SCENE III

The night was dark, and the two figures taking a winding way up the

narrow hillside path had much ado to keep from going astray. The

leader, ploughing along, head down, with eyes diligently on the move

to save his precious shins, was betrayed by a running accompaniment

of his favourite language. He was volubly cursing his folly in having

made ‘such a d----d silly bet,’ and Mr Denver for having inveigled

him into a fool’s errand. The latter, sauntering along a few steps

behind, apparently quite oblivious of his companion, was humming a

favourite little tune, and turning from time to time to look down on

the twinkling lights of the little town scattered here and there amid

the tall stems of the palms outlined against the further sky. The faint

murmur of the surf breaking on the reef seemed to chime in with his

mood better than the tune, for he stopped humming, and bent forward to

listen. Massinger had exhausted his vocabulary for the present, and was

silent also; only the fitful chirping of a cicala and the occasional

bark of a dog from below broke the stillness of the tropical night.

The moon was just rising over the sea, throwing a long silvery line

of light, which gradually spread, as if eager to embrace the land,

awaiting it in silent expectancy. The solemnity and stillness of the

scene, however, only served to increase the Major’s irritation.

‘Come on,’ he said, impatiently; ‘don’t stand moonstruck there; let’s

get this infernal foolishness over as soon as possible. How much

further have we got to go up this beastly path? If it’s far I’d sooner

pay £500 than go on.’

‘We’re almost there,’ said Dick, and passing his companion, he swung

along up the track. In about ten minutes he came to a halt, and said

in his soft drawling voice, ‘We turn down here, and in a minute or so

we’ll be right there. Then look to your shooting-iron, and harden your

heart, and in we go. Malūa, my son,’ he added to himself, ‘it’s no part

of the game to “show” a while yet--mustn’t skeer the gentleman;’ he

chuckled grimly and audibly.

‘What the devil’s wrong with the infernal place, and why do we want

pistols?’ said Massinger, testily; but even as he spoke he drew a

revolver from his side pocket. For all answer, Mr Denver led on down a

zig-zag path to the left, until brought up sharp by the face of a rocky

cliff, grown over with bushes and creepers. After standing there a

minute to see that his companion had followed him, he stooped suddenly,

raising with his hand a huge, hanging creeper, and dived as it were

into the face of the rock. Astonished at his sudden disappearance,

Massinger stood a minute before the rock irresolute, but a mocking

voice, with that peculiar high drawl, came from within.

‘Reckon you’re going back, Major; is that so?’

With a muttered oath, Massinger raised the creeper, and, imitating his

companion, crawled through a hidden opening in the rock, till he found

himself standing upright beside Dick in an open space. When his eyes

had become somewhat accustomed to the gloom, he saw that they were in

a natural vault or chamber, formed in the rock of the hillside, nearly

square, and about forty feet from side to side. In the centre was a

huge jagged hole of cavernous depth, and above it, a large cleft in the

rock ceiling of the vault, letting in a glimpse of the starry heavens.

The sides of the walls, of a reddish-grey stone, were damp and clammy,

and the air hot and steamy. In the far corner of the cavern, opposite

the entrance, was a natural stone seat. When by degrees and uncertain

glances he had taken in his surroundings, Massinger looked round for

his companion. Mr Denver was seated in a _degagé_ attitude on a stone,

with his back to the entrance, carefully selecting a weed from his

cigar-case. This he lighted, and got well under weigh, before he said,

with the drawl that had become hateful to the other:

‘Nice place, a’nt it, Major? Take a seat; there’s a tolerable spry pew

opposite.’

He waved with his cigar to the stone seat. Massinger, though secretly

far from comfortable, was not to be outdone in coolness by this Yankee

blackguard. Taking a cigarette, he lit it from the other’s cigar,

and strolled, with a fine assumption of indifference, to the seat

indicated. A long silence followed; the moon was gradually creeping up

in the sky, and long ghostly shadows were cast on the floor and walls

of the ‘Devil’s Box.’ Massinger’s feelings during this night had been

far from enviable; starting after a good dinner, he had looked upon the

affair as an amusing freak by which he would save himself the payment

of £200. The steep, difficult ascent had thoroughly disillusioned

him, and the eerie look of the cavern was fast completing his

discomfiture. He was conscious, too, of a vague feeling of distrust as

to his companion’s conduct. Why had he brought him to this unearthly

hole,--where apparently there was nothing to prevent their staying till

Doomsday to decide this fool of a bet. There was something sinister

about the entertainment.

As if reading the thoughts that were pressing on his companion’s brain,

Mr Denver broke the silence,--

‘Guess you’re feeling up a considerable high tree, Major; this is going

to be an interesting occasion for you.’ There was a look as of a cat

playing with a mouse about the speaker, and Massinger was not slow to

read a menace into the suave tones of the high-pitched voice.

‘What in God’s name is the meanin’ of this foolery?’ he broke out,

harshly; ‘why have you brought me here? There’s something behind all

this d----d skittlin’, and I’ll trouble you to tell me what it is.’ He

rose as he spoke, and took a step with clenched hands towards Dick. The

latter did not move.

‘I should mind that little orifice if I were you,’ he said, pointing

to the yawning chasm that separated them in the centre, and from the

murky depths of which ascended a faintly hissing, bubbling sound as of

boiling water. Massinger, who in his excitement had advanced almost to

its edge, started back again with an alacrity that showed the unstrung

state of his nerves. When he had again dropped into his seat, and was

playing nervously with the butt of the revolver in his coat pocket, Mr

Denver took up the word.

‘Major,’ he said, ‘I’m going to have some talk with you, and you’ll

pardon me if I deliver a little exordi_um_’--he pronounced it with an

ominous emphasis on the ‘um.’ ‘I reckon the moon won’t be full up for

another half hour, so we’ve considerable time.’

‘What’s the moon got to do with it, and what the devil is it you want?

Fire away and come to the point,’ said Massinger, twisting the ends of

his moustache, and endeavouring to conceal his now genuine alarm under

a boisterous bluffness. Mr Denver smiled a quaint little smile, as

though his spirits were rising.

‘Things will begin to move right along about the time the moon’s

overhead,’ he said, consulting his watch. ‘Now, see here, Major, I

don’t want to bore you, but I’ve got to say you’re kind of the worst

specimen of a man I’ve had the luck to meet’--a smothered curse from

Massinger. ‘Keep cool, Major; you’ll want all your language before

I’m through; guess I’ve brought you here,--at your own request, you

know,’--he smiled,--‘just to explain to you a little idea of mine,

which I reckon you’ll appreciate.’ Mr Denver’s resemblance to a cat at

this moment was not reassuring to the mouse. For a moment he paused,

changing his attitude, and leaning back against the wall with his

hands in his pockets and his legs crossed. Massinger had taken out his

revolver, and fingered it nervously.

‘Nice little iron,’ said Mr Denver, approvingly; ‘you’re a good shot,

too, Major, I know.’

‘Pretty fair,’ said the latter, grimly.

‘So much the better. We--ell now, I’ve been thinking a good deal ’bout

you since I’ve had the honour of making your acquaintance, and--now

don’t be wild, Major--you really are--as you Britishers say--a great

cad.’

A furious oath and a sudden movement forward from Massinger was as

suddenly checked by the appearance of a little shining tube held

straight at his head, and the imperturbable drawl resumed,--

‘Guess I see you, and go one better; presently, my dear sir, you’ll

have _your_ chance, but just now I must beg you to sit still and hear

my little exordi_um_.’ A pause.

‘Four years ago you married the present Mrs Massinger.’

‘You blackguard, how dare you mention my wife’s name?’

For the first time Dick Denver’s face betrayed emotion; his mouth

twitched, and a sullen fire burned slowly up into his deep-set eyes,

but his voice was none the less impassive as he continued:

‘I guess I’ve as much show; I’m a good bit fitter to talk of your

wife than you are, you--you hound.’ The words in the slow drawl were

maddening, and this time it was Massinger’s revolver that was levelled,

but Mr Denver sat idly as ever, looking full at his companion, and

presently the latter dropped his arm.

‘Malūa, Major, Malūa! even _you_ won’t commit murder, you see.’--A

longer hiss from the inky depth in the centre, and a thin jet of water

spurted up a foot or two above the level of the ground. Mr Denver took

out his watch and looked at the opening above.

‘The show’s beginning,’ he said. Massinger was wiping some drops of

water off his trousers.

‘I say,’ he said excitedly, ‘that water was boilin’; will it come any

higher?’

‘Don’t alarm yourself, Major, the moon’ll be up before the next

demonstration.’

‘What in the fiend’s name has the moon got to do with it? If you think

I’m goin’ to stay here to be boiled for you or any other madman, I’m

not takin’ any, I can tell you.’

‘No? Well, I guess you’re _going_ to stay here some, while I finish

what I’ve got to say.--Four years ago you married the present Mrs

Massinger; and I guess you’ve led her the life of a dog.’

‘You’re a liar! a d----d liar! I’ve never ill-used her.’

‘You’ve never struck or kicked her, you mean, but by God, in every

other way you’ve been a brute to her, and I reckon you’ve spoilt her

life.’

He held the other with his look, and went on rapidly.

‘I know you, Major; you’re a mean, sullen, sordid cur, not fit to live

with any woman, much less with _her_. We--ell! so--o I guess I’ve fixed

up a little idea which I’m going to explain to you right along.’

Another low, soft hiss from the bottomless pit. The rays from the moon

were now striking almost vertically into the cavern, on Massinger

sitting motionless in an angry but half-cowed amazement, on Mr Denver

again consulting his watch. He returned it to his pocket and said:

‘In ten minutes from that first jet, there’ll be a geyser, and if

we’re here I calculate we’ll be boiled and carried down that hole,--I

know its little ways. There’s just upon six minutes left, but in three

the moon’ll be right above, and there’ll be considerable light in the

shooting gallery.’

Massinger opened his mouth, but Mr Denver went on sharply and

distinctly:

‘You see, Major, my idea’s just this, _one_ of us has got to stay right

here. Now its likely you’ll prefer being shot to being boiled; when I

say the words “one, two, _three_,” we shall both of us fire, and if you

pass out over my body you are to be congratul_at_ed. I shall shoot you

if I can, because’--he paused, then very slowly, ‘I guess Mrs Massinger

has no kind of use for you. It’s a fair and square business, Major,

and you bet’--he pointed with his pistol to the bubbling, hissing

chasm--‘the devil’ll take the hind-most.’

Dick Denver smiled grimly as he finished his exordium--his composure

was devilish; he rose, looked once up at the opening above, through

which the moon was now visible directly overhead, and then stood

immovable, watching his companion. The full horror of his position

had at last dawned on Massinger; he was on his feet now, leaning

irresolutely against the wall, with staring eyes fixed alternately upon

the awful chasm between them and his opponent’s set face.

‘My God!’ he said; ‘you must be mad,--for heaven’s sake, let’s end this

fooling.’ But his ashen face showed that he knew it was no fooling, but

a grim reality.

‘Time’s up. I shall say “one, two, _three_”; at three we fire.’

The words acted like a cold douche on Massinger; he shivered all over,

then braced himself against the rock and set his teeth.

‘D----n you,’ he muttered, ‘I’ll pass out over your body yet.’ Turning

to bay with a wolfish glare in his eyes, he lifted his pistol.

The angry water, greedy of its prey, was hissing louder and louder

between them.

‘One--two--_three_!--’ a double report and a hoarse, stifled cry. Mr

Denver staggered back, and his hat, pierced through and through, fell

from his head. Recovering himself, he threw one look over the pit to

where Massinger lay motionless on his face, shot through the heart; the

devil’s water creeping up and brimming over the edge, nearly touched

his rigid body.

‘Wonder if the cuss is dead? Can’t leave him to be boiled alive.’ Dick

sprang over the brimming, hissing gulf, and lifted the head.

‘As mutton,’ he said, dropping the lifeless mass. With a leap

backwards, he gained the entrance, and, passing through, dashed down

the hill. Once he paused, and looking back, saw a smoking jet shoot

high into the moonlit sky. Some drops of boiling spray fell with a hiss

on his face and hands,--Dick shivered and went on his way.

