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PARROT & CO.
by
HAROLD MacGRATH
Author of
"The Best Man," "The Carpet from Bagdad," "The Place of Honeymoons"
With Four Illustrations in Color
By André Castaigne
[Frontispiece: The Game of Gossip.]
A. L. Burt Company
Publishers -------- New York
Copyright 1913
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I EAST IS EAST
II A MAN WITH A PAST
III THE WEAK LINK
IV TWO DAYS OF PARADISE
V BACK TO LIFE
VI IN THE NEXT ROOM
VII CONFIDENCES
VIII A WOMAN'S REASON
IX TWO SHORT WEEKS
X THE CUT DIRECT
XI THE BLUE FEATHER
XII THE GAME OF GOSSIP
XIII AFTER TEN YEARS
XIV ACCORDING TO THE RULES
XV A BIT OF A LARK
XVI WHO IS PAUL ELLISON?
XVII THE ANSWERING CABLE
XVIII THE BATTLE
XIX TWO LETTERS
XX THE TWO BROTHERS
XXI HE THAT WAS DEAD
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Game of Gossip . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
A Bit of a Lark
The Battle
He That Was Dead
TO
J. J. CURTIS
PARROT & CO.
I
EAST IS EAST
It began somewhere in the middle of the world, between London which is
the beginning and New York which is the end, where all things are east
of the one and west of the other. To be precise, a forlorn landing on
the west bank of the muddy turbulent Irrawaddy, remembered by man only
so often as it was necessary for the flotilla boat to call for paddy, a
visiting commissioner anxious to get away, or a family homeward-bound.
Somewhere in the northeast was Mandalay, but lately known in romance,
verse and song; somewhere in the southeast lay Prome, known only in
guide-books and time-tables; and farther south, Rangoon, sister to
Singapore, the half-way house of the derelicts of the world. On the
east side of the river, over there, was a semblance of civilization.
That is to say, men wore white linen, avoided murder, and frequently
paid their gambling debts. But on this west side stood wilderness, not
the kind one reads about as being eventually conquered by white men;
no, the real grim desolation, where the ax cuts but leaves no blaze,
where the pioneer disappears and few or none follow. The pioneer has
always been a successful pugilist, but in this part of Burma fate, out
of pure admiration for the pygmy's gameness, decided to call the battle
a draw. It was not the wilderness of the desert, of the jungle; rather
the tragic hopeless state of a settlement that neither progressed,
retarded, nor stood still.
Between the landing and the settlement itself there stretched a winding
road, arid and treeless, perhaps two miles in length. It announced
definitely that its end was futility. All this day long heavy
bullock-carts had rumbled over it, rumbled toward the landing and
rattled emptily back to the settlement. The dust hung like a fog above
the road, not only for this day, but for all days between the big
rains. Each night, however, the cold heavy dews drew it down, cooling
but never congealing it. From under the first footfall the next day it
rose again. When the gods, or the elements, or Providence, arranged
the world as a fit habitation for man, India and Burma were made the
dust-bins. And as water finds its levels, so will dust, earthly and
human, the quick and the dead.
It was after five in the afternoon. The sun was sinking, hazily but
swiftly; ribbons of scarlet, ribbons of rose, ribbons of violet, lay
one upon the other. The sun possessed no definite circle; a great
blinding radiance like metal pouring from the mouth of a blast-furnace.
Along the road walked two men, phantom-like. One saw their heads dimly
and still more dimly their bodies to the knees; of legs, there was
nothing visible. Occasionally they stepped aside to permit some
bullock-cart to pass. One of them swore, not with any evidence of
temper, not viciously, but in a kind of mechanical protest, which, from
long usage, had become a habit. He directed these epithets never at
animate things, never at anything he could by mental or physical
contest overcome. He swore at the dust, at the heat, at the wind, at
the sun.
The other wayfarer, with the inherent patience of his blood, said
nothing and waited, setting down the heavy kit-bag and the
canvas-valise (his own). When the way was free again he would sling
the kit-bag and the valise over his shoulder and step back into the
road. His turban, once white, was brown with dust and sweat. His
khaki uniform was rent under the arm-pits, several buttons were gone;
his stockings were rusty black, mottled with patches of brown skin; and
the ragged canvas-shoes spurted little spirals of dust as he walked.
The British-Indian government had indulgently permitted him to proceed
about his duties as guide and carrier under the cognomen of James
Hooghly, in honor of a father whose surname need not be written here,
and in further honor of the river upon which, quite inconveniently one
early morning, he had been born. For he was Eurasian; half European,
half Indian, having his place twixt heaven and hell, which is to say,
nowhere. His father had died of a complication of bhang-drinking and
opium-eating; and as a consequence, James was full of humorless
imagination, spells of moodiness and outbursts of hilarious politics.
Every native who acquires a facility in English immediately sets out to
rescue India from the clutches of the British raj, occasionally
advancing so far as to send a bullet into some harmless individual in
the Civil Service.
