out into the cafe-veranda. "By gad! she is a beauty, and no mistake.
And will you look at our friend, the colonel, toddling behind her?"
"You're welcome."
"You're a fine lady-killer." Mallow tore the band from a fresh cigar
and struck a match.
"I know when I've got enough. If you could get a good look at her when
she's angry, you'd change your tune."
Mallow sighed audibly. "Most women are tame, and that's why I've
fought shy of the yoke. Yonder's the sort for me. The man who marries
her will have his work cut out. It'll take a year or two to find out
who's boss; and if she wins, lord help the man!"
Craig eyed the group which was now seated. Two Chinamen were serving
coffee and cordials. Mallow was right; beautiful was the word. A
vague regret came to him, as it comes to all men outside the pale, that
such a woman could never be his. He poured out for himself a stiff peg
and drank it with very little soda. Craig always fled, as it were,
from introspection.
"Haven't seen the crow anywhere, have you?"
"No, nor want to. Leave him alone."
"Afraid of him, eh?"
"I'm truthful enough to say that I'm damned afraid of him. Don't
mistake me. I'd like to see him flat, beaten, down and out for good.
I'd like to see him lose that windfall, every cent of it. But I don't
want to get in his way just now."
"Rot! Don't you worry; no beach-comber like that can stand up long in
front of me. He threatened on board that he was going to collect that
fifty pounds. He hasn't been very spry about it."
"I should like to be with you when you meet."
Mallow grinned. "Not above seeing a pal get walloped, eh? Well, you
get a ring-side ticket. It'll be worth it."
"I don't want to see you get licked," denied Craig irritably. "All I
ask is that you shelve some of your cock-sureness. I'm not so
dead-broke that I must swallow all of it. I've warned you that he is a
strong man. He used to be one of the best college athletes in America."
"College!" exploded Mallow. "What the devil does a college athlete
know about a dock-fight?"
"Ever see a game of football?"
"No."
"Well, take it from me that it's the roughest game going. It's a game
where you put your boot in a man's face when he's not looking. Mallow,
they kill each other in that game. And Ellison was one of the best,
fifteen years ago. He used to wade through a ton of solid, scrapping,
plunging flesh. And nine times out of ten he used to get through. I
want you to beat him up, and it's because I do that I'm warning you not
to underestimate him. On shipboard he handled me as you would a bag of
salt; damn him! He's a surprise to me. He looks as if he had lived
clean out here. There's no booze-sign hanging out on him, like there
is on you and me."
"Booze never hurt me any."
"You're galvanized inside," said Craig, staring again at Elsa. He
wished he knew how to hurt her, too. But he might as well throw stones
at the stars.
"How would you like to put one over on this chap Ellison?"
"In what way?"
Mallow smoked for a moment, then touched his breast pocket
significantly.
"Not for mine," returned Craig. "Cards are my long suit. I'm no
second-story man, not yet."
"I know. But supposing you could get it without risk?"
"In the first place, the bulk of his cash is tied up in letters of
credit."
"Ah, you know that?"
"What good would it do to pinch those? In Europe there would be some
chance, but not here where boats are two weeks apart. A cable to
Rangoon would shut off all drawing. He could have others made out. In
cash he may have a few hundreds."
"All gamblers are more or less yellow," sneered Mallow. "The streak in
you is pretty wide. I tell you, you needn't risk your skin. Are you
game to put one over that will cost him a lot of worry and trouble?"
"So long as I can stand outside the ropes and look on."
"He has a thousand pounds in his belt. No matter how I found out.
How'd you like to put your hand on it if you were sure it would not
burn your fingers?"
"I'd like to, all right. But it's got to be mighty certain. And the
belt must be handed to me by some one else. I've half a wonder if
you're not aiming to get rid of me," with an evil glance at his tempter.
"If I wanted to get rid of you, this'd be the way," said Mallow,
opening and shutting his powerful hands. "I'm just hungering for a bit
of a lark. Come on. A thousand pounds for taking a little rickshaw
ride. Ever hear of Wong's? Opium, pearls, oils and shark-fins?"
"No."
"Not many do. I know Singapore like the lines on my hands. Wong is
the shrewdest, most lawless Chinaman this side of Canton and Macao.
