dark, too—no counting of heads. The +light of the tug with the lifeboat in tow is seen making for the +ship, and Captain Harry asks: Are we all there? . . . Somebody +answers: All here, sir. . . Stand by to leave the ship, then, +says Captain Harry; and two of you help the gentleman over first. +. . Aye, aye, sir. . . Cloete was moved to ask Captain Harry to +let him stay till last, but the life-boat drops on a grapnel +abreast the fore-rigging, two chaps lay hold of him, watch their +chance, and drop him into her, all safe.</p> +<p>“He’s nearly exhausted; not used to that sort of +thing, you see. He sits in the stern-sheets with his eyes +shut. Don’t want to look at the white water boiling +all around. The men drop into the boat one after +another. Then he hears Captain Harry’s voice shouting +in the wind to the coxswain, to hold on a moment, and some other +words he can’t catch, and the coxswain yelling back: +Don’t be long, sir. . . What is it? Cloete asks +feeling faint. . . Something about the ship’s papers, says +the coxswain, very anxious. It’s no time to be +fooling about alongside, you understand. They haul the boat +off a little and wait. The water flies over her in +sheets. Cloete’s senses almost leave him. He +thinks of nothing. He’s numb all over, till +there’s a shout: Here he is! . . . They see a figure in the +fore-rigging waiting—they slack away on the grapnel-line +and get him in the boat quite easy. There is a little +shouting—it’s all mixed up with the noise of the +sea. Cloete fancies that Stafford’s voice is talking +away quite close to his ear. There’s a lull in the +wind, and Stafford’s voice seems to be speaking very fast +to the coxswain; he tells him that of course he was near his +skipper, was all the time near him, till the old man said at the +last moment that he must go and get the ship’s papers from +aft; would insist on going himself; told him, Stafford, to get +into the life-boat. . . He had meant to wait for his skipper, +only there came this smooth of the seas, and he thought he would +take his chance at once.</p> +<p>“Cloete opens his eyes. Yes. There’s +Stafford sitting close by him in that crowded life-boat. +The coxswain stoops over Cloete and cries: Did you hear what the +mate said, sir? . . . Cloete’s face feels as if it were set +in plaster, lips and all. Yes, I did, he forces himself to +answer. The coxswain waits a moment, then says: I +don’t like it. . . And he turns to the mate, telling him it +was a pity he did not try to run along the deck and hurry up the +captain when the lull came. Stafford answers at once that +he did think of it, only he was afraid of missing him on the deck +in the dark. For, says he, the captain might have got over +at once, thinking I was already in the life-boat, and you would +have hauled off perhaps, leaving me behind. . . True enough, says +the coxswain. A minute or so passes. This won’t +do, mutters the coxswain. Suddenly Stafford speaks up in a +sort of hollow voice: I was by when he told Mr. Cloete here that +he didn’t know how he would ever have the courage to leave +the old ship; didn’t he, now? . . . And Cloete feels his +arm being gripped quietly in the dark. . . Didn’t he +now? We were standing together just before you went over, +Mr. Cloete? . . .</p> +<p>“Just then the coxswain cries out: I’m going on +board to see. . . Cloete tears his arm away: I am going with you. +. .</p> +<p>“When they get aboard, the coxswain tells Cloete to go +aft along one side of the ship and he would go along the other so +as not to miss the captain. . . And feel about with your hands, +too, says he; he might have fallen and be lying insensible +somewhere on the deck. . . When Cloete gets at last to the cabin +companion on the poop the coxswain is already there, peering down +and sniffing. I detect a smell of smoke down there, says +he. And he yells: Are you there, sir? . . . This is not a +case for shouting, says Cloete, feeling his heart go stony, as it +were. . . Down they go. Pitch dark; the inclination so +sharp that the coxswain, groping his way into the captain’s +room, slips and goes tumbling down. Cloete hears him cry +out as though he had hurt himself, and asks what’s the +matter. And the coxswain answers quietly that he had fallen +on the captain, lying there insensible. Cloete without a +word begins to grope all over the shelves for a box of matches, +finds one, and strikes a light. He sees the coxswain in his +cork jacket kneeling over Captain Harry. . . Blood, says the +coxswain, looking up, and the match goes out. . .</p> +<p>“Wait a bit, says Cloete; I’ll make paper spills. +. . He had felt the back of books on the shelves. And so he +stands lighting one spill from another while the coxswain turns +poor Captain Harry over. Dead, he says. Shot through +the heart. Here’s the revolver. . . He hands it up to +Cloete, who looks at it before putting it in his pocket, and sees +a plate on the butt with <i>H. Dunbar</i> on it. . . His own, he +mutters. . . Whose else revolver did you expect to find? snaps +the coxswain. And look, he took off his long oilskin in the +cabin before he went in. But what’s this lot of burnt +paper? What could he want to burn the ship’s papers +for? . . .</p> +<p>Cloete sees all, the little drawers drawn out, and asks the +coxswain to look well into them. . . There’s nothing, says +the man. Cleaned out. Seems to have pulled out all he +could lay his hands on and set fire to the lot. +Mad—that’s what it is—went mad. And now +he’s dead. You’ll have to break it to his wife. +. .</p> +<p>“I feel as if I were going mad myself, says Cloete, +suddenly, and the coxswain begs him for God’s sake to pull +himself together, and drags him away from the cabin. They +had to leave the body, and as it was they were just in time +before a furious squall came on. Cloete is dragged into the +life-boat and the coxswain tumbles in. Haul away on the +grapnel, he shouts; the captain has shot himself. . .</p> +<p>“Cloete was like a dead man—didn’t care for +anything. He let that Stafford pinch his arm twice without +making a sign. Most of Westport was on the old pier to see +the men out of the life-boat, and at first there was a sort of +confused cheery uproar when she came alongside; but after the +coxswain has shouted something the voices die out, and everybody +is very quiet. As soon as Cloete has set foot on something +firm he becomes himself again. The coxswain shakes hands +with him: Poor woman, poor woman, I’d rather you had the +job than I. . .</p> +<p>“Where’s the mate?” asks Cloete. +He’s the last man who spoke to the master. . . Somebody ran +along—the crew were being taken to the Mission Hall, where +there was a fire and shake-downs ready for them—somebody +ran along the pier and caught up with Stafford. . . Here! +The owner’s agent wants you. . . Cloete tucks the +fellow’s arm under his own and walks away with him to the +left, where the fishing-harbour is. . . I suppose I haven’t +misunderstood you. You wish me to look after you a bit, +says he. The other hangs on him rather limp, but gives a +nasty little laugh: You had better, he mumbles; but mind, no +tricks; no tricks, Mr. Cloete; we are on land now.</p> +<p>“There’s a police office within fifty yards from +here, says Cloete. He turns into a little public house, +pushes Stafford along the passage. The landlord runs out of +the bar. . . This is the mate of the ship on the rocks, Cloete +explains; I wish you would take care of him a bit to-night. . . +What’s the matter with him? asks the man. Stafford +leans against the wall in the passage, looking ghastly. And +Cloete says it’s nothing—done up, of course. . . I +will be responsible for the expense; I am the owner’s +agent. I’ll be round in an hour or two to see +him.</p> +<p>And Cloete gets back to the hotel. The news had +travelled there already, and the first thing he sees is George +outside the door as white as a sheet waiting for him. +Cloete just gives him a nod and they go in. Mrs. Harry +stands at the head of the stairs, and, when she sees only these +two coming up, flings her arms above her head and runs into her +room. Nobody had dared tell her, but not seeing her husband +was enough. Cloete hears an awful shriek. . . Go to her, he +says to George.</p> +<p>“While he’s alone in the private parlour Cloete +drinks a glass of brandy and thinks it all out. Then George +comes in. . . The landlady’s with her, he says. And +he begins to walk up and down the room, flinging his arms about +and talking, disconnected like, his face set hard as Cloete has +never seen it before. . . What must be, must be. +Dead—only brother. Well, dead—his troubles +over. But we are living, he says to Cloete; and I suppose, +says he, glaring at him with hot, dry eyes, that you won’t +forget to wire in the morning to your friend that we are coming +in for certain. . .</p> +<p>“Meaning the patent-medicine fellow. . . Death is death +and business is business, George goes on; and look—my hands +are clean, he says, showing them to Cloete. Cloete thinks: +He’s going crazy. He catches hold of him by the +shoulders and begins to shake him: Damn you—if you had had +the sense to know what to say to your brother, if you had had the +spunk to speak to him at all, you moral creature you, he would be +alive now, he shouts.</p> +<p>“At this George stares, then bursts out weeping with a +great bellow. He throws himself on the couch, buries his +face in a cushion, and howls like a kid. . . That’s better, +thinks Cloete, and he leaves him, telling the landlord that he +must go out, as he has some little business to attend to that +night. The landlord’s wife, weeping herself, catches +him on the stairs: Oh, sir, that poor lady will go out of her +mind. . .</p> +<p>“Cloete shakes her off, thinking to himself: Oh +no! She won’t. She will get over it. +Nobody will go mad about this affair unless I do. It +isn’t sorrow that makes people go mad, but worry.</p> +<p>“There Cloete was wrong. What affected Mrs. Harry +was that her husband should take his own life, with her, as it +were, looking on. She brooded over it so that in less than +a year they had to put her into a Home. She was very, very +quiet; just gentle melancholy. She lived for quite a long +time.</p> +<p>“Well, Cloete splashes along in the wind and rain. +Nobody in the streets—all the excitement over. The +publican runs out to meet him in the passage and says to him: Not +this way. He isn’t in his room. We +couldn’t get him to go to bed nohow. He’s in +the little parlour there. We’ve lighted him a fire. . +. You have been giving him drinks too, says Cloete; I never said +I would be responsible for drinks. How many? . . . Two, +says the other. It’s all right. I don’t +mind doing that much for a shipwrecked sailor. . . Cloete smiles +his funny smile: Eh? Come. He paid for them. . . The +publican just blinks. . . Gave you gold, didn’t he? +Speak up! . . . What of that! cries the man. What are you +after, anyway? He had the right change for his +sovereign.</p> +<p>“Just so, says Cloete. He walks into the parlour, +and there he sees our Stafford; hair all up on end, +landlord’s shirt and pants on, bare feet in slippers, +sitting by the fire. When he sees Cloete he casts his eyes +down.</p> +<p>“You didn’t mean us ever to meet again, Mr. +Cloete, Stafford says, demurely. . . That fellow, when he had the +drink he wanted—he wasn’t a drunkard—would put +on this sort of sly, modest air. . . But since the captain +committed suicide, he says, I have been sitting here thinking it +out. All sorts of things happen. Conspiracy to lose +the ship—attempted murder—and this suicide. For +if it was not suicide, Mr. Cloete, then I know of a victim of the +most cruel, cold-blooded attempt at murder; somebody who has +suffered a thousand deaths. And that makes the thousand +pounds of which we spoke once a quite insignificant sum. +Look how very convenient this suicide is. . .</p> +<p>“He looks up at Cloete then, who smiles at him and comes +quite close to the table.</p> +<p>“You killed Harry Dunbar, he whispers. . . The fellow +glares at him and shows his teeth: Of course I did! I had +been in that cabin for an hour and a half like a rat in a trap. . +. Shut up and left to drown in that wreck. Let flesh and +blood judge. Of course I shot him! I thought it was +you, you murdering scoundrel, come back to settle me. He +opens the door flying and tumbles right down upon me; I had a +revolver in my hand, and I shot him. I was crazy. Men +have gone crazy for less.</p> +<p>“Cloete looks at him without flinching. Aha! +That’s your story, is it? . . . And he shakes the table a +little in his passion as he speaks. . . Now listen to mine. +What’s this conspiracy? Who’s going to prove +it? You were there to rob. You were rifling his +cabin; he came upon you unawares with your hands in the drawer; +and you shot him with his own revolver. You killed to +steal—to steal! His brother and the clerks in the +office know that he took sixty pounds with him to sea. +Sixty pounds in gold in a canvas bag. He told me where they +were. The coxswain of the life-boat can swear to it that +the drawers were all empty. And you are such a fool that +before you’re half an hour ashore you change a sovereign to +pay for a drink. Listen to me. If you don’t +turn up day after to-morrow at George Dunbar’s solicitors, +to make the proper deposition as to the loss of the ship, I shall +set the police on your track. Day after to-morrow. . .</p> +<p>“And then what do you think? That Stafford begins +to tear his hair. Just so. Tugs at it with both hands +without saying anything. Cloete gives a push to the table +which nearly sends the fellow off his chair, tumbling inside the +fender; so that he has got to catch hold of it to save himself. . +.</p> +<p>“You know the sort of man I am, Cloete says, +fiercely. I’ve got to a point that I don’t care +what happens to me. I would shoot you now for tuppence.</p> +<p>“At this the cur dodges under the table. Then +Cloete goes out, and as he turns in the street—you know, +little fishermen’s cottages, all dark; raining in torrents, +too—the other opens the window of the parlour and speaks in +a sort of crying voice—</p> +<p>“You low Yankee fiend—I’ll pay you off some +day.</p> +<p>“Cloete passes by with a damn bitter laugh, because he +thinks that the fellow in a way has paid him off already, if he +only knew it.”</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>My impressive ruffian drank what remained of his beer, while +his black, sunken eyes looked at me over the rim.</p> +<p>“I don’t quite understand this,” I +said. “In what way?”</p> +<p>He unbent a little and explained without too much scorn that +Captain Harry being dead, his half of the insurance money went to +his wife, and her trustees of course bought consols with +it. Enough to keep her comfortable. George +Dunbar’s half, as Cloete feared from the first, did not +prove sufficient to launch the medicine well; other moneyed men +stepped in, and these two had to go out of that business, pretty +nearly shorn of everything.</p> +<p>“I am curious,” I said, “to learn what the +motive force of this tragic affair was—I mean the patent +medicine. Do you know?”</p> +<p>He named it, and I whistled respectfully. Nothing less +than Parker’s Lively Lumbago Pills. Enormous +property! You know it; all the world knows it. Every +second man, at least, on this globe of ours has tried it.</p> +<p>“Why!” I cried, “they missed an immense +fortune.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” he mumbled, “by the price of a +revolver-shot.”</p> +<p>He told me also that eventually Cloete returned to the States, +passenger in a cargo-boat from Albert Dock. The night +before he sailed he met him wandering about the quays, and took +him home for a drink. “Funny chap, Cloete. We +sat all night drinking grogs, till it was time for him to go on +board.”</p> +<p>It was then that Cloete, unembittered but weary, told him this +story, with that utterly unconscious frankness of a +patent-medicine man stranger to all moral standards. Cloete +concluded by remarking that he, had “had enough of the old +country.” George Dunbar had turned on him, too, in +the end. Cloete was clearly somewhat disillusioned.</p> +<p>As to Stafford, he died, professed loafer, in some East End +hospital or other, and on his last day clamoured “for a +parson,” because his conscience worried him for killing an +innocent man. “Wanted somebody to tell him it was all +right,” growled my old ruffian, contemptuously. +“He told the parson that I knew this Cloete who had tried +to murder him, and so the parson (he worked among the dock +labourers) once spoke to me about it. That skunk of a +fellow finding himself trapped yelled for mercy. . . Promised to +be good and so on. . . Then he went crazy . . . screamed and +threw himself about, beat his head against the bulkheads . . . +you can guess all that—eh? . . . till he was +exhausted. Gave up. Threw himself down, shut his +eyes, and wanted to pray. So he says. Tried to think +of some prayer for a quick death—he was that +terrified. Thought that if he had a knife or something he +would cut his throat, and be done with it. Then he thinks: +No! Would try to cut away the wood about the lock. . . He +had no knife in his pocket. . . he was weeping and calling on God +to send him a tool of some kind when suddenly he thinks: +Axe! In most ships there is a spare emergency axe kept in +the master’s room in some locker or other. . . Up he jumps. +. . Pitch dark. Pulls at the drawers to find matches and, +groping for them, the first thing he comes upon—Captain +Harry’s revolver. Loaded too. He goes perfectly +quiet all over. Can shoot the lock to pieces. +See? Saved! God’s providence! There are +boxes of matches too. Thinks he: I may just as well see +what I am about.</p> +<p>“Strikes a light and sees the little canvas bag tucked +away at the back of the drawer. Knew at once what that +was. Rams it into his pocket quick. Aha! says he to +himself: this requires more light. So he pitches a lot of +paper on the floor, set fire to it, and starts in a hurry +rummaging for more valuables. Did you ever? He told +that East-End parson that the devil tempted him. First +God’s mercy—then devil’s work. Turn and +turn about. . .</p> +<p>“Any squirming skunk can talk like that. He was so +busy with the drawers that the first thing he heard was a shout, +Great Heavens. He looks up and there was the door open +(Cloete had left the key in the lock) and Captain Harry holding +on, well above him, very fierce in the light of the burning +papers. His eyes were starting out of his head. +Thieving, he thunders at him. A sailor! An +officer! No! A wretch like you deserves no better +than to be left here to drown.</p> +<p>“This Stafford—on his death-bed—told the +parson that when he heard these words he went crazy again. +He snatched his hand with the revolver in it out of the drawer, +and fired without aiming. Captain Harry fell right in with +a crash like a stone on top of the burning papers, putting the +blaze out. All dark. Not a sound. He listened +for a bit then dropped the revolver and scrambled out on deck +like mad.”</p> +<p>The old fellow struck the table with his ponderous fist.</p> +<p>“What makes me sick is to hear these silly boat-men +telling people the captain committed suicide. Pah! +Captain Harry was a man that could face his Maker any time up +there, and here below, too. He wasn’t the sort to +slink out of life. Not he! He was a good man down to +the ground. He gave me my first job as stevedore only three +days after I got married.”</p> +<p>As the vindication of Captain Harry from the charge of suicide +seemed to be his only object, I did not thank him very effusively +for his material. And then it was not worth many thanks in +any case.</p> +<p>For it is too startling even to think of such things happening +in our respectable Channel in full view, so to speak, of the +luxurious continental traffic to Switzerland and Monte +Carlo. This story to be acceptable should have been +transposed to somewhere in the South Seas. But it would +have been too much trouble to cook it for the consumption of +magazine readers. So here it is raw, so to speak—just +as it was told to me—but unfortunately robbed of the +striking effect of the narrator; the most imposing old ruffian +that ever followed the unromantic trade of master stevedore in +the port of London.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><i>Oct.</i> 1910.</p> +<h2><!-- page 175--><a name="page175"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 175</span>THE INN OF THE TWO WITCHES<br /> +<span class="smcap">a find</span></h2> +<p>This tale, episode, experience—call it how you +will—was related in the fifties of the last century by a +man who, by his own confession, was sixty years old at the +time. Sixty is not a bad age—unless in perspective, +when no doubt it is contemplated by the majority of us with mixed +feelings. It is a calm age; the game is practically over by +then; and standing aside one begins to remember with a certain +vividness what a fine fellow one used to be. I have +observed that, by an amiable attention of Providence, most people +at sixty begin to take a romantic view of themselves. Their +very failures exhale a charm of peculiar potency. And +indeed the hopes of the future are a fine company to live with, +exquisite forms, fascinating if you like, but—so to +speak—naked, stripped for a run. The robes of glamour +are luckily the property of the immovable past which, without +them, would sit, a shivery sort of thing, under the gathering +shadows.</p> +<p>I suppose it was the romanticism of growing age which set our +man to relate his experience for his own satisfaction or for the +wonder of his posterity. It could not have been for his +glory, because the experience was simply that of an abominable +fright—terror he calls it. You would have guessed +that the relation alluded to in the very first lines was in +writing.</p> +<p>This writing constitutes the Find declared in the +sub-title. The title itself is my own contrivance, +(can’t call it invention), and has the merit of +veracity. We will be concerned with an inn here. As +to the witches that’s merely a conventional expression, and +we must take our man’s word for it that it fits the +case.</p> +<p>The Find was made in a box of books bought in London, in a +street which no longer exists, from a second-hand bookseller in +the last stage of decay. As to the books themselves they +were at least twentieth-hand, and on inspection turned out not +worth the very small sum of money I disbursed. It might +have been some premonition of that fact which made me say: +“But I must have the box too.” The decayed +bookseller assented by the careless, tragic gesture of a man +already doomed to extinction.</p> +<p>A litter of loose pages at the bottom of the box excited my +curiosity but faintly. The close, neat, regular handwriting +was not attractive at first sight. But in one place the +statement that in <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1813 the writer +was twenty-two years old caught my eye. Two and twenty is +an interesting age in which one is easily reckless and easily +frightened; the faculty of reflection being weak and the power of +imagination strong.</p> +<p>In another place the phrase: “At night we stood in +again,” arrested my languid attention, because it was a sea +phrase. “Let’s see what it is all about,” +I thought, without excitement.</p> +<p>Oh! but it was a dull-faced MS., each line resembling every +other line in their close-set and regular order. It was +like the drone of a monotonous voice. A treatise on +sugar-refining (the dreariest subject I can think of) could have +been given a more lively appearance. “In <span +class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1813, I was twenty-two years +old,” he begins earnestly and goes on with every appearance +of calm, horrible industry. Don’t imagine, however, +that there is anything archaic in my find. Diabolic +ingenuity in invention though as old as the world is by no means +a lost art. Look at the telephones for shattering the +little peace of mind given to us in this world, or at the machine +guns for letting with dispatch life out of our bodies. +Now-a-days any blear-eyed old witch if only strong enough to turn +an insignificant little handle could lay low a hundred young men +of twenty in the twinkling of an eye.</p> +<p>If this isn’t progress! . . . Why immense! We have +moved on, and so you must expect to meet here a certain naiveness +of contrivance and simplicity of aim appertaining to the remote +epoch. And of course no motoring tourist can hope to find +such an inn anywhere, now. This one, the one of the title, +was situated in Spain. That much I discovered only from +internal evidence, because a good many pages of that relation +were missing—perhaps not a great misfortune after +all. The writer seemed to have entered into a most +elaborate detail of the why and wherefore of his presence on that +coast—presumably the north coast of Spain. His +experience has nothing to do with the sea, though. As far +as I can make it out, he was an officer on board a +sloop-of-war. There’s nothing strange in that. +At all stages of the long Peninsular campaign many of our +men-of-war of the smaller kind were cruising off the north coast +of Spain—as risky and disagreeable a station as can be well +imagined.</p> +<p>It looks as though that ship of his had had some special +service to perform. A careful explanation of all the +circumstances was to be expected from our man, only, as +I’ve said, some of his pages (good tough paper too) were +missing: gone in covers for jampots or in wadding for the +fowling-pieces of his irreverent posterity. But it is to be +seen clearly that communication with the shore and even the +sending of messengers inland was part of her service, either to +obtain intelligence from or to transmit orders or advice to +patriotic Spaniards, guerilleros or secret juntas of the +province. Something of the sort. All this can be only +inferred from the preserved scraps of his conscientious +writing.</p> +<p>Next we come upon the panegyric of a very fine sailor, a +member of the ship’s company, having the rating of the +captain’s coxswain. He was known on board as Cuba +Tom; not because he was Cuban however; he was indeed the best +type of a genuine British tar of that time, and a +man-of-war’s man for years. He came by the name on +account of some wonderful adventures he had in that island in his +young days, adventures which were the favourite subject of the +yarns he was in the habit of spinning to his shipmates of an +evening on the forecastle head. He was intelligent, very +strong, and of proved courage. Incidentally we are told, so +exact is our narrator, that Tom had the finest pigtail for +thickness and length of any man in the Navy. This +appendage, much cared for and sheathed tightly in a porpoise +skin, hung half way down his broad back to the great admiration +of all beholders and to the great envy of some.</p> +<p>Our young officer dwells on the manly qualities of Cuba Tom +with something like affection. This sort of relation +between officer and man was not then very rare. A youngster +on joining the service was put under the charge of a trustworthy +seaman, who slung his first hammock for him and often later on +became a sort of humble friend to the junior officer. The +narrator on joining the sloop had found this man on board after +some years of separation. There is something touching in +the warm pleasure he remembers and records at this meeting with +the professional mentor of his boyhood.</p> +<p>We discover then that, no Spaniard being forthcoming for the +service, this worthy seaman with the unique pigtail and a very +high character for courage and steadiness had been selected as +messenger for one of these missions inland which have been +mentioned. His preparations were not elaborate. One +gloomy autumn morning the sloop ran close to a shallow cove where +a landing could be made on that iron-bound shore. A boat +was lowered, and pulled in with Tom Corbin (Cuba Tom) perched in +the bow, and our young man (Mr. Edgar Byrne was his name on this +earth which knows him no more) sitting in the stern sheets.</p> +<p>A few inhabitants of a hamlet, whose grey stone houses could +be seen a hundred yards or so up a deep ravine, had come down to +the shore and watched the approach of the boat. The two +Englishmen leaped ashore. Either from dullness or +astonishment the peasants gave no greeting, and only fell back in +silence.</p> +<p>Mr. Byrne had made up his mind to see Tom Corbin started +fairly on his way. He looked round at the heavy surprised +faces.</p> +<p>“There isn’t much to get out of them,” he +said. “Let us walk up to the village. There +will be a wine shop for sure where we may find somebody more +promising to talk to and get some information from.”</p> +<p>“Aye, aye, sir,” said Tom falling into step behind +his officer. “A bit of palaver as to courses and +distances can do no harm; I crossed the broadest part of Cuba by +the help of my tongue tho’ knowing far less Spanish than I +do now. As they say themselves it was ‘four words and +no more’ with me, that time when I got left behind on shore +by the <i>Blanche</i>, frigate.”</p> +<p>He made light of what was before him, which was but a +day’s journey into the mountains. It is true that +there was a full day’s journey before striking the mountain +path, but that was nothing for a man who had crossed the island +of Cuba on his two legs, and with no more than four words of the +language to begin with.</p> +<p>The officer and the man were walking now on a thick sodden bed +of dead leaves, which the peasants thereabouts accumulate in the +streets of their villages to rot during the winter for field +manure. Turning his head Mr. Byrne perceived that the whole +male population of the hamlet was following them on the noiseless +springy carpet. Women stared from the doors of the houses +and the children had apparently gone into hiding. The +village knew the ship by sight, afar off, but no stranger had +landed on that spot perhaps for a hundred years or more. +The cocked hat of Mr. Byrne, the bushy whiskers and the enormous +pigtail of the sailor, filled them with mute wonder. They +pressed behind the two Englishmen staring like those islanders +discovered by Captain Cook in the South Seas.</p> +<p>It was then that Byrne had his first glimpse of the little +cloaked man in a yellow hat. Faded and dingy as it was, +this covering for his head made him noticeable.</p> +<p>The entrance to the wine shop was like a rough hole in a wall +of flints. The owner was the only person who was not in the +street, for he came out from the darkness at the back where the +inflated forms of wine skins hung on nails could be vaguely +distinguished. He was a tall, one-eyed Asturian with +scrubby, hollow cheeks; a grave expression of countenance +contrasted enigmatically with the roaming restlessness of his +solitary eye. On learning that the matter in hand was the +sending on his way of that English mariner toward a certain +Gonzales in the mountains, he closed his good eye for a moment as +if in meditation. Then opened it, very lively again.</p> +<p>“Possibly, possibly. It could be done.”</p> +<p>A friendly murmur arose in the group in the doorway at the +name of Gonzales, the local leader against the French. +Inquiring as to the safety of the road Byrne was glad to learn +that no troops of that nation had been seen in the neighbourhood +for months. Not the smallest little detachment of these +impious <i>polizones</i>. While giving these answers the +owner of the wine-shop busied himself in drawing into an +earthenware jug some wine which he set before the heretic +English, pocketing with grave abstraction the small piece of +money the officer threw upon the table in recognition of the +unwritten law that none may enter a wine-shop without buying +drink. His eye was in constant motion as if it were trying +to do the work of the two; but when Byrne made inquiries as to +the possibility of hiring a mule, it became immovably fixed in +the direction of the door which was closely besieged by the +curious. In front of them, just within the threshold, the +little man in the large cloak and yellow hat had taken his +stand. He was a diminutive person, a mere homunculus, Byrne +describes him, in a ridiculously mysterious, yet assertive +attitude, a corner of his cloak thrown cavalierly over his left +shoulder, muffling his chin and mouth; while the broad-brimmed +yellow hat hung on a corner of his square little head. He +stood there taking snuff, repeatedly.</p> +<p>“A mule,” repeated the wine-seller, his eyes fixed +on that quaint and snuffy figure. . . “No, señor +officer! Decidedly no mule is to be got in this poor +place.”</p> +<p>The coxswain, who stood by with the true sailor’s air of +unconcern in strange surroundings, struck in quietly—</p> +<p>“If your honour will believe me Shank’s +pony’s the best for this job. I would have to leave +the beast somewhere, anyhow, since the captain has told me that +half my way will be along paths fit only for goats.”</p> +<p>The diminutive man made a step forward, and speaking through +the folds of the cloak which seemed to muffle a sarcastic +intention—</p> +<p>“Si, señor. They are too honest in this +village to have a single mule amongst them for your +worship’s service. To that I can bear +testimony. In these times it’s only rogues or very +clever men who can manage to have mules or any other four-footed +beasts and the wherewithal to keep them. But what this +valiant mariner wants is a guide; and here, señor, behold +my brother-in-law, Bernardino, wine-seller, and alcade of this +most Christian and hospitable village, who will find you +one.”</p> +<p>This, Mr. Byrne says in his relation, was the only thing to +do. A youth in a ragged coat and goat-skin breeches was +produced after some more talk. The English officer stood +treat to the whole village, and while the peasants drank he and +Cuba Tom took their departure accompanied by the guide. The +diminutive man in the cloak had disappeared.</p> +<p>Byrne went along with the coxswain out of the village. +He wanted to see him fairly on his way; and he would have gone a +greater distance, if the seaman had not suggested respectfully +the advisability of return so as not to keep the ship a moment +longer than necessary so close in with the shore on such an +unpromising looking morning. A wild gloomy sky hung over +their heads when they took leave of each other, and their +surroundings of rank bushes and stony fields were dreary.</p> +<p>“In four days’ time,” were Byrne’s +last words, “the ship will stand in and send a boat on +shore if the weather permits. If not you’ll have to +make it out on shore the best you can till we come along to take +you off.”</p> +<p>“Right you are, sir,” answered Tom, and strode +on. Byrne watched him step out on a narrow path. In a +thick pea-jacket with a pair of pistols in his belt, a cutlass by +his side, and a stout cudgel in his hand, he looked a sturdy +figure and well able to take care of himself. He turned +round for a moment to wave his hand, giving to Byrne one more +view of his honest bronzed face with bushy whiskers. The +lad in goatskin breeches looking, Byrne says, like a faun or a +young satyr leaping ahead, stopped to wait for him, and then went +off at a bound. Both disappeared.</p> +<p>Byrne turned back. The hamlet was hidden in a fold of +the ground, and the spot seemed the most lonely corner of the +earth and as if accursed in its uninhabited desolate +barrenness. Before he had walked many yards, there appeared +very suddenly from behind a bush the muffled up diminutive +Spaniard. Naturally Byrne stopped short.</p> +<p>The other made a mysterious gesture with a tiny hand peeping +from under his cloak. His hat hung very much at the side of +his head. “Señor,” he said without any +preliminaries. “Caution! It is a positive fact +that one-eyed Bernardino, my brother-in-law, has at this moment a +mule in his stable. And why he who is not clever has a mule +there? Because he is a rogue; a man without +conscience. Because I had to give up the <i>macho</i> to +him to secure for myself a roof to sleep under and a mouthful of +<i>olla</i> to keep my soul in this insignificant body of +mine. Yet, señor, it contains a heart many times +bigger than the mean thing which beats in the breast of that +brute connection of mine of which I am ashamed, though I opposed +that marriage with all my power. Well, the misguided woman +suffered enough. She had her purgatory on this +earth—God rest her soul.”</p> +<p>Byrne says he was so astonished by the sudden appearance of +that sprite-like being, and by the sardonic bitterness of the +speech, that he was unable to disentangle the significant fact +from what seemed but a piece of family history fired out at him +without rhyme or reason. Not at first. He was +confounded and at the same time he was impressed by the rapid +forcible delivery, quite different from the frothy excited +loquacity of an Italian. So he stared while the homunculus +letting his cloak fall about him, aspired an immense quantity of +snuff out of the hollow of his palm.</p> +<p>“A mule,” exclaimed Byrne seizing at last the real +aspect of the discourse. “You say he has got a +mule? That’s queer! Why did he refuse to let me +have it?”</p> +<p>The diminutive Spaniard muffled himself up again with great +dignity.</p> +<p>“<i>Quien sabe</i>,” he said coldly, with a shrug +of his draped shoulders. “He is a great +<i>politico</i> in everything he does. But one thing your +worship may be certain of—that his intentions are always +rascally. This husband of my <i>defunta</i> sister ought to +have been married a long time ago to the widow with the wooden +legs.” <a name="citation188"></a><a href="#footnote188" +class="citation">[188]</a></p> +<p>“I see. But remember that, whatever your motives, +your worship countenanced him in this lie.”</p> +<p>The bright unhappy eyes on each side of a predatory nose +confronted Byrne without wincing, while with that testiness which +lurks so often at the bottom of Spanish dignity—</p> +<p>“No doubt the señor officer would not lose an +ounce of blood if I were stuck under the fifth rib,” he +retorted. “But what of this poor sinner +here?” Then changing his tone. +“Señor, by the necessities of the times I live here +in exile, a Castilian and an old Christian, existing miserably in +the midst of these brute Asturians, and dependent on the worst of +them all, who has less conscience and scruples than a wolf. +And being a man of intelligence I govern myself +accordingly. Yet I can hardly contain my scorn. You +have heard the way I spoke. A caballero of parts like your +worship might have guessed that there was a cat in +there.”</p> +<p>“What cat?” said Byrne uneasily. “Oh, +I see. Something suspicious. No, señor. +I guessed nothing. My nation are not good guessers at that +sort of thing; and, therefore, I ask you plainly whether that +wine-seller has spoken the truth in other particulars?”</p> +<p>“There are certainly no Frenchmen anywhere about,” +said the little man with a return to his indifferent manner.</p> +<p>“Or robbers—<i>ladrones</i>?”</p> +<p>“<i>Ladrones en grande</i>—no! Assuredly +not,” was the answer in a cold philosophical tone. +“What is there left for them to do after the French? +And nobody travels in these times. But who can say! +Opportunity makes the robber. Still that mariner of yours +has a fierce aspect, and with the son of a cat rats will have no +play. But there is a saying, too, that where honey is there +will soon be flies.”</p> +<p>This oracular discourse exasperated Byrne. “In the +name of God,” he cried, “tell me plainly if you think +my man is reasonably safe on his journey.”</p> +<p>The homunculus, undergoing one of his rapid changes, seized +the officer’s arm. The grip of his little hand was +astonishing.</p> +<p>“Señor! Bernardino had taken notice of +him. What more do you want? And listen—men have +disappeared on this road—on a certain portion of this road, +when Bernardino kept a <i>meson</i>, an inn, and I, his +brother-in-law, had coaches and mules for hire. Now there +are no travellers, no coaches. The French have ruined +me. Bernardino has retired here for reasons of his own +after my sister died. They were three to torment the life +out of her, he and Erminia and Lucilla, two aunts of +his—all affiliated to the devil. And now he has +robbed me of my last mule. You are an armed man. +Demand the <i>macho</i> from him, with a pistol to his head, +señor—it is not his, I tell you—and ride after +your man who is so precious to you. And then you shall both +be safe, for no two travellers have been ever known to disappear +together in these days. As to the beast, I, its owner, I +confide it to your honour.”</p> +<p>They were staring hard at each other, and Byrne nearly burst +into a laugh at the ingenuity and transparency of the little +man’s plot to regain possession of his mule. But he +had no difficulty to keep a straight face because he felt deep +within himself a strange inclination to do that very +extraordinary thing. He did not laugh, but his lip +quivered; at which the diminutive Spaniard, detaching his black +glittering eyes from Byrne’s face, turned his back on him +brusquely with a gesture and a fling of the cloak which somehow +expressed contempt, bitterness, and discouragement all at +once. He turned away and stood still, his hat aslant, +muffled up to the ears. But he was not offended to the +point of refusing the silver <i>duro</i> which Byrne offered him +with a non-committal speech as if nothing extraordinary had +passed between them.</p> +<p>“I must make haste on board now,” said Byrne, +then.</p> +<p>“<i>Vaya usted con Dios</i>,” muttered the +gnome. And this interview ended with a sarcastic low sweep +of the hat which was replaced at the same perilous angle as +before.</p> +<p>Directly the boat had been hoisted the ship’s sails were +filled on the off-shore tack, and Byrne imparted the whole story +to his captain, who was but a very few years older than +himself. There was some amused indignation at it—but +while they laughed they looked gravely at each other. A +Spanish dwarf trying to beguile an officer of his majesty’s +navy into stealing a mule for him—that was too funny, too +ridiculous, too incredible. Those were the exclamations of +the captain. He couldn’t get over the grotesqueness +of it.</p> +<p>“Incredible. That’s just it,” murmured +Byrne at last in a significant tone.</p> +<p>They exchanged a long stare. “It’s as clear +as daylight,” affirmed the captain impatiently, because in +his heart he was not certain. And Tom the best seaman in +the ship for one, the good-humouredly deferential friend of his +boyhood for the other, was becoming endowed with a compelling +fascination, like a symbolic figure of loyalty appealing to their +feelings and their conscience, so that they could not detach +their thoughts from his safety. Several times they went up +on deck, only to look at the coast, as if it could tell them +something of his fate. It stretched away, lengthening in +the distance, mute, naked, and savage, veiled now and then by the +slanting cold shafts of rain. The westerly swell rolled its +interminable angry lines of foam and big dark clouds flew over +the ship in a sinister procession.</p> +<p>“I wish to goodness you had done what your little friend +in the yellow hat wanted you to do,” said the commander of +the sloop late in the afternoon with visible exasperation.</p> +<p>“Do you, sir?” answered Byrne, bitter with +positive anguish. “I wonder what you would have said +afterwards? Why! I might have been kicked out of the +service for looting a mule from a nation in alliance with His +Majesty. Or I might have been battered to a pulp with +flails and pitch-forks—a pretty tale to get abroad about +one of your officers—while trying to steal a mule. Or +chased ignominiously to the boat—for you would not have +expected me to shoot down unoffending people for the sake of a +mangy mule. . . And yet,” he added in a low voice, “I +almost wish myself I had done it.”</p> +<p>Before dark those two young men had worked themselves up into +a highly complex psychological state of scornful scepticism and +alarmed credulity. It tormented them exceedingly; and the +thought that it would have to last for six days at least, and +possibly be prolonged further for an indefinite time, was not to +be borne. The ship was therefore put on the inshore tack at +dark. All through the gusty dark night she went towards the +land to look for her man, at times lying over in the heavy puffs, +at others rolling idle in the swell, nearly stationary, as if she +too had a mind of her own to swing perplexed between cool reason +and warm impulse.</p> +<p>Then just at daybreak a boat put off from her and went on +tossed by the seas towards the shallow cove where, with +considerable difficulty, an officer in a thick coat and a round +hat managed to land on a strip of shingle.</p> +<p>“It was my wish,” writes Mr. Byrne, “a wish +of which my captain approved, to land secretly if possible. +I did not want to be seen either by my aggrieved friend in the +yellow hat, whose motives were not clear, or by the one-eyed +wine-seller, who may or may not have been affiliated to the +devil, or indeed by any other dweller in that primitive +village. But unfortunately the cove was the only possible +landing place for miles; and from the steepness of the ravine I +couldn’t make a circuit to avoid the houses.”</p> +<p>“Fortunately,” he goes on, “all the people +were yet in their beds. It was barely daylight when I found +myself walking on the thick layer of sodden leaves filling the +only street. No soul was stirring abroad, no dog +barked. The silence was profound, and I had concluded with +some wonder that apparently no dogs were kept in the hamlet, when +I heard a low snarl, and from a noisome alley between two hovels +emerged a vile cur with its tail between its legs. He slunk +off silently showing me his teeth as he ran before me, and he +disappeared so suddenly that he might have been the unclean +incarnation of the Evil One. There was, too, something so +weird in the manner of its coming and vanishing, that my spirits, +already by no means very high, became further depressed by the +revolting sight of this creature as if by an unlucky +presage.”</p> +<p>He got away from the coast unobserved, as far as he knew, then +struggled manfully to the west against wind and rain, on a barren +dark upland, under a sky of ashes. Far away the harsh and +desolate mountains raising their scarped and denuded ridges +seemed to wait for him menacingly. The evening found him +fairly near to them, but, in sailor language, uncertain of his +position, hungry, wet, and tired out by a day of steady tramping +over broken ground during which he had seen very few people, and +had been unable to obtain the slightest intelligence of Tom +Corbin’s passage. “On! on! I must push +on,” he had been saying to himself through the hours of +solitary effort, spurred more by incertitude than by any definite +fear or definite hope.</p> +<p>The lowering daylight died out quickly, leaving him faced by a +broken bridge. He descended into the ravine, forded a +narrow stream by the last gleam of rapid water, and clambering +out on the other side was met by the night which fell like a +bandage over his eyes. The wind sweeping in the darkness +the broadside of the sierra worried his ears by a continuous +roaring noise as of a maddened sea. He suspected that he +had lost the road. Even in daylight, with its ruts and +mud-holes and ledges of outcropping stone, it was difficult to +distinguish from the dreary waste of the moor interspersed with +boulders and clumps of naked bushes. But, as he says, +“he steered his course by the feel of the wind,” his +hat rammed low on his brow, his head down, stopping now and again +from mere weariness of mind rather than of body—as if not +his strength but his resolution were being overtaxed by the +strain of endeavour half suspected to be vain, and by the unrest +of his feelings.</p> +<p>In one of these pauses borne in the wind faintly as if from +very far away he heard a sound of knocking, just knocking on +wood. He noticed that the wind had lulled suddenly.</p> +<p>His heart started beating tumultuously because in himself he +carried the impression of the desert solitudes he had been +traversing for the last six hours—the oppressive sense of +an uninhabited world. When he raised his head a gleam of +light, illusory as it often happens in dense darkness, swam +before his eyes. While he peered, the sound of feeble +knocking was repeated—and suddenly he felt rather than saw +the existence of a massive obstacle in his path. What was +it? The spur of a hill? Or was it a house! +Yes. It was a house right close, as though it had risen +from the ground or had come gliding to meet him, dumb and pallid; +from some dark recess of the night. It towered +loftily. He had come up under its lee; another three steps +and he could have touched the wall with his hand. It was no +doubt a <i>posada</i> and some other traveller was trying for +admittance. He heard again the sound of cautious +knocking.</p> +<p>Next moment a broad band of light fell into the night through +the opened door. Byrne stepped eagerly into it, whereupon +the person outside leaped with a stifled cry away into the +night. An exclamation of surprise was heard too, from +within. Byrne, flinging himself against the half closed +door, forced his way in against some considerable resistance.</p> +<p>A miserable candle, a mere rushlight, burned at the end of a +long deal table. And in its light Byrne saw, staggering +yet, the girl he had driven from the door. She had a short +black skirt, an orange shawl, a dark complexion—and the +escaped single hairs from the mass, sombre and thick like a +forest and held up by a comb, made a black mist about her low +forehead. A shrill lamentable howl of: +“Misericordia!” came in two voices from the further +end of the long room, where the fire-light of an open hearth +played between heavy shadows. The girl recovering herself +drew a hissing breath through her set teeth.</p> +<p>It is unnecessary to report the long process of questions and +answers by which he soothed the fears of two old women who sat on +each side of the fire, on which stood a large earthenware +pot. Byrne thought at once of two witches watching the +brewing of some deadly potion. But all the same, when one +of them raising forward painfully her broken form lifted the +cover of the pot, the escaping steam had an appetising +smell. The other did not budge, but sat hunched up, her +head trembling all the time.</p> +<p>They were horrible. There was something grotesque in +their decrepitude. Their toothless mouths, their hooked +noses, the meagreness of the active one, and the hanging yellow +cheeks of the other (the still one, whose head trembled) would +have been laughable if the sight of their dreadful physical +degradation had not been appalling to one’s eyes, had not +gripped one’s heart with poignant amazement at the +unspeakable misery of age, at the awful persistency of life +becoming at last an object of disgust and dread.</p> +<p>To get over it Byrne began to talk, saying that he was an +Englishman, and that he was in search of a countryman who ought +to have passed this way. Directly he had spoken the +recollection of his parting with Tom came up in his mind with +amazing vividness: the silent villagers, the angry gnome, the +one-eyed wine-seller, Bernardino. Why! These two +unspeakable frights must be that man’s +aunts—affiliated to the devil.</p> +<p>Whatever they had been once it was impossible to imagine what +use such feeble creatures could be to the devil, now, in the +world of the living. Which was Lucilla and which was +Erminia? They were now things without a name. A +moment of suspended animation followed Byrne’s words. +The sorceress with the spoon ceased stirring the mess in the iron +pot, the very trembling of the other’s head stopped for the +space of breath. In this infinitesimal fraction of a second +Byrne had the sense of being really on his quest, of having +reached the turn of the path, almost within hail of Tom.</p> +<p>“They have seen him,” he thought with +conviction. Here was at last somebody who had seen +him. He made sure they would deny all knowledge of the +Ingles; but on the contrary they were eager to tell him that he +had eaten and slept the night in the house. They both +started talking together, describing his appearance and +behaviour. An excitement quite fierce in its feebleness +possessed them. The doubled-up sorceress flourished aloft +her wooden spoon, the puffy monster got off her stool and +screeched, stepping from one foot to the other, while the +trembling of her head was accelerated to positive +vibration. Byrne was quite disconcerted by their excited +behaviour. . . Yes! The big, fierce Ingles went away in the +morning, after eating a piece of bread and drinking some +wine. And if the caballero wished to follow the same path +nothing could be easier—in the morning.</p> +<p>“You will give me somebody to show me the way?” +said Byrne.</p> +<p>“Si, señor. A proper youth. The man +the caballero saw going out.”</p> +<p>“But he was knocking at the door,” protested +Byrne. “He only bolted when he saw me. He was +coming in.”</p> +<p>“No! No!” the two horrid witches screamed +out together. “Going out. Going out!”</p> +<p>After all it may have been true. The sound of knocking had +been faint, elusive, reflected Byrne. Perhaps only the +effect of his fancy. He asked—</p> +<p>“Who is that man?”</p> +<p>“Her <i>novio</i>.” They screamed pointing +to the girl. “He is gone home to a village far away +from here. But he will return in the morning. Her +<i>novio</i>! And she is an orphan—the child of poor +Christian people. She lives with us for the love of God, +for the love of God.”</p> +<p>The orphan crouching on the corner of the hearth had been +looking at Byrne. He thought that she was more like a child +of Satan kept there by these two weird harridans for the love of +the Devil. Her eyes were a little oblique, her mouth rather +thick, but admirably formed; her dark face had a wild beauty, +voluptuous and untamed. As to the character of her +steadfast gaze attached upon him with a sensuously savage +attention, “to know what it was like,” says Mr. +Byrne, “you have only to observe a hungry cat watching a +bird in a cage or a mouse inside a trap.”</p> +<p>It was she who served him the food, of which he was glad; +though with those big slanting black eyes examining him at close +range, as if he had something curious written on his face, she +gave him an uncomfortable sensation. But anything was +better than being approached by these blear-eyed nightmarish +witches. His apprehensions somehow had been soothed; +perhaps by the sensation of warmth after severe exposure and the +ease of resting after the exertion of fighting the gale inch by +inch all the way. He had no doubt of Tom’s +safety. He was now sleeping in the mountain camp having +been met by Gonzales’ men.</p> +<p>Byrne rose, filled a tin goblet with wine out of a skin +hanging on the wall, and sat down again. The witch with the +mummy face began to talk to him, ramblingly of old times; she +boasted of the inn’s fame in those better days. Great +people in their own coaches stopped there. An archbishop +slept once in the <i>casa</i>, a long, long time ago.</p> +<p>The witch with the puffy face seemed to be listening from her +stool, motionless, except for the trembling of her head. +The girl (Byrne was certain she was a casual gipsy admitted there +for some reason or other) sat on the hearth stone in the glow of +the embers. She hummed a tune to herself, rattling a pair +of castanets slightly now and then. At the mention of the +archbishop she chuckled impiously and turned her head to look at +Byrne, so that the red glow of the fire flashed in her black eyes +and on her white teeth under the dark cowl of the enormous +overmantel. And he smiled at her.</p> +<p>He rested now in the ease of security. His advent not +having been expected there could be no plot against him in +existence. Drowsiness stole upon his senses. He +enjoyed it, but keeping a hold, so he thought at least, on his +wits; but he must have been gone further than he thought because +he was startled beyond measure by a fiendish uproar. He had +never heard anything so pitilessly strident in his life. +The witches had started a fierce quarrel about something or +other. Whatever its origin they were now only abusing each +other violently, without arguments; their senile screams +expressed nothing but wicked anger and ferocious dismay. +The gipsy girl’s black eyes flew from one to the +other. Never before had Byrne felt himself so removed from +fellowship with human beings. Before he had really time to +understand the subject of the quarrel, the girl jumped up +rattling her castanets loudly. A silence fell. She +came up to the table and bending over, her eyes in his—</p> +<p>“Señor,” she said with decision, “You +shall sleep in the archbishop’s room.”</p> +<p>Neither of the witches objected. The dried-up one bent +double was propped on a stick. The puffy faced one had now +a crutch.</p> +<p>Byrne got up, walked to the door, and turning the key in the +enormous lock put it coolly in his pocket. This was clearly +the only entrance, and he did not mean to be taken unawares by +whatever danger there might have been lurking outside.</p> +<p>When he turned from the door he saw the two witches +“affiliated to the Devil” and the Satanic girl +looking at him in silence. He wondered if Tom Corbin took +the same precaution last might. And thinking of him he had +again that queer impression of his nearness. The world was +perfectly dumb. And in this stillness he heard the blood +beating in his ears with a confused rushing noise, in which there +seemed to be a voice uttering the words: “Mr. Byrne, look +out, sir.” Tom’s voice. He shuddered; for +the delusions of the senses of hearing are the most vivid of all, +and from their nature have a compelling character.</p> +<p>It seemed impossible that Tom should not be there. Again +a slight chill as of stealthy draught penetrated through his very +clothes and passed over all his body. He shook off the +impression with an effort.</p> +<p>It was the girl who preceded him upstairs carrying an iron +lamp from the naked flame of which ascended a thin thread of +smoke. Her soiled white stockings were full of holes.</p> +<p>With the same quiet resolution with which he had locked the +door below, Byrne threw open one after another the doors in the +corridor. All the rooms were empty except for some +nondescript lumber in one or two. And the girl seeing what +he would be at stopped every time, raising the smoky light in +each doorway patiently. Meantime she observed him with +sustained attention. The last door of all she threw open +herself.</p> +<p>“You sleep here, señor,” she murmured in a +voice light like a child’s breath, offering him the +lamp.</p> +<p>“<i>Buenos noches</i>, <i>senorita</i>,” he said +politely, taking it from her.</p> +<p>She didn’t return the wish audibly, though her lips did +move a little, while her gaze black like a starless night never +for a moment wavered before him. He stepped in, and as he +turned to close the door she was still there motionless and +disturbing, with her voluptuous mouth and slanting eyes, with the +expression of expectant sensual ferocity of a baffled cat. +He hesitated for a moment, and in the dumb house he heard again +the blood pulsating ponderously in his ears, while once more the +illusion of Tom’s voice speaking earnestly somewhere near +by was specially terrifying, because this time he could not make +out the words.</p> +<p>He slammed the door in the girl’s face at last, leaving +her in the dark; and he opened it again almost on the +instant. Nobody. She had vanished without the +slightest sound. He closed the door quickly and bolted it +with two heavy bolts.</p> +<p>A profound mistrust possessed him suddenly. Why did the +witches quarrel about letting him sleep here? And what +meant that stare of the girl as if she wanted to impress his +features for ever in her mind? His own nervousness alarmed +him. He seemed to himself to be removed very far from +mankind.</p> +<p>He examined his room. It was not very high, just high +enough to take the bed which stood under an enormous +baldaquin-like canopy from which fell heavy curtains at foot and +head; a bed certainly worthy of an archbishop. There was a +heavy table carved all round the edges, some arm-chairs of +enormous weight like the spoils of a grandee’s palace; a +tall shallow wardrobe placed against the wall and with double +doors. He tried them. Locked. A suspicion came +into his mind, and he snatched the lamp to make a closer +examination. No, it was not a disguised entrance. +That heavy, tall piece of furniture stood clear of the wall by +quite an inch. He glanced at the bolts of his room +door. No! No one could get at him treacherously while +he slept. But would he be able to sleep? he asked himself +anxiously. If only he had Tom there—the trusty seaman +who had fought at his right hand in a cutting out affair or two, +and had always preached to him the necessity to take care of +himself. “For it’s no great trick,” he +used to say, “to get yourself killed in a hot fight. +Any fool can do that. The proper pastime is to fight the +Frenchies and then live to fight another day.”</p> +<p>Byrne found it a hard matter not to fall into listening to the +silence. Somehow he had the conviction that nothing would +break it unless he heard again the haunting sound of Tom’s +voice. He had heard it twice before. Odd! And +yet no wonder, he argued with himself reasonably, since he had +been thinking of the man for over thirty hours continuously and, +what’s more, inconclusively. For his anxiety for Tom +had never taken a definite shape. “Disappear,” +was the only word connected with the idea of Tom’s +danger. It was very vague and awful. +“Disappear!” What did that mean?</p> +<p>Byrne shuddered, and then said to himself that he must be a +little feverish. But Tom had not disappeared. Byrne +had just heard of him. And again the young man felt the +blood beating in his ears. He sat still expecting every +moment to hear through the pulsating strokes the sound of +Tom’s voice. He waited straining his ears, but +nothing came. Suddenly the thought occurred to him: +“He has not disappeared, but he cannot make himself +heard.”</p> +<p>He jumped up from the arm-chair. How absurd! +Laying his pistol and his hanger on the table he took off his +boots and, feeling suddenly too tired to stand, flung himself on +the bed which he found soft and comfortable beyond his hopes.</p> +<p>He had felt very wakeful, but he must have dozed off after +all, because the next thing he knew he was sitting up in bed and +trying to recollect what it was that Tom’s voice had +said. Oh! He remembered it now. It had said: +“Mr. Byrne! Look out, sir!” A warning +this. But against what?</p> +<p>He landed with one leap in the middle of the floor, gasped +once, then looked all round the room. The window was +shuttered and barred with an iron bar. Again he ran his +eyes slowly all round the bare walls, and even looked up at the +ceiling, which was rather high. Afterwards he went to the +door to examine the fastenings. They consisted of two +enormous iron bolts sliding into holes made in the wall; and as +the corridor outside was too narrow to admit of any battering +arrangement or even to permit an axe to be swung, nothing could +burst the door open—unless gunpowder. But while he +was still making sure that the lower bolt was pushed well home, +he received the impression of somebody’s presence in the +room. It was so strong that he spun round quicker than +lightning. There was no one. Who could there +be? And yet . . .</p> +<p>It was then that he lost the decorum and restraint a man keeps +up for his own sake. He got down on his hands and knees, +with the lamp on the floor, to look under the bed, like a silly +girl. He saw a lot of dust and nothing else. He got +up, his cheeks burning, and walked about discontented with his +own behaviour and unreasonably angry with Tom for not leaving him +alone. The words: “Mr. Byrne! Look out, +sir,” kept on repeating themselves in his head in a tone of +warning.</p> +<p>“Hadn’t I better just throw myself on the bed and +try to go to sleep,” he asked himself. But his eyes +fell on the tall wardrobe, and he went towards it feeling +irritated with himself and yet unable to desist. How he +could explain to-morrow the burglarious misdeed to the two odious +witches he had no idea. Nevertheless he inserted the point +of his hanger between the two halves of the door and tried to +prize them open. They resisted. He swore, sticking +now hotly to his purpose. His mutter: “I hope you +will be satisfied, confound you,” was addressed to the +absent Tom. Just then the doors gave way and flew open.</p> +<p>He was there.</p> +<p>He—the trusty, sagacious, and courageous Tom was there, +drawn up shadowy and stiff, in a prudent silence, which his +wide-open eyes by their fixed gleam seemed to command Byrne to +respect. But Byrne was too startled to make a sound. +Amazed, he stepped back a little—and on the instant the +seaman flung himself forward headlong as if to clasp his officer +round the neck. Instinctively Byrne put out his faltering +arms; he felt the horrible rigidity of the body and then the +coldness of death as their heads knocked together and their faces +came into contact. They reeled, Byrne hugging Tom close to +his breast in order not to let him fall with a crash. He +had just strength enough to lower the awful burden gently to the +floor—then his head swam, his legs gave way, and he sank on +his knees, leaning over the body with his hands resting on the +breast of that man once full of generous life, and now as +insensible as a stone.</p> +<p>“Dead! my poor Tom, dead,” he repeated +mentally. The light of the lamp standing near the edge of +the table fell from above straight on the stony empty stare of +these eyes which naturally had a mobile and merry expression.</p> +<p>Byrne turned his own away from them. Tom’s black +silk neckerchief was not knotted on his breast. It was +gone. The murderers had also taken off his shoes and +stockings. And noticing this spoliation, the exposed +throat, the bare up-turned feet, Byrne felt his eyes run full of +tears. In other respects the seaman was fully dressed; +neither was his clothing disarranged as it must have been in a +violent struggle. Only his checked shirt had been pulled a +little out the waistband in one place, just enough to ascertain +whether he had a money belt fastened round his body. Byrne +began to sob into his handkerchief.</p> +<p>It was a nervous outburst which passed off quickly. +Remaining on his knees he contemplated sadly the athletic body of +as fine a seaman as ever had drawn a cutlass, laid a gun, or +passed the weather earring in a gale, lying stiff and cold, his +cheery, fearless spirit departed—perhaps turning to him, +his boy chum, to his ship out there rolling on the grey seas off +an iron-bound coast, at the very moment of its flight.</p> +<p>He perceived that the six brass buttons of Tom’s jacket +had been cut off. He shuddered at the notion of the two +miserable and repulsive witches busying themselves ghoulishly +about the defenceless body of his friend. Cut off. +Perhaps with the same knife which . . . The head of one trembled; +the other was bent double, and their eyes were red and bleared, +their infamous claws unsteady. . . It must have been in this very +room too, for Tom could not have been killed in the open and +brought in here afterwards. Of that Byrne was +certain. Yet those devilish crones could not have killed +him themselves even by taking him unawares—and Tom would be +always on his guard of course. Tom was a very wide awake +wary man when engaged on any service. . . And in fact how did +they murder him? Who did? In what way?</p> +<p>Byrne jumped up, snatched the lamp off the table, and stooped +swiftly over the body. The light revealed on the clothing +no stain, no trace, no spot of blood anywhere. +Byrne’s hands began to shake so that he had to set the lamp +on the floor and turn away his head in order to recover from this +agitation.</p> +<p>Then he began to explore that cold, still, and rigid body for +a stab, a gunshot wound, for the trace of some killing +blow. He felt all over the skull anxiously. It was +whole. He slipped his hand under the neck. It was +unbroken. With terrified eyes he peered close under the +chin and saw no marks of strangulation on the throat.</p> +<p>There were no signs anywhere. He was just dead.</p> +<p>Impulsively Byrne got away from the body as if the mystery of +an incomprehensible death had changed his pity into suspicion and +dread. The lamp on the floor near the set, still face of +the seaman showed it staring at the ceiling as if +despairingly. In the circle of light Byrne saw by the +undisturbed patches of thick dust on the floor that there had +been no struggle in that room. “He has died +outside,” he thought. Yes, outside in that narrow +corridor, where there was hardly room to turn, the mysterious +death had come to his poor dear Tom. The impulse of +snatching up his pistols and rushing out of the room abandoned +Byrne suddenly. For Tom, too, had been armed—with +just such powerless weapons as he himself +possessed—pistols, a cutlass! And Tom had died a +nameless death, by incomprehensible means.</p> +<p>A new thought came to Byrne. That stranger knocking at +the door and fleeing so swiftly at his appearance had come there +to remove the body. Aha! That was the guide the +withered witch had promised would show the English officer the +shortest way of rejoining his man. A promise, he saw it +now, of dreadful import. He who had knocked would have two +bodies to deal with. Man and officer would go forth from +the house together. For Byrne was certain now that he would +have to die before the morning—and in the same mysterious +manner, leaving behind him an unmarked body.</p> +<p>The sight of a smashed head, of a throat cut, of a gaping +gunshot wound, would have been an inexpressible relief. It +would have soothed all his fears. His soul cried within him +to that dead man whom he had never found wanting in danger. +“Why don’t you tell me what I am to look for, +Tom? Why don’t you?” But in rigid +immobility, extended on his back, he seemed to preserve an +austere silence, as if disdaining in the finality of his awful +knowledge to hold converse with the living.</p> +<p>Suddenly Byrne flung himself on his knees by the side of the +body, and dry-eyed, fierce, opened the shirt wide on the breast, +as if to tear the secret forcibly from that cold heart which had +been so loyal to him in life! Nothing! Nothing! +He raised the lamp, and all the sign vouchsafed to him by that +face which used to be so kindly in expression was a small bruise +on the forehead—the least thing, a mere mark. The +skin even was not broken. He stared at it a long time as if +lost in a dreadful dream. Then he observed that Tom’s +hands were clenched as though he had fallen facing somebody in a +fight with fists. His knuckles, on closer view, appeared +somewhat abraded. Both hands.</p> +<p>The discovery of these slight signs was more appalling to +Byrne than the absolute absence of every mark would have +been. So Tom had died striking against something which +could be hit, and yet could kill one without leaving a +wound—by a breath.</p> +<p>Terror, hot terror, began to play about Byrne’s heart +like a tongue of flame that touches and withdraws before it turns +a thing to ashes. He backed away from the body as far as he +could, then came forward stealthily casting fearful glances to +steal another look at the bruised forehead. There would +perhaps be such a faint bruise on his own forehead—before +the morning.</p> +<p>“I can’t bear it,” he whispered to +himself. Tom was for him now an object of horror, a sight +at once tempting and revolting to his fear. He +couldn’t bear to look at him.</p> +<p>At last, desperation getting the better of his increasing +horror, he stepped forward from the wall against which he had +been leaning, seized the corpse under the armpits, and began to +lug it over to the bed. The bare heels of the seaman +trailed on the floor noiselessly. He was heavy with the +dead weight of inanimate objects. With a last effort Byrne +landed him face downwards on the edge of the bed, rolled him +over, snatched from under this stiff passive thing a sheet with +which he covered it over. Then he spread the curtains at +head and foot so that joining together as he shook their folds +they hid the bed altogether from his sight.</p> +<p>He stumbled towards a chair, and fell on it. The +perspiration poured from his face for a moment, and then his +veins seemed to carry for a while a thin stream of half, frozen +blood. Complete terror had possession of him now, a +nameless terror which had turned his heart to ashes.</p> +<p>He sat upright in the straight-backed chair, the lamp burning +at his feet, his pistols and his hanger at his left elbow on the +end of the table, his eyes turning incessantly in their sockets +round the walls, over the ceiling, over the floor, in the +expectation of a mysterious and appalling vision. The thing +which could deal death in a breath was outside that bolted +door. But Byrne believed neither in walls nor bolts +now. Unreasoning terror turning everything to account, his +old time boyish admiration of the athletic Tom, the undaunted Tom +(he had seemed to him invincible), helped to paralyse his +faculties, added to his despair.</p> +<p>He was no longer Edgar Byrne. He was a tortured soul +suffering more anguish than any sinner’s body had ever +suffered from rack or boot. The depth of his torment may be +measured when I say that this young man, as brave at least as the +average of his kind, contemplated seizing a pistol and firing +into his own head. But a deadly, chilly, langour was +spreading over his limbs. It was as if his flesh had been +wet plaster stiffening slowly about his ribs. Presently, he +thought, the two witches will be coming in, with crutch and +stick—horrible, grotesque, monstrous—affiliated to +the devil—to put a mark on his forehead, the tiny little +bruise of death. And he wouldn’t be able to do +anything. Tom had struck out at something, but he was not +like Tom. His limbs were dead already. He sat still, +dying the death over and over again; and the only part of him +which moved were his eyes, turning round and round in their +sockets, running over the walls, the floor, the ceiling, again +and again till suddenly they became motionless and +stony—starting out of his head fixed in the direction of +the bed.</p> +<p>He had seen the heavy curtains stir and shake as if the dead +body they concealed had turned over and sat up. Byrne, who +thought the world could hold no more terrors in store, felt his +hair stir at the roots. He gripped the arms of the chair, +his jaw fell, and the sweat broke out on his brow while his dry +tongue clove suddenly to the roof of his mouth. Again the +curtains stirred, but did not open. “Don’t, +Tom!” Byrne made effort to shout, but all he heard was a +slight moan such as an uneasy sleeper may make. He felt +that his brain was going, for, now, it seemed to him that the +ceiling over the bed had moved, had slanted, and came level +again—and once more the closed curtains swayed gently as if +about to part.</p> +<p>Byrne closed his eyes not to see the awful apparition of the +seaman’s corpse coming out animated by an evil +spirit. In the profound silence of the room he endured a +moment of frightful agony, then opened his eyes again. And +he saw at once that the curtains remained closed still, but that +the ceiling over the bed had risen quite a foot. With the +last gleam of reason left to him he understood that it was the +enormous baldaquin over the bed which was coming down, while the +curtains attached to it swayed softly, sinking gradually to the +floor. His drooping jaw snapped to—and half rising in +his chair he watched mutely the noiseless descent of the +monstrous canopy. It came down in short smooth rushes till +lowered half way or more, when it took a run and settled swiftly +its turtle-back shape with the deep border piece fitting exactly +the edge of the bedstead. A slight crack or two of wood +were heard, and the overpowering stillness of the room resumed +its sway.</p> +<p>Byrne stood up, gasped for breath, and let out a cry of rage +and dismay, the first sound which he is perfectly certain did +make its way past his lips on this night of terrors. This +then was the death he had escaped! This was the devilish +artifice of murder poor Tom’s soul had perhaps tried from +beyond the border to warn him of. For this was how he had +died. Byrne was certain he had heard the voice of the +seaman, faintly distinct in his familiar phrase, “Mr. +Byrne! Look out, sir!” and again uttering words he +could not make out. But then the distance separating the +living from the dead is so great! Poor Tom had tried. +Byrne ran to the bed and attempted to lift up, to push off the +horrible lid smothering the body. It resisted his efforts, +heavy as lead, immovable like a tombstone. The rage of +vengeance made him desist; his head buzzed with chaotic thoughts +of extermination, he turned round the room as if he could find +neither his weapons nor the way out; and all the time he +stammered awful menaces. . .</p> +<p>A violent battering at the door of the inn recalled him to his +soberer senses. He flew to the window pulled the shutters +open, and looked out. In the faint dawn he saw below him a +mob of men. Ha! He would go and face at once this +murderous lot collected no doubt for his undoing. After his +struggle with nameless terrors he yearned for an open fray with +armed enemies. But he must have remained yet bereft of his +reason, because forgetting his weapons he rushed downstairs with +a wild cry, unbarred the door while blows were raining on it +outside, and flinging it open flew with his bare hands at the +throat of the first man he saw before him. They rolled over +together. Byrne’s hazy intention was to break +through, to fly up the mountain path, and come back presently +with Gonzales’ men to exact an exemplary vengeance. +He fought furiously till a tree, a house, a mountain, seemed to +crash down upon his head—and he knew no more.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Here Mr. Byrne describes in detail the skilful manner in which +he found his broken head bandaged, informs us that he had lost a +great deal of blood, and ascribes the preservation of his sanity +to that circumstance. He sets down Gonzales’ profuse +apologies in full too. For it was Gonzales who, tired of +waiting for news from the English, had come down to the inn with +half his band, on his way to the sea. “His +excellency,” he explained, “rushed out with fierce +impetuosity, and, moreover, was not known to us for a friend, and +so we . . . etc., etc. When asked what had become of the +witches, he only pointed his finger silently to the ground, then +voiced calmly a moral reflection: “The passion for gold is +pitiless in the very old, señor,” he said. +“No doubt in former days they have put many a solitary +traveller to sleep in the archbishop’s bed.”</p> +<p>“There was also a gipsy girl there,” said Byrne +feebly from the improvised litter on which he was being carried +to the coast by a squad of guerilleros.</p> +<p>“It was she who winched up that infernal machine, and it +was she too who lowered it that night,” was the answer.</p> +<p>“But why? Why?” exclaimed Byrne. +“Why should she wish for my death?”</p> +<p>“No doubt for the sake of your excellency’s coat +buttons,” said politely the saturnine Gonzales. +“We found those of the dead mariner concealed on her +person. But your excellency may rest assured that +everything that is fitting has been done on this +occasion.”</p> +<p>Byrne asked no more questions. There was still another +death which was considered by Gonzales as “fitting to the +occasion.” The one-eyed Bernardino stuck against the +wall of his wine-shop received the charge of six escopettas into +his breast. As the shots rang out the rough bier with +Tom’s body on it went past carried by a bandit-like gang of +Spanish patriots down the ravine to the shore, where two boats +from the ship were waiting for what was left on earth of her best +seaman.</p> +<p>Mr. Byrne, very pale and weak, stepped into the boat which +carried the body of his humble friend. For it was decided +that Tom Corbin should rest far out in the bay of Biscay. +The officer took the tiller and, turning his head for the last +look at the shore, saw on the grey hillside something moving, +which he made out to be a little man in a yellow hat mounted on a +mule—that mule without which the fate of Tom Corbin would +have remained mysterious for ever.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><i>June</i>, 1913.</p> +<h2><!-- page 223--><a name="page223"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 223</span>BECAUSE OF THE DOLLARS</h2> +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> +<p>While we were hanging about near the water’s edge, as +sailors idling ashore will do (it was in the open space before +the Harbour Office of a great Eastern port), a man came towards +us from the “front” of business houses, aiming +obliquely at the landing steps. He attracted my attention +because in the movement of figures in white drill suits on the +pavement from which he stepped, his costume, the usual tunic and +trousers, being made of light grey flannel, made him +noticeable.</p> +<p>I had time to observe him. He was stout, but he was not +grotesque. His face was round and smooth, his complexion +very fair. On his nearer approach I saw a little moustache +made all the fairer by a good many white hairs. And he had, +for a stout man, quite a good chin. In passing us he +exchanged nods with the friend I was with and smiled.</p> +<p>My friend was Hollis, the fellow who had so many adventures +and had known so many queer people in that part of the (more or +less) gorgeous East in the days of his youth. He said: +“That’s a good man. I don’t mean good in +the sense of smart or skilful in his trade. I mean a really +<i>good</i> man.”</p> +<p>I turned round at once to look at the phenomenon. The +“really <i>good</i> man” had a very broad back. +I saw him signal a sampan to come alongside, get into it, and go +off in the direction of a cluster of local steamers anchored +close inshore.</p> +<p>I said: “He’s a seaman, isn’t he?”</p> +<p>“Yes. Commands that biggish dark-green steamer: +‘<i>Sissie</i>—Glasgow.’ He has never +commanded anything else but the +‘<i>Sissie</i>—Glasgow,’ only it wasn’t +always the same <i>Sissie</i>. The first he had was about +half the length of this one, and we used to tell poor Davidson +that she was a size too small for him. Even at that time +Davidson had bulk. We warned him he would get callosities +on his shoulders and elbows because of the tight fit of his +command. And Davidson could well afford the smiles he gave +us for our chaff. He made lots of money in her. She +belonged to a portly Chinaman resembling a mandarin in a +picture-book, with goggles and thin drooping moustaches, and as +dignified as only a Celestial knows how to be.</p> +<p>“The best of Chinamen as employers is that they have +such gentlemanly instincts. Once they become convinced that +you are a straight man, they give you their unbounded +confidence. You simply can’t do wrong, then. +And they are pretty quick judges of character, too. +Davidson’s Chinaman was the first to find out his worth, on +some theoretical principle. One day in his counting-house, +before several white men he was heard to declare: ‘Captain +Davidson is a good man.’ And that settled it. +After that you couldn’t tell if it was Davidson who +belonged to the Chinaman or the Chinaman who belonged to +Davidson. It was he who, shortly before he died, ordered in +Glasgow the new <i>Sissie</i> for Davidson to command.”</p> +<p>We walked into the shade of the Harbour Office and leaned our +elbows on the parapet of the quay.</p> +<p>“She was really meant to comfort poor Davidson,” +continued Hollis. “Can you fancy anything more +naïvely touching than this old mandarin spending several +thousand pounds to console his white man? Well, there she +is. The old mandarin’s sons have inherited her, and +Davidson with her; and he commands her; and what with his salary +and trading privileges he makes a lot of money; and everything is +as before; and Davidson even smiles—you have seen it? +Well, the smile’s the only thing which isn’t as +before.”</p> +<p>“Tell me, Hollis,” I asked, “what do you +mean by good in this connection?”</p> +<p>“Well, there are men who are born good just as others +are born witty. What I mean is his nature. No +simpler, more scrupulously delicate soul had ever lived in such +a—a—comfortable envelope. How we used to laugh +at Davidson’s fine scruples! In short, he’s +thoroughly humane, and I don’t imagine there can be much of +any other sort of goodness that counts on this earth. And +as he’s that with a shade of particular refinement, I may +well call him a ‘<i>really</i> good man.’”</p> +<p>I knew from old that Hollis was a firm believer in the final +value of shades. And I said: “I +see”—because I really did see Hollis’s Davidson +in the sympathetic stout man who had passed us a little while +before. But I remembered that at the very moment he smiled +his placid face appeared veiled in melancholy—a sort of +spiritual shadow. I went on.</p> +<p>“Who on earth has paid him off for being so fine by +spoiling his smile?”</p> +<p>“That’s quite a story, and I will tell it to you +if you like. Confound it! It’s quite a +surprising one, too. Surprising in every way, but mostly in +the way it knocked over poor Davidson—and apparently only +because he is such a good sort. He was telling me all about +it only a few days ago. He said that when he saw these four +fellows with their heads in a bunch over the table, he at once +didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. +You mustn’t suppose that Davidson is a soft fool. +These men—</p> +<p>“But I had better begin at the beginning. We must +go back to the first time the old dollars had been called in by +our Government in exchange for a new issue. Just about the +time when I left these parts to go home for a long stay. +Every trader in the islands was thinking of getting his old +dollars sent up here in time, and the demand for empty French +wine cases—you know the dozen of vermouth or claret +size—was something unprecedented. The custom was to +pack the dollars in little bags of a hundred each. I +don’t know how many bags each case would hold. A good +lot. Pretty tidy sums must have been moving afloat just +then. But let us get away from here. Won’t do +to stay in the sun. Where could we—? I know! +let us go to those tiffin-rooms over there.”</p> +<p>We moved over accordingly. Our appearance in the long +empty room at that early hour caused visible consternation +amongst the China boys. But Hollis led the way to one of +the tables between the windows screened by rattan blinds. A +brilliant half-light trembled on the ceiling, on the whitewashed +walls, bathed the multitude of vacant chairs and tables in a +peculiar, stealthy glow.</p> +<p>“All right. We will get something to eat when +it’s ready,” he said, waving the anxious Chinaman +waiter aside. He took his temples touched with grey between +his hands, leaning over the table to bring his face, his dark, +keen eyes, closer to mine.</p> +<p>“Davidson then was commanding the steamer +<i>Sissie</i>—the little one which we used to chaff him +about. He ran her alone, with only the Malay serang for a +deck officer. The nearest approach to another white man on +board of her was the engineer, a Portuguese half-caste, as thin +as a lath and quite a youngster at that. For all practical +purposes Davidson was managing that command of his single-handed; +and of course this was known in the port. I am telling you +of it because the fact had its influence on the developments you +shall hear of presently.</p> +<p>“His steamer, being so small, could go up tiny creeks +and into shallow bays and through reefs and over sand-banks, +collecting produce, where no other vessel but a native craft +would think of venturing. It is a paying game, often. +Davidson was known to visit in her places that no one else could +find and that hardly anybody had ever heard of.</p> +<p>“The old dollars being called in, Davidson’s +Chinaman thought that the <i>Sissie</i> would be just the thing +to collect them from small traders in the less frequented parts +of the Archipelago. It’s a good business. Such +cases of dollars are dumped aft in the ship’s lazarette, +and you get good freight for very little trouble and space.</p> +<p>“Davidson, too, thought it was a good idea; and together +they made up a list of his calls on his next trip. Then +Davidson (he had naturally the chart of his voyages in his head) +remarked that on his way back he might look in at a certain +settlement up a mere creek, where a poor sort of white man lived +in a native village. Davidson pointed out to his Chinaman +that the fellow was certain to have some rattans to ship.</p> +<p>“‘Probably enough to fill her forward,’ said +Davidson. ‘And that’ll be better than bringing +her back with empty holds. A day more or less doesn’t +matter.’</p> +<p>“This was sound talk, and the Chinaman owner could not +but agree. But if it hadn’t been sound it would have +been just the same. Davidson did what he liked. He +was a man that could do no wrong. However, this suggestion +of his was not merely a business matter. There was in it a +touch of Davidsonian kindness. For you must know that the +man could not have continued to live quietly up that creek if it +had not been for Davidson’s willingness to call there from +time to time. And Davidson’s Chinaman knew this +perfectly well, too. So he only smiled his dignified, bland +smile, and said: ‘All right, Captain. You do what you +like.’</p> +<p>“I will explain presently how this connection between +Davidson and that fellow came about. Now I want to tell you +about the part of this affair which happened here—the +preliminaries of it.</p> +<p>“You know as well as I do that these tiffin-rooms where +we are sitting now have been in existence for many years. +Well, next day about twelve o’clock, Davidson dropped in +here to get something to eat.</p> +<p>“And here comes the only moment in this story where +accident—mere accident—plays a part. If +Davidson had gone home that day for tiffin, there would be now, +after twelve years or more, nothing changed in his kindly, placid +smile.</p> +<p>“But he came in here; and perhaps it was sitting at this +very table that he remarked to a friend of mine that his next +trip was to be a dollar-collecting trip. He added, +laughing, that his wife was making rather a fuss about it. +She had begged him to stay ashore and get somebody else to take +his place for a voyage. She thought there was some danger +on account of the dollars. He told her, he said, that there +were no Java-sea pirates nowadays except in boys’ +books. He had laughed at her fears, but he was very sorry, +too; for when she took any notion in her head it was impossible +to argue her out of it. She would be worrying herself all +the time he was away. Well, he couldn’t help +it. There was no one ashore fit to take his place for the +trip.</p> +<p>“This friend of mine and I went home together in the +same mail-boat, and he mentioned that conversation one evening in +the Red Sea while we were talking over the things and people we +had just left, with more or less regret.</p> +<p>“I can’t say that Davidson occupied a very +prominent place. Moral excellence seldom does. He was +quietly appreciated by those who knew him well; but his more +obvious distinction consisted in this, that he was married. +Ours, as you remember, was a bachelor crowd; in spirit anyhow, if +not absolutely in fact. There might have been a few wives +in existence, but if so they were invisible, distant, never +alluded to. For what would have been the good? +Davidson alone was visibly married.</p> +<p>“Being married suited him exactly. It fitted him +so well that the wildest of us did not resent the fact when it +was disclosed. Directly he had felt his feet out here, +Davidson sent for his wife. She came out (from West +Australia) in the <i>Somerset</i>, under the care of Captain +Ritchie—you know, Monkey-face Ritchie—who +couldn’t praise enough her sweetness, her gentleness, and +her charm. She seemed to be the heaven-born mate for +Davidson. She found on arrival a very pretty bungalow on +the hill, ready for her and the little girl they had. Very +soon he got for her a two-wheeled trap and a Burmah pony, and she +used to drive down of an evening to pick up Davidson, on the +quay. When Davidson, beaming, got into the trap, it would +become very full all at once.</p> +<p>“We used to admire Mrs. Davidson from a distance. +It was a girlish head out of a keepsake. From a +distance. We had not many opportunities for a closer view, +because she did not care to give them to us. We would have +been glad to drop in at the Davidson bungalow, but we were made +to feel somehow that we were not very welcome there. Not +that she ever said anything ungracious. She never had much +to say for herself. I was perhaps the one who saw most of +the Davidsons at home. What I noticed under the superficial +aspect of vapid sweetness was her convex, obstinate forehead, and +her small, red, pretty, ungenerous mouth. But then I am an +observer with strong prejudices. Most of us were fetched by +her white, swan-like neck, by that drooping, innocent +profile. There was a lot of latent devotion to +Davidson’s wife hereabouts, at that time, I can tell +you. But my idea was that she repaid it by a profound +suspicion of the sort of men we were; a mistrust which +extended—I fancied—to her very husband at +times. And I thought then she was jealous of him in a way; +though there were no women that she could be jealous about. +She had no women’s society. It’s difficult for +a shipmaster’s wife unless there are other +shipmasters’ wives about, and there were none here +then. I know that the dock manager’s wife called on +her; but that was all. The fellows here formed the opinion +that Mrs. Davidson was a meek, shy little thing. She looked +it, I must say. And this opinion was so universal that the +friend I have been telling you of remembered his conversation +with Davidson simply because of the statement about +Davidson’s wife. He even wondered to me: ‘Fancy +Mrs. Davidson making a fuss to that extent. She +didn’t seem to me the sort of woman that would know how to +make a fuss about anything.’</p> +<p>“I wondered, too—but not so much. That bumpy +forehead—eh? I had always suspected her of being +silly. And I observed that Davidson must have been vexed by +this display of wifely anxiety.</p> +<p>“My friend said: ‘No. He seemed rather +touched and distressed. There really was no one he could +ask to relieve him; mainly because he intended to make a call in +some God-forsaken creek, to look up a fellow of the name of Bamtz +who apparently had settled there.’</p> +<p>“And again my friend wondered. ‘Tell +me,’ he cried, ‘what connection can there be between +Davidson and such a creature as Bamtz?’</p> +<p>“I don’t remember now what answer I made. A +sufficient one could have been given in two words: +‘Davidson’s goodness.’ <i>That</i> never +boggled at unworthiness if there was the slightest reason for +compassion. I don’t want you to think that Davidson +had no discrimination at all. Bamtz could not have imposed +on him. Moreover, everybody knew what Bamtz was. He +was a loafer with a beard. When I think of Bamtz, the first +thing I see is that long black beard and a lot of propitiatory +wrinkles at the corners of two little eyes. There was no +such beard from here to Polynesia, where a beard is a valuable +property in itself. Bamtz’s beard was valuable to him +in another way. You know how impressed Orientals are by a +fine beard. Years and years ago, I remember, the grave +Abdullah, the great trader of Sambir, unable to repress signs of +astonishment and admiration at the first sight of that imposing +beard. And it’s very well known that Bamtz lived on +Abdullah off and on for several years. It was a unique +beard, and so was the bearer of the same. A unique +loafer. He made a fine art of it, or rather a sort of craft +and mystery. One can understand a fellow living by cadging +and small swindles in towns, in large communities of people; but +Bamtz managed to do that trick in the wilderness, to loaf on the +outskirts of the virgin forest.</p> +<p>“He understood how to ingratiate himself with the +natives. He would arrive in some settlement up a river, +make a present of a cheap carbine or a pair of shoddy binoculars, +or something of that sort, to the Rajah, or the head-man, or the +principal trader; and on the strength of that gift, ask for a +house, posing mysteriously as a very special trader. He +would spin them no end of yarns, live on the fat of the land, for +a while, and then do some mean swindle or other—or else +they would get tired of him and ask him to quit. And he +would go off meekly with an air of injured innocence. Funny +life. Yet, he never got hurt somehow. I’ve +heard of the Rajah of Dongala giving him fifty dollars’ +worth of trade goods and paying his passage in a prau only to get +rid of him. Fact. And observe that nothing prevented +the old fellow having Bamtz’s throat cut and the carcase +thrown into deep water outside the reefs; for who on earth would +have inquired after Bamtz?</p> +<p>“He had been known to loaf up and down the wilderness as +far north as the Gulf of Tonkin. Neither did he disdain a +spell of civilisation from time to time. And it was while +loafing and cadging in Saigon, bearded and dignified (he gave +himself out there as a bookkeeper), that he came across Laughing +Anne.</p> +<p>“The less said of her early history the better, but +something must be said. We may safely suppose there was +very little heart left in her famous laugh when Bamtz spoke first +to her in some low café. She was stranded in Saigon +with precious little money and in great trouble about a kid she +had, a boy of five or six.</p> +<p>“A fellow I just remember, whom they called Pearler +Harry, brought her out first into these parts—from +Australia, I believe. He brought her out and then dropped +her, and she remained knocking about here and there, known to +most of us by sight, at any rate. Everybody in the +Archipelago had heard of Laughing Anne. She had really a +pleasant silvery laugh always at her disposal, so to speak, but +it wasn’t enough apparently to make her fortune. The +poor creature was ready to stick to any half-decent man if he +would only let her, but she always got dropped, as it might have +been expected.</p> +<p>“She had been left in Saigon by the skipper of a German +ship with whom she had been going up and down the China coast as +far as Vladivostok for near upon two years. The German said +to her: ‘This is all over, <i>mein Taubchen</i>. I am +going home now to get married to the girl I got engaged to before +coming out here.’ And Anne said: ‘All right, +I’m ready to go. We part friends, don’t +we?’</p> +<p>“She was always anxious to part friends. The +German told her that of course they were parting friends. +He looked rather glum at the moment of parting. She laughed +and went ashore.</p> +<p>“But it was no laughing matter for her. She had +some notion that this would be her last chance. What +frightened her most was the future of her child. She had +left her boy in Saigon before going off with the German, in the +care of an elderly French couple. The husband was a +doorkeeper in some Government office, but his time was up, and +they were returning to France. She had to take the boy back +from them; and after she had got him back, she did not like to +part with him any more.</p> +<p>“That was the situation when she and Bamtz got +acquainted casually. She could not have had any illusions +about that fellow. To pick up with Bamtz was coming down +pretty low in the world, even from a material point of +view. She had always been decent, in her way; whereas Bamtz +was, not to mince words, an abject sort of creature. On the +other hand, that bearded loafer, who looked much more like a +pirate than a bookkeeper, was not a brute. He was +gentle—rather—even in his cups. And then, +despair, like misfortune, makes us acquainted with strange +bed-fellows. For she may well have despaired. She was +no longer young—you know.</p> +<p>“On the man’s side this conjunction is more +difficult to explain, perhaps. One thing, however, must be +said of Bamtz; he had always kept clear of native women. As +one can’t suspect him of moral delicacy, I surmise that it +must have been from prudence. And he, too, was no longer +young. There were many white hairs in his valuable black +beard by then. He may have simply longed for some kind of +companionship in his queer, degraded existence. Whatever +their motives, they vanished from Saigon together. And of +course nobody cared what had become of them.</p> +<p>“Six months later Davidson came into the Mirrah +Settlement. It was the very first time he had been up that +creek, where no European vessel had ever been seen before. +A Javanese passenger he had on board offered him fifty dollars to +call in there—it must have been some very particular +business—and Davidson consented to try. Fifty +dollars, he told me, were neither here nor there; but he was +curious to see the place, and the little <i>Sissie</i> could go +anywhere where there was water enough to float a soup-plate.</p> +<p>“Davidson landed his Javanese plutocrat, and, as he had +to wait a couple of hours for the tide, he went ashore himself to +stretch his legs.</p> +<p>“It was a small settlement. Some sixty houses, +most of them built on piles over the river, the rest scattered in +the long grass; the usual pathway at the back; the forest hemming +in the clearing and smothering what there might have been of air +into a dead, hot stagnation.</p> +<p>“All the population was on the river-bank staring +silently, as Malays will do, at the <i>Sissie</i> anchored in the +stream. She was almost as wonderful to them as an +angel’s visit. Many of the old people had only heard +vaguely of fire-ships, and not many of the younger generation had +seen one. On the back path Davidson strolled in perfect +solitude. But he became aware of a bad smell and concluded +he would go no farther.</p> +<p>“While he stood wiping his forehead, he heard from +somewhere the exclamation: ‘My God! It’s +Davy!’</p> +<p>“Davidson’s lower jaw, as he expressed it, came +unhooked at the crying of this excited voice. Davy was the +name used by the associates of his young days; he hadn’t +heard it for many years. He stared about with his mouth +open and saw a white woman issue from the long grass in which a +small hut stood buried nearly up to the roof.</p> +<p>“Try to imagine the shock: in that wild place that you +couldn’t find on a map, and more squalid than the most +poverty-stricken Malay settlement had a right to be, this +European woman coming swishing out of the long grass in a +fanciful tea-gown thing, dingy pink satin, with a long train and +frayed lace trimmings; her eyes like black coals in a pasty-white +face. Davidson thought that he was asleep, that he was +delirious. From the offensive village mudhole (it was what +Davidson had sniffed just before) a couple of filthy buffaloes +uprose with loud snorts and lumbered off crashing through the +bushes, panic-struck by this apparition.</p> +<p>“The woman came forward, her arms extended, and laid her +hands on Davidson’s shoulders, exclaiming: +‘Why! You have hardly changed at all. The same +good Davy.’ And she laughed a little wildly.</p> +<p>“This sound was to Davidson like a galvanic shock to a +corpse. He started in every muscle. ‘Laughing +Anne,’ he said in an awe-struck voice.</p> +<p>“‘All that’s left of her, Davy. All +that’s left of her.’</p> +<p>“Davidson looked up at the sky; but there was to be seen +no balloon from which she could have fallen on that spot. +When he brought his distracted gaze down, it rested on a child +holding on with a brown little paw to the pink satin gown. +He had run out of the grass after her. Had Davidson seen a +real hobgoblin his eyes could not have bulged more than at this +small boy in a dirty white blouse and ragged knickers. He +had a round head of tight chestnut curls, very sunburnt legs, a +freckled face, and merry eyes. Admonished by his mother to +greet the gentleman, he finished off Davidson by addressing him +in French.</p> +<p>“‘<i>Bonjour</i>.’</p> +<p>“Davidson, overcome, looked up at the woman in +silence. She sent the child back to the hut, and when he +had disappeared in the grass, she turned to Davidson, tried to +speak, but after getting out the words, ‘That’s my +Tony,’ burst into a long fit of crying. She had to +lean on Davidson’s shoulder. He, distressed in the +goodness of his heart, stood rooted to the spot where she had +come upon him.</p> +<p>“What a meeting—eh? Bamtz had sent her out +to see what white man it was who had landed. And she had +recognised him from that time when Davidson, who had been +pearling himself in his youth, had been associating with Harry +the Pearler and others, the quietest of a rather rowdy set.</p> +<p>“Before Davidson retraced his steps to go on board the +steamer, he had heard much of Laughing Anne’s story, and +had even had an interview, on the path, with Bamtz himself. +She ran back to the hut to fetch him, and he came out lounging, +with his hands in his pockets, with the detached, casual manner +under which he concealed his propensity to cringe. +Ya-a-as-as. He thought he would settle here +permanently—with her. This with a nod at Laughing +Anne, who stood by, a haggard, tragically anxious figure, her +black hair hanging over her shoulders.</p> +<p>“‘No more paint and dyes for me, Davy,’ she +struck in, ‘if only you will do what he wants you to +do. You know that I was always ready to stand by my +men—if they had only let me.’</p> +<p>“Davidson had no doubt of her earnestness. It was +of Bamtz’s good faith that he was not at all sure. +Bamtz wanted Davidson to promise to call at Mirrah more or less +regularly. He thought he saw an opening to do business with +rattans there, if only he could depend on some craft to bring out +trading goods and take away his produce.</p> +<p>“‘I have a few dollars to make a start on. +The people are all right.’</p> +<p>“He had come there, where he was not known, in a native +prau, and had managed, with his sedate manner and the exactly +right kind of yarn he knew how to tell to the natives, to +ingratiate himself with the chief man.</p> +<p>“‘The Orang Kaya has given me that empty house +there to live in as long as I will stay,’ added Bamtz.</p> +<p>“‘Do it, Davy,’ cried the woman +suddenly. ‘Think of that poor kid.’</p> +<p>“‘Seen him? ’Cute little +customer,’ said the reformed loafer in such a tone of +interest as to surprise Davidson into a kindly glance.</p> +<p>“‘I certainly can do it,’ he declared. +He thought of at first making some stipulation as to Bamtz +behaving decently to the woman, but his exaggerated delicacy and +also the conviction that such a fellow’s promises were +worth nothing restrained him. Anne went a little distance +down the path with him talking anxiously.</p> +<p>“‘It’s for the kid. How could I have +kept him with me if I had to knock about in towns? Here he +will never know that his mother was a painted woman. And +this Bamtz likes him. He’s real fond of him. I +suppose I ought to thank God for that.’</p> +<p>“Davidson shuddered at any human creature being brought +so low as to have to thank God for the favours or affection of a +Bamtz.</p> +<p>“‘And do you think that you can make out to live +here?’ he asked gently.</p> +<p>“‘Can’t I? You know I have always +stuck to men through thick and thin till they had enough of +me. And now look at me! But inside I am as I always +was. I have acted on the square to them all one after +another. Only they do get tired somehow. Oh, +Davy! Harry ought not to have cast me off. It was he +that led me astray.’</p> +<p>“Davidson mentioned to her that Harry the Pearler had +been dead now for some years. Perhaps she had heard?</p> +<p>“She made a sign that she had heard; and walked by the +side of Davidson in silence nearly to the bank. Then she +told him that her meeting with him had brought back the old times +to her mind. She had not cried for years. She was not +a crying woman either. It was hearing herself called +Laughing Anne that had started her sobbing like a fool. +Harry was the only man she had loved. The others—</p> +<p>“She shrugged her shoulders. But she prided +herself on her loyalty to the successive partners of her dismal +adventures. She had never played any tricks in her +life. She was a pal worth having. But men did get +tired. They did not understand women. She supposed it +had to be.</p> +<p>“Davidson was attempting a veiled warning as to Bamtz, +but she interrupted him. She knew what men were. She +knew what this man was like. But he had taken wonderfully +to the kid. And Davidson desisted willingly, saying to +himself that surely poor Laughing Anne could have no illusions by +this time. She wrung his hand hard at parting.</p> +<p>“‘It’s for the kid, Davy—it’s +for the kid. Isn’t he a bright little +chap?’</p> +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> +<p>“All this happened about two years before the day when +Davidson, sitting in this very room, talked to my friend. +You will see presently how this room can get full. Every +seat’ll be occupied, and as you notice, the tables are set +close, so that the backs of the chairs are almost touching. +There is also a good deal of noisy talk here about one +o’clock.</p> +<p>“I don’t suppose Davidson was talking very loudly; +but very likely he had to raise his voice across the table to my +friend. And here accident, mere accident, put in its work +by providing a pair of fine ears close behind Davidson’s +chair. It was ten to one against, the owner of the same +having enough change in his pockets to get his tiffin here. +But he had. Most likely had rooked somebody of a few +dollars at cards overnight. He was a bright creature of the +name of Fector, a spare, short, jumpy fellow with a red face and +muddy eyes. He described himself as a journalist, as +certain kind of women give themselves out as actresses in the +dock of a police-court.</p> +<p>“He used to introduce himself to strangers as a man with +a mission to track out abuses and fight them whenever +found. He would also hint that he was a martyr. And +it’s a fact that he had been kicked, horsewhipped, +imprisoned, and hounded with ignominy out of pretty well every +place between Ceylon and Shanghai, for a professional +blackmailer.</p> +<p>“I suppose, in that trade, you’ve got to have +active wits and sharp ears. It’s not likely that he +overheard every word Davidson said about his dollar collecting +trip, but he heard enough to set his wits at work.</p> +<p>“He let Davidson go out, and then hastened away down to +the native slums to a sort of lodging-house kept in partnership +by the usual sort of Portuguese and a very disreputable +Chinaman. Macao Hotel, it was called, but it was mostly a +gambling den that one used to warn fellows against. Perhaps +you remember?</p> +<p>“There, the evening before, Fector had met a precious +couple, a partnership even more queer than the Portuguese and the +Chinaman. One of the two was Niclaus—you know. +Why! the fellow with a Tartar moustache and a yellow complexion, +like a Mongolian, only that his eyes were set straight and his +face was not so flat. One couldn’t tell what breed he +was. A nondescript beggar. From a certain angle you +would think a very bilious white man. And I daresay he +was. He owned a Malay prau and called himself The Nakhoda, +as one would say: The Captain. Aha! Now you +remember. He couldn’t, apparently, speak any other +European language than English, but he flew the Dutch flag on his +prau.</p> +<p>“The other was the Frenchman without hands. +Yes. The very same we used to know in ’79 in Sydney, +keeping a little tobacco shop at the lower end of George +Street. You remember the huge carcase hunched up behind the +counter, the big white face and the long black hair brushed back +off a high forehead like a bard’s. He was always +trying to roll cigarettes on his knee with his stumps, telling +endless yarns of Polynesia and whining and cursing in turn about +‘<i>mon malheur</i>.’ His hands had been blown +away by a dynamite cartridge while fishing in some lagoon. +This accident, I believe, had made him more wicked than before, +which is saying a good deal.</p> +<p>“He was always talking about ‘resuming his +activities’ some day, whatever they were, if he could only +get an intelligent companion. It was evident that the +little shop was no field for his activities, and the sickly woman +with her face tied up, who used to look in sometimes through the +back door, was no companion for him.</p> +<p>“And, true enough, he vanished from Sydney before long, +after some trouble with the Excise fellows about his stock. +Goods stolen out of a warehouse or something similar. He +left the woman behind, but he must have secured some sort of +companion—he could not have shifted for himself; but whom +he went away with, and where, and what other companions he might +have picked up afterwards, it is impossible to make the remotest +guess about.</p> +<p>“Why exactly he came this way I can’t tell. +Towards the end of my time here we began to hear talk of a maimed +Frenchman who had been seen here and there. But no one knew +then that he had foregathered with Niclaus and lived in his +prau. I daresay he put Niclaus up to a thing or two. +Anyhow, it was a partnership. Niclaus was somewhat afraid +of the Frenchman on account of his tempers, which were +awful. He looked then like a devil; but a man without +hands, unable to load or handle a weapon, can at best go for one +only with his teeth. From that danger Niclaus felt certain +he could always defend himself.</p> +<p>“The couple were alone together loafing in the +common-room of that infamous hotel when Fector turned up. +After some beating about the bush, for he was doubtful how far he +could trust these two, he repeated what he had overheard in the +tiffin-rooms.</p> +<p>“His tale did not have much success till he came to +mention the creek and Bamtz’s name. Niclaus, sailing +about like a native in a prau, was, in his own words, +‘familiar with the locality.’ The huge +Frenchman, walking up and down the room with his stumps in the +pockets of his jacket, stopped short in surprise. +‘<i>Comment</i>? <i>Bamtz</i>! +<i>Bamtz</i>!’</p> +<p>“He had run across him several times in his life. +He exclaimed: ‘<i>Bamtz</i>! <i>Mais je ne connais +que ca</i>!’ And he applied such a contemptuously +indecent epithet to Bamtz that when, later, he alluded to him as +‘<i>une chiffe</i>’ (a mere rag) it sounded quite +complimentary. ‘We can do with him what we +like,’ he asserted confidently. ‘Oh, yes. +Certainly we must hasten to pay a visit to that—’ +(another awful descriptive epithet quite unfit for +repetition). ‘Devil take me if we don’t pull +off a coup that will set us all up for a long time.’</p> +<p>“He saw all that lot of dollars melted into bars and +disposed of somewhere on the China coast. Of the escape +after the <i>coup</i> he never doubted. There was +Niclaus’s prau to manage that in.</p> +<p>“In his enthusiasm he pulled his stumps out of his +pockets and waved them about. Then, catching sight of them, +as it were, he held them in front of his eyes, cursing and +blaspheming and bewailing his misfortune and his helplessness, +till Niclaus quieted him down.</p> +<p>“But it was his mind that planned out the affair and it +was his spirit which carried the other two on. Neither of +them was of the bold buccaneer type; and Fector, especially, had +never in his adventurous life used other weapons than slander and +lies.</p> +<p>“That very evening they departed on a visit to Bamtz in +Niclaus’s prau, which had been lying, emptied of her cargo +of cocoanuts, for a day or two under the canal bridge. They +must have crossed the bows of the anchored <i>Sissie</i>, and no +doubt looked at her with interest as the scene of their future +exploit, the great haul, <i>le grand coup</i>!</p> +<p>“Davidson’s wife, to his great surprise, sulked +with him for several days before he left. I don’t +know whether it occurred to him that, for all her angelic +profile, she was a very stupidly obstinate girl. She +didn’t like the tropics. He had brought her out +there, where she had no friends, and now, she said, he was +becoming inconsiderate. She had a presentiment of some +misfortune, and notwithstanding Davidson’s painstaking +explanations, she could not see why her presentiments were to be +disregarded. On the very last evening before Davidson went +away she asked him in a suspicious manner:</p> +<p>“‘Why is it that you are so anxious to go this +time?’</p> +<p>“‘I am not anxious,’ protested the good +Davidson. ‘I simply can’t help myself. +There’s no one else to go in my place.’</p> +<p>“‘Oh! There’s no one,’ she said, +turning away slowly.</p> +<p>“She was so distant with him that evening that Davidson +from a sense of delicacy made up his mind to say good-bye to her +at once and go and sleep on board. He felt very miserable +and, strangely enough, more on his own account than on account of +his wife. She seemed to him much more offended than +grieved.</p> +<p>“Three weeks later, having collected a good many cases +of old dollars (they were stowed aft in the lazarette with an +iron bar and a padlock securing the hatch under his cabin-table), +yes, with a bigger lot than he had expected to collect, he found +himself homeward bound and off the entrance of the creek where +Bamtz lived and even, in a sense, flourished.</p> +<p>“It was so late in the day that Davidson actually +hesitated whether he should not pass by this time. He had +no regard for Bamtz, who was a degraded but not a really unhappy +man. His pity for Laughing Anne was no more than her case +deserved. But his goodness was of a particularly delicate +sort. He realised how these people were dependent on him, +and how they would feel their dependence (if he failed to turn +up) through a long month of anxious waiting. Prompted by +his sensitive humanity, Davidson, in the gathering dusk, turned +the <i>Sissie’s</i> head towards the hardly discernible +coast, and navigated her safety through a maze of shallow +patches. But by the time he got to the mouth of the creek +the night had come.</p> +<p>“The narrow waterway lay like a black cutting through +the forest. And as there were always grounded snaggs in the +channel which it would be impossible to make out, Davidson very +prudently turned the <i>Sissie</i> round, and with only enough +steam on the boilers to give her a touch ahead if necessary, let +her drift up stern first with the tide, silent and invisible in +the impenetrable darkness and in the dumb stillness.</p> +<p>“It was a long job, and when at the end of two hours +Davidson thought he must be up to the clearing, the settlement +slept already, the whole land of forests and rivers was +asleep.</p> +<p>“Davidson, seeing a solitary light in the massed +darkness of the shore, knew that it was burning in Bamtz’s +house. This was unexpected at this time of the night, but +convenient as a guide. By a turn of the screw and a touch +of the helm he sheered the <i>Sissie</i> alongside Bamtz’s +wharf—a miserable structure of a dozen piles and a few +planks, of which the ex-vagabond was very proud. A couple +of Kalashes jumped down on it, took a turn with the ropes thrown +to them round the posts, and the <i>Sissie</i> came to rest +without a single loud word or the slightest noise. And just +in time too, for the tide turned even before she was properly +moored.</p> +<p>“Davidson had something to eat, and then, coming on deck +for a last look round, noticed that the light was still burning +in the house.</p> +<p>“This was very unusual, but since they were awake so +late, Davidson thought that he would go up to say that he was in +a hurry to be off and to ask that what rattans there were in +store should be sent on board with the first sign of dawn.</p> +<p>“He stepped carefully over the shaky planks, not being +anxious to get a sprained ankle, and picked his way across the +waste ground to the foot of the house ladder. The house was +but a glorified hut on piles, unfenced and lonely.</p> +<p>“Like many a stout man, Davidson is very +lightfooted. He climbed the seven steps or so, stepped +across the bamboo platform quietly, but what he saw through the +doorway stopped him short.</p> +<p>“Four men were sitting by the light of a solitary +candle. There was a bottle, a jug and glasses on the table, +but they were not engaged in drinking. Two packs of cards +were lying there too, but they were not preparing to play. +They were talking together in whispers, and remained quite +unaware of him. He himself was too astonished to make a +sound for some time. The world was still, except for the +sibilation of the whispering heads bunched together over the +table.</p> +<p>“And Davidson, as I have quoted him to you before, +didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.</p> +<p>“The situation ended with a scream proceeding from the +dark, interior part of the room. ‘O Davy! +you’ve given me a turn.’</p> +<p>“Davidson made out beyond the table Anne’s very +pale face. She laughed a little hysterically, out of the +deep shadows between the gloomy mat walls. ‘Ha! ha! +ha!’</p> +<p>“The four heads sprang apart at the first sound, and +four pairs of eyes became fixed stonily on Davidson. The +woman came forward, having little more on her than a loose chintz +wrapper and straw slippers on her bare feet. Her head was +tied up Malay fashion in a red handkerchief, with a mass of loose +hair hanging under it behind. Her professional, gay, +European feathers had literally dropped off her in the course of +these two years, but a long necklace of amber beads hung round +her uncovered neck. It was the only ornament she had left; +Bamtz had sold all her poor-enough trinkets during the flight +from Saigon—when their association began.</p> +<p>“She came forward, past the table, into the light, with +her usual groping gesture of extended arms, as though her soul, +poor thing! had gone blind long ago, her white cheeks hollow, her +eyes darkly wild, distracted, as Davidson thought. She came +on swiftly, grabbed him by the arm, dragged him in. +‘It’s heaven itself that sends you to-night. My +Tony’s so bad—come and see him. Come +along—do!’</p> +<p>“Davidson submitted. The only one of the men to +move was Bamtz, who made as if to get up but dropped back in his +chair again. Davidson in passing heard him mutter +confusedly something that sounded like ‘poor little +beggar.’</p> +<p>“The child, lying very flushed in a miserable cot +knocked up out of gin-cases, stared at Davidson with wide, drowsy +eyes. It was a bad bout of fever clearly. But while +Davidson was promising to go on board and fetch some medicines, +and generally trying to say reassuring things, he could not help +being struck by the extraordinary manner of the woman standing by +his side. Gazing with despairing expression down at the +cot, she would suddenly throw a quick, startled glance at +Davidson and then towards the other room.</p> +<p>“‘Yes, my poor girl,’ he whispered, +interpreting her distraction in his own way, though he had +nothing precise in his mind. ‘I’m afraid this +bodes no good to you. How is it they are here?’</p> +<p>“She seized his forearm and breathed out forcibly: +‘No good to me! Oh, no! But what about +you! They are after the dollars you have on +board.’</p> +<p>“Davidson let out an astonished ‘How do they know +there are any dollars?’</p> +<p>“She clapped her hands lightly, in distress. +‘So it’s true! You have them on board? +Then look out for yourself.’</p> +<p>“They stood gazing down at the boy in the cot, aware +that they might be observed from the other room.</p> +<p>“‘We must get him to perspire as soon as +possible,’ said Davidson in his ordinary voice. +‘You’ll have to give him hot drink of some +kind. I will go on board and bring you a spirit-kettle +amongst other things.’ And he added under his breath: +‘Do they actually mean murder?’</p> +<p>“She made no sign, she had returned to her desolate +contemplation of the boy. Davidson thought she had not +heard him even, when with an unchanged expression she spoke under +her breath.</p> +<p>“‘The Frenchman would, in a minute. The +others shirk it—unless you resist. He’s a +devil. He keeps them going. Without him they would +have done nothing but talk. I’ve got chummy with him. +What can you do when you are with a man like the fellow I am with +now. Bamtz is terrified of them, and they know it. +He’s in it from funk. Oh, Davy! take your ship +away—quick!’</p> +<p>“‘Too late,’ said Davidson. +‘She’s on the mud already.’</p> +<p>“If the kid hadn’t been in this state I would have +run off with him—to you—into the +woods—anywhere. Oh, Davy! will he die?’ she +cried aloud suddenly.</p> +<p>“Davidson met three men in the doorway. They made +way for him without actually daring to face his glance. But +Bamtz was the only one who looked down with an air of +guilt. The big Frenchman had remained lolling in his chair; +he kept his stumps in his pockets and addressed Davidson.</p> +<p>“‘Isn’t it unfortunate about that +child! The distress of that woman there upsets me, but I am +of no use in the world. I couldn’t smooth the sick +pillow of my dearest friend. I have no hands. Would +you mind sticking one of those cigarettes there into the mouth of +a poor, harmless cripple? My nerves want +soothing—upon my honour, they do.’</p> +<p>“Davidson complied with his naturally kind smile. +As his outward placidity becomes only more pronounced, if +possible, the more reason there is for excitement; and as +Davidson’s eyes, when his wits are hard at work, get very +still and as if sleepy, the huge Frenchman might have been +justified in concluding that the man there was a mere +sheep—a sheep ready for slaughter. With a +‘<i>merci bien</i>’ he uplifted his huge carcase to +reach the light of the candle with his cigarette, and Davidson +left the house.</p> +<p>“Going down to the ship and returning, he had time to +consider his position. At first he was inclined to believe +that these men (Niclaus—the white Nakhoda—was the +only one he knew by sight before, besides Bamtz) were not of the +stamp to proceed to extremities. This was partly the reason +why he never attempted to take any measures on board. His +pacific Kalashes were not to be thought of as against white +men. His wretched engineer would have had a fit from fright +at the mere idea of any sort of combat. Davidson knew that +he would have to depend on himself in this affair if it ever came +off.</p> +<p>“Davidson underestimated naturally the driving power of +the Frenchman’s character and the force of the actuating +motive. To that man so hopelessly crippled these dollars +were an enormous opportunity. With his share of the robbery +he would open another shop in Vladivostok, Haïphong, +Manila—somewhere far away.</p> +<p>“Neither did it occur to Davidson, who is a man of +courage, if ever there was one, that his psychology was not known +to the world at large, and that to this particular lot of +ruffians, who judged him by his appearance, he appeared an +unsuspicious, inoffensive, soft creature, as he passed again +through the room, his hands full of various objects and parcels +destined for the sick boy.</p> +<p>“All the four were sitting again round the table. +Bamtz not having the pluck to open his mouth, it was Niclaus who, +as a collective voice, called out to him thickly to come out soon +and join in a drink.</p> +<p>“‘I think I’ll have to stay some little time +in there, to help her look after the boy,’ Davidson +answered without stopping.</p> +<p>“This was a good thing to say to allay a possible +suspicion. And, as it was, Davidson felt he must not stay +very long.</p> +<p>“He sat down on an old empty nail-keg near the +improvised cot and looked at the child; while Laughing Anne, +moving to and fro, preparing the hot drink, giving it to the boy +in spoonfuls, or stopping to gaze motionless at the flushed face, +whispered disjointed bits of information. She had succeeded +in making friends with that French devil. Davy would +understand that she knew how to make herself pleasant to a +man.</p> +<p>“And Davidson nodded without looking at her.</p> +<p>“The big beast had got to be quite confidential with +her. She held his cards for him when they were having a +game. Bamtz! Oh! Bamtz in his funk was only too +glad to see the Frenchman humoured. And the Frenchman had +come to believe that she was a woman who didn’t care what +she did. That’s how it came about they got to talk +before her openly. For a long time she could not make out +what game they were up to. The new arrivals, not expecting +to find a woman with Bamtz, had been very startled and annoyed at +first, she explained.</p> +<p>“She busied herself in attending to the boy; and nobody +looking into that room would have seen anything suspicious in +those two people exchanging murmurs by the sick-bedside.</p> +<p>“‘But now they think I am a better man than Bamtz +ever was,’ she said with a faint laugh.</p> +<p>“The child moaned. She went down on her knees, +and, bending low, contemplated him mournfully. Then raising +her head, she asked Davidson whether he thought the child would +get better. Davidson was sure of it. She murmured +sadly: ‘Poor kid. There’s nothing in life for +such as he. Not a dog’s chance. But I +couldn’t let him go, Davy! I +couldn’t.’</p> +<p>“Davidson felt a profound pity for the child. She +laid her hand on his knee and whispered an earnest warning +against the Frenchman. Davy must never let him come to +close quarters. Naturally Davidson wanted to know the +reason, for a man without hands did not strike him as very +formidable under any circumstances.</p> +<p>“‘Mind you don’t let him—that’s +all,’ she insisted anxiously, hesitated, and then confessed +that the Frenchman had got her away from the others that +afternoon and had ordered her to tie a seven-pound iron weight +(out of the set of weights Bamtz used in business) to his right +stump. She had to do it for him. She had been afraid +of his savage temper. Bamtz was such a craven, and neither +of the other men would have cared what happened to her. The +Frenchman, however, with many awful threats had warned her not to +let the others know what she had done for him. Afterwards +he had been trying to cajole her. He had promised her that +if she stood by him faithfully in this business he would take her +with him to Haïphong or some other place. A poor +cripple needed somebody to take care of him—always.</p> +<p>“Davidson asked her again if they really meant +mischief. It was, he told me, the hardest thing to believe +he had run up against, as yet, in his life. Anne +nodded. The Frenchman’s heart was set on this +robbery. Davy might expect them, about midnight, creeping +on board his ship, to steal anyhow—to murder, +perhaps. Her voice sounded weary, and her eyes remained +fastened on her child.</p> +<p>“And still Davidson could not accept it somehow; his +contempt for these men was too great.</p> +<p>“‘Look here, Davy,’ she said. +‘I’ll go outside with them when they start, and it +will be hard luck if I don’t find something to laugh +at. They are used to that from me. Laugh or +cry—what’s the odds. You will be able to hear +me on board on this quiet night. Dark it is too. Oh! +it’s dark, Davy!—it’s dark!’</p> +<p>“‘Don’t you run any risks,’ said +Davidson. Presently he called her attention to the boy, +who, less flushed now, had dropped into a sound sleep. +‘Look. He’ll be all right.’</p> +<p>“She made as if to snatch the child up to her breast, +but restrained herself. Davidson prepared to go. She +whispered hurriedly:</p> +<p>“‘Mind, Davy! I’ve told them that you +generally sleep aft in the hammock under the awning over the +cabin. They have been asking me about your ways and about +your ship, too. I told them all I knew. I had to keep +in with them. And Bamtz would have told them if I +hadn’t—you understand?’</p> +<p>“He made a friendly sign and went out. The men +about the table (except Bamtz) looked at him. This time it +was Fector who spoke. ‘Won’t you join us in a +quiet game, Captain?’</p> +<p>“Davidson said that now the child was better he thought +he would go on board and turn in. Fector was the only one +of the four whom he had, so to speak, never seen, for he had had +a good look at the Frenchman already. He observed +Fector’s muddy eyes, his mean, bitter mouth. +Davidson’s contempt for those men rose in his gorge, while +his placid smile, his gentle tones and general air of innocence +put heart into them. They exchanged meaning glances.</p> +<p>“‘We shall be sitting late over the cards,’ +Fector said in his harsh, low voice.</p> +<p>“‘Don’t make more noise than you can +help.’</p> +<p>“‘Oh! we are a quiet lot. And if the invalid +shouldn’t be so well, she will be sure to send one of us +down to call you, so that you may play the doctor again. So +don’t shoot at sight.’</p> +<p>“‘He isn’t a shooting man,’ struck in +Niclaus.</p> +<p>“‘I never shoot before making sure there’s a +reason for it—at any rate,’ said Davidson.</p> +<p>“Bamtz let out a sickly snigger. The Frenchman +alone got up to make a bow to Davidson’s careless +nod. His stumps were stuck immovably in his pockets. +Davidson understood now the reason.</p> +<p>“He went down to the ship. His wits were working +actively, and he was thoroughly angry. He smiled, he says +(it must have been the first grim smile of his life), at the +thought of the seven-pound weight lashed to the end of the +Frenchman’s stump. The ruffian had taken that +precaution in case of a quarrel that might arise over the +division of the spoil. A man with an unsuspected power to +deal killing blows could take his own part in a sudden scrimmage +round a heap of money, even against adversaries armed with +revolvers, especially if he himself started the row.</p> +<p>“‘He’s ready to face any of his friends with +that thing. But he will have no use for it. There +will be no occasion to quarrel about these dollars here,’ +thought Davidson, getting on board quietly. He never paused +to look if there was anybody about the decks. As a matter +of fact, most of his crew were on shore, and the rest slept, +stowed away in dark corners.</p> +<p>“He had his plan, and he went to work methodically.</p> +<p>“He fetched a lot of clothing from below and disposed it +in his hammock in such a way as to distend it to the shape of a +human body; then he threw over all the light cotton sheet he used +to draw over himself when sleeping on deck. Having done +this, he loaded his two revolvers and clambered into one of the +boats the <i>Sissie</i> carried right aft, swung out on their +davits. Then he waited.</p> +<p>“And again the doubt of such a thing happening to him +crept into his mind. He was almost ashamed of this +ridiculous vigil in a boat. He became bored. And then +he became drowsy. The stillness of the black universe +wearied him. There was not even the lapping of the water to +keep him company, for the tide was out and the <i>Sissie</i> was +lying on soft mud. Suddenly in the breathless, soundless, +hot night an argus pheasant screamed in the woods across the +stream. Davidson started violently, all his senses on the +alert at once.</p> +<p>“The candle was still burning in the house. +Everything was quiet again, but Davidson felt drowsy no +longer. An uneasy premonition of evil oppressed him.</p> +<p>“‘Surely I am not afraid,’ he argued with +himself.</p> +<p>“The silence was like a seal on his ears, and his +nervous inward impatience grew intolerable. He commanded +himself to keep still. But all the same he was just going +to jump out of the boat when a faint ripple on the immensity of +silence, a mere tremor in the air, the ghost of a silvery laugh, +reached his ears.</p> +<p>“Illusion!</p> +<p>“He kept very still. He had no difficulty now in +emulating the stillness of the mouse—a grimly determined +mouse. But he could not shake off that premonition of evil +unrelated to the mere danger of the situation. Nothing +happened. It had been an illusion!</p> +<p>“A curiosity came to him to learn how they would go to +work. He wondered and wondered, till the whole thing seemed +more absurd than ever.</p> +<p>“He had left the hanging lamp in the cabin burning as +usual. It was part of his plan that everything should be as +usual. Suddenly in the dim glow of the skylight panes a +bulky shadow came up the ladder without a sound, made two steps +towards the hammock (it hung right over the skylight), and stood +motionless. The Frenchman!</p> +<p>“The minutes began to slip away. Davidson guessed +that the Frenchman’s part (the poor cripple) was to watch +his (Davidson’s) slumbers while the others were no doubt in +the cabin busy forcing off the lazarette hatch.</p> +<p>“What was the course they meant to pursue once they got +hold of the silver (there were ten cases, and each could be +carried easily by two men) nobody can tell now. But so far, +Davidson was right. They were in the cabin. He +expected to hear the sounds of breaking-in every moment. +But the fact was that one of them (perhaps Fector, who had stolen +papers out of desks in his time) knew how to pick a lock, and +apparently was provided with the tools. Thus while Davidson +expected every moment to hear them begin down there, they had the +bar off already and two cases actually up in the cabin out of the +lazarette.</p> +<p>“In the diffused faint glow of the skylight the +Frenchman moved no more than a statue. Davidson could have +shot him with the greatest ease—but he was not homicidally +inclined. Moreover, he wanted to make sure before opening +fire that the others had gone to work. Not hearing the +sounds he expected to hear, he felt uncertain whether they all +were on board yet.</p> +<p>“While he listened, the Frenchman, whose immobility +might have but cloaked an internal struggle; moved forward a +pace, then another. Davidson, entranced, watched him +advance one leg, withdraw his right stump, the armed one, out of +his pocket, and swinging his body to put greater force into the +blow, bring the seven-pound weight down on the hammock where the +head of the sleeper ought to have been.</p> +<p>“Davidson admitted to me that his hair stirred at the +roots then. But for Anne, his unsuspecting head would have +been there. The Frenchman’s surprise must have been +simply overwhelming. He staggered away from the lightly +swinging hammock, and before Davidson could make a movement he +had vanished, bounding down the ladder to warn and alarm the +other fellows.</p> +<p>“Davidson sprang instantly out of the boat, threw up the +skylight flap, and had a glimpse of the men down there crouching +round the hatch. They looked up scared, and at that moment +the Frenchman outside the door bellowed out +‘<i>Trahison</i>—<i>trahison</i>!’ They +bolted out of the cabin, falling over each other and swearing +awfully. The shot Davidson let off down the skylight had +hit no one; but he ran to the edge of the cabin-top and at once +opened fire at the dark shapes rushing about the deck. +These shots were returned, and a rapid fusillade burst out, +reports and flashes, Davidson dodging behind a ventilator and +pulling the trigger till his revolver clicked, and then throwing +it down to take the other in his right hand.</p> +<p>“He had been hearing in the din the Frenchman’s +infuriated yells ‘<i>Tuez-le</i>! <i>tuez-le</i>!’ +above the fierce cursing of the others. But though they +fired at him they were only thinking of clearing out. In +the flashes of the last shots Davidson saw them scrambling over +the rail. That he had hit more than one he was +certain. Two different voices had cried out in pain. +But apparently none of them were disabled.</p> +<p>“Davidson leaned against the bulwark reloading his +revolver without haste. He had not the slightest +apprehension of their coming back. On the other hand, he +had no intention of pursuing them on shore in the dark. +What they were doing he had no idea. Looking to their hurts +probably. Not very far from the bank the invisible +Frenchman was blaspheming and cursing his associates, his luck, +and all the world. He ceased; then with a sudden, vengeful +yell, ‘It’s that woman!—it’s that woman +that has sold us,’ was heard running off in the night.</p> +<p>“Davidson caught his breath in a sudden pang of +remorse. He perceived with dismay that the stratagem of his +defence had given Anne away. He did not hesitate a +moment. It was for him to save her now. He leaped +ashore. But even as he landed on the wharf he heard a +shrill shriek which pierced his very soul.</p> +<p>“The light was still burning in the house. +Davidson, revolver in hand, was making for it when another +shriek, away to his left, made him change his direction.</p> +<p>“He changed his direction—but very soon he +stopped. It was then that he hesitated in cruel +perplexity. He guessed what had happened. The woman +had managed to escape from the house in some way, and now was +being chased in the open by the infuriated Frenchman. He +trusted she would try to run on board for protection.</p> +<p>“All was still around Davidson. Whether she had +run on board or not, this silence meant that the Frenchman had +lost her in the dark.</p> +<p>“Davidson, relieved, but still very anxious, turned +towards the river-side. He had not made two steps in that +direction when another shriek burst out behind him, again close +to the house.</p> +<p>“He thinks that the Frenchman had lost sight of the poor +woman right enough. Then came that period of silence. +But the horrible ruffian had not given up his murderous +purpose. He reasoned that she would try to steal back to +her child, and went to lie in wait for her near the house.</p> +<p>“It must have been something like that. As she +entered the light falling about the house-ladder, he had rushed +at her too soon, impatient for vengeance. She had let out +that second scream of mortal fear when she caught sight of him, +and turned to run for life again.</p> +<p>“This time she was making for the river, but not in a +straight line. Her shrieks circled about Davidson. He +turned on his heels, following the horrible trail of sound in the +darkness. He wanted to shout ‘This way, Anne! I +am here!’ but he couldn’t. At the horror of +this chase, more ghastly in his imagination than if he could have +seen it, the perspiration broke out on his forehead, while his +throat was as dry as tinder. A last supreme scream was cut +short suddenly.</p> +<p>“The silence which ensued was even more dreadful. +Davidson felt sick. He tore his feet from the spot and +walked straight before him, gripping the revolver and peering +into the obscurity fearfully. Suddenly a bulky shape sprang +from the ground within a few yards of him and bounded away. +Instinctively he fired at it, started to run in pursuit, and +stumbled against something soft which threw him down +headlong.</p> +<p>“Even as he pitched forward on his head he knew it could +be nothing else but Laughing Anne’s body. He picked +himself up and, remaining on his knees, tried to lift her in his +arms. He felt her so limp that he gave it up. She was +lying on her face, her long hair scattered on the ground. +Some of it was wet. Davidson, feeling about her head, came +to a place where the crushed bone gave way under his +fingers. But even before that discovery he knew that she +was dead. The pursuing Frenchman had flung her down with a +kick from behind, and, squatting on her back, was battering in +her skull with the weight she herself had fastened to his stump, +when the totally unexpected Davidson loomed up in the night and +scared him away.</p> +<p>“Davidson, kneeling by the side of that woman done so +miserably to death, was overcome by remorse. She had died +for him. His manhood was as if stunned. For the first +time he felt afraid. He might have been pounced upon in the +dark at any moment by the murderer of Laughing Anne. He +confesses to the impulse of creeping away from that pitiful +corpse on his hands and knees to the refuge of the ship. He +even says that he actually began to do so. . .</p> +<p>“One can hardly picture to oneself Davidson crawling +away on all fours from the murdered woman—Davidson unmanned +and crushed by the idea that she had died for him in a +sense. But he could not have gone very far. What +stopped him was the thought of the boy, Laughing Anne’s +child, that (Davidson remembered her very words) would not have a +dog’s chance.</p> +<p>“This life the woman had left behind her appeared to +Davidson’s conscience in the light of a sacred trust. +He assumed an erect attitude and, quaking inwardly still, turned +about and walked towards the house.</p> +<p>“For all his tremors he was very determined; but that +smashed skull had affected his imagination, and he felt very +defenceless in the darkness, in which he seemed to hear faintly +now here, now there, the prowling footsteps of the murderer +without hands. But he never faltered in his purpose. +He got away with the boy safely after all. The house he +found empty. A profound silence encompassed him all the +time, except once, just as he got down the ladder with Tony in +his arms, when a faint groan reached his ears. It seemed to +come from the pitch-black space between the posts on which the +house was built, but he did not stop to investigate.</p> +<p>“It’s no use telling you in detail how Davidson +got on board with the burden Anne’s miserably cruel fate +had thrust into his arms; how next morning his scared crew, after +observing from a distance the state of affairs on board, rejoined +with alacrity; how Davidson went ashore and, aided by his +engineer (still half dead with fright), rolled up Laughing +Anne’s body in a cotton sheet and brought it on board for +burial at sea later. While busy with this pious task, +Davidson, glancing about, perceived a huge heap of white clothes +huddled up against the corner-post of the house. That it +was the Frenchman lying there he could not doubt. Taking it +in connection with the dismal groan he had heard in the night, +Davidson is pretty sure that his random shot gave a mortal hurt +to the murderer of poor Anne.</p> +<p>“As to the others, Davidson never set eyes on a single +one of them. Whether they had concealed themselves in the +scared settlement, or bolted into the forest, or were hiding on +board Niclaus’s prau, which could be seen lying on the mud +a hundred yards or so higher up the creek, the fact is that they +vanished; and Davidson did not trouble his head about them. +He lost no time in getting out of the creek directly the +<i>Sissie</i> floated. After steaming some twenty miles +clear of the coast, he (in his own words) ‘committed the +body to the deep.’ He did everything himself. +He weighted her down with a few fire-bars, he read the service, +he lifted the plank, he was the only mourner. And while he +was rendering these last services to the dead, the desolation of +that life and the atrocious wretchedness of its end cried aloud +to his compassion, whispered to him in tones of +self-reproach.</p> +<p>“He ought to have handled the warning she had given him +in another way. He was convinced now that a simple display +of watchfulness would have been enough to restrain that vile and +cowardly crew. But the fact was that he had not quite +believed that anything would be attempted.</p> +<p>“The body of Laughing Anne having been ‘committed +to the deep’ some twenty miles S.S.W. from Cape Selatan, +the task before Davidson was to commit Laughing Anne’s +child to the care of his wife. And there poor, good +Davidson made a fatal move. He didn’t want to tell +her the whole awful story, since it involved the knowledge of the +danger from which he, Davidson, had escaped. And this, too, +after he had been laughing at her unreasonable fears only a short +time before.</p> +<p>“‘I thought that if I told her everything,’ +Davidson explained to me, ‘she would never have a +moment’s peace while I was away on my trips.’