AN AFTERTHOUGHT

The first streaks of dawn were showing in the east. The long, low,

white-verandahed hotel surrounded by a group of palms that wavered

unsteadily in the half-light, like a group of ghostly sentinels, was

still undisturbed by the coming day. A man standing back in the shadow

muttered to himself, as, glancing over his shoulder, he caught the

first glow of light on the horizon. Advancing softly, with a spring,

he grasped the roof of the verandah, and swung himself up lightly and

noiselessly. Climbing the balcony rails, he looked for a moment along

the line of French windows opening outwards, then, creeping forward, he

passed through one of them into a small empty room, with a larger one

adjoining it. Pausing inside, he glanced through the open door into the

other room. The night had been stiflingly hot, the windows were open,

and from the bed standing in the far corner the mosquito-curtains were

thrown back. As his eyes fell upon the bed, Dick Denver shivered, and

stood thinking.

‘Better not’ he said to himself; ‘it’s kind of a skeery tale.’ He took

a piece of paper from his pocket. ‘No one saw us go up,’ he muttered,

and grimly, ‘I guess no one saw us come down.’ He ran his eye over the

paper.

‘“I bet Mr Dick Denver the sum of £200 that I visit with him a

condemned hole called ‘La boîte du diable,’ and stay there as long or

longer than he does.

‘“ Play or pay.

‘“Albert Massinger, October 9th, 188--.

Dick Denver.”’

So it ran. With a pencil he scribbled a line underneath:

‘Lost and paid. A. M. stays there for ever. Burn this.--D. D.’

He took out of his pocket a bundle of notes, then stole gently forward

and pinned them both to the pillow of the bed where a white figure lay

sleeping. Then he stood back and gazed with a wistful, yearning look in

his eyes. The white-robed figure moved restlessly in its sleep, and a

sigh that went straight to Dick’s heart came stealing across the room.

The window faced east, and the dawning light fell softly on the sweet

face resting on a bare white arm, and on the fair hair trailing across

the pillow. A tiny puff of sea-air floated in, and ruffled the lace

falling back from the delicate throat. A mad longing seized upon Dick;

he took two steps forward, then stopped irresolutely and staggered

back against the wall, as a far-off mountain cry of beast or bird

was wafted in at the window, sounding in his ears like that other cry

heard not long ago. It steadied him, and with a noiseless step he moved

swiftly to the bed, and stooping, pressed his lips lightly to one fair

tress that fell softly over neck and bosom; then he raised himself

as swiftly. Without another look he passed through the window, and

swinging himself over the rail, walked hurriedly through the morning

mist in the direction of the pier.

Two hours afterwards, Mr Dick Denver leant against the side of the

French packet ‘Belle Ile’ as she made steady way from the port of St

Martin. His eyes were fixed on a fast-vanishing white building.

‘I’m best with a new hand; there was nothing _to_ that racket. But it

just licks creation how I made tracks; it wasn’t in the programme,

anyway. Why did I? Dick, my son, why did you?... We--ell, ’pears to

me somehow I remembered a saying: “Ye cannot get figs from thistles”;

I guess that’s right so,--and,’ exceeding bitterly, ‘who am I that I

should lift my face to hers?’

ASHES

To the Inexorable, what need of incense-burning, when from the ashes

of human life is ever rising a measured stream of smoke?

I, Paul Marylski, outcast and rolling stone, am sitting in my old

arm-chair on this accursed English day of yours, the year of little

grace 189-. Forty years have I rolled, and have gathered no moss. Body

and soul am I like unto the battered old friend I sit in. In sooth, I

think as I crouch here over my fire, that I am but as the dead, man

without hope, without desire, without a future, without a present--can

he live? Yes; for he is sitting here to-night like an old dog, with

the same folds in the cheeks, and the same yearning in the eyes. A

thousand curses on the Congo and its deathly fever!--but for that

might I still be man with future before me, but who can stand against

this devil’s gnawing that never ceases?--not I, for one. I have some

friends, a sweet country family, such as you have in England; they

interest themselves in me, in _me_. I am grateful. The ‘mother’ tells

me--‘Cheer up; this life is but a stage; it will soon pass--then,

think of the future, the glorious after-life.’ She believes in this

firmly--why not? Temperament, dear lady, all temperament! I can no more

believe it than I can still this clawing at my vitals. Why do I live?

_Pardieu_, I know not, having had my day--and what a day! Do they not

say, ‘Every dog must have his day’? _Tiens_, this dog has had his, and

it is that, and that alone, which keeps him alive. Even now, as I sit

watching the dying embers, what pictures can I not see through the

smoke that wreathes from my cigarette.

Hark! What’s that? ‘Carmen!’ as I live, a battered hulk; ‘Carmen,’ and

on a barrel-organ! Ah, ha! Good, for your dingy London streets--they

help the picture for once.

* * * * *

I see a room, warm and light; the green blinds are drawn, the polished

floor reflects the softly-shaded lights; in the centre a table loaded

with things loved of the soul, and--is it the same thing, perhaps?--the

palate; empty bottles--ay, even an _empty_ bottle was lovely

then--betoken the end of a feast. Round the table, men, only men; but

look well--ay, and look again, ye callow youths, and livers of the

life of every day--not one but has his _future_ or his _past_--most

have both. Look at him well who rises, glass in hand, to address the

company. Did ye ever see such a born leader of men, a giant, slim and

tall, with eye that flashes, and drooping black moustache? He waves

his hand to the waiters to leave the room, and speaks:--‘_Messieurs_,’

he says--in French, for is he not Christophe de Barsac, first smuggler

in Marseille (or out of it, for that matter)?--‘_Messieurs, le jeu

est fait_,’ and he drains his glass to the dregs, everyone following

suit. ‘It now only remains, _Messieurs_, to reckon the cost,’ and he

sits down. A groan goes up from around the table. There rises a tall,

fat--ah! fat--man, with the invincible smile of a Russian of the

Russians. As such, I, the Pole, sitting opposite, hate him--but also,

you know, I love him as a brother.

‘_Monsieur le President_, and gentlemen,’ he goes on in English, which

his soul loves as only does the soul of the man who speaks it as

badly. ‘We ’ave ’ad ze good time, ze time of ze own devil, as says

our good friend Kerr--r;’ he rolls the r’s indefinitely, and indicates

with his cigar a lean, sunburnt man on his left. ‘I ver’ moch regret

’zat I ’ave no more money to ’ave anoyzer time of ze own devil, and

zat also you ’ave none to lend me, _mais, que voulez vous, vive Monte

Carlo_!’ and he, too, sits down, with a supremely fatalistic shrug of

those vast shoulders, and the still invincible smile. Only three men

out of those nine understand English, yet a murmur of applause shows

the appreciation felt for the speaker, and the sentiments conveyed in

that vast and comprehensive shrug. When the applause has subsided, his

neighbour, the sunburnt southerner and knight-errant, rises abruptly

and says:

‘That’s all very well, but I guess this dinner’s got to be toted up

and paid for. Le’ssee how this pans out,’ and he turns the contents of

his pockets on to the table,--one franc twenty-five centimes. He drops

them into a wine-glass, and passes it to his neighbour. Then follows a

scene curious--nine men of good presence in evening dress, turning out

the innermost recesses of their apparel into a wine-glass--and see,

the result is handed to the President, who counts it anxiously, after

adding his own mite of two sous--‘Six francs seventy-five centimes.’

At the least the dinner has cost fifteen louis. Another groan from the

table.

‘_Tenez_,’ says the President, ‘_J’ai une idée: le petit n’a jamais

joué; eh bien! Je donnerai les cinq francs au petit, et il jouera._’

Evidently _bonne idée_, for the room resounds as _le petit_ is

surrounded and forced forward with many an encouraging pat.

_Bon Dieu!_ That was I! That beardless youth with the bright eyes and

black hair, enjoying life as none but a Pole can enjoy, before his

country has laid her curse of melancholy upon him. Twenty years is

a good span of time, but it seems more than twenty hundred since De

Barsac pressed those five francs into my indifferent hand, and bade me

go forth and seek the price of that feast, eaten not wisely but too

well. Yet even now is Gortchakow’s pat heavy upon my back.

Ah, well, there he goes! passing dreamily out of the busy café, with

its garish lights and constant hum, into the ‘Place’--the immortal

‘Place.’ How well I remember it! Did not _her_ windows look on it?

Every feature, graven on my brain, rises now before me. The living

stream ever flowing from its four sides into those inexorable doors,

the sweet scents wafted from the gardens on the left, the fantastic

shadows of the palms, the strains of ‘Carmen’ from the band playing

in the verandah, the feverish throb of humanity under those quiet and

starry heavens. Who does not know the ‘Place’? and, once knowing, who

forgets?

There he goes, dreamily threading his solitary way across to the

rooms; yet are his thoughts not with those five poor francs; they are,

with his eyes, fixed on a certain window in the hotel opposite, and

wondering what is the earliest hour _she_ can be ‘_de retour_.’

But, heigh-ho! the portals are reached, and lo! one must think of that

dinner. What is one five-franc piece? Truly not much, yet something in

maiden hands. The rooms are full; it is the gambler’s noon. _Le petit_

finds himself wedged in between a swarthy Roumanian Jew, who is sowing

louis broadcast ‘_en plein_’ and ‘_à cheval_,’ and an English lady, of

undetermined age but determined spirit, who is shedding her weekly bill

in five-franc pieces. The Roumanian soweth, but he reapeth not, and he

rises with a scowl and a shrug, and _le petit_ slips into his seat.

He is _sitting_ down with one five-franc piece. _Mon petit!_ truly thou

art--what one calls--very green. Yet he has watched the game before,

this young bantling.

‘_Quatre premier_,’ he cries, and manfully throws down the fateful

piece. The little white ball is already spinning with its merry rattle

of life and death--it stops. ‘_Deux, noir, paire et manque._’ The

ever-busy rake pushes over to him two louis. And now

‘_Trente-quatre, trente-six, deux louis, sil vous plait._’

The obliging croupier places them--once again the merry rattle.

‘_Trente-six_,’ says the sing-song voice.

‘Bravo, _mon petit_, here is the price of the dinner with interest.’

Prudence personified, he places fifteen louis out of the twenty-four

in an inner pocket and prepares to do or die with the rest. Yes, yes,

how well I remember the tall Englishman behind saying to his friend,

‘Sportsman, that young beggar! I shall follow him.’

_Le petit’s_ English has been picked up on a Straits Settlements

trader, but the tall Englishman he understands and appreciates. He is

playing on _rouge_ now. A run of four; already by his side are piled

the louis mountains high.

‘_Messieurs, faites le jeu._’

‘_Cent louis, rouge._’

‘_Le jeu est fait--rouge_;’ again and again, and yet again comes red,

and each time _le petit_ wins.

Now he is staking the limit, and winning still, the multitude

wondering, with that rising murmur of praise and plaint that ever

attends a big winner’s fortunes. Suddenly he looks up. Standing

opposite to him is a tall woman with dark eyes, lovely to behold, and

she is watching him with a curious look, not of pity, not of contempt,

not of passion, yet with something of all three. He starts, half

rising, and makes a motion to leave the table.

‘_Messieurs, faites le jeu_,’--the murmur grows.

‘Follow the run up; play your luck out, sir,’ says the big Englishman.

_Le petit_ hurriedly counts out the limit and pushes it on to

_rouge_--the ball stops. ‘_Noir_,’ drawls the croupier, in a triumphant

sing-song; the run is broken, but _le petit_, sweeping the remains of

his winnings into his pocket, is no longer in his seat.

Between two goddesses can no man stand, not even the maiden wooer of

the great goddess Chance, when a greater than she has claimed him.

The woman with the dark eyes moved away, but _le petit_ is beside her.

‘’Léna, how long the day has been! But the night comes, ah, the night

comes--at twelve?’ She gives him one look from unfathomable eyes, that

provoke, yet answer, and passes on to a seat at the next table. _Le

petit_, with bowed head and unsteady step, but with a flame in his

eyes, passes out into the air to render an account of his stewardship.

