napkin. "By Jove!" he cried, "what a personality! Wouldn't he be a hit
in comic opera! And think what could be done with the scenery; and that
procession of parasols, with snakes hanging down from the branches, and
monkeys skipping around among the leaves! Robinson Crusoe wouldn't be in
it--why, it would take the town by storm! Girls in black stockinette and
bangles, savages, spears, palms, elephant tusks, Goringe in a helmet and
goat-skin shoes! I'll tell Michel Carré about it the first time I see
him."
"And every one of Goringe's girls a beautiful seductive houri," chimed
in Louis with a wink at Le Blanc. "You seem to have slurred over all the
details of this part of the panorama, Herbert."
"Oh, ravishingly beautiful, Louis! Half of them were greased from head
to foot with palm-oil, and smeared with powdered camwood that changed
them to a deep mahogany; all had their wool twisted into knobs and
pigtails, and most of them wore pieces of wood, big as the handle of a
table knife, skewered through their upper lips. Oh!--a most adorable lot
of houris."
"All the better," vociferated The Architect. "Be stunning under the
spotlights. Tell me more about him. I may write the libretto myself and
get Livadi to do the music. It's a wonderful find! Did you ever see
Goringe again?"
"No, but I kept track of him. The Belgian home company went back on
their contract, and refused to pay him just as he feared they would;
they claimed he didn't and couldn't have supplied that number of
carriers--the sort of defence a corporation always makes when they want
to get out of a bad bargain. This decided him. He made a bee-line for
the coast, sailed by the first steamer, brought suit, tried it himself,
won his case, got his money and a new contract; took the first train for
Monte Carlo, lost every penny he had in a night; went back to Brussels,
got a second contract, sailed the same week for the Congo, and when I
left Bangala for home had another caravan touring the country--bigger
than the first--fitted out with the best that money could buy----"
"Including his wives, of course," suggested Louis.
"Yes, but not the lot he had left behind," added Herbert slowly, a frown
settling on his brow. "They had long since been wiped out of existence."
The Architect pounded the table until the glasses rattled. "Superb!
Magnificent! That finishes the libretto! Carré shan't have it; I'll
write it myself! But tell me please, if----"
Lemois opened his fingers deprecatingly, his gaze fixed good-naturedly
on the speaker.
"You will pardon me, my dear friend, but Monsieur Herbert is only half
through. He is not writing a play; he is introducing us to a higher
standard of morals and perhaps of manners. Besides, if you listen you
may get a fourth act and a climax which will be better than what you
have. He has promised to convince Monsieur Le Blanc, who has not yet
said a word, that the savage should not be burnt alive, and to convince
me that there is something in that terrible blackamoor worthy of my
admiration, even if he does dine on his fellow men. We have yet to hear
Monsieur Herbert's second story."
"All right, Lemois, but I doubt if it will help our distinguished guest
here to complete his scenario; but here goes:
"When I was chief of Bangala Station, circumstances made it necessary
for me to make an expedition into the Aruwimi District, inhabited by a
tribe now known as the Waluheli--cannibals and typical savages so far as
morals and habits were concerned. These people, as I afterward learned,
are possessed of great physical strength and are constantly on the
war-path, trading among each other between times in slaves, ivory, and
native iron ore. They live in huts made of grass stalks and plaited
palm-leaves. Manioc is about the only food. This, of course, the women
till. In fact, that which protects her from being sold as food is often
her value as a worker, for one of their beliefs is that women have no
souls and no future state.
"I took with me five carriers and some fifteen fighting men and struck
due east. It was the customary outfit, each man carrying sixty-five
pounds of baggage, including tent, guns, ammunition, etc. The Aruwimi
District, we had heard, was rich in plantains, as well as game, and we
needed both, and the fighting men served for protection in case we were
attacked, and as food carriers if we were not.
"The first day's march brought us to a small river, a branch of the
larger tributaries of the Upper Congo, which we crossed. Then followed a
three days' march which led us to a hilly country where the villages
were few and far between, and although the natives we met on the trail
were most friendly--indeed some of their men had helped make up my
gangs, two of them joining my escort--no food was to be had, and so I
was obliged to push on until I struck a stretch that looked as if the
plantains and manioc could be raised. Still further on I discovered
traces of antelope and zebra and some elephants' tracks. Although the
villages we passed were deserted, the character of the country proved
that at some time in the past both plantains and a sort of yam had been
raised in abundance, which led me to believe we could get what we
wanted.