</p> +<p>“He simply stated that the boy was an orphan, the child +of some people to whom he, Davidson, was under the greatest +obligation, and that he felt morally bound to look after +him. Some day he would tell her more, he said, and meantime +he trusted in the goodness and warmth of her heart, in her +woman’s natural compassion.</p> +<p>“He did not know that her heart was about the size of a +parched pea, and had the proportional amount of warmth; and that +her faculty of compassion was mainly directed to herself. +He was only startled and disappointed at the air of cold surprise +and the suspicious look with which she received his imperfect +tale. But she did not say much. She never had much to +say. She was a fool of the silent, hopeless kind.</p> +<p>“What story Davidson’s crew thought fit to set +afloat in Malay town is neither here nor there. Davidson +himself took some of his friends into his confidence, besides +giving the full story officially to the Harbour Master.</p> +<p>“The Harbour Master was considerably astonished. +He didn’t think, however, that a formal complaint should be +made to the Dutch Government. They would probably do +nothing in the end, after a lot of trouble and +correspondence. The robbery had not come off, after +all. Those vagabonds could be trusted to go to the devil in +their own way. No amount of fuss would bring the poor woman +to life again, and the actual murderer had been done justice to +by a chance shot from Davidson. Better let the matter +drop.</p> +<p>“This was good common sense. But he was +impressed.</p> +<p>“‘Sounds a terrible affair, Captain +Davidson.’</p> +<p>“‘Aye, terrible enough,’ agreed the +remorseful Davidson. But the most terrible thing for him, +though he didn’t know it yet then, was that his +wife’s silly brain was slowly coming to the conclusion that +Tony was Davidson’s child, and that he had invented that +lame story to introduce him into her pure home in defiance of +decency, of virtue—of her most sacred feelings.</p> +<p>“Davidson was aware of some constraint in his domestic +relations. But at the best of times she was not +demonstrative; and perhaps that very coldness was part of her +charm in the placid Davidson’s eyes. Women are loved +for all sorts of reasons and even for characteristics which one +would think repellent. She was watching him and nursing her +suspicions.</p> +<p>“Then, one day, Monkey-faced Ritchie called on that +sweet, shy Mrs. Davidson. She had come out under his care, +and he considered himself a privileged person—her oldest +friend in the tropics. He posed for a great admirer of +hers. He was always a great chatterer. He had got +hold of the story rather vaguely, and he started chattering on +that subject, thinking she knew all about it. And in due +course he let out something about Laughing Anne.</p> +<p>“‘Laughing Anne,’ says Mrs. Davidson with a +start. ‘What’s that?’</p> +<p>“Ritchie plunged into circumlocution at once, but she +very soon stopped him. ‘Is that creature dead?’ +she asks.</p> +<p>“‘I believe so,’ stammered Ritchie. +‘Your husband says so.’</p> +<p>“‘But you don’t know for certain?’</p> +<p>“‘No! How could I, Mrs. Davidson!’</p> +<p>“‘That’s all wanted to know,’ says +she, and goes out of the room.</p> +<p>“When Davidson came home she was ready to go for him, +not with common voluble indignation, but as if trickling a stream +of cold clear water down his back. She talked of his base +intrigue with a vile woman, of being made a fool of, of the +insult to her dignity.</p> +<p>“Davidson begged her to listen to him and told her all +the story, thinking that it would move a heart of stone. He +tried to make her understand his remorse. She heard him to +the end, said ‘Indeed!’ and turned her back on +him.</p> +<p>“‘Don’t you believe me?’ he asked, +appalled.</p> +<p>“She didn’t say yes or no. All she said was, +‘Send that brat away at once.’</p> +<p>“‘I can’t throw him out into the +street,’ cried Davidson. ‘You don’t mean +it.’</p> +<p>“‘I don’t care. There are charitable +institutions for such children, I suppose.’</p> +<p>“‘That I will never do,’ said Davidson.</p> +<p>“‘Very well. That’s enough for +me.’</p> +<p>“Davidson’s home after this was like a silent, +frozen hell for him. A stupid woman with a sense of +grievance is worse than an unchained devil. He sent the boy +to the White Fathers in Malacca. This was not a very +expensive sort of education, but she could not forgive him for +not casting the offensive child away utterly. She worked up +her sense of her wifely wrongs and of her injured purity to such +a pitch that one day, when poor Davidson was pleading with her to +be reasonable and not to make an impossible existence for them +both, she turned on him in a chill passion and told him that his +very sight was odious to her.</p> +<p>“Davidson, with his scrupulous delicacy of feeling, was +not the man to assert his rights over a woman who could not bear +the sight of him. He bowed his head; and shortly afterwards +arranged for her to go back to her parents. That was +exactly what she wanted in her outraged dignity. And then +she had always disliked the tropics and had detested secretly the +people she had to live amongst as Davidson’s wife. +She took her pure, sensitive, mean little soul away to Fremantle +or somewhere in that direction. And of course the little +girl went away with her too. What could poor Davidson have +done with a little girl on his hands, even if she had consented +to leave her with him—which is unthinkable.</p> +<p>“This is the story that has spoiled Davidson’s +smile for him—which perhaps it wouldn’t have done so +thoroughly had he been less of a good fellow.”</p> +<p>Hollis ceased. But before we rose from the table I asked +him if he knew what had become of Laughing Anne’s boy.</p> +<p>He counted carefully the change handed him by the Chinaman +waiter, and raised his head.</p> +<p>“Oh! that’s the finishing touch. He was a +bright, taking little chap, as you know, and the Fathers took +very special pains in his bringing up. Davidson expected in +his heart to have some comfort out of him. In his placid +way he’s a man who needs affection. Well, Tony has +grown into a fine youth—but there you are! He wants +to be a priest; his one dream is to be a missionary. The +Fathers assure Davidson that it is a serious vocation. They +tell him he has a special disposition for mission work, +too. So Laughing Anne’s boy will lead a saintly life +in China somewhere; he may even become a martyr; but poor +Davidson is left out in the cold. He will have to go +downhill without a single human affection near him because of +these old dollars.”</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><i>Jan.</i> 1914</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p280b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Decorative graphic" +title= +"Decorative graphic" +src="images/p280s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<div class="gapline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">the london and +norwich press limited</span>, <span class="smcap">london and +norwich</span>, <span class="smcap">england</span></p> +<h2>Footnotes</h2> +<p><a name="footnote188"></a><a href="#citation188" +class="footnote">[188]</a> The gallows, supposed to be +widowed of the last executed criminal and waiting for +another.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITHIN THE TIDES***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1053-h.htm or 1053-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/5/1053 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Within the Tides + Tales + + +Author: Joseph Conrad + + + +Release Date: January 5, 2011 [eBook #1053] +[This file was first posted on August 29, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITHIN THE TIDES*** + + +Scanned and proofed by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + WITHIN THE + TIDES + + + TALES + + . . . Go, make you ready. + + HAMLET _to the_ PLAYERS. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + * * * * * + + LONDON & TORONTO + J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. + PARIS: J. M. DENT ET. FILS + + * * * * * + +FIRST EDITION _February_ 1915 +REPRINTED _April_ 1915; _August_ 1919 + + * * * * * + + To + MR. AND MRS. RALPH WEDGWOOD + + THIS SHEAF OF CARE-FREE ANTE-BELLUM PAGES + IN GRATITUDE FOR THEIR CHARMING HOSPITALITY + IN THE LAST MONTH OF PEACE + + + + +Contents + + PAGE +THE PLANTER OF MALATA 3 +THE PARTNER 119 +THE INN OF THE TWO WITCHES 175 +BECAUSE OF THE DOLLARS 223 + + + +THE PLANTER OF MALATA + + +CHAPTER I + + +In the private editorial office of the principal newspaper in a great +colonial city two men were talking. They were both young. The stouter +of the two, fair, and with more of an urban look about him, was the +editor and part-owner of the important newspaper. + +The other's name was Renouard. That he was exercised in his mind about +something was evident on his fine bronzed face. He was a lean, lounging, +active man. The journalist continued the conversation. + +"And so you were dining yesterday at old Dunster's." + +He used the word old not in the endearing sense in which it is sometimes +applied to intimates, but as a matter of sober fact. The Dunster in +question was old. He had been an eminent colonial statesman, but had now +retired from active politics after a tour in Europe and a lengthy stay in +England, during which he had had a very good press indeed. The colony +was proud of him. + +"Yes. I dined there," said Renouard. "Young Dunster asked me just as I +was going out of his office. It seemed to be like a sudden thought. And +yet I can't help suspecting some purpose behind it. He was very +pressing. He swore that his uncle would be very pleased to see me. Said +his uncle had mentioned lately that the granting to me of the Malata +concession was the last act of his official life." + +"Very touching. The old boy sentimentalises over the past now and then." + +"I really don't know why I accepted," continued the other. "Sentiment +does not move me very easily. Old Dunster was civil to me of course, but +he did not even inquire how I was getting on with my silk plants. Forgot +there was such a thing probably. I must say there were more people there +than I expected to meet. Quite a big party." + +"I was asked," remarked the newspaper man. "Only I couldn't go. But +when did you arrive from Malata?" + +"I arrived yesterday at daylight. I am anchored out there in the +bay--off Garden Point. I was in Dunster's office before he had finished +reading his letters. Have you ever seen young Dunster reading his +letters? I had a glimpse of him through the open door. He holds the +paper in both hands, hunches his shoulders up to his ugly ears, and +brings his long nose and his thick lips on to it like a sucking +apparatus. A commercial monster." + +"Here we don't consider him a monster," said the newspaper man looking at +his visitor thoughtfully. + +"Probably not. You are used to see his face and to see other faces. I +don't know how it is that, when I come to town, the appearance of the +people in the street strike me with such force. They seem so awfully +expressive." + +"And not charming." + +"Well--no. Not as a rule. The effect is forcible without being clear. . . . +I know that you think it's because of my solitary manner of life away +there." + +"Yes. I do think so. It is demoralising. You don't see any one for +months at a stretch. You're leading an unhealthy life." + +The other hardly smiled and murmured the admission that true enough it +was a good eleven months since he had been in town last. + +"You see," insisted the other. "Solitude works like a sort of poison. +And then you perceive suggestions in faces--mysterious and forcible, that +no sound man would be bothered with. Of course you do." + +Geoffrey Renouard did not tell his journalist friend that the suggestions +of his own face, the face of a friend, bothered him as much as the +others. He detected a degrading quality in the touches of age which +every day adds to a human countenance. They moved and disturbed him, +like the signs of a horrible inward travail which was frightfully +apparent to the fresh eye he had brought from his isolation in Malata, +where he had settled after five strenuous years of adventure and +exploration. + +"It's a fact," he said, "that when I am at home in Malata I see no one +consciously. I take the plantation boys for granted." + +"Well, and we here take the people in the streets for granted. And +that's sanity." + +The visitor said nothing to this for fear of engaging a discussion. What +he had come to seek in the editorial office was not controversy, but +information. Yet somehow he hesitated to approach the subject. Solitary +life makes a man reticent in respect of anything in the nature of gossip, +which those to whom chatting about their kind is an everyday exercise +regard as the commonest use of speech. + +"You very busy?" he asked. + +The Editor making red marks on a long slip of printed paper threw the +pencil down. + +"No. I am done. Social paragraphs. This office is the place where +everything is known about everybody--including even a great deal of +nobodies. Queer fellows drift in and out of this room. Waifs and strays +from home, from up-country, from the Pacific. And, by the way, last time +you were here you picked up one of that sort for your assistant--didn't +you?" + +"I engaged an assistant only to stop your preaching about the evils of +solitude," said Renouard hastily; and the pressman laughed at the +half-resentful tone. His laugh was not very loud, but his plump person +shook all over. He was aware that his younger friend's deference to his +advice was based only on an imperfect belief in his wisdom--or his +sagacity. But it was he who had first helped Renouard in his plans of +exploration: the five-years' programme of scientific adventure, of work, +of danger and endurance, carried out with such distinction and rewarded +modestly with the lease of Malata island by the frugal colonial +government. And this reward, too, had been due to the journalist's +advocacy with word and pen--for he was an influential man in the +community. Doubting very much if Renouard really liked him, he was +himself without great sympathy for a certain side of that man which he +could not quite make out. He only felt it obscurely to be his real +personality--the true--and, perhaps, the absurd. As, for instance, in +that case of the assistant. Renouard had given way to the arguments of +his friend and backer--the argument against the unwholesome effect of +solitude, the argument for the safety of companionship even if +quarrelsome. Very well. In this docility he was sensible and even +likeable. But what did he do next? Instead of taking counsel as to the +choice with his old backer and friend, and a man, besides, knowing +everybody employed and unemployed on the pavements of the town, this +extraordinary Renouard suddenly and almost surreptitiously picked up a +fellow--God knows who--and sailed away with him back to Malata in a +hurry; a proceeding obviously rash and at the same time not quite +straight. That was the sort of thing. The secretly unforgiving +journalist laughed a little longer and then ceased to shake all over. + +"Oh, yes. About that assistant of yours. . . ." + +"What about him," said Renouard, after waiting a while, with a shadow of +uneasiness on his face. + +"Have you nothing to tell me of him?" + +"Nothing except. . . ." Incipient grimness vanished out of Renouard's +aspect and his voice, while he hesitated as if reflecting seriously +before he changed his mind. "No. Nothing whatever." + +"You haven't brought him along with you by chance--for a change." + +The Planter of Malata stared, then shook his head, and finally murmured +carelessly: "I think he's very well where he is. But I wish you could +tell me why young Dunster insisted so much on my dining with his uncle +last night. Everybody knows I am not a society man." + +The Editor exclaimed at so much modesty. Didn't his friend know that he +was their one and only explorer--that he was the man experimenting with +the silk plant. . . . + +"Still, that doesn't tell me why I was invited yesterday. For young +Dunster never thought of this civility before. . . ." + +"Our Willie," said the popular journalist, "never does anything without a +purpose, that's a fact." + +"And to his uncle's house too!" + +"He lives there." + +"Yes. But he might have given me a feed somewhere else. The +extraordinary part is that the old man did not seem to have anything +special to say. He smiled kindly on me once or twice, and that was all. +It was quite a party, sixteen people." + +The Editor then, after expressing his regret that he had not been able to +come, wanted to know if the party had been entertaining. + +Renouard regretted that his friend had not been there. Being a man whose +business or at least whose profession was to know everything that went on +in this part of the globe, he could probably have told him something of +some people lately arrived from home, who were amongst the guests. Young +Dunster (Willie), with his large shirt-front and streaks of white skin +shining unpleasantly through the thin black hair plastered over the top +of his head, bore down on him and introduced him to that party, as if he +had been a trained dog or a child phenomenon. Decidedly, he said, he +disliked Willie--one of these large oppressive men. . . . + +A silence fell, and it was as if Renouard were not going to say anything +more when, suddenly, he came out with the real object of his visit to the +editorial room. + +"They looked to me like people under a spell." + +The Editor gazed at him appreciatively, thinking that, whether the effect +of solitude or not, this was a proof of a sensitive perception of the +expression of faces. + +"You omitted to tell me their name, but I can make a guess. You mean +Professor Moorsom, his daughter and sister--don't you?" + +Renouard assented. Yes, a white-haired lady. But from his silence, with +his eyes fixed, yet avoiding his friend, it was easy to guess that it was +not in the white-haired lady that he was interested. + +"Upon my word," he said, recovering his usual bearing. "It looks to me +as if I had been asked there only for the daughter to talk to me." + +He did not conceal that he had been greatly struck by her appearance. +Nobody could have helped being impressed. She was different from +everybody else in that house, and it was not only the effect of her +London clothes. He did not take her down to dinner. Willie did that. +It was afterwards, on the terrace. . . . + +The evening was delightfully calm. He was sitting apart and alone, and +wishing himself somewhere else--on board the schooner for choice, with +the dinner-harness off. He hadn't exchanged forty words altogether +during the evening with the other guests. He saw her suddenly all by +herself coming towards him along the dimly lighted terrace, quite from a +distance. + +She was tall and supple, carrying nobly on her straight body a head of a +character which to him appeared peculiar, something--well--pagan, crowned +with a great wealth of hair. He had been about to rise, but her decided +approach caused him to remain on the seat. He had not looked much at her +that evening. He had not that freedom of gaze acquired by the habit of +society and the frequent meetings with strangers. It was not shyness, +but the reserve of a man not used to the world and to the practice of +covert staring, with careless curiosity. All he had captured by his +first, keen, instantly lowered, glance was the impression that her hair +was magnificently red and her eyes very black. It was a troubling +effect, but it had been evanescent; he had forgotten it almost till very +unexpectedly he saw her coming down the terrace slow and eager, as if she +were restraining herself, and with a rhythmic upward undulation of her +whole figure. The light from an open window fell across her path, and +suddenly all that mass of arranged hair appeared incandescent, chiselled +and fluid, with the daring suggestion of a helmet of burnished copper and +the flowing lines of molten metal. It kindled in him an astonished +admiration. But he said nothing of it to his friend the Editor. Neither +did he tell him that her approach woke up in his brain the image of +love's infinite grace and the sense of the inexhaustible joy that lives +in beauty. No! What he imparted to the Editor were no emotions, but +mere facts conveyed in a deliberate voice and in uninspired words. + +"That young lady came and sat down by me. She said: 'Are you French, Mr. +Renouard?'" + +He had breathed a whiff of perfume of which he said nothing either--of +some perfume he did not know. Her voice was low and distinct. Her +shoulders and her bare arms gleamed with an extraordinary splendour, and +when she advanced her head into the light he saw the admirable contour of +the face, the straight fine nose with delicate nostrils, the exquisite +crimson brushstroke of the lips on this oval without colour. The +expression of the eyes was lost in a shadowy mysterious play of jet and +silver, stirring under the red coppery gold of the hair as though she had +been a being made of ivory and precious metals changed into living +tissue. + +". . . I told her my people were living in Canada, but that I was brought +up in England before coming out here. I can't imagine what interest she +could have in my history." + +"And you complain of her interest?" + +The accent of the all-knowing journalist seemed to jar on the Planter of +Malata. + +"No!" he said, in a deadened voice that was almost sullen. But after a +short silence he went on. "Very extraordinary. I told her I came out to +wander at large in the world when I was nineteen, almost directly after I +left school. It seems that her late brother was in the same school a +couple of years before me. She wanted me to tell her what I did at first +when I came out here; what other men found to do when they came +out--where they went, what was likely to happen to them--as if I could +guess and foretell from my experience the fates of men who come out here +with a hundred different projects, for hundreds of different reasons--for +no reason but restlessness--who come, and go, and disappear! +Preposterous. She seemed to want to hear their histories. I told her +that most of them were not worth telling." + +The distinguished journalist leaning on his elbow, his head resting +against the knuckles of his left hand, listened with great attention, but +gave no sign of that surprise which Renouard, pausing, seemed to expect. + +"You know something," the latter said brusquely. The all-knowing man +moved his head slightly and said, "Yes. But go on." + +"It's just this. There is no more to it. I found myself talking to her +of my adventures, of my early days. It couldn't possibly have interested +her. Really," he cried, "this is most extraordinary. Those people have +something on their minds. We sat in the light of the window, and her +father prowled about the terrace, with his hands behind his back and his +head drooping. The white-haired lady came to the dining-room window +twice--to look at us I am certain. The other guests began to go +away--and still we sat there. Apparently these people are staying with +the Dunsters. It was old Mrs. Dunster who put an end to the thing. The +father and the aunt circled about as if they were afraid of interfering +with the girl. Then she got up all at once, gave me her hand, and said +she hoped she would see me again." + +While he was speaking Renouard saw again the sway of her figure in a +movement of grace and strength--felt the pressure of her hand--heard the +last accents of the deep murmur that came from her throat so white in the +light of the window, and remembered the black rays of her steady eyes +passing off his face when she turned away. He remembered all this +visually, and it was not exactly pleasurable. It was rather startling +like the discovery of a new faculty in himself. There are faculties one +would rather do without--such, for instance, as seeing through a stone +wall or remembering a person with this uncanny vividness. And what about +those two people belonging to her with their air of expectant solicitude! +Really, those figures from home got in front of one. In fact, their +persistence in getting between him and the solid forms of the everyday +material world had driven Renouard to call on his friend at the office. +He hoped that a little common, gossipy information would lay the ghost of +that unexpected dinner-party. Of course the proper person to go to would +have been young Dunster, but, he couldn't stand Willie Dunster--not at +any price. + +In the pause the Editor had changed his attitude, faced his desk, and +smiled a faint knowing smile. + +"Striking girl--eh?" he said. + +The incongruity of the word was enough to make one jump out of the chair. +Striking! That girl striking! Stri . . .! But Renouard restrained his +feelings. His friend was not a person to give oneself away to. And, +after all, this sort of speech was what he had come there to hear. As, +however, he had made a movement he re-settled himself comfortably and +said, with very creditable indifference, that yes--she was, rather. +Especially amongst a lot of over-dressed frumps. There wasn't one woman +under forty there. + +"Is that the way to speak of the cream of our society; the 'top of the +basket,' as the French say," the Editor remonstrated with mock +indignation. "You aren't moderate in your expressions--you know." + +"I express myself very little," interjected Renouard seriously. + +"I will tell you what you are. You are a fellow that doesn't count the +cost. Of course you are safe with me, but will you never learn. . . ." + +"What struck me most," interrupted the other, "is that she should pick me +out for such a long conversation." + +"That's perhaps because you were the most remarkable of the men there." + +Renouard shook his head. + +"This shot doesn't seem to me to hit the mark," he said calmly. "Try +again." + +"Don't you believe me? Oh, you modest creature. Well, let me assure you +that under ordinary circumstances it would have been a good shot. You +are sufficiently remarkable. But you seem a pretty acute customer too. +The circumstances are extraordinary. By Jove they are!" + +He mused. After a time the Planter of Malata dropped a negligent-- + +"And you know them." + +"And I know them," assented the all-knowing Editor, soberly, as though +the occasion were too special for a display of professional vanity; a +vanity so well known to Renouard that its absence augmented his wonder +and almost made him uneasy as if portending bad news of some sort. + +"You have met those people?" he asked. + +"No. I was to have met them last night, but I had to send an apology to +Willie in the morning. It was then that he had the bright idea to invite +you to fill the place, from a muddled notion that you could be of use. +Willie is stupid sometimes. For it is clear that you are the last man +able to help." + +"How on earth do I come to be mixed up in this--whatever it is?" +Renouard's voice was slightly altered by nervous irritation. "I only +arrived here yesterday morning." + + + +CHAPTER II + + +His friend the Editor turned to him squarely. "Willie took me into +consultation, and since he seems to have let you in I may just as well +tell you what is up. I shall try to be as short as I can. But in +confidence--mind!" + +He waited. Renouard, his uneasiness growing on him unreasonably, +assented by a nod, and the other lost no time in beginning. Professor +Moorsom--physicist and philosopher--fine head of white hair, to judge +from the photographs--plenty of brains in the head too--all these famous +books--surely even Renouard would know. . . . + +Renouard muttered moodily that it wasn't his sort of reading, and his +friend hastened to assure him earnestly that neither was it his +sort--except as a matter of business and duty, for the literary page of +that newspaper which was his property (and the pride of his life). The +only literary newspaper in the Antipodes could not ignore the fashionable +philosopher of the age. Not that anybody read Moorsom at the Antipodes, +but everybody had heard of him--women, children, dock labourers, cabmen. +The only person (besides himself) who had read Moorsom, as far as he +knew, was old Dunster, who used to call himself a Moorsomian (or was it +Moorsomite) years and years ago, long before Moorsom had worked himself +up into the great swell he was now, in every way. . . Socially too. +Quite the fashion in the highest world. + +Renouard listened with profoundly concealed attention. "A charlatan," he +muttered languidly. + +"Well--no. I should say not. I shouldn't wonder though if most of his +writing had been done with his tongue in his cheek. Of course. That's +to be expected. I tell you what: the only really honest writing is to be +found in newspapers and nowhere else--and don't you forget it." + +The Editor paused with a basilisk stare till Renouard had conceded a +casual: "I dare say," and only then went on to explain that old Dunster, +during his European tour, had been made rather a lion of in London, where +he stayed with the Moorsoms--he meant the father and the girl. The +professor had been a widower for a long time. + +"She doesn't look just a girl," muttered Renouard. The other agreed. +Very likely not. Had been playing the London hostess to tip-top people +ever since she put her hair up, probably. + +"I don't expect to see any girlish bloom on her when I do have the +privilege," he continued. "Those people are staying with the Dunster's +_incog._, in a manner, you understand--something like royalties. They +don't deceive anybody, but they want to be left to themselves. We have +even kept them out of the paper--to oblige old Dunster. But we shall put +your arrival in--our local celebrity." + +"Heavens!" + +"Yes. Mr. G. Renouard, the explorer, whose indomitable energy, etc., and +who is now working for the prosperity of our country in another way on +his Malata plantation . . . And, by the by, how's the silk +plant--flourishing?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you bring any fibre?" + +"Schooner-full." + +"I see. To be transhipped to Liverpool for experimental manufacture, eh? +Eminent capitalists at home very much interested, aren't they?" + +"They are." + +A silence fell. Then the Editor uttered slowly--"You will be a rich man +some day." + +Renouard's face did not betray his opinion of that confident prophecy. +He didn't say anything till his friend suggested in the same meditative +voice-- + +"You ought to interest Moorsom in the affair too--since Willie has let +you in." + +"A philosopher!" + +"I suppose he isn't above making a bit of money. And he may be clever at +it for all you know. I have a notion that he's a fairly practical old +cove. . . . Anyhow," and here the tone of the speaker took on a tinge of +respect, "he has made philosophy pay." + +Renouard raised his eyes, repressed an impulse to jump up, and got out of +the arm-chair slowly. "It isn't perhaps a bad idea," he said. "I'll +have to call there in any case." + +He wondered whether he had managed to keep his voice steady, its tone +unconcerned enough; for his emotion was strong though it had nothing to +do with the business aspect of this suggestion. He moved in the room in +vague preparation for departure, when he heard a soft laugh. He spun +about quickly with a frown, but the Editor was not laughing at him. He +was chuckling across the big desk at the wall: a preliminary of some +speech for which Renouard, recalled to himself, waited silent and +mistrustful. + +"No! You would never guess! No one would ever guess what these people +are after. Willie's eyes bulged out when he came to me with the tale." + +"They always do," remarked Renouard with disgust. "He's stupid." + +"He was startled. And so was I after he told me. It's a search party. +They are out looking for a man. Willie's soft heart's enlisted in the +cause." + +Renouard repeated: "Looking for a man." + +He sat down suddenly as if on purpose to stare. "Did Willie come to you +to borrow the lantern," he asked sarcastically, and got up again for no +apparent reason. + +"What lantern?" snapped the puzzled Editor, and his face darkened with +suspicion. "You, Renouard, are always alluding to things that aren't +clear to me. If you were in politics, I, as a party journalist, wouldn't +trust you further than I could see you. Not an inch further. You are +such a sophisticated beggar. Listen: the man is the man Miss Moorsom was +engaged to for a year. He couldn't have been a nobody, anyhow. But he +doesn't seem to have been very wise. Hard luck for the young lady." + +He spoke with feeling. It was clear that what he had to tell appealed to +his sentiment. Yet, as an experienced man of the world, he marked his +amused wonder. Young man of good family and connections, going +everywhere, yet not merely a man about town, but with a foot in the two +big F's. + +Renouard lounging aimlessly in the room turned round: "And what the +devil's that?" he asked faintly. + +"Why Fashion and Finance," explained the Editor. "That's how I call it. +There are the three R's at the bottom of the social edifice and the two +F's on the top. See?" + +"Ha! Ha! Excellent! Ha! Ha!" Renouard laughed with stony eyes. + +"And you proceed from one set to the other in this democratic age," the +Editor went on with unperturbed complacency. "That is if you are clever +enough. The only danger is in being too clever. And I think something +of the sort happened here. That swell I am speaking of got himself into +a mess. Apparently a very ugly mess of a financial character. You will +understand that Willie did not go into details with me. They were not +imparted to him with very great abundance either. But a bad +mess--something of the criminal order. Of course he was innocent. But +he had to quit all the same." + +"Ha! Ha!" Renouard laughed again abruptly, staring as before. "So +there's one more big F in the tale." + +"What do you mean?" inquired the Editor quickly, with an air as if his +patent were being infringed. + +"I mean--Fool." + +"No. I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that." + +"Well--let him be a scoundrel then. What the devil do I care." + +"But hold on! You haven't heard the end of the story." + +Renouard, his hat on his head already, sat down with the disdainful smile +of a man who had discounted the moral of the story. Still he sat down +and the Editor swung his revolving chair right round. He was full of +unction. + +"Imprudent, I should say. In many ways money is as dangerous to handle +as gunpowder. You can't be too careful either as to who you are working +with. Anyhow there was a mighty flashy burst up, a sensation, and--his +familiar haunts knew him no more. But before he vanished he went to see +Miss Moorsom. That very fact argues for his innocence--don't it? What +was said between them no man knows--unless the professor had the +confidence from his daughter. There couldn't have been much to say. +There was nothing for it but to let him go--was there?--for the affair +had got into the papers. And perhaps the kindest thing would have been +to forget him. Anyway the easiest. Forgiveness would have been more +difficult, I fancy, for a young lady of spirit and position drawn into an +ugly affair like that. Any ordinary young lady, I mean. Well, the +fellow asked nothing better than to be forgotten, only he didn't find it +easy to do so himself, because he would write home now and then. Not to +any of his friends though. He had no near relations. The professor had +been his guardian. No, the poor devil wrote now and then to an old +retired butler of his late father, somewhere in the country, forbidding +him at the same time to let any one know of his whereabouts. So that +worthy old ass would go up and dodge about the Moorsom's town house, +perhaps waylay Miss Moorsom's maid, and then would write to 'Master +Arthur' that the young lady looked well and happy, or some such cheerful +intelligence. I dare say he wanted to be forgotten, but I shouldn't +think he was much cheered by the news. What would you say?" + +Renouard, his legs stretched out and his chin on his breast, said +nothing. A sensation which was not curiosity, but rather a vague nervous +anxiety, distinctly unpleasant, like a mysterious symptom of some malady, +prevented him from getting up and going away. + +"Mixed feelings," the Editor opined. "Many fellows out here receive news +from home with mixed feelings. But what will his feelings be when he +hears what I am going to tell you now? For we know he has not heard yet. +Six months ago a city clerk, just a common drudge of finance, gets +himself convicted of a common embezzlement or something of that kind. +Then seeing he's in for a long sentence he thinks of making his +conscience comfortable, and makes a clean breast of an old story of +tampered with, or else suppressed, documents, a story which clears +altogether the honesty of our ruined gentleman. That embezzling fellow +was in a position to know, having been employed by the firm before the +smash. There was no doubt about the character being cleared--but where +the cleared man was nobody could tell. Another sensation in society. +And then Miss Moorsom says: 'He will come back to claim me, and I'll +marry him.' But he didn't come back. Between you and me I don't think +he was much wanted--except by Miss Moorsom. I imagine she's used to have +her own way. She grew impatient, and declared that if she knew where the +man was she would go to him. But all that could be got out of the old +butler was that the last envelope bore the postmark of our beautiful +city; and that this was the only address of 'Master Arthur' that he ever +had. That and no more. In fact the fellow was at his last gasp--with a +bad heart. Miss Moorsom wasn't allowed to see him. She had gone herself +into the country to learn what she could, but she had to stay downstairs +while the old chap's wife went up to the invalid. She brought down the +scrap of intelligence I've told you of. He was already too far gone to +be cross-examined on it, and that very night he died. He didn't leave +behind him much to go by, did he? Our Willie hinted to me that there had +been pretty stormy days in the professor's house, but--here they are. I +have a notion she isn't the kind of everyday young lady who may be +permitted to gallop about the world all by herself--eh? Well, I think it +rather fine of her, but I quite understand that the professor needed all +his philosophy under the circumstances. She is his only child now--and +brilliant--what? Willie positively spluttered trying to describe her to +me; and I could see directly you came in that you had an uncommon +experience." + +Renouard, with an irritated gesture, tilted his hat more forward on his +eyes, as though he were bored. The Editor went on with the remark that +to be sure neither he (Renouard) nor yet Willie were much used to meet +girls of that remarkable superiority. Willie when learning business with +a firm in London, years before, had seen none but boarding-house society, +he guessed. As to himself in the good old days, when he trod the +glorious flags of Fleet Street, he neither had access to, nor yet would +have cared for the swells. Nothing interested him then but parliamentary +politics and the oratory of the House of Commons. + +He paid to this not very distant past the tribute of a tender, +reminiscent smile, and returned to his first idea that for a society girl +her action was rather fine. All the same the professor could not be very +pleased. The fellow if he was as pure as a lily now was just about as +devoid of the goods of the earth. And there were misfortunes, however +undeserved, which damaged a man's standing permanently. On the other +hand, it was difficult to oppose cynically a noble impulse--not to speak +of the great love at the root of it. Ah! Love! And then the lady was +quite capable of going off by herself. She was of age, she had money of +her own, plenty of pluck too. Moorsom must have concluded that it was +more truly paternal, more prudent too, and generally safer all round to +let himself be dragged into this chase. The aunt came along for the same +reasons. It was given out at home as a trip round the world of the usual +kind. + +Renouard had risen and remained standing with his heart beating, and +strangely affected by this tale, robbed as it was of all glamour by the +prosaic personality of the narrator. The Editor added: "I've been asked +to help in the search--you know." + +Renouard muttered something about an appointment and went out into the +street. His inborn sanity could not defend him from a misty creeping +jealousy. He thought that obviously no man of that sort could be worthy +of such a woman's devoted fidelity. Renouard, however, had lived long +enough to reflect that a man's activities, his views, and even his ideas +may be very inferior to his character; and moved by a delicate +consideration for that splendid girl he tried to think out for the man a +character of inward excellence and outward gifts--some extraordinary +seduction. But in vain. Fresh from months of solitude and from days at +sea, her splendour presented itself to him absolutely unconquerable in +its perfection, unless by her own folly. It was easier to suspect her of +this than to imagine in the man qualities which would be worthy of her. +Easier and less degrading. Because folly may be generous--could be +nothing else but generosity in her; whereas to imagine her subjugated by +something common was intolerable. + +Because of the force of the physical impression he had received from her +personality (and such impressions are the real origins of the deepest +movements of our soul) this conception of her was even inconceivable. +But no Prince Charming has ever lived out of a fairy tale. He doesn't +walk the worlds of Fashion and Finance--and with a stumbling gait at +that. Generosity. Yes. It was her generosity. But this generosity was +altogether regal in its splendour, almost absurd in its lavishness--or, +perhaps, divine. + +In the evening, on board his schooner, sitting on the rail, his arms +folded on his breast and his eyes fixed on the deck, he let the darkness +catch him unawares in the midst of a meditation on the mechanism of +sentiment and the springs of passion. And all the time he had an abiding +consciousness of her bodily presence. The effect on his senses had been +so penetrating that in the middle of the night, rousing up suddenly, +wide-eyed in the darkness of his cabin, he did not create a faint mental +vision of her person for himself, but, more intimately affected, he +scented distinctly the faint perfume she used, and could almost have +sworn that he had been awakened by the soft rustle of her dress. He even +sat up listening in the dark for a time, then sighed and lay down again, +not agitated but, on the contrary, oppressed by the sensation of +something that had happened to him and could not be undone. + + + +CHAPTER III + + +In the afternoon he lounged into the editorial office, carrying with +affected nonchalance that weight of the irremediable he had felt laid on +him suddenly in the small hours of the night--that consciousness of +something that could no longer be helped. His patronising friend +informed him at once that he had made the acquaintance of the Moorsom +party last night. At the Dunsters, of course. Dinner. + +"Very quiet. Nobody there. It was much better for the business. I say . . ." + +Renouard, his hand grasping the back of a chair, stared down at him +dumbly. + +"Phew! That's a stunning girl. . . Why do you want to sit on that chair? +It's uncomfortable!" + +"I wasn't going to sit on it." Renouard walked slowly to the window, +glad to find in himself enough self-control to let go the chair instead +of raising it on high and bringing it down on the Editor's head. + +"Willie kept on gazing at her with tears in his boiled eyes. You should +have seen him bending sentimentally over her at dinner." + +"Don't," said Renouard in such an anguished tone that the Editor turned +right round to look at his back. + +"You push your dislike of young Dunster too far. It's positively +morbid," he disapproved mildly. "We can't be all beautiful after thirty. . . . +I talked a little, about you mostly, to the professor. He appeared +to be interested in the silk plant--if only as a change from the great +subject. Miss Moorsom didn't seem to mind when I confessed to her that I +had taken you into the confidence of the thing. Our Willie approved too. +Old Dunster with his white beard seemed to give me his blessing. All +those people have a great opinion of you, simply because I told them that +you've led every sort of life one can think of before you got struck on +exploration. They want you to make suggestions. What do you think +'Master Arthur' is likely to have taken to?" + +"Something easy," muttered Renouard without unclenching his teeth. + +"Hunting man. Athlete. Don't be hard on the chap. He may be riding +boundaries, or droving cattle, or humping his swag about the back-blocks +away to the devil--somewhere. He may be even prospecting at the back of +beyond--this very moment." + +"Or lying dead drunk in a roadside pub. It's late enough in the day for +that." + +The Editor looked up instinctively. The clock was pointing at a quarter +to five. "Yes, it is," he admitted. "But it needn't be. And he may +have lit out into the Western Pacific all of a sudden--say in a trading +schooner. Though I really don't see in what capacity. Still . . . " + +"Or he may be passing at this very moment under this very window." + +"Not he . . . and I wish you would get away from it to where one can see +your face. I hate talking to a man's back. You stand there like a +hermit on a sea-shore growling to yourself. I tell you what it is, +Geoffrey, you don't like mankind." + +"I don't make my living by talking about mankind's affairs," Renouard +defended himself. But he came away obediently and sat down in the +arm-chair. "How can you be so certain that your man isn't down there in +the street?" he asked. "It's neither more nor less probable than every +single one of your other suppositions." + +Placated by Renouard's docility the Editor gazed at him for a while. +"Aha! I'll tell you how. Learn then that we have begun the campaign. +We have telegraphed his description to the police of every township up +and down the land. And what's more we've ascertained definitely that he +hasn't been in this town for the last three months at least. How much +longer he's been away we can't tell." + +"That's very curious." + +"It's very simple. Miss Moorsom wrote to him, to the post office here +directly she returned to London after her excursion into the country to +see the old butler. Well--her letter is still lying there. It has not +been called for. Ergo, this town is not his usual abode. Personally, I +never thought it was. But he cannot fail to turn up some time or other. +Our main hope lies just in the certitude that he must come to town sooner +or later. Remember he doesn't know that the butler is dead, and he will +want to inquire for a letter. Well, he'll find a note from Miss +Moorsom." + +Renouard, silent, thought that it was likely enough. His profound +distaste for this conversation was betrayed by an air of weariness +darkening his energetic sun-tanned features, and by the augmented +dreaminess of his eyes. The Editor noted it as a further proof of that +immoral detachment from mankind, of that callousness of sentiment +fostered by the unhealthy conditions of solitude--according to his own +favourite theory. Aloud he observed that as long as a man had not given +up correspondence he could not be looked upon as lost. Fugitive +criminals had been tracked in that way by justice, he reminded his +friend; then suddenly changed the bearing of the subject somewhat by +asking if Renouard had heard from his people lately, and if every member +of his large tribe was well and happy. + +"Yes, thanks." + +The tone was curt, as if repelling a liberty. Renouard did not like +being asked about his people, for whom he had a profound and remorseful +affection. He had not seen a single human being to whom he was related, +for many years, and he was extremely different from them all. + +On the very morning of his arrival from his island he had gone to a set +of pigeon-holes in Willie Dunster's outer office and had taken out from a +compartment labelled "Malata" a very small accumulation of envelopes, a +few addressed to himself, and one addressed to his assistant, all to the +care of the firm, W. Dunster and Co. As opportunity offered, the firm +used to send them on to Malata either by a man-of-war schooner going on a +cruise, or by some trading craft proceeding that way. But for the last +four months there had been no opportunity. + +"You going to stay here some time?" asked the Editor, after a longish +silence. + +Renouard, perfunctorily, did see no reason why he should make a long +stay. + +"For health, for your mental health, my boy," rejoined the newspaper man. +"To get used to human faces so that they don't hit you in the eye so hard +when you walk about the streets. To get friendly with your kind. I +suppose that assistant of yours can be trusted to look after things?" + +"There's the half-caste too. The Portuguese. He knows what's to be +done." + +"Aha!" The Editor looked sharply at his friend. "What's his name?" + +"Who's name?" + +"The assistant's you picked up on the sly behind my back." + +Renouard made a slight movement of impatience. + +"I met him unexpectedly one evening. I thought he would do as well as +another. He had come from up country and didn't seem happy in a town. +He told me his name was Walter. I did not ask him for proofs, you know." + +"I don't think you get on very well with him." + +"Why? What makes you think so." + +"I don't know. Something reluctant in your manner when he's in +question." + +"Really. My manner! I don't think he's a great subject for +conversation, perhaps. Why not drop him?" + +"Of course! You wouldn't confess to a mistake. Not you. Nevertheless I +have my suspicions about it." + +Renouard got up to go, but hesitated, looking down at the seated Editor. + +"How funny," he said at last with the utmost seriousness, and was making +for the door, when the voice of his friend stopped him. + +"You know what has been said of you? That you couldn't get on with +anybody you couldn't kick. Now, confess--is there any truth in the soft +impeachment?" + +"No," said Renouard. "Did you print that in your paper." + +"No. I didn't quite believe it. But I will tell you what I believe. I +believe that when your heart is set on some object you are a man that +doesn't count the cost to yourself or others. And this shall get printed +some day." + +"Obituary notice?" Renouard dropped negligently. + +"Certain--some day." + +"Do you then regard yourself as immortal?" + +"No, my boy. I am not immortal. But the voice of the press goes on for +ever. . . . And it will say that this was the secret of your great +success in a task where better men than you--meaning no offence--did fail +repeatedly." + +"Success," muttered Renouard, pulling-to the office door after him with +considerable energy. And the letters of the word PRIVATE like a row of +white eyes seemed to stare after his back sinking down the staircase of +that temple of publicity. + +Renouard had no doubt that all the means of publicity would be put at the +service of love and used for the discovery of the loved man. He did not +wish him dead. He did not wish him any harm. We are all equipped with a +fund of humanity which is not exhausted without many and repeated +provocations--and this man had done him no evil. But before Renouard had +left old Dunster's house, at the conclusion of the call he made there +that very afternoon, he had discovered in himself the desire that the +search might last long. He never really flattered himself that it might +fail. It seemed to him that there was no other course in this world for +himself, for all mankind, but resignation. And he could not help +thinking that Professor Moorsom had arrived at the same conclusion too. + +Professor Moorsom, slight frame of middle height, a thoughtful keen head +under the thick wavy hair, veiled dark eyes under straight eyebrows, and +with an inward gaze which when disengaged and arriving at one seemed to +issue from an obscure dream of books, from the limbo of meditation, +showed himself extremely gracious to him. Renouard guessed in him a man +whom an incurable habit of investigation and analysis had made gentle and +indulgent; inapt for action, and more sensitive to the thoughts than to +the events of existence. Withal not crushed, sub-ironic without a trace +of acidity, and with a simple manner which put people at ease quickly. +They had a long conversation on the terrace commanding an extended view +of the town and the harbour. + +The splendid immobility of the bay resting under his gaze, with its grey +spurs and shining indentations, helped Renouard to regain his +self-possession, which he had felt shaken, in coming out on the terrace, +into the setting of the most powerful emotion of his life, when he had +sat within a foot of Miss Moorsom with fire in his breast, a humming in +his ears, and in a complete disorder of his mind. There was the very +garden seat on which he had been enveloped in the radiant spell. And +presently he was sitting on it again with the professor talking of her. +Near by the patriarchal Dunster leaned forward in a wicker arm-chair, +benign and a little deaf, his big hand to his ear with the innocent +eagerness of his advanced age remembering the fires of life. + +It was with a sort of apprehension that Renouard looked forward to seeing +Miss Moorsom. And strangely enough it resembled the state of mind of a +man who fears disenchantment more than sortilege. But he need not have +been afraid. Directly he saw her in a distance at the other end of the +terrace he shuddered to the roots of his hair. With her approach the +power of speech left him for a time. Mrs. Dunster and her aunt were +accompanying her. All these people sat down; it was an intimate circle +into which Renouard felt himself cordially admitted; and the talk was of +the great search which occupied all their minds. Discretion was expected +by these people, but of reticence as to the object of the journey there +could be no question. Nothing but ways and means and arrangements could +be talked about. + +By fixing his eyes obstinately on the ground, which gave him an air of +reflective sadness, Renouard managed to recover his self-possession. He +used it to keep his voice in a low key and to measure his words on the +great subject. And he took care with a great inward effort to make them +reasonable without giving them a discouraging complexion. For he did not +want the quest to be given up, since it would mean her going away with +her two attendant grey-heads to the other side of the world. + +He was asked to come again, to come often and take part in the counsels +of all these people captivated by the sentimental enterprise of a +declared love. On taking Miss Moorsom's hand he looked up, would have +liked to say something, but found himself voiceless, with his lips +suddenly sealed. She returned the pressure of his fingers, and he left +her with her eyes vaguely staring beyond him, an air of listening for an +expected sound, and the faintest possible smile on her lips. A smile not +for him, evidently, but the reflection of some deep and inscrutable +thought. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +He went on board his schooner. She lay white, and as if suspended, in +the crepuscular atmosphere of sunset mingling with the ashy gleam of the +vast anchorage. He tried to keep his thoughts as sober, as reasonable, +as measured as his words had been, lest they should get away from him and +cause some sort of moral disaster. What he was afraid of in the coming +night was sleeplessness and the endless strain of that wearisome task. +It had to be faced however. He lay on his back, sighing profoundly in +the dark, and suddenly beheld his very own self, carrying a small bizarre +lamp, reflected in a long mirror inside a room in an empty and +unfurnished palace. In this startling image of himself he recognised +somebody he had to follow--the frightened guide of his dream. He +traversed endless galleries, no end of lofty halls, innumerable doors. +He lost himself utterly--he found his way again. Room succeeded room. +At last the lamp went out, and he stumbled against some object which, +when he stooped for it, he found to be very cold and heavy to lift. The +sickly white light of dawn showed him the head of a statue. Its marble +hair was done in the bold lines of a helmet, on its lips the chisel had +left a faint smile, and it resembled Miss Moorsom. While he was staring +at it fixedly, the head began to grow light in his fingers, to diminish +and crumble to pieces, and at last turned into a handful of dust, which +was blown away by a puff of wind so chilly that he woke up with a +desperate shiver and leaped headlong out of his bed-place. The day had +really come. He sat down by the cabin table, and taking his head between +his hands, did not stir for a very long time. + +Very quiet, he set himself to review this dream. The lamp, of course, he +connected with the search for a man. But on closer examination he +perceived that the reflection of himself in the mirror was not really the +true Renouard, but somebody else whose face he could not remember. In +the deserted palace he recognised a sinister adaptation by his brain of +the long corridors with many doors, in the great building in which his +friend's newspaper was lodged on the first floor. The marble head with +Miss Moorsom's face! Well! What other face could he have dreamed of? +And her complexion was fairer than Parian marble, than the heads of +angels. The wind at the end was the morning breeze entering through the +open porthole and touching his face before the schooner could swing to +the chilly gust. + +Yes! And all this rational explanation of the fantastic made it only +more mysterious and weird. There was something daemonic in that dream. +It was one of those experiences which throw a man out of conformity with +the established order of his kind and make him a creature of obscure +suggestions. + +Henceforth, without ever trying to resist, he went every afternoon to the +house where she lived. He went there as passively as if in a dream. He +could never make out how he had attained the footing of intimacy in the +Dunster mansion above the bay--whether on the ground of personal merit or +as the pioneer of the vegetable silk industry. It must have been the +last, because he remembered distinctly, as distinctly as in a dream, +hearing old Dunster once telling him that his next public task would be a +careful survey of the Northern Districts to discover tracts suitable for +the cultivation of the silk plant. The old man wagged his beard at him +sagely. It was indeed as absurd as a dream. + +Willie of course would be there in the evening. But he was more of a +figure out of a nightmare, hovering about the circle of chairs in his +dress-clothes like a gigantic, repulsive, and sentimental bat. "Do away +with the beastly cocoons all over the world," he buzzed in his blurred, +water-logged voice. He affected a great horror of insects of all kinds. +One evening he appeared with a red flower in his button-hole. Nothing +could have been more disgustingly fantastic. And he would also say to +Renouard: "You may yet change the history of our country. For economic +conditions do shape the history of nations. Eh? What?" And he would +turn to Miss Moorsom for approval, lowering protectingly his spatulous +nose and looking up with feeling from under his absurd eyebrows, which +grew thin, in the manner of canebrakes, out of his spongy skin. For this +large, bilious creature was an economist and a sentimentalist, facile to +tears, and a member of the Cobden Club. + +In order to see as little of him as possible Renouard began coming +earlier so as to get away before his arrival, without curtailing too much +the hours of secret contemplation for which he lived. He had given up +trying to deceive himself. His resignation was without bounds. He +accepted the immense misfortune of being in love with a woman who was in +search of another man only to throw herself into his arms. With such +desperate precision he defined in his thoughts the situation, the +consciousness of which traversed like a sharp arrow the sudden silences +of general conversation. The only thought before which he quailed was +the thought that this could not last; that it must come to an end. He +feared it instinctively as a sick man may fear death. For it seemed to +him that it must be the death of him followed by a lightless, bottomless +pit. But his resignation was not spared the torments of jealousy: the +cruel, insensate, poignant, and imbecile jealousy, when it seems that a +woman betrays us simply by this that she exists, that she breathes--and +when the deep movements of her nerves or her soul become a matter of +distracting suspicion, of killing doubt, of mortal anxiety. + +In the peculiar condition of their sojourn Miss Moorsom went out very +little. She accepted this seclusion at the Dunsters' mansion as in a +hermitage, and lived there, watched over by a group of old people, with +the lofty endurance of a condescending and strong-headed goddess. It was +impossible to say if she suffered from anything in the world, and whether +this was the insensibility of a great passion concentrated on itself, or +a perfect restraint of manner, or the indifference of superiority so +complete as to be sufficient to itself. But it was visible to Renouard +that she took some pleasure in talking to him at times. Was it because +he was the only person near her age? Was this, then, the secret of his +admission to the circle? + +He admired her voice as well poised as her movements, as her attitudes. +He himself had always been a man of tranquil tones. But the power of +fascination had torn him out of his very nature so completely that to +preserve his habitual calmness from going to pieces had become a terrible +effort. + +He used to go from her on board the schooner exhausted, broken, shaken +up, as though he had been put to the most exquisite torture. When he saw +her approaching he always had a moment of hallucination. She was a misty +and fair creature, fitted for invisible music, for the shadows of love, +for the murmurs of waters. After a time (he could not be always staring +at the ground) he would summon up all his resolution and look at her. +There was a sparkle in the clear obscurity of her eyes; and when she +turned them on him they seemed to give a new meaning to life. He would +say to himself that another man would have found long before the happy +release of madness, his wits burnt to cinders in that radiance. But no +such luck for him. His wits had come unscathed through the furnaces of +hot suns, of blazing deserts, of flaming angers against the weaknesses of +men and the obstinate cruelties of hostile nature. + +Being sane he had to be constantly on his guard against falling into +adoring silences or breaking out into wild speeches. He had to keep +watch on his eyes, his limbs, on the muscles of his face. Their +conversations were such as they could be between these two people: she a +young lady fresh from the thick twilight of four million people and the +artificiality of several London seasons; he the man of definite +conquering tasks, the familiar of wide horizons, and in his very repose +holding aloof from these agglomerations of units in which one loses one's +importance even to oneself. They had no common conversational small +change. They had to use the great pieces of general ideas, but they +exchanged them trivially. It was no serious commerce. Perhaps she had +not much of that coin. Nothing significant came from her. It could not +be said that she had received from the contacts of the external world +impressions of a personal kind, different from other women. What was +ravishing in her was her quietness and, in her grave attitudes, the +unfailing brilliance of her femininity. He did not know what there was +under that ivory forehead so splendidly shaped, so gloriously crowned. +He could not tell what were her thoughts, her feelings. Her replies were +reflective, always preceded by a short silence, while he hung on her lips +anxiously. He felt himself in the presence of a mysterious being in whom +spoke an unknown voice, like the voice of oracles, bringing everlasting +unrest to the heart. + +He was thankful enough to sit in silence with secretly clenched teeth, +devoured by jealousy--and nobody could have guessed that his quiet +deferential bearing to all these grey-heads was the supreme effort of +stoicism, that the man was engaged in keeping a sinister watch on his +tortures lest his strength should fail him. As before, when grappling +with other forces of nature, he could find in himself all sorts of +courage except the courage to run away. + +It was perhaps from the lack of subjects they could have in common that +Miss Moorsom made him so often speak of his own life. He did not shrink +from talking about himself, for he was free from that exacerbated, timid +vanity which seals so many vain-glorious lips. He talked to her in his +restrained voice, gazing at the tip of her shoe, and thinking that the +time was bound to come soon when her very inattention would get weary of +him. And indeed on stealing a glance he would see her dazzling and +perfect, her eyes vague, staring in mournful immobility, with a drooping +head that made him think of a tragic Venus arising before him, not from +the foam of the sea, but from a distant, still more formless, mysterious, +and potent immensity of mankind. + + + +CHAPTER V + + +One afternoon Renouard stepping out on the terrace found nobody there. +It was for him, at the same time, a melancholy disappointment and a +poignant relief. + +The heat was great, the air was still, all the long windows of the house +stood wide open. At the further end, grouped round a lady's work-table, +several chairs disposed sociably suggested invisible occupants, a company +of conversing shades. Renouard looked towards them with a sort of dread. +A most elusive, faint sound of ghostly talk issuing from one of the rooms +added to the illusion and stopped his already hesitating footsteps. He +leaned over the balustrade of stone near a squat vase holding a tropical +plant of a bizarre shape. Professor Moorsom coming up from the garden +with a book under his arm and a white parasol held over his bare head, +found him there and, closing the parasol, leaned over by his side with a +remark on the increasing heat of the season. Renouard assented and +changed his position a little; the other, after a short silence, +administered unexpectedly a question which, like the blow of a club on +the head, deprived Renouard of the power of speech and even thought, but, +more cruel, left him quivering with apprehension, not of death but of +everlasting torment. Yet the words were extremely simple. + +"Something will have to be done soon. We can't remain in a state of +suspended expectation for ever. Tell me what do you think of our +chances?" + +Renouard, speechless, produced a faint smile. The professor confessed in +a jocular tone his impatience to complete the circuit of the globe and be +done with it. It was impossible to remain quartered on the dear +excellent Dunsters for an indefinite time. And then there were the +lectures he had arranged to deliver in Paris. A serious matter. + +That lectures by Professor Moorsom were a European event and that +brilliant audiences would gather to hear them Renouard did not know. All +he was aware of was the shock of this hint of departure. The menace of +separation fell on his head like a thunderbolt. And he saw the absurdity +of his emotion, for hadn't he lived all these days under the very cloud? +The professor, his elbows spread out, looked down into the garden and +went on unburdening his mind. Yes. The department of sentiment was +directed by his daughter, and she had plenty of volunteered moral +support; but he had to look after the practical side of life without +assistance. + +"I have the less hesitation in speaking to you about my anxiety, because +I feel you are friendly to us and at the same time you are detached from +all these sublimities--confound them." + +"What do you mean?" murmured Renouard. + +"I mean that you are capable of calm judgment. Here the atmosphere is +simply detestable. Everybody has knuckled under to sentiment. Perhaps +your deliberate opinion could influence . . ." + +"You want Miss Moorsom to give it up?" The professor turned to the young +man dismally. + +"Heaven only knows what I want." + +Renouard leaning his back against the balustrade folded his arms on his +breast, appeared to meditate profoundly. His face, shaded softly by the +broad brim of a planter's Panama hat, with the straight line of the nose +level with the forehead, the eyes lost in the depth of the setting, and +the chin well forward, had such a profile as may be seen amongst the +bronzes of classical museums, pure under a crested helmet--recalled +vaguely a Minerva's head. + +"This is the most troublesome time I ever had in my life," exclaimed the +professor testily. + +"Surely the man must be worth it," muttered Renouard with a pang of +jealousy traversing his breast like a self-inflicted stab. + +Whether enervated by the heat or giving way to pent up irritation the +professor surrendered himself to the mood of sincerity. + +"He began by being a pleasantly dull boy. He developed into a +pointlessly clever young man, without, I suspect, ever trying to +understand anything. My daughter knew him from childhood. I am a busy +man, and I confess that their engagement was a complete surprise to me. +I wish their reasons for that step had been more naive. But simplicity +was out of fashion in their set. From a worldly point of view he seems +to have been a mere baby. Of course, now, I am assured that he is the +victim of his noble confidence in the rectitude of his kind. But that's +mere idealising of a sad reality. For my part I will tell you that from +the very beginning I had the gravest doubts of his dishonesty. +Unfortunately my clever daughter hadn't. And now we behold the reaction. +No. To be earnestly dishonest one must be really poor. This was only a +manifestation of his extremely refined cleverness. The complicated +simpleton. He had an awful awakening though." + +In such words did Professor Moorsom give his "young friend" to understand +the state of his feelings toward the lost man. It was evident that the +father of Miss Moorsom wished him to remain lost. Perhaps the +unprecedented heat of the season made him long for the cool spaces of the +Pacific, the sweep of the ocean's free wind along the promenade decks, +cumbered with long chairs, of a ship steaming towards the Californian +coast. To Renouard the philosopher appeared simply the most treacherous +of fathers. He was amazed. But he was not at the end of his +discoveries. + +"He may be dead," the professor murmured. + +"Why? People don't die here sooner than in Europe. If he had gone to +hide in Italy, for instance, you wouldn't think of saying that." + +"Well! And suppose he has become morally disintegrated. You know he was +not a strong personality," the professor suggested moodily. "My +daughter's future is in question here." + +Renouard thought that the love of such a woman was enough to pull any +broken man together--to drag a man out of his grave. And he thought this +with inward despair, which kept him silent as much almost as his +astonishment. At last he managed to stammer out a generous-- + +"Oh! Don't let us even suppose. . ." + +The professor struck in with a sadder accent than before-- + +"It's good to be young. And then you have been a man of action, and +necessarily a believer in success. But I have been looking too long at +life not to distrust its surprises. Age! Age! Here I stand before you +a man full of doubts and hesitation--_spe lentus_, _timidus futuri_." + +He made a sign to Renouard not to interrupt, and in a lowered voice, as +if afraid of being overheard, even there, in the solitude of the +terrace-- + +"And the worst is that I am not even sure how far this sentimental +pilgrimage is genuine. Yes. I doubt my own child. It's true that she's +a woman. . . . " + +Renouard detected with horror a tone of resentment, as if the professor +had never forgiven his daughter for not dying instead of his son. The +latter noticed the young man's stony stare. + +"Ah! you don't understand. Yes, she's clever, open-minded, popular, +and--well, charming. But you don't know what it is to have moved, +breathed, existed, and even triumphed in the mere smother and froth of +life--the brilliant froth. There thoughts, sentiments, opinions, +feelings, actions too, are nothing but agitation in empty space--to amuse +life--a sort of superior debauchery, exciting and fatiguing, meaning +nothing, leading nowhere. She is the creature of that circle. And I ask +myself if she is obeying the uneasiness of an instinct seeking its +satisfaction, or is it a revulsion of feeling, or is she merely deceiving +her own heart by this dangerous trifling with romantic images. And +everything is possible--except sincerity, such as only stark, struggling +humanity can know. No woman can stand that mode of life in which women +rule, and remain a perfectly genuine, simple human being. Ah! There's +some people coming out." + +He moved off a pace, then turning his head: "Upon my word! I would be +infinitely obliged to you if you could throw a little cold water. . . " +and at a vaguely dismayed gesture of Renouard, he added: "Don't be +afraid. You wouldn't be putting out a sacred fire." + +Renouard could hardly find words for a protest: "I assure you that I +never talk with Miss Moorsom--on--on--that. And if you, her father . . . +" + +"I envy you your innocence," sighed the professor. "A father is only an +everyday person. Flat. Stale. Moreover, my child would naturally +mistrust me. We belong to the same set. Whereas you carry with you the +prestige of the unknown. You have proved yourself to be a force." + +Thereupon the professor followed by Renouard joined the circle of all the +inmates of the house assembled at the other end of the terrace about a +tea-table; three white heads and that resplendent vision of woman's +glory, the sight of which had the power to flutter his heart like a +reminder of the mortality of his frame. + +He avoided the seat by the side of Miss Moorsom. The others were talking +together languidly. Unnoticed he looked at that woman so marvellous that +centuries seemed to lie between them. He was oppressed and overcome at +the thought of what she could give to some man who really would be a +force! What a glorious struggle with this amazon. What noble burden for +the victorious strength. + +Dear old Mrs. Dunster was dispensing tea, looking from time to time with +interest towards Miss Moorsom. The aged statesman having eaten a raw +tomato and drunk a glass of milk (a habit of his early farming days, long +before politics, when, pioneer of wheat-growing, he demonstrated the +possibility of raising crops on ground looking barren enough to +discourage a magician), smoothed his white beard, and struck lightly +Renouard's knee with his big wrinkled hand. + +"You had better come back to-night and dine with us quietly." + +He liked this young man, a pioneer, too, in more than one direction. +Mrs. Dunster added: "Do. It will be very quiet. I don't even know if +Willie will be home for dinner." Renouard murmured his thanks, and left +the terrace to go on board the schooner. While lingering in the +drawing-room doorway he heard the resonant voice of old Dunster uttering +oracularly-- + +". . . the leading man here some day. . . . Like me." + +Renouard let the thin summer portiere of the doorway fall behind him. +The voice of Professor Moorsom said-- + +"I am told that he has made an enemy of almost every man who had to work +with him." + +"That's nothing. He did his work. . . . Like me." + +"He never counted the cost they say. Not even of lives." + +Renouard understood that they were talking of him. Before he could move +away, Mrs. Dunster struck in placidly-- + +"Don't let yourself be shocked by the tales you may hear of him, my dear. +Most of it is envy." + +Then he heard Miss Moorsom's voice replying to the old lady-- + +"Oh! I am not easily deceived. I think I may say I have an instinct for +truth." + +He hastened away from that house with his heart full of dread. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +On board the schooner, lying on the settee on his back with the knuckles +of his hands pressed over his eyes, he made up his mind that he would not +return to that house for dinner--that he would never go back there any +more. He made up his mind some twenty times. The knowledge that he had +only to go up on the quarter deck, utter quietly the words: "Man the +windlass," and that the schooner springing into life would run a hundred +miles out to sea before sunrise, deceived his struggling will. Nothing +easier! Yet, in the end, this young man, almost ill-famed for his +ruthless daring, the inflexible leader of two tragically successful +expeditions, shrank from that act of savage energy, and began, instead, +to hunt for excuses. + +No! It was not for him to run away like an incurable who cuts his +throat. He finished dressing and looked at his own impassive face in the +saloon mirror scornfully. While being pulled on shore in the gig, he +remembered suddenly the wild beauty of a waterfall seen when hardly more +than a boy, years ago, in Menado. There was a legend of a +governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, on official tour, committing +suicide on that spot by leaping into the chasm. It was supposed that a +painful disease had made him weary of life. But was there ever a +visitation like his own, at the same time binding one to life and so +cruelly mortal! + +The dinner was indeed quiet. Willie, given half an hour's grace, failed +to turn up, and his chair remained vacant by the side of Miss Moorsom. +Renouard had the professor's sister on his left, dressed in an expensive +gown becoming her age. That maiden lady in her wonderful preservation +reminded Renouard somehow of a wax flower under glass. There were no +traces of the dust of life's battles on her anywhere. She did not like +him very much in the afternoons, in his white drill suit and planter's +hat, which seemed to her an unduly Bohemian costume for calling in a +house where there were ladies. But in the evening, lithe and elegant in +his dress clothes and with his pleasant, slightly veiled voice, he always +made her conquest afresh. He might have been anybody distinguished--the +son of a duke. Falling under that charm probably (and also because her +brother had given her a hint), she attempted to open her heart to +Renouard, who was watching with all the power of his soul her niece +across the table. She spoke to him as frankly as though that miserable +mortal envelope, emptied of everything but hopeless passion, were indeed +the son of a duke. + +Inattentive, he heard her only in snatches, till the final confidential +burst: ". . . glad if you would express an opinion. Look at her, so +charming, such a great favourite, so generally admired! It would be too +sad. We all hoped she would make a brilliant marriage with somebody very +rich and of high position, have a house in London and in the country, and +entertain us all splendidly. She's so eminently fitted for it. She has +such hosts of distinguished friends! And then--this instead! . . . My +heart really aches." + +Her well-bred if anxious whisper was covered by the voice of professor +Moorsom discoursing subtly down the short length of the dinner table on +the Impermanency of the Measurable to his venerable disciple. It might +have been a chapter in a new and popular book of Moorsomian philosophy. +Patriarchal and delighted, old Dunster leaned forward a little, his eyes +shining youthfully, two spots of colour at the roots of his white beard; +and Renouard, glancing at the senile excitement, recalled the words heard +on those subtle lips, adopted their scorn for his own, saw their truth +before this man ready to be amused by the side of the grave. Yes! +Intellectual debauchery in the froth of existence! Froth and fraud! + +On the same side of the table Miss Moorsom never once looked towards her +father, all her grace as if frozen, her red lips compressed, the faintest +rosiness under her dazzling complexion, her black eyes burning +motionless, and the very coppery gleams of light lying still on the waves +and undulation of her hair. Renouard fancied himself overturning the +table, smashing crystal and china, treading fruit and flowers under foot, +seizing her in his arms, carrying her off in a tumult of shrieks from all +these people, a silent frightened mortal, into some profound retreat as +in the age of Cavern men. Suddenly everybody got up, and he hastened to +rise too, finding himself out of breath and quite unsteady on his feet. + +On the terrace the philosopher, after lighting a cigar, slipped his hand +condescendingly under his "dear young friend's" arm. Renouard regarded +him now with the profoundest mistrust. But the great man seemed really +to have a liking for his young friend--one of those mysterious +sympathies, disregarding the differences of age and position, which in +this case might have been explained by the failure of philosophy to meet +a very real worry of a practical kind. + +After a turn or two and some casual talk the professor said suddenly: "My +late son was in your school--do you know? I can imagine that had he +lived and you had ever met you would have understood each other. He too +was inclined to action." + +He sighed, then, shaking off the mournful thought and with a nod at the +dusky part of the terrace where the dress of his daughter made a luminous +stain: "I really wish you would drop in that quarter a few sensible, +discouraging words." + +Renouard disengaged himself from that most perfidious of men under the +pretence of astonishment, and stepping back a pace-- + +"Surely you are making fun of me, Professor Moorsom," he said with a low +laugh, which was really a sound of rage. + +"My dear young friend! It's no subject for jokes, to me. . . You don't +seem to have any notion of your prestige," he added, walking away towards +the chairs. + +"Humbug!" thought Renouard, standing still and looking after him. "And +yet! And yet! What if it were true?" + +He advanced then towards Miss Moorsom. Posed on the seat on which they +had first spoken to each other, it was her turn to watch him coming on. +But many of the windows were not lighted that evening. It was dark over +there. She appeared to him luminous in her clear dress, a figure without +shape, a face without features, awaiting his approach, till he got quite +near to her, sat down, and they had exchanged a few insignificant words. +Gradually she came out like a magic painting of charm, fascination, and +desire, glowing mysteriously on the dark background. Something +imperceptible in the lines of her attitude, in the modulations of her +voice, seemed to soften that suggestion of calm unconscious pride which +enveloped her always like a mantle. He, sensitive like a bond slave to +the moods of the master, was moved by the subtle relenting of her grace +to an infinite tenderness. He fought down the impulse to seize her by +the hand, lead her down into the garden away under the big trees, and +throw himself at her feet uttering words of love. His emotion was so +strong that he had to cough slightly, and not knowing what to talk to her +about he began to tell her of his mother and sisters. All the family +were coming to London to live there, for some little time at least. + +"I hope you will go and tell them something of me. Something seen," he +said pressingly. + +By this miserable subterfuge, like a man about to part with his life, he +hoped to make her remember him a little longer. + +"Certainly," she said. "I'll be glad to call when I get back. But that +'when' may be a long time." + +He heard a light sigh. A cruel jealous curiosity made him ask-- + +"Are you growing weary, Miss Moorsom?" + +A silence fell on his low spoken question. + +"Do you mean heart-weary?" sounded Miss Moorsom's voice. "You don't know +me, I see." + +"Ah! Never despair," he muttered. + +"This, Mr. Renouard, is a work of reparation. I stand for truth here. I +can't think of myself." + +He could have taken her by the throat for every word seemed an insult to +his passion; but he only said-- + +"I never doubted the--the--nobility of your purpose." + +"And to hear the word weariness pronounced in this connection surprises +me. And from a man too who, I understand, has never counted the cost." + +"You are pleased to tease me," he said, directly he had recovered his +voice and had mastered his anger. It was as if Professor Moorsom had +dropped poison in his ear which was spreading now and tainting his +passion, his very jealousy. He mistrusted every word that came from +those lips on which his life hung. "How can you know anything of men who +do not count the cost?" he asked in his gentlest tones. + +"From hearsay--a little." + +"Well, I assure you they are like the others, subject to suffering, +victims of spells. . . ." + +"One of them, at least, speaks very strangely." + +She dismissed the subject after a short silence. "Mr. Renouard, I had a +disappointment this morning. This mail brought me a letter from the +widow of the old butler--you know. I expected to learn that she had +heard from--from here. But no. No letter arrived home since we left." + +Her voice was calm. His jealousy couldn't stand much more of this sort +of talk; but he was glad that nothing had turned up to help the search; +glad blindly, unreasonably--only because it would keep her longer in his +sight--since she wouldn't give up. + +"I am too near her," he thought, moving a little further on the seat. He +was afraid in the revulsion of feeling of flinging himself on her hands, +which were lying on her lap, and covering them with kisses. He was +afraid. Nothing, nothing could shake that spell--not if she were ever so +false, stupid, or degraded. She was fate itself. The extent of his +misfortune plunged him in such a stupor that he failed at first to hear +the sound of voices and footsteps inside the drawing-room. Willie had +come home--and the Editor was with him. + +They burst out on the terrace babbling noisily, and then pulling +themselves together stood still, surprising--and as if themselves +surprised. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +They had been feasting a poet from the bush, the latest discovery of the +Editor. Such discoveries were the business, the vocation, the pride and +delight of the only apostle of letters in the hemisphere, the solitary +patron of culture, the Slave of the Lamp--as he subscribed himself at the +bottom of the weekly literary page of his paper. He had had no +difficulty in persuading the virtuous Willie (who had festive instincts) +to help in the good work, and now they had left the poet lying asleep on +the hearthrug of the editorial room and had rushed to the Dunster mansion +wildly. The Editor had another discovery to announce. Swaying a little +where he stood he opened his mouth very wide to shout the one word +"Found!" Behind him Willie flung both his hands above his head and let +them fall dramatically. Renouard saw the four white-headed people at the +end of the terrace rise all together from their chairs with an effect of +sudden panic. + +"I tell you--he--is--found," the patron of letters shouted emphatically. + +"What is this!" exclaimed Renouard in a choked voice. Miss Moorsom +seized his wrist suddenly, and at that contact fire ran through all his +veins, a hot stillness descended upon him in which he heard the blood--or +the fire--beating in his ears. He made a movement as if to rise, but was +restrained by the convulsive pressure on his wrist. + +"No, no." Miss Moorsom's eyes stared black as night, searching the space +before her. Far away the Editor strutted forward, Willie following with +his ostentatious manner of carrying his bulky and oppressive carcass +which, however, did not remain exactly perpendicular for two seconds +together. + +"The innocent Arthur . . . Yes. We've got him," the Editor became very +business-like. "Yes, this letter has done it." + +He plunged into an inside pocket for it, slapped the scrap of paper with +his open palm. "From that old woman. William had it in his pocket since +this morning when Miss Moorsom gave it to him to show me. Forgot all +about it till an hour ago. Thought it was of no importance. Well, no! +Not till it was properly read." + +Renouard and Miss Moorsom emerged from the shadows side by side, a +well-matched couple, animated yet statuesque in their calmness and in +their pallor. She had let go his wrist. On catching sight of Renouard +the Editor exclaimed: + +"What--you here!" in a quite shrill voice. + +There came a dead pause. All the faces had in them something dismayed +and cruel. + +"He's the very man we want," continued the Editor. "Excuse my +excitement. You are the very man, Renouard. Didn't you tell me that +your assistant called himself Walter? Yes? Thought so. But here's that +old woman--the butler's wife--listen to this. She writes: All I can tell +you, Miss, is that my poor husband directed his letters to the name of H. +Walter." + +Renouard's violent but repressed exclamation was lost in a general murmur +and shuffle of feet. The Editor made a step forward, bowed with +creditable steadiness. + +"Miss Moorsom, allow me to congratulate you from the bottom of my heart +on the happy--er--issue. . . " + +"Wait," muttered Renouard irresolutely. + +The Editor jumped on him in the manner of their old friendship. "Ah, +you! You are a fine fellow too. With your solitary ways of life you +will end by having no more discrimination than a savage. Fancy living +with a gentleman for months and never guessing. A man, I am certain, +accomplished, remarkable, out of the common, since he had been +distinguished" (he bowed again) "by Miss Moorsom, whom we all admire." + +She turned her back on him. + +"I hope to goodness you haven't been leading him a dog's life, Geoffrey," +the Editor addressed his friend in a whispered aside. + +Renouard seized a chair violently, sat down, and propping his elbow on +his knee leaned his head on his hand. Behind him the sister of the +professor looked up to heaven and wrung her hands stealthily. Mrs. +Dunster's hands were clasped forcibly under her chin, but she, dear soul, +was looking sorrowfully at Willie. The model nephew! In this strange +state! So very much flushed! The careful disposition of the thin hairs +across Willie's bald spot was deplorably disarranged, and the spot itself +was red and, as it were, steaming. + +"What's the matter, Geoffrey?" The Editor seemed disconcerted by the +silent attitudes round him, as though he had expected all these people to +shout and dance. "You have him on the island--haven't you?" + +"Oh, yes: I have him there," said Renouard, without looking up. + +"Well, then!" The Editor looked helplessly around as if begging for +response of some sort. But the only response that came was very +unexpected. Annoyed at being left in the background, and also because +very little drink made him nasty, the emotional Willie turned malignant +all at once, and in a bibulous tone surprising in a man able to keep his +balance so well-- + +"Aha! But you haven't got him here--not yet!" he sneered. "No! You +haven't got him yet." + +This outrageous exhibition was to the Editor like the lash to a jaded +horse. He positively jumped. + +"What of that? What do you mean? We--haven't--got--him--here. Of +course he isn't here! But Geoffrey's schooner is here. She can be sent +at once to fetch him here. No! Stay! There's a better plan. Why +shouldn't you all sail over to Malata, professor? Save time! I am sure +Miss Moorsom would prefer. . ." + +With a gallant flourish of his arm he looked for Miss Moorsom. She had +disappeared. He was taken aback somewhat. + +"Ah! H'm. Yes. . . . Why not. A pleasure cruise, delightful ship, +delightful season, delightful errand, del . . . No! There are no +objections. Geoffrey, I understand, has indulged in a bungalow three +sizes too large for him. He can put you all up. It will be a pleasure +for him. It will be the greatest privilege. Any man would be proud of +being an agent of this happy reunion. I am proud of the little part I've +played. He will consider it the greatest honour. Geoff, my boy, you had +better be stirring to-morrow bright and early about the preparations for +the trip. It would be criminal to lose a single day." + +He was as flushed as Willie, the excitement keeping up the effect of the +festive dinner. For a time Renouard, silent, as if he had not heard a +word of all that babble, did not stir. But when he got up it was to +advance towards the Editor and give him such a hearty slap on the back +that the plump little man reeled in his tracks and looked quite +frightened for a moment. + +"You are a heaven-born discoverer and a first-rate manager. . . He's +right. It's the only way. You can't resist the claim of sentiment, and +you must even risk the voyage to Malata. . . " Renouard's voice sank. "A +lonely spot," he added, and fell into thought under all these eyes +converging on him in the sudden silence. His slow glance passed over all +the faces in succession, remaining arrested on Professor Moorsom, stony +eyed, a smouldering cigar in his fingers, and with his sister standing by +his side. + +"I shall be infinitely gratified if you consent to come. But, of course, +you will. We shall sail to-morrow evening then. And now let me leave +you to your happiness." + +He bowed, very grave, pointed suddenly his finger at Willie who was +swaying about with a sleepy frown. . . . "Look at him. He's overcome +with happiness. You had better put him to bed . . . " and disappeared +while every head on the terrace was turned to Willie with varied +expressions. + +Renouard ran through the house. Avoiding the carriage road he fled down +the steep short cut to the shore, where his gig was waiting. At his loud +shout the sleeping Kanakas jumped up. He leaped in. "Shove off. Give +way!" and the gig darted through the water. "Give way! Give way!" She +flew past the wool-clippers sleeping at their anchors each with the open +unwinking eye of the lamp in the rigging; she flew past the flagship of +the Pacific squadron, a great mass all dark and silent, heavy with the +slumbers of five hundred men, and where the invisible sentries heard his +urgent "Give way! Give way!" in the night. The Kanakas, panting, rose +off the thwarts at every stroke. Nothing could be fast enough for him! +And he ran up the side of his schooner shaking the ladder noisily with +his rush. + +On deck he stumbled and stood still. + +Wherefore this haste? To what end, since he knew well before he started +that he had a pursuer from whom there was no escape. + +As his foot touched the deck his will, his purpose he had been hurrying +to save, died out within. It had been nothing less than getting the +schooner under-way, letting her vanish silently in the night from amongst +these sleeping ships. And now he was certain he could not do it. It was +impossible! And he reflected that whether he lived or died such an act +would lay him under a dark suspicion from which he shrank. No, there was +nothing to be done. + +He went down into the cabin and, before even unbuttoning his overcoat, +took out of the drawer the letter addressed to his assistant; that letter +which he had found in the pigeon-hole labelled "Malata" in young +Dunster's outer office, where it had been waiting for three months some +occasion for being forwarded. From the moment of dropping it in the +drawer he had utterly forgotten its existence--till now, when the man's +name had come out so clamorously. He glanced at the common envelope, +noted the shaky and laborious handwriting: H. Walter, Esqre. Undoubtedly +the very last letter the old butler had posted before his illness, and in +answer clearly to one from "Master Arthur" instructing him to address in +the future: "Care of Messrs. W. Dunster and Co." Renouard made as if to +open the envelope, but paused, and, instead, tore the letter deliberately +in two, in four, in eight. With his hand full of pieces of paper he +returned on deck and scattered them overboard on the dark water, in which +they vanished instantly. + +He did it slowly, without hesitation or remorse. H. Walter, Esqre, in +Malata. The innocent Arthur--What was his name? The man sought for by +that woman who as she went by seemed to draw all the passion of the earth +to her, without effort, not deigning to notice, naturally, as other women +breathed the air. But Renouard was no longer jealous of her very +existence. Whatever its meaning it was not for that man he had picked up +casually on obscure impulse, to get rid of the tiresome expostulations of +a so-called friend; a man of whom he really knew nothing--and now a dead +man. In Malata. Oh, yes! He was there secure enough, untroubled in his +grave. In Malata. To bury him was the last service Renouard had +rendered to his assistant before leaving the island on this trip to town. + +Like many men ready enough for arduous enterprises Renouard was inclined +to evade the small complications of existence. This trait of his +character was composed of a little indolence, some disdain, and a +shrinking from contests with certain forms of vulgarity--like a man who +would face a lion and go out of his way to avoid a toad. His intercourse +with the meddlesome journalist was that merely outward intimacy without +sympathy some young men get drawn into easily. It had amused him rather +to keep that "friend" in the dark about the fate of his assistant. +Renouard had never needed other company than his own, for there was in +him something of the sensitiveness of a dreamer who is easily jarred. He +had said to himself that the all-knowing one would only preach again +about the evils of solitude and worry his head off in favour of some +forlornly useless protege of his. Also the inquisitiveness of the Editor +had irritated him and had closed his lips in sheer disgust. + +And now he contemplated the noose of consequences drawing tight around +him. + +It was the memory of that diplomatic reticence which on the terrace had +stiffled his first cry which would have told them all that the man sought +for was not to be met on earth any more. He shrank from the absurdity of +hearing the all-knowing one, and not very sober at that, turning on him +with righteous reproaches-- + +"You never told me. You gave me to understand that your assistant was +alive, and now you say he's dead. Which is it? Were you lying then or +are you lying now?" No! the thought of such a scene was not to be borne. +He had sat down appalled, thinking: "What shall I do now?" + +His courage had oozed out of him. Speaking the truth meant the Moorsoms +going away at once--while it seemed to him that he would give the last +shred of his rectitude to secure a day more of her company. He sat +on--silent. Slowly, from confused sensations, from his talk with the +professor, the manner of the girl herself, the intoxicating familiarity +of her sudden hand-clasp, there had come to him a half glimmer of hope. +The other man was dead. Then! . . . Madness, of course--but he could not +give it up. He had listened to that confounded busybody arranging +everything--while all these people stood around assenting, under the +spell of that dead romance. He had listened scornful and silent. The +glimmers of hope, of opportunity, passed before his eyes. He had only to +sit still and say nothing. That and no more. And what was truth to him +in the face of that great passion which had flung him prostrate in spirit +at her adored feet! + +And now it was done! Fatality had willed it! With the eyes of a mortal +struck by the maddening thunderbolt of the gods, Renouard looked up to +the sky, an immense black pall dusted over with gold, on which great +shudders seemed to pass from the breath of life affirming its sway. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +At last, one morning, in a clear spot of a glassy horizon charged with +heraldic masses of black vapours, the island grew out from the sea, +showing here and there its naked members of basaltic rock through the +rents of heavy foliage. Later, in the great spilling of all the riches +of sunset, Malata stood out green and rosy before turning into a violet +shadow in the autumnal light of the expiring day. Then came the night. +In the faint airs the schooner crept on past a sturdy squat headland, and +it was pitch dark when her headsails ran down, she turned short on her +heel, and her anchor bit into the sandy bottom on the edge of the outer +reef; for it was too dangerous then to attempt entering the little bay +full of shoals. After the last solemn flutter of the mainsail the +murmuring voices of the Moorsom party lingered, very frail, in the black +stillness. + +They were sitting aft, on chairs, and nobody made a move. Early in the +day, when it had become evident that the wind was failing, Renouard, +basing his advice on the shortcomings of his bachelor establishment, had +urged on the ladies the advisability of not going ashore in the middle of +the night. Now he approached them in a constrained manner (it was +astonishing the constraint that had reigned between him and his guests +all through the passage) and renewed his arguments. No one ashore would +dream of his bringing any visitors with him. Nobody would even think of +coming off. There was only one old canoe on the plantation. And landing +in the schooner's boats would be awkward in the dark. There was the risk +of getting aground on some shallow patches. It would be best to spend +the rest of the night on board. + +There was really no opposition. The professor smoking a pipe, and very +comfortable in an ulster buttoned over his tropical clothes, was the +first to speak from his long chair. + +"Most excellent advice." + +Next to him Miss Moorsom assented by a long silence. Then in a voice as +of one coming out of a dream-- + +"And so this is Malata," she said. "I have often wondered . . ." + +A shiver passed through Renouard. She had wondered! What about? Malata +was himself. He and Malata were one. And she had wondered! She had . . . + +The professor's sister leaned over towards Renouard. Through all these +days at sea the man's--the found man's--existence had not been alluded to +on board the schooner. That reticence was part of the general constraint +lying upon them all. She, herself, certainly had not been exactly elated +by this finding--poor Arthur, without money, without prospects. But she +felt moved by the sentiment and romance of the situation. + +"Isn't it wonderful," she whispered out of her white wrap, "to think of +poor Arthur sleeping there, so near to our dear lovely Felicia, and not +knowing the immense joy in store for him to-morrow." + +There was such artificiality in the wax-flower lady that nothing in this +speech touched Renouard. It was but the simple anxiety of his heart that +he was voicing when he muttered gloomily-- + +"No one in the world knows what to-morrow may hold in store." + +The mature lady had a recoil as though he had said something impolite. +What a harsh thing to say--instead of finding something nice and +appropriate. On board, where she never saw him in evening clothes, +Renouard's resemblance to a duke's son was not so apparent to her. +Nothing but his--ah--bohemianism remained. She rose with a sort of +ostentation. + +"It's late--and since we are going to sleep on board to-night . . ." she +said. "But it does seem so cruel." + +The professor started up eagerly, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. +"Infinitely more sensible, my dear Emma." + +Renouard waited behind Miss Moorsom's chair. + +She got up slowly, moved one step forward, and paused looking at the +shore. The blackness of the island blotted out the stars with its vague +mass like a low thundercloud brooding over the waters and ready to burst +into flame and crashes. + +"And so--this is Malata," she repeated dreamily, moving towards the cabin +door. The clear cloak hanging from her shoulders, the ivory face--for +the night had put out nothing of her but the gleams of her hair--made her +resemble a shining dream-woman uttering words of wistful inquiry. She +disappeared without a sign, leaving Renouard penetrated to the very +marrow by the sounds that came from her body like a mysterious resonance +of an exquisite instrument. + +He stood stock still. What was this accidental touch which had evoked +the strange accent of her voice? He dared not answer that question. But +he had to answer the question of what was to be done now. Had the moment +of confession come? The thought was enough to make one's blood run cold. + +It was as if those people had a premonition of something. In the +taciturn days of the passage he had noticed their reserve even amongst +themselves. The professor smoked his pipe moodily in retired spots. +Renouard had caught Miss Moorsom's eyes resting on himself more than +once, with a peculiar and grave expression. He fancied that she avoided +all opportunities of conversation. The maiden lady seemed to nurse a +grievance. And now what had he to do? + +The lights on the deck had gone out one after the other. The schooner +slept. + +About an hour after Miss Moorsom had gone below without a sign or a word +for him, Renouard got out of his hammock slung in the waist under the +midship awning--for he had given up all the accommodation below to his +guests. He got out with a sudden swift movement, flung off his sleeping +jacket, rolled his pyjamas up his thighs, and stole forward, unseen by +the one Kanaka of the anchor-watch. His white torso, naked like a +stripped athlete's, glimmered, ghostly, in the deep shadows of the deck. +Unnoticed he got out of the ship over the knight-heads, ran along the +back rope, and seizing the dolphin-striker firmly with both hands, +lowered himself into the sea without a splash. + +He swam away, noiseless like a fish, and then struck boldly for the land, +sustained, embraced, by the tepid water. The gentle, voluptuous heave of +its breast swung him up and down slightly; sometimes a wavelet murmured +in his ears; from time to time, lowering his feet, he felt for the bottom +on a shallow patch to rest and correct his direction. He landed at the +lower end of the bungalow garden, into the dead stillness of the island. +There were no lights. The plantation seemed to sleep, as profoundly as +the schooner. On the path a small shell cracked under his naked heel. + +The faithful half-caste foreman going his rounds cocked his ears at the +sharp sound. He gave one enormous start of fear at the sight of the +swift white figure flying at him out of the night. He crouched in +terror, and then sprang up and clicked his tongue in amazed recognition. + +"Tse! Tse! The master!" + +"Be quiet, Luiz, and listen to what I say." + +Yes, it was the master, the strong master who was never known to raise +his voice, the man blindly obeyed and never questioned. He talked low +and rapidly in the quiet night, as if every minute were precious. On +learning that three guests were coming to stay Luiz clicked his tongue +rapidly. These clicks were the uniform, stenographic symbols of his +emotions, and he could give them an infinite variety of meaning. He +listened to the rest in a deep silence hardly affected by the low, "Yes, +master," whenever Renouard paused. + +"You understand?" the latter insisted. "No preparations are to be made +till we land in the morning. And you are to say that Mr. Walter has gone +off in a trading schooner on a round of the islands." + +"Yes, master." + +"No mistakes--mind!" + +"No, master." + +Renouard walked back towards the sea. Luiz, following him, proposed to +call out half a dozen boys and man the canoe. + +"Imbecile!" + +"Tse! Tse! Tse!" + +"Don't you understand that you haven't seen me?" + +"Yes, master. But what a long swim. Suppose you drown." + +"Then you can say of me and of Mr. Walter what you like. The dead don't +mind." + +Renouard entered the sea and heard a faint "Tse! Tse! Tse!" of concern +from the half-caste, who had already lost sight of the master's dark head +on the overshadowed water. + +Renouard set his direction by a big star that, dipping on the horizon, +seemed to look curiously into his face. On this swim back he felt the +mournful fatigue of all that length of the traversed road, which brought +him no nearer to his desire. It was as if his love had sapped the +invisible supports of his strength. There came a moment when it seemed +to him that he must have swum beyond the confines of life. He had a +sensation of eternity close at hand, demanding no effort--offering its +peace. It was easy to swim like this beyond the confines of life looking +at a star. But the thought: "They will think I dared not face them and +committed suicide," caused a revolt of his mind which carried him on. He +returned on board, as he had left, unheard and unseen. He lay in his +hammock utterly exhausted and with a confused feeling that he had been +beyond the confines of life, somewhere near a star, and that it was very +quiet there. + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Sheltered by the squat headland from the first morning sparkle of the sea +the little bay breathed a delicious freshness. The party from the +schooner landed at the bottom of the garden. They exchanged +insignificant words in studiously casual tones. The professor's sister +put up a long-handled eye-glass as if to scan the novel surroundings, but +in reality searching for poor Arthur anxiously. Having never seen him +otherwise than in his town clothes she had no idea what he would look +like. It had been left to the professor to help his ladies out of the +boat because Renouard, as if intent on giving directions, had stepped +forward at once to meet the half-caste Luiz hurrying down the path. In +the distance, in front of the dazzlingly sunlit bungalow, a row of +dark-faced house-boys unequal in stature and varied in complexion +preserved the immobility of a guard of honour. + +Luiz had taken off his soft felt hat before coming within earshot. +Renouard bent his head to his rapid talk of domestic arrangements he +meant to make for the visitors; another bed in the master's room for the +ladies and a cot for the gentleman to be hung in the room opposite +where--where Mr. Walter--here he gave a scared look all round--Mr. +Walter--had died. + +"Very good," assented Renouard in an even undertone. "And remember what +you have to say of him." + +"Yes, master. Only"--he wriggled slightly and put one bare foot on the +other for a moment in apologetic embarrassment--"only I--I--don't like to +say it." + +Renouard looked at him without anger, without any sort of expression. +"Frightened of the dead? Eh? Well--all right. I will say it myself--I +suppose once for all. . . ." Immediately he raised his voice very much. + +"Send the boys down to bring up the luggage." + +"Yes, master." + +Renouard turned to his distinguished guests who, like a personally +conducted party of tourists, had stopped and were looking about them. + +"I am sorry," he began with an impassive face. "My man has just told me +that Mr. Walter . . ." he managed to smile, but didn't correct himself . . . +"has gone in a trading schooner on a short tour of the islands, to +the westward." + +This communication was received in profound silence. + +Renouard forgot himself in the thought: "It's done!" But the sight of +the string of boys marching up to the house with suit-cases and +dressing-bags rescued him from that appalling abstraction. + +"All I can do is to beg you to make yourselves at home . . . with what +patience you may." + +This was so obviously the only thing to do that everybody moved on at +once. The professor walked alongside Renouard, behind the two ladies. + +"Rather unexpected--this absence." + +"Not exactly," muttered Renouard. "A trip has to be made every year to +engage labour." + +"I see . . . And he . . . How vexingly elusive the poor fellow has +become! I'll begin to think that some wicked fairy is favouring this +love tale with unpleasant attentions." + +Renouard noticed that the party did not seem weighed down by this new +disappointment. On the contrary they moved with a freer step. The +professor's sister dropped her eye-glass to the end of its chain. Miss +Moorsom took the lead. The professor, his lips unsealed, lingered in the +open: but Renouard did not listen to that man's talk. He looked after +that man's daughter--if indeed that creature of irresistible seductions +were a daughter of mortals. The very intensity of his desire, as if his +soul were streaming after her through his eyes, defeated his object of +keeping hold of her as long as possible with, at least, one of his +senses. Her moving outlines dissolved into a misty coloured shimmer of a +woman made of flame and shadows, crossing the threshold of his house. + +The days which followed were not exactly such as Renouard had feared--yet +they were not better than his fears. They were accursed in all the moods +they brought him. But the general aspect of things was quiet. The +professor smoked innumerable pipes with the air of a worker on his +holiday, always in movement and looking at things with that mysteriously +sagacious aspect of men who are admittedly wiser than the rest of the +world. His white head of hair--whiter than anything within the horizon +except the broken water on the reefs--was glimpsed in every part of the +plantation always on the move under the white parasol. And once he +climbed the headland and appeared suddenly to those below, a white speck +elevated in the blue, with a diminutive but statuesque effect. + +Felicia Moorsom remained near the house. Sometimes she could be seen +with a despairing expression scribbling rapidly in her lock-up dairy. +But only for a moment. At the sound of Renouard's footsteps she would +turn towards him her beautiful face, adorable in that calm which was like +a wilful, like a cruel ignoring of her tremendous power. Whenever she +sat on the verandah, on a chair more specially reserved for her use, +Renouard would stroll up and sit on the steps near her, mostly silent, +and often not trusting himself to turn his glance on her. She, very +still with her eyes half-closed, looked down on his head--so that to a +beholder (such as Professor Moorsom, for instance) she would appear to be +turning over in her mind profound thoughts about that man sitting at her +feet, his shoulders bowed a little, his hands listless--as if vanquished. +And, indeed, the moral poison of falsehood has such a decomposing power +that Renouard felt his old personality turn to dead dust. Often, in the +evening, when they sat outside conversing languidly in the dark, he felt +that he must rest his forehead on her feet and burst into tears. + +The professor's sister suffered from some little strain caused by the +unstability of her own feelings toward Renouard. She could not tell +whether she really did dislike him or not. At times he appeared to her +most fascinating; and, though he generally ended by saying something +shockingly crude, she could not resist her inclination to talk with +him--at least not always. One day when her niece had left them alone on +the verandah she leaned forward in her chair--speckless, resplendent, +and, in her way, almost as striking a personality as her niece, who did +not resemble her in the least. "Dear Felicia has inherited her hair and +the greatest part of her appearance from her mother," the maiden lady +used to tell people. + +She leaned forward then, confidentially. + +"Oh! Mr. Renouard! Haven't you something comforting to say?" + +He looked up, as surprised as if a voice from heaven had spoken with this +perfect society intonation, and by the puzzled profundity of his blue +eyes fluttered the wax-flower of refined womanhood. She continued. +"For--I can speak to you openly on this tiresome subject--only think what +a terrible strain this hope deferred must be for Felicia's heart--for her +nerves." + +"Why speak to me about it," he muttered feeling half choked suddenly. + +"Why! As a friend--a well-wisher--the kindest of hosts. I am afraid we +are really eating you out of house and home." She laughed a little. +"Ah! When, when will this suspense be relieved! That poor lost Arthur! +I confess that I am almost afraid of the great moment. It will be like +seeing a ghost." + +"Have you ever seen a ghost?" asked Renouard, in a dull voice. + +She shifted her hands a little. Her pose was perfect in its ease and +middle-aged grace. + +"Not actually. Only in a photograph. But we have many friends who had +the experience of apparitions." + +"Ah! They see ghosts in London," mumbled Renouard, not looking at her. + +"Frequently--in a certain very interesting set. But all sorts of people +do. We have a friend, a very famous author--his ghost is a girl. One of +my brother's intimates is a very great man of science. He is friendly +with a ghost . . . Of a girl too," she added in a voice as if struck for +the first time by the coincidence. "It is the photograph of that +apparition which I have seen. Very sweet. Most interesting. A little +cloudy naturally. . . . Mr. Renouard! I hope you are not a sceptic. +It's so consoling to think. . ." + +"Those plantation boys of mine see ghosts too," said Renouard grimly. + +The sister of the philosopher sat up stiffly. What crudeness! It was +always so with this strange young man. + +"Mr. Renouard! How can you compare the superstitious fancies of your +horrible savages with the manifestations . . . " + +Words failed her. She broke off with a very faint primly angry smile. +She was perhaps the more offended with him because of that flutter at the +beginning of the conversation. And in a moment with perfect tact and +dignity she got up from her chair and left him alone. + +Renouard didn't even look up. It was not the displeasure of the lady +which deprived him of his sleep that night. He was beginning to forget +what simple, honest sleep was like. His hammock from the ship had been +hung for him on a side verandah, and he spent his nights in it on his +back, his hands folded on his chest, in a sort of half conscious, +oppressed stupor. In the morning he watched with unseeing eyes the +headland come out a shapeless inkblot against the thin light of the false +dawn, pass through all the stages of daybreak to the deep purple of its +outlined mass nimbed gloriously with the gold of the rising sun. He +listened to the vague sounds of waking within the house: and suddenly he +became aware of Luiz standing by the hammock--obviously troubled. + +"What's the matter?" + +"Tse! Tse! Tse!" + +"Well, what now? Trouble with the boys?" + +"No, master. The gentleman when I take him his bath water he speak to +me. He ask me--he ask--when, when, I think Mr. Walter, he come back." + +The half-caste's teeth chattered slightly. Renouard got out of the +hammock. + +"And he is here all the time--eh?" + +Luiz nodded a scared affirmative, but at once protested, "I no see him. +I never. Not I! The ignorant wild boys say they see . . . Something! +Ough!" + +He clapped his teeth on another short rattle, and stood there, shrunk, +blighted, like a man in a freezing blast. + +"And what did you say to the gentleman?" + +"I say I don't know--and I clear out. I--I don't like to speak of him." + +"All right. We shall try to lay that poor ghost," said Renouard +gloomily, going off to a small hut near by to dress. He was saying to +himself: "This fellow will end by giving me away. The last thing that I +. . . No! That mustn't be." And feeling his hand being forced he +discovered the whole extent of his cowardice. + + + +CHAPTER X + + +That morning wandering about his plantation, more like a frightened soul +than its creator and master, he dodged the white parasol bobbing up here +and there like a buoy adrift on a sea of dark-green plants. The crop +promised to be magnificent, and the fashionable philosopher of the age +took other than a merely scientific interest in the experiment. His +investments were judicious, but he had always some little money lying by, +for experiments. + +After lunch, being left alone with Renouard, he talked a little of +cultivation and such matters. Then suddenly: + +"By the way, is it true what my sister tells me, that your plantation +boys have been disturbed by a ghost?" + +Renouard, who since the ladies had left the table was not keeping such a +strict watch on himself, came out of his abstraction with a start and a +stiff smile. + +"My foreman had some trouble with them during my absence. They funk +working in a certain field on the slope of the hill." + +"A ghost here!" exclaimed the amused professor. "Then our whole +conception of the psychology of ghosts must be revised. This island has +been uninhabited probably since the dawn of ages. How did a ghost come +here. By air or water? And why did it leave its native haunts. Was it +from misanthropy? Was he expelled from some community of spirits?" + +Renouard essayed to respond in the same tone. The words died on his +lips. Was it a man or a woman ghost, the professor inquired. + +"I don't know." Renouard made an effort to appear at ease. He had, he +said, a couple of Tahitian amongst his boys--a ghost-ridden race. They +had started the scare. They had probably brought their ghost with them. + +"Let us investigate the matter, Renouard," proposed the professor half in +earnest. "We may make some interesting discoveries as to the state of +primitive minds, at any rate." + +This was too much. Renouard jumped up and leaving the room went out and +walked about in front of the house. He would allow no one to force his +hand. Presently the professor joined him outside. He carried his +parasol, but had neither his book nor his pipe with him. Amiably serious +he laid his hand on his "dear young friend's" arm. + +"We are all of us a little strung up," he said. "For my part I have been +like sister Anne in the story. But I cannot see anything coming. +Anything that would be the least good for anybody--I mean." + +Renouard had recovered sufficiently to murmur coldly his regret of this +waste of time. For that was what, he supposed, the professor had in his +mind. + +"Time," mused Professor Moorsom. "I don't know that time can be wasted. +But I will tell you, my dear friend, what this is: it is an awful waste +of life. I mean for all of us. Even for my sister, who has got a +headache and is gone to lie down." + +He shook gently Renouard's arm. "Yes, for all of us! One may meditate +on life endlessly, one may even have a poor opinion of it--but the fact +remains that we have only one life to live. And it is short. Think of +that, my young friend." + +He released Renouard's arm and stepped out of the shade opening his +parasol. It was clear that there was something more in his mind than +mere anxiety about the date of his lectures for fashionable audiences. +What did the man mean by his confounded platitudes? To Renouard, scared +by Luiz in the morning (for he felt that nothing could be more fatal than +to have his deception unveiled otherwise than by personal confession), +this talk sounded like encouragement or a warning from that man who +seemed to him to be very brazen and very subtle. It was like being +bullied by the dead and cajoled by the living into a throw of dice for a +supreme stake. + +Renouard went away to some distance from the house and threw himself down +in the shade of a tree. He lay there perfectly still with his forehead +resting on his folded arms, light-headed and thinking. It seemed to him +that he must be on fire, then that he had fallen into a cool whirlpool, a +smooth funnel of water swirling about with nauseating rapidity. And then +(it must have been a reminiscence of his boyhood) he was walking on the +dangerous thin ice of a river, unable to turn back. . . . Suddenly it +parted from shore to shore with a loud crack like the report of a gun. + +With one leap he found himself on his feet. All was peace, stillness, +sunshine. He walked away from there slowly. Had he been a gambler he +would have perhaps been supported in a measure by the mere excitement. +But he was not a gambler. He had always disdained that artificial manner +of challenging the fates. The bungalow came into view, bright and +pretty, and all about everything was peace, stillness, sunshine. . . . + +While he was plodding towards it he had a disagreeable sense of the dead +man's company at his elbow. The ghost! He seemed to be everywhere but +in his grave. Could one ever shake him off? he wondered. At that moment +Miss Moorsom came out on the verandah; and at once, as if by a mystery of +radiating waves, she roused a great tumult in his heart, shook earth and +sky together--but he plodded on. Then like a grave song-note in the +storm her voice came to him ominously. + +"Ah! Mr. Renouard. . . " He came up and smiled, but she was very +serious. "I can't keep still any longer. Is there time to walk up this +headland and back before dark?" + +The shadows were lying lengthened on the ground; all was stillness and +peace. "No," said Renouard, feeling suddenly as steady as a rock. "But +I can show you a view from the central hill which your father has not +seen. A view of reefs and of broken water without end, and of great +wheeling clouds of sea-birds." + +She came down the verandah steps at once and they moved off. "You go +first," he proposed, "and I'll direct you. To the left." + +She was wearing a short nankin skirt, a muslin blouse; he could see +through the thin stuff the skin of her shoulders, of her arms. The noble +delicacy of her neck caused him a sort of transport. "The path begins +where these three palms are. The only palms on the island." + +"I see." + +She never turned her head. After a while she observed: "This path looks +as if it had been made recently." + +"Quite recently," he assented very low. + +They went on climbing steadily without exchanging another word; and when +they stood on the top she gazed a long time before her. The low evening +mist veiled the further limit of the reefs. Above the enormous and +melancholy confusion, as of a fleet of wrecked islands, the restless +myriads of sea-birds rolled and unrolled dark ribbons on the sky, +gathered in clouds, soared and stooped like a play of shadows, for they +were too far for them to hear their cries. + +Renouard broke the silence in low tones. + +"They'll be settling for the night presently." She made no sound. Round +them all was peace and declining sunshine. Near by, the topmost pinnacle +of Malata, resembling the top of a buried tower, rose a rock, +weather-worn, grey, weary of watching the monotonous centuries of the +Pacific. Renouard leaned his shoulders against it. Felicia Moorsom +faced him suddenly, her splendid black eyes full on his face as though +she had made up her mind at last to destroy his wits once and for all. +Dazzled, he lowered his eyelids slowly. + +"Mr. Renouard! There is something strange in all this. Tell me where he +is?" + +He answered deliberately. + +"On the other side of this rock. I buried him there myself." + +She pressed her hands to her breast, struggled for her breath for a +moment, then: "Ohhh! . . . You buried him! . . . What sort of man are +you? . . . You dared not tell! . . . He is another of your victims? . . . +You dared not confess that evening. . . . You must have killed him. What +could he have done to you? . . . You fastened on him some atrocious +quarrel and . . ." + +Her vengeful aspect, her poignant cries left him as unmoved as the weary +rock against which he leaned. He only raised his eyelids to look at her +and lowered them slowly. Nothing more. It silenced her. And as if +ashamed she made a gesture with her hand, putting away from her that +thought. He spoke, quietly ironic at first. + +"Ha! the legendary Renouard of sensitive idiots--the ruthless +adventurer--the ogre with a future. That was a parrot cry, Miss Moorsom. +I don't think that the greatest fool of them all ever dared hint such a +stupid thing of me that I killed men for nothing. No, I had noticed this +man in a hotel. He had come from up country I was told, and was doing +nothing. I saw him sitting there lonely in a corner like a sick crow, +and I went over one evening to talk to him. Just on impulse. He wasn't +impressive. He was pitiful. My worst enemy could have told you he +wasn't good enough to be one of Renouard's victims. It didn't take me +long to judge that he was drugging himself. Not drinking. Drugs." + +"Ah! It's now that you are trying to murder him," she cried. + +"Really. Always the Renouard of shopkeepers' legend. Listen! I would +never have been jealous of him. And yet I am jealous of the air you +breathe, of the soil you tread on, of the world that sees you--moving +free--not mine. But never mind. I rather liked him. For a certain +reason I proposed he should come to be my assistant here. He said he +believed this would save him. It did not save him from death. It came +to him as it were from nothing--just a fall. A mere slip and tumble of +ten feet into a ravine. But it seems he had been hurt before +up-country--by a horse. He ailed and ailed. No, he was not a +steel-tipped man. And his poor soul seemed to have been damaged too. It +gave way very soon." + +"This is tragic!" Felicia Moorsom whispered with feeling. Renouard's +lips twitched, but his level voice continued mercilessly. + +"That's the story. He rallied a little one night and said he wanted to +tell me something. I, being a gentleman, he said, he could confide in +me. I told him that he was mistaken. That there was a good deal of a +plebeian in me, that he couldn't know. He seemed disappointed. He +muttered something about his innocence and something that sounded like a +curse on some woman, then turned to the wall and--just grew cold." + +"On a woman," cried Miss Moorsom indignantly. "What woman?" + +"I wonder!" said Renouard, raising his eyes and noting the crimson of her +ear-lobes against the live whiteness of her complexion, the sombre, as if +secret, night-splendour of her eyes under the writhing flames of her +hair. "Some woman who wouldn't believe in that poor innocence of his. . . +Yes. You probably. And now you will not believe in me--not even in me +who must in truth be what I am--even to death. No! You won't. And yet, +Felicia, a woman like you and a man like me do not often come together on +this earth." + +The flame of her glorious head scorched his face. He flung his hat far +away, and his suddenly lowered eyelids brought out startlingly his +resemblance to antique bronze, the profile of Pallas, still, austere, +bowed a little in the shadow of the rock. "Oh! If you could only +understand the truth that is in me!" he added. + +She waited, as if too astounded to speak, till he looked up again, and +then with unnatural force as if defending herself from some unspoken +aspersion, "It's I who stand for truth here! Believe in you! In you, +who by a heartless falsehood--and nothing else, nothing else, do you +hear?--have brought me here, deceived, cheated, as in some abominable +farce!" She sat down on a boulder, rested her chin in her hands, in the +pose of simple grief--mourning for herself. + +"It only wanted this. Why! Oh! Why is it that ugliness, ridicule, and +baseness must fall across my path." + +On that height, alone with the sky, they spoke to each other as if the +earth had fallen away from under their feet. + +"Are you grieving for your dignity? He was a mediocre soul and could +have given you but an unworthy existence." + +She did not even smile at those words, but, superb, as if lifting a +corner of the veil, she turned on him slowly. + +"And do you imagine I would have devoted myself to him for such a +purpose! Don't you know that reparation was due to him from me? A +sacred debt--a fine duty. To redeem him would not have been in my +power--I know it. But he was blameless, and it was for me to come +forward. Don't you see that in the eyes of the world nothing could have +rehabilitated him so completely as his marriage with me? No word of evil +could be whispered of him after I had given him my hand. As to giving +myself up to anything less than the shaping of a man's destiny--if I +thought I could do it I would abhor myself. . . ." She spoke with +authority in her deep fascinating, unemotional voice. Renouard +meditated, gloomy, as if over some sinister riddle of a beautiful sphinx +met on the wild road of his life. + +"Yes. Your father was right. You are one of these aristocrats . . ." + +She drew herself up haughtily. + +"What do you say? My father! . . . I an aristocrat." + +"Oh! I don't mean that you are like the men and women of the time of +armours, castles, and great deeds. Oh, no! They stood on the naked +soil, had traditions to be faithful to, had their feet on this earth of +passions and death which is not a hothouse. They would have been too +plebeian for you since they had to lead, to suffer with, to understand +the commonest humanity. No, you are merely of the topmost layer, +disdainful and superior, the mere pure froth and bubble on the +inscrutable depths which some day will toss you out of existence. But +you are you! You are you! You are the eternal love itself--only, O +Divinity, it isn't your body, it is your soul that is made of foam." + +She listened as if in a dream. He had succeeded so well in his effort to +drive back the flood of his passion that his life itself seemed to run +with it out of his body. At that moment he felt as one dead speaking. +But the headlong wave returning with tenfold force flung him on her +suddenly, with open arms and blazing eyes. She found herself like a +feather in his grasp, helpless, unable to struggle, with her feet off the +ground. But this contact with her, maddening like too much felicity, +destroyed its own end. Fire ran through his veins, turned his passion to +ashes, burnt him out and left him empty, without force--almost without +desire. He let her go before she could cry out. And she was so used to +the forms of repression enveloping, softening the crude impulses of old +humanity that she no longer believed in their existence as if it were an +exploded legend. She did not recognise what had happened to her. She +came safe out of his arms, without a struggle, not even having felt +afraid. + +"What's the meaning of this?" she said, outraged but calm in a scornful +way. + +He got down on his knees in silence, bent low to her very feet, while she +looked down at him, a little surprised, without animosity, as if merely +curious to see what he would do. Then, while he remained bowed to the +ground pressing the hem of her skirt to his lips, she made a slight +movement. He got up. + +"No," he said. "Were you ever so much mine what could I do with you +without your consent? No. You don't conquer a wraith, cold mist, stuff +of dreams, illusion. It must come to you and cling to your breast. And +then! Oh! And then!" + +All ecstasy, all expression went out of his face. + +"Mr. Renouard," she said, "though you can have no claim on my +consideration after having decoyed me here for the vile purpose, +apparently, of gloating over me as your possible prey, I will tell you +that I am not perhaps the extraordinary being you think I am. You may +believe me. Here I stand for truth itself." + +"What's that to me what you are?" he answered. "At a sign from you I +would climb up to the seventh heaven to bring you down to earth for my +own--and if I saw you steeped to the lips in vice, in crime, in mud, I +would go after you, take you to my arms--wear you for an incomparable +jewel on my breast. And that's love--true love--the gift and the curse +of the gods. There is no other." + +The truth vibrating in his voice made her recoil slightly, for she was +not fit to hear it--not even a little--not even one single time in her +life. It was revolting to her; and in her trouble, perhaps prompted by +the suggestion of his name or to soften the harshness of expression, for +she was obscurely moved, she spoke to him in French. + +"_Assez_! _J'ai horreur de tout cela_," she said. + +He was white to his very lips, but he was trembling no more. The dice +had been cast, and not even violence could alter the throw. She passed +by him unbendingly, and he followed her down the path. After a time she +heard him saying: + +"And your dream is to influence a human destiny?" + +"Yes!" she answered curtly, unabashed, with a woman's complete assurance. + +"Then you may rest content. You have done it." + +She shrugged her shoulders slightly. But just before reaching the end of +the path she relented, stopped, and went back to him. + +"I don't suppose you are very anxious for people to know how near you +came to absolute turpitude. You may rest easy on that point. I shall +speak to my father, of course, and we will agree to say that he has +died--nothing more." + +"Yes," said Renouard in a lifeless voice. "He is dead. His very ghost +shall be done with presently." + +She went on, but he remained standing stock still in the dusk. She had +already reached the three palms when she heard behind her a loud peal of +laughter, cynical and joyless, such as is heard in smoking-rooms at the +end of a scandalous story. It made her feel positively faint for a +moment. + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Slowly a complete darkness enveloped Geoffrey Renouard. His resolution +had failed him. Instead of following Felicia into the house, he had +stopped under the three palms, and leaning against a smooth trunk had +abandoned himself to a sense of an immense deception and the feeling of +extreme fatigue. This walk up the hill and down again was like the +supreme effort of an explorer trying to penetrate the interior of an +unknown country, the secret of which is too well defended by its cruel +and barren nature. Decoyed by a mirage, he had gone too far--so far that +there was no going back. His strength was at an end. For the first time +in his life he had to give up, and with a sort of despairing +self-possession he tried to understand the cause of the defeat. He did +not ascribe it to that absurd dead man. + +The hesitating shadow of Luiz approached him unnoticed till it spoke +timidly. Renouard started. + +"Eh? What? Dinner waiting? You must say I beg to be excused. I can't +come. But I shall see them to-morrow morning, at the landing place. +Take your orders from the professor as to the sailing of the schooner. +Go now." + +Luiz, dumbfounded, retreated into the darkness. Renouard did not move, +but hours afterwards, like the bitter fruit of his immobility, the words: +"I had nothing to offer to her vanity," came from his lips in the silence +of the island. And it was then only that he stirred, only to wear the +night out in restless tramping up and down the various paths of the +plantation. Luiz, whose sleep was made light by the consciousness of +some impending change, heard footsteps passing by his hut, the firm tread +of the master; and turning on his mats emitted a faint Tse! Tse! Tse! of +deep concern. + +Lights had been burning in the bungalow almost all through the night; and +with the first sign of day began the bustle of departure. House boys +walked processionally carrying suit-cases and dressing-bags down to the +schooner's boat, which came to the landing place at the bottom of the +garden. Just as the rising sun threw its golden nimbus around the purple +shape of the headland, the Planter of Malata was perceived pacing +bare-headed the curve of the little bay. He exchanged a few words with +the sailing-master of the schooner, then remained by the boat, standing +very upright, his eyes on the ground, waiting. + +He had not long to wait. Into the cool, overshadowed garden the +professor descended first, and came jauntily down the path in a lively +cracking of small shells. With his closed parasol hooked on his forearm, +and a book in his hand, he resembled a banal tourist more than was +permissible to a man of his unique distinction. He waved the disengaged +arm from a distance, but at close quarters, arrested before Renouard's +immobility, he made no offer to shake hands. He seemed to appraise the +aspect of the man with a sharp glance, and made up his mind. + +"We are going back by Suez," he began almost boisterously. "I have been +looking up the sailing lists. If the zephirs of your Pacific are only +moderately propitious I think we are sure to catch the mail boat due in +Marseilles on the 18th of March. This will suit me excellently. . . ." +He lowered his tone. "My dear young friend, I'm deeply grateful to you." + +Renouard's set lips moved. + +"Why are you grateful to me?" + +"Ah! Why? In the first place you might have made us miss the next boat, +mightn't you? . . . I don't thank you for your hospitality. You can't be +angry with me for saying that I am truly thankful to escape from it. But +I am grateful to you for what you have done, and--for being what you +are." + +It was difficult to define the flavour of that speech, but Renouard +received it with an austerely equivocal smile. The professor stepping +into the boat opened his parasol and sat down in the stern-sheets waiting +for the ladies. No sound of human voice broke the fresh silence of the +morning while they walked the broad path, Miss Moorsom a little in +advance of her aunt. + +When she came abreast of him Renouard raised his head. + +"Good-bye, Mr. Renouard," she said in a low voice, meaning to pass on; +but there was such a look of entreaty in the blue gleam of his sunken +eyes that after an imperceptible hesitation she laid her hand, which was +ungloved, in his extended palm. + +"Will you condescend to remember me?" he asked, while an emotion with +which she was angry made her pale cheeks flush and her black eyes +sparkle. + +"This is a strange request for you to make," she said, exaggerating the +coldness of her tone. + +"Is it? Impudent perhaps. Yet I am not so guilty as you think; and bear +in mind that to me you can never make reparation." + +"Reparation? To you! It is you who can offer me no reparation for the +offence against my feelings--and my person; for what reparation can be +adequate for your odious and ridiculous plot so scornful in its +implication, so humiliating to my pride. No! I don't want to remember +you." + +Unexpectedly, with a tightening grip, he pulled her nearer to him, and +looking into her eyes with fearless despair-- + +"You'll have to. I shall haunt you," he said firmly. + +Her hand was wrenched out of his grasp before he had time to release it. +Felicia Moorsom stepped into the boat, sat down by the side of her +father, and breathed tenderly on her crushed fingers. + +The professor gave her a sidelong look--nothing more. But the +professor's sister, yet on shore, had put up her long-handle double +eye-glass to look at the scene. She dropped it with a faint rattle. + +"I've never in my life heard anything so crude said to a lady," she +murmured, passing before Renouard with a perfectly erect head. When, a +moment afterwards, softening suddenly, she turned to throw a good-bye to +that young man, she saw only his back in the distance moving towards the +bungalow. She watched him go in--amazed--before she too left the soil of +Malata. + +Nobody disturbed Renouard in that room where he had shut himself in to +breathe the evanescent perfume of her who for him was no more, till late +in the afternoon when the half-caste was heard on the other side of the +door. + +He wanted the master to know that the trader _Janet_ was just entering +the cove. + +Renouard's strong voice on his side of the door gave him most unexpected +instructions. He was to pay off the boys with the cash in the office and +arrange with the captain of the _Janet_ to take every worker away from +Malata, returning them to their respective homes. An order on the +Dunster firm would be given to him in payment. + +And again the silence of the bungalow remained unbroken till, next +morning, the half-caste came to report that everything was done. The +plantation boys were embarking now. + +Through a crack in the door a hand thrust at him a piece of paper, and +the door slammed to so sharply that Luiz stepped back. Then approaching +cringingly the keyhole, in a propitiatory tone he asked: + +"Do I go too, master?" + +"Yes. You too. Everybody." + +"Master stop here alone?" + +Silence. And the half-caste's eyes grew wide with wonder. But he also, +like those "ignorant savages," the plantation boys, was only too glad to +leave an island haunted by the ghost of a white man. He backed away +noiselessly from the mysterious silence in the closed room, and only in +the very doorway of the bungalow allowed himself to give vent to his +feelings by a deprecatory and pained-- + +"Tse! Tse! Tse!" + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The Moorsoms did manage to catch the homeward mail boat all right, but +had only twenty-four hours in town. Thus the sentimental Willie could +not see very much of them. This did not prevent him afterwards from +relating at great length, with manly tears in his eyes, how poor Miss +Moorsom--the fashionable and clever beauty--found her betrothed in Malata +only to see him die in her arms. Most people were deeply touched by the +sad story. It was the talk of a good many days. + +But the all-knowing Editor, Renouard's only friend and crony, wanted to +know more than the rest of the world. From professional incontinence, +perhaps, he thirsted for a full cup of harrowing detail. And when he +noticed Renouard's schooner lying in port day after day he sought the +sailing master to learn the reason. The man told him that such were his +instructions. He had been ordered to lie there a month before returning +to Malata. And the month was nearly up. "I will ask you to give me a +passage," said the Editor. + +He landed in the morning at the bottom of the garden and found peace, +stillness, sunshine reigning everywhere, the doors and windows of the +bungalow standing wide open, no sight of a human being anywhere, the +plants growing rank and tall on the deserted fields. For hours the +Editor and the schooner's crew, excited by the mystery, roamed over the +island shouting Renouard's name; and at last set themselves in grim +silence to explore systematically the uncleared bush and the deeper +ravines in search of his corpse. What had happened? Had he been +murdered by the boys? Or had he simply, capricious and secretive, +abandoned his plantation taking the people with him. It was impossible +to tell what had happened. At last, towards the decline of the day, the +Editor and the sailing master discovered a track of sandals crossing a +strip of sandy beach on the north shore of the bay. Following this track +fearfully, they passed round the spur of the headland, and there on a +large stone found the sandals, Renouard's white jacket, and the Malay +sarong of chequered pattern which the planter of Malata was well known to +wear when going to bathe. These things made a little heap, and the +sailor remarked, after gazing at it in silence-- + +"Birds have been hovering over this for many a day." + +"He's gone bathing and got drowned," cried the Editor in dismay. + +"I doubt it, sir. If he had been drowned anywhere within a mile from the +shore the body would have been washed out on the reefs. And our boats +have found nothing so far." + +Nothing was ever found--and Renouard's disappearance remained in the main +inexplicable. For to whom could it have occurred that a man would set +out calmly to swim beyond the confines of life--with a steady stroke--his +eyes fixed on a star! + +Next evening, from the receding schooner, the Editor looked back for the +last time at the deserted island. A black cloud hung listlessly over the +high rock on the middle hill; and under the mysterious silence of that +shadow Malata lay mournful, with an air of anguish in the wild sunset, as +if remembering the heart that was broken there. + + * * * * * + +_Dec._ 1913. + + + + +THE PARTNER + + +"And that be hanged for a silly yarn. The boatmen here in Westport have +been telling this lie to the summer visitors for years. The sort that +gets taken out for a row at a shilling a head--and asks foolish +questions--must be told something to pass the time away. D'ye know +anything more silly than being pulled in a boat along a beach? . . . It's +like drinking weak lemonade when you aren't thirsty. I don't know why +they do it! They don't even get sick." + +A forgotten glass of beer stood at his elbow; the locality was a small +respectable smoking-room of a small respectable hotel, and a taste for +forming chance acquaintances accounts for my sitting up late with him. +His great, flat, furrowed cheeks were shaven; a thick, square wisp of +white hairs hung from his chin; its waggling gave additional point to his +deep utterance; and his general contempt for mankind with its activities +and moralities was expressed in the rakish set of his big soft hat of +black felt with a large rim, which he kept always on his head. + +His appearance was that of an old adventurer, retired after many unholy +experiences in the darkest parts of the earth; but I had every reason to +believe that he had never been outside England. From a casual remark +somebody dropped I gathered that in his early days he must have been +somehow connected with shipping--with ships in docks. Of individuality +he had plenty. And it was this which attracted my attention at first. +But he was not easy to classify, and before the end of the week I gave +him up with the vague definition, "an imposing old ruffian." + +One rainy afternoon, oppressed by infinite boredom, I went into the +smoking-room. He was sitting there in absolute immobility, which was +really fakir-like and impressive. I began to wonder what could be the +associations of that sort of man, his "milieu," his private connections, +his views, his morality, his friends, and even his wife--when to my +surprise he opened a conversation in a deep, muttering voice. + +I must say that since he had learned from somebody that I was a writer of +stories he had been acknowledging my existence by means of some vague +growls in the morning. + +He was essentially a taciturn man. There was an effect of rudeness in +his fragmentary sentences. It was some time before I discovered that +what he would be at was the process by which stories--stories for +periodicals--were produced. + +What could one say to a fellow like that? But I was bored to death; the +weather continued impossible; and I resolved to be amiable. + +"And so you make these tales up on your own. How do they ever come into +your head?" he rumbled. + +I explained that one generally got a hint for a tale. + +"What sort of hint?" + +"Well, for instance," I said, "I got myself rowed out to the rocks the +other day. My boatman told me of the wreck on these rocks nearly twenty +years ago. That could be used as a hint for a mainly descriptive bit of +story with some such title as 'In the Channel,' for instance." + +It was then that he flew out at the boatmen and the summer visitors who +listen to their tales. Without moving a muscle of his face he emitted a +powerful "Rot," from somewhere out of the depths of his chest, and went +on in his hoarse, fragmentary mumble. "Stare at the silly rocks--nod +their silly heads [the visitors, I presume]. What do they think a man +is--blown-out paper bag or what?