* * * * *

Once more the softly-lighted room. The ghost of the feast has his

clutches now upon the band of revellers; yea, a gloom is upon them;

even wanes the smile of Gortchakow, prince of Russian philosophers.

‘_Enfin!_’ says the President, and at his voice all turn, to see _le

petit_ come in at a side door, and stand silent in the shadow. All

eyes are upon him--surely he looks depressed.

‘Zey ’ave plucked ’im, my children, zey ’ave plucked ’is one leetle

feazer,’ is Gortchakow’s sorrowful but smiling comment.

‘What luck, my son?’ says the President, gravely. For answer, _le

petit_ opens his coat, and before nine pairs of hungry eyes he pours

forth what seems a never-ending stream of gold and notes on to the

table. A howl of amaze and delight bursts forth, and _le petit_ is

enveloped in several pairs of arms, until he wriggles out, and dives

under the table, where he sits in comparative security, while the

President pays the bill, divides the spoil, and delivers a homily upon

‘_le chance_,’ rendered palatable by bumpers of champagne.

Great God! And is it only twenty years since I sat under that

table?--only twenty!!

* * * * *

Once more the ‘Place,’ but now the hum and throb has given place to the

passion-fraught stillness of the Southern night. Closed are the rooms

and the cafés; the last strains of the band have died away; the croak

of belated frogs, an occasional laugh, and the snatch of a song from

belated humans, are the only sounds that come to the ears of _le petit_

as he wends his cautious way to the longed-for meeting. A French window

opening on to a balcony, ten feet from the ground,--what is this to a

sailor, under cover of the night? Now he is up, and gazing with all his

eyes through the half-open window into a dimly-lighted room.

Sights fair and horrible, many, have I seen in my tempest-driven life,

ay, many, but never, by the gods, have I seen sight fairer, and yet

more horrible, than that which met _le petit’s_ fascinated gaze through

those half-drawn blinds.

The figure of the loved one is stretched on the couch, dreaming, with

look of expectation and delight in the half-closed eyes.

Dark with all the passions, scowling malignant, a face glares from a

shrouded corner of the room upon that white-robed form. Passionate

love, passionate hate, passionate jealousy--who shall say what is

in that face? Enough surely to bind _le petit_ with the spell of a

nameless terror.

The figure moves forward noiselessly out of the shadow. Ah! One knows

him now! This is he whom most she dreads; he who, not husband, nor

lover accepted, pursues her with vows, with threats, with all that

there is of jealous passion; to whom, despite of fear, repulsion,

dread, some mysterious tie binds her. _Le petit_ gazes--so he is there,

that ogre, ah! And certainly he knows, that monster, of the expected

visitor--he has read it in the passion of her eyes, upon her dumb but

parted lips.

It is destiny--so much the better; once for all we will end all this.

The figure creeps forward, with raised hand clenched.

_Le petit_ steps in from the balcony.

‘’Léna,’ he says, and with his finger points.

She rises at the sound of his voice, and turning sees; then with a

little cry of terror she comes to his arms for protection. That was

like her. Afterwards, when _le petit_ wanted those white arms that

hung around his neck--wanted them sorely in his sick estate, nigh unto

death,--did she bring them then? Bah! All women are alike! and yet not

all--not all.

Is that a devil that rages before one, foaming at the mouth?--Ah! no,

only Juan Costello, a very evil-looking person!

‘My compliments to you, Monsieur, but this lady and myself wish to talk

_affaires_; will Monsieur have the kindness to withdraw?’

Truly he is _canaille_, with his villainous tongue and his villainous

eyes--also he makes a great noise, until they come and take him away;

altogether it is a very stupid and common affair, pah!--Well, well, it

is a long time ago, and a little noise more or less doesn’t matter to

me now.

Also _le petit_ goes forth; and there is rage--a bitter, black rage--in

his heart.

How slowly wing the hours away till the morning light--those hours of

disappointment and burning hate. That dog! One will kill him with the

first light.--The little bay near Cabbé Roquebrune--that little bay

that recalls so greatly the far-away lagoons of the blessed South Seas.

Too good a resting-place for such a hound--far too good--yet it will

serve.

Up and down, up and down, never still through the long night hours,

head awhirl, eyes aflame. Bad training, my child, for the morning’s

meeting.

Who cares? It is fate--his death at my hands is written in those stars

that shine so steadily, so inexorably, above, in that dome of destiny.

Ah! There it is at last, that streak of light--omen of wrath and blood,

dull, and red, and angry streak. ‘_Tant mieux!_’ Certainly there will

be sport.

At last the little bay--and at the water’s edge the little tideless

waves are whispering joyfully, and they are as glad as _le petit_, for

this is a scene they love.

There he comes! he is glad, too--good--everything goes well.

‘You know these things, my friend; tell me where shall I hit him to

kill?’

‘I reckon you’re a kind of a spitfire. Take the cuss under the arm, as

he stands sideways, and keep your own elbow low.’

Ah! My friend, thou art an artist, and valued as such, but, when the

blood surges and sings in the head, words count for little.

So I can see his hated face glaring at me above his pistol, the flames

from our eyes are meeting. Ah, me! goodness and strength are gone out

of me with that glance--pity to spend so much good hatred on a cur like

that.

Yet ’tis not for long! and now ... ’tis all over, and they are carrying

_le petit_ back from the regretful waters. And some time--when was it?

who knows?--he drags himself to sea again, and the page is closed. And

what of the other, that hound? And of her? Again, who knows?--Ah, yes,

I have still the pain of that wound, but not greatly.

Well! well! a long time ago,--and it was but a page. Come, turn over.

Nay, not even the strength for that; thou hast had thy dose of life for

the day, and the barrel-organ is gone, and thou art tired, and the fire

is low, and the cigarette--pouf--it is but ashes.

‘TALLY HO’--BUDMASH

‘As the egg, so the chicken.’

--Free translation of a native proverb.

Two figures stood on the edge of the stream of traffic which flows

unceasingly along Piccadilly in the dusty forenoons of the season. They

stood with their eyes blinking watchfully in the sun that glared with

a friendly and altogether satisfying glare upon the stone pavement.

The one was the figure of a small boy; his legs were planted firmly

apart, and a wide-brimmed straw hat was set sturdily on the very back

of his head. A very small, very brown-faced boy was he, with round blue

eyes, and hair fair almost to whiteness; rising a stout five, and his

name--for the purposes of this chronicle--was ‘Tally Ho.’ The other was

the presentment of a silent and melancholy Hindu, with a black beard,

and turbaned head of a dusky mahogany; lean, and white-clothed, he

stood slightly behind, in an attitude of respectful protection.

They gazed curiously at the changing, throbbing flow of Western energy,

and ever and again the flow glanced over its shoulder in its ceaseless,

and apparently objectless, quest, to wonder in its turn at those two

strange figures from an unknown and far-off land, washed up high and

dry on the edge of the stream.

‘De big fire is velly hot,’--Tally Ho always called the sun the big

fire--‘as hot as Inja, doesn’t ’oo tink, Kotah Lal?’

‘If Tally Ho Sahib say, then so it is; yet it is in his servant’s mind

that in India there were even days when Tally Ho Sahib called that they

should put the big fire out, and greatly pull the punkah, and, as the

Sahib knows, there be no punkahs this side of the big water.’

‘My mislemembers,’ said Tally Ho. ‘What do ’ose memsahibs goin’ lound

on de wheels, dey’re velly ugly, dey makle my’s head ache--tell dem to

’top, Kotah Lal,’ and he indicated with a stumpy brown forefinger two

dashing young females on the inevitable bicycle.

‘They go thus because after them comes a big bad god, and so perchance

they will escape,’ said Kotah Lal, with a glimmer of a smile on his

impassive features.

‘For why are deir leggies one on each side?’ said the irrepressible

Tally Ho loudly, as another dame flew by; ‘it is not so in my country;

are de wheels alive, Kotah Lal?’

‘It may be so; thy servant is a stranger in this land, Sahib, where

all men seem possessed of devils, so fast they run to do naught all

the day long. But the Doctor Sahib on the big ship did tell me that in

this country there be a great and bad spirit called Indi-Gesti-Un, who

pursues men to their undoing, so that they run ever faster to escape.’

‘Where does he live, Kotah Lal?’ said Tally Ho, concernedly.

Kotah Lal placed his hand upon the regions of his middle, and smiled

mournfully. This seemed to supply Tally Ho with a fresh idea.

‘Kotah Lal,’ he said suddenly, thrusting his small brown fists deeply

into the pockets of his holland knickers, ‘what is dere for my’s

tiffin? Is dere cully and lice, allee samee as on de big ship?’

‘The Sahib commanded and the order has gone forth; without doubt there

be these things for the Sahib’s lunch.’

‘Velly dood, my tinks my’s empty.’ Tally Ho withdrew one hand from his

pocket, and passed it meditatively over his small stomach. ‘Which is de

way, Kotah Lal?’

‘It will be necessary to walk down the market of the dried grasses, and

through the square where are the four great lions that the Sahib looked

upon with favour yesterday, to where the trains run in the smokey black

hole under the ground. So said the Sahib in the blue clothes of whom I

asked anon.’

‘Turn on,’ said Tally Ho; ‘my’s _velly_ empty, my wiss Foo Ching was in

Ingeliland; he made exkullent dood chow-chow; my loves Foo Ching, Kotah

Lal.’

Foo Ching, the Chinese cook of the steamer which had two days before

achieved the honour of safely bearing from India, and landing one

‘Tally Ho,’ baptismally known as Geoffrey Standing Blount, was that

young man’s latest bosom friend, and at that time mainly responsible

for the eccentricities of his speech.

‘My wiss my was corpington (corpulent), like Foo Ching; Foo Ching was

velly nice and corpington, and my’s _velly_ empty.’

Tally Ho, who usually carried his head loftily, drooped it to

contemplate mournfully his small person, and in so doing butted it

into the stomach of an elderly commercial hurrying to his mid-day meal.

‘My begs ’oor pardon,’ said Tally Ho, pained but polite, raising his

hat and rubbing his snub nose. The commercial, with soul intent on the

undercut, paid no attention, but hurried on. ‘Oos a lude man,’ said

Tally Ho, indignantly; ‘a velly lude man.’ He stared reproachfully

after him up the street till the stream had swallowed him up.

In time, and by dint of much circuitous marching and counter-marching,

escaping with many a dodge and device the rumbling onslaught of

’busses, and the ‘scorching’ attack of bicycles, they reached the black

hole known to the Westerns as Charing Cross Station. The interview

between Kotah Lal and the ticket clerk ended satisfactorily in his

obtaining tickets for not more than two stations further than their

destination. Armed with these, the Hindu secured Tally Ho by the arm,

and descended gravely to the platform.

‘Dlefful ’tuffy,’ commented Tally Ho, with a sniff of disgust; ‘my

wantee tum scent on my’s hankeychoo.’

‘Let the Sahib abide but a moment in patience--here cometh the panting

one with the fiery eye.’

A train drew up, they got into an empty carriage, and, as Tally Ho

remarked, ‘de Injun blewed its nose,’ and ‘shaking its head,’ went on

its way towards the west. Now it is not to be peculiarly remembered

against Kotah Lal that upon this stifling afternoon he was inclined

to doze, bearing in mind that for two nights, being cumbered with the

duties of arrival, he had not slept,--moreover, the fact that within

two minutes of entering the train he fell into a deep and dreamless

slumber, he himself has since been heard to explain as a particular and

malicious visitation of the Evil One.

Before Westminster Bridge was reached Tally Ho had exhausted the

fascinations of the carriage, and was become unfeignedly bored.

‘My will wait till de tlain ’tops,’ he thought, ‘and ask Kotah Lal if

my may det down and ’peak to Blown.’

Brown, a particular friend of his, was an engine-driver on the little

one-horse line that ran past his home in the North-West Provinces. The

train pulled up with a jerk at the station, and Tally Ho turned to

proffer his request, but a gently ecstatic snore from the turbaned

head in the opposite corner warned him that his protector was far away

in the Land of Nod.

‘Poo’ah Kotah Lal,’ said Tally Ho compassionately, ‘he’s velly sleepy,

my will not wakle him up.’ This he said consideringly, having in his

small mind the semi-conviction that it might be better _not_ to ask for

his protector’s leave in this matter. ‘My tinks,’ pursued Tally Ho,

‘Blown will be wanting my.’

