When morning came Mercer departed alone, and Curtis was left in charge.
Sybil lay in her room half dressed, while the latter treated her injured
arm.
"You ought not to be up at all," he remarked, as he uncovered it. "Have
you had any sleep?"
"Not much," she was obliged to confess.
"Why didn't you stay in bed?"
"I don't want--my husband--to think me very bad," she said, flushing a
little.
"Why not?" said Curtis. And then he glanced at her, saw the flush, and
said no more.
She watched his bandaging with interest.
"You look so professional," she said.
He uttered a short laugh.
"Do I?"
"I mean," she said, unaccountably embarrassed, "that you do it so
nicely."
"I have done a good deal of veterinary work," he said rather coldly. And
then suddenly he seemed to change his mind. "I was a professional once,"
he said, without looking at her. "I made a mistake--a bad one--and it
broke me. That's all."
"Oh," she said impulsively, "I am so sorry."
"Thank you," he said quietly.
Not till he was about to leave her did she manage to ask the question
that had been uppermost in her mind since his entrance.
"Have you seen Beelzebub yet?"
He paused--somewhat unwillingly, she thought.
"Yes," he answered.
"Is he"--she hesitated--"is he very bad?"
"He isn't going to die, if that is what you mean," said Curtis.
She felt her heart contract.
"Please tell me!" she urged rather faintly. "I want to know."
With the air of a man submitting to the inevitable Curtis proceeded to
inform her.
"He is lying in the loft over the stable, like a sick dog. He is rather
badly mauled, and whimpers a good deal. I shall take him some soup
across presently, but I don't suppose he'll touch it."
"Ok, dear!" she said. "What shall you do then?"
"Mercer will have to lend a hand if I can't manage him," Curtis
answered. "But I shall do my best."
She suppressed a shudder.
"I hope you will be successful."
"So do I," said Curtis, departing.
When she saw him again she asked anxiously for news; but he had none of
a cheering nature to give her. Beelzebub would not look at food.
"I knew he wouldn't," he said. "He has been like this before."
"Mr. Curtis!" she exclaimed.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"It's Mercer's way. He regards the boy as his own personal property, and
so he is, more or less. He picked him up in the bush when he wasn't more
than a few days old. The mother was dead. Mercer took him, and he was
brought up among the farm men. He's a queer young animal, more like a
dog than a human being. He needs hammering now and then. I kick him
occasionally myself. But Mercer goes too far."
"What had he done?" questioned Sybil.
"Oh, it was some neglect of the horses. I don't know exactly what.
Mercer isn't precisely patient, you know. And when the fellow gets
thoroughly scared he's like a rabbit; he can't move. Mercer thinks him
obstinate, and the rest follows as a natural consequence. I must ask you
to excuse me. I have work to do."
"One moment!" Sybil laid a nervous hand on his arm. "Mr. Curtis, if--if
you can't persuade the poor boy to take any food, how will my husband do
so?"
"He won't," said Curtis. "He'll hold him down while I drench him, that's
all."
"That must be very bad for him," she said.
"Of course it is. But we can't let him die, you know." He looked at her
suddenly. "Don't you worry yourself, Mrs. Mercer," he said kindly. "He
isn't quite the same as a white man, though it may offend your Western
prejudices to hear me say so. Beelzebub will pull through all right.
They are wonderfully tough, these chaps."
"I wonder if I could persuade him to take something," she said.
He shook his head.
"I don't suppose you could. In any case, you mustn't try. It is against
orders."
"Whose orders?" she asked quickly.
"Your husband's," he answered. "His last words to me were that I was on
no account to let you go near him."
"Oh, why?" she protested. "And I might be able to help."
"It isn't at all likely," he said. "And he's not a very pretty thing to
look at."
"As if that matters!" she exclaimed.
"Well, it does matter, because I don't want to have you in hysterics, as
much for my own sake as for yours." He smiled a little. "Also, if Mercer
finds he has been disobeyed it will make him savage again, and perhaps I
shall be the next victim."
"He would never touch you!" she exclaimed.
"He might. Why shouldn't he?"
"He never would!" she reiterated. "You are not afraid of him."
He looked contemptuous for a second; and then his expression changed.
"You are right," he said. "That is my chief safeguard; and, permit me to
say, yours also. It may be worth remembering."
"You think him a coward!" she said.
He considered a little.
"No, not a coward," he said then. "There is nothing mean about him, so
far as I can see. He suffers from too much raw material, that's all.