James was faithful, willing and strong; and as a carrier of burdens,
took unmurmuringly his place beside the tireless bullock and the
elephant. He was a Methodist; why, no one could find lucid answer,
since he ate no beef, drank from no common cup, smoked through his fist
when he enjoyed a pipe, and never assisted Warrington Sahib in his
deadly pursuit of flies and mosquitoes. He was Hindu in all his acts
save in his manner of entering temples; in this, the European blood
kept his knees unbended. By dint of inquiry his master had learned
that James looked upon his baptism and conversion in Methodism as a
corporal would have looked upon the acquisition of a V. C. Twice,
during fever and plague, he had saved his master's life. With the
guilelessness of the Oriental he considered himself responsible for his
master in all future times. Instead of paying off a debt he had
acquired one. Treated as he was, kindly but always firmly, he would
have surrendered his life cheerfully at the beck of the white man.
Warrington was an American. He was also one of those men who never
held misfortune in contempt, whose outlook wherever it roamed was
tolerant. He had patience for the weak, resolution for the strong, and
a fearless amiability toward all. He was like the St. Bernard dog,
very difficult to arouse. It is rather the way with all men who are
strong mentally and physically. He was tall and broad and deep. Under
the battered pith-helmet his face was as dark as the Eurasian's; but
the eyes were blue, bright and small-pupiled, as they are with men who
live out-of-doors, who are compelled of necessity to note things moving
in the distances. The nose was large and well-defined. All framed in
a tangle of blond beard and mustache which, if anything, added to the
general manliness of his appearance. He, too, wore khaki, but with the
addition of tan riding-leggings, which had seen anything but
rocking-horse service. The man was yellow from the top of his helmet
to the soles of his shoes--outside. For the rest, he was a mystery, to
James, to all who thought they knew him, and most of all to himself. A
pariah, an outcast, a fugitive from the bloodless hand of the law; a
gentleman born, once upon a time a clubman, college-bred; a
contradiction, a puzzle for which there was not any solution, not even
in the hidden corners of the man's heart. His name wasn't Warrington;
and he had rubbed elbows with the dregs of humanity, and still looked
you straight in the eye because he had come through inferno without
bringing any of the defiling pitch.
From time to time he paused to relight his crumbling cheroot. The
tobacco was strong and bitter, and stung his parched lips; but the
craving for the tang of the smoke on his tongue was not to be denied.
Under his arm he carried a small iron-cage, patterned something like a
rat-trap. It contained a Rajputana parrakeet, not much larger than a
robin, but possessor of a soul as fierce as that of Palladia, minus,
however, the smoothing influence of chivalry. He had been born under
the eaves of the scarlet palace in Jaipur (so his history ran); but the
proximity of Indian princes had left him untouched: he had neither
chivalry, politeness, nor diplomacy. He was, in fact, thoroughly and
consistently bad. Round and round he went, over and over, top-side,
down-side, restlessly. For at this moment he was hearing those
familiar evening sounds which no human ear can discern: the muttering
of the day-birds about to seek cover for the night. In the field at
the right of the road stood a lonely tree. It was covered with
brilliant scarlet leaves and blossoms, and justly the natives call it
the Flame of the Jungle. A flock of small birds were gyrating above it.
"Jah, jah, jah! Jah--jah--ja-a-a-h!" cried the parrot, imitating the
Burmese bell-gong that calls to prayer. Instantly he followed the call
with a shriek so piercing as to sting the ear of the man who was
carrying him.
"You little son-of-a-gun," he laughed; "where do you pack away all that
noise?"
There was a strange bond between the big yellow man and this little
green bird. The bird did not suspect it, but the man knew. The pluck,
the pugnacity and the individuality of the feathered comrade had been
an object lesson to the man, at a time when he had been on the point of
throwing up the fight.
"Jah, jah, jah! Jah--jah--ja-a-a-h!" The bird began its interminable
somersaults, pausing only to reach for the tantalizing finger of the
man, who laughed again as he withdrew the digit in time.
For six years he had carried the bird with him, through India and Burma
and Malacca, and not yet had he won a sign of surrender. There were
many scars on his forefingers. It was amazing. With one pressure of
his hand he could have crushed out the life of the bird, but over its
brave unconquerable spirit he had no power. And that is why he loved
it.
Far away in the past they had met. He remembered the day distinctly
and bitterly. He had been on the brink of self-destruction. Fever and
poverty and terrible loneliness had battered and beaten him flat into
the dust from which this time he had had no wish to rise. He had
walked out to the railway station at Jaipur to witness the arrival of
the tourist train from Ahmadabad. He wanted to see white men and white
women from his own country, though up to this day he had carefully
avoided them. (How he hated the English, with their cold-blooded
suspicion of all who were not island-born!) The natives surged about
the train, with brass-ware, antique articles of warfare, tiger-hunting
knives (accompanied by perennial fairy tales), skins and silks. There
were beggars, holy men, guides and fakirs.
Squatted in the dust before the door of a first-class carriage was a
solemn brown man, in turban and clout, exhibiting performing parrots.
It was Rajah's turn. He fired a cannon, turned somersaults through a
little steel-hoop, opened a tiny chest, took out a four-anna piece,
carried it to his master, and in exchange received some seed.
Thereupon he waddled resentfully back to the iron-cage, opened the
door, closed it behind him, and began to mutter belligerently.
Warrington haggled for two straight hours. When he returned to his
sordid evil-smelling lodgings that night, he possessed the parrot and
four rupees, and sat up the greater part of the night trying to make
the bird perform his tricks. The idea of suicide no longer bothered
him; trifling though it was, he had found an interest in life. And on
the morrow came the Eurasian, who trustfully loaned Warrington every
coin that he could scrape together.
