"Luck," continued Byram, waving his cigar toward the four quarters of
the globe, "is the rich man's slave an' the poor man's tyrant. It's
also a see-saw. When the devil plays in luck the cherubim git
spanked--or words to that effec'--not meanin' no profanity."
"It's about like that, governor," admitted Speed, lazily.
Byram leaned back and sucked meditatively at his cigar. The new moon
was just rising over the elephant's hindquarters, and the poetry of
the incident appeared to move the manager profoundly. He turned and
surveyed the dim bivouac, the two silent tents, the monstrous,
shadowy bulk of the elephant, rocking monotonously against the sky.
"Kind of Silurian an' solemn, ain't it," he murmured, "the moon
shinin' onto the rump of that primeval pachyderm. It's like the dark
ages of the behemoth an' the cony. I tell you, gentlemen, when them
fearsome an' gigantic mamuels was aboundin' in the dawn of creation,
the public missed the greatest show on earth--by a few million
years!"
We nodded sleepily but gravely.
Byram appeared to have recovered something of his buoyancy and native
optimism.
"Gentlemen," he said, "let's kinder saunter over to the inn and have
a night-cap with Kelly Eyre."
This unusual and expensive suggestion startled us wide awake, but we
were only too glad to acquiesce in anything which tended to raise his
spirits or ours. Dog tired but smiling we rose; Byram, in his
shirt-sleeves and suspenders, wearing his silk hat on the back of his
head, led the way, fanning his perspiring face with a red-and-yellow
bandanna.
"Luck," said Byram, waving his cigar toward the new moon, "is bound
to turn one way or t'other--like my camuel. Sometimes, resemblin' the
camuel, luck will turn on you. Look out it don't bite you. I once made
up a piece about luck:
"'Don't buck
Bad luck
Or you'll get stuck--'
I disremember the rest, but it went on to say a few other words to
that effec'."
The lighted door of the inn hung ajar as we crossed the star-lit
square; Byram entered and stood a moment in the doorway, stroking his
chin. "Bong joor the company!" he said, lifting his battered hat.
The few Bretons in the wine-room returned his civility; he glanced
about and his eye fell on Kelly Eyre, Speed's assistant balloonist,
seated by the window with Horan.
"Well, gents," said Byram, hopefully, "an' what aire the prospects
of smilin' fortune when rosy-fingered dawn has came again to kiss us
back to life?"
"Rotten," said Eyre, pushing a telegram across the oak table.
Byram's face fell; he picked up the telegram and fumbled in his coat
for his spectacles with unsteady hand.
"Let me read it, governor," said Speed, and took the blue paper from
Byram's unresisting, stubby fingers.
"O-ho!" he muttered, scanning the message; "well--well, it's not so
bad as all that--" He turned abruptly on Kelly Eyre--"What the devil
are you scaring the governor for?"
"Well, he's got to be told--I didn't mean to worry him," said Eyre,
stammering, ashamed of his thoughtlessness.
"Now see here, governor," said Speed, "let's all have a drink first.
Hé ma belle!"--to the big Breton girl knitting in the corner--"four
little swallows of eau-de-vie, if you please! Ah, thank you, I knew
you were from Bannalec, where all the girls are as clever as they are
pretty! Come, governor, touch glasses! There is no circus but the
circus, and Byram is it's prophet! Drink, gentlemen!"
But his forced gayety was ominous; we scarcely tasted the liqueur.
Byram wiped his brow and squared his bent shoulders. Speed, elbows on
the table, sat musing and twirling his half-empty glass.
"Well, sir?" said Byram, in a low voice.
"Well, governor? Oh--er--the telegram?" asked Speed, like a man
fighting for time.
"Yes, the telegram," said Byram, patiently.
"Well, you see they have just heard of the terrible smash-up in the
north, governor. Metz has surrendered with Bazaine's entire army. And
they're naturally frightened at Lorient.... And I rather fear that the
Germans are on their way toward the coast.... And ... well ... they
won't let us pass the Lorient fortifications."
"Won't let us in?" cried Byram, hoarsely.
"I'm afraid not, governor."
Byram stared at us. We had counted on Lorient to pull us through as
far as the frontier.
"Now don't take it so hard, governor," said Kelly Eyre; "I was
frightened myself, at first, but I'm ashamed of it now. We'll pull
through, anyhow."
"Certainly," said Speed, cheerily, "we'll just lay up here for a few
days and economize. Why can't we try one performance here, Scarlett?"
"We can," said I. "We'll drum up the whole district from Pontivy to
Auray and from Penmarch Point to Plouharnel! Why should the Breton
peasantry not come? Don't they walk miles to the Pardons?"
A gray pallor settled on Byram's sunken face; with it came a certain
dignity which sorrow sometimes brings even to men like him.
