MORITURUS
He departed from her presence with bitterness in his heart, leaving a
profound contrition in her own. The sense of this her last injustice to
him so overwhelmed her that it became the gauge by which she measured
that other earlier wrong he had suffered at her hands. Perhaps her
overwrought mind falsified the perspective, exaggerating it until it
seemed to her that all the suffering and evil with which this chronicle
has been concerned were the direct fruits of her own sin of unfaith.
Since all sincere contrition must of necessity bring forth an ardent
desire to atone, so was it now with her. Had he but refrained from
departing so abruptly he might have had her on her knees to him suing
for pardon for all the wrongs which her thoughts had done him,
proclaiming her own utter unworthiness and baseness. But since his
righteous resentment had driven him from her presence she could but sit
and brood upon it all, considering the words in which to frame her plea
for forgiveness when next he should return.
But the hours sped, and there was no sign of him. And then, almost with
a shock of dread came the thought that ere long perhaps Sir John
Killigrew’s ship would be upon them. In her distraught state of mind
she had scarcely pondered that contingency. Now that it occurred to her
all her concern was for the result of it to Sir Oliver. Would there be
fighting, and would he perhaps perish in that conflict at the hands
either of the English or of the corsairs whom for her sake he had
betrayed, perhaps without ever hearing her confession of penitence,
without speaking those words of forgiveness of which her soul stood in
such thirsty need?
It would be towards midnight when unable longer to bear the suspense of
it, she rose and softly made her way to the entrance. Very quietly she
lifted the curtain, and in the act of stepping forth almost stumbled
over a body that lay across the threshold. She drew back with a
startled gasp; then stooped to look, and by the faint rays of the
lanterns on mainmast and poop-rail she recognized Sir Oliver, and saw
that he slept. She never heeded the two Nubians immovable as statues
who kept guard. She continued to bend over him, and then gradually and
very softly sank down on her knees beside him. There were tears in her
eyes—tears wrung from her by a tender emotion of wonder and gratitude
at so much fidelity. She did not know that he had slept thus last
night. But it was enough for her to find him here now. It moved her
oddly, profoundly, that this man whom she had ever mistrusted and
misjudged should even when he slept make of his body a barrier for her
greater security and protection.
A sob escaped her, and at the sound, so lightly and vigilantly did he
take his rest, he came instantly if silently to a sitting attitude; and
so they looked into each other’s eyes, his swarthy, bearded hawk face
on a level with her white gleaming countenance.
“What is it?” he whispered.
She drew back instantly, taken with sudden panic at that question. Then
recovering, and seeking womanlike to evade and dissemble the thing she
was come to do, now that the chance of doing it was afforded her—“Do
you think,” she faltered, “that Lionel will have reached Sir John’s
ship?”
He flashed a glance in the direction of the divan under the awning
where the Basha slept. There all was still. Besides, the question had
been asked in English. He rose and held out a hand to help her to her
feet. Then he signed to her to reenter the poop-house, and followed her
within.
“Anxiety keeps you wakeful?” he said, half-question, half-assertion.
“Indeed,” she replied.
“There is scarce the need,” he assured her. “Sir John will not be like
to stir until dead of night, that he may make sure of taking us
unawares. I have little doubt that Lionel would reach him. It is none
so long a swim. Indeed, once outside the cove he could take to the land
until he was abreast of the ship. Never doubt he will have done his
errand.”
She sat down, her glance avoiding his; but the light falling on her
face showed him the traces there of recent tears.
“There will be fighting when Sir John arrives?” she asked him
presently.
“Like enough. But what can it avail? We shall be caught—as was said
to-day—in just such a trap as that in which Andrea Doria caught Dragut
at Jerba, saving that whilst the wily Dragut found a way out for his
galleys, here none is possible. Courage, then, for the hour of your
deliverance is surely at hand.”
He paused, and then in a softer voice, humbly almost, “It is my
prayer,” he added, “that hereafter in a happy future these last few
weeks shall come to seem no more than an evil dream to you.”
To that prayer she offered no response. She sat bemused, her brow
wrinkled.
“I would it might be done without fighting,” she said presently, and
sighed wearily.
“You need have no fear,” he assured her. “I shall take all precautions
for you. You shall remain here until all is over and the entrance will
be guarded by a few whom I can trust.”
“You mistake me,” she replied, and looked up at him suddenly. “Do you
suppose my fears are for myself?” She paused again, and then abruptly
asked him, “What will befall you?”
“I thank you for the thought,” he replied gravely. “No doubt I shall
meet with my deserts. Let it but come swiftly when it comes.”
“Ah, no, no!” she cried. “Not that!” And rose in her sudden agitation.
“What else remains?” he asked, and smiled. “What better fate could
anyone desire me?”
“You shall live to return to England,” she surprised him by exclaiming.
“The truth must prevail, and justice be done you.”
He looked at her with so fierce and searching a gaze that she averted
her eyes. Then he laughed shortly.
“There’s but one form of justice I can look for in England,” said he.
“It is a justice administered in hemp. Believe me, mistress, I am grown
too notorious for mercy. Best end it here to-night. Besides,” he added,
and his mockery fell from him, his tone became gloomy, “bethink you of
my present act of treachery to these men of mine, who, whatever they
may be, have followed me into a score of perils and but to-day have
shown their love and loyalty to me to be greater than their devotion to
the Basha himself. I shall have delivered them to the sword. Could I
survive with honour? They may be but poor heathens to you and yours,
but to me they are my sea-hawks, my warriors, my faithful gallant
followers, and I were a dog indeed did I survive the death to which I
have doomed them.”