"In this new country, too, we met a new kind of native, different from
those to whom I had been accustomed, who, on discovering us, crouched
behind trees and bunches of tangled vines, brandishing their spears and
shields, but making no direct assault. Coming suddenly upon eight or ten
warriors in fording a small brook, I walked boldly in among them,
shouting that we were friendly and not enemies. They listened without
moving and in a moment more my men had cut off their retreat and had
surrounded them. Then I discovered that they spoke one of the dialects I
knew--the Mabunga--and after that we had no trouble. Indeed, they
directed us to their village, where that night my bed was spread in
their largest hut. Next day I started bartering and soon had all the
provisions we could carry, the currency, as usual, being glass beads and
a few feet of brass and copper wire, with some yards of calico for the
women and the chief. I should then have turned in another direction, but
early the next morning, as I was getting ready to leave, one of my men
brought news of an elephant who the night before had been seen
destroying their crops. The temptation was too strong--no, don't laugh,
Louis, I have reformed of late--and I dropped everything and started for
the game. Meat for our camp, and especially for the friendly village,
would be a godsend, and, taking five men, I was soon on his track. They
are strong-legged and quick movers, these elephants, and a few hours'
start makes it difficult for a white man to catch up with them. All that
day I followed him, never getting near him, although the spoor, stripped
saplings, and vines showed that he was but a few miles ahead. At
nightfall I gave him up, sent my men back, and, to avoid fording a deep
stream, made a short détour to the right. The sun had set and darkness
had begun to fall. And it comes all at once and almost without warning
in these parts.
"My men being out of reach, I pushed ahead until I struck a narrow path
twisting in and out of the heavier trees and less tangled underbrush.
Here I came upon an open place with signs of cultivation and caught
sight of another unexpected village, the first I had run across in that
day's march. This one, on nearer approach, proved to be a collection of
small huts straggling along the edge of what at last became a road or
street. Squatting in front of these rude dwellings sat the inhabitants
staring at me in wonder--the first white man they had ever seen.
"It was a curious sight and an uncanny one--these silent black savages
watching my advance. One man had thrown his arm around his wife, as if
to protect her; she crouching close to him--both naked as the day they
were born. I used the pair in a group I exhibited two or three years ago
which bore the title, 'They Have Eyes and See Not'--you may perhaps
remember it. I wanted to express the instinctive recognition of the
savage for what he feels dimly is to conquer him, and I tried as well to
give something of the pathos of the surrender.
"There was no movement as I approached--no greeting--no placing of yams,
coarse corn, and pieces of dried game and dried meat on the ground at
their feet, especially the flesh of animals, in preparing which they are
experts, a whole carcass being sometimes so dried. They only stared
wonderstruck--absorbed in my appearance. Now and then, as I passed
rapidly along so as to again reach my men before absolute darkness set
in, I would stop and make the sign of peace. This they returned, showing
me that their customs, and I hoped their language, was not unlike what I
understood.
"When I was abreast of the middle of the village a sudden desire for a
pipe--that solace of the lone man--took possession of me and I began
fumbling about my clothes for my matchbox. Then I remembered that I had
given it to one of my carriers to start our morning blaze. I now began
to scan the dwellings I passed for some signs of a fire. My eye finally
caught between the supports of the last hut on the line the glow of a
heap of embers, and huddled beside it the dim outline of two
figures--that of a man and a woman.
"For a moment I hesitated. I was alone, out of the hearing of my
followers, and darkness was rapidly falling. As long as I kept on a
straight course I was doubtless safe; if I halted or, worse yet, if I
entered his hut without invitation, the result might be different. Then
the picture began to take hold of me: the rude primeval home; the warmth
and cheer of the fire; the cuddling of man and wife close to the embers,
the same the world over whether cannibal or Christian. Involuntarily my
thoughts went back to my own fireside, thousands of miles away: those I
loved were sitting beside the glowing coals that gave it life, a curl of
smoke drifting toward the near hills.
"I turned sharply, walked straight into the hut, and, making the sign of
peace, asked in Mabunga for a light for my pipe.