He moved towards the door, but at this moment the train resumed its

grimy way, and burrowed once more into the bowels of the city. Tally Ho

paused, his small fist on the handle.

‘My will wait,’ he said, ‘till de silly tlain ’tops again.’

He amused himself by turning and returning the handle, putting his

whole soul into the operation, and missing being projected into a murky

space by the dispensation of a merciful Providence, and the skin of his

tiny white teeth. The train emerged into the light, and pulled up again

in the open space just eastward of St James’s Park Station. Kotah Lal

snored peacefully.

‘My’s velly good not to wakle him,’ mused Tally Ho, as he slid out of

the carriage and bumped on his little seat to the ground. ‘My will

’peak clossly to Blown--dis is a baddy tlain.’

He frowned as he picked himself up, and, shaking himself, took his

grubby way almost under the train towards the engine. The engine-driver

was looking ahead and turning on steam as Tally Ho caught him in

profile.

‘_It’s not Blown_,’ he gasped, astonished, and the train moved on past

a gaping atom of humanity.

‘’Top, ’top, you baddy tlain, my says ’top!’ But the train stopped

not, and went on its way rejoicing into the cleaner parts of the city,

bearing with it an unconsciously slumbering Hindu.

Now the word ‘tears’ had not been in Tally Ho’s vocabulary this many a

day.

‘Baddy tlain,’ he said, ‘’t has runned away wid my’s Kotah Lal,’

forgetting, perchance, that it was Tally Ho that had first deserted the

train, and not the train Tally Ho. ‘My will catchee it!’

His small legs twinkled rapidly down the line of the train. But the

train had the start, and was flourishing out of St James’s Park

Station at the one end as Tally Ho trotted into it at the other. He

laboured up the steep incline on to the platform as the tail light was

swallowed up in the opposite blackness. Tally Ho stopped, at a loss

what to do.

‘Velly baddy tlain,’ he panted, ‘my--’ here a small mustard Dandie

Dinmont sniffed at his legs. ‘Oh! _what_ a nice doggie!’ said Tally

Ho, with characteristic irrelevance, and stooped to pat it. A whistle

sounded, the Dandie trotted away obediently, and Tally Ho trotted after

in hot pursuit. The platform was disgorging a stream of passengers,

and Tally Ho, his mind and eye fixed on the dog, passed the ticket

collector, unchecked, at the skirt of a stout middle-aged female.

‘Hi,’ said the collector, ‘hi, lydy,--ticket for the youngster, please.’

‘What youngster?’ said the indignant lady.

‘That there youngster of yourn, in the holland breeks.’

The owner thereof was now well up the staircase, and twinkling over the

bridge in pursuit of the Dandie.

‘You impident person!’ said the choleric dame, ‘holland breeks indeed!’

‘Now then, ma’am, don’t you give me none of your bluff--holland breeks

it is, and a smudgy seat at that,--py up please, if you y’nt got no

ticket.’

‘But I tell you I haven’t got any children; I’m a single woman; you

must be intoxicated, collector.’

‘Go it, breeks!’ came a voice from the half-amused and half-impatient

crowd.

‘That’ll do, ma’am, that’ll do,’ said the collector, majestically;

‘your name and address, if _you_ please.’

‘Certainly,’ bellowed the now infuriated female, ‘certainly. Maria

James, 4 Smith Square; and I’ll take good care you’re not a collector

of this company for long. Holland breeks indeed!’

‘You see,’ mused the collector to the crowd, as he took the remaining

tickets, ‘it tykes ’em this w’y sometimes--these ’ere _single_ femyles.’

Now in the meantime the ‘disturber of traffic,’ having said to

himself, ‘my wants to pat that doggie,’ had to his great disgust only

arrived at seeing the object of his desires lifted into a cab, and

whirled from before his eyes, at the gates of St James’s Park. This

was enough to damp the spirits of a hero. Tally Ho entered the park

with a momentarily dejected step, and wandered on to the bridge; but

there his dejection ceased, for below him, swimming in circles, in

semi-circles, in parabolas, in zig-zags, were ducks--ducks more sleek

and beautiful than any he had ever beheld, and fat--words could not

describe the nature of their fatness. Tally Ho sank on his knees, stuck

his head through the girders, and gazed. His affections particularly

rivetted themselves on two small bronze-green ducks taking first

lessons in diving from an attentive parent.

‘My wantles _dem_,’ said Tally Ho, joyfully and loudly, through

the girders, to the intense astonishment of a military-looking old

gentleman, from between whose legs the words arose.

‘Gawd bless me! What’s that?’

‘My wantles ’oo for each of my’s tlowser’s pottets,’ bellowed Tally Ho

across the water to the ducks.

‘Gawd bless me! It’s the ducks the boy wants,’ commented the ancient

warrior, stepping with much care clear of Tally Ho, and noting the

direction of his gestures. At this precise instant Tally Ho withdrew

his head from between the girders and scrambled on to his feet, and as

he did so his eye lighted on the stranger whose elderly but martial

form he had been doing his level best to upset.

‘Salaam, Genelal Sahib,’ he said, saluting affably and without

embarrassment, ‘my is Tally Ho--my wantles dose ducks.’

The General saluted in turn, screwed a gold-rimmed eyeglass carefully

into his eye, stroked his grizzled moustache, and gazed curiously at

his interlocutor.

‘Tan my have dose two nickle gleeny-blown ducks?’ said Tally Ho,

pointing into the water, and pulling abstractedly at the General’s grey

frock coat.

‘’Tenshun,’ said the latter, and Tally Ho dropped his hands

mechanically to his side, and drew himself up with his feet at a

correct 45 degrees. ‘Now, then, what d’ye want the ducks for, heh?’

The ‘heh’ was rather alarming, but Tally Ho passed it by unconcernedly.

‘Oos velly like my Daddy,’ he remarked with condescension; ‘but my

wantles dose ducks to takle home in my’s pottets,’ he continued,

reverting to business.

‘Bless the boy! But you can’t have those ducks; they belong to the

Queen!’

‘Dod bless her!’ said Tally Ho, raising his hat abstractedly, for

his attention had wandered to the stick with the skull handle in the

General’s hand. ‘Velly plitty ‘tick,’ he murmured to himself, ‘my will

walkle wid ’oo, if ’oos not tired,’ he added aloud considerately to the

stranger.

‘Gawd bless me!’ said the dumfoundered General. ‘He’d take command of a

division for two pins! Gentleman though--Indian--know the breed. Wonder

who he is--seems lost--never mind, take him along--pump him--no fool.

Come along Mr--Tally Ho, Sir; eyes front, quick march.’

Tally Ho made one manful endeavour to compass the General’s stride, and

then relapsed philosophically into a regular two for one. He had quite

forgotten the ducks, he wanted that stick so badly to carry over his

shoulder like a rifle. After completing the length of the bridge, side

by side with the General, and cogitating silently, Tally Ho saluted,

and said:

‘_Ettafakhan_ de Genelal Sahib finds de ’tick velly heavy.’

‘Gawd bless me! Persian! Very talented boy, great

diplomatist--_Ettafakhan_,’ he continued aloud to Tally Ho (the

which is the Persian for ‘peradventure’), and without another word

transferred the stick to his small and grubby fist. The latter, too

well bred to show the transports of joy swelling in his small bosom,

halted, salaamed profoundly, and after hugging the stick, which was

at least as tall as himself, heaved it over his shoulder, and marched

manfully on. The General was an old man; he stooped slightly and walked

slowly, and his eyes, that looked like those of an old dog, gazed

curiously ever and anon from under his shaggy eyebrows at the small

brown urchin tramping at his side. They reached the gates of the park

before he had in the least made up his mind what course to pursue with

this strange little mortal. As they were crossing the Mall towards St

James’s Palace, a new idea struck Tally Ho; he halted suddenly, stuck

the stick into the ground, and leaning on it, looked around him with a

self-satisfied air.

‘My’s losted,’ he announced.

The General, in rapt amazement at the calmness of this remark, halted

also, and a hansom, sweeping by, nearly ran over his toes, and knocked

off Tally Ho’s hat with the edge of its wheel.

‘Damned scoundrels!’ muttered the exasperated warrior below his breath,

‘plucky boy, though--near thing.... All right, heh?’--this to Tally Ho,

who was contemplating a large splash of mud on the crown of his hat.

‘My’s noo ’at!’ he said, ruefully.

‘Never mind your hat s’long’s _you’re_ all right, heh? That’s it! Come

along.’ A bright idea struck him. ‘Are you hungry? Course he is, all

boys hungry. Gawd bless me! what was I thinking of? Come and have some

tiffin at my club, Mr--Tally Ho, sir.’

‘Tank’oo, my will be _dee_lighted, my’s _velly_ empty,’ said Tally Ho,

frankly and cheerfully.

‘Course you are. Come along, sir, come along.’

As the oddly assorted couple took their way down Pall Mall, the

passers-by turned to stare. The sentries at Marlborough House

saluted--Tally Ho appropriated and returned the salutes with a

pre-occupied air--he was thinking now of the General’s white hat, and

of how he desired it greatly to keep his mongoose ‘Bengy’ in--he was

sure he had seen little windows in the top of it. ‘Perhaps the Genelal

Sahib will takle it off again, and sclatchle his head as Blown does

sometimes, den my will see,’ he reflected.

Now they had arrived at the corner of St James’s Square, and the

sweet-faced old sweeper at the crossing had made her double-barrelled

bob to the sunburnt, white-haired veteran and the sun-browned,

white-haired child. At the steps of a great service club the General

halted, and took off his hat to mop his brow, for the day was hot, and

his mind was perplexed.

‘Yes, sir,’ he said aloud to himself, ‘boy’s hungry--tiffin first, pump

afterwards. Gawd bless me! What’s that?’ For Tally Ho, swelling with

joy of verification, was threading his thumbs through the vent-holes of

the white hat, and saying to himself with subdued emphasis:

‘My will makle two mores, _eke oper eke_’ (one upon the top of the

other).

‘Devil you will!’ said the General, and feeling from the absorption of

his guest’s eye that no time was to be lost, he hastily replaced his

hat, and extended two fingers to assist Tally Ho up the steps.

‘No t’ank ’oo,’ said the latter; ‘my will runle up.’ He proceeded to

mount the stairs on all-fours, and sat on the top step at the feet

of the hall porter, awaiting the arrival of his distinguished but

disconcerted host.

‘Gawd bless me! regular young budmâsh (rogue)--fine fellow,

though--very fine fellow! Heh! Wilkins!’ he said, with a perplexed

twirl of his moustache, to the unmoved janitor.

‘New member, General, or friend of yours only, sir? What name shall I

enter, General?’

‘This gentleman will tiffin with me, Wilkins. Name, heh! what?--Quite

so. Mr--Tally Ho, sir,’ he said, turning to Tally Ho, who with his hat

off was examining the tape machine in the hall with an interested eye,

‘the servant wishes to know your name, so that he may put it in the

visitors’ book. What shall I tell him?’

‘Geoffley Standin’ Blount,’ returned Tally Ho. His knees were grubby,

his hat was torn, his seat was dusty, but he looked very much of a

gentleman.

‘Mr Geoffrey Standing Blount, Wilkins,’ said the General with dignity.

The smile flickering into Wilkins’ eye flickered out again, and he

turned to the visitors’ book. The General led the way to the lavatory

past a group of younger men in the hall, who greeted him with

respectful if amused recognition. Tally Ho, smiling affably, followed

him. Arrived at the lavatory, he looked with a pleased anticipation

at the row of basins, for though of tender years, soap and water were

after his heart. He was feeling hot and dusty, the taps ran so nicely,

and--that was all, alas!--impossible to reach those basins, those

nicely flowing taps--so he stood in the middle and waited while the

General washed, politely silent, but feeling his inches, or want of

inches, keenly. At last he said, ‘My’s nickle, but my’s growin’!’ An

apology for his host’s want of thought was in the last words.

‘Gawd bless me--boy’s too small--can’t reach--never thought of

that--dear, dear!’ He tugged at his moustache in great concern.