Often, in the dreary heart-achy days that followed, when weeks passed
ere he saw the face of a white man, when he had to combat opium and
bhang and laziness in the natives under him, the bird and his funny
tricks had saved him from whisky, or worse. In camp he gave Rajah much
freedom, its wings being clipt; and nothing pleased the little rebel so
much as to claw his way up to his master's shoulder, sit there and
watch the progress of the razor, with intermittent "jawing" at his own
reflection in the cracked hand-mirror.
Up and down the Irrawaddy, at the rest-houses, on the boats, to those
of a jocular turn of mind the three were known as "Parrot & Co."
Warrington's amiability often misled the various scoundrels with whom
he was at times forced to associate. A man who smiled most of the time
and talked Hindustani to a parrot was not to be accorded much courtesy;
until one day Warrington had settled all distinctions, finally and
primordially, with the square of his fists. After that he went his way
unmolested, having soundly trounced one of the biggest bullies in the
teak timber-yards at Rangoon.
He made no friends; he had no confidences to exchange; nor did he offer
to become the repository of other men's pasts. But he would share his
bread and his rupees, when he had them, with any who asked. Many tried
to dig into his past, but he was as unresponsive as granite. It takes
a woman to find out what a man is and has been; and Warrington went
about women in a wide circle. In a way he was the most baffling kind
of a mystery to those who knew him: he frequented the haunts of men,
took a friendly drink, played cards for small sums, laughed and jested
like any other anchorless man. In the East men are given curious
names. They become known by phrases, such as, The Man Who Talks, Mr.
Once Upon a Time, The One-Rupee Man, and the like. As Warrington never
received any mail, as he never entered a hotel, nor spoke of the past,
he became The Man Who Never Talked of Home.
"I say, James, old sport, no more going up and down this bally old
river. We'll go on to Rangoon to-night, if we can find a berth."
"Yes, Sahib; this business very piffle," replied the Eurasian without
turning his head. Two things he dearly loved to acquire: a bit of
American slang and a bit of English silver. He was invariably changing
his rupees into shillings, and Warrington could not convince him that
he was always losing in the transactions.
They tramped on through the dust. The sun dropped. A sudden chill
began to penetrate the haze. The white man puffed his cheroot, its
wrapper dangling; the servant hummed an Urdu lullaby; the parrot
complained unceasingly.
"How much money have you got, James?"
"Three annas."
Warrington laughed and shook the dust from his beard. "It's a great
world, James, a great and wonderful world. I've just two rupees
myself. In other words, we are busted."
"Two rupees!" James paused and turned. "Why, Sahib, you have three
hundred thousand rupees in your pocket."
"But not worth an anna until I get to Rangoon. Didn't those duffers
give you anything for handling their luggage the other day?"
"Not a pice, Sahib."
"Rotters! It takes an Englishman to turn a small trick like that.
Well, well; there were extenuating circumstances. They had sore heads.
No man likes to pay three hundred thousand for something he could have
bought for ten thousand. And I made them come to me, James, to me. I
made them come to this god-forsaken hole, just because it pleased my
fancy. When you have the skewer in, always be sure to turn it around.
I believe I'm heaven-born after all. The Lord hates a quitter, and so
do I. I nearly quit myself, once; eh, Rajah, old top? But I made them
come to me. That's the milk in the cocoanut, the curry on the rice.
They almost had me. Two rupees! It truly is a great world."
"Jah, jah, jah! Jah--jah--jah--ja-a-a-h!" screamed the parrot.
"_Chaloo_!"
"Go on! That's the ticket. If I were a praying man, this would be the
time for it. Three hundred thousand rupees!" The man looked at the
far horizon, as if he would force his gaze beyond, into the delectable
land, the Eden out of which he had been driven. "Caviar and truffles,
and Romanée Conti, and Partagas!"
"Chicken and curry and Scotch whisky."
"Bah! You've the imagination of a he-goat."
"All right, Sahib."
"James, I owe you three hundred rupees, and I am going to add seven
hundred more. We've been fighting this old top for six years together,
and you've been a good servant and a good friend; and I'll take you
with me as far as this fortune will go, if you say the word."
"Ah, Sahib, I am much sorry. But Delhi calls, and I go. A thousand
rupees will make much business for me in the Chandney Chowk."
"Just as you say."
Presently they became purple shades in a brown world.
II
A MAN WITH A PAST
The moonless Oriental night, spangled with large and brilliant stars,
brilliant yet mellow, unlike the crisp scintillating presentment in
northern latitudes, might have served as an illustration of an
air-tight bowl, flung down relentlessly upon this part of the world.
Inside this figurative bowl it was chill, yet the air was stirless. It
was without refreshment; it became a labor and not an exhilaration to
breath it. A pall of suffocating dust rolled above and about the
Irrawaddy flotilla boat which, buffeted by the strong irregular
current, strained at its cables, now at the bow, now at the stern, not
dissimilar to the last rocking of a deserted swing. This sensation was
quite perceptible to the girl who leaned over the bow-rail, her
handkerchief pressed to her nose, and gazed interestedly at the steep
bank, up and down which the sweating coolies swarmed like Gargantuan
rats. They clawed and scrambled up and slid and shuffled down; and
always the bank threatened to slip and carry them all into the swirling
murk below. A dozen torches were stuck into the ground above the
crumbling ledge; she saw the flames as one sees a burning match cupped
in a smoker's hands, shedding light upon nothing save that which stands
immediately behind it.
