At first it was hard to make out much of anything in Mrs. King’s
“parlour.” A murk of opium smoke made the gloom tangible. The lamp was
not lighted. It had a crazy newspaper shade now, and the chimney was
streaked black. The table on which it stood was cluttered with rubbish
and clumsily opened tins which had held meats and fish. The whole place
was foul, and the air was so thick it could only be breathed with the
greatest difficulty by lungs not inoculated.
From a corner of the room came the sound of measured breathing. King
was expelling opium smoke from mouth and nose. He seemed to be drawing
up the smoke from the very soles of his feet, and his eyes were closed
in ecstasy—partly immediate, but more depending upon a knowledge of the
sweet torment in store for him. There was another steady intake from
the pipe, another exhalation; and, the resources of the pipe exhausted,
it was laid aside. For a few moments the inert man made feeble wafting
motions in the air with one hand.
And above him, on the wall, Captain Utterbourne perceived a bright print
of a sailor returned to his own fireside. Below it was the last leaf of
a calendar, with all the dates blocked black. And beside it was a sheet
of paper on which several new months had been indicated with a pencil. He
seemed to realize what it meant with something faintly like a flicker of
emotion.
Utterbourne went to the man on the cot, leaned down over him, and said,
in a clear, loud voice:
“Mr. King!”
The crouching figure shuddered, and with a wretched, baffled effort,
tried to shake off the mounting lethargy. He opened his eyes, wanly
questioning, and at length managed to stagger up from the cot.
King was meagrely clothed, and dirty—a sad object, all in all, and a
pretty far cry, now, from any reasonable conception of a god.
Suddenly, as he faced the newcomer with the lantern, a light of frenzied
recognition flamed in his face, making the havoc there singularly vivid.
He took a lurching step and stretched out his arms, his eyes moving with
obscured intelligence.
“Utterbourne!” he cried out in a terrible voice and flung his arms
heavily about the other’s neck, as a drunkard might. “Good God,
Utterbourne! What a hell to leave a man in....” But it flickered weakly.
His cheeks were grey, and so far shrunk from their former appearance as
to resemble a tough, thin substance stretched tightly over the bones of
the face. He was afflicted with general marasmus or consumption of the
flesh, and to look into the man’s face now was almost like looking at a
skull plastered with smoked wax.
He bore down on Utterbourne’s shoulders, and a ray of drifting content
came into his eyes—eyes which began to look even a little blue and round
again, though the dull fire of delirium made their expression still one
of wreck and hopelessness. The Captain manœuvred him back on to the cot,
pushing him with an arm that partly repelled and partly supported. King
dropped, an almost grateful little cry on his lips, and for a while sat
looking helplessly up at the face bent down toward him, so unchanging.
“I’d like to know more about everything here,” said Utterbourne, in a
firm yet inviting voice.
“Yes?” answered King, his hands dangling forlornly. “Yes?” And he gazed
with vacant eyes in which the last spark of fascination had long ago
smouldered and gone out. He had an odd way of swaying and dodging,
occasionally even raising an arm, as though to ward off some menace. When
he spoke it was in a clear but singularly detached voice, and he seemed
frequently to grope about for even the most commonplace words.
“Will you sit down and—talk to me?” he implored. “You don’t know—what did
I start to say? You don’t know—what it’s like to hear a white man speak
again!”
“I will,” agreed the Captain quietly. “Let me light the lamp. Where do
you keep your matches?”
“I don’t seem to understand—very well. Would you mind being a little
more—a little more....” He swayed and his eyes closed.
“Never mind. I have matches.” And in a moment the lamp was lighted,
though it did not materially relieve the gloom of the place. Then
Utterbourne sat down and spoke King’s name again in loud, commanding tone.
“Mr. King!”
It smote against the silence ominously. Utterbourne, with his life of
multiple sensation, had perhaps never before found himself immersed in
an atmosphere so profoundly sombre.
“Yes—yes,” muttered the swaying cadaver.
The Captain shook him, and the man on the cot made another genuine effort
to control his waning senses.
“I am—Ferdinand King,” he said, almost in a chanting way. “I came out
here to take charge of a—of a....” He seemed to drift again and lose the
thread.
“I know,” encouraged the other man.
“Opium! That was it! Sometimes it all seems—to fade away. We were keeping
it dark....” A sound like a rattling chuckle drifted off his lips. Then
his eyes gradually filled with such a look of penetrating anguish that
the Captain shaded his own eyes and gazed at the tiny spirit flame
beneath its dome of glass. “Even my wife ...” murmured King. It was a
look, surely, that came from the very bottom of the beaten man’s soul;
and it takes a superhuman courage indeed to behold such a look with no
flinching.
Tears rushed from King’s eyes, and he went on murmuring: “I had a wife
once—a lovely girl—so pretty and gentle—but perhaps you’ve seen her....”
His voice was low, and he went on more brokenly, rocking himself slowly
back and forth: “They say she has died. She seems—to be gone away....”
He struggled, his eyes moving vaguely. “Gone away.... Oh, God help me!”
he suddenly cried out with a hollow yet considerable force. Then he grew
dense and inaudible again, though continuing to mutter, apparently under
the persuasion that he was still speaking intelligently.
