HOW JAKOUB WAS NO MORE SEEN
Captain Welfare came in leaning on Edmund, who helped him into an
arm-chair.
His head was neatly bandaged, and he was clad in a dressing-gown. He
was still evidently weak, although largely restored from the pitiable
object that had crawled into the cellar.
The bishop and I hastened to commiserate him, and I suggested his going
straight to bed.
“No, thank you, sir,” he said, leaning back in the chair. “I’m better
now. I shall be all right in a few minutes. Your man is getting me
something to drink. Anyhow I _must_ keep on my legs for a bit. There’s
a deal to be settled and done to-night.”
“Where is Jakoub?” I ventured to ask at last.
“I don’t think you will blame me, sir, or his lordship either, when I
tell you about it. He came at me like a leopard. As you know, I meant
him no harm.”
“I know you did not, captain. We are so far from blaming you that we
are only sorry you should have been so hurt. It was a dastardly attack.”
“Aye. A proper dago’s trick,” said Welfare. He paused to sip a glass
of hot milk and brandy which he had prescribed for himself, and which
certainly seemed to revive him in a remarkable degree.
“It was quite dark in that passage,” he continued. “I stood about half
way up it, wondering would you have got my message. It seemed a long
time waiting, but at last I heard the door open and shut, and then
footsteps coming very quietly on. I flashed an electric torch to show I
was there, and the footsteps stopped. I waited, and then as I heard no
more I went up the passage searching it with the torch.
“Presently I saw someone crouching at the side. ‘Is that Jakoub?’ I
asked, but there was no answer. ‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘it’s me,
Captain Ringrose,’ which was the name he knew me by. Then he seemed
to take a little run, stooping like an animal; I saw the glint of a
knife, and he was on me. I don’t rightly know how things happened then.
Them natives always strike at your neck. Either I ducked or I happened
to knock his hand up, but I felt the knife ripping my scalp. ‘You rob
me, devil, I kill you,’ he says in a kind of snarl, as I closed on
him, and then by good luck I got his wrist in my left hand. He twisted
round me like a snake, but I used my weight and crushed him against the
side of the passage. I knew he was struggling to get the knife in his
other hand. He gave another twist and was almost free, but I managed to
hold his wrist, and I felt both bones of his arm snap, but that didn’t
quieten him, and then I got my right hand on his throat.
“I knew my strength would go in a minute with the blood I was losing,
and if I didn’t quiet him I was done for. I felt him stiffen like a
steel spring as I gripped his throat. Then a buzzing came in my ears.
He went limp like, and we fell together, me still holding him.
“I suppose the fainting stopped my bleeding for a bit. Anyhow I came
to, and Jakoub was still there half under me. He wasn’t breathing, and
the blood started pumping out of my cut again, so I knotted my scarf
as tight as I could over it and kept quiet to give it a chance of
stopping. I felt about for the torch and found it, but it was broken. I
was very giddy and sick, and I think I went over again. I seemed to be
there a long while in the dark, and Jakoub never stirred. I put a hand
on his face. His mouth was open, and his cheeks were dead cold.”
Captain Welfare paused, exhausted by his long statement. Nobody spoke,
or questioned him while he took another drink. The end of the story was
already clear to us, and Edmund, of course, had already been told. The
long intrigue of infamy had ended in battle, murder and sudden death.
Captain Welfare was evidently distressed at our silence, interpreting
it as meaning condemnation.
“I think, gentlemen,” he continued, “you will see it was self-defence.
I didn’t mean him no harm, I was there to help him. But he meant doing
me in right enough, and very nearly did. I could do nothing for him
myself, but I tried to get help for him in case there was a chance
still. I started to crawl for the house, as I thought, but I had lost
my bearings, and when I came round a bend I saw the moonlight at the
other end of the passage. Then the bleeding broke out again and I had
to wait. Half an hour I should think I waited, and when I got back
to Jakoub there was no mistake about it any more. He was dead right
enough. But I swear, my lord, if I never speak another word, it was
self-defence. I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t want to kill him.
What did he want to kill me for?”
“As far as I am concerned,” said the bishop, “I accept your word
absolutely. It is a heavy misfortune, especially for you, but there is
certainly no blame attaching to you. If I remember rightly the wretched
man said something about you just as he left us.”
“Yes,” said Edmund, “‘this is a trap of Captain Ringrose,’ or something
of that sort.”
“He always thought that I was against him. I had to watch him, and I
often caught him out trying to cheat us.”
“But all this must have happened hours ago, Welfare,” I exclaimed, “why
did you wait so long?”
“Why, you see, sir, it took me a long time to get to this end of the
passage. When I got to the door I did not know whether the police would
be in the house or not. I thought, if I try to get in while they are
there we shall all be ruined. So I determined to wait until--well,
until I was really afraid I could not afford to bleed any more. But
I’ll be all right now. The question is, what are we to do about it?”
“Unless we decide to own up to the whole thing,” Edmund argued, “we
shall have to carry him out and leave him under the cliff. They will
think he has fallen over in the dark.”
Welfare shook his head slowly.
“That would not do,” he said, “I could not see him in the dark, but
there will be no mistake about the marks I have left on his throat. It
wouldn’t take a doctor to tell he was strangled. They would be bound to
trace back to the passage, and then ask how he got there and who killed
him.”
An idea came into my mind, but I forbore to utter it. It seemed to me
to come in the guise of temptation; temptation to use this catastrophe
to further our own ends.
“We might take a boat and bury him at sea,” Welfare suggested.
This was so like my own idea, that I looked around to see how the
others took it. The bishop had been sitting in silent meditation. He
now rose, and stood with his hands clasped behind him looking down on
us with an expression of great sadness.