She choked a little. Her eyes smarted. Her lips were slightly
cracked, and cold-cream seemed only to provide a surer resting place
for the impalpable dust. It had penetrated her clothes; it had
percolated through wool and linen and silk, intimately, until three
baths a day had become a welcome routine, providing it was possible to
obtain water. Water. Her tongue ran across her lips. Oh, for a drink
from the old cold pure spring at home! Tea, coffee, and bottled soda;
nothing that ever touched the thirsty spots in her throat.
She looked up at the stars and they looked down upon her, but what she
asked they could not, would not, answer. Night after night she had
asked, and night after night they had only twinkled as of old. She had
traveled now for four months, and still the doubt beset her. It was to
be a leap in the dark, with no one to tell her what was on the other
side. But why this insistent doubt? Why could she not take the leap
gladly, as a woman should who had given the affirmative to a man? With
him she was certain that she loved him, away from him she did not know
what sentiment really abided in her heart. She was wise enough to
realize that something was wrong; and there were but three months
between her and the inevitable decision. Never before had she known
other than momentary indecision; and it irked her to find that her
clarity of vision was fallible and human like the rest of her. The
truth was, she didn't know her mind. She shrugged, and the movement
stirred the dust that had gathered upon her shoulders.
What a dust-ridden, poverty-ridden, plague-ridden world she had seen!
Ignorance wedded to superstition, yet waited upon by mystery and
romance and incomparable beauty. As the Occidental thought rarely
finds analysis in the Oriental mind, so her mind could not gather and
understand this amalgamation of art and ignorance. She forgot that
another race of men had built those palaces and temples and forts and
tombs, and that they had vanished as the Greeks and Romans have
vanished, leaving only empty spaces behind, which the surviving tribes
neither fill nor comprehend.
"A rare old lot of dust; eh, Miss Chetwood? I wish we could travel by
night, but you can't trust this blooming old Irrawaddy after sundown.
Charts are so much waste-paper. You just have to know the old lady.
Bars rise in a night, shift this side and that. But the days are all
right. No dust when you get in mid-stream. What?"
"I never cease wondering how those poor coolies can carry those heavy
rice-bags," she replied to the purser.
"Oh, they are used to it," carelessly.
The great gray stack of paddy-bags seemed, in the eyes of the girl,
fairly to melt away.
"By Jove!" exclaimed the purser. "There's Parrot & Co.!" He laughed
and pointed toward one of the torches.
"Parrot & Co.? I do not understand."
"That big blond chap behind the fourth torch. Yes, there. Sometime
I'll tell you about him. Picturesque duffer."
She could have shrieked aloud, but all she did was to draw in her
breath with a gasp that went so deep it gave her heart a twinge. Her
fingers tightened upon the teak-rail. Suddenly she knew, and was
ashamed of her weakness. It was simply a remarkable likeness, nothing
more than that; it could not possibly be anything more. Still, a ghost
could not have startled her as this living man had done.
"Who is he?"
"A chap named Warrington. But over here that signifies nothing; might
just as well be Jones or Smith or Brown. We call him Parrot & Co., but
the riff-raff have another name for him. The Man Who Never Talked of
Home. For two or three seasons he's been going up and down the river.
Ragged at times, prosperous at others. Lately it's been rags. He's
always carrying that Rajputana parrot. You've seen the kind around the
palaces and forts: saber-blade wings, long tail-feathers, green and
blue and scarlet, and the ugliest little rascals going. This one is
trained to do tricks."
"But the man!" impatiently.
He eyed her, mildly surprised. "Oh, he puzzles us all a bit, you know.
Well educated; somewhere back a gentleman; from the States. Of course
I don't know; something shady, probably. They don't tramp about like
this otherwise. For all that, he's rather a decent sort; no bounder
like that rotter we left at Mandalay. He never talks about himself. I
fancy he's lonesome again."
"Lonesome?"
"It's the way, you know. These poor beggars drop aboard for the night,
merely to see a white woman again, to hear decent English, to dress and
dine like a human being. They disappear the next day, and often we
never see them again."
"What do they do?" The question came to her lips mechanically.
"Paddy-fields. White men are needed to oversee them. And then,
there's the railway, and there's the new oil-country north of Prome.
You'll see the wells to-morrow. Rather fancy this Warrington chap has
been working along the new pipelines. They're running them down to
Rangoon. Well, there goes the last bag. Will you excuse me? The
lading bills, you know. If he's with us tomorrow, I'll have him put
the parrot through its turns. An amusing little beggar."
"Why not introduce him to me?"
"Beg pardon?"
"I'm not afraid," quietly.
"By Jove, no! But this is rather difficult, you know. If he shouldn't
turn out right . . ." with commendable hesitance.
"I'll take all the responsibility. It's a whim."
"Well, you American girls are the eighth wonder of the world." The
purser was distinctly annoyed. "And it may be an impertinence on my
part, but I never yet saw an American woman who would accept advice or
act upon it."
"Thanks. What would you advise?" with dangerous sweetness.
"Not to meet this man. It's irregular. I know nothing about him. If
you had a father or a brother on board. . . ."
"Or even a husband!" laughing.
"There you are!" resignedly. "You laugh. You women go everywhere, and
half the time unprotected."