As she listened and gathered from his words the apprehension of a thing
that had hitherto escaped her, her eyes grew wide in sudden horror.
“Is that to be the cost of my deliverance?” she asked him fearfully.
“I trust not,” he replied. “I have something in mind that will perhaps
avoid it.”
“And save your own life as well?” she asked him quickly.
“Why waste a thought upon so poor a thing? My life was forfeit already.
If I go back to Algiers they will assuredly hang me. Asad will see to
it, and not all my sea-hawks could save me from my fate.”
She sank down again upon the divan, and sat there rocking her arms in a
gesture of hopeless distress.
“I see,” she said. “I see. I am bringing this fate upon you. When you
sent Lionel upon that errand you voluntarily offered up your life to
restore me to my own people. You had no right to do this without first
consulting me. You had no right to suppose I would be a party to such a
thing. I will not accept the sacrifice. I will not, Sir Oliver.”
“Indeed, you have no choice, thank God!” he answered her. “But you are
astray in your conclusions. It is I alone who have brought this fate
upon myself. It is the very proper fruit of my insensate deed. It
recoils upon me as all evil must upon him that does it.” He shrugged
his shoulders as if to dismiss the matter. Then in a changed voice, a
voice singularly timid, soft, and gentle, “it were perhaps too much to
ask,” said he, “that you should forgive me all the suffering I have
brought you?”
“I think,” she answered him, “that it is for me to beg forgiveness of
you.”
“Of me?”
“For my unfaith, which has been the source of all. For my readiness to
believe evil of you five years ago, for having burnt unread your letter
and the proof of your innocence that accompanied it.”
He smiled upon her very kindly. “I think you said your instinct guided
you. Even though I had not done the thing imputed to me, your instinct
knew me for evil; and your instinct was right, for evil I am—I must be.
These are your own words. But do not think that I mock you with them. I
have come to recognize their truth.”
She stretched out her hands to him. “If... if I were to say that I have
come to realize the falsehood of all that?”
“I should understand it to be the charity which your pitiful heart
extends to one in my extremity. Your instinct was not at fault.”
“It was! It was!”
But he was not to be driven out of his conviction. He shook his head,
his countenance gloomy. “No man who was not evil could have done by you
what I have done, however deep the provocation. I perceive it clearly
now—as men in their last hour perceive hidden things.”
“Oh, why are you so set on death?” she cried upon a despairing note.
“I am not,” he answered with a swift resumption of his more habitual
manner. “’Tis death that is so set on me. But at least I meet it
without fear or regret. I face it as we must all face the
inevitable—the gifts from the hands of destiny. And I am
heartened—gladdened almost—by your sweet forgiveness.”
She rose suddenly, and came to him. She caught his arm, and standing
very close to him, looked up now into his face.
“We have need to forgive each other, you and I, Oliver,” she said. “And
since forgiveness effaces all, let... let all that has stood between us
these last five years be now effaced.”
He caught his breath as he looked down into her white, straining face
“Is it impossible for us to go back five years? Is it impossible for us
to go back to where we stood in those old days at Godolphin Court?”
The light that had suddenly been kindled in his face faded slowly,
leaving it grey and drawn. His eyes grew clouded with sorrow and
despair.
“Who has erred must abide by his error—and so must the generations that
come after him. There is no going back ever. The gates of the past are
tight-barred against us.”
“Then let us leave them so. Let us turn our backs upon that past, you
and I, and let us set out afresh together, and so make amends to each
other for what our folly has lost to us in those years.”
He set his hands upon her shoulders, and held her so at arm’s length
from him considering her with very tender eyes.
“Sweet lady!” he murmured, and sighed heavily. “God! How happy might we
not have been but for that evil chance....” He checked abruptly. His
hands fell from her shoulders to his sides, he half-turned away,
brusque now in tone and manner. “I grow maudlin. Your sweet pity has so
softened me that I had almost spoke of love; and what have I to do with
that? Love belongs to life; love is life; whilst I... Moriturus te
salutat!”
“Ah, no, no!” She was clinging to him again with shaking hands, her
eyes wild.
“It is too late,” he answered her. “There is no bridge can span the pit
I have dug myself. I must go down into it as cheerfully as God will let
me.”
“Then,” she cried in sudden exaltation, “I will go down with you. At
the last, at least, we shall be together.”
“Now here is midsummer frenzy!” he protested, yet there was a
tenderness in the very impatience of his accents. He stroked the golden
head that lay against his shoulder. “How shall that help me?” he asked
her. “Would you embitter my last hour—rob death of all its glory? Nay,
Rosamund, you can serve me better far by living. Return to England, and
publish there the truth of what you have learnt. Be yours the task of
clearing my honour of this stain upon it, proclaiming the truth of what
drove me to the infamy of becoming a renegade and a corsair.” He
started from her. “Hark! What’s that?”
From without had come a sudden cry, “Afoot! To arms! To arms! Holâ!
Balâk! Balâk!”
“It is the hour,” he said, and turning from her suddenly sprang to the
entrance and plucked aside the curtain.