THE MONEY-CHANGER
Gaspard, though a man full-grown and a man, moreover, who had passed
his life in touch with the brutal side of things, had still in his
nature very much of the child. The Provençal rarely grows old, he
withers at last in the sun and comes to die, but the child in him
remains a child; imaginative, impulsive, easily moved to laughter or
tears, good or naughty, with a passion for colour, and movement, and
sound, and exaggeration. And so he remains a poet in his way.
Go all over the earth, and you will find man imitating the insect
in this particular, that he is the colour of the leaf he was born
on. Gaspard was the colour of Provence, and all the coal-dust of the
stokehold, the sordidness of the life had not altered his essential
colour; the something tragic, something gay, something vivacious,
something lazy which is part of the southern land of black shadows,
white roads, blue skies, keen mistral, and poignantly scented flowers
still clung to his personality.
Even Sagesse shewed something of a trace of this in the exaggeration of
his own doings, in his vivacity, and in the flower which he carried in
his button-hole when ashore.
But there was little of the child about Sagesse and much of the master.
As day followed day, and the working of the vessel shewed itself more
and more to Gaspard, astonishment filled him at the extraordinary
discipline amidst the hands, and the way Sagesse worked them. When
he was out of sight they would shout and chatter amongst themselves,
but the instant he appeared silence took the deck as it takes a grove
of chattering birds when a hawk appears in the sky overhead. Orders
were executed at a run, yet he never swore or raised his voice louder
than was necessary; occasionally when a man got in the way, as on the
night of Gaspard’s boarding the vessel, he would give him a kick just
as a master might kick a dog, but beyond that his rule seemed kindly.
They were all Barbadians, these blacks, and English-speaking, with the
exception of Jules who was Haitian born, but Sagesse could talk to them
fluently in their own language. He could talk four languages, French,
Spanish, English, and Portuguese; he had picked the three foreign
languages up as a means to trade, and it was to his mastery of them, as
much as his own astuteness, that he owed his success in life.
One night, sultry and cloudless with the sea like frosted silver under
the starlight and the warm breathing of the wind, Gaspard, going into
the deck-house found Sagesse seated at the table before a chart.
“If this wind holds,” said Sagesse, “we should sight Martinique at
dawn.” He spoke with his eyes upon the chart, then, looking up: “What
do you propose to do when you get there?”
“Oh, as for me I don’t know,” said Gaspard taking a seat opposite the
other. “Report myself to the _Compagnie Transatlantique_—draw what pay
is owing to me, and try and get recompense for my kit.”
“Well,” said Sagesse, “if I were in your place, I would let all that
slip.”
“How?”
“_Ma foi_, how?—say nothing, or as little as you can, report yourself,
but do not trouble about compensation.”
“And why?”
Sagesse laughed, “Because my friend, it is not well to stir muddy
water; you get before one of these infernal clerks with a pen in his
hand, and he takes notes of what you say, you ask for compensation and
he says, ‘Yes, yes, that is just, compensation, certainly, but first
my friend, prove yourself to be whom you say you are, and give us your
story in detail.’ Then with the point of his pen he turns you inside
out and,” said Sagesse tapping on the table with his thumb, “it is not
well to be turned inside out if one has anything to conceal.”
“To conceal?”
“For instance,” went on Sagesse, “the official of the _Compagnie
Transatlantique_ might say, ‘Who was your engineer-in-chief, who was
your second engineer, had you a chum, what was his name?’”. Sagesse
watching Gaspard narrowly saw the sweat start on his forehead, laughed,
and finished, “and you would not say, ‘His name is Yves, he escaped
with me, we landed on an island, he had a belt about his waist and a
pouch containing a number of valuable gold coins which he had stolen,
and I killed him and took the money.’ You would not say that, perhaps,
with your tongue, but your face might give a hint, or your manner, and
a hint might lead to a suspicion, and a suspicion to a search—_you
should have burned that body_.”
Gaspard, staring at the man before him, felt as though an ice-cold
blade had been driven through his heart, his flesh crawled. He had
told all, then, to this man, and more than all. He felt nothing of
what the criminal feels whose crime has been discovered, for he felt
himself innocent of crime or criminal intent. It was the horror of the
fact that he had given himself away, and under the influence of drink
had described the affair in such a manner that Sagesse believed him a
murderer—this it was that paralysed him for the moment.
For a moment only, then, thrusting his hands out as though he were
putting something away from him, he burst out, “I did not kill him for
money—it’s a lie. If I said so I lied—it was an accident. True, we
quarrelled about the money, but I did not kill him for it. The knife
only scratched him and he dropped. I had saved his life; does a man
murder another whose life he has saved? When I spoke, I was mad with
your cursed drink. If I had murdered him would I have told of it? I did
not kill him for money—do you believe me?”
“My friend,” replied Sagesse quite unmoved, “I believe you. But you
yourself admit the fact that you killed him.”
“Yes, by accident.”
“And took his money?”