‘Hi! you boot-boy,’ he shouted, ‘bring a chair, two chairs, help

the gentleman up, hi! you fool, hold the slack of the gentleman’s

trousers, can’t you, while he washes;’ for Tally Ho in a transport of

joy was taking a header into the basin. The remainder of his toilet

was carefully attended to by the boot-boy, under the General’s anxious

supervision.

When it was completed, and Tally Ho was once more presentable, they

ascended to the dining-room--Tally Ho for once on his two feet, and

conducting himself with a vast propriety. It was a little after the

ordinary luncheon hour when the General finally anchored his guest,

contrary to all laws and precedents, in the club dining-room. An old

crony of his was finishing his lunch in one of the windows; next to him

the General, greatly in want of support, took his stand, and having

caused his guest to be lifted into his seat, abstractedly handed him

a menu card. Tally Ho perused it gravely after the manner of a man

accustomed to these things, and handing it to the waiter, remarked:

‘My will have cully and lice,’--he paused, debating gravely, ‘and

plummers,’ he added, with a note of triumph in his voice.

The General twirled his moustache.

‘Curry and rice for this gentleman, plums afterwards--fried sole for

me. Boy of decision,’ he continued, approvingly to himself. ‘Knows his

own mind.’ He looked at the card. ‘Gawd bless me! not on the menu,

either of them--’course, can’t read--how should he?--never mind, finer

fellow than I thought--man of resource.’ He turned to the crony. ‘How

do, ’Morant?’ he said--‘married man, just the man I want--stand by to

support me, heh?’ He nodded imperceptibly in the direction of Tally Ho.

‘Certainly, my dear fellow,’ said the intelligent crony, ‘make me

known.’

‘Colonel Morant--Mr Geoffrey Standing Blount.’

Tally Ho, whose round blue eyes were fixed immovably on the face of

the waiter, greatly to the discomfiture of that youthful but solemn

personage, turned and twinkled friendlily at his new acquaintance, but

his mind was too agitated by the question then troubling it for more

than a passing attention to other matters.

‘For why isn’t he black?’ he said in a loudly audible but awestricken

whisper to the General, pointing with his chin at the unfortunate. ‘My

foughted all club waiters was black.’

‘This is England, sir, not India; here they’re red, you know,’ said

the General, blandly, with a chuckle. ‘It’s like lobsters, red in hot

water; ain’t it, Morant?’

His eyes followed the vanishing form of the young waiter flying to hide

the blushes spreading over his disconcerted countenance.

‘Oh!’ said Tally Ho, polite but unconvinced.

‘The point,’ said the General, after a pause, turning to his supporter.

‘The point is this--given small boy--gentleman--lost--name Geoffrey

Standing Blount--new to England.’

‘Dat’s my,’ said Tally Ho to himself softly in parenthesis.

‘Guest of mine,’ continued the General, ‘don’t want to pump him--point

is, how to find his belongings, heh?’ He wound up abruptly.

‘Where was he met with?’ said the crony. He was head of a county

constabulary, and great on detective detail. ‘The time and place?’

Mechanically he took out a pocket-book.

‘Ducks--St James’s Park--one thirty.’

Tally Ho stared from one to the other; were they talking of him? He

inclined to think so.

‘My’s losted,’ he said to the crony; ‘my’s Daddy’s Number One

mud-and-water soldier in de Deyra Dhun.’

At this precise moment his curry arrived, and no further information

did he volunteer, for, as he had remarked, he was ‘velly empty.’

‘I have it,’ said the crony, ‘waiter! fetch me an Army List. Number

One mud-and-water soldier is pigeon-English for commanding engineer.

Here you are,’ he continued, triumphantly, ‘R.E. Majors, Blount, F.

Standing. India.’

‘India,’ said the General, ‘hum. Large place--and this is England.’

‘His bankers,’ said the crony, ‘probably Cox’s; waiter, fetch me a

commissionaire, we’ll send him round and find out.’

‘Bravo,’ said the General, ‘invaluable fellow, brilliant idea--that’s

it, young man,’ he turned approvingly to Tally Ho, ‘wire in.’

‘Exkullent dood chow-chow, nearly as dood as Foo Ching’s,’ responded

Tally Ho. He was again oblivious of the fact that he was in process

of being found, and was devoting himself in the intervals of luncheon

to smiling sweetly at the waiter, whose feelings he was innocently

conscious had been in some sort wounded. ‘Are ’oo feelin’ all light

again?’ he said sympathetically, ‘’oo ’tant help not bein’ black, tan

’oo?’

The waiter cast one beseeching look around him, and fled precipitately,

leaving a trail of blushes behind.

‘Poor mans,’ said Tally Ho, ‘perwaps de big fire has strokled him; he

_is_ velly led, isn’t he, Genelal Sahib?’

‘All right, my boy, all right,’ said the General, choking. He turned to

the crony, who was smiling gravely. ‘Wonderful boy,’ he said, _sotto

voce_, ‘make fine soldier--splendid touch--considers feelings of his

men.’

‘Rather a curious way of doing so,’ said the crony, glancing with a

twinkle in his eye at the door through which the waiter had disappeared.

‘All same--good intention,’ said the General.

But Tally Ho had entirely forgotten waiter, lunch, and hosts, in the

contemplation of a new problem connected with the giant fireplace,

which was crammed with plants.

‘It’s all tommy lot,’ he said abruptly to himself, climbing down from

his chair and walking straight up to the fireplace. ‘Kotah Lal said

dere was allerways fires in Ingeliland, but dere isn’t, and dere never

wasn’t, ’cos dese would be burntled.’

‘Gawd bless me!’ said the General, ‘wonderful!--splendid soldier he’ll

make--good reasonin’ power--fine forcible vocabulary.’

‘I should apply for a commission for him to-morrow if I were you,’

said the crony, drily.

‘So I will,’ said the General, ‘hum--well--not quite yet--but keep my

eye on him.’

Tally Ho came back to the table, and stood waiting at attention. The

two men rose.

‘Has ’oo finished?’ said Tally Ho, ’tum along, my wantles my’s cigar.’

‘It seems that your protégé has his vices as well,’ said the crony,

as they went downstairs. In the hall the commissionaire handed him

an address. He looked at it triumphantly. ‘Major Blount’s London

reference,’ he said.

‘Capital,’ said the General, ‘I’ll send round at once--sure to know all

about him there.’

He did so, then ordered coffee and cigars, and settled himself and his

guest in armchairs. Tally Ho’s feet, when he sat back, just reached the

edge of the chair.

‘My’s daddy,’ he said, ‘dives my one puffle of his cigars--Kotah Lal,

my’s _sais_, ’mokes, but my doesn’t takle puffles from a _sais_,’ he

added, proudly.

The General twinkled all over his war-worn face, took his cigar from

his mouth and handed it to Tally Ho. The latter grasped it gingerly

between his small brown finger and thumb, and applied it to his mouth,

which it completely filled. Holding it firmly, and sitting well back,

with his chair tilted up, he took one long diligent draw, then with

his cheeks puffed out he gave it solemnly back to the General. Slowly

and rapturously he let the smoke escape, and watched it curl up to

the ceiling in little puffs and rings. When it was all expended, he

snuggled his small fair head back amongst the cushions.

‘It allerways makles my sleepy,’ he said apologetically, and his head

was nodding already. ‘Dood night, ‘tank de Number One up aloft Sahib

for my’s goody day--but my wantled dose gleeny-blown ducks baddy.’ Here

he heaved a serene little sigh, and snuggled still further into the

recesses of the chair. ‘My’s lost-ed,’ he murmured contentedly, as his

chin fell on to his chest, and he slept. A sunbeam flitted in through

the blinds on to his dusty flaxen pate. The General leant forward.

‘All serene, my young friend,’ he said softly, ‘before you wake again

we’ll have that careless beggar of a _sais_ of yours by the heels, and

you’ll be “losted” no more. And mark my words, Morant,’ he went on,

flicking the ash off his cigar, ‘when we’re done for, and stacked

with the majority, that tow-headed young budmâsh’ll be as great, ay,

a greater soldier than either of us; we shan’t know it--stacked,

heh?--but the country will. One of us goes, but there’s always another

fellow ready to take his place, thank the Lord.’

‘_Eke oper eke_,’ muttered Tally Ho in his dreams.

THE DOLDRUMS

‘The breeze would have savéd him, you know,’ said the mate.

Out of a cloudless sky,

Into a sapphire sea,

To the tune of a windless sigh,

That is drawn in the tops’les three,

The sun sinks fast thro’ a burning haze

To the heart of the sapphire sea.

Over the shadowed deep,

Topped with an oily swell,

To the hours of the night asleep

In the chime of her muffled bell

The spent ship prays--and her spirit fails,

On the heave of the sullen swell.

* * * * *

Fanning the crimson flare

Lit by the coming dawn,

Thro’ the hush in the breathless air

Of the night that is past and gone,

The wind speeds swift to the weary sails,

In a song of the coming morn.

But away from the stifled ship,

Fleeter than any wind,

With a kiss on the twisted lip

Of the face that she leaves behind,

A breath steals forth--and the wind but plays

On a mask that is left behind.

Six bells clanged the dawning of the last hour in the midnight watch. I

dropped my cards, for it was the peculiar custom to stop whist just as

the bell sounded.

‘Time up!’ said the Captain regretfully, mopping his brow, ‘How do we

stand, Jenny?’

His wife’s voice--‘Eight and three eleven, and four’--rose in a

vinegary triumph of addition from across the saloon table, to culminate

in an emphatic ‘Fifteen points.’

‘Good! I rather think that’s the best night yet, sir.--Bed, Jenny.

Good-night, gentlemen. A hot night, an’t it?’

‘Good-night, Captain! Good-night, Mrs Cape! Coming on deck, Jaques?’

‘No!’ said my partner, ‘bed for this child, g’night;’ and murmuring a

disgusted ‘Fifteen points--and the vinegar--and the heat--phew!’ he

shut his cabin door with a jerk.

I climbed the stern hatchway, and joined the three men lounging against

the skylight on the poop. The moon hung hazily between the softly

flapping sails of the idling ship. Out of the deadly calm waters a

little purposeless heave rocked her ever and anon to this side and

that, and the old shellback at the useless wheel whistled softly to

himself, as he looked vainly for the ship’s wake in the oily tropical

ocean.

The Southern Cross dipped afar on the port quarter, and innumerable

stars spangled the stilly depths of the dark heavens. The curiously

dissonant miaul of the focs’le cat hit the ear, through the sultry

stifling air, with a sense of the relieved ridiculous.

‘Dosé fallows you know’ (he pronounced it ‘gnau’), said the mate in his

slightly nasal, foreign accent, evidently resuming, ‘it’s very curious

you know, dey rrãally haven’t anny feelings.’

‘Do you mean, they feel no emotions, as we understand the word?’

said young Raymond impatiently, his intolerance of human beings so

constituted ringing in the high-pitched tones of his clear voice.

‘Not a blessed one!’ said a third voice from the ship’s side, shrill

and worn, ‘Yellow devils! Yellow devils! they’ve only one virtue.’

‘And that, Doctor?’

‘Opium, sirree. They’re tolerable, when they’re opium drunk.’

The mate looked up sharply, and with his brown, almond-shaped Slav

eyes scrutinized keenly the dim figure of the speaker, and his mouth,

between the close-trimmed pointed beard and drooping moustaches, took a

more than usually cynical and mournful curve.

‘You are severe, Doctor,’ he said; but the other, without answering,

turned away, and leaned over the bulwark wearily.

‘Ah! that is bad, you know,’ I heard the mate say to himself under his

breath.

‘Yes,’ said the shrill voice presently from the darkness, ‘you may have

seen ’em and you may talk about ’em, but you don’t _know_ them. You’ve

not worked in China Town amongst John Chinaman, as I’ve worked. I guess

you’ve not seen ’em born, and die, and marry, as I’ve seen them. Ugh!

devils--devils--hog-skinned, slit-eyed devils!’

‘It is all tempérrament, you know,’ said the mate, ‘dosé fallows, you

know, they are different all through, it is not a question of degree.