"Young gentlemen," he said, "I'm obliged to you. These here reverses
come to everybody, I guess. The Lord knows best; but if He'll just
lemme run my show a leetle longer, I'll pay my debts an' say, 'Thy
will be done, amen!'"
"We all must learn to say that, anyway," said Speed.
"Mebbe," muttered Byram, "but I must pay my debts."
After a painful silence he rose, steadying himself with his hand on
Eyre's broad shoulder, and shambled out across the square, muttering
something about his elephant and his camuel.
Speed paid the insignificant bill, emptied his glass, and nodded at
me.
"It's all up," he said, soberly.
"Let's come back to camp and talk it over," I said.
Together we traversed the square under the stars, and entered the
field of clover. In the dim, smoky camp all lights were out except one
oil-drenched torch stuck in the ground between the two tents. Byram
had gone to rest, so had Kelly Eyre. But my lions were awake, moving
noiselessly to and fro, eyes shining in the dusk; and the elephant, a
shapeless pile of shadow against the sky, stood watching us with
little, evil eyes.
Speed had some cigarettes, and he laid the pink package on the table.
I lighted one when he did.
"Do you really think there's a chance?" he asked, presently.
"I don't know," I said.
"Well, we can try."
"Oh yes."
Speed dropped his elbows on the table. "Poor old governor," he said.
Then he began to talk of our own prospects, which were certainly
obscure if not alarming; but he soon gave up speculation as futile,
and grew reminiscent, recalling our first acquaintance as discharged
soldiers from the African battalions, our hand-to-mouth existence as
gentlemen farmers in Algiers, our bankruptcy and desperate struggle in
Marseilles, first as dock-workmen, then as government horse-buyers for
the cavalry, then as employés of the Hippodrome in Paris, where I
finally settled down as bareback rider, lion-tamer, and instructor in
the haute-école; and he accepted a salary as aid to Monsieur Gaston
Tissandier, the scientist, who was experimenting with balloons at
Saint-Cloud.
He spoke, too, of our enlistment in the Imperial Police, and the hopes
we had of advancement, which not only brought no response from me, but
left us both brooding sullenly on our wrongs, crouched there over the
rough camp-table under the stars.
"Oh, hell!" muttered Speed, "I'm going to bed."
But he did not move. Presently he said, "How did you ever come to
handle wild animals?"
"I've always been fond of animals; I broke colts at home; I had bear
cubs and other things. Then, in Algiers, the regiment caught a couple
of lions and kept them in a cage, and--well, I found I could do what I
liked with them."
"They're afraid of your eyes, aren't they?"
"I don't know--perhaps it's that; I can't explain it--or, rather, I
could partly explain it by saying that I am not afraid of them. But I
never trust them."
"You drag them all around the cage! You shove them about like sacks
of meal!"
"Yes,... but I don't trust them."
"It seems to me," said Speed, "that your lions are getting rather
impudent these days. They're not very much afraid of you now."
"Nor I of them," I said, wearily; "I'm much more anxious about you
when you go sailing about in that patched balloon of yours. Are you
never nervous?"
"Nervous? When?"
"When you're up there?"
"Rubbish."
"Suppose the patches give way?"
"I never think of that," he said, leaning on the table with a yawn.
"Oh, Lord, how tired I am!... but I shall not be able to sleep. I'm
actually too tired to sleep. Have you got a pack of cards, Scarlett?
or a decent cigar, or a glass of anything, or anything to show me
more amusing than that nightmare of an elephant? Oh, I'm sick of the
whole business--sick! sick! The stench of the tan-bark never leaves my
nostrils except when the odor of fried ham or of that devilish camel
replaces it.
"I'm too old to enjoy a gypsy drama when it's acted by myself; I'm
tired of trudging through the world with my entire estate in my
pocket. I want a home, Scarlett. Lord, how I envy people with homes!"
He had been indulging in this outburst with his back partly turned
toward me. I did not say anything, and, after a moment, he looked at
me over his shoulder to see how I took it.
"I'd like to have a home, too," I said.
"I suppose homes are not meant for men like you and me," he said.
"Lord, how I would appreciate one, though--anything with a bit of
grass in the yard and a shovelful of dirt--enough to grow some damn
flower, you know.... Did you smell the posies in the square
to-night?... Something of that kind,... anything, Scarlett--anything
that can be called a home!... But you can't understand."
"Oh yes, I can," I said.
He went on muttering, half to himself: "We're of the same
breed--pariahs; fortunately, pariahs don't last long,... like the wild
creatures who never die natural deaths,... old age is one of the
curses they can safely discount,... and so can we, Scarlett, so can
we.... For you'll be mauled by a lion or kicked into glory by a horse
or an ox or an ass,... and I'll fall off a balloon,... or the camel
will give me tetanus, or the elephant will get me in one way or
another,... or something...."