Pipes, pearls and shark-fins. Did you know that the bay out there is
so full of sharks that they have to stand on their tails for lack of
space? Big money. Wong's the man to go to. Want a schooner rigged
out for illicit shell-hunting? Want a man shanghaied? Want him
written down missing? Go to Wong."
"See here, Mallow; I don't mind his being beaten up; but what you say
doesn't sound good."
"You fool, I don't want him out of the way. Why should I? But there's
that thousand for you and worry for him. All aboard!"
"You don't love Parrot & Co. any more than I do."
"No. I'd sleep better o' nights if I knew he was broken for keeps.
Too much red-tape to put the United States after him. How'd you rig
him?"
"Faro and roulette. They never tumble. I didn't have anything against
him until he ran into me at Rangoon. But he's stepped in too many
times since. Is this straight?"
"About lifting his belt? Easy as falling off a log. Leave it to me.
His room is on the first gallery, facing southwest. You can chalk it
up as revenge. I'll take it on as a bit of good sport. Wong will fix
us out. Now look alive. It's after nine, and I'd like a little fun
first."
The two left the cafe-veranda and engaged a pair of rickshaws. As they
jogged down the road, Warrington stepped out from behind the palms and
moodily watched them until the night swallowed them up. He had not
overheard their interesting conversation, nor had he known they were
about until they came down the steps together. He ached to follow
them. He was in a fine mood for blows. That there were two of them
did not trouble him. Of one thing he was assured: somewhere in the dim
past an ancestor of his had died in a Berserk rage.
[Illustration: A Bit of a Lark.]
He had been watching Elsa. It disturbed but did not mystify him to see
her talking to the colonel. Table-chance had brought them together,
and perhaps to a better understanding. How pale she was! From time to
time he caught the flash of her eyes as she turned to this or that
guest. Once she smiled, but the smile did not lighten up her face. He
was very wretched and miserable. She had taken him at his word, and he
should have been glad. He had seen her but once again on board, but
she had looked away. It was best so. Yet, it was as if fate had
reached down into his heart and snapped the strings which made life
tuneful.
And to-morrow! What would to-morrow bring? Would they refuse? Would
they demand the full penalty? Eight thousand with interest was a small
sum to such a corporation. He had often wondered if they had searched
for him. Ten years. In the midst of these cogitations he saw the
group at the table rise and break up. Elsa entered the hotel.
Warrington turned away and walked aimlessly toward town. For hours he
wandered about, seeing nothing, hearing nothing; and it was long past
midnight when he sought his room, restless and weary but wide awake.
He called for a stiff peg, drank it, and tumbled into bed. He was
whirled away into broken dreams. Now he was running down the gridiron,
with the old thrill in his blood. With that sudden inconceivable twist
of dreams, he saw the black pit of the tramp-steamer and felt the
hell-heat in his face. Again, he was in the Andes, toiling with his
girders over unspeakable chasms. A shifting glance at the old
billiard-room in the club, the letter, and his subsequent wild night of
intoxication, the one time in his life when he had drunk hard and long.
Back to the Indian deserts and jungles. And he heard the shriek of
parrots.
The shriek of parrots. He sat up. Even in his dream he recognized
that cry. Night or day. Rajah always shrieked when some one entered
the room. Warrington silently slid out of bed and dashed to the door
which led to the gallery. A body thudded against his. He caught hold.
The body was nude to the waist and smelled evilly of sweat and
fish-oil. Something whip-like struck him across the face. It was a
queue.
Warrington struck out, but missed. Instantly a pair of powerful arms
wound about him, bearing and bending him backward. His right arm lay
parallel with the invader's chest. He brought up the heel of his palm
viciously against the Chinaman's chin. It was sufficient to break the
hold. Then followed a struggle that always remained nightmarish to
Warrington. Hither and thither across the room, miraculously avoiding
chairs, tables and bed, they surged. He heard a ring of steel upon the
cement floor, and breathed easier to learn that the thief had dropped
his knife. Warrington never thought to call out for help. The old
fear of bringing people about him had become a habit. Once, in the
whirl of things, his hand came into contact with a belt which hung
about the other's middle. He caught at it and heaved. It broke, and
the subsequent tinkling over the floor advised him of the fact that it
was his own gold. The broken belt, however, brought the fight to an
abrupt end. The oily body suddenly slipped away. Warrington beheld a
shadow in the doorway; it loomed there a second against the sky-line,
and vanished. He ran to the gallery railing, but it was too dark below
to discern anything.