A white man will never understand how their minds wōrrk. Will you have

a cigarette, Doctor?’ He watched the thin face and trembling hand

closely, and shook his head, as the Doctor turned back with his lighted

cigarette to the ship’s side.

‘It is bad, you know,’ he muttered again to himself. Young Raymond

had strolled to the wheel, and was standing talking cheerily to the

helmsman; the heat seemed to have no effect on his buoyant spirits. I,

stretched on a locker, fanned myself lazily with the mate’s cap, and

the mate himself sat in his favourite attitude with his hands clasping

his knees, his chin sunk on his chest.

Presently the Doctor began to talk again, more to himself than to us.

‘What a night!’ he said. ‘What a ghastly, hellish, stifling night! Look

at that oily pond, can’t you feel the heat lifting out of it into your

face. I used to think nothing could lick the Queensland bush, but,

Great Lordy! this is worse, many points worse; there was always a kind

of a breeze there and some stir of life, but this flat, oily waste--Oh!

for a breath of air. I can’t breathe; I tell you, Armand, I can’t

breathe.’ He turned round to the mate fiercely, and threw out his thin

hands, as if to thrust from him some suffocating weight. ‘What’s the

good of you sea-men,’ he laughed a feeble hoarse laugh, ‘if you can’t

fetch some sort of air up out of your hell-doomed oceans?’

‘No fear, Doctor, we’ll get you some before long annyway, three days

flat cãlm is a big spell even for the Doldrums. How’s her head, my

son?’ he called to the grey-bearded helmsman.

‘Nor-nor West, zurr.’

‘Is she doing anny?’

‘Noa, zurr, but zims theer’s a but of a swell tu th’ Sou East, mebbe

we’ll ’ave wind ’fore the marnin’.’ The Shellback spat on his hand and

held it out, then shook his head doubtfully.

‘The dawn will bring it,’ said the mate, ‘you will see.’

‘Not to me,’ said the Doctor to himself, ‘I’m through.’

Young Raymond turned at the sound of the dreary despairing voice.

‘What’s that?’ he said, ‘Through! we’re _all_ through, we’re all

kippered to the nines; don’t be so beastly egotistical, Doctor, you’ve

got no blooming monopoly.’ The sunny ring of his voice through the

jaded night was as refreshing as a breeze, but the Doctor only said

moodily:

‘Yes, my friend, but I guess you weren’t fried to start with, there

was still some English juice in you; _you_ haven’t been spread-eagled

on a gridiron for seven years till everything’s been sucked out of

you,--even sleep.’

‘Thank the Lord,’ said young Raymond in fervent tones, as he threw his

head back, and snuffed at an imaginary breeze, ‘I can always sleep.’

‘Sleep!’ echoed the Doctor shrilly, and his thin scarecrow of a figure

writhed against the railing of the bulwark, ‘I havn’t slept for

_weeks_,--I’m going home, _home_, I tell you, after seven God-forsaken

years, but I’d give it all, and chuck in the rest of my life, for

twenty-four hours of natural sleep.’

At the word ‘natural’ the mate shifted uneasily in his seat, and his

foot beat a tatoo incessantly on the deck.

‘There will be trouble,’ he said softly, ‘big trouble, unless we get

the wind, you know. Come, my dear fallow,’ he went on to the Doctor,

‘what is the matter with you to-night, you were not even amuséd with

the Wray baby--oh!’ he laughed with a sudden unrestrained merriment

curious to listen to in that sultry, joyless air, ‘that is an

interésting little ãnimal. Did you see Cotter fill it with plum-duff

at dinner, and Mrs Wray opposite laughing all the time, you know, and

little Wray looking ’orrifiéd,--ah-ha! and the little ãnimal likéd

it, you know,’ his laughter died out as suddenly, and he gazed at the

Doctor with his mournful eyes,--the eyes of a man who has been to the

edge of the world many times, and looking over--come back again.

‘You are hipped to-night, you are quite dull you know. Tell us a yarn

of John Chinaman; he has a most curious individuãlity, annyway.’

There was silence a moment, then the spanker boom creaked slightly from

pure inaction, as floors creak in houses at the dead of night, and a

spark from the mate’s cigarette floated straight upwards in the dead

air; then came a weird, droning sing-song whisper from the bulwarks.

‘Once upon a time,’ it said, ‘there was a poor devil of a doctor,

whose lot it became after many wanderings to minister for his living,

in an oven, to the extremities of John Chinaman, whereby he learnt

many things,--for instance, that it was good to eat puppy-dog and go

unshaven, that there was no such thing as right or wrong, beauty or

ugliness, cleanliness or dirt, heaven or hell,--that there was no end

to the miseries of the white man, and neither end nor beginning to

the miseries of the yellow man. But also,’--the whisper almost died

away, ‘he learnt one supreme good, ‘το καλὸν,’ that without which

man withers--life has no taste, no colour, no scent,--the great, the

glorious--My God! O my God!!’ The voice from the faintest whisper rose

suddenly to a scream. With a spring young Raymond’s lithe white-clothed

figure was by the Doctor’s side, his arm round his neck.

‘Steady, dear old boy!’ he said.

The meaning of those muttered sayings had suddenly been rendered plain,

and the mate stood leaning forward with his long arms half stretched

towards the Doctor. The melancholy fatalism of his face, that outcome

of his Slav blood, was veiled by a look of sorrowful concern.

‘Ohé!’ he said, ‘Ohé! tck tck----’

As for me, I moved swiftly to the wheel, and stood between the group

of men and the helmsman, speaking to him at random, in the instinctive

dread of what was coming next on the shrill tones that lifted

themselves behind me.

‘Yes!’ said the worn voice, ‘look at me!--look at me!--what

am I? What have I sunk to? I, who was even as you,--public

school--’Varsity--Bart’s--What’s the use of it all? Look at us, I say,

look’--he clutched with one hand the arm thrown about him; and as if

answering the hysterical cry, the moonlight streamed from behind the

main tops’le, with a cruel suddenness, full on to the two men. It lit

up the bright, fresh face and yellow hair of the one,--tall and lithe

and radiantly white--and threw into a ghastly relief the other,--long,

shrunken and shambling, with his twisted yellow face and sunken hunted

eyes, with the little brown streak at the corner of the thin distorted

mouth, the lank discoloured hair, the writhing, skeleton hands. He

cowered as the light fell upon him, and buried his head like a child on

young Raymond’s shoulder.

When I turned again, old Carey, the Shellback, was looking steadily at

the deck, and, contrary to all orders, spitting vigourously upon it.

‘Fact is we’m tu fur tu the East; yu zee, zurr, these y’er ca’ms is all

along o’ that.’

What answer I made to the soft West-country drawl I know not, because

it is bewildering to hear a man’s sobs drawn under hard pressure

against a linen coat. Then the mate was speaking.

‘Come down to your bunk, my dear fallow, it will be ãll right, you

know; I will give you some things to make you sleep.’

‘Sleep!’ came out of the sobs, as a voice might come out of a grave,

on to which the earth was being shovelled. ‘My God!--if I could sleep

_without_.... Armand, for pity’s sake make me sleep--’

‘There! there!’ young Raymond spoke as to a child.

As swiftly as it had streamed forth, the moonlight hid itself behind

a kindly sail, and the three soft footsteps, moving along the deck,

slowly died away out of my hearing.

‘Might yu ’appen to ’ave zum baccy, zurr, the mate’s gone down, yu zee,

an’ it du be rale ’ot tu-night, that’s zartain.’

I gave the understanding Carey out of my pouch, and we smoked in a

sympathetic silence.

* * * * *

I woke with a start; a faint light was showing through the open port

hole, and the half-drawn curtain of the bunk wavered unsteadily.

‘She’s moving,’ I thought, feeling with a vast sense of relief the

fluttering pulse beginning to beat at last in the wind-logged ship.

‘Yes, there’s a breeze from the South-East; get up!’ Young Raymond was

standing by the side of the bunk, his white clothes unchanged, but with

a face unknown to me, so grave, drawn, and sunless was it.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘The Doctor!’ he said, ‘Come!’

We crossed the dark saloon, unswept and ungarnished, just as it had

been left the evening before. Raymond silently drew aside the green

baize curtain of a cabin on the starboard side. Within it stood the

mate, stooping over a figure stretched limply on the lower bunk; he

looked up as we came in, and withdrew his hand, with something in it,

from under the pillow.

‘Look!’ he said, holding up a little inlaid box. ‘I was afrayd of it;

I lookéd for it last night, you know,’--there was a curious note of

appeal in his voice,--‘but dosé fallows are so cunning, you know.’

I looked at the face lying upturned to the growing light. It was no

longer twisted; the eyes stared quietly at the roof of the bunk, the

hands were crossed peacefully on the sunken chest. In that face, which

had writhed the night before in hunted agony, there remained only the

little brown stain at the corner of the mouth to mark it as the same.

‘Dead?’

‘Quite.’ The mate knelt, and reverently drew the lids over the quiet

eyes.

Young Raymond was leaning silently apart against the side of the cabin,

his head framed in the open port-hole, and his face was ever grey and

drawn. I turned from him to the mate.

‘How?’

He answered the double question of my glances hurriedly.

‘No,--it was an accident, see--’ he unscrewed the lid of the

little box, and counted the tiny black-brown pills in it.

‘Six--seven--ãyt--there are manny happy hours, you see; while desé

were here, he would not have done it, you know. No, it was an

accident,--perrhaps he took one too manny,--but it was the heat, you

know, and that’--he laid his hand gently over the dead man’s heart.

‘Poor fallow! I likéd him greatly.’

There was a long silence in the little cabin; the faint ‘lip-lip’ of

the rising waves against the ship’s side seemed very far away somehow,

and the measured tramp of the second mate on the poop above sounded in

muffled harmony to our thoughts--then six bells rang out clear and full.

‘It is Cotter’s watch still,’ said the mate, ‘I am free for an hour

yet. We must talk, you know.’

He moved over and shut the door, then seated himself on the side of

the dead man’s bunk with a reverent callousness, born of an intimate

familiarity with many kinds of death.

The ends of the Doctor’s dusky crimson sash hanging over the upper

bunk quivered slightly, with the faint rolling of the ship, against

the mate’s smoothly dark head, as he crouched forward with his back

hunched, and his bearded chin thrust out. His hands were clasped

round one knee, the thin leg below them working incessantly with a

quick, nervous movement. All the time he was speaking, he looked

straight at young Raymond with his mournful eyes, and the latter, who

had never moved from his leaning attitude against the cabin side,

gazed abstractedly in front of him from out of a growing halo of

flame-coloured light. The ship’s cat purring softly was rubbing itself

slowly against the white trousered leg.

‘Dis thing had to hãppen, you know,’ said the mate at last. ‘It was

written, you see, there’--he raised a hand and pointed to the still

face. ‘_I_ knew it a long time. I think I knew it when he first came

on board at Adelayde; he walkéd down the quay, you know, with that

fatiguéd walk he had, poor fallow, and it was written in his eyes--they

were quite hunted, you know. _I’ve_ rrãally been the doctor on the old

galley this journey, you know, _he_ wasn’t fit for it. Hãng it all, I

have been doseing the shellbacks, you know, poor devils--ah--ha!’ he

laughed that sudden spontaneous laugh that must have come from his lips

even in death, if an idea had commended itself to his sardonic humour.

‘The skipper should never have taken him on board, you know; but the

old fallow was in a hole, he had to get off, and he had to have a

doctor. The old galley is an invalid ship, you know, and so she has

to have a doctor and a cow,--that blessed cow hasn’t given anny milk,

still she hãs four legs, you know--and _I_ am the doctor.’ He gnawed

at his moustache and muttered some words under his breath.

Then young Raymond spoke for the first time.

‘Did you know that?’ he said, pointing with a shrinking gesture to the

opium box in the mate’s hand.