--go off pop like that when he's +hit--Damn silly yarn--Hint indeed! . . . A lie?" + +You must imagine this statuesque ruffian enhaloed in the black rim of his +hat, letting all this out as an old dog growls sometimes, with his head +up and staring-away eyes. + +"Indeed!" I exclaimed. "Well, but even if untrue it _is_ a hint, +enabling me to see these rocks, this gale they speak of, the heavy seas, +etc., etc., in relation to mankind. The struggle against natural forces +and the effect of the issue on at least one, say, exalted--" + +He interrupted me by an aggressive-- + +"Would truth be any good to you?" + +"I shouldn't like to say," I answered, cautiously. "It's said that truth +is stranger than fiction." + +"Who says that?" he mouthed. + +"Oh! Nobody in particular." + +I turned to the window; for the contemptuous beggar was oppressive to +look at, with his immovable arm on the table. I suppose my unceremonious +manner provoked him to a comparatively long speech. + +"Did you ever see such a silly lot of rocks? Like plums in a slice of +cold pudding." + +I was looking at them--an acre or more of black dots scattered on the +steel-grey shades of the level sea, under the uniform gossamer grey mist +with a formless brighter patch in one place--the veiled whiteness of the +cliff coming through, like a diffused, mysterious radiance. It was a +delicate and wonderful picture, something expressive, suggestive, and +desolate, a symphony in grey and black--a Whistler. But the next thing +said by the voice behind me made me turn round. It growled out contempt +for all associated notions of roaring seas with concise energy, then went +on-- + +"I--no such foolishness--looking at the rocks out there--more likely call +to mind an office--I used to look in sometimes at one time--office in +London--one of them small streets behind Cannon Street Station. . . " + +He was very deliberate; not jerky, only fragmentary; at times profane. + +"That's a rather remote connection," I observed, approaching him. + +"Connection? To Hades with your connections. It was an accident." + +"Still," I said, "an accident has its backward and forward connections, +which, if they could be set forth--" + +Without moving he seemed to lend an attentive ear. + +"Aye! Set forth. That's perhaps what you could do. Couldn't you now? +There's no sea life in this connection. But you can put it in out of +your head--if you like." + +"Yes. I could, if necessary," I said. "Sometimes it pays to put in a +lot out of one's head, and sometimes it doesn't. I mean that the story +isn't worth it. Everything's in that." + +It amused me to talk to him like this. He reflected audibly that he +guessed story-writers were out after money like the rest of the world +which had to live by its wits: and that it was extraordinary how far +people who were out after money would go. . . Some of them. + +Then he made a sally against sea life. Silly sort of life, he called it. +No opportunities, no experience, no variety, nothing. Some fine men came +out of it--he admitted--but no more chance in the world if put to it than +fly. Kids. So Captain Harry Dunbar. Good sailor. Great name as a +skipper. Big man; short side-whiskers going grey, fine face, loud voice. +A good fellow, but no more up to people's tricks than a baby. + +"That's the captain of the _Sagamore_ you're talking about," I said, +confidently. + +After a low, scornful "Of course" he seemed now to hold on the wall with +his fixed stare the vision of that city office, "at the back of Cannon +Street Station," while he growled and mouthed a fragmentary description, +jerking his chin up now and then, as if angry. + +It was, according to his account, a modest place of business, not shady +in any sense, but out of the way, in a small street now rebuilt from end +to end. "Seven doors from the Cheshire Cat public house under the +railway bridge. I used to take my lunch there when my business called me +to the city. Cloete would come in to have his chop and make the girl +laugh. No need to talk much, either, for that. Nothing but the way he +would twinkle his spectacles on you and give a twitch of his thick mouth +was enough to start you off before he began one of his little tales. +Funny fellow, Cloete. C-l-o-e-t-e--Cloete." + +"What was he--a Dutchman?" I asked, not seeing in the least what all this +had to do with the Westport boatmen and the Westport summer visitors and +this extraordinary old fellow's irritable view of them as liars and +fools. "Devil knows," he grunted, his eyes on the wall as if not to miss +a single movement of a cinematograph picture. "Spoke nothing but +English, anyway. First I saw him--comes off a ship in dock from the +States--passenger. Asks me for a small hotel near by. Wanted to be +quiet and have a look round for a few days. I took him to a +place--friend of mine. . . Next time--in the City--Hallo! You're very +obliging--have a drink. Talks plenty about himself. Been years in the +States. All sorts of business all over the place. With some patent +medicine people, too. Travels. Writes advertisements and all that. +Tells me funny stories. Tall, loose-limbed fellow. Black hair up on +end, like a brush; long face, long legs, long arms, twinkle in his specs, +jocular way of speaking--in a low voice. . . See that?" + +I nodded, but he was not looking at me. + +"Never laughed so much in my life. The beggar--would make you laugh +telling you how he skinned his own father. He was up to that, too. A +man who's been in the patent-medicine trade will be up to anything from +pitch-and-toss to wilful murder. And that's a bit of hard truth for you. +Don't mind what they do--think they can carry off anything and talk +themselves out of anything--all the world's a fool to them. Business +man, too, Cloete. Came over with a few hundred pounds. Looking for +something to do--in a quiet way. Nothing like the old country, after +all, says he. . . And so we part--I with more drinks in me than I was +used to. After a time, perhaps six months or so, I run up against him +again in Mr. George Dunbar's office. Yes, _that_ office. It wasn't +often that I . . . However, there was a bit of his cargo in a ship in +dock that I wanted to ask Mr. George about. In comes Cloete out of the +room at the back with some papers in his hand. Partner. You +understand?" + +"Aha!" I said. "The few hundred pounds." + +"And that tongue of his," he growled. "Don't forget that tongue. Some +of his tales must have opened George Dunbar's eyes a bit as to what +business means." + +"A plausible fellow," I suggested. + +"H'm! You must have it in your own way--of course. Well. Partner. +George Dunbar puts his top-hat on and tells me to wait a moment. . . +George always looked as though he were making a few thousands a year--a +city swell. . . Come along, old man! And he and Captain Harry go out +together--some business with a solicitor round the corner. Captain +Harry, when he was in England, used to turn up in his brother's office +regularly about twelve. Sat in a corner like a good boy, reading the +paper and smoking his pipe. So they go out. . . Model brothers, says +Cloete--two love-birds--I am looking after the tinned-fruit side of this +cozy little show. . . Gives me that sort of talk. Then by-and-by: What +sort of old thing is that _Sagamore_? Finest ship out--eh? I dare say +all ships are fine to you. You live by them. I tell you what; I would +just as soon put my money into an old stocking. Sooner!" + + * * * * * + +He drew a breath, and I noticed his hand, lying loosely on the table, +close slowly into a fist. In that immovable man it was startling, +ominous, like the famed nod of the Commander. + +"So, already at that time--note--already," he growled. + +"But hold on," I interrupted. "The _Sagamore_ belonged to Mundy and +Rogers, I've been told." + +He snorted contemptuously. "Damn boatmen--know no better. Flew the +firm's _house-flag_. That's another thing. Favour. It was like this: +When old man Dunbar died, Captain Harry was already in command with the +firm. George chucked the bank he was clerking in--to go on his own with +what there was to share after the old chap. George was a smart man. +Started warehousing; then two or three things at a time: wood-pulp, +preserved-fruit trade, and so on. And Captain Harry let him have his +share to work with. . . I am provided for in my ship, he says. . . But +by-and-by Mundy and Rogers begin to sell out to foreigners all their +ships--go into steam right away. Captain Harry gets very upset--lose +command, part with the ship he was fond of--very wretched. Just then, so +it happened, the brothers came in for some money--an old woman died or +something. Quite a tidy bit. Then young George says: There's enough +between us two to buy the _Sagamore_ with. . . But you'll need more money +for your business, cries Captain Harry--and the other laughs at him: My +business is going on all right. Why, I can go out and make a handful of +sovereigns while you are trying to get your pipe to draw, old man. . . +Mundy and Rogers very friendly about it: Certainly, Captain. And we will +manage her for you, if you like, as if she were still our own. . . Why, +with a connection like that it was good investment to buy that ship. +Good! Aye, at the time." + +The turning of his head slightly toward me at this point was like a sign +of strong feeling in any other man. + +"You'll mind that this was long before Cloete came into it at all," he +muttered, warningly. + +"Yes. I will mind," I said. "We generally say: some years passed. +That's soon done." + +He eyed me for a while silently in an unseeing way, as if engrossed in +the thought of the years so easily dealt with; his own years, too, they +were, the years before and the years (not so many) after Cloete came upon +the scene. When he began to speak again, I discerned his intention to +point out to me, in his obscure and graphic manner, the influence on +George Dunbar of long association with Cloete's easy moral standards, +unscrupulously persuasive gift of humour (funny fellow), and +adventurously reckless disposition. He desired me anxiously to elaborate +this view, and I assured him it was quite within my powers. He wished me +also to understand that George's business had its ups and downs (the +other brother was meantime sailing to and fro serenely); that he got into +low water at times, which worried him rather, because he had married a +young wife with expensive tastes. He was having a pretty anxious time of +it generally; and just then Cloete ran up in the city somewhere against a +man working a patent medicine (the fellow's old trade) with some success, +but which, with capital, capital to the tune of thousands to be spent +with both hands on advertising, could be turned into a great +thing--infinitely better-paying than a gold-mine. Cloete became excited +at the possibilities of that sort of business, in which he was an expert. +I understood that George's partner was all on fire from the contact with +this unique opportunity. + +"So he goes in every day into George's room about eleven, and sings that +tune till George gnashes his teeth with rage. Do shut up. What's the +good? No money. Hardly any to go on with, let alone pouring thousands +into advertising. Never dare propose to his brother Harry to sell the +ship. Couldn't think of it. Worry him to death. It would be like the +end of the world coming. And certainly not for a business of that kind! +. . . Do you think it would be a swindle? asks Cloete, twitching his +mouth. . . George owns up: No--would be no better than a squeamish ass if +he thought that, after all these years in business. + +"Cloete looks at him hard--Never thought of _selling_ the ship. Expected +the blamed old thing wouldn't fetch half her insured value by this time. +Then George flies out at him. What's the meaning, then, of these silly +jeers at ship-owning for the last three weeks? Had enough of them, +anyhow. + +"Angry at having his mouth made to water, see. Cloete don't get excited. . . +I am no squeamish ass, either, says he, very slowly. 'Tisn't selling +your old _Sagamore_ wants. The blamed thing wants tomahawking (seems the +name _Sagamore_ means an Indian chief or something. The figure-head was +a half-naked savage with a feather over one ear and a hatchet in his +belt). Tomahawking, says he. + +"What do you mean? asks George. . . Wrecking--it could be managed with +perfect safety, goes on Cloete--your brother would then put in his share +of insurance money. Needn't tell him exactly what for. He thinks you're +the smartest business man that ever lived. Make his fortune, too. . . +George grips the desk with both hands in his rage. . . You think my +brother's a man to cast away his ship on purpose. I wouldn't even dare +think of such a thing in the same room with him--the finest fellow that +ever lived. . . Don't make such noise; they'll hear you outside, says +Cloete; and he tells him that his brother is the salted pattern of all +virtues, but all that's necessary is to induce him to stay ashore for a +voyage--for a holiday--take a rest--why not? . . . In fact, I have in +view somebody up to that sort of game--Cloete whispers. + +"George nearly chokes. . . So you think I am of that sort--you think _me_ +capable--What do you take me for? . . . He almost loses his head, while +Cloete keeps cool, only gets white about the gills. . . I take you for a +man who will be most cursedly hard up before long. . . He goes to the +door and sends away the clerks--there were only two--to take their lunch +hour. Comes back . . . What are you indignant about? Do I want you to +rob the widow and orphan? Why, man! Lloyd's a corporation, it hasn't +got a body to starve. There's forty or more of them perhaps who +underwrote the lines on that silly ship of yours. Not one human being +would go hungry or cold for it. They take every risk into consideration. +Everything I tell you. . . That sort of talk. H'm! George too upset to +speak--only gurgles and waves his arms; so sudden, you see. The other, +warming his back at the fire, goes on. Wood-pulp business next door to a +failure. Tinned-fruit trade nearly played out. . . You're frightened, he +says; but the law is only meant to frighten fools away. . . And he shows +how safe casting away that ship would be. Premiums paid for so many, +many years. No shadow of suspicion could arise. And, dash it all! a +ship must meet her end some day. . . + +"I am not frightened. I am indignant," says George Dunbar. + +"Cloete boiling with rage inside. Chance of a lifetime--his chance! And +he says kindly: Your wife'll be much more indignant when you ask her to +get out of that pretty house of yours and pile in into a two-pair +back--with kids perhaps, too. . . + +"George had no children. Married a couple of years; looked forward to a +kid or two very much. Feels more upset than ever. Talks about an honest +man for father, and so on. Cloete grins: You be quick before they come, +and they'll have a rich man for father, and no one the worse for it. +That's the beauty of the thing. + +"George nearly cries. I believe he did cry at odd times. This went on +for weeks. He couldn't quarrel with Cloete. Couldn't pay off his few +hundreds; and besides, he was used to have him about. Weak fellow, +George. Cloete generous, too. . . Don't think of my little pile, says +he. Of course it's gone when we have to shut up. But I don't care, he +says. . . And then there was George's new wife. When Cloete dines there, +the beggar puts on a dress suit; little woman liked it; . . . Mr. Cloete, +my husband's partner; such a clever man, man of the world, so amusing! . . . +When he dines there and they are alone: Oh, Mr. Cloete, I wish George +would do something to improve our prospects. Our position is really so +mediocre. . . And Cloete smiles, but isn't surprised, because he had put +all these notions himself into her empty head. . . What your husband +wants is enterprise, a little audacity. You can encourage him best, Mrs. +Dunbar. . . She was a silly, extravagant little fool. Had made George +take a house in Norwood. Live up to a lot of people better off than +themselves. I saw her once; silk dress, pretty boots, all feathers and +scent, pink face. More like the Promenade at the Alhambra than a decent +home, it looked to me. But some women do get a devil of a hold on a +man." + +"Yes, some do," I assented. "Even when the man is the husband." + +"My missis," he addressed me unexpectedly, in a solemn, surprisingly +hollow tone, "could wind me round her little finger. I didn't find it +out till she was gone. Aye. But she was a woman of sense, while that +piece of goods ought to have been walking the streets, and that's all I +can say. . . You must make her up out of your head. You will know the +sort." + +"Leave all that to me," I said. + +"H'm!" he grunted, doubtfully, then going back to his scornful tone: "A +month or so afterwards the _Sagamore_ arrives home. All very jolly at +first. . . Hallo, George boy! Hallo, Harry, old man! . . . But by and by +Captain Harry thinks his clever brother is not looking very well. And +George begins to look worse. He can't get rid of Cloete's notion. It +has stuck in his head. . . There's nothing wrong--quite well. . . Captain +Harry still anxious. Business going all right, eh? Quite right. Lots +of business. Good business. . . Of course Captain Harry believes that +easily. Starts chaffing his brother in his jolly way about rolling in +money. George's shirt sticks to his back with perspiration, and he feels +quite angry with the captain. . . The fool, he says to himself. Rolling +in money, indeed! And then he thinks suddenly: Why not? . . . Because +Cloete's notion has got hold of his mind. + +"But next day he weakens and says to Cloete . . . Perhaps it would be +best to sell. Couldn't you talk to my brother? and Cloete explains to +him over again for the twentieth time why selling wouldn't do, anyhow. +No! The _Sagamore_ must be tomahawked--as he would call it; to spare +George's feelings, maybe. But every time he says the word, George +shudders. . . I've got a man at hand competent for the job who will do +the trick for five hundred, and only too pleased at the chance, says +Cloete. . . George shuts his eyes tight at that sort of talk--but at the +same time he thinks: Humbug! There can be no such man. And yet if there +was such a man it would be safe enough--perhaps. + +"And Cloete always funny about it. He couldn't talk about anything +without it seeming there was a great joke in it somewhere. . . Now, says +he, I know you are a moral citizen, George. Morality is mostly funk, and +I think you're the funkiest man I ever came across in my travels. Why, +you are afraid to speak to your brother. Afraid to open your mouth to +him with a fortune for us all in sight. . . George flares up at this: no, +he ain't afraid; he will speak; bangs fist on the desk. And Cloete pats +him on the back. . . We'll be made men presently, he says. + +"But the first time George attempts to speak to Captain Harry his heart +slides down into his boots. Captain Harry only laughs at the notion of +staying ashore. He wants no holiday, not he. But Jane thinks of +remaining in England this trip. Go about a bit and see some of her +people. Jane was the Captain's wife; round-faced, pleasant lady. George +gives up that time; but Cloete won't let him rest. So he tries again; +and the Captain frowns. He frowns because he's puzzled. He can't make +it out. He has no notion of living away from his _Sagamore_. . . + +"Ah!" I cried. "Now I understand." + +"No, you don't," he growled, his black, contemptuous stare turning on me +crushingly. + +"I beg your pardon," I murmured. + +"H'm! Very well, then. Captain Harry looks very stern, and George +crumples all up inside. . . He sees through me, he thinks. . . Of course +it could not be; but George, by that time, was scared at his own shadow. +He is shirking it with Cloete, too. Gives his partner to understand that +his brother has half a mind to try a spell on shore, and so on. Cloete +waits, gnawing his fingers; so anxious. Cloete really had found a man +for the job. Believe it or not, he had found him inside the very +boarding-house he lodged in--somewhere about Tottenham Court Road. He +had noticed down-stairs a fellow--a boarder and not a boarder--hanging +about the dark--part of the passage mostly; sort of 'man of the house,' a +slinking chap. Black eyes. White face. The woman of the house--a widow +lady, she called herself--very full of Mr. Stafford; Mr. Stafford this +and Mr. Stafford that. . . Anyhow, Cloete one evening takes him out to +have a drink. Cloete mostly passed away his evenings in saloon bars. No +drunkard, though, Cloete; for company; liked to talk to all sorts there; +just habit; American fashion. + +"So Cloete takes that chap out more than once. Not very good company, +though. Little to say for himself. Sits quiet and drinks what's given +to him, eyes always half closed, speaks sort of demure. . . I've had +misfortunes, he says. The truth was they had kicked him out of a big +steam-ship company for disgraceful conduct; nothing to affect his +certificate, you understand; and he had gone down quite easily. Liked +it, I expect. Anything's better than work. Lived on the widow lady who +kept that boarding-house." + +"That's almost incredible," I ventured to interrupt. "A man with a +master's certificate, do you mean?" + +"I do; I've known them 'bus cads," he growled, contemptuously. "Yes. +Swing on the tail-board by the strap and yell, 'tuppence all the way.' +Through drink. But this Stafford was of another kind. Hell's full of +such Staffords; Cloete would make fun of him, and then there would be a +nasty gleam in the fellow's half-shut eye. But Cloete was generally kind +to him. Cloete was a fellow that would be kind to a mangy dog. Anyhow, +he used to stand drinks to that object, and now and then gave him half a +crown--because the widow lady kept Mr. Stafford short of pocket-money. +They had rows almost every day down in the basement. . . + +"It was the fellow being a sailor that put into Cloete's mind the first +notion of doing away with the _Sagamore_. He studies him a bit, thinks +there's enough devil in him yet to be tempted, and one evening he says to +him . . . I suppose you wouldn't mind going to sea again, for a spell? . . . +The other never raises his eyes; says it's scarcely worth one's while +for the miserable salary one gets. . . Well, but what do you say to +captain's wages for a time, and a couple of hundred extra if you are +compelled to come home without the ship. Accidents will happen, says +Cloete. . . Oh! sure to, says that Stafford; and goes on taking sips of +his drink as if he had no interest in the matter. + +"Cloete presses him a bit; but the other observes, impudent and languid +like: You see, there's no future in a thing like that--is there? . . Oh! +no, says Cloete. Certainly not. I don't mean this to have any +future--as far as you are concerned. It's a 'once for all' transaction. +Well, what do you estimate your future at? he asks. . . The fellow more +listless than ever--nearly asleep.--I believe the skunk was really too +lazy to care. Small cheating at cards, wheedling or bullying his living +out of some woman or other, was more his style. Cloete swears at him in +whispers something awful. All this in the saloon bar of the Horse Shoe, +Tottenham Court Road. Finally they agree, over the second sixpennyworth +of Scotch hot, on five hundred pounds as the price of tomahawking the +_Sagamore_. And Cloete waits to see what George can do. + +"A week or two goes by. The other fellow loafs about the house as if +there had been nothing, and Cloete begins to doubt whether he really +means ever to tackle that job. But one day he stops Cloete at the door, +with his downcast eyes: What about that employment you wished to give me? +he asks. . . You see, he had played some more than usual dirty trick on +the woman and expected awful ructions presently; and to be fired out for +sure. Cloete very pleased. George had been prevaricating to him such a +lot that he really thought the thing was as well as settled. And he +says: Yes. It's time I introduced you to my friend. Just get your hat +and we will go now. . . + +"The two come into the office, and George at his desk sits up in a sudden +panic--staring. Sees a tallish fellow, sort of nasty-handsome face, +heavy eyes, half shut; short drab overcoat, shabby bowler hat, very +careful--like in his movements. And he thinks to himself, Is that how +such a man looks! No, the thing's impossible. . . Cloete does the +introduction, and the fellow turns round to look behind him at the chair +before he sits down. . . A thoroughly competent man, Cloete goes on . . . +The man says nothing, sits perfectly quiet. And George can't speak, +throat too dry. Then he makes an effort: H'm! H'm! Oh +yes--unfortunately--sorry to disappoint--my brother--made other +arrangements--going himself. + +"The fellow gets up, never raising his eyes off the ground, like a modest +girl, and goes out softly, right out of the office without a sound. +Cloete sticks his chin in his hand and bites all his fingers at once. +George's heart slows down and he speaks to Cloete. . . This can't be +done. How can it be? Directly the ship is lost Harry would see through +it. You know he is a man to go to the underwriters himself with his +suspicions. And he would break his heart over me. How can I play that +on him? There's only two of us in the world belonging to each other. . . + +"Cloete lets out a horrid cuss-word, jumps up, bolts away into his room, +and George hears him there banging things around. After a while he goes +to the door and says in a trembling voice: You ask me for an +impossibility. . . Cloete inside ready to fly out like a tiger and rend +him; but he opens the door a little way and says softly: Talking of +hearts, yours is no bigger than a mouse's, let me tell you. . . But +George doesn't care--load off the heart, anyhow. And just then Captain +Harry comes in. . . Hallo, George boy. I am little late. What about a +chop at the Cheshire, now? . . . Right you are, old man. . . And off they +go to lunch together. Cloete has nothing to eat that day. + +"George feels a new man for a time; but all of a sudden that fellow +Stafford begins to hang about the street, in sight of the house door. +The first time George sees him he thinks he made a mistake. But no; next +time he has to go out, there is the very fellow skulking on the other +side of the road. It makes George nervous; but he must go out on +business, and when the fellow cuts across the road-way he dodges him. He +dodges him once, twice, three times; but at last he gets nabbed in his +very doorway. . . What do you want? he says, trying to look fierce. + +"It seems that ructions had come in the basement of that boarding-house, +and the widow lady had turned on him (being jealous mad), to the extent +of talking of the police. _That_ Mr. Stafford couldn't stand; so he +cleared out like a scared stag, and there he was, chucked into the +streets, so to speak. Cloete looked so savage as he went to and fro that +he hadn't the spunk to tackle him; but George seemed a softer kind to his +eye. He would have been glad of half a quid, anything. . . I've had +misfortunes, he says softly, in his demure way, which frightens George +more than a row would have done. . . Consider the severity of my +disappointment, he says. . . + +"George, instead of telling him to go to the devil, loses his head. . . I +don't know you. What do you want? he cries, and bolts up-stairs to +Cloete. . . . Look what's come of it, he gasps; now we are at the mercy +of that horrid fellow. . . Cloete tries to show him that the fellow can +do nothing; but George thinks that some sort of scandal may be forced on, +anyhow. Says that he can't live with that horror haunting him. Cloete +would laugh if he weren't too weary of it all. Then a thought strikes +him and he changes his tune. . . Well, perhaps! I will go down-stairs +and send him away to begin with. . . He comes back. . . He's gone. But +perhaps you are right. The fellow's hard up, and that's what makes +people desperate. The best thing would be to get him out of the country +for a time. Look here, the poor devil is really in want of employment. +I won't ask you much this time: only to hold your tongue; and I shall try +to get your brother to take him as chief officer. At this George lays +his arms and his head on his desk, so that Cloete feels sorry for him. +But altogether Cloete feels more cheerful because he has shaken the ghost +a bit into that Stafford. That very afternoon he buys him a suit of blue +clothes, and tells him that he will have to turn to and work for his +living now. Go to sea as mate of the _Sagamore_. The skunk wasn't very +willing, but what with having nothing to eat and no place to sleep in, +and the woman having frightened him with the talk of some prosecution or +other, he had no choice, properly speaking. Cloete takes care of him for +a couple of days. . . Our arrangement still stands, says he. Here's the +ship bound for Port Elizabeth; not a safe anchorage at all. Should she +by chance part from her anchors in a north-east gale and get lost on the +beach, as many of them do, why, it's five hundred in your pocket--and a +quick return home. You are up to the job, ain't you? + +"Our Mr. Stafford takes it all in with downcast eyes. . . I am a +competent seaman, he says, with his sly, modest air. A ship's chief mate +has no doubt many opportunities to manipulate the chains and anchors to +some purpose. . . At this Cloete thumps him on the back: You'll do, my +noble sailor. Go in and win. . . + +"Next thing George knows, his brother tells him that he had occasion to +oblige his partner. And glad of it, too. Likes the partner no end. +Took a friend of his as mate. Man had his troubles, been ashore a year +nursing a dying wife, it seems. Down on his luck. . . George protests +earnestly that he knows nothing of the person. Saw him once. Not very +attractive to look at. . . And Captain Harry says in his hearty way, +That's so, but must give the poor devil a chance. . . + +"So Mr. Stafford joins in dock. And it seems that he did manage to +monkey with one of the cables--keeping his mind on Port Elizabeth. The +riggers had all the cable ranged on deck to clean lockers. The new mate +watches them go ashore--dinner hour--and sends the ship-keeper out of the +ship to fetch him a bottle of beer. Then he goes to work whittling away +the forelock of the forty-five-fathom shackle-pin, gives it a tap or two +with a hammer just to make it loose, and of course that cable wasn't safe +any more. Riggers come back--you know what riggers are: come day, go +day, and God send Sunday. Down goes the chain into the locker without +their foreman looking at the shackles at all. What does he care? He +ain't going in the ship. And two days later the ship goes to sea. . . " + + * * * * * + +At this point I was incautious enough to breathe out another "I see," +which gave offence again, and brought on me a rude "No, you don't"--as +before. But in the pause he remembered the glass of beer at his elbow. +He drank half of it, wiped his mustaches, and remarked grimly-- + +"Don't you think that there will be any sea life in this, because there +ain't. If you're going to put in any out of your own head, now's your +chance. I suppose you know what ten days of bad weather in the Channel +are like? I don't. Anyway, ten whole days go by. One Monday Cloete +comes to the office a little late--hears a woman's voice in George's room +and looks in. Newspapers on the desk, on the floor; Captain Harry's wife +sitting with red eyes and a bag on the chair near her. . . Look at this, +says George, in great excitement, showing him a paper. Cloete's heart +gives a jump. Ha! Wreck in Westport Bay. The _Sagamore_ gone ashore +early hours of Sunday, and so the newspaper men had time to put in some +of their work. Columns of it. Lifeboat out twice. Captain and crew +remain by the ship. Tugs summoned to assist. If the weather improves, +this well-known fine ship may yet be saved. . . You know the way these +chaps put it. . . Mrs. Harry there on her way to catch a train from +Cannon Street. Got an hour to wait. + +"Cloete takes George aside and whispers: Ship saved yet! Oh, damn! That +must never be; you hear? But George looks at him dazed, and Mrs. Harry +keeps on sobbing quietly: . . . I ought to have been with him. But I am +going to him. . . We are all going together, cries Cloete, all of a +sudden. He rushes out, sends the woman a cup of hot bovril from the shop +across the road, buys a rug for her, thinks of everything; and in the +train tucks her in and keeps on talking, thirteen to the dozen, all the +way, to keep her spirits up, as it were; but really because he can't hold +his peace for very joy. Here's the thing done all at once, and nothing +to pay. Done. Actually done. His head swims now and again when he +thinks of it. What enormous luck! It almost frightens him. He would +like to yell and sing. Meantime George Dunbar sits in his corner, +looking so deadly miserable that at last poor Mrs. Harry tries to comfort +him, and so cheers herself up at the same time by talking about how her +Harry is a prudent man; not likely to risk his crew's life or his own +unnecessarily--and so on. + +"First thing they hear at Westport station is that the life-boat has been +out to the ship again, and has brought off the second officer, who had +hurt himself, and a few sailors. Captain and the rest of the crew, about +fifteen in all, are still on board. Tugs expected to arrive every +moment. + +"They take Mrs. Harry to the inn, nearly opposite the rocks; she bolts +straight up-stairs to look out of the window, and she lets out a great +cry when she sees the wreck. She won't rest till she gets on board to +her Harry. Cloete soothes her all he can. . . All right; you try to eat +a mouthful, and we will go to make inquiries. + +"He draws George out of the room: Look here, she can't go on board, but I +shall. I'll see to it that he doesn't stop in the ship too long. Let's +go and find the coxswain of the life-boat. . . George follows him, +shivering from time to time. The waves are washing over the old pier; +not much wind, a wild, gloomy sky over the bay. In the whole world only +one tug away off, heading to the seas, tossed in and out of sight every +minute as regular as clockwork. + +"They meet the coxswain and he tells them: Yes! He's going out again. +No, they ain't in danger on board--not yet. But the ship's chance is +very poor. Still, if the wind doesn't pipe up again and the sea goes +down something might be tried. After some talk he agrees to take Cloete +on board; supposed to be with an urgent message from the owners to the +captain. + +"Whenever Cloete looks at the sky he feels comforted; it looks so +threatening. George Dunbar follows him about with a white face and +saying nothing. Cloete takes him to have a drink or two, and by and by +he begins to pick up. . . That's better, says Cloete; dash me if it +wasn't like walking about with a dead man before. You ought to be +throwing up your cap, man. I feel as if I wanted to stand in the street +and cheer. Your brother is safe, the ship is lost, and we are made men. + +"Are you certain she's lost? asks George. It would be an awful blow +after all the agonies I have gone through in my mind, since you first +spoke to me, if she were to be got off--and--and--all this temptation to +begin over again. . . For we had nothing to do with this; had we? + +"Of course not, says Cloete. Wasn't your brother himself in charge? +It's providential. . . Oh! cries George, shocked. . . Well, say it's the +devil, says Cloete, cheerfully. I don't mind! You had nothing to do +with it any more than a baby unborn, you great softy, you. . . Cloete has +got so that he almost loved George Dunbar. Well. Yes. That was so. I +don't mean he respected him. He was just fond of his partner. + +"They go back, you may say fairly skipping, to the hotel, and find the +wife of the captain at the open window, with her eyes on the ship as if +she wanted to fly across the bay over there. . . Now then, Mrs. Dunbar, +cries Cloete, you can't go, but I am going. Any messages? Don't be shy. +I'll deliver every word faithfully. And if you would like to give me a +kiss for him, I'll deliver that too, dash me if I don't. + +"He makes Mrs. Harry laugh with his patter. . . Oh, dear Mr. Cloete, you +are a calm, reasonable man. Make him behave sensibly. He's a bit +obstinate, you know, and he's so fond of the ship, too. Tell him I am +here--looking on. . . Trust me, Mrs. Dunbar. Only shut that window, +that's a good girl. You will be sure to catch cold if you don't, and the +Captain won't be pleased coming off the wreck to find you coughing and +sneezing so that you can't tell him how happy you are. And now if you +can get me a bit of tape to fasten my glasses on good to my ears, I will +be going. . . + +"How he gets on board I don't know. All wet and shaken and excited and +out of breath, he does get on board. Ship lying over, smothered in +sprays, but not moving very much; just enough to jag one's nerve a bit. +He finds them all crowded on the deck-house forward, in their shiny +oilskins, with faces like sick men. Captain Harry can't believe his +eyes. What! Mr. Cloete! What are you doing here, in God's name? . . . +Your wife's ashore there, looking on, gasps out Cloete; and after they +had talked a bit, Captain Harry thinks it's uncommonly plucky and kind of +his brother's partner to come off to him like this. Man glad to have +somebody to talk to. . . It's a bad business, Mr. Cloete, he says. And +Cloete rejoices to hear that. Captain Harry thinks he had done his best, +but the cable had parted when he tried to anchor her. It was a great +trial to lose the ship. Well, he would have to face it. He fetches a +deep sigh now and then. Cloete almost sorry he had come on board, +because to be on that wreck keeps his chest in a tight band all the time. +They crouch out of the wind under the port boat, a little apart from the +men. The life-boat had gone away after putting Cloete on board, but was +coming back next high water to take off the crew if no attempt at getting +the ship afloat could be made. Dusk was falling; winter's day; black +sky; wind rising. Captain Harry felt melancholy. God's will be done. +If she must be left on the rocks--why, she must. A man should take what +God sends him standing up. . . Suddenly his voice breaks, and he squeezes +Cloete's arm: It seems as if I couldn't leave her, he whispers. Cloete +looks round at the men like a lot of huddled sheep and thinks to himself: +They won't stay. . . Suddenly the ship lifts a little and sets down with +a thump. Tide rising. Everybody beginning to look out for the +life-boat. Some of the men made her out far away and also two more tugs. +But the gale has come on again, and everybody knows that no tug will ever +dare come near the ship. + +"That's the end, Captain Harry says, very low. . . . Cloete thinks he +never felt so cold in all his life. . . And I feel as if I didn't care to +live on just now, mutters Captain Harry . . . Your wife's ashore, looking +on, says Cloete . . . Yes. Yes. It must be awful for her to look at the +poor old ship lying here done for. Why, that's our home. + +"Cloete thinks that as long as the _Sagamore's_ done for he doesn't care, +and only wishes himself somewhere else. The slightest movement of the +ship cuts his breath like a blow. And he feels excited by the danger, +too. The captain takes him aside. . . The life-boat can't come near us +for more than an hour. Look here, Cloete, since you are here, and such a +plucky one--do something for me. . . He tells him then that down in his +cabin aft in a certain drawer there is a bundle of important papers and +some sixty sovereigns in a small canvas bag. Asks Cloete to go and get +these things out. He hasn't been below since the ship struck, and it +seems to him that if he were to take his eyes off her she would fall to +pieces. And then the men--a scared lot by this time--if he were to leave +them by themselves they would attempt to launch one of the ship's boats +in a panic at some heavier thump--and then some of them bound to get +drowned. . . There are two or three boxes of matches about my shelves in +my cabin if you want a light, says Captain Harry. Only wipe your wet +hands before you begin to feel for them. . . + +"Cloete doesn't like the job, but doesn't like to show funk, either--and +he goes. Lots of water on the main-deck, and he splashes along; it was +getting dark, too. All at once, by the mainmast, somebody catches him by +the arm. Stafford. He wasn't thinking of Stafford at all. Captain +Harry had said something as to the mate not being quite satisfactory, but +it wasn't much. Cloete doesn't recognise him in his oilskins at first. +He sees a white face with big eyes peering at him. . . Are you pleased, +Mr. Cloete . . . ? + +"Cloete is moved to laugh at the whine, and shakes him off. But the +fellow scrambles on after him on the poop and follows him down into the +cabin of that wrecked ship. And there they are, the two of them; can +hardly see each other. . . You don't mean to make me believe you have had +anything to do with this, says Cloete. . . + +"They both shiver, nearly out of their wits with the excitement of being +on board that ship. She thumps and lurches, and they stagger together, +feeling sick. Cloete again bursts out laughing at that wretched creature +Stafford pretending to have been up to something so desperate. . . Is +that how you think you can treat me now? yells the other man all of a +sudden. . . + +"A sea strikes the stern, the ship trembles and groans all round them, +there's the noise of the seas about and overhead, confusing Cloete, and +he hears the other screaming as if crazy. . . Ah, you don't believe me! +Go and look at the port chain. Parted? Eh? Go and see if it's parted. +Go and find the broken link. You can't. There's no broken link. That +means a thousand pounds for me. No less. A thousand the day after we +get ashore--prompt. I won't wait till she breaks up, Mr. Cloete. To the +underwriters I go if I've to walk to London on my bare feet. Port cable! +Look at her port cable, I will say to them. I doctored it--for the +owners--tempted by a low rascal called Cloete. + +"Cloete does not understand what it means exactly. All he sees is that +the fellow means to make mischief. He sees trouble ahead. . . Do you +think you can scare me? he asks,--you poor miserable skunk. . . And +Stafford faces him out--both holding on to the cabin table: No, damn you, +you are only a dirty vagabond; but I can scare the other, the chap in the +black coat. . . + +"Meaning George Dunbar. Cloete's brain reels at the thought. He doesn't +imagine the fellow can do any real harm, but he knows what George is; +give the show away; upset the whole business he had set his heart on. He +says nothing; he hears the other, what with the funk and strain and +excitement, panting like a dog--and then a snarl. . . A thousand down, +twenty-four hours after we get ashore; day after to-morrow. That's my +last word, Mr. Cloete. . . A thousand pounds, day after to-morrow, says +Cloete. Oh yes. And to-day take this, you dirty cur. . . He hits +straight from the shoulder in sheer rage, nothing else. Stafford goes +away spinning along the bulk-head. Seeing this, Cloete steps out and +lands him another one somewhere about the jaw. The fellow staggers +backward right into the captain's cabin through the open door. Cloete, +following him up, hears him fall down heavily and roll to leeward, then +slams the door to and turns the key. . . There! says he to himself, that +will stop you from making trouble." + +"By Jove!" I murmured. + +The old fellow departed from his impressive immobility to turn his +rakishly hatted head and look at me with his old, black, lack-lustre +eyes. + +"He did leave him there," he uttered, weightily, returning to the +contemplation of the wall. "Cloete didn't mean to allow anybody, let +alone a thing like Stafford, to stand in the way of his great notion of +making George and himself, and Captain Harry, too, for that matter, rich +men. And he didn't think much of consequences. These patent-medicine +chaps don't care what they say or what they do. They think the world's +bound to swallow any story they like to tell. . . He stands listening for +a bit. And it gives him quite a turn to hear a thump at the door and a +sort of muffled raving screech inside the captain's room. He thinks he +hears his own name, too, through the awful crash as the old _Sagamore_ +rises and falls to a sea. That noise and that awful shock make him clear +out of the cabin. He collects his senses on the poop. But his heart +sinks a little at the black wildness of the night. Chances that he will +get drowned himself before long. Puts his head down the companion. +Through the wind and breaking seas he can hear the noise of Stafford's +beating against the door and cursing. He listens and says to himself: +No. Can't trust him now. . . + +"When he gets back to the top of the deck-house he says to Captain Harry, +who asks him if he got the things, that he is very sorry. There was +something wrong with the door. Couldn't open it. And to tell you the +truth, says he, I didn't like to stop any longer in that cabin. There +are noises there as if the ship were going to pieces. . . Captain Harry +thinks: Nervous; can't be anything wrong with the door. But he says: +Thanks--never mind, never mind. . . All hands looking out now for the +life-boat. Everybody thinking of himself rather. Cloete asks himself, +will they miss him? But the fact is that Mr. Stafford had made such poor +show at sea that after the ship struck nobody ever paid any attention to +him. Nobody cared what he did or where he was. Pitch dark, too--no +counting of heads. The light of the tug with the lifeboat in tow is seen +making for the ship, and Captain Harry asks: Are we all there? . . . +Somebody answers: All here, sir. . . Stand by to leave the ship, then, +says Captain Harry; and two of you help the gentleman over first. . . +Aye, aye, sir. . . Cloete was moved to ask Captain Harry to let him stay +till last, but the life-boat drops on a grapnel abreast the fore-rigging, +two chaps lay hold of him, watch their chance, and drop him into her, all +safe. + +"He's nearly exhausted; not used to that sort of thing, you see. He sits +in the stern-sheets with his eyes shut. Don't want to look at the white +water boiling all around. The men drop into the boat one after another. +Then he hears Captain Harry's voice shouting in the wind to the coxswain, +to hold on a moment, and some other words he can't catch, and the +coxswain yelling back: Don't be long, sir. . . What is it? Cloete asks +feeling faint. . . Something about the ship's papers, says the coxswain, +very anxious. It's no time to be fooling about alongside, you +understand. They haul the boat off a little and wait. The water flies +over her in sheets. Cloete's senses almost leave him. He thinks of +nothing. He's numb all over, till there's a shout: Here he is! . . . +They see a figure in the fore-rigging waiting--they slack away on the +grapnel-line and get him in the boat quite easy. There is a little +shouting--it's all mixed up with the noise of the sea. Cloete fancies +that Stafford's voice is talking away quite close to his ear. There's a +lull in the wind, and Stafford's voice seems to be speaking very fast to +the coxswain; he tells him that of course he was near his skipper, was +all the time near him, till the old man said at the last moment that he +must go and get the ship's papers from aft; would insist on going +himself; told him, Stafford, to get into the life-boat. . . He had meant +to wait for his skipper, only there came this smooth of the seas, and he +thought he would take his chance at once. + +"Cloete opens his eyes. Yes. There's Stafford sitting close by him in +that crowded life-boat. The coxswain stoops over Cloete and cries: Did +you hear what the mate said, sir? . . . Cloete's face feels as if it were +set in plaster, lips and all. Yes, I did, he forces himself to answer. +The coxswain waits a moment, then says: I don't like it. . . And he turns +to the mate, telling him it was a pity he did not try to run along the +deck and hurry up the captain when the lull came. Stafford answers at +once that he did think of it, only he was afraid of missing him on the +deck in the dark. For, says he, the captain might have got over at once, +thinking I was already in the life-boat, and you would have hauled off +perhaps, leaving me behind. . . True enough, says the coxswain. A minute +or so passes. This won't do, mutters the coxswain. Suddenly Stafford +speaks up in a sort of hollow voice: I was by when he told Mr. Cloete +here that he didn't know how he would ever have the courage to leave the +old ship; didn't he, now? . . . And Cloete feels his arm being gripped +quietly in the dark. . . Didn't he now? We were standing together just +before you went over, Mr. Cloete? . . . + +"Just then the coxswain cries out: I'm going on board to see. . . Cloete +tears his arm away: I am going with you. . . + +"When they get aboard, the coxswain tells Cloete to go aft along one side +of the ship and he would go along the other so as not to miss the +captain. . . And feel about with your hands, too, says he; he might have +fallen and be lying insensible somewhere on the deck. . . When Cloete +gets at last to the cabin companion on the poop the coxswain is already +there, peering down and sniffing. I detect a smell of smoke down there, +says he. And he yells: Are you there, sir? . . . This is not a case for +shouting, says Cloete, feeling his heart go stony, as it were. . . Down +they go. Pitch dark; the inclination so sharp that the coxswain, groping +his way into the captain's room, slips and goes tumbling down. Cloete +hears him cry out as though he had hurt himself, and asks what's the +matter. And the coxswain answers quietly that he had fallen on the +captain, lying there insensible. Cloete without a word begins to grope +all over the shelves for a box of matches, finds one, and strikes a +light. He sees the coxswain in his cork jacket kneeling over Captain +Harry. . . Blood, says the coxswain, looking up, and the match goes out. . . + +"Wait a bit, says Cloete; I'll make paper spills. . . He had felt the +back of books on the shelves. And so he stands lighting one spill from +another while the coxswain turns poor Captain Harry over. Dead, he says. +Shot through the heart. Here's the revolver. . . He hands it up to +Cloete, who looks at it before putting it in his pocket, and sees a plate +on the butt with _H. Dunbar_ on it. . . His own, he mutters. . . Whose +else revolver did you expect to find? snaps the coxswain. And look, he +took off his long oilskin in the cabin before he went in. But what's +this lot of burnt paper? What could he want to burn the ship's papers +for? . . . + +Cloete sees all, the little drawers drawn out, and asks the coxswain to +look well into them. . . There's nothing, says the man. Cleaned out. +Seems to have pulled out all he could lay his hands on and set fire to +the lot. Mad--that's what it is--went mad. And now he's dead. You'll +have to break it to his wife. . . + +"I feel as if I were going mad myself, says Cloete, suddenly, and the +coxswain begs him for God's sake to pull himself together, and drags him +away from the cabin. They had to leave the body, and as it was they were +just in time before a furious squall came on. Cloete is dragged into the +life-boat and the coxswain tumbles in. Haul away on the grapnel, he +shouts; the captain has shot himself. . . + +"Cloete was like a dead man--didn't care for anything. He let that +Stafford pinch his arm twice without making a sign. Most of Westport was +on the old pier to see the men out of the life-boat, and at first there +was a sort of confused cheery uproar when she came alongside; but after +the coxswain has shouted something the voices die out, and everybody is +very quiet. As soon as Cloete has set foot on something firm he becomes +himself again. The coxswain shakes hands with him: Poor woman, poor +woman, I'd rather you had the job than I. . . + +"Where's the mate?" asks Cloete. He's the last man who spoke to the +master. . . Somebody ran along--the crew were being taken to the Mission +Hall, where there was a fire and shake-downs ready for them--somebody ran +along the pier and caught up with Stafford. . . Here! The owner's agent +wants you. . . Cloete tucks the fellow's arm under his own and walks away +with him to the left, where the fishing-harbour is. . . I suppose I +haven't misunderstood you. You wish me to look after you a bit, says he. +The other hangs on him rather limp, but gives a nasty little laugh: You +had better, he mumbles; but mind, no tricks; no tricks, Mr. Cloete; we +are on land now. + +"There's a police office within fifty yards from here, says Cloete. He +turns into a little public house, pushes Stafford along the passage. The +landlord runs out of the bar. . . This is the mate of the ship on the +rocks, Cloete explains; I wish you would take care of him a bit to-night. . . +What's the matter with him? asks the man. Stafford leans against the +wall in the passage, looking ghastly. And Cloete says it's nothing--done +up, of course. . . I will be responsible for the expense; I am the +owner's agent. I'll be round in an hour or two to see him. + +And Cloete gets back to the hotel. The news had travelled there already, +and the first thing he sees is George outside the door as white as a +sheet waiting for him. Cloete just gives him a nod and they go in. Mrs. +Harry stands at the head of the stairs, and, when she sees only these two +coming up, flings her arms above her head and runs into her room. Nobody +had dared tell her, but not seeing her husband was enough. Cloete hears +an awful shriek. . . Go to her, he says to George. + +"While he's alone in the private parlour Cloete drinks a glass of brandy +and thinks it all out. Then George comes in. . . The landlady's with +her, he says. And he begins to walk up and down the room, flinging his +arms about and talking, disconnected like, his face set hard as Cloete +has never seen it before. . . What must be, must be. Dead--only brother. +Well, dead--his troubles over. But we are living, he says to Cloete; and +I suppose, says he, glaring at him with hot, dry eyes, that you won't +forget to wire in the morning to your friend that we are coming in for +certain. . . + +"Meaning the patent-medicine fellow. . . Death is death and business is +business, George goes on; and look--my hands are clean, he says, showing +them to Cloete. Cloete thinks: He's going crazy. He catches hold of him +by the shoulders and begins to shake him: Damn you--if you had had the +sense to know what to say to your brother, if you had had the spunk to +speak to him at all, you moral creature you, he would be alive now, he +shouts. + +"At this George stares, then bursts out weeping with a great bellow. He +throws himself on the couch, buries his face in a cushion, and howls like +a kid. . . That's better, thinks Cloete, and he leaves him, telling the +landlord that he must go out, as he has some little business to attend to +that night. The landlord's wife, weeping herself, catches him on the +stairs: Oh, sir, that poor lady will go out of her mind. . . + +"Cloete shakes her off, thinking to himself: Oh no! She won't. She will +get over it. Nobody will go mad about this affair unless I do. It isn't +sorrow that makes people go mad, but worry. + +"There Cloete was wrong. What affected Mrs. Harry was that her husband +should take his own life, with her, as it were, looking on. She brooded +over it so that in less than a year they had to put her into a Home. She +was very, very quiet; just gentle melancholy. She lived for quite a long +time. + +"Well, Cloete splashes along in the wind and rain. Nobody in the +streets--all the excitement over. The publican runs out to meet him in +the passage and says to him: Not this way. He isn't in his room. We +couldn't get him to go to bed nohow. He's in the little parlour there. +We've lighted him a fire. . . You have been giving him drinks too, says +Cloete; I never said I would be responsible for drinks. How many? . . . +Two, says the other. It's all right. I don't mind doing that much for a +shipwrecked sailor. . . Cloete smiles his funny smile: Eh? Come. He +paid for them. . . The publican just blinks. . . Gave you gold, didn't +he? Speak up! . . . What of that! cries the man. What are you after, +anyway? He had the right change for his sovereign. + +"Just so, says Cloete. He walks into the parlour, and there he sees our +Stafford; hair all up on end, landlord's shirt and pants on, bare feet in +slippers, sitting by the fire. When he sees Cloete he casts his eyes +down. + +"You didn't mean us ever to meet again, Mr. Cloete, Stafford says, +demurely. . . That fellow, when he had the drink he wanted--he wasn't a +drunkard--would put on this sort of sly, modest air. . . But since the +captain committed suicide, he says, I have been sitting here thinking it +out. All sorts of things happen. Conspiracy to lose the ship--attempted +murder--and this suicide. For if it was not suicide, Mr. Cloete, then I +know of a victim of the most cruel, cold-blooded attempt at murder; +somebody who has suffered a thousand deaths. And that makes the thousand +pounds of which we spoke once a quite insignificant sum. Look how very +convenient this suicide is. . . + +"He looks up at Cloete then, who smiles at him and comes quite close to +the table. + +"You killed Harry Dunbar, he whispers. . . The fellow glares at him and +shows his teeth: Of course I did! I had been in that cabin for an hour +and a half like a rat in a trap. . . Shut up and left to drown in that +wreck. Let flesh and blood judge. Of course I shot him! I thought it +was you, you murdering scoundrel, come back to settle me. He opens the +door flying and tumbles right down upon me; I had a revolver in my hand, +and I shot him. I was crazy. Men have gone crazy for less. + +"Cloete looks at him without flinching. Aha! That's your story, is it? +. . . And he shakes the table a little in his passion as he speaks. . . +Now listen to mine. What's this conspiracy? Who's going to prove it? +You were there to rob. You were rifling his cabin; he came upon you +unawares with your hands in the drawer; and you shot him with his own +revolver. You killed to steal--to steal! His brother and the clerks in +the office know that he took sixty pounds with him to sea. Sixty pounds +in gold in a canvas bag. He told me where they were. The coxswain of +the life-boat can swear to it that the drawers were all empty. And you +are such a fool that before you're half an hour ashore you change a +sovereign to pay for a drink. Listen to me. If you don't turn up day +after to-morrow at George Dunbar's solicitors, to make the proper +deposition as to the loss of the ship, I shall set the police on your +track. Day after to-morrow. . . + +"And then what do you think? That Stafford begins to tear his hair. +Just so. Tugs at it with both hands without saying anything. Cloete +gives a push to the table which nearly sends the fellow off his chair, +tumbling inside the fender; so that he has got to catch hold of it to +save himself. . . + +"You know the sort of man I am, Cloete says, fiercely. I've got to a +point that I don't care what happens to me. I would shoot you now for +tuppence. + +"At this the cur dodges under the table. Then Cloete goes out, and as he +turns in the street--you know, little fishermen's cottages, all dark; +raining in torrents, too--the other opens the window of the parlour and +speaks in a sort of crying voice-- + +"You low Yankee fiend--I'll pay you off some day. + +"Cloete passes by with a damn bitter laugh, because he thinks that the +fellow in a way has paid him off already, if he only knew it." + + * * * * * + +My impressive ruffian drank what remained of his beer, while his black, +sunken eyes looked at me over the rim. + +"I don't quite understand this," I said. "In what way?" + +He unbent a little and explained without too much scorn that Captain +Harry being dead, his half of the insurance money went to his wife, and +her trustees of course bought consols with it. Enough to keep her +comfortable. George Dunbar's half, as Cloete feared from the first, did +not prove sufficient to launch the medicine well; other moneyed men +stepped in, and these two had to go out of that business, pretty nearly +shorn of everything. + +"I am curious," I said, "to learn what the motive force of this tragic +affair was--I mean the patent medicine. Do you know?" + +He named it, and I whistled respectfully. Nothing less than Parker's +Lively Lumbago Pills. Enormous property! You know it; all the world +knows it. Every second man, at least, on this globe of ours has tried +it. + +"Why!" I cried, "they missed an immense fortune." + +"Yes," he mumbled, "by the price of a revolver-shot." + +He told me also that eventually Cloete returned to the States, passenger +in a cargo-boat from Albert Dock. The night before he sailed he met him +wandering about the quays, and took him home for a drink. "Funny chap, +Cloete. We sat all night drinking grogs, till it was time for him to go +on board." + +It was then that Cloete, unembittered but weary, told him this story, +with that utterly unconscious frankness of a patent-medicine man stranger +to all moral standards. Cloete concluded by remarking that he, had "had +enough of the old country." George Dunbar had turned on him, too, in the +end. Cloete was clearly somewhat disillusioned. + +As to Stafford, he died, professed loafer, in some East End hospital or +other, and on his last day clamoured "for a parson," because his +conscience worried him for killing an innocent man. "Wanted somebody to +tell him it was all right," growled my old ruffian, contemptuously. "He +told the parson that I knew this Cloete who had tried to murder him, and +so the parson (he worked among the dock labourers) once spoke to me about +it. That skunk of a fellow finding himself trapped yelled for mercy. . . +Promised to be good and so on. . . Then he went crazy . . . screamed and +threw himself about, beat his head against the bulkheads . . . you can +guess all that--eh? . . . till he was exhausted. Gave up. Threw himself +down, shut his eyes, and wanted to pray. So he says. Tried to think of +some prayer for a quick death--he was that terrified. Thought that if he +had a knife or something he would cut his throat, and be done with it. +Then he thinks: No! Would try to cut away the wood about the lock. . . +He had no knife in his pocket. . . he was weeping and calling on God to +send him a tool of some kind when suddenly he thinks: Axe! In most ships +there is a spare emergency axe kept in the master's room in some locker +or other. . . Up he jumps. . . Pitch dark. Pulls at the drawers to find +matches and, groping for them, the first thing he comes upon--Captain +Harry's revolver. Loaded too. He goes perfectly quiet all over. Can +shoot the lock to pieces. See? Saved! God's providence! There are +boxes of matches too. Thinks he: I may just as well see what I am about. + +"Strikes a light and sees the little canvas bag tucked away at the back +of the drawer. Knew at once what that was. Rams it into his pocket +quick. Aha! says he to himself: this requires more light. So he pitches +a lot of paper on the floor, set fire to it, and starts in a hurry +rummaging for more valuables. Did you ever? He told that East-End +parson that the devil tempted him. First God's mercy--then devil's work. +Turn and turn about. . . + +"Any squirming skunk can talk like that. He was so busy with the drawers +that the first thing he heard was a shout, Great Heavens. He looks up +and there was the door open (Cloete had left the key in the lock) and +Captain Harry holding on, well above him, very fierce in the light of the +burning papers. His eyes were starting out of his head. Thieving, he +thunders at him. A sailor! An officer! No! A wretch like you deserves +no better than to be left here to drown. + +"This Stafford--on his death-bed--told the parson that when he heard +these words he went crazy again. He snatched his hand with the revolver +in it out of the drawer, and fired without aiming. Captain Harry fell +right in with a crash like a stone on top of the burning papers, putting +the blaze out. All dark. Not a sound. He listened for a bit then +dropped the revolver and scrambled out on deck like mad." + +The old fellow struck the table with his ponderous fist. + +"What makes me sick is to hear these silly boat-men telling people the +captain committed suicide. Pah! Captain Harry was a man that could face +his Maker any time up there, and here below, too. He wasn't the sort to +slink out of life. Not he! He was a good man down to the ground. He +gave me my first job as stevedore only three days after I got married." + +As the vindication of Captain Harry from the charge of suicide seemed to +be his only object, I did not thank him very effusively for his material. +And then it was not worth many thanks in any case. + +For it is too startling even to think of such things happening in our +respectable Channel in full view, so to speak, of the luxurious +continental traffic to Switzerland and Monte Carlo. This story to be +acceptable should have been transposed to somewhere in the South Seas. +But it would have been too much trouble to cook it for the consumption of +magazine readers. So here it is raw, so to speak--just as it was told to +me--but unfortunately robbed of the striking effect of the narrator; the +most imposing old ruffian that ever followed the unromantic trade of +master stevedore in the port of London. + + * * * * * + +_Oct._ 1910. + + + + +THE INN OF THE TWO WITCHES +A FIND + + +This tale, episode, experience--call it how you will--was related in the +fifties of the last century by a man who, by his own confession, was +sixty years old at the time. Sixty is not a bad age--unless in +perspective, when no doubt it is contemplated by the majority of us with +mixed feelings. It is a calm age; the game is practically over by then; +and standing aside one begins to remember with a certain vividness what a +fine fellow one used to be. I have observed that, by an amiable +attention of Providence, most people at sixty begin to take a romantic +view of themselves. Their very failures exhale a charm of peculiar +potency. And indeed the hopes of the future are a fine company to live +with, exquisite forms, fascinating if you like, but--so to speak--naked, +stripped for a run. The robes of glamour are luckily the property of the +immovable past which, without them, would sit, a shivery sort of thing, +under the gathering shadows. + +I suppose it was the romanticism of growing age which set our man to +relate his experience for his own satisfaction or for the wonder of his +posterity. It could not have been for his glory, because the experience +was simply that of an abominable fright--terror he calls it. You would +have guessed that the relation alluded to in the very first lines was in +writing. + +This writing constitutes the Find declared in the sub-title. The title +itself is my own contrivance, (can't call it invention), and has the +merit of veracity. We will be concerned with an inn here. As to the +witches that's merely a conventional expression, and we must take our +man's word for it that it fits the case. + +The Find was made in a box of books bought in London, in a street which +no longer exists, from a second-hand bookseller in the last stage of +decay. As to the books themselves they were at least twentieth-hand, and +on inspection turned out not worth the very small sum of money I +disbursed. It might have been some premonition of that fact which made +me say: "But I must have the box too." The decayed bookseller assented +by the careless, tragic gesture of a man already doomed to extinction. + +A litter of loose pages at the bottom of the box excited my curiosity but +faintly. The close, neat, regular handwriting was not attractive at +first sight. But in one place the statement that in A.D. 1813 the writer +was twenty-two years old caught my eye. Two and twenty is an interesting +age in which one is easily reckless and easily frightened; the faculty of +reflection being weak and the power of imagination strong. + +In another place the phrase: "At night we stood in again," arrested my +languid attention, because it was a sea phrase. "Let's see what it is +all about," I thought, without excitement. + +Oh! but it was a dull-faced MS., each line resembling every other line in +their close-set and regular order. It was like the drone of a monotonous +voice. A treatise on sugar-refining (the dreariest subject I can think +of) could have been given a more lively appearance. "In A.D. 1813, I was +twenty-two years old," he begins earnestly and goes on with every +appearance of calm, horrible industry. Don't imagine, however, that +there is anything archaic in my find. Diabolic ingenuity in invention +though as old as the world is by no means a lost art. Look at the +telephones for shattering the little peace of mind given to us in this +world, or at the machine guns for letting with dispatch life out of our +bodies. Now-a-days any blear-eyed old witch if only strong enough to +turn an insignificant little handle could lay low a hundred young men of +twenty in the twinkling of an eye. + +If this isn't progress! . . . Why immense! We have moved on, and so you +must expect to meet here a certain naiveness of contrivance and +simplicity of aim appertaining to the remote epoch. And of course no +motoring tourist can hope to find such an inn anywhere, now. This one, +the one of the title, was situated in Spain. That much I discovered only +from internal evidence, because a good many pages of that relation were +missing--perhaps not a great misfortune after all. The writer seemed to +have entered into a most elaborate detail of the why and wherefore of his +presence on that coast--presumably the north coast of Spain. His +experience has nothing to do with the sea, though. As far as I can make +it out, he was an officer on board a sloop-of-war. There's nothing +strange in that. At all stages of the long Peninsular campaign many of +our men-of-war of the smaller kind were cruising off the north coast of +Spain--as risky and disagreeable a station as can be well imagined. + +It looks as though that ship of his had had some special service to +perform. A careful explanation of all the circumstances was to be +expected from our man, only, as I've said, some of his pages (good tough +paper too) were missing: gone in covers for jampots or in wadding for the +fowling-pieces of his irreverent posterity. But it is to be seen clearly +that communication with the shore and even the sending of messengers +inland was part of her service, either to obtain intelligence from or to +transmit orders or advice to patriotic Spaniards, guerilleros or secret +juntas of the province. Something of the sort. All this can be only +inferred from the preserved scraps of his conscientious writing. + +Next we come upon the panegyric of a very fine sailor, a member of the +ship's company, having the rating of the captain's coxswain. He was +known on board as Cuba Tom; not because he was Cuban however; he was +indeed the best type of a genuine British tar of that time, and a +man-of-war's man for years. He came by the name on account of some +wonderful adventures he had in that island in his young days, adventures +which were the favourite subject of the yarns he was in the habit of +spinning to his shipmates of an evening on the forecastle head. He was +intelligent, very strong, and of proved courage. Incidentally we are +told, so exact is our narrator, that Tom had the finest pigtail for +thickness and length of any man in the Navy. This appendage, much cared +for and sheathed tightly in a porpoise skin, hung half way down his broad +back to the great admiration of all beholders and to the great envy of +some. + +Our young officer dwells on the manly qualities of Cuba Tom with +something like affection. This sort of relation between officer and man +was not then very rare. A youngster on joining the service was put under +the charge of a trustworthy seaman, who slung his first hammock for him +and often later on became a sort of humble friend to the junior officer. +The narrator on joining the sloop had found this man on board after some +years of separation. There is something touching in the warm pleasure he +remembers and records at this meeting with the professional mentor of his +boyhood. + +We discover then that, no Spaniard being forthcoming for the service, +this worthy seaman with the unique pigtail and a very high character for +courage and steadiness had been selected as messenger for one of these +missions inland which have been mentioned. His preparations were not +elaborate. One gloomy autumn morning the sloop ran close to a shallow +cove where a landing could be made on that iron-bound shore. A boat was +lowered, and pulled in with Tom Corbin (Cuba Tom) perched in the bow, and +our young man (Mr. Edgar Byrne was his name on this earth which knows him +no more) sitting in the stern sheets. + +A few inhabitants of a hamlet, whose grey stone houses could be seen a +hundred yards or so up a deep ravine, had come down to the shore and +watched the approach of the boat. The two Englishmen leaped ashore. +Either from dullness or astonishment the peasants gave no greeting, and +only fell back in silence. + +Mr. Byrne had made up his mind to see Tom Corbin started fairly on his +way. He looked round at the heavy surprised faces. + +"There isn't much to get out of them," he said. "Let us walk up to the +village. There will be a wine shop for sure where we may find somebody +more promising to talk to and get some information from." + +"Aye, aye, sir," said Tom falling into step behind his officer. "A bit +of palaver as to courses and distances can do no harm; I crossed the +broadest part of Cuba by the help of my tongue tho' knowing far less +Spanish than I do now. As they say themselves it was 'four words and no +more' with me, that time when I got left behind on shore by the +_Blanche_, frigate." + +He made light of what was before him, which was but a day's journey into +the mountains. It is true that there was a full day's journey before +striking the mountain path, but that was nothing for a man who had +crossed the island of Cuba on his two legs, and with no more than four +words of the language to begin with. + +The officer and the man were walking now on a thick sodden bed of dead +leaves, which the peasants thereabouts accumulate in the streets of their +villages to rot during the winter for field manure. Turning his head Mr. +Byrne perceived that the whole male population of the hamlet was +following them on the noiseless springy carpet. Women stared from the +doors of the houses and the children had apparently gone into hiding. +The village knew the ship by sight, afar off, but no stranger had landed +on that spot perhaps for a hundred years or more. The cocked hat of Mr. +Byrne, the bushy whiskers and the enormous pigtail of the sailor, filled +them with mute wonder. They pressed behind the two Englishmen staring +like those islanders discovered by Captain Cook in the South Seas. + +It was then that Byrne had his first glimpse of the little cloaked man in +a yellow hat. Faded and dingy as it was, this covering for his head made +him noticeable. + +The entrance to the wine shop was like a rough hole in a wall of flints. +The owner was the only person who was not in the street, for he came out +from the darkness at the back where the inflated forms of wine skins hung +on nails could be vaguely distinguished. He was a tall, one-eyed +Asturian with scrubby, hollow cheeks; a grave expression of countenance +contrasted enigmatically with the roaming restlessness of his solitary +eye. On learning that the matter in hand was the sending on his way of +that English mariner toward a certain Gonzales in the mountains, he +closed his good eye for a moment as if in meditation. Then opened it, +very lively again. + +"Possibly, possibly. It could be done." + +A friendly murmur arose in the group in the doorway at the name of +Gonzales, the local leader against the French. Inquiring as to the +safety of the road Byrne was glad to learn that no troops of that nation +had been seen in the neighbourhood for months. Not the smallest little +detachment of these impious _polizones_. While giving these answers the +owner of the wine-shop busied himself in drawing into an earthenware jug +some wine which he set before the heretic English, pocketing with grave +abstraction the small piece of money the officer threw upon the table in +recognition of the unwritten law that none may enter a wine-shop without +buying drink. His eye was in constant motion as if it were trying to do +the work of the two; but when Byrne made inquiries as to the possibility +of hiring a mule, it became immovably fixed in the direction of the door +which was closely besieged by the curious. In front of them, just within +the threshold, the little man in the large cloak and yellow hat had taken +his stand. He was a diminutive person, a mere homunculus, Byrne +describes him, in a ridiculously mysterious, yet assertive attitude, a +corner of his cloak thrown cavalierly over his left shoulder, muffling +his chin and mouth; while the broad-brimmed yellow hat hung on a corner +of his square little head. He stood there taking snuff, repeatedly. + +"A mule," repeated the wine-seller, his eyes fixed on that quaint and +snuffy figure. . . "No, senor officer! Decidedly no mule is to be got in +this poor place." + +The coxswain, who stood by with the true sailor's air of unconcern in +strange surroundings, struck in quietly-- + +"If your honour will believe me Shank's pony's the best for this job. I +would have to leave the beast somewhere, anyhow, since the captain has +told me that half my way will be along paths fit only for goats." + +The diminutive man made a step forward, and speaking through the folds of +the cloak which seemed to muffle a sarcastic intention-- + +"Si, senor. They are too honest in this village to have a single mule +amongst them for your worship's service. To that I can bear testimony. +In these times it's only rogues or very clever men who can manage to have +mules or any other four-footed beasts and the wherewithal to keep them. +But what this valiant mariner wants is a guide; and here, senor, behold +my brother-in-law, Bernardino, wine-seller, and alcade of this most +Christian and hospitable village, who will find you one." + +This, Mr. Byrne says in his relation, was the only thing to do. A youth +in a ragged coat and goat-skin breeches was produced after some more +talk. The English officer stood treat to the whole village, and while +the peasants drank he and Cuba Tom took their departure accompanied by +the guide. The diminutive man in the cloak had disappeared. + +Byrne went along with the coxswain out of the village. He wanted to see +him fairly on his way; and he would have gone a greater distance, if the +seaman had not suggested respectfully the advisability of return so as +not to keep the ship a moment longer than necessary so close in with the +shore on such an unpromising looking morning. A wild gloomy sky hung +over their heads when they took leave of each other, and their +surroundings of rank bushes and stony fields were dreary. + +"In four days' time," were Byrne's last words, "the ship will stand in +and send a boat on shore if the weather permits. If not you'll have to +make it out on shore the best you can till we come along to take you +off." + +"Right you are, sir," answered Tom, and strode on. Byrne watched him +step out on a narrow path. In a thick pea-jacket with a pair of pistols +in his belt, a cutlass by his side, and a stout cudgel in his hand, he +looked a sturdy figure and well able to take care of himself. He turned +round for a moment to wave his hand, giving to Byrne one more view of his +honest bronzed face with bushy whiskers. The lad in goatskin breeches +looking, Byrne says, like a faun or a young satyr leaping ahead, stopped +to wait for him, and then went off at a bound. Both disappeared. + +Byrne turned back. The hamlet was hidden in a fold of the ground, and +the spot seemed the most lonely corner of the earth and as if accursed in +its uninhabited desolate barrenness. Before he had walked many yards, +there appeared very suddenly from behind a bush the muffled up diminutive +Spaniard. Naturally Byrne stopped short. + +The other made a mysterious gesture with a tiny hand peeping from under +his cloak. His hat hung very much at the side of his head. "Senor," he +said without any preliminaries. "Caution! It is a positive fact that +one-eyed Bernardino, my brother-in-law, has at this moment a mule in his +stable. And why he who is not clever has a mule there? Because he is a +rogue; a man without conscience. Because I had to give up the _macho_ to +him to secure for myself a roof to sleep under and a mouthful of _olla_ +to keep my soul in this insignificant body of mine. Yet, senor, it +contains a heart many times bigger than the mean thing which beats in the +breast of that brute connection of mine of which I am ashamed, though I +opposed that marriage with all my power. Well, the misguided woman +suffered enough. She had her purgatory on this earth--God rest her +soul." + +Byrne says he was so astonished by the sudden appearance of that +sprite-like being, and by the sardonic bitterness of the speech, that he +was unable to disentangle the significant fact from what seemed but a +piece of family history fired out at him without rhyme or reason. Not at +first. He was confounded and at the same time he was impressed by the +rapid forcible delivery, quite different from the frothy excited +loquacity of an Italian. So he stared while the homunculus letting his +cloak fall about him, aspired an immense quantity of snuff out of the +hollow of his palm. + +"A mule," exclaimed Byrne seizing at last the real aspect of the +discourse. "You say he has got a mule? That's queer! Why did he refuse +to let me have it?" + +The diminutive Spaniard muffled himself up again with great dignity. + +"_Quien sabe_," he said coldly, with a shrug of his draped shoulders. +"He is a great _politico_ in everything he does. But one thing your +worship may be certain of--that his intentions are always rascally. This +husband of my _defunta_ sister ought to have been married a long time ago +to the widow with the wooden legs." {188} + +"I see. But remember that, whatever your motives, your worship +countenanced him in this lie." + +The bright unhappy eyes on each side of a predatory nose confronted Byrne +without wincing, while with that testiness which lurks so often at the +bottom of Spanish dignity-- + +"No doubt the senor officer would not lose an ounce of blood if I were +stuck under the fifth rib," he retorted. "But what of this poor sinner +here?" Then changing his tone. "Senor, by the necessities of the times +I live here in exile, a Castilian and an old Christian, existing +miserably in the midst of these brute Asturians, and dependent on the +worst of them all, who has less conscience and scruples than a wolf. And +being a man of intelligence I govern myself accordingly. Yet I can +hardly contain my scorn. You have heard the way I spoke. A caballero of +parts like your worship might have guessed that there was a cat in +there." + +"What cat?" said Byrne uneasily. "Oh, I see. Something suspicious. No, +senor. I guessed nothing. My nation are not good guessers at that sort +of thing; and, therefore, I ask you plainly whether that wine-seller has +spoken the truth in other particulars?" + +"There are certainly no Frenchmen anywhere about," said the little man +with a return to his indifferent manner. + +"Or robbers--_ladrones_?" + +"_Ladrones en grande_--no! Assuredly not," was the answer in a cold +philosophical tone. "What is there left for them to do after the French? +And nobody travels in these times. But who can say! Opportunity makes +the robber. Still that mariner of yours has a fierce aspect, and with +the son of a cat rats will have no play. But there is a saying, too, +that where honey is there will soon be flies." + +This oracular discourse exasperated Byrne. "In the name of God," he +cried, "tell me plainly if you think my man is reasonably safe on his +journey." + +The homunculus, undergoing one of his rapid changes, seized the officer's +arm. The grip of his little hand was astonishing. + +"Senor! Bernardino had taken notice of him. What more do you want? And +listen--men have disappeared on this road--on a certain portion of this +road, when Bernardino kept a _meson_, an inn, and I, his brother-in-law, +had coaches and mules for hire. Now there are no travellers, no coaches. +The French have ruined me. Bernardino has retired here for reasons of +his own after my sister died. They were three to torment the life out of +her, he and Erminia and Lucilla, two aunts of his--all affiliated to the +devil. And now he has robbed me of my last mule. You are an armed man. +Demand the _macho_ from him, with a pistol to his head, senor--it is not +his, I tell you--and ride after your man who is so precious to you. And +then you shall both be safe, for no two travellers have been ever known +to disappear together in these days. As to the beast, I, its owner, I +confide it to your honour." + +They were staring hard at each other, and Byrne nearly burst into a laugh +at the ingenuity and transparency of the little man's plot to regain +possession of his mule. But he had no difficulty to keep a straight face +because he felt deep within himself a strange inclination to do that very +extraordinary thing. He did not laugh, but his lip quivered; at which +the diminutive Spaniard, detaching his black glittering eyes from Byrne's +face, turned his back on him brusquely with a gesture and a fling of the +cloak which somehow expressed contempt, bitterness, and discouragement +all at once. He turned away and stood still, his hat aslant, muffled up +to the ears. But he was not offended to the point of refusing the silver +_duro_ which Byrne offered him with a non-committal speech as if nothing +extraordinary had passed between them. + +"I must make haste on board now," said Byrne, then. + +"_Vaya usted con Dios_," muttered the gnome. And this interview ended +with a sarcastic low sweep of the hat which was replaced at the same +perilous angle as before. + +Directly the boat had been hoisted the ship's sails were filled on the +off-shore tack, and Byrne imparted the whole story to his captain, who +was but a very few years older than himself. There was some amused +indignation at it--but while they laughed they looked gravely at each +other. A Spanish dwarf trying to beguile an officer of his majesty's +navy into stealing a mule for him--that was too funny, too ridiculous, +too incredible. Those were the exclamations of the captain. He couldn't +get over the grotesqueness of it. + +"Incredible. That's just it," murmured Byrne at last in a significant +tone. + +They exchanged a long stare. "It's as clear as daylight," affirmed the +captain impatiently, because in his heart he was not certain. And Tom +the best seaman in the ship for one, the good-humouredly deferential +friend of his boyhood for the other, was becoming endowed with a +compelling fascination, like a symbolic figure of loyalty appealing to +their feelings and their conscience, so that they could not detach their +thoughts from his safety. Several times they went up on deck, only to +look at the coast, as if it could tell them something of his fate. It +stretched away, lengthening in the distance, mute, naked, and savage, +veiled now and then by the slanting cold shafts of rain. The westerly +swell rolled its interminable angry lines of foam and big dark clouds +flew over the ship in a sinister procession. + +"I wish to goodness you had done what your little friend in the yellow +hat wanted you to do," said the commander of the sloop late in the +afternoon with visible exasperation. + +"Do you, sir?" answered Byrne, bitter with positive anguish. "I wonder +what you would have said afterwards? Why! I might have been kicked out +of the service for looting a mule from a nation in alliance with His +Majesty. Or I might have been battered to a pulp with flails and +pitch-forks--a pretty tale to get abroad about one of your +officers--while trying to steal a mule. Or chased ignominiously to the +boat--for you would not have expected me to shoot down unoffending people +for the sake of a mangy mule. . . And yet," he added in a low voice, "I +almost wish myself I had done it." + +Before dark those two young men had worked themselves up into a highly +complex psychological state of scornful scepticism and alarmed credulity. +It tormented them exceedingly; and the thought that it would have to last +for six days at least, and possibly be prolonged further for an +indefinite time, was not to be borne. The ship was therefore put on the +inshore tack at dark. All through the gusty dark night she went towards +the land to look for her man, at times lying over in the heavy puffs, at +others rolling idle in the swell, nearly stationary, as if she too had a +mind of her own to swing perplexed between cool reason and warm impulse. + +Then just at daybreak a boat put off from her and went on tossed by the +seas towards the shallow cove where, with considerable difficulty, an +officer in a thick coat and a round hat managed to land on a strip of +shingle. + +"It was my wish," writes Mr. Byrne, "a wish of which my captain approved, +to land secretly if possible. I did not want to be seen either by my +aggrieved friend in the yellow hat, whose motives were not clear, or by +the one-eyed wine-seller, who may or may not have been affiliated to the +devil, or indeed by any other dweller in that primitive village. But +unfortunately the cove was the only possible landing place for miles; and +from the steepness of the ravine I couldn't make a circuit to avoid the +houses." + +"Fortunately," he goes on, "all the people were yet in their beds. It +was barely daylight when I found myself walking on the thick layer of +sodden leaves filling the only street. No soul was stirring abroad, no +dog barked. The silence was profound, and I had concluded with some +wonder that apparently no dogs were kept in the hamlet, when I heard a +low snarl, and from a noisome alley between two hovels emerged a vile cur +with its tail between its legs. He slunk off silently showing me his +teeth as he ran before me, and he disappeared so suddenly that he might +have been the unclean incarnation of the Evil One. There was, too, +something so weird in the manner of its coming and vanishing, that my +spirits, already by no means very high, became further depressed by the +revolting sight of this creature as if by an unlucky presage." + +He got away from the coast unobserved, as far as he knew, then struggled +manfully to the west against wind and rain, on a barren dark upland, +under a sky of ashes. Far away the harsh and desolate mountains raising +their scarped and denuded ridges seemed to wait for him menacingly. The +evening found him fairly near to them, but, in sailor language, uncertain +of his position, hungry, wet, and tired out by a day of steady tramping +over broken ground during which he had seen very few people, and had been +unable to obtain the slightest intelligence of Tom Corbin's passage. +"On! on! I must push on," he had been saying to himself through the hours +of solitary effort, spurred more by incertitude than by any definite fear +or definite hope. + +The lowering daylight died out quickly, leaving him faced by a broken +bridge. He descended into the ravine, forded a narrow stream by the last +gleam of rapid water, and clambering out on the other side was met by the +night which fell like a bandage over his eyes. The wind sweeping in the +darkness the broadside of the sierra worried his ears by a continuous +roaring noise as of a maddened sea. He suspected that he had lost the +road. Even in daylight, with its ruts and mud-holes and ledges of +outcropping stone, it was difficult to distinguish from the dreary waste +of the moor interspersed with boulders and clumps of naked bushes. But, +as he says, "he steered his course by the feel of the wind," his hat +rammed low on his brow, his head down, stopping now and again from mere +weariness of mind rather than of body--as if not his strength but his +resolution were being overtaxed by the strain of endeavour half suspected +to be vain, and by the unrest of his feelings. + +In one of these pauses borne in the wind faintly as if from very far away +he heard a sound of knocking, just knocking on wood. He noticed that the +wind had lulled suddenly. + +His heart started beating tumultuously because in himself he carried the +impression of the desert solitudes he had been traversing for the last +six hours--the oppressive sense of an uninhabited world. When he raised +his head a gleam of light, illusory as it often happens in dense +darkness, swam before his eyes. While he peered, the sound of feeble +knocking was repeated--and suddenly he felt rather than saw the existence +of a massive obstacle in his path. What was it? The spur of a hill? Or +was it a house! Yes. It was a house right close, as though it had risen +from the ground or had come gliding to meet him, dumb and pallid; from +some dark recess of the night. It towered loftily. He had come up under +its lee; another three steps and he could have touched the wall with his +hand. It was no doubt a _posada_ and some other traveller was trying for +admittance. He heard again the sound of cautious knocking. + +Next moment a broad band of light fell into the night through the opened +door. Byrne stepped eagerly into it, whereupon the person outside leaped +with a stifled cry away into the night. An exclamation of surprise was +heard too, from within. Byrne, flinging himself against the half closed +door, forced his way in against some considerable resistance. + +A miserable candle, a mere rushlight, burned at the end of a long deal +table. And in its light Byrne saw, staggering yet, the girl he had +driven from the door. She had a short black skirt, an orange shawl, a +dark complexion--and the escaped single hairs from the mass, sombre and +thick like a forest and held up by a comb, made a black mist about her +low forehead. A shrill lamentable howl of: "Misericordia!" came in two +voices from the further end of the long room, where the fire-light of an +open hearth played between heavy shadows. The girl recovering herself +drew a hissing breath through her set teeth. + +It is unnecessary to report the long process of questions and answers by +which he soothed the fears of two old women who sat on each side of the +fire, on which stood a large earthenware pot. Byrne thought at once of +two witches watching the brewing of some deadly potion. But all the +same, when one of them raising forward painfully her broken form lifted +the cover of the pot, the escaping steam had an appetising smell. The +other did not budge, but sat hunched up, her head trembling all the time. + +They were horrible. There was something grotesque in their decrepitude. +Their toothless mouths, their hooked noses, the meagreness of the active +one, and the hanging yellow cheeks of the other (the still one, whose +head trembled) would have been laughable if the sight of their dreadful +physical degradation had not been appalling to one's eyes, had not +gripped one's heart with poignant amazement at the unspeakable misery of +age, at the awful persistency of life becoming at last an object of +disgust and dread. + +To get over it Byrne began to talk, saying that he was an Englishman, and +that he was in search of a countryman who ought to have passed this way. +Directly he had spoken the recollection of his parting with Tom came up +in his mind with amazing vividness: the silent villagers, the angry +gnome, the one-eyed wine-seller, Bernardino. Why! These two unspeakable +frights must be that man's aunts--affiliated to the devil. + +Whatever they had been once it was impossible to imagine what use such +feeble creatures could be to the devil, now, in the world of the living. +Which was Lucilla and which was Erminia? They were now things without a +name. A moment of suspended animation followed Byrne's words. The +sorceress with the spoon ceased stirring the mess in the iron pot, the +very trembling of the other's head stopped for the space of breath. In +this infinitesimal fraction of a second Byrne had the sense of being +really on his quest, of having reached the turn of the path, almost +within hail of Tom. + +"They have seen him," he thought with conviction. Here was at last +somebody who had seen him. He made sure they would deny all knowledge of +the Ingles; but on the contrary they were eager to tell him that he had +eaten and slept the night in the house. They both started talking +together, describing his appearance and behaviour. An excitement quite +fierce in its feebleness possessed them. The doubled-up sorceress +flourished aloft her wooden spoon, the puffy monster got off her stool +and screeched, stepping from one foot to the other, while the trembling +of her head was accelerated to positive vibration. Byrne was quite +disconcerted by their excited behaviour. . . Yes! The big, fierce Ingles +went away in the morning, after eating a piece of bread and drinking some +wine. And if the caballero wished to follow the same path nothing could +be easier--in the morning. + +"You will give me somebody to show me the way?" said Byrne. + +"Si, senor. A proper youth. The man the caballero saw going out." + +"But he was knocking at the door," protested Byrne. "He only bolted when +he saw me. He was coming in." + +"No! No!" the two horrid witches screamed out together. "Going out. +Going out!" + +After all it may have been true. The sound of knocking had been faint, +elusive, reflected Byrne. Perhaps only the effect of his fancy. He +asked-- + +"Who is that man?" + +"Her _novio_." They screamed pointing to the girl. "He is gone home to +a village far away from here. But he will return in the morning. Her +_novio_! And she is an orphan--the child of poor Christian people. She +lives with us for the love of God, for the love of God." + +The orphan crouching on the corner of the hearth had been looking at +Byrne. He thought that she was more like a child of Satan kept there by +these two weird harridans for the love of the Devil. Her eyes were a +little oblique, her mouth rather thick, but admirably formed; her dark +face had a wild beauty, voluptuous and untamed. As to the character of +her steadfast gaze attached upon him with a sensuously savage attention, +"to know what it was like," says Mr. Byrne, "you have only to observe a +hungry cat watching a bird in a cage or a mouse inside a trap." + +It was she who served him the food, of which he was glad; though with +those big slanting black eyes examining him at close range, as if he had +something curious written on his face, she gave him an uncomfortable +sensation. But anything was better than being approached by these +blear-eyed nightmarish witches. His apprehensions somehow had been +soothed; perhaps by the sensation of warmth after severe exposure and the +ease of resting after the exertion of fighting the gale inch by inch all +the way. He had no doubt of Tom's safety. He was now sleeping in the +mountain camp having been met by Gonzales' men. + +Byrne rose, filled a tin goblet with wine out of a skin hanging on the +wall, and sat down again. The witch with the mummy face began to talk to +him, ramblingly of old times; she boasted of the inn's fame in those +better days. Great people in their own coaches stopped there. An +archbishop slept once in the _casa_, a long, long time ago. + +The witch with the puffy face seemed to be listening from her stool, +motionless, except for the trembling of her head. The girl (Byrne was +certain she was a casual gipsy admitted there for some reason or other) +sat on the hearth stone in the glow of the embers. She hummed a tune to +herself, rattling a pair of castanets slightly now and then. At the +mention of the archbishop she chuckled impiously and turned her head to +look at Byrne, so that the red glow of the fire flashed in her black eyes +and on her white teeth under the dark cowl of the enormous overmantel. +And he smiled at her. + +He rested now in the ease of security. His advent not having been +expected there could be no plot against him in existence. Drowsiness +stole upon his senses. He enjoyed it, but keeping a hold, so he thought +at least, on his wits; but he must have been gone further than he thought +because he was startled beyond measure by a fiendish uproar. He had +never heard anything so pitilessly strident in his life. The witches had +started a fierce quarrel about something or other. Whatever its origin +they were now only abusing each other violently, without arguments; their +senile screams expressed nothing but wicked anger and ferocious dismay. +The gipsy girl's black eyes flew from one to the other. Never before had +Byrne felt himself so removed from fellowship with human beings. Before +he had really time to understand the subject of the quarrel, the girl +jumped up rattling her castanets loudly. A silence fell. She came up to +the table and bending over, her eyes in his-- + +"Senor," she said with decision, "You shall sleep in the archbishop's +room." + +Neither of the witches objected. The dried-up one bent double was +propped on a stick. The puffy faced one had now a crutch. + +Byrne got up, walked to the door, and turning the key in the enormous +lock put it coolly in his pocket. This was clearly the only entrance, +and he did not mean to be taken unawares by whatever danger there might +have been lurking outside. + +When he turned from the door he saw the two witches "affiliated to the +Devil" and the Satanic girl looking at him in silence. He wondered if +Tom Corbin took the same precaution last might. And thinking of him he +had again that queer impression of his nearness. The world was perfectly +dumb. And in this stillness he heard the blood beating in his ears with +a confused rushing noise, in which there seemed to be a voice uttering +the words: "Mr. Byrne, look out, sir." Tom's voice. He shuddered; for +the delusions of the senses of hearing are the most vivid of all, and +from their nature have a compelling character. + +It seemed impossible that Tom should not be there. Again a slight chill +as of stealthy draught penetrated through his very clothes and passed +over all his body. He shook off the impression with an effort. + +It was the girl who preceded him upstairs carrying an iron lamp from the +naked flame of which ascended a thin thread of smoke. Her soiled white +stockings were full of holes. + +With the same quiet resolution with which he had locked the door below, +Byrne threw open one after another the doors in the corridor. All the +rooms were empty except for some nondescript lumber in one or two. And +the girl seeing what he would be at stopped every time, raising the smoky +light in each doorway patiently. Meantime she observed him with +sustained attention. The last door of all she threw open herself. + +"You sleep here, senor," she murmured in a voice light like a child's +breath, offering him the lamp. + +"_Buenos noches_, _senorita_," he said politely, taking it from her. + +She didn't return the wish audibly, though her lips did move a little, +while her gaze black like a starless night never for a moment wavered +before him. He stepped in, and as he turned to close the door she was +still there motionless and disturbing, with her voluptuous mouth and +slanting eyes, with the expression of expectant sensual ferocity of a +baffled cat. He hesitated for a moment, and in the dumb house he heard +again the blood pulsating ponderously in his ears, while once more the +illusion of Tom's voice speaking earnestly somewhere near by was +specially terrifying, because this time he could not make out the words. + +He slammed the door in the girl's face at last, leaving her in the dark; +and he opened it again almost on the instant. Nobody. She had vanished +without the slightest sound. He closed the door quickly and bolted it +with two heavy bolts. + +A profound mistrust possessed him suddenly. Why did the witches quarrel +about letting him sleep here? And what meant that stare of the girl as +if she wanted to impress his features for ever in her mind? His own +nervousness alarmed him. He seemed to himself to be removed very far +from mankind. + +He examined his room. It was not very high, just high enough to take the +bed which stood under an enormous baldaquin-like canopy from which fell +heavy curtains at foot and head; a bed certainly worthy of an archbishop. +There was a heavy table carved all round the edges, some arm-chairs of +enormous weight like the spoils of a grandee's palace; a tall shallow +wardrobe placed against the wall and with double doors. He tried them. +Locked. A suspicion came into his mind, and he snatched the lamp to make +a closer examination. No, it was not a disguised entrance. That heavy, +tall piece of furniture stood clear of the wall by quite an inch. He +glanced at the bolts of his room door. No! No one could get at him +treacherously while he slept. But would he be able to sleep? he asked +himself anxiously. If only he had Tom there--the trusty seaman who had +fought at his right hand in a cutting out affair or two, and had always +preached to him the necessity to take care of himself. "For it's no +great trick," he used to say, "to get yourself killed in a hot fight. +Any fool can do that. The proper pastime is to fight the Frenchies and +then live to fight another day." + +Byrne found it a hard matter not to fall into listening to the silence. +Somehow he had the conviction that nothing would break it unless he heard +again the haunting sound of Tom's voice. He had heard it twice before. +Odd! And yet no wonder, he argued with himself reasonably, since he had +been thinking of the man for over thirty hours continuously and, what's +more, inconclusively. For his anxiety for Tom had never taken a definite +shape. "Disappear," was the only word connected with the idea of Tom's +danger. It was very vague and awful. "Disappear!" What did that mean? + +Byrne shuddered, and then said to himself that he must be a little +feverish. But Tom had not disappeared. Byrne had just heard of him. +And again the young man felt the blood beating in his ears. He sat still +expecting every moment to hear through the pulsating strokes the sound of +Tom's voice. He waited straining his ears, but nothing came. Suddenly +the thought occurred to him: "He has not disappeared, but he cannot make +himself heard." + +He jumped up from the arm-chair. How absurd! Laying his pistol and his +hanger on the table he took off his boots and, feeling suddenly too tired +to stand, flung himself on the bed which he found soft and comfortable +beyond his hopes. + +He had felt very wakeful, but he must have dozed off after all, because +the next thing he knew he was sitting up in bed and trying to recollect +what it was that Tom's voice had said. Oh! He remembered it now. It +had said: "Mr. Byrne! Look out, sir!" A warning this. But against +what? + +He landed with one leap in the middle of the floor, gasped once, then +looked all round the room. The window was shuttered and barred with an +iron bar. Again he ran his eyes slowly all round the bare walls, and +even looked up at the ceiling, which was rather high. Afterwards he went +to the door to examine the fastenings. They consisted of two enormous +iron bolts sliding into holes made in the wall; and as the corridor +outside was too narrow to admit of any battering arrangement or even to +permit an axe to be swung, nothing could burst the door open--unless +gunpowder. But while he was still making sure that the lower bolt was +pushed well home, he received the impression of somebody's presence in +the room. It was so strong that he spun round quicker than lightning. +There was no one. Who could there be? And yet . . . + +It was then that he lost the decorum and restraint a man keeps up for his +own sake. He got down on his hands and knees, with the lamp on the +floor, to look under the bed, like a silly girl. He saw a lot of dust +and nothing else. He got up, his cheeks burning, and walked about +discontented with his own behaviour and unreasonably angry with Tom for +not leaving him alone. The words: "Mr. Byrne! Look out, sir," kept on +repeating themselves in his head in a tone of warning. + +"Hadn't I better just throw myself on the bed and try to go to sleep," he +asked himself. But his eyes fell on the tall wardrobe, and he went +towards it feeling irritated with himself and yet unable to desist. How +he could explain to-morrow the burglarious misdeed to the two odious +witches he had no idea. Nevertheless he inserted the point of his hanger +between the two halves of the door and tried to prize them open. They +resisted. He swore, sticking now hotly to his purpose. His mutter: "I +hope you will be satisfied, confound you," was addressed to the absent +Tom. Just then the doors gave way and flew open. + +He was there. + +He--the trusty, sagacious, and courageous Tom was there, drawn up shadowy +and stiff, in a prudent silence, which his wide-open eyes by their fixed +gleam seemed to command Byrne to respect. But Byrne was too startled to +make a sound. Amazed, he stepped back a little--and on the instant the +seaman flung himself forward headlong as if to clasp his officer round +the neck. Instinctively Byrne put out his faltering arms; he felt the +horrible rigidity of the body and then the coldness of death as their +heads knocked together and their faces came into contact. They reeled, +Byrne hugging Tom close to his breast in order not to let him fall with a +crash. He had just strength enough to lower the awful burden gently to +the floor--then his head swam, his legs gave way, and he sank on his +knees, leaning over the body with his hands resting on the breast of that +man once full of generous life, and now as insensible as a stone. + +"Dead! my poor Tom, dead," he repeated mentally. The light of the lamp +standing near the edge of the table fell from above straight on the stony +empty stare of these eyes which naturally had a mobile and merry +expression. + +Byrne turned his own away from them. Tom's black silk neckerchief was +not knotted on his breast. It was gone. The murderers had also taken +off his shoes and stockings. And noticing this spoliation, the exposed +throat, the bare up-turned feet, Byrne felt his eyes run full of tears. +In other respects the seaman was fully dressed; neither was his clothing +disarranged as it must have been in a violent struggle. Only his checked +shirt had been pulled a little out the waistband in one place, just +enough to ascertain whether he had a money belt fastened round his body. +Byrne began to sob into his handkerchief. + +It was a nervous outburst which passed off quickly. Remaining on his +knees he contemplated sadly the athletic body of as fine a seaman as ever +had drawn a cutlass, laid a gun, or passed the weather earring in a gale, +lying stiff and cold, his cheery, fearless spirit departed--perhaps +turning to him, his boy chum, to his ship out there rolling on the grey +seas off an iron-bound coast, at the very moment of its flight. + +He perceived that the six brass buttons of Tom's jacket had been cut off. +He shuddered at the notion of the two miserable and repulsive witches +busying themselves ghoulishly about the defenceless body of his friend. +Cut off. Perhaps with the same knife which . . . The head of one +trembled; the other was bent double, and their eyes were red and bleared, +their infamous claws unsteady. . . It must have been in this very room +too, for Tom could not have been killed in the open and brought in here +afterwards. Of that Byrne was certain. Yet those devilish crones could +not have killed him themselves even by taking him unawares--and Tom would +be always on his guard of course. Tom was a very wide awake wary man +when engaged on any service. . . And in fact how did they murder him? +Who did? In what way? + +Byrne jumped up, snatched the lamp off the table, and stooped swiftly +over the body. The light revealed on the clothing no stain, no trace, no +spot of blood anywhere. Byrne's hands began to shake so that he had to +set the lamp on the floor and turn away his head in order to recover from +this agitation. + +Then he began to explore that cold, still, and rigid body for a stab, a +gunshot wound, for the trace of some killing blow. He felt all over the +skull anxiously. It was whole. He slipped his hand under the neck. It +was unbroken. With terrified eyes he peered close under the chin and saw +no marks of strangulation on the throat. + +There were no signs anywhere. He was just dead. + +Impulsively Byrne got away from the body as if the mystery of an +incomprehensible death had changed his pity into suspicion and dread. +The lamp on the floor near the set, still face of the seaman showed it +staring at the ceiling as if despairingly. In the circle of light Byrne +saw by the undisturbed patches of thick dust on the floor that there had +been no struggle in that room. "He has died outside," he thought. Yes, +outside in that narrow corridor, where there was hardly room to turn, the +mysterious death had come to his poor dear Tom. The impulse of snatching +up his pistols and rushing out of the room abandoned Byrne suddenly. For +Tom, too, had been armed--with just such powerless weapons as he himself +possessed--pistols, a cutlass! And Tom had died a nameless death, by +incomprehensible means. + +A new thought came to Byrne. That stranger knocking at the door and +fleeing so swiftly at his appearance had come there to remove the body. +Aha! That was the guide the withered witch had promised would show the +English officer the shortest way of rejoining his man. A promise, he saw +it now, of dreadful import. He who had knocked would have two bodies to +deal with. Man and officer would go forth from the house together. For +Byrne was certain now that he would have to die before the morning--and +in the same mysterious manner, leaving behind him an unmarked body. + +The sight of a smashed head, of a throat cut, of a gaping gunshot wound, +would have been an inexpressible relief. It would have soothed all his +fears. His soul cried within him to that dead man whom he had never +found wanting in danger. "Why don't you tell me what I am to look for, +Tom? Why don't you?" But in rigid immobility, extended on his back, he +seemed to preserve an austere silence, as if disdaining in the finality +of his awful knowledge to hold converse with the living. + +Suddenly Byrne flung himself on his knees by the side of the body, and +dry-eyed, fierce, opened the shirt wide on the breast, as if to tear the +secret forcibly from that cold heart which had been so loyal to him in +life! Nothing! Nothing! He raised the lamp, and all the sign +vouchsafed to him by that face which used to be so kindly in expression +was a small bruise on the forehead--the least thing, a mere mark. The +skin even was not broken. He stared at it a long time as if lost in a +dreadful dream. Then he observed that Tom's hands were clenched as +though he had fallen facing somebody in a fight with fists. His +knuckles, on closer view, appeared somewhat abraded. Both hands. + +The discovery of these slight signs was more appalling to Byrne than the +absolute absence of every mark would have been. So Tom had died striking +against something which could be hit, and yet could kill one without +leaving a wound--by a breath. + +Terror, hot terror, began to play about Byrne's heart like a tongue of +flame that touches and withdraws before it turns a thing to ashes. He +backed away from the body as far as he could, then came forward +stealthily casting fearful glances to steal another look at the bruised +forehead. There would perhaps be such a faint bruise on his own +forehead--before the morning. + +"I can't bear it," he whispered to himself. Tom was for him now an +object of horror, a sight at once tempting and revolting to his fear. He +couldn't bear to look at him. + +At last, desperation getting the better of his increasing horror, he +stepped forward from the wall against which he had been leaning, seized +the corpse under the armpits, and began to lug it over to the bed. The +bare heels of the seaman trailed on the floor noiselessly. He was heavy +with the dead weight of inanimate objects. With a last effort Byrne +landed him face downwards on the edge of the bed, rolled him over, +snatched from under this stiff passive thing a sheet with which he +covered it over. Then he spread the curtains at head and foot so that +joining together as he shook their folds they hid the bed altogether from +his sight. + +He stumbled towards a chair, and fell on it. The perspiration poured +from his face for a moment, and then his veins seemed to carry for a +while a thin stream of half, frozen blood. Complete terror had +possession of him now, a nameless terror which had turned his heart to +ashes. + +He sat upright in the straight-backed chair, the lamp burning at his +feet, his pistols and his hanger at his left elbow on the end of the +table, his eyes turning incessantly in their sockets round the walls, +over the ceiling, over the floor, in the expectation of a mysterious and +appalling vision. The thing which could deal death in a breath was +outside that bolted door. But Byrne believed neither in walls nor bolts +now. Unreasoning terror turning everything to account, his old time +boyish admiration of the athletic Tom, the undaunted Tom (he had seemed +to him invincible), helped to paralyse his faculties, added to his +despair. + +He was no longer Edgar Byrne. He was a tortured soul suffering more +anguish than any sinner's body had ever suffered from rack or boot. The +depth of his torment may be measured when I say that this young man, as +brave at least as the average of his kind, contemplated seizing a pistol +and firing into his own head. But a deadly, chilly, langour was +spreading over his limbs. It was as if his flesh had been wet plaster +stiffening slowly about his ribs. Presently, he thought, the two witches +will be coming in, with crutch and stick--horrible, grotesque, +monstrous--affiliated to the devil--to put a mark on his forehead, the +tiny little bruise of death. And he wouldn't be able to do anything. +Tom had struck out at something, but he was not like Tom. His limbs were +dead already. He sat still, dying the death over and over again; and the +only part of him which moved were his eyes, turning round and round in +their sockets, running over the walls, the floor, the ceiling, again and +again till suddenly they became motionless and stony--starting out of his +head fixed in the direction of the bed. + +He had seen the heavy curtains stir and shake as if the dead body they +concealed had turned over and sat up. Byrne, who thought the world could +hold no more terrors in store, felt his hair stir at the roots. He +gripped the arms of the chair, his jaw fell, and the sweat broke out on +his brow while his dry tongue clove suddenly to the roof of his mouth. +Again the curtains stirred, but did not open. "Don't, Tom!" Byrne made +effort to shout, but all he heard was a slight moan such as an uneasy +sleeper may make. He felt that his brain was going, for, now, it seemed +to him that the ceiling over the bed had moved, had slanted, and came +level again--and once more the closed curtains swayed gently as if about +to part. + +Byrne closed his eyes not to see the awful apparition of the seaman's +corpse coming out animated by an evil spirit. In the profound silence of +the room he endured a moment of frightful agony, then opened his eyes +again. And he saw at once that the curtains remained closed still, but +that the ceiling over the bed had risen quite a foot. With the last +gleam of reason left to him he understood that it was the enormous +baldaquin over the bed which was coming down, while the curtains attached +to it swayed softly, sinking gradually to the floor. His drooping jaw +snapped to--and half rising in his chair he watched mutely the noiseless +descent of the monstrous canopy. It came down in short smooth rushes +till lowered half way or more, when it took a run and settled swiftly its +turtle-back shape with the deep border piece fitting exactly the edge of +the bedstead. A slight crack or two of wood were heard, and the +overpowering stillness of the room resumed its sway. + +Byrne stood up, gasped for breath, and let out a cry of rage and dismay, +the first sound which he is perfectly certain did make its way past his +lips on this night of terrors. This then was the death he had escaped! +This was the devilish artifice of murder poor Tom's soul had perhaps +tried from beyond the border to warn him of. For this was how he had +died. Byrne was certain he had heard the voice of the seaman, faintly +distinct in his familiar phrase, "Mr. Byrne! Look out, sir!" and again +uttering words he could not make out. But then the distance separating +the living from the dead is so great! Poor Tom had tried. Byrne ran to +the bed and attempted to lift up, to push off the horrible lid smothering +the body. It resisted his efforts, heavy as lead, immovable like a +tombstone. The rage of vengeance made him desist; his head buzzed with +chaotic thoughts of extermination, he turned round the room as if he +could find neither his weapons nor the way out; and all the time he +stammered awful menaces. . . + +A violent battering at the door of the inn recalled him to his soberer +senses. He flew to the window pulled the shutters open, and looked out. +In the faint dawn he saw below him a mob of men. Ha! He would go and +face at once this murderous lot collected no doubt for his undoing. +After his struggle with nameless terrors he yearned for an open fray with +armed enemies. But he must have remained yet bereft of his reason, +because forgetting his weapons he rushed downstairs with a wild cry, +unbarred the door while blows were raining on it outside, and flinging it +open flew with his bare hands at the throat of the first man he saw +before him. They rolled over together. Byrne's hazy intention was to +break through, to fly up the mountain path, and come back presently with +Gonzales' men to exact an exemplary vengeance. He fought furiously till +a tree, a house, a mountain, seemed to crash down upon his head--and he +knew no more. + + * * * * * + +Here Mr. Byrne describes in detail the skilful manner in which he found +his broken head bandaged, informs us that he had lost a great deal of +blood, and ascribes the preservation of his sanity to that circumstance. +He sets down Gonzales' profuse apologies in full too. For it was +Gonzales who, tired of waiting for news from the English, had come down +to the inn with half his band, on his way to the sea. "His excellency," +he explained, "rushed out with fierce impetuosity, and, moreover, was not +known to us for a friend, and so we . . . etc., etc. When asked what had +become of the witches, he only pointed his finger silently to the ground, +then voiced calmly a moral reflection: "The passion for gold is pitiless +in the very old, senor," he said. "No doubt in former days they have put +many a solitary traveller to sleep in the archbishop's bed." + +"There was also a gipsy girl there," said Byrne feebly from the +improvised litter on which he was being carried to the coast by a squad +of guerilleros. + +"It was she who winched up that infernal machine, and it was she too who +lowered it that night," was the answer. + +"But why? Why?" exclaimed Byrne. "Why should she wish for my death?" + +"No doubt for the sake of your excellency's coat buttons," said politely +the saturnine Gonzales. "We found those of the dead mariner concealed on +her person. But your excellency may rest assured that everything that is +fitting has been done on this occasion." + +Byrne asked no more questions. There was still another death which was +considered by Gonzales as "fitting to the occasion." The one-eyed +Bernardino stuck against the wall of his wine-shop received the charge of +six escopettas into his breast. As the shots rang out the rough bier +with Tom's body on it went past carried by a bandit-like gang of Spanish +patriots down the ravine to the shore, where two boats from the ship were +waiting for what was left on earth of her best seaman. + +Mr. Byrne, very pale and weak, stepped into the boat which carried the +body of his humble friend. For it was decided that Tom Corbin should +rest far out in the bay of Biscay. The officer took the tiller and, +turning his head for the last look at the shore, saw on the grey hillside +something moving, which he made out to be a little man in a yellow hat +mounted on a mule--that mule without which the fate of Tom Corbin would +have remained mysterious for ever. + + * * * * * + +_June_, 1913. + + + + +BECAUSE OF THE DOLLARS + + +CHAPTER I + + +While we were hanging about near the water's edge, as sailors idling +ashore will do (it was in the open space before the Harbour Office of a +great Eastern port), a man came towards us from the "front" of business +houses, aiming obliquely at the landing steps. He attracted my attention +because in the movement of figures in white drill suits on the pavement +from which he stepped, his costume, the usual tunic and trousers, being +made of light grey flannel, made him noticeable. + +I had time to observe him. He was stout, but he was not grotesque. His +face was round and smooth, his complexion very fair. On his nearer +approach I saw a little moustache made all the fairer by a good many +white hairs. And he had, for a stout man, quite a good chin. In passing +us he exchanged nods with the friend I was with and smiled. + +My friend was Hollis, the fellow who had so many adventures and had known +so many queer people in that part of the (more or less) gorgeous East in +the days of his youth. He said: "That's a good man. I don't mean good +in the sense of smart or skilful in his trade. I mean a really _good_ +man." + +I turned round at once to look at the phenomenon. The "really _good_ +man" had a very broad back. I saw him signal a sampan to come alongside, +get into it, and go off in the direction of a cluster of local steamers +anchored close inshore. + +I said: "He's a seaman, isn't he?" + +"Yes. Commands that biggish dark-green steamer: '_Sissie_--Glasgow.' He +has never commanded anything else but the '_Sissie_--Glasgow,' only it +wasn't always the same _Sissie_. The first he had was about half the +length of this one, and we used to tell poor Davidson that she was a size +too small for him. Even at that time Davidson had bulk. We warned him +he would get callosities on his shoulders and elbows because of the tight +fit of his command. And Davidson could well afford the smiles he gave us +for our chaff. He made lots of money in her. She belonged to a portly +Chinaman resembling a mandarin in a picture-book, with goggles and thin +drooping moustaches, and as dignified as only a Celestial knows how to +be. + +"The best of Chinamen as employers is that they have such gentlemanly +instincts. Once they become convinced that you are a straight man, they +give you their unbounded confidence. You simply can't do wrong, then. +And they are pretty quick judges of character, too. Davidson's Chinaman +was the first to find out his worth, on some theoretical principle. One +day in his counting-house, before several white men he was heard to +declare: 'Captain Davidson is a good man.' And that settled it. After +that you couldn't tell if it was Davidson who belonged to the Chinaman or +the Chinaman who belonged to Davidson. It was he who, shortly before he +died, ordered in Glasgow the new _Sissie_ for Davidson to command." + +We walked into the shade of the Harbour Office and leaned our elbows on +the parapet of the quay. + +"She was really meant to comfort poor Davidson," continued Hollis. "Can +you fancy anything more naively touching than this old mandarin spending +several thousand pounds to console his white man? Well, there she is. +The old mandarin's sons have inherited her, and Davidson with her; and he +commands her; and what with his salary and trading privileges he makes a +lot of money; and everything is as before; and Davidson even smiles--you +have seen it? Well, the smile's the only thing which isn't as before." + +"Tell me, Hollis," I asked, "what do you mean by good in this +connection?" + +"Well, there are men who are born good just as others are born witty. +What I mean is his nature. No simpler, more scrupulously delicate soul +had ever lived in such a--a--comfortable envelope. How we used to laugh +at Davidson's fine scruples! In short, he's thoroughly humane, and I +don't imagine there can be much of any other sort of goodness that counts +on this earth. And as he's that with a shade of particular refinement, I +may well call him a '_really_ good man.'" + +I knew from old that Hollis was a firm believer in the final value of +shades. And I said: "I see"--because I really did see Hollis's Davidson +in the sympathetic stout man who had passed us a little while before. +But I remembered that at the very moment he smiled his placid face +appeared veiled in melancholy--a sort of spiritual shadow. I went on. + +"Who on earth has paid him off for being so fine by spoiling his smile?" + +"That's quite a story, and I will tell it to you if you like. Confound +it! It's quite a surprising one, too. Surprising in every way, but +mostly in the way it knocked over poor Davidson--and apparently only +because he is such a good sort. He was telling me all about it only a +few days ago. He said that when he saw these four fellows with their +heads in a bunch over the table, he at once didn't like it. He didn't +like it at all. You mustn't suppose that Davidson is a soft fool. These +men-- + +"But I had better begin at the beginning. We must go back to the first +time the old dollars had been called in by our Government in exchange for +a new issue. Just about the time when I left these parts to go home for +a long stay. Every trader in the islands was thinking of getting his old +dollars sent up here in time, and the demand for empty French wine +cases--you know the dozen of vermouth or claret size--was something +unprecedented. The custom was to pack the dollars in little bags of a +hundred each. I don't know how many bags each case would hold. A good +lot. Pretty tidy sums must have been moving afloat just then. But let +us get away from here. Won't do to stay in the sun. Where could we--? +I know! let us go to those tiffin-rooms over there." + +We moved over accordingly. Our appearance in the long empty room at that +early hour caused visible consternation amongst the China boys. But +Hollis led the way to one of the tables between the windows screened by +rattan blinds. A brilliant half-light trembled on the ceiling, on the +whitewashed walls, bathed the multitude of vacant chairs and tables in a +peculiar, stealthy glow. + +"All right. We will get something to eat when it's ready," he said, +waving the anxious Chinaman waiter aside. He took his temples touched +with grey between his hands, leaning over the table to bring his face, +his dark, keen eyes, closer to mine. + +"Davidson then was commanding the steamer _Sissie_--the little one which +we used to chaff him about. He ran her alone, with only the Malay serang +for a deck officer. The nearest approach to another white man on board +of her was the engineer, a Portuguese half-caste, as thin as a lath and +quite a youngster at that. For all practical purposes Davidson was +managing that command of his single-handed; and of course this was known +in the port. I am telling you of it because the fact had its influence +on the developments you shall hear of presently. + +"His steamer, being so small, could go up tiny creeks and into shallow +bays and through reefs and over sand-banks, collecting produce, where no +other vessel but a native craft would think of venturing. It is a paying +game, often. Davidson was known to visit in her places that no one else +could find and that hardly anybody had ever heard of. + +"The old dollars being called in, Davidson's Chinaman thought that the +_Sissie_ would be just the thing to collect them from small traders in +the less frequented parts of the Archipelago. It's a good business. +Such cases of dollars are dumped aft in the ship's lazarette, and you get +good freight for very little trouble and space. + +"Davidson, too, thought it was a good idea; and together they made up a +list of his calls on his next trip. Then Davidson (he had naturally the +chart of his voyages in his head) remarked that on his way back he might +look in at a certain settlement up a mere creek, where a poor sort of +white man lived in a native village. Davidson pointed out to his +Chinaman that the fellow was certain to have some rattans to ship. + +"'Probably enough to fill her forward,' said Davidson. 'And that'll be +better than bringing her back with empty holds. A day more or less +doesn't matter.' + +"This was sound talk, and the Chinaman owner could not but agree. But if +it hadn't been sound it would have been just the same. Davidson did what +he liked. He was a man that could do no wrong. However, this suggestion +of his was not merely a business matter. There was in it a touch of +Davidsonian kindness. For you must know that the man could not have +continued to live quietly up that creek if it had not been for Davidson's +willingness to call there from time to time. And Davidson's Chinaman +knew this perfectly well, too. So he only smiled his dignified, bland +smile, and said: 'All right, Captain. You do what you like.' + +"I will explain presently how this connection between Davidson and that +fellow came about. Now I want to tell you about the part of this affair +which happened here--the preliminaries of it. + +"You know as well as I do that these tiffin-rooms where we are sitting +now have been in existence for many years. Well, next day about twelve +o'clock, Davidson dropped in here to get something to eat. + +"And here comes the only moment in this story where accident--mere +accident--plays a part. If Davidson had gone home that day for tiffin, +there would be now, after twelve years or more, nothing changed in his +kindly, placid smile. + +"But he came in here; and perhaps it was sitting at this very table that +he remarked to a friend of mine that his next trip was to be a +dollar-collecting trip. He added, laughing, that his wife was making +rather a fuss about it. She had begged him to stay ashore and get +somebody else to take his place for a voyage. She thought there was some +danger on account of the dollars. He told her, he said, that there were +no Java-sea pirates nowadays except in boys' books. He had laughed at +her fears, but he was very sorry, too; for when she took any notion in +her head it was impossible to argue her out of it. She would be worrying +herself all the time he was away. Well, he couldn't help it. There was +no one ashore fit to take his place for the trip. + +"This friend of mine and I went home together in the same mail-boat, and +he mentioned that conversation one evening in the Red Sea while we were +talking over the things and people we had just left, with more or less +regret. + +"I can't say that Davidson occupied a very prominent place. Moral +excellence seldom does. He was quietly appreciated by those who knew him +well; but his more obvious distinction consisted in this, that he was +married. Ours, as you remember, was a bachelor crowd; in spirit anyhow, +if not absolutely in fact. There might have been a few wives in +existence, but if so they were invisible, distant, never alluded to. For +what would have been the good? Davidson alone was visibly married. + +"Being married suited him exactly. It fitted him so well that the +wildest of us did not resent the fact when it was disclosed. Directly he +had felt his feet out here, Davidson sent for his wife. She came out +(from West Australia) in the _Somerset_, under the care of Captain +Ritchie--you know, Monkey-face Ritchie--who couldn't praise enough her +sweetness, her gentleness, and her charm. She seemed to be the +heaven-born mate for Davidson. She found on arrival a very pretty +bungalow on the hill, ready for her and the little girl they had. Very +soon he got for her a two-wheeled trap and a Burmah pony, and she used to +drive down of an evening to pick up Davidson, on the quay. When +Davidson, beaming, got into the trap, it would become very full all at +once. + +"We used to admire Mrs. Davidson from a distance. It was a girlish head +out of a keepsake. From a distance. We had not many opportunities for a +closer view, because she did not care to give them to us. We would have +been glad to drop in at the Davidson bungalow, but we were made to feel +somehow that we were not very welcome there. Not that she ever said +anything ungracious. She never had much to say for herself. I was +perhaps the one who saw most of the Davidsons at home. What I noticed +under the superficial aspect of vapid sweetness was her convex, obstinate +forehead, and her small, red, pretty, ungenerous mouth. But then I am an +observer with strong prejudices. Most of us were fetched by her white, +swan-like neck, by that drooping, innocent profile. There was a lot of +latent devotion to Davidson's wife hereabouts, at that time, I can tell +you. But my idea was that she repaid it by a profound suspicion of the +sort of men we were; a mistrust which extended--I fancied--to her very +husband at times. And I thought then she was jealous of him in a way; +though there were no women that she could be jealous about. She had no +women's society. It's difficult for a shipmaster's wife unless there are +other shipmasters' wives about, and there were none here then. I know +that the dock manager's wife called on her; but that was all. The +fellows here formed the opinion that Mrs. Davidson was a meek, shy little +thing. She looked it, I must say. And this opinion was so universal +that the friend I have been telling you of remembered his conversation +with Davidson simply because of the statement about Davidson's wife. He +even wondered to me: 'Fancy Mrs. Davidson making a fuss to that extent. +She didn't seem to me the sort of woman that would know how to make a +fuss about anything.' + +"I wondered, too--but not so much. That bumpy forehead--eh? I had +always suspected her of being silly. And I observed that Davidson must +have been vexed by this display of wifely anxiety. + +"My friend said: 'No. He seemed rather touched and distressed. There +really was no one he could ask to relieve him; mainly because he intended +to make a call in some God-forsaken creek, to look up a fellow of the +name of Bamtz who apparently had settled there.' + +"And again my friend wondered. 'Tell me,' he cried, 'what connection can +there be between Davidson and such a creature as Bamtz?' + +"I don't remember now what answer I made. A sufficient one could have +been given in two words: 'Davidson's goodness.' _That_ never boggled at +unworthiness if there was the slightest reason for compassion. I don't +want you to think that Davidson had no discrimination at all. Bamtz +could not have imposed on him. Moreover, everybody knew what Bamtz was. +He was a loafer with a beard. When I think of Bamtz, the first thing I +see is that long black beard and a lot of propitiatory wrinkles at the +corners of two little eyes. There was no such beard from here to +Polynesia, where a beard is a valuable property in itself. Bamtz's beard +was valuable to him in another way. You know how impressed Orientals are +by a fine beard. Years and years ago, I remember, the grave Abdullah, +the great trader of Sambir, unable to repress signs of astonishment and +admiration at the first sight of that imposing beard. And it's very well +known that Bamtz lived on Abdullah off and on for several years. It was +a unique beard, and so was the bearer of the same. A unique loafer. He +made a fine art of it, or rather a sort of craft and mystery. One can +understand a fellow living by cadging and small swindles in towns, in +large communities of people; but Bamtz managed to do that trick in the +wilderness, to loaf on the outskirts of the virgin forest. + +"He understood how to ingratiate himself with the natives. He would +arrive in some settlement up a river, make a present of a cheap carbine +or a pair of shoddy binoculars, or something of that sort, to the Rajah, +or the head-man, or the principal trader; and on the strength of that +gift, ask for a house, posing mysteriously as a very special trader. He +would spin them no end of yarns, live on the fat of the land, for a +while, and then do some mean swindle or other--or else they would get +tired of him and ask him to quit. And he would go off meekly with an air +of injured innocence. Funny life. Yet, he never got hurt somehow. I've +heard of the Rajah of Dongala giving him fifty dollars' worth of trade +goods and paying his passage in a prau only to get rid of him. Fact. +And observe that nothing prevented the old fellow having Bamtz's throat +cut and the carcase thrown into deep water outside the reefs; for who on +earth would have inquired after Bamtz? + +"He had been known to loaf up and down the wilderness as far north as the +Gulf of Tonkin. Neither did he disdain a spell of civilisation from time +to time. And it was while loafing and cadging in Saigon, bearded and +dignified (he gave himself out there as a bookkeeper), that he came +across Laughing Anne. + +"The less said of her early history the better, but something must be +said. We may safely suppose there was very little heart left in her +famous laugh when Bamtz spoke first to her in some low cafe. She was +stranded in Saigon with precious little money and in great trouble about +a kid she had, a boy of five or six. + +"A fellow I just remember, whom they called Pearler Harry, brought her +out first into these parts--from Australia, I believe. He brought her +out and then dropped her, and she remained knocking about here and there, +known to most of us by sight, at any rate. Everybody in the Archipelago +had heard of Laughing Anne. She had really a pleasant silvery laugh +always at her disposal, so to speak, but it wasn't enough apparently to +make her fortune. The poor creature was ready to stick to any +half-decent man if he would only let her, but she always got dropped, as +it might have been expected. + +"She had been left in Saigon by the skipper of a German ship with whom +she had been going up and down the China coast as far as Vladivostok for +near upon two years. The German said to her: 'This is all over, _mein +Taubchen_. I am going home now to get married to the girl I got engaged +to before coming out here.' And Anne said: 'All right, I'm ready to go. +We part friends, don't we?' + +"She was always anxious to part friends. The German told her that of +course they were parting friends. He looked rather glum at the moment of +parting. She laughed and went ashore. + +"But it was no laughing matter for her. She had some notion that this +would be her last chance. What frightened her most was the future of her +child. She had left her boy in Saigon before going off with the German, +in the care of an elderly French couple. The husband was a doorkeeper in +some Government office, but his time was up, and they were returning to +France. She had to take the boy back from them; and after she had got +him back, she did not like to part with him any more. + +"That was the situation when she and Bamtz got acquainted casually. She +could not have had any illusions about that fellow. To pick up with +Bamtz was coming down pretty low in the world, even from a material point +of view. She had always been decent, in her way; whereas Bamtz was, not +to mince words, an abject sort of creature. On the other hand, that +bearded loafer, who looked much more like a pirate than a bookkeeper, was +not a brute. He was gentle--rather--even in his cups. And then, +despair, like misfortune, makes us acquainted with strange bed-fellows. +For she may well have despaired. She was no longer young--you know. + +"On the man's side this conjunction is more difficult to explain, +perhaps. One thing, however, must be said of Bamtz; he had always kept +clear of native women. As one can't suspect him of moral delicacy, I +surmise that it must have been from prudence. And he, too, was no longer +young. There were many white hairs in his valuable black beard by then. +He may have simply longed for some kind of companionship in his queer, +degraded existence. Whatever their motives, they vanished from Saigon +together. And of course nobody cared what had become of them. + +"Six months later Davidson came into the Mirrah Settlement. It was the +very first time he had been up that creek, where no European vessel had +ever been seen before. A Javanese passenger he had on board offered him +fifty dollars to call in there--it must have been some very particular +business--and Davidson consented to try. Fifty dollars, he told me, were +neither here nor there; but he was curious to see the place, and the +little _Sissie_ could go anywhere where there was water enough to float a +soup-plate. + +"Davidson landed his Javanese plutocrat, and, as he had to wait a couple +of hours for the tide, he went ashore himself to stretch his legs. + +"It was a small settlement. Some sixty houses, most of them built on +piles over the river, the rest scattered in the long grass; the usual +pathway at the back; the forest hemming in the clearing and smothering +what there might have been of air into a dead, hot stagnation. + +"All the population was on the river-bank staring silently, as Malays +will do, at the _Sissie_ anchored in the stream. She was almost as +wonderful to them as an angel's visit. Many of the old people had only +heard vaguely of fire-ships, and not many of the younger generation had +seen one. On the back path Davidson strolled in perfect solitude. But +he became aware of a bad smell and concluded he would go no farther. + +"While he stood wiping his forehead, he heard from somewhere the +exclamation: 'My God! It's Davy!' + +"Davidson's lower jaw, as he expressed it, came unhooked at the crying of +this excited voice. Davy was the name used by the associates of his +young days; he hadn't heard it for many years. He stared about with his +mouth open and saw a white woman issue from the long grass in which a +small hut stood buried nearly up to the roof. + +"Try to imagine the shock: in that wild place that you couldn't find on a +map, and more squalid than the most poverty-stricken Malay settlement had +a right to be, this European woman coming swishing out of the long grass +in a fanciful tea-gown thing, dingy pink satin, with a long train and +frayed lace trimmings; her eyes like black coals in a pasty-white face. +Davidson thought that he was asleep, that he was delirious. From the +offensive village mudhole (it was what Davidson had sniffed just before) +a couple of filthy buffaloes uprose with loud snorts and lumbered off +crashing through the bushes, panic-struck by this apparition. + +"The woman came forward, her arms extended, and laid her hands on +Davidson's shoulders, exclaiming: 'Why! You have hardly changed at all. +The same good Davy.' And she laughed a little wildly. + +"This sound was to Davidson like a galvanic shock to a corpse. He +started in every muscle. 