“ONE MUST DIE”
Briggs entered his cabin, and locked both doors; then fastened the
window giving on the porch. He went to the fireplace, overhung with
all that savage arsenal, and put a couple of birch-logs on the glowing
coals.
He sat down in his big chair by the fire, pondered a moment with the
fireglow on his deep-wrinkled, bearded face, then from the pocket of
his bathrobe drew the crumpled bit of paper. Again he studied it,
reading it over two or three times. In a low voice he slowly pronounced
the words, as if to grave them on his consciousness:
“The curse must be fulfilled, to the last breath, for by Shiva and
the Trimurthi, what is written is written. But if he through whom
the curse descendeth on another is stricken to horror and to death,
then the Almighty Vishnu, merciful, closes that page. And he who
through another’s sin was cursed, is cleansed. Thus may the curse be
fulfilled. But always one of two must die. _Tuan Allah poonia krajah!_
It is the work of the Almighty One! One of two must die!”
For some minutes he pondered all this. Before him rose visions—the
miasmatic Malay town; the battle in the Straits; the yellow and
ghostlike presence of the witch-woman, shrilling her curse at him; the
death of Scurlock and the boy, of Mahmud Baba, of Kuala Pahang, of the
_amok_ Malay who, shot through the spine and half paralyzed, still had
writhed forward, horribly, to kill.
“No wonder the curse has followed me,” murmured the old man. “I haven’t
suffered yet as any one would have to suffer to pay for all that. For
all that, and so much more—God, how much more! It’s justice, that’s
all; and who can complain about justice? Poor Hal, poor boy of mine!
No justice about _his_ having to bear it, is there? Why should _he_
suffer for what _I_ did fifty years ago? Thank God! Oh, thank God!” he
exclaimed with passionate fervor, “that I can pay it all, and make him
free!”
He relapsed into silence a little while, his face not at all marked
with grief or pain, but haloed with a high and steadfast calm. The
drumming rain on the porch roof, the shuddering impact of the wind
as the storm set its shoulders against Snug Haven, saddened him with
thoughts of the fugitive, bearing the curse that was not his, out there
somewhere in the tumult and the on-drawing night, trying to flee the
whips of atavism. But through that sadness rose happier thoughts.
“It’s only for a little while now,” said the captain. “The curse is
nearly ended. When I’ve paid the score, it will lift, and he’ll come
back again. Poor Hal—how little he knew, when he was writing this
paper, that he was giving me the chart to steer my right course! If
the hand of some divine Providence isn’t in this, then there’s no
Providence to rule this world!”
Another thought struck him. Hal knew nothing of the fact that his
grandfather had found the curse. He must never know. In the life
of better things that soon was to open out for him, no embittering
self-accusation must intrude. All proof must be destroyed.
Captain Briggs tossed the curse of Dengan Jouga into the flames just
beginning to flicker upward from the curling birch-bark. The paper
browned and puffed into flame. It shriveled to a crisp black shell,
on which, for a moment or two, the writing glowed in angry lines of
crimson. Captain Briggs caught one last glimpse of a word or two,
grotesquely distorted—”_The curse—horror and death—one—must die—_”
Despite himself he shuddered. The hate and malice of the old
witch-woman seemed visibly glaring out at him from the flames, after
half a century. From the other side of the world, even from “beyond the
Silken Sea,” words of vengeance blinked at him, then suddenly vanished;
and with a gust of the storm-wind, up the chimney whirled the feather
bit of ash. The captain drew his bath robe a little closer round him,
and glanced behind him into the dark corners of the cabin.
“This—is very strange!” he whispered.
Still he sat pondering. Especially he recalled the Malay he had shot
through the spine. That lithe, strong man, suddenly paralyzed into a
thing half dead and yet alive, was particularly horrible to remember.
Helplessness, death that still did not die....
A spark snapped out upon the floor. He set his foot on it.
“That’s the only way to deal with evil,” said he. “Stamp it out! And
if we’re the evil ourselves, if we’re the spark of devil-fire, out we
must go! What misery I could have saved for Hal, if I’d understood
before—and what a cheap price! An old, used-up life for a new, strong,
fresh one.”
His mind, seeking what way of death would be most fitting, reverted
to the poisoned kris, symbol of the evil he had done and of the old,
terrible days. He peered up at the mantelpiece; but, look as he would,
failed to discover the kris. He rose to his feet, and explored the
brickwork with his hands in the half-light reflected from the fire.