‘After Cape Town, I knew it. Guessed it when he came on board, you

know, and shut himself into his cabin for two days. I got in once,

and then I saw what the trouble was, you know. I lookéd for that’--he

held up the box--‘but dosé fallows are so cunning. _He_ knew it too,

he knew he was going to hand in his checks, you know. He uséd to talk

to me, and he often said, “_If_ I get home.”’ The mate paused. ‘Well!

that is ãll over, it had to hãppen, you know.’ His voice and face and

the resigned dejection of his whole figure embodied the word ‘Kismet’;

the threads of the situation, for the moment, had slipped through his

fingers. He sat quite quiet, staring mournfully in front of him, but

the leg beneath his clasped hands never ceased a second in its nervous

movement.

The tramp above, and the ‘lip-lip’ of the little green waves against

the ship’s side, were still the only sounds that broke in on the early

silence.

‘For the sake of his people,’ said young Raymond suddenly, taking the

little box from the mate’s hand.

‘Yes, he had an ayged father, you know, a parson in Yorkshire, he was

going home to him--after seven years--that is harrd, you know,’ the

mate said dreamily.

‘Well?’ said Raymond impatiently, and he put the hand that held the box

through the open port-hole.

‘No--no--look here,’ said the mate, holding out his hand for the box,

‘I must tell the skipper, you know,’ and he put the box away in his

pocket. ‘But you will see, it will be ãll right, he will leave the

whole rãcket in my hands; he hates a fuss, you know, that old fallow.

Besides, it wasn’t rrãally the opium at the end, you know, it was

the heat--his hãart was so weakenéd, you see.’ He got up and looked

earnestly, with narrowed eyes, at the dead man’s wasted figure.

‘Yes,’ he said at last, ‘it was a little joke, the breeze would have

savéd him, you know, ... but it will be ãll right,--failure of the

hãart from the heat ... and then we shall put him over the side;

anyway there will be no post-mortem. Nobody will come in here, you see,

except the skipper, and the box will be in my pocket,--the wind will

take away the smell in time.’ There was a faint, sweet, sickly smell as

of drugs in the close air of the confined space.

‘So be it!’ said young Raymond, moving from his station against the

cabin wall.

‘Let us put him to rest, though; his face haunts me, even when I don’t

look at it,’ and he shuddered; ‘the light is too cruel.’ Keeping his

head averted, he took a handkerchief from a drawer, and covered the

dead man’s face. The flaming East was sending a shaft of orange light

through the open port-hole full upon it, and the effect was not pretty.

‘When did he go?’ I said, breaking the silence that followed.

‘I don’t know,’ said the mate, ‘but it could not have been long before

the breeze came, anyway--he was hardly cold, you know.’

Young Raymond faced round to the light with strained eyes.

‘_I_ know,’ he said suddenly, ‘_I_ know, I saw him go, I saw it all. I

shall never get it out of my head--never! never!’

The mate looked at him half cynically, half concernedly.

‘Hãng it all, my dear fallow,’ he said, ‘death is not an aymiable

joker, when you are not uséd to him, you know; but you musn’t let him

play with your narves.’

‘Nerves!’ said young Raymond hoarsely, ‘you shall tell me if it _is_

nerves, Armand, for, by George! I should like to know.’

‘Well?’ said the mate; he had seated himself again in his favourite

attitude.

The world seemed suddenly enclosed within the walls of this wooden

crib, time was annihilated, everything stood still, there was no longer

anything outside--just the cabin--we three--and the dead man. I felt

giddy and stifled, but the moment young Raymond began to speak, all

that feeling merged in wonder at the intense earnestness in his face

and the tones of his voice.

‘After we left _him_, last night,’ he said, ‘I slung my hammock on the

main deck, starboard side, just where the gymnastic bars are rigged by

the main mast; it seemed cooler there than on the poop. Cotter came out

on watch just after I turned in, so it was about midnight, I suppose. I

couldn’t get the idea of _him_ out of my head;’ he avoided looking at

the dead man always, and stared straight in front of him.

‘I could see him tossing and twisting in that bunk, and I couldn’t get

to sleep for ages; I suppose I must have dropped off at last, though,

because I didn’t hear two bells go. I woke suddenly out of an awfully

jolly dream about home and my people. The moon was down, but it wasn’t

very dark; there was just that light that comes before the dawn, you

know. Oh! yes, I could see all right; I could see pretty clearly right

to the starboard hatchway leading up to the poop--that was just facing

me as my hammock was slung. It was frightfully hot, suffocating--there

wasn’t a breath of air, not a breath. I lay awake a few minutes, and

then I suppose I dozed off again; but though my eyes were shut, I

seemed to have the feeling that something was coming towards me. It

grew upon me, so that I must have half raised myself in my hammock,

because when I woke again I was sitting up. There _was_ something--a

figure; it came from under the starboard hatch out of the saloon. I

could hardly see it in that horrible, misty, unreal light, but it

came slowly along the deck close to the bulwark without making any

noise. I don’t know why I was in a ghastly funk, but it seemed somehow

uncanny--I wasn’t properly awake, you see. I waited for it--it seemed

hours coming. When it was almost within touch, I saw what--it was--it

was--_him_. His head was bent back and his hands thrown up; he was like

a shot bird that’s towering for air, you know, but there was no sound,

no choke or gasp--I listened for it, but there was none, not even a

sigh’--he paused. ‘There ought, there must have been a gasp, if it

_was_ he,’ he muttered to himself; ‘he couldn’t have stood like that

without a sound. Oh! Armand, the face!’

He spoke in short broken sentences, and his hands twisted here and

there in the full agony of recollection.

‘The eyes were staring open, as they were before you--and nothing

moved in it--it was a _dead_ face ... and then it went away again, you

know,--I don’t know _how_ it went. I shall never get that look out of

my head--never!’ He drew his hands across his eyes.

‘It was far worse than _that_ dead face,’ he said solemnly, pointing to

the bunk; ‘it was the dead face of a _living_ man.’

‘Then?’ said the mate.

‘Then I lay back in my hammock, not more than a minute, I think,--and

then I got out and came here, and as I crossed the deck the first of

the breeze crossed it too--too late!--he died for want of air, I _know_

he did--just too late, you see.’

‘Too late!’ echoed the mate softly, nodding his head. ‘_That_ is the

joke.’

‘He was lying here as you found him. I didn’t touch him before I came

and told you. And, look here! Armand, what have I seen? It scared me.’

An infinite and sombre gentleness was in the look the mate bent to meet

the trouble in the young face turned to him, but he only said, ‘That

is most interésting. You are not to be pitied, you know, you are to be

envied; a man does not often see these things, you know.’

‘But _what_ did I see? _What?_ I tell you it scared me.’

‘I _think_,’ said the mate slowly--‘I don’t know, of course,--but I

think you have seen what very few people have seen. I think there is

a time, you know, which comes between life and death. It is perhaps

the twilight of the body you know, and the dawning of the soul,--it

is that breathless space which these old crãfts of our bodies have to

go through, you know, where there is no life, and not yet death,--the

Doldrums of our individuãlities hanging in the wind.’ There was a long

silence.

‘Thanks,’ said young Raymond at last, and the old sunny look seemed to

creep back into his face through the haunting shadow of fear cast there

by the thing he had seen.

‘Thanks, old fellow! The dawning of the soul! I like that.’

He had caught, like a child, at the one idea in the mate’s words which

appealed to his narrow, sanguine optimism; and only _I_ saw the look

of wearily gentle cynicism in the mate’s face, and heard his words as

he turned away out of the cabin, ‘Yes? if there _is_ such a thing, you

know.’

So I turned away too from the ‘valley of the shadow,’ but young Raymond

knelt softly by the bunk and drew the handkerchief from the dead man’s

face. He could bear to look on him now. The breeze stole in and stirred

the hair on the two heads close together.

The words came to me at the door.

‘You’re all right now, old fellow, aren’t you? You’ve gone home.’ Then

through a choke in the voice, ‘but, oh! my God! your luck was hard.’

THE CAPITULATION OF JEAN JACQUES

S.S. Wapiti.

_May 16th, 188 ._

... To-day, fine again, gorgeous, but mighty hot. Left Suva at

daybreak. Very one-horse place, with a lovely harbour. We got a lot of

bananas and pines from a Fijian’s canoe as we went out--they ought to

last till we get to Sydney....

A rum thing happened about five o’clock; some 150 miles sou’-west of

Suva we sighted a small cutter with two men in her. They were making

signals with a pair of breeches. The Captain stopped for them, and

lowered a boat to see what was up. I got leave to go. The poor beggars

were burnt up--I never saw men so completely frizzled; Frenchmen--one

a very big man, one a very little--awfully plucky little chap, said

he was ‘all ar-right,’ only wanted water, and was trying to make Suva

from Tahiti! ’m! _In a ten-ton cutter!_ Double ’mm!!

He asked his course,--we gave it him, and a cask of water. I was the

last to go over the side of the cutter, and he said to me: ‘Monsieur,

you gentlemens, is it not?’ ‘Hope so,’ said I. ‘Going to Noumea, is it

not?’ ‘Yes,’ said I. ‘Will it ’ave ze _extrêmement_ kindness to inform

_ce cher Gouverneur_ zat “Jean Jacques” made to ’im ze compliments?’

With that he put his finger to his lips, and smiled sweetly upon me.

I don’t think any nigger could have given him points for brownness,

but I liked the looks of him hugely.

As we were pulling back, the second officer said to me:

‘Scaped convicts, you bet, poor devils--no business of mine.’

I thought of that smile and forbore to wink....

(Extract from the Diary of a Passenger.)

‘_Sacré!_ these walls are high! lift me, Pierre.’

A very small lean man raised himself with the agility of a cat from

his perch in the uplifted grasp of the giant below, and was through a

window twelve feet from the ground, and crouching in the shadow of the

white curtains without a sound stirring the silence of the night air.

Jean Jacques, Frenchman, man of genius, man of diminutive stature, man

of sun-baked countenance, political convict, crouched in the shadow

of the curtains and reflected. His reflections were the résumé of a

carefully matured plan,--in fine, his reflections were these:

‘I, Jean Jacques, am at large; I have not been at large for some

time; certainly, then, I wish to remain at large; I wish also my

friend Pierre below to remain at large. _Que faire?_’ The reasoning

unconsciously took the form of Ollendorf.

‘I am in the room of the four-year-old daughter of the Governor. How

do I know this? Because I can see her little socks hanging over the

end of the bed. Is not the four-year-old daughter of the Governor the

apple of the Governor’s eye? Certainly, she is the apple of the eye of

the Governor. Given, then, Jean Jacques, the apple of the eye of the

Governor, and the desire to remain at large, what happens? P--s--s--t,

it is apparent, any child can see what _must_ happen!’

Jean Jacques rose to the height of his five feet two, his lean, dark

face glowing, and his crisp black hair curling with the greatness of

his ideas, and advancing, drew aside the curtains of the little bed.

A small figure in a wisp of a nightgown stretched her limbs thereon in

childish abandon, and turned her elf’s face up to her nocturnal visitor

in the unconscious serenity of sleep. That Jean Jacques was a humane

man was evidenced by the thoughtful way in which he bestowed dress,

socks, slippers, dolls, and sun-bonnet within the capacious folds of

his convict’s blouse; that he was a man of energy and action, by the

manner in which he enveloped the child’s head in a soft shawl, and her

little body in a discarded blanket, and, before she had time or breath

to wake and scream, passed himself and her into the upstretched arms of

Pierre, and regained the ground.

Then two dim figures, with a hostage to liberty, flitted through the

deserted streets, and the night swallowed them up.

* * * * *

Noumea was looking its best; what that means one must have been

there to know. Not yet astir with the day, the town and harbour were

pretending an innocence of the twin spirits of despair and misery

throbbing and raging within their boundaries. Out of the blue Pacific,

also pretending a non-existent innocence, the sun was rising, and

causing the ruddy copper tints of the island rocks to shine with a

morning glory, the foam of the reefs to sparkle, and the green and red

of leaf and flower to glint and glow with a tender and dewy freshness.

The native market was already beginning to stir with the busy sellers

of most conceivable, and some inconceivable, fruits and vegetables.

