It was nine o'clock and after. The great show at Olympia was at its
height; the packed house was roaring with delight over the daring
equestrianship of "Mlle. Marie de Zanoni," and the sound of the cheers
rolled in to the huge dressing-tent, where the artists awaited their
several turns, and the chevalier, in spangled trunks and tights, all
ready for his call, sat hugging his child and shivering like a man with
the ague.
"Come, come, buck up, man, and don't funk it like this," said Señor
Sperati, who had graciously consented to assist him with his dressing
because of the injury to his hand. "The idea of you losing your nerve,
you of all men, and because of a little affair like that. You know very
well that Nero is as safe as a kitten to-night, that he never has two
smiling turns in the same week, much less the same day. Your act's the
next on the programme. Buck up and go at it like a man."
"I can't, señor, I can't!" almost wailed the chevalier. "My nerve is
gone. Never, if I live to be a thousand, shall I forget that awful
moment, that appalling 'smile.' I tell you, there is wizardry in the
thing; the beast is bewitched. My work in the arena is done--done for
ever, señor. I shall never have courage to look into the beast's jaws
again."
"Rot! You're not going to ruin the show, are you, and after all the
money I've put into it? If you have no care for yourself, it's your duty
to think about me. You can at least try. I tell you you must try! Here,
take a sip of brandy, and see if that won't put a bit of courage into
you. Hello!" as a burst of applause and the thud of a horse's hoofs down
the passage to the stables came rolling in, "there's your wife's turn
over at last; and there--listen! the ringmaster is announcing yours. Get
up, man; get up and go out."
"I can't, señor--I can't! I can't!"
"But I tell you you must."
And just here an interruption came.
"Bad advice, my dear captain," said a voice--Cleek's voice--from the
other end of the tent; and with a twist and a snarl the "señor" screwed
round on his heel in time to see that other intruders were putting in an
appearance as well as this unwelcome one.
"Who the deuce asked you for your opinion?" rapped out the "señor"
savagely. "And what are you doing in here, anyhow? If we want the
service of a vet., we're quite capable of getting one for ourselves
without having him shove his presence upon us unasked."
"You are quite capable of doing a great many things, my dear captain,
even making lions smile!" said Cleek serenely. "It would appear that the
gallant Captain von Gossler, nephew, and, in the absence of one who has
a better claim, heir to the late Baron von Steinheid--That's it, nab the
beggar. Played, sir, played! Hustle him out and into the cab, with his
precious confederate, the Irish-Italian 'signor,' and make a clean sweep
of the pair of them. You'll find it a neck-stretching game, captain, I'm
afraid, when the jury comes to hear of that poor boy's death and your
beastly part in it."
By this time the tent was in an uproar, for the chevalier's wife had
come hurrying in, the chevalier's daughter was on the verge of
hysterics, and the chevalier's prospective son-in-law was alternately
hugging the great beast-tamer and then shaking his hand and generally
deporting himself like a respectable young man who had suddenly gone
daft.
"Governor!" he cried, half laughing, half sobbing. "Bully old governor.
It's over--it's over. Never any more danger, never any more hard times,
never any more lion's smiles."
"No, never," said Cleek. "Come here, Madame Pullaine, and hear the good
news with the rest. You married for love, and you've proved a brick. The
dream's come true, and the life of ease and of luxury is yours at last,
Mr. Pullaine."
"But, sir, I--I do not understand," stammered the chevalier. "What has
happened? Why have you arrested the Señor Sperati? What has he done? I
cannot comprehend."
"Can't you? Well, it so happens, chevalier, that the Baron von Steinheid
died something like two months ago, leaving the sum of sixty thousand
pounds sterling to one Peter Janssen Pullaine and the heirs of his body,
and that a certain Captain von Gossler, son of the baron's only sister,
meant to make sure that there was no Peter Janssen Pullaine and no heirs
of his body to inherit one farthing of it."
"Sir! Dear God, can this be true?"