"The man started--I had completely surprised him--sprang to his feet,
and, looking at me in amazement, returned my greeting in the same
tongue, touching his forehead in peaceful submission as he spoke. The
woman made neither salutation nor gesture. I leaned over to pick up a
coal, and, to steady myself, laid my hand on the woman's shoulder.
"It was cold and hard as wood!
"I bent closer and scanned her face.
"She was a dried mummy!
"The man's gaze never wavered.
"Then, he said slowly: 'She was my woman--I loved her, and I could not
bury her!'"
Herbert's dénouement had come as an astounding surprise. He looked round
at the circle of faces, his eyes resting on Le Blanc's and Lemois' as if
expecting some reply.
The older man roused himself first.
"Your story, Monsieur Herbert," he said with a certain quaver in his
voice, "has opened up such a wide field that I no longer think of the
moral, although I see clearly what you intended to prove. When your
climax came"--and his eyes kindled--"I felt as if I were standing on
some newly discovered cliff of modern thought, below which rolled a
thick cloud of superstition rent suddenly by a flash of human sympathy
and love. Below and beyond stretched immeasurable distances fading into
the mists of the ages. You will excuse the way I put it--I do not mean
to be fanciful nor pedantic--but it does not seem that I can express my
meaning in any other way. _Mon Dieu_, what a lot of cheap dancing jacks
we are! We dig and sell our product; we plead to save a criminal; we
toil with our hands and scheme with our heads, and when it is all done
it is to get a higher place in the little world we ourselves make. Once
in a while there comes a flash of lightning like this from on high and
the cloud is rent in twain and we look through and are ashamed. Thank
you again, Monsieur Herbert. You have widened my skull--cracked it open
an inch at least, and my heart not a little. Your savage should be
canonized!"
And he left the room.
VI
PROVING THAT THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER DID RUN SMOOTH
Mignon's coffee-roaster was silent this morning. By listening intently a
faint rhythm could be heard coming from beyond the kitchen door, telling
that she was alive and about her work, but the garden was not the scene
of her operations. Rain had fallen steadily all night and was still at
it, driving every one within doors. Furthermore, somewhere off in the
North Sea the wind had suddenly tumbled out of bed and was raising the
very Old Harry up and down the coast. Reports had come in of a bad wreck
along shore, and much anxiety was felt for the fishing fleet.
To brave such a downpour seemed absurd, and so we passed the morning as
best we could. I made a sketch in color of the Marmouset; Herbert and
Brierley disposed themselves about the room reading, smoking, or
criticising my work; Louis upstairs was stretching a canvas--nothing
appealed to him like a storm--and he had determined, as soon as the
deluge let up--no moderate downpour ever bothers him--to paint the surf
dashing against the earth cliffs that frowned above the angry sea.
Lemois did not appear until near noon, his excuse being that he had lain
awake half the night thinking of Herbert's story of the African's dried
wife, and had only dropped off to sleep when the fury of the storm awoke
him.
As luncheon was about to be served, Le Blanc arrived in his car one mass
of mud, the glass window in the rear of the cover smashed by the wind.
He brought news of a serious state of things along the coast. The sea in
its rage, so his story ran, was biting huge mouthfuls out of the bluffs,
the yellow blood of the dissolving clay staining the water for half a
mile out. One of the card-board, jig-saw, gimcrack villas edging the
cliff had already slid into the boiling surf, and the rest of them would
follow if the wind held for another hour.
We drew him to the fire, helped him off with his drenched coat, each of
us becoming more and more thoughtful as we listened to his description.
Leà and Mignon, unheeded, came in bearing the advance dishes--some
oysters and crisp celery. They were soon followed by Lemois, who,
instead of helping, as was his invariable custom, in the arrangement of
the table, walked to the hearth and stood gazing into the coals. He,
too, was thoughtful, and after a moment asked if we would permit Mignon
to replace him at the coffee-table that evening, as he must be off for a
few hours, and possibly all night, explaining in answer to our questions
that the storm had already reached the danger line, and he felt that as
ex-mayor of the village he should be within reach if any calamity
overtook the people and fishermen in and around Buezval. We all, of
course, offered to go with him--Louis being especially eager--but Lemois
insisted that we had better finish our meal, promising to send for us if
we were really needed.