Soon, above the everyday droning hum of the vending of merchandise,

rose and swelled an ever-increasing buzz, like the tuning of an

orchestra, in dozens of discordant quirks and twitters, till, hushing

every sound, as does the uplifting of the conductor’s baton, there

boomed forth once and twice over the stillness of the harbour the deep

angry tone of the convict escape-gun. Then the buzz broke out again,

but this time with the unanimity of knowledge and conviction. Not that

a convict’s escape was any rare occurrence in a community boasting the

possession of some nine thousand such, in a greater or less degree of

captivity; the buzz had a deeper and a wider meaning; there were nine

thousand convicts; there was but one Governor, and to that Governor

was but one daughter. The ‘buzz,’ with an intelligence which did it

credit, connected the two disappearances, it was even whispered--that

is to say, it was bewailed and lamented at the top of the shrill native

voice--that there was a third disappearance, of knives and ropes,

and good food-stuff, to wit; this formed a tail to the comet in the

opinion of the buzz. The buzz was immensely tickled and interested,

it was even compelled to open its mouth--which was bad for it--when

from the barracks issued patrols armed to the teeth, and from the quay

departed snowily-breeched officials to the various ships lying at

anchor. Grievously agape was the mouth of the buzz when from Government

House marched the Governor, grey-headed and of soldierly bearing. The

Governor was a widowed man, and had but one child; it amused the buzz

and affected it to tears to see what he had suffered. In spite of his

soldier’s pride, suffering had lined his face during the last hour,

and the furrows deepened as he marched on with head up into the middle

of the Place, and spoke to the buzz with wingéd words, that hushed it

completely, distending its mouth and stimulating its stomach by the

liberality of the promised reward.

There was a scattering and a hurrying, such as the official methodism

of the town had not known since the French and English blue-jacket

fight--a tussle of unquenchable memory and much friendly shedding of

gore.

The hours rolled on, the sun blazed, the world forgot its siesta, while

the shadow on the Governor’s face deepened with the waning of the day.

He sat in the Place and waited--round him a staff of messengers coming

and going, as fresh thoughts and possibilities thronged his anxious

mind. Presently, as hope faded and grew wan, he said--

‘I can bear it no more here, I will go up and wait in the

Cathedral--perchance God will send me inspiration,’ and he took his way

thither....

Now, if one desires to see the most perfect picture in the world,

one may look upon it--if one goes in the evening to the Cathedral

at Noumea, and, standing at the eastern end, looks down the aisle

to the west. There, framed in the grey walls, hangs a picture as of

heaven--not, indeed, of canvas and paint, but of the sea and the air

and the earth, as a man sees them when the glow of a setting sun is

flooding and filling all with an unearthly glory of light. So the

Governor, even in his great grief, saw the vision of heaven, and bowing

his head upon his hands, sat gazing thereon--silent and alone. As the

sun dipped he fell, worn out, into a sort of trance, rousing himself

with a start as the rim of the fiery globe rested lightly on the

horizon, seeming to poise itself before sinking to rest, while the

grey shadows of the twilight crept out, as if eager before their time

to whelm the last hopes of the day in a filmy maze. Out of the West,

before the eyes of the Governor--far away in a reverie of pain--floated

a white cloud, and dimly his mind became conscious of it. ‘Very odd

cloud,’ he thought abstractedly, ‘that comes so suddenly and close;’

then he sprang up as though he had been shot. ‘Was it a cloud? No,

assuredly it was not.’ It floated, it quivered, it waggled with the

breeze, it was--bathos--it was a nightgown.

Suspended between sky and earth in the middle of that picture of

heaven, fading already with the growing darkness, waved a child’s

nightgown. Instinctively the answer to the whole problem of the day’s

disappearance flashed before the Governor’s mind, and what he saw

when he had hurried through the door under the folds of that flag of

truce came as no surprise. He stood and gazed upwards. Down below in

the streets of the town, in all the country round, the buzz was still

actively engaged in pursuing the promised satisfaction of its stomach.

Now this was what the Governor saw on the roof of the Cathedral,

thirty feet above him. Over the stone parapet a lean, dark face

surmounting a bare brown arm and hand, from which hung the rope of the

flag of truce; behind, what seemed to him a vast blue statue, astride

the neck of which sat a little figure in a cotton blouse, dangling two

bare legs, and patting the statue’s head with one hand, while with the

other it blew kisses to the amazed and horrified Governor. His hand

caught the butt of his revolver. Escaped convicts were wild beasts--and

his child sat on the shoulders of one and played with what was left

of its hair! The Governor’s aristocratic and sporting instincts were

aroused.

Jean Jacques, leaning over the parapet, smiled genially, and his other

hand, in which glistened the long blade of a knife, rested for a moment

on the parapet. Only for a second, but the Governor let fall the

pistol, and covered his face in his hands with a shrinking gesture of

physical pain and fear.

‘_Bien! Monsieur_,’--Jean Jacques took the word in courteous tones,

and with a caressing upward wave of the hand that no longer held the

knife to the little white atom on his comrade’s shoulders. ‘_Bien!_

decidedly Monsieur and I shall understand one another. I have the

honour of addressing Monsieur le Gouverneur? Good.’ Jean Jacques made a

polite bow with what could be seen of him in response to the Governor’s

sign of assent.

‘Monsieur, I will be brief. I am Jean Jacques. My friend Monsieur

Pierre Legros--Monsieur le Gouverneur!’

He indicated the silent Pierre with a backward and airy wave.

‘My friend and I were bored--it was not your fault, Monsieur, do not

be distressed--we were in want of distraction, we were also in want of

being free--ah! Free----’

Jean Jacques looked up with a sigh that spoke volumes even to the

Governor, pre-occupied as he was with dread anxiety.

‘_Nous voila!_ distracted and free--do you think we will again return

to the other state?’ An accent of menace crept into his voice, but

passed as quickly as it came.

‘No, we shall remain free; it rests with Monsieur to decide how and on

what terms. Providence has kindly sent Monsieur to us alone; my friend

and I do not wish that anyone should see Monsieur talking with us--it

might compromise him as affairs will turn out. Therefore, if Monsieur

will give to us his ears, my friend and I will briefly explain to him

how things stand, and what we have the honour to desire at the hands of

Monsieur.’

He paused for a moment, and turned to Pierre, standing in the shadow

behind him; the latter made a sign of acquiescence, and Jacques went on:

‘Mademoiselle Cecile is very happy with us; it is a new game we are

playing,’--he turned again and smiled at the child, who waved her hand

and laughed back at him,--‘and we are very fond of Mademoiselle. But

we have thought it may be best for everyone that we should continue to

be free in another land--across the seas. Monsieur le Gouverneur will

therefore cause to be prepared for us, in the little bay of Pontet

to the east, a good seaworthy cutter of not less than ten tons, with

provisions and water for twenty days; also he will in his kindness see

that the road is clear for us to embark at midnight to-morrow, and he

will give us--will he not?--his word of honour that he will not cause

us to be pursued. Monsieur’s word of honour is his bond. If Monsieur

will come to the little bay of Pontet at twelve on that night he will

find Mademoiselle in the little cave close by the bay. Should Monsieur

not see his way to accept these terms, he will do as he pleases, always

remembering that Mademoiselle is with us, and that what happens to Jean

Jacques or his friend Pierre, happens, unfortunately, to Mademoiselle

also.’

So ending, Jean Jacques bared his teeth again in a genial smile.

The Governor groaned--his situation dawned slowly on him in the fulness

of its horror--he clenched his teeth and groaned. His duty drew him

one way, his feelings (and he was conscious then how overpoweringly)

dragged him the other. He bowed his head, and pondered painfully. Jean

Jacques waited some time in silent politeness, then he said:

‘Monsieur will understand that to my friend and myself our liberty is

as dear as to Monsieur is Monsieur’s daughter: also Monsieur shall, if

he pleases, have the night and the day in which to reflect and prepare;

and in order that there may be no mistake as to the preparations, it

will be best if Monsieur will return himself and give us his answer at

two hours before midnight to-morrow.’

The Governor was conscious, with a feeling of rage and shame, that the

convict knew only too surely that the game was in his hands; he raised

his head with a jerk, and said, sharply and sternly:

‘It shall be so--at ten to-morrow night you shall have my answer.’

Then with one look at his little daughter calling merrily, and blowing

kisses to him, and a muttered ‘Good-night, my darling, be a good brave

child,’ he stepped firmly away, turning for a moment to say fiercely,

‘Be careful of her, men; if but one hair of her head be harmed, woe

betide you.’ Then he marched heroically down the hill, and hastened to

his home to hide his deadly agony of doubt and fear.

* * * * *

The buzz was hushed--hushed until the day should come again to lend

it zeal and courage. It was one thing to hunt for escaped convicts,

in packs, under the smiling sun, it was another to seek desperate men

in the blue-black of the Southern night. The buzz was of opinion that

its stomach might wait a little. Inland among the hills tired parties

of soldiery still pursued their weary search, but to no purpose. That

buttress on the Cathedral was a full fifteen feet from the ground--its

combination with a giant, a man of genius, and a rope had occurred to

no one’s mind; furthermore, the side of the Cathedral roof overlooked

by the coastguard station was protected by a parapet, and this fact had

also been unobserved.

Underneath the parapet the child lay tossing between her two captors.

Even in her restlessness she seemed to have complete faith in them; one

hand lay in Pierre’s monstrous paw, with the other she kept throwing

off the clothing that Jean Jacques carefully replaced. Neither man

slept; they watched their little prisoner anxiously, and every now and

then Jacques spoke a word or two of soothing to the restless little

mortal. In the middle watches of the night, Cecile waked suddenly from

her dreams, and sat up, shaking her dark straight locks back from her

hot little head, and looking wildly about her. Then she screamed, a

child’s scream of terror, and the look of fright that the two men

had been waiting for so painfully and anxiously shone in her black

eyes. That, which only Jacques’ wonderful, almost mesmeric, power with

children and the giant Pierre’s gentleness had restrained so far, was

come at last.

‘_Bon Dieu_, but this is terrible,’ said Jacques; ‘gently, _ma chérie_,

it is all play; see, here are thy two good friends, here is thy horse,

the big Pierre who gave thee that good ride on his shoulders; gently,

_ma chérie_, gently.’

He stroked the soft head, and with the tenderness of a mother kissed

the hot little cheek. Pierre turned his head away, with the dumb and

blind confidence in his comrade in all moments of danger and difficulty

that possessed his faithful soul. But scream after scream broke from

the child; it was not all play, she was in the dark, where was her

little bed and her nurse? and she wanted her daddy. Jean Jacques was

the father of children, a man of genius, and kindly, but he was unequal

to this situation, perhaps from that very kindliness which forbade him

to use the shawl to smother the child’s cries.

Now the Cathedral was high above the town, and the buzz in the nearest

houses was tired, and only turned in its heavy sleep to say, ‘Listen

to the wild cats in the mountains--to-morrow we will go and hunt them

and the other wild beasts with dogs.’ So the paroxysm passed, and the

child lay still again in Pierre’s arms, but with a dull fever burning

in her cheeks and eyes. The night grew old, and the chill air smote the

exhausted babe in spite of all the men’s care, and morning brought the

raging fever that, if it be not stayed, means death to the white child.

The men looked at each other with dismay in faces haggard with the

strain of sleepless nights and dread anxiety.

‘Must we then fail after all?’ said Jacques, more to himself than to

his comrade. He turned his eyes, gloomy with a bitter resentment at the

rising sun.

‘Twenty hours--only twenty hours--and three lives hanging in the

balance. I _will_ not fail; the child _shall_ live, and so shall we.’

‘Water,’ said Pierre, and without another word took off his hat and

fitted the rope through the brim to make a bucket.

‘Yes, water before the people are stirring,’ said Jacques.

By the aid of the rope he descended with his extemporised bucket and

stole down the hill under shelter of a wall to the nearest cottage--a

laundry, as luck would have it--then, filling his bucket, he got back

without being seen. Cecile was delirious, and as she raved and tossed,

the tears stole down the cheeks of the big convict, and gently he

stroked back the dark hair and carefully arranged the blanket so that

no ray of the fast rising sun should fall on her. Jacques tore the flag

of truce into shreds meet for bandages, and they bound them wet round

the fevered head and laid the little frame in Pierre’s arms. They had

no food left now except a few bananas, which they kept for the child.

The fever seemed to abate somewhat, and presently she slept.