Nothing there. The hooks, empty, showed where the Malay blade had been
taken down, but of the blade itself no trace remained.
The old captain shivered, amazed and wondering. In this event there
seemed more than the hand of mere coincidence. Hal was gone; the kris
had vanished. The captain could not keep cold tentacles of fear from
reaching for his heart. To him it seemed as if he could almost see
the eyeless face looming above him, could almost hear the implacable
mockery of its far, mirthless laughter.
“God!” he whispered. “This won’t do! I—I’ll lose my nerve if I keep on
this way, and nerve is what I’ve got to have now!”
Why had Hal taken that knife? What wild notion had inspired the boy?
Alpheus Briggs could not imagine. But something predestined, terrible,
seemed closing in. The captain felt the urge of swift measures. If Hal
were to be rescued, it must be at once.
Turning from the fireplace of such evil associations, he lighted the
ship’s lamp that hung above it. He sat down at the desk, opened a
drawer and took out two photographs. These he studied a few minutes,
with the lamp-light on his white hair, his venerable beard, his heavy
features. Closely he inspected the photographs.
One was a group, showing himself with the family that once had been,
but now had almost ceased to be. The other was a portrait of Hal.
Carefully the old man observed this picture, taken but a year ago,
noting the fine, broad forehead, the powerful shoulders, the strength
of the face that looked out so frankly at him. For the first time
he perceived a quality in this face he had never seen before—the
undertone of arrogant power, born of unbeaten physical strength.
The captain shook his head with infinite sadness.
“That’s the real curse that lay on me,” he murmured. “That’s what I’ve
got to pay for now. Well, so be it.”
He kissed both pictures tenderly, and put them back into the drawer.
From it he took a box, and from the box a revolver—an old revolver,
the very same that he had carried in the _Silver Fleece_ fifty long
years ago.
“You’ve done very great evil,” said Alpheus Briggs slowly. “Now you’re
going to pay for it by doing at least one good act. That’s justice. God
is being very good to me, showing me the way.”
He broke open the revolver, spun the cylinder and snapped the hammer
two or three times.
“It’s all right,” judged he. “This is an important job. It mustn’t be
made a mess of.”
He looked for and found a few cartridges, and carefully loaded the
weapon, then snapped it shut, and laid it on the desk. The sound of Dr.
Filhiol, coming with another cane along the hall, caused him to slide
the gun into the drawer. Filhiol knocked at the door, and Briggs arose
to open it. He showed no signs of perturbation. A calm serenity glowed
in his eyes.
“Isn’t it time you got your writing finished and went to bed?” the
doctor demanded tartly.
“Almost time. I’m just finishing up. I sha’n’t be long now. Tell me,
how’s Ruddy?”
“We’ve made a fair job of it, and Ezra’s gone to his room. He’s taking
everything terribly to heart. Anything I can do for you?”
“Nothing, thank you. Good night.”
The captain’s hand enfolded Filhiol’s. Neither by any undue pressure
nor by word did he give the doctor any hint of the fact that this
good-by was final. The old doctor turned and very wearily stumped away
up-stairs. Briggs turned back into his cabin.
“A good, true friend,” said he. “Another one I’m sorry to leave, just
as I’m sorry to leave the girl and Ezra. But—well—”
At his task once more, he fetched from the safe his black metal
cash-box, and set himself to looking over a few deeds, mortgages and
other papers, making sure that all was in order for the welfare of Hal.
He reread his will, assuring himself that nothing could prevent Hal
from coming into the property, and also that a bequest to Ezra was in
correct form. This done, he replaced the papers in the safe.
On his desk a little clock was ticking, each motion of its
balance-wheel bringing nearer the tragedy impending. The captain
glanced at it.
“Getting late,” said he. “Only one more thing to do now, and then I’m
ready.”
He set himself to write a letter that should make all things clear to
Hal. But first he brought out the revolver once more, and laid it on
the desk as a kind of _memento mori_, lest in the writing his soul
should weaken.
The lamp, shining down upon the old man’s gnarled fingers as they
painfully traced the words of explanation and farewell, also struck
high-lights from the revolver.
The captain’s eyes, now and then leaving the written pages as he paused
to think, rested upon the gun. At sight of it he smiled; and once he
reached out, caressed it and smiled.