“It did not belong to him. He had only just found it amidst the bushes,
the belt and the pouch. Why do you shake your head, do you not believe
me?”
“Whether I believe you or not, does it matter—? This man had found
money, you killed him—by accident, with a knife, and took his money.
Does your reason not tell you that such a tale is enough to hang the
Archbishop of Paris—but it is all your affair, and as I said just
now, my advice is to let the thing lie. Do not disturb dead bones. Let
us forget it, and be practical. If I chose, I could hand you over to
the authorities at Martinique to-morrow. I have marked on the chart
the position where you boarded me, and the position of that island,
which is the only one in that vicinity. But it would not be of the
least profit to me to get you into trouble. Not in the least. I would
much sooner help you. Well, to business. That money will be your worst
friend, instead of your best if you try to use it ashore as it is, you
must change it for good American dollars. Put it on the table and I
will change it for you.”
“Before God,” burst out Gaspard, “I will do nothing unless you believe
me when I say that I came by it rightly, that there is no stain of
blood on it, that what happened there on the island was an accident,
and that I am no murderer!”
Sagesse, who knew man thoroughly, and who ever since the first morning
of their acquaintance had been studying him minutely, rose to his feet
and slapped his right hand down on the table palm uppermost.
“I believe you, there, the words are said and let us say no more on the
matter—how far others would believe you, it is not for me to say, but
there, let the matter end and come to business.”
He sat down again, and Gaspard opening the pouch at his waist put the
coins on the table in a heap.
Sagesse counted them. “_Dieu_,” said he, holding one in his hand and
examining it. “Fancy trying to change this lot at a banker’s or _bureau
de change_, they would be enough to raise a blister on the reputation
of a saint. I can get rid of them, though; with difficulty it is true,
but still I can get rid of them. But I don’t take risks without a
chance of good profits. I will give you forty dollars for the lot.”
“Less than two dollars apiece?”
“Slightly.”
“_Mordieu_,” said Gaspard. “I would as soon throw them overboard.”
Sagesse put both his elbows on the table and laughed. Then the haggling
began. Gaspard, the son of a tradesman, had something of the business
man in his nature. It was a strange picture, and not without its
romantic side. The two southerners seated opposite to each other at
the table of the dingy deck-house, the swinging lamp overhead casting
its light on the chart, the pieces of gold, and the strenuous faces of
the barterers.
One might imagine that Sagesse, having the game, seemingly, in his
hands, would have forced his terms on the other; but that would be
without counting on the character of the Captain and the laws which
governed his life. “Never appeal to social laws unless in the last
extremity. Never use force against a man stronger than yourself. Take
the pyx, but leave the priest the chalice (in other words—do not strip
a man so bare that he will turn upon you in desperation)”—these were
three of the laws governing this wise man’s actions. He was an artist
in scoundrelism, for he knew the value of restraint.
“Sixty dollars, then,” said Sagesse, after they had been haggling for
half an hour or more. “You agree, good, of course I will make my profit
on them, but what would you have? I am a trader, _vé_—, and I will
give you more than sixty dollars; I will give you advice.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t go back to the stokehold. With sixty dollars in Martinique you
may start a little business. Go shares in a fishing boat, deal in
fruit—you are young and active, and in Martinique sixty dollars are
equal to six hundred at Havre or in Paris. I will shew you the ropes,
as the English say. Do you know, monsieur, that I, Pierre Sagesse, have
started by my advice and help a dozen people in Martinique who are now
prospering?”
He had risen, and all the time he was talking he was searching in the
locker where he kept his charts. At last he drew forth a little chamois
bag and, opening it, shot out on the table the money it contained. The
little bag held exactly sixty dollars in gold coin and some silver.
“_Ma foi_, the exact sum; that is odd and ought to be a sign of luck.
There is your money, and I will not take the belt and pouch; you can
keep them.”
Gaspard pocketed the money. It was more than odd that the little
chamois leather bag held the exact sum in question. He felt certain
that Sagesse, days before, had worked out the problem of what he should
pay for the coins, and had placed this sum in readiness.
The character of the man lay revealed in that act, as also in the way
he had kept dumb about Yves till the moment of his purpose.
Gaspard felt certain that had it suited his interests Sagesse would
have betrayed him to the authorities. He left the deck-house, and
leaning against the starboard bulwarks, looked over the starlit sea.
Though he had left the island blue leagues behind, it still pursued
him, and, in the form of Sagesse, still had a hold upon him, the island
and the deed committed there.
He could see it still, just as he saw it when making his escape. The
sun-stricken palms, the white beach, the white surf breaking on the
beach, the white gulls—he could hear their voices calling to him.
“Hi, Hi, Hi! You there in the boat! come back! come back! Hi! think you
to escape us? Ha! Ha! Hi! Fishing, wheeling! calling! O the weariness,
the blueness, the waves, the wind, the sun. They are ours and they are
yours forever—forever—forever. Hi!”