His departure only intensified our apprehensions as to the gravity of
the situation. What had seemed to us at first picturesque, then
threatening, assumed alarming proportions. The gale too, during
luncheon, had gone on increasing. Great puffs of smoke belched from the
throat of the chimney into the room, and we heard the thrash of the rain
and shrill wails of the burglarious wind rising and falling as it
fingered the cracks and crevices of the old building. Now and then an
earthen tile would be ripped from the roof and sent crashing into the
court. "By Jove!--just hear that wind!" followed by an expectant
silence, interrupted almost every remark.
As the fury of the storm increased we noticed that a certain nervous
anxiety had taken possession of our pretty Mignon, who, at one crash
louder than the others, so far forgot herself as to go to the window,
trying to peer out between the bowed shutters, her baffled eyes seeking
Leà's for some comforting assurance, the older woman, without ceasing
her ministrations to our needs, patting the girl's shoulder in passing.
Suddenly the great outside door of the court, which had been closed to
break the force of the wind, gave way with a bang; then came the muffled
cry of a man in distress, and Gaston burst in, clad in oilskins, his
south-wester tied under his chin, rivers of rain pouring from his hat
and overalls. Mignon gave a half-smothered sob of relief and would have
sunk to the floor at his feet had not Leà caught her.
The young fisherman staggered back against the edge of the fire-jamb,
his hand on his chest.
"It's madame la marquise!" he gasped. He had run the two miles from
Buezval and had barely breath enough to reach the Inn. "I came for
Monsieur Lemois! There isn't a moment to lose--the sea is now up to the
porch. She is lost if you wait!"
"Madame lost!" we cried in unison.
"No," he panted, "the house. She is not there. Find Monsieur
Lemois!--all of you must come!"
Le Blanc was out of his chair before Gaston had completed his sentence.
"Get your coats and meet me at the garage!" he shouted. "I'll run the
motor out; we'll be there in ten minutes! My coat too, Leà!" and he
slammed the door behind him.
The old woman clattered upstairs into the several rooms for our ulsters
and water-proofs, but Mignon sat still, too overjoyed to move or speak.
Gaston, she knew, was going out into the rain again, but he was safe on
the land now and not on a fishing craft, fighting his way into the
harbor, as she had feared all day. The young fellow looked at her from
under the brim of his dripping south-wester, but there was no word of
recognition, though he had come as much to tell her he was safe as to
summon us to madame's villa. I caught her lifted eyes and the furtive
glance of gratitude she gave him.
It was a wild dash up the coast; Le Blanc driving, Herbert handling the
siren, the others packed in, crouching close, Gaston holding to the
foot-board, where he roared in our ears the details of the impending
calamity, his breath having now come back to him. The cliff, he
explained, that supported the tennis court of an adjoining villa had
given way, taking with it a slice of madame's lawn, leaving only the
gravel walk under her library windows. The surf, goaded by the thrash of
the wind, was, when he left, cutting great gashes in the toe of the
newly exposed slope. Another hour's work like the last--and it was not
high water until four o'clock--would send the cottage heels over head
into the sea. Madame was in Paris, and the caretakers--an old fisherman
and his wife--too old to work--were panic-stricken, calling piteously
for Monsieur Lemois, whom their mistress trusted most of all the people
in and about the village.
The end of the shore road had now been reached, our siren blowing
continuously. With a twist of the wheel we swerved from the main
highway, climbed a short hill, and chugged along an overhanging road
flanked by a row of little black lumps of cottages in silhouette against
the white fury of the smashing surf. The third of these, so Gaston said,
was madame's. Thank God it was still square-sided and the chimneys still
upright. We were in time anyhow!
More than once have I helped in a fire or lent a welcoming hand to a
shipwrecked crew breasting an ugly sea in a water-logged boat; but to
hold on to a cottage sliding into the sea--as one would to the heels of
a would-be suicide determined to dash himself to pieces on the sidewalk
below--was a new experience to me.
Not so to Herbert--that is, you would never have supposed it from the
way he took hold of things. In less time than I tell it, he had swung
wide the rear door of madame's villa, stationed Brierley, Le Blanc, and
myself at the side entrances to keep out poachers, formed a line of
fishermen (whom Gaston knew) to pass out bric-à-brac, pictures, and rare
furniture to the garage at the end of the lawn--the only safe place
under cover--and, with Louis to help, was packing it with household
goods.
