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 night. 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.