"Never quite unprotected. We never venture beyond the call of
gentlemen."
"That is true," brightening. "You insist on meeting this chap?"
"I do not insist; only, I am bored, and he might interest me for an
hour." She added: "Besides, it may annoy the others."
The purser grinned reluctantly. "You and the colonel don't get on.
Well, I'll introduce this chap at dinner. If I don't. . . .
"I am fully capable of speaking to him without any introduction
whatever." She laughed again. "It will be very kind of you."
When he had gone she mused over this impulse so alien to her character.
An absolute stranger, a man with a past, perhaps a fugitive from
justice; and because he looked like Arthur Ellison, she was seeking his
acquaintance. Something, then, could break through her reserve and
aloofness? She had traveled from San Francisco to Colombo, unattended
save by an elderly maiden who had risen by gradual stages from nurse to
companion, but who could not be made to remember that she was no longer
a nurse. In all these four months Elsa had not made half a dozen
acquaintances, and of these she had not sought one. Yet, she was
asking to meet a stranger whose only recommendation was a singular
likeness to another man. The purser was right. It was very irregular.
"Parrot & Co.!" she murmured. She searched among the phantoms moving
to and fro upon the ledge; but the man with the cage was gone. It was
really uncanny.
She dropped her arms from the rail and went to her stateroom and
dressed for dinner. She did not give her toilet any particular care.
There was no thought of conquest, no thought of dazzling the man in
khaki. It was the indolence and carelessness of the East, where
clothes become only necessities and are no longer the essentials of
adornment.
Elsa Chetwood was twenty-five, lithely built, outwardly reposeful, but
dynamic within. Education, environment and breeding had somewhat
smothered the glowing fires. She was a type of the ancient repression
of woman, which finds its exceptions in the Aspasias and Helens and
Cleopatras of legend and history. In features she looked exactly what
she was, well-bred and well-born. Beauty she also had, but it was the
cold beauty of northern winter nights. It compelled admiration rather
than invited it. Spiritually, Elsa was asleep. The fire was there,
the gift of loving greatly, only it smoldered, without radiating even
the knowledge of its presence. Men loved her, but in awe, as one loves
the marbles of Phidias. She knew no restraint, and yet she had passed
through her stirless years restrained. She was worldly without being
more than normally cynical; she was rich without being either frugal or
extravagant. Her independence was inherent and not acquired. She had
laid down certain laws for herself to follow; and that these often
clashed with the laws of convention, which are fetish to those who
divide society into three classes, only mildly amused her. Right from
wrong she knew, and that sufficed her.
Her immediate relatives were dead; those who were distantly related
remained so, as they had no part in her life nor she in theirs.
Relatives, even the best of them, are practically strangers to us.
They have their own affairs and interests, and if these touch ours it
is generally through the desire to inherit what we have. So Elsa went
her way alone. From her father she had inherited a remarkable and
seldom errant judgment. To her, faces were generally book-covers, they
repelled or attracted; and she found large and undiminishing interest
in the faculty of pressing back the covers and reading the text. Often
battered covers held treasures, and often the editions de luxe were
swindles. But in between the battered covers and the exquisite
Florentine hand-tooling there ranged a row of mediocre books; and it
was among these that Elsa found that her instinct was not wholly
infallible, as will be seen.
To-day she was facing the first problem of her young life, epochal.
She was, as it were, to stop and begin life anew. And she didn't know,
she wasn't sure.
There were few passengers aboard. There were three fussy old English
maidens under the protection of a still fussier old colonel, who
disagreed with everybody because his liver disagreed with him. Twenty
years of active service in Upper India had seriously damaged that
physiological function, and "pegs" no longer mellowed him. The quartet
greatly amused Elsa. Their nods were abrupt, and they spoke in the
most formal manner. She was under grave suspicion; in the first place,
she was traveling alone, in the second place, she was an American. At
table there was generally a desultory conversation, and many a barb of
malice Elsa shot from her bow. Figuratively, the colonel walked about
like a porcupine, bristling with arrows instead of quills. Elsa could
have shouted at times, for the old war-dog was perfectly oblivious.
There was, besides, the inevitable German tourist, who shelled with
questions every man who wore brass-buttons, until there was some
serious talk of dropping him astern some day. He had shelled the
colonel, but that gentleman was snugly encased in the finest and most
impenetrable Bessemer, complacency.
Upon these Irrawaddy boats the purser is usually the master of
ceremonies in the dining-saloon. The captain and his officers rarely
condescended. Perhaps it was too much trouble to dress; perhaps
tourists had disgusted them with life; at any rate, they remained in
obscurity.
Elsa usually sat at the purser's right, and to-night she found the
stranger sitting quietly at her side. The chair had been vacant since
the departure from Mandalay. Evidently the purser had decided to be
thorough in regard to her wishes. It would look less conspicuous to
make the introduction in this manner. And she wanted to meet this man
who had almost made her cry out in astonishment.
"Miss Chetwood, Mr. Warrington." This was as far as the purser would
unbend.
The colonel's eyes popped; the hands of the three maidens fluttered.
Warrington bowed awkwardly, for he was decidedly confused.
"Ha!" boomed the German. "Vat do you tink uff . . . ."
And from soup to coffee Warrington eluded, dodged, stepped under and
ran around the fusillade of questions.
