FROM THE JAWS OF DEATH
When the heart speaks, Glory itself is an illusion.
The _Mahanaddy_ had just turned her blunt prow out westward from the
harbour of Port Said, sniffing her native north wind, with a gentle
rising movement to that old Mediterranean eastward-tending swell. The
lights of the most iniquitous town on earth were fading away in the mist
of the desert on the left hand, and on the right the gloom of the sea
merged into a grey sky.
The dinner-hour had passed, and the passengers were lolling about on the
long quarter-deck, talking lazily after the manner of men and women who
have little to say and much time wherein to say it.
It was quite easy to perceive that they had left a voyage of many days
behind them, for the funny man had exhausted himself and the politicians
were asleep. The lifeless, homeward-bound flirtations had waned long ago,
and no one looked twice at any one else. They all knew each other's
dresses and vices and little aggravating habits, and only three or four
of them were aware that human nature runs deeper than such superficial
details.
Away forward, behind the sheep-pens, an Italian gentleman in the ice
industry was scraping on a yellow fiddle which looked sticky. But like
many things of plain exterior this unprepossessing instrument had
something in it, something that the Italian gentleman knew how to
extract, and all the ship was hushed into listening. Such as had
conversation left spoke in low tones, and even the stewards in the pantry
ceased for a time to test the strength of the dinner-plates.
On a small clear space of deck between the door of the doctor's cabin and
the saloon gangway two men were walking slowly backwards and forwards.
They were both tall men, both large, and consequently both inclined to
taciturnity. They had said, perhaps, as little as any two persons on
board, which may have accounted for the fact that they were talking now,
and still seemed to have plenty to say.
One was dark and clean-shaven, with something of the sea in his mien and
gait. His nose and chin were singularly clean cut, and suggestive of an
ancestral type. This was the ship's doctor, a man who probed men's hearts
as well as their bodies, and wrote of what he found there. His companion
was an antitype--a representative of the fair race found in England by
the ancestors of the other when they came and conquered. He wore a beard,
and his face was burnt to the colour of mahogany, which had a strange
effect in contrast to the bluest of Saxon eyes.
The Doctor was talking.
“Then,” he was saying, “who the devil are you?”
The other smiled, a gentle, triumphant smile. The smile of a man who,
humbly recognising himself at a just estimation, is conscious of having
outwitted another, cleverer than himself.
“You finish your pipe,” he said, and he walked away with long firm
strides towards the saloon stairs. The Doctor went to the rail, where,
resting his arms on the solid teak, he leant, gazing thoughtfully out
over the sea, which was part of his life. For he knew the great waters,
and loved them with all the quiet strength of a slow-tongued man.
Before very long some one came behind and touched him on the shoulder. He
turned, and in the fading light looked into the smiling face of his late
companion--the same and yet quite different, for the beard was gone, and
there only remained the long fair moustache.
“Yes,” said Dr. Mark Ruthine, “Jem Agar. I was a fool not to know you at
first.”
A sort of shyness flickered for a moment in the blue eyes.
“I have been practising so hard during the last ten months to look like
some one else that I hardly feel like myself,” he said.
“Um-m! There was something uncanny about you when you first came on
board. I used to watch you at meals, and wonder what it was. By God,
Agar, I _am_ glad!”
“Thanks,” replied Jem Agar. He was looking round him rather nervously.
“You don't think there is anybody on board who will know me, do you?”
“No one, barring the Captain.”
“Oh,” said Agar calmly, “he is all right. He can keep his mouth shut.”
“There is no doubt about that,” replied the Doctor.
A little pause followed, during which they both listened involuntarily to
the ice-cream merchant's musical voice, which was now floating over the
silent decks, raised in song.
“I should like to hear all about it some day,” said the ship's surgeon at
last. He knew his man, and no detail of the strange lives that passed the
horizon of his daily existence was ever forgotten. Only he usually found
that those who had the most to tell required a little assistance in their
narration.
“It is rather a rum business,” answered Jem Agar, not displeased.
At this moment the ship's bell rang four clear notes into the night.
“Ten o'clock,” said the Doctor. “Come into my cabin and have a smoke; the
Captain will be in soon. He would like to hear the story too.”
So they passed into the cabin, and before they had been there many
minutes the Captain joined them. For a moment he stood in the doorway,
then he came forward with outstretched hand.
“Well,” he said, “all that I can say is that you ought to be dead. But
it's not my business.”
He had seen too many freaks of fortune to be surprised at this.
“I thought,” he continued, “that there was something familiar about the
back of your head. Back of a man's head never changes. It's a funny
thing.”
He sat down in his usual chair, and looked with a cheery smile upon him
who had risen from the death column of the _Times_. Then he turned to his
pipe.
“You know, Agar,” he said, “I was beastly sorry about that--death of
yours. Cut me up wonderfully for a few minutes. That is saying a lot in
these days.”
Agar laughed.
“It is very kind of you to say so,” he said rather awkwardly.
“And I,” added Dr. Ruthine from behind the whisky and soda tray, in the
deliberate voice of a man who is saying something with an effort, “felt
that it was a pity. That is how it struck me--a pity.”
Then, very disjointedly, and in a manner which could scarcely be set down
here, Major James Agar told his singular story. There are--thank
heaven!--many such stories still untold; there are, one would be inclined
to hope, many such still uncommenced. As a nation we may be on the
decline, but there is something to go on with in us yet.