'Laughing Anne,' he said in an awe-struck +voice. + +"'All that's left of her, Davy. All that's left of her.' + +"Davidson looked up at the sky; but there was to be seen no balloon from +which she could have fallen on that spot. When he brought his distracted +gaze down, it rested on a child holding on with a brown little paw to the +pink satin gown. He had run out of the grass after her. Had Davidson +seen a real hobgoblin his eyes could not have bulged more than at this +small boy in a dirty white blouse and ragged knickers. He had a round +head of tight chestnut curls, very sunburnt legs, a freckled face, and +merry eyes. Admonished by his mother to greet the gentleman, he finished +off Davidson by addressing him in French. + +"'_Bonjour_.' + +"Davidson, overcome, looked up at the woman in silence. She sent the +child back to the hut, and when he had disappeared in the grass, she +turned to Davidson, tried to speak, but after getting out the words, +'That's my Tony,' burst into a long fit of crying. She had to lean on +Davidson's shoulder. He, distressed in the goodness of his heart, stood +rooted to the spot where she had come upon him. + +"What a meeting--eh? Bamtz had sent her out to see what white man it was +who had landed. And she had recognised him from that time when Davidson, +who had been pearling himself in his youth, had been associating with +Harry the Pearler and others, the quietest of a rather rowdy set. + +"Before Davidson retraced his steps to go on board the steamer, he had +heard much of Laughing Anne's story, and had even had an interview, on +the path, with Bamtz himself. She ran back to the hut to fetch him, and +he came out lounging, with his hands in his pockets, with the detached, +casual manner under which he concealed his propensity to cringe. +Ya-a-as-as. He thought he would settle here permanently--with her. This +with a nod at Laughing Anne, who stood by, a haggard, tragically anxious +figure, her black hair hanging over her shoulders. + +"'No more paint and dyes for me, Davy,' she struck in, 'if only you will +do what he wants you to do. You know that I was always ready to stand by +my men--if they had only let me.' + +"Davidson had no doubt of her earnestness. It was of Bamtz's good faith +that he was not at all sure. Bamtz wanted Davidson to promise to call at +Mirrah more or less regularly. He thought he saw an opening to do +business with rattans there, if only he could depend on some craft to +bring out trading goods and take away his produce. + +"'I have a few dollars to make a start on. The people are all right.' + +"He had come there, where he was not known, in a native prau, and had +managed, with his sedate manner and the exactly right kind of yarn he +knew how to tell to the natives, to ingratiate himself with the chief +man. + +"'The Orang Kaya has given me that empty house there to live in as long +as I will stay,' added Bamtz. + +"'Do it, Davy,' cried the woman suddenly. 'Think of that poor kid.' + +"'Seen him? 'Cute little customer,' said the reformed loafer in such a +tone of interest as to surprise Davidson into a kindly glance. + +"'I certainly can do it,' he declared. He thought of at first making +some stipulation as to Bamtz behaving decently to the woman, but his +exaggerated delicacy and also the conviction that such a fellow's +promises were worth nothing restrained him. Anne went a little distance +down the path with him talking anxiously. + +"'It's for the kid. How could I have kept him with me if I had to knock +about in towns? Here he will never know that his mother was a painted +woman. And this Bamtz likes him. He's real fond of him. I suppose I +ought to thank God for that.' + +"Davidson shuddered at any human creature being brought so low as to have +to thank God for the favours or affection of a Bamtz. + +"'And do you think that you can make out to live here?' he asked gently. + +"'Can't I? You know I have always stuck to men through thick and thin +till they had enough of me. And now look at me! But inside I am as I +always was. I have acted on the square to them all one after another. +Only they do get tired somehow. Oh, Davy! Harry ought not to have cast +me off. It was he that led me astray.' + +"Davidson mentioned to her that Harry the Pearler had been dead now for +some years. Perhaps she had heard? + +"She made a sign that she had heard; and walked by the side of Davidson +in silence nearly to the bank. Then she told him that her meeting with +him had brought back the old times to her mind. She had not cried for +years. She was not a crying woman either. It was hearing herself called +Laughing Anne that had started her sobbing like a fool. Harry was the +only man she had loved. The others-- + +"She shrugged her shoulders. But she prided herself on her loyalty to +the successive partners of her dismal adventures. She had never played +any tricks in her life. She was a pal worth having. But men did get +tired. They did not understand women. She supposed it had to be. + +"Davidson was attempting a veiled warning as to Bamtz, but she +interrupted him. She knew what men were. She knew what this man was +like. But he had taken wonderfully to the kid. And Davidson desisted +willingly, saying to himself that surely poor Laughing Anne could have no +illusions by this time. She wrung his hand hard at parting. + +"'It's for the kid, Davy--it's for the kid. Isn't he a bright little +chap?' + + + +CHAPTER II + + +"All this happened about two years before the day when Davidson, sitting +in this very room, talked to my friend. You will see presently how this +room can get full. Every seat'll be occupied, and as you notice, the +tables are set close, so that the backs of the chairs are almost +touching. There is also a good deal of noisy talk here about one +o'clock. + +"I don't suppose Davidson was talking very loudly; but very likely he had +to raise his voice across the table to my friend. And here accident, +mere accident, put in its work by providing a pair of fine ears close +behind Davidson's chair. It was ten to one against, the owner of the +same having enough change in his pockets to get his tiffin here. But he +had. Most likely had rooked somebody of a few dollars at cards +overnight. He was a bright creature of the name of Fector, a spare, +short, jumpy fellow with a red face and muddy eyes. He described himself +as a journalist, as certain kind of women give themselves out as +actresses in the dock of a police-court. + +"He used to introduce himself to strangers as a man with a mission to +track out abuses and fight them whenever found. He would also hint that +he was a martyr. And it's a fact that he had been kicked, horsewhipped, +imprisoned, and hounded with ignominy out of pretty well every place +between Ceylon and Shanghai, for a professional blackmailer. + +"I suppose, in that trade, you've got to have active wits and sharp ears. +It's not likely that he overheard every word Davidson said about his +dollar collecting trip, but he heard enough to set his wits at work. + +"He let Davidson go out, and then hastened away down to the native slums +to a sort of lodging-house kept in partnership by the usual sort of +Portuguese and a very disreputable Chinaman. Macao Hotel, it was called, +but it was mostly a gambling den that one used to warn fellows against. +Perhaps you remember? + +"There, the evening before, Fector had met a precious couple, a +partnership even more queer than the Portuguese and the Chinaman. One of +the two was Niclaus--you know. Why! the fellow with a Tartar moustache +and a yellow complexion, like a Mongolian, only that his eyes were set +straight and his face was not so flat. One couldn't tell what breed he +was. A nondescript beggar. From a certain angle you would think a very +bilious white man. And I daresay he was. He owned a Malay prau and +called himself The Nakhoda, as one would say: The Captain. Aha! Now you +remember. He couldn't, apparently, speak any other European language +than English, but he flew the Dutch flag on his prau. + +"The other was the Frenchman without hands. Yes. The very same we used +to know in '79 in Sydney, keeping a little tobacco shop at the lower end +of George Street. You remember the huge carcase hunched up behind the +counter, the big white face and the long black hair brushed back off a +high forehead like a bard's. He was always trying to roll cigarettes on +his knee with his stumps, telling endless yarns of Polynesia and whining +and cursing in turn about '_mon malheur_.' His hands had been blown away +by a dynamite cartridge while fishing in some lagoon. This accident, I +believe, had made him more wicked than before, which is saying a good +deal. + +"He was always talking about 'resuming his activities' some day, whatever +they were, if he could only get an intelligent companion. It was evident +that the little shop was no field for his activities, and the sickly +woman with her face tied up, who used to look in sometimes through the +back door, was no companion for him. + +"And, true enough, he vanished from Sydney before long, after some +trouble with the Excise fellows about his stock. Goods stolen out of a +warehouse or something similar. He left the woman behind, but he must +have secured some sort of companion--he could not have shifted for +himself; but whom he went away with, and where, and what other companions +he might have picked up afterwards, it is impossible to make the remotest +guess about. + +"Why exactly he came this way I can't tell. Towards the end of my time +here we began to hear talk of a maimed Frenchman who had been seen here +and there. But no one knew then that he had foregathered with Niclaus +and lived in his prau. I daresay he put Niclaus up to a thing or two. +Anyhow, it was a partnership. Niclaus was somewhat afraid of the +Frenchman on account of his tempers, which were awful. He looked then +like a devil; but a man without hands, unable to load or handle a weapon, +can at best go for one only with his teeth. From that danger Niclaus +felt certain he could always defend himself. + +"The couple were alone together loafing in the common-room of that +infamous hotel when Fector turned up. After some beating about the bush, +for he was doubtful how far he could trust these two, he repeated what he +had overheard in the tiffin-rooms. + +"His tale did not have much success till he came to mention the creek and +Bamtz's name. Niclaus, sailing about like a native in a prau, was, in +his own words, 'familiar with the locality.' The huge Frenchman, walking +up and down the room with his stumps in the pockets of his jacket, +stopped short in surprise. '_Comment_? _Bamtz_! _Bamtz_!' + +"He had run across him several times in his life. He exclaimed: +'_Bamtz_! _Mais je ne connais que ca_!' And he applied such a +contemptuously indecent epithet to Bamtz that when, later, he alluded to +him as '_une chiffe_' (a mere rag) it sounded quite complimentary. 'We +can do with him what we like,' he asserted confidently. 'Oh, yes. +Certainly we must hasten to pay a visit to that--' (another awful +descriptive epithet quite unfit for repetition). 'Devil take me if we +don't pull off a coup that will set us all up for a long time.' + +"He saw all that lot of dollars melted into bars and disposed of +somewhere on the China coast. Of the escape after the _coup_ he never +doubted. There was Niclaus's prau to manage that in. + +"In his enthusiasm he pulled his stumps out of his pockets and waved them +about. Then, catching sight of them, as it were, he held them in front +of his eyes, cursing and blaspheming and bewailing his misfortune and his +helplessness, till Niclaus quieted him down. + +"But it was his mind that planned out the affair and it was his spirit +which carried the other two on. Neither of them was of the bold +buccaneer type; and Fector, especially, had never in his adventurous life +used other weapons than slander and lies. + +"That very evening they departed on a visit to Bamtz in Niclaus's prau, +which had been lying, emptied of her cargo of cocoanuts, for a day or two +under the canal bridge. They must have crossed the bows of the anchored +_Sissie_, and no doubt looked at her with interest as the scene of their +future exploit, the great haul, _le grand coup_! + +"Davidson's wife, to his great surprise, sulked with him for several days +before he left. I don't know whether it occurred to him that, for all +her angelic profile, she was a very stupidly obstinate girl. She didn't +like the tropics. He had brought her out there, where she had no +friends, and now, she said, he was becoming inconsiderate. She had a +presentiment of some misfortune, and notwithstanding Davidson's +painstaking explanations, she could not see why her presentiments were to +be disregarded. On the very last evening before Davidson went away she +asked him in a suspicious manner: + +"'Why is it that you are so anxious to go this time?' + +"'I am not anxious,' protested the good Davidson. 'I simply can't help +myself. There's no one else to go in my place.' + +"'Oh! There's no one,' she said, turning away slowly. + +"She was so distant with him that evening that Davidson from a sense of +delicacy made up his mind to say good-bye to her at once and go and sleep +on board. He felt very miserable and, strangely enough, more on his own +account than on account of his wife. She seemed to him much more +offended than grieved. + +"Three weeks later, having collected a good many cases of old dollars +(they were stowed aft in the lazarette with an iron bar and a padlock +securing the hatch under his cabin-table), yes, with a bigger lot than he +had expected to collect, he found himself homeward bound and off the +entrance of the creek where Bamtz lived and even, in a sense, flourished. + +"It was so late in the day that Davidson actually hesitated whether he +should not pass by this time. He had no regard for Bamtz, who was a +degraded but not a really unhappy man. His pity for Laughing Anne was no +more than her case deserved. But his goodness was of a particularly +delicate sort. He realised how these people were dependent on him, and +how they would feel their dependence (if he failed to turn up) through a +long month of anxious waiting. Prompted by his sensitive humanity, +Davidson, in the gathering dusk, turned the _Sissie's_ head towards the +hardly discernible coast, and navigated her safety through a maze of +shallow patches. But by the time he got to the mouth of the creek the +night had come. + +"The narrow waterway lay like a black cutting through the forest. And as +there were always grounded snaggs in the channel which it would be +impossible to make out, Davidson very prudently turned the _Sissie_ +round, and with only enough steam on the boilers to give her a touch +ahead if necessary, let her drift up stern first with the tide, silent +and invisible in the impenetrable darkness and in the dumb stillness. + +"It was a long job, and when at the end of two hours Davidson thought he +must be up to the clearing, the settlement slept already, the whole land +of forests and rivers was asleep. + +"Davidson, seeing a solitary light in the massed darkness of the shore, +knew that it was burning in Bamtz's house. This was unexpected at this +time of the night, but convenient as a guide. By a turn of the screw and +a touch of the helm he sheered the _Sissie_ alongside Bamtz's wharf--a +miserable structure of a dozen piles and a few planks, of which the +ex-vagabond was very proud. A couple of Kalashes jumped down on it, took +a turn with the ropes thrown to them round the posts, and the _Sissie_ +came to rest without a single loud word or the slightest noise. And just +in time too, for the tide turned even before she was properly moored. + +"Davidson had something to eat, and then, coming on deck for a last look +round, noticed that the light was still burning in the house. + +"This was very unusual, but since they were awake so late, Davidson +thought that he would go up to say that he was in a hurry to be off and +to ask that what rattans there were in store should be sent on board with +the first sign of dawn. + +"He stepped carefully over the shaky planks, not being anxious to get a +sprained ankle, and picked his way across the waste ground to the foot of +the house ladder. The house was but a glorified hut on piles, unfenced +and lonely. + +"Like many a stout man, Davidson is very lightfooted. He climbed the +seven steps or so, stepped across the bamboo platform quietly, but what +he saw through the doorway stopped him short. + +"Four men were sitting by the light of a solitary candle. There was a +bottle, a jug and glasses on the table, but they were not engaged in +drinking. Two packs of cards were lying there too, but they were not +preparing to play. They were talking together in whispers, and remained +quite unaware of him. He himself was too astonished to make a sound for +some time. The world was still, except for the sibilation of the +whispering heads bunched together over the table. + +"And Davidson, as I have quoted him to you before, didn't like it. He +didn't like it at all. + +"The situation ended with a scream proceeding from the dark, interior +part of the room. 'O Davy! you've given me a turn.' + +"Davidson made out beyond the table Anne's very pale face. She laughed a +little hysterically, out of the deep shadows between the gloomy mat +walls. 'Ha! ha! ha!' + +"The four heads sprang apart at the first sound, and four pairs of eyes +became fixed stonily on Davidson. The woman came forward, having little +more on her than a loose chintz wrapper and straw slippers on her bare +feet. Her head was tied up Malay fashion in a red handkerchief, with a +mass of loose hair hanging under it behind. Her professional, gay, +European feathers had literally dropped off her in the course of these +two years, but a long necklace of amber beads hung round her uncovered +neck. It was the only ornament she had left; Bamtz had sold all her +poor-enough trinkets during the flight from Saigon--when their +association began. + +"She came forward, past the table, into the light, with her usual groping +gesture of extended arms, as though her soul, poor thing! had gone blind +long ago, her white cheeks hollow, her eyes darkly wild, distracted, as +Davidson thought. She came on swiftly, grabbed him by the arm, dragged +him in. 'It's heaven itself that sends you to-night. My Tony's so +bad--come and see him. Come along--do!' + +"Davidson submitted. The only one of the men to move was Bamtz, who made +as if to get up but dropped back in his chair again. Davidson in passing +heard him mutter confusedly something that sounded like 'poor little +beggar.' + +"The child, lying very flushed in a miserable cot knocked up out of +gin-cases, stared at Davidson with wide, drowsy eyes. It was a bad bout +of fever clearly. But while Davidson was promising to go on board and +fetch some medicines, and generally trying to say reassuring things, he +could not help being struck by the extraordinary manner of the woman +standing by his side. Gazing with despairing expression down at the cot, +she would suddenly throw a quick, startled glance at Davidson and then +towards the other room. + +"'Yes, my poor girl,' he whispered, interpreting her distraction in his +own way, though he had nothing precise in his mind. 'I'm afraid this +bodes no good to you. How is it they are here?' + +"She seized his forearm and breathed out forcibly: 'No good to me! Oh, +no! But what about you! They are after the dollars you have on board.' + +"Davidson let out an astonished 'How do they know there are any dollars?' + +"She clapped her hands lightly, in distress. 'So it's true! You have +them on board? Then look out for yourself.' + +"They stood gazing down at the boy in the cot, aware that they might be +observed from the other room. + +"'We must get him to perspire as soon as possible,' said Davidson in his +ordinary voice. 'You'll have to give him hot drink of some kind. I will +go on board and bring you a spirit-kettle amongst other things.' And he +added under his breath: 'Do they actually mean murder?' + +"She made no sign, she had returned to her desolate contemplation of the +boy. Davidson thought she had not heard him even, when with an unchanged +expression she spoke under her breath. + +"'The Frenchman would, in a minute. The others shirk it--unless you +resist. He's a devil. He keeps them going. Without him they would have +done nothing but talk. I've got chummy with him. What can you do when +you are with a man like the fellow I am with now. Bamtz is terrified of +them, and they know it. He's in it from funk. Oh, Davy! take your ship +away--quick!' + +"'Too late,' said Davidson. 'She's on the mud already.' + +"If the kid hadn't been in this state I would have run off with him--to +you--into the woods--anywhere. Oh, Davy! will he die?' she cried aloud +suddenly. + +"Davidson met three men in the doorway. They made way for him without +actually daring to face his glance. But Bamtz was the only one who +looked down with an air of guilt. The big Frenchman had remained lolling +in his chair; he kept his stumps in his pockets and addressed Davidson. + +"'Isn't it unfortunate about that child! The distress of that woman +there upsets me, but I am of no use in the world. I couldn't smooth the +sick pillow of my dearest friend. I have no hands. Would you mind +sticking one of those cigarettes there into the mouth of a poor, harmless +cripple? My nerves want soothing--upon my honour, they do.' + +"Davidson complied with his naturally kind smile. As his outward +placidity becomes only more pronounced, if possible, the more reason +there is for excitement; and as Davidson's eyes, when his wits are hard +at work, get very still and as if sleepy, the huge Frenchman might have +been justified in concluding that the man there was a mere sheep--a sheep +ready for slaughter. With a '_merci bien_' he uplifted his huge carcase +to reach the light of the candle with his cigarette, and Davidson left +the house. + +"Going down to the ship and returning, he had time to consider his +position. At first he was inclined to believe that these men +(Niclaus--the white Nakhoda--was the only one he knew by sight before, +besides Bamtz) were not of the stamp to proceed to extremities. This was +partly the reason why he never attempted to take any measures on board. +His pacific Kalashes were not to be thought of as against white men. His +wretched engineer would have had a fit from fright at the mere idea of +any sort of combat. Davidson knew that he would have to depend on +himself in this affair if it ever came off. + +"Davidson underestimated naturally the driving power of the Frenchman's +character and the force of the actuating motive. To that man so +hopelessly crippled these dollars were an enormous opportunity. With his +share of the robbery he would open another shop in Vladivostok, Haiphong, +Manila--somewhere far away. + +"Neither did it occur to Davidson, who is a man of courage, if ever there +was one, that his psychology was not known to the world at large, and +that to this particular lot of ruffians, who judged him by his +appearance, he appeared an unsuspicious, inoffensive, soft creature, as +he passed again through the room, his hands full of various objects and +parcels destined for the sick boy. + +"All the four were sitting again round the table. Bamtz not having the +pluck to open his mouth, it was Niclaus who, as a collective voice, +called out to him thickly to come out soon and join in a drink. + +"'I think I'll have to stay some little time in there, to help her look +after the boy,' Davidson answered without stopping. + +"This was a good thing to say to allay a possible suspicion. And, as it +was, Davidson felt he must not stay very long. + +"He sat down on an old empty nail-keg near the improvised cot and looked +at the child; while Laughing Anne, moving to and fro, preparing the hot +drink, giving it to the boy in spoonfuls, or stopping to gaze motionless +at the flushed face, whispered disjointed bits of information. She had +succeeded in making friends with that French devil. Davy would +understand that she knew how to make herself pleasant to a man. + +"And Davidson nodded without looking at her. + +"The big beast had got to be quite confidential with her. She held his +cards for him when they were having a game. Bamtz! Oh! Bamtz in his +funk was only too glad to see the Frenchman humoured. And the Frenchman +had come to believe that she was a woman who didn't care what she did. +That's how it came about they got to talk before her openly. For a long +time she could not make out what game they were up to. The new arrivals, +not expecting to find a woman with Bamtz, had been very startled and +annoyed at first, she explained. + +"She busied herself in attending to the boy; and nobody looking into that +room would have seen anything suspicious in those two people exchanging +murmurs by the sick-bedside. + +"'But now they think I am a better man than Bamtz ever was,' she said +with a faint laugh. + +"The child moaned. She went down on her knees, and, bending low, +contemplated him mournfully. Then raising her head, she asked Davidson +whether he thought the child would get better. Davidson was sure of it. +She murmured sadly: 'Poor kid. There's nothing in life for such as he. +Not a dog's chance. But I couldn't let him go, Davy! I couldn't.' + +"Davidson felt a profound pity for the child. She laid her hand on his +knee and whispered an earnest warning against the Frenchman. Davy must +never let him come to close quarters. Naturally Davidson wanted to know +the reason, for a man without hands did not strike him as very formidable +under any circumstances. + +"'Mind you don't let him--that's all,' she insisted anxiously, hesitated, +and then confessed that the Frenchman had got her away from the others +that afternoon and had ordered her to tie a seven-pound iron weight (out +of the set of weights Bamtz used in business) to his right stump. She +had to do it for him. She had been afraid of his savage temper. Bamtz +was such a craven, and neither of the other men would have cared what +happened to her. The Frenchman, however, with many awful threats had +warned her not to let the others know what she had done for him. +Afterwards he had been trying to cajole her. He had promised her that if +she stood by him faithfully in this business he would take her with him +to Haiphong or some other place. A poor cripple needed somebody to take +care of him--always. + +"Davidson asked her again if they really meant mischief. It was, he told +me, the hardest thing to believe he had run up against, as yet, in his +life. Anne nodded. The Frenchman's heart was set on this robbery. Davy +might expect them, about midnight, creeping on board his ship, to steal +anyhow--to murder, perhaps. Her voice sounded weary, and her eyes +remained fastened on her child. + +"And still Davidson could not accept it somehow; his contempt for these +men was too great. + +"'Look here, Davy,' she said. 'I'll go outside with them when they +start, and it will be hard luck if I don't find something to laugh at. +They are used to that from me. Laugh or cry--what's the odds. You will +be able to hear me on board on this quiet night. Dark it is too. Oh! +it's dark, Davy!--it's dark!' + +"'Don't you run any risks,' said Davidson. Presently he called her +attention to the boy, who, less flushed now, had dropped into a sound +sleep. 'Look. He'll be all right.' + +"She made as if to snatch the child up to her breast, but restrained +herself. Davidson prepared to go. She whispered hurriedly: + +"'Mind, Davy! I've told them that you generally sleep aft in the hammock +under the awning over the cabin. They have been asking me about your +ways and about your ship, too. I told them all I knew. I had to keep in +with them. And Bamtz would have told them if I hadn't--you understand?' + +"He made a friendly sign and went out. The men about the table (except +Bamtz) looked at him. This time it was Fector who spoke. 'Won't you +join us in a quiet game, Captain?' + +"Davidson said that now the child was better he thought he would go on +board and turn in. Fector was the only one of the four whom he had, so +to speak, never seen, for he had had a good look at the Frenchman +already. He observed Fector's muddy eyes, his mean, bitter mouth. +Davidson's contempt for those men rose in his gorge, while his placid +smile, his gentle tones and general air of innocence put heart into them. +They exchanged meaning glances. + +"'We shall be sitting late over the cards,' Fector said in his harsh, low +voice. + +"'Don't make more noise than you can help.' + +"'Oh! we are a quiet lot. And if the invalid shouldn't be so well, she +will be sure to send one of us down to call you, so that you may play the +doctor again. So don't shoot at sight.' + +"'He isn't a shooting man,' struck in Niclaus. + +"'I never shoot before making sure there's a reason for it--at any rate,' +said Davidson. + +"Bamtz let out a sickly snigger. The Frenchman alone got up to make a +bow to Davidson's careless nod. His stumps were stuck immovably in his +pockets. Davidson understood now the reason. + +"He went down to the ship. His wits were working actively, and he was +thoroughly angry. He smiled, he says (it must have been the first grim +smile of his life), at the thought of the seven-pound weight lashed to +the end of the Frenchman's stump. The ruffian had taken that precaution +in case of a quarrel that might arise over the division of the spoil. A +man with an unsuspected power to deal killing blows could take his own +part in a sudden scrimmage round a heap of money, even against +adversaries armed with revolvers, especially if he himself started the +row. + +"'He's ready to face any of his friends with that thing. But he will +have no use for it. There will be no occasion to quarrel about these +dollars here,' thought Davidson, getting on board quietly. He never +paused to look if there was anybody about the decks. As a matter of +fact, most of his crew were on shore, and the rest slept, stowed away in +dark corners. + +"He had his plan, and he went to work methodically. + +"He fetched a lot of clothing from below and disposed it in his hammock +in such a way as to distend it to the shape of a human body; then he +threw over all the light cotton sheet he used to draw over himself when +sleeping on deck. Having done this, he loaded his two revolvers and +clambered into one of the boats the _Sissie_ carried right aft, swung out +on their davits. Then he waited. + +"And again the doubt of such a thing happening to him crept into his +mind. He was almost ashamed of this ridiculous vigil in a boat. He +became bored. And then he became drowsy. The stillness of the black +universe wearied him. There was not even the lapping of the water to +keep him company, for the tide was out and the _Sissie_ was lying on soft +mud. Suddenly in the breathless, soundless, hot night an argus pheasant +screamed in the woods across the stream. Davidson started violently, all +his senses on the alert at once. + +"The candle was still burning in the house. Everything was quiet again, +but Davidson felt drowsy no longer. An uneasy premonition of evil +oppressed him. + +"'Surely I am not afraid,' he argued with himself. + +"The silence was like a seal on his ears, and his nervous inward +impatience grew intolerable. He commanded himself to keep still. But +all the same he was just going to jump out of the boat when a faint +ripple on the immensity of silence, a mere tremor in the air, the ghost +of a silvery laugh, reached his ears. + +"Illusion! + +"He kept very still. He had no difficulty now in emulating the stillness +of the mouse--a grimly determined mouse. But he could not shake off that +premonition of evil unrelated to the mere danger of the situation. +Nothing happened. It had been an illusion! + +"A curiosity came to him to learn how they would go to work. He wondered +and wondered, till the whole thing seemed more absurd than ever. + +"He had left the hanging lamp in the cabin burning as usual. It was part +of his plan that everything should be as usual. Suddenly in the dim glow +of the skylight panes a bulky shadow came up the ladder without a sound, +made two steps towards the hammock (it hung right over the skylight), and +stood motionless. The Frenchman! + +"The minutes began to slip away. Davidson guessed that the Frenchman's +part (the poor cripple) was to watch his (Davidson's) slumbers while the +others were no doubt in the cabin busy forcing off the lazarette hatch. + +"What was the course they meant to pursue once they got hold of the +silver (there were ten cases, and each could be carried easily by two +men) nobody can tell now. But so far, Davidson was right. They were in +the cabin. He expected to hear the sounds of breaking-in every moment. +But the fact was that one of them (perhaps Fector, who had stolen papers +out of desks in his time) knew how to pick a lock, and apparently was +provided with the tools. Thus while Davidson expected every moment to +hear them begin down there, they had the bar off already and two cases +actually up in the cabin out of the lazarette. + +"In the diffused faint glow of the skylight the Frenchman moved no more +than a statue. Davidson could have shot him with the greatest ease--but +he was not homicidally inclined. Moreover, he wanted to make sure before +opening fire that the others had gone to work. Not hearing the sounds he +expected to hear, he felt uncertain whether they all were on board yet. + +"While he listened, the Frenchman, whose immobility might have but +cloaked an internal struggle; moved forward a pace, then another. +Davidson, entranced, watched him advance one leg, withdraw his right +stump, the armed one, out of his pocket, and swinging his body to put +greater force into the blow, bring the seven-pound weight down on the +hammock where the head of the sleeper ought to have been. + +"Davidson admitted to me that his hair stirred at the roots then. But +for Anne, his unsuspecting head would have been there. The Frenchman's +surprise must have been simply overwhelming. He staggered away from the +lightly swinging hammock, and before Davidson could make a movement he +had vanished, bounding down the ladder to warn and alarm the other +fellows. + +"Davidson sprang instantly out of the boat, threw up the skylight flap, +and had a glimpse of the men down there crouching round the hatch. They +looked up scared, and at that moment the Frenchman outside the door +bellowed out '_Trahison_--_trahison_!' They bolted out of the cabin, +falling over each other and swearing awfully. The shot Davidson let off +down the skylight had hit no one; but he ran to the edge of the cabin-top +and at once opened fire at the dark shapes rushing about the deck. These +shots were returned, and a rapid fusillade burst out, reports and +flashes, Davidson dodging behind a ventilator and pulling the trigger +till his revolver clicked, and then throwing it down to take the other in +his right hand. + +"He had been hearing in the din the Frenchman's infuriated yells +'_Tuez-le_! _tuez-le_!' above the fierce cursing of the others. But +though they fired at him they were only thinking of clearing out. In the +flashes of the last shots Davidson saw them scrambling over the rail. +That he had hit more than one he was certain. Two different voices had +cried out in pain. But apparently none of them were disabled. + +"Davidson leaned against the bulwark reloading his revolver without +haste. He had not the slightest apprehension of their coming back. On +the other hand, he had no intention of pursuing them on shore in the +dark. What they were doing he had no idea. Looking to their hurts +probably. Not very far from the bank the invisible Frenchman was +blaspheming and cursing his associates, his luck, and all the world. He +ceased; then with a sudden, vengeful yell, 'It's that woman!--it's that +woman that has sold us,' was heard running off in the night. + +"Davidson caught his breath in a sudden pang of remorse. He perceived +with dismay that the stratagem of his defence had given Anne away. He +did not hesitate a moment. It was for him to save her now. He leaped +ashore. But even as he landed on the wharf he heard a shrill shriek +which pierced his very soul. + +"The light was still burning in the house. Davidson, revolver in hand, +was making for it when another shriek, away to his left, made him change +his direction. + +"He changed his direction--but very soon he stopped. It was then that he +hesitated in cruel perplexity. He guessed what had happened. The woman +had managed to escape from the house in some way, and now was being +chased in the open by the infuriated Frenchman. He trusted she would try +to run on board for protection. + +"All was still around Davidson. Whether she had run on board or not, +this silence meant that the Frenchman had lost her in the dark. + +"Davidson, relieved, but still very anxious, turned towards the +river-side. He had not made two steps in that direction when another +shriek burst out behind him, again close to the house. + +"He thinks that the Frenchman had lost sight of the poor woman right +enough. Then came that period of silence. But the horrible ruffian had +not given up his murderous purpose. He reasoned that she would try to +steal back to her child, and went to lie in wait for her near the house. + +"It must have been something like that. As she entered the light falling +about the house-ladder, he had rushed at her too soon, impatient for +vengeance. She had let out that second scream of mortal fear when she +caught sight of him, and turned to run for life again. + +"This time she was making for the river, but not in a straight line. Her +shrieks circled about Davidson. He turned on his heels, following the +horrible trail of sound in the darkness. He wanted to shout 'This way, +Anne! I am here!' but he couldn't. At the horror of this chase, more +ghastly in his imagination than if he could have seen it, the +perspiration broke out on his forehead, while his throat was as dry as +tinder. A last supreme scream was cut short suddenly. + +"The silence which ensued was even more dreadful. Davidson felt sick. +He tore his feet from the spot and walked straight before him, gripping +the revolver and peering into the obscurity fearfully. Suddenly a bulky +shape sprang from the ground within a few yards of him and bounded away. +Instinctively he fired at it, started to run in pursuit, and stumbled +against something soft which threw him down headlong. + +"Even as he pitched forward on his head he knew it could be nothing else +but Laughing Anne's body. He picked himself up and, remaining on his +knees, tried to lift her in his arms. He felt her so limp that he gave +it up. She was lying on her face, her long hair scattered on the ground. +Some of it was wet. Davidson, feeling about her head, came to a place +where the crushed bone gave way under his fingers. But even before that +discovery he knew that she was dead. The pursuing Frenchman had flung +her down with a kick from behind, and, squatting on her back, was +battering in her skull with the weight she herself had fastened to his +stump, when the totally unexpected Davidson loomed up in the night and +scared him away. + +"Davidson, kneeling by the side of that woman done so miserably to death, +was overcome by remorse. She had died for him. His manhood was as if +stunned. For the first time he felt afraid. He might have been pounced +upon in the dark at any moment by the murderer of Laughing Anne. He +confesses to the impulse of creeping away from that pitiful corpse on his +hands and knees to the refuge of the ship. He even says that he actually +began to do so. . . + +"One can hardly picture to oneself Davidson crawling away on all fours +from the murdered woman--Davidson unmanned and crushed by the idea that +she had died for him in a sense. But he could not have gone very far. +What stopped him was the thought of the boy, Laughing Anne's child, that +(Davidson remembered her very words) would not have a dog's chance. + +"This life the woman had left behind her appeared to Davidson's +conscience in the light of a sacred trust. He assumed an erect attitude +and, quaking inwardly still, turned about and walked towards the house. + +"For all his tremors he was very determined; but that smashed skull had +affected his imagination, and he felt very defenceless in the darkness, +in which he seemed to hear faintly now here, now there, the prowling +footsteps of the murderer without hands. But he never faltered in his +purpose. He got away with the boy safely after all. The house he found +empty. A profound silence encompassed him all the time, except once, +just as he got down the ladder with Tony in his arms, when a faint groan +reached his ears. It seemed to come from the pitch-black space between +the posts on which the house was built, but he did not stop to +investigate. + +"It's no use telling you in detail how Davidson got on board with the +burden Anne's miserably cruel fate had thrust into his arms; how next +morning his scared crew, after observing from a distance the state of +affairs on board, rejoined with alacrity; how Davidson went ashore and, +aided by his engineer (still half dead with fright), rolled up Laughing +Anne's body in a cotton sheet and brought it on board for burial at sea +later. While busy with this pious task, Davidson, glancing about, +perceived a huge heap of white clothes huddled up against the corner-post +of the house. That it was the Frenchman lying there he could not doubt. +Taking it in connection with the dismal groan he had heard in the night, +Davidson is pretty sure that his random shot gave a mortal hurt to the +murderer of poor Anne. + +"As to the others, Davidson never set eyes on a single one of them. +Whether they had concealed themselves in the scared settlement, or bolted +into the forest, or were hiding on board Niclaus's prau, which could be +seen lying on the mud a hundred yards or so higher up the creek, the fact +is that they vanished; and Davidson did not trouble his head about them. +He lost no time in getting out of the creek directly the _Sissie_ +floated. After steaming some twenty miles clear of the coast, he (in his +own words) 'committed the body to the deep.' He did everything himself. +He weighted her down with a few fire-bars, he read the service, he lifted +the plank, he was the only mourner. And while he was rendering these +last services to the dead, the desolation of that life and the atrocious +wretchedness of its end cried aloud to his compassion, whispered to him +in tones of self-reproach. + +"He ought to have handled the warning she had given him in another way. +He was convinced now that a simple display of watchfulness would have +been enough to restrain that vile and cowardly crew. But the fact was +that he had not quite believed that anything would be attempted. + +"The body of Laughing Anne having been 'committed to the deep' some +twenty miles S.S.W. from Cape Selatan, the task before Davidson was to +commit Laughing Anne's child to the care of his wife. And there poor, +good Davidson made a fatal move. He didn't want to tell her the whole +awful story, since it involved the knowledge of the danger from which he, +Davidson, had escaped. And this, too, after he had been laughing at her +unreasonable fears only a short time before. + +"'I thought that if I told her everything,' Davidson explained to me, +'she would never have a moment's peace while I was away on my trips.' + +"He simply stated that the boy was an orphan, the child of some people to +whom he, Davidson, was under the greatest obligation, and that he felt +morally bound to look after him. Some day he would tell her more, he +said, and meantime he trusted in the goodness and warmth of her heart, in +her woman's natural compassion. + +"He did not know that her heart was about the size of a parched pea, and +had the proportional amount of warmth; and that her faculty of compassion +was mainly directed to herself. He was only startled and disappointed at +the air of cold surprise and the suspicious look with which she received +his imperfect tale. But she did not say much. She never had much to +say. She was a fool of the silent, hopeless kind. + +"What story Davidson's crew thought fit to set afloat in Malay town is +neither here nor there. Davidson himself took some of his friends into +his confidence, besides giving the full story officially to the Harbour +Master. + +"The Harbour Master was considerably astonished. He didn't think, +however, that a formal complaint should be made to the Dutch Government. +They would probably do nothing in the end, after a lot of trouble and +correspondence. The robbery had not come off, after all. Those +vagabonds could be trusted to go to the devil in their own way. No +amount of fuss would bring the poor woman to life again, and the actual +murderer had been done justice to by a chance shot from Davidson. Better +let the matter drop. + +"This was good common sense. But he was impressed. + +"'Sounds a terrible affair, Captain Davidson.' + +"'Aye, terrible enough,' agreed the remorseful Davidson. But the most +terrible thing for him, though he didn't know it yet then, was that his +wife's silly brain was slowly coming to the conclusion that Tony was +Davidson's child, and that he had invented that lame story to introduce +him into her pure home in defiance of decency, of virtue--of her most +sacred feelings. + +"Davidson was aware of some constraint in his domestic relations. But at +the best of times she was not demonstrative; and perhaps that very +coldness was part of her charm in the placid Davidson's eyes. Women are +loved for all sorts of reasons and even for characteristics which one +would think repellent. She was watching him and nursing her suspicions. + +"Then, one day, Monkey-faced Ritchie called on that sweet, shy Mrs. +Davidson. She had come out under his care, and he considered himself a +privileged person--her oldest friend in the tropics. He posed for a +great admirer of hers. He was always a great chatterer. He had got hold +of the story rather vaguely, and he started chattering on that subject, +thinking she knew all about it. And in due course he let out something +about Laughing Anne. + +"'Laughing Anne,' says Mrs. Davidson with a start. 'What's that?' + +"Ritchie plunged into circumlocution at once, but she very soon stopped +him. 'Is that creature dead?' she asks. + +"'I believe so,' stammered Ritchie. 'Your husband says so.' + +"'But you don't know for certain?' + +"'No! How could I, Mrs. Davidson!' + +"'That's all wanted to know,' says she, and goes out of the room. + +"When Davidson came home she was ready to go for him, not with common +voluble indignation, but as if trickling a stream of cold clear water +down his back. She talked of his base intrigue with a vile woman, of +being made a fool of, of the insult to her dignity. + +"Davidson begged her to listen to him and told her all the story, +thinking that it would move a heart of stone. He tried to make her +understand his remorse. She heard him to the end, said 'Indeed!' and +turned her back on him. + +"'Don't you believe me?' he asked, appalled. + +"She didn't say yes or no. All she said was, 'Send that brat away at +once.' + +"'I can't throw him out into the street,' cried Davidson. 'You don't +mean it.' + +"'I don't care. There are charitable institutions for such children, I +suppose.' + +"'That I will never do,' said Davidson. + +"'Very well. That's enough for me.' + +"Davidson's home after this was like a silent, frozen hell for him. A +stupid woman with a sense of grievance is worse than an unchained devil. +He sent the boy to the White Fathers in Malacca. This was not a very +expensive sort of education, but she could not forgive him for not +casting the offensive child away utterly. She worked up her sense of her +wifely wrongs and of her injured purity to such a pitch that one day, +when poor Davidson was pleading with her to be reasonable and not to make +an impossible existence for them both, she turned on him in a chill +passion and told him that his very sight was odious to her. + +"Davidson, with his scrupulous delicacy of feeling, was not the man to +assert his rights over a woman who could not bear the sight of him. He +bowed his head; and shortly afterwards arranged for her to go back to her +parents. That was exactly what she wanted in her outraged dignity. And +then she had always disliked the tropics and had detested secretly the +people she had to live amongst as Davidson's wife. She took her pure, +sensitive, mean little soul away to Fremantle or somewhere in that +direction. And of course the little girl went away with her too. What +could poor Davidson have done with a little girl on his hands, even if +she had consented to leave her with him--which is unthinkable. + +"This is the story that has spoiled Davidson's smile for him--which +perhaps it wouldn't have done so thoroughly had he been less of a good +fellow." + +Hollis ceased. But before we rose from the table I asked him if he knew +what had become of Laughing Anne's boy. + +He counted carefully the change handed him by the Chinaman waiter, and +raised his head. + +"Oh! that's the finishing touch. He was a bright, taking little chap, as +you know, and the Fathers took very special pains in his bringing up. +Davidson expected in his heart to have some comfort out of him. In his +placid way he's a man who needs affection. Well, Tony has grown into a +fine youth--but there you are! He wants to be a priest; his one dream is +to be a missionary. The Fathers assure Davidson that it is a serious +vocation. They tell him he has a special disposition for mission work, +too. So Laughing Anne's boy will lead a saintly life in China somewhere; +he may even become a martyr; but poor Davidson is left out in the cold. +He will have to go downhill without a single human affection near him +because of these old dollars." + + * * * * * + +_Jan._ 1914 + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + * * * * * + + * * * * * + + THE LONDON AND NORWICH PRESS LIMITED, LONDON AND NORWICH, ENGLAND + + + + +Footnotes + + +{188} The gallows, supposed to be widowed of the last executed criminal +and waiting for another. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITHIN THE TIDES*** + + +******* This file should be named 1053.txt or 1053.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/5/1053 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Within the Tides + +Author: Joseph Conrad + +Release Date: September, 1997 [EBook #1053] +[This file was first posted on August 29, 1997] +[Most recently updated: June 24, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, WITHIN THE TIDES *** + + + + +Scanned and proofed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + +Within the Tides + + + + +Contents: + +The Planter of Malata +The Partner +The Inn of the Two Witches +Because of the Dollars + + + + +THE PLANTER OF MALATA + + + + +CHAPTER I + + + +In the private editorial office of the principal newspaper in a +great colonial city two men were talking. They were both young. +The stouter of the two, fair, and with more of an urban look about +him, was the editor and part-owner of the important newspaper. + +The other's name was Renouard. That he was exercised in his mind +about something was evident on his fine bronzed face. He was a +lean, lounging, active man. The journalist continued the +conversation. + +"And so you were dining yesterday at old Dunster's." + +He used the word old not in the endearing sense in which it is +sometimes applied to intimates, but as a matter of sober fact. The +Dunster in question was old. He had been an eminent colonial +statesman, but had now retired from active politics after a tour in +Europe and a lengthy stay in England, during which he had had a +very good press indeed. The colony was proud of him. + +"Yes. I dined there," said Renouard. "Young Dunster asked me just +as I was going out of his office. It seemed to be like a sudden +thought. And yet I can't help suspecting some purpose behind it. +He was very pressing. He swore that his uncle would be very +pleased to see me. Said his uncle had mentioned lately that the +granting to me of the Malata concession was the last act of his +official life." + +"Very touching. The old boy sentimentalises over the past now and +then." + +"I really don't know why I accepted," continued the other. +"Sentiment does not move me very easily. Old Dunster was civil to +me of course, but he did not even inquire how I was getting on with +my silk plants. Forgot there was such a thing probably. I must +say there were more people there than I expected to meet. Quite a +big party." + +"I was asked," remarked the newspaper man. "Only I couldn't go. +But when did you arrive from Malata?" + +"I arrived yesterday at daylight. I am anchored out there in the +bay--off Garden Point. I was in Dunster's office before he had +finished reading his letters. Have you ever seen young Dunster +reading his letters? I had a glimpse of him through the open door. +He holds the paper in both hands, hunches his shoulders up to his +ugly ears, and brings his long nose and his thick lips on to it +like a sucking apparatus. A commercial monster." + +"Here we don't consider him a monster," said the newspaper man +looking at his visitor thoughtfully. + +"Probably not. You are used to see his face and to see other +faces. I don't know how it is that, when I come to town, the +appearance of the people in the street strike me with such force. +They seem so awfully expressive." + +"And not charming." + +"Well--no. Not as a rule. The effect is forcible without being +clear. . . . I know that you think it's because of my solitary +manner of life away there." + +"Yes. I do think so. It is demoralising. You don't see any one +for months at a stretch. You're leading an unhealthy life." + +The other hardly smiled and murmured the admission that true enough +it was a good eleven months since he had been in town last. + +"You see," insisted the other. "Solitude works like a sort of +poison. And then you perceive suggestions in faces--mysterious and +forcible, that no sound man would be bothered with. Of course you +do." + +Geoffrey Renouard did not tell his journalist friend that the +suggestions of his own face, the face of a friend, bothered him as +much as the others. He detected a degrading quality in the touches +of age which every day adds to a human countenance. They moved and +disturbed him, like the signs of a horrible inward travail which +was frightfully apparent to the fresh eye he had brought from his +isolation in Malata, where he had settled after five strenuous +years of adventure and exploration. + +"It's a fact," he said, "that when I am at home in Malata I see no +one consciously. I take the plantation boys for granted." + +"Well, and we here take the people in the streets for granted. And +that's sanity." + +The visitor said nothing to this for fear of engaging a discussion. +What he had come to seek in the editorial office was not +controversy, but information. Yet somehow he hesitated to approach +the subject. Solitary life makes a man reticent in respect of +anything in the nature of gossip, which those to whom chatting +about their kind is an everyday exercise regard as the commonest +use of speech. + +"You very busy?" he asked. + +The Editor making red marks on a long slip of printed paper threw +the pencil down. + +"No. I am done. Social paragraphs. This office is the place +where everything is known about everybody--including even a great +deal of nobodies. Queer fellows drift in and out of this room. +Waifs and strays from home, from up-country, from the Pacific. +And, by the way, last time you were here you picked up one of that +sort for your assistant--didn't you?" + +"I engaged an assistant only to stop your preaching about the evils +of solitude," said Renouard hastily; and the pressman laughed at +the half-resentful tone. His laugh was not very loud, but his +plump person shook all over. He was aware that his younger +friend's deference to his advice was based only on an imperfect +belief in his wisdom--or his sagacity. But it was he who had first +helped Renouard in his plans of exploration: the five-years' +programme of scientific adventure, of work, of danger and +endurance, carried out with such distinction and rewarded modestly +with the lease of Malata island by the frugal colonial government. +And this reward, too, had been due to the journalist's advocacy +with word and pen--for he was an influential man in the community. +Doubting very much if Renouard really liked him, he was himself +without great sympathy for a certain side of that man which he +could not quite make out. He only felt it obscurely to be his real +personality--the true--and, perhaps, the absurd. As, for instance, +in that case of the assistant. Renouard had given way to the +arguments of his friend and backer--the argument against the +unwholesome effect of solitude, the argument for the safety of +companionship even if quarrelsome. Very well. In this docility he +was sensible and even likeable. But what did he do next? Instead +of taking counsel as to the choice with his old backer and friend, +and a man, besides, knowing everybody employed and unemployed on +the pavements of the town, this extraordinary Renouard suddenly and +almost surreptitiously picked up a fellow--God knows who--and +sailed away with him back to Malata in a hurry; a proceeding +obviously rash and at the same time not quite straight. That was +the sort of thing. The secretly unforgiving journalist laughed a +little longer and then ceased to shake all over. + +"Oh, yes. About that assistant of yours. . . ." + +"What about him," said Renouard, after waiting a while, with a +shadow of uneasiness on his face. + +"Have you nothing to tell me of him?" + +"Nothing except. . . ." Incipient grimness vanished out of +Renouard's aspect and his voice, while he hesitated as if +reflecting seriously before he changed his mind. "No. Nothing +whatever." + +"You haven't brought him along with you by chance--for a change." + +The Planter of Malata stared, then shook his head, and finally +murmured carelessly: "I think he's very well where he is. But I +wish you could tell me why young Dunster insisted so much on my +dining with his uncle last night. Everybody knows I am not a +society man." + +The Editor exclaimed at so much modesty. Didn't his friend know +that he was their one and only explorer--that he was the man +experimenting with the silk plant. . . . + +"Still, that doesn't tell me why I was invited yesterday. For +young Dunster never thought of this civility before. . . ." + +"Our Willie," said the popular journalist, "never does anything +without a purpose, that's a fact." + +"And to his uncle's house too!" + +"He lives there." + +"Yes. But he might have given me a feed somewhere else. The +extraordinary part is that the old man did not seem to have +anything special to say. He smiled kindly on me once or twice, and +that was all. It was quite a party, sixteen people." + +The Editor then, after expressing his regret that he had not been +able to come, wanted to know if the party had been entertaining. + +Renouard regretted that his friend had not been there. Being a man +whose business or at least whose profession was to know everything +that went on in this part of the globe, he could probably have told +him something of some people lately arrived from home, who were +amongst the guests. Young Dunster (Willie), with his large shirt- +front and streaks of white skin shining unpleasantly through the +thin black hair plastered over the top of his head, bore down on +him and introduced him to that party, as if he had been a trained +dog or a child phenomenon. Decidedly, he said, he disliked Willie- +-one of these large oppressive men. . . . + +A silence fell, and it was as if Renouard were not going to say +anything more when, suddenly, he came out with the real object of +his visit to the editorial room. + +"They looked to me like people under a spell." + +The Editor gazed at him appreciatively, thinking that, whether the +effect of solitude or not, this was a proof of a sensitive +perception of the expression of faces. + +"You omitted to tell me their name, but I can make a guess. You +mean Professor Moorsom, his daughter and sister--don't you?" + +Renouard assented. Yes, a white-haired lady. But from his +silence, with his eyes fixed, yet avoiding his friend, it was easy +to guess that it was not in the white-haired lady that he was +interested. + +"Upon my word," he said, recovering his usual bearing. "It looks +to me as if I had been asked there only for the daughter to talk to +me." + +He did not conceal that he had been greatly struck by her +appearance. Nobody could have helped being impressed. She was +different from everybody else in that house, and it was not only +the effect of her London clothes. He did not take her down to +dinner. Willie did that. It was afterwards, on the terrace. . . . + +The evening was delightfully calm. He was sitting apart and alone, +and wishing himself somewhere else--on board the schooner for +choice, with the dinner-harness off. He hadn't exchanged forty +words altogether during the evening with the other guests. He saw +her suddenly all by herself coming towards him along the dimly +lighted terrace, quite from a distance. + +She was tall and supple, carrying nobly on her straight body a head +of a character which to him appeared peculiar, something--well-- +pagan, crowned with a great wealth of hair. He had been about to +rise, but her decided approach caused him to remain on the seat. +He had not looked much at her that evening. He had not that +freedom of gaze acquired by the habit of society and the frequent +meetings with strangers. It was not shyness, but the reserve of a +man not used to the world and to the practice of covert staring, +with careless curiosity. All he had captured by his first, keen, +instantly lowered, glance was the impression that her hair was +magnificently red and her eyes very black. It was a troubling +effect, but it had been evanescent; he had forgotten it almost till +very unexpectedly he saw her coming down the terrace slow and +eager, as if she were restraining herself, and with a rhythmic +upward undulation of her whole figure. The light from an open +window fell across her path, and suddenly all that mass of arranged +hair appeared incandescent, chiselled and fluid, with the daring +suggestion of a helmet of burnished copper and the flowing lines of +molten metal. It kindled in him an astonished admiration. But he +said nothing of it to his friend the Editor. Neither did he tell +him that her approach woke up in his brain the image of love's +infinite grace and the sense of the inexhaustible joy that lives in +beauty. No! What he imparted to the Editor were no emotions, but +mere facts conveyed in a deliberate voice and in uninspired words. + +"That young lady came and sat down by me. She said: 'Are you +French, Mr. Renouard?'" + +He had breathed a whiff of perfume of which he said nothing either- +-of some perfume he did not know. Her voice was low and distinct. +Her shoulders and her bare arms gleamed with an extraordinary +splendour, and when she advanced her head into the light he saw the +admirable contour of the face, the straight fine nose with delicate +nostrils, the exquisite crimson brushstroke of the lips on this +oval without colour. The expression of the eyes was lost in a +shadowy mysterious play of jet and silver, stirring under the red +coppery gold of the hair as though she had been a being made of +ivory and precious metals changed into living tissue. + +". . . I told her my people were living in Canada, but that I was +brought up in England before coming out here. I can't imagine what +interest she could have in my history." + +"And you complain of her interest?" + +The accent of the all-knowing journalist seemed to jar on the +Planter of Malata. + +"No!" he said, in a deadened voice that was almost sullen. But +after a short silence he went on. "Very extraordinary. I told her +I came out to wander at large in the world when I was nineteen, +almost directly after I left school. It seems that her late +brother was in the same school a couple of years before me. She +wanted me to tell her what I did at first when I came out here; +what other men found to do when they came out--where they went, +what was likely to happen to them--as if I could guess and foretell +from my experience the fates of men who come out here with a +hundred different projects, for hundreds of different reasons--for +no reason but restlessness--who come, and go, and disappear! +Preposterous. She seemed to want to hear their histories. I told +her that most of them were not worth telling." + +The distinguished journalist leaning on his elbow, his head resting +against the knuckles of his left hand, listened with great +attention, but gave no sign of that surprise which Renouard, +pausing, seemed to expect. + +"You know something," the latter said brusquely. The all-knowing +man moved his head slightly and said, "Yes. But go on." + +"It's just this. There is no more to it. I found myself talking +to her of my adventures, of my early days. It couldn't possibly +have interested her. Really," he cried, "this is most +extraordinary. Those people have something on their minds. We sat +in the light of the window, and her father prowled about the +terrace, with his hands behind his back and his head drooping. The +white-haired lady came to the dining-room window twice--to look at +us I am certain. The other guests began to go away--and still we +sat there. Apparently these people are staying with the Dunsters. +It was old Mrs. Dunster who put an end to the thing. The father +and the aunt circled about as if they were afraid of interfering +with the girl. Then she got up all at once, gave me her hand, and +said she hoped she would see me again." + +While he was speaking Renouard saw again the sway of her figure in +a movement of grace and strength--felt the pressure of her hand-- +heard the last accents of the deep murmur that came from her throat +so white in the light of the window, and remembered the black rays +of her steady eyes passing off his face when she turned away. He +remembered all this visually, and it was not exactly pleasurable. +It was rather startling like the discovery of a new faculty in +himself. There are faculties one would rather do without--such, +for instance, as seeing through a stone wall or remembering a +person with this uncanny vividness. And what about those two +people belonging to her with their air of expectant solicitude! +Really, those figures from home got in front of one. In fact, +their persistence in getting between him and the solid forms of the +everyday material world had driven Renouard to call on his friend +at the office. He hoped that a little common, gossipy information +would lay the ghost of that unexpected dinner-party. Of course the +proper person to go to would have been young Dunster, but, he +couldn't stand Willie Dunster--not at any price. + +In the pause the Editor had changed his attitude, faced his desk, +and smiled a faint knowing smile. + +"Striking girl--eh?" he said. + +The incongruity of the word was enough to make one jump out of the +chair. Striking! That girl striking! Stri . . .! But Renouard +restrained his feelings. His friend was not a person to give +oneself away to. And, after all, this sort of speech was what he +had come there to hear. As, however, he had made a movement he re- +settled himself comfortably and said, with very creditable +indifference, that yes--she was, rather. Especially amongst a lot +of over-dressed frumps. There wasn't one woman under forty there. + +"Is that the way to speak of the cream of our society; the 'top of +the basket,' as the French say," the Editor remonstrated with mock +indignation. "You aren't moderate in your expressions--you know." + +"I express myself very little," interjected Renouard seriously. + +"I will tell you what you are. You are a fellow that doesn't count +the cost. Of course you are safe with me, but will you never +learn. . . ." + +"What struck me most," interrupted the other, "is that she should +pick me out for such a long conversation." + +"That's perhaps because you were the most remarkable of the men +there." + +Renouard shook his head. + +"This shot doesn't seem to me to hit the mark," he said calmly. +"Try again." + + "Don't you believe me? Oh, you modest creature. Well, let me +assure you that under ordinary circumstances it would have been a +good shot. You are sufficiently remarkable. But you seem a pretty +acute customer too. The circumstances are extraordinary. By Jove +they are!" + +He mused. After a time the Planter of Malata dropped a negligent - + +"And you know them." + +"And I know them," assented the all-knowing Editor, soberly, as +though the occasion were too special for a display of professional +vanity; a vanity so well known to Renouard that its absence +augmented his wonder and almost made him uneasy as if portending +bad news of some sort. + +"You have met those people?" he asked. + +"No. I was to have met them last night, but I had to send an +apology to Willie in the morning. It was then that he had the +bright idea to invite you to fill the place, from a muddled notion +that you could be of use. Willie is stupid sometimes. For it is +clear that you are the last man able to help." + +"How on earth do I come to be mixed up in this--whatever it is?" +Renouard's voice was slightly altered by nervous irritation. "I +only arrived here yesterday morning." + + + +CHAPTER II + + + +His friend the Editor turned to him squarely. "Willie took me into +consultation, and since he seems to have let you in I may just as +well tell you what is up. I shall try to be as short as I can. +But in confidence--mind!" + +He waited. Renouard, his uneasiness growing on him unreasonably, +assented by a nod, and the other lost no time in beginning. +Professor Moorsom--physicist and philosopher--fine head of white +hair, to judge from the photographs--plenty of brains in the head +too--all these famous books--surely even Renouard would know. . . . + +Renouard muttered moodily that it wasn't his sort of reading, and +his friend hastened to assure him earnestly that neither was it his +sort--except as a matter of business and duty, for the literary +page of that newspaper which was his property (and the pride of his +life). The only literary newspaper in the Antipodes could not +ignore the fashionable philosopher of the age. Not that anybody +read Moorsom at the Antipodes, but everybody had heard of him-- +women, children, dock labourers, cabmen. The only person (besides +himself) who had read Moorsom, as far as he knew, was old Dunster, +who used to call himself a Moorsomian (or was it Moorsomite) years +and years ago, long before Moorsom had worked himself up into the +great swell he was now, in every way. . . Socially too. Quite the +fashion in the highest world. + +Renouard listened with profoundly concealed attention. "A +charlatan," he muttered languidly. + +"Well--no. I should say not. I shouldn't wonder though if most of +his writing had been done with his tongue in his cheek. Of course. +That's to be expected. I tell you what: the only really honest +writing is to be found in newspapers and nowhere else--and don't +you forget it." + +The Editor paused with a basilisk stare till Renouard had conceded +a casual: "I dare say," and only then went on to explain that old +Dunster, during his European tour, had been made rather a lion of +in London, where he stayed with the Moorsoms--he meant the father +and the girl. The professor had been a widower for a long time. + +"She doesn't look just a girl," muttered Renouard. The other +agreed. Very likely not. Had been playing the London hostess to +tip-top people ever since she put her hair up, probably. + +"I don't expect to see any girlish bloom on her when I do have the +privilege," he continued. "Those people are staying with the +Dunster's incog., in a manner, you understand--something like +royalties. They don't deceive anybody, but they want to be left to +themselves. We have even kept them out of the paper--to oblige old +Dunster. But we shall put your arrival in--our local celebrity." + +"Heavens!" + +"Yes. Mr. G. Renouard, the explorer, whose indomitable energy, +etc., and who is now working for the prosperity of our country in +another way on his Malata plantation . . . And, by the by, how's +the silk plant--flourishing?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you bring any fibre?" + +"Schooner-full." + +"I see. To be transhipped to Liverpool for experimental +manufacture, eh? Eminent capitalists at home very much interested, +aren't they?" + +"They are." + +A silence fell. Then the Editor uttered slowly--"You will be a +rich man some day." + +Renouard's face did not betray his opinion of that confident +prophecy. He didn't say anything till his friend suggested in the +same meditative voice - + +"You ought to interest Moorsom in the affair too--since Willie has +let you in." + +"A philosopher!" + +"I suppose he isn't above making a bit of money. And he may be +clever at it for all you know. I have a notion that he's a fairly +practical old cove. . . . Anyhow," and here the tone of the speaker +took on a tinge of respect, "he has made philosophy pay." + +Renouard raised his eyes, repressed an impulse to jump up, and got +out of the arm-chair slowly. "It isn't perhaps a bad idea," he +said. "I'll have to call there in any case." + +He wondered whether he had managed to keep his voice steady, its +tone unconcerned enough; for his emotion was strong though it had +nothing to do with the business aspect of this suggestion. He +moved in the room in vague preparation for departure, when he heard +a soft laugh. He spun about quickly with a frown, but the Editor +was not laughing at him. He was chuckling across the big desk at +the wall: a preliminary of some speech for which Renouard, +recalled to himself, waited silent and mistrustful. + +"No! You would never guess! No one would ever guess what these +people are after. Willie's eyes bulged out when he came to me with +the tale." + +"They always do," remarked Renouard with disgust. "He's stupid." + +"He was startled. And so was I after he told me. It's a search +party. They are out looking for a man. Willie's soft heart's +enlisted in the cause." + +Renouard repeated: "Looking for a man." + +He sat down suddenly as if on purpose to stare. "Did Willie come +to you to borrow the lantern," he asked sarcastically, and got up +again for no apparent reason. + +"What lantern?" snapped the puzzled Editor, and his face darkened +with suspicion. "You, Renouard, are always alluding to things that +aren't clear to me. If you were in politics, I, as a party +journalist, wouldn't trust you further than I could see you. Not +an inch further. You are such a sophisticated beggar. Listen: +the man is the man Miss Moorsom was engaged to for a year. He +couldn't have been a nobody, anyhow. But he doesn't seem to have +been very wise. Hard luck for the young lady." + +He spoke with feeling. It was clear that what he had to tell +appealed to his sentiment. Yet, as an experienced man of the +world, he marked his amused wonder. Young man of good family and +connections, going everywhere, yet not merely a man about town, but +with a foot in the two big F's. + +Renouard lounging aimlessly in the room turned round: "And what +the devil's that?" he asked faintly. + +"Why Fashion and Finance," explained the Editor. "That's how I +call it. There are the three R's at the bottom of the social +edifice and the two F's on the top. See?" + +"Ha! Ha! Excellent! Ha! Ha!" Renouard laughed with stony eyes. + +"And you proceed from one set to the other in this democratic age," +the Editor went on with unperturbed complacency. "That is if you +are clever enough. The only danger is in being too clever. And I +think something of the sort happened here. That swell I am +speaking of got himself into a mess. Apparently a very ugly mess +of a financial character. You will understand that Willie did not +go into details with me. They were not imparted to him with very +great abundance either. But a bad mess--something of the criminal +order. Of course he was innocent. But he had to quit all the +same." + +"Ha! Ha!" Renouard laughed again abruptly, staring as before. "So +there's one more big F in the tale." + +"What do you mean?" inquired the Editor quickly, with an air as if +his patent were being infringed. + +"I mean--Fool." + +"No. I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that." + +"Well--let him be a scoundrel then. What the devil do I care." + +"But hold on! You haven't heard the end of the story." + +Renouard, his hat on his head already, sat down with the disdainful +smile of a man who had discounted the moral of the story. Still he +sat down and the Editor swung his revolving chair right round. He +was full of unction. + +"Imprudent, I should say. In many ways money is as dangerous to +handle as gunpowder. You can't be too careful either as to who you +are working with. Anyhow there was a mighty flashy burst up, a +sensation, and--his familiar haunts knew him no more. But before +he vanished he went to see Miss Moorsom. That very fact argues for +his innocence--don't it? What was said between them no man knows-- +unless the professor had the confidence from his daughter. There +couldn't have been much to say. There was nothing for it but to +let him go--was there?--for the affair had got into the papers. +And perhaps the kindest thing would have been to forget him. +Anyway the easiest. Forgiveness would have been more difficult, I +fancy, for a young lady of spirit and position drawn into an ugly +affair like that. Any ordinary young lady, I mean. Well, the +fellow asked nothing better than to be forgotten, only he didn't +find it easy to do so himself, because he would write home now and +then. Not to any of his friends though. He had no near relations. +The professor had been his guardian. No, the poor devil wrote now +and then to an old retired butler of his late father, somewhere in +the country, forbidding him at the same time to let any one know of +his whereabouts. So that worthy old ass would go up and dodge +about the Moorsom's town house, perhaps waylay Miss Moorsom's maid, +and then would write to 'Master Arthur' that the young lady looked +well and happy, or some such cheerful intelligence. I dare say he +wanted to be forgotten, but I shouldn't think he was much cheered +by the news. What would you say?" + +Renouard, his legs stretched out and his chin on his breast, said +nothing. A sensation which was not curiosity, but rather a vague +nervous anxiety, distinctly unpleasant, like a mysterious symptom +of some malady, prevented him from getting up and going away. + +"Mixed feelings," the Editor opined. "Many fellows out here +receive news from home with mixed feelings. But what will his +feelings be when he hears what I am going to tell you now? For we +know he has not heard yet. Six months ago a city clerk, just a +common drudge of finance, gets himself convicted of a common +embezzlement or something of that kind. Then seeing he's in for a +long sentence he thinks of making his conscience comfortable, and +makes a clean breast of an old story of tampered with, or else +suppressed, documents, a story which clears altogether the honesty +of our ruined gentleman. That embezzling fellow was in a position +to know, having been employed by the firm before the smash. There +was no doubt about the character being cleared--but where the +cleared man was nobody could tell. Another sensation in society. +And then Miss Moorsom says: 'He will come back to claim me, and +I'll marry him.' But he didn't come back. Between you and me I +don't think he was much wanted--except by Miss Moorsom. I imagine +she's used to have her own way. She grew impatient, and declared +that if she knew where the man was she would go to him. But all +that could be got out of the old butler was that the last envelope +bore the postmark of our beautiful city; and that this was the only +address of 'Master Arthur' that he ever had. That and no more. In +fact the fellow was at his last gasp--with a bad heart. Miss +Moorsom wasn't allowed to see him. She had gone herself into the +country to learn what she could, but she had to stay downstairs +while the old chap's wife went up to the invalid. She brought down +the scrap of intelligence I've told you of. He was already too far +gone to be cross-examined on it, and that very night he died. He +didn't leave behind him much to go by, did he? Our Willie hinted +to me that there had been pretty stormy days in the professor's +house, but--here they are. I have a notion she isn't the kind of +everyday young lady who may be permitted to gallop about the world +all by herself--eh? Well, I think it rather fine of her, but I +quite understand that the professor needed all his philosophy under +the circumstances. She is his only child now--and brilliant--what? +Willie positively spluttered trying to describe her to me; and I +could see directly you came in that you had an uncommon +experience." + +Renouard, with an irritated gesture, tilted his hat more forward on +his eyes, as though he were bored. The Editor went on with the +remark that to be sure neither he (Renouard) nor yet Willie were +much used to meet girls of that remarkable superiority. Willie +when learning business with a firm in London, years before, had +seen none but boarding-house society, he guessed. As to himself in +the good old days, when he trod the glorious flags of Fleet Street, +he neither had access to, nor yet would have cared for the swells. +Nothing interested him then but parliamentary politics and the +oratory of the House of Commons. + +He paid to this not very distant past the tribute of a tender, +reminiscent smile, and returned to his first idea that for a +society girl her action was rather fine. All the same the +professor could not be very pleased. The fellow if he was as pure +as a lily now was just about as devoid of the goods of the earth. +And there were misfortunes, however undeserved, which damaged a +man's standing permanently. On the other hand, it was difficult to +oppose cynically a noble impulse--not to speak of the great love at +the root of it. Ah! Love! And then the lady was quite capable of +going off by herself. She was of age, she had money of her own, +plenty of pluck too. Moorsom must have concluded that it was more +truly paternal, more prudent too, and generally safer all round to +let himself be dragged into this chase. The aunt came along for +the same reasons. It was given out at home as a trip round the +world of the usual kind. + +Renouard had risen and remained standing with his heart beating, +and strangely affected by this tale, robbed as it was of all +glamour by the prosaic personality of the narrator. The Editor +added: "I've been asked to help in the search--you know." + +Renouard muttered something about an appointment and went out into +the street. His inborn sanity could not defend him from a misty +creeping jealousy. He thought that obviously no man of that sort +could be worthy of such a woman's devoted fidelity. Renouard, +however, had lived long enough to reflect that a man's activities, +his views, and even his ideas may be very inferior to his +character; and moved by a delicate consideration for that splendid +girl he tried to think out for the man a character of inward +excellence and outward gifts--some extraordinary seduction. But in +vain. Fresh from months of solitude and from days at sea, her +splendour presented itself to him absolutely unconquerable in its +perfection, unless by her own folly. It was easier to suspect her +of this than to imagine in the man qualities which would be worthy +of her. Easier and less degrading. Because folly may be generous- +-could be nothing else but generosity in her; whereas to imagine +her subjugated by something common was intolerable. + +Because of the force of the physical impression he had received +from her personality (and such impressions are the real origins of +the deepest movements of our soul) this conception of her was even +inconceivable. But no Prince Charming has ever lived out of a +fairy tale. He doesn't walk the worlds of Fashion and Finance--and +with a stumbling gait at that. Generosity. Yes. It was her +generosity. But this generosity was altogether regal in its +splendour, almost absurd in its lavishness--or, perhaps, divine. + +In the evening, on board his schooner, sitting on the rail, his +arms folded on his breast and his eyes fixed on the deck, he let +the darkness catch him unawares in the midst of a meditation on the +mechanism of sentiment and the springs of passion. And all the +time he had an abiding consciousness of her bodily presence. The +effect on his senses had been so penetrating that in the middle of +the night, rousing up suddenly, wide-eyed in the darkness of his +cabin, he did not create a faint mental vision of her person for +himself, but, more intimately affected, he scented distinctly the +faint perfume she used, and could almost have sworn that he had +been awakened by the soft rustle of her dress. He even sat up +listening in the dark for a time, then sighed and lay down again, +not agitated but, on the contrary, oppressed by the sensation of +something that had happened to him and could not be undone. + + + +CHAPTER III + + + +In the afternoon he lounged into the editorial office, carrying +with affected nonchalance that weight of the irremediable he had +felt laid on him suddenly in the small hours of the night--that +consciousness of something that could no longer be helped. His +patronising friend informed him at once that he had made the +acquaintance of the Moorsom party last night. At the Dunsters, of +course. Dinner. + +"Very quiet. Nobody there. It was much better for the business. +I say . . ." + +Renouard, his hand grasping the back of a chair, stared down at him +dumbly. + +"Phew! That's a stunning girl. . . Why do you want to sit on that +chair? It's uncomfortable!" + +"I wasn't going to sit on it." Renouard walked slowly to the +window, glad to find in himself enough self-control to let go the +chair instead of raising it on high and bringing it down on the +Editor's head. + +"Willie kept on gazing at her with tears in his boiled eyes. You +should have seen him bending sentimentally over her at dinner." + +"Don't," said Renouard in such an anguished tone that the Editor +turned right round to look at his back. + +"You push your dislike of young Dunster too far. It's positively +morbid," he disapproved mildly. "We can't be all beautiful after +thirty. . . . I talked a little, about you mostly, to the +professor. He appeared to be interested in the silk plant--if only +as a change from the great subject. Miss Moorsom didn't seem to +mind when I confessed to her that I had taken you into the +confidence of the thing. Our Willie approved too. Old Dunster +with his white beard seemed to give me his blessing. All those +people have a great opinion of you, simply because I told them that +you've led every sort of life one can think of before you got +struck on exploration. They want you to make suggestions. What do +you think 'Master Arthur' is likely to have taken to?" + +"Something easy," muttered Renouard without unclenching his teeth. + +"Hunting man. Athlete. Don't be hard on the chap. He may be +riding boundaries, or droving cattle, or humping his swag about the +back-blocks away to the devil--somewhere. He may be even +prospecting at the back of beyond--this very moment." + +"Or lying dead drunk in a roadside pub. It's late enough in the +day for that." + +The Editor looked up instinctively. The clock was pointing at a +quarter to five. "Yes, it is," he admitted. "But it needn't be. +And he may have lit out into the Western Pacific all of a sudden-- +say in a trading schooner. Though I really don't see in what +capacity. Still . . . " + +"Or he may be passing at this very moment under this very window." + +"Not he . . . and I wish you would get away from it to where one +can see your face. I hate talking to a man's back. You stand +there like a hermit on a sea-shore growling to yourself. I tell +you what it is, Geoffrey, you don't like mankind." + +"I don't make my living by talking about mankind's affairs," +Renouard defended himself. But he came away obediently and sat +down in the armchair. "How can you be so certain that your man +isn't down there in the street?" he asked. "It's neither more nor +less probable than every single one of your other suppositions." + +Placated by Renouard's docility the Editor gazed at him for a +while. "Aha! I'll tell you how. Learn then that we have begun +the campaign. We have telegraphed his description to the police of +every township up and down the land. And what's more we've +ascertained definitely that he hasn't been in this town for the +last three months at least. How much longer he's been away we +can't tell." + +"That's very curious." + +"It's very simple. Miss Moorsom wrote to him, to the post office +here directly she returned to London after her excursion into the +country to see the old butler. Well--her letter is still lying +there. It has not been called for. Ergo, this town is not his +usual abode. Personally, I never thought it was. But he cannot +fail to turn up some time or other. Our main hope lies just in the +certitude that he must come to town sooner or later. Remember he +doesn't know that the butler is dead, and he will want to inquire +for a letter. Well, he'll find a note from Miss Moorsom." + +Renouard, silent, thought that it was likely enough. His profound +distaste for this conversation was betrayed by an air of weariness +darkening his energetic sun-tanned features, and by the augmented +dreaminess of his eyes. The Editor noted it as a further proof of +that immoral detachment from mankind, of that callousness of +sentiment fostered by the unhealthy conditions of solitude-- +according to his own favourite theory. Aloud he observed that as +long as a man had not given up correspondence he could not be +looked upon as lost. Fugitive criminals had been tracked in that +way by justice, he reminded his friend; then suddenly changed the +bearing of the subject somewhat by asking if Renouard had heard +from his people lately, and if every member of his large tribe was +well and happy. + +"Yes, thanks." + +The tone was curt, as if repelling a liberty. Renouard did not +like being asked about his people, for whom he had a profound and +remorseful affection. He had not seen a single human being to whom +he was related, for many years, and he was extremely different from +them all. + +On the very morning of his arrival from his island he had gone to a +set of pigeon-holes in Willie Dunster's outer office and had taken +out from a compartment labelled "Malata" a very small accumulation +of envelopes, a few addressed to himself, and one addressed to his +assistant, all to the care of the firm, W. Dunster and Co. As +opportunity offered, the firm used to send them on to Malata either +by a man-of-war schooner going on a cruise, or by some trading +craft proceeding that way. But for the last four months there had +been no opportunity. + +"You going to stay here some time?" asked the Editor, after a +longish silence. + +Renouard, perfunctorily, did see no reason why he should make a +long stay. + +"For health, for your mental health, my boy," rejoined the +newspaper man. "To get used to human faces so that they don't hit +you in the eye so hard when you walk about the streets. To get +friendly with your kind. I suppose that assistant of yours can be +trusted to look after things?" + +"There's the half-caste too. The Portuguese. He knows what's to +be done." + +"Aha!" The Editor looked sharply at his friend. "What's his +name?" + +"Who's name?" + +"The assistant's you picked up on the sly behind my back." + +Renouard made a slight movement of impatience. + +"I met him unexpectedly one evening. I thought he would do as well +as another. He had come from up country and didn't seem happy in a +town. He told me his name was Walter. I did not ask him for +proofs, you know." + +"I don't think you get on very well with him." + +"Why? What makes you think so." + +"I don't know. Something reluctant in your manner when he's in +question." + +"Really. My manner! I don't think he's a great subject for +conversation, perhaps. Why not drop him?" + +"Of course! You wouldn't confess to a mistake. Not you. +Nevertheless I have my suspicions about it." + +Renouard got up to go, but hesitated, looking down at the seated +Editor. + +"How funny," he said at last with the utmost seriousness, and was +making for the door, when the voice of his friend stopped him. + +"You know what has been said of you? That you couldn't get on with +anybody you couldn't kick. Now, confess--is there any truth in the +soft impeachment?" + +"No," said Renouard. "Did you print that in your paper." + +"No. I didn't quite believe it. But I will tell you what I +believe. I believe that when your heart is set on some object you +are a man that doesn't count the cost to yourself or others. And +this shall get printed some day." + +"Obituary notice?" Renouard dropped negligently. + +"Certain--some day." + +"Do you then regard yourself as immortal?" + +"No, my boy. I am not immortal. But the voice of the press goes +on for ever. . . . And it will say that this was the secret of your +great success in a task where better men than you--meaning no +offence--did fail repeatedly." + +"Success," muttered Renouard, pulling-to the office door after him +with considerable energy. And the letters of the word PRIVATE like +a row of white eyes seemed to stare after his back sinking down the +staircase of that temple of publicity. + +Renouard had no doubt that all the means of publicity would be put +at the service of love and used for the discovery of the loved man. +He did not wish him dead. He did not wish him any harm. We are +all equipped with a fund of humanity which is not exhausted without +many and repeated provocations--and this man had done him no evil. +But before Renouard had left old Dunster's house, at the conclusion +of the call he made there that very afternoon, he had discovered in +himself the desire that the search might last long. He never +really flattered himself that it might fail. It seemed to him that +there was no other course in this world for himself, for all +mankind, but resignation. And he could not help thinking that +Professor Moorsom had arrived at the same conclusion too. + +Professor Moorsom, slight frame of middle height, a thoughtful keen +head under the thick wavy hair, veiled dark eyes under straight +eyebrows, and with an inward gaze which when disengaged and +arriving at one seemed to issue from an obscure dream of books, +from the limbo of meditation, showed himself extremely gracious to +him. Renouard guessed in him a man whom an incurable habit of +investigation and analysis had made gentle and indulgent; inapt for +action, and more sensitive to the thoughts than to the events of +existence. Withal not crushed, sub-ironic without a trace of +acidity, and with a simple manner which put people at ease quickly. +They had a long conversation on the terrace commanding an extended +view of the town and the harbour. + +The splendid immobility of the bay resting under his gaze, with its +grey spurs and shining indentations, helped Renouard to regain his +self-possession, which he had felt shaken, in coming out on the +terrace, into the setting of the most powerful emotion of his life, +when he had sat within a foot of Miss Moorsom with fire in his +breast, a humming in his ears, and in a complete disorder of his +mind. There was the very garden seat on which he had been +enveloped in the radiant spell. And presently he was sitting on it +again with the professor talking of her. Near by the patriarchal +Dunster leaned forward in a wicker arm-chair, benign and a little +deaf, his big hand to his ear with the innocent eagerness of his +advanced age remembering the fires of life. + +It was with a sort of apprehension that Renouard looked forward to +seeing Miss Moorsom. And strangely enough it resembled the state +of mind of a man who fears disenchantment more than sortilege. But +he need not have been afraid. Directly he saw her in a distance at +the other end of the terrace he shuddered to the roots of his hair. +With her approach the power of speech left him for a time. Mrs. +Dunster and her aunt were accompanying her. All these people sat +down; it was an intimate circle into which Renouard felt himself +cordially admitted; and the talk was of the great search which +occupied all their minds. Discretion was expected by these people, +but of reticence as to the object of the journey there could be no +question. Nothing but ways and means and arrangements could be +talked about. + +By fixing his eyes obstinately on the ground, which gave him an air +of reflective sadness, Renouard managed to recover his self- +possession. He used it to keep his voice in a low key and to +measure his words on the great subject. And he took care with a +great inward effort to make them reasonable without giving them a +discouraging complexion. For he did not want the quest to be given +up, since it would mean her going away with her two attendant grey- +heads to the other side of the world. + +He was asked to come again, to come often and take part in the +counsels of all these people captivated by the sentimental +enterprise of a declared love. On taking Miss Moorsom's hand he +looked up, would have liked to say something, but found himself +voiceless, with his lips suddenly sealed. She returned the +pressure of his fingers, and he left her with her eyes vaguely +staring beyond him, an air of listening for an expected sound, and +the faintest possible smile on her lips. A smile not for him, +evidently, but the reflection of some deep and inscrutable thought. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + +He went on board his schooner. She lay white, and as if suspended, +in the crepuscular atmosphere of sunset mingling with the ashy +gleam of the vast anchorage. He tried to keep his thoughts as +sober, as reasonable, as measured as his words had been, lest they +should get away from him and cause some sort of moral disaster. +What he was afraid of in the coming night was sleeplessness and the +endless strain of that wearisome task. It had to be faced however. +He lay on his back, sighing profoundly in the dark, and suddenly +beheld his very own self, carrying a small bizarre lamp, reflected +in a long mirror inside a room in an empty and unfurnished palace. +In this startling image of himself he recognised somebody he had to +follow--the frightened guide of his dream. He traversed endless +galleries, no end of lofty halls, innumerable doors. He lost +himself utterly--he found his way again. Room succeeded room. At +last the lamp went out, and he stumbled against some object which, +when he stooped for it, he found to be very cold and heavy to lift. +The sickly white light of dawn showed him the head of a statue. +Its marble hair was done in the bold lines of a helmet, on its lips +the chisel had left a faint smile, and it resembled Miss Moorsom. +While he was staring at it fixedly, the head began to grow light in +his fingers, to diminish and crumble to pieces, and at last turned +into a handful of dust, which was blown away by a puff of wind so +chilly that he woke up with a desperate shiver and leaped headlong +out of his bed-place. The day had really come. He sat down by the +cabin table, and taking his head between his hands, did not stir +for a very long time. + +Very quiet, he set himself to review this dream. The lamp, of +course, he connected with the search for a man. But on closer +examination he perceived that the reflection of himself in the +mirror was not really the true Renouard, but somebody else whose +face he could not remember. In the deserted palace he recognised a +sinister adaptation by his brain of the long corridors with many +doors, in the great building in which his friend's newspaper was +lodged on the first floor. The marble head with Miss Moorsom's +face! Well! What other face could he have dreamed of? And her +complexion was fairer than Parian marble, than the heads of angels. +The wind at the end was the morning breeze entering through the +open porthole and touching his face before the schooner could swing +to the chilly gust. + +Yes! And all this rational explanation of the fantastic made it +only more mysterious and weird. There was something daemonic in +that dream. It was one of those experiences which throw a man out +of conformity with the established order of his kind and make him a +creature of obscure suggestions. + +Henceforth, without ever trying to resist, he went every afternoon +to the house where she lived. He went there as passively as if in +a dream. He could never make out how he had attained the footing +of intimacy in the Dunster mansion above the bay--whether on the +ground of personal merit or as the pioneer of the vegetable silk +industry. It must have been the last, because he remembered +distinctly, as distinctly as in a dream, hearing old Dunster once +telling him that his next public task would be a careful survey of +the Northern Districts to discover tracts suitable for the +cultivation of the silk plant. The old man wagged his beard at him +sagely. It was indeed as absurd as a dream. + +Willie of course would be there in the evening. But he was more of +a figure out of a nightmare, hovering about the circle of chairs in +his dress-clothes like a gigantic, repulsive, and sentimental bat. +"Do away with the beastly cocoons all over the world," he buzzed in +his blurred, water-logged voice. He affected a great horror of +insects of all kinds. One evening he appeared with a red flower in +his button-hole. Nothing could have been more disgustingly +fantastic. And he would also say to Renouard: "You may yet change +the history of our country. For economic conditions do shape the +history of nations. Eh? What?" And he would turn to Miss Moorsom +for approval, lowering protectingly his spatulous nose and looking +up with feeling from under his absurd eyebrows, which grew thin, in +the manner of canebrakes, out of his spongy skin. For this large, +bilious creature was an economist and a sentimentalist, facile to +tears, and a member of the Cobden Club. + +In order to see as little of him as possible Renouard began coming +earlier so as to get away before his arrival, without curtailing +too much the hours of secret contemplation for which he lived. He +had given up trying to deceive himself. His resignation was +without bounds. He accepted the immense misfortune of being in +love with a woman who was in search of another man only to throw +herself into his arms. With such desperate precision he defined in +his thoughts the situation, the consciousness of which traversed +like a sharp arrow the sudden silences of general conversation. +The only thought before which he quailed was the thought that this +could not last; that it must come to an end. He feared it +instinctively as a sick man may fear death. For it seemed to him +that it must be the death of him followed by a lightless, +bottomless pit. But his resignation was not spared the torments of +jealousy: the cruel, insensate, poignant, and imbecile jealousy, +when it seems that a woman betrays us simply by this that she +exists, that she breathes--and when the deep movements of her +nerves or her soul become a matter of distracting suspicion, of +killing doubt, of mortal anxiety. + +In the peculiar condition of their sojourn Miss Moorsom went out +very little. She accepted this seclusion at the Dunsters' mansion +as in a hermitage, and lived there, watched over by a group of old +people, with the lofty endurance of a condescending and strong- +headed goddess. It was impossible to say if she suffered from +anything in the world, and whether this was the insensibility of a +great passion concentrated on itself, or a perfect restraint of +manner, or the indifference of superiority so complete as to be +sufficient to itself. But it was visible to Renouard that she took +some pleasure in talking to him at times. Was it because he was +the only person near her age? Was this, then, the secret of his +admission to the circle? + +He admired her voice as well poised as her movements, as her +attitudes. He himself had always been a man of tranquil tones. +But the power of fascination had torn him out of his very nature so +completely that to preserve his habitual calmness from going to +pieces had become a terrible effort. + +He used to go from her on board the schooner exhausted, broken, +shaken up, as though he had been put to the most exquisite torture. +When he saw her approaching he always had a moment of +hallucination. She was a misty and fair creature, fitted for +invisible music, for the shadows of love, for the murmurs of +waters. After a time (he could not be always staring at the +ground) he would summon up all his resolution and look at her. +There was a sparkle in the clear obscurity of her eyes; and when +she turned them on him they seemed to give a new meaning to life. +He would say to himself that another man would have found long +before the happy release of madness, his wits burnt to cinders in +that radiance. But no such luck for him. His wits had come +unscathed through the furnaces of hot suns, of blazing deserts, of +flaming angers against the weaknesses of men and the obstinate +cruelties of hostile nature. + +Being sane he had to be constantly on his guard against falling +into adoring silences or breaking out into wild speeches. He had +to keep watch on his eyes, his limbs, on the muscles of his face. +Their conversations were such as they could be between these two +people: she a young lady fresh from the thick twilight of four +million people and the artificiality of several London seasons; he +the man of definite conquering tasks, the familiar of wide +horizons, and in his very repose holding aloof from these +agglomerations of units in which one loses one's importance even to +oneself. They had no common conversational small change. They had +to use the great pieces of general ideas, but they exchanged them +trivially. It was no serious commerce. Perhaps she had not much +of that coin. Nothing significant came from her. It could not be +said that she had received from the contacts of the external world +impressions of a personal kind, different from other women. What +was ravishing in her was her quietness and, in her grave attitudes, +the unfailing brilliance of her femininity. He did not know what +there was under that ivory forehead so splendidly shaped, so +gloriously crowned. He could not tell what were her thoughts, her +feelings. Her replies were reflective, always preceded by a short +silence, while he hung on her lips anxiously. He felt himself in +the presence of a mysterious being in whom spoke an unknown voice, +like the voice of oracles, bringing everlasting unrest to the +heart. + +He was thankful enough to sit in silence with secretly clenched +teeth, devoured by jealousy--and nobody could have guessed that his +quiet deferential bearing to all these grey-heads was the supreme +effort of stoicism, that the man was engaged in keeping a sinister +watch on his tortures lest his strength should fail him. As +before, when grappling with other forces of nature, he could find +in himself all sorts of courage except the courage to run away. + +It was perhaps from the lack of subjects they could have in common +that Miss Moorsom made him so often speak of his own life. He did +not shrink from talking about himself, for he was free from that +exacerbated, timid vanity which seals so many vain-glorious lips. +He talked to her in his restrained voice, gazing at the tip of her +shoe, and thinking that the time was bound to come soon when her +very inattention would get weary of him. And indeed on stealing a +glance he would see her dazzling and perfect, her eyes vague, +staring in mournful immobility, with a drooping head that made him +think of a tragic Venus arising before him, not from the foam of +the sea, but from a distant, still more formless, mysterious, and +potent immensity of mankind. + + + +CHAPTER V + + + +One afternoon Renouard stepping out on the terrace found nobody +there. It was for him, at the same time, a melancholy +disappointment and a poignant relief. + +The heat was great, the air was still, all the long windows of the +house stood wide open. At the further end, grouped round a lady's +work-table, several chairs disposed sociably suggested invisible +occupants, a company of conversing shades. Renouard looked towards +them with a sort of dread. A most elusive, faint sound of ghostly +talk issuing from one of the rooms added to the illusion and +stopped his already hesitating footsteps. He leaned over the +balustrade of stone near a squat vase holding a tropical plant of a +bizarre shape. Professor Moorsom coming up from the garden with a +book under his arm and a white parasol held over his bare head, +found him there and, closing the parasol, leaned over by his side +with a remark on the increasing heat of the season. Renouard +assented and changed his position a little; the other, after a +short silence, administered unexpectedly a question which, like the +blow of a club on the head, deprived Renouard of the power of +speech and even thought, but, more cruel, left him quivering with +apprehension, not of death but of everlasting torment. Yet the +words were extremely simple. + +"Something will have to be done soon. We can't remain in a state +of suspended expectation for ever. Tell me what do you think of +our chances?" + +Renouard, speechless, produced a faint smile. The professor +confessed in a jocular tone his impatience to complete the circuit +of the globe and be done with it. It was impossible to remain +quartered on the dear excellent Dunsters for an indefinite time. +And then there were the lectures he had arranged to deliver in +Paris. A serious matter. + +That lectures by Professor Moorsom were a European event and that +brilliant audiences would gather to hear them Renouard did not +know. All he was aware of was the shock of this hint of departure. +The menace of separation fell on his head like a thunderbolt. And +he saw the absurdity of his emotion, for hadn't he lived all these +days under the very cloud? The professor, his elbows spread out, +looked down into the garden and went on unburdening his mind. Yes. +The department of sentiment was directed by his daughter, and she +had plenty of volunteered moral support; but he had to look after +the practical side of life without assistance. + +"I have the less hesitation in speaking to you about my anxiety, +because I feel you are friendly to us and at the same time you are +detached from all these sublimities--confound them." + +"What do you mean?" murmured Renouard. + +"I mean that you are capable of calm judgment. Here the atmosphere +is simply detestable. Everybody has knuckled under to sentiment. +Perhaps your deliberate opinion could influence . . ." + +"You want Miss Moorsom to give it up?" The professor turned to the +young man dismally. + +"Heaven only knows what I want." + +Renouard leaning his back against the balustrade folded his arms on +his breast, appeared to meditate profoundly. His face, shaded +softly by the broad brim of a planter's Panama hat, with the +straight line of the nose level with the forehead, the eyes lost in +the depth of the setting, and the chin well forward, had such a +profile as may be seen amongst the bronzes of classical museums, +pure under a crested helmet--recalled vaguely a Minerva's head. + +"This is the most troublesome time I ever had in my life," +exclaimed the professor testily. + +"Surely the man must be worth it," muttered Renouard with a pang of +jealousy traversing his breast like a self-inflicted stab. + +Whether enervated by the heat or giving way to pent up irritation +the professor surrendered himself to the mood of sincerity. + +"He began by being a pleasantly dull boy. He developed into a +pointlessly clever young man, without, I suspect, ever trying to +understand anything. My daughter knew him from childhood. I am a +busy man, and I confess that their engagement was a complete +surprise to me. I wish their reasons for that step had been more +naive. But simplicity was out of fashion in their set. From a +worldly point of view he seems to have been a mere baby. Of +course, now, I am assured that he is the victim of his noble +confidence in the rectitude of his kind. But that's mere +idealising of a sad reality. For my part I will tell you that from +the very beginning I had the gravest doubts of his dishonesty. +Unfortunately my clever daughter hadn't. And now we behold the +reaction. No. To be earnestly dishonest one must be really poor. +This was only a manifestation of his extremely refined cleverness. +The complicated simpleton. He had an awful awakening though." + +In such words did Professor Moorsom give his "young friend" to +understand the state of his feelings toward the lost man. It was +evident that the father of Miss Moorsom wished him to remain lost. +Perhaps the unprecedented heat of the season made him long for the +cool spaces of the Pacific, the sweep of the ocean's free wind +along the promenade decks, cumbered with long chairs, of a ship +steaming towards the Californian coast. To Renouard the +philosopher appeared simply the most treacherous of fathers. He +was amazed. But he was not at the end of his discoveries. + +"He may be dead," the professor murmured. + +"Why? People don't die here sooner than in Europe. If he had gone +to hide in Italy, for instance, you wouldn't think of saying that." + +"Well! And suppose he has become morally disintegrated. You know +he was not a strong personality," the professor suggested moodily. +"My daughter's future is in question here." + +Renouard thought that the love of such a woman was enough to pull +any broken man together--to drag a man out of his grave. And he +thought this with inward despair, which kept him silent as much +almost as his astonishment. At last he managed to stammer out a +generous - + +"Oh! Don't let us even suppose. . ." + +The professor struck in with a sadder accent than before - + +"It's good to be young. And then you have been a man of action, +and necessarily a believer in success. But I have been looking too +long at life not to distrust its surprises. Age! Age! Here I +stand before you a man full of doubts and hesitation--spe lentus, +timidus futuri." + +He made a sign to Renouard not to interrupt, and in a lowered +voice, as if afraid of being overheard, even there, in the solitude +of the terrace - + +"And the worst is that I am not even sure how far this sentimental +pilgrimage is genuine. Yes. I doubt my own child. It's true that +she's a woman. . . . " + +Renouard detected with horror a tone of resentment, as if the +professor had never forgiven his daughter for not dying instead of +his son. The latter noticed the young man's stony stare. + +"Ah! you don't understand. Yes, she's clever, open-minded, +popular, and--well, charming. But you don't know what it is to +have moved, breathed, existed, and even triumphed in the mere +smother and froth of life--the brilliant froth. There thoughts, +sentiments, opinions, feelings, actions too, are nothing but +agitation in empty space--to amuse life--a sort of superior +debauchery, exciting and fatiguing, meaning nothing, leading +nowhere. She is the creature of that circle. And I ask myself if +she is obeying the uneasiness of an instinct seeking its +satisfaction, or is it a revulsion of feeling, or is she merely +deceiving her own heart by this dangerous trifling with romantic +images. And everything is possible--except sincerity, such as only +stark, struggling humanity can know. No woman can stand that mode +of life in which women rule, and remain a perfectly genuine, simple +human being. Ah! There's some people coming out." + +He moved off a pace, then turning his head: "Upon my word! I +would be infinitely obliged to you if you could throw a little cold +water. . . " and at a vaguely dismayed gesture of Renouard, he +added: "Don't be afraid. You wouldn't be putting out a sacred +fire." + +Renouard could hardly find words for a protest: "I assure you that +I never talk with Miss Moorsom--on--on--that. And if you, her +father . . . " + +"I envy you your innocence," sighed the professor. "A father is +only an everyday person. Flat. Stale. Moreover, my child would +naturally mistrust me. We belong to the same set. Whereas you +carry with you the prestige of the unknown. You have proved +yourself to be a force." + +Thereupon the professor followed by Renouard joined the circle of +all the inmates of the house assembled at the other end of the +terrace about a tea-table; three white heads and that resplendent +vision of woman's glory, the sight of which had the power to +flutter his heart like a reminder of the mortality of his frame. + +He avoided the seat by the side of Miss Moorsom. The others were +talking together languidly. Unnoticed he looked at that woman so +marvellous that centuries seemed to lie between them. He was +oppressed and overcome at the thought of what she could give to +some man who really would be a force! What a glorious struggle +with this amazon. What noble burden for the victorious strength. + +Dear old Mrs. Dunster was dispensing tea, looking from time to time +with interest towards Miss Moorsom. The aged statesman having +eaten a raw tomato and drunk a glass of milk (a habit of his early +farming days, long before politics, when, pioneer of wheat-growing, +he demonstrated the possibility of raising crops on ground looking +barren enough to discourage a magician), smoothed his white beard, +and struck lightly Renouard's knee with his big wrinkled hand. + +"You had better come back to-night and dine with us quietly." + +He liked this young man, a pioneer, too, in more than one +direction. Mrs. Dunster added: "Do. It will be very quiet. I +don't even know if Willie will be home for dinner." Renouard +murmured his thanks, and left the terrace to go on board the +schooner. While lingering in the drawing-room doorway he heard the +resonant voice of old Dunster uttering oracularly - + +". . . the leading man here some day. . . . Like me." + +Renouard let the thin summer portiere of the doorway fall behind +him. The voice of Professor Moorsom said - + +"I am told that he has made an enemy of almost every man who had to +work with him." + +"That's nothing. He did his work. . . . Like me." + +"He never counted the cost they say. Not even of lives." + +Renouard understood that they were talking of him. Before he could +move away, Mrs. Dunster struck in placidly - + +"Don't let yourself be shocked by the tales you may hear of him, my +dear. Most of it is envy." + +Then he heard Miss Moorsom's voice replying to the old lady - + +"Oh! I am not easily deceived. I think I may say I have an +instinct for truth." + +He hastened away from that house with his heart full of dread. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + + +On board the schooner, lying on the settee on his back with the +knuckles of his hands pressed over his eyes, he made up his mind +that he would not return to that house for dinner--that he would +never go back there any more. He made up his mind some twenty +times. The knowledge that he had only to go up on the quarter +deck, utter quietly the words: "Man the windlass," and that the +schooner springing into life would run a hundred miles out to sea +before sunrise, deceived his struggling will. Nothing easier! +Yet, in the end, this young man, almost ill-famed for his ruthless +daring, the inflexible leader of two tragically successful +expeditions, shrank from that act of savage energy, and began, +instead, to hunt for excuses. + +No! It was not for him to run away like an incurable who cuts his +throat. He finished dressing and looked at his own impassive face +in the saloon mirror scornfully. While being pulled on shore in +the gig, he remembered suddenly the wild beauty of a waterfall seen +when hardly more than a boy, years ago, in Menado. There was a +legend of a governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, on official +tour, committing suicide on that spot by leaping into the chasm. +It was supposed that a painful disease had made him weary of life. +But was there ever a visitation like his own, at the same time +binding one to life and so cruelly mortal! + +The dinner was indeed quiet. Willie, given half an hour's grace, +failed to turn up, and his chair remained vacant by the side of +Miss Moorsom. Renouard had the professor's sister on his left, +dressed in an expensive gown becoming her age. That maiden lady in +her wonderful preservation reminded Renouard somehow of a wax +flower under glass. There were no traces of the dust of life's +battles on her anywhere. She did not like him very much in the +afternoons, in his white drill suit and planter's hat, which seemed +to her an unduly Bohemian costume for calling in a house where +there were ladies. But in the evening, lithe and elegant in his +dress clothes and with his pleasant, slightly veiled voice, he +always made her conquest afresh. He might have been anybody +distinguished--the son of a duke. Falling under that charm +probably (and also because her brother had given her a hint), she +attempted to open her heart to Renouard, who was watching with all +the power of his soul her niece across the table. She spoke to him +as frankly as though that miserable mortal envelope, emptied of +everything but hopeless passion, were indeed the son of a duke. + +Inattentive, he heard her only in snatches, till the final +confidential burst: ". . . glad if you would express an opinion. +Look at her, so charming, such a great favourite, so generally +admired! It would be too sad. We all hoped she would make a +brilliant marriage with somebody very rich and of high position, +have a house in London and in the country, and entertain us all +splendidly. She's so eminently fitted for it. She has such hosts +of distinguished friends! And then--this instead! . . . My heart +really aches." + +Her well-bred if anxious whisper was covered by the voice of +professor Moorsom discoursing subtly down the short length of the +dinner table on the Impermanency of the Measurable to his venerable +disciple. It might have been a chapter in a new and popular book +of Moorsonian philosophy. Patriarchal and delighted, old Dunster +leaned forward a little, his eyes shining youthfully, two spots of +colour at the roots of his white beard; and Renouard, glancing at +the senile excitement, recalled the words heard on those subtle +lips, adopted their scorn for his own, saw their truth before this +man ready to be amused by the side of the grave. Yes! +Intellectual debauchery in the froth of existence! Froth and +fraud! + +On the same side of the table Miss Moorsom never once looked +towards her father, all her grace as if frozen, her red lips +compressed, the faintest rosiness under her dazzling complexion, +her black eyes burning motionless, and the very coppery gleams of +light lying still on the waves and undulation of her hair. +Renouard fancied himself overturning the table, smashing crystal +and china, treading fruit and flowers under foot, seizing her in +his arms, carrying her off in a tumult of shrieks from all these +people, a silent frightened mortal, into some profound retreat as +in the age of Cavern men. Suddenly everybody got up, and he +hastened to rise too, finding himself out of breath and quite +unsteady on his feet. + +On the terrace the philosopher, after lighting a cigar, slipped his +hand condescendingly under his "dear young friend's" arm. Renouard +regarded him now with the profoundest mistrust. But the great man +seemed really to have a liking for his young friend--one of those +mysterious sympathies, disregarding the differences of age and +position, which in this case might have been explained by the +failure of philosophy to meet a very real worry of a practical +kind. + +After a turn or two and some casual talk the professor said +suddenly: "My late son was in your school--do you know? I can +imagine that had he lived and you had ever met you would have +understood each other. He too was inclined to action." + +He sighed, then, shaking off the mournful thought and with a nod at +the dusky part of the terrace where the dress of his daughter made +a luminous stain: "I really wish you would drop in that quarter a +few sensible, discouraging words." + +Renouard disengaged himself from that most perfidious of men under +the pretence of astonishment, and stepping back a pace - + +"Surely you are making fun of me, Professor Moorsom," he said with +a low laugh, which was really a sound of rage. + +"My dear young friend! It's no subject for jokes, to me. . . You +don't seem to have any notion of your prestige," he added, walking +away towards the chairs. + +"Humbug!" thought Renouard, standing still and looking after him. +"And yet! And yet! What if it were true?" + +He advanced then towards Miss Moorsom. Posed on the seat on which +they had first spoken to each other, it was her turn to watch him +coming on. But many of the windows were not lighted that evening. +It was dark over there. She appeared to him luminous in her clear +dress, a figure without shape, a face without features, awaiting +his approach, till he got quite near to her, sat down, and they had +exchanged a few insignificant words. Gradually she came out like a +magic painting of charm, fascination, and desire, glowing +mysteriously on the dark background. Something imperceptible in +the lines of her attitude, in the modulations of her voice, seemed +to soften that suggestion of calm unconscious pride which enveloped +her always like a mantle. He, sensitive like a bond slave to the +moods of the master, was moved by the subtle relenting of her grace +to an infinite tenderness. He fought down the impulse to seize her +by the hand, lead her down into the garden away under the big +trees, and throw himself at her feet uttering words of love. His +emotion was so strong that he had to cough slightly, and not +knowing what to talk to her about he began to tell her of his +mother and sisters. All the family were coming to London to live +there, for some little time at least. + +"I hope you will go and tell them something of me. Something +seen," he said pressingly. + +By this miserable subterfuge, like a man about to part with his +life, he hoped to make her remember him a little longer. + +"Certainly," she said. "I'll be glad to call when I get back. But +that 'when' may be a long time." + +He heard a light sigh. A cruel jealous curiosity made him ask - + +"Are you growing weary, Miss Moorsom?" + +A silence fell on his low spoken question. + +"Do you mean heart-weary?" sounded Miss Moorsom's voice. "You +don't know me, I see." + +"Ah! Never despair," he muttered. + +"This, Mr. Renouard, is a work of reparation. I stand for truth +here. I can't think of myself." + +He could have taken her by the throat for every word seemed an +insult to his passion; but he only said - + +"I never doubted the--the--nobility of your purpose." + +"And to hear the word weariness pronounced in this connection +surprises me. And from a man too who, I understand, has never +counted the cost." + +"You are pleased to tease me," he said, directly he had recovered +his voice and had mastered his anger. It was as if Professor +Moorsom had dropped poison in his ear which was spreading now and +tainting his passion, his very jealousy. He mistrusted every word +that came from those lips on which his life hung. "How can you +know anything of men who do not count the cost?" he asked in his +gentlest tones. + +"From hearsay--a little." + +"Well, I assure you they are like the others, subject to suffering, +victims of spells. . . ." + +"One of them, at least, speaks very strangely." + +She dismissed the subject after a short silence. "Mr. Renouard, I +had a disappointment this morning. This mail brought me a letter +from the widow of the old butler--you know. I expected to learn +that she had heard from--from here. But no. No letter arrived +home since we left." + +Her voice was calm. His jealousy couldn't stand much more of this +sort of talk; but he was glad that nothing had turned up to help +the search; glad blindly, unreasonably--only because it would keep +her longer in his sight--since she wouldn't give up. + +"I am too near her," he thought, moving a little further on the +seat. He was afraid in the revulsion of feeling of flinging +himself on her hands, which were lying on her lap, and covering +them with kisses. He was afraid. Nothing, nothing could shake +that spell--not if she were ever so false, stupid, or degraded. +She was fate itself. The extent of his misfortune plunged him in +such a stupor that he failed at first to hear the sound of voices +and footsteps inside the drawing-room. Willie had come home--and +the Editor was with him. + +They burst out on the terrace babbling noisily, and then pulling +themselves together stood still, surprising--and as if themselves +surprised. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + + +They had been feasting a poet from the bush, the latest discovery +of the Editor. Such discoveries were the business, the vocation, +the pride and delight of the only apostle of letters in the +hemisphere, the solitary patron of culture, the Slave of the Lamp-- +as he subscribed himself at the bottom of the weekly literary page +of his paper. He had had no difficulty in persuading the virtuous +Willie (who had festive instincts) to help in the good work, and +now they had left the poet lying asleep on the hearthrug of the +editorial room and had rushed to the Dunster mansion wildly. The +Editor had another discovery to announce. Swaying a little where +he stood he opened his mouth very wide to shout the one word +"Found!" Behind him Willie flung both his hands above his head and +let them fall dramatically. Renouard saw the four white-headed +people at the end of the terrace rise all together from their +chairs with an effect of sudden panic. + +"I tell you--he--is--found," the patron of letters shouted +emphatically. + +"What is this!" exclaimed Renouard in a choked voice. Miss Moorsom +seized his wrist suddenly, and at that contact fire ran through all +his veins, a hot stillness descended upon him in which he heard the +blood--or the fire--beating in his ears. He made a movement as if +to rise, but was restrained by the convulsive pressure on his +wrist. + +"No, no." Miss Moorsom's eyes stared black as night, searching the +space before her. Far away the Editor strutted forward, Willie +following with his ostentatious manner of carrying his bulky and +oppressive carcass which, however, did not remain exactly +perpendicular for two seconds together. + +"The innocent Arthur . . . Yes. We've got him," the Editor became +very business-like. "Yes, this letter has done it." + +He plunged into an inside pocket for it, slapped the scrap of paper +with his open palm. "From that old woman. William had it in his +pocket since this morning when Miss Moorsom gave it to him to show +me. Forgot all about it till an hour ago. Thought it was of no +importance. Well, no! Not till it was properly read." + +Renouard and Miss Moorsom emerged from the shadows side by side, a +well-matched couple, animated yet statuesque in their calmness and +in their pallor. She had let go his wrist. On catching sight of +Renouard the Editor exclaimed: + +"What--you here!" in a quite shrill voice. + +There came a dead pause. All the faces had in them something +dismayed and cruel. + +"He's the very man we want," continued the Editor. "Excuse my +excitement. You are the very man, Renouard. Didn't you tell me +that your assistant called himself Walter? Yes? Thought so. But +here's that old woman--the butler's wife--listen to this. She +writes: All I can tell you, Miss, is that my poor husband directed +his letters to the name of H. Walter." + +Renouard's violent but repressed exclamation was lost in a general +murmur and shuffle of feet. The Editor made a step forward, bowed +with creditable steadiness. + +"Miss Moorsom, allow me to congratulate you from the bottom of my +heart on the happy--er--issue. . . " + +"Wait," muttered Renouard irresolutely. + +The Editor jumped on him in the manner of their old friendship. +"Ah, you! You are a fine fellow too. With your solitary ways of +life you will end by having no more discrimination than a savage. +Fancy living with a gentleman for months and never guessing. A +man, I am certain, accomplished, remarkable, out of the common, +since he had been distinguished" (he bowed again) "by Miss Moorsom, +whom we all admire." + +She turned her back on him. + +"I hope to goodness you haven't been leading him a dog's life, +Geoffrey," the Editor addressed his friend in a whispered aside. + +Renouard seized a chair violently, sat down, and propping his elbow +on his knee leaned his head on his hand. Behind him the sister of +the professor looked up to heaven and wrung her hands stealthily. +Mrs. Dunster's hands were clasped forcibly under her chin, but she, +dear soul, was looking sorrowfully at Willie. The model nephew! +In this strange state! So very much flushed! The careful +disposition of the thin hairs across Willie's bald spot was +deplorably disarranged, and the spot itself was red and, as it +were, steaming. + +"What's the matter, Geoffrey?" The Editor seemed disconcerted by +the silent attitudes round him, as though he had expected all these +people to shout and dance. "You have him on the island--haven't +you?" + +"Oh, yes: I have him there," said Renouard, without looking up. + +"Well, then!" The Editor looked helplessly around as if begging +for response of some sort. But the only response that came was +very unexpected. Annoyed at being left in the background, and also +because very little drink made him nasty, the emotional Willie +turned malignant all at once, and in a bibulous tone surprising in +a man able to keep his balance so well - + +"Aha! But you haven't got him here--not yet!" he sneered. "No! +You haven't got him yet." + +This outrageous exhibition was to the Editor like the lash to a +jaded horse. He positively jumped. + +"What of that? What do you mean? We--haven't--got--him--here. Of +course he isn't here! But Geoffrey's schooner is here. She can be +sent at once to fetch him here. No! Stay! There's a better plan. +Why shouldn't you all sail over to Malata, professor? Save time! +I am sure Miss Moorsom would prefer. . ." + +With a gallant flourish of his arm he looked for Miss Moorsom. She +had disappeared. He was taken aback somewhat. + +"Ah! H'm. Yes. . . . Why not. A pleasure cruise, delightful +ship, delightful season, delightful errand, del . . . No! There +are no objections. Geoffrey, I understand, has indulged in a +bungalow three sizes too large for him. He can put you all up. It +will be a pleasure for him. It will be the greatest privilege. +Any man would be proud of being an agent of this happy reunion. I +am proud of the little part I've played. He will consider it the +greatest honour. Geoff, my boy, you had better be stirring to- +morrow bright and early about the preparations for the trip. It +would be criminal to lose a single day." + +He was as flushed as Willie, the excitement keeping up the effect +of the festive dinner. For a time Renouard, silent, as if he had +not heard a word of all that babble, did not stir. But when he got +up it was to advance towards the Editor and give him such a hearty +slap on the back that the plump little man reeled in his tracks and +looked quite frightened for a moment. + +"You are a heaven-born discoverer and a first-rate manager. . . +He's right. It's the only way. You can't resist the claim of +sentiment, and you must even risk the voyage to Malata. . . " +Renouard's voice sank. "A lonely spot," he added, and fell into +thought under all these eyes converging on him in the sudden +silence. His slow glance passed over all the faces in succession, +remaining arrested on Professor Moorsom, stony eyed, a smouldering +cigar in his fingers, and with his sister standing by his side. + +"I shall be infinitely gratified if you consent to come. But, of +course, you will. We shall sail to-morrow evening then. And now +let me leave you to your happiness." + +He bowed, very grave, pointed suddenly his finger at Willie who was +swaying about with a sleepy frown. . . . "Look at him. He's +overcome with happiness. You had better put him to bed . . . " and +disappeared while every head on the terrace was turned to Willie +with varied expressions. + +Renouard ran through the house. Avoiding the carriage road he fled +down the steep short cut to the shore, where his gig was waiting. +At his loud shout the sleeping Kanakas jumped up. He leaped in. +"Shove off. Give way!" and the gig darted through the water. +"Give way! Give way!" She flew past the wool-clippers sleeping at +their anchors each with the open unwinking eye of the lamp in the +rigging; she flew past the flagship of the Pacific squadron, a +great mass all dark and silent, heavy with the slumbers of five +hundred men, and where the invisible sentries heard his urgent +"Give way! Give way!" in the night. The Kanakas, panting, rose +off the thwarts at every stroke. Nothing could be fast enough for +him! And he ran up the side of his schooner shaking the ladder +noisily with his rush. + +On deck he stumbled and stood still. + +Wherefore this haste? To what end, since he knew well before he +started that he had a pursuer from whom there was no escape. + +As his foot touched the deck his will, his purpose he had been +hurrying to save, died out within. It had been nothing less than +getting the schooner under-way, letting her vanish silently in the +night from amongst these sleeping ships. And now he was certain he +could not do it. It was impossible! And he reflected that whether +he lived or died such an act would lay him under a dark suspicion +from which he shrank. No, there was nothing to be done. + +He went down into the cabin and, before even unbuttoning his +overcoat, took out of the drawer the letter addressed to his +assistant; that letter which he had found in the pigeon-hole +labelled "Malata" in young Dunster's outer office, where it had +been waiting for three months some occasion for being forwarded. +From the moment of dropping it in the drawer he had utterly +forgotten its existence--till now, when the man's name had come out +so clamorously. He glanced at the common envelope, noted the shaky +and laborious handwriting: H. Walter, Esqre. Undoubtedly the very +last letter the old butler had posted before his illness, and in +answer clearly to one from "Master Arthur" instructing him to +address in the future: "Care of Messrs. W. Dunster and Co." +Renouard made as if to open the envelope, but paused, and, instead, +tore the letter deliberately in two, in four, in eight. With his +hand full of pieces of paper he returned on deck and scattered them +overboard on the dark water, in which they vanished instantly. + +He did it slowly, without hesitation or remorse. H. Walter, Esqre, +in Malata. The innocent Arthur--What was his name? The man sought +for by that woman who as she went by seemed to draw all the passion +of the earth to her, without effort, not deigning to notice, +naturally, as other women breathed the air. But Renouard was no +longer jealous of her very existence. Whatever its meaning it was +not for that man he had picked up casually on obscure impulse, to +get rid of the tiresome expostulations of a so-called friend; a man +of whom he really knew nothing--and now a dead man. In Malata. +Oh, yes! He was there secure enough, untroubled in his grave. In +Malata. To bury him was the last service Renouard had rendered to +his assistant before leaving the island on this trip to town. + +Like many men ready enough for arduous enterprises Renouard was +inclined to evade the small complications of existence. This trait +of his character was composed of a little indolence, some disdain, +and a shrinking from contests with certain forms of vulgarity--like +a man who would face a lion and go out of his way to avoid a toad. +His intercourse with the meddlesome journalist was that merely +outward intimacy without sympathy some young men get drawn into +easily. It had amused him rather to keep that "friend" in the dark +about the fate of his assistant. Renouard had never needed other +company than his own, for there was in him something of the +sensitiveness of a dreamer who is easily jarred. He had said to +himself that the all-knowing one would only preach again about the +evils of solitude and worry his head off in favour of some +forlornly useless protege of his. Also the inquisitiveness of the +Editor had irritated him and had closed his lips in sheer disgust. + +And now he contemplated the noose of consequences drawing tight +around him. + +It was the memory of that diplomatic reticence which on the terrace +had stiffled his first cry which would have told them all that the +man sought for was not to be met on earth any more. He shrank from +the absurdity of hearing the all-knowing one, and not very sober at +that, turning on him with righteous reproaches - + +"You never told me. You gave me to understand that your assistant +was alive, and now you say he's dead. Which is it? Were you lying +then or are you lying now?" No! the thought of such a scene was +not to be borne. He had sat down appalled, thinking: "What shall +I do now?" + +His courage had oozed out of him. Speaking the truth meant the +Moorsoms going away at once--while it seemed to him that he would +give the last shred of his rectitude to secure a day more of her +company. He sat on--silent. Slowly, from confused sensations, +from his talk with the professor, the manner of the girl herself, +the intoxicating familiarity of her sudden hand-clasp, there had +come to him a half glimmer of hope. The other man was dead. Then! +. . . Madness, of course--but he could not give it up. He had +listened to that confounded busybody arranging everything--while +all these people stood around assenting, under the spell of that +dead romance. He had listened scornful and silent. The glimmers +of hope, of opportunity, passed before his eyes. He had only to +sit still and say nothing. That and no more. And what was truth +to him in the face of that great passion which had flung him +prostrate in spirit at her adored feet! + +And now it was done! Fatality had willed it! With the eyes of a +mortal struck by the maddening thunderbolt of the gods, Renouard +looked up to the sky, an immense black pall dusted over with gold, +on which great shudders seemed to pass from the breath of life +affirming its sway. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + + +At last, one morning, in a clear spot of a glassy horizon charged +with heraldic masses of black vapours, the island grew out from the +sea, showing here and there its naked members of basaltic rock +through the rents of heavy foliage. Later, in the great spilling +of all the riches of sunset, Malata stood out green and rosy before +turning into a violet shadow in the autumnal light of the expiring +day. Then came the night. In the faint airs the schooner crept on +past a sturdy squat headland, and it was pitch dark when her +headsails ran down, she turned short on her heel, and her anchor +bit into the sandy bottom on the edge of the outer reef; for it was +too dangerous then to attempt entering the little bay full of +shoals. After the last solemn flutter of the mainsail the +murmuring voices of the Moorsom party lingered, very frail, in the +black stillness. + +They were sitting aft, on chairs, and nobody made a move. Early in +the day, when it had become evident that the wind was failing, +Renouard, basing his advice on the shortcomings of his bachelor +establishment, had urged on the ladies the advisability of not +going ashore in the middle of the night. Now he approached them in +a constrained manner (it was astonishing the constraint that had +reigned between him and his guests all through the passage) and +renewed his arguments. No one ashore would dream of his bringing +any visitors with him. Nobody would even think of coming off. +There was only one old canoe on the plantation. And landing in the +schooner's boats would be awkward in the dark. There was the risk +of getting aground on some shallow patches. It would be best to +spend the rest of the night on board. + +There was really no opposition. The professor smoking a pipe, and +very comfortable in an ulster buttoned over his tropical clothes, +was the first to speak from his long chair. + +"Most excellent advice." + +Next to him Miss Moorsom assented by a long silence. Then in a +voice as of one coming out of a dream - + +"And so this is Malata," she said. "I have often wondered . . ." + +A shiver passed through Renouard. She had wondered! What about? +Malata was himself. He and Malata were one. And she had wondered! +She had . . . + +The professor's sister leaned over towards Renouard. Through all +these days at sea the man's--the found man's--existence had not +been alluded to on board the schooner. That reticence was part of +the general constraint lying upon them all. She, herself, +certainly had not been exactly elated by this finding--poor Arthur, +without money, without prospects. But she felt moved by the +sentiment and romance of the situation. + +"Isn't it wonderful," she whispered out of her white wrap, "to +think of poor Arthur sleeping there, so near to our dear lovely +Felicia, and not knowing the immense joy in store for him to- +morrow." + +There was such artificiality in the wax-flower lady that nothing in +this speech touched Renouard. It was but the simple anxiety of his +heart that he was voicing when he muttered gloomily - + +"No one in the world knows what to-morrow may hold in store." + +The mature lady had a recoil as though he had said something +impolite. What a harsh thing to say--instead of finding something +nice and appropriate. On board, where she never saw him in evening +clothes, Renouard's resemblance to a duke's son was not so apparent +to her. Nothing but his--ah--bohemianism remained. She rose with +a sort of ostentation. + +"It's late--and since we are going to sleep on board to-night . . +." she said. "But it does seem so cruel." + +The professor started up eagerly, knocking the ashes out of his +pipe. "Infinitely more sensible, my dear Emma." + +Renouard waited behind Miss Moorsom's chair. + +She got up slowly, moved one step forward, and paused looking at +the shore. The blackness of the island blotted out the stars with +its vague mass like a low thundercloud brooding over the waters and +ready to burst into flame and crashes. + +"And so--this is Malata," she repeated dreamily, moving towards the +cabin door. The clear cloak hanging from her shoulders, the ivory +face--for the night had put out nothing of her but the gleams of +her hair--made her resemble a shining dream-woman uttering words of +wistful inquiry. She disappeared without a sign, leaving Renouard +penetrated to the very marrow by the sounds that came from her body +like a mysterious resonance of an exquisite instrument. + +He stood stock still. What was this accidental touch which had +evoked the strange accent of her voice? He dared not answer that +question. But he had to answer the question of what was to be done +now. Had the moment of confession come? The thought was enough to +make one's blood run cold. + +It was as if those people had a premonition of something. In the +taciturn days of the passage he had noticed their reserve even +amongst themselves. The professor smoked his pipe moodily in +retired spots. Renouard had caught Miss Moorsom's eyes resting on +himself more than once, with a peculiar and grave expression. He +fancied that she avoided all opportunities of conversation. The +maiden lady seemed to nurse a grievance. And now what had he to +do? + +The lights on the deck had gone out one after the other. The +schooner slept. + +About an hour after Miss Moorsom had gone below without a sign or a +word for him, Renouard got out of his hammock slung in the waist +under the midship awning--for he had given up all the accommodation +below to his guests. He got out with a sudden swift movement, +flung off his sleeping jacket, rolled his pyjamas up his thighs, +and stole forward, unseen by the one Kanaka of the anchor-watch. +His white torso, naked like a stripped athlete's, glimmered, +ghostly, in the deep shadows of the deck. Unnoticed he got out of +the ship over the knight-heads, ran along the back rope, and +seizing the dolphin-striker firmly with both hands, lowered himself +into the sea without a splash. + +He swam away, noiseless like a fish, and then struck boldly for the +land, sustained, embraced, by the tepid water. The gentle, +voluptuous heave of its breast swung him up and down slightly; +sometimes a wavelet murmured in his ears; from time to time, +lowering his feet, he felt for the bottom on a shallow patch to +rest and correct his direction. He landed at the lower end of the +bungalow garden, into the dead stillness of the island. There were +no lights. The plantation seemed to sleep, as profoundly as the +schooner. On the path a small shell cracked under his naked heel. + +The faithful half-caste foreman going his rounds cocked his ears at +the sharp sound. He gave one enormous start of fear at the sight +of the swift white figure flying at him out of the night. He +crouched in terror, and then sprang up and clicked his tongue in +amazed recognition. + +"Tse! Tse! The master!" + +"Be quiet, Luiz, and listen to what I say." + +Yes, it was the master, the strong master who was never known to +raise his voice, the man blindly obeyed and never questioned. He +talked low and rapidly in the quiet night, as if every minute were +precious. On learning that three guests were coming to stay Luiz +clicked his tongue rapidly. These clicks were the uniform, +stenographic symbols of his emotions, and he could give them an +infinite variety of meaning. He listened to the rest in a deep +silence hardly affected by the low, "Yes, master," whenever +Renouard paused. + +"You understand?" the latter insisted. "No preparations are to be +made till we land in the morning. And you are to say that Mr. +Walter has gone off in a trading schooner on a round of the +islands." + +"Yes, master." + +"No mistakes--mind!" + +"No, master." + +Renouard walked back towards the sea. Luiz, following him, +proposed to call out half a dozen boys and man the canoe. + +"Imbecile!" + +"Tse! Tse! Tse!" + +"Don't you understand that you haven't seen me?" + +"Yes, master. But what a long swim. Suppose you drown." + +"Then you can say of me and of Mr. Walter what you like. The dead +don't mind." + +Renouard entered the sea and heard a faint "Tse! Tse! Tse!" of +concern from the half-caste, who had already lost sight of the +master's dark head on the overshadowed water. + +Renouard set his direction by a big star that, dipping on the +horizon, seemed to look curiously into his face. On this swim back +he felt the mournful fatigue of all that length of the traversed +road, which brought him no nearer to his desire. It was as if his +love had sapped the invisible supports of his strength. There came +a moment when it seemed to him that he must have swum beyond the +confines of life. He had a sensation of eternity close at hand, +demanding no effort--offering its peace. It was easy to swim like +this beyond the confines of life looking at a star. But the +thought: "They will think I dared not face them and committed +suicide," caused a revolt of his mind which carried him on. He +returned on board, as he had left, unheard and unseen. He lay in +his hammock utterly exhausted and with a confused feeling that he +had been beyond the confines of life, somewhere near a star, and +that it was very quiet there. + + + +CHAPTER IX + + + +Sheltered by the squat headland from the first morning sparkle of +the sea the little bay breathed a delicious freshness. The party +from the schooner landed at the bottom of the garden. They +exchanged insignificant words in studiously casual tones. The +professor's sister put up a long-handled eye-glass as if to scan +the novel surroundings, but in reality searching for poor Arthur +anxiously. Having never seen him otherwise than in his town +clothes she had no idea what he would look like. It had been left +to the professor to help his ladies out of the boat because +Renouard, as if intent on giving directions, had stepped forward at +once to meet the half-caste Luiz hurrying down the path. In the +distance, in front of the dazzlingly sunlit bungalow, a row of +dark-faced house-boys unequal in stature and varied in complexion +preserved the immobility of a guard of honour. + +Luiz had taken off his soft felt hat before coming within earshot. +Renouard bent his head to his rapid talk of domestic arrangements +he meant to make for the visitors; another bed in the master's room +for the ladies and a cot for the gentleman to be hung in the room +opposite where--where Mr. Walter--here he gave a scared look all +round--Mr. Walter--had died. + +"Very good," assented Renouard in an even undertone. "And remember +what you have to say of him." + +"Yes, master. Only"--he wriggled slightly and put one bare foot on +the other for a moment in apologetic embarrassment--"only I--I-- +don't like to say it." + +Renouard looked at him without anger, without any sort of +expression. "Frightened of the dead? Eh? Well--all right. I +will say it myself--I suppose once for all. . . Immediately he +raised his voice very much. + +"Send the boys down to bring up the luggage." + +"Yes, master." + +Renouard turned to his distinguished guests who, like a personally +conducted party of tourists, had stopped and were looking about +them. + +"I am sorry," he began with an impassive face. "My man has just +told me that Mr. Walter . . ." he managed to smile, but didn't +correct himself . . . "has gone in a trading schooner on a short +tour of the islands, to the westward." + +This communication was received in profound silence. + +Renouard forgot himself in the thought: "It's done!" But the +sight of the string of boys marching up to the house with suit- +cases and dressing-bags rescued him from that appalling +abstraction. + +"All I can do is to beg you to make yourselves at home . . . with +what patience you may." + +This was so obviously the only thing to do that everybody moved on +at once. The professor walked alongside Renouard, behind the two +ladies. + +"Rather unexpected--this absence." + +"Not exactly," muttered Renouard. "A trip has to be made every +year to engage labour." + +"I see . . . And he . . . How vexingly elusive the poor fellow has +become! I'll begin to think that some wicked fairy is favouring +this love tale with unpleasant attentions." + +Renouard noticed that the party did not seem weighed down by this +new disappointment. On the contrary they moved with a freer step. +The professor's sister dropped her eye-glass to the end of its +chain. Miss Moorsom took the lead. The professor, his lips +unsealed, lingered in the open: but Renouard did not listen to +that man's talk. He looked after that man's daughter--if indeed +that creature of irresistible seductions were a daughter of +mortals. The very intensity of his desire, as if his soul were +streaming after her through his eyes, defeated his object of +keeping hold of her as long as possible with, at least, one of his +senses. Her moving outlines dissolved into a misty coloured +shimmer of a woman made of flame and shadows, crossing the +threshold of his house. + +The days which followed were not exactly such as Renouard had +feared--yet they were not better than his fears. They were +accursed in all the moods they brought him. But the general aspect +of things was quiet. The professor smoked innumerable pipes with +the air of a worker on his holiday, always in movement and looking +at things with that mysteriously sagacious aspect of men who are +admittedly wiser than the rest of the world. His white head of +hair--whiter than anything within the horizon except the broken +water on the reefs--was glimpsed in every part of the plantation +always on the move under the white parasol. And once he climbed +the headland and appeared suddenly to those below, a white speck +elevated in the blue, with a diminutive but statuesque effect. + +Felicia Moorsom remained near the house. Sometimes she could be +seen with a despairing expression scribbling rapidly in her lock-up +dairy. But only for a moment. At the sound of Renouard's +footsteps she would turn towards him her beautiful face, adorable +in that calm which was like a wilful, like a cruel ignoring of her +tremendous power. Whenever she sat on the verandah, on a chair +more specially reserved for her use, Renouard would stroll up and +sit on the steps near her, mostly silent, and often not trusting +himself to turn his glance on her. She, very still with her eyes +half-closed, looked down on his head--so that to a beholder (such +as Professor Moorsom, for instance) she would appear to be turning +over in her mind profound thoughts about that man sitting at her +feet, his shoulders bowed a little, his hands listless--as if +vanquished. And, indeed, the moral poison of falsehood has such a +decomposing power that Renouard felt his old personality turn to +dead dust. Often, in the evening, when they sat outside conversing +languidly in the dark, he felt that he must rest his forehead on +her feet and burst into tears. + +The professor's sister suffered from some little strain caused by +the unstability of her own feelings toward Renouard. She could not +tell whether she really did dislike him or not. At times he +appeared to her most fascinating; and, though he generally ended by +saying something shockingly crude, she could not resist her +inclination to talk with him--at least not always. One day when +her niece had left them alone on the verandah she leaned forward in +her chair--speckless, resplendent, and, in her way, almost as +striking a personality as her niece, who did not resemble her in +the least. "Dear Felicia has inherited her hair and the greatest +part of her appearance from her mother," the maiden lady used to +tell people. + +She leaned forward then, confidentially. + +"Oh! Mr. Renouard! Haven't you something comforting to say?" + +He looked up, as surprised as if a voice from heaven had spoken +with this perfect society intonation, and by the puzzled profundity +of his blue eyes fluttered the wax-flower of refined womanhood. +She continued. "For--I can speak to you openly on this tiresome +subject--only think what a terrible strain this hope deferred must +be for Felicia's heart--for her nerves." + +"Why speak to me about it," he muttered feeling half choked +suddenly. + +"Why! As a friend--a well-wisher--the kindest of hosts. I am +afraid we are really eating you out of house and home." She +laughed a little. "Ah! When, when will this suspense be relieved! +That poor lost Arthur! I confess that I am almost afraid of the +great moment. It will be like seeing a ghost." + +"Have you ever seen a ghost?" asked Renouard, in a dull voice. + +She shifted her hands a little. Her pose was perfect in its ease +and middle-aged grace. + +"Not actually. Only in a photograph. But we have many friends who +had the experience of apparitions." + +"Ah! They see ghosts in London," mumbled Renouard, not looking at +her. + +"Frequently--in a certain very interesting set. But all sorts of +people do. We have a friend, a very famous author--his ghost is a +girl. One of my brother's intimates is a very great man of +science. He is friendly with a ghost . . . Of a girl too," she +added in a voice as if struck for the first time by the +coincidence. "It is the photograph of that apparition which I have +seen. Very sweet. Most interesting. A little cloudy naturally. . +. . Mr. Renouard! I hope you are not a sceptic. It's so consoling +to think. . ." + +"Those plantation boys of mine see ghosts too," said Renouard +grimly. + +The sister of the philosopher sat up stiffly. What crudeness! It +was always so with this strange young man. + +"Mr. Renouard! How can you compare the superstitious fancies of +your horrible savages with the manifestations . . . " + +Words failed her. She broke off with a very faint primly angry +smile. She was perhaps the more offended with him because of that +flutter at the beginning of the conversation. And in a moment with +perfect tact and dignity she got up from her chair and left him +alone. + +Renouard didn't even look up. It was not the displeasure of the +lady which deprived him of his sleep that night. He was beginning +to forget what simple, honest sleep was like. His hammock from the +ship had been hung for him on a side verandah, and he spent his +nights in it on his back, his hands folded on his chest, in a sort +of half conscious, oppressed stupor. In the morning he watched +with unseeing eyes the headland come out a shapeless inkblot +against the thin light of the false dawn, pass through all the +stages of daybreak to the deep purple of its outlined mass nimbed +gloriously with the gold of the rising sun. He listened to the +vague sounds of waking within the house: and suddenly he became +aware of Luiz standing by the hammock--obviously troubled. + +"What's the matter?" + +"Tse! Tse! Tse!" + +"Well, what now? Trouble with the boys?" + +"No, master. The gentleman when I take him his bath water he speak +to me. He ask me--he ask--when, when, I think Mr. Walter, he come +back." + +The half-caste's teeth chattered slightly. Renouard got out of the +hammock. + +"And he is here all the time--eh?" + +Luiz nodded a scared affirmative, but at once protested, "I no see +him. I never. Not I! The ignorant wild boys say they see . . . +Something! Ough!" + +He clapped his teeth on another short rattle, and stood there, +shrunk, blighted, like a man in a freezing blast. + +"And what did you say to the gentleman?" + +"I say I don't know--and I clear out. I--I don't like to speak of +him." + +"All right. We shall try to lay that poor ghost," said Renouard +gloomily, going off to a small hut near by to dress. He was saying +to himself: "This fellow will end by giving me away. The last +thing that I . . . No! That mustn't be." And feeling his hand +being forced he discovered the whole extent of his cowardice. + + + +CHAPTER X + + + +That morning wandering about his plantation, more like a frightened +soul than its creator and master, he dodged the white parasol +bobbing up here and there like a buoy adrift on a sea of dark-green +plants. The crop promised to be magnificent, and the fashionable +philosopher of the age took other than a merely scientific interest +in the experiment. His investments were judicious, but he had +always some little money lying by, for experiments. + +After lunch, being left alone with Renouard, he talked a little of +cultivation and such matters. Then suddenly: + +"By the way, is it true what my sister tells me, that your +plantation boys have been disturbed by a ghost?" + +Renouard, who since the ladies had left the table was not keeping +such a strict watch on himself, came out of his abstraction with a +start and a stiff smile. + +"My foreman had some trouble with them during my absence. They +funk working in a certain field on the slope of the hill." + +"A ghost here!" exclaimed the amused professor. "Then our whole +conception of the psychology of ghosts must be revised. This +island has been uninhabited probably since the dawn of ages. How +did a ghost come here. By air or water? And why did it leave its +native haunts. Was it from misanthropy? Was he expelled from some +community of spirits?" + +Renouard essayed to respond in the same tone. The words died on +his lips. Was it a man or a woman ghost, the professor inquired. + +"I don't know." Renouard made an effort to appear at ease. He +had, he said, a couple of Tahitian amongst his boys--a ghost-ridden +race. They had started the scare. They had probably brought their +ghost with them. + +"Let us investigate the matter, Renouard," proposed the professor +half in earnest. "We may make some interesting discoveries as to +the state of primitive minds, at any rate." + +This was too much. Renouard jumped up and leaving the room went +out and walked about in front of the house. He would allow no one +to force his hand. Presently the professor joined him outside. He +carried his parasol, but had neither his book nor his pipe with +him. Amiably serious he laid his hand on his "dear young friend's" +arm. + +"We are all of us a little strung up," he said. "For my part I +have been like sister Anne in the story. But I cannot see anything +coming. Anything that would be the least good for anybody--I +mean." + +Renouard had recovered sufficiently to murmur coldly his regret of +this waste of time. For that was what, he supposed, the professor +had in his mind. + +"Time," mused Professor Moorsom. "I don't know that time can be +wasted. But I will tell you, my dear friend, what this is: it is +an awful waste of life. I mean for all of us. Even for my sister, +who has got a headache and is gone to lie down." + +He shook gently Renouard's arm. "Yes, for all of us! One may +meditate on life endlessly, one may even have a poor opinion of it- +-but the fact remains that we have only one life to live. And it +is short. Think of that, my young friend." + +He released Renouard's arm and stepped out of the shade opening his +parasol. It was clear that there was something more in his mind +than mere anxiety about the date of his lectures for fashionable +audiences. What did the man mean by his confounded platitudes? To +Renouard, scared by Luiz in the morning (for he felt that nothing +could be more fatal than to have his deception unveiled otherwise +than by personal confession), this talk sounded like encouragement +or a warning from that man who seemed to him to be very brazen and +very subtle. It was like being bullied by the dead and cajoled by +the living into a throw of dice for a supreme stake. + +Renouard went away to some distance from the house and threw +himself down in the shade of a tree. He lay there perfectly still +with his forehead resting on his folded arms, light-headed and +thinking. It seemed to him that he must be on fire, then that he +had fallen into a cool whirlpool, a smooth funnel of water swirling +about with nauseating rapidity. And then (it must have been a +reminiscence of his boyhood) he was walking on the dangerous thin +ice of a river, unable to turn back. . . . Suddenly it parted from +shore to shore with a loud crack like the report of a gun. + +With one leap he found himself on his feet. All was peace, +stillness, sunshine. He walked away from there slowly. Had he +been a gambler he would have perhaps been supported in a measure by +the mere excitement. But he was not a gambler. He had always +disdained that artificial manner of challenging the fates. The +bungalow came into view, bright and pretty, and all about +everything was peace, stillness, sunshine. . . . + +While he was plodding towards it he had a disagreeable sense of the +dead man's company at his elbow. The ghost! He seemed to be +everywhere but in his grave. Could one ever shake him off? he +wondered. At that moment Miss Moorsom came out on the verandah; +and at once, as if by a mystery of radiating waves, she roused a +great tumult in his heart, shook earth and sky together--but he +plodded on. Then like a grave song-note in the storm her voice +came to him ominously. + +"Ah! Mr. Renouard. . . " He came up and smiled, but she was very +serious. "I can't keep still any longer. Is there time to walk up +this headland and back before dark?" + +The shadows were lying lengthened on the ground; all was stillness +and peace. "No," said Renouard, feeling suddenly as steady as a +rock. "But I can show you a view from the central hill which your +father has not seen. A view of reefs and of broken water without +end, and of great wheeling clouds of sea-birds." + +She came down the verandah steps at once and they moved off. "You +go first," he proposed, "and I'll direct you. To the left." + +She was wearing a short nankin skirt, a muslin blouse; he could see +through the thin stuff the skin of her shoulders, of her arms. The +noble delicacy of her neck caused him a sort of transport. "The +path begins where these three palms are. The only palms on the +island." + +"I see." + +She never turned her head. After a while she observed: "This path +looks as if it had been made recently." + +"Quite recently," he assented very low. + +They went on climbing steadily without exchanging another word; and +when they stood on the top she gazed a long time before her. The +low evening mist veiled the further limit of the reefs. Above the +enormous and melancholy confusion, as of a fleet of wrecked +islands, the restless myriads of sea-birds rolled and unrolled dark +ribbons on the sky, gathered in clouds, soared and stooped like a +play of shadows, for they were too far for them to hear their +cries. + +Renouard broke the silence in low tones. + +"They'll be settling for the night presently." She made no sound. +Round them all was peace and declining sunshine. Near by, the +topmost pinnacle of Malata, resembling the top of a buried tower, +rose a rock, weather-worn, grey, weary of watching the monotonous +centuries of the Pacific. Renouard leaned his shoulders against +it. Felicia Moorsom faced him suddenly, her splendid black eyes +full on his face as though she had made up her mind at last to +destroy his wits once and for all. Dazzled, he lowered his eyelids +slowly. + +"Mr. Renouard! There is something strange in all this. Tell me +where he is?" + +He answered deliberately. + +"On the other side of this rock. I buried him there myself." + +She pressed her hands to her breast, struggled for her breath for a +moment, then: "Ohhh! . . . You buried him! . . . What sort of man +are you? . . . You dared not tell! . . . He is another of your +victims? . . . You dared not confess that evening. . . . You must +have killed him. What could he have done to you? . . . You +fastened on him some atrocious quarrel and . . ." + +Her vengeful aspect, her poignant cries left him as unmoved as the +weary rock against which he leaned. He only raised his eyelids to +look at her and lowered them slowly. Nothing more. It silenced +her. And as if ashamed she made a gesture with her hand, putting +away from her that thought. He spoke, quietly ironic at first. + +"Ha! the legendary Renouard of sensitive idiots--the ruthless +adventurer--the ogre with a future. That was a parrot cry, Miss +Moorsom. I don't think that the greatest fool of them all ever +dared hint such a stupid thing of me that I killed men for nothing. +No, I had noticed this man in a hotel. He had come from up country +I was told, and was doing nothing. I saw him sitting there lonely +in a corner like a sick crow, and I went over one evening to talk +to him. Just on impulse. He wasn't impressive. He was pitiful. +My worst enemy could have told you he wasn't good enough to be one +of Renouard's victims. It didn't take me long to judge that he was +drugging himself. Not drinking. Drugs." + +"Ah! It's now that you are trying to murder him," she cried. + +"Really. Always the Renouard of shopkeepers' legend. Listen! I +would never have been jealous of him. And yet I am jealous of the +air you breathe, of the soil you tread on, of the world that sees +you--moving free--not mine. But never mind. I rather liked him. +For a certain reason I proposed he should come to be my assistant +here. He said he believed this would save him. It did not save +him from death. It came to him as it were from nothing--just a +fall. A mere slip and tumble of ten feet into a ravine. But it +seems he had been hurt before up-country--by a horse. He ailed and +ailed. No, he was not a steel-tipped man. And his poor soul +seemed to have been damaged too. It gave way very soon." + +"This is tragic!" Felicia Moorsom whispered with feeling. +Renouard's lips twitched, but his level voice continued +mercilessly. + +"That's the story. He rallied a little one night and said he +wanted to tell me something. I, being a gentleman, he said, he +could confide in me. I told him that he was mistaken. That there +was a good deal of a plebeian in me, that he couldn't know. He +seemed disappointed. He muttered something about his innocence and +something that sounded like a curse on some woman, then turned to +the wall and--just grew cold." + +"On a woman," cried Miss Moorsom indignantly. "What woman?" + +"I wonder!" said Renouard, raising his eyes and noting the crimson +of her ear-lobes against the live whiteness of her complexion, the +sombre, as if secret, night-splendour of her eyes under the +writhing flames of her hair. "Some woman who wouldn't believe in +that poor innocence of his. . . Yes. You probably. And now you +will not believe in me--not even in me who must in truth be what I +am--even to death. No! You won't. And yet, Felicia, a woman like +you and a man like me do not often come together on this earth." + +The flame of her glorious head scorched his face. He flung his hat +far away, and his suddenly lowered eyelids brought out startlingly +his resemblance to antique bronze, the profile of Pallas, still, +austere, bowed a little in the shadow of the rock. "Oh! If you +could only understand the truth that is in me!" he added. + +She waited, as if too astounded to speak, till he looked up again, +and then with unnatural force as if defending herself from some +unspoken aspersion, "It's I who stand for truth here! Believe in +you! In you, who by a heartless falsehood--and nothing else, +nothing else, do you hear?--have brought me here, deceived, +cheated, as in some abominable farce!" She sat down on a boulder, +rested her chin in her hands, in the pose of simple grief--mourning +for herself. + +"It only wanted this. Why! Oh! Why is it that ugliness, +ridicule, and baseness must fall across my path." + +On that height, alone with the sky, they spoke to each other as if +the earth had fallen away from under their feet. + +"Are you grieving for your dignity? He was a mediocre soul and +could have given you but an unworthy existence." + +She did not even smile at those words, but, superb, as if lifting a +corner of the veil, she turned on him slowly. + +"And do you imagine I would have devoted myself to him for such a +purpose! Don't you know that reparation was due to him from me? A +sacred debt--a fine duty. To redeem him would not have been in my +power--I know it. But he was blameless, and it was for me to come +forward. Don't you see that in the eyes of the world nothing could +have rehabilitated him so completely as his marriage with me? No +word of evil could be whispered of him after I had given him my +hand. As to giving myself up to anything less than the shaping of +a man's destiny--if I thought I could do it I would abhor myself. . +. ." She spoke with authority in her deep fascinating, unemotional +voice. Renouard meditated, gloomy, as if over some sinister riddle +of a beautiful sphinx met on the wild road of his life. + +"Yes. Your father was right. You are one of these aristocrats . . +." + +She drew herself up haughtily. + +"What do you say? My father! . . . I an aristocrat." + +"Oh! I don't mean that you are like the men and women of the time +of armours, castles, and great deeds. Oh, no! They stood on the +naked soil, had traditions to be faithful to, had their feet on +this earth of passions and death which is not a hothouse. They +would have been too plebeian for you since they had to lead, to +suffer with, to understand the commonest humanity. No, you are +merely of the topmost layer, disdainful and superior, the mere pure +froth and bubble on the inscrutable depths which some day will toss +you out of existence. But you are you! You are you! You are the +eternal love itself--only, O Divinity, it isn't your body, it is +your soul that is made of foam." + +She listened as if in a dream. He had succeeded so well in his +effort to drive back the flood of his passion that his life itself +seemed to run with it out of his body. At that moment he felt as +one dead speaking. But the headlong wave returning with tenfold +force flung him on her suddenly, with open arms and blazing eyes. +She found herself like a feather in his grasp, helpless, unable to +struggle, with her feet off the ground. But this contact with her, +maddening like too much felicity, destroyed its own end. Fire ran +through his veins, turned his passion to ashes, burnt him out and +left him empty, without force--almost without desire. He let her +go before she could cry out. And she was so used to the forms of +repression enveloping, softening the crude impulses of old humanity +that she no longer believed in their existence as if it were an +exploded legend. She did not recognise what had happened to her. +She came safe out of his arms, without a struggle, not even having +felt afraid. + +"What's the meaning of this?" she said, outraged but calm in a +scornful way. + +He got down on his knees in silence, bent low to her very feet, +while she looked down at him, a little surprised, without +animosity, as if merely curious to see what he would do. Then, +while he remained bowed to the ground pressing the hem of her skirt +to his lips, she made a slight movement. He got up. + +"No," he said. "Were you ever so much mine what could I do with +you without your consent? No. You don't conquer a wraith, cold +mist, stuff of dreams, illusion. It must come to you and cling to +your breast. And then! Oh! And then!" + +All ecstasy, all expression went out of his face. + +"Mr. Renouard," she said, "though you can have no claim on my +consideration after having decoyed me here for the vile purpose, +apparently, of gloating over me as your possible prey, I will tell +you that I am not perhaps the extraordinary being you think I am. +You may believe me. Here I stand for truth itself." + +"What's that to me what you are?" he answered. "At a sign from you +I would climb up to the seventh heaven to bring you down to earth +for my own--and if I saw you steeped to the lips in vice, in crime, +in mud, I would go after you, take you to my arms--wear you for an +incomparable jewel on my breast. And that's love--true love--the +gift and the curse of the gods. There is no other." + +The truth vibrating in his voice made her recoil slightly, for she +was not fit to hear it--not even a little--not even one single time +in her life. It was revolting to her; and in her trouble, perhaps +prompted by the suggestion of his name or to soften the harshness +of expression, for she was obscurely moved, she spoke to him in +French. + +"Assez! J'ai horreur de tout cela," she said. + +He was white to his very lips, but he was trembling no more. The +dice had been cast, and not even violence could alter the throw. +She passed by him unbendingly, and he followed her down the path. +After a time she heard him saying: + +"And your dream is to influence a human destiny?" + +"Yes!" she answered curtly, unabashed, with a woman's complete +assurance. + +"Then you may rest content. You have done it." + +She shrugged her shoulders slightly. But just before reaching the +end of the path she relented, stopped, and went back to him. + +"I don't suppose you are very anxious for people to know how near +you came to absolute turpitude. You may rest easy on that point. +I shall speak to my father, of course, and we will agree to say +that he has died--nothing more." + +"Yes," said Renouard in a lifeless voice. "He is dead. His very +ghost shall be done with presently." + +She went on, but he remained standing stock still in the dusk. She +had already reached the three palms when she heard behind her a +loud peal of laughter, cynical and joyless, such as is heard in +smoking-rooms at the end of a scandalous story. It made her feel +positively faint for a moment. + + + +CHAPTER XI + + + +Slowly a complete darkness enveloped Geoffrey Renouard. His +resolution had failed him. Instead of following Felicia into the +house, he had stopped under the three palms, and leaning against a +smooth trunk had abandoned himself to a sense of an immense +deception and the feeling of extreme fatigue. This walk up the +hill and down again was like the supreme effort of an explorer +trying to penetrate the interior of an unknown country, the secret +of which is too well defended by its cruel and barren nature. +Decoyed by a mirage, he had gone too far--so far that there was no +going back. His strength was at an end. For the first time in his +life he had to give up, and with a sort of despairing self- +possession he tried to understand the cause of the defeat. He did +not ascribe it to that absurd dead man. + +The hesitating shadow of Luiz approached him unnoticed till it +spoke timidly. Renouard started. + +"Eh? What? Dinner waiting? You must say I beg to be excused. I +can't come. But I shall see them to-morrow morning, at the landing +place. Take your orders from the professor as to the sailing of +the schooner. Go now." + +Luiz, dumbfounded, retreated into the darkness. Renouard did not +move, but hours afterwards, like the bitter fruit of his +immobility, the words: "I had nothing to offer to her vanity," +came from his lips in the silence of the island. And it was then +only that he stirred, only to wear the night out in restless +tramping up and down the various paths of the plantation. Luiz, +whose sleep was made light by the consciousness of some impending +change, heard footsteps passing by his hut, the firm tread of the +master; and turning on his mats emitted a faint Tse! Tse! Tse! of +deep concern. + +Lights had been burning in the bungalow almost all through the +night; and with the first sign of day began the bustle of +departure. House boys walked processionally carrying suit-cases +and dressing-bags down to the schooner's boat, which came to the +landing place at the bottom of the garden. Just as the rising sun +threw its golden nimbus around the purple shape of the headland, +the Planter of Malata was perceived pacing bare-headed the curve of +the little bay. He exchanged a few words with the sailing-master +of the schooner, then remained by the boat, standing very upright, +his eyes on the ground, waiting. + +He had not long to wait. Into the cool, overshadowed garden the +professor descended first, and came jauntily down the path in a +lively cracking of small shells. With his closed parasol hooked on +his forearm, and a book in his hand, he resembled a banal tourist +more than was permissible to a man of his unique distinction. He +waved the disengaged arm from a distance, but at close quarters, +arrested before Renouard's immobility, he made no offer to shake +hands. He seemed to appraise the aspect of the man with a sharp +glance, and made up his mind. + +"We are going back by Suez," he began almost boisterously. "I have +been looking up the sailing lists. If the zephirs of your Pacific +are only moderately propitious I think we are sure to catch the +mail boat due in Marseilles on the 18th of March. This will suit +me excellently. . . ." He lowered his tone. "My dear young +friend, I'm deeply grateful to you." + +Renouard's set lips moved. + +"Why are you grateful to me?" + +"Ah! Why? In the first place you might have made us miss the next +boat, mightn't you? . . . I don't thank you for your hospitality. +You can't be angry with me for saying that I am truly thankful to +escape from it. But I am grateful to you for what you have done, +and--for being what you are." + +It was difficult to define the flavour of that speech, but Renouard +received it with an austerely equivocal smile. The professor +stepping into the boat opened his parasol and sat down in the +stern-sheets waiting for the ladies. No sound of human voice broke +the fresh silence of the morning while they walked the broad path, +Miss Moorsom a little in advance of her aunt. + +When she came abreast of him Renouard raised his head. + +"Good-bye, Mr. Renouard," she said in a low voice, meaning to pass +on; but there was such a look of entreaty in the blue gleam of his +sunken eyes that after an imperceptible hesitation she laid her +hand, which was ungloved, in his extended palm. + +"Will you condescend to remember me?" he asked, while an emotion +with which she was angry made her pale cheeks flush and her black +eyes sparkle. + +"This is a strange request for you to make," she said exaggerating +the coldness of her tone. + +"Is it? Impudent perhaps. Yet I am not so guilty as you think; +and bear in mind that to me you can never make reparation." + +"Reparation? To you! It is you who can offer me no reparation for +the offence against my feelings--and my person; for what reparation +can be adequate for your odious and ridiculous plot so scornful in +its implication, so humiliating to my pride. No! I don't want to +remember you." + +Unexpectedly, with a tightening grip, he pulled her nearer to him, +and looking into her eyes with fearless despair - + +"You'll have to. I shall haunt you," he said firmly. + +Her hand was wrenched out of his grasp before he had time to +release it. Felicia Moorsom stepped into the boat, sat down by the +side of her father, and breathed tenderly on her crushed fingers. + +The professor gave her a sidelong look--nothing more. But the +professor's sister, yet on shore, had put up her long-handle double +eye-glass to look at the scene. She dropped it with a faint +rattle. + +"I've never in my life heard anything so crude said to a lady," she +murmured, passing before Renouard with a perfectly erect head. +When, a moment afterwards, softening suddenly, she turned to throw +a good-bye to that young man, she saw only his back in the distance +moving towards the bungalow. She watched him go in--amazed--before +she too left the soil of Malata. + +Nobody disturbed Renouard in that room where he had shut himself in +to breathe the evanescent perfume of her who for him was no more, +till late in the afternoon when the half-caste was heard on the +other side of the door. + +He wanted the master to know that the trader Janet was just +entering the cove. + +Renouard's strong voice on his side of the door gave him most +unexpected instructions. He was to pay off the boys with the cash +in the office and arrange with the captain of the Janet to take +every worker away from Malata, returning them to their respective +homes. An order on the Dunster firm would be given to him in +payment. + +And again the silence of the bungalow remained unbroken till, next +morning, the half-caste came to report that everything was done. +The plantation boys were embarking now. + +Through a crack in the door a hand thrust at him a piece of paper, +and the door slammed to so sharply that Luiz stepped back. Then +approaching cringingly the keyhole, in a propitiatory tone he +asked: + +"Do I go too, master?" + +"Yes. You too. Everybody." + +"Master stop here alone?" + +Silence. And the half-caste's eyes grew wide with wonder. But he +also, like those "ignorant savages," the plantation boys, was only +too glad to leave an island haunted by the ghost of a white man. +He backed away noiselessly from the mysterious silence in the +closed room, and only in the very doorway of the bungalow allowed +himself to give vent to his feelings by a deprecatory and pained - + +"Tse! Tse! Tse!" + + + +CHAPTER XII + + + +The Moorsoms did manage to catch the homeward mail boat all right, +but had only twenty-four hours in town. Thus the sentimental +Willie could not see very much of them. This did not prevent him +afterwards from relating at great length, with manly tears in his +eyes, how poor Miss Moorsom--the fashionable and clever beauty-- +found her betrothed in Malata only to see him die in her arms. +Most people were deeply touched by the sad story. It was the talk +of a good many days. + +But the all-knowing Editor, Renouard's only friend and crony, +wanted to know more than the rest of the world. From professional +incontinence, perhaps, he thirsted for a full cup of harrowing +detail. And when he noticed Renouard's schooner lying in port day +after day he sought the sailing master to learn the reason. The +man told him that such were his instructions. He had been ordered +to lie there a month before returning to Malata. And the month was +nearly up. "I will ask you to give me a passage," said the Editor. + +He landed in the morning at the bottom of the garden and found +peace, stillness, sunshine reigning everywhere, the doors and +windows of the bungalow standing wide open, no sight of a human +being anywhere, the plants growing rank and tall on the deserted +fields. For hours the Editor and the schooner's crew, excited by +the mystery, roamed over the island shouting Renouard's name; and +at last set themselves in grim silence to explore systematically +the uncleared bush and the deeper ravines in search of his corpse. +What had happened? Had he been murdered by the boys? Or had he +simply, capricious and secretive, abandoned his plantation taking +the people with him. It was impossible to tell what had happened. +At last, towards the decline of the day, the Editor and the sailing +master discovered a track of sandals crossing a strip of sandy +beach on the north shore of the bay. Following this track +fearfully, they passed round the spur of the headland, and there on +a large stone found the sandals, Renouard's white jacket, and the +Malay sarong of chequered pattern which the planter of Malata was +well known to wear when going to bathe. These things made a little +heap, and the sailor remarked, after gazing at it in silence - + +"Birds have been hovering over this for many a day." + +"He's gone bathing and got drowned," cried the Editor in dismay. + +"I doubt it, sir. If he had been drowned anywhere within a mile +from the shore the body would have been washed out on the reefs. +And our boats have found nothing so far." + +Nothing was ever found--and Renouard's disappearance remained in +the main inexplicable. For to whom could it have occurred that a +man would set out calmly to swim beyond the confines of life--with +a steady stroke--his eyes fixed on a star! + +Next evening, from the receding schooner, the Editor looked back +for the last time at the deserted island. A black cloud hung +listlessly over the high rock on the middle hill; and under the +mysterious silence of that shadow Malata lay mournful, with an air +of anguish in the wild sunset, as if remembering the heart that was +broken there. + + +Dec. 1913. + + + + +THE PARTNER + + + + +"And that be hanged for a silly yarn. The boatmen here in Westport +have been telling this lie to the summer visitors for years. The +sort that gets taken out for a row at a shilling a head--and asks +foolish questions--must be told something to pass the time away. +D'ye know anything more silly than being pulled in a boat along a +beach? . . . It's like drinking weak lemonade when you aren't +thirsty. I don't know why they do it! They don't even get sick." + +A forgotten glass of beer stood at his elbow; the locality was a +small respectable smoking-room of a small respectable hotel, and a +taste for forming chance acquaintances accounts for my sitting up +late with him. His great, flat, furrowed cheeks were shaven; a +thick, square wisp of white hairs hung from his chin; its waggling +gave additional point to his deep utterance; and his general +contempt for mankind with its activities and moralities was +expressed in the rakish set of his big soft hat of black felt with +a large rim, which he kept always on his head. + +His appearance was that of an old adventurer, retired after many +unholy experiences in the darkest parts of the earth; but I had +every reason to believe that he had never been outside England. +From a casual remark somebody dropped I gathered that in his early +days he must have been somehow connected with shipping--with ships +in docks. Of individuality he had plenty. And it was this which +attracted my attention at first. But he was not easy to classify, +and before the end of the week I gave him up with the vague +definition, "an imposing old ruffian." + +One rainy afternoon, oppressed by infinite boredom, I went into the +smoking-room. He was sitting there in absolute immobility, which +was really fakir-like and impressive. I began to wonder what could +be the associations of that sort of man, his "milieu," his private +connections, his views, his morality, his friends, and even his +wife--when to my surprise he opened a conversation in a deep, +muttering voice. + +I must say that since he had learned from somebody that I was a +writer of stories he had been acknowledging my existence by means +of some vague growls in the morning. + +He was essentially a taciturn man. There was an effect of rudeness +in his fragmentary sentences. It was some time before I discovered +that what he would be at was the process by which stories--stories +for periodicals--were produced. + +What could one say to a fellow like that? But I was bored to +death; the weather continued impossible; and I resolved to be +amiable. + +"And so you make these tales up on your own. How do they ever come +into your head?" he rumbled. + +I explained that one generally got a hint for a tale. + +"What sort of hint?" + +"Well, for instance," I said, "I got myself rowed out to the rocks +the other day. My boatman told me of the wreck on these rocks +nearly twenty years ago. That could be used as a hint for a mainly +descriptive bit of story with some such title as 'In the Channel,' +for instance." + +It was then that he flew out at the boatmen and the summer visitors +who listen to their tales. Without moving a muscle of his face he +emitted a powerful "Rot," from somewhere out of the depths of his +chest, and went on in his hoarse, fragmentary mumble. "Stare at +the silly rocks--nod their silly heads [the visitors, I presume]. +What do they think a man is--blown-out paper bag or what?--go off +pop like that when he's hit--Damn silly yarn--Hint indeed! . . . A +lie?" + +You must imagine this statuesque ruffian enhaloed in the black rim +of his hat, letting all this out as an old dog growls sometimes, +with his head up and staring-away eyes. + +"Indeed!" I exclaimed. "Well, but even if untrue it IS a hint, +enabling me to see these rocks, this gale they speak of, the heavy +seas, etc., etc., in relation to mankind. The struggle against +natural forces and the effect of the issue on at least one, say, +exalted--" + +He interrupted me by an aggressive - + +"Would truth be any good to you?" + +"I shouldn't like to say," I answered, cautiously. "It's said that +truth is stranger than fiction." + +"Who says that?" he mouthed. + +"Oh! Nobody in particular." + +I turned to the window; for the contemptuous beggar was oppressive +to look at, with his immovable arm on the table. I suppose my +unceremonious manner provoked him to a comparatively long speech. + +"Did you ever see such a silly lot of rocks? Like plums in a slice +of cold pudding." + +I was looking at them--an acre or more of black dots scattered on +the steel-grey shades of the level sea, under the uniform gossamer +grey mist with a formless brighter patch in one place--the veiled +whiteness of the cliff coming through, like a diffused, mysterious +radiance. It was a delicate and wonderful picture, something +expressive, suggestive, and desolate, a symphony in grey and black- +-a Whistler. But the next thing said by the voice behind me made +me turn round. It growled out contempt for all associated notions +of roaring seas with concise energy, then went on - + +"I--no such foolishness--looking at the rocks out there--more +likely call to mind an office--I used to look in sometimes at one +time--office in London--one of them small streets behind Cannon +Street Station. . . " + +He was very deliberate; not jerky, only fragmentary; at times +profane. + +"That's a rather remote connection," I observed, approaching him. + +"Connection? To Hades with your connections. It was an accident." + +"Still," I said, "an accident has its backward and forward +connections, which, if they could be set forth--" + +Without moving he seemed to lend an attentive ear. + +"Aye! Set forth. That's perhaps what you could do. Couldn't you +now? There's no sea life in this connection. But you can put it +in out of your head--if you like." + +"Yes. I could, if necessary," I said. "Sometimes it pays to put +in a lot out of one's head, and sometimes it doesn't. I mean that +the story isn't worth it. Everything's in that." + +It amused me to talk to him like this. He reflected audibly that +he guessed story-writers were out after money like the rest of the +world which had to live by its wits: and that it was extraordinary +how far people who were out after money would go. . . Some of them. + +Then he made a sally against sea life. Silly sort of life, he +called it. No opportunities, no experience, no variety, nothing. +Some fine men came out of it--he admitted--but no more chance in +the world if put to it than fly. Kids. So Captain Harry Dunbar. +Good sailor. Great name as a skipper. Big man; short side- +whiskers going grey, fine face, loud voice. A good fellow, but no +more up to people's tricks than a baby. + +"That's the captain of the Sagamore you're talking about," I said, +confidently. + +After a low, scornful "Of course" he seemed now to hold on the wall +with his fixed stare the vision of that city office, "at the back +of Cannon Street Station," while he growled and mouthed a +fragmentary description, jerking his chin up now and then, as if +angry. + +It was, according to his account, a modest place of business, not +shady in any sense, but out of the way, in a small street now +rebuilt from end to end. "Seven doors from the Cheshire Cat public +house under the railway bridge. I used to take my lunch there when +my business called me to the city. Cloete would come in to have +his chop and make the girl laugh. No need to talk much, either, +for that. Nothing but the way he would twinkle his spectacles on +you and give a twitch of his thick mouth was enough to start you +off before he began one of his little tales. Funny fellow, Cloete. +C-l-o-e-t-e--Cloete." + +"What was he--a Dutchman?" I asked, not seeing in the least what +all this had to do with the Westport boatmen and the Westport +summer visitors and this extraordinary old fellow's irritable view +of them as liars and fools. "Devil knows," he grunted, his eyes on +the wall as if not to miss a single movement of a cinematograph +picture. "Spoke nothing but English, anyway. First I saw him-- +comes off a ship in dock from the States--passenger. Asks me for a +small hotel near by. Wanted to be quiet and have a look round for +a few days. I took him to a place--friend of mine. . . Next time-- +in the City--Hallo! You're very obliging--have a drink. Talks +plenty about himself. Been years in the States. All sorts of +business all over the place. With some patent medicine people, +too. Travels. Writes advertisements and all that. Tells me funny +stories. Tall, loose-limbed fellow. Black hair up on end, like a +brush; long face, long legs, long arms, twinkle in his specs, +jocular way of speaking--in a low voice. . . See that?" + +I nodded, but he was not looking at me. + +"Never laughed so much in my life. The beggar--would make you +laugh telling you how he skinned his own father. He was up to +that, too. A man who's been in the patent-medicine trade will be +up to anything from pitch-and-toss to wilful murder. And that's a +bit of hard truth for you. Don't mind what they do--think they can +carry off anything and talk themselves out of anything--all the +world's a fool to them. Business man, too, Cloete. Came over with +a few hundred pounds. Looking for something to do--in a quiet way. +Nothing like the old country, after all, says he. . . And so we +part--I with more drinks in me than I was used to. After a time, +perhaps six months or so, I run up against him again in Mr. George +Dunbar's office. Yes, THAT office. It wasn't often that I . . . +However, there was a bit of his cargo in a ship in dock that I +wanted to ask Mr. George about. In comes Cloete out of the room at +the back with some papers in his hand. Partner. You understand?" + +"Aha!" I said. "The few hundred pounds." + +"And that tongue of his," he growled. "Don't forget that tongue. +Some of his tales must have opened George Dunbar's eyes a bit as to +what business means." + +"A plausible fellow," I suggested. + +"H'm! You must have it in your own way--of course. Well. +Partner. George Dunbar puts his top-hat on and tells me to wait a +moment. . . George always looked as though he were making a few +thousands a year--a city swell. . . Come along, old man! And he +and Captain Harry go out together--some business with a solicitor +round the corner. Captain Harry, when he was in England, used to +turn up in his brother's office regularly about twelve. Sat in a +corner like a good boy, reading the paper and smoking his pipe. So +they go out. . . Model brothers, says Cloete--two love-birds--I am +looking after the tinned-fruit side of this cozy little show. . . +Gives me that sort of talk. Then by-and-by: What sort of old +thing is that Sagamore? Finest ship out--eh? I dare say all ships +are fine to you. You live by them. I tell you what; I would just +as soon put my money into an old stocking. Sooner!" + + +He drew a breath, and I noticed his hand, lying loosely on the +table, close slowly into a fist. In that immovable man it was +startling, ominous, like the famed nod of the Commander. + +"So, already at that time--note--already," he growled. + +"But hold on," I interrupted. "The Sagamore belonged to Mundy and +Rogers, I've been told." + +He snorted contemptuously. "Damn boatmen--know no better. Flew +the firm's HOUSE-FLAG. That's another thing. Favour. It was like +this: When old man Dunbar died, Captain Harry was already in +command with the firm. George chucked the bank he was clerking in- +-to go on his own with what there was to share after the old chap. +George was a smart man. Started warehousing; then two or three +things at a time: wood-pulp, preserved-fruit trade, and so on. +And Captain Harry let him have his share to work with. . . I am +provided for in my ship, he says. . . But by-and-by Mundy and +Rogers begin to sell out to foreigners all their ships--go into +steam right away. Captain Harry gets very upset--lose command, +part with the ship he was fond of--very wretched. Just then, so it +happened, the brothers came in for some money--an old woman died or +something. Quite a tidy bit. Then young George says: There's +enough between us two to buy the Sagamore with. . . But you'll need +more money for your business, cries Captain Harry--and the other +laughs at him: My business is going on all right. Why, I can go +out and make a handful of sovereigns while you are trying to get +your pipe to draw, old man. . . Mundy and Rogers very friendly +about it: Certainly, Captain. And we will manage her for you, if +you like, as if she were still our own. . . Why, with a connection +like that it was good investment to buy that ship. Good! Aye, at +the time." + +The turning of his head slightly toward me at this point was like a +sign of strong feeling in any other man. + +"You'll mind that this was long before Cloete came into it at all," +he muttered, warningly. + +"Yes. I will mind," I said. "We generally say: some years +passed. That's soon done." + +He eyed me for a while silently in an unseeing way, as if engrossed +in the thought of the years so easily dealt with; his own years, +too, they were, the years before and the years (not so many) after +Cloete came upon the scene. When he began to speak again, I +discerned his intention to point out to me, in his obscure and +graphic manner, the influence on George Dunbar of long association +with Cloete's easy moral standards, unscrupulously persuasive gift +of humour (funny fellow), and adventurously reckless disposition. +He desired me anxiously to elaborate this view, and I assured him +it was quite within my powers. He wished me also to understand +that George's business had its ups and downs (the other brother was +meantime sailing to and fro serenely); that he got into low water +at times, which worried him rather, because he had married a young +wife with expensive tastes. He was having a pretty anxious time of +it generally; and just then Cloete ran up in the city somewhere +against a man working a patent medicine (the fellow's old trade) +with some success, but which, with capital, capital to the tune of +thousands to be spent with both hands on advertising, could be +turned into a great thing--infinitely better--paying than a gold- +mine. Cloete became excited at the possibilities of that sort of +business, in which he was an expert. I understood that George's +partner was all on fire from the contact with this unique +opportunity. + +"So he goes in every day into George's room about eleven, and sings +that tune till George gnashes his teeth with rage. Do shut up. +What's the good? No money. Hardly any to go on with, let alone +pouring thousands into advertising. Never dare propose to his +brother Harry to sell the ship. Couldn't think of it. Worry him +to death. It would be like the end of the world coming. And +certainly not for a business of that kind! . . . Do you think it +would be a swindle? asks Cloete, twitching his mouth. . . George +owns up: No-would be no better than a squeamish ass if he thought +that, after all these years in business. + +"Cloete looks at him hard--Never thought of SELLING the ship. +Expected the blamed old thing wouldn't fetch half her insured value +by this time. Then George flies out at him. What's the meaning, +then, of these silly jeers at ship-owning for the last three weeks? +Had enough of them, anyhow. + +"Angry at having his mouth made to water, see. Cloete don't get +excited. . . I am no squeamish ass, either, says he, very slowly. +'Tisn't selling your old Sagamore wants. The blamed thing wants +tomahawking (seems the name Sagamore means an Indian chief or +something. The figure-head was a half-naked savage with a feather +over one ear and a hatchet in his belt). Tomahawking, says he. + +"What do you mean? asks George. . . Wrecking--it could be managed +with perfect safety, goes on Cloete--your brother would then put in +his share of insurance money. Needn't tell him exactly what for. +He thinks you're the smartest business man that ever lived. Make +his fortune, too. . . George grips the desk with both hands in his +rage. . . You think my brother's a man to cast away his ship on +purpose. I wouldn't even dare think of such a thing in the same +room with him--the finest fellow that ever lived. . . Don't make +such noise; they'll hear you outside, says Cloete; and he tells him +that his brother is the salted pattern of all virtues, but all +that's necessary is to induce him to stay ashore for a voyage--for +a holiday--take a rest--why not? . . . In fact, I have in view +somebody up to that sort of game--Cloete whispers. + +"George nearly chokes. . . So you think I am of that sort--you +think ME capable--What do you take me for? . . . He almost loses +his head, while Cloete keeps cool, only gets white about the gills. +. . I take you for a man who will be most cursedly hard up before +long. . . He goes to the door and sends away the clerks--there were +only two--to take their lunch hour. Comes back . . . What are you +indignant about? Do I want you to rob the widow and orphan? Why, +man! Lloyd's a corporation, it hasn't got a body to starve. +There's forty or more of them perhaps who underwrote the lines on +that silly ship of yours. Not one human being would go hungry or +cold for it. They take every risk into consideration. Everything +I tell you. . . That sort of talk. H'm! George too upset to +speak--only gurgles and waves his arms; so sudden, you see. The +other, warming his back at the fire, goes on. Wood-pulp business +next door to a failure. Tinned-fruit trade nearly played out. . . +You're frightened, he says; but the law is only meant to frighten +fools away. . . And he shows how safe casting away that ship would +be. Premiums paid for so many, many years. No shadow of suspicion +could arise. And, dash it all! a ship must meet her end some day. +. . + +"I am not frightened. I am indignant," says George Dunbar. + +"Cloete boiling with rage inside. Chance of a lifetime--his +chance! And he says kindly: Your wife'll be much more indignant +when you ask her to get out of that pretty house of yours and pile +in into a two-pair back--with kids perhaps, too. . . + +"George had no children. Married a couple of years; looked forward +to a kid or two very much. Feels more upset than ever. Talks +about an honest man for father, and so on. Cloete grins: You be +quick before they come, and they'll have a rich man for father, and +no one the worse for it. That's the beauty of the thing. + +"George nearly cries. I believe he did cry at odd times. This +went on for weeks. He couldn't quarrel with Cloete. Couldn't pay +off his few hundreds; and besides, he was used to have him about. +Weak fellow, George. Cloete generous, too. . . Don't think of my +little pile, says he. Of course it's gone when we have to shut up. +But I don't care, he says. . . And then there was George's new +wife. When Cloete dines there, the beggar puts on a dress suit; +little woman liked it; . . . Mr. Cloete, my husband's partner; such +a clever man, man of the world, so amusing! . . . When he dines +there and they are alone: Oh, Mr. Cloete, I wish George would do +something to improve our prospects. Our position is really so +mediocre. . . And Cloete smiles, but isn't surprised, because he +had put all these notions himself into her empty head. . . What +your husband wants is enterprise, a little audacity. You can +encourage him best, Mrs. Dunbar. . . She was a silly, extravagant +little fool. Had made George take a house in Norwood. Live up to +a lot of people better off than themselves. I saw her once; silk +dress, pretty boots, all feathers and scent, pink face. More like +the Promenade at the Alhambra than a decent home, it looked to me. +But some women do get a devil of a hold on a man." + +"Yes, some do," I assented. "Even when the man is the husband." + +"My missis," he addressed me unexpectedly, in a solemn, +surprisingly hollow tone, "could wind me round her little finger. +I didn't find it out till she was gone. Aye. But she was a woman +of sense, while that piece of goods ought to have been walking the +streets, and that's all I can say. . . You must make her up out of +your head. You will know the sort." + +"Leave all that to me," I said. + +"H'm!" he grunted, doubtfully, then going back to his scornful +tone: "A month or so afterwards the Sagamore arrives home. All +very jolly at first. . . Hallo, George boy! Hallo, Harry, old man! +. . . But by and by Captain Harry thinks his clever brother is not +looking very well. And George begins to look worse. He can't get +rid of Cloete's notion. It has stuck in his head. . . There's +nothing wrong--quite well. . . Captain Harry still anxious. +Business going all right, eh? Quite right. Lots of business. +Good business. . . Of course Captain Harry believes that easily. +Starts chaffing his brother in his jolly way about rolling in +money. George's shirt sticks to his back with perspiration, and he +feels quite angry with the captain. . . The fool, he says to +himself. Rolling in money, indeed! And then he thinks suddenly: +Why not? . . . Because Cloete's notion has got hold of his mind. + +"But next day he weakens and says to Cloete . . . Perhaps it would +be best to sell. Couldn't you talk to my brother? and Cloete +explains to him over again for the twentieth time why selling +wouldn't do, anyhow. No! The Sagamore must be tomahawked--as he +would call it; to spare George's feelings, maybe. But every time +he says the word, George shudders. . . I've got a man at hand +competent for the job who will do the trick for five hundred, and +only too pleased at the chance, says Cloete. . . George shuts his +eyes tight at that sort of talk--but at the same time he thinks: +Humbug! There can be no such man. And yet if there was such a man +it would be safe enough--perhaps. + +"And Cloete always funny about it. He couldn't talk about anything +without it seeming there was a great joke in it somewhere. . . Now, +says he, I know you are a moral citizen, George. Morality is +mostly funk, and I think you're the funkiest man I ever came across +in my travels. Why, you are afraid to speak to your brother. +Afraid to open your mouth to him with a fortune for us all in +sight. . . George flares up at this: no, he ain't afraid; he will +speak; bangs fist on the desk. And Cloete pats him on the back. . +. We'll be made men presently, he says. + +"But the first time George attempts to speak to Captain Harry his +heart slides down into his boots. Captain Harry only laughs at the +notion of staying ashore. He wants no holiday, not he. But Jane +thinks of remaining in England this trip. Go about a bit and see +some of her people. Jane was the Captain's wife; round-faced, +pleasant lady. George gives up that time; but Cloete won't let him +rest. So he tries again; and the Captain frowns. He frowns +because he's puzzled. He can't make it out. He has no notion of +living away from his Sagamore. . . + +"Ah!" I cried. "Now I understand." + +"No, you don't," he growled, his black, contemptuous stare turning +on me crushingly. + +"I beg your pardon," I murmured. + +"H'm! Very well, then. Captain Harry looks very stern, and George +crumples all up inside. . . He sees through me, he thinks. . . Of +course it could not be; but George, by that time, was scared at his +own shadow. He is shirking it with Cloete, too. Gives his partner +to understand that his brother has half a mind to try a spell on +shore, and so on. Cloete waits, gnawing his fingers; so anxious. +Cloete really had found a man for the job. Believe it or not, he +had found him inside the very boarding-house he lodged in-- +somewhere about Tottenham Court Road. He had noticed down-stairs a +fellow--a boarder and not a boarder--hanging about the dark--part +of the passage mostly; sort of 'man of the house,' a slinking chap. +Black eyes. White face. The woman of the house--a widow lady, she +called herself--very full of Mr. Stafford; Mr. Stafford this and +Mr. Stafford that. . . Anyhow, Cloete one evening takes him out to +have a drink. Cloete mostly passed away his evenings in saloon +bars. No drunkard, though, Cloete; for company; liked to talk to +all sorts there; just habit; American fashion. + +"So Cloete takes that chap out more than once. Not very good +company, though. Little to say for himself. Sits quiet and drinks +what's given to him, eyes always half closed, speaks sort of +demure. . . I've had misfortunes, he says. The truth was they had +kicked him out of a big steam-ship company for disgraceful conduct; +nothing to affect his certificate, you understand; and he had gone +down quite easily. Liked it, I expect. Anything's better than +work. Lived on the widow lady who kept that boarding-house." + +"That's almost incredible," I ventured to interrupt. "A man with a +master's certificate, do you mean?" + +"I do; I've known them 'bus cads," he growled, contemptuously. +"Yes. Swing on the tail-board by the strap and yell, 'tuppence all +the way.' Through drink. But this Stafford was of another kind. +Hell's full of such Staffords; Cloete would make fun of him, and +then there would be a nasty gleam in the fellow's half-shut eye. +But Cloete was generally kind to him. Cloete was a fellow that +would be kind to a mangy dog. Anyhow, he used to stand drinks to +that object, and now and then gave him half a crown--because the +widow lady kept Mr. Stafford short of pocket-money. They had rows +almost every day down in the basement. . . + +It was the fellow being a sailor that put into Cloete's mind the +first notion of doing away with the Sagamore. He studies him a +bit, thinks there's enough devil in him yet to be tempted, and one +evening he says to him . . . I suppose you wouldn't mind going to +sea again, for a spell? . . . The other never raises his eyes; says +it's scarcely worth one's while for the miserable salary one gets. +. . Well, but what do you say to captain's wages for a time, and a +couple of hundred extra if you are compelled to come home without +the ship. Accidents will happen, says Cloete. . . Oh! sure to, +says that Stafford; and goes on taking sips of his drink as if he +had no interest in the matter. + +"Cloete presses him a bit; but the other observes, impudent and +languid like: You see, there's no future in a thing like that--is +there? . . Oh! no, says Cloete. Certainly not. I don't mean this +to have any future--as far as you are concerned. It's a 'once for +all' transaction. Well, what do you estimate your future at? he +asks. . . The fellow more listless than ever--nearly asleep.--I +believe the skunk was really too lazy to care. Small cheating at +cards, wheedling or bullying his living out of some woman or other, +was more his style. Cloete swears at him in whispers something +awful. All this in the saloon bar of the Horse Shoe, Tottenham +Court Road. Finally they agree, over the second sixpennyworth of +Scotch hot, on five hundred pounds as the price of tomahawking the +Sagamore. And Cloete waits to see what George can do. + +"A week or two goes by. The other fellow loafs about the house as +if there had been nothing, and Cloete begins to doubt whether he +really means ever to tackle that job. But one day he stops Cloete +at the door, with his downcast eyes: What about that employment +you wished to give me? he asks. . . You see, he had played some +more than usual dirty trick on the woman and expected awful +ructions presently; and to be fired out for sure. Cloete very +pleased. George had been prevaricating to him such a lot that he +really thought the thing was as well as settled. And he says: +Yes. It's time I introduced you to my friend. Just get your hat +and we will go now. . . + +"The two come into the office, and George at his desk sits up in a +sudden panic--staring. Sees a tallish fellow, sort of nasty- +handsome face, heavy eyes, half shut; short drab overcoat, shabby +bowler hat, very careful--like in his movements. And he thinks to +himself, Is that how such a man looks! No, the thing's impossible. +. . Cloete does the introduction, and the fellow turns round to +look behind him at the chair before he sits down. . . A thoroughly +competent man, Cloete goes on . . . The man says nothing, sits +perfectly quiet. And George can't speak, throat too dry. Then he +makes an effort: H'm! H'm! Oh yes--unfortunately--sorry to +disappoint--my brother--made other arrangements--going himself. + +"The fellow gets up, never raising his eyes off the ground, like a +modest girl, and goes out softly, right out of the office without a +sound. Cloete sticks his chin in his hand and bites all his +fingers at once. George's heart slows down and he speaks to +Cloete. . . This can't be done. How can it be? Directly the ship +is lost Harry would see through it. You know he is a man to go to +the underwriters himself with his suspicions. And he would break +his heart over me. How can I play that on him? There's only two +of us in the world belonging to each other. . . + +"Cloete lets out a horrid cuss-word, jumps up, bolts away into his +room, and George hears him there banging things around. After a +while he goes to the door and says in a trembling voice: You ask +me for an impossibility. . . Cloete inside ready to fly out like a +tiger and rend him; but he opens the door a little way and says +softly: Talking of hearts, yours is no bigger than a mouse's, let +me tell you. . . But George doesn't care--load off the heart, +anyhow. And just then Captain Harry comes in. . . Hallo, George +boy. I am little late. What about a chop at the Cheshire, now? . +. . Right you are, old man. . . And off they go to lunch together. +Cloete has nothing to eat that day. + +"George feels a new man for a time; but all of a sudden that fellow +Stafford begins to hang about the street, in sight of the house +door. The first time George sees him he thinks he made a mistake. +But no; next time he has to go out, there is the very fellow +skulking on the other side of the road. It makes George nervous; +but he must go out on business, and when the fellow cuts across the +road-way he dodges him. He dodges him once, twice, three times; +but at last he gets nabbed in his very doorway. . . What do you +want? he says, trying to look fierce. + +"It seems that ructions had come in the basement of that boarding- +house, and the widow lady had turned on him (being jealous mad), to +the extent of talking of the police. THAT Mr. Stafford couldn't +stand; so he cleared out like a scared stag, and there he was, +chucked into the streets, so to speak. Cloete looked so savage as +he went to and fro that he hadn't the spunk to tackle him; but +George seemed a softer kind to his eye. He would have been glad of +half a quid, anything. . . I've had misfortunes, he says softly, in +his demure way, which frightens George more than a row would have +done. . . Consider the severity of my disappointment, he says. . . + +"George, instead of telling him to go to the devil, loses his head. +. . I don't know you. What do you want? he cries, and bolts up- +stairs to Cloete. . . . Look what's come of it, he gasps; now we +are at the mercy of that horrid fellow. . . Cloete tries to show +him that the fellow can do nothing; but George thinks that some +sort of scandal may be forced on, anyhow. Says that he can't live +with that horror haunting him. Cloete would laugh if he weren't +too weary of it all. Then a thought strikes him and he changes his +tune. . . Well, perhaps! I will go down-stairs and send him away +to begin with. . . He comes back. . . He's gone. But perhaps you +are right. The fellow's hard up, and that's what makes people +desperate. The best thing would be to get him out of the country +for a time. Look here, the poor devil is really in want of +employment. I won't ask you much this time: only to hold your +tongue; and I shall try to get your brother to take him as chief +officer. At this George lays his arms and his head on his desk, so +that Cloete feels sorry for him. But altogether Cloete feels more +cheerful because he has shaken the ghost a bit into that Stafford. +That very afternoon he buys him a suit of blue clothes, and tells +him that he will have to turn to and work for his living now. Go +to sea as mate of the Sagamore. The skunk wasn't very willing, but +what with having nothing to eat and no place to sleep in, and the +woman having frightened him with the talk of some prosecution or +other, he had no choice, properly speaking. Cloete takes care of +him for a couple of days. . . Our arrangement still stands, says +he. Here's the ship bound for Port Elizabeth; not a safe anchorage +at all. Should she by chance part from her anchors in a north-east +gale and get lost on the beach, as many of them do, why, it's five +hundred in your pocket--and a quick return home. You are up to the +job, ain't you? + +"Our Mr. Stafford takes it all in with downcast eyes. . . I am a +competent seaman, he says, with his sly, modest air. A ship's +chief mate has no doubt many opportunities to manipulate the chains +and anchors to some purpose. . . At this Cloete thumps him on the +back: You'll do, my noble sailor. Go in and win. . . + +"Next thing George knows, his brother tells him that he had +occasion to oblige his partner. And glad of it, too. Likes the +partner no end. Took a friend of his as mate. Man had his +troubles, been ashore a year nursing a dying wife, it seems. Down +on his luck. . . George protests earnestly that he knows nothing of +the person. Saw him once. Not very attractive to look at. . . And +Captain Harry says in his hearty way, That's so, but must give the +poor devil a chance. . . + +"So Mr. Stafford joins in dock. And it seems that he did manage to +monkey with one of the cables--keeping his mind on Port Elizabeth. +The riggers had all the cable ranged on deck to clean lockers. The +new mate watches them go ashore--dinner hour--and sends the ship- +keeper out of the ship to fetch him a bottle of beer. Then he goes +to work whittling away the forelock of the forty-five-fathom +shackle-pin, gives it a tap or two with a hammer just to make it +loose, and of course that cable wasn't safe any more. Riggers come +back--you know what riggers are: come day, go day, and God send +Sunday. Down goes the chain into the locker without their foreman +looking at the shackles at all. What does he care? He ain't going +in the ship. And two days later the ship goes to sea. . . " + + +At this point I was incautious enough to breathe out another "I +see," which gave offence again, and brought on me a rude "No, you +don't"--as before. But in the pause he remembered the glass of +beer at his elbow. He drank half of it, wiped his mustaches, and +remarked grimly - + +"Don't you think that there will be any sea life in this, because +there ain't. If you're going to put in any out of your own head, +now's your chance. I suppose you know what ten days of bad weather +in the Channel are like? I don't. Anyway, ten whole days go by. +One Monday Cloete comes to the office a little late--hears a +woman's voice in George's room and looks in. Newspapers on the +desk, on the floor; Captain Harry's wife sitting with red eyes and +a bag on the chair near her. . . Look at this, says George, in +great excitement, showing him a paper. Cloete's heart gives a +jump. Ha! Wreck in Westport Bay. The Sagamore gone ashore early +hours of Sunday, and so the newspaper men had time to put in some +of their work. Columns of it. Lifeboat out twice. Captain and +crew remain by the ship. Tugs summoned to assist. If the weather +improves, this well-known fine ship may yet be saved. . . You know +the way these chaps put it. . . Mrs. Harry there on her way to +catch a train from Cannon Street. Got an hour to wait. + +"Cloete takes George aside and whispers: Ship saved yet! Oh, +damn! That must never be; you hear? But George looks at him +dazed, and Mrs. Harry keeps on sobbing quietly: . . . I ought to +have been with him. But I am going to him. . . We are all going +together, cries Cloete, all of a sudden. He rushes out, sends the +woman a cup of hot bovril from the shop across the road, buys a rug +for her, thinks of everything; and in the train tucks her in and +keeps on talking, thirteen to the dozen, all the way, to keep her +spirits up, as it were; but really because he can't hold his peace +for very joy. Here's the thing done all at once, and nothing to +pay. Done. Actually done. His head swims now and again when he +thinks of it. What enormous luck! It almost frightens him. He +would like to yell and sing. Meantime George Dunbar sits in his +corner, looking so deadly miserable that at last poor Mrs. Harry +tries to comfort him, and so cheers herself up at the same time by +talking about how her Harry is a prudent man; not likely to risk +his crew's life or his own unnecessarily--and so on. + +"First thing they hear at Westport station is that the life-boat +has been out to the ship again, and has brought off the second +officer, who had hurt himself, and a few sailors. Captain and the +rest of the crew, about fifteen in all, are still on board. Tugs +expected to arrive every moment. + +"They take Mrs. Harry to the inn, nearly opposite the rocks; she +bolts straight up-stairs to look out of the window, and she lets +out a great cry when she sees the wreck. She won't rest till she +gets on board to her Harry. Cloete soothes her all he can. . . All +right; you try to eat a mouthful, and we will go to make inquiries. + +"He draws George out of the room: Look here, she can't go on +board, but I shall. I'll see to it that he doesn't stop in the +ship too long. Let's go and find the coxswain of the life-boat. . +. George follows him, shivering from time to time. The waves are +washing over the old pier; not much wind, a wild, gloomy sky over +the bay. In the whole world only one tug away off, heading to the +seas, tossed in and out of sight every minute as regular as +clockwork. + +"They meet the coxswain and he tells them: Yes! He's going out +again. No, they ain't in danger on board--not yet. But the ship's +chance is very poor. Still, if the wind doesn't pipe up again and +the sea goes down something might be tried. After some talk he +agrees to take Cloete on board; supposed to be with an urgent +message from the owners to the captain. + +"Whenever Cloete looks at the sky he feels comforted; it looks so +threatening. George Dunbar follows him about with a white face and +saying nothing. Cloete takes him to have a drink or two, and by +and by he begins to pick up. . . That's better, says Cloete; dash +me if it wasn't like walking about with a dead man before. You +ought to be throwing up your cap, man. I feel as if I wanted to +stand in the street and cheer. Your brother is safe, the ship is +lost, and we are made men. + +"Are you certain she's lost? asks George. It would be an awful +blow after all the agonies I have gone through in my mind, since +you first spoke to me, if she were to be got off--and--and--all +this temptation to begin over again. . . For we had nothing to do +with this; had we? + +"Of course not, says Cloete. Wasn't your brother himself in +charge? It's providential. . . Oh! cries George, shocked. . . +Well, say it's the devil, says Cloete, cheerfully. I don't mind! +You had nothing to do with it any more than a baby unborn, you +great softy, you. . . Cloete has got so that he almost loved George +Dunbar. Well. Yes. That was so. I don't mean he respected him. +He was just fond of his partner. + +"They go back, you may say fairly skipping, to the hotel, and find +the wife of the captain at the open window, with her eyes on the +ship as if she wanted to fly across the bay over there. . . Now +then, Mrs. Dunbar, cries Cloete, you can't go, but I am going. Any +messages? Don't be shy. I'll deliver every word faithfully. And +if you would like to give me a kiss for him, I'll deliver that too, +dash me if I don't. + +"He makes Mrs. Harry laugh with his patter. . . Oh, dear Mr. +Cloete, you are a calm, reasonable man. Make him behave sensibly. +He's a bit obstinate, you know, and he's so fond of the ship, too. +Tell him I am here--looking on. . . Trust me, Mrs. Dunbar. Only +shut that window, that's a good girl. You will be sure to catch +cold if you don't, and the Captain won't be pleased coming off the +wreck to find you coughing and sneezing so that you can't tell him +how happy you are. And now if you can get me a bit of tape to +fasten my glasses on good to my ears, I will be going. . . + +"How he gets on board I don't know. All wet and shaken and excited +and out of breath, he does get on board. Ship lying over, +smothered in sprays, but not moving very much; just enough to jag +one's nerve a bit. He finds them all crowded on the deck-house +forward, in their shiny oilskins, with faces like sick men. +Captain Harry can't believe his eyes. What! Mr. Cloete! What are +you doing here, in God's name? . . . Your wife's ashore there, +looking on, gasps out Cloete; and after they had talked a bit, +Captain Harry thinks it's uncommonly plucky and kind of his +brother's partner to come off to him like this. Man glad to have +somebody to talk to. . . It's a bad business, Mr. Cloete, he says. +And Cloete rejoices to hear that. Captain Harry thinks he had done +his best, but the cable had parted when he tried to anchor her. It +was a great trial to lose the ship. Well, he would have to face +it. He fetches a deep sigh now and then. Cloete almost sorry he +had come on board, because to be on that wreck keeps his chest in a +tight band all the time. They crouch out of the wind under the +port boat, a little apart from the men. The life-boat had gone +away after putting Cloete on board, but was coming back next high +water to take off the crew if no attempt at getting the ship afloat +could be made. Dusk was falling; winter's day; black sky; wind +rising. Captain Harry felt melancholy. God's will be done. If +she must be left on the rocks--why, she must. A man should take +what God sends him standing up. . . Suddenly his voice breaks, and +he squeezes Cloete's arm: It seems as if I couldn't leave her, he +whispers. Cloete looks round at the men like a lot of huddled +sheep and thinks to himself: They won't stay. . . Suddenly the +ship lifts a little and sets down with a thump. Tide rising. +Everybody beginning to look out for the life-boat. Some of the men +made her out far away and also two more tugs. But the gale has +come on again, and everybody knows that no tug will ever dare come +near the ship. + +"That's the end, Captain Harry says, very low. . . . Cloete thinks +he never felt so cold in all his life. . . And I feel as if I +didn't care to live on just now, mutters Captain Harry . . . Your +wife's ashore, looking on, says Cloete . . . Yes. Yes. It must be +awful for her to look at the poor old ship lying here done for. +Why, that's our home. + +"Cloete thinks that as long as the Sagamore's done for he doesn't +care, and only wishes himself somewhere else. The slightest +movement of the ship cuts his breath like a blow. And he feels +excited by the danger, too. The captain takes him aside. . . The +life-boat can't come near us for more than an hour. Look here, +Cloete, since you are here, and such a plucky one--do something for +me. . . He tells him then that down in his cabin aft in a certain +drawer there is a bundle of important papers and some sixty +sovereigns in a small canvas bag. Asks Cloete to go and get these +things out. He hasn't been below since the ship struck, and it +seems to him that if he were to take his eyes off her she would +fall to pieces. And then the men--a scared lot by this time--if he +were to leave them by themselves they would attempt to launch one +of the ship's boats in a panic at some heavier thump--and then some +of them bound to get drowned. . . There are two or three boxes of +matches about my shelves in my cabin if you want a light, says +Captain Harry. Only wipe your wet hands before you begin to feel +for them. . . + +"Cloete doesn't like the job, but doesn't like to show funk, +either--and he goes. Lots of water on the main-deck, and he +splashes along; it was getting dark, too. All at once, by the +mainmast, somebody catches him by the arm. Stafford. He wasn't +thinking of Stafford at all. Captain Harry had said something as +to the mate not being quite satisfactory, but it wasn't much. +Cloete doesn't recognise him in his oilskins at first. He sees a +white face with big eyes peering at him. . . Are you pleased, Mr. +Cloete . . . ? + +"Cloete is moved to laugh at the whine, and shakes him off. But +the fellow scrambles on after him on the poop and follows him down +into the cabin of that wrecked ship. And there they are, the two +of them; can hardly see each other. . . You don't mean to make me +believe you have had anything to do with this, says Cloete. . . + +"They both shiver, nearly out of their wits with the excitement of +being on board that ship. She thumps and lurches, and they stagger +together, feeling sick. Cloete again bursts out laughing at that +wretched creature Stafford pretending to have been up to something +so desperate. . . Is that how you think you can treat me now? yells +the other man all of a sudden. . . + +"A sea strikes the stern, the ship trembles and groans all round +them, there's the noise of the seas about and overhead, confusing +Cloete, and he hears the other screaming as if crazy. . . Ah, you +don't believe me! Go and look at the port chain. Parted? Eh? Go +and see if it's parted. Go and find the broken link. You can't. +There's no broken link. That means a thousand pounds for me. No +less. A thousand the day after we get ashore--prompt. I won't +wait till she breaks up, Mr. Cloete. To the underwriters I go if +I've to walk to London on my bare feet. Port cable! Look at her +port cable, I will say to them. I doctored it--for the owners-- +tempted by a low rascal called Cloete. + +"Cloete does not understand what it means exactly. All he sees is +that the fellow means to make mischief. He sees trouble ahead. . . +Do you think you can scare me? he asks,--you poor miserable skunk. +. . And Stafford faces him out--both holding on to the cabin table: +No, damn you, you are only a dirty vagabond; but I can scare the +other, the chap in the black coat. . . + +"Meaning George Dunbar. Cloete's brain reels at the thought. He +doesn't imagine the fellow can do any real harm, but he knows what +George is; give the show away; upset the whole business he had set +his heart on. He says nothing; he hears the other, what with the +funk and strain and excitement, panting like a dog--and then a +snarl. . . A thousand down, twenty-four hours after we get ashore; +day after to-morrow. That's my last word, Mr. Cloete. . . A +thousand pounds, day after to-morrow, says Cloete. Oh yes. And +to-day take this, you dirty cur. . . He hits straight from the +shoulder in sheer rage, nothing else. Stafford goes away spinning +along the bulk-head. Seeing this, Cloete steps out and lands him +another one somewhere about the jaw. The fellow staggers backward +right into the captain's cabin through the open door. Cloete, +following him up, hears him fall down heavily and roll to leeward, +then slams the door to and turns the key. . . There! says he to +himself, that will stop you from making trouble." + +"By Jove!" I murmured. + +The old fellow departed from his impressive immobility to turn his +rakishly hatted head and look at me with his old, black, lack- +lustre eyes. + +"He did leave him there," he uttered, weightily, returning to the +contemplation of the wall. "Cloete didn't mean to allow anybody, +let alone a thing like Stafford, to stand in the way of his great +notion of making George and himself, and Captain Harry, too, for +that matter, rich men. And he didn't think much of consequences. +These patent-medicine chaps don't care what they say or what they +do. They think the world's bound to swallow any story they like to +tell. . . He stands listening for a bit. And it gives him quite a +turn to hear a thump at the door and a sort of muffled raving +screech inside the captain's room. He thinks he hears his own +name, too, through the awful crash as the old Sagamore rises and +falls to a sea. That noise and that awful shock make him clear out +of the cabin. He collects his senses on the poop. But his heart +sinks a little at the black wildness of the night. Chances that he +will get drowned himself before long. Puts his head down the +companion. Through the wind and breaking seas he can hear the +noise of Stafford's beating against the door and cursing. He +listens and says to himself: No. Can't trust him now. . . + +"When he gets back to the top of the deck-house he says to Captain +Harry, who asks him if he got the things, that he is very sorry. +There was something wrong with the door. Couldn't open it. And to +tell you the truth, says he, I didn't like to stop any longer in +that cabin. There are noises there as if the ship were going to +pieces. . . Captain Harry thinks: Nervous; can't be anything wrong +with the door. But he says: Thanks--never mind, never mind. . . +All hands looking out now for the life-boat. Everybody thinking of +himself rather. Cloete asks himself, will they miss him? But the +fact is that Mr. Stafford had made such poor show at sea that after +the ship struck nobody ever paid any attention to him. Nobody +cared what he did or where he was. Pitch dark, too--no counting of +heads. The light of the tug with the lifeboat in tow is seen +making for the ship, and Captain Harry asks: Are we all there? . . +. Somebody answers: All here, sir. . . Stand by to leave the ship, +then, says Captain Harry; and two of you help the gentleman over +first. . . Aye, aye, sir. . . Cloete was moved to ask Captain Harry +to let him stay till last, but the life-boat drops on a grapnel +abreast the fore-rigging, two chaps lay hold of him, watch their +chance, and drop him into her, all safe. + +"He's nearly exhausted; not used to that sort of thing, you see. +He sits in the stern-sheets with his eyes shut. Don't want to look +at the white water boiling all around. The men drop into the boat +one after another. Then he hears Captain Harry's voice shouting in +the wind to the coxswain, to hold on a moment, and some other words +he can't catch, and the coxswain yelling back: Don't be long, sir. +. . What is it? Cloete asks feeling faint. . . Something about the +ship's papers, says the coxswain, very anxious. It's no time to be +fooling about alongside, you understand. They haul the boat off a +little and wait. The water flies over her in sheets. Cloete's +senses almost leave him. He thinks of nothing. He's numb all +over, till there's a shout: Here he is! . . . They see a figure in +the fore-rigging waiting--they slack away on the grapnel-line and +get him in the boat quite easy. There is a little shouting--it's +all mixed up with the noise of the sea. Cloete fancies that +Stafford's voice is talking away quite close to his ear. There's a +lull in the wind, and Stafford's voice seems to be speaking very +fast to the coxswain; he tells him that of course he was near his +skipper, was all the time near him, till the old man said at the +last moment that he must go and get the ship's papers from aft; +would insist on going himself; told him, Stafford, to get into the +life-boat. . . He had meant to wait for his skipper, only there +came this smooth of the seas, and he thought he would take his +chance at once. + +"Cloete opens his eyes. Yes. There's Stafford sitting close by +him in that crowded life-boat. The coxswain stoops over Cloete and +cries: Did you hear what the mate said, sir? . . . Cloete's face +feels as if it were set in plaster, lips and all. Yes, I did, he +forces himself to answer. The coxswain waits a moment, then says: +I don't like it. . . And he turns to the mate, telling him it was a +pity he did not try to run along the deck and hurry up the captain +when the lull came. Stafford answers at once that he did think of +it, only he was afraid of missing him on the deck in the dark. +For, says he, the captain might have got over at once, thinking I +was already in the life-boat, and you would have hauled off +perhaps, leaving me behind. . . True enough, says the coxswain. A +minute or so passes. This won't do, mutters the coxswain. +Suddenly Stafford speaks up in a sort of hollow voice: I was by +when he told Mr. Cloete here that he didn't know how he would ever +have the courage to leave the old ship; didn't he, now? . . . And +Cloete feels his arm being gripped quietly in the dark. . . Didn't +he now? We were standing together just before you went over, Mr. +Cloete? . . . + +"Just then the coxswain cries out: I'm going on board to see. . . +Cloete tears his arm away: I am going with you. . . + +"When they get aboard, the coxswain tells Cloete to go aft along +one side of the ship and he would go along the other so as not to +miss the captain. . . And feel about with your hands, too, says he; +he might have fallen and be lying insensible somewhere on the deck. +. . When Cloete gets at last to the cabin companion on the poop the +coxswain is already there, peering down and sniffing. I detect a +smell of smoke down there, says he. And he yells: Are you there, +sir? . . . This is not a case for shouting, says Cloete, feeling +his heart go stony, as it were. . . Down they go. Pitch dark; the +inclination so sharp that the coxswain, groping his way into the +captain's room, slips and goes tumbling down. Cloete hears him cry +out as though he had hurt himself, and asks what's the matter. And +the coxswain answers quietly that he had fallen on the captain, +lying there insensible. Cloete without a word begins to grope all +over the shelves for a box of matches, finds one, and strikes a +light. He sees the coxswain in his cork jacket kneeling over +Captain Harry. . . Blood, says the coxswain, looking up, and the +match goes out. . . + +"Wait a bit, says Cloete; I'll make paper spills. . . He had felt +the back of books on the shelves. And so he stands lighting one +spill from another while the coxswain turns poor Captain Harry +over. Dead, he says. Shot through the heart. Here's the +revolver. . . He hands it up to Cloete, who looks at it before +putting it in his pocket, and sees a plate on the butt with H. +Dunbar on it. . . His own, he mutters. . . Whose else revolver did +you expect to find? snaps the coxswain. And look, he took off his +long oilskin in the cabin before he went in. But what's this lot +of burnt paper? What could he want to burn the ship's papers for? +. . . + +Cloete sees all, the little drawers drawn out, and asks the +coxswain to look well into them. . . There's nothing, says the man. +Cleaned out. Seems to have pulled out all he could lay his hands +on and set fire to the lot. Mad--that's what it is--went mad. And +now he's dead. You'll have to break it to his wife. . . + +"I feel as if I were going mad myself, says Cloete, suddenly, and +the coxswain begs him for God's sake to pull himself together, and +drags him away from the cabin. They had to leave the body, and as +it was they were just in time before a furious squall came on. +Cloete is dragged into the life-boat and the coxswain tumbles in. +Haul away on the grapnel, he shouts; the captain has shot himself. +. . + +"Cloete was like a dead man--didn't care for anything. He let that +Stafford pinch his arm twice without making a sign. Most of +Westport was on the old pier to see the men out of the life-boat, +and at first there was a sort of confused cheery uproar when she +came alongside; but after the coxswain has shouted something the +voices die out, and everybody is very quiet. As soon as Cloete has +set foot on something firm he becomes himself again. The coxswain +shakes hands with him: Poor woman, poor woman, I'd rather you had +the job than I. . . + +"Where's the mate?" asks Cloete. He's the last man who spoke to +the master. . . Somebody ran along--the crew were being taken to +the Mission Hall, where there was a fire and shake-downs ready for +them--somebody ran along the pier and caught up with Stafford. . . +Here! The owner's agent wants you. . . Cloete tucks the fellow's +arm under his own and walks away with him to the left, where the +fishing-harbour is. . . I suppose I haven't misunderstood you. You +wish me to look after you a bit, says he. The other hangs on him +rather limp, but gives a nasty little laugh: You had better, he +mumbles; but mind, no tricks; no tricks, Mr. Cloete; we are on land +now. + +"There's a police office within fifty yards from here, says Cloete. +He turns into a little public house, pushes Stafford along the +passage. The landlord runs out of the bar. . . This is the mate of +the ship on the rocks, Cloete explains; I wish you would take care +of him a bit to-night. . . What's the matter with him? asks the +man. Stafford leans against the wall in the passage, looking +ghastly. And Cloete says it's nothing--done up, of course. . . I +will be responsible for the expense; I am the owner's agent. I'll +be round in an hour or two to see him. + +And Cloete gets back to the hotel. The news had travelled there +already, and the first thing he sees is George outside the door as +white as a sheet waiting for him. Cloete just gives him a nod and +they go in. Mrs. Harry stands at the head of the stairs, and, when +she sees only these two coming up, flings her arms above her head +and runs into her room. Nobody had dared tell her, but not seeing +her husband was enough. Cloete hears an awful shriek. . . Go to +her, he says to George. + +"While he's alone in the private parlour Cloete drinks a glass of +brandy and thinks it all out. Then George comes in. . . The +landlady's with her, he says. And he begins to walk up and down +the room, flinging his arms about and talking, disconnected like, +his face set hard as Cloete has never seen it before. . . What must +be, must be. Dead--only brother. Well, dead--his troubles over. +But we are living, he says to Cloete; and I suppose, says he, +glaring at him with hot, dry eyes, that you won't forget to wire in +the morning to your friend that we are coming in for certain. . . + +"Meaning the patent-medicine fellow. . . Death is death and +business is business, George goes on; and look--my hands are clean, +he says, showing them to Cloete. Cloete thinks: He's going crazy. +He catches hold of him by the shoulders and begins to shake him: +Damn you--if you had had the sense to know what to say to your +brother, if you had had the spunk to speak to him at all, you moral +creature you, he would be alive now, he shouts. + +"At this George stares, then bursts out weeping with a great +bellow. He throws himself on the couch, buries his face in a +cushion, and howls like a kid. . . That's better, thinks Cloete, +and he leaves him, telling the landlord that he must go out, as he +has some little business to attend to that night. The landlord's +wife, weeping herself, catches him on the stairs: Oh, sir, that +poor lady will go out of her mind. . . + +"Cloete shakes her off, thinking to himself: Oh no! She won't. +She will get over it. Nobody will go mad about this affair unless +I do. It isn't sorrow that makes people go mad, but worry. + +"There Cloete was wrong. What affected Mrs. Harry was that her +husband should take his own life, with her, as it were, looking on. +She brooded over it so that in less than a year they had to put her +into a Home. She was very, very quiet; just gentle melancholy. +She lived for quite a long time. + +"Well, Cloete splashes along in the wind and rain. Nobody in the +streets--all the excitement over. The publican runs out to meet +him in the passage and says to him: Not this way. He isn't in his +room. We couldn't get him to go to bed nohow. He's in the little +parlour there. We've lighted him a fire. . . You have been giving +him drinks too, says Cloete; I never said I would be responsible +for drinks. How many? . . . Two, says the other. It's all right. +I don't mind doing that much for a shipwrecked sailor. . . Cloete +smiles his funny smile: Eh? Come. He paid for them. . . The +publican just blinks. . . Gave you gold, didn't he? Speak up! . . +. What of that! cries the man. What are you after, anyway? He had +the right change for his sovereign. + +"Just so, says Cloete. He walks into the parlour, and there he +sees our Stafford; hair all up on end, landlord's shirt and pants +on, bare feet in slippers, sitting by the fire. When he sees +Cloete he casts his eyes down. + +"You didn't mean us ever to meet again, Mr. Cloete, Stafford says, +demurely. . . That fellow, when he had the drink he wanted--he +wasn't a drunkard--would put on this sort of sly, modest air. . . +But since the captain committed suicide, he says, I have been +sitting here thinking it out. All sorts of things happen. +Conspiracy to lose the ship--attempted murder--and this suicide. +For if it was not suicide, Mr. Cloete, then I know of a victim of +the most cruel, cold-blooded attempt at murder; somebody who has +suffered a thousand deaths. And that makes the thousand pounds of +which we spoke once a quite insignificant sum. Look how very +convenient this suicide is. . . + +"He looks up at Cloete then, who smiles at him and comes quite +close to the table. + +"You killed Harry Dunbar, he whispers. . . The fellow glares at him +and shows his teeth: Of course I did! I had been in that cabin +for an hour and a half like a rat in a trap. . . Shut up and left +to drown in that wreck. Let flesh and blood judge. Of course I +shot him! I thought it was you, you murdering scoundrel, come back +to settle me. He opens the door flying and tumbles right down upon +me; I had a revolver in my hand, and I shot him. I was crazy. Men +have gone crazy for less. + +"Cloete looks at him without flinching. Aha! That's your story, +is it? . . . And he shakes the table a little in his passion as he +speaks. . . Now listen to mine. What's this conspiracy? Who's +going to prove it? You were there to rob. You were rifling his +cabin; he came upon you unawares with your hands in the drawer; and +you shot him with his own revolver. You killed to steal--to steal! +His brother and the clerks in the office know that he took sixty +pounds with him to sea. Sixty pounds in gold in a canvas bag. He +told me where they were. The coxswain of the life-boat can swear +to it that the drawers were all empty. And you are such a fool +that before you're half an hour ashore you change a sovereign to +pay for a drink. Listen to me. If you don't turn up day after to- +morrow at George Dunbar's solicitors, to make the proper deposition +as to the loss of the ship, I shall set the police on your track. +Day after to-morrow. . . + +"And then what do you think? That Stafford begins to tear his +hair. Just so. Tugs at it with both hands without saying +anything. Cloete gives a push to the table which nearly sends the +fellow off his chair, tumbling inside the fender; so that he has +got to catch hold of it to save himself. . . + +"You know the sort of man I am, Cloete says, fiercely. I've got to +a point that I don't care what happens to me. I would shoot you +now for tuppence. + +"At this the cur dodges under the table. Then Cloete goes out, and +as he turns in the street--you know, little fishermen's cottages, +all dark; raining in torrents, too--the other opens the window of +the parlour and speaks in a sort of crying voice - + +"You low Yankee fiend--I'll pay you off some day. + +"Cloete passes by with a damn bitter laugh, because he thinks that +the fellow in a way has paid him off already, if he only knew it." + + +My impressive ruffian drank what remained of his beer, while his +black, sunken eyes looked at me over the rim. + +"I don't quite understand this," I said. "In what way?" + +He unbent a little and explained without too much scorn that +Captain Harry being dead, his half of the insurance money went to +his wife, and her trustees of course bought consols with it. +Enough to keep her comfortable. George Dunbar's half, as Cloete +feared from the first, did not prove sufficient to launch the +medicine well; other moneyed men stepped in, and these two had to +go out of that business, pretty nearly shorn of everything. + +"I am curious," I said, "to learn what the motive force of this +tragic affair was--I mean the patent medicine. Do you know?" + +He named it, and I whistled respectfully. Nothing less than +Parker's Lively Lumbago Pills. Enormous property! You know it; +all the world knows it. Every second man, at least, on this globe +of ours has tried it. + +"Why!" I cried, "they missed an immense fortune." + +"Yes," he mumbled, "by the price of a revolver-shot." + +He told me also that eventually Cloete returned to the States, +passenger in a cargo-boat from Albert Dock. The night before he +sailed he met him wandering about the quays, and took him home for +a drink. "Funny chap, Cloete. We sat all night drinking grogs, +till it was time for him to go on board." + +It was then that Cloete, unembittered but weary, told him this +story, with that utterly unconscious frankness of a patent-medicine +man stranger to all moral standards. Cloete concluded by remarking +that he, had "had enough of the old country." George Dunbar had +turned on him, too, in the end. Cloete was clearly somewhat +disillusioned. + +As to Stafford, he died, professed loafer, in some East End +hospital or other, and on his last day clamoured "for a parson," +because his conscience worried him for killing an innocent man. +"Wanted somebody to tell him it was all right," growled my old +ruffian, contemptuously. "He told the parson that I knew this +Cloete who had tried to murder him, and so the parson (he worked +among the dock labourers) once spoke to me about it. That skunk of +a fellow finding himself trapped yelled for mercy. . . Promised to +be good and so on. . . Then he went crazy . . . screamed and threw +himself about, beat his head against the bulkheads . . . you can +guess all that--eh? . . . till he was exhausted. Gave up. Threw +himself down, shut his eyes, and wanted to pray. So he says. +Tried to think of some prayer for a quick death--he was that +terrified. Thought that if he had a knife or something he would +cut his throat, and be done with it. Then he thinks: No! Would +try to cut away the wood about the lock. . . He had no knife in his +pocket. . . he was weeping and calling on God to send him a tool of +some kind when suddenly he thinks: Axe! In most ships there is a +spare emergency axe kept in the master's room in some locker or +other. . . Up he jumps. . . Pitch dark. "Pulls at the drawers to +find matches and, groping for them, the first thing he comes upon-- +Captain Harry's revolver. Loaded too. He goes perfectly quiet all +over. Can shoot the lock to pieces. See? Saved! God's +providence! There are boxes of matches too. Thinks he: I may +just as well see what I am about. + +"Strikes a light and sees the little canvas bag tucked away at the +back of the drawer. Knew at once what that was. Rams it into his +pocket quick. Aha! says he to himself: this requires more light. +So he pitches a lot of paper on the floor, set fire to it, and +starts in a hurry rummaging for more valuables. Did you ever? He +told that East-End parson that the devil tempted him. First God's +mercy--then devil's work. Turn and turn about. . . + +"Any squirming skunk can talk like that. He was so busy with the +drawers that the first thing he heard was a shout, Great Heavens. +He looks up and there was the door open (Cloete had left the key in +the lock) and Captain Harry holding on, well above him, very fierce +in the light of the burning papers. His eyes were starting out of +his head. Thieving, he thunders at him. A sailor! An officer! +No! A wretch like you deserves no better than to be left here to +drown. + +"This Stafford--on his death-bed--told the parson that when he +heard these words he went crazy again. He snatched his hand with +the revolver in it out of the drawer, and fired without aiming. +Captain Harry fell right in with a crash like a stone on top of the +burning papers, putting the blaze out. All dark. Not a sound. He +listened for a bit then dropped the revolver and scrambled out on +deck like mad." + +The old fellow struck the table with his ponderous fist. + +"What makes me sick is to hear these silly boat-men telling people +the captain committed suicide. Pah! Captain Harry was a man that +could face his Maker any time up there, and here below, too. He +wasn't the sort to slink out of life. Not he! He was a good man +down to the ground. He gave me my first job as stevedore only +three days after I got married." + +As the vindication of Captain Harry from the charge of suicide +seemed to be his only object, I did not thank him very effusively +for his material. And then it was not worth many thanks in any +case. + +For it is too startling even to think of such things happening in +our respectable Channel in full view, so to speak, of the luxurious +continental traffic to Switzerland and Monte Carlo. This story to +be acceptable should have been transposed to somewhere in the South +Seas. But it would have been too much trouble to cook it for the +consumption of magazine readers. So here it is raw, so to speak-- +just as it was told to me--but unfortunately robbed of the striking +effect of the narrator; the most imposing old ruffian that ever +followed the unromantic trade of master stevedore in the port of +London. + +Oct. 1910. + + + + +THE INN OF THE TWO WITCHES--A FIND + + + + +This tale, episode, experience--call it how you will--was related +in the fifties of the last century by a man who, by his own +confession, was sixty years old at the time. Sixty is not a bad +age--unless in perspective, when no doubt it is contemplated by the +majority of us with mixed feelings. It is a calm age; the game is +practically over by then; and standing aside one begins to remember +with a certain vividness what a fine fellow one used to be. I have +observed that, by an amiable attention of Providence, most people +at sixty begin to take a romantic view of themselves. Their very +failures exhale a charm of peculiar potency. And indeed the hopes +of the future are a fine company to live with, exquisite forms, +fascinating if you like, but--so to speak--naked, stripped for a +run. The robes of glamour are luckily the property of the +immovable past which, without them, would sit, a shivery sort of +thing, under the gathering shadows. + +I suppose it was the romanticism of growing age which set our man +to relate his experience for his own satisfaction or for the wonder +of his posterity. It could not have been for his glory, because +the experience was simply that of an abominable fright--terror he +calls it. You would have guessed that the relation alluded to in +the very first lines was in writing. + +This writing constitutes the Find declared in the sub-title. The +title itself is my own contrivance, (can't call it invention), and +has the merit of veracity. We will be concerned with an inn here. +As to the witches that's merely a conventional expression, and we +must take our man's word for it that it fits the case. + +The Find was made in a box of books bought in London, in a street +which no longer exists, from a second-hand bookseller in the last +stage of decay. As to the books themselves they were at least +twentieth-hand, and on inspection turned out not worth the very +small sum of money I disbursed. It might have been some +premonition of that fact which made me say: "But I must have the +box too." The decayed bookseller assented by the careless, tragic +gesture of a man already doomed to extinction. + +A litter of loose pages at the bottom of the box excited my +curiosity but faintly. The close, neat, regular handwriting was +not attractive at first sight. But in one place the statement that +in A.D. 1813 the writer was twenty-two years old caught my eye. +Two and twenty is an interesting age in which one is easily +reckless and easily frightened; the faculty of reflection being +weak and the power of imagination strong. + +In another place the phrase: "At night we stood in again," +arrested my languid attention, because it was a sea phrase. "Let's +see what it is all about," I thought, without excitement. + +Oh! but it was a dull-faced MS., each line resembling every other +line in their close-set and regular order. It was like the drone +of a monotonous voice. A treatise on sugar-refining (the dreariest +subject I can think of) could have been given a more lively +appearance. "In A.D. 1813, I was twenty-two years old," he begins +earnestly and goes on with every appearance of calm, horrible +industry. Don't imagine, however, that there is anything archaic +in my find. Diabolic ingenuity in invention though as old as the +world is by no means a lost art. Look at the telephones for +shattering the little peace of mind given to us in this world, or +at the machine guns for letting with dispatch life out of our +bodies. Now-a-days any blear-eyed old witch if only strong enough +to turn an insignificant little handle could lay low a hundred +young men of twenty in the twinkling of an eye. + +If this isn't progress! . . . Why immense! We have moved on, and +so you must expect to meet here a certain naiveness of contrivance +and simplicity of aim appertaining to the remote epoch. And of +course no motoring tourist can hope to find such an inn anywhere, +now. This one, the one of the title, was situated in Spain. That +much I discovered only from internal evidence, because a good many +pages of that relation were missing--perhaps not a great misfortune +after all. The writer seemed to have entered into a most elaborate +detail of the why and wherefore of his presence on that coast-- +presumably the north coast of Spain. His experience has nothing to +do with the sea, though. As far as I can make it out, he was an +officer on board a sloop-of-war. There's nothing strange in that. +At all stages of the long Peninsular campaign many of our men-of- +war of the smaller kind were cruising off the north coast of Spain- +-as risky and disagreeable a station as can be well imagined. + +It looks as though that ship of his had had some special service to +perform. A careful explanation of all the circumstances was to be +expected from our man, only, as I've said, some of his pages (good +tough paper too) were missing: gone in covers for jampots or in +wadding for the fowling-pieces of his irreverent posterity. But it +is to be seen clearly that communication with the shore and even +the sending of messengers inland was part of her service, either to +obtain intelligence from or to transmit orders or advice to +patriotic Spaniards, guerilleros or secret juntas of the province. +Something of the sort. All this can be only inferred from the +preserved scraps of his conscientious writing. + +Next we come upon the panegyric of a very fine sailor, a member of +the ship's company, having the rating of the captain's coxswain. +He was known on board as Cuba Tom; not because he was Cuban +however; he was indeed the best type of a genuine British tar of +that time, and a man-of-war's man for years. He came by the name +on account of some wonderful adventures he had in that island in +his young days, adventures which were the favourite subject of the +yarns he was in the habit of spinning to his shipmates of an +evening on the forecastle head. He was intelligent, very strong, +and of proved courage. Incidentally we are told, so exact is our +narrator, that Tom had the finest pigtail for thickness and length +of any man in the Navy. This appendage, much cared for and +sheathed tightly in a porpoise skin, hung half way down his broad +back to the great admiration of all beholders and to the great envy +of some. + +Our young officer dwells on the manly qualities of Cuba Tom with +something like affection. This sort of relation between officer +and man was not then very rare. A youngster on joining the service +was put under the charge of a trustworthy seaman, who slung his +first hammock for him and often later on became a sort of humble +friend to the junior officer. The narrator on joining the sloop +had found this man on board after some years of separation. There +is something touching in the warm pleasure he remembers and records +at this meeting with the professional mentor of his boyhood. + +We discover then that, no Spaniard being forthcoming for the +service, this worthy seaman with the unique pigtail and a very high +character for courage and steadiness had been selected as messenger +for one of these missions inland which have been mentioned. His +preparations were not elaborate. One gloomy autumn morning the +sloop ran close to a shallow cove where a landing could be made on +that iron-bound shore. A boat was lowered, and pulled in with Tom +Corbin (Cuba Tom) perched in the bow, and our young man (Mr. Edgar +Byrne was his name on this earth which knows him no more) sitting +in the stern sheets. + +A few inhabitants of a hamlet, whose grey stone houses could be +seen a hundred yards or so up a deep ravine, had come down to the +shore and watched the approach of the boat. The two Englishmen +leaped ashore. Either from dullness or astonishment the peasants +gave no greeting, and only fell back in silence. + +Mr. Byrne had made up his mind to see Tom Corbin started fairly on +his way. He looked round at the heavy surprised faces. + +"There isn't much to get out of them," he said. "Let us walk up to +the village. There will be a wine shop for sure where we may find +somebody more promising to talk to and get some information from." + +"Aye, aye, sir," said Tom falling into step behind his officer. "A +bit of palaver as to courses and distances can do no harm; I +crossed the broadest part of Cuba by the help of my tongue tho' +knowing far less Spanish than I do now. As they say themselves it +was 'four words and no more' with me, that time when I got left +behind on shore by the Blanche, frigate." + +He made light of what was before him, which was but a day's journey +into the mountains. It is true that there was a full day's journey +before striking the mountain path, but that was nothing for a man +who had crossed the island of Cuba on his two legs, and with no +more than four words of the language to begin with. + +The officer and the man were walking now on a thick sodden bed of +dead leaves, which the peasants thereabouts accumulate in the +streets of their villages to rot during the winter for field +manure. Turning his head Mr. Byrne perceived that the whole male +population of the hamlet was following them on the noiseless +springy carpet. Women stared from the doors of the houses and the +children had apparently gone into hiding. The village knew the +ship by sight, afar off, but no stranger had landed on that spot +perhaps for a hundred years or more. The cocked hat of Mr. Byrne, +the bushy whiskers and the enormous pigtail of the sailor, filled +them with mute wonder. They pressed behind the two Englishmen +staring like those islanders discovered by Captain Cook in the +South Seas. + +It was then that Byrne had his first glimpse of the little cloaked +man in a yellow hat. Faded and dingy as it was, this covering for +his head made him noticeable. + +The entrance to the wine shop was like a rough hole in a wall of +flints. The owner was the only person who was not in the street, +for he came out from the darkness at the back where the inflated +forms of wine skins hung on nails could be vaguely distinguished. +He was a tall, one-eyed Asturian with scrubby, hollow cheeks; a +grave expression of countenance contrasted enigmatically with the +roaming restlessness of his solitary eye. On learning that the +matter in hand was the sending on his way of that English mariner +toward a certain Gonzales in the mountains, he closed his good eye +for a moment as if in meditation. Then opened it, very lively +again. + +"Possibly, possibly. It could be done." + +A friendly murmur arose in the group in the doorway at the name of +Gonzales, the local leader against the French. Inquiring as to the +safety of the road Byrne was glad to learn that no troops of that +nation had been seen in the neighbourhood for months. Not the +smallest little detachment of these impious polizones. While +giving these answers the owner of the wine-shop busied himself in +drawing into an earthenware jug some wine which he set before the +heretic English, pocketing with grave abstraction the small piece +of money the officer threw upon the table in recognition of the +unwritten law that none may enter a wine-shop without buying drink. +His eye was in constant motion as if it were trying to do the work +of the two; but when Byrne made inquiries as to the possibility of +hiring a mule, it became immovably fixed in the direction of the +door which was closely besieged by the curious. In front of them, +just within the threshold, the little man in the large cloak and +yellow hat had taken his stand. He was a diminutive person, a mere +homunculus, Byrne describes him, in a ridiculously mysterious, yet +assertive attitude, a corner of his cloak thrown cavalierly over +his left shoulder, muffling his chin and mouth; while the broad- +brimmed yellow hat hung on a corner of his square little head. He +stood there taking snuff, repeatedly. + +"A mule," repeated the wine-seller, his eyes fixed on that quaint +and snuffy figure. . . "No, senor officer! Decidedly no mule is to +be got in this poor place." + +The coxswain, who stood by with the true sailor's air of unconcern +in strange surroundings, struck in quietly - + +"If your honour will believe me Shank's pony's the best for this +job. I would have to leave the beast somewhere, anyhow, since the +captain has told me that half my way will be along paths fit only +for goats." + +The diminutive man made a step forward, and speaking through the +folds of the cloak which seemed to muffle a sarcastic intention - + +"Si, senor. They are too honest in this village to have a single +mule amongst them for your worship's service. To that I can bear +testimony. In these times it's only rogues or very clever men who +can manage to have mules or any other four-footed beasts and the +wherewithal to keep them. But what this valiant mariner wants is a +guide; and here, senor, behold my brother-in-law, Bernardino, wine- +seller, and alcade of this most Christian and hospitable village, +who will find you one." + +This, Mr. Byrne says in his relation, was the only thing to do. A +youth in a ragged coat and goat-skin breeches was produced after +some more talk. The English officer stood treat to the whole +village, and while the peasants drank he and Cuba Tom took their +departure accompanied by the guide. The diminutive man in the +cloak had disappeared. + +Byrne went along with the coxswain out of the village. He wanted +to see him fairly on his way; and he would have gone a greater +distance, if the seaman had not suggested respectfully the +advisability of return so as not to keep the ship a moment longer +than necessary so close in with the shore on such an unpromising +looking morning. A wild gloomy sky hung over their heads when they +took leave of each other, and their surroundings of rank bushes and +stony fields were dreary. + +"In four days' time," were Byrne's last words, "the ship will stand +in and send a boat on shore if the weather permits. If not you'll +have to make it out on shore the best you can till we come along to +take you off." + +"Right you are, sir," answered Tom, and strode on. Byrne watched +him step out on a narrow path. In a thick pea-jacket with a pair +of pistols in his belt, a cutlass by his side, and a stout cudgel +in his hand, he looked a sturdy figure and well able to take care +of himself. He turned round for a moment to wave his hand, giving +to Byrne one more view of his honest bronzed face with bushy +whiskers. The lad in goatskin breeches looking, Byrne says, like a +faun or a young satyr leaping ahead, stopped to wait for him, and +then went off at a bound. Both disappeared. + +Byrne turned back. The hamlet was hidden in a fold of the ground, +and the spot seemed the most lonely corner of the earth and as if +accursed in its uninhabited desolate barrenness. Before he had +walked many yards, there appeared very suddenly from behind a bush +the muffled up diminutive Spaniard. Naturally Byrne stopped short. + +The other made a mysterious gesture with a tiny hand peeping from +under his cloak. His hat hung very much at the side of his head. +"Senor," he said without any preliminaries. "Caution! It is a +positive fact that one-eyed Bernardino, my brother-in-law, has at +this moment a mule in his stable. And why he who is not clever has +a mule there? Because he is a rogue; a man without conscience. +Because I had to give up the macho to him to secure for myself a +roof to sleep under and a mouthful of olla to keep my soul in this +insignificant body of mine. Yet, senor, it contains a heart many +times bigger than the mean thing which beats in the breast of that +brute connection of mine of which I am ashamed, though I opposed +that marriage with all my power. Well, the misguided woman +suffered enough. She had her purgatory on this earth--God rest her +soul." + +Byrne says he was so astonished by the sudden appearance of that +sprite-like being, and by the sardonic bitterness of the speech, +that he was unable to disentangle the significant fact from what +seemed but a piece of family history fired out at him without rhyme +or reason. Not at first. He was confounded and at the same time +he was impressed by the rapid forcible delivery, quite different +from the frothy excited loquacity of an Italian. So he stared +while the homunculus letting his cloak fall about him, aspired an +immense quantity of snuff out of the hollow of his palm. + +"A mule," exclaimed Byrne seizing at last the real aspect of the +discourse. "You say he has got a mule? That's queer! Why did he +refuse to let me have it?" + +The diminutive Spaniard muffled himself up again with great +dignity. + +"Quien sabe," he said coldly, with a shrug of his draped shoulders. +"He is a great politico in everything he does. But one thing your +worship may be certain of--that his intentions are always rascally. +This husband of my defunta sister ought to have been married a long +time ago to the widow with the wooden legs." {1} + +"I see. But remember that; whatever your motives, your worship +countenanced him in this lie." + +The bright unhappy eyes on each side of a predatory nose confronted +Byrne without wincing, while with that testiness which lurks so +often at the bottom of Spanish dignity - + +"No doubt the senor officer would not lose an ounce of blood if I +were stuck under the fifth rib," he retorted. "But what of this +poor sinner here?" Then changing his tone. "Senor, by the +necessities of the times I live here in exile, a Castilian and an +old Christian, existing miserably in the midst of these brute +Asturians, and dependent on the worst of them all, who has less +conscience and scruples than a wolf. And being a man of +intelligence I govern myself accordingly. Yet I can hardly contain +my scorn. You have heard the way I spoke. A caballero of parts +like your worship might have guessed that there was a cat in +there." + +"What cat?" said Byrne uneasily. "Oh, I see. Something +suspicious. No, senor. I guessed nothing. My nation are not good +guessers at that sort of thing; and, therefore, I ask you plainly +whether that wine-seller has spoken the truth in other +particulars?" + +"There are certainly no Frenchmen anywhere about," said the little +man with a return to his indifferent manner. + +"Or robbers--ladrones?" + +"Ladrones en grande--no! Assuredly not," was the answer in a cold +philosophical tone. "What is there left for them to do after the +French? And nobody travels in these times. But who can say! +Opportunity makes the robber. Still that mariner of yours has a +fierce aspect, and with the son of a cat rats will have no play. +But there is a saying, too, that where honey is there will soon be +flies." + +This oracular discourse exasperated Byrne. "In the name of God," +he cried, "tell me plainly if you think my man is reasonably safe +on his journey." + +The homunculus, undergoing one of his rapid changes, seized the +officer's arm. The grip of his little hand was astonishing. + +"Senor! Bernardino had taken notice of him. What more do you +want? And listen--men have disappeared on this road--on a certain +portion of this road, when Bernardino kept a meson, an inn, and I, +his brother-in-law, had coaches and mules for hire. Now there are +no travellers, no coaches. The French have ruined me. Bernardino +has retired here for reasons of his own after my sister died. They +were three to torment the life out of her, he and Erminia and +Lucilla, two aunts of his--all affiliated to the devil. And now he +has robbed me of my last mule. You are an armed man. Demand the +macho from him, with a pistol to his head, senor--it is not his, I +tell you--and ride after your man who is so precious to you. And +then you shall both be safe, for no two travellers have been ever +known to disappear together in those days. As to the beast, I, its +owner, I confide it to your honour." + +They were staring hard at each other, and Byrne nearly burst into a +laugh at the ingenuity and transparency of the little man's plot to +regain possession of his mule. But he had no difficulty to keep a +straight face because he felt deep within himself a strange +inclination to do that very extraordinary thing. He did not laugh, +but his lip quivered; at which the diminutive Spaniard, detaching +his black glittering eyes from Byrne's face, turned his back on him +brusquely with a gesture and a fling of the cloak which somehow +expressed contempt, bitterness, and discouragement all at once. He +turned away and stood still, his hat aslant, muffled up to the +ears. But he was not offended to the point of refusing the silver +duro which Byrne offered him with a non-committal speech as if +nothing extraordinary had passed between them. + +"I must make haste on board now," said Byrne, then. + +"Vaya usted con Dios," muttered the gnome. And this interview +ended with a sarcastic low sweep of the hat which was replaced at +the same perilous angle as before. + +Directly the boat had been hoisted the ship's sails were filled on +the off-shore tack, and Byrne imparted the whole story to his +captain, who was but a very few years older than himself. There +was some amused indignation at it--but while they laughed they +looked gravely at each other. A Spanish dwarf trying to beguile an +officer of his majesty's navy into stealing a mule for him--that +was too funny, too ridiculous, too incredible. Those were the +exclamations of the captain. He couldn't get over the +grotesqueness of it. + +"Incredible. That's just it," murmured Byrne at last in a +significant tone. + +They exchanged a long stare. "It's as clear as daylight," affirmed +the captain impatiently, because in his heart he was not certain. +And Tom the best seaman in the ship for one, the good-humouredly +deferential friend of his boyhood for the other, was becoming +endowed with a compelling fascination, like a symbolic figure of +loyalty appealing to their feelings and their conscience, so that +they could not detach their thoughts from his safety. Several +times they went up on deck, only to look at the coast, as if it +could tell them something of his fate. It stretched away, +lengthening in the distance, mute, naked, and savage, veiled now +and then by the slanting cold shafts of rain. The westerly swell +rolled its interminable angry lines of foam and big dark clouds +flew over the ship in a sinister procession. + +"I wish to goodness you had done what your little friend in the +yellow hat wanted you to do," said the commander of the sloop late +in the afternoon with visible exasperation. + +"Do you, sir?" answered Byrne, bitter with positive anguish. "I +wonder what you would have said afterwards? Why! I might have +been kicked out of the service for looting a mule from a nation in +alliance with His Majesty. Or I might have been battered to a pulp +with flails and pitch-forks--a pretty tale to get abroad about one +of your officers--while trying to steal a mule. Or chased +ignominiously to the boat--for you would not have expected me to +shoot down unoffending people for the sake of a mangy mule. . . And +yet," he added in a low voice, "I almost wish myself I had done +it." + +Before dark those two young men had worked themselves up into a +highly complex psychological state of scornful scepticism and +alarmed credulity. It tormented them exceedingly; and the thought +that it would have to last for six days at least, and possibly be +prolonged further for an indefinite time, was not to be borne. The +ship was therefore put on the inshore tack at dark. All through +the gusty dark night she went towards the land to look for her man, +at times lying over in the heavy puffs, at others rolling idle in +the swell, nearly stationary, as if she too had a mind of her own +to swing perplexed between cool reason and warm impulse. + +Then just at daybreak a boat put off from her and went on tossed by +the seas towards the shallow cove where, with considerable +difficulty, an officer in a thick coat and a round hat managed to +land on a strip of shingle. + +"It was my wish," writes Mr. Byrne, "a wish of which my captain +approved, to land secretly if possible. I did not want to be seen +either by my aggrieved friend in the yellow hat, whose motives were +not clear, or by the one-eyed wine-seller, who may or may not have +been affiliated to the devil, or indeed by any other dweller in +that primitive village. But unfortunately the cove was the only +possible landing place for miles; and from the steepness of the +ravine I couldn't make a circuit to avoid the houses." + +"Fortunately," he goes on, "all the people were yet in their beds. +It was barely daylight when I found myself walking on the thick +layer of sodden leaves filling the only street. No soul was +stirring abroad, no dog barked. The silence was profound, and I +had concluded with some wonder that apparently no dogs were kept in +the hamlet, when I heard a low snarl, and from a noisome alley +between two hovels emerged a vile cur with its tail between its +legs. He slunk off silently showing me his teeth as he ran before +me, and he disappeared so suddenly that he might have been the +unclean incarnation of the Evil One. There was, too, something so +weird in the manner of its coming and vanishing, that my spirits, +already by no means very high, became further depressed by the +revolting sight of this creature as if by an unlucky presage." + +He got away from the coast unobserved, as far as he knew, then +struggled manfully to the west against wind and rain, on a barren +dark upland, under a sky of ashes. Far away the harsh and desolate +mountains raising their scarped and denuded ridges seemed to wait +for him menacingly. The evening found him fairly near to them, +but, in sailor language, uncertain of his position, hungry, wet, +and tired out by a day of steady tramping over broken ground during +which he had seen very few people, and had been unable to obtain +the slightest intelligence of Tom Corbin's passage. "On! on! I +must push on," he had been saying to himself through the hours of +solitary effort, spurred more by incertitude than by any definite +fear or definite hope. + +The lowering daylight died out quickly, leaving him faced by a +broken bridge. He descended into the ravine, forded a narrow +stream by the last gleam of rapid water, and clambering out on the +other side was met by the night which fen like a bandage over his +eyes. The wind sweeping in the darkness the broadside of the +sierra worried his ears by a continuous roaring noise as of a +maddened sea. He suspected that he had lost the road. Even in +daylight, with its ruts and mud-holes and ledges of outcropping +stone, it was difficult to distinguish from the dreary waste of the +moor interspersed with boulders and clumps of naked bushes. But, +as he says, "he steered his course by the feel of the wind," his +hat rammed low on his brow, his head down, stopping now and again +from mere weariness of mind rather than of body--as if not his +strength but his resolution were being overtaxed by the strain of +endeavour half suspected to be vain, and by the unrest of his +feelings. + +In one of these pauses borne in the wind faintly as if from very +far away he heard a sound of knocking, just knocking on wood. He +noticed that the wind had lulled suddenly. + +His heart started beating tumultuously because in himself he +carried the impression of the desert solitudes he had been +traversing for the last six hours--the oppressive sense of an +uninhabited world. When he raised his head a gleam of light, +illusory as it often happens in dense darkness, swam before his +eyes. While he peered, the sound of feeble knocking was repeated-- +and suddenly he felt rather than saw the existence of a massive +obstacle in his path. What was it? The spur of a hill? Or was it +a house! Yes. It was a house right close, as though it had risen +from the ground or had come gliding to meet him, dumb and pallid; +from some dark recess of the night. It towered loftily. He had +come up under its lee; another three steps and he could have +touched the wall with his hand. It was no doubt a posada and some +other traveller was trying for admittance. He heard again the +sound of cautious knocking. + +Next moment a broad band of light fell into the night through the +opened door. Byrne stepped eagerly into it, whereupon the person +outside leaped with a stifled cry away into the night. An +exclamation of surprise was heard too, from within. Byrne, +flinging himself against the half closed door, forced his way in +against some considerable resistance. + +A miserable candle, a mere rushlight, burned at the end of a long +deal table. And in its light Byrne saw, staggering yet, the girl +he had driven from the door. She had a short black skirt, an +orange shawl, a dark complexion--and the escaped single hairs from +the mass, sombre and thick like a forest and held up by a comb, +made a black mist about her low forehead. A shrill lamentable howl +of: "Misericordia!" came in two voices from the further end of the +long room, where the fire-light of an open hearth played between +heavy shadows. The girl recovering herself drew a hissing breath +through her set teeth. + +It is unnecessary to report the long process of questions and +answers by which he soothed the fears of two old women who sat on +each side of the fire, on which stood a large earthenware pot. +Byrne thought at once of two witches watching the brewing of some +deadly potion. But all the same, when one of them raising forward +painfully her broken form lifted the cover of the pot, the escaping +steam had an appetising smell. The other did not budge, but sat +hunched up, her head trembling all the time. + +They were horrible. There was something grotesque in their +decrepitude. Their toothless mouths, their hooked noses, the +meagreness of the active one, and the hanging yellow cheeks of the +other (the still one, whose head trembled) would have been +laughable if the sight of their dreadful physical degradation had +not been appalling to one's eyes, had not gripped one's heart with +poignant amazement at the unspeakable misery of age, at the awful +persistency of life becoming at last an object of disgust and +dread. + +To get over it Byrne began to talk, saying that he was an +Englishman, and that he was in search of a countryman who ought to +have passed this way. Directly he had spoken the recollection of +his parting with Tom came up in his mind with amazing vividness: +the silent villagers, the angry gnome, the one-eyed wine-seller, +Bernardino. Why! These two unspeakable frights must be that man's +aunts--affiliated to the devil. + +Whatever they had been once it was impossible to imagine what use +such feeble creatures could be to the devil, now, in the world of +the living. Which was Lucilla and which was Erminia? They were +now things without a name. A moment of suspended animation +followed Byrne's words. The sorceress with the spoon ceased +stirring the mess in the iron pot, the very trembling of the +other's head stopped for the space of breath. In this +infinitesimal fraction of a second Byrne had the sense of being +really on his quest, of having reached the turn of the path, almost +within hail of Tom. + +"They have seen him," he thought with conviction. Here was at last +somebody who had seen him. He made sure they would deny all +knowledge of the Ingles; but on the contrary they were eager to +tell him that he had eaten and slept the night in the house. They +both started talking together, describing his appearance and +behaviour. An excitement quite fierce in its feebleness possessed +them. The doubled-up sorceress flourished aloft her wooden spoon, +the puffy monster got off her stool and screeched, stepping from +one foot to the other, while the trembling of her head was +accelerated to positive vibration. Byrne was quite disconcerted by +their excited behaviour. . . Yes! The big, fierce Ingles went away +in the morning, after eating a piece of bread and drinking some +wine. And if the caballero wished to follow the same path nothing +could be easier--in the morning. + +"You will give me somebody to show me the way?" said Byrne. + +"Si, senor. A proper youth. The man the caballero saw going out." + +"But he was knocking at the door," protested Byrne. "He only +bolted when he saw me. He was coming in." + +"No! No!" the two horrid witches screamed out together. "Going +out. Going out!" + +After all it may have been true. The sound of knocking had been +faint, elusive, reflected Byrne. Perhaps only the effect of his +fancy. He asked - + +"Who is that man?" + +"Her novio." They screamed pointing to the girl. "He is gone home +to a village far away from here. But he will return in the +morning. Her novio! And she is an orphan--the child of poor +Christian people. She lives with us for the love of God, for the +love of God." + +The orphan crouching on the corner of the hearth had been looking +at Byrne. He thought that she was more like a child of Satan kept +there by these two weird harridans for the love of the Devil. Her +eyes were a little oblique, her mouth rather thick, but admirably +formed; her dark face had a wild beauty, voluptuous and untamed. +As to the character of her steadfast gaze attached upon him with a +sensuously savage attention, "to know what it was like," says Mr. +Byrne, "you have only to observe a hungry cat watching a bird in a +cage or a mouse inside a trap." + +It was she who served him the food, of which he was glad; though +with those big slanting black eyes examining him at close range, as +if he had something curious written on his face, she gave him an +uncomfortable sensation. But anything was better than being +approached by these blear-eyed nightmarish witches. His +apprehensions somehow had been soothed; perhaps by the sensation of +warmth after severe exposure and the ease of resting after the +exertion of fighting the gale inch by inch all the way. He had no +doubt of Tom's safety. He was now sleeping in the mountain camp +having been met by Gonzales' men. + +Byrne rose, filled a tin goblet with wine out of a skin hanging on +the wall, and sat down again. The witch with the mummy face began +to talk to him, ramblingly of old times; she boasted of the inn's +fame in those better days. Great people in their own coaches +stopped there. An archbishop slept once in the casa, a long, long +time ago. + +The witch with the puffy face seemed to be listening from her +stool, motionless, except for the trembling of her head. The girl +(Byrne was certain she was a casual gipsy admitted there for some +reason or other) sat on the hearth stone in the glow of the embers. +She hummed a tune to herself, rattling a pair of castanets slightly +now and then. At the mention of the archbishop she chuckled +impiously and turned her head to look at Byrne, so that the red +glow of the fire flashed in her black eyes and on her white teeth +under the dark cowl of the enormous overmantel. And he smiled at +her. + +He rested now in the ease of security. His advent not having been +expected there could be no plot against him in existence. +Drowsiness stole upon his senses. He enjoyed it, but keeping a +hold, so he thought at least, on his wits; but he must have been +gone further than he thought because he was startled beyond measure +by a fiendish uproar. He had never heard anything so pitilessly +strident in his life. The witches had started a fierce quarrel +about something or other. Whatever its origin they were now only +abusing each other violently, without arguments; their senile +screams