While this was going on, although we did not know it, Lemois was
half-way down the slope watching the encroaching sea; calculating the
number of minutes which the villa had to live; watching, too, the slow
crumbling of the cliff. He knew something of these earth slides--or
thought he did--and, catching sight of our rescue party, struggled up to
warn us.
But Herbert had not furled a mainsail off Cape Horn for nothing. He also
knew the sea and what its savage force could do. He, too, had swept his
eyes over the crumbling slopes, noted the wind, looked at his watch,
and, bounding back, had given orders to go ahead. There was possibly an
hour--certainly thirty minutes--before the house, caught by the tide at
high water, would sag, tilt, and pitch headlong, like a bird-cage
dropped from a window-sill, and no power on earth could save it. Until
then the work of rescuing madame's belongings must go on.
Louis' enormous strength now came into play: first it was an inlaid
cabinet, mounted in bronze, with heavy glass doors. This, stripped of
its curios, which he crammed into his pockets, was picked up bodily and
carried without a break to the garage, a hundred yards in the rear;
then followed bronzes that had taken two men to place on their
pedestals; pictures in heavy frames; a harp muffled in a water-proof
cover, which became a toy in his hands; even the piano went out on the
run and was slid along the porch and down the steps, and, with the aid
of Gaston and another fisherman, whirled under cover.
The fight now was against time, Lemois indicating the most valuable
articles. Soon the first floor was entirely cleared except for some
heavy pieces of furniture, and a dash was made upstairs for madame's
bedroom and boudoir, filled with choice miniatures, larger portraits,
and the little things she loved and lived with. The pillows were now
torn from the beds, emptied, and every conceivable kind of small
precious thing--silver-topped toilet articles, an ivory crucifix, bits
of Dresden china--all the odds and ends a woman of quality, taste, and
refinement uses and must have--were dumped one after another into the
pillow-sacks and carried carefully to shelter. Then followed the books
and rare manuscripts.
Herbert, who, between every trip to the garage or to the crowd of
willing workers outside, had paused to watch the sea, now bawled up the
staircase ordering every man out. The last moment of safety had arrived.
Lemois, intent on rescuing a particular portfolio of etchings, either
would not or did not hear. Gaston, more alert, and who had been helping
him to carry down an armful of the more precious books, sprang past
Herbert, despite his cry, and dashed back up the steps, shouting as he
raced on that Lemois was still upstairs. Herbert made a plunge to follow
when Louis threw his arms around him.
"No, for God's sake! She's going! Out of this!--quick! Jump, Herbert, or
you'll be killed!"
As the two men cleared the doorway there came a racking, splitting,
tearing noise; a doubling under of the posts of the front porch; a hail
of broken glass and clouds of blinding dust from squares of plaster as
the ceilings collapsed; then the whole structure canted--slid ten feet
and stopped, the brick chimneys smashing their full length into the
crumbling mass. When the dust and flying splinters settled, Herbert and
Louis were standing on firm ground within a foot only of the upheaved
edge of raw earth. Staring them in the face, like the upturned feet of
a prostrate man, were the bottom timbers of the cottage.
Somewhere inside the chaotic mass lay Lemois and Gaston!
A cry of horror went up from the crowd, made more intense by the shriek
of a fisher-woman--Gaston's mother--who just before the crash came had
seen her son's head at the library window, and who was now fighting her
way to where Herbert was keeping back the mob until he could make up his
mind what was best to do. Her breathless news decided him.
"Louis!" he shouted, his voice ringing above the roar of the sea, "pick
out two men--good ones--and follow me!"
The four worked their way to a careened window now flattened within a
foot of the ground, crawled over the sill, and Herbert calling out to
Lemois and Gaston all the while, crept under a tangle of twisted beams,
flooring, and furniture, until they reached what was once the farther
wall of the library.
Under an overturned sofa, pinned down but unhurt, white with dust and
broken plaster and almost unrecognizable, they found our landlord.
Gaston lay a few feet away, the breath knocked out of him, an ugly
wound in his head. Lemois had answered their call, but Gaston had given
no sign.