They call him Brute Mercer in these parts. But perhaps you will be able
to tame him some day."
"I!" she said, and turned away with a mournful little smile.
She might charm him once or even twice out of a savage mood, but the
conviction was strong upon her that he would overwhelm her in the end.
X
For nearly an hour after Curtis had left her she sat still, thinking of
Beelzebub. The afternoon sunlight lay blindingly upon all things. The
heat of it hung laden in the air. But she could not sleep or even try to
rest. Her arm throbbed and burned with a ceaseless pain, and ever the
thought of Beelzebub, lying in the loft "like a sick dog," oppressed her
like an evil dream.
The shadows had begun to lengthen a little when at last she rose. She
could bear it no longer. Whatever the consequences, she could endure
them more easily than this torture of inactivity. As for Curtis she
believed him fully capable of taking care of himself.
She went to the kitchen and was relieved to find him absent. Searching,
she presently found the bowl of soup Beelzebub had refused. She turned
it into a saucepan and hung over the fire, scarcely conscious of the
heat in her pressing desire to be of use.
Finally, armed with the hot liquor, she stole across the yard to the
stable. The place was deserted, save for the horse she usually rode, who
whinnied softly to her as she passed. At the foot of the loft ladder
she stood awhile, listening, and presently heard a heavy groan.
She had to make the ascent very slowly, using her injured arm to support
herself. When she emerged at last she found herself in a twilight which
for a time her dazzled eyes could not pierce. The heat was intolerable,
and the place hummed with flies.
"Beelzebub!" she said softly at length. "Beelzebub, where are you?"
There was a movement in what she dimly discerned to be a heap of straw,
and she heard a feeble whimpering as of an animal in pain.
Her heart throbbed with pity as she crept across the littered floor. She
was beginning to see more distinctly, and by sundry chinks she
discovered the loft door. She went to it, fumbled for the latch, and
opened it. Instantly the place was flooded with light, and turning
round, she beheld Beelzebub.
He was lying in a twisted heap in the straw, half naked, looking like
some monstrous reptile. In all her life she had never beheld anything so
horrible. His black flesh was scored over and over with long purple
stripes; even his face was swollen almost beyond recognition, and out of
it the whites of his eyes gleamed, bloodshot and terrible.
For a few moments she was possessed by an almost overpowering desire to
flee from the awful sight; and then again he stirred and whimpered, and
pity--element most divine--came to her aid.
She went to the poor, whining creature, and knelt beside him.
"See!" she said. "I have brought you some soup. Do try and take a
little! It will do you good."
There was a note of entreaty in her voice, but Beelzebub's eyes stared
as though they would leap out of his head.
He writhed away from her into the straw. "Go 'way, missis!" he hissed at
her, with lips drawn back in terror. "Go 'way, or Boss'll come and beat
Beelzebub!"
He spoke the white man's language; it was the only one he knew, but
there was something curiously unfamiliar, something almost bestial in
the way he spat his words.
Again Sybil was conscious of a wild desire to escape before sheer horror
paralysed her limbs, but she fought and conquered the impulse.
"Boss won't beat you any more," she said. "And I want you to be a good
boy and drink this before I go. I brought it myself, because I knew you
would take it to please me. You will, won't you, Beelzebub?"
But Beelzebub was not to be easily persuaded. He cried and moaned and
writhed at every word she spoke. But Sybil had mastered herself, and she
was very patient. She coaxed him as though he had been in truth the sick
dog to which Curtis had likened him. And at last, by sheer persistence,
she managed to insert the spoon between his chattering teeth.
He let her feed him then, lying passive, still whimpering between every
gulp, while she talked soothingly, scarcely knowing what she said in the
resolute effort to keep her ever-recurring horror at bay. When the bowl
was empty she rose.
"Perhaps you will go to sleep now," she said kindly. "Suppose you try!"
He stared up at her from his lair with rolling, uneasy eyes. Suddenly he
pointed to her bandaged arm.
"Boss did that!" he croaked.
She turned to close the door again, feeling the blood rise in her face.
"Boss didn't mean to," she answered with as much steadiness as she could
muster. "And he didn't mean to hurt you so badly, either, Beelzebub. He
was sorry afterwards."
She saw his teeth gleam in the twilight like the bared fangs of a wolf,
and knew that he grinned in derision of this statement. She picked up
her bowl and turned to go. At the same instant he spoke in a piercing
whisper out of the darkness.
"Boss kill a white man once, missis!"