expressed nothing but wicked anger and ferocious dismay. +The gipsy girl's black eyes flew from one to the other. Never +before had Byrne felt himself so removed from fellowship with human +beings. Before he had really time to understand the subject of the +quarrel, the girl jumped up rattling her castanets loudly. A +silence fell. She came up to the table and bending over, her eyes +in his - + +"Senor," she said with decision, "You shall sleep in the +archbishop's room." + +Neither of the witches objected. The dried-up one bent double was +propped on a stick. The puffy faced one had now a crutch. + +Byrne got up, walked to the door, and turning the key in the +enormous lock put it coolly in his pocket. This was clearly the +only entrance, and he did not mean to be taken unawares by whatever +danger there might have been lurking outside. + +When he turned from the door he saw the two witches "affiliated to +the Devil" and the Satanic girl looking at him in silence. He +wondered if Tom Corbin took the same precaution last might. And +thinking of him he had again that queer impression of his nearness. +The world was perfectly dumb. And in this stillness he heard the +blood beating in his ears with a confused rushing noise, in which +there seemed to be a voice uttering the words: "Mr. Byrne, look +out, sir." Tom's voice. He shuddered; for the delusions of the +senses of hearing are the most vivid of all, and from their nature +have a compelling character. + +It seemed impossible that Tom should not be there. Again a slight +chill as of stealthy draught penetrated through his very clothes +and passed over all his body. He shook off the impression with an +effort. + +It was the girl who preceded him upstairs carrying an iron lamp +from the naked flame of which ascended a thin thread of smoke. Her +soiled white stockings were full of holes. + +With the same quiet resolution with which he had locked the door +below, Byrne threw open one after another the doors in the +corridor. All the rooms were empty except for some nondescript +lumber in one or two. And the girl seeing what he would be at +stopped every time, raising the smoky light in each doorway +patiently. Meantime she observed him with sustained attention. +The last door of all she threw open herself. + +"You sleep here, senor," she murmured in a voice light like a +child's breath, offering him the lamp. + +"Buenos noches, senorita," he said politely, taking it from her. + +She didn't return the wish audibly, though her lips did move a +little, while her gaze black like a starless night never for a +moment wavered before him. He stepped in, and as he turned to +close the door she was still there motionless and disturbing, with +her voluptuous mouth and slanting eyes, with the expression of +expectant sensual ferocity of a baffled cat. He hesitated for a +moment, and in the dumb house he heard again the blood pulsating +ponderously in his ears, while once more the illusion of Tom's +voice speaking earnestly somewhere near by was specially +terrifying, because this time he could not make out the words. + +He slammed the door in the girl's face at last, leaving her in the +dark; and he opened it again almost on the instant. Nobody. She +had vanished without the slightest sound. He closed the door +quickly and bolted it with two heavy bolts. + +A profound mistrust possessed him suddenly. Why did the witches +quarrel about letting him sleep here? And what meant that stare of +the girl as if she wanted to impress his features for ever in her +mind? His own nervousness alarmed him. He seemed to himself to be +removed very far from mankind. + +He examined his room. It was not very high, just high enough to +take the bed which stood under an enormous baldaquin-like canopy +from which fell heavy curtains at foot and head; a bed certainly +worthy of an archbishop. There was a heavy table carved all round +the edges, some arm-chairs of enormous weight like the spoils of a +grandee's palace; a tall shallow wardrobe placed against the wall +and with double doors. He tried them. Locked. A suspicion came +into his mind, and he snatched the lamp to make a closer +examination. No, it was not a disguised entrance. That heavy, +tall piece of furniture stood clear of the wall by quite an inch. +He glanced at the bolts of his room door. No! No one could get at +him treacherously while he slept. But would he be able to sleep? +he asked himself anxiously. If only he had Tom there--the trusty +seaman who had fought at his right hand in a cutting out affair or +two, and had always preached to him the necessity to take care of +himself. "For it's no great trick," he used to say, "to get +yourself killed in a hot fight. Any fool can do that. The proper +pastime is to fight the Frenchies and then live to fight another +day." + +Byrne found it a hard matter not to fall into listening to the +silence. Somehow he had the conviction that nothing would break it +unless he heard again the haunting sound of Tom's voice. He had +heard it twice before. Odd! And yet no wonder, he argued with +himself reasonably, since he had been thinking of the man for over +thirty hours continuously and, what's more, inconclusively. For +his anxiety for Tom had never taken a definite shape. "Disappear," +was the only word connected with the idea of Tom's danger. It was +very vague and awful. "Disappear!" What did that mean? + +Byrne shuddered, and then said to himself that he must be a little +feverish. But Tom had not disappeared. Byrne had just heard of +him. And again the young man felt the blood beating in his ears. +He sat still expecting every moment to hear through the pulsating +strokes the sound of Tom's voice. He waited straining his ears, +but nothing came. Suddenly the thought occurred to him: "He has +not disappeared, but he cannot make himself heard." + +He jumped up from the arm-chair. How absurd! Laying his pistol +and his hanger on the table he took off his boots and, feeling +suddenly too tired to stand, flung himself on the bed which he +found soft and comfortable beyond his hopes. + +He had felt very wakeful, but he must have dozed off after all, +because the next thing he knew he was sitting up in bed and trying +to recollect what it was that Tom's voice had said. Oh! He +remembered it now. It had said: "Mr. Byrne! Look out, sir!" A +warning this. But against what? + +He landed with one leap in the middle of the floor, gasped once, +then looked all round the room. The window was shuttered and +barred with an iron bar. Again he ran his eyes slowly all round +the bare walls, and even looked up at the ceiling, which was rather +high. Afterwards he went to the door to examine the fastenings. +They consisted of two enormous iron bolts sliding into holes made +in the wall; and as the corridor outside was too narrow to admit of +any battering arrangement or even to permit an axe to be swung, +nothing could burst the door open--unless gunpowder. But while he +was still making sure that the lower bolt was pushed well home, he +received the impression of somebody's presence in the room. It was +so strong that he spun round quicker than lightning. There was no +one. Who could there be? And yet . . . + +It was then that he lost the decorum and restraint a man keeps up +for his own sake. He got down on his hands and knees, with the +lamp on the floor, to look under the bed, like a silly girl. He +saw a lot of dust and nothing else. He got up, his cheeks burning, +and walked about discontented with his own behaviour and +unreasonably angry with Tom for not leaving him alone. The words: +"Mr. Byrne! Look out, sir," kept on repeating themselves in his +head in a tone of warning. + +"Hadn't I better just throw myself on the bed and try to go to +sleep," he asked himself. But his eyes fell on the tall wardrobe, +and he went towards it feeling irritated with himself and yet +unable to desist. How he could explain to-morrow the burglarious +misdeed to the two odious witches he had no idea. Nevertheless he +inserted the point of his hanger between the two halves of the door +and tried to prize them open. They resisted. He swore, sticking +now hotly to his purpose. His mutter: "I hope you will be +satisfied, confound you," was addressed to the absent Tom. Just +then the doors gave way and flew open. + +He was there. + +He--the trusty, sagacious, and courageous Tom was there, drawn up +shadowy and stiff, in a prudent silence, which his wide-open eyes +by their fixed gleam seemed to command Byrne to respect. But Byrne +was too startled to make a sound. Amazed, he stepped back a +little--and on the instant the seaman flung himself forward +headlong as if to clasp his officer round the neck. Instinctively +Byrne put out his faltering arms; he felt the horrible rigidity of +the body and then the coldness of death as their heads knocked +together and their faces came into contact. They reeled, Byrne +hugging Tom close to his breast in order not to let him fall with a +crash. He had just strength enough to lower the awful burden +gently to the floor--then his head swam, his legs gave way, and he +sank on his knees, leaning over the body with his hands resting on +the breast of that man once full of generous life, and now as +insensible as a stone. + +"Dead! my poor Tom, dead," he repeated mentally. The light of the +lamp standing near the edge of the table fell from above straight +on the stony empty stare of these eyes which naturally had a mobile +and merry expression. + +Byrne turned his own away from them. Tom's black silk neckerchief +was not knotted on his breast. It was gone. The murderers had +also taken off his shoes and stockings. And noticing this +spoliation, the exposed throat, the bare up-turned feet, Byrne felt +his eyes run full of tears. In other respects the seaman was fully +dressed; neither was his clothing disarranged as it must have been +in a violent struggle. Only his checked shirt had been pulled a +little out the waistband in one place, just enough to ascertain +whether he had a money belt fastened round his body. Byrne began +to sob into his handkerchief. + +It was a nervous outburst which passed off quickly. Remaining on +his knees he contemplated sadly the athletic body of as fine a +seaman as ever had drawn a cutlass, laid a gun, or passed the +weather earring in a gale, lying stiff and cold, his cheery, +fearless spirit departed--perhaps turning to him, his boy chum, to +his ship out there rolling on the grey seas off an iron-bound +coast, at the very moment of its flight. + +He perceived that the six brass buttons of Tom's jacket had been +cut off. He shuddered at the notion of the two miserable and +repulsive witches busying themselves ghoulishly about the +defenceless body of his friend. Cut off. Perhaps with the same +knife which . . . The head of one trembled; the other was bent +double, and their eyes were red and bleared, their infamous claws +unsteady. . . It must have been in this very room too, for Tom +could not have been killed in the open and brought in here +afterwards. Of that Byrne was certain. Yet those devilish crones +could not have killed him themselves even by taking him unawares-- +and Tom would be always on his guard of course. Tom was a very +wide awake wary man when engaged on any service. . . And in fact +how did they murder him? Who did? In what way? + +Byrne jumped up, snatched the lamp off the table, and stooped +swiftly over the body. The light revealed on the clothing no +stain, no trace, no spot of blood anywhere. Byrne's hands began to +shake so that he had to set the lamp on the floor and turn away his +head in order to recover from this agitation. + +Then he began to explore that cold, still, and rigid body for a +stab, a gunshot wound, for the trace of some killing blow. He felt +all over the skull anxiously. It was whole. He slipped his hand +under the neck. It was unbroken. With terrified eyes he peered +close under the chin and saw no marks of strangulation on the +throat. + +There were no signs anywhere. He was just dead. + +Impulsively Byrne got away from the body as if the mystery of an +incomprehensible death had changed his pity into suspicion and +dread. The lamp on the floor near the set, still face of the +seaman showed it staring at the ceiling as if despairingly. In the +circle of light Byrne saw by the undisturbed patches of thick dust +on the floor that there had been no struggle in that room. "He has +died outside," he thought. Yes, outside in that narrow corridor, +where there was hardly room to turn, the mysterious death had come +to his poor dear Tom. The impulse of snatching up his pistols and +rushing out of the room abandoned Byrne suddenly. For Tom, too, +had been armed--with just such powerless weapons as he himself +possessed--pistols, a cutlass! And Tom had died a nameless death, +by incomprehensible means. + +A new thought came to Byrne. That stranger knocking at the door +and fleeing so swiftly at his appearance had come there to remove +the body. Aha! That was the guide the withered witch had promised +would show the English officer the shortest way of rejoining his +man. A promise, he saw it now, of dreadful import. He who had +knocked would have two bodies to deal with. Man and officer would +go forth from the house together. For Byrne was certain now that +he would have to die before the morning--and in the same mysterious +manner, leaving behind him an unmarked body. + +The sight of a smashed head, of a throat cut, of a gaping gunshot +wound, would have been an inexpressible relief. It would have +soothed all his fears. His soul cried within him to that dead man +whom he had never found wanting in danger. "Why don't you tell me +what I am to look for, Tom? Why don't you?" But in rigid +immobility, extended on his back, he seemed to preserve an austere +silence, as if disdaining in the finality of his awful knowledge to +hold converse with the living. + +Suddenly Byrne flung himself on his knees by the side of the body, +and dry-eyed, fierce, opened the shirt wide on the breast, as if to +tear the secret forcibly from that cold heart which had been so +loyal to him in life! Nothing! Nothing! He raised the lamp, and +all the sign vouchsafed to him by that face which used to be so +kindly in expression was a small bruise on the forehead--the least +thing, a mere mark. The skin even was not broken. He stared at it +a long time as if lost in a dreadful dream. Then he observed that +Tom's hands were clenched as though he had fallen facing somebody +in a fight with fists. His knuckles, on closer view, appeared +somewhat abraded. Both hands. + +The discovery of these slight signs was more appalling to Byrne +than the absolute absence of every mark would have been. So Tom +had died striking against something which could be hit, and yet +could kill one without leaving a wound--by a breath. + +Terror, hot terror, began to play about Byrne's heart like a tongue +of flame that touches and withdraws before it turns a thing to +ashes. He backed away from the body as far as he could, then came +forward stealthily casting fearful glances to steal another look at +the bruised forehead. There would perhaps be such a faint bruise +on his own forehead--before the morning. + +"I can't bear it," he whispered to himself. Tom was for him now an +object of horror, a sight at once tempting and revolting to his +fear. He couldn't bear to look at him. + +At last, desperation getting the better of his increasing horror, +he stepped forward from the wall against which he had been leaning, +seized the corpse under the armpits, and began to lug it over to +the bed. The bare heels of the seaman trailed on the floor +noiselessly. He was heavy with the dead weight of inanimate +objects. With a last effort Byrne landed him face downwards on the +edge of the bed, rolled him over, snatched from under this stiff +passive thing a sheet with which he covered it over. Then he +spread the curtains at head and foot so that joining together as he +shook their folds they hid the bed altogether from his sight. + +He stumbled towards a chair, and fell on it. The perspiration +poured from his face for a moment, and then his veins seemed to +carry for a while a thin stream of half, frozen blood. Complete +terror had possession of him now, a nameless terror which had +turned his heart to ashes. + +He sat upright in the straight-backed chair, the lamp burning at +his feet, his pistols and his hanger at his left elbow on the end +of the table, his eyes turning incessantly in their sockets round +the walls, over the ceiling, over the floor, in the expectation of +a mysterious and appalling vision. The thing which could deal +death in a breath was outside that bolted door. But Byrne believed +neither in walls nor bolts now. Unreasoning terror turning +everything to account, his old time boyish admiration of the +athletic Tom, the undaunted Tom (he had seemed to him invincible), +helped to paralyse his faculties, added to his despair. + +He was no longer Edgar Byrne. He was a tortured soul suffering +more anguish than any sinner's body had ever suffered from rack or +boot. The depth of his torment may be measured when I say that +this young man, as brave at least as the average of his kind, +contemplated seizing a pistol and firing into his own head. But a +deadly, chilly, langour was spreading over his limbs. It was as if +his flesh had been wet plaster stiffening slowly about his ribs. +Presently, he thought, the two witches will be coming in, with +crutch and stick--horrible, grotesque, monstrous--affiliated to the +devil--to put a mark on his forehead, the tiny little bruise of +death. And he wouldn't be able to do anything. Tom had struck out +at something, but he was not like Tom. His limbs were dead +already. He sat still, dying the death over and over again; and +the only part of him which moved were his eyes, turning round and +round in their sockets, running over the walls, the floor, the +ceiling, again and again till suddenly they became motionless and +stony-starting out of his head fixed in the direction of the bed. + +He had seen the heavy curtains stir and shake as if the dead body +they concealed had turned over and sat up. Byrne, who thought the +world could hold no more terrors in store, felt his hair stir at +the roots. He gripped the arms of the chair, his jaw fell, and the +sweat broke out on his brow while his dry tongue clove suddenly to +the roof of his mouth. Again the curtains stirred, but did not +open. "Don't, Tom!" Byrne made effort to shout, but all he heard +was a slight moan such as an uneasy sleeper may make. He felt that +his brain was going, for, now, it seemed to him that the ceiling +over the bed had moved, had slanted, and came level again--and once +more the closed curtains swayed gently as if about to part. + +Byrne closed his eyes not to see the awful apparition of the +seaman's corpse coming out animated by an evil spirit. In the +profound silence of the room he endured a moment of frightful +agony, then opened his eyes again. And he saw at once that the +curtains remained closed still, but that the ceiling over the bed +had risen quite a foot. With the last gleam of reason left to him +he understood that it was the enormous baldaquin over the bed which +was coming down, while the curtains attached to it swayed softly, +sinking gradually to the floor. His drooping jaw snapped to--and +half rising in his chair he watched mutely the noiseless descent of +the monstrous canopy. It came down in short smooth rushes till +lowered half way or more, when it took a run and settled swiftly +its turtle-back shape with the deep border piece fitting exactly +the edge of the bedstead. A slight crack or two of wood were +heard, and the overpowering stillness of the room resumed its sway. + +Byrne stood up, gasped for breath, and let out a cry of rage and +dismay, the first sound which he is perfectly certain did make its +way past his lips on this night of terrors. This then was the +death he had escaped! This was the devilish artifice of murder +poor Tom's soul had perhaps tried from beyond the border to warn +him of. For this was how he had died. Byrne was certain he had +heard the voice of the seaman, faintly distinct in his familiar +phrase, "Mr. Byrne! Look out, sir!" and again uttering words he +could not make out. But then the distance separating the living +from the dead is so great! Poor Tom had tried. Byrne ran to the +bed and attempted to lift up, to push off the horrible lid +smothering the body. It resisted his efforts, heavy as lead, +immovable like a tombstone. The rage of vengeance made him desist; +his head buzzed with chaotic thoughts of extermination, he turned +round the room as if he could find neither his weapons nor the way +out; and all the time he stammered awful menaces. . . + +A violent battering at the door of the inn recalled him to his +soberer senses. He flew to the window pulled the shutters open, +and looked out. In the faint dawn he saw below him a mob of men. +Ha! He would go and face at once this murderous lot collected no +doubt for his undoing. After his struggle with nameless terrors he +yearned for an open fray with armed enemies. But he must have +remained yet bereft of his reason, because forgetting his weapons +he rushed downstairs with a wild cry, unbarred the door while blows +were raining on it outside, and flinging it open flew with his bare +hands at the throat of the first man he saw before him. They +rolled over together. Byrne's hazy intention was to break through, +to fly up the mountain path, and come back presently with Gonzales' +men to exact an exemplary vengeance. He fought furiously till a +tree, a house, a mountain, seemed to crash down upon his head--and +he knew no more. + +* * * * * + +Here Mr. Byrne describes in detail the skilful manner in which he +found his broken head bandaged, informs us that he had lost a great +deal of blood, and ascribes the preservation of his sanity to that +circumstance. He sets down Gonzales' profuse apologies in full +too. For it was Gonzales who, tired of waiting for news from the +English, had come down to the inn with half his band, on his way to +the sea. "His excellency," he explained, "rushed out with fierce +impetuosity, and, moreover, was not known to us for a friend, and +so we . . . etc., etc. When asked what had become of the witches, +he only pointed his finger silently to the ground, then voiced +calmly a moral reflection: "The passion for gold is pitiless in +the very old, senor," he said. "No doubt in former days they have +put many a solitary traveller to sleep in the archbishop's bed." + +"There was also a gipsy girl there," said Byrne feebly from the +improvised litter on which he was being carried to the coast by a +squad of guerilleros. + +"It was she who winched up that infernal machine, and it was she +too who lowered it that night," was the answer. + +"But why? Why?" exclaimed Byrne. "Why should she wish for my +death?" + +"No doubt for the sake of your excellency's coat buttons," said +politely the saturnine Gonzales. "We found those of the dead +mariner concealed on her person. But your excellency may rest +assured that everything that is fitting has been done on this +occasion." + +Byrne asked no more questions. There was still another death which +was considered by Gonzales as "fitting to the occasion." The one- +eyed Bernardino stuck against the wall of his wine-shop received +the charge of six escopettas into his breast. As the shots rang +out the rough bier with Tom's body on it went past carried by a +bandit-like gang of Spanish patriots down the ravine to the shore, +where two boats from the ship were waiting for what was left on +earth of her best seaman. + +Mr. Byrne, very pale and weak, stepped into the boat which carried +the body of his humble friend. For it was decided that Tom Corbin +should rest far out in the bay of Biscay. The officer took the +tiller and, turning his head for the last look at the shore, saw on +the grey hillside something moving, which he made out to be a +little man in a yellow hat mounted on a mule--that mule without +which the fate of Tom Corbin would have remained mysterious for +ever. + + +June, 1913. + + + + +BECAUSE OF THE DOLLARS + + + + +CHAPTER I + + + +While we were hanging about near the water's edge, as sailors +idling ashore will do (it was in the open space before the Harbour +Office of a great Eastern port), a man came towards us from the +"front" of business houses, aiming obliquely at the landing steps. +He attracted my attention because in the movement of figures in +white drill suits on the pavement from which he stepped, his +costume, the usual tunic and trousers, being made of light grey +flannel, made him noticeable. + +I had time to observe him. He was stout, but he was not grotesque. +His face was round and smooth, his complexion very fair. On his +nearer approach I saw a little moustache made all the fairer by a +good many white hairs. And he had, for a stout man, quite a good +chin. In passing us he exchanged nods with the friend I was with +and smiled. + +My friend was Hollis, the fellow who had so many adventures and had +known so many queer people in that part of the (more or less) +gorgeous East in the days of his youth. He said: "That's a good +man. I don't mean good in the sense of smart or skilful in his +trade. I mean a really GOOD man." + +I turned round at once to look at the phenomenon. The "really GOOD +man" had a very broad back. I saw him signal a sampan to come +alongside, get into it, and go off in the direction of a cluster of +local steamers anchored close inshore. + +I said: "He's a seaman, isn't he?" + +"Yes. Commands that biggish dark-green steamer: 'Sissie-- +Glasgow.' He has never commanded anything else but the 'Sissie-- +Glasgow,' only it wasn't always the same Sissie. The first he had +was about half the length of this one, and we used to tell poor +Davidson that she was a size too small for him. Even at that time +Davidson had bulk. We warned him he would get callosities on his +shoulders and elbows because of the tight fit of his command. And +Davidson could well afford the smiles he gave us for our chaff. He +made lots of money in her. She belonged to a portly Chinaman +resembling a mandarin in a picture-book, with goggles and thin +drooping moustaches, and as dignified as only a Celestial knows how +to be. + +"The best of Chinamen as employers is that they have such +gentlemanly instincts. Once they become convinced that you are a +straight man, they give you their unbounded confidence. You simply +can't do wrong, then. And they are pretty quick judges of +character, too. Davidson's Chinaman was the first to find out his +worth, on some theoretical principle. One day in his counting- +house, before several white men he was heard to declare: 'Captain +Davidson is a good man.' And that settled it. After that you +couldn't tell if it was Davidson who belonged to the Chinaman or +the Chinaman who belonged to Davidson. It was he who, shortly +before he died, ordered in Glasgow the new Sissie for Davidson to +command." + +We walked into the shade of the Harbour Office and leaned our +elbows on the parapet of the quay. + +"She was really meant to comfort poor Davidson," continued Hollis. +"Can you fancy anything more naively touching than this old +mandarin spending several thousand pounds to console his white man? +Well, there she is. The old mandarin's sons have inherited her, +and Davidson with her; and he commands her; and what with his +salary and trading privileges he makes a lot of money; and +everything is as before; and Davidson even smiles--you have seen +it? Well, the smile's the only thing which isn't as before." + +"Tell me, Hollis," I asked, "what do you mean by good in this +connection?" + +"Well, there are men who are born good just as others are born +witty. What I mean is his nature. No simpler, more scrupulously +delicate soul had ever lived in such a--a--comfortable envelope. +How we used to laugh at Davidson's fine scruples! In short, he's +thoroughly humane, and I don't imagine there can be much of any +other sort of goodness that counts on this earth. And as he's that +with a shade of particular refinement, I may well call him a +'REALLY good man.'" + +I knew from old that Hollis was a firm believer in the final value +of shades. And I said: "I see"--because I really did see Hollis's +Davidson in the sympathetic stout man who had passed us a little +while before. But I remembered that at the very moment he smiled +his placid face appeared veiled in melancholy--a sort of spiritual +shadow. I went on. + +"Who on earth has paid him off for being so fine by spoiling his +smile?" + +"That's quite a story, and I will tell it to you if you like. +Confound it! It's quite a surprising one, too. Surprising in +every way, but mostly in the way it knocked over poor Davidson--and +apparently only because he is such a good sort. He was telling me +all about it only a few days ago. He said that when he saw these +four fellows with their heads in a bunch over the table, he at once +didn't like it. He didn't like it at all. You mustn't suppose +that Davidson is a soft fool. These men - + +"But I had better begin at the beginning. We must go back to the +first time the old dollars had been called in by our Government in +exchange for a new issue. Just about the time when I left these +parts to go home for a long stay. Every trader in the islands was +thinking of getting his old dollars sent up here in time, and the +demand for empty French wine cases--you know the dozen of vermouth +or claret size--was something unprecedented. The custom was to +pack the dollars in little bags of a hundred each. I don't know +how many bags each case would hold. A good lot. Pretty tidy sums +must have been moving afloat just then. But let us get away from +here. Won't do to stay in the sun. Where could we--? I know! let +us go to those tiffin-rooms over there." + +We moved over accordingly. Our appearance in the long empty room +at that early hour caused visible consternation amongst the China +boys. But Hollis led the way to one of the tables between the +windows screened by rattan blinds. A brilliant half-light trembled +on the ceiling, on the whitewashed walls, bathed the multitude of +vacant chairs and tables in a peculiar, stealthy glow. + +"All right. We will get something to eat when it's ready," he +said, waving the anxious Chinaman waiter aside. He took his +temples touched with grey between his hands, leaning over the table +to bring his face, his dark, keen eyes, closer to mine. + +"Davidson then was commanding the steamer Sissie--the little one +which we used to chaff him about. He ran her alone, with only the +Malay serang for a deck officer. The nearest approach to another +white man on board of her was the engineer, a Portuguese half- +caste, as thin as a lath and quite a youngster at that. For all +practical purposes Davidson was managing that command of his +single-handed; and of course this was known in the port. I am +telling you of it because the fact had its influence on the +developments you shall hear of presently. + +"His steamer, being so small, could go up tiny creeks and into +shallow bays and through reefs and over sand-banks, collecting +produce, where no other vessel but a native craft would think of +venturing. It is a paying game, often. Davidson was known to +visit in her places that no one else could find and that hardly +anybody had ever heard of. + +"The old dollars being called in, Davidson's Chinaman thought that +the Sissie would be just the thing to collect them from small +traders in the less frequented parts of the Archipelago. It's a +good business. Such cases of dollars are dumped aft in the ship's +lazarette, and you get good freight for very little trouble and +space. + +"Davidson, too, thought it was a good idea; and together they made +up a list of his calls on his next trip. Then Davidson (he had +naturally the chart of his voyages in his head) remarked that on +his way back he might look in at a certain settlement up a mere +creek, where a poor sort of white man lived in a native village. +Davidson pointed out to his Chinaman that the fellow was certain to +have some rattans to ship. + +"'Probably enough to fill her forward,' said Davidson. 'And +that'll be better than bringing her back with empty holds. A day +more or less doesn't matter.' + +"This was sound talk, and the Chinaman owner could not but agree. +But if it hadn't been sound it would have been just the same. +Davidson did what he liked. He was a man that could do no wrong. +However, this suggestion of his was not merely a business matter. +There was in it a touch of Davidsonian kindness. For you must know +that the man could not have continued to live quietly up that creek +if it had not been for Davidson's willingness to call there from +time to time. And Davidson's Chinaman knew this perfectly well, +too. So he only smiled his dignified, bland smile, and said: 'All +right, Captain. You do what you like.' + +"I will explain presently how this connection between Davidson and +that fellow came about. Now I want to tell you about the part of +this affair which happened here--the preliminaries of it. + +"You know as well as I do that these tiffin-rooms where we are +sitting now have been in existence for many years. Well, next day +about twelve o'clock, Davidson dropped in here to get something to +eat. + +"And here comes the only moment in this story where accident--mere +accident--plays a part. If Davidson had gone home that day for +tiffin, there would be now, after twelve years or more, nothing +changed in his kindly, placid smile. + +"But he came in here; and perhaps it was sitting at this very table +that he remarked to a friend of mine that his next trip was to be a +dollar-collecting trip. He added, laughing, that his wife was +making rather a fuss about it. She had begged him to stay ashore +and get somebody else to take his place for a voyage. She thought +there was some danger on account of the dollars. He told her, he +said, that there were no Java-sea pirates nowadays except in boys' +books. He had laughed at her fears, but he was very sorry, too; +for when she took any notion in her head it was impossible to argue +her out of it. She would be worrying herself all the time he was +away. Well, he couldn't help it. There was no one ashore fit to +take his place for the trip. + +"This friend of mine and I went home together in the same mail- +boat, and he mentioned that conversation one evening in the Red Sea +while we were talking over the things and people we had just left, +with more or less regret. + +"I can't say that Davidson occupied a very prominent place. Moral +excellence seldom does. He was quietly appreciated by those who +knew him well; but his more obvious distinction consisted in this, +that he was married. Ours, as you remember, was a bachelor crowd; +in spirit anyhow, if not absolutely in fact. There might have been +a few wives in existence, but if so they were invisible, distant, +never alluded to. For what would have been the good? Davidson +alone was visibly married. + +"Being married suited him exactly. It fitted him so well that the +wildest of us did not resent the fact when it was disclosed. +Directly he had felt his feet out here, Davidson sent for his wife. +She came out (from West Australia) in the Somerset, under the care +of Captain Ritchie--you know, Monkey-face Ritchie--who couldn't +praise enough her sweetness, her gentleness, and her charm. She +seemed to be the heaven-born mate for Davidson. She found on +arrival a very pretty bungalow on the hill, ready for her and the +little girl they had. Very soon he got for her a two-wheeled trap +and a Burmah pony, and she used to drive down of an evening to pick +up Davidson, on the quay. When Davidson, beaming, got into the +trap, it would become very full all at once. + +"We used to admire Mrs. Davidson from a distance. It was a girlish +head out of a keepsake. From a distance. We had not many +opportunities for a closer view, because she did not care to give +them to us. We would have been glad to drop in at the Davidson +bungalow, but we were made to feel somehow that we were not very +welcome there. Not that she ever said anything ungracious. She +never had much to say for herself. I was perhaps the one who saw +most of the Davidsons at home. What I noticed under the +superficial aspect of vapid sweetness was her convex, obstinate +forehead, and her small, red, pretty, ungenerous mouth. But then I +am an observer with strong prejudices. Most of us were fetched by +her white, swan-like neck, by that drooping, innocent profile. +There was a lot of latent devotion to Davidson's wife hereabouts, +at that time, I can tell you. But my idea was that she repaid it +by a profound suspicion of the sort of men we were; a mistrust +which extended--I fancied--to her very husband at times. And I +thought then she was jealous of him in a way; though there were no +women that she could be jealous about. She had no women's society. +It's difficult for a shipmaster's wife unless there are other +shipmasters' wives about, and there were none here then. I know +that the dock manager's wife called on her; but that was all. The +fellows here formed the opinion that Mrs. Davidson was a meek, shy +little thing. She looked it, I must say. And this opinion was so +universal that the friend I have been telling you of remembered his +conversation with Davidson simply because of the statement about +Davidson's wife. He even wondered to me: 'Fancy Mrs. Davidson +making a fuss to that extent. She didn't seem to me the sort of +woman that would know how to make a fuss about anything.' + +"I wondered, too--but not so much. That bumpy forehead--eh? I had +always suspected her of being silly. And I observed that Davidson +must have been vexed by this display of wifely anxiety. + +"My friend said: 'No. He seemed rather touched and distressed. +There really was no one he could ask to relieve him; mainly because +he intended to make a call in some God-forsaken creek, to look up a +fellow of the name of Bamtz who apparently had settled there.' + +"And again my friend wondered. 'Tell me,' he cried, 'what +connection can there be between Davidson and such a creature as +Bamtz?' + +"I don't remember now what answer I made. A sufficient one could +have been given in two words: 'Davidson's goodness.' THAT never +boggled at unworthiness if there was the slightest reason for +compassion. I don't want you to think that Davidson had no +discrimination at all. Bamtz could not have imposed on him. +Moreover, everybody knew what Bamtz was. He was a loafer with a +beard. When I think of Bamtz, the first thing I see is that long +black beard and a lot of propitiatory wrinkles at the corners of +two little eyes. There was no such beard from here to Polynesia, +where a beard is a valuable property in itself. Bamtz's beard was +valuable to him in another way. You know how impressed Orientals +are by a fine beard. Years and years ago, I remember, the grave +Abdullah, the great trader of Sambir, unable to repress signs of +astonishment and admiration at the first sight of that imposing +beard. And it's very well known that Bamtz lived on Abdullah off +and on for several years. It was a unique beard, and so was the +bearer of the same. A unique loafer. He made a fine art of it, or +rather a sort of craft and mystery. One can understand a fellow +living by cadging and small swindles in towns, in large communities +of people; but Bamtz managed to do that trick in the wilderness, to +loaf on the outskirts of the virgin forest. + +"He understood how to ingratiate himself with the natives. He +would arrive in some settlement up a river, make a present of a +cheap carbine or a pair of shoddy binoculars, or something of that +sort, to the Rajah, or the head-man, or the principal trader; and +on the strength of that gift, ask for a house, posing mysteriously +as a very special trader. He would spin them no end of yarns, live +on the fat of the land, for a while, and then do some mean swindle +or other--or else they would get tired of him and ask him to quit. +And he would go off meekly with an air of injured innocence. Funny +life. Yet, he never got hurt somehow. I've heard of the Rajah of +Dongala giving him fifty dollars' worth of trade goods and paying +his passage in a prau only to get rid of him. Fact. And observe +that nothing prevented the old fellow having Bamtz's throat cut and +the carcase thrown into deep water outside the reefs; for who on +earth would have inquired after Bamtz? + +"He had been known to loaf up and down the wilderness as far north +as the Gulf of Tonkin. Neither did he disdain a spell of +civilisation from time to time. And it was while loafing and +cadging in Saigon, bearded and dignified (he gave himself out there +as a bookkeeper), that he came across Laughing Anne. + +"The less said of her early history the better, but something must +be said. We may safely suppose there was very little heart left in +her famous laugh when Bamtz spoke first to her in some low cafe. +She was stranded in Saigon with precious little money and in great +trouble about a kid she had, a boy of five or six. + +"A fellow I just remember, whom they called Pearler Harry, brought +her out first into these parts--from Australia, I believe. He +brought her out and then dropped her, and she remained knocking +about here and there, known to most of us by sight, at any rate. +Everybody in the Archipelago had heard of Laughing Anne. She had +really a pleasant silvery laugh always at her disposal, so to +speak, but it wasn't enough apparently to make her fortune. The +poor creature was ready to stick to any half-decent man if he would +only let her, but she always got dropped, as it might have been +expected. + +"She had been left in Saigon by the skipper of a German ship with +whom she had been going up and down the China coast as far as +Vladivostok for near upon two years. The German said to her: +'This is all over, mein Taubchen. I am going home now to get +married to the girl I got engaged to before coming out here.' And +Anne said: 'All right, I'm ready to go. We part friends, don't +we?' + +"She was always anxious to part friends. The German told her that +of course they were parting friends. He looked rather glum at the +moment of parting. She laughed and went ashore. + +"But it was no laughing matter for her. She had some notion that +this would be her last chance. What frightened her most was the +future of her child. She had left her boy in Saigon before going +off with the German, in the care of an elderly French couple. The +husband was a doorkeeper in some Government office, but his time +was up, and they were returning to France. She had to take the boy +back from them; and after she had got him back, she did not like to +part with him any more. + +"That was the situation when she and Bamtz got acquainted casually. +She could not have had any illusions about that fellow. To pick up +with Bamtz was coming down pretty low in the world, even from a +material point of view. She had always been decent, in her way; +whereas Bamtz was, not to mince words, an abject sort of creature. +On the other hand, that bearded loafer, who looked much more like a +pirate than a bookkeeper, was not a brute. He was gentle--rather-- +even in his cups. And then, despair, like misfortune, makes us +acquainted with strange bed-fellows. For she may well have +despaired. She was no longer young--you know. + +"On the man's side this conjunction is more difficult to explain, +perhaps. One thing, however, must be said of Bamtz; he had always +kept clear of native women. As one can't suspect him of moral +delicacy, I surmise that it must have been from prudence. And he, +too, was no longer young. There were many white hairs in his +valuable black beard by then. He may have simply longed for some +kind of companionship in his queer, degraded existence. Whatever +their motives, they vanished from Saigon together. And of course +nobody cared what had become of them. + +"Six months later Davidson came into the Mirrah Settlement. It was +the very first time he had been up that creek, where no European +vessel had ever been seen before. A Javanese passenger he had on +board offered him fifty dollars to call in there--it must have been +some very particular business--and Davidson consented to try. +Fifty dollars, he told me, were neither here nor there; but he was +curious to see the place, and the little Sissie could go anywhere +where there was water enough to float a soup-plate. + +"Davidson landed his Javanese plutocrat, and, as he had to wait a +couple of hours for the tide, he went ashore himself to stretch his +legs. + +"It was a small settlement. Some sixty houses, most of them built +on piles over the river, the rest scattered in the long grass; the +usual pathway at the back; the forest hemming in the clearing and +smothering what there might have been of air into a dead, hot +stagnation. + +"All the population was on the river-bank staring silently, as +Malays will do, at the Sissie anchored in the stream. She was +almost as wonderful to them as an angel's visit. Many of the old +people had only heard vaguely of fire-ships, and not many of the +younger generation had seen one. On the back path Davidson +strolled in perfect solitude. But he became aware of a bad smell +and concluded he would go no farther. + +"While he stood wiping his forehead, he heard from somewhere the +exclamation: 'My God! It's Davy!' + +"Davidson's lower jaw, as he expressed it, came unhooked at the +crying of this excited voice. Davy was the name used by the +associates of his young days; he hadn't heard it for many years. +He stared about with his mouth open and saw a white woman issue +from the long grass in which a small hut stood buried nearly up to +the roof. + +"Try to imagine the shock: in that wild place that you couldn't +find on a map, and more squalid than the most poverty-stricken +Malay settlement had a right to be, this European woman coming +swishing out of the long grass in a fanciful tea-gown thing, dingy +pink satin, with a long train and frayed lace trimmings; her eyes +like black coals in a pasty-white face. Davidson thought that he +was asleep, that he was delirious. From the offensive village +mudhole (it was what Davidson had sniffed just before) a couple of +filthy buffaloes uprose with loud snorts and lumbered off crashing +through the bushes, panic-struck by this apparition. + +"The woman came forward, her arms extended, and laid her hands on +Davidson's shoulders, exclaiming: 'Why! You have hardly changed +at all. The same good Davy.' And she laughed a little wildly. + +"This sound was to Davidson like a galvanic shock to a corpse. He +started in every muscle. 'Laughing Anne,' he said in an awe-struck +voice. + +"'All that's left of her, Davy. All that's left of her.' + +"Davidson looked up at the sky; but there was to be seen no balloon +from which she could have fallen on that spot. When he brought his +distracted gaze down, it rested on a child holding on with a brown +little paw to the pink satin gown. He had run out of the grass +after her. Had Davidson seen a real hobgoblin his eyes could not +have bulged more than at this small boy in a dirty white blouse and +ragged knickers. He had a round head of tight chestnut curls, very +sunburnt legs, a freckled face, and merry eyes. Admonished by his +mother to greet the gentleman, he finished off Davidson by +addressing him in French. + +"'Bonjour.' + +"Davidson, overcome, looked up at the woman in silence. She sent +the child back to the hut, and when he had disappeared in the +grass, she turned to Davidson, tried to speak, but after getting +out the words, 'That's my Tony,' burst into a long fit of crying. +She had to lean on Davidson's shoulder. He, distressed in the +goodness of his heart, stood rooted to the spot where she had come +upon him. + +"What a meeting--eh? Bamtz had sent her out to see what white man +it was who had landed. And she had recognised him from that time +when Davidson, who had been pearling himself in his youth, had been +associating with Harry the Pearler and others, the quietest of a +rather rowdy set. + +"Before Davidson retraced his steps to go on board the steamer, he +had heard much of Laughing Anne's story, and had even had an +interview, on the path, with Bamtz himself. She ran back to the +hut to fetch him, and he came out lounging, with his hands in his +pockets, with the detached, casual manner under which he concealed +his propensity to cringe. Ya-a-as-as. He thought he would settle +here permanently--with her. This with a nod at Laughing Anne, who +stood by, a haggard, tragically anxious figure, her black hair +hanging over her shoulders. + +"'No more paint and dyes for me, Davy,' she struck in, 'if only you +will do what he wants you to do. You know that I was always ready +to stand by my men--if they had only let me.' + +"Davidson had no doubt of her earnestness. It was of Bamtz's good +faith that he was not at all sure. Bamtz wanted Davidson to +promise to call at Mirrah more or less regularly. He thought he +saw an opening to do business with rattans there, if only he could +depend on some craft to bring out trading goods and take away his +produce. + +"'I have a few dollars to make a start on. The people are all +right.' + +"He had come there, where he was not known, in a native prau, and +had managed, with his sedate manner and the exactly right kind of +yarn he knew how to tell to the natives, to ingratiate himself with +the chief man. + +"'The Orang Kaya has given me that empty house there to live in as +long as I will stay,' added Bamtz. + +"'Do it, Davy,' cried the woman suddenly. 'Think of that poor +kid.' + +"'Seen him? 'Cute little customer,' said the reformed loafer in +such a tone of interest as to surprise Davidson into a kindly +glance. + +"'I certainly can do it,' he declared. He thought of at first +making some stipulation as to Bamtz behaving decently to the woman, +but his exaggerated delicacy and also the conviction that such a +fellow's promises were worth nothing restrained him. Anne went a +little distance down the path with him talking anxiously. + +"'It's for the kid. How could I have kept him with me if I had to +knock about in towns? Here he will never know that his mother was +a painted woman. And this Bamtz likes him. He's real fond of him. +I suppose I ought to thank God for that.' + +"Davidson shuddered at any human creature being brought so low as +to have to thank God for the favours or affection of a Bamtz. + +"'And do you think that you can make out to live here?' he asked +gently. + +"'Can't I? You know I have always stuck to men through thick and +thin till they had enough of me. And now look at me! But inside I +am as I always was. I have acted on the square to them all one +after another. Only they do get tired somehow. Oh, Davy! Harry +ought not to have cast me off. It was he that led me astray.' + +"Davidson mentioned to her that Harry the Pearler had been dead now +for some years. Perhaps she had heard? + +"She made a sign that she had heard; and walked by the side of +Davidson in silence nearly to the bank. Then she told him that her +meeting with him had brought back the old times to her mind. She +had not cried for years. She was not a crying woman either. It +was hearing herself called Laughing Anne that had started her +sobbing like a fool. Harry was the only man she had loved. The +others - + +"She shrugged her shoulders. But she prided herself on her loyalty +to the successive partners of her dismal adventures. She had never +played any tricks in her life. She was a pal worth having. But +men did get tired. They did not understand women. She supposed it +had to be. + +"Davidson was attempting a veiled warning as to Bamtz, but she +interrupted him. She knew what men were. She knew what this man +was like. But he had taken wonderfully to the kid. And Davidson +desisted willingly, saying to himself that surely poor Laughing +Anne could have no illusions by this time. She wrung his hand hard +at parting. + +"'It's for the kid, Davy--it's for the kid. Isn't he a bright +little chap?' + + + +CHAPTER II + + + +"All this happened about two years before the day when Davidson, +sitting in this very room, talked to my friend. You will see +presently how this room can get full. Every seat'll be occupied, +and as you notice, the tables are set close, so that the backs of +the chairs are almost touching. There is also a good deal of noisy +talk here about one o'clock. + +"I don't suppose Davidson was talking very loudly; but very likely +he had to raise his voice across the table to my friend. And here +accident, mere accident, put in its work by providing a pair of +fine ears close behind Davidson's chair. It was ten to one +against, the owner of the same having enough change in his pockets +to get his tiffin here. But he had. Most likely had rooked +somebody of a few dollars at cards overnight. He was a bright +creature of the name of Fector, a spare, short, jumpy fellow with a +red face and muddy eyes. He described himself as a journalist as +certain kind of women give themselves out as actresses in the dock +of a police-court. + +"He used to introduce himself to strangers as a man with a mission +to track out abuses and fight them whenever found. He would also +hint that he was a martyr. And it's a fact that he had been +kicked, horsewhipped, imprisoned, and hounded with ignominy out of +pretty well every place between Ceylon and Shanghai, for a +professional blackmailer. + +"I suppose, in that trade, you've got to have active wits and sharp +ears. It's not likely that he overheard every word Davidson said +about his dollar collecting trip, but he heard enough to set his +wits at work. + +"He let Davidson go out, and then hastened away down to the native +slums to a sort of lodging-house kept in partnership by the usual +sort of Portuguese and a very disreputable Chinaman. Macao Hotel, +it was called, but it was mostly a gambling den that one used to +warn fellows against. Perhaps you remember? + +"There, the evening before, Fector had met a precious couple, a +partnership even more queer than the Portuguese and the Chinaman. +One of the two was Niclaus--you know. Why! the fellow with a +Tartar moustache and a yellow complexion, like a Mongolian, only +that his eyes were set straight and his face was not so flat. One +couldn't tell what breed he was. A nondescript beggar. From a +certain angle you would think a very bilious white man. And I +daresay he was. He owned a Malay prau and called himself The +Nakhoda, as one would say: The Captain. Aha! Now you remember. +He couldn't, apparently, speak any other European language than +English, but he flew the Dutch flag on his prau. + +"The other was the Frenchman without hands. Yes. The very same we +used to know in '79 in Sydney, keeping a little tobacco shop at the +lower end of George Street. You remember the huge carcase hunched +up behind the counter, the big white face and the long black hair +brushed back off a high forehead like a bard's. He was always +trying to roll cigarettes on his knee with his stumps, telling +endless yarns of Polynesia and whining and cursing in turn about +'mon malheur.' His hands had been blown away by a dynamite +cartridge while fishing in some lagoon. This accident, I believe, +had made him more wicked than before, which is saying a good deal. + +"He was always talking about 'resuming his activities' some day, +whatever they were, if he could only get an intelligent companion. +It was evident that the little shop was no field for his +activities, and the sickly woman with her face tied up, who used to +look in sometimes through the back door, was no companion for him. + +"And, true enough, he vanished from Sydney before long, after some +trouble with the Excise fellows about his stock. Goods stolen out +of a warehouse or something similar. He left the woman behind, but +he must have secured some sort of companion--he could not have +shifted for himself; but whom he went away with, and where, and +what other companions he might have picked up afterwards, it is +impossible to make the remotest guess about. + +"Why exactly he came this way I can't tell. Towards the end of my +time here we began to hear talk of a maimed Frenchman who had been +seen here and there. But no one knew then that he had foregathered +with Niclaus and lived in his prau. I daresay he put Niclaus up to +a thing or two. Anyhow, it was a partnership. Niclaus was +somewhat afraid of the Frenchman on account of his tempers, which +were awful. He looked then like a devil; but a man without hands, +unable to load or handle a weapon, can at best go for one only with +his teeth. From that danger Niclaus felt certain he could always +defend himself. + +"The couple were alone together loafing in the common-room of that +infamous hotel when Fector turned up. After some beating about the +bush, for he was doubtful how far he could trust these two, he +repeated what he had overheard in the tiffin-rooms. + +"His tale did not have much success till he came to mention the +creek and Bamtz's name. Niclaus, sailing about like a native in a +prau, was, in his own words, 'familiar with the locality.' The +huge Frenchman, walking up and down the room with his stumps in the +pockets of his jacket, stopped short in surprise. 'Comment? +Bamtz! Bamtz!' + +"He had run across him several times in his life. He exclaimed: +'Bamtz! Mais je ne connais que ca!' And he applied such a +contemptuously indecent epithet to Bamtz that when, later, he +alluded to him as 'une chiffe' (a mere rag) it sounded quite +complimentary. 'We can do with him what we like,' he asserted +confidently. 'Oh, yes. Certainly we must hasten to pay a visit to +that--' (another awful descriptive epithet quite unfit for +repetition). 'Devil take me if we don't pull off a coup that will +set us all up for a long time.' + +"He saw all that lot of dollars melted into bars and disposed of +somewhere on the China coast. Of the escape after the coup he +never doubted. There was Niclaus's prau to manage that in. + +"In his enthusiasm he pulled his stumps out of his pockets and +waved them about. Then, catching sight of them, as it were, he +held them in front of his eyes, cursing and blaspheming and +bewailing his misfortune and his helplessness, till Niclaus quieted +him down. + +"But it was his mind that planned out the affair and it was his +spirit which carried the other two on. Neither of them was of the +bold buccaneer type; and Fector, especially, had never in his +adventurous life used other weapons than slander and lies. + +"That very evening they departed on a visit to Bamtz in Niclaus's +prau, which had been lying, emptied of her cargo of cocoanuts, for +a day or two under the canal bridge. They must have crossed the +bows of the anchored Sissie, and no doubt looked at her with +interest as the scene of their future exploit, the great haul, le +grand coup! + +"Davidson's wife, to his great surprise, sulked with him for +several days before he left. I don't know whether it occurred to +him that, for all her angelic profile, she was a very stupidly +obstinate girl. She didn't like the tropics. He had brought her +out there, where she had no friends, and now, she said, he was +becoming inconsiderate. She had a presentiment of some misfortune, +and notwithstanding Davidson's painstaking explanations, she could +not see why her presentiments were to be disregarded. On the very +last evening before Davidson went away she asked him in a +suspicious manner: + +"'Why is it that you are so anxious to go this time?' + +"'I am not anxious,' protested the good Davidson. 'I simply can't +help myself. There's no one else to go in my place.' + +"'Oh! There's no one,' she said, turning away slowly. + +"She was so distant with him that evening that Davidson from a +sense of delicacy made up his mind to say good-bye to her at once +and go and sleep on board. He felt very miserable and, strangely +enough, more on his own account than on account of his wife. She +seemed to him much more offended than grieved. + +"Three weeks later, having collected a good many cases of old +dollars (they were stowed aft in the lazarette with an iron bar and +a padlock securing the hatch under his cabin-table), yes, with a +bigger lot than he had expected to collect, he found himself +homeward bound and off the entrance of the creek where Bamtz lived +and even, in a sense, flourished. + +"It was so late in the day that Davidson actually hesitated whether +he should not pass by this time. He had no regard for Bamtz, who +was a degraded but not a really unhappy man. His pity for Laughing +Anne was no more than her case deserved. But his goodness was of a +particularly delicate sort. He realised how these people were +dependent on him, and how they would feel their dependence (if he +failed to turn up) through a long month of anxious waiting. +Prompted by his sensitive humanity, Davidson, in the gathering +dusk, turned the Sissie's head towards the hardly discernible +coast, and navigated her safety through a maze of shallow patches. +But by the time he got to the mouth of the creek the night had +come. + +"The narrow waterway lay like a black cutting through the forest. +And as there were always grounded snaggs in the channel which it +would be impossible to make out, Davidson very prudently turned the +Sissie round, and with only enough steam on the boilers to give her +a touch ahead if necessary, let her drift up stern first with the +tide, silent and invisible in the impenetrable darkness and in the +dumb stillness. + +"It was a long job, and when at the end of two hours Davidson +thought he must be up to the clearing, the settlement slept +already, the whole land of forests and rivers was asleep. + +"Davidson, seeing a solitary light in the massed darkness of the +shore, knew that it was burning in Bamtz's house. This was +unexpected at this time of the night, but convenient as a guide. +By a turn of the screw and a touch of the helm he sheered the +Sissie alongside Bamtz's wharf--a miserable structure of a dozen +piles and a few planks, of which the ex-vagabond was very proud. A +couple of Kalashes jumped down on it, took a turn with the ropes +thrown to them round the posts, and the Sissie came to rest without +a single loud word or the slightest noise. And just in time too, +for the tide turned even before she was properly moored. + +"Davidson had something to eat, and then, coming on deck for a last +look round, noticed that the light was still burning in the house. + +"This was very unusual, but since they were awake so late, Davidson +thought that he would go up to say that he was in a hurry to be off +and to ask that what rattans there were in store should be sent on +board with the first sign of dawn. + +"He stepped carefully over the shaky planks, not being anxious to +get a sprained ankle, and picked his way across the waste ground to +the foot of the house ladder. The house was but a glorified hut on +piles, unfenced and lonely. + +"Like many a stout man, Davidson is very lightfooted. He climbed +the seven steps or so, stepped across the bamboo platform quietly, +but what he saw through the doorway stopped him short. + +"Four men were sitting by the light of a solitary candle. There +was a bottle, a jug and glasses on the table, but they were not +engaged in drinking. Two packs of cards were lying there too, but +they were not preparing to play. They were talking together in +whispers, and remained quite unaware of him. He himself was too +astonished to make a sound for some time. The world was still, +except for the sibilation of the whispering heads bunched together +over the table. + +"And Davidson, as I have quoted him to you before, didn't like it. +He didn't like it at all. + +"The situation ended with a scream proceeding from the dark, +interior part of the room. 'O Davy! you've given me a turn.' + +"Davidson made out beyond the table Anne's very pale face. She +laughed a little hysterically, out of the deep shadows between the +gloomy mat walls. 'Ha! ha! ha!' + +"The four heads sprang apart at the first sound, and four pairs of +eyes became fixed stonily on Davidson. The woman came forward, +having little more on her than a loose chintz wrapper and straw +slippers on her bare feet. Her head was tied up Malay fashion in a +red handkerchief, with a mass of loose hair hanging under it +behind. Her professional, gay, European feathers had literally +dropped off her in the course of these two years, but a long +necklace of amber beads hung round her uncovered neck. It was the +only ornament she had left; Bamtz had sold all her poor-enough +trinkets during the flight from Saigon--when their association +began. + +"She came forward, past the table, into the light, with her usual +groping gesture of extended arms, as though her soul, poor thing! +had gone blind long ago, her white cheeks hollow, her eyes darkly +wild, distracted, as Davidson thought. She came on swiftly, +grabbed him by the arm, dragged him in. 'It's heaven itself that +sends you to-night. My Tony's so bad--come and see him. Come +along--do!' + +"Davidson submitted. The only one of the men to move was Bamtz, +who made as if to get up but dropped back in his chair again. +Davidson in passing heard him mutter confusedly something that +sounded like 'poor little beggar.' + +"The child, lying very flushed in a miserable cot knocked up out of +gin-cases, stared at Davidson with wide, drowsy eyes. It was a bad +bout of fever clearly. But while Davidson was promising to go on +board and fetch some medicines, and generally trying to say +reassuring things, he could not help being struck by the +extraordinary manner of the woman standing by his side. Gazing +with despairing expression down at the cot, she would suddenly +throw a quick, startled glance at Davidson and then towards the +other room. + +"'Yes, my poor girl,' he whispered, interpreting her distraction in +his own way, though he had nothing precise in his mind. 'I'm +afraid this bodes no good to you. How is it they are here?' + +"She seized his forearm and breathed out forcibly: 'No good to me! +Oh, no! But what about you! They are after the dollars you have +on board.' + +"Davidson let out an astonished 'How do they know there are any +dollars?' + +"She clapped her hands lightly, in distress. 'So it's true! You +have them on board? Then look out for yourself.' + +"They stood gazing down at the boy in the cot, aware that they +might be observed from the other room. + +"'We must get him to perspire as soon as possible,' said Davidson +in his ordinary voice. 'You'll have to give him hot drink of some +kind. I will go on board and bring you a spirit-kettle amongst +other things.' And he added under his breath: 'Do they actually +mean murder?' + +"She made no sign, she had returned to her desolate contemplation +of the boy. Davidson thought she had not heard him even, when with +an unchanged expression she spoke under her breath. + +"'The Frenchman would, in a minute. The others shirk it--unless +you resist. He's a devil. He keeps them going. Without him they +would have done nothing but talk. I've got chummy with him. What +can you do when you are with a man like the fellow I am with now. +Bamtz is terrified of them, and they know it. He's in it from +funk. Oh, Davy! take your ship away--quick!' + +"'Too late,' said Davidson. 'She's on the mud already.' + +"If the kid hadn't been in this state I would have run off with +him--to you--into the woods--anywhere. Oh, Davy! will he die?' she +cried aloud suddenly. + +"Davidson met three men in the doorway. They made way for him +without actually daring to face his glance. But Bamtz was the only +one who looked down with an air of guilt. The big Frenchman had +remained lolling in his chair; he kept his stumps in his pockets +and addressed Davidson. + +"'Isn't it unfortunate about that child! The distress of that +woman there upsets me, but I am of no use in the world. I couldn't +smooth the sick pillow of my dearest friend. I have no hands. +Would you mind sticking one of those cigarettes there into the +mouth of a poor, harmless cripple? My nerves want soothing--upon +my honour, they do.' + +"Davidson complied with his naturally kind smile. As his outward +placidity becomes only more pronounced, if possible, the more +reason there is for excitement; and as Davidson's eyes, when his +wits are hard at work, get very still and as if sleepy, the huge +Frenchman might have been justified in concluding that the man +there was a mere sheep--a sheep ready for slaughter. With a 'merci +bien' he uplifted his huge carcase to reach the light of the candle +with his cigarette, and Davidson left the house. + +"Going down to the ship and returning, he had time to consider his +position. At first he was inclined to believe that these men +(Niclaus--the white Nakhoda--was the only one he knew by sight +before, besides Bamtz) were not of the stamp to proceed to +extremities. This was partly the reason why he never attempted to +take any measures on board. His pacific Kalashes were not to be +thought of as against white men. His wretched engineer would have +had a fit from fright at the mere idea of any sort of combat. +Davidson knew that he would have to depend on himself in this +affair if it ever came off. + +"Davidson underestimated naturally the driving power of the +Frenchman's character and the force of the actuating motive. To +that man so hopelessly crippled these dollars were an enormous +opportunity. With his share of the robbery he would open another +shop in Vladivostok, Haiphong, Manila--somewhere far away. + +"Neither did it occur to Davidson, who is a man of courage, if ever +there was one, that his psychology was not known to the world at +large, and that to this particular lot of ruffians, who judged him +by his appearance, he appeared an unsuspicious, inoffensive, soft +creature, as he passed again through the room, his hands full of +various objects and parcels destined for the sick boy. + +"All the four were sitting again round the table. Bamtz not having +the pluck to open his mouth, it was Niclaus who, as a collective +voice, called out to him thickly to come out soon and join in a +drink. + +"'I think I'll have to stay some little time in there, to help her +look after the boy,' Davidson answered without stopping. + +"This was a good thing to say to allay a possible suspicion. And, +as it was, Davidson felt he must not stay very long. + +"He sat down on an old empty nail-keg near the improvised cot and +looked at the child; while Laughing Anne, moving to and fro, +preparing the hot drink, giving it to the boy in spoonfuls, or +stopping to gaze motionless at the flushed face, whispered +disjointed bits of information. She had succeeded in making +friends with that French devil. Davy would understand that she +knew how to make herself pleasant to a man. + +"And Davidson nodded without looking at her. + +"The big beast had got to be quite confidential with her. She held +his cards for him when they were having a game. Bamtz! Oh! Bamtz +in his funk was only too glad to see the Frenchman humoured. And +the Frenchman had come to believe that she was a woman who didn't +care what she did. That's how it came about they got to talk +before her openly. For a long time she could not make out what +game they were up to. The new arrivals, not expecting to find a +woman with Bamtz, had been very startled and annoyed at first, she +explained. + +"She busied herself in attending to the boy; and nobody looking +into that room would have seen anything suspicious in those two +people exchanging murmurs by the sick-bedside. + +"'But now they think I am a better man than Bamtz ever was,' she +said with a faint laugh. + +"The child moaned. She went down on her knees, and, bending low, +contemplated him mournfully. Then raising her head, she asked +Davidson whether he thought the child would get better. Davidson +was sure of it. She murmured sadly: 'Poor kid. There's nothing +in life for such as he. Not a dog's chance. But I couldn't let +him go, Davy! I couldn't.' + +"Davidson felt a profound pity for the child. She laid her hand on +his knee and whispered an earnest warning against the Frenchman. +Davy must never let him come to close quarters. Naturally Davidson +wanted to know the reason, for a man without hands did not strike +him as very formidable under any circumstances. + +"'Mind you don't let him--that's all,' she insisted anxiously, +hesitated, and then confessed that the Frenchman had got her away +from the others that afternoon and had ordered her to tie a seven- +pound iron weight (out of the set of weights Bamtz used in +business) to his right stump. She had to do it for him. She had +been afraid of his savage temper. Bamtz was such a craven, and +neither of the other men would have cared what happened to her. +The Frenchman, however, with many awful threats had warned her not +to let the others know what she had done for him. Afterwards he +had been trying to cajole her. He had promised her that if she +stood by him faithfully in this business he would take her with him +to Haiphong or some other place. A poor cripple needed somebody to +take care of him--always. + +"Davidson asked her again if they really meant mischief. It was, +he told me, the hardest thing to believe he had run up against, as +yet, in his life. Anne nodded. The Frenchman's heart was set on +this robbery. Davy might expect them, about midnight, creeping on +board his ship, to steal anyhow--to murder, perhaps. Her voice +sounded weary, and her eyes remained fastened on her child. + +"And still Davidson could not accept it somehow; his contempt for +these men was too great. + +"'Look here, Davy,' she said. 'I'll go outside with them when they +start, and it will be hard luck if I don't find something to laugh +at. They are used to that from me. Laugh or cry--what's the odds. +You will be able to hear me on board on this quiet night. Dark it +is too. Oh! it's dark, Davy!--it's dark!' + +"'Don't you run any risks,' said Davidson. Presently he called her +attention to the boy, who, less flushed now, had dropped into a +sound sleep. 'Look. He'll be all right.' + +"She made as if to snatch the child up to her breast, but +restrained herself. Davidson prepared to go. She whispered +hurriedly: + +"'Mind, Davy! I've told them that you generally sleep aft in the +hammock under the awning over the cabin. They have been asking me +about your ways and about your ship, too. I told them all I knew. +I had to keep in with them. And Bamtz would have told them if I +hadn't--you understand?' + +"He made a friendly sign and went out. The men about the table +(except Bamtz) looked at him. This time it was Fector who spoke. +'Won't you join us in a quiet game, Captain?' + +"Davidson said that now the child was better he thought he would go +on board and turn in. Fector was the only one of the four whom he +had, so to speak, never seen, for he had had a good look at the +Frenchman already. He observed Fector's muddy eyes, his mean, +bitter mouth. Davidson's contempt for those men rose in his gorge, +while his placid smile, his gentle tones and general air of +innocence put heart into them. They exchanged meaning glances. + +"'We shall be sitting late over the cards,' Fector said in his +harsh, low voice. + +"'Don't make more noise than you can help.' + +"'Oh! we are a quiet lot. And if the invalid shouldn't be so well, +she will be sure to send one of us down to call you, so that you +may play the doctor again. So don't shoot at sight.' + +"'He isn't a shooting man,' struck in Niclaus. + +"'I never shoot before making sure there's a reason for it--at any +rate,' said Davidson. + +"Bamtz let out a sickly snigger. The Frenchman alone got up to +make a bow to Davidson's careless nod. His stumps were stuck +immovably in his pockets. Davidson understood now the reason. + +"He went down to the ship. His wits were working actively, and he +was thoroughly angry. He smiled, he says (it must have been the +first grim smile of his life), at the thought of the seven-pound +weight lashed to the end of the Frenchman's stump. The ruffian had +taken that precaution in case of a quarrel that might arise over +the division of the spoil. A man with an unsuspected power to deal +killing blows could take his own part in a sudden scrimmage round a +heap of money, even against adversaries armed with revolvers, +especially if he himself started the row. + +"'He's ready to face any of his friends with that thing. But he +will have no use for it. There will be no occasion to quarrel +about these dollars here,' thought Davidson, getting on board +quietly. He never paused to look if there was anybody about the +decks. As a matter of fact, most of his crew were on shore, and +the rest slept, stowed away in dark corners. + +"He had his plan, and he went to work methodically. + +"He fetched a lot of clothing from below and disposed it in his +hammock in such a way as to distend it to the shape of a human +body; then he threw over all the light cotton sheet he used to draw +over himself when sleeping on deck. Having done this, he loaded +his two revolvers and clambered into one of the boats the Sissie +carried right aft, swung out on their davits. Then he waited. + +"And again the doubt of such a thing happening to him crept into +his mind. He was almost ashamed of this ridiculous vigil in a +boat. He became bored. And then he became drowsy. The stillness +of the black universe wearied him. There was not even the lapping +of the water to keep him company, for the tide was out and the +Sissie was lying on soft mud. Suddenly in the breathless, +soundless, hot night an argus pheasant screamed in the woods across +the stream. Davidson started violently, all his senses on the +alert at once. + +"The candle was still burning in the house. Everything was quiet +again, but Davidson felt drowsy no longer. An uneasy premonition +of evil oppressed him. + +"'Surely I am not afraid,' he argued with himself. + +"The silence was like a seal on his ears, and his nervous inward +impatience grew intolerable. He commanded himself to keep still. +But all the same he was just going to jump out of the boat when a +faint ripple on the immensity of silence, a mere tremor in the air, +the ghost of a silvery laugh, reached his ears. + +"Illusion! + +"He kept very still. He had no difficulty now in emulating the +stillness of the mouse--a grimly determined mouse. But he could +not shake off that premonition of evil unrelated to the mere danger +of the situation. Nothing happened. It had been an illusion! + +"A curiosity came to him to learn how they would go to work. He +wondered and wondered, till the whole thing seemed more absurd than +ever. + +"He had left the hanging lamp in the cabin burning as usual. It +was part of his plan that everything should be as usual. Suddenly +in the dim glow of the skylight panes a bulky shadow came up the +ladder without a sound, made two steps towards the hammock (it hung +right over the skylight), and stood motionless. The Frenchman! + +"The minutes began to slip away. Davidson guessed that the +Frenchman's part (the poor cripple) was to watch his (Davidson's) +slumbers while the others were no doubt in the cabin busy forcing +off the lazarette hatch. + +"What was the course they meant to pursue once they got hold of the +silver (there were ten cases, and each could be carried easily by +two men) nobody can tell now. But so far, Davidson was right. +They were in the cabin. He expected to hear the sounds of +breaking-in every moment. But the fact was that one of them +(perhaps Fector, who had stolen papers out of desks in his time) +knew how to pick a lock, and apparently was provided with the +tools. Thus while Davidson expected every moment to hear them +begin down there, they had the bar off already and two cases +actually up in the cabin out of the lazarette. + +"In the diffused faint glow of the skylight the Frenchman moved no +more than a statue. Davidson could have shot him with the greatest +ease--but he was not homicidally inclined. Moreover, he wanted to +make sure before opening fire that the others had gone to work. +Not hearing the sounds he expected to hear, he felt uncertain +whether they all were on board yet. + +"While he listened, the Frenchman, whose immobility might have but +cloaked an internal struggle; moved forward a pace, then another. +Davidson, entranced, watched him advance one leg, withdraw his +right stump, the armed one, out of his pocket, and swinging his +body to put greater force into the blow, bring the seven-pound +weight down on the hammock where the head of the sleeper ought to +have been. + +"Davidson admitted to me that his hair stirred at the roots then. +But for Anne, his unsuspecting head would have been there. The +Frenchman's surprise must have been simply overwhelming. He +staggered away from the lightly swinging hammock, and before +Davidson could make a movement he had vanished, bounding down the +ladder to warn and alarm the other fellows. + +"Davidson sprang instantly out of the boat, threw up the skylight +flap, and had a glimpse of the men down there crouching round the +hatch. They looked up scared, and at that moment the Frenchman +outside the door bellowed out 'Trahison--trahison!' They bolted +out of the cabin, falling over each other and swearing awfully. +The shot Davidson let off down the skylight had hit no one; but he +ran to the edge of the cabin-top and at once opened fire at the +dark shapes rushing about the deck. These shots were returned, and +a rapid fusillade burst out, reports and flashes, Davidson dodging +behind a ventilator and pulling the trigger till his revolver +clicked, and then throwing it down to take the other in his right +hand. + +"He had been hearing in the din the Frenchman's infuriated yells +'Tuez-le! tuez-le!' above the fierce cursing of the others. But +though they fired at him they were only thinking of clearing out. +In the flashes of the last shots Davidson saw them scrambling over +the rail. That he had hit more than one he was certain. Two +different voices had cried out in pain. But apparently none of +them were disabled. + +"Davidson leaned against the bulwark reloading his revolver without +haste. He had not the slightest apprehension of their coming back. +On the other hand, he had no intention of pursuing them on shore in +the dark. What they were doing he had no idea. Looking to their +hurts probably. Not very far from the bank the invisible Frenchman +was blaspheming and cursing his associates, his luck, and all the +world. He ceased; then with a sudden, vengeful yell, 'It's that +woman!--it's that woman that has sold us,' was heard running off in +the night. + +"Davidson caught his breath in a sudden pang of remorse. He +perceived with dismay that the stratagem of his defence had given +Anne away. He did not hesitate a moment. It was for him to save +her now. He leaped ashore. But even as he landed on the wharf he +heard a shrill shriek which pierced his very soul. + +"The light was still burning in the house. Davidson, revolver in +hand, was making for it when another shriek, away to his left, made +him change his direction. + +"He changed his direction--but very soon he stopped. It was then +that he hesitated in cruel perplexity. He guessed what had +happened. The woman had managed to escape from the house in some +way, and now was being chased in the open by the infuriated +Frenchman. He trusted she would try to run on board for +protection. + +"All was still around Davidson. Whether she had run on board or +not, this silence meant that the Frenchman had lost her in the +dark. + +"Davidson, relieved, but still very anxious, turned towards the +river-side. He had not made two steps in that direction when +another shriek burst out behind him, again close to the house. + +"He thinks that the Frenchman had lost sight of the poor woman +right enough. Then came that period of silence. But the horrible +ruffian had not given up his murderous purpose. He reasoned that +she would try to steal back to her child, and went to lie in wait +for her near the house. + +"It must have been something like that. As she entered the light +falling about the house-ladder, he had rushed at her too soon, +impatient for vengeance. She had let out that second scream of +mortal fear when she caught sight of him, and turned to run for +life again. + +"This time she was making for the river, but not in a straight +line. Her shrieks circled about Davidson. He turned on his heels, +following the horrible trail of sound in the darkness. He wanted +to shout 'This way, Anne! I am here!' but he couldn't. At the +horror of this chase, more ghastly in his imagination than if he +could have seen it, the perspiration broke out on his forehead, +while his throat was as dry as tinder. A last supreme scream was +cut short suddenly. + +"The silence which ensued was even more dreadful. Davidson felt +sick. He tore his feet from the spot and walked straight before +him, gripping the revolver and peering into the obscurity +fearfully. Suddenly a bulky shape sprang from the ground within a +few yards of him and bounded away. Instinctively he fired at it, +started to run in pursuit, and stumbled against something soft +which threw him down headlong. + +"Even as he pitched forward on his head he knew it could be nothing +else but Laughing Anne's body. He picked himself up and, remaining +on his knees, tried to lift her in his arms. He felt her so limp +that he gave it up. She was lying on her face, her long hair +scattered on the ground. Some of it was wet. Davidson, feeling +about her head, came to a place where the crushed bone gave way +under his fingers. But even before that discovery he knew that she +was dead. The pursuing Frenchman had flung her down with a kick +from behind, and, squatting on her back, was battering in her skull +with the weight she herself had fastened to his stump, when the +totally unexpected Davidson loomed up in the night and scared him +away. + +"Davidson, kneeling by the side of that woman done so miserably to +death, was overcome by remorse. She had died for him. His manhood +was as if stunned. For the first time he felt afraid. He might +have been pounced upon in the dark at any moment by the murderer of +Laughing Anne. He confesses to the impulse of creeping away from +that pitiful corpse on his hands and knees to the refuge of the +ship. He even says that he actually began to do so. . . + +"One can hardly picture to oneself Davidson crawling away on all +fours from the murdered woman--Davidson unmanned and crushed by the +idea that she had died for him in a sense. But he could not have +gone very far. What stopped him was the thought of the boy, +Laughing Anne's child, that (Davidson remembered her very words) +would not have a dog's chance. + +"This life the woman had left behind her appeared to Davidson's +conscience in the light of a sacred trust. He assumed an erect +attitude and, quaking inwardly still, turned about and walked +towards the house. + +"For all his tremors he was very determined; but that smashed skull +had affected his imagination, and he felt very defenceless in the +darkness, in which he seemed to hear faintly now here, now there, +the prowling footsteps of the murderer without hands. But he never +faltered in his purpose. He got away with the boy safely after +all. The house he found empty. A profound silence encompassed him +all the time, except once, just as he got down the ladder with Tony +in his arms, when a faint groan reached his ears. It seemed to +come from the pitch-black space between the posts on which the +house was built, but he did not stop to investigate. + +"It's no use telling you in detail how Davidson got on board with +the burden Anne's miserably cruel fate had thrust into his arms; +how next morning his scared crew, after observing from a distance +the state of affairs on board, rejoined with alacrity; how Davidson +went ashore and, aided by his engineer (still half dead with +fright), rolled up Laughing Anne's body in a cotton sheet and +brought it on board for burial at sea later. While busy with this +pious task, Davidson, glancing about, perceived a huge heap of +white clothes huddled up against the corner-post of the house. +That it was the Frenchman lying there he could not doubt. Taking +it in connection with the dismal groan he had heard in the night, +Davidson is pretty sure that his random shot gave a mortal hurt to +the murderer of poor Anne. + +"As to the others, Davidson never set eyes on a single one of them. +Whether they had concealed themselves in the scared settlement, or +bolted into the forest, or were hiding on board Niclaus's prau, +which could be seen lying on the mud a hundred yards or so higher +up the creek, the fact is that they vanished; and Davidson did not +trouble his head about them. He lost no time in getting out of the +creek directly the Sissie floated. After steaming some twenty +miles clear of the coast, he (in his own words) 'committed the body +to the deep.' He did everything himself. He weighted her down +with a few fire-bars, he read the service, he lifted the plank, he +was the only mourner. And while he was rendering these last +services to the dead, the desolation of that life and the atrocious +wretchedness of its end cried aloud to his compassion, whispered to +him in tones of self-reproach. + +"He ought to have handled the warning she had given him in another +way. He was convinced now that a simple display of watchfulness +would have been enough to restrain that vile and cowardly crew. +But the fact was that he had not quite believed that anything would +be attempted. + +"The body of Laughing Anne having been 'committed to the deep' some +twenty miles S.S.W. from Cape Selatan, the task before Davidson was +to commit Laughing Anne's child to the care of his wife. And there +poor, good Davidson made a fatal move. He didn't want to tell her +the whole awful story, since it involved the knowledge of the +danger from which he, Davidson, had escaped. And this, too, after +he had been laughing at her unreasonable fears only a short time +before. + +"'I thought that if I told her everything,' Davidson explained to +me, 'she would never have a moment's peace while I was away on my +trips.' + +"He simply stated that the boy was an orphan, the child of some +people to whom he, Davidson, was under the greatest obligation, and +that he felt morally bound to look after him. Some day he would +tell her more, he said, and meantime he trusted in the goodness and +warmth of her heart, in her woman's natural compassion. + +"He did not know that her heart was about the size of a parched +pea, and had the proportional amount of warmth; and that her +faculty of compassion was mainly directed to herself. He was only +startled and disappointed at the air of cold surprise and the +suspicious look with which she received his imperfect tale. But +she did not say much. She never had much to say. She was a fool +of the silent, hopeless kind. + +"What story Davidson's crew thought fit to set afloat in Malay town +is neither here nor there. Davidson himself took some of his +friends into his confidence, besides giving the full story +officially to the Harbour Master. + +"The Harbour Master was considerably astonished. He didn't think, +however, that a formal complaint should be made to the Dutch +Government. They would probably do nothing in the end, after a lot +of trouble and correspondence. The robbery had not come off, after +all. Those vagabonds could be trusted to go to the devil in their +own way. No amount of fuss would bring the poor woman to life +again, and the actual murderer had been done justice to by a chance +shot from Davidson. Better let the matter drop. + +"This was good common sense. But he was impressed. + +"'Sounds a terrible affair, Captain Davidson.' + +"'Aye, terrible enough,' agreed the remorseful Davidson. But the +most terrible thing for him, though he didn't know it yet then, was +that his wife's silly brain was slowly coming to the conclusion +that Tony was Davidson's child, and that he had invented that lame +story to introduce him into her pure home in defiance of decency, +of virtue--of her most sacred feelings. + +"Davidson was aware of some constraint in his domestic relations. +But at the best of times she was not demonstrative; and perhaps +that very coldness was part of her charm in the placid Davidson's +eyes. Women are loved for all sorts of reasons and even for +characteristics which one would think repellent. She was watching +him and nursing her suspicions. + +"Then, one day, Monkey-faced Ritchie called on that sweet, shy Mrs. +Davidson. She had come out under his care, and he considered +himself a privileged person--her oldest friend in the tropics. He +posed for a great admirer of hers. He was always a great +chatterer. He had got hold of the story rather vaguely, and he +started chattering on that subject, thinking she knew all about it. +And in due course he let out something about Laughing Anne. + +"'Laughing Anne,' says Mrs. Davidson with a start. 'What's that?' + +Ritchie plunged into circumlocution at once, but she very soon +stopped him. 'Is that creature dead?' she asks. + +"'I believe so,' stammered Ritchie. 'Your husband says so.' + +"'But you don't know for certain?' + +"'No! How could I, Mrs. Davidson!' + +"'That's all wanted to know,' says she, and goes out of the room. + +"When Davidson came home she was ready to go for him, not with +common voluble indignation, but as if trickling a stream of cold +clear water down his back. She talked of his base intrigue with a +vile woman, of being made a fool of, of the insult to her dignity. + +"Davidson begged her to listen to him and told her all the story, +thinking that it would move a heart of stone. He tried to make her +understand his remorse. She heard him to the end, said 'Indeed!' +and turned her back on him. + +"'Don't you believe me?' he asked, appalled. + +"She didn't say yes or no. All she said was, 'Send that brat away +at once.' + +"'I can't throw him out into the street,' cried Davidson. 'You +don't mean it.' + +"'I don't care. There are charitable institutions for such +children, I suppose.' + +"'That I will never do,' said Davidson. + +"'Very well. That's enough for me.' + +"Davidson's home after this was like a silent, frozen hell for him. +A stupid woman with a sense of grievance is worse than an unchained +devil. He sent the boy to the White Fathers in Malacca. This was +not a very expensive sort of education, but she could not forgive +him for not casting the offensive child away utterly. She worked +up her sense of her wifely wrongs and of her injured purity to such +a pitch that one day, when poor Davidson was pleading with her to +be reasonable and not to make an impossible existence for them +both, she turned on him in a chill passion and told him that his +very sight was odious to her. + +"Davidson, with his scrupulous delicacy of feeling, was not the man +to assert his rights over a woman who could not bear the sight of +him. He bowed his head; and shortly afterwards arranged for her to +go back to her parents. That was exactly what she wanted in her +outraged dignity. And then she had always disliked the tropics and +had detested secretly the people she had to live amongst as +Davidson's wife. She took her pure, sensitive, mean little soul +away to Fremantle or somewhere in that direction. And of course +the little girl went away with her too. What could poor Davidson +have done with a little girl on his hands, even if she had +consented to leave her with him--which is unthinkable. + +"This is the story that has spoiled Davidson's smile for him--which +perhaps it wouldn't have done so thoroughly had he been less of a +good fellow." + +Hollis ceased. But before we rose from the table I asked him if he +knew what had become of Laughing Anne's boy. + +He counted carefully the change handed him by the Chinaman waiter, +and raised his head. + +"Oh! that's the finishing touch. He was a bright, taking little +chap, as you know, and the Fathers took very special pains in his +bringing up. Davidson expected in his heart to have some comfort +out of him. In his placid way he's a man who needs affection. +Well, Tony has grown into a fine youth--but there you are! He +wants to be a priest; his one dream is to be a missionary. The +Fathers assure Davidson that it is a serious vocation. They tell +him he has a special disposition for mission work, too. So +Laughing Anne's boy will lead a saintly life in China somewhere; he +may even become a martyr; but poor Davidson is left out in the +cold. He will have to go downhill without a single human affection +near him because of these old dollars." + +Jan. 1914 + + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} The gallows, supposed to be widowed of the last executed +criminal and waiting for another. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, WITHIN THE TIDES *** + +This file should be named wthnt10.txt or wthnt10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, wthnt11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, wthnt10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/wthnt10.zip b/old/wthnt10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b9a3057 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/wthnt10.zip diff --git a/old/wthnt10h.htm b/old/wthnt10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3352a56 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/wthnt10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6153 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Within the Tides</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Within the Tides, by Joseph Conrad</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Within the Tides, by Joseph Conrad +(#14 in our series by Joseph Conrad) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Within the Tides + +Author: Joseph Conrad + +Release Date: September, 1997 [EBook #1053] +[This file was first posted on August 29, 1997] +[Most recently updated: June 24, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Scanned and proofed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h1>Within the Tides</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>Contents:</p> +<p>The Planter of Malata<br />The Partner<br />The Inn of the Two Witches<br />Because +of the Dollars</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE PLANTER OF MALATA</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>In the private editorial office of the principal newspaper in a great +colonial city two men were talking. They were both young. +The stouter of the two, fair, and with more of an urban look about him, +was the editor and part-owner of the important newspaper.</p> +<p>The other’s name was Renouard. That he was exercised +in his mind about something was evident on his fine bronzed face. +He was a lean, lounging, active man. The journalist continued +the conversation.</p> +<p>“And so you were dining yesterday at old Dunster’s.”</p> +<p>He used the word old not in the endearing sense in which it is sometimes +applied to intimates, but as a matter of sober fact. The Dunster +in question was old. He had been an eminent colonial statesman, +but had now retired from active politics after a tour in Europe and +a lengthy stay in England, during which he had had a very good press +indeed. The colony was proud of him.</p> +<p>“Yes. I dined there,” said Renouard. “Young +Dunster asked me just as I was going out of his office. It seemed +to be like a sudden thought. And yet I can’t help suspecting +some purpose behind it. He was very pressing. He swore that +his uncle would be very pleased to see me. Said his uncle had +mentioned lately that the granting to me of the Malata concession was +the last act of his official life.”</p> +<p>“Very touching. The old boy sentimentalises over the +past now and then.”</p> +<p>“I really don’t know why I accepted,” continued +the other. “Sentiment does not move me very easily. +Old Dunster was civil to me of course, but he did not even inquire how +I was getting on with my silk plants. Forgot there was such a +thing probably. I must say there were more people there than I +expected to meet. Quite a big party.”</p> +<p>“I was asked,” remarked the newspaper man. “Only +I couldn’t go. But when did you arrive from Malata?”</p> +<p>“I arrived yesterday at daylight. I am anchored out there +in the bay—off Garden Point. I was in Dunster’s office +before he had finished reading his letters. Have you ever seen +young Dunster reading his letters? I had a glimpse of him through +the open door. He holds the paper in both hands, hunches his shoulders +up to his ugly ears, and brings his long nose and his thick lips on +to it like a sucking apparatus. A commercial monster.”</p> +<p>“Here we don’t consider him a monster,” said the +newspaper man looking at his visitor thoughtfully.</p> +<p>“Probably not. You are used to see his face and to see +other faces. I don’t know how it is that, when I come to +town, the appearance of the people in the street strike me with such +force. They seem so awfully expressive.”</p> +<p>“And not charming.”</p> +<p>“Well—no. Not as a rule. The effect is forcible +without being clear. . . . I know that you think it’s because +of my solitary manner of life away there.”</p> +<p>“Yes. I do think so. It is demoralising. +You don’t see any one for months at a stretch. You’re +leading an unhealthy life.”</p> +<p>The other hardly smiled and murmured the admission that true enough +it was a good eleven months since he had been in town last.</p> +<p>“You see,” insisted the other. “Solitude +works like a sort of poison. And then you perceive suggestions +in faces—mysterious and forcible, that no sound man would be bothered +with. Of course you do.”</p> +<p>Geoffrey Renouard did not tell his journalist friend that the suggestions +of his own face, the face of a friend, bothered him as much as the others. +He detected a degrading quality in the touches of age which every day +adds to a human countenance. They moved and disturbed him, like +the signs of a horrible inward travail which was frightfully apparent +to the fresh eye he had brought from his isolation in Malata, where +he had settled after five strenuous years of adventure and exploration.</p> +<p>“It’s a fact,” he said, “that when I am at +home in Malata I see no one consciously. I take the plantation +boys for granted.”</p> +<p>“Well, and we here take the people in the streets for granted. +And that’s sanity.”</p> +<p>The visitor said nothing to this for fear of engaging a discussion. +What he had come to seek in the editorial office was not controversy, +but information. Yet somehow he hesitated to approach the subject. +Solitary life makes a man reticent in respect of anything in the nature +of gossip, which those to whom chatting about their kind is an everyday +exercise regard as the commonest use of speech.</p> +<p>“You very busy?” he asked.</p> +<p>The Editor making red marks on a long slip of printed paper threw +the pencil down.</p> +<p>“No. I am done. Social paragraphs. This office +is the place where everything is known about everybody—including +even a great deal of nobodies. Queer fellows drift in and out +of this room. Waifs and strays from home, from up-country, from +the Pacific. And, by the way, last time you were here you picked +up one of that sort for your assistant—didn’t you?”</p> +<p>“I engaged an assistant only to stop your preaching about the +evils of solitude,” said Renouard hastily; and the pressman laughed +at the half-resentful tone. His laugh was not very loud, but his +plump person shook all over. He was aware that his younger friend’s +deference to his advice was based only on an imperfect belief in his +wisdom—or his sagacity. But it was he who had first helped +Renouard in his plans of exploration: the five-years’ programme +of scientific adventure, of work, of danger and endurance, carried out +with such distinction and rewarded modestly with the lease of Malata +island by the frugal colonial government. And this reward, too, +had been due to the journalist’s advocacy with word and pen—for +he was an influential man in the community. Doubting very much +if Renouard really liked him, he was himself without great sympathy +for a certain side of that man which he could not quite make out. +He only felt it obscurely to be his real personality—the true—and, +perhaps, the absurd. As, for instance, in that case of the assistant. +Renouard had given way to the arguments of his friend and backer—the +argument against the unwholesome effect of solitude, the argument for +the safety of companionship even if quarrelsome. Very well. +In this docility he was sensible and even likeable. But what did +he do next? Instead of taking counsel as to the choice with his +old backer and friend, and a man, besides, knowing everybody employed +and unemployed on the pavements of the town, this extraordinary Renouard +suddenly and almost surreptitiously picked up a fellow—God knows +who—and sailed away with him back to Malata in a hurry; a proceeding +obviously rash and at the same time not quite straight. That was +the sort of thing. The secretly unforgiving journalist laughed +a little longer and then ceased to shake all over.</p> +<p>“Oh, yes. About that assistant of yours. . . .”</p> +<p>“What about him,” said Renouard, after waiting a while, +with a shadow of uneasiness on his face.</p> +<p>“Have you nothing to tell me of him?”</p> +<p>“Nothing except. . . .” Incipient grimness vanished +out of Renouard’s aspect and his voice, while he hesitated as +if reflecting seriously before he changed his mind. “No. +Nothing whatever.”</p> +<p>“You haven’t brought him along with you by chance—for +a change.”</p> +<p>The Planter of Malata stared, then shook his head, and finally murmured +carelessly: “I think he’s very well where he is. But +I wish you could tell me why young Dunster insisted so much on my dining +with his uncle last night. Everybody knows I am not a society +man.”</p> +<p>The Editor exclaimed at so much modesty. Didn’t his friend +know that he was their one and only explorer—that he was the man +experimenting with the silk plant. . . .</p> +<p>“Still, that doesn’t tell me why I was invited yesterday. +For young Dunster never thought of this civility before. . . .”</p> +<p>“Our Willie,” said the popular journalist, “never +does anything without a purpose, that’s a fact.”</p> +<p>“And to his uncle’s house too!”</p> +<p>“He lives there.”</p> +<p>“Yes. But he might have given me a feed somewhere else. +The extraordinary part is that the old man did not seem to have anything +special to say. He smiled kindly on me once or twice, and that +was all. It was quite a party, sixteen people.”</p> +<p>The Editor then, after expressing his regret that he had not been +able to come, wanted to know if the party had been entertaining.</p> +<p>Renouard regretted that his friend had not been there. Being +a man whose business or at least whose profession was to know everything +that went on in this part of the globe, he could probably have told +him something of some people lately arrived from home, who were amongst +the guests. Young Dunster (Willie), with his large shirt-front +and streaks of white skin shining unpleasantly through the thin black +hair plastered over the top of his head, bore down on him and introduced +him to that party, as if he had been a trained dog or a child phenomenon. +Decidedly, he said, he disliked Willie—one of these large oppressive +men. . . .</p> +<p>A silence fell, and it was as if Renouard were not going to say anything +more when, suddenly, he came out with the real object of his visit to +the editorial room.</p> +<p>“They looked to me like people under a spell.”</p> +<p>The Editor gazed at him appreciatively, thinking that, whether the +effect of solitude or not, this was a proof of a sensitive perception +of the expression of faces.</p> +<p>“You omitted to tell me their name, but I can make a guess. +You mean Professor Moorsom, his daughter and sister—don’t +you?”</p> +<p>Renouard assented. Yes, a white-haired lady. But from +his silence, with his eyes fixed, yet avoiding his friend, it was easy +to guess that it was not in the white-haired lady that he was interested.</p> +<p>“Upon my word,” he said, recovering his usual bearing. +“It looks to me as if I had been asked there only for the daughter +to talk to me.”</p> +<p>He did not conceal that he had been greatly struck by her appearance. +Nobody could have helped being impressed. She was different from +everybody else in that house, and it was not only the effect of her +London clothes. He did not take her down to dinner. Willie +did that. It was afterwards, on the terrace. . . .</p> +<p>The evening was delightfully calm. He was sitting apart and +alone, and wishing himself somewhere else—on board the schooner +for choice, with the dinner-harness off. He hadn’t exchanged +forty words altogether during the evening with the other guests. +He saw her suddenly all by herself coming towards him along the dimly +lighted terrace, quite from a distance.</p> +<p>She was tall and supple, carrying nobly on her straight body a head +of a character which to him appeared peculiar, something—well—pagan, +crowned with a great wealth of hair. He had been about to rise, +but her decided approach caused him to remain on the seat. He +had not looked much at her that evening. He had not that freedom +of gaze acquired by the habit of society and the frequent meetings with +strangers. It was not shyness, but the reserve of a man not used +to the world and to the practice of covert staring, with careless curiosity. +All he had captured by his first, keen, instantly lowered, glance was +the impression that her hair was magnificently red and her eyes very +black. It was a troubling effect, but it had been evanescent; +he had forgotten it almost till very unexpectedly he saw her coming +down the terrace slow and eager, as if she were restraining herself, +and with a rhythmic upward undulation of her whole figure. The +light from an open window fell across her path, and suddenly all that +mass of arranged hair appeared incandescent, chiselled and fluid, with +the daring suggestion of a helmet of burnished copper and the flowing +lines of molten metal. It kindled in him an astonished admiration. +But he said nothing of it to his friend the Editor. Neither did +he tell him that her approach woke up in his brain the image of love’s +infinite grace and the sense of the inexhaustible joy that lives in +beauty. No! What he imparted to the Editor were no emotions, +but mere facts conveyed in a deliberate voice and in uninspired words.</p> +<p>“That young lady came and sat down by me. She said: ‘Are +you French, Mr. Renouard?’”</p> +<p>He had breathed a whiff of perfume of which he said nothing either—of +some perfume he did not know. Her voice was low and distinct. +Her shoulders and her bare arms gleamed with an extraordinary splendour, +and when she advanced her head into the light he saw the admirable contour +of the face, the straight fine nose with delicate nostrils, the exquisite +crimson brushstroke of the lips on this oval without colour. The +expression of the eyes was lost in a shadowy mysterious play of jet +and silver, stirring under the red coppery gold of the hair as though +she had been a being made of ivory and precious metals changed into +living tissue.</p> +<p>“. . . I told her my people were living in Canada, but that +I was brought up in England before coming out here. I can’t +imagine what interest she could have in my history.”</p> +<p>“And you complain of her interest?”</p> +<p>The accent of the all-knowing journalist seemed to jar on the Planter +of Malata.</p> +<p>“No!” he said, in a deadened voice that was almost sullen. +But after a short silence he went on. “Very extraordinary. +I told her I came out to wander at large in the world when I was nineteen, +almost directly after I left school. It seems that her late brother +was in the same school a couple of years before me. She wanted +me to tell her what I did at first when I came out here; what other +men found to do when they came out—where they went, what was likely +to happen to them—as if I could guess and foretell from my experience +the fates of men who come out here with a hundred different projects, +for hundreds of different reasons—for no reason but restlessness—who +come, and go, and disappear! Preposterous. She seemed to +want to hear their histories. I told her that most of them were +not worth telling.”</p> +<p>The distinguished journalist leaning on his elbow, his head resting +against the knuckles of his left hand, listened with great attention, +but gave no sign of that surprise which Renouard, pausing, seemed to +expect.</p> +<p>“You know something,” the latter said brusquely. +The all-knowing man moved his head slightly and said, “Yes. +But go on.”</p> +<p>“It’s just this. There is no more to it. +I found myself talking to her of my adventures, of my early days. +It couldn’t possibly have interested her. Really,” +he cried, “this is most extraordinary. Those people have +something on their minds. We sat in the light of the window, and +her father prowled about the terrace, with his hands behind his back +and his head drooping. The white-haired lady came to the dining-room +window twice—to look at us I am certain. The other guests +began to go away—and still we sat there. Apparently these +people are staying with the Dunsters. It was old Mrs. Dunster +who put an end to the thing. The father and the aunt circled about +as if they were afraid of interfering with the girl. Then she +got up all at once, gave me her hand, and said she hoped she would see +me again.”</p> +<p>While he was speaking Renouard saw again the sway of her figure in +a movement of grace and strength—felt the pressure of her hand—heard +the last accents of the deep murmur that came from her throat so white +in the light of the window, and remembered the black rays of her steady +eyes passing off his face when she turned away. He remembered +all this visually, and it was not exactly pleasurable. It was +rather startling like the discovery of a new faculty in himself. +There are faculties one would rather do without—such, for instance, +as seeing through a stone wall or remembering a person with this uncanny +vividness. And what about those two people belonging to her with +their air of expectant solicitude! Really, those figures from +home got in front of one. In fact, their persistence in getting +between him and the solid forms of the everyday material world had driven +Renouard to call on his friend at the office. He hoped that a +little common, gossipy information would lay the ghost of that unexpected +dinner-party. Of course the proper person to go to would have +been young Dunster, but, he couldn’t stand Willie Dunster—not +at any price.</p> +<p>In the pause the Editor had changed his attitude, faced his desk, +and smiled a faint knowing smile.</p> +<p>“Striking girl—eh?” he said.</p> +<p>The incongruity of the word was enough to make one jump out of the +chair. Striking! That girl striking! Stri . . .! +But Renouard restrained his feelings. His friend was not a person +to give oneself away to. And, after all, this sort of speech was +what he had come there to hear. As, however, he had made a movement +he re-settled himself comfortably and said, with very creditable indifference, +that yes—she was, rather. Especially amongst a lot of over-dressed +frumps. There wasn’t one woman under forty there.</p> +<p>“Is that the way to speak of the cream of our society; the +‘top of the basket,’ as the French say,” the Editor +remonstrated with mock indignation. “You aren’t moderate +in your expressions—you know.”</p> +<p>“I express myself very little,” interjected Renouard +seriously.</p> +<p>“I will tell you what you are. You are a fellow that +doesn’t count the cost. Of course you are safe with me, +but will you never learn. . . .”</p> +<p>“What struck me most,” interrupted the other, “is +that she should pick me out for such a long conversation.”</p> +<p>“That’s perhaps because you were the most remarkable +of the men there.”</p> +<p>Renouard shook his head.</p> +<p>“This shot doesn’t seem to me to hit the mark,” +he said calmly. “Try again.”</p> +<p> “Don’t you believe me? Oh, you modest creature. +Well, let me assure you that under ordinary circumstances it would have +been a good shot. You are sufficiently remarkable. But you +seem a pretty acute customer too. The circumstances are extraordinary. +By Jove they are!”</p> +<p>He mused. After a time the Planter of Malata dropped a negligent +-</p> +<p>“And you know them.”</p> +<p>“And I know them,” assented the all-knowing Editor, soberly, +as though the occasion were too special for a display of professional +vanity; a vanity so well known to Renouard that its absence augmented +his wonder and almost made him uneasy as if portending bad news of some +sort.</p> +<p>“You have met those people?” he asked.</p> +<p>“No. I was to have met them last night, but I had to +send an apology to Willie in the morning. It was then that he +had the bright idea to invite you to fill the place, from a muddled +notion that you could be of use. Willie is stupid sometimes. +For it is clear that you are the last man able to help.”</p> +<p>“How on earth do I come to be mixed up in this—whatever +it is?” Renouard’s voice was slightly altered by nervous +irritation. “I only arrived here yesterday morning.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>His friend the Editor turned to him squarely. “Willie +took me into consultation, and since he seems to have let you in I may +just as well tell you what is up. I shall try to be as short as +I can. But in confidence—mind!”</p> +<p>He waited. Renouard, his uneasiness growing on him unreasonably, +assented by a nod, and the other lost no time in beginning. Professor +Moorsom—physicist and philosopher—fine head of white hair, +to judge from the photographs—plenty of brains in the head too—all +these famous books—surely even Renouard would know. . . .</p> +<p>Renouard muttered moodily that it wasn’t his sort of reading, +and his friend hastened to assure him earnestly that neither was it +his sort—except as a matter of business and duty, for the literary +page of that newspaper which was his property (and the pride of his +life). The only literary newspaper in the Antipodes could not +ignore the fashionable philosopher of the age. Not that anybody +read Moorsom at the Antipodes, but everybody had heard of him—women, +children, dock labourers, cabmen. The only person (besides himself) +who had read Moorsom, as far as he knew, was old Dunster, who used to +call himself a Moorsomian (or was it Moorsomite) years and years ago, +long before Moorsom had worked himself up into the great swell he was +now, in every way. . . Socially too. Quite the fashion in the +highest world.</p> +<p>Renouard listened with profoundly concealed attention. “A +charlatan,” he muttered languidly.</p> +<p>“Well—no. I should say not. I shouldn’t +wonder though if most of his writing had been done with his tongue in +his cheek. Of course. That’s to be expected. +I tell you what: the only really honest writing is to be found in newspapers +and nowhere else—and don’t you forget it.”</p> +<p>The Editor paused with a basilisk stare till Renouard had conceded +a casual: “I dare say,” and only then went on to explain +that old Dunster, during his European tour, had been made rather a lion +of in London, where he stayed with the Moorsoms—he meant the father +and the girl. The professor had been a widower for a long time.</p> +<p>“She doesn’t look just a girl,” muttered Renouard. +The other agreed. Very likely not. Had been playing the +London hostess to tip-top people ever since she put her hair up, probably.</p> +<p>“I don’t expect to see any girlish bloom on her when +I do have the privilege,” he continued. “Those people +are staying with the Dunster’s <i>incog</i>., in a manner, you +understand—something like royalties. They don’t deceive +anybody, but they want to be left to themselves. We have even +kept them out of the paper—to oblige old Dunster. But we +shall put your arrival in—our local celebrity.”</p> +<p>“Heavens!”</p> +<p>“Yes. Mr. G. Renouard, the explorer, whose indomitable +energy, etc., and who is now working for the prosperity of our country +in another way on his Malata plantation . . . And, by the by, how’s +the silk plant—flourishing?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“Did you bring any fibre?”</p> +<p>“Schooner-full.”</p> +<p>“I see. To be transhipped to Liverpool for experimental +manufacture, eh? Eminent capitalists at home very much interested, +aren’t they?”</p> +<p>“They are.”</p> +<p>A silence fell. Then the Editor uttered slowly—“You +will be a rich man some day.”</p> +<p>Renouard’s face did not betray his opinion of that confident +prophecy. He didn’t say anything till his friend suggested +in the same meditative voice -</p> +<p>“You ought to interest Moorsom in the affair too—since +Willie has let you in.”</p> +<p>“A philosopher!”</p> +<p>“I suppose he isn’t above making a bit of money. +And he may be clever at it for all you know. I have a notion that +he’s a fairly practical old cove. . . . Anyhow,” and here +the tone of the speaker took on a tinge of respect, “he has made +philosophy pay.”</p> +<p>Renouard raised his eyes, repressed an impulse to jump up, and got +out of the arm-chair slowly. “It isn’t perhaps a bad +idea,” he said. “I’ll have to call there in +any case.”</p> +<p>He wondered whether he had managed to keep his voice steady, its +tone unconcerned enough; for his emotion was strong though it had nothing +to do with the business aspect of this suggestion. He moved in +the room in vague preparation for departure, when he heard a soft laugh. +He spun about quickly with a frown, but the Editor was not laughing +at him. He was chuckling across the big desk at the wall: a preliminary +of some speech for which Renouard, recalled to himself, waited silent +and mistrustful.</p> +<p>“No! You would never guess! No one would ever guess +what these people are after. Willie’s eyes bulged out when +he came to me with the tale.”</p> +<p>“They always do,” remarked Renouard with disgust. +“He’s stupid.”</p> +<p>“He was startled. And so was I after he told me. +It’s a search party. They are out looking for a man. +Willie’s soft heart’s enlisted in the cause.”</p> +<p>Renouard repeated: “Looking for a man.”</p> +<p>He sat down suddenly as if on purpose to stare. “Did +Willie come to you to borrow the lantern,” he asked sarcastically, +and got up again for no apparent reason.</p> +<p>“What lantern?” snapped the puzzled Editor, and his face +darkened with suspicion. “You, Renouard, are always alluding +to things that aren’t clear to me. If you were in politics, +I, as a party journalist, wouldn’t trust you further than I could +see you. Not an inch further. You are such a sophisticated +beggar. Listen: the man is the man Miss Moorsom was engaged to +for a year. He couldn’t have been a nobody, anyhow. +But he doesn’t seem to have been very wise. Hard luck for +the young lady.”</p> +<p>He spoke with feeling. It was clear that what he had to tell +appealed to his sentiment. Yet, as an experienced man of the world, +he marked his amused wonder. Young man of good family and connections, +going everywhere, yet not merely a man about town, but with a foot in +the two big F’s.</p> +<p>Renouard lounging aimlessly in the room turned round: “And +what the devil’s that?” he asked faintly.</p> +<p>“Why Fashion and Finance,” explained the Editor. +“That’s how I call it. There are the three R’s +at the bottom of the social edifice and the two F’s on the top. +See?”</p> +<p>“Ha! Ha! Excellent! Ha! Ha!” Renouard laughed +with stony eyes.</p> +<p>“And you proceed from one set to the other in this democratic +age,” the Editor went on with unperturbed complacency. “That +is if you are clever enough. The only danger is in being too clever. +And I think something of the sort happened here. That swell I +am speaking of got himself into a mess. Apparently a very ugly +mess of a financial character. You will understand that Willie +did not go into details with me. They were not imparted to him +with very great abundance either. But a bad mess—something +of the criminal order. Of course he was innocent. But he +had to quit all the same.”</p> +<p>“Ha! Ha!” Renouard laughed again abruptly, staring as +before. “So there’s one more big F in the tale.”</p> +<p>“What do you mean?” inquired the Editor quickly, with +an air as if his patent were being infringed.</p> +<p>“I mean—Fool.”</p> +<p>“No. I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t +say that.”</p> +<p>“Well—let him be a scoundrel then. What the devil +do I care.”</p> +<p>“But hold on! You haven’t heard the end of the +story.”</p> +<p>Renouard, his hat on his head already, sat down with the disdainful +smile of a man who had discounted the moral of the story. Still +he sat down and the Editor swung his revolving chair right round. +He was full of unction.</p> +<p>“Imprudent, I should say. In many ways money is as dangerous +to handle as gunpowder. You can’t be too careful either +as to who you are working with. Anyhow there was a mighty flashy +burst up, a sensation, and—his familiar haunts knew him no more. +But before he vanished he went to see Miss Moorsom. That very +fact argues for his innocence—don’t it? What was said +between them no man knows—unless the professor had the confidence +from his daughter. There couldn’t have been much to say. +There was nothing for it but to let him go—was there?—for +the affair had got into the papers. And perhaps the kindest thing +would have been to forget him. Anyway the easiest. Forgiveness +would have been more difficult, I fancy, for a young lady of spirit +and position drawn into an ugly affair like that. Any ordinary +young lady, I mean. Well, the fellow asked nothing better than +to be forgotten, only he didn’t find it easy to do so himself, +because he would write home now and then. Not to any of his friends +though. He had no near relations. The professor had been +his guardian. No, the poor devil wrote now and then to an old +retired butler of his late father, somewhere in the country, forbidding +him at the same time to let any one know of his whereabouts. So +that worthy old ass would go up and dodge about the Moorsom’s +town house, perhaps waylay Miss Moorsom’s maid, and then would +write to ‘Master Arthur’ that the young lady looked well +and happy, or some such cheerful intelligence. I dare say he wanted +to be forgotten, but I shouldn’t think he was much cheered by +the news. What would you say?”</p> +<p>Renouard, his legs stretched out and his chin on his breast, said +nothing. A sensation which was not curiosity, but rather a vague +nervous anxiety, distinctly unpleasant, like a mysterious symptom of +some malady, prevented him from getting up and going away.</p> +<p>“Mixed feelings,” the Editor opined. “Many +fellows out here receive news from home with mixed feelings. But +what will his feelings be when he hears what I am going to tell you +now? For we know he has not heard yet. Six months ago a +city clerk, just a common drudge of finance, gets himself convicted +of a common embezzlement or something of that kind. Then seeing +he’s in for a long sentence he thinks of making his conscience +comfortable, and makes a clean breast of an old story of tampered with, +or else suppressed, documents, a story which clears altogether the honesty +of our ruined gentleman. That embezzling fellow was in a position +to know, having been employed by the firm before the smash. There +was no doubt about the character being cleared—but where the cleared +man was nobody could tell. Another sensation in society. +And then Miss Moorsom says: ‘He will come back to claim me, and +I’ll marry him.’ But he didn’t come back. +Between you and me I don’t think he was much wanted—except +by Miss Moorsom. I imagine she’s used to have her own way. +She grew impatient, and declared that if she knew where the man was +she would go to him. But all that could be got out of the old +butler was that the last envelope bore the postmark of our beautiful +city; and that this was the only address of ‘Master Arthur’ +that he ever had. That and no more. In fact the fellow was +at his last gasp—with a bad heart. Miss Moorsom wasn’t +allowed to see him. She had gone herself into the country to learn +what she could, but she had to stay downstairs while the old chap’s +wife went up to the invalid. She brought down the scrap of intelligence +I’ve told you of. He was already too far gone to be cross-examined +on it, and that very night he died. He didn’t leave behind +him much to go by, did he? Our Willie hinted to me that there +had been pretty stormy days in the professor’s house, but—here +they are. I have a notion she isn’t the kind of everyday +young lady who may be permitted to gallop about the world all by herself—eh? +Well, I think it rather fine of her, but I quite understand that the +professor needed all his philosophy under the circumstances. She +is his only child now—and brilliant—what? Willie positively +spluttered trying to describe her to me; and I could see directly you +came in that you had an uncommon experience.”</p> +<p>Renouard, with an irritated gesture, tilted his hat more forward +on his eyes, as though he were bored. The Editor went on with +the remark that to be sure neither he (Renouard) nor yet Willie were +much used to meet girls of that remarkable superiority. Willie +when learning business with a firm in London, years before, had seen +none but boarding-house society, he guessed. As to himself in +the good old days, when he trod the glorious flags of Fleet Street, +he neither had access to, nor yet would have cared for the swells. +Nothing interested him then but parliamentary politics and the oratory +of the House of Commons.</p> +<p>He paid to this not very distant past the tribute of a tender, reminiscent +smile, and returned to his first idea that for a society girl her action +was rather fine. All the same the professor could not be very +pleased. The fellow if he was as pure as a lily now was just about +as devoid of the goods of the earth. And there were misfortunes, +however undeserved, which damaged a man’s standing permanently. +On the other hand, it was difficult to oppose cynically a noble impulse—not +to speak of the great love at the root of it. Ah! Love! +And then the lady was quite capable of going off by herself. She +was of age, she had money of her own, plenty of pluck too. Moorsom +must have concluded that it was more truly paternal, more prudent too, +and generally safer all round to let himself be dragged into this chase. +The aunt came along for the same reasons. It was given out at +home as a trip round the world of the usual kind.</p> +<p>Renouard had risen and remained standing with his heart beating, +and strangely affected by this tale, robbed as it was of all glamour +by the prosaic personality of the narrator. The Editor added: +“I’ve been asked to help in the search—you know.”</p> +<p>Renouard muttered something about an appointment and went out into +the street. His inborn sanity could not defend him from a misty +creeping jealousy. He thought that obviously no man of that sort +could be worthy of such a woman’s devoted fidelity. Renouard, +however, had lived long enough to reflect that a man’s activities, +his views, and even his ideas may be very inferior to his character; +and moved by a delicate consideration for that splendid girl he tried +to think out for the man a character of inward excellence and outward +gifts—some extraordinary seduction. But in vain. Fresh +from months of solitude and from days at sea, her splendour presented +itself to him absolutely unconquerable in its perfection, unless by +her own folly. It was easier to suspect her of this than to imagine +in the man qualities which would be worthy of her. Easier and +less degrading. Because folly may be generous—could be nothing +else but generosity in her; whereas to imagine her subjugated by something +common was intolerable.</p> +<p>Because of the force of the physical impression he had received from +her personality (and such impressions are the real origins of the deepest +movements of our soul) this conception of her was even inconceivable. +But no Prince Charming has ever lived out of a fairy tale. He +doesn’t walk the worlds of Fashion and Finance—and with +a stumbling gait at that. Generosity. Yes. It was +her generosity. But this generosity was altogether regal in its +splendour, almost absurd in its lavishness—or, perhaps, divine.</p> +<p>In the evening, on board his schooner, sitting on the rail, his arms +folded on his breast and his eyes fixed on the deck, he let the darkness +catch him unawares in the midst of a meditation on the mechanism of +sentiment and the springs of passion. And all the time he had +an abiding consciousness of her bodily presence. The effect on +his senses had been so penetrating that in the middle of the night, +rousing up suddenly, wide-eyed in the darkness of his cabin, he did +not create a faint mental vision of her person for himself, but, more +intimately affected, he scented distinctly the faint perfume she used, +and could almost have sworn that he had been awakened by the soft rustle +of her dress. He even sat up listening in the dark for a time, +then sighed and lay down again, not agitated but, on the contrary, oppressed +by the sensation of something that had happened to him and could not +be undone.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>CHAPTER III</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>In the afternoon he lounged into the editorial office, carrying with +affected nonchalance that weight of the irremediable he had felt laid +on him suddenly in the small hours of the night—that consciousness +of something that could no longer be helped. His patronising friend +informed him at once that he had made the acquaintance of the Moorsom +party last night. At the Dunsters, of course. Dinner.</p> +<p>“Very quiet. Nobody there. It was much better for +the business. I say . . .”</p> +<p>Renouard, his hand grasping the back of a chair, stared down at him +dumbly.</p> +<p>“Phew! That’s a stunning girl. . . Why do you want +to sit on that chair? It’s uncomfortable!”</p> +<p>“I wasn’t going to sit on it.” Renouard walked +slowly to the window, glad to find in himself enough self-control to +let go the chair instead of raising it on high and bringing it down +on the Editor’s head.</p> +<p>“Willie kept on gazing at her with tears in his boiled eyes. +You should have seen him bending sentimentally over her at dinner.”</p> +<p>“Don’t,” said Renouard in such an anguished tone +that the Editor turned right round to look at his back.</p> +<p>“You push your dislike of young Dunster too far. It’s +positively morbid,” he disapproved mildly. “We can’t +be all beautiful after thirty. . . . I talked a little, about you mostly, +to the professor. He appeared to be interested in the silk plant—if +only as a change from the great subject. Miss Moorsom didn’t +seem to mind when I confessed to her that I had taken you into the confidence +of the thing. Our Willie approved too. Old Dunster with +his white beard seemed to give me his blessing. All those people +have a great opinion of you, simply because I told them that you’ve +led every sort of life one can think of before you got struck on exploration. +They want you to make suggestions. What do you think ‘Master +Arthur’ is likely to have taken to?”</p> +<p>“Something easy,” muttered Renouard without unclenching +his teeth.</p> +<p>“Hunting man. Athlete. Don’t be hard on the +chap. He may be riding boundaries, or droving cattle, or humping +his swag about the back-blocks away to the devil—somewhere. +He may be even prospecting at the back of beyond—this very moment.”</p> +<p>“Or lying dead drunk in a roadside pub. It’s late +enough in the day for that.”</p> +<p>The Editor looked up instinctively. The clock was pointing +at a quarter to five. “Yes, it is,” he admitted. +“But it needn’t be. And he may have lit out into the +Western Pacific all of a sudden—say in a trading schooner. +Though I really don’t see in what capacity. Still . . . +”</p> +<p>“Or he may be passing at this very moment under this very window.”</p> +<p>“Not he . . . and I wish you would get away from it to where +one can see your face. I hate talking to a man’s back. +You stand there like a hermit on a sea-shore growling to yourself. +I tell you what it is, Geoffrey, you don’t like mankind.”</p> +<p>“I don’t make my living by talking about mankind’s +affairs,” Renouard defended himself. But he came away obediently +and sat down in the armchair. “How can you be so certain +that your man isn’t down there in the street?” he asked. +“It’s neither more nor less probable than every single one +of your other suppositions.”</p> +<p>Placated by Renouard’s docility the Editor gazed at him for +a while. “Aha! I’ll tell you how. Learn +then that we have begun the campaign. We have telegraphed his +description to the police of every township up and down the land. +And what’s more we’ve ascertained definitely that he hasn’t +been in this town for the last three months at least. How much +longer he’s been away we can’t tell.”</p> +<p>“That’s very curious.”</p> +<p>“It’s very simple. Miss Moorsom wrote to him, to +the post office here directly she returned to London after her excursion +into the country to see the old butler. Well—her letter +is still lying there. It has not been called for. Ergo, +this town is not his usual abode. Personally, I never thought +it was. But he cannot fail to turn up some time or other. +Our main hope lies just in the certitude that he must come to town sooner +or later. Remember he doesn’t know that the butler is dead, +and he will want to inquire for a letter. Well, he’ll find +a note from Miss Moorsom.”</p> +<p>Renouard, silent, thought that it was likely enough. His profound +distaste for this conversation was betrayed by an air of weariness darkening +his energetic sun-tanned features, and by the augmented dreaminess of +his eyes. The Editor noted it as a further proof of that immoral +detachment from mankind, of that callousness of sentiment fostered by +the unhealthy conditions of solitude—according to his own favourite +theory. Aloud he observed that as long as a man had not given +up correspondence he could not be looked upon as lost. Fugitive +criminals had been tracked in that way by justice, he reminded his friend; +then suddenly changed the bearing of the subject somewhat by asking +if Renouard had heard from his people lately, and if every member of +his large tribe was well and happy.</p> +<p>“Yes, thanks.”</p> +<p>The tone was curt, as if repelling a liberty. Renouard did +not like being asked about his people, for whom he had a profound and +remorseful affection. He had not seen a single human being to +whom he was related, for many years, and he was extremely different +from them all.</p> +<p>On the very morning of his arrival from his island he had gone to +a set of pigeon-holes in Willie Dunster’s outer office and had +taken out from a compartment labelled “Malata” a very small +accumulation of envelopes, a few addressed to himself, and one addressed +to his assistant, all to the care of the firm, W. Dunster and Co. +As opportunity offered, the firm used to send them on to Malata either +by a man-of-war schooner going on a cruise, or by some trading craft +proceeding that way. But for the last four months there had been +no opportunity.</p> +<p>“You going to stay here some time?” asked the Editor, +after a longish silence.</p> +<p>Renouard, perfunctorily, did see no reason why he should make a long +stay.</p> +<p>“For health, for your mental health, my boy,” rejoined +the newspaper man. “To get used to human faces so that they +don’t hit you in the eye so hard when you walk about the streets. +To get friendly with your kind. I suppose that assistant of yours +can be trusted to look after things?”</p> +<p>“There’s the half-caste too. The Portuguese. +He knows what’s to be done.”</p> +<p>“Aha!” The Editor looked sharply at his friend. +“What’s his name?”</p> +<p>“Who’s name?”</p> +<p>“The assistant’s you picked up on the sly behind my back.”</p> +<p>Renouard made a slight movement of impatience.</p> +<p>“I met him unexpectedly one evening. I thought he would +do as well as another. He had come from up country and didn’t +seem happy in a town. He told me his name was Walter. I +did not ask him for proofs, you know.”</p> +<p>“I don’t think you get on very well with him.”</p> +<p>“Why? What makes you think so.”</p> +<p>“I don’t know. Something reluctant in your manner +when he’s in question.”</p> +<p>“Really. My manner! I don’t think he’s +a great subject for conversation, perhaps. Why not drop him?”</p> +<p>“Of course! You wouldn’t confess to a mistake. +Not you. Nevertheless I have my suspicions about it.”</p> +<p>Renouard got up to go, but hesitated, looking down at the seated +Editor.</p> +<p>“How funny,” he said at last with the utmost seriousness, +and was making for the door, when the voice of his friend stopped him.</p> +<p>“You know what has been said of you? That you couldn’t +get on with anybody you couldn’t kick. Now, confess—is +there any truth in the soft impeachment?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Renouard. “Did you print that +in your paper.”</p> +<p>“No. I didn’t quite believe it. But I will +tell you what I believe. I believe that when your heart is set +on some object you are a man that doesn’t count the cost to yourself +or others. And this shall get printed some day.”</p> +<p>“Obituary notice?” Renouard dropped negligently.</p> +<p>“Certain—some day.”</p> +<p>“Do you then regard yourself as immortal?”</p> +<p>“No, my boy. I am not immortal. But the voice of +the press goes on for ever. . . . And it will say that this was the +secret of your great success in a task where better men than you—meaning +no offence—did fail repeatedly.”</p> +<p>“Success,” muttered Renouard, pulling-to the office door +after him with considerable energy. And the letters of the word +PRIVATE like a row of white eyes seemed to stare after his back sinking +down the staircase of that temple of publicity.</p> +<p>Renouard had no doubt that all the means of publicity would be put +at the service of love and used for the discovery of the loved man. +He did not wish him dead. He did not wish him any harm. +We are all equipped with a fund of humanity which is not exhausted without +many and repeated provocations—and this man had done him no evil. +But before Renouard had left old Dunster’s house, at the conclusion +of the call he made there that very afternoon, he had discovered in +himself the desire that the search might last long. He never really +flattered himself that it might fail. It seemed to him that there +was no other course in this world for himself, for all mankind, but +resignation. And he could not help thinking that Professor Moorsom +had arrived at the same conclusion too.</p> +<p>Professor Moorsom, slight frame of middle height, a thoughtful keen +head under the thick wavy hair, veiled dark eyes under straight eyebrows, +and with an inward gaze which when disengaged and arriving at one seemed +to issue from an obscure dream of books, from the limbo of meditation, +showed himself extremely gracious to him. Renouard guessed in +him a man whom an incurable habit of investigation and analysis had +made gentle and indulgent; inapt for action, and more sensitive to the +thoughts than to the events of existence. Withal not crushed, +sub-ironic without a trace of acidity, and with a simple manner which +put people at ease quickly. They had a long conversation on the +terrace commanding an extended view of the town and the harbour.</p> +<p>The splendid immobility of the bay resting under his gaze, with its +grey spurs and shining indentations, helped Renouard to regain his self-possession, +which he had felt shaken, in coming out on the terrace, into the setting +of the most powerful emotion of his life, when he had sat within a foot +of Miss Moorsom with fire in his breast, a humming in his ears, and +in a complete disorder of his mind. There was the very garden +seat on which he had been enveloped in the radiant spell. And +presently he was sitting on it again with the professor talking of her. +Near by the patriarchal Dunster leaned forward in a wicker arm-chair, +benign and a little deaf, his big hand to his ear with the innocent +eagerness of his advanced age remembering the fires of life.</p> +<p>It was with a sort of apprehension that Renouard looked forward to +seeing Miss Moorsom. And strangely enough it resembled the state +of mind of a man who fears disenchantment more than sortilege. +But he need not have been afraid. Directly he saw her in a distance +at the other end of the terrace he shuddered to the roots of his hair. +With her approach the power of speech left him for a time. Mrs. +Dunster and her aunt were accompanying her. All these people sat +down; it was an intimate circle into which Renouard felt himself cordially +admitted; and the talk was of the great search which occupied all their +minds. Discretion was expected by these people, but of reticence +as to the object of the journey there could be no question. Nothing +but ways and means and arrangements could be talked about.</p> +<p>By fixing his eyes obstinately on the ground, which gave him an air +of reflective sadness, Renouard managed to recover his self-possession. +He used it to keep his voice in a low key and to measure his words on +the great subject. And he took care with a great inward effort +to make them reasonable without giving them a discouraging complexion. +For he did not want the quest to be given up, since it would mean her +going away with her two attendant grey-heads to the other side of the +world.</p> +<p>He was asked to come again, to come often and take part in the counsels +of all these people captivated by the sentimental enterprise of a declared +love. On taking Miss Moorsom’s hand he looked up, would +have liked to say something, but found himself voiceless, with his lips +suddenly sealed. She returned the pressure of his fingers, and +he left her with her eyes vaguely staring beyond him, an air of listening +for an expected sound, and the faintest possible smile on her lips. +A smile not for him, evidently, but the reflection of some deep and +inscrutable thought.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>He went on board his schooner. She lay white, and as if suspended, +in the crepuscular atmosphere of sunset mingling with the ashy gleam +of the vast anchorage. He tried to keep his thoughts as sober, +as reasonable, as measured as his words had been, lest they should get +away from him and cause some sort of moral disaster. What he was +afraid of in the coming night was sleeplessness and the endless strain +of that wearisome task. It had to be faced however. He lay +on his back, sighing profoundly in the dark, and suddenly beheld his +very own self, carrying a small bizarre lamp, reflected in a long mirror +inside a room in an empty and unfurnished palace. In this startling +image of himself he recognised somebody he had to follow—the frightened +guide of his dream. He traversed endless galleries, no end of +lofty halls, innumerable doors. He lost himself utterly—he +found his way again. Room succeeded room. At last the lamp +went out, and he stumbled against some object which, when he stooped +for it, he found to be very cold and heavy to lift. The sickly +white light of dawn showed him the head of a statue. Its marble +hair was done in the bold lines of a helmet, on its lips the chisel +had left a faint smile, and it resembled Miss Moorsom. While he +was staring at it fixedly, the head began to grow light in his fingers, +to diminish and crumble to pieces, and at last turned into a handful +of dust, which was blown away by a puff of wind so chilly that he woke +up with a desperate shiver and leaped headlong out of his bed-place. +The day had really come. He sat down by the cabin table, and taking +his head between his hands, did not stir for a very long time.</p> +<p>Very quiet, he set himself to review this dream. The lamp, +of course, he connected with the search for a man. But on closer +examination he perceived that the reflection of himself in the mirror +was not really the true Renouard, but somebody else whose face he could +not remember. In the deserted palace he recognised a sinister +adaptation by his brain of the long corridors with many doors, in the +great building in which his friend’s newspaper was lodged on the +first floor. The marble head with Miss Moorsom’s face! +Well! What other face could he have dreamed of? And her +complexion was fairer than Parian marble, than the heads of angels. +The wind at the end was the morning breeze entering through the open +porthole and touching his face before the schooner could swing to the +chilly gust.