He returned to his room, breathing hard, the obnoxious odor of sweat
and fish-oil in his nose. He turned on the lights and without waiting
to investigate, went into the shower-room and stood under the tepid
deluge. Even after a thorough rub-down the taint was in the air. The
bird was muttering and turning somersaults.
"Thanks, Rajah, old sport! He'd have got me but for you. Let's see
the damage."
He picked up the belt. The paper-money was intact, and what gold had
fallen he could easily find. He then took up his vest . . . and
dropped it, stunned. The letter of credit for half his fortune was
gone. He sank back upon the bed and stared miserably at the fallen
garment. Gone! Fifty thousand dollars. Some one who knew! Presently
he stood up and tugged at his beard. After all, why should he worry?
A cable to Rangoon would stop payments. A new letter could be issued.
It would take time, but he had plenty of that.
Idly he reached for the broken cigar that lay at the foot of the bed.
He would have tossed it aside as one of his own had not the carnelian
band attracted his attention. He hadn't smoked that quality of tobacco
in years. He turned it over and over, and it grew more and more
familiar. Mallow's!
XVI
WHO IS PAUL ELLISON?
For some time Warrington sat upon the edge of the bed and studied the
cigar, balanced it upon his palm, as if striving to weigh accurately
Mallow's part in a scrimmage like this. The copra-grower assuredly
would be the last man to give a cigar to a Chinaman. His gifts kept
his coolies hopping about in a triangle of cuffs and kicks and
pummelings. He had doubtless given the cigar to another white man
likely enough, Craig, who, with reckless inebriate generosity, had in
turn presented it to the Oriental. Besides, Mallow was rich. What
stepping-stones he had used to acquire his initial capital were not
perfectly known; but Warrington had heard rumors of shady transactions
and piratical exploits in the pearl zone. Mallow, rich, was Mallow
disposed of, at least logically; unless indeed it was a bit of
anticipatory reprisal. That might possibly be. A drunken Mallow was
capable of much, for all that his knowledge of letters of credit might
necessarily be primitive.
Pah! The abominable odor of fish still clung. He reached for his pipe
and lighted it, letting the smoke sink into his beard.
Yet, Mallow was no fool. He would scarcely take such risk for so
unstable and chancely a thing as revenge of this order. Craig? He
hadn't the courage. Strong and muscular as he was, he was the average
type of gambler, courageous only when armed with a pack of cards,
sitting opposite a fool and his money. But, Craig and Mallow together.
. . . He slipped off the label. It was worth preserving.
With an unpleasant laugh he began to get into his clothes. Why not?
The more he thought of it, the more he was positive that the two had
been behind this assault. The belt would have meant a good deal to
Craig. There were a thousand Chinese in Singapore who would cut a
man's throat for a Straits dollar. Either Mallow or Craig had seen him
counting the money on shipboard. It had been a pastime of his to throw
the belt on the bunk-blanket and play with the gold and notes; like a
child with its Christmas blocks. He had spent hours gloating over the
yellow metal and crackly paper which meant a competence for the rest of
his years. And Craig or Mallow had seen him.
He looked at his watch; quarter after two. If they were not in their
rooms he would have good grounds for his suspicions. He stole along
the gallery and down the stairs to the office, just in time to see the
two enter, much the worse for drink. Mallow was boisterous, and Craig
was sullen. The former began to argue with the night manager, who
politely shook his head. Mallow grew insistent, but the night manager
refused to break the rules of the hotel. Warrington inferred that
Mallow was demanding liquor, and his inference was correct. He moved a
little closer, still hidden behind the potted palms.
"All right," cried Mallow. "We'll go back to town for it."
"I've had enough," declared Craig sullenly.
"Yah! A little sore, eh? Well, I can't pour it down your throat."
"Let's cut out booze and play a little hand or two."
"Fine!" Mallow slapped his thigh as he laughed. "Nice bird I'd be for
you to pluck. Think of something else. You can hit me on the head
when I'm not looking and take my money that way. What do you think I
am, anyhow? The billiard-hall is open."