Elsa laughed softly. There were breathing-spells, to be sure. Under
the cover of this verbal bombardment she found time to inspect the
stranger. The likeness, so close at hand, started a ringing in her
ears and a flutter in her throat. It was almost unbelievable. He was
bigger, broader, his eyes were keener, but there was only one real
difference: this man was rugged, whereas Arthur was elegant. It was as
if nature had taken two forms from the same mold, and had finished but
one of them. His voice was not unpleasant, but there were little sharp
points of harshness in it, due quite possibly to the dust.
"I am much interested in that little parrot of yours. I have heard
about him."
"Oh! I suppose you've heard what they call us?" His eyes looked
straight into hers, smilingly.
"Parrot & Co.? Yes. Will you show him off to-morrow?"
"I shall be very happy to."
But all the while he was puzzling over the purser's unaccountable
action in deliberately introducing him to this brown-eyed,
golden-skinned young woman. Never before had such a thing occurred
upon these boats. True, he had occasionally been spoken to; an idle
question flung at him, like a bare bone to a dog. If flung by an
Englishman, he answered it courteously, and subsided. He had been
snubbed too many times not to have learned this lesson. It never
entered his head that the introduction might have been brought about by
the girl's interest. He was too mortally shy of women to conceive of
such a possibility. So his gratitude was extended to the purser, who,
on his side, regretted his good-natured recommendations of the previous
hour.
When Elsa learned that the man at her side was to proceed to Rangoon,
she ceased to ask him any more questions. She preferred to read her
books slowly. Once, while he was engaging the purser, her glance ran
over his clothes. She instantly berated her impulsive criticism as a
bit of downright caddishness. The lapels of the coat were shiny, the
sleeves were short, there was a pucker across the shoulders; the
winged-collar gave evidence of having gone to the native laundry once
too often; the studs in the shirt-bosom were of the cheapest
mother-of-pearl, and the cuff-buttons, ordinary rupee silver. The
ensemble suggested that since the purchase of these habiliments of
civilization the man had grown, expanded.
Immediately after dinner she retired to her state-room, conscious that
her balance needed readjusting. She had heard and read much lore
concerning reincarnation, skeptically; yet here, within call of her
voice, was Arthur, not the shadow of a substance, but Arthur, shorn of
his elegance, his soft lazy voice, his half-dreaming eyes, his charming
indolence. Why should this man's path cross hers, out of all the
millions that ran parallel?
She opened her window and looked up at the stars again. She saw one
fall, describe an arc and vanish. She wondered what this man had done
to put him beyond the pale; for few white men remained in Asia from
choice. She had her ideas of what a rascal should be; but Warrington
agreed in no essential. It was not possible that dishonor lurked
behind those frank blue eyes. She turned from the window, impatiently,
and stared at one of her kit-bags. Suddenly she knelt down and threw
it open, delved among the soft fabrics and silks and produced a
photograph. She had not glanced at it during all these weeks. There
had been a purpose back of this apparent neglect. The very thing she
dreaded happened. Her pulse beat on, evenly, unstirred. She was a
failure.
In the photograph the man's beard was trimmed Valois; the beard of the
man who had sat next to her at dinner had grown freely and naturally,
full. Such a beard was out of fashion, save among country doctors. It
signified carelessness, indifference, or a full life wherein the
niceties of the razor had of necessity been ignored. Keenly she
searched the familiar likeness. What an amazing freak of nature! It
was unreal. She tossed the photograph back into the kit-bag,
bewildered, uneasy.
Meantime Warrington followed the purser into his office. "I haven't
paid for my stateroom yet," he said.
"I'll make it out at once. Rangoon, I understand?"
"Yes. But I'm in a difficulty. I have nothing in change but two
rupees."
The purser froze visibly. The tale was trite in his ears.
"But I fancy I've rather good security to offer," went on Warrington
coolly. He drew from his wallet a folded slip of paper and spread it
out.
The purser stared at it, enchanted. Warrington stared down at the
purser, equally enchanted.
"By Jove!" the former gasped finally. "And so you're the chap who's
been holding up the oil syndicate all these months? And you're the
chap who made them come to this bally landing three days ago?"
"I'm the chap."
It was altogether a new purser who looked up. "Twenty thousand pounds
about, and only two rupees in your pocket! Well, well; it takes the
East to bowl a man over like this. A certified check on the Bank of
Burma needs no further recommendation. In the words of your
countrymen, go as far as you like. You can pay me in Rangoon. Your
boy takes deck-passage?"
"Yes," returning the check to the wallet.
"Smoke?"
"Shouldn't mind. Thanks."
"Now, sit down and spin the yarn. It must be jolly interesting."
"I'll admit that it has been a tough struggle; but I knew that I had
the oil. Been flat broke for months. Had to borrow my boy's savings
for food and shelter. Well, this is the way it runs." Warrington told
it simply, as if it were a great joke.
"Rippin'! By Jove, you Americans are hard customers to put over. I
suppose you'll be setting out for the States at once?" with a curious
glance.
"I haven't made any plans yet," eying the cheroot thoughtfully.
"I see." The purser nodded. It was not difficult to understand.
"Well, good luck to you wherever you go."
"Much obliged."
Alone in his stateroom Warrington took out Rajah and tossed him on the
counterpane of the bed.