“Why not bury him where he is?” he asked. It was my own idea, and I
gasped to hear it propounded by him.
“This wretched man’s life,” he continued, “was forfeit to the law. Had
the law taken him alive the law could only have slain him. That has
been done as a result of his own wickedness and folly. Of what use is
it to hand over his dead body to the law? He wrought enough mischief in
his life. His dead body would but work more. It would involve some at
least of us in utter ruin at the hands of the law. A ruin that none has
deserved in such measure. I counsel you, Davoren, to let the wretched
business end here. The man was not of our faith, so could not claim
Christian burial or consecrated ground. But he was a human being and
shall not be buried like a dog.”
There was again silence among us, a silence quickened with
apprehension. It became clear to me that the idea that had germinated
in my own mind had only seemed to be tainted with guilt because my soul
was not seated high enough for clear moral judgment. The intrinsic
rightness of the thing was manifest now that Parminter had placed it
in the clear light of an honest man’s independent decision.
As it happened Welfare became our spokesman and his primitive outlook
on life was the one thing needed to express the attitude of each one of
us.
“If this seems the straight thing to your lordship,” he said, “it’s
good enough for me. I would not have suggested it, because I seem to be
coming out too cheap. It wasn’t murder, because it was self-defence.
But I’d be bound to own up to manslaughter.”
“Don’t you think, Captain Welfare, that you ought to get to bed?” I
asked. I was really concerned about the man, but I wanted to get rid of
him too.
“Thank you, sir. But there is no need. If you don’t mind, I’d rather
see the job through now.”
It was impossible for me to protest. After all he was my guest.
Nevertheless what I ought to have regarded as his indomitable courage
appeared to me mere want of tact. His presence made any communion
between the bishop and myself an utter impossibility. I wanted to talk
to the bishop alone and Welfare’s presence was something I resented in
a great tragic moment of my life. I fear I suspected in him the love of
the lower middle class for anything in the nature of a funeral.
Edmund said nothing, but rang the bell.
When Bates came in he whispered to him, and they left together. I
knew they had gone to dig Jakoub’s grave, and presently the thud of
a pick-axe and the sound of shovelling were conveyed to us along the
passage and through the floor.
It was weary waiting in that room, listening to those dismal sounds,
with Captain Welfare endlessly repeating the same explanations, the
same apologies.
Through the open window I heard a rustling in the trees, and then a
sudden puff of wind blew the curtains inward and caused the lamp to
flare. The long-delayed storm had reached us and the moon was blotted
out. There was a sudden splash of rain hard driven by the west wind. I
rose to shut the window, and looking out the thought came to me that
this darkness and confused rushing of the wind was more natural for the
passing of Jakoub’s disordered soul than the serene tranquillity that
had preceded it. It was as though the west wind had arisen to bear that
soul back to the East where alone it could be at home.
One o’clock had struck when Edmund came back, soiled and perspiring, to
tell us that all was ready.
Captain Welfare insisted on accompanying us, exhausted as he must have
been, and he was helped down the stairs by Edmund.
By the light of a stable lantern we made our way for the last time
along the fatal tunnel, and found Bates awaiting us.
The grave was dug close to the far end of the tunnel, and I marvelled
at the immense amount of earth that had been removed in little more
than an hour.
The body of Jakoub, shrouded in a white sheet, lay on a board beside
the grave with ropes in place for lowering it.
The bishop took his place at the head of the grave, facing his
congregation of four.
“My friends,” he said, “this is a solemn moment which must ever be
present in the memory of each of us. The wages of sin is death, and
this our brother, who was not the only sinner among us, has paid the
penalty. He has drawn his wages in this world. That he may be the only
one to pay that penalty is a thought that should humble us who are
left behind. We are committing an act for which we should certainly be
condemned by the laws of our country, but it is an act for which I take
full responsibility. I am sure that it is not only expedient from the
worldly point of view, but that it is right. Because to act legally in
this matter would cause injustice to be done in the name of justice. I
therefore as a priest absolve you from responsibility in this matter,
and I counsel you to pray for the forgiveness of God for the wrong
that each of us may have done. Whether my judgment in this matter is
right will be proved by the event. If this night’s event should bring
any of you to lead a better life and to serve God while you still have
opportunity, I shall be sure that my action has God’s blessing upon it.
This man has died in his sin and without the faith that supports and
consoles a Christian. But it is not for us to place limits on the mercy
of Almighty God. Let us offer a silent prayer that that mercy may be
extended to this our brother.”
As we continued in reverent silence round the grave a pale gleam of
moonlight faintly lit the scene, throwing dark shadows across the
excavation and shining mournfully on the white wrapping of the corpse
that lay beside us.
Looking out through the opening of the tunnel I saw as in a frame a
portion of the sky. The main body of the great storm cloud had passed,
and it was followed by a broken, hurrying rear-guard of ragged clouds
through which the moon seemed to battle her way to the west, now
submerged, now showing pale and dim, like the terrified face of a
swimmer emerging between the waves of a heavy sea.
At a sign from the bishop the body of Jakoub was lowered into the
grave. We threw a little soil upon it with the customary words, “Earth
to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
Then as the grave was filled in the bishop repeated one verse from the
funeral psalm: “For I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner, as all
my fathers were,” and then pronounced the benediction.
Thus with reverence and as much ceremony as is permitted by the rubric
which prescribes that “the office ensuing shall not be used for any
that die unbaptised or excommunicate,” the body of Jakoub was committed
to the earth, and his stormy passage through life ended almost within
the precincts of my quiet Sussex vicarage.
As we parted for the night to get what rest we could, I felt that my
tranquillity was at last restored. I could think almost kindly of
Jakoub, for I believed that with him had gone the malign influence that
had darkened Edmund’s life and threatened to destroy his character.