"Perfectly true, chevalier. The late baron's solicitors have been
advertising for some time for news regarding the whereabouts of Peter
Janssen Pullaine, and if you had not so successfully hidden your real
name under that of your professional one, no doubt some of your
colleagues would have put you in the way of finding it out long ago. The
baron did not go back on his word and did not act ungratefully. His
will, dated twenty-nine years ago, was never altered in a single
particular. I rather suspect that that letter and that gift of money
which came to you in the name of his steward, and was supposed to close
the affair entirely, was the work of his nephew, the gentleman whose
exit has just been made. A crafty individual that, chevalier, and he
laid his plans cleverly and well. Who would be likely to connect him
with the death of a beast-tamer in a circus, who had perished in what
would appear an accident of his calling? Ah, yes, the lion's smile was a
clever idea--he was a sharp rascal to think of it."
"Sir! You--you do not mean to tell me that he caused that? He never went
near the beast--never--even once."
"Not necessary, chevalier. He kept near you and your children; that was
all that he needed to do to carry out his plan. The lion was as much his
victim as anybody else--you or your children. What it did it could not
help doing. The very simplicity of the plan was its passport to success.
All that was required was the unsuspected sifting of snuff on the hair
of the person whose head was to be put in the beast's mouth. The lion's
smile was not, properly speaking, a smile at all, chevalier; it was the
torture which came of snuff getting into its nostrils, and when the
beast made that uncanny noise and snapped its jaws together, it was
simply the outcome of a sneeze. The thing would be farcical if it were
not that tragedy hangs on the thread of it, and that a life, a useful
human life, was destroyed by means of it. Yes, it was clever, it was
diabolically clever; but you know what Bobby Burns says about the best
laid schemes of mice and men. There's always a Power--higher up--that
works the ruin of them."
With that he walked by, and, going to young Scarmelli, put out his hand.
"You're a good chap and you've got a good girl, so I expect you will be
happy," he said; and then lowered his voice so that the rest might not
reach the chevalier's ears. "You were wrong to suspect the little
stepmother," he added. "She's true blue, Scarmelli. She was only playing
up to those fellows because she was afraid the 'señor' would drop out
and close the show if she didn't, and that she and her husband and the
children would be thrown out of work. She loves her husband--that's
certain--and she's a good little woman; and, Scarmelli!"
"Yes, Mr. Cleek?"
"There's nothing better than a good woman on this earth, my lad. Always
remember that. I think you, too, have found one. I hope you have. I hope
you'll be happy. What's that? Owe me? Not a rap, my boy. Or, if you feel
that you must give me something, give me your prayers for equal luck,
and--send me a slice of the wedding cake. Good-night!"
And twisted round on his heel and walked out; making his way out to the
streets and facing the journey to Clarges Street afoot. For to be
absolutely without envy of any sort is not given to anything born of
woman; and the sight of this man's happiness, the knowledge of this
man's reward, brought upon him a bitter recollection of how far he still
was from his own.
Would he ever get that reward? he wondered. Would he ever be nearer to
it than he was to-night? It hurt--yes, it hurt horribly, sometimes, this
stone-cold silence, this walking always in shadowed paths without a ray
of light, without the certainty of arriving _anywhere_, though he plod
onward for a lifetime--and the old feeling of savage resentment, the old
sense of self-pity--the surest thing on God's earth to blaze a trail for
the oncoming of the worst that is in a man--bit at the soul of him and
touched him on the raw again.
He knew what that boded; and he also knew the antidote.
"Dollops, they broke into our holiday--they did us out of a part of it,
didn't they, old chap?" he said, when he reached home at last and found
the boy anxiously awaiting him. "Well, we'll have a day for every hour
they deprived us of, a whole day, bonny boy. Pack up again and we'll be
off to the land as God made it, and where God's things still live; and
we'll have a fortnight of it--a whole blessed fortnight, my boy, with
the river and the fields and the flowers and the dreams that hide in
trees."
Dollops made no reply. He simply bolted for the kit-bag and began to
pack at once. And the morrow, when it came, found these two--the servant
who was still a boy, and the master who had discovered the way back to
boyhood's secrets--forging up the shining river and seeking the Land of
Nightingales again.