Craig shook his head. When Mallow was argumentative it was no time to
play billiards.
"Bah!" snarled Mallow. "Since you won't drink like a man nor play
billiards, I'm for bed. And just as the fun was beginning!"
Craig nudged him warningly. Mallow stalked away, and Craig, realizing
that the night was done, followed.
Warrington had seen and heard enough. He was tolerably sure. It might
have been out of pure deviltry, so far as Mallow was concerned; but
Craig had joined in hope of definite profits. A fine pair of rogues!
Neither of them should be able to draw against the letter. He would
block that game the first thing in the morning. He would simply notify
the local banks and cable to Rangoon.
He eyed indecisively the stairs and then glanced toward the brilliant
night outside. It would not be possible to sleep in that room again.
So he tiptoed out to the cafe-veranda and dropped into a comfortable
chair. He would hunt them up some time during the day. He would ask
Mallow for fifty pounds, and he sincerely hoped that Mallow would
refuse him. For he was grimly resolved that Mallow should pay for
those half-truths, more damning than bald lies. It was due to Mallow
that he was never more to see or speak to Elsa. He emptied the ash
from his cutty which he stowed away.
The great heart ache and the greater disillusion would not have fallen
to his lot had Elsa been frank in Rangoon, had she but told him that
she was to sail on the same steamer. He would have put over his
sailing. He would have gone his way, still believing himself to be a
Bayard, a Galahad, or any other of those simple dreamers who put honor
and chivalry above and before all other things.
Elsa! He covered his face with his hands and remained in that position
for a long while, so long indeed that the coolies, whose business it
was to scrub the tilings every morning at four, went about their work
quietly for fear of disturbing him.
Elsa had retired almost immediately after dinner. She endeavored to
finish some initial-work on old embroideries, but the needle insisted
upon pausing and losing stitch after stitch. She went to bed and tried
to concentrate her thoughts upon a story, but she could no more follow
a sentence to the end than she could fly. Then she strove to sleep,
but that sweet healer came not to her wooing. Nothing she did could
overcome the realization of the shock she had received. It had left
her dull and bewildered.
The name echoed and reechoed through her mind: Paul Ellison. It should
have been an illumination; instead, she had been thrust into utter
darkness. Neither Arthur nor his mother had ever spoken of a brother,
and she had known them for nearly ten years. Two men, who might be
twin-brothers, with the same name: it was maddening. What could it
mean? The beautiful white-haired mother, the handsome charming son,
who idolized each other; and this adventurer, this outcast, this
patient, brave and kindly outcast, with his funny parrakeet, what was
he to them and they to him? It must be, it must be! They _were_
brothers. Nature, full of amazing freaks as she was, had not
perpetrated this one without calling upon a single strain of blood.
She lay back among her pillows, her eyes leveled at the few stars
beyond her door, opened to admit any cooling breeze. Her head ached.
It was like the computations of astronomers; to a certain extent the
human mind could grasp the distances but could not comprehend them. It
was more than chance. Chance alone had not brought him to the
crumbling ledge. There was a strain of fatalism in Elsa. She was
positive that all these things had been written long before and that
she was to be used as the key.
Paul Ellison.
She drew from the past those salient recollections of Arthur and his
mother: first, the day the two had called regarding the purchase of a
house that her father had just put on the market,--a rambling old
colonial affair, her own mother's birth-place. Sixteen: she had not
quite been that, just free from her school-days in Italy. With the
grand air of youth she had betrayed the fact almost instantly, while
waiting for her father to come into the livingroom.
"Italy!" said Arthur's mother, whom Elsa mentally adopted at once. The
stranger spoke a single phrase, which Elsa answered in excellent if
formal Italian. This led from one question to another. Mrs. Ellison
turned out to be a schoolmate of her mother's, and she, Elsa, had
inherited their very room. What more was needed?
The Ellisons bought the house and lived quietly within it. Society,
and there was a good deal of it in that small Kentuckian city, society
waited for them to approach and apply for admittance, but waited in
vain. Mrs. Ellison never went anywhere. Her son Arthur was a student
and preferred his books. So eventually society introduced itself.
Persons who ignored it must be interesting. When it became known that
Mrs. Ellison had been the schoolmate of the beautiful and aristocratic
wife of General Chetwood; when the local banker quietly spread the
information that the Ellisons were comfortably supplied with stocks and
bonds of a high order, society concluded that it could do very well
without past history. That could come later.