"Now, then, old sport!" tapping the parrot on the back with the perch
which he used as a baton. Blinking and muttering, the bird performed
his tricks, and was duly rewarded and returned to his home of iron.
"She'll be wanting to take you home with her, but you're not for sale."
He then opened his window and leaned against the sill, looking up at
the stars. But, unlike the girl, he did not ask any questions.
"Free!" he said softly.
III
THE WEAK LINK
The day began white and chill, for February nights and mornings are not
particularly comfortable on the Irrawaddy. The boat sped down the
river, smoothly and noiselessly. For all that the sun shone, the
shore-lines were still black. The dust had not yet risen. Elsa passed
through the dining-saloon to the stern-deck and paused at the door.
The scene was always a source of interest to her. There were a hundred
or more natives squatting in groups on the deck. They were wrapped in
ragged shawls, cotton rugs of many colors, and woolen blankets, and
their turbans were as bright and colorful as a Holland tulip-bed. Some
of them were smoking long pipes and using their fists as mouthpieces;
others were scrubbing their teeth with short sticks of fibrous wood;
and still others were eating rice and curry out of little copper pots.
There were very few Burmese among them. They were Hindus, from Central
and Southern India, with a scattering of Cingalese. Whenever a Hindu
gets together a few rupees, he travels. He neither cares exactly where
the journey ends, nor that he may never be able to return; so long as
there is a temple at his destination, that suffices him. The past is
the past, to-morrow is to-morrow, but to-day is to-day: he lives and
works and travels, prisoner to this creed.
Elsa never strolled among them. She was dainty. This world and these
people were new and strange to her, and as yet she could not quite
dominate the fear that some one of these brown-skinned beings might be
coming down with the plague. So she stood framed in the doorway, a
picture rare indeed to the dark eyes that sped their frank glances in
her direction.
"No, Sahib, no; it is three hundred."
"James, I tell you it's rupees three hundred and twelve, annas eight."
Upon a bench, backed against the partition, almost within touch of her
hand, sat the man Warrington and his servant, arguing over their
accounts. The former's battered helmet was tilted at a comfortable
angle and an ancient cutty hung pendent from his teeth, an idle wisp of
smoke hovering over the blackened bowl.
Elsa quietly returned to her chair in the bow and tried to become
interested in a novel. By and by the book slipped from her fingers to
her lap, and her eyes closed. But not for long. She heard the rasp of
a camp-stool being drawn toward her.
"You weren't dozing, were you?" asked the purser apologetically.
"Not in the least. I have only just got up."
"Shouldn't have disturbed you; but your orders were that whenever I had
an interesting story about the life over here, I was to tell it to you
instantly. And this one is just rippin'!"
"Begin," said Elsa. She sat up and threw back her cloak, for it was
now growing warm. "It's about Parrot & Co., I'm sure."
"You've hit it off the first thing," admiringly.
"Well, go on."
"It's better than any story you'll read in a month of Sundays. Our man
has just turned the trick, as you Americans say, for twenty thousand
pounds."
"Why, that is a fortune!"
"For some of us, yes. You see, whatever he was in the past, it was
something worth while, I fancy. Engineering, possibly. Knew his
geology and all that. Been wondering for months what kept him hanging
around this bally old river. Seems he found oil, borrowed the savings
of his servant and bought up some land on the line of the new
discoveries. Then he waited for the syndicate to buy. They ignored
him. They didn't send any one even to investigate his claim. Stupid,
rather. After a while, he went to them, at Prome, at Rangoon. They
thought they knew his kind. Ten thousand rupees was all he asked.
They laughed. The next time he wanted a hundred thousand. They
laughed again. Then he left for the teak forests. He had to live. He
came back in four months. In the meantime they had secretly
investigated. They offered him fifty thousand. _He_ laughed. He
wanted two hundred thousand. They advised him to raise cocoanuts.
What do you suppose he did then?"
"Got some other persons interested."
"Right-o! Some Americans in Rangoon said they'd take it over for two
hundred thousand. Something about the deal got into the newspapers.
The American oil men sent over a representative. That settled the
syndicate. What they could have originally purchased for ten thousand
they paid three hundred thousand."
"Splendid!" cried Elsa, clapping her hands. She could see it all, the
quiet determination of the man, the penury of the lean years, his
belief in himself and in what he had found, and the disinterested
loyalty of the servant. "Sometimes I wish I were a man and could do
things like that."
"Recollect that landing last night?"
Elsa's gesture signified that she was glad to be miles to the south of
it.
"Well, he wasn't above having his revenge. He made the syndicate come
up there. They wired asking why he couldn't come on to Rangoon. And
very frankly he gave his reasons. They came up on one boat and left on
another. They weren't very pleasant, but they bought his oil-lands.
He came aboard last night with a check for twenty thousand pounds and
two rupees in his pocket. The two rupees were all he had in this world
at the time they wrote him the check. Arabian night; what?"
"I am glad. I like pluck; I like endurance; I like to see the lone man
win against odds. Tell me, is he going back to America?"
"Ah, there's the weak part in the chain." The purser looked
diffidently at the deck floor. It would have been easy enough to
discuss the Warrington of yesterday, to offer an opinion as to his
past; but the Warrington of this morning was backed by twenty thousand
good English sovereigns; he was a different individual, a step beyond
the casual damnation of the mediocre. "He says he doesn't know what
his plans will be. Who knows? Perhaps some one ran away with his best
girl. I've known lots of them to wind up out here on that account."