</p> +<p>Yes! And all this rational explanation of the fantastic made +it only more mysterious and weird. There was something daemonic +in that dream. It was one of those experiences which throw a man +out of conformity with the established order of his kind and make him +a creature of obscure suggestions.</p> +<p>Henceforth, without ever trying to resist, he went every afternoon +to the house where she lived. He went there as passively as if +in a dream. He could never make out how he had attained the footing +of intimacy in the Dunster mansion above the bay—whether on the +ground of personal merit or as the pioneer of the vegetable silk industry. +It must have been the last, because he remembered distinctly, as distinctly +as in a dream, hearing old Dunster once telling him that his next public +task would be a careful survey of the Northern Districts to discover +tracts suitable for the cultivation of the silk plant. The old +man wagged his beard at him sagely. It was indeed as absurd as +a dream.</p> +<p>Willie of course would be there in the evening. But he was +more of a figure out of a nightmare, hovering about the circle of chairs +in his dress-clothes like a gigantic, repulsive, and sentimental bat. +“Do away with the beastly cocoons all over the world,” he +buzzed in his blurred, water-logged voice. He affected a great +horror of insects of all kinds. One evening he appeared with a +red flower in his button-hole. Nothing could have been more disgustingly +fantastic. And he would also say to Renouard: “You may yet +change the history of our country. For economic conditions do +shape the history of nations. Eh? What?” And +he would turn to Miss Moorsom for approval, lowering protectingly his +spatulous nose and looking up with feeling from under his absurd eyebrows, +which grew thin, in the manner of canebrakes, out of his spongy skin. +For this large, bilious creature was an economist and a sentimentalist, +facile to tears, and a member of the Cobden Club.</p> +<p>In order to see as little of him as possible Renouard began coming +earlier so as to get away before his arrival, without curtailing too +much the hours of secret contemplation for which he lived. He +had given up trying to deceive himself. His resignation was without +bounds. He accepted the immense misfortune of being in love with +a woman who was in search of another man only to throw herself into +his arms. With such desperate precision he defined in his thoughts +the situation, the consciousness of which traversed like a sharp arrow +the sudden silences of general conversation. The only thought +before which he quailed was the thought that this could not last; that +it must come to an end. He feared it instinctively as a sick man +may fear death. For it seemed to him that it must be the death +of him followed by a lightless, bottomless pit. But his resignation +was not spared the torments of jealousy: the cruel, insensate, poignant, +and imbecile jealousy, when it seems that a woman betrays us simply +by this that she exists, that she breathes—and when the deep movements +of her nerves or her soul become a matter of distracting suspicion, +of killing doubt, of mortal anxiety.</p> +<p>In the peculiar condition of their sojourn Miss Moorsom went out +very little. She accepted this seclusion at the Dunsters’ +mansion as in a hermitage, and lived there, watched over by a group +of old people, with the lofty endurance of a condescending and strong-headed +goddess. It was impossible to say if she suffered from anything +in the world, and whether this was the insensibility of a great passion +concentrated on itself, or a perfect restraint of manner, or the indifference +of superiority so complete as to be sufficient to itself. But +it was visible to Renouard that she took some pleasure in talking to +him at times. Was it because he was the only person near her age? +Was this, then, the secret of his admission to the circle?</p> +<p>He admired her voice as well poised as her movements, as her attitudes. +He himself had always been a man of tranquil tones. But the power +of fascination had torn him out of his very nature so completely that +to preserve his habitual calmness from going to pieces had become a +terrible effort.</p> +<p>He used to go from her on board the schooner exhausted, broken, shaken +up, as though he had been put to the most exquisite torture. When +he saw her approaching he always had a moment of hallucination. +She was a misty and fair creature, fitted for invisible music, for the +shadows of love, for the murmurs of waters. After a time (he could +not be always staring at the ground) he would summon up all his resolution +and look at her. There was a sparkle in the clear obscurity of +her eyes; and when she turned them on him they seemed to give a new +meaning to life. He would say to himself that another man would +have found long before the happy release of madness, his wits burnt +to cinders in that radiance. But no such luck for him. His +wits had come unscathed through the furnaces of hot suns, of blazing +deserts, of flaming angers against the weaknesses of men and the obstinate +cruelties of hostile nature.</p> +<p>Being sane he had to be constantly on his guard against falling into +adoring silences or breaking out into wild speeches. He had to +keep watch on his eyes, his limbs, on the muscles of his face. +Their conversations were such as they could be between these two people: +she a young lady fresh from the thick twilight of four million people +and the artificiality of several London seasons; he the man of definite +conquering tasks, the familiar of wide horizons, and in his very repose +holding aloof from these agglomerations of units in which one loses +one’s importance even to oneself. They had no common conversational +small change. They had to use the great pieces of general ideas, +but they exchanged them trivially. It was no serious commerce. +Perhaps she had not much of that coin. Nothing significant came +from her. It could not be said that she had received from the +contacts of the external world impressions of a personal kind, different +from other women. What was ravishing in her was her quietness +and, in her grave attitudes, the unfailing brilliance of her femininity. +He did not know what there was under that ivory forehead so splendidly +shaped, so gloriously crowned. He could not tell what were her +thoughts, her feelings. Her replies were reflective, always preceded +by a short silence, while he hung on her lips anxiously. He felt +himself in the presence of a mysterious being in whom spoke an unknown +voice, like the voice of oracles, bringing everlasting unrest to the +heart.</p> +<p>He was thankful enough to sit in silence with secretly clenched teeth, +devoured by jealousy—and nobody could have guessed that his quiet +deferential bearing to all these grey-heads was the supreme effort of +stoicism, that the man was engaged in keeping a sinister watch on his +tortures lest his strength should fail him. As before, when grappling +with other forces of nature, he could find in himself all sorts of courage +except the courage to run away.</p> +<p>It was perhaps from the lack of subjects they could have in common +that Miss Moorsom made him so often speak of his own life. He +did not shrink from talking about himself, for he was free from that +exacerbated, timid vanity which seals so many vain-glorious lips. +He talked to her in his restrained voice, gazing at the tip of her shoe, +and thinking that the time was bound to come soon when her very inattention +would get weary of him. And indeed on stealing a glance he would +see her dazzling and perfect, her eyes vague, staring in mournful immobility, +with a drooping head that made him think of a tragic Venus arising before +him, not from the foam of the sea, but from a distant, still more formless, +mysterious, and potent immensity of mankind.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>CHAPTER V</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>One afternoon Renouard stepping out on the terrace found nobody there. +It was for him, at the same time, a melancholy disappointment and a +poignant relief.</p> +<p>The heat was great, the air was still, all the long windows of the +house stood wide open. At the further end, grouped round a lady’s +work-table, several chairs disposed sociably suggested invisible occupants, +a company of conversing shades. Renouard looked towards them with +a sort of dread. A most elusive, faint sound of ghostly talk issuing +from one of the rooms added to the illusion and stopped his already +hesitating footsteps. He leaned over the balustrade of stone near +a squat vase holding a tropical plant of a bizarre shape. Professor +Moorsom coming up from the garden with a book under his arm and a white +parasol held over his bare head, found him there and, closing the parasol, +leaned over by his side with a remark on the increasing heat of the +season. Renouard assented and changed his position a little; the +other, after a short silence, administered unexpectedly a question which, +like the blow of a club on the head, deprived Renouard of the power +of speech and even thought, but, more cruel, left him quivering with +apprehension, not of death but of everlasting torment. Yet the +words were extremely simple.</p> +<p>“Something will have to be done soon. We can’t +remain in a state of suspended expectation for ever. Tell me what +do you think of our chances?”</p> +<p>Renouard, speechless, produced a faint smile. The professor +confessed in a jocular tone his impatience to complete the circuit of +the globe and be done with it. It was impossible to remain quartered +on the dear excellent Dunsters for an indefinite time. And then +there were the lectures he had arranged to deliver in Paris. A +serious matter.</p> +<p>That lectures by Professor Moorsom were a European event and that +brilliant audiences would gather to hear them Renouard did not know. +All he was aware of was the shock of this hint of departure. The +menace of separation fell on his head like a thunderbolt. And +he saw the absurdity of his emotion, for hadn’t he lived all these +days under the very cloud? The professor, his elbows spread out, +looked down into the garden and went on unburdening his mind. +Yes. The department of sentiment was directed by his daughter, +and she had plenty of volunteered moral support; but he had to look +after the practical side of life without assistance.</p> +<p>“I have the less hesitation in speaking to you about my anxiety, +because I feel you are friendly to us and at the same time you are detached +from all these sublimities—confound them.”</p> +<p>“What do you mean?” murmured Renouard.</p> +<p>“I mean that you are capable of calm judgment. Here the +atmosphere is simply detestable. Everybody has knuckled under +to sentiment. Perhaps your deliberate opinion could influence +. . .”</p> +<p>“You want Miss Moorsom to give it up?” The professor +turned to the young man dismally.</p> +<p>“Heaven only knows what I want.”</p> +<p>Renouard leaning his back against the balustrade folded his arms +on his breast, appeared to meditate profoundly. His face, shaded +softly by the broad brim of a planter’s Panama hat, with the straight +line of the nose level with the forehead, the eyes lost in the depth +of the setting, and the chin well forward, had such a profile as may +be seen amongst the bronzes of classical museums, pure under a crested +helmet—recalled vaguely a Minerva’s head.</p> +<p>“This is the most troublesome time I ever had in my life,” +exclaimed the professor testily.</p> +<p>“Surely the man must be worth it,” muttered Renouard +with a pang of jealousy traversing his breast like a self-inflicted +stab.</p> +<p>Whether enervated by the heat or giving way to pent up irritation +the professor surrendered himself to the mood of sincerity.</p> +<p>“He began by being a pleasantly dull boy. He developed +into a pointlessly clever young man, without, I suspect, ever trying +to understand anything. My daughter knew him from childhood. +I am a busy man, and I confess that their engagement was a complete +surprise to me. I wish their reasons for that step had been more +naïve. But simplicity was out of fashion in their set. +From a worldly point of view he seems to have been a mere baby. +Of course, now, I am assured that he is the victim of his noble confidence +in the rectitude of his kind. But that’s mere idealising +of a sad reality. For my part I will tell you that from the very +beginning I had the gravest doubts of his dishonesty. Unfortunately +my clever daughter hadn’t. And now we behold the reaction. +No. To be earnestly dishonest one must be really poor. This +was only a manifestation of his extremely refined cleverness. +The complicated simpleton. He had an awful awakening though.”</p> +<p>In such words did Professor Moorsom give his “young friend” +to understand the state of his feelings toward the lost man. It +was evident that the father of Miss Moorsom wished him to remain lost. +Perhaps the unprecedented heat of the season made him long for the cool +spaces of the Pacific, the sweep of the ocean’s free wind along +the promenade decks, cumbered with long chairs, of a ship steaming towards +the Californian coast. To Renouard the philosopher appeared simply +the most treacherous of fathers. He was amazed. But he was +not at the end of his discoveries.</p> +<p>“He may be dead,” the professor murmured.</p> +<p>“Why? People don’t die here sooner than in Europe. +If he had gone to hide in Italy, for instance, you wouldn’t think +of saying that.”</p> +<p>“Well! And suppose he has become morally disintegrated. +You know he was not a strong personality,” the professor suggested +moodily. “My daughter’s future is in question here.”</p> +<p>Renouard thought that the love of such a woman was enough to pull +any broken man together—to drag a man out of his grave. +And he thought this with inward despair, which kept him silent as much +almost as his astonishment. At last he managed to stammer out +a generous -</p> +<p>“Oh! Don’t let us even suppose. . .”</p> +<p>The professor struck in with a sadder accent than before -</p> +<p>“It’s good to be young. And then you have been +a man of action, and necessarily a believer in success. But I +have been looking too long at life not to distrust its surprises. +Age! Age! Here I stand before you a man full of doubts and +hesitation—<i>spe lentus, timidus futuri</i>.”</p> +<p>He made a sign to Renouard not to interrupt, and in a lowered voice, +as if afraid of being overheard, even there, in the solitude of the +terrace -</p> +<p>“And the worst is that I am not even sure how far this sentimental +pilgrimage is genuine. Yes. I doubt my own child. +It’s true that she’s a woman. . . . ”</p> +<p>Renouard detected with horror a tone of resentment, as if the professor +had never forgiven his daughter for not dying instead of his son. +The latter noticed the young man’s stony stare.</p> +<p>“Ah! you don’t understand. Yes, she’s clever, +open-minded, popular, and—well, charming. But you don’t +know what it is to have moved, breathed, existed, and even triumphed +in the mere smother and froth of life—the brilliant froth. +There thoughts, sentiments, opinions, feelings, actions too, are nothing +but agitation in empty space—to amuse life—a sort of superior +debauchery, exciting and fatiguing, meaning nothing, leading nowhere. +She is the creature of that circle. And I ask myself if she is +obeying the uneasiness of an instinct seeking its satisfaction, or is +it a revulsion of feeling, or is she merely deceiving her own heart +by this dangerous trifling with romantic images. And everything +is possible—except sincerity, such as only stark, struggling humanity +can know. No woman can stand that mode of life in which women +rule, and remain a perfectly genuine, simple human being. Ah! +There’s some people coming out.”</p> +<p>He moved off a pace, then turning his head: “Upon my word! +I would be infinitely obliged to you if you could throw a little cold +water. . . ” and at a vaguely dismayed gesture of Renouard, he +added: “Don’t be afraid. You wouldn’t be putting +out a sacred fire.”</p> +<p>Renouard could hardly find words for a protest: “I assure you +that I never talk with Miss Moorsom—on—on—that. +And if you, her father . . . ”</p> +<p>“I envy you your innocence,” sighed the professor. +“A father is only an everyday person. Flat. Stale. +Moreover, my child would naturally mistrust me. We belong to the +same set. Whereas you carry with you the prestige of the unknown. +You have proved yourself to be a force.”</p> +<p>Thereupon the professor followed by Renouard joined the circle of +all the inmates of the house assembled at the other end of the terrace +about a tea-table; three white heads and that resplendent vision of +woman’s glory, the sight of which had the power to flutter his +heart like a reminder of the mortality of his frame.</p> +<p>He avoided the seat by the side of Miss Moorsom. The others +were talking together languidly. Unnoticed he looked at that woman +so marvellous that centuries seemed to lie between them. He was +oppressed and overcome at the thought of what she could give to some +man who really would be a force! What a glorious struggle with +this amazon. What noble burden for the victorious strength.</p> +<p>Dear old Mrs. Dunster was dispensing tea, looking from time to time +with interest towards Miss Moorsom. The aged statesman having +eaten a raw tomato and drunk a glass of milk (a habit of his early farming +days, long before politics, when, pioneer of wheat-growing, he demonstrated +the possibility of raising crops on ground looking barren enough to +discourage a magician), smoothed his white beard, and struck lightly +Renouard’s knee with his big wrinkled hand.</p> +<p>“You had better come back to-night and dine with us quietly.”</p> +<p>He liked this young man, a pioneer, too, in more than one direction. +Mrs. Dunster added: “Do. It will be very quiet. I +don’t even know if Willie will be home for dinner.” +Renouard murmured his thanks, and left the terrace to go on board the +schooner. While lingering in the drawing-room doorway he heard +the resonant voice of old Dunster uttering oracularly -</p> +<p>“. . . the leading man here some day. . . . Like me.”</p> +<p>Renouard let the thin summer portière of the doorway fall +behind him. The voice of Professor Moorsom said -</p> +<p>“I am told that he has made an enemy of almost every man who +had to work with him.”</p> +<p>“That’s nothing. He did his work. . . . Like me.”</p> +<p>“He never counted the cost they say. Not even of lives.”</p> +<p>Renouard understood that they were talking of him. Before he +could move away, Mrs. Dunster struck in placidly -</p> +<p>“Don’t let yourself be shocked by the tales you may hear +of him, my dear. Most of it is envy.”</p> +<p>Then he heard Miss Moorsom’s voice replying to the old lady +-</p> +<p>“Oh! I am not easily deceived. I think I may say +I have an instinct for truth.”</p> +<p>He hastened away from that house with his heart full of dread.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>On board the schooner, lying on the settee on his back with the knuckles +of his hands pressed over his eyes, he made up his mind that he would +not return to that house for dinner—that he would never go back +there any more. He made up his mind some twenty times. The +knowledge that he had only to go up on the quarter deck, utter quietly +the words: “Man the windlass,” and that the schooner springing +into life would run a hundred miles out to sea before sunrise, deceived +his struggling will. Nothing easier! Yet, in the end, this +young man, almost ill-famed for his ruthless daring, the inflexible +leader of two tragically successful expeditions, shrank from that act +of savage energy, and began, instead, to hunt for excuses.</p> +<p>No! It was not for him to run away like an incurable who cuts +his throat. He finished dressing and looked at his own impassive +face in the saloon mirror scornfully. While being pulled on shore +in the gig, he remembered suddenly the wild beauty of a waterfall seen +when hardly more than a boy, years ago, in Menado. There was a +legend of a governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, on official tour, +committing suicide on that spot by leaping into the chasm. It +was supposed that a painful disease had made him weary of life. +But was there ever a visitation like his own, at the same time binding +one to life and so cruelly mortal!</p> +<p>The dinner was indeed quiet. Willie, given half an hour’s +grace, failed to turn up, and his chair remained vacant by the side +of Miss Moorsom. Renouard had the professor’s sister on +his left, dressed in an expensive gown becoming her age. That +maiden lady in her wonderful preservation reminded Renouard somehow +of a wax flower under glass. There were no traces of the dust +of life’s battles on her anywhere. She did not like him +very much in the afternoons, in his white drill suit and planter’s +hat, which seemed to her an unduly Bohemian costume for calling in a +house where there were ladies. But in the evening, lithe and elegant +in his dress clothes and with his pleasant, slightly veiled voice, he +always made her conquest afresh. He might have been anybody distinguished—the +son of a duke. Falling under that charm probably (and also because +her brother had given her a hint), she attempted to open her heart to +Renouard, who was watching with all the power of his soul her niece +across the table. She spoke to him as frankly as though that miserable +mortal envelope, emptied of everything but hopeless passion, were indeed +the son of a duke.</p> +<p>Inattentive, he heard her only in snatches, till the final confidential +burst: “. . . glad if you would express an opinion. Look +at her, so charming, such a great favourite, so generally admired! +It would be too sad. We all hoped she would make a brilliant marriage +with somebody very rich and of high position, have a house in London +and in the country, and entertain us all splendidly. She’s +so eminently fitted for it. She has such hosts of distinguished +friends! And then—this instead! . . . My heart really aches.”</p> +<p>Her well-bred if anxious whisper was covered by the voice of professor +Moorsom discoursing subtly down the short length of the dinner table +on the Impermanency of the Measurable to his venerable disciple. +It might have been a chapter in a new and popular book of Moorsonian +philosophy. Patriarchal and delighted, old Dunster leaned forward +a little, his eyes shining youthfully, two spots of colour at the roots +of his white beard; and Renouard, glancing at the senile excitement, +recalled the words heard on those subtle lips, adopted their scorn for +his own, saw their truth before this man ready to be amused by the side +of the grave. Yes! Intellectual debauchery in the froth +of existence! Froth and fraud!</p> +<p>On the same side of the table Miss Moorsom never once looked towards +her father, all her grace as if frozen, her red lips compressed, the +faintest rosiness under her dazzling complexion, her black eyes burning +motionless, and the very coppery gleams of light lying still on the +waves and undulation of her hair. Renouard fancied himself overturning +the table, smashing crystal and china, treading fruit and flowers under +foot, seizing her in his arms, carrying her off in a tumult of shrieks +from all these people, a silent frightened mortal, into some profound +retreat as in the age of Cavern men. Suddenly everybody got up, +and he hastened to rise too, finding himself out of breath and quite +unsteady on his feet.</p> +<p>On the terrace the philosopher, after lighting a cigar, slipped his +hand condescendingly under his “dear young friend’s” +arm. Renouard regarded him now with the profoundest mistrust. +But the great man seemed really to have a liking for his young friend—one +of those mysterious sympathies, disregarding the differences of age +and position, which in this case might have been explained by the failure +of philosophy to meet a very real worry of a practical kind.</p> +<p>After a turn or two and some casual talk the professor said suddenly: +“My late son was in your school—do you know? I can +imagine that had he lived and you had ever met you would have understood +each other. He too was inclined to action.”</p> +<p>He sighed, then, shaking off the mournful thought and with a nod +at the dusky part of the terrace where the dress of his daughter made +a luminous stain: “I really wish you would drop in that quarter +a few sensible, discouraging words.”</p> +<p>Renouard disengaged himself from that most perfidious of men under +the pretence of astonishment, and stepping back a pace -</p> +<p>“Surely you are making fun of me, Professor Moorsom,” +he said with a low laugh, which was really a sound of rage.</p> +<p>“My dear young friend! It’s no subject for jokes, +to me. . . You don’t seem to have any notion of your prestige,” +he added, walking away towards the chairs.</p> +<p>“Humbug!” thought Renouard, standing still and looking +after him. “And yet! And yet! What if it were +true?”</p> +<p>He advanced then towards Miss Moorsom. Posed on the seat on +which they had first spoken to each other, it was her turn to watch +him coming on. But many of the windows were not lighted that evening. +It was dark over there. She appeared to him luminous in her clear +dress, a figure without shape, a face without features, awaiting his +approach, till he got quite near to her, sat down, and they had exchanged +a few insignificant words. Gradually she came out like a magic +painting of charm, fascination, and desire, glowing mysteriously on +the dark background. Something imperceptible in the lines of her +attitude, in the modulations of her voice, seemed to soften that suggestion +of calm unconscious pride which enveloped her always like a mantle. +He, sensitive like a bond slave to the moods of the master, was moved +by the subtle relenting of her grace to an infinite tenderness. +He fought down the impulse to seize her by the hand, lead her down into +the garden away under the big trees, and throw himself at her feet uttering +words of love. His emotion was so strong that he had to cough +slightly, and not knowing what to talk to her about he began to tell +her of his mother and sisters. All the family were coming to London +to live there, for some little time at least.</p> +<p>“I hope you will go and tell them something of me. Something +seen,” he said pressingly.</p> +<p>By this miserable subterfuge, like a man about to part with his life, +he hoped to make her remember him a little longer.</p> +<p>“Certainly,” she said. “I’ll be glad +to call when I get back. But that ‘when’ may be a +long time.”</p> +<p>He heard a light sigh. A cruel jealous curiosity made him ask +-</p> +<p>“Are you growing weary, Miss Moorsom?”</p> +<p>A silence fell on his low spoken question.</p> +<p>“Do you mean heart-weary?” sounded Miss Moorsom’s +voice. “You don’t know me, I see.”</p> +<p>“Ah! Never despair,” he muttered.</p> +<p>“This, Mr. Renouard, is a work of reparation. I stand +for truth here. I can’t think of myself.”</p> +<p>He could have taken her by the throat for every word seemed an insult +to his passion; but he only said -</p> +<p>“I never doubted the—the—nobility of your purpose.”</p> +<p>“And to hear the word weariness pronounced in this connection +surprises me. And from a man too who, I understand, has never +counted the cost.”</p> +<p>“You are pleased to tease me,” he said, directly he had +recovered his voice and had mastered his anger. It was as if Professor +Moorsom had dropped poison in his ear which was spreading now and tainting +his passion, his very jealousy. He mistrusted every word that +came from those lips on which his life hung. “How can you +know anything of men who do not count the cost?” he asked in his +gentlest tones.</p> +<p>“From hearsay—a little.”</p> +<p>“Well, I assure you they are like the others, subject to suffering, +victims of spells. . . .”</p> +<p>“One of them, at least, speaks very strangely.”</p> +<p>She dismissed the subject after a short silence. “Mr. +Renouard, I had a disappointment this morning. This mail brought +me a letter from the widow of the old butler—you know. I +expected to learn that she had heard from—from here. But +no. No letter arrived home since we left.”</p> +<p>Her voice was calm. His jealousy couldn’t stand much +more of this sort of talk; but he was glad that nothing had turned up +to help the search; glad blindly, unreasonably—only because it +would keep her longer in his sight—since she wouldn’t give +up.</p> +<p>“I am too near her,” he thought, moving a little further +on the seat. He was afraid in the revulsion of feeling of flinging +himself on her hands, which were lying on her lap, and covering them +with kisses. He was afraid. Nothing, nothing could shake +that spell—not if she were ever so false, stupid, or degraded. +She was fate itself. The extent of his misfortune plunged him +in such a stupor that he failed at first to hear the sound of voices +and footsteps inside the drawing-room. Willie had come home—and +the Editor was with him.</p> +<p>They burst out on the terrace babbling noisily, and then pulling +themselves together stood still, surprising—and as if themselves +surprised.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>They had been feasting a poet from the bush, the latest discovery +of the Editor. Such discoveries were the business, the vocation, +the pride and delight of the only apostle of letters in the hemisphere, +the solitary patron of culture, the Slave of the Lamp—as he subscribed +himself at the bottom of the weekly literary page of his paper. +He had had no difficulty in persuading the virtuous Willie (who had +festive instincts) to help in the good work, and now they had left the +poet lying asleep on the hearthrug of the editorial room and had rushed +to the Dunster mansion wildly. The Editor had another discovery +to announce. Swaying a little where he stood he opened his mouth +very wide to shout the one word “Found!” Behind him +Willie flung both his hands above his head and let them fall dramatically. +Renouard saw the four white-headed people at the end of the terrace +rise all together from their chairs with an effect of sudden panic.</p> +<p>“I tell you—he—is—found,” the patron +of letters shouted emphatically.</p> +<p>“What is this!” exclaimed Renouard in a choked voice. +Miss Moorsom seized his wrist suddenly, and at that contact fire ran +through all his veins, a hot stillness descended upon him in which he +heard the blood—or the fire—beating in his ears. He +made a movement as if to rise, but was restrained by the convulsive +pressure on his wrist.</p> +<p>“No, no.” Miss Moorsom’s eyes stared black +as night, searching the space before her. Far away the Editor +strutted forward, Willie following with his ostentatious manner of carrying +his bulky and oppressive carcass which, however, did not remain exactly +perpendicular for two seconds together.</p> +<p>“The innocent Arthur . . . Yes. We’ve got him,” +the Editor became very business-like. “Yes, this letter +has done it.”</p> +<p>He plunged into an inside pocket for it, slapped the scrap of paper +with his open palm. “From that old woman. William +had it in his pocket since this morning when Miss Moorsom gave it to +him to show me. Forgot all about it till an hour ago. Thought +it was of no importance. Well, no! Not till it was properly +read.”</p> +<p>Renouard and Miss Moorsom emerged from the shadows side by side, +a well-matched couple, animated yet statuesque in their calmness and +in their pallor. She had let go his wrist. On catching sight +of Renouard the Editor exclaimed:</p> +<p>“What—you here!” in a quite shrill voice.</p> +<p>There came a dead pause. All the faces had in them something +dismayed and cruel.</p> +<p>“He’s the very man we want,” continued the Editor. +“Excuse my excitement. You are the very man, Renouard. +Didn’t you tell me that your assistant called himself Walter? +Yes? Thought so. But here’s that old woman—the +butler’s wife—listen to this. She writes: All I can +tell you, Miss, is that my poor husband directed his letters to the +name of H. Walter.”</p> +<p>Renouard’s violent but repressed exclamation was lost in a +general murmur and shuffle of feet. The Editor made a step forward, +bowed with creditable steadiness.</p> +<p>“Miss Moorsom, allow me to congratulate you from the bottom +of my heart on the happy—er—issue. . . ”</p> +<p>“Wait,” muttered Renouard irresolutely.</p> +<p>The Editor jumped on him in the manner of their old friendship. +“Ah, you! You are a fine fellow too. With your solitary +ways of life you will end by having no more discrimination than a savage. +Fancy living with a gentleman for months and never guessing. A +man, I am certain, accomplished, remarkable, out of the common, since +he had been distinguished” (he bowed again) “by Miss Moorsom, +whom we all admire.”</p> +<p>She turned her back on him.</p> +<p>“I hope to goodness you haven’t been leading him a dog’s +life, Geoffrey,” the Editor addressed his friend in a whispered +aside.</p> +<p>Renouard seized a chair violently, sat down, and propping his elbow +on his knee leaned his head on his hand. Behind him the sister +of the professor looked up to heaven and wrung her hands stealthily. +Mrs. Dunster’s hands were clasped forcibly under her chin, but +she, dear soul, was looking sorrowfully at Willie. The model nephew! +In this strange state! So very much flushed! The careful +disposition of the thin hairs across Willie’s bald spot was deplorably +disarranged, and the spot itself was red and, as it were, steaming.</p> +<p>“What’s the matter, Geoffrey?” The Editor +seemed disconcerted by the silent attitudes round him, as though he +had expected all these people to shout and dance. “You have +him on the island—haven’t you?”</p> +<p>“Oh, yes: I have him there,” said Renouard, without looking +up.</p> +<p>“Well, then!” The Editor looked helplessly around +as if begging for response of some sort. But the only response +that came was very unexpected. Annoyed at being left in the background, +and also because very little drink made him nasty, the emotional Willie +turned malignant all at once, and in a bibulous tone surprising in a +man able to keep his balance so well -</p> +<p>“Aha! But you haven’t got him here—not yet!” +he sneered. “No! You haven’t got him yet.”</p> +<p>This outrageous exhibition was to the Editor like the lash to a jaded +horse. He positively jumped.</p> +<p>“What of that? What do you mean? We—haven’t—got—him—here. +Of course he isn’t here! But Geoffrey’s schooner is +here. She can be sent at once to fetch him here. No! +Stay! There’s a better plan. Why shouldn’t you +all sail over to Malata, professor? Save time! I am sure +Miss Moorsom would prefer. . .”</p> +<p>With a gallant flourish of his arm he looked for Miss Moorsom. +She had disappeared. He was taken aback somewhat.</p> +<p>“Ah! H’m. Yes. . . . Why not. A pleasure +cruise, delightful ship, delightful season, delightful errand, del . +. . No! There are no objections. Geoffrey, I understand, +has indulged in a bungalow three sizes too large for him. He can +put you all up. It will be a pleasure for him. It will be +the greatest privilege. Any man would be proud of being an agent +of this happy reunion. I am proud of the little part I’ve +played. He will consider it the greatest honour. Geoff, +my boy, you had better be stirring to-morrow bright and early about +the preparations for the trip. It would be criminal to lose a +single day.”</p> +<p>He was as flushed as Willie, the excitement keeping up the effect +of the festive dinner. For a time Renouard, silent, as if he had +not heard a word of all that babble, did not stir. But when he +got up it was to advance towards the Editor and give him such a hearty +slap on the back that the plump little man reeled in his tracks and +looked quite frightened for a moment.</p> +<p>“You are a heaven-born discoverer and a first-rate manager. +. . He’s right. It’s the only way. You can’t +resist the claim of sentiment, and you must even risk the voyage to +Malata. . . ” Renouard’s voice sank. “A lonely +spot,” he added, and fell into thought under all these eyes converging +on him in the sudden silence. His slow glance passed over all +the faces in succession, remaining arrested on Professor Moorsom, stony +eyed, a smouldering cigar in his fingers, and with his sister standing +by his side.</p> +<p>“I shall be infinitely gratified if you consent to come. +But, of course, you will. We shall sail to-morrow evening then. +And now let me leave you to your happiness.”</p> +<p>He bowed, very grave, pointed suddenly his finger at Willie who was +swaying about with a sleepy frown. . . . “Look at him. He’s +overcome with happiness. You had better put him to bed . . . ” +and disappeared while every head on the terrace was turned to Willie +with varied expressions.</p> +<p>Renouard ran through the house. Avoiding the carriage road +he fled down the steep short cut to the shore, where his gig was waiting. +At his loud shout the sleeping Kanakas jumped up. He leaped in. +“Shove off. Give way!” and the gig darted through +the water. “Give way! Give way!” She flew +past the wool-clippers sleeping at their anchors each with the open +unwinking eye of the lamp in the rigging; she flew past the flagship +of the Pacific squadron, a great mass all dark and silent, heavy with +the slumbers of five hundred men, and where the invisible sentries heard +his urgent “Give way! Give way!” in the night. +The Kanakas, panting, rose off the thwarts at every stroke. Nothing +could be fast enough for him! And he ran up the side of his schooner +shaking the ladder noisily with his rush.</p> +<p>On deck he stumbled and stood still.</p> +<p>Wherefore this haste? To what end, since he knew well before +he started that he had a pursuer from whom there was no escape.</p> +<p>As his foot touched the deck his will, his purpose he had been hurrying +to save, died out within. It had been nothing less than getting +the schooner under-way, letting her vanish silently in the night from +amongst these sleeping ships. And now he was certain he could +not do it. It was impossible! And he reflected that whether +he lived or died such an act would lay him under a dark suspicion from +which he shrank. No, there was nothing to be done.</p> +<p>He went down into the cabin and, before even unbuttoning his overcoat, +took out of the drawer the letter addressed to his assistant; that letter +which he had found in the pigeon-hole labelled “Malata” +in young Dunster’s outer office, where it had been waiting for +three months some occasion for being forwarded. From the moment +of dropping it in the drawer he had utterly forgotten its existence—till +now, when the man’s name had come out so clamorously. He +glanced at the common envelope, noted the shaky and laborious handwriting: +H. Walter, Esqre. Undoubtedly the very last letter the old butler +had posted before his illness, and in answer clearly to one from “Master +Arthur” instructing him to address in the future: “Care +of Messrs. W. Dunster and Co.” Renouard made as if to open +the envelope, but paused, and, instead, tore the letter deliberately +in two, in four, in eight. With his hand full of pieces of paper +he returned on deck and scattered them overboard on the dark water, +in which they vanished instantly.</p> +<p>He did it slowly, without hesitation or remorse. H. Walter, +Esqre, in Malata. The innocent Arthur—What was his name? +The man sought for by that woman who as she went by seemed to draw all +the passion of the earth to her, without effort, not deigning to notice, +naturally, as other women breathed the air. But Renouard was no +longer jealous of her very existence. Whatever its meaning it +was not for that man he had picked up casually on obscure impulse, to +get rid of the tiresome expostulations of a so-called friend; a man +of whom he really knew nothing—and now a dead man. In Malata. +Oh, yes! He was there secure enough, untroubled in his grave. +In Malata. To bury him was the last service Renouard had rendered +to his assistant before leaving the island on this trip to town.</p> +<p>Like many men ready enough for arduous enterprises Renouard was inclined +to evade the small complications of existence. This trait of his +character was composed of a little indolence, some disdain, and a shrinking +from contests with certain forms of vulgarity—like a man who would +face a lion and go out of his way to avoid a toad. His intercourse +with the meddlesome journalist was that merely outward intimacy without +sympathy some young men get drawn into easily. It had amused him +rather to keep that “friend” in the dark about the fate +of his assistant. Renouard had never needed other company than +his own, for there was in him something of the sensitiveness of a dreamer +who is easily jarred. He had said to himself that the all-knowing +one would only preach again about the evils of solitude and worry his +head off in favour of some forlornly useless protégé of +his. Also the inquisitiveness of the Editor had irritated him +and had closed his lips in sheer disgust.</p> +<p>And now he contemplated the noose of consequences drawing tight around +him.</p> +<p>It was the memory of that diplomatic reticence which on the terrace +had stiffled his first cry which would have told them all that the man +sought for was not to be met on earth any more. He shrank from +the absurdity of hearing the all-knowing one, and not very sober at +that, turning on him with righteous reproaches -</p> +<p>“You never told me. You gave me to understand that your +assistant was alive, and now you say he’s dead. Which is +it? Were you lying then or are you lying now?” No! +the thought of such a scene was not to be borne. He had sat down +appalled, thinking: “What shall I do now?”</p> +<p>His courage had oozed out of him. Speaking the truth meant +the Moorsoms going away at once—while it seemed to him that he +would give the last shred of his rectitude to secure a day more of her +company. He sat on—silent. Slowly, from confused sensations, +from his talk with the professor, the manner of the girl herself, the +intoxicating familiarity of her sudden hand-clasp, there had come to +him a half glimmer of hope. The other man was dead. Then! +. . . Madness, of course—but he could not give it up. He +had listened to that confounded busybody arranging everything—while +all these people stood around assenting, under the spell of that dead +romance. He had listened scornful and silent. The glimmers +of hope, of opportunity, passed before his eyes. He had only to +sit still and say nothing. That and no more. And what was +truth to him in the face of that great passion which had flung him prostrate +in spirit at her adored feet!</p> +<p>And now it was done! Fatality had willed it! With the +eyes of a mortal struck by the maddening thunderbolt of the gods, Renouard +looked up to the sky, an immense black pall dusted over with gold, on +which great shudders seemed to pass from the breath of life affirming +its sway.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>At last, one morning, in a clear spot of a glassy horizon charged +with heraldic masses of black vapours, the island grew out from the +sea, showing here and there its naked members of basaltic rock through +the rents of heavy foliage. Later, in the great spilling of all +the riches of sunset, Malata stood out green and rosy before turning +into a violet shadow in the autumnal light of the expiring day. +Then came the night. In the faint airs the schooner crept on past +a sturdy squat headland, and it was pitch dark when her headsails ran +down, she turned short on her heel, and her anchor bit into the sandy +bottom on the edge of the outer reef; for it was too dangerous then +to attempt entering the little bay full of shoals. After the last +solemn flutter of the mainsail the murmuring voices of the Moorsom party +lingered, very frail, in the black stillness.</p> +<p>They were sitting aft, on chairs, and nobody made a move. Early +in the day, when it had become evident that the wind was failing, Renouard, +basing his advice on the shortcomings of his bachelor establishment, +had urged on the ladies the advisability of not going ashore in the +middle of the night. Now he approached them in a constrained manner +(it was astonishing the constraint that had reigned between him and +his guests all through the passage) and renewed his arguments. +No one ashore would dream of his bringing any visitors with him. +Nobody would even think of coming off. There was only one old +canoe on the plantation. And landing in the schooner’s boats +would be awkward in the dark. There was the risk of getting aground +on some shallow patches. It would be best to spend the rest of +the night on board.</p> +<p>There was really no opposition. The professor smoking a pipe, +and very comfortable in an ulster buttoned over his tropical clothes, +was the first to speak from his long chair.</p> +<p>“Most excellent advice.”</p> +<p>Next to him Miss Moorsom assented by a long silence. Then in +a voice as of one coming out of a dream -</p> +<p>“And so this is Malata,” she said. “I have +often wondered . . .”</p> +<p>A shiver passed through Renouard. She had wondered! What +about? Malata was himself. He and Malata were one. +And she had wondered! She had . . .</p> +<p>The professor’s sister leaned over towards Renouard. +Through all these days at sea the man’s—the found man’s—existence +had not been alluded to on board the schooner. That reticence +was part of the general constraint lying upon them all. She, herself, +certainly had not been exactly elated by this finding—poor Arthur, +without money, without prospects. But she felt moved by the sentiment +and romance of the situation.</p> +<p>“Isn’t it wonderful,” she whispered out of her +white wrap, “to think of poor Arthur sleeping there, so near to +our dear lovely Felicia, and not knowing the immense joy in store for +him to-morrow.”</p> +<p>There was such artificiality in the wax-flower lady that nothing +in this speech touched Renouard. It was but the simple anxiety +of his heart that he was voicing when he muttered gloomily -</p> +<p>“No one in the world knows what to-morrow may hold in store.”</p> +<p>The mature lady had a recoil as though he had said something impolite. +What a harsh thing to say—instead of finding something nice and +appropriate. On board, where she never saw him in evening clothes, +Renouard’s resemblance to a duke’s son was not so apparent +to her. Nothing but his—ah—bohemianism remained. +She rose with a sort of ostentation.</p> +<p>“It’s late—and since we are going to sleep on board +to-night . . .” she said. “But it does seem so cruel.”</p> +<p>The professor started up eagerly, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. +“Infinitely more sensible, my dear Emma.”</p> +<p>Renouard waited behind Miss Moorsom’s chair.</p> +<p>She got up slowly, moved one step forward, and paused looking at +the shore. The blackness of the island blotted out the stars with +its vague mass like a low thundercloud brooding over the waters and +ready to burst into flame and crashes.</p> +<p>“And so—this is Malata,” she repeated dreamily, +moving towards the cabin door. The clear cloak hanging from her +shoulders, the ivory face—for the night had put out nothing of +her but the gleams of her hair—made her resemble a shining dream-woman +uttering words of wistful inquiry. She disappeared without a sign, +leaving Renouard penetrated to the very marrow by the sounds that came +from her body like a mysterious resonance of an exquisite instrument.</p> +<p>He stood stock still. What was this accidental touch which +had evoked the strange accent of her voice? He dared not answer +that question. But he had to answer the question of what was to +be done now. Had the moment of confession come? The thought +was enough to make one’s blood run cold.</p> +<p>It was as if those people had a premonition of something. In +the taciturn days of the passage he had noticed their reserve even amongst +themselves. The professor smoked his pipe moodily in retired spots. +Renouard had caught Miss Moorsom’s eyes resting on himself more +than once, with a peculiar and grave expression. He fancied that +she avoided all opportunities of conversation. The maiden lady +seemed to nurse a grievance. And now what had he to do?</p> +<p>The lights on the deck had gone out one after the other. The +schooner slept.</p> +<p>About an hour after Miss Moorsom had gone below without a sign or +a word for him, Renouard got out of his hammock slung in the waist under +the midship awning—for he had given up all the accommodation below +to his guests. He got out with a sudden swift movement, flung +off his sleeping jacket, rolled his pyjamas up his thighs, and stole +forward, unseen by the one Kanaka of the anchor-watch. His white +torso, naked like a stripped athlete’s, glimmered, ghostly, in +the deep shadows of the deck. Unnoticed he got out of the ship +over the knight-heads, ran along the back rope, and seizing the dolphin-striker +firmly with both hands, lowered himself into the sea without a splash.</p> +<p>He swam away, noiseless like a fish, and then struck boldly for the +land, sustained, embraced, by the tepid water. The gentle, voluptuous +heave of its breast swung him up and down slightly; sometimes a wavelet +murmured in his ears; from time to time, lowering his feet, he felt +for the bottom on a shallow patch to rest and correct his direction. +He landed at the lower end of the bungalow garden, into the dead stillness +of the island. There were no lights. The plantation seemed +to sleep, as profoundly as the schooner. On the path a small shell +cracked under his naked heel.</p> +<p>The faithful half-caste foreman going his rounds cocked his ears +at the sharp sound. He gave one enormous start of fear at the +sight of the swift white figure flying at him out of the night. +He crouched in terror, and then sprang up and clicked his tongue in +amazed recognition.</p> +<p>“Tse! Tse! The master!”</p> +<p>“Be quiet, Luiz, and listen to what I say.”</p> +<p>Yes, it was the master, the strong master who was never known to +raise his voice, the man blindly obeyed and never questioned. +He talked low and rapidly in the quiet night, as if every minute were +precious. On learning that three guests were coming to stay Luiz +clicked his tongue rapidly. These clicks were the uniform, stenographic +symbols of his emotions, and he could give them an infinite variety +of meaning. He listened to the rest in a deep silence hardly affected +by the low, “Yes, master,” whenever Renouard paused.</p> +<p>“You understand?” the latter insisted. “No +preparations are to be made till we land in the morning. And you +are to say that Mr. Walter has gone off in a trading schooner on a round +of the islands.”</p> +<p>“Yes, master.”</p> +<p>“No mistakes—mind!”</p> +<p>“No, master.”</p> +<p>Renouard walked back towards the sea. Luiz, following him, +proposed to call out half a dozen boys and man the canoe.</p> +<p>“Imbecile!”</p> +<p>“Tse! Tse! Tse!”</p> +<p>“Don’t you understand that you haven’t seen me?”</p> +<p>“Yes, master. But what a long swim. Suppose you +drown.”</p> +<p>“Then you can say of me and of Mr. Walter what you like. +The dead don’t mind.”</p> +<p>Renouard entered the sea and heard a faint “Tse! Tse! Tse!” +of concern from the half-caste, who had already lost sight of the master’s +dark head on the overshadowed water.</p> +<p>Renouard set his direction by a big star that, dipping on the horizon, +seemed to look curiously into his face. On this swim back he felt +the mournful fatigue of all that length of the traversed road, which +brought him no nearer to his desire. It was as if his love had +sapped the invisible supports of his strength. There came a moment +when it seemed to him that he must have swum beyond the confines of +life. He had a sensation of eternity close at hand, demanding +no effort—offering its peace. It was easy to swim like this +beyond the confines of life looking at a star. But the thought: +“They will think I dared not face them and committed suicide,” +caused a revolt of his mind which carried him on. He returned +on board, as he had left, unheard and unseen. He lay in his hammock +utterly exhausted and with a confused feeling that he had been beyond +the confines of life, somewhere near a star, and that it was very quiet +there.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Sheltered by the squat headland from the first morning sparkle of +the sea the little bay breathed a delicious freshness. The party +from the schooner landed at the bottom of the garden. They exchanged +insignificant words in studiously casual tones. The professor’s +sister put up a long-handled eye-glass as if to scan the novel surroundings, +but in reality searching for poor Arthur anxiously. Having never +seen him otherwise than in his town clothes she had no idea what he +would look like. It had been left to the professor to help his +ladies out of the boat because Renouard, as if intent on giving directions, +had stepped forward at once to meet the half-caste Luiz hurrying down +the path. In the distance, in front of the dazzlingly sunlit bungalow, +a row of dark-faced house-boys unequal in stature and varied in complexion +preserved the immobility of a guard of honour.</p> +<p>Luiz had taken off his soft felt hat before coming within earshot. +Renouard bent his head to his rapid talk of domestic arrangements he +meant to make for the visitors; another bed in the master’s room +for the ladies and a cot for the gentleman to be hung in the room opposite +where—where Mr. Walter—here he gave a scared look all round—Mr. +Walter—had died.</p> +<p>“Very good,” assented Renouard in an even undertone. +“And remember what you have to say of him.”</p> +<p>“Yes, master. Only”—he wriggled slightly +and put one bare foot on the other for a moment in apologetic embarrassment—“only +I—I—don’t like to say it.”</p> +<p>Renouard looked at him without anger, without any sort of expression. +“Frightened of the dead? Eh? Well—all right. +I will say it myself—I suppose once for all. . . Immediately he +raised his voice very much.</p> +<p>“Send the boys down to bring up the luggage.”</p> +<p>“Yes, master.”</p> +<p>Renouard turned to his distinguished guests who, like a personally +conducted party of tourists, had stopped and were looking about them.</p> +<p>“I am sorry,” he began with an impassive face. +“My man has just told me that Mr. Walter . . .” he managed +to smile, but didn’t correct himself . . . “has gone in +a trading schooner on a short tour of the islands, to the westward.”</p> +<p>This communication was received in profound silence.</p> +<p>Renouard forgot himself in the thought: “It’s done!” +But the sight of the string of boys marching up to the house with suit-cases +and dressing-bags rescued him from that appalling abstraction.</p> +<p>“All I can do is to beg you to make yourselves at home . . +. with what patience you may.”</p> +<p>This was so obviously the only thing to do that everybody moved on +at once. The professor walked alongside Renouard, behind the two +ladies.</p> +<p>“Rather unexpected—this absence.”</p> +<p>“Not exactly,” muttered Renouard. “A trip +has to be made every year to engage labour.”</p> +<p>“I see . . . And he . . . How vexingly elusive the poor fellow +has become! I’ll begin to think that some wicked fairy is +favouring this love tale with unpleasant attentions.”</p> +<p>Renouard noticed that the party did not seem weighed down by this +new disappointment. On the contrary they moved with a freer step. +The professor’s sister dropped her eye-glass to the end of its +chain. Miss Moorsom took the lead. The professor, his lips +unsealed, lingered in the open: but Renouard did not listen to that +man’s talk. He looked after that man’s daughter—if +indeed that creature of irresistible seductions were a daughter of mortals. +The very intensity of his desire, as if his soul were streaming after +her through his eyes, defeated his object of keeping hold of her as +long as possible with, at least, one of his senses. Her moving +outlines dissolved into a misty coloured shimmer of a woman made of +flame and shadows, crossing the threshold of his house.</p> +<p>The days which followed were not exactly such as Renouard had feared—yet +they were not better than his fears. They were accursed in all +the moods they brought him. But the general aspect of things was +quiet. The professor smoked innumerable pipes with the air of +a worker on his holiday, always in movement and looking at things with +that mysteriously sagacious aspect of men who are admittedly wiser than +the rest of the world. His white head of hair—whiter than +anything within the horizon except the broken water on the reefs—was +glimpsed in every part of the plantation always on the move under the +white parasol. And once he climbed the headland and appeared suddenly +to those below, a white speck elevated in the blue, with a diminutive +but statuesque effect.</p> +<p>Felicia Moorsom remained near the house. Sometimes she could +be seen with a despairing expression scribbling rapidly in her lock-up +dairy. But only for a moment. At the sound of Renouard’s +footsteps she would turn towards him her beautiful face, adorable in +that calm which was like a wilful, like a cruel ignoring of her tremendous +power. Whenever she sat on the verandah, on a chair more specially +reserved for her use, Renouard would stroll up and sit on the steps +near her, mostly silent, and often not trusting himself to turn his +glance on her. She, very still with her eyes half-closed, looked +down on his head—so that to a beholder (such as Professor Moorsom, +for instance) she would appear to be turning over in her mind profound +thoughts about that man sitting at her feet, his shoulders bowed a little, +his hands listless—as if vanquished. And, indeed, the moral +poison of falsehood has such a decomposing power that Renouard felt +his old personality turn to dead dust. Often, in the evening, +when they sat outside conversing languidly in the dark, he felt that +he must rest his forehead on her feet and burst into tears.</p> +<p>The professor’s sister suffered from some little strain caused +by the unstability of her own feelings toward Renouard. She could +not tell whether she really did dislike him or not. At times he +appeared to her most fascinating; and, though he generally ended by +saying something shockingly crude, she could not resist her inclination +to talk with him—at least not always. One day when her niece +had left them alone on the verandah she leaned forward in her chair—speckless, +resplendent, and, in her way, almost as striking a personality as her +niece, who did not resemble her in the least. “Dear Felicia +has inherited her hair and the greatest part of her appearance from +her mother,” the maiden lady used to tell people.</p> +<p>She leaned forward then, confidentially.</p> +<p>“Oh! Mr. Renouard! Haven’t you something +comforting to say?”</p> +<p>He looked up, as surprised as if a voice from heaven had spoken with +this perfect society intonation, and by the puzzled profundity of his +blue eyes fluttered the wax-flower of refined womanhood. She continued. +“For—I can speak to you openly on this tiresome subject—only +think what a terrible strain this hope deferred must be for Felicia’s +heart—for her nerves.”</p> +<p>“Why speak to me about it,” he muttered feeling half +choked suddenly.</p> +<p>“Why! As a friend—a well-wisher—the kindest +of hosts. I am afraid we are really eating you out of house and +home.” She laughed a little. “Ah! When, +when will this suspense be relieved! That poor lost Arthur! +I confess that I am almost afraid of the great moment. It will +be like seeing a ghost.”</p> +<p>“Have you ever seen a ghost?” asked Renouard, in a dull +voice.</p> +<p>She shifted her hands a little. Her pose was perfect in its +ease and middle-aged grace.</p> +<p>“Not actually. Only in a photograph. But we have +many friends who had the experience of apparitions.”</p> +<p>“Ah! They see ghosts in London,” mumbled Renouard, +not looking at her.</p> +<p>“Frequently—in a certain very interesting set. +But all sorts of people do. We have a friend, a very famous author—his +ghost is a girl. One of my brother’s intimates is a very +great man of science. He is friendly with a ghost . . . Of a girl +too,” she added in a voice as if struck for the first time by +the coincidence. “It is the photograph of that apparition +which I have seen. Very sweet. Most interesting. A +little cloudy naturally. . . . Mr. Renouard! I hope you are not +a sceptic. It’s so consoling to think. . .”</p> +<p>“Those plantation boys of mine see ghosts too,” said +Renouard grimly.</p> +<p>The sister of the philosopher sat up stiffly. What crudeness! +It was always so with this strange young man.</p> +<p>“Mr. Renouard! How can you compare the superstitious +fancies of your horrible savages with the manifestations . . . ”</p> +<p>Words failed her. She broke off with a very faint primly angry +smile. She was perhaps the more offended with him because of that +flutter at the beginning of the conversation. And in a moment +with perfect tact and dignity she got up from her chair and left him +alone.</p> +<p>Renouard didn’t even look up. It was not the displeasure +of the lady which deprived him of his sleep that night. He was +beginning to forget what simple, honest sleep was like. His hammock +from the ship had been hung for him on a side verandah, and he spent +his nights in it on his back, his hands folded on his chest, in a sort +of half conscious, oppressed stupor. In the morning he watched +with unseeing eyes the headland come out a shapeless inkblot against +the thin light of the false dawn, pass through all the stages of daybreak +to the deep purple of its outlined mass nimbed gloriously with the gold +of the rising sun. He listened to the vague sounds of waking within +the house: and suddenly he became aware of Luiz standing by the hammock—obviously +troubled.</p> +<p>“What’s the matter?”</p> +<p>“Tse! Tse! Tse!”</p> +<p>“Well, what now? Trouble with the boys?”</p> +<p>“No, master. The gentleman when I take him his bath water +he speak to me. He ask me—he ask—when, when, I think +Mr. Walter, he come back.”</p> +<p>The half-caste’s teeth chattered slightly. Renouard got +out of the hammock.</p> +<p>“And he is here all the time—eh?”</p> +<p>Luiz nodded a scared affirmative, but at once protested, “I +no see him. I never. Not I! The ignorant wild boys +say they see . . . Something! Ough!”</p> +<p>He clapped his teeth on another short rattle, and stood there, shrunk, +blighted, like a man in a freezing blast.</p> +<p>“And what did you say to the gentleman?”</p> +<p>“I say I don’t know—and I clear out. I—I +don’t like to speak of him.”</p> +<p>“All right. We shall try to lay that poor ghost,” +said Renouard gloomily, going off to a small hut near by to dress. +He was saying to himself: “This fellow will end by giving me away. +The last thing that I . . . No! That mustn’t be.” +And feeling his hand being forced he discovered the whole extent of +his cowardice.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>CHAPTER X</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>That morning wandering about his plantation, more like a frightened +soul than its creator and master, he dodged the white parasol bobbing +up here and there like a buoy adrift on a sea of dark-green plants. +The crop promised to be magnificent, and the fashionable philosopher +of the age took other than a merely scientific interest in the experiment. +His investments were judicious, but he had always some little money +lying by, for experiments.</p> +<p>After lunch, being left alone with Renouard, he talked a little of +cultivation and such matters. Then suddenly:</p> +<p>“By the way, is it true what my sister tells me, that your +plantation boys have been disturbed by a ghost?”</p> +<p>Renouard, who since the ladies had left the table was not keeping +such a strict watch on himself, came out of his abstraction with a start +and a stiff smile.</p> +<p>“My foreman had some trouble with them during my absence. +They funk working in a certain field on the slope of the hill.”</p> +<p>“A ghost here!” exclaimed the amused professor. +“Then our whole conception of the psychology of ghosts must be +revised. This island has been uninhabited probably since the dawn +of ages. How did a ghost come here. By air or water? +And why did it leave its native haunts. Was it from misanthropy? +Was he expelled from some community of spirits?”</p> +<p>Renouard essayed to respond in the same tone. The words died +on his lips. Was it a man or a woman ghost, the professor inquired.</p> +<p>“I don’t know.” Renouard made an effort to +appear at ease. He had, he said, a couple of Tahitian amongst +his boys—a ghost-ridden race. They had started the scare. +They had probably brought their ghost with them.</p> +<p>“Let us investigate the matter, Renouard,” proposed the +professor half in earnest. “We may make some interesting +discoveries as to the state of primitive minds, at any rate.”</p> +<p>This was too much. Renouard jumped up and leaving the room +went out and walked about in front of the house. He would allow +no one to force his hand. Presently the professor joined him outside. +He carried his parasol, but had neither his book nor his pipe with him. +Amiably serious he laid his hand on his “dear young friend’s” +arm.</p> +<p>“We are all of us a little strung up,” he said. +“For my part I have been like sister Anne in the story. +But I cannot see anything coming. Anything that would be the least +good for anybody—I mean.”</p> +<p>Renouard had recovered sufficiently to murmur coldly his regret of +this waste of time. For that was what, he supposed, the professor +had in his mind.</p> +<p>“Time,” mused Professor Moorsom. “I don’t +know that time can be wasted. But I will tell you, my dear friend, +what this is: it is an awful waste of life. I mean for all of +us. Even for my sister, who has got a headache and is gone to +lie down.”</p> +<p>He shook gently Renouard’s arm. “Yes, for all of +us! One may meditate on life endlessly, one may even have a poor +opinion of it—but the fact remains that we have only one life +to live. And it is short. Think of that, my young friend.”</p> +<p>He released Renouard’s arm and stepped out of the shade opening +his parasol. It was clear that there was something more in his +mind than mere anxiety about the date of his lectures for fashionable +audiences. What did the man mean by his confounded platitudes? +To Renouard, scared by Luiz in the morning (for he felt that nothing +could be more fatal than to have his deception unveiled otherwise than +by personal confession), this talk sounded like encouragement or a warning +from that man who seemed to him to be very brazen and very subtle. +It was like being bullied by the dead and cajoled by the living into +a throw of dice for a supreme stake.</p> +<p>Renouard went away to some distance from the house and threw himself +down in the shade of a tree. He lay there perfectly still with +his forehead resting on his folded arms, light-headed and thinking. +It seemed to him that he must be on fire, then that he had fallen into +a cool whirlpool, a smooth funnel of water swirling about with nauseating +rapidity. And then (it must have been a reminiscence of his boyhood) +he was walking on the dangerous thin ice of a river, unable to turn +back. . . . Suddenly it parted from shore to shore with a loud crack +like the report of a gun.</p> +<p>With one leap he found himself on his feet. All was peace, +stillness, sunshine. He walked away from there slowly. Had +he been a gambler he would have perhaps been supported in a measure +by the mere excitement. But he was not a gambler. He had +always disdained that artificial manner of challenging the fates. +The bungalow came into view, bright and pretty, and all about everything +was peace, stillness, sunshine. . . .</p> +<p>While he was plodding towards it he had a disagreeable sense of the +dead man’s company at his elbow. The ghost! He seemed +to be everywhere but in his grave. Could one ever shake him off? +he wondered. At that moment Miss Moorsom came out on the verandah; +and at once, as if by a mystery of radiating waves, she roused a great +tumult in his heart, shook earth and sky together—but he plodded +on. Then like a grave song-note in the storm her voice came to +him ominously.</p> +<p>“Ah! Mr. Renouard. . . ” He came up and smiled, +but she was very serious. “I can’t keep still any +longer. Is there time to walk up this headland and back before +dark?”</p> +<p>The shadows were lying lengthened on the ground; all was stillness +and peace. “No,” said Renouard, feeling suddenly as +steady as a rock. “But I can show you a view from the central +hill which your father has not seen. A view of reefs and of broken +water without end, and of great wheeling clouds of sea-birds.”</p> +<p>She came down the verandah steps at once and they moved off. +“You go first,” he proposed, “and I’ll direct +you. To the left.”</p> +<p>She was wearing a short nankin skirt, a muslin blouse; he could see +through the thin stuff the skin of her shoulders, of her arms. +The noble delicacy of her neck caused him a sort of transport. +“The path begins where these three palms are. The only palms +on the island.”</p> +<p>“I see.”</p> +<p>She never turned her head. After a while she observed: “This +path looks as if it had been made recently.”</p> +<p>“Quite recently,” he assented very low.</p> +<p>They went on climbing steadily without exchanging another word; and +when they stood on the top she gazed a long time before her. The +low evening mist veiled the further limit of the reefs. Above +the enormous and melancholy confusion, as of a fleet of wrecked islands, +the restless myriads of sea-birds rolled and unrolled dark ribbons on +the sky, gathered in clouds, soared and stooped like a play of shadows, +for they were too far for them to hear their cries.</p> +<p>Renouard broke the silence in low tones.</p> +<p>“They’ll be settling for the night presently.” +She made no sound. Round them all was peace and declining sunshine. +Near by, the topmost pinnacle of Malata, resembling the top of a buried +tower, rose a rock, weather-worn, grey, weary of watching the monotonous +centuries of the Pacific. Renouard leaned his shoulders against +it. Felicia Moorsom faced him suddenly, her splendid black eyes +full on his face as though she had made up her mind at last to destroy +his wits once and for all. Dazzled, he lowered his eyelids slowly.</p> +<p>“Mr. Renouard! There is something strange in all this. +Tell me where he is?”</p> +<p>He answered deliberately.</p> +<p>“On the other side of this rock. I buried him there myself.”</p> +<p>She pressed her hands to her breast, struggled for her breath for +a moment, then: “Ohhh! . . . You buried him! . . . What sort of +man are you? . . . You dared not tell! . . . He is another of your victims? +. . . You dared not confess that evening. . . . You must have killed +him. What could he have done to you? . . . You fastened on him +some atrocious quarrel and . . .”</p> +<p>Her vengeful aspect, her poignant cries left him as unmoved as the +weary rock against which he leaned. He only raised his eyelids +to look at her and lowered them slowly. Nothing more. It +silenced her. And as if ashamed she made a gesture with her hand, +putting away from her that thought. He spoke, quietly ironic at +first.</p> +<p>“Ha! the legendary Renouard of sensitive idiots—the ruthless +adventurer—the ogre with a future. That was a parrot cry, +Miss Moorsom. I don’t think that the greatest fool of them +all ever dared hint such a stupid thing of me that I killed men for +nothing. No, I had noticed this man in a hotel. He had come +from up country I was told, and was doing nothing. I saw him sitting +there lonely in a corner like a sick crow, and I went over one evening +to talk to him. Just on impulse. He wasn’t impressive. +He was pitiful. My worst enemy could have told you he wasn’t +good enough to be one of Renouard’s victims. It didn’t +take me long to judge that he was drugging himself. Not drinking. +Drugs.”</p> +<p>“Ah! It’s now that you are trying to murder him,” +she cried.</p> +<p>“Really. Always the Renouard of shopkeepers’ legend. +Listen! I would never have been jealous of him. And yet +I am jealous of the air you breathe, of the soil you tread on, of the +world that sees you—moving free—not mine. But never +mind. I rather liked him. For a certain reason I proposed +he should come to be my assistant here. He said he believed this +would save him. It did not save him from death. It came +to him as it were from nothing—just a fall. A mere slip +and tumble of ten feet into a ravine. But it seems he had been +hurt before up-country—by a horse. He ailed and ailed. +No, he was not a steel-tipped man. And his poor soul seemed to +have been damaged too. It gave way very soon.”</p> +<p>“This is tragic!” Felicia Moorsom whispered with feeling. +Renouard’s lips twitched, but his level voice continued mercilessly.</p> +<p>“That’s the story. He rallied a little one night +and said he wanted to tell me something. I, being a gentleman, +he said, he could confide in me. I told him that he was mistaken. +That there was a good deal of a plebeian in me, that he couldn’t +know. He seemed disappointed. He muttered something about +his innocence and something that sounded like a curse on some woman, +then turned to the wall and—just grew cold.”</p> +<p>“On a woman,” cried Miss Moorsom indignantly. “What +woman?”</p> +<p>“I wonder!” said Renouard, raising his eyes and noting +the crimson of her ear-lobes against the live whiteness of her complexion, +the sombre, as if secret, night-splendour of her eyes under the writhing +flames of her hair. “Some woman who wouldn’t believe +in that poor innocence of his. . . Yes. You probably. And +now you will not believe in me—not even in me who must in truth +be what I am—even to death. No! You won’t. +And yet, Felicia, a woman like you and a man like me do not often come +together on this earth.”</p> +<p>The flame of her glorious head scorched his face. He flung +his hat far away, and his suddenly lowered eyelids brought out startlingly +his resemblance to antique bronze, the profile of Pallas, still, austere, +bowed a little in the shadow of the rock. “Oh! If +you could only understand the truth that is in me!” he added.</p> +<p>She waited, as if too astounded to speak, till he looked up again, +and then with unnatural force as if defending herself from some unspoken +aspersion, “It’s I who stand for truth here! Believe +in you! In you, who by a heartless falsehood—and nothing +else, nothing else, do you hear?—have brought me here, deceived, +cheated, as in some abominable farce!” She sat down on a +boulder, rested her chin in her hands, in the pose of simple grief—mourning +for herself.</p> +<p>“It only wanted this. Why! Oh! Why is it +that ugliness, ridicule, and baseness must fall across my path.”</p> +<p>On that height, alone with the sky, they spoke to each other as if +the earth had fallen away from under their feet.</p> +<p>“Are you grieving for your dignity? He was a mediocre +soul and could have given you but an unworthy existence.”</p> +<p>She did not even smile at those words, but, superb, as if lifting +a corner of the veil, she turned on him slowly.</p> +<p>“And do you imagine I would have devoted myself to him for +such a purpose! Don’t you know that reparation was due to +him from me? A sacred debt—a fine duty. To redeem +him would not have been in my power—I know it. But he was +blameless, and it was for me to come forward. Don’t you +see that in the eyes of the world nothing could have rehabilitated him +so completely as his marriage with me? No word of evil could be +whispered of him after I had given him my hand. As to giving myself +up to anything less than the shaping of a man’s destiny—if +I thought I could do it I would abhor myself. . . .” She +spoke with authority in her deep fascinating, unemotional voice. +Renouard meditated, gloomy, as if over some sinister riddle of a beautiful +sphinx met on the wild road of his life.</p> +<p>“Yes. Your father was right. You are one of these +aristocrats . . .”</p> +<p>She drew herself up haughtily.</p> +<p>“What do you say? My father! . . . I an aristocrat.”</p> +<p>“Oh! I don’t mean that you are like the men and +women of the time of armours, castles, and great deeds. Oh, no! +They stood on the naked soil, had traditions to be faithful to, had +their feet on this earth of passions and death which is not a hothouse. +They would have been too plebeian for you since they had to lead, to +suffer with, to understand the commonest humanity. No, you are +merely of the topmost layer, disdainful and superior, the mere pure +froth and bubble on the inscrutable depths which some day will toss +you out of existence. But you are you! You are you! +You are the eternal love itself—only, O Divinity, it isn’t +your body, it is your soul that is made of foam.”</p> +<p>She listened as if in a dream. He had succeeded so well in +his effort to drive back the flood of his passion that his life itself +seemed to run with it out of his body. At that moment he felt +as one dead speaking. But the headlong wave returning with tenfold +force flung him on her suddenly, with open arms and blazing eyes. +She found herself like a feather in his grasp, helpless, unable to struggle, +with her feet off the ground. But this contact with her, maddening +like too much felicity, destroyed its own end. Fire ran through +his veins, turned his passion to ashes, burnt him out and left him empty, +without force—almost without desire. He let her go before +she could cry out. And she was so used to the forms of repression +enveloping, softening the crude impulses of old humanity that she no +longer believed in their existence as if it were an exploded legend. +She did not recognise what had happened to her. She came safe +out of his arms, without a struggle, not even having felt afraid.</p> +<p>“What’s the meaning of this?” she said, outraged +but calm in a scornful way.</p> +<p>He got down on his knees in silence, bent low to her very feet, while +she looked down at him, a little surprised, without animosity, as if +merely curious to see what he would do. Then, while he remained +bowed to the ground pressing the hem of her skirt to his lips, she made +a slight movement. He got up.</p> +<p>“No,” he said. “Were you ever so much mine +what could I do with you without your consent? No. You don’t +conquer a wraith, cold mist, stuff of dreams, illusion. It must +come to you and cling to your breast. And then! Oh! +And then!”</p> +<p>All ecstasy, all expression went out of his face.</p> +<p>“Mr. Renouard,” she said, “though you can have +no claim on my consideration after having decoyed me here for the vile +purpose, apparently, of gloating over me as your possible prey, I will +tell you that I am not perhaps the extraordinary being you think I am. +You may believe me. Here I stand for truth itself.”</p> +<p>“What’s that to me what you are?” he answered. +“At a sign from you I would climb up to the seventh heaven to +bring you down to earth for my own—and if I saw you steeped to +the lips in vice, in crime, in mud, I would go after you, take you to +my arms—wear you for an incomparable jewel on my breast. +And that’s love—true love—the gift and the curse of +the gods. There is no other.”</p> +<p>The truth vibrating in his voice made her recoil slightly, for she +was not fit to hear it—not even a little—not even one single +time in her life. It was revolting to her; and in her trouble, +perhaps prompted by the suggestion of his name or to soften the harshness +of expression, for she was obscurely moved, she spoke to him in French.</p> +<p>“<i>Assez! J’ai horreur de tout cela</i>,” +she said.</p> +<p>He was white to his very lips, but he was trembling no more. +The dice had been cast, and not even violence could alter the throw. +She passed by him unbendingly, and he followed her down the path. +After a time she heard him saying:</p> +<p>“And your dream is to influence a human destiny?”</p> +<p>“Yes!” she answered curtly, unabashed, with a woman’s +complete assurance.</p> +<p>“Then you may rest content. You have done it.”</p> +<p>She shrugged her shoulders slightly. But just before reaching +the end of the path she relented, stopped, and went back to him.</p> +<p>“I don’t suppose you are very anxious for people to know +how near you came to absolute turpitude. You may rest easy on +that point. I shall speak to my father, of course, and we will +agree to say that he has died—nothing more.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Renouard in a lifeless voice. “He +is dead. His very ghost shall be done with presently.”</p> +<p>She went on, but he remained standing stock still in the dusk. +She had already reached the three palms when she heard behind her a +loud peal of laughter, cynical and joyless, such as is heard in smoking-rooms +at the end of a scandalous story. It made her feel positively +faint for a moment.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Slowly a complete darkness enveloped Geoffrey Renouard. His +resolution had failed him. Instead of following Felicia into the +house, he had stopped under the three palms, and leaning against a smooth +trunk had abandoned himself to a sense of an immense deception and the +feeling of extreme fatigue. This walk up the hill and down again +was like the supreme effort of an explorer trying to penetrate the interior +of an unknown country, the secret of which is too well defended by its +cruel and barren nature. Decoyed by a mirage, he had gone too +far—so far that there was no going back. His strength was +at an end. For the first time in his life he had to give up, and +with a sort of despairing self-possession he tried to understand the +cause of the defeat. He did not ascribe it to that absurd dead +man.</p> +<p>The hesitating shadow of Luiz approached him unnoticed till it spoke +timidly. Renouard started.</p> +<p>“Eh? What? Dinner waiting? You must say I +beg to be excused. I can’t come. But I shall see them +to-morrow morning, at the landing place. Take your orders from +the professor as to the sailing of the schooner. Go now.”</p> +<p>Luiz, dumbfounded, retreated into the darkness. Renouard did +not move, but hours afterwards, like the bitter fruit of his immobility, +the words: “I had nothing to offer to her vanity,” came +from his lips in the silence of the island. And it was then only +that he stirred, only to wear the night out in restless tramping up +and down the various paths of the plantation. Luiz, whose sleep +was made light by the consciousness of some impending change, heard +footsteps passing by his hut, the firm tread of the master; and turning +on his mats emitted a faint Tse! Tse! Tse! of deep concern.</p> +<p>Lights had been burning in the bungalow almost all through the night; +and with the first sign of day began the bustle of departure. +House boys walked processionally carrying suit-cases and dressing-bags +down to the schooner’s boat, which came to the landing place at +the bottom of the garden. Just as the rising sun threw its golden +nimbus around the purple shape of the headland, the Planter of Malata +was perceived pacing bare-headed the curve of the little bay. +He exchanged a few words with the sailing-master of the schooner, then +remained by the boat, standing very upright, his eyes on the ground, +waiting.</p> +<p>He had not long to wait. Into the cool, overshadowed garden +the professor descended first, and came jauntily down the path in a +lively cracking of small shells. With his closed parasol hooked +on his forearm, and a book in his hand, he resembled a banal tourist +more than was permissible to a man of his unique distinction. +He waved the disengaged arm from a distance, but at close quarters, +arrested before Renouard’s immobility, he made no offer to shake +hands. He seemed to appraise the aspect of the man with a sharp +glance, and made up his mind.</p> +<p>“We are going back by Suez,” he began almost boisterously. +“I have been looking up the sailing lists. If the zephirs +of your Pacific are only moderately propitious I think we are sure to +catch the mail boat due in Marseilles on the 18th of March. This +will suit me excellently. . . .” He lowered his tone. +“My dear young friend, I’m deeply grateful to you.”</p> +<p>Renouard’s set lips moved.</p> +<p>“Why are you grateful to me?”</p> +<p>“Ah! Why? In the first place you might have made +us miss the next boat, mightn’t you? . . . I don’t thank +you for your hospitality. You can’t be angry with me for +saying that I am truly thankful to escape from it. But I am grateful +to you for what you have done, and—for being what you are.”</p> +<p>It was difficult to define the flavour of that speech, but Renouard +received it with an austerely equivocal smile. The professor stepping +into the boat opened his parasol and sat down in the stern-sheets waiting +for the ladies. No sound of human voice broke the fresh silence +of the morning while they walked the broad path, Miss Moorsom a little +in advance of her aunt.</p> +<p>When she came abreast of him Renouard raised his head.</p> +<p>“Good-bye, Mr. Renouard,” she said in a low voice, meaning +to pass on; but there was such a look of entreaty in the blue gleam +of his sunken eyes that after an imperceptible hesitation she laid her +hand, which was ungloved, in his extended palm.</p> +<p>“Will you condescend to remember me?” he asked, while +an emotion with which she was angry made her pale cheeks flush and her +black eyes sparkle.</p> +<p>“This is a strange request for you to make,” she said +exaggerating the coldness of her tone.</p> +<p>“Is it? Impudent perhaps. Yet I am not so guilty +as you think; and bear in mind that to me you can never make reparation.”</p> +<p>“Reparation? To you! It is you who can offer me +no reparation for the offence against my feelings—and my person; +for what reparation can be adequate for your odious and ridiculous plot +so scornful in its implication, so humiliating to my pride. No! +I don’t want to remember you.”</p> +<p>Unexpectedly, with a tightening grip, he pulled her nearer to him, +and looking into her eyes with fearless despair -</p> +<p>“You’ll have to. I shall haunt you,” he said +firmly.</p> +<p>Her hand was wrenched out of his grasp before he had time to release +it. Felicia Moorsom stepped into the boat, sat down by the side +of her father, and breathed tenderly on her crushed fingers.</p> +<p>The professor gave her a sidelong look—nothing more. +But the professor’s sister, yet on shore, had put up her long-handle +double eye-glass to look at the scene. She dropped it with a faint +rattle.</p> +<p>“I’ve never in my life heard anything so crude said to +a lady,” she murmured, passing before Renouard with a perfectly +erect head. When, a moment afterwards, softening suddenly, she +turned to throw a good-bye to that young man, she saw only his back +in the distance moving towards the bungalow. She watched him go +in—amazed—before she too left the soil of Malata.</p> +<p>Nobody disturbed Renouard in that room where he had shut himself +in to breathe the evanescent perfume of her who for him was no more, +till late in the afternoon when the half-caste was heard on the other +side of the door.</p> +<p>He wanted the master to know that the trader <i>Janet</i> was just +entering the cove.</p> +<p>Renouard’s strong voice on his side of the door gave him most +unexpected instructions. He was to pay off the boys with the cash +in the office and arrange with the captain of the <i>Janet</i> to take +every worker away from Malata, returning them to their respective homes. +An order on the Dunster firm would be given to him in payment.</p> +<p>And again the silence of the bungalow remained unbroken till, next +morning, the half-caste came to report that everything was done. +The plantation boys were embarking now.</p> +<p>Through a crack in the door a hand thrust at him a piece of paper, +and the door slammed to so sharply that Luiz stepped back. Then +approaching cringingly the keyhole, in a propitiatory tone he asked:</p> +<p>“Do I go too, master?”</p> +<p>“Yes. You too. Everybody.”</p> +<p>“Master stop here alone?”</p> +<p>Silence. And the half-caste’s eyes grew wide with wonder. +But he also, like those “ignorant savages,” the plantation +boys, was only too glad to leave an island haunted by the ghost of a +white man. He backed away noiselessly from the mysterious silence +in the closed room, and only in the very doorway of the bungalow allowed +himself to give vent to his feelings by a deprecatory and pained -</p> +<p>“Tse! Tse! Tse!”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>CHAPTER XII</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The Moorsoms did manage to catch the homeward mail boat all right, +but had only twenty-four hours in town. Thus the sentimental Willie +could not see very much of them. This did not prevent him afterwards +from relating at great length, with manly tears in his eyes, how poor +Miss Moorsom—the fashionable and clever beauty—found her +betrothed in Malata only to see him die in her arms. Most people +were deeply touched by the sad story. It was the talk of a good +many days.</p> +<p>But the all-knowing Editor, Renouard’s only friend and crony, +wanted to know more than the rest of the world. From professional +incontinence, perhaps, he thirsted for a full cup of harrowing detail. +And when he noticed Renouard’s schooner lying in port day after +day he sought the sailing master to learn the reason. The man +told him that such were his instructions. He had been ordered +to lie there a month before returning to Malata. And the month +was nearly up. “I will ask you to give me a passage,” +said the Editor.</p> +<p>He landed in the morning at the bottom of the garden and found peace, +stillness, sunshine reigning everywhere, the doors and windows of the +bungalow standing wide open, no sight of a human being anywhere, the +plants growing rank and tall on the deserted fields. For hours +the Editor and the schooner’s crew, excited by the mystery, roamed +over the island shouting Renouard’s name; and at last set themselves +in grim silence to explore systematically the uncleared bush and the +deeper ravines in search of his corpse. What had happened? +Had he been murdered by the boys? Or had he simply, capricious +and secretive, abandoned his plantation taking the people with him. +It was impossible to tell what had happened. At last, towards +the decline of the day, the Editor and the sailing master discovered +a track of sandals crossing a strip of sandy beach on the north shore +of the bay. Following this track fearfully, they passed round +the spur of the headland, and there on a large stone found the sandals, +Renouard’s white jacket, and the Malay sarong of chequered pattern +which the planter of Malata was well known to wear when going to bathe. +These things made a little heap, and the sailor remarked, after gazing +at it in silence -</p> +<p>“Birds have been hovering over this for many a day.”</p> +<p>“He’s gone bathing and got drowned,” cried the +Editor in dismay.</p> +<p>“I doubt it, sir. If he had been drowned anywhere within +a mile from the shore the body would have been washed out on the reefs. +And our boats have found nothing so far.”</p> +<p>Nothing was ever found—and Renouard’s disappearance remained +in the main inexplicable. For to whom could it have occurred that +a man would set out calmly to swim beyond the confines of life—with +a steady stroke—his eyes fixed on a star!</p> +<p>Next evening, from the receding schooner, the Editor looked back +for the last time at the deserted island. A black cloud hung listlessly +over the high rock on the middle hill; and under the mysterious silence +of that shadow Malata lay mournful, with an air of anguish in the wild +sunset, as if remembering the heart that was broken there.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Dec. 1913.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE PARTNER</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>“And that be hanged for a silly yarn. The boatmen here +in Westport have been telling this lie to the summer visitors for years. +The sort that gets taken out for a row at a shilling a head—and +asks foolish questions—must be told something to pass the time +away. D’ye know anything more silly than being pulled in +a boat along a beach? . . . It’s like drinking weak lemonade when +you aren’t thirsty. I don’t know why they do it! +They don’t even get sick.”</p> +<p>A forgotten glass of beer stood at his elbow; the locality was a +small respectable smoking-room of a small respectable hotel, and a taste +for forming chance acquaintances accounts for my sitting up late with +him. His great, flat, furrowed cheeks were shaven; a thick, square +wisp of white hairs hung from his chin; its waggling gave additional +point to his deep utterance; and his general contempt for mankind with +its activities and moralities was expressed in the rakish set of his +big soft hat of black felt with a large rim, which he kept always on +his head.</p> +<p>His appearance was that of an old adventurer, retired after many +unholy experiences in the darkest parts of the earth; but I had every +reason to believe that he had never been outside England. From +a casual remark somebody dropped I gathered that in his early days he +must have been somehow connected with shipping—with ships in docks. +Of individuality he had plenty. And it was this which attracted +my attention at first. But he was not easy to classify, and before +the end of the week I gave him up with the vague definition, “an +imposing old ruffian.”</p> +<p>One rainy afternoon, oppressed by infinite boredom, I went into the +smoking-room. He was sitting there in absolute immobility, which +was really fakir-like and impressive. I began to wonder what could +be the associations of that sort of man, his “milieu,” his +private connections, his views, his morality, his friends, and even +his wife—when to my surprise he opened a conversation in a deep, +muttering voice.</p> +<p>I must say that since he had learned from somebody that I was a writer +of stories he had been acknowledging my existence by means of some vague +growls in the morning.</p> +<p>He was essentially a taciturn man. There was an effect of rudeness +in his fragmentary sentences. It was some time before I discovered +that what he would be at was the process by which stories—stories +for periodicals—were produced.</p> +<p>What could one say to a fellow like that? But I was bored to +death; the weather continued impossible; and I resolved to be amiable.</p> +<p>“And so you make these tales up on your own. How do they +ever come into your head?” he rumbled.</p> +<p>I explained that one generally got a hint for a tale.</p> +<p>“What sort of hint?”</p> +<p>“Well, for instance,” I said, “I got myself rowed +out to the rocks the other day. My boatman told me of the wreck +on these rocks nearly twenty years ago. That could be used as +a hint for a mainly descriptive bit of story with some such title as +‘In the Channel,’ for instance.”</p> +<p>It was then that he flew out at the boatmen and the summer visitors +who listen to their tales. Without moving a muscle of his face +he emitted a powerful “Rot,” from somewhere out of the depths +of his chest, and went on in his hoarse, fragmentary mumble. “Stare +at the silly rocks—nod their silly heads [the visitors, I presume]. +What do they think a man is—blown-out paper bag or what?—go +off pop like that when he’s hit—Damn silly yarn—Hint +indeed! . . . A lie?”</p> +<p>You must imagine this statuesque ruffian enhaloed in the black rim +of his hat, letting all this out as an old dog growls sometimes, with +his head up and staring-away eyes.</p> +<p>“Indeed!” I exclaimed. “Well, but even if +untrue it <i>is</i> a hint, enabling me to see these rocks, this gale +they speak of, the heavy seas, etc., etc., in relation to mankind. +The struggle against natural forces and the effect of the issue on at +least one, say, exalted—”</p> +<p>He interrupted me by an aggressive -</p> +<p>“Would truth be any good to you?”</p> +<p>“I shouldn’t like to say,” I answered, cautiously. +“It’s said that truth is stranger than fiction.”</p> +<p>“Who says that?” he mouthed.</p> +<p>“Oh! Nobody in particular.”</p> +<p>I turned to the window; for the contemptuous beggar was oppressive +to look at, with his immovable arm on the table. I suppose my +unceremonious manner provoked him to a comparatively long speech.</p> +<p>“Did you ever see such a silly lot of rocks? Like plums +in a slice of cold pudding.”</p> +<p>I was looking at them—an acre or more of black dots scattered +on the steel-grey shades of the level sea, under the uniform gossamer +grey mist with a formless brighter patch in one place—the veiled +whiteness of the cliff coming through, like a diffused, mysterious radiance. +It was a delicate and wonderful picture, something expressive, suggestive, +and desolate, a symphony in grey and black—a Whistler. But +the next thing said by the voice behind me made me turn round. +It growled out contempt for all associated notions of roaring seas with +concise energy, then went on -</p> +<p>“I—no such foolishness—looking at the rocks out +there—more likely call to mind an office—I used to look +in sometimes at one time—office in London—one of them small +streets behind Cannon Street Station. . . ”</p> +<p>He was very deliberate; not jerky, only fragmentary; at times profane.</p> +<p>“That’s a rather remote connection,” I observed, +approaching him.</p> +<p>“Connection? To Hades with your connections. It +was an accident.”</p> +<p>“Still,” I said, “an accident has its backward +and forward connections, which, if they could be set forth—”</p> +<p>Without moving he seemed to lend an attentive ear.</p> +<p>“Aye! Set forth. That’s perhaps what you +could do. Couldn’t you now? There’s no sea life +in this connection. But you can put it in out of your head—if +you like.”</p> +<p>“Yes. I could, if necessary,” I said. “Sometimes +it pays to put in a lot out of one’s head, and sometimes it doesn’t. +I mean that the story isn’t worth it. Everything’s +in that.”</p> +<p>It amused me to talk to him like this. He reflected audibly +that he guessed story-writers were out after money like the rest of +the world which had to live by its wits: and that it was extraordinary +how far people who were out after money would go. . . Some of them.</p> +<p>Then he made a sally against sea life. Silly sort of life, +he called it. No opportunities, no experience, no variety, nothing. +Some fine men came out of it—he admitted—but no more chance +in the world if put to it than fly. Kids. So Captain Harry +Dunbar. Good sailor. Great name as a skipper. Big +man; short side-whiskers going grey, fine face, loud voice. A +good fellow, but no more up to people’s tricks than a baby.</p> +<p>“That’s the captain of the <i>Sagamore</i> you’re +talking about,” I said, confidently.</p> +<p>After a low, scornful “Of course” he seemed now to hold +on the wall with his fixed stare the vision of that city office, “at +the back of Cannon Street Station,” while he growled and mouthed +a fragmentary description, jerking his chin up now and then, as if angry.</p> +<p>It was, according to his account, a modest place of business, not +shady in any sense, but out of the way, in a small street now rebuilt +from end to end. “Seven doors from the Cheshire Cat public +house under the railway bridge. I used to take my lunch there +when my business called me to the city. Cloete would come in to +have his chop and make the girl laugh. No need to talk much, either, +for that. Nothing but the way he would twinkle his spectacles +on you and give a twitch of his thick mouth was enough to start you +off before he began one of his little tales. Funny fellow, Cloete. +C-l-o-e-t-e—Cloete.”</p> +<p>“What was he—a Dutchman?” I asked, not seeing in +the least what all this had to do with the Westport boatmen and the +Westport summer visitors and this extraordinary old fellow’s irritable +view of them as liars and fools. “Devil knows,” he +grunted, his eyes on the wall as if not to miss a single movement of +a cinematograph picture. “Spoke nothing but English, anyway. +First I saw him—comes off a ship in dock from the States—passenger. +Asks me for a small hotel near by. Wanted to be quiet and have +a look round for a few days. I took him to a place—friend +of mine. . . Next time—in the City—Hallo! You’re +very obliging—have a drink. Talks plenty about himself. +Been years in the States. All sorts of business all over the place. +With some patent medicine people, too. Travels. Writes advertisements +and all that. Tells me funny stories. Tall, loose-limbed +fellow. Black hair up on end, like a brush; long face, long legs, +long arms, twinkle in his specs, jocular way of speaking—in a +low voice. . . See that?”</p> +<p>I nodded, but he was not looking at me.</p> +<p>“Never laughed so much in my life. The beggar—would +make you laugh telling you how he skinned his own father. He was +up to that, too. A man who’s been in the patent-medicine +trade will be up to anything from pitch-and-toss to wilful murder. +And that’s a bit of hard truth for you. Don’t mind +what they do—think they can carry off anything and talk themselves +out of anything—all the world’s a fool to them. Business +man, too, Cloete. Came over with a few hundred pounds. Looking +for something to do—in a quiet way. Nothing like the old +country, after all, says he. . . And so we part—I with more drinks +in me than I was used to. After a time, perhaps six months or +so, I run up against him again in Mr. George Dunbar’s office. +Yes, <i>that</i> office. It wasn’t often that I . . . However, +there was a bit of his cargo in a ship in dock that I wanted to ask +Mr. George about. In comes Cloete out of the room at the back +with some papers in his hand. Partner. You understand?”</p> +<p>“Aha!” I said. “The few hundred pounds.”</p> +<p>“And that tongue of his,” he growled. “Don’t +forget that tongue. Some of his tales must have opened George +Dunbar’s eyes a bit as to what business means.”</p> +<p>“A plausible fellow,” I suggested.</p> +<p>“H’m! You must have it in your own way—of +course. Well. Partner. George Dunbar puts his top-hat +on and tells me to wait a moment. . . George always looked as though +he were making a few thousands a year—a city swell. . . Come along, +old man! And he and Captain Harry go out together—some business +with a solicitor round the corner. Captain Harry, when he was +in England, used to turn up in his brother’s office regularly +about twelve. Sat in a corner like a good boy, reading the paper +and smoking his pipe. So they go out. . . Model brothers, says +Cloete—two love-birds—I am looking after the tinned-fruit +side of this cozy little show. . . Gives me that sort of talk. +Then by-and-by: What sort of old thing is that <i>Sagamore</i>? Finest +ship out—eh? I dare say all ships are fine to you. +You live by them. I tell you what; I would just as soon put my +money into an old stocking. Sooner!”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>He drew a breath, and I noticed his hand, lying loosely on the table, +close slowly into a fist. In that immovable man it was startling, +ominous, like the famed nod of the Commander.</p> +<p>“So, already at that time—note—already,” +he growled.</p> +<p>“But hold on,” I interrupted. “The <i>Sagamore</i> +belonged to Mundy and Rogers, I’ve been told.”</p> +<p>He snorted contemptuously. “Damn boatmen—know no +better. Flew the firm’s <i>house-flag</i>. That’s +another thing. Favour. It was like this: When old man Dunbar +died, Captain Harry was already in command with the firm. George +chucked the bank he was clerking in—to go on his own with what +there was to share after the old chap. George was a smart man. +Started warehousing; then two or three things at a time: wood-pulp, +preserved-fruit trade, and so on. And Captain Harry let him have +his share to work with. . . I am provided for in my ship, he says. . +. But by-and-by Mundy and Rogers begin to sell out to foreigners all +their ships—go into steam right away. Captain Harry gets +very upset—lose command, part with the ship he was fond of—very +wretched. Just then, so it happened, the brothers came in for +some money—an old woman died or something. Quite a tidy +bit. Then young George says: There’s enough between us two +to buy the <i>Sagamore</i> with. . . But you’ll need more money +for your business, cries Captain Harry—and the other laughs at +him: My business is going on all right. Why, I can go out and +make a handful of sovereigns while you are trying to get your pipe to +draw, old man. . . Mundy and Rogers very friendly about it: Certainly, +Captain. And we will manage her for you, if you like, as if she +were still our own. . . Why, with a connection like that it was good +investment to buy that ship. Good! Aye, at the time.”</p> +<p>The turning of his head slightly toward me at this point was like +a sign of strong feeling in any other man.</p> +<p>“You’ll mind that this was long before Cloete came into +it at all,” he muttered, warningly.</p> +<p>“Yes. I will mind,” I said. “We generally +say: some years passed. That’s soon done.”</p> +<p>He eyed me for a while silently in an unseeing way, as if engrossed +in the thought of the years so easily dealt with; his own years, too, +they were, the years before and the years (not so many) after Cloete +came upon the scene. When he began to speak again, I discerned +his intention to point out to me, in his obscure and graphic manner, +the influence on George Dunbar of long association with Cloete’s +easy moral standards, unscrupulously persuasive gift of humour (funny +fellow), and adventurously reckless disposition. He desired me +anxiously to elaborate this view, and I assured him it was quite within +my powers. He wished me also to understand that George’s +business had its ups and downs (the other brother was meantime sailing +to and fro serenely); that he got into low water at times, which worried +him rather, because he had married a young wife with expensive tastes. +He was having a pretty anxious time of it generally; and just then Cloete +ran up in the city somewhere against a man working a patent medicine +(the fellow’s old trade) with some success, but which, with capital, +capital to the tune of thousands to be spent with both hands on advertising, +could be turned into a great thing—infinitely better—paying +than a gold-mine. Cloete became excited at the possibilities of +that sort of business, in which he was an expert. I understood +that George’s partner was all on fire from the contact with this +unique opportunity.</p> +<p>“So he goes in every day into George’s room about eleven, +and sings that tune till George gnashes his teeth with rage. Do +shut up. What’s the good? No money. Hardly any +to go on with, let alone pouring thousands into advertising. Never +dare propose to his brother Harry to sell the ship. Couldn’t +think of it. Worry him to death. It would be like the end +of the world coming. And certainly not for a business of that +kind! . . . Do you think it would be a swindle? asks Cloete, twitching +his mouth. . . George owns up: No-would be no better than a squeamish +ass if he thought that, after all these years in business.</p> +<p>“Cloete looks at him hard—Never thought of <i>selling</i> +the ship. Expected the blamed old thing wouldn’t fetch half +her insured value by this time. Then George flies out at him. +What’s the meaning, then, of these silly jeers at ship-owning +for the last three weeks? Had enough of them, anyhow.</p> +<p>“Angry at having his mouth made to water, see. Cloete +don’t get excited. . . I am no squeamish ass, either, says he, +very slowly. ’Tisn’t selling your old <i>Sagamore</i> +wants. The blamed thing wants tomahawking (seems the name <i>Sagamore</i> +means an Indian chief or something. The figure-head was a half-naked +savage with a feather over one ear and a hatchet in his belt). +Tomahawking, says he.</p> +<p>“What do you mean? asks George. . . Wrecking—it could +be managed with perfect safety, goes on Cloete—your brother would +then put in his share of insurance money. Needn’t tell him +exactly what for. He thinks you’re the smartest business +man that ever lived. Make his fortune, too. . . George grips the +desk with both hands in his rage. . . You think my brother’s a +man to cast away his ship on purpose. I wouldn’t even dare +think of such a thing in the same room with him—the finest fellow +that ever lived. . . Don’t make such noise; they’ll hear +you outside, says Cloete; and he tells him that his brother is the salted +pattern of all virtues, but all that’s necessary is to induce +him to stay ashore for a voyage—for a holiday—take a rest—why +not? . . . In fact, I have in view somebody up to that sort of game—Cloete +whispers.</p> +<p>“George nearly chokes. . . So you think I am of that sort—you +think <i>me</i> capable—What do you take me for? . . . He almost +loses his head, while Cloete keeps cool, only gets white about the gills. +. . I take you for a man who will be most cursedly hard up before long. +. . He goes to the door and sends away the clerks—there were only +two—to take their lunch hour. Comes back . . . What are +you indignant about? Do I want you to rob the widow and orphan? +Why, man! Lloyd’s a corporation, it hasn’t got a body +to starve. There’s forty or more of them perhaps who underwrote +the lines on that silly ship of yours. Not one human being would +go hungry or cold for it. They take every risk into consideration. +Everything I tell you. . . That sort of talk. H’m! +George too upset to speak—only gurgles and waves his arms; so +sudden, you see. The other, warming his back at the fire, goes +on. Wood-pulp business next door to a failure. Tinned-fruit +trade nearly played out. . . You’re frightened, he says; but the +law is only meant to frighten fools away. . . And he shows how safe +casting away that ship would be. Premiums paid for so many, many +years. No shadow of suspicion could arise. And, dash it +all! a ship must meet her end some day. . .</p> +<p>“I am not frightened. I am indignant,” says George +Dunbar.</p> +<p>“Cloete boiling with rage inside. Chance of a lifetime—his +chance! And he says kindly: Your wife’ll be much more indignant +when you ask her to get out of that pretty house of yours and pile in +into a two-pair back—with kids perhaps, too. . .</p> +<p>“George had no children. Married a couple of years; looked +forward to a kid or two very much. Feels more upset than ever. +Talks about an honest man for father, and so on. Cloete grins: +You be quick before they come, and they’ll have a rich man for +father, and no one the worse for it. That’s the beauty of +the thing.</p> +<p>“George nearly cries. I believe he did cry at odd times. +This went on for weeks. He couldn’t quarrel with Cloete. +Couldn’t pay off his few hundreds; and besides, he was used to +have him about. Weak fellow, George. Cloete generous, too. +. . Don’t think of my little pile, says he. Of course it’s +gone when we have to shut up. But I don’t care, he says. +. . And then there was George’s new wife. When Cloete dines +there, the beggar puts on a dress suit; little woman liked it; . . . +Mr. Cloete, my husband’s partner; such a clever man, man of the +world, so amusing! . . . When he dines there and they are alone: Oh, +Mr. Cloete, I wish George would do something to improve our prospects. +Our position is really so mediocre. . . And Cloete smiles, but isn’t +surprised, because he had put all these notions himself into her empty +head. . . What your husband wants is enterprise, a little audacity. +You can encourage him best, Mrs. Dunbar. . . She was a silly, extravagant +little fool. Had made George take a house in Norwood. Live +up to a lot of people better off than themselves. I saw her once; +silk dress, pretty boots, all feathers and scent, pink face. More +like the Promenade at the Alhambra than a decent home, it looked to +me. But some women do get a devil of a hold on a man.”</p> +<p>“Yes, some do,” I assented. “Even when the +man is the husband.”</p> +<p>“My missis,” he addressed me unexpectedly, in a solemn, +surprisingly hollow tone, “could wind me round her little finger. +I didn’t find it out till she was gone. Aye. But she +was a woman of sense, while that piece of goods ought to have been walking +the streets, and that’s all I can say. . . You must make her up +out of your head. You will know the sort.”</p> +<p>“Leave all that to me,” I said.</p> +<p>“H’m!” he grunted, doubtfully, then going back +to his scornful tone: “A month or so afterwards the <i>Sagamore</i> +arrives home. All very jolly at first. . . Hallo, George boy! +Hallo, Harry, old man! . . . But by and by Captain Harry thinks his +clever brother is not looking very well. And George begins to +look worse. He can’t get rid of Cloete’s notion. +It has stuck in his head. . . There’s nothing wrong—quite +well. . . Captain Harry still anxious. Business going all right, +eh? Quite right. Lots of business. Good business. +. . Of course Captain Harry believes that easily. Starts chaffing +his brother in his jolly way about rolling in money. George’s +shirt sticks to his back with perspiration, and he feels quite angry +with the captain. . . The fool, he says to himself. Rolling in +money, indeed! And then he thinks suddenly: Why not? . . . Because +Cloete’s notion has got hold of his mind.</p> +<p>“But next day he weakens and says to Cloete . . . Perhaps it +would be best to sell. Couldn’t you talk to my brother? +and Cloete explains to him over again for the twentieth time why selling +wouldn’t do, anyhow. No! The <i>Sagamore</i> must +be tomahawked—as he would call it; to spare George’s feelings, +maybe. But every time he says the word, George shudders. . . I’ve +got a man at hand competent for the job who will do the trick for five +hundred, and only too pleased at the chance, says Cloete. . . George +shuts his eyes tight at that sort of talk—but at the same time +he thinks: Humbug! There can be no such man. And yet if +there was such a man it would be safe enough—perhaps.</p> +<p>“And Cloete always funny about it. He couldn’t +talk about anything without it seeming there was a great joke in it +somewhere. . . Now, says he, I know you are a moral citizen, George. +Morality is mostly funk, and I think you’re the funkiest man I +ever came across in my travels. Why, you are afraid to speak to +your brother. Afraid to open your mouth to him with a fortune +for us all in sight. . . George flares up at this: no, he ain’t +afraid; he will speak; bangs fist on the desk. And Cloete pats +him on the back. . . We’ll be made men presently, he says.</p> +<p>“But the first time George attempts to speak to Captain Harry +his heart slides down into his boots. Captain Harry only laughs +at the notion of staying ashore. He wants no holiday, not he. +But Jane thinks of remaining in England this trip. Go about a +bit and see some of her people. Jane was the Captain’s wife; +round-faced, pleasant lady. George gives up that time; but Cloete +won’t let him rest. So he tries again; and the Captain frowns. +He frowns because he’s puzzled. He can’t make it out. +He has no notion of living away from his <i>Sagamore</i>. . .</p> +<p>“Ah!” I cried. “Now I understand.”</p> +<p>“No, you don’t,” he growled, his black, contemptuous +stare turning on me crushingly.</p> +<p>“I beg your pardon,” I murmured.</p> +<p>“H’m! Very well, then. Captain Harry looks +very stern, and George crumples all up inside. . . He sees through me, +he thinks. . . Of course it could not be; but George, by that time, +was scared at his own shadow. He is shirking it with Cloete, too. +Gives his partner to understand that his brother has half a mind to +try a spell on shore, and so on. Cloete waits, gnawing his fingers; +so anxious. Cloete really had found a man for the job. Believe +it or not, he had found him inside the very boarding-house he lodged +in—somewhere about Tottenham Court Road. He had noticed +down-stairs a fellow—a boarder and not a boarder—hanging +about the dark—part of the passage mostly; sort of ‘man +of the house,’ a slinking chap. Black eyes. White +face. The woman of the house—a widow lady, she called herself—very +full of Mr. Stafford; Mr. Stafford this and Mr. Stafford that. . . Anyhow, +Cloete one evening takes him out to have a drink. Cloete mostly +passed away his evenings in saloon bars. No drunkard, though, +Cloete; for company; liked to talk to all sorts there; just habit; American +fashion.</p> +<p>“So Cloete takes that chap out more than once. Not very +good company, though. Little to say for himself. Sits quiet +and drinks what’s given to him, eyes always half closed, speaks +sort of demure. . . I’ve had misfortunes, he says. The truth +was they had kicked him out of a big steam-ship company for disgraceful +conduct; nothing to affect his certificate, you understand; and he had +gone down quite easily. Liked it, I expect. Anything’s +better than work. Lived on the widow lady who kept that boarding-house.”</p> +<p>“That’s almost incredible,” I ventured to interrupt. +“A man with a master’s certificate, do you mean?”</p> +<p>“I do; I’ve known them ’bus cads,” he growled, +contemptuously. “Yes. Swing on the tail-board by the +strap and yell, ‘tuppence all the way.’ Through drink. +But this Stafford was of another kind. Hell’s full of such +Staffords; Cloete would make fun of him, and then there would be a nasty +gleam in the fellow’s half-shut eye. But Cloete was generally +kind to him. Cloete was a fellow that would be kind to a mangy +dog. Anyhow, he used to stand drinks to that object, and now and +then gave him half a crown—because the widow lady kept Mr. Stafford +short of pocket-money. They had rows almost every day down in +the basement. . .</p> +<p>It was the fellow being a sailor that put into Cloete’s mind +the first notion of doing away with the <i>Sagamore</i>. He studies +him a bit, thinks there’s enough devil in him yet to be tempted, +and one evening he says to him . . . I suppose you wouldn’t mind +going to sea again, for a spell? . . . The other never raises his eyes; +says it’s scarcely worth one’s while for the miserable salary +one gets. . . Well, but what do you say to captain’s wages for +a time, and a couple of hundred extra if you are compelled to come home +without the ship. Accidents will happen, says Cloete. . . Oh! +sure to, says that Stafford; and goes on taking sips of his drink as +if he had no interest in the matter.</p> +<p>“Cloete presses him a bit; but the other observes, impudent +and languid like: You see, there’s no future in a thing like that—is +there? . . Oh! no, says Cloete. Certainly not. I don’t +mean this to have any future—as far as you are concerned. +It’s a ‘once for all’ transaction. Well, what +do you estimate your future at? he asks. . . The fellow more listless +than ever—nearly asleep.—I believe the skunk was really +too lazy to care. Small cheating at cards, wheedling or bullying +his living out of some woman or other, was more his style. Cloete +swears at him in whispers something awful. All this in the saloon +bar of the Horse Shoe, Tottenham Court Road. Finally they agree, +over the second sixpennyworth of Scotch hot, on five hundred pounds +as the price of tomahawking the <i>Sagamore</i>. And Cloete waits +to see what George can do.</p> +<p>“A week or two goes by. The other fellow loafs about +the house as if there had been nothing, and Cloete begins to doubt whether +he really means ever to tackle that job. But one day he stops +Cloete at the door, with his downcast eyes: What about that employment +you wished to give me? he asks. . . You see, he had played some more +than usual dirty trick on the woman and expected awful ructions presently; +and to be fired out for sure. Cloete very pleased. George +had been prevaricating to him such a lot that he really thought the +thing was as well as settled. And he says: Yes. It’s +time I introduced you to my friend. Just get your hat and we will +go now. . .</p> +<p>“The two come into the office, and George at his desk sits +up in a sudden panic—staring. Sees a tallish fellow, sort +of nasty-handsome face, heavy eyes, half shut; short drab overcoat, +shabby bowler hat, very careful—like in his movements. And +he thinks to himself, Is that how such a man looks! No, the thing’s +impossible. . . Cloete does the introduction, and the fellow turns round +to look behind him at the chair before he sits down. . . A thoroughly +competent man, Cloete goes on . . . The man says nothing, sits perfectly +quiet. And George can’t speak, throat too dry. Then +he makes an effort: H’m! H’m! Oh yes—unfortunately—sorry +to disappoint—my brother—made other arrangements—going +himself.</p> +<p>“The fellow gets up, never raising his eyes off the ground, +like a modest girl, and goes out softly, right out of the office without +a sound. Cloete sticks his chin in his hand and bites all his +fingers at once. George’s heart slows down and he speaks +to Cloete. . . This can’t be done. How can it be? +Directly the ship is lost Harry would see through it. You know +he is a man to go to the underwriters himself with his suspicions. +And he would break his heart over me. How can I play that on him? +There’s only two of us in the world belonging to each other. . +.</p> +<p>“Cloete lets out a horrid cuss-word, jumps up, bolts away into +his room, and George hears him there banging things around. After +a while he goes to the door and says in a trembling voice: You ask me +for an impossibility. . . Cloete inside ready to fly out like a tiger +and rend him; but he opens the door a little way and says softly: Talking +of hearts, yours is no bigger than a mouse’s, let me tell you. +. . But George doesn’t care—load off the heart, anyhow. +And just then Captain Harry comes in. . . Hallo, George boy. I +am little late. What about a chop at the Cheshire, now? . . . +Right you are, old man. . . And off they go to lunch together. +Cloete has nothing to eat that day.</p> +<p>“George feels a new man for a time; but all of a sudden that +fellow Stafford begins to hang about the street, in sight of the house +door. The first time George sees him he thinks he made a mistake. +But no; next time he has to go out, there is the very fellow skulking +on the other side of the road. It makes George nervous; but he +must go out on business, and when the fellow cuts across the road-way +he dodges him. He dodges him once, twice, three times; but at +last he gets nabbed in his very doorway. . . What do you want? he says, +trying to look fierce.</p> +<p>“It seems that ructions had come in the basement of that boarding-house, +and the widow lady had turned on him (being jealous mad), to the extent +of talking of the police. <i>That</i> Mr. Stafford couldn’t +stand; so he cleared out like a scared stag, and there he was, chucked +into the streets, so to speak. Cloete looked so savage as he went +to and fro that he hadn’t the spunk to tackle him; but George +seemed a softer kind to his eye. He would have been glad of half +a quid, anything. . . I’ve had misfortunes, he says softly, in +his demure way, which frightens George more than a row would have done. +. . Consider the severity of my disappointment, he says. . .</p> +<p>“George, instead of telling him to go to the devil, loses his +head. . . I don’t know you. What do you want? he cries, +and bolts up-stairs to Cloete. . . . Look what’s come of it, he +gasps; now we are at the mercy of that horrid fellow. . . Cloete tries +to show him that the fellow can do nothing; but George thinks that some +sort of scandal may be forced on, anyhow. Says that he can’t +live with that horror haunting him. Cloete would laugh if he weren’t +too weary of it all. Then a thought strikes him and he changes +his tune. . . Well, perhaps! I will go down-stairs and send him +away to begin with. . . He comes back. . . He’s gone. But +perhaps you are right. The fellow’s hard up, and that’s +what makes people desperate. The best thing would be to get him +out of the country for a time. Look here, the poor devil is really +in want of employment. I won’t ask you much this time: only +to hold your tongue; and I shall try to get your brother to take him +as chief officer. At this George lays his arms and his head on +his desk, so that Cloete feels sorry for him. But altogether Cloete +feels more cheerful because he has shaken the ghost a bit into that +Stafford. That very afternoon he buys him a suit of blue clothes, +and tells him that he will have to turn to and work for his living now. +Go to sea as mate of the <i>Sagamore</i>. The skunk wasn’t +very willing, but what with having nothing to eat and no place to sleep +in, and the woman having frightened him with the talk of some prosecution +or other, he had no choice, properly speaking. Cloete takes care +of him for a couple of days. . . Our arrangement still stands, says +he. Here’s the ship bound for Port Elizabeth; not a safe +anchorage at all. Should she by chance part from her anchors in +a north-east gale and get lost on the beach, as many of them do, why, +it’s five hundred in your pocket—and a quick return home. +You are up to the job, ain’t you?</p> +<p>“Our Mr. Stafford takes it all in with downcast eyes. . . I +am a competent seaman, he says, with his sly, modest air. A ship’s +chief mate has no doubt many opportunities to manipulate the chains +and anchors to some purpose. . . At this Cloete thumps him on the back: +You’ll do, my noble sailor. Go in and win. . .</p> +<p>“Next thing George knows, his brother tells him that he had +occasion to oblige his partner. And glad of it, too. Likes +the partner no end. Took a friend of his as mate. Man had +his troubles, been ashore a year nursing a dying wife, it seems. +Down on his luck. . . George protests earnestly that he knows nothing +of the person. Saw him once. Not very attractive to look +at. . . And Captain Harry says in his hearty way, That’s so, but +must give the poor devil a chance. . .</p> +<p>“So Mr. Stafford joins in dock. And it seems that he +did manage to monkey with one of the cables—keeping his mind on +Port Elizabeth. The riggers had all the cable ranged on deck to +clean lockers. The new mate watches them go ashore—dinner +hour—and sends the ship-keeper out of the ship to fetch him a +bottle of beer. Then he goes to work whittling away the forelock +of the forty-five-fathom shackle-pin, gives it a tap or two with a hammer +just to make it loose, and of course that cable wasn’t safe any +more. Riggers come back—you know what riggers are: come +day, go day, and God send Sunday. Down goes the chain into the +locker without their foreman looking at the shackles at all. What +does he care? He ain’t going in the ship. And two +days later the ship goes to sea. . . ”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>At this point I was incautious enough to breathe out another “I +see,” which gave offence again, and brought on me a rude “No, +you don’t”—as before. But in the pause he remembered +the glass of beer at his elbow. He drank half of it, wiped his +mustaches, and remarked grimly -</p> +<p>“Don’t you think that there will be any sea life in this, +because there ain’t. If you’re going to put in any +out of your own head, now’s your chance. I suppose you know +what ten days of bad weather in the Channel are like? I don’t. +Anyway, ten whole days go by. One Monday Cloete comes to the office +a little late—hears a woman’s voice in George’s room +and looks in. Newspapers on the desk, on the floor; Captain Harry’s +wife sitting with red eyes and a bag on the chair near her. . . Look +at this, says George, in great excitement, showing him a paper. +Cloete’s heart gives a jump. Ha! Wreck in Westport +Bay. The <i>Sagamore</i> gone ashore early hours of Sunday, and +so the newspaper men had time to put in some of their work. Columns +of it. Lifeboat out twice. Captain and crew remain by the +ship. Tugs summoned to assist. If the weather improves, +this well-known fine ship may yet be saved. . . You know the way these +chaps put it. . . Mrs. Harry there on her way to catch a train from +Cannon Street. Got an hour to wait.</p> +<p>“Cloete takes George aside and whispers: Ship saved yet! +Oh, damn! That must never be; you hear? But George looks +at him dazed, and Mrs. Harry keeps on sobbing quietly: . . . I ought +to have been with him. But I am going to him. . . We are all going +together, cries Cloete, all of a sudden. He rushes out, sends +the woman a cup of hot bovril from the shop across the road, buys a +rug for her, thinks of everything; and in the train tucks her in and +keeps on talking, thirteen to the dozen, all the way, to keep her spirits +up, as it were; but really because he can’t hold his peace for +very joy. Here’s the thing done all at once, and nothing +to pay. Done. Actually done. His head swims now and +again when he thinks of it. What enormous luck! It almost +frightens him. He would like to yell and sing. Meantime +George Dunbar sits in his corner, looking so deadly miserable that at +last poor Mrs. Harry tries to comfort him, and so cheers herself up +at the same time by talking about how her Harry is a prudent man; not +likely to risk his crew’s life or his own unnecessarily—and +so on.</p> +<p>“First thing they hear at Westport station is that the life-boat +has been out to the ship again, and has brought off the second officer, +who had hurt himself, and a few sailors. Captain and the rest +of the crew, about fifteen in all, are still on board. Tugs expected +to arrive every moment.</p> +<p>“They take Mrs. Harry to the inn, nearly opposite the rocks; +she bolts straight up-stairs to look out of the window, and she lets +out a great cry when she sees the wreck. She won’t rest +till she gets on board to her Harry. Cloete soothes her all he +can. . . All right; you try to eat a mouthful, and we will go to make +inquiries.</p> +<p>“He draws George out of the room: Look here, she can’t +go on board, but I shall. I’ll see to it that he doesn’t +stop in the ship too long. Let’s go and find the coxswain +of the life-boat. . . George follows him, shivering from time to time. +The waves are washing over the old pier; not much wind, a wild, gloomy +sky over the bay. In the whole world only one tug away off, heading +to the seas, tossed in and out of sight every minute as regular as clockwork.</p> +<p>“They meet the coxswain and he tells them: Yes! He’s +going out again. No, they ain’t in danger on board—not +yet. But the ship’s chance is very poor. Still, if +the wind doesn’t pipe up again and the sea goes down something +might be tried. After some talk he agrees to take Cloete on board; +supposed to be with an urgent message from the owners to the captain.</p> +<p>“Whenever Cloete looks at the sky he feels comforted; it looks +so threatening. George Dunbar follows him about with a white face +and saying nothing. Cloete takes him to have a drink or two, and +by and by he begins to pick up. . . That’s better, says Cloete; +dash me if it wasn’t like walking about with a dead man before. +You ought to be throwing up your cap, man. I feel as if I wanted +to stand in the street and cheer. Your brother is safe, the ship +is lost, and we are made men.</p> +<p>“Are you certain she’s lost? asks George. It would +be an awful blow after all the agonies I have gone through in my mind, +since you first spoke to me, if she were to be got off—and—and—all +this temptation to begin over again. . . For we had nothing to do with +this; had we?</p> +<p>“Of course not, says Cloete. Wasn’t your brother +himself in charge? It’s providential. . . Oh! cries George, +shocked. . . Well, say it’s the devil, says Cloete, cheerfully. +I don’t mind! You had nothing to do with it any more than +a baby unborn, you great softy, you. . . Cloete has got so that he almost +loved George Dunbar. Well. Yes. That was so. +I don’t mean he respected him. He was just fond of his partner.</p> +<p>“They go back, you may say fairly skipping, to the hotel, and +find the wife of the captain at the open window, with her eyes on the +ship as if she wanted to fly across the bay over there. . . Now then, +Mrs. Dunbar, cries Cloete, you can’t go, but I am going. +Any messages? Don’t be shy. I’ll deliver every +word faithfully. And if you would like to give me a kiss for him, +I’ll deliver that too, dash me if I don’t.</p> +<p>“He makes Mrs. Harry laugh with his patter. . . Oh, dear Mr. +Cloete, you are a calm, reasonable man. Make him behave sensibly. +He’s a bit obstinate, you know, and he’s so fond of the +ship, too. Tell him I am here—looking on. . . Trust me, +Mrs. Dunbar. Only shut that window, that’s a good girl. +You will be sure to catch cold if you don’t, and the Captain won’t +be pleased coming off the wreck to find you coughing and sneezing so +that you can’t tell him how happy you are. And now if you +can get me a bit of tape to fasten my glasses on good to my ears, I +will be going. . .</p> +<p>“How he gets on board I don’t know. All wet and +shaken and excited and out of breath, he does get on board. Ship +lying over, smothered in sprays, but not moving very much; just enough +to jag one’s nerve a bit. He finds them all crowded on the +deck-house forward, in their shiny oilskins, with faces like sick men. +Captain Harry can’t believe his eyes. What! Mr. Cloete! +What are you doing here, in God’s name? . . . Your wife’s +ashore there, looking on, gasps out Cloete; and after they had talked +a bit, Captain Harry thinks it’s uncommonly plucky and kind of +his brother’s partner to come off to him like this. Man +glad to have somebody to talk to. . . It’s a bad business, Mr. +Cloete, he says. And Cloete rejoices to hear that. Captain +Harry thinks he had done his best, but the cable had parted when he +tried to anchor her. It was a great trial to lose the ship. +Well, he would have to face it. He fetches a deep sigh now and +then. Cloete almost sorry he had come on board, because to be +on that wreck keeps his chest in a tight band all the time. They +crouch out of the wind under the port boat, a little apart from the +men. The life-boat had gone away after putting Cloete on board, +but was coming back next high water to take off the crew if no attempt +at getting the ship afloat could be made. Dusk was falling; winter’s +day; black sky; wind rising. Captain Harry felt melancholy. +God’s will be done. If she must be left on the rocks—why, +she must. A man should take what God sends him standing up. . +. Suddenly his voice breaks, and he squeezes Cloete’s arm: It +seems as if I couldn’t leave her, he whispers. Cloete looks +round at the men like a lot of huddled sheep and thinks to himself: +They won’t stay. . . Suddenly the ship lifts a little and sets +down with a thump. Tide rising. Everybody beginning to look +out for the life-boat. Some of the men made her out far away and +also two more tugs. But the gale has come on again, and everybody +knows that no tug will ever dare come near the ship.</p> +<p>“That’s the end, Captain Harry says, very low. . . . +Cloete thinks he never felt so cold in all his life. . . And I feel +as if I didn’t care to live on just now, mutters Captain Harry +. . . Your wife’s ashore, looking on, says Cloete . . . Yes. +Yes. It must be awful for her to look at the poor old ship lying +here done for. Why, that’s our home.</p> +<p>“Cloete thinks that as long as the <i>Sagamore’s</i> +done for he doesn’t care, and only wishes himself somewhere else. +The slightest movement of the ship cuts his breath like a blow. +And he feels excited by the danger, too. The captain takes him +aside. . . The life-boat can’t come near us for more than an hour. +Look here, Cloete, since you are here, and such a plucky one—do +something for me. . . He tells him then that down in his cabin aft in +a certain drawer there is a bundle of important papers and some sixty +sovereigns in a small canvas bag. Asks Cloete to go and get these +things out. He hasn’t been below since the ship struck, +and it seems to him that if he were to take his eyes off her she would +fall to pieces. And then the men—a scared lot by this time—if +he were to leave them by themselves they would attempt to launch one +of the ship’s boats in a panic at some heavier thump—and +then some of them bound to get drowned. . . There are two or three boxes +of matches about my shelves in my cabin if you want a light, says Captain +Harry. Only wipe your wet hands before you begin to feel for them. +. .</p> +<p>“Cloete doesn’t like the job, but doesn’t like +to show funk, either—and he goes. Lots of water on the main-deck, +and he splashes along; it was getting dark, too. All at once, +by the mainmast, somebody catches him by the arm. Stafford. +He wasn’t thinking of Stafford at all. Captain Harry had +said something as to the mate not being quite satisfactory, but it wasn’t +much. Cloete doesn’t recognise him in his oilskins at first. +He sees a white face with big eyes peering at him. . . Are you pleased, +Mr. Cloete . . . ?</p> +<p>“Cloete is moved to laugh at the whine, and shakes him off. +But the fellow scrambles on after him on the poop and follows him down +into the cabin of that wrecked ship. And there they are, the two +of them; can hardly see each other. . . You don’t mean to make +me believe you have had anything to do with this, says Cloete. . .</p> +<p>“They both shiver, nearly out of their wits with the excitement +of being on board that ship. She thumps and lurches, and they +stagger together, feeling sick. Cloete again bursts out laughing +at that wretched creature Stafford pretending to have been up to something +so desperate. . . Is that how you think you can treat me now? yells +the other man all of a sudden. . .</p> +<p>“A sea strikes the stern, the ship trembles and groans all +round them, there’s the noise of the seas about and overhead, +confusing Cloete, and he hears the other screaming as if crazy. . . +Ah, you don’t believe me! Go and look at the port chain. +Parted? Eh? Go and see if it’s parted. Go and +find the broken link. You can’t. There’s no +broken link. That means a thousand pounds for me. No less. +A thousand the day after we get ashore—prompt. I won’t +wait till she breaks up, Mr. Cloete. To the underwriters I go +if I’ve to walk to London on my bare feet. Port cable! +Look at her port cable, I will say to them. I doctored it—for +the owners—tempted by a low rascal called Cloete.</p> +<p>“Cloete does not understand what it means exactly. All +he sees is that the fellow means to make mischief. He sees trouble +ahead. . . Do you think you can scare me? he asks,—you poor miserable +skunk. . . And Stafford faces him out—both holding on to the cabin +table: No, damn you, you are only a dirty vagabond; but I can scare +the other, the chap in the black coat. . .</p> +<p>“Meaning George Dunbar. Cloete’s brain reels at +the thought. He doesn’t imagine the fellow can do any real +harm, but he knows what George is; give the show away; upset the whole +business he had set his heart on. He says nothing; he hears the +other, what with the funk and strain and excitement, panting like a +dog—and then a snarl. . . A thousand down, twenty-four hours after +we get ashore; day after to-morrow. That’s my last word, +Mr. Cloete. . . A thousand pounds, day after to-morrow, says Cloete. +Oh yes. And to-day take this, you dirty cur. . . He hits straight +from the shoulder in sheer rage, nothing else. Stafford goes away +spinning along the bulk-head. Seeing this, Cloete steps out and +lands him another one somewhere about the jaw. The fellow staggers +backward right into the captain’s cabin through the open door. +Cloete, following him up, hears him fall down heavily and roll to leeward, +then slams the door to and turns the key. . . There! says he to himself, +that will stop you from making trouble.”</p> +<p>“By Jove!” I murmured.</p> +<p>The old fellow departed from his impressive immobility to turn his +rakishly hatted head and look at me with his old, black, lack-lustre +eyes.</p> +<p>“He did leave him there,” he uttered, weightily, returning +to the contemplation of the wall. “Cloete didn’t mean +to allow anybody, let alone a thing like Stafford, to stand in the way +of his great notion of making George and himself, and Captain Harry, +too, for that matter, rich men. And he didn’t think much +of consequences. These patent-medicine chaps don’t care +what they say or what they do. They think the world’s bound +to swallow any story they like to tell. . . He stands listening for +a bit. And it gives him quite a turn to hear a thump at the door +and a sort of muffled raving screech inside the captain’s room. +He thinks he hears his own name, too, through the awful crash as the +old <i>Sagamore</i> rises and falls to a sea. That noise and that +awful shock make him clear out of the cabin. He collects his senses +on the poop. But his heart sinks a little at the black wildness +of the night. Chances that he will get drowned himself before +long. Puts his head down the companion. Through the wind +and breaking seas he can hear the noise of Stafford’s beating +against the door and cursing. He listens and says to himself: +No. Can’t trust him now. . .</p> +<p>“When he gets back to the top of the deck-house he says to +Captain Harry, who asks him if he got the things, that he is very sorry. +There was something wrong with the door. Couldn’t open it. +And to tell you the truth, says he, I didn’t like to stop any +longer in that cabin. There are noises there as if the ship were +going to pieces. . . Captain Harry thinks: Nervous; can’t be anything +wrong with the door. But he says: Thanks—never mind, never +mind. . . All hands looking out now for the life-boat. Everybody +thinking of himself rather. Cloete asks himself, will they miss +him? But the fact is that Mr. Stafford had made such poor show +at sea that after the ship struck nobody ever paid any attention to +him. Nobody cared what he did or where he was. Pitch dark, +too—no counting of heads. The light of the tug with the +lifeboat in tow is seen making for the ship, and Captain Harry asks: +Are we all there? . . . Somebody answers: All here, sir. . . Stand by +to leave the ship, then, says Captain Harry; and two of you help the +gentleman over first. . . Aye, aye, sir. . . Cloete was moved to ask +Captain Harry to let him stay till last, but the life-boat drops on +a grapnel abreast the fore-rigging, two chaps lay hold of him, watch +their chance, and drop him into her, all safe.</p> +<p>“He’s nearly exhausted; not used to that sort of thing, +you see. He sits in the stern-sheets with his eyes shut. +Don’t want to look at the white water boiling all around. +The men drop into the boat one after another. Then he hears Captain +Harry’s voice shouting in the wind to the coxswain, to hold on +a moment, and some other words he can’t catch, and the coxswain +yelling back: Don’t be long, sir. . . What is it? Cloete +asks feeling faint. . . Something about the ship’s papers, says +the coxswain, very anxious. It’s no time to be fooling about +alongside, you understand. They haul the boat off a little and +wait. The water flies over her in sheets. Cloete’s +senses almost leave him. He thinks of nothing. He’s +numb all over, till there’s a shout: Here he is! . . . They see +a figure in the fore-rigging waiting—they slack away on the grapnel-line +and get him in the boat quite easy. There is a little shouting—it’s +all mixed up with the noise of the sea. Cloete fancies that Stafford’s +voice is talking away quite close to his ear. There’s a +lull in the wind, and Stafford’s voice seems to be speaking very +fast to the coxswain; he tells him that of course he was near his skipper, +was all the time near him, till the old man said at the last moment +that he must go and get the ship’s papers from aft; would insist +on going himself; told him, Stafford, to get into the life-boat. . . +He had meant to wait for his skipper, only there came this smooth of +the seas, and he thought he would take his chance at once.</p> +<p>“Cloete opens his eyes. Yes. There’s Stafford +sitting close by him in that crowded life-boat. The coxswain stoops +over Cloete and cries: Did you hear what the mate said, sir? . . . Cloete’s +face feels as if it were set in plaster, lips and all. Yes, I +did, he forces himself to answer. The coxswain waits a moment, +then says: I don’t like it. . . And he turns to the mate, telling +him it was a pity he did not try to run along the deck and hurry up +the captain when the lull came. Stafford answers at once that +he did think of it, only he was afraid of missing him on the deck in +the dark. For, says he, the captain might have got over at once, +thinking I was already in the life-boat, and you would have hauled off +perhaps, leaving me behind. . . True enough, says the coxswain. +A minute or so passes. This won’t do, mutters the coxswain. +Suddenly Stafford speaks up in a sort of hollow voice: I was by when +he told Mr. Cloete here that he didn’t know how he would ever +have the courage to leave the old ship; didn’t he, now? . . . +And Cloete feels his arm being gripped quietly in the dark. . . Didn’t +he now? We were standing together just before you went over, Mr. +Cloete? . . .</p> +<p>“Just then the coxswain cries out: I’m going on board +to see. . . Cloete tears his arm away: I am going with you. . .</p> +<p>“When they get aboard, the coxswain tells Cloete to go aft +along one side of the ship and he would go along the other so as not +to miss the captain. . . And feel about with your hands, too, says he; +he might have fallen and be lying insensible somewhere on the deck. +. . When Cloete gets at last to the cabin companion on the poop the +coxswain is already there, peering down and sniffing. I detect +a smell of smoke down there, says he. And he yells: Are you there, +sir? . . . This is not a case for shouting, says Cloete, feeling his +heart go stony, as it were. . . Down they go. Pitch dark; the +inclination so sharp that the coxswain, groping his way into the captain’s +room, slips and goes tumbling down. Cloete hears him cry out as +though he had hurt himself, and asks what’s the matter. +And the coxswain answers quietly that he had fallen on the captain, +lying there insensible. Cloete without a word begins to grope +all over the shelves for a box of matches, finds one, and strikes a +light. He sees the coxswain in his cork jacket kneeling over Captain +Harry. . . Blood, says the coxswain, looking up, and the match goes +out. . .</p> +<p>“Wait a bit, says Cloete; I’ll make paper spills. . . +He had felt the back of books on the shelves. And so he stands +lighting one spill from another while the coxswain turns poor Captain +Harry over. Dead, he says. Shot through the heart. +Here’s the revolver. . . He hands it up to Cloete, who looks at +it before putting it in his pocket, and sees a plate on the butt with +<i>H. Dunbar</i> on it. . . His own, he mutters. . . Whose else revolver +did you expect to find? snaps the coxswain. And look, he took +off his long oilskin in the cabin before he went in. But what’s +this lot of burnt paper? What could he want to burn the ship’s +papers for? . . .</p> +<p>Cloete sees all, the little drawers drawn out, and asks the coxswain +to look well into them. . . There’s nothing, says the man. +Cleaned out. Seems to have pulled out all he could lay his hands +on and set fire to the lot. Mad—that’s what it is—went +mad. And now he’s dead. You’ll have to break +it to his wife. . .</p> +<p>“I feel as if I were going mad myself, says Cloete, suddenly, +and the coxswain begs him for God’s sake to pull himself together, +and drags him away from the cabin. They had to leave the body, +and as it was they were just in time before a furious squall came on. +Cloete is dragged into the life-boat and the coxswain tumbles in. +Haul away on the grapnel, he shouts; the captain has shot himself. . +.</p> +<p>“Cloete was like a dead man—didn’t care for anything. +He let that Stafford pinch his arm twice without making a sign. +Most of Westport was on the old pier to see the men out of the life-boat, +and at first there was a sort of confused cheery uproar when she came +alongside; but after the coxswain has shouted something the voices die +out, and everybody is very quiet. As soon as Cloete has set foot +on something firm he becomes himself again. The coxswain shakes +hands with him: Poor woman, poor woman, I’d rather you had the +job than I. . .