Once when the narrator paused, Dr. Ruthine went to the side table and
opened some bottles.
“Whisky?” he inquired, with curt hospitality, “or anything else your
fancy may paint, down to tea.”
Agar rose to pour out his own allowance, and for a moment the two men
stood together. With the critical eye of a soldier, which seems to weigh
flesh and blood, he looked his host for the time being up and down.
“They don't make men like you and me on tea,” he said, reaching out his
hand towards a tumbler.
Then the story went on. At first the ship's doctor listened to it with
interest but without absorption, then suddenly something seemed to catch
his attention and hold it riveted. When a pause came he leant forward,
pointing an emphasising finger.
“When you spoke just now of the chief,” he said, “did you mean Michael?”
“Yes.”
“What! Seymour Michael?”
“Yes.”
The Captain tapped his pipe against his boot and leant back with the
shrug of the shoulders awaiting further developments.
“And you mean to tell me that you put yourself entirely in the hands of
Seymour Michael?” pursued the Doctor.
“Yes, why not?”
Mark Ruthine shook his head with a little laugh. “I always thought, Agar,
that you were a bit of a fool!”
“I have sometimes suspected it myself,” admitted the soldier meekly.
“Why, man,” said Ruthine, “Seymour Michael is one of the biggest rascals
on God's earth. I would not trust him with fourpence round the corner.”
“Nor would I,” put in the Captain, “and the sum is not excessive.”
Jem Agar was sipping his whisky and soda with the placidity of a giant
who fears no open fight and never thinks of foul play.
“I don't see,” he muttered, “what harm he can do me.”
“No more do I, at the moment,” replied the Doctor; “but the man is a liar
and an unscrupulous cad. I have kept an eye on him for years because he
interests me. He has never run a straight course since he came into the
field; he has consistently sacrificed truth, honour, and his best friend
to his own ambition ever since the beginning.”
Jem Agar smiled at the Doctor's vehemence, although he was aware that
such a display was far from being characteristic of the man.
“Of course,” he admitted, “in the matter of honour and glory I expect to
be swindled. But I don't care. I know the chap's reputation, and all
that, but he can hardly get rid of the fact that I have done the thing
and he has not.”
“I was not thinking so much of that,” replied the other. “Men sell their
souls for honour and glory and never get paid.”
He paused; then with the sure touch of one who has dabbled with pen and
ink in the humanities, he laid his finger on the vulnerable spot.
“I was thinking more,” he said, “of what you had trusted him to
do--telling certain persons, I mean, that you were not dead. He is just
as likely as not to have suppressed the information.”
Jem Agar was looking very grave, with a sudden pinched appearance about
the lips which was only half concealed by his moustache.
“Why should he do that?” he asked sharply.
“He would do it if it suited his purpose. He is not the man to take into
consideration such things as feelings--especially the feelings of
others.”
“You're a bit hard on him, Ruthine,” said Jem doubtfully. “Why should it
suit his convenience?”
“Secrecy was essential for your purpose and his; in telling a secret one
doubles the risk of its disclosure each time a new confidant is admitted.
Besides, the man's nature is quite extraordinarily secretive. He has
Jewish and Scotch blood in his veins, and the result is that he would
rather disseminate false news than true on the off chance of benefiting
thereby later on. For men of that breed each piece of accurate
information, however trivial, has a marketable value, and they don't part
with it unless they get their price.”
There followed a silence, during which Jem Agar went back in mental
retrospection to the only interview he had ever had with Seymour Michael,
and the old lurking sense of distrust awoke within his heart.
“But,” said the Captain, who was an optimist--he even applied that theory
to human nature--“I suppose it is all right now. Everybody knows now that
you are among the quick--eh?”
“No,” replied Jem, “only Michael; it was arranged that I should telegraph
to him.”
“Of course,” the Doctor hastened to say, for he had perceived a change in
Agar's demeanour, “all this is the purest supposition. It is only a
theory built upon a man's character. It is wonderful how consistent
people are. Judge how a man would act and you will find that he has acted
like it afterwards.”
As if in illustration of the theory Jem Agar looked gravely determined,
but uttered no threat directed towards Seymour Michael. His quiet face
was a threat in itself.
“Well,” he said, rising, “I am keeping you fellows from your slumbers. I
am still sleeping on deck; can't get accustomed to the atmosphere below
decks after six months' sleeping in the open.”
He nodded and left them.
“Rum chap!” muttered the Captain, looking at his watch when the footsteps
had died away over the silent decks.
“One of the queerest specimens I know,” retorted Dr. Mark Ruthine, who
was fingering a pen and looking longingly towards the inkstand. The
Captain--a man of renowned discretion--quietly departed.
There is no more distrustful man than the simple gentleman of honour who
finds himself deceived and tricked. It is as if the bottom suddenly fell
out of his trust in all mankind, and there is nothing left but a mocking
void. Jem Agar lay on his mattress beneath the awning, and stared hard at
a bright star near the horizon. He was realising that life is, after all,
a sorry thing of chance, and that all his world might be hanging at that
moment on the word of an untrustworthy man.
Before morning he had determined to telegraph from Malta to Seymour
Michael to meet him at Plymouth on the arrival of the _Mahanaddy_ at that
port.