Utterbourne, his glance roving about the dim sombre place, caught sight
of an uncased hunting knife on the table beneath the lamp with its crazy
shade. The knife had a menacing, a naked look.
The man on the cot was babbling weakly, and to bring him back once more
to a state of coherency, Utterbourne spoke with the former incision:
“Look here, King!”
“I’m glad you’ve—come,” the other managed thickly, his eyes gazing sadly
out through tears that had pooled and ceased flowing. “I was looking for
you—there’s a big book over there—over there....” His arm waved with
childish vagueness. “I started in to write up—a report. There would have
been time....” He made a ghastly attempt to smile. Then, “I’m afraid,” he
drifted, “you’ll find it—not quite up to date....”
Utterbourne perceived the book, down on the floor under a mantle of dust.
He crossed, curious, and took it up. The first hundred pages or so were
filled with a flowing and elegant penmanship, but toward the end the
writing had grown shaky and rough. The last entry was dated November 17.
“In a little while,” muttered King nebulously, “I’m going—on with it....”
When Utterbourne returned he found him examining his nails with close
attention. Now and then he rubbed his palms together gently. The tears
that lay splashed on his cheeks already were emblems of an emotion so
ancient that the wretched man had forgotten it, almost as though through
eons of Brahmic life.
“Yes—yes.... What was I saying? About the crop? We’ve been—very
successful—but I hope another year....” He dozed and came to. “I say I
hope we’ll be able to put up—a tank for the rains so we can irrigate.
Then you see ... I don’t know.... Does that answer your question?”
“King,” said the Captain sadly and a little dryly, “how did you come to
fall for your own goods?”
The other looked up wanly and again tried to smile. It was long before
he comprehended what had been said, but at length he began murmuring: “I
really can’t say—no, I can’t. It seems—such a long time....” And after
another somnolent pause he asked: “What did I say?”
“We won’t go into it tonight,” sighed Captain Utterbourne, rising
heavily. “Go to sleep, King. In the morning we’ll try to get at more of
the facts.”
Then a look of groping alarm came into the face of the White Kami, and
he began beating his hands together. “I wish you wouldn’t go away!” he
pleaded. “Only a little while after you’re gone, they’ll begin to come
in for the night!” His eyes smouldered wildly. “Don’t go away just yet.
I—I’ll see if I can answer your question—if you’ll wait.” He beat his
fists against his head, but rather coaxingly than savagely. The veins
stood out as he made a terrific effort at concentration. “Yes!” His face
lighted faintly. “It was about the opium. Not the crop—no....” He shook
his head, as though patiently arguing with himself. “Me—me! Wasn’t that
what you wanted? At first—at first I used very little. Yes—don’t go away!
I’m—going to tell you how it was. It was—Tsuda.... I guess he uses a
little now and then, too. Perhaps some day you’ll want to try—a jaunt.
In that case.... What was I saying? Did I say Tsuda? Yes—that’s right.
That’s right.... I kept telling myself,” he rambled, his manner growing
more and more agitated, and wilder, with an inflection of impatience,
“I’d _quit_—I’d _quit_....” Then, his tone growing warm and dreamy, and
fresh tears springing to his eyes: “We were going to settle down—in some
little ... in some little place where nothing much ever happens—but it
seems sometimes—_no, don’t go!_ I try to hold on, and my fingers ... my
fingers keep slipping off....” He regarded his fingers ruefully, flexing
them at the joints in a childish way. His expression grew very dull and
hopeless. “The lamp,” he muttered. “Would you mind—looking? I’m afraid
the oil’s very low.”
“Never mind, King,” said Utterbourne huskily. “In the morning....”
But he paused in his departure, and saw with amazement a look of swift
and convulsing terror leap into the other’s eyes. It was almost as though
flames darted from them, as King cried:
“In at the windows and doors—they’ll come—all of them—together!”
And he sprang up, screaming. He beat at the air with mill-like motions,
his eyes starting from his head in an ecstasy of horror. He darted over
to the table and seized the knife. His cries were the kind that must live
on forever. As he approached Utterbourne, he raised the knife tremblingly
in the air, and said:
“If you try to leave me—I’ll kill you!”
A slight movement at the door—Utterbourne’s officers, together with
Tsuda, were in the room. But Utterbourne merely stood his ground, gazing
hard at the frenzied being before him, while he spoke again, in a ringing
voice: “Mr. King!”
It seemed to have a calming and disarming effect. The victim shivered and
breathed in noisily. His threatening pose dissolved, his arms dropping
like pieces of flexible lead, while the knife clattered harmlessly on to
the floor.
King staggered, and a moment later was lying on the cot. But he was not
yet quiescent, for he beat at his hands furiously, and bit them, drawing
blood. Muffled cries came from him on long sighs.
They beheld in his face a look of ravenous hunger. Presently a hand
trembled over to the tabouret, and with fluttering fingers King took up
the pipe. Even in this crazed and moribund condition he seemed to know to
an exquisite fineness when the tiny browning ball had attained just the
proper pitch—never the least bit burned, never toasted a shade too dry.