</p> +<p>“Where’s the mate?” asks Cloete. He’s +the last man who spoke to the master. . . Somebody ran along—the +crew were being taken to the Mission Hall, where there was a fire and +shake-downs ready for them—somebody ran along the pier and caught +up with Stafford. . . Here! The owner’s agent wants you. +. . Cloete tucks the fellow’s arm under his own and walks away +with him to the left, where the fishing-harbour is. . . I suppose I +haven’t misunderstood you. You wish me to look after you +a bit, says he. The other hangs on him rather limp, but gives +a nasty little laugh: You had better, he mumbles; but mind, no tricks; +no tricks, Mr. Cloete; we are on land now.</p> +<p>“There’s a police office within fifty yards from here, +says Cloete. He turns into a little public house, pushes Stafford +along the passage. The landlord runs out of the bar. . . This +is the mate of the ship on the rocks, Cloete explains; I wish you would +take care of him a bit to-night. . . What’s the matter with him? +asks the man. Stafford leans against the wall in the passage, +looking ghastly. And Cloete says it’s nothing—done +up, of course. . . I will be responsible for the expense; I am the owner’s +agent. I’ll be round in an hour or two to see him.</p> +<p>And Cloete gets back to the hotel. The news had travelled there +already, and the first thing he sees is George outside the door as white +as a sheet waiting for him. Cloete just gives him a nod and they +go in. Mrs. Harry stands at the head of the stairs, and, when +she sees only these two coming up, flings her arms above her head and +runs into her room. Nobody had dared tell her, but not seeing +her husband was enough. Cloete hears an awful shriek. . . Go to +her, he says to George.</p> +<p>“While he’s alone in the private parlour Cloete drinks +a glass of brandy and thinks it all out. Then George comes in. +. . The landlady’s with her, he says. And he begins to walk +up and down the room, flinging his arms about and talking, disconnected +like, his face set hard as Cloete has never seen it before. . . What +must be, must be. Dead—only brother. Well, dead—his +troubles over. But we are living, he says to Cloete; and I suppose, +says he, glaring at him with hot, dry eyes, that you won’t forget +to wire in the morning to your friend that we are coming in for certain. +. .</p> +<p>“Meaning the patent-medicine fellow. . . Death is death and +business is business, George goes on; and look—my hands are clean, +he says, showing them to Cloete. Cloete thinks: He’s going +crazy. He catches hold of him by the shoulders and begins to shake +him: Damn you—if you had had the sense to know what to say to +your brother, if you had had the spunk to speak to him at all, you moral +creature you, he would be alive now, he shouts.</p> +<p>“At this George stares, then bursts out weeping with a great +bellow. He throws himself on the couch, buries his face in a cushion, +and howls like a kid. . . That’s better, thinks Cloete, and he +leaves him, telling the landlord that he must go out, as he has some +little business to attend to that night. The landlord’s +wife, weeping herself, catches him on the stairs: Oh, sir, that poor +lady will go out of her mind. . .</p> +<p>“Cloete shakes her off, thinking to himself: Oh no! She +won’t. She will get over it. Nobody will go mad about +this affair unless I do. It isn’t sorrow that makes people +go mad, but worry.</p> +<p>“There Cloete was wrong. What affected Mrs. Harry was +that her husband should take his own life, with her, as it were, looking +on. She brooded over it so that in less than a year they had to +put her into a Home. She was very, very quiet; just gentle melancholy. +She lived for quite a long time.</p> +<p>“Well, Cloete splashes along in the wind and rain. Nobody +in the streets—all the excitement over. The publican runs +out to meet him in the passage and says to him: Not this way. +He isn’t in his room. We couldn’t get him to go to +bed nohow. He’s in the little parlour there. We’ve +lighted him a fire. . . You have been giving him drinks too, says Cloete; +I never said I would be responsible for drinks. How many? . . +. Two, says the other. It’s all right. I don’t +mind doing that much for a shipwrecked sailor. . . Cloete smiles his +funny smile: Eh? Come. He paid for them. . . The publican +just blinks. . . Gave you gold, didn’t he? Speak up! . . +. What of that! cries the man. What are you after, anyway? +He had the right change for his sovereign.</p> +<p>“Just so, says Cloete. He walks into the parlour, and +there he sees our Stafford; hair all up on end, landlord’s shirt +and pants on, bare feet in slippers, sitting by the fire. When +he sees Cloete he casts his eyes down.</p> +<p>“You didn’t mean us ever to meet again, Mr. Cloete, Stafford +says, demurely. . . That fellow, when he had the drink he wanted—he +wasn’t a drunkard—would put on this sort of sly, modest +air. . . But since the captain committed suicide, he says, I have been +sitting here thinking it out. All sorts of things happen. +Conspiracy to lose the ship—attempted murder—and this suicide. +For if it was not suicide, Mr. Cloete, then I know of a victim of the +most cruel, cold-blooded attempt at murder; somebody who has suffered +a thousand deaths. And that makes the thousand pounds of which +we spoke once a quite insignificant sum. Look how very convenient +this suicide is. . .</p> +<p>“He looks up at Cloete then, who smiles at him and comes quite +close to the table.</p> +<p>“You killed Harry Dunbar, he whispers. . . The fellow glares +at him and shows his teeth: Of course I did! I had been in that +cabin for an hour and a half like a rat in a trap. . . Shut up and left +to drown in that wreck. Let flesh and blood judge. Of course +I shot him! I thought it was you, you murdering scoundrel, come +back to settle me. He opens the door flying and tumbles right +down upon me; I had a revolver in my hand, and I shot him. I was +crazy. Men have gone crazy for less.</p> +<p>“Cloete looks at him without flinching. Aha! That’s +your story, is it? . . . And he shakes the table a little in his passion +as he speaks. . . Now listen to mine. What’s this conspiracy? +Who’s going to prove it? You were there to rob. You +were rifling his cabin; he came upon you unawares with your hands in +the drawer; and you shot him with his own revolver. You killed +to steal—to steal! His brother and the clerks in the office +know that he took sixty pounds with him to sea. Sixty pounds in +gold in a canvas bag. He told me where they were. The coxswain +of the life-boat can swear to it that the drawers were all empty. +And you are such a fool that before you’re half an hour ashore +you change a sovereign to pay for a drink. Listen to me. +If you don’t turn up day after to-morrow at George Dunbar’s +solicitors, to make the proper deposition as to the loss of the ship, +I shall set the police on your track. Day after to-morrow. . .</p> +<p>“And then what do you think? That Stafford begins to +tear his hair. Just so. Tugs at it with both hands without +saying anything. Cloete gives a push to the table which nearly +sends the fellow off his chair, tumbling inside the fender; so that +he has got to catch hold of it to save himself. . .</p> +<p>“You know the sort of man I am, Cloete says, fiercely. +I’ve got to a point that I don’t care what happens to me. +I would shoot you now for tuppence.</p> +<p>“At this the cur dodges under the table. Then Cloete +goes out, and as he turns in the street—you know, little fishermen’s +cottages, all dark; raining in torrents, too—the other opens the +window of the parlour and speaks in a sort of crying voice -</p> +<p>“You low Yankee fiend—I’ll pay you off some day.</p> +<p>“Cloete passes by with a damn bitter laugh, because he thinks +that the fellow in a way has paid him off already, if he only knew it.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>My impressive ruffian drank what remained of his beer, while his +black, sunken eyes looked at me over the rim.</p> +<p>“I don’t quite understand this,” I said. +“In what way?”</p> +<p>He unbent a little and explained without too much scorn that Captain +Harry being dead, his half of the insurance money went to his wife, +and her trustees of course bought consols with it. Enough to keep +her comfortable. George Dunbar’s half, as Cloete feared +from the first, did not prove sufficient to launch the medicine well; +other moneyed men stepped in, and these two had to go out of that business, +pretty nearly shorn of everything.</p> +<p>“I am curious,” I said, “to learn what the motive +force of this tragic affair was—I mean the patent medicine. +Do you know?”</p> +<p>He named it, and I whistled respectfully. Nothing less than +Parker’s Lively Lumbago Pills. Enormous property! +You know it; all the world knows it. Every second man, at least, +on this globe of ours has tried it.</p> +<p>“Why!” I cried, “they missed an immense fortune.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” he mumbled, “by the price of a revolver-shot.”</p> +<p>He told me also that eventually Cloete returned to the States, passenger +in a cargo-boat from Albert Dock. The night before he sailed he +met him wandering about the quays, and took him home for a drink. +“Funny chap, Cloete. We sat all night drinking grogs, till +it was time for him to go on board.”</p> +<p>It was then that Cloete, unembittered but weary, told him this story, +with that utterly unconscious frankness of a patent-medicine man stranger +to all moral standards. Cloete concluded by remarking that he, +had “had enough of the old country.” George Dunbar +had turned on him, too, in the end. Cloete was clearly somewhat +disillusioned.</p> +<p>As to Stafford, he died, professed loafer, in some East End hospital +or other, and on his last day clamoured “for a parson,” +because his conscience worried him for killing an innocent man. +“Wanted somebody to tell him it was all right,” growled +my old ruffian, contemptuously. “He told the parson that +I knew this Cloete who had tried to murder him, and so the parson (he +worked among the dock labourers) once spoke to me about it. That +skunk of a fellow finding himself trapped yelled for mercy. . . Promised +to be good and so on. . . Then he went crazy . . . screamed and threw +himself about, beat his head against the bulkheads . . . you can guess +all that—eh? . . . till he was exhausted. Gave up. +Threw himself down, shut his eyes, and wanted to pray. So he says. +Tried to think of some prayer for a quick death—he was that terrified. +Thought that if he had a knife or something he would cut his throat, +and be done with it. Then he thinks: No! Would try to cut +away the wood about the lock. . . He had no knife in his pocket. . . +he was weeping and calling on God to send him a tool of some kind when +suddenly he thinks: Axe! In most ships there is a spare emergency +axe kept in the master’s room in some locker or other. . . Up +he jumps. . . Pitch dark. “Pulls at the drawers to find +matches and, groping for them, the first thing he comes upon—Captain +Harry’s revolver. Loaded too. He goes perfectly quiet +all over. Can shoot the lock to pieces. See? Saved! +God’s providence! There are boxes of matches too. +Thinks he: I may just as well see what I am about.</p> +<p>“Strikes a light and sees the little canvas bag tucked away +at the back of the drawer. Knew at once what that was. Rams +it into his pocket quick. Aha! says he to himself: this requires +more light. So he pitches a lot of paper on the floor, set fire +to it, and starts in a hurry rummaging for more valuables. Did +you ever? He told that East-End parson that the devil tempted +him. First God’s mercy—then devil’s work. +Turn and turn about. . .</p> +<p>“Any squirming skunk can talk like that. He was so busy +with the drawers that the first thing he heard was a shout, Great Heavens. +He looks up and there was the door open (Cloete had left the key in +the lock) and Captain Harry holding on, well above him, very fierce +in the light of the burning papers. His eyes were starting out +of his head. Thieving, he thunders at him. A sailor! +An officer! No! A wretch like you deserves no better than +to be left here to drown.</p> +<p>“This Stafford—on his death-bed—told the parson +that when he heard these words he went crazy again. He snatched +his hand with the revolver in it out of the drawer, and fired without +aiming. Captain Harry fell right in with a crash like a stone +on top of the burning papers, putting the blaze out. All dark. +Not a sound. He listened for a bit then dropped the revolver and +scrambled out on deck like mad.”</p> +<p>The old fellow struck the table with his ponderous fist.</p> +<p>“What makes me sick is to hear these silly boat-men telling +people the captain committed suicide. Pah! Captain Harry +was a man that could face his Maker any time up there, and here below, +too. He wasn’t the sort to slink out of life. Not +he! He was a good man down to the ground. He gave me my +first job as stevedore only three days after I got married.”</p> +<p>As the vindication of Captain Harry from the charge of suicide seemed +to be his only object, I did not thank him very effusively for his material. +And then it was not worth many thanks in any case.</p> +<p>For it is too startling even to think of such things happening in +our respectable Channel in full view, so to speak, of the luxurious +continental traffic to Switzerland and Monte Carlo. This story +to be acceptable should have been transposed to somewhere in the South +Seas. But it would have been too much trouble to cook it for the +consumption of magazine readers. So here it is raw, so to speak—just +as it was told to me—but unfortunately robbed of the striking +effect of the narrator; the most imposing old ruffian that ever followed +the unromantic trade of master stevedore in the port of London.</p> +<p>Oct. 1910.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE INN OF THE TWO WITCHES—A FIND</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>This tale, episode, experience—call it how you will—was +related in the fifties of the last century by a man who, by his own +confession, was sixty years old at the time. Sixty is not a bad +age—unless in perspective, when no doubt it is contemplated by +the majority of us with mixed feelings. It is a calm age; the +game is practically over by then; and standing aside one begins to remember +with a certain vividness what a fine fellow one used to be. I +have observed that, by an amiable attention of Providence, most people +at sixty begin to take a romantic view of themselves. Their very +failures exhale a charm of peculiar potency. And indeed the hopes +of the future are a fine company to live with, exquisite forms, fascinating +if you like, but—so to speak—naked, stripped for a run. +The robes of glamour are luckily the property of the immovable past +which, without them, would sit, a shivery sort of thing, under the gathering +shadows.</p> +<p>I suppose it was the romanticism of growing age which set our man +to relate his experience for his own satisfaction or for the wonder +of his posterity. It could not have been for his glory, because +the experience was simply that of an abominable fright—terror +he calls it. You would have guessed that the relation alluded +to in the very first lines was in writing.</p> +<p>This writing constitutes the Find declared in the sub-title. +The title itself is my own contrivance, (can’t call it invention), +and has the merit of veracity. We will be concerned with an inn +here. As to the witches that’s merely a conventional expression, +and we must take our man’s word for it that it fits the case.</p> +<p>The Find was made in a box of books bought in London, in a street +which no longer exists, from a second-hand bookseller in the last stage +of decay. As to the books themselves they were at least twentieth-hand, +and on inspection turned out not worth the very small sum of money I +disbursed. It might have been some premonition of that fact which +made me say: “But I must have the box too.” The decayed +bookseller assented by the careless, tragic gesture of a man already +doomed to extinction.</p> +<p>A litter of loose pages at the bottom of the box excited my curiosity +but faintly. The close, neat, regular handwriting was not attractive +at first sight. But in one place the statement that in A.D. 1813 +the writer was twenty-two years old caught my eye. Two and twenty +is an interesting age in which one is easily reckless and easily frightened; +the faculty of reflection being weak and the power of imagination strong.</p> +<p>In another place the phrase: “At night we stood in again,” +arrested my languid attention, because it was a sea phrase. “Let’s +see what it is all about,” I thought, without excitement.</p> +<p>Oh! but it was a dull-faced MS., each line resembling every other +line in their close-set and regular order. It was like the drone +of a monotonous voice. A treatise on sugar-refining (the dreariest +subject I can think of) could have been given a more lively appearance. +“In A.D. 1813, I was twenty-two years old,” he begins earnestly +and goes on with every appearance of calm, horrible industry. +Don’t imagine, however, that there is anything archaic in my find. +Diabolic ingenuity in invention though as old as the world is by no +means a lost art. Look at the telephones for shattering the little +peace of mind given to us in this world, or at the machine guns for +letting with dispatch life out of our bodies. Now-a-days any blear-eyed +old witch if only strong enough to turn an insignificant little handle +could lay low a hundred young men of twenty in the twinkling of an eye.</p> +<p>If this isn’t progress! . . . Why immense! We have moved +on, and so you must expect to meet here a certain naiveness of contrivance +and simplicity of aim appertaining to the remote epoch. And of +course no motoring tourist can hope to find such an inn anywhere, now. +This one, the one of the title, was situated in Spain. That much +I discovered only from internal evidence, because a good many pages +of that relation were missing—perhaps not a great misfortune after +all. The writer seemed to have entered into a most elaborate detail +of the why and wherefore of his presence on that coast—presumably +the north coast of Spain. His experience has nothing to do with +the sea, though. As far as I can make it out, he was an officer +on board a sloop-of-war. There’s nothing strange in that. +At all stages of the long Peninsular campaign many of our men-of-war +of the smaller kind were cruising off the north coast of Spain—as +risky and disagreeable a station as can be well imagined.</p> +<p>It looks as though that ship of his had had some special service +to perform. A careful explanation of all the circumstances was +to be expected from our man, only, as I’ve said, some of his pages +(good tough paper too) were missing: gone in covers for jampots or in +wadding for the fowling-pieces of his irreverent posterity. But +it is to be seen clearly that communication with the shore and even +the sending of messengers inland was part of her service, either to +obtain intelligence from or to transmit orders or advice to patriotic +Spaniards, guerilleros or secret juntas of the province. Something +of the sort. All this can be only inferred from the preserved +scraps of his conscientious writing.</p> +<p>Next we come upon the panegyric of a very fine sailor, a member of +the ship’s company, having the rating of the captain’s coxswain. +He was known on board as Cuba Tom; not because he was Cuban however; +he was indeed the best type of a genuine British tar of that time, and +a man-of-war’s man for years. He came by the name on account +of some wonderful adventures he had in that island in his young days, +adventures which were the favourite subject of the yarns he was in the +habit of spinning to his shipmates of an evening on the forecastle head. +He was intelligent, very strong, and of proved courage. Incidentally +we are told, so exact is our narrator, that Tom had the finest pigtail +for thickness and length of any man in the Navy. This appendage, +much cared for and sheathed tightly in a porpoise skin, hung half way +down his broad back to the great admiration of all beholders and to +the great envy of some.</p> +<p>Our young officer dwells on the manly qualities of Cuba Tom with +something like affection. This sort of relation between officer +and man was not then very rare. A youngster on joining the service +was put under the charge of a trustworthy seaman, who slung his first +hammock for him and often later on became a sort of humble friend to +the junior officer. The narrator on joining the sloop had found +this man on board after some years of separation. There is something +touching in the warm pleasure he remembers and records at this meeting +with the professional mentor of his boyhood.</p> +<p>We discover then that, no Spaniard being forthcoming for the service, +this worthy seaman with the unique pigtail and a very high character +for courage and steadiness had been selected as messenger for one of +these missions inland which have been mentioned. His preparations +were not elaborate. One gloomy autumn morning the sloop ran close +to a shallow cove where a landing could be made on that iron-bound shore. +A boat was lowered, and pulled in with Tom Corbin (Cuba Tom) perched +in the bow, and our young man (Mr. Edgar Byrne was his name on this +earth which knows him no more) sitting in the stern sheets.</p> +<p>A few inhabitants of a hamlet, whose grey stone houses could be seen +a hundred yards or so up a deep ravine, had come down to the shore and +watched the approach of the boat. The two Englishmen leaped ashore. +Either from dullness or astonishment the peasants gave no greeting, +and only fell back in silence.</p> +<p>Mr. Byrne had made up his mind to see Tom Corbin started fairly on +his way. He looked round at the heavy surprised faces.</p> +<p>“There isn’t much to get out of them,” he said. +“Let us walk up to the village. There will be a wine shop +for sure where we may find somebody more promising to talk to and get +some information from.”</p> +<p>“Aye, aye, sir,” said Tom falling into step behind his +officer. “A bit of palaver as to courses and distances can +do no harm; I crossed the broadest part of Cuba by the help of my tongue +tho’ knowing far less Spanish than I do now. As they say +themselves it was ‘four words and no more’ with me, that +time when I got left behind on shore by the <i>Blanche</i>, frigate.”</p> +<p>He made light of what was before him, which was but a day’s +journey into the mountains. It is true that there was a full day’s +journey before striking the mountain path, but that was nothing for +a man who had crossed the island of Cuba on his two legs, and with no +more than four words of the language to begin with.</p> +<p>The officer and the man were walking now on a thick sodden bed of +dead leaves, which the peasants thereabouts accumulate in the streets +of their villages to rot during the winter for field manure. Turning +his head Mr. Byrne perceived that the whole male population of the hamlet +was following them on the noiseless springy carpet. Women stared +from the doors of the houses and the children had apparently gone into +hiding. The village knew the ship by sight, afar off, but no stranger +had landed on that spot perhaps for a hundred years or more. The +cocked hat of Mr. Byrne, the bushy whiskers and the enormous pigtail +of the sailor, filled them with mute wonder. They pressed behind +the two Englishmen staring like those islanders discovered by Captain +Cook in the South Seas.</p> +<p>It was then that Byrne had his first glimpse of the little cloaked +man in a yellow hat. Faded and dingy as it was, this covering +for his head made him noticeable.</p> +<p>The entrance to the wine shop was like a rough hole in a wall of +flints. The owner was the only person who was not in the street, +for he came out from the darkness at the back where the inflated forms +of wine skins hung on nails could be vaguely distinguished. He +was a tall, one-eyed Asturian with scrubby, hollow cheeks; a grave expression +of countenance contrasted enigmatically with the roaming restlessness +of his solitary eye. On learning that the matter in hand was the +sending on his way of that English mariner toward a certain Gonzales +in the mountains, he closed his good eye for a moment as if in meditation. +Then opened it, very lively again.</p> +<p>“Possibly, possibly. It could be done.”</p> +<p>A friendly murmur arose in the group in the doorway at the name of +Gonzales, the local leader against the French. Inquiring as to +the safety of the road Byrne was glad to learn that no troops of that +nation had been seen in the neighbourhood for months. Not the +smallest little detachment of these impious <i>polizones</i>. +While giving these answers the owner of the wine-shop busied himself +in drawing into an earthenware jug some wine which he set before the +heretic English, pocketing with grave abstraction the small piece of +money the officer threw upon the table in recognition of the unwritten +law that none may enter a wine-shop without buying drink. His +eye was in constant motion as if it were trying to do the work of the +two; but when Byrne made inquiries as to the possibility of hiring a +mule, it became immovably fixed in the direction of the door which was +closely besieged by the curious. In front of them, just within +the threshold, the little man in the large cloak and yellow hat had +taken his stand. He was a diminutive person, a mere homunculus, +Byrne describes him, in a ridiculously mysterious, yet assertive attitude, +a corner of his cloak thrown cavalierly over his left shoulder, muffling +his chin and mouth; while the broad-brimmed yellow hat hung on a corner +of his square little head. He stood there taking snuff, repeatedly.</p> +<p>“A mule,” repeated the wine-seller, his eyes fixed on +that quaint and snuffy figure. . . “No, señor officer! +Decidedly no mule is to be got in this poor place.”</p> +<p>The coxswain, who stood by with the true sailor’s air of unconcern +in strange surroundings, struck in quietly -</p> +<p>“If your honour will believe me Shank’s pony’s +the best for this job. I would have to leave the beast somewhere, +anyhow, since the captain has told me that half my way will be along +paths fit only for goats.”</p> +<p>The diminutive man made a step forward, and speaking through the +folds of the cloak which seemed to muffle a sarcastic intention -</p> +<p>“Si, señor. They are too honest in this village +to have a single mule amongst them for your worship’s service. +To that I can bear testimony. In these times it’s only rogues +or very clever men who can manage to have mules or any other four-footed +beasts and the wherewithal to keep them. But what this valiant +mariner wants is a guide; and here, señor, behold my brother-in-law, +Bernardino, wine-seller, and alcade of this most Christian and hospitable +village, who will find you one.”</p> +<p>This, Mr. Byrne says in his relation, was the only thing to do. +A youth in a ragged coat and goat-skin breeches was produced after some +more talk. The English officer stood treat to the whole village, +and while the peasants drank he and Cuba Tom took their departure accompanied +by the guide. The diminutive man in the cloak had disappeared.</p> +<p>Byrne went along with the coxswain out of the village. He wanted +to see him fairly on his way; and he would have gone a greater distance, +if the seaman had not suggested respectfully the advisability of return +so as not to keep the ship a moment longer than necessary so close in +with the shore on such an unpromising looking morning. A wild +gloomy sky hung over their heads when they took leave of each other, +and their surroundings of rank bushes and stony fields were dreary.</p> +<p>“In four days’ time,” were Byrne’s last words, +“the ship will stand in and send a boat on shore if the weather +permits. If not you’ll have to make it out on shore the +best you can till we come along to take you off.”</p> +<p>“Right you are, sir,” answered Tom, and strode on. +Byrne watched him step out on a narrow path. In a thick pea-jacket +with a pair of pistols in his belt, a cutlass by his side, and a stout +cudgel in his hand, he looked a sturdy figure and well able to take +care of himself. He turned round for a moment to wave his hand, +giving to Byrne one more view of his honest bronzed face with bushy +whiskers. The lad in goatskin breeches looking, Byrne says, like +a faun or a young satyr leaping ahead, stopped to wait for him, and +then went off at a bound. Both disappeared.</p> +<p>Byrne turned back. The hamlet was hidden in a fold of the ground, +and the spot seemed the most lonely corner of the earth and as if accursed +in its uninhabited desolate barrenness. Before he had walked many +yards, there appeared very suddenly from behind a bush the muffled up +diminutive Spaniard. Naturally Byrne stopped short.</p> +<p>The other made a mysterious gesture with a tiny hand peeping from +under his cloak. His hat hung very much at the side of his head. +“Señor,” he said without any preliminaries. +“Caution! It is a positive fact that one-eyed Bernardino, +my brother-in-law, has at this moment a mule in his stable. And +why he who is not clever has a mule there? Because he is a rogue; +a man without conscience. Because I had to give up the <i>macho</i> +to him to secure for myself a roof to sleep under and a mouthful of +<i>olla</i> to keep my soul in this insignificant body of mine. +Yet, señor, it contains a heart many times bigger than the mean +thing which beats in the breast of that brute connection of mine of +which I am ashamed, though I opposed that marriage with all my power. +Well, the misguided woman suffered enough. She had her purgatory +on this earth—God rest her soul.”</p> +<p>Byrne says he was so astonished by the sudden appearance of that +sprite-like being, and by the sardonic bitterness of the speech, that +he was unable to disentangle the significant fact from what seemed but +a piece of family history fired out at him without rhyme or reason. +Not at first. He was confounded and at the same time he was impressed +by the rapid forcible delivery, quite different from the frothy excited +loquacity of an Italian. So he stared while the homunculus letting +his cloak fall about him, aspired an immense quantity of snuff out of +the hollow of his palm.</p> +<p>“A mule,” exclaimed Byrne seizing at last the real aspect +of the discourse. “You say he has got a mule? That’s +queer! Why did he refuse to let me have it?”</p> +<p>The diminutive Spaniard muffled himself up again with great dignity.</p> +<p>“<i>Quien sabe</i>,” he said coldly, with a shrug of +his draped shoulders. “He is a great <i>politico</i> in +everything he does. But one thing your worship may be certain +of—that his intentions are always rascally. This husband +of my <i>defunta</i> sister ought to have been married a long time ago +to the widow with the wooden legs.” <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a></p> +<p>“I see. But remember that; whatever your motives, your +worship countenanced him in this lie.”</p> +<p>The bright unhappy eyes on each side of a predatory nose confronted +Byrne without wincing, while with that testiness which lurks so often +at the bottom of Spanish dignity -</p> +<p>“No doubt the señor officer would not lose an ounce +of blood if I were stuck under the fifth rib,” he retorted. +“But what of this poor sinner here?” Then changing +his tone. “Señor, by the necessities of the times +I live here in exile, a Castilian and an old Christian, existing miserably +in the midst of these brute Asturians, and dependent on the worst of +them all, who has less conscience and scruples than a wolf. And +being a man of intelligence I govern myself accordingly. Yet I +can hardly contain my scorn. You have heard the way I spoke. +A caballero of parts like your worship might have guessed that there +was a cat in there.”</p> +<p>“What cat?” said Byrne uneasily. “Oh, I see. +Something suspicious. No, señor. I guessed nothing. +My nation are not good guessers at that sort of thing; and, therefore, +I ask you plainly whether that wine-seller has spoken the truth in other +particulars?”</p> +<p>“There are certainly no Frenchmen anywhere about,” said +the little man with a return to his indifferent manner.</p> +<p>“Or robbers—<i>ladrones</i>?”</p> +<p>“<i>Ladrones en grande—</i>no! Assuredly not,” +was the answer in a cold philosophical tone. “What is there +left for them to do after the French? And nobody travels in these +times. But who can say! Opportunity makes the robber. +Still that mariner of yours has a fierce aspect, and with the son of +a cat rats will have no play. But there is a saying, too, that +where honey is there will soon be flies.”</p> +<p>This oracular discourse exasperated Byrne. “In the name +of God,” he cried, “tell me plainly if you think my man +is reasonably safe on his journey.”</p> +<p>The homunculus, undergoing one of his rapid changes, seized the officer’s +arm. The grip of his little hand was astonishing.</p> +<p>“Señor! Bernardino had taken notice of him. +What more do you want? And listen—men have disappeared on +this road—on a certain portion of this road, when Bernardino kept +a <i>meson</i>, an inn, and I, his brother-in-law, had coaches and mules +for hire. Now there are no travellers, no coaches. The French +have ruined me. Bernardino has retired here for reasons of his +own after my sister died. They were three to torment the life +out of her, he and Erminia and Lucilla, two aunts of his—all affiliated +to the devil. And now he has robbed me of my last mule. +You are an armed man. Demand the <i>macho</i> from him, with a +pistol to his head, señor—it is not his, I tell you—and +ride after your man who is so precious to you. And then you shall +both be safe, for no two travellers have been ever known to disappear +together in those days. As to the beast, I, its owner, I confide +it to your honour.”</p> +<p>They were staring hard at each other, and Byrne nearly burst into +a laugh at the ingenuity and transparency of the little man’s +plot to regain possession of his mule. But he had no difficulty +to keep a straight face because he felt deep within himself a strange +inclination to do that very extraordinary thing. He did not laugh, +but his lip quivered; at which the diminutive Spaniard, detaching his +black glittering eyes from Byrne’s face, turned his back on him +brusquely with a gesture and a fling of the cloak which somehow expressed +contempt, bitterness, and discouragement all at once. He turned +away and stood still, his hat aslant, muffled up to the ears. +But he was not offended to the point of refusing the silver <i>duro</i> +which Byrne offered him with a non-committal speech as if nothing extraordinary +had passed between them.</p> +<p>“I must make haste on board now,” said Byrne, then.</p> +<p>“<i>Vaya usted con Dios</i>,” muttered the gnome. +And this interview ended with a sarcastic low sweep of the hat which +was replaced at the same perilous angle as before.</p> +<p>Directly the boat had been hoisted the ship’s sails were filled +on the off-shore tack, and Byrne imparted the whole story to his captain, +who was but a very few years older than himself. There was some +amused indignation at it—but while they laughed they looked gravely +at each other. A Spanish dwarf trying to beguile an officer of +his majesty’s navy into stealing a mule for him—that was +too funny, too ridiculous, too incredible. Those were the exclamations +of the captain. He couldn’t get over the grotesqueness of +it.</p> +<p>“Incredible. That’s just it,” murmured Byrne +at last in a significant tone.</p> +<p>They exchanged a long stare. “It’s as clear as +daylight,” affirmed the captain impatiently, because in his heart +he was not certain. And Tom the best seaman in the ship for one, +the good-humouredly deferential friend of his boyhood for the other, +was becoming endowed with a compelling fascination, like a symbolic +figure of loyalty appealing to their feelings and their conscience, +so that they could not detach their thoughts from his safety. +Several times they went up on deck, only to look at the coast, as if +it could tell them something of his fate. It stretched away, lengthening +in the distance, mute, naked, and savage, veiled now and then by the +slanting cold shafts of rain. The westerly swell rolled its interminable +angry lines of foam and big dark clouds flew over the ship in a sinister +procession.</p> +<p>“I wish to goodness you had done what your little friend in +the yellow hat wanted you to do,” said the commander of the sloop +late in the afternoon with visible exasperation.</p> +<p>“Do you, sir?” answered Byrne, bitter with positive anguish. +“I wonder what you would have said afterwards? Why! +I might have been kicked out of the service for looting a mule from +a nation in alliance with His Majesty. Or I might have been battered +to a pulp with flails and pitch-forks—a pretty tale to get abroad +about one of your officers—while trying to steal a mule. +Or chased ignominiously to the boat—for you would not have expected +me to shoot down unoffending people for the sake of a mangy mule. . +. And yet,” he added in a low voice, “I almost wish myself +I had done it.”</p> +<p>Before dark those two young men had worked themselves up into a highly +complex psychological state of scornful scepticism and alarmed credulity. +It tormented them exceedingly; and the thought that it would have to +last for six days at least, and possibly be prolonged further for an +indefinite time, was not to be borne. The ship was therefore put +on the inshore tack at dark. All through the gusty dark night +she went towards the land to look for her man, at times lying over in +the heavy puffs, at others rolling idle in the swell, nearly stationary, +as if she too had a mind of her own to swing perplexed between cool +reason and warm impulse.</p> +<p>Then just at daybreak a boat put off from her and went on tossed +by the seas towards the shallow cove where, with considerable difficulty, +an officer in a thick coat and a round hat managed to land on a strip +of shingle.</p> +<p>“It was my wish,” writes Mr. Byrne, “a wish of +which my captain approved, to land secretly if possible. I did +not want to be seen either by my aggrieved friend in the yellow hat, +whose motives were not clear, or by the one-eyed wine-seller, who may +or may not have been affiliated to the devil, or indeed by any other +dweller in that primitive village. But unfortunately the cove +was the only possible landing place for miles; and from the steepness +of the ravine I couldn’t make a circuit to avoid the houses.”</p> +<p>“Fortunately,” he goes on, “all the people were +yet in their beds. It was barely daylight when I found myself +walking on the thick layer of sodden leaves filling the only street. +No soul was stirring abroad, no dog barked. The silence was profound, +and I had concluded with some wonder that apparently no dogs were kept +in the hamlet, when I heard a low snarl, and from a noisome alley between +two hovels emerged a vile cur with its tail between its legs. +He slunk off silently showing me his teeth as he ran before me, and +he disappeared so suddenly that he might have been the unclean incarnation +of the Evil One. There was, too, something so weird in the manner +of its coming and vanishing, that my spirits, already by no means very +high, became further depressed by the revolting sight of this creature +as if by an unlucky presage.”</p> +<p>He got away from the coast unobserved, as far as he knew, then struggled +manfully to the west against wind and rain, on a barren dark upland, +under a sky of ashes. Far away the harsh and desolate mountains +raising their scarped and denuded ridges seemed to wait for him menacingly. +The evening found him fairly near to them, but, in sailor language, +uncertain of his position, hungry, wet, and tired out by a day of steady +tramping over broken ground during which he had seen very few people, +and had been unable to obtain the slightest intelligence of Tom Corbin’s +passage. “On! on! I must push on,” he had been saying +to himself through the hours of solitary effort, spurred more by incertitude +than by any definite fear or definite hope.</p> +<p>The lowering daylight died out quickly, leaving him faced by a broken +bridge. He descended into the ravine, forded a narrow stream by +the last gleam of rapid water, and clambering out on the other side +was met by the night which fen like a bandage over his eyes. The +wind sweeping in the darkness the broadside of the sierra worried his +ears by a continuous roaring noise as of a maddened sea. He suspected +that he had lost the road. Even in daylight, with its ruts and +mud-holes and ledges of outcropping stone, it was difficult to distinguish +from the dreary waste of the moor interspersed with boulders and clumps +of naked bushes. But, as he says, “he steered his course +by the feel of the wind,” his hat rammed low on his brow, his +head down, stopping now and again from mere weariness of mind rather +than of body—as if not his strength but his resolution were being +overtaxed by the strain of endeavour half suspected to be vain, and +by the unrest of his feelings.</p> +<p>In one of these pauses borne in the wind faintly as if from very +far away he heard a sound of knocking, just knocking on wood. +He noticed that the wind had lulled suddenly.</p> +<p>His heart started beating tumultuously because in himself he carried +the impression of the desert solitudes he had been traversing for the +last six hours—the oppressive sense of an uninhabited world. +When he raised his head a gleam of light, illusory as it often happens +in dense darkness, swam before his eyes. While he peered, the +sound of feeble knocking was repeated—and suddenly he felt rather +than saw the existence of a massive obstacle in his path. What +was it? The spur of a hill? Or was it a house! Yes. +It was a house right close, as though it had risen from the ground or +had come gliding to meet him, dumb and pallid; from some dark recess +of the night. It towered loftily. He had come up under its +lee; another three steps and he could have touched the wall with his +hand. It was no doubt a <i>posada</i> and some other traveller +was trying for admittance. He heard again the sound of cautious +knocking.</p> +<p>Next moment a broad band of light fell into the night through the +opened door. Byrne stepped eagerly into it, whereupon the person +outside leaped with a stifled cry away into the night. An exclamation +of surprise was heard too, from within. Byrne, flinging himself +against the half closed door, forced his way in against some considerable +resistance.</p> +<p>A miserable candle, a mere rushlight, burned at the end of a long +deal table. And in its light Byrne saw, staggering yet, the girl +he had driven from the door. She had a short black skirt, an orange +shawl, a dark complexion—and the escaped single hairs from the +mass, sombre and thick like a forest and held up by a comb, made a black +mist about her low forehead. A shrill lamentable howl of: “Misericordia!” +came in two voices from the further end of the long room, where the +fire-light of an open hearth played between heavy shadows. The +girl recovering herself drew a hissing breath through her set teeth.</p> +<p>It is unnecessary to report the long process of questions and answers +by which he soothed the fears of two old women who sat on each side +of the fire, on which stood a large earthenware pot. Byrne thought +at once of two witches watching the brewing of some deadly potion. +But all the same, when one of them raising forward painfully her broken +form lifted the cover of the pot, the escaping steam had an appetising +smell. The other did not budge, but sat hunched up, her head trembling +all the time.</p> +<p>They were horrible. There was something grotesque in their +decrepitude. Their toothless mouths, their hooked noses, the meagreness +of the active one, and the hanging yellow cheeks of the other (the still +one, whose head trembled) would have been laughable if the sight of +their dreadful physical degradation had not been appalling to one’s +eyes, had not gripped one’s heart with poignant amazement at the +unspeakable misery of age, at the awful persistency of life becoming +at last an object of disgust and dread.</p> +<p>To get over it Byrne began to talk, saying that he was an Englishman, +and that he was in search of a countryman who ought to have passed this +way. Directly he had spoken the recollection of his parting with +Tom came up in his mind with amazing vividness: the silent villagers, +the angry gnome, the one-eyed wine-seller, Bernardino. Why! +These two unspeakable frights must be that man’s aunts—affiliated +to the devil.</p> +<p>Whatever they had been once it was impossible to imagine what use +such feeble creatures could be to the devil, now, in the world of the +living. Which was Lucilla and which was Erminia? They were +now things without a name. A moment of suspended animation followed +Byrne’s words. The sorceress with the spoon ceased stirring +the mess in the iron pot, the very trembling of the other’s head +stopped for the space of breath. In this infinitesimal fraction +of a second Byrne had the sense of being really on his quest, of having +reached the turn of the path, almost within hail of Tom.</p> +<p>“They have seen him,” he thought with conviction. +Here was at last somebody who had seen him. He made sure they +would deny all knowledge of the Ingles; but on the contrary they were +eager to tell him that he had eaten and slept the night in the house. +They both started talking together, describing his appearance and behaviour. +An excitement quite fierce in its feebleness possessed them. The +doubled-up sorceress flourished aloft her wooden spoon, the puffy monster +got off her stool and screeched, stepping from one foot to the other, +while the trembling of her head was accelerated to positive vibration. +Byrne was quite disconcerted by their excited behaviour. . . Yes! +The big, fierce Ingles went away in the morning, after eating a piece +of bread and drinking some wine. And if the caballero wished to +follow the same path nothing could be easier—in the morning.</p> +<p>“You will give me somebody to show me the way?” said +Byrne.</p> +<p>“Si, señor. A proper youth. The man the +caballero saw going out.”</p> +<p>“But he was knocking at the door,” protested Byrne. +“He only bolted when he saw me. He was coming in.”</p> +<p>“No! No!” the two horrid witches screamed out together. +“Going out. Going out!”</p> +<p>After all it may have been true. The sound of knocking had been faint, +elusive, reflected Byrne. Perhaps only the effect of his fancy. +He asked -</p> +<p>“Who is that man?”</p> +<p>“Her <i>novio</i>.” They screamed pointing to the +girl. “He is gone home to a village far away from here. +But he will return in the morning. Her <i>novio</i>! And +she is an orphan—the child of poor Christian people. She +lives with us for the love of God, for the love of God.”</p> +<p>The orphan crouching on the corner of the hearth had been looking +at Byrne. He thought that she was more like a child of Satan kept +there by these two weird harridans for the love of the Devil. +Her eyes were a little oblique, her mouth rather thick, but admirably +formed; her dark face had a wild beauty, voluptuous and untamed. +As to the character of her steadfast gaze attached upon him with a sensuously +savage attention, “to know what it was like,” says Mr. Byrne, +“you have only to observe a hungry cat watching a bird in a cage +or a mouse inside a trap.”</p> +<p>It was she who served him the food, of which he was glad; though +with those big slanting black eyes examining him at close range, as +if he had something curious written on his face, she gave him an uncomfortable +sensation. But anything was better than being approached by these +blear-eyed nightmarish witches. His apprehensions somehow had +been soothed; perhaps by the sensation of warmth after severe exposure +and the ease of resting after the exertion of fighting the gale inch +by inch all the way. He had no doubt of Tom’s safety. +He was now sleeping in the mountain camp having been met by Gonzales’ +men.</p> +<p>Byrne rose, filled a tin goblet with wine out of a skin hanging on +the wall, and sat down again. The witch with the mummy face began +to talk to him, ramblingly of old times; she boasted of the inn’s +fame in those better days. Great people in their own coaches stopped +there. An archbishop slept once in the <i>casa</i>, a long, long +time ago.</p> +<p>The witch with the puffy face seemed to be listening from her stool, +motionless, except for the trembling of her head. The girl (Byrne +was certain she was a casual gipsy admitted there for some reason or +other) sat on the hearth stone in the glow of the embers. She +hummed a tune to herself, rattling a pair of castanets slightly now +and then. At the mention of the archbishop she chuckled impiously +and turned her head to look at Byrne, so that the red glow of the fire +flashed in her black eyes and on her white teeth under the dark cowl +of the enormous overmantel. And he smiled at her.</p> +<p>He rested now in the ease of security. His advent not having +been expected there could be no plot against him in existence. +Drowsiness stole upon his senses. He enjoyed it, but keeping a +hold, so he thought at least, on his wits; but he must have been gone +further than he thought because he was startled beyond measure by a +fiendish uproar. He had never heard anything so pitilessly strident +in his life. The witches had started a fierce quarrel about something +or other. Whatever its origin they were now only abusing each +other violently, without arguments; their senile screams expressed nothing +but wicked anger and ferocious dismay. The gipsy girl’s +black eyes flew from one to the other. Never before had Byrne +felt himself so removed from fellowship with human beings. Before +he had really time to understand the subject of the quarrel, the girl +jumped up rattling her castanets loudly. A silence fell. +She came up to the table and bending over, her eyes in his -</p> +<p>“Señor,” she said with decision, “You shall +sleep in the archbishop’s room.”</p> +<p>Neither of the witches objected. The dried-up one bent double +was propped on a stick. The puffy faced one had now a crutch.</p> +<p>Byrne got up, walked to the door, and turning the key in the enormous +lock put it coolly in his pocket. This was clearly the only entrance, +and he did not mean to be taken unawares by whatever danger there might +have been lurking outside.</p> +<p>When he turned from the door he saw the two witches “affiliated +to the Devil” and the Satanic girl looking at him in silence. +He wondered if Tom Corbin took the same precaution last might. +And thinking of him he had again that queer impression of his nearness. +The world was perfectly dumb. And in this stillness he heard the +blood beating in his ears with a confused rushing noise, in which there +seemed to be a voice uttering the words: “Mr. Byrne, look out, +sir.” Tom’s voice. He shuddered; for the delusions +of the senses of hearing are the most vivid of all, and from their nature +have a compelling character.</p> +<p>It seemed impossible that Tom should not be there. Again a +slight chill as of stealthy draught penetrated through his very clothes +and passed over all his body. He shook off the impression with +an effort.</p> +<p>It was the girl who preceded him upstairs carrying an iron lamp from +the naked flame of which ascended a thin thread of smoke. Her +soiled white stockings were full of holes.</p> +<p>With the same quiet resolution with which he had locked the door +below, Byrne threw open one after another the doors in the corridor. +All the rooms were empty except for some nondescript lumber in one or +two. And the girl seeing what he would be at stopped every time, +raising the smoky light in each doorway patiently. Meantime she +observed him with sustained attention. The last door of all she +threw open herself.</p> +<p>“You sleep here, señor,” she murmured in a voice +light like a child’s breath, offering him the lamp.</p> +<p>“<i>Buenos noches, senorita</i>,” he said politely, taking +it from her.</p> +<p>She didn’t return the wish audibly, though her lips did move +a little, while her gaze black like a starless night never for a moment +wavered before him. He stepped in, and as he turned to close the +door she was still there motionless and disturbing, with her voluptuous +mouth and slanting eyes, with the expression of expectant sensual ferocity +of a baffled cat. He hesitated for a moment, and in the dumb house +he heard again the blood pulsating ponderously in his ears, while once +more the illusion of Tom’s voice speaking earnestly somewhere +near by was specially terrifying, because this time he could not make +out the words.</p> +<p>He slammed the door in the girl’s face at last, leaving her +in the dark; and he opened it again almost on the instant. Nobody. +She had vanished without the slightest sound. He closed the door +quickly and bolted it with two heavy bolts.</p> +<p>A profound mistrust possessed him suddenly. Why did the witches +quarrel about letting him sleep here? And what meant that stare +of the girl as if she wanted to impress his features for ever in her +mind? His own nervousness alarmed him. He seemed to himself +to be removed very far from mankind.</p> +<p>He examined his room. It was not very high, just high enough +to take the bed which stood under an enormous baldaquin-like canopy +from which fell heavy curtains at foot and head; a bed certainly worthy +of an archbishop. There was a heavy table carved all round the +edges, some arm-chairs of enormous weight like the spoils of a grandee’s +palace; a tall shallow wardrobe placed against the wall and with double +doors. He tried them. Locked. A suspicion came into +his mind, and he snatched the lamp to make a closer examination. +No, it was not a disguised entrance. That heavy, tall piece of +furniture stood clear of the wall by quite an inch. He glanced +at the bolts of his room door. No! No one could get at him +treacherously while he slept. But would he be able to sleep? he +asked himself anxiously. If only he had Tom there—the trusty +seaman who had fought at his right hand in a cutting out affair or two, +and had always preached to him the necessity to take care of himself. +“For it’s no great trick,” he used to say, “to +get yourself killed in a hot fight. Any fool can do that. +The proper pastime is to fight the Frenchies and then live to fight +another day.”</p> +<p>Byrne found it a hard matter not to fall into listening to the silence. +Somehow he had the conviction that nothing would break it unless he +heard again the haunting sound of Tom’s voice. He had heard +it twice before. Odd! And yet no wonder, he argued with +himself reasonably, since he had been thinking of the man for over thirty +hours continuously and, what’s more, inconclusively. For +his anxiety for Tom had never taken a definite shape. “Disappear,” +was the only word connected with the idea of Tom’s danger. +It was very vague and awful. “Disappear!” What +did that mean?</p> +<p>Byrne shuddered, and then said to himself that he must be a little +feverish. But Tom had not disappeared. Byrne had just heard +of him. And again the young man felt the blood beating in his +ears. He sat still expecting every moment to hear through the +pulsating strokes the sound of Tom’s voice. He waited straining +his ears, but nothing came. Suddenly the thought occurred to him: +“He has not disappeared, but he cannot make himself heard.”</p> +<p>He jumped up from the arm-chair. How absurd! Laying his +pistol and his hanger on the table he took off his boots and, feeling +suddenly too tired to stand, flung himself on the bed which he found +soft and comfortable beyond his hopes.</p> +<p>He had felt very wakeful, but he must have dozed off after all, because +the next thing he knew he was sitting up in bed and trying to recollect +what it was that Tom’s voice had said. Oh! He remembered +it now. It had said: “Mr. Byrne! Look out, sir!” +A warning this. But against what?</p> +<p>He landed with one leap in the middle of the floor, gasped once, +then looked all round the room. The window was shuttered and barred +with an iron bar. Again he ran his eyes slowly all round the bare +walls, and even looked up at the ceiling, which was rather high. +Afterwards he went to the door to examine the fastenings. They +consisted of two enormous iron bolts sliding into holes made in the +wall; and as the corridor outside was too narrow to admit of any battering +arrangement or even to permit an axe to be swung, nothing could burst +the door open—unless gunpowder. But while he was still making +sure that the lower bolt was pushed well home, he received the impression +of somebody’s presence in the room. It was so strong that +he spun round quicker than lightning. There was no one. +Who could there be? And yet . . .</p> +<p>It was then that he lost the decorum and restraint a man keeps up +for his own sake. He got down on his hands and knees, with the +lamp on the floor, to look under the bed, like a silly girl. He +saw a lot of dust and nothing else. He got up, his cheeks burning, +and walked about discontented with his own behaviour and unreasonably +angry with Tom for not leaving him alone. The words: “Mr. +Byrne! Look out, sir,” kept on repeating themselves in his +head in a tone of warning.</p> +<p>“Hadn’t I better just throw myself on the bed and try +to go to sleep,” he asked himself. But his eyes fell on +the tall wardrobe, and he went towards it feeling irritated with himself +and yet unable to desist. How he could explain to-morrow the burglarious +misdeed to the two odious witches he had no idea. Nevertheless +he inserted the point of his hanger between the two halves of the door +and tried to prize them open. They resisted. He swore, sticking +now hotly to his purpose. His mutter: “I hope you will be +satisfied, confound you,” was addressed to the absent Tom. +Just then the doors gave way and flew open.</p> +<p>He was there.</p> +<p>He—the trusty, sagacious, and courageous Tom was there, drawn +up shadowy and stiff, in a prudent silence, which his wide-open eyes +by their fixed gleam seemed to command Byrne to respect. But Byrne +was too startled to make a sound. Amazed, he stepped back a little—and +on the instant the seaman flung himself forward headlong as if to clasp +his officer round the neck. Instinctively Byrne put out his faltering +arms; he felt the horrible rigidity of the body and then the coldness +of death as their heads knocked together and their faces came into contact. +They reeled, Byrne hugging Tom close to his breast in order not to let +him fall with a crash. He had just strength enough to lower the +awful burden gently to the floor—then his head swam, his legs +gave way, and he sank on his knees, leaning over the body with his hands +resting on the breast of that man once full of generous life, and now +as insensible as a stone.</p> +<p>“Dead! my poor Tom, dead,” he repeated mentally. +The light of the lamp standing near the edge of the table fell from +above straight on the stony empty stare of these eyes which naturally +had a mobile and merry expression.</p> +<p>Byrne turned his own away from them. Tom’s black silk +neckerchief was not knotted on his breast. It was gone. +The murderers had also taken off his shoes and stockings. And +noticing this spoliation, the exposed throat, the bare up-turned feet, +Byrne felt his eyes run full of tears. In other respects the seaman +was fully dressed; neither was his clothing disarranged as it must have +been in a violent struggle. Only his checked shirt had been pulled +a little out the waistband in one place, just enough to ascertain whether +he had a money belt fastened round his body. Byrne began to sob +into his handkerchief.</p> +<p>It was a nervous outburst which passed off quickly. Remaining +on his knees he contemplated sadly the athletic body of as fine a seaman +as ever had drawn a cutlass, laid a gun, or passed the weather earring +in a gale, lying stiff and cold, his cheery, fearless spirit departed—perhaps +turning to him, his boy chum, to his ship out there rolling on the grey +seas off an iron-bound coast, at the very moment of its flight.</p> +<p>He perceived that the six brass buttons of Tom’s jacket had +been cut off. He shuddered at the notion of the two miserable +and repulsive witches busying themselves ghoulishly about the defenceless +body of his friend. Cut off. Perhaps with the same knife +which . . . The head of one trembled; the other was bent double, and +their eyes were red and bleared, their infamous claws unsteady. . . +It must have been in this very room too, for Tom could not have been +killed in the open and brought in here afterwards. Of that Byrne +was certain. Yet those devilish crones could not have killed him +themselves even by taking him unawares—and Tom would be always +on his guard of course. Tom was a very wide awake wary man when +engaged on any service. . . And in fact how did they murder him? +Who did? In what way?</p> +<p>Byrne jumped up, snatched the lamp off the table, and stooped swiftly +over the body. The light revealed on the clothing no stain, no +trace, no spot of blood anywhere. Byrne’s hands began to +shake so that he had to set the lamp on the floor and turn away his +head in order to recover from this agitation.</p> +<p>Then he began to explore that cold, still, and rigid body for a stab, +a gunshot wound, for the trace of some killing blow. He felt all +over the skull anxiously. It was whole. He slipped his hand +under the neck. It was unbroken. With terrified eyes he +peered close under the chin and saw no marks of strangulation on the +throat.</p> +<p>There were no signs anywhere. He was just dead.</p> +<p>Impulsively Byrne got away from the body as if the mystery of an +incomprehensible death had changed his pity into suspicion and dread. +The lamp on the floor near the set, still face of the seaman showed +it staring at the ceiling as if despairingly. In the circle of +light Byrne saw by the undisturbed patches of thick dust on the floor +that there had been no struggle in that room. “He has died +outside,” he thought. Yes, outside in that narrow corridor, +where there was hardly room to turn, the mysterious death had come to +his poor dear Tom. The impulse of snatching up his pistols and +rushing out of the room abandoned Byrne suddenly. For Tom, too, +had been armed—with just such powerless weapons as he himself +possessed—pistols, a cutlass! And Tom had died a nameless +death, by incomprehensible means.</p> +<p>A new thought came to Byrne. That stranger knocking at the +door and fleeing so swiftly at his appearance had come there to remove +the body. Aha! That was the guide the withered witch had +promised would show the English officer the shortest way of rejoining +his man. A promise, he saw it now, of dreadful import. He +who had knocked would have two bodies to deal with. Man and officer +would go forth from the house together. For Byrne was certain +now that he would have to die before the morning—and in the same +mysterious manner, leaving behind him an unmarked body.</p> +<p>The sight of a smashed head, of a throat cut, of a gaping gunshot +wound, would have been an inexpressible relief. It would have +soothed all his fears. His soul cried within him to that dead +man whom he had never found wanting in danger. “Why don’t +you tell me what I am to look for, Tom? Why don’t you?” +But in rigid immobility, extended on his back, he seemed to preserve +an austere silence, as if disdaining in the finality of his awful knowledge +to hold converse with the living.</p> +<p>Suddenly Byrne flung himself on his knees by the side of the body, +and dry-eyed, fierce, opened the shirt wide on the breast, as if to +tear the secret forcibly from that cold heart which had been so loyal +to him in life! Nothing! Nothing! He raised the lamp, +and all the sign vouchsafed to him by that face which used to be so +kindly in expression was a small bruise on the forehead—the least +thing, a mere mark. The skin even was not broken. He stared +at it a long time as if lost in a dreadful dream. Then he observed +that Tom’s hands were clenched as though he had fallen facing +somebody in a fight with fists. His knuckles, on closer view, +appeared somewhat abraded. Both hands.</p> +<p>The discovery of these slight signs was more appalling to Byrne than +the absolute absence of every mark would have been. So Tom had +died striking against something which could be hit, and yet could kill +one without leaving a wound—by a breath.</p> +<p>Terror, hot terror, began to play about Byrne’s heart like +a tongue of flame that touches and withdraws before it turns a thing +to ashes. He backed away from the body as far as he could, then +came forward stealthily casting fearful glances to steal another look +at the bruised forehead. There would perhaps be such a faint bruise +on his own forehead—before the morning.</p> +<p>“I can’t bear it,” he whispered to himself. +Tom was for him now an object of horror, a sight at once tempting and +revolting to his fear. He couldn’t bear to look at him.</p> +<p>At last, desperation getting the better of his increasing horror, +he stepped forward from the wall against which he had been leaning, +seized the corpse under the armpits, and began to lug it over to the +bed. The bare heels of the seaman trailed on the floor noiselessly. +He was heavy with the dead weight of inanimate objects. With a +last effort Byrne landed him face downwards on the edge of the bed, +rolled him over, snatched from under this stiff passive thing a sheet +with which he covered it over. Then he spread the curtains at +head and foot so that joining together as he shook their folds they +hid the bed altogether from his sight.</p> +<p>He stumbled towards a chair, and fell on it. The perspiration +poured from his face for a moment, and then his veins seemed to carry +for a while a thin stream of half, frozen blood. Complete terror +had possession of him now, a nameless terror which had turned his heart +to ashes.</p> +<p>He sat upright in the straight-backed chair, the lamp burning at +his feet, his pistols and his hanger at his left elbow on the end of +the table, his eyes turning incessantly in their sockets round the walls, +over the ceiling, over the floor, in the expectation of a mysterious +and appalling vision. The thing which could deal death in a breath +was outside that bolted door. But Byrne believed neither in walls +nor bolts now. Unreasoning terror turning everything to account, +his old time boyish admiration of the athletic Tom, the undaunted Tom +(he had seemed to him invincible), helped to paralyse his faculties, +added to his despair.</p> +<p>He was no longer Edgar Byrne. He was a tortured soul suffering +more anguish than any sinner’s body had ever suffered from rack +or boot. The depth of his torment may be measured when I say that +this young man, as brave at least as the average of his kind, contemplated +seizing a pistol and firing into his own head. But a deadly, chilly, +langour was spreading over his limbs. It was as if his flesh had +been wet plaster stiffening slowly about his ribs. Presently, +he thought, the two witches will be coming in, with crutch and stick—horrible, +grotesque, monstrous—affiliated to the devil—to put a mark +on his forehead, the tiny little bruise of death. And he wouldn’t +be able to do anything. Tom had struck out at something, but he +was not like Tom. His limbs were dead already. He sat still, +dying the death over and over again; and the only part of him which +moved were his eyes, turning round and round in their sockets, running +over the walls, the floor, the ceiling, again and again till suddenly +they became motionless and stony-starting out of his head fixed in the +direction of the bed.</p> +<p>He had seen the heavy curtains stir and shake as if the dead body +they concealed had turned over and sat up. Byrne, who thought +the world could hold no more terrors in store, felt his hair stir at +the roots. He gripped the arms of the chair, his jaw fell, and +the sweat broke out on his brow while his dry tongue clove suddenly +to the roof of his mouth. Again the curtains stirred, but did +not open. “Don’t, Tom!” Byrne made effort to +shout, but all he heard was a slight moan such as an uneasy sleeper +may make. He felt that his brain was going, for, now, it seemed +to him that the ceiling over the bed had moved, had slanted, and came +level again—and once more the closed curtains swayed gently as +if about to part.</p> +<p>Byrne closed his eyes not to see the awful apparition of the seaman’s +corpse coming out animated by an evil spirit. In the profound +silence of the room he endured a moment of frightful agony, then opened +his eyes again. And he saw at once that the curtains remained +closed still, but that the ceiling over the bed had risen quite a foot. +With the last gleam of reason left to him he understood that it was +the enormous baldaquin over the bed which was coming down, while the +curtains attached to it swayed softly, sinking gradually to the floor. +His drooping jaw snapped to—and half rising in his chair he watched +mutely the noiseless descent of the monstrous canopy. It came +down in short smooth rushes till lowered half way or more, when it took +a run and settled swiftly its turtle-back shape with the deep border +piece fitting exactly the edge of the bedstead. A slight crack +or two of wood were heard, and the overpowering stillness of the room +resumed its sway.</p> +<p>Byrne stood up, gasped for breath, and let out a cry of rage and +dismay, the first sound which he is perfectly certain did make its way +past his lips on this night of terrors. This then was the death +he had escaped! This was the devilish artifice of murder poor +Tom’s soul had perhaps tried from beyond the border to warn him +of. For this was how he had died. Byrne was certain he had +heard the voice of the seaman, faintly distinct in his familiar phrase, +“Mr. Byrne! Look out, sir!” and again uttering words +he could not make out. But then the distance separating the living +from the dead is so great! Poor Tom had tried. Byrne ran +to the bed and attempted to lift up, to push off the horrible lid smothering +the body. It resisted his efforts, heavy as lead, immovable like +a tombstone. The rage of vengeance made him desist; his head buzzed +with chaotic thoughts of extermination, he turned round the room as +if he could find neither his weapons nor the way out; and all the time +he stammered awful menaces. . .</p> +<p>A violent battering at the door of the inn recalled him to his soberer +senses. He flew to the window pulled the shutters open, and looked +out. In the faint dawn he saw below him a mob of men. Ha! +He would go and face at once this murderous lot collected no doubt for +his undoing. After his struggle with nameless terrors he yearned +for an open fray with armed enemies. But he must have remained +yet bereft of his reason, because forgetting his weapons he rushed downstairs +with a wild cry, unbarred the door while blows were raining on it outside, +and flinging it open flew with his bare hands at the throat of the first +man he saw before him. They rolled over together. Byrne’s +hazy intention was to break through, to fly up the mountain path, and +come back presently with Gonzales’ men to exact an exemplary vengeance. +He fought furiously till a tree, a house, a mountain, seemed to crash +down upon his head—and he knew no more.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>Here Mr. Byrne describes in detail the skilful manner in which he +found his broken head bandaged, informs us that he had lost a great +deal of blood, and ascribes the preservation of his sanity to that circumstance. +He sets down Gonzales’ profuse apologies in full too. For +it was Gonzales who, tired of waiting for news from the English, had +come down to the inn with half his band, on his way to the sea. +“His excellency,” he explained, “rushed out with fierce +impetuosity, and, moreover, was not known to us for a friend, and so +we . . . etc., etc. When asked what had become of the witches, +he only pointed his finger silently to the ground, then voiced calmly +a moral reflection: “The passion for gold is pitiless in the very +old, señor,” he said. “No doubt in former days +they have put many a solitary traveller to sleep in the archbishop’s +bed.”</p> +<p>“There was also a gipsy girl there,” said Byrne feebly +from the improvised litter on which he was being carried to the coast +by a squad of guerilleros.</p> +<p>“It was she who winched up that infernal machine, and it was +she too who lowered it that night,” was the answer.</p> +<p>“But why? Why?” exclaimed Byrne. “Why +should she wish for my death?”</p> +<p>“No doubt for the sake of your excellency’s coat buttons,” +said politely the saturnine Gonzales. “We found those of +the dead mariner concealed on her person. But your excellency +may rest assured that everything that is fitting has been done on this +occasion.”</p> +<p>Byrne asked no more questions. There was still another death +which was considered by Gonzales as “fitting to the occasion.” +The one-eyed Bernardino stuck against the wall of his wine-shop received +the charge of six escopettas into his breast. As the shots rang +out the rough bier with Tom’s body on it went past carried by +a bandit-like gang of Spanish patriots down the ravine to the shore, +where two boats from the ship were waiting for what was left on earth +of her best seaman.</p> +<p>Mr. Byrne, very pale and weak, stepped into the boat which carried +the body of his humble friend. For it was decided that Tom Corbin +should rest far out in the bay of Biscay. The officer took the +tiller and, turning his head for the last look at the shore, saw on +the grey hillside something moving, which he made out to be a little +man in a yellow hat mounted on a mule—that mule without which +the fate of Tom Corbin would have remained mysterious for ever.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>June, 1913.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>BECAUSE OF THE DOLLARS</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>While we were hanging about near the water’s edge, as sailors +idling ashore will do (it was in the open space before the Harbour Office +of a great Eastern port), a man came towards us from the “front” +of business houses, aiming obliquely at the landing steps. He +attracted my attention because in the movement of figures in white drill +suits on the pavement from which he stepped, his costume, the usual +tunic and trousers, being made of light grey flannel, made him noticeable.</p> +<p>I had time to observe him. He was stout, but he was not grotesque. +His face was round and smooth, his complexion very fair. On his +nearer approach I saw a little moustache made all the fairer by a good +many white hairs. And he had, for a stout man, quite a good chin. +In passing us he exchanged nods with the friend I was with and smiled.</p> +<p>My friend was Hollis, the fellow who had so many adventures and had +known so many queer people in that part of the (more or less) gorgeous +East in the days of his youth. He said: “That’s a +good man. I don’t mean good in the sense of smart or skilful +in his trade. I mean a really <i>good</i> man.”</p> +<p>I turned round at once to look at the phenomenon. The “really +<i>good</i> man” had a very broad back. I saw him signal +a sampan to come alongside, get into it, and go off in the direction +of a cluster of local steamers anchored close inshore.</p> +<p>I said: “He’s a seaman, isn’t he?”</p> +<p>“Yes. Commands that biggish dark-green steamer: ‘<i>Sissie</i>—Glasgow.’ +He has never commanded anything else but the <i>‘Sissie—</i>Glasgow,’ +only it wasn’t always the same <i>Sissie</i>. The first +he had was about half the length of this one, and we used to tell poor +Davidson that she was a size too small for him. Even at that time +Davidson had bulk. We warned him he would get callosities on his +shoulders and elbows because of the tight fit of his command. +And Davidson could well afford the smiles he gave us for our chaff. +He made lots of money in her. She belonged to a portly Chinaman +resembling a mandarin in a picture-book, with goggles and thin drooping +moustaches, and as dignified as only a Celestial knows how to be.</p> +<p>“The best of Chinamen as employers is that they have such gentlemanly +instincts. Once they become convinced that you are a straight +man, they give you their unbounded confidence. You simply can’t +do wrong, then. And they are pretty quick judges of character, +too. Davidson’s Chinaman was the first to find out his worth, +on some theoretical principle. One day in his counting-house, +before several white men he was heard to declare: ‘Captain Davidson +is a good man.’ And that settled it. After that you +couldn’t tell if it was Davidson who belonged to the Chinaman +or the Chinaman who belonged to Davidson. It was he who, shortly +before he died, ordered in Glasgow the new <i>Sissie</i> for Davidson +to command.”</p> +<p>We walked into the shade of the Harbour Office and leaned our elbows +on the parapet of the quay.</p> +<p>“She was really meant to comfort poor Davidson,” continued +Hollis. “Can you fancy anything more naïvely touching +than this old mandarin spending several thousand pounds to console his +white man? Well, there she is. The old mandarin’s +sons have inherited her, and Davidson with her; and he commands her; +and what with his salary and trading privileges he makes a lot of money; +and everything is as before; and Davidson even smiles—you have +seen it? Well, the smile’s the only thing which isn’t +as before.”</p> +<p>“Tell me, Hollis,” I asked, “what do you mean by +good in this connection?”</p> +<p>“Well, there are men who are born good just as others are born +witty. What I mean is his nature. No simpler, more scrupulously +delicate soul had ever lived in such a—a—comfortable envelope. +How we used to laugh at Davidson’s fine scruples! In short, +he’s thoroughly humane, and I don’t imagine there can be +much of any other sort of goodness that counts on this earth. +And as he’s that with a shade of particular refinement, I may +well call him a ‘<i>really</i> good man.’”</p> +<p>I knew from old that Hollis was a firm believer in the final value +of shades. And I said: “I see”—because I really +did see Hollis’s Davidson in the sympathetic stout man who had +passed us a little while before. But I remembered that at the +very moment he smiled his placid face appeared veiled in melancholy—a +sort of spiritual shadow. I went on.</p> +<p>“Who on earth has paid him off for being so fine by spoiling +his smile?”</p> +<p>“That’s quite a story, and I will tell it to you if you +like. Confound it! It’s quite a surprising one, too. +Surprising in every way, but mostly in the way it knocked over poor +Davidson—and apparently only because he is such a good sort. +He was telling me all about it only a few days ago. He said that +when he saw these four fellows with their heads in a bunch over the +table, he at once didn’t like it. He didn’t like it +at all. You mustn’t suppose that Davidson is a soft fool. +These men -</p> +<p>“But I had better begin at the beginning. We must go +back to the first time the old dollars had been called in by our Government +in exchange for a new issue. Just about the time when I left these +parts to go home for a long stay. Every trader in the islands +was thinking of getting his old dollars sent up here in time, and the +demand for empty French wine cases—you know the dozen of vermouth +or claret size—was something unprecedented. The custom was +to pack the dollars in little bags of a hundred each. I don’t +know how many bags each case would hold. A good lot. Pretty +tidy sums must have been moving afloat just then. But let us get +away from here. Won’t do to stay in the sun. Where +could we—? I know! let us go to those tiffin-rooms over +there.”</p> +<p>We moved over accordingly. Our appearance in the long empty +room at that early hour caused visible consternation amongst the China +boys. But Hollis led the way to one of the tables between the +windows screened by rattan blinds. A brilliant half-light trembled +on the ceiling, on the whitewashed walls, bathed the multitude of vacant +chairs and tables in a peculiar, stealthy glow.</p> +<p>“All right. We will get something to eat when it’s +ready,” he said, waving the anxious Chinaman waiter aside. +He took his temples touched with grey between his hands, leaning over +the table to bring his face, his dark, keen eyes, closer to mine.</p> +<p>“Davidson then was commanding the steamer <i>Sissie—</i>the +little one which we used to chaff him about. He ran her alone, +with only the Malay serang for a deck officer. The nearest approach +to another white man on board of her was the engineer, a Portuguese +half-caste, as thin as a lath and quite a youngster at that. For +all practical purposes Davidson was managing that command of his single-handed; +and of course this was known in the port. I am telling you of +it because the fact had its influence on the developments you shall +hear of presently.</p> +<p>“His steamer, being so small, could go up tiny creeks and into +shallow bays and through reefs and over sand-banks, collecting produce, +where no other vessel but a native craft would think of venturing. +It is a paying game, often. Davidson was known to visit in her +places that no one else could find and that hardly anybody had ever +heard of.</p> +<p>“The old dollars being called in, Davidson’s Chinaman +thought that the <i>Sissie</i> would be just the thing to collect them +from small traders in the less frequented parts of the Archipelago. +It’s a good business. Such cases of dollars are dumped aft +in the ship’s lazarette, and you get good freight for very little +trouble and space.</p> +<p>“Davidson, too, thought it was a good idea; and together they +made up a list of his calls on his next trip. Then Davidson (he +had naturally the chart of his voyages in his head) remarked that on +his way back he might look in at a certain settlement up a mere creek, +where a poor sort of white man lived in a native village. Davidson +pointed out to his Chinaman that the fellow was certain to have some +rattans to ship.</p> +<p>“‘Probably enough to fill her forward,’ said Davidson. +‘And that’ll be better than bringing her back with empty +holds. A day more or less doesn’t matter.’</p> +<p>“This was sound talk, and the Chinaman owner could not but +agree. But if it hadn’t been sound it would have been just +the same. Davidson did what he liked. He was a man that +could do no wrong. However, this suggestion of his was not merely +a business matter. There was in it a touch of Davidsonian kindness. +For you must know that the man could not have continued to live quietly +up that creek if it had not been for Davidson’s willingness to +call there from time to time. And Davidson’s Chinaman knew +this perfectly well, too. So he only smiled his dignified, bland +smile, and said: ‘All right, Captain. You do what you like.’</p> +<p>“I will explain presently how this connection between Davidson +and that fellow came about. Now I want to tell you about the part +of this affair which happened here—the preliminaries of it.</p> +<p>“You know as well as I do that these tiffin-rooms where we +are sitting now have been in existence for many years. Well, next +day about twelve o’clock, Davidson dropped in here to get something +to eat.</p> +<p>“And here comes the only moment in this story where accident—mere +accident—plays a part. If Davidson had gone home that day +for tiffin, there would be now, after twelve years or more, nothing +changed in his kindly, placid smile.</p> +<p>“But he came in here; and perhaps it was sitting at this very +table that he remarked to a friend of mine that his next trip was to +be a dollar-collecting trip. He added, laughing, that his wife +was making rather a fuss about it. She had begged him to stay +ashore and get somebody else to take his place for a voyage. She +thought there was some danger on account of the dollars. He told +her, he said, that there were no Java-sea pirates nowadays except in +boys’ books. He had laughed at her fears, but he was very +sorry, too; for when she took any notion in her head it was impossible +to argue her out of it. She would be worrying herself all the +time he was away. Well, he couldn’t help it. There +was no one ashore fit to take his place for the trip.</p> +<p>“This friend of mine and I went home together in the same mail-boat, +and he mentioned that conversation one evening in the Red Sea while +we were talking over the things and people we had just left, with more +or less regret.</p> +<p>“I can’t say that Davidson occupied a very prominent +place. Moral excellence seldom does. He was quietly appreciated +by those who knew him well; but his more obvious distinction consisted +in this, that he was married. Ours, as you remember, was a bachelor +crowd; in spirit anyhow, if not absolutely in fact. There might +have been a few wives in existence, but if so they were invisible, distant, +never alluded to. For what would have been the good? Davidson +alone was visibly married.</p> +<p>“Being married suited him exactly. It fitted him so well +that the wildest of us did not resent the fact when it was disclosed. +Directly he had felt his feet out here, Davidson sent for his wife. +She came out (from West Australia) in the <i>Somerset</i>, under the +care of Captain Ritchie—you know, Monkey-face Ritchie—who +couldn’t praise enough her sweetness, her gentleness, and her +charm. She seemed to be the heaven-born mate for Davidson. +She found on arrival a very pretty bungalow on the hill, ready for her +and the little girl they had. Very soon he got for her a two-wheeled +trap and a Burmah pony, and she used to drive down of an evening to +pick up Davidson, on the quay. When Davidson, beaming, got into +the trap, it would become very full all at once.</p> +<p>“We used to admire Mrs. Davidson from a distance. It +was a girlish head out of a keepsake. From a distance. We +had not many opportunities for a closer view, because she did not care +to give them to us. We would have been glad to drop in at the +Davidson bungalow, but we were made to feel somehow that we were not +very welcome there. Not that she ever said anything ungracious. +She never had much to say for herself. I was perhaps the one who +saw most of the Davidsons at home. What I noticed under the superficial +aspect of vapid sweetness was her convex, obstinate forehead, and her +small, red, pretty, ungenerous mouth. But then I am an observer +with strong prejudices. Most of us were fetched by her white, +swan-like neck, by that drooping, innocent profile. There was +a lot of latent devotion to Davidson’s wife hereabouts, at that +time, I can tell you. But my idea was that she repaid it by a +profound suspicion of the sort of men we were; a mistrust which extended—I +fancied—to her very husband at times. And I thought then +she was jealous of him in a way; though there were no women that she +could be jealous about. She had no women’s society. +It’s difficult for a shipmaster’s wife unless there are +other shipmasters’ wives about, and there were none here then. +I know that the dock manager’s wife called on her; but that was +all. The fellows here formed the opinion that Mrs. Davidson was +a meek, shy little thing. She looked it, I must say. And +this opinion was so universal that the friend I have been telling you +of remembered his conversation with Davidson simply because of the statement +about Davidson’s wife. He even wondered to me: ‘Fancy +Mrs. Davidson making a fuss to that extent. She didn’t seem +to me the sort of woman that would know how to make a fuss about anything.’</p> +<p>“I wondered, too—but not so much. That bumpy forehead—eh? +I had always suspected her of being silly. And I observed that +Davidson must have been vexed by this display of wifely anxiety.</p> +<p>“My friend said: ‘No. He seemed rather touched +and distressed. There really was no one he could ask to relieve +him; mainly because he intended to make a call in some God-forsaken +creek, to look up a fellow of the name of Bamtz who apparently had settled +there.’</p> +<p>“And again my friend wondered. ‘Tell me,’ +he cried, ‘what connection can there be between Davidson and such +a creature as Bamtz?’</p> +<p>“I don’t remember now what answer I made. A sufficient +one could have been given in two words: ‘Davidson’s goodness.’ +<i>That</i> never boggled at unworthiness if there was the slightest +reason for compassion. I don’t want you to think that Davidson +had no discrimination at all. Bamtz could not have imposed on +him. Moreover, everybody knew what Bamtz was. He was a loafer +with a beard. When I think of Bamtz, the first thing I see is +that long black beard and a lot of propitiatory wrinkles at the corners +of two little eyes. There was no such beard from here to Polynesia, +where a beard is a valuable property in itself. Bamtz’s +beard was valuable to him in another way. You know how impressed +Orientals are by a fine beard. Years and years ago, I remember, +the grave Abdullah, the great trader of Sambir, unable to repress signs +of astonishment and admiration at the first sight of that imposing beard. +And it’s very well known that Bamtz lived on Abdullah off and +on for several years. It was a unique beard, and so was the bearer +of the same. A unique loafer. He made a fine art of it, +or rather a sort of craft and mystery. One can understand a fellow +living by cadging and small swindles in towns, in large communities +of people; but Bamtz managed to do that trick in the wilderness, to +loaf on the outskirts of the virgin forest.</p> +<p>“He understood how to ingratiate himself with the natives. +He would arrive in some settlement up a river, make a present of a cheap +carbine or a pair of shoddy binoculars, or something of that sort, to +the Rajah, or the head-man, or the principal trader; and on the strength +of that gift, ask for a house, posing mysteriously as a very special +trader. He would spin them no end of yarns, live on the fat of +the land, for a while, and then do some mean swindle or other—or +else they would get tired of him and ask him to quit. And he would +go off meekly with an air of injured innocence. Funny life. +Yet, he never got hurt somehow. I’ve heard of the Rajah +of Dongala giving him fifty dollars’ worth of trade goods and +paying his passage in a prau only to get rid of him. Fact. +And observe that nothing prevented the old fellow having Bamtz’s +throat cut and the carcase thrown into deep water outside the reefs; +for who on earth would have inquired after Bamtz?</p> +<p>“He had been known to loaf up and down the wilderness as far +north as the Gulf of Tonkin. Neither did he disdain a spell of +civilisation from time to time. And it was while loafing and cadging +in Saigon, bearded and dignified (he gave himself out there as a bookkeeper), +that he came across Laughing Anne.</p> +<p>“The less said of her early history the better, but something +must be said. We may safely suppose there was very little heart +left in her famous laugh when Bamtz spoke first to her in some low café. +She was stranded in Saigon with precious little money and in great trouble +about a kid she had, a boy of five or six.</p> +<p>“A fellow I just remember, whom they called Pearler Harry, +brought her out first into these parts—from Australia, I believe. +He brought her out and then dropped her, and she remained knocking about +here and there, known to most of us by sight, at any rate. Everybody +in the Archipelago had heard of Laughing Anne. She had really +a pleasant silvery laugh always at her disposal, so to speak, but it +wasn’t enough apparently to make her fortune. The poor creature +was ready to stick to any half-decent man if he would only let her, +but she always got dropped, as it might have been expected.</p> +<p>“She had been left in Saigon by the skipper of a German ship +with whom she had been going up and down the China coast as far as Vladivostok +for near upon two years. The German said to her: ‘This is +all over, <i>mein Taubchen</i>. I am going home now to get married +to the girl I got engaged to before coming out here.’ And +Anne said: ‘All right, I’m ready to go. We part friends, +don’t we?’</p> +<p>“She was always anxious to part friends. The German told +her that of course they were parting friends. He looked rather +glum at the moment of parting. She laughed and went ashore.</p> +<p>“But it was no laughing matter for her. She had some +notion that this would be her last chance. What frightened her +most was the future of her child. She had left her boy in Saigon +before going off with the German, in the care of an elderly French couple. +The husband was a doorkeeper in some Government office, but his time +was up, and they were returning to France. She had to take the +boy back from them; and after she had got him back, she did not like +to part with him any more.</p> +<p>“That was the situation when she and Bamtz got acquainted casually. +She could not have had any illusions about that fellow. To pick +up with Bamtz was coming down pretty low in the world, even from a material +point of view. She had always been decent, in her way; whereas +Bamtz was, not to mince words, an abject sort of creature. On +the other hand, that bearded loafer, who looked much more like a pirate +than a bookkeeper, was not a brute. He was gentle—rather—even +in his cups. And then, despair, like misfortune, makes us acquainted +with strange bed-fellows. For she may well have despaired. +She was no longer young—you know.</p> +<p>“On the man’s side this conjunction is more difficult +to explain, perhaps. One thing, however, must be said of Bamtz; +he had always kept clear of native women. As one can’t suspect +him of moral delicacy, I surmise that it must have been from prudence. +And he, too, was no longer young. There were many white hairs +in his valuable black beard by then. He may have simply longed +for some kind of companionship in his queer, degraded existence. +Whatever their motives, they vanished from Saigon together. And +of course nobody cared what had become of them.</p> +<p>“Six months later Davidson came into the Mirrah Settlement. +It was the very first time he had been up that creek, where no European +vessel had ever been seen before. A Javanese passenger he had +on board offered him fifty dollars to call in there—it must have +been some very particular business—and Davidson consented to try. +Fifty dollars, he told me, were neither here nor there; but he was curious +to see the place, and the little <i>Sissie</i> could go anywhere where +there was water enough to float a soup-plate.</p> +<p>“Davidson landed his Javanese plutocrat, and, as he had to +wait a couple of hours for the tide, he went ashore himself to stretch +his legs.</p> +<p>“It was a small settlement. Some sixty houses, most of +them built on piles over the river, the rest scattered in the long grass; +the usual pathway at the back; the forest hemming in the clearing and +smothering what there might have been of air into a dead, hot stagnation.</p> +<p>“All the population was on the river-bank staring silently, +as Malays will do, at the <i>Sissie</i> anchored in the stream. +She was almost as wonderful to them as an angel’s visit. +Many of the old people had only heard vaguely of fire-ships, and not +many of the younger generation had seen one. On the back path +Davidson strolled in perfect solitude. But he became aware of +a bad smell and concluded he would go no farther.</p> +<p>“While he stood wiping his forehead, he heard from somewhere +the exclamation: ‘My God! It’s Davy!’</p> +<p>“Davidson’s lower jaw, as he expressed it, came unhooked +at the crying of this excited voice. Davy was the name used by +the associates of his young days; he hadn’t heard it for many +years. He stared about with his mouth open and saw a white woman +issue from the long grass in which a small hut stood buried nearly up +to the roof.</p> +<p>“Try to imagine the shock: in that wild place that you couldn’t +find on a map, and more squalid than the most poverty-stricken Malay +settlement had a right to be, this European woman coming swishing out +of the long grass in a fanciful tea-gown thing, dingy pink satin, with +a long train and frayed lace trimmings; her eyes like black coals in +a pasty-white face. Davidson thought that he was asleep, that +he was delirious. From the offensive village mudhole (it was what +Davidson had sniffed just before) a couple of filthy buffaloes uprose +with loud snorts and lumbered off crashing through the bushes, panic-struck +by this apparition.</p> +<p>“The woman came forward, her arms extended, and laid her hands +on Davidson’s shoulders, exclaiming: ‘Why! You have +hardly changed at all. The same good Davy.’ And she +laughed a little wildly.</p> +<p>“This sound was to Davidson like a galvanic shock to a corpse. +He started in every muscle. ‘Laughing Anne,’ he said +in an awe-struck voice.</p> +<p>“‘All that’s left of her, Davy. All that’s +left of her.’</p> +<p>“Davidson looked up at the sky; but there was to be seen no +balloon from which she could have fallen on that spot. When he +brought his distracted gaze down, it rested on a child holding on with +a brown little paw to the pink satin gown. He had run out of the +grass after her. Had Davidson seen a real hobgoblin his eyes could +not have bulged more than at this small boy in a dirty white blouse +and ragged knickers. He had a round head of tight chestnut curls, +very sunburnt legs, a freckled face, and merry eyes. Admonished +by his mother to greet the gentleman, he finished off Davidson by addressing +him in French.</p> +<p>“‘<i>Bonjour</i>.’</p> +<p>“Davidson, overcome, looked up at the woman in silence. +She sent the child back to the hut, and when he had disappeared in the +grass, she turned to Davidson, tried to speak, but after getting out +the words, ‘That’s my Tony,’ burst into a long fit +of crying. She had to lean on Davidson’s shoulder. +He, distressed in the goodness of his heart, stood rooted to the spot +where she had come upon him.</p> +<p>“What a meeting—eh? Bamtz had sent her out to see +what white man it was who had landed. And she had recognised him +from that time when Davidson, who had been pearling himself in his youth, +had been associating with Harry the Pearler and others, the quietest +of a rather rowdy set.</p> +<p>“Before Davidson retraced his steps to go on board the steamer, +he had heard much of Laughing Anne’s story, and had even had an +interview, on the path, with Bamtz himself. She ran back to the +hut to fetch him, and he came out lounging, with his hands in his pockets, +with the detached, casual manner under which he concealed his propensity +to cringe. Ya-a-as-as. He thought he would settle here permanently—with +her. This with a nod at Laughing Anne, who stood by, a haggard, +tragically anxious figure, her black hair hanging over her shoulders.</p> +<p>“‘No more paint and dyes for me, Davy,’ she struck +in, ‘if only you will do what he wants you to do. You know +that I was always ready to stand by my men—if they had only let +me.’</p> +<p>“Davidson had no doubt of her earnestness. It was of +Bamtz’s good faith that he was not at all sure. Bamtz wanted +Davidson to promise to call at Mirrah more or less regularly. +He thought he saw an opening to do business with rattans there, if only +he could depend on some craft to bring out trading goods and take away +his produce.</p> +<p>“‘I have a few dollars to make a start on. The +people are all right.’</p> +<p>“He had come there, where he was not known, in a native prau, +and had managed, with his sedate manner and the exactly right kind of +yarn he knew how to tell to the natives, to ingratiate himself with +the chief man.</p> +<p>“‘The Orang Kaya has given me that empty house there +to live in as long as I will stay,’ added Bamtz.</p> +<p>“‘Do it, Davy,’ cried the woman suddenly. +‘Think of that poor kid.’</p> +<p>“‘Seen him? ‘Cute little customer,’ +said the reformed loafer in such a tone of interest as to surprise Davidson +into a kindly glance.</p> +<p>“‘I certainly can do it,’ he declared. He +thought of at first making some stipulation as to Bamtz behaving decently +to the woman, but his exaggerated delicacy and also the conviction that +such a fellow’s promises were worth nothing restrained him. +Anne went a little distance down the path with him talking anxiously.</p> +<p>“‘It’s for the kid. How could I have kept +him with me if I had to knock about in towns? Here he will never +know that his mother was a painted woman. And this Bamtz likes +him. He’s real fond of him. I suppose I ought to thank +God for that.’</p> +<p>“Davidson shuddered at any human creature being brought so +low as to have to thank God for the favours or affection of a Bamtz.</p> +<p>“‘And do you think that you can make out to live here?’ +he asked gently.</p> +<p>“‘Can’t I? You know I have always stuck to +men through thick and thin till they had enough of me. And now +look at me! But inside I am as I always was. I have acted +on the square to them all one after another. Only they do get +tired somehow. Oh, Davy! Harry ought not to have cast me +off. It was he that led me astray.’</p> +<p>“Davidson mentioned to her that Harry the Pearler had been +dead now for some years. Perhaps she had heard?</p> +<p>“She made a sign that she had heard; and walked by the side +of Davidson in silence nearly to the bank. Then she told him that +her meeting with him had brought back the old times to her mind. +She had not cried for years. She was not a crying woman either. +It was hearing herself called Laughing Anne that had started her sobbing +like a fool. Harry was the only man she had loved. The others +-</p> +<p>“She shrugged her shoulders. But she prided herself on +her loyalty to the successive partners of her dismal adventures. +She had never played any tricks in her life. She was a pal worth +having. But men did get tired. They did not understand women. +She supposed it had to be.</p> +<p>“Davidson was attempting a veiled warning as to Bamtz, but +she interrupted him. She knew what men were. She knew what +this man was like. But he had taken wonderfully to the kid. +And Davidson desisted willingly, saying to himself that surely poor +Laughing Anne could have no illusions by this time. She wrung +his hand hard at parting.</p> +<p>“‘It’s for the kid, Davy—it’s for the +kid. Isn’t he a bright little chap?’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>“All this happened about two years before the day when Davidson, +sitting in this very room, talked to my friend. You will see presently +how this room can get full. Every seat’ll be occupied, and +as you notice, the tables are set close, so that the backs of the chairs +are almost touching. There is also a good deal of noisy talk here +about one o’clock.</p> +<p>“I don’t suppose Davidson was talking very loudly; but +very likely he had to raise his voice across the table to my friend. +And here accident, mere accident, put in its work by providing a pair +of fine ears close behind Davidson’s chair. It was ten to +one against, the owner of the same having enough change in his pockets +to get his tiffin here. But he had. Most likely had rooked +somebody of a few dollars at cards overnight. He was a bright +creature of the name of Fector, a spare, short, jumpy fellow with a +red face and muddy eyes. He described himself as a journalist +as certain kind of women give themselves out as actresses in the dock +of a police-court.</p> +<p>“He used to introduce himself to strangers as a man with a +mission to track out abuses and fight them whenever found. He +would also hint that he was a martyr. And it’s a fact that +he had been kicked, horsewhipped, imprisoned, and hounded with ignominy +out of pretty well every place between Ceylon and Shanghai, for a professional +blackmailer.</p> +<p>“I suppose, in that trade, you’ve got to have active +wits and sharp ears. It’s not likely that he overheard every +word Davidson said about his dollar collecting trip, but he heard enough +to set his wits at work.</p> +<p>“He let Davidson go out, and then hastened away down to the +native slums to a sort of lodging-house kept in partnership by the usual +sort of Portuguese and a very disreputable Chinaman. Macao Hotel, +it was called, but it was mostly a gambling den that one used to warn +fellows against. Perhaps you remember?</p> +<p>“There, the evening before, Fector had met a precious couple, +a partnership even more queer than the Portuguese and the Chinaman. +One of the two was Niclaus—you know. Why! the fellow with +a Tartar moustache and a yellow complexion, like a Mongolian, only that +his eyes were set straight and his face was not so flat. One couldn’t +tell what breed he was. A nondescript beggar. From a certain +angle you would think a very bilious white man. And I daresay +he was. He owned a Malay prau and called himself The Nakhoda, +as one would say: The Captain. Aha! Now you remember. +He couldn’t, apparently, speak any other European language than +English, but he flew the Dutch flag on his prau.</p> +<p>“The other was the Frenchman without hands. Yes. +The very same we used to know in ‘79 in Sydney, keeping a little +tobacco shop at the lower end of George Street. You remember the +huge carcase hunched up behind the counter, the big white face and the +long black hair brushed back off a high forehead like a bard’s. +He was always trying to roll cigarettes on his knee with his stumps, +telling endless yarns of Polynesia and whining and cursing in turn about +‘<i>mon malheur</i>.’ His hands had been blown away +by a dynamite cartridge while fishing in some lagoon. This accident, +I believe, had made him more wicked than before, which is saying a good +deal.</p> +<p>“He was always talking about ‘resuming his activities’ +some day, whatever they were, if he could only get an intelligent companion. +It was evident that the little shop was no field for his activities, +and the sickly woman with her face tied up, who used to look in sometimes +through the back door, was no companion for him.</p> +<p>“And, true enough, he vanished from Sydney before long, after +some trouble with the Excise fellows about his stock. Goods stolen +out of a warehouse or something similar. He left the woman behind, +but he must have secured some sort of companion—he could not have +shifted for himself; but whom he went away with, and where, and what +other companions he might have picked up afterwards, it is impossible +to make the remotest guess about.</p> +<p>“Why exactly he came this way I can’t tell. Towards +the end of my time here we began to hear talk of a maimed Frenchman +who had been seen here and there. But no one knew then that he +had foregathered with Niclaus and lived in his prau. I daresay +he put Niclaus up to a thing or two. Anyhow, it was a partnership. +Niclaus was somewhat afraid of the Frenchman on account of his tempers, +which were awful. He looked then like a devil; but a man without +hands, unable to load or handle a weapon, can at best go for one only +with his teeth. From that danger Niclaus felt certain he could +always defend himself.</p> +<p>“The couple were alone together loafing in the common-room +of that infamous hotel when Fector turned up. After some beating +about the bush, for he was doubtful how far he could trust these two, +he repeated what he had overheard in the tiffin-rooms.</p> +<p>“His tale did not have much success till he came to mention +the creek and Bamtz’s name. Niclaus, sailing about like +a native in a prau, was, in his own words, ‘familiar with the +locality.’ The huge Frenchman, walking up and down the room +with his stumps in the pockets of his jacket, stopped short in surprise. +‘<i>Comment? Bamtz! Bamtz</i>!’</p> +<p>“He had run across him several times in his life. He +exclaimed: ‘<i>Bamtz</i>! <i>Mais je ne connais que</i> +<i>ca</i>!’ And he applied such a contemptuously indecent +epithet to Bamtz that when, later, he alluded to him as ‘<i>une +chiffe</i>’ (a mere rag) it sounded quite complimentary. +‘We can do with him what we like,’ he asserted confidently. +‘Oh, yes. Certainly we must hasten to pay a visit to that—’ +(another awful descriptive epithet quite unfit for repetition). +‘Devil take me if we don’t pull off a coup that will set +us all up for a long time.’</p> +<p>“He saw all that lot of dollars melted into bars and disposed +of somewhere on the China coast. Of the escape after the <i>coup</i> +he never doubted. There was Niclaus’s prau to manage that +in.</p> +<p>“In his enthusiasm he pulled his stumps out of his pockets +and waved them about. Then, catching sight of them, as it were, +he held them in front of his eyes, cursing and blaspheming and bewailing +his misfortune and his helplessness, till Niclaus quieted him down.</p> +<p>“But it was his mind that planned out the affair and it was +his spirit which carried the other two on. Neither of them was +of the bold buccaneer type; and Fector, especially, had never in his +adventurous life used other weapons than slander and lies.</p> +<p>“That very evening they departed on a visit to Bamtz in Niclaus’s +prau, which had been lying, emptied of her cargo of cocoanuts, for a +day or two under the canal bridge. They must have crossed the +bows of the anchored <i>Sissie</i>, and no doubt looked at her with +interest as the scene of their future exploit, the great haul, <i>le +grand coup</i>!</p> +<p>“Davidson’s wife, to his great surprise, sulked with +him for several days before he left. I don’t know whether +it occurred to him that, for all her angelic profile, she was a very +stupidly obstinate girl. She didn’t like the tropics. +He had brought her out there, where she had no friends, and now, she +said, he was becoming inconsiderate. She had a presentiment of +some misfortune, and notwithstanding Davidson’s painstaking explanations, +she could not see why her presentiments were to be disregarded. +On the very last evening before Davidson went away she asked him in +a suspicious manner:</p> +<p>“‘Why is it that you are so anxious to go this time?’</p> +<p>“‘I am not anxious,’ protested the good Davidson. +‘I simply can’t help myself. There’s no one +else to go in my place.’</p> +<p>“‘Oh! There’s no one,’ she said, turning +away slowly.</p> +<p>“She was so distant with him that evening that Davidson from +a sense of delicacy made up his mind to say good-bye to her at once +and go and sleep on board. He felt very miserable and, strangely +enough, more on his own account than on account of his wife. She +seemed to him much more offended than grieved.</p> +<p>“Three weeks later, having collected a good many cases of old +dollars (they were stowed aft in the lazarette with an iron bar and +a padlock securing the hatch under his cabin-table), yes, with a bigger +lot than he had expected to collect, he found himself homeward bound +and off the entrance of the creek where Bamtz lived and even, in a sense, +flourished.</p> +<p>“It was so late in the day that Davidson actually hesitated +whether he should not pass by this time. He had no regard for +Bamtz, who was a degraded but not a really unhappy man. His pity +for Laughing Anne was no more than her case deserved. But his +goodness was of a particularly delicate sort. He realised how +these people were dependent on him, and how they would feel their dependence +(if he failed to turn up) through a long month of anxious waiting. +Prompted by his sensitive humanity, Davidson, in the gathering dusk, +turned the <i>Sissie’s</i> head towards the hardly discernible +coast, and navigated her safety through a maze of shallow patches. +But by the time he got to the mouth of the creek the night had come.</p> +<p>“The narrow waterway lay like a black cutting through the forest. +And as there were always grounded snaggs in the channel which it would +be impossible to make out, Davidson very prudently turned the <i>Sissie</i> +round, and with only enough steam on the boilers to give her a touch +ahead if necessary, let her drift up stern first with the tide, silent +and invisible in the impenetrable darkness and in the dumb stillness.</p> +<p>“It was a long job, and when at the end of two hours Davidson +thought he must be up to the clearing, the settlement slept already, +the whole land of forests and rivers was asleep.</p> +<p>“Davidson, seeing a solitary light in the massed darkness of +the shore, knew that it was burning in Bamtz’s house. This +was unexpected at this time of the night, but convenient as a guide. +By a turn of the screw and a touch of the helm he sheered the <i>Sissie</i> +alongside Bamtz’s wharf—a miserable structure of a dozen +piles and a few planks, of which the ex-vagabond was very proud. +A couple of Kalashes jumped down on it, took a turn with the ropes thrown +to them round the posts, and the <i>Sissie</i> came to rest without +a single loud word or the slightest noise. And just in time too, +for the tide turned even before she was properly moored.</p> +<p>“Davidson had something to eat, and then, coming on deck for +a last look round, noticed that the light was still burning in the house.</p> +<p>“This was very unusual, but since they were awake so late, +Davidson thought that he would go up to say that he was in a hurry to +be off and to ask that what rattans there were in store should be sent +on board with the first sign of dawn.</p> +<p>“He stepped carefully over the shaky planks, not being anxious +to get a sprained ankle, and picked his way across the waste ground +to the foot of the house ladder. The house was but a glorified +hut on piles, unfenced and lonely.</p> +<p>“Like many a stout man, Davidson is very lightfooted. +He climbed the seven steps or so, stepped across the bamboo platform +quietly, but what he saw through the doorway stopped him short.</p> +<p>“Four men were sitting by the light of a solitary candle. +There was a bottle, a jug and glasses on the table, but they were not +engaged in drinking. Two packs of cards were lying there too, +but they were not preparing to play. They were talking together +in whispers, and remained quite unaware of him. He himself was +too astonished to make a sound for some time. The world was still, +except for the sibilation of the whispering heads bunched together over +the table.</p> +<p>“And Davidson, as I have quoted him to you before, didn’t +like it. He didn’t like it at all.</p> +<p>“The situation ended with a scream proceeding from the dark, +interior part of the room. ‘O Davy! you’ve given me +a turn.’</p> +<p>“Davidson made out beyond the table Anne’s very pale +face. She laughed a little hysterically, out of the deep shadows +between the gloomy mat walls. ‘Ha! ha! ha!’</p> +<p>“The four heads sprang apart at the first sound, and four pairs +of eyes became fixed stonily on Davidson. The woman came forward, +having little more on her than a loose chintz wrapper and straw slippers +on her bare feet. Her head was tied up Malay fashion in a red +handkerchief, with a mass of loose hair hanging under it behind. +Her professional, gay, European feathers had literally dropped off her +in the course of these two years, but a long necklace of amber beads +hung round her uncovered neck. It was the only ornament she had +left; Bamtz had sold all her poor-enough trinkets during the flight +from Saigon—when their association began.</p> +<p>“She came forward, past the table, into the light, with her +usual groping gesture of extended arms, as though her soul, poor thing! +had gone blind long ago, her white cheeks hollow, her eyes darkly wild, +distracted, as Davidson thought. She came on swiftly, grabbed +him by the arm, dragged him in. ‘It’s heaven itself +that sends you to-night. My Tony’s so bad—come and +see him. Come along—do!’</p> +<p>“Davidson submitted. The only one of the men to move +was Bamtz, who made as if to get up but dropped back in his chair again. +Davidson in passing heard him mutter confusedly something that sounded +like ‘poor little beggar.’</p> +<p>“The child, lying very flushed in a miserable cot knocked up +out of gin-cases, stared at Davidson with wide, drowsy eyes. It +was a bad bout of fever clearly. But while Davidson was promising +to go on board and fetch some medicines, and generally trying to say +reassuring things, he could not help being struck by the extraordinary +manner of the woman standing by his side. Gazing with despairing +expression down at the cot, she would suddenly throw a quick, startled +glance at Davidson and then towards the other room.</p> +<p>“‘Yes, my poor girl,’ he whispered, interpreting +her distraction in his own way, though he had nothing precise in his +mind. ‘I’m afraid this bodes no good to you. +How is it they are here?’</p> +<p>“She seized his forearm and breathed out forcibly: ‘No +good to me! Oh, no! But what about you! They are after +the dollars you have on board.’</p> +<p>“Davidson let out an astonished ‘How do they know there +are any dollars?’</p> +<p>“She clapped her hands lightly, in distress. ‘So +it’s true! You have them on board? Then look out for +yourself.’</p> +<p>“They stood gazing down at the boy in the cot, aware that they +might be observed from the other room.</p> +<p>“‘We must get him to perspire as soon as possible,’ +said Davidson in his ordinary voice. ‘You’ll have +to give him hot drink of some kind. I will go on board and bring +you a spirit-kettle amongst other things.’ And he added +under his breath: ‘Do they actually mean murder?’</p> +<p>“She made no sign, she had returned to her desolate contemplation +of the boy. Davidson thought she had not heard him even, when +with an unchanged expression she spoke under her breath.</p> +<p>“‘The Frenchman would, in a minute. The others +shirk it—unless you resist. He’s a devil. He +keeps them going. Without him they would have done nothing but +talk. I’ve got chummy with him. What can you do when you +are with a man like the fellow I am with now. Bamtz is terrified +of them, and they know it. He’s in it from funk. Oh, +Davy! take your ship away—quick!’</p> +<p>“‘Too late,’ said Davidson. ‘She’s +on the mud already.’</p> +<p>“If the kid hadn’t been in this state I would have run +off with him—to you—into the woods—anywhere. +Oh, Davy! will he die?’ she cried aloud suddenly.</p> +<p>“Davidson met three men in the doorway. They made way +for him without actually daring to face his glance. But Bamtz +was the only one who looked down with an air of guilt. The big +Frenchman had remained lolling in his chair; he kept his stumps in his +pockets and addressed Davidson.</p> +<p>“‘Isn’t it unfortunate about that child! +The distress of that woman there upsets me, but I am of no use in the +world. I couldn’t smooth the sick pillow of my dearest friend. +I have no hands. Would you mind sticking one of those cigarettes +there into the mouth of a poor, harmless cripple? My nerves want +soothing—upon my honour, they do.’</p> +<p>“Davidson complied with his naturally kind smile. As +his outward placidity becomes only more pronounced, if possible, the +more reason there is for excitement; and as Davidson’s eyes, when +his wits are hard at work, get very still and as if sleepy, the huge +Frenchman might have been justified in concluding that the man there +was a mere sheep—a sheep ready for slaughter. With a ‘<i>merci +bien</i>’ he uplifted his huge carcase to reach the light of the +candle with his cigarette, and Davidson left the house.</p> +<p>“Going down to the ship and returning, he had time to consider +his position. At first he was inclined to believe that these men +(Niclaus—the white Nakhoda—was the only one he knew by sight +before, besides Bamtz) were not of the stamp to proceed to extremities. +This was partly the reason why he never attempted to take any measures +on board. His pacific Kalashes were not to be thought of as against +white men. His wretched engineer would have had a fit from fright +at the mere idea of any sort of combat. Davidson knew that he +would have to depend on himself in this affair if it ever came off.</p> +<p>“Davidson underestimated naturally the driving power of the +Frenchman’s character and the force of the actuating motive. +To that man so hopelessly crippled these dollars were an enormous opportunity. +With his share of the robbery he would open another shop in Vladivostok, +Haïphong, Manila—somewhere far away.</p> +<p>“Neither did it occur to Davidson, who is a man of courage, +if ever there was one, that his psychology was not known to the world +at large, and that to this particular lot of ruffians, who judged him +by his appearance, he appeared an unsuspicious, inoffensive, soft creature, +as he passed again through the room, his hands full of various objects +and parcels destined for the sick boy.</p> +<p>“All the four were sitting again round the table. Bamtz +not having the pluck to open his mouth, it was Niclaus who, as a collective +voice, called out to him thickly to come out soon and join in a drink.</p> +<p>“‘I think I’ll have to stay some little time in +there, to help her look after the boy,’ Davidson answered without +stopping.</p> +<p>“This was a good thing to say to allay a possible suspicion. +And, as it was, Davidson felt he must not stay very long.</p> +<p>“He sat down on an old empty nail-keg near the improvised cot +and looked at the child; while Laughing Anne, moving to and fro, preparing +the hot drink, giving it to the boy in spoonfuls, or stopping to gaze +motionless at the flushed face, whispered disjointed bits of information. +She had succeeded in making friends with that French devil. Davy +would understand that she knew how to make herself pleasant to a man.</p> +<p>“And Davidson nodded without looking at her.</p> +<p>“The big beast had got to be quite confidential with her. +She held his cards for him when they were having a game. Bamtz! +Oh! Bamtz in his funk was only too glad to see the Frenchman humoured. +And the Frenchman had come to believe that she was a woman who didn’t +care what she did. That’s how it came about they got to +talk before her openly. For a long time she could not make out +what game they were up to. The new arrivals, not expecting to +find a woman with Bamtz, had been very startled and annoyed at first, +she explained.</p> +<p>“She busied herself in attending to the boy; and nobody looking +into that room would have seen anything suspicious in those two people +exchanging murmurs by the sick-bedside.</p> +<p>“‘But now they think I am a better man than Bamtz ever +was,’ she said with a faint laugh.</p> +<p>“The child moaned. She went down on her knees, and, bending +low, contemplated him mournfully. Then raising her head, she asked +Davidson whether he thought the child would get better. Davidson +was sure of it. She murmured sadly: ‘Poor kid. There’s +nothing in life for such as he. Not a dog’s chance. +But I couldn’t let him go, Davy! I couldn’t.’</p> +<p>“Davidson felt a profound pity for the child. She laid +her hand on his knee and whispered an earnest warning against the Frenchman. +Davy must never let him come to close quarters. Naturally Davidson +wanted to know the reason, for a man without hands did not strike him +as very formidable under any circumstances.</p> +<p>“‘Mind you don’t let him—that’s all,’ +she insisted anxiously, hesitated, and then confessed that the Frenchman +had got her away from the others that afternoon and had ordered her +to tie a seven-pound iron weight (out of the set of weights Bamtz used +in business) to his right stump. She had to do it for him. +She had been afraid of his savage temper. Bamtz was such a craven, +and neither of the other men would have cared what happened to her. +The Frenchman, however, with many awful threats had warned her not to +let the others know what she had done for him. Afterwards he had +been trying to cajole her. He had promised her that if she stood +by him faithfully in this business he would take her with him to Haïphong +or some other place. A poor cripple needed somebody to take care +of him—always.</p> +<p>“Davidson asked her again if they really meant mischief. +It was, he told me, the hardest thing to believe he had run up against, +as yet, in his life. Anne nodded. The Frenchman’s +heart was set on this robbery. Davy might expect them, about midnight, +creeping on board his ship, to steal anyhow—to murder, perhaps. +Her voice sounded weary, and her eyes remained fastened on her child.</p> +<p>“And still Davidson could not accept it somehow; his contempt +for these men was too great.</p> +<p>“‘Look here, Davy,’ she said. ‘I’ll +go outside with them when they start, and it will be hard luck if I +don’t find something to laugh at. They are used to that +from me. Laugh or cry—what’s the odds. You will +be able to hear me on board on this quiet night. Dark it is too. +Oh! it’s dark, Davy!—it’s dark!’</p> +<p>“‘Don’t you run any risks,’ said Davidson. +Presently he called her attention to the boy, who, less flushed now, +had dropped into a sound sleep. ‘Look. He’ll +be all right.’</p> +<p>“She made as if to snatch the child up to her breast, but restrained +herself. Davidson prepared to go. She whispered hurriedly:</p> +<p>“‘Mind, Davy! I’ve told them that you generally +sleep aft in the hammock under the awning over the cabin. They +have been asking me about your ways and about your ship, too. +I told them all I knew. I had to keep in with them. And +Bamtz would have told them if I hadn’t—you understand?’</p> +<p>“He made a friendly sign and went out. The men about +the table (except Bamtz) looked at him. This time it was Fector +who spoke. ‘Won’t you join us in a quiet game, Captain?’</p> +<p>“Davidson said that now the child was better he thought he +would go on board and turn in. Fector was the only one of the +four whom he had, so to speak, never seen, for he had had a good look +at the Frenchman already. He observed Fector’s muddy eyes, +his mean, bitter mouth. Davidson’s contempt for those men +rose in his gorge, while his placid smile, his gentle tones and general +air of innocence put heart into them. They exchanged meaning glances.</p> +<p>“‘We shall be sitting late over the cards,’ Fector +said in his harsh, low voice.</p> +<p>“‘Don’t make more noise than you can help.’</p> +<p>“‘Oh! we are a quiet lot. And if the invalid shouldn’t +be so well, she will be sure to send one of us down to call you, so +that you may play the doctor again. So don’t shoot at sight.’</p> +<p>“‘He isn’t a shooting man,’ struck in Niclaus.</p> +<p>“‘I never shoot before making sure there’s a reason +for it—at any rate,’ said Davidson.</p> +<p>“Bamtz let out a sickly snigger. The Frenchman alone +got up to make a bow to Davidson’s careless nod. His stumps +were stuck immovably in his pockets. Davidson understood now the +reason.</p> +<p>“He went down to the ship. His wits were working actively, +and he was thoroughly angry. He smiled, he says (it must have +been the first grim smile of his life), at the thought of the seven-pound +weight lashed to the end of the Frenchman’s stump. The ruffian +had taken that precaution in case of a quarrel that might arise over +the division of the spoil. A man with an unsuspected power to +deal killing blows could take his own part in a sudden scrimmage round +a heap of money, even against adversaries armed with revolvers, especially +if he himself started the row.</p> +<p>“‘He’s ready to face any of his friends with that +thing. But he will have no use for it. There will be no +occasion to quarrel about these dollars here,’ thought Davidson, +getting on board quietly. He never paused to look if there was +anybody about the decks. As a matter of fact, most of his crew +were on shore, and the rest slept, stowed away in dark corners.</p> +<p>“He had his plan, and he went to work methodically.</p> +<p>“He fetched a lot of clothing from below and disposed it in +his hammock in such a way as to distend it to the shape of a human body; +then he threw over all the light cotton sheet he used to draw over himself +when sleeping on deck. Having done this, he loaded his two revolvers +and clambered into one of the boats the <i>Sissie</i> carried right +aft, swung out on their davits. Then he waited.</p> +<p>“And again the doubt of such a thing happening to him crept +into his mind. He was almost ashamed of this ridiculous vigil +in a boat. He became bored. And then he became drowsy. +The stillness of the black universe wearied him. There was not +even the lapping of the water to keep him company, for the tide was +out and the <i>Sissie</i> was lying on soft mud. Suddenly in the +breathless, soundless, hot night an argus pheasant screamed in the woods +across the stream. Davidson started violently, all his senses +on the alert at once.</p> +<p>“The candle was still burning in the house. Everything +was quiet again, but Davidson felt drowsy no longer. An uneasy +premonition of evil oppressed him.</p> +<p>“‘Surely I am not afraid,’ he argued with himself.</p> +<p>“The silence was like a seal on his ears, and his nervous inward +impatience grew intolerable. He commanded himself to keep still. +But all the same he was just going to jump out of the boat when a faint +ripple on the immensity of silence, a mere tremor in the air, the ghost +of a silvery laugh, reached his ears.</p> +<p>“Illusion!</p> +<p>“He kept very still. He had no difficulty now in emulating +the stillness of the mouse—a grimly determined mouse. But +he could not shake off that premonition of evil unrelated to the mere +danger of the situation. Nothing happened. It had been an +illusion!</p> +<p>“A curiosity came to him to learn how they would go to work. +He wondered and wondered, till the whole thing seemed more absurd than +ever.</p> +<p>“He had left the hanging lamp in the cabin burning as usual. +It was part of his plan that everything should be as usual. Suddenly +in the dim glow of the skylight panes a bulky shadow came up the ladder +without a sound, made two steps towards the hammock (it hung right over +the skylight), and stood motionless. The Frenchman!</p> +<p>“The minutes began to slip away. Davidson guessed that +the Frenchman’s part (the poor cripple) was to watch his (Davidson’s) +slumbers while the others were no doubt in the cabin busy forcing off +the lazarette hatch.</p> +<p>“What was the course they meant to pursue once they got hold +of the silver (there were ten cases, and each could be carried easily +by two men) nobody can tell now. But so far, Davidson was right. +They were in the cabin. He expected to hear the sounds of breaking-in +every moment. But the fact was that one of them (perhaps Fector, +who had stolen papers out of desks in his time) knew how to pick a lock, +and apparently was provided with the tools. Thus while Davidson +expected every moment to hear them begin down there, they had the bar +off already and two cases actually up in the cabin out of the lazarette.</p> +<p>“In the diffused faint glow of the skylight the Frenchman moved +no more than a statue. Davidson could have shot him with the greatest +ease—but he was not homicidally inclined. Moreover, he wanted +to make sure before opening fire that the others had gone to work. +Not hearing the sounds he expected to hear, he felt uncertain whether +they all were on board yet.</p> +<p>“While he listened, the Frenchman, whose immobility might have +but cloaked an internal struggle; moved forward a pace, then another. +Davidson, entranced, watched him advance one leg, withdraw his right +stump, the armed one, out of his pocket, and swinging his body to put +greater force into the blow, bring the seven-pound weight down on the +hammock where the head of the sleeper ought to have been.</p> +<p>“Davidson admitted to me that his hair stirred at the roots +then. But for Anne, his unsuspecting head would have been there. +The Frenchman’s surprise must have been simply overwhelming. +He staggered away from the lightly swinging hammock, and before Davidson +could make a movement he had vanished, bounding down the ladder to warn +and alarm the other fellows.</p> +<p>“Davidson sprang instantly out of the boat, threw up the skylight +flap, and had a glimpse of the men down there crouching round the hatch. +They looked up scared, and at that moment the Frenchman outside the +door bellowed out ‘<i>Trahison</i>—<i>trahison</i>!’ +They bolted out of the cabin, falling over each other and swearing awfully. +The shot Davidson let off down the skylight had hit no one; but he ran +to the edge of the cabin-top and at once opened fire at the dark shapes +rushing about the deck. These shots were returned, and a rapid +fusillade burst out, reports and flashes, Davidson dodging behind a +ventilator and pulling the trigger till his revolver clicked, and then +throwing it down to take the other in his right hand.</p> +<p>“He had been hearing in the din the Frenchman’s infuriated +yells ‘<i>Tuez-le! tuez-le</i>!’ above the fierce cursing +of the others. But though they fired at him they were only thinking +of clearing out. In the flashes of the last shots Davidson saw +them scrambling over the rail. That he had hit more than one he +was certain. Two different voices had cried out in pain. +But apparently none of them were disabled.</p> +<p>“Davidson leaned against the bulwark reloading his revolver +without haste. He had not the slightest apprehension of their +coming back. On the other hand, he had no intention of pursuing +them on shore in the dark. What they were doing he had no idea. +Looking to their hurts probably. Not very far from the bank the +invisible Frenchman was blaspheming and cursing his associates, his +luck, and all the world. He ceased; then with a sudden, vengeful +yell, ‘It’s that woman!—it’s that woman that +has sold us,’ was heard running off in the night.</p> +<p>“Davidson caught his breath in a sudden pang of remorse. +He perceived with dismay that the stratagem of his defence had given +Anne away. He did not hesitate a moment. It was for him +to save her now. He leaped ashore. But even as he landed +on the wharf he heard a shrill shriek which pierced his very soul.</p> +<p>“The light was still burning in the house. Davidson, +revolver in hand, was making for it when another shriek, away to his +left, made him change his direction.</p> +<p>“He changed his direction—but very soon he stopped. +It was then that he hesitated in cruel perplexity. He guessed +what had happened. The woman had managed to escape from the house +in some way, and now was being chased in the open by the infuriated +Frenchman. He trusted she would try to run on board for protection.</p> +<p>“All was still around Davidson. Whether she had run on +board or not, this silence meant that the Frenchman had lost her in +the dark.</p> +<p>“Davidson, relieved, but still very anxious, turned towards +the river-side. He had not made two steps in that direction when +another shriek burst out behind him, again close to the house.</p> +<p>“He thinks that the Frenchman had lost sight of the poor woman +right enough. Then came that period of silence. But the +horrible ruffian had not given up his murderous purpose. He reasoned +that she would try to steal back to her child, and went to lie in wait +for her near the house.</p> +<p>“It must have been something like that. As she entered +the light falling about the house-ladder, he had rushed at her too soon, +impatient for vengeance. She had let out that second scream of +mortal fear when she caught sight of him, and turned to run for life +again.</p> +<p>“This time she was making for the river, but not in a straight +line. Her shrieks circled about Davidson. He turned on his +heels, following the horrible trail of sound in the darkness. +He wanted to shout ‘This way, Anne! I am here!’ but +he couldn’t. At the horror of this chase, more ghastly in +his imagination than if he could have seen it, the perspiration broke +out on his forehead, while his throat was as dry as tinder. A +last supreme scream was cut short suddenly.</p> +<p>“The silence which ensued was even more dreadful. Davidson +felt sick. He tore his feet from the spot and walked straight +before him, gripping the revolver and peering into the obscurity fearfully. +Suddenly a bulky shape sprang from the ground within a few yards of +him and bounded away. Instinctively he fired at it, started to +run in pursuit, and stumbled against something soft which threw him +down headlong.</p> +<p>“Even as he pitched forward on his head he knew it could be +nothing else but Laughing Anne’s body. He picked himself +up and, remaining on his knees, tried to lift her in his arms. +He felt her so limp that he gave it up. She was lying on her face, +her long hair scattered on the ground. Some of it was wet. +Davidson, feeling about her head, came to a place where the crushed +bone gave way under his fingers. But even before that discovery +he knew that she was dead. The pursuing Frenchman had flung her +down with a kick from behind, and, squatting on her back, was battering +in her skull with the weight she herself had fastened to his stump, +when the totally unexpected Davidson loomed up in the night and scared +him away.</p> +<p>“Davidson, kneeling by the side of that woman done so miserably +to death, was overcome by remorse. She had died for him. +His manhood was as if stunned. For the first time he felt afraid. +He might have been pounced upon in the dark at any moment by the murderer +of Laughing Anne. He confesses to the impulse of creeping away +from that pitiful corpse on his hands and knees to the refuge of the +ship. He even says that he actually began to do so. . .</p> +<p>“One can hardly picture to oneself Davidson crawling away on +all fours from the murdered woman—Davidson unmanned and crushed +by the idea that she had died for him in a sense. But he could +not have gone very far. What stopped him was the thought of the +boy, Laughing Anne’s child, that (Davidson remembered her very +words) would not have a dog’s chance.</p> +<p>“This life the woman had left behind her appeared to Davidson’s +conscience in the light of a sacred trust. He assumed an erect +attitude and, quaking inwardly still, turned about and walked towards +the house.</p> +<p>“For all his tremors he was very determined; but that smashed +skull had affected his imagination, and he felt very defenceless in +the darkness, in which he seemed to hear faintly now here, now there, +the prowling footsteps of the murderer without hands. But he never +faltered in his purpose. He got away with the boy safely after +all. The house he found empty. A profound silence encompassed +him all the time, except once, just as he got down the ladder with Tony +in his arms, when a faint groan reached his ears. It seemed to +come from the pitch-black space between the posts on which the house +was built, but he did not stop to investigate.</p> +<p>“It’s no use telling you in detail how Davidson got on +board with the burden Anne’s miserably cruel fate had thrust into +his arms; how next morning his scared crew, after observing from a distance +the state of affairs on board, rejoined with alacrity; how Davidson +went ashore and, aided by his engineer (still half dead with fright), +rolled up Laughing Anne’s body in a cotton sheet and brought it +on board for burial at sea later. While busy with this pious task, +Davidson, glancing about, perceived a huge heap of white clothes huddled +up against the corner-post of the house. That it was the Frenchman +lying there he could not doubt. Taking it in connection with the +dismal groan he had heard in the night, Davidson is pretty sure that +his random shot gave a mortal hurt to the murderer of poor Anne.</p> +<p>“As to the others, Davidson never set eyes on a single one +of them. Whether they had concealed themselves in the scared settlement, +or bolted into the forest, or were hiding on board Niclaus’s prau, +which could be seen lying on the mud a hundred yards or so higher up +the creek, the fact is that they vanished; and Davidson did not trouble +his head about them. He lost no time in getting out of the creek +directly the <i>Sissie</i> floated. After steaming some twenty +miles clear of the coast, he (in his own words) ‘committed the +body to the deep.’ He did everything himself. He weighted +her down with a few fire-bars, he read the service, he lifted the plank, +he was the only mourner. And while he was rendering these last +services to the dead, the desolation of that life and the atrocious +wretchedness of its end cried aloud to his compassion, whispered to +him in tones of self-reproach.</p> +<p>“He ought to have handled the warning she had given him in +another way. He was convinced now that a simple display of watchfulness +would have been enough to restrain that vile and cowardly crew. +But the fact was that he had not quite believed that anything would +be attempted.</p> +<p>“The body of Laughing Anne having been ‘committed to +the deep’ some twenty miles S.S.W. from Cape Selatan, the task +before Davidson was to commit Laughing Anne’s child to the care +of his wife. And there poor, good Davidson made a fatal move. +He didn’t want to tell her the whole awful story, since it involved +the knowledge of the danger from which he, Davidson, had escaped. +And this, too, after he had been laughing at her unreasonable fears +only a short time before.</p> +<p>“‘I thought that if I told her everything,’ Davidson +explained to me, ‘she would never have a moment’s peace +while I was away on my trips.’</p> +<p>“He simply stated that the boy was an orphan, the child of +some people to whom he, Davidson, was under the greatest obligation, +and that he felt morally bound to look after him. Some day he +would tell her more, he said, and meantime he trusted in the goodness +and warmth of her heart, in her woman’s natural compassion.</p> +<p>“He did not know that her heart was about the size of a parched +pea, and had the proportional amount of warmth; and that her faculty +of compassion was mainly directed to herself. He was only startled +and disappointed at the air of cold surprise and the suspicious look +with which she received his imperfect tale. But she did not say +much. She never had much to say. She was a fool of the silent, +hopeless kind.</p> +<p>“What story Davidson’s crew thought fit to set afloat +in Malay town is neither here nor there. Davidson himself took +some of his friends into his confidence, besides giving the full story +officially to the Harbour Master.</p> +<p>“The Harbour Master was considerably astonished. He didn’t +think, however, that a formal complaint should be made to the Dutch +Government. They would probably do nothing in the end, after a +lot of trouble and correspondence. The robbery had not come off, +after all. Those vagabonds could be trusted to go to the devil +in their own way. No amount of fuss would bring the poor woman +to life again, and the actual murderer had been done justice to by a +chance shot from Davidson. Better let the matter drop.</p> +<p>“This was good common sense. But he was impressed.</p> +<p>“‘Sounds a terrible affair, Captain Davidson.’</p> +<p>“‘Aye, terrible enough,’ agreed the remorseful +Davidson. But the most terrible thing for him, though he didn’t +know it yet then, was that his wife’s silly brain was slowly coming +to the conclusion that Tony was Davidson’s child, and that he +had invented that lame story to introduce him into her pure home in +defiance of decency, of virtue—of her most sacred feelings.</p> +<p>“Davidson was aware of some constraint in his domestic relations. +But at the best of times she was not demonstrative; and perhaps that +very coldness was part of her charm in the placid Davidson’s eyes. +Women are loved for all sorts of reasons and even for characteristics +which one would think repellent. She was watching him and nursing +her suspicions.</p> +<p>“Then, one day, Monkey-faced Ritchie called on that sweet, +shy Mrs. Davidson. She had come out under his care, and he considered +himself a privileged person—her oldest friend in the tropics. +He posed for a great admirer of hers. He was always a great chatterer. +He had got hold of the story rather vaguely, and he started chattering +on that subject, thinking she knew all about it. And in due course +he let out something about Laughing Anne.</p> +<p>“‘Laughing Anne,’ says Mrs. Davidson with a start. +‘What’s that?’</p> +<p>Ritchie plunged into circumlocution at once, but she very soon stopped +him. ‘Is that creature dead?’ she asks.</p> +<p>“‘I believe so,’ stammered Ritchie. ‘Your +husband says so.’</p> +<p>“‘But you don’t know for certain?’</p> +<p>“‘No! How could I, Mrs. Davidson!’</p> +<p>“‘That’s all wanted to know,’ says she, and +goes out of the room.</p> +<p>“When Davidson came home she was ready to go for him, not with +common voluble indignation, but as if trickling a stream of cold clear +water down his back. She talked of his base intrigue with a vile +woman, of being made a fool of, of the insult to her dignity.</p> +<p>“Davidson begged her to listen to him and told her all the +story, thinking that it would move a heart of stone. He tried +to make her understand his remorse. She heard him to the end, +said ‘Indeed!’ and turned her back on him.</p> +<p>“‘Don’t you believe me?’ he asked, appalled.</p> +<p>“She didn’t say yes or no. All she said was, ‘Send +that brat away at once.’</p> +<p>“‘I can’t throw him out into the street,’ +cried Davidson. ‘You don’t mean it.’</p> +<p>“‘I don’t care. There are charitable institutions +for such children, I suppose.’</p> +<p>“‘That I will never do,’ said Davidson.</p> +<p>“‘Very well. That’s enough for me.’</p> +<p>“Davidson’s home after this was like a silent, frozen +hell for him. A stupid woman with a sense of grievance is worse +than an unchained devil. He sent the boy to the White Fathers +in Malacca. This was not a very expensive sort of education, but +she could not forgive him for not casting the offensive child away utterly. +She worked up her sense of her wifely wrongs and of her injured purity +to such a pitch that one day, when poor Davidson was pleading with her +to be reasonable and not to make an impossible existence for them both, +she turned on him in a chill passion and told him that his very sight +was odious to her.</p> +<p>“Davidson, with his scrupulous delicacy of feeling, was not +the man to assert his rights over a woman who could not bear the sight +of him. He bowed his head; and shortly afterwards arranged for +her to go back to her parents. That was exactly what she wanted +in her outraged dignity. And then she had always disliked the +tropics and had detested secretly the people she had to live amongst +as Davidson’s wife. She took her pure, sensitive, mean little +soul away to Fremantle or somewhere in that direction. And of +course the little girl went away with her too. What could poor +Davidson have done with a little girl on his hands, even if she had +consented to leave her with him—which is unthinkable.</p> +<p>“This is the story that has spoiled Davidson’s smile +for him—which perhaps it wouldn’t have done so thoroughly +had he been less of a good fellow.”</p> +<p>Hollis ceased. But before we rose from the table I asked him +if he knew what had become of Laughing Anne’s boy.</p> +<p>He counted carefully the change handed him by the Chinaman waiter, +and raised his head.</p> +<p>“Oh! that’s the finishing touch. He was a bright, +taking little chap, as you know, and the Fathers took very special pains +in his bringing up. Davidson expected in his heart to have some +comfort out of him. In his placid way he’s a man who needs +affection. Well, Tony has grown into a fine youth—but there +you are! He wants to be a priest; his one dream is to be a missionary. +The Fathers assure Davidson that it is a serious vocation. They +tell him he has a special disposition for mission work, too. So +Laughing Anne’s boy will lead a saintly life in China somewhere; +he may even become a martyr; but poor Davidson is left out in the cold. +He will have to go downhill without a single human affection near him +because of these old dollars.”</p> +<p>Jan. 1914</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>Footnotes:</p> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> The gallows, +supposed to be widowed of the last executed criminal and waiting for +another.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, WITHIN THE TIDES ***</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named wthnt10h.htm or wthnt10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, wthnt11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, wthnt10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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