"Is it a rule, then, that disappointed lovers fly hither, penniless?"
The mockery escaped the purser, who was a good fellow in his blundering
way. "Chaps gamble, you know. And this part of the world is full of
fleas and mosquitoes and gamblers. When a man's been chucked, he's
always asking what's trumps. He's not keen on the game; and the
professional gambler takes advantage of his condition. Oh, there are a
thousand ways out here of getting rid of your money when the girl's
given you the go-by!"
"To that I agree. When do we reach Prome?"
"About six," understanding that the Warrington incident was closed.
"It isn't worth while going ashore, though. Nothing to see at night."
"I have no inclination to leave the boat until we reach Rangoon."
She met Warrington at luncheon, and she greeted him amiably. To her
mind there was something pitiful in the way the man had tried to
improve his condition. Buttons had been renewed, some with black
thread and some with white; and there were little islands of brown
yarn, at the elbows, at the bottom of the pockets, along the seams. So
long as she lived, no matter whom she might marry, she was convinced
that never would the thought of this man fade completely from her
memory. Neither the amazing likeness nor the romantic background had
anything to do with this conviction. It was the man's utter loneliness.
"I have been waiting for Parrot & Co. all the morning," she said.
"I'll show him to you right after luncheon. It wasn't that I had
forgotten."
She nodded; but he did not comprehend that this inclination of the head
explained that she knew the reason of the absence. She could in fancy
see the strong brown fingers clumsily striving to thread the needle.
(As a matter of fact, her imagination was at fault. James had done the
greater part of the repairing.)
Rajah took the center of the stage; and even the colonel forgot his
liver long enough to chuckle when the bird turned somersaults through
the steel-hoop. Elsa was delighted. She knelt and offered him her
slim white finger. Rajah eyed it with his head cocked at one side. He
turned insolently and entered his cage. Since he never saw a finger
without flying at it in a rage, it was the politest thing he had ever
done.
"Isn't he a sassy little beggar?" laughed the owner. "That's the way;
his hand, or claw, rather, against all the world. I've had him half a
dozen years, and he hates me just as thoroughly now as he did when I
picked him up while I was at Jaipur."
"Have you carried him about all this time?" demanded the colonel.
"He was one of the two friends I had, one of the two I trusted,"
quietly, with a look which rather disconcerted the Anglo-Indian.
"By the actions of him I should say that he was your bitterest enemy."
"He is; yet I call him friend. There's a peculiar thing about
friendship," said the kneeling man. "We make a man our friend; we take
him on trust, frankly and loyally; we give him the best we have in us;
but we never really know. Rajah is frankly my enemy, and that's why I
love him and trust him. I should have preferred a dog; but one takes
what one can. Besides . . ." Warrington paused, thrust the perch
between the bars, and got up.
"Jah, jah, jah! Jah--jah--ja-a-a-h!" the bird shrilled.
"Oh, what a funny little bird!" cried Elsa, laughing. "What does he
say?"
"I've often wondered. It sounds like the bell-gong you hear in the
Shwe Dagon Pagoda, in Rangoon. He picked it up himself."
The colonel returned to his elderly charges and became absorbed in his
aged _Times_. If the girl wanted to pick up the riff-raff to talk to,
that was her affair. Americans were impossible, anyhow.
"How long have you been in the Orient?" Elsa asked.
"Ten years," he answered gravely.
"That is a long time."
"Sometimes it was like eternity."
"I have heard from the purser of your good luck."
"Oh!" He stooped again and locked the door of Rajah's cage. "I dare
say a good many people will hear of it."
"It was splendid. I love to read stories like that, but I'd far rather
hear them told first-hand."
Elsa was not romantic in the sense that she saw heroes where there were
only ordinary men; but she thrilled at the telling of some actual
adventure, something big with life. Her heart and good will went out
to the man who won against odds. Strangely enough, soldier's daughter
though she was, the pomp and glamour and cruelty of war were detestable
to her. It was the obscure and unknown hero who appealed to her: such
a one as this man might be.
"Oh, there was nothing splendid about the thing. I simply hung on."
Then a thought struck him. "You are traveling alone?"
"With a companion." A peculiar question, she thought.
"It is not wise," he commented.
"My father was a soldier," she replied.
"It isn't a question of bravery," he replied, a bit of color charging
under his skin.
Elsa was amused. "And, pray, what question is it?" He was like a boy.
"I'm afraid of making myself obscure. This world is not like your
world. Women over here. . . Oh, I've lost the art of saying things
clearly." He pulled at his beard embarrassedly.
"I rather believe I understand you. The veneer cracks easily in hot
climates; man's veneer."
"And falls off altogether."
"Are you warning me against yourself?"
"Why not? Twenty thousand pounds do not change a man; they merely
change the public's opinion of him. For all you know, I may be the
greatest rascal unhanged."
"But you are not."
He recognized that it was not a query; and a pleasurable thrill ran
over him. Had there been the least touch of condescension in her
manner, he would have gone deep into his shell.
"No; there are worse men in this world than I. But we are getting away
from the point, of women traveling alone in the East. Oh, I know you
can protect yourself to a certain extent. But everywhere, on boats, in
the hotels, on the streets, are men who have discarded all the laws of
convention, of the social contract. And they have the keen eye of the
kite and the vulture."