When her father died, Elsa became as much at home in the Ellison house
as in her own. But never, never anywhere in the house, was there
indication of the existence of a brother, so like Arthur that under
normal conditions it would have been difficult to tell them apart.
Even when she used to go up to the garret with Mrs. Ellison, to aid her
in rummaging some old trunk, there came to light none of those trifling
knickknacks which any mother would have secretly clung to, no matter to
what depth her flesh and blood had fallen. Never had she seen among
the usual amateur photographs one presenting two boys. Once she had
come across a photograph of a smooth-faced youth who was in the act of
squinting along the top of an engineer's tripod. Arthur had laughingly
taken it away from her, saying that it represented him when he had had
ambitions to build bridges.
To build bridges. The phrase awoke something in Elsa's mind. Bridges.
She sat up in bed, mentally keen for the first time since dinner. "I
have built bridges in my time over which trains are passing at this
moment. I have fought torrents, and floods, and hurricanes, and
myself."
He was Paul Ellison, son and brother, and they had blotted him out of
their lives by destroying all physical signs of him. There was
something inhuman in the deliberateness of it, something unforgivable.
They had made no foolish attempt to live under an assumed name. They
had come from New York to the little valley in order to leave behind
the scene of their disgrace and all those who had known them. And they
had been extremely fortunate. They were all gently born, Elsa's
friends and acquaintances, above ordinary inquisitiveness, and they had
respected the aloofness of the Ellisons. Arthur was an inveterate
traveler. Half the year found him in Europe, painting a little,
writing a little less, frequenting the lesser known villages in France
and Italy. He let it be understood that he abhorred cities. In the
ten years they had appeared at less than a dozen social affairs.
Arthur did not care for horses, for hunting, for sports of any kind.
And yet he was sturdy, clear-eyed, fresh-skinned. He walked always; he
was forever tramping off to the pine-hooded hills, with his
painting-kit over his shoulders and his camp-stool under his arm.
Later, Elsa began to understand that he was a true scholar, not merely
an educated man. He was besides a linguist of amazing facility, a
pianist who invariably preferred as his audience his own two ears.
Arthur would have been a great dramatist or a great poet, if . . . If
what? If what? Ah, that had been the crux of it all, of her doubt, of
her hesitance. If he had fought for prizes coveted by mankind, if he
had thrown aside his dreams and gone into the turmoil, if he had taken
up a man's burden and carried it to success. Elsa, daughter of a man
who had fought in the great arena from his youth to his death, Elsa was
not meant for the wife of a dreamer.
Paul Ellison. What was his crime in comparison to his expiation of it?
He had built bridges, fought torrents, hurricanes, himself. No, he was
not a scholar; he saw no romance in the multifarious things he had of
necessity put his hand to: these had been daily matter-of-fact
occupations. A strange gladness seemed to loosen the tenseness of her
aching nerves.
Then, out of the real world about her, came with startling
distinctness, the shriek of a parrot. She would have recognized that
piercing cry anywhere. It was Rajah. In the next room, and she had
not known that Warrington (she would always know him by that name) was
stopping at the same hotel! She listened intently. Presently she
heard muffled sounds: a clatter of metal. A few minutes later came a
softer tinkle, scurry of pattering feet, then silence.
Elsa ran to the door and stood motionless by the jamb, waiting,
ethereally white in the moonshine. Suddenly upon the gallery pillars
flashed yellow light. She should have gone back to bed, but a thrill
of unknown fear held her. By and by the yellow light went out with
that quickness which tricks the hearing into believing that the
vanishing had been accompanied by sound. She saw Warrington, fully
dressed, issue forth cautiously, glance about, then pass down the
gallery, stepping with the lightness of a cat.
She returned hastily to her room, threw over her shoulders a kimono,
and went back to the door, hesitating there for a breath or two. She
stepped out upon the gallery. What had roused him at this time of
night? She leaned over the railing and peered down into the roadway
which in daytime was given over to the rickshaw coolies. She heard the
crunch of wheels, a low murmur of voices; beyond this, nothing more.
But as the silence of the night became tense once more, she walked as
far as Warrington's door, and paused there.