AN OVERDRAFT ON THE FUTURE
Slyne had drawn back a step. One of his hands fell on the haft of a
flogging-hammer that some one had left lying loose on the casemate
there. Had it not been for the proximity of the pilot, drowsing away the
time till morning in the chart-house behind, he would most assuredly
have attempted to knock the old man on the head with it. He felt sure
that, but for Captain Dove, he could have managed Sallie now that Yoxall
was out of the way. He stood gnawing savagely at his lower lip as she
vanished along the deck in the darkness. He had taken no notice at all
of her timid good-bye.
Captain Dove grinned spitefully at him through the gloom of the small
hours. "You'd better be off below and pack up," the old man suggested.
"You'll be going ashore as soon as we get pratique."
"But--I'll be back. Give me time to turn!" Slyne snarled at him. "A
bargain's a bargain, and--I'll be back."
"You'd better not," Captain Dove advised in a very ominous voice, and
went on his way below, leaving Slyne to his own aggrieved, embittered
reflections.
To Jasper Slyne the past few days had been like a foretaste of
purgatory. Captain Dove had interdicted all communication with Sallie,
and had proved a most unpleasant companion himself throughout the
unspeakably wearisome passage from the North-west African coast, a
passage made at the poorest speed of the ship because coal was scarce
and he was afraid to call anywhere by the way to fill up his bunkers.
Amid the dire squalor and discomfort, the enforced inaction and
loneliness of life under such conditions, Slyne's only solace had been
the hope of finally winning Sallie, by fair means or foul. He who, in
his time, had met and made love to so many charming adventuresses, who
would not have thought any more about her had she been one of their
sort, had become absolutely obsessed by ambitions to be fulfilled with
her for his wife.
And now--he knew that neither force nor finesse would avail him against
Captain Dove's ultimatum. He had not the cash to meet the old man's
demands, and that was apparently the end of the matter.
Most men, in Slyne's place, would have owned themselves beaten then. But
not so he. Thinking it all over again, he would admit to himself no more
than that he was for the moment baffled by contrary circumstances;
circumstances such as had been his lot for so long that he could
contemplate them almost unmoved. It was his happy creed that in the very
face of failure itself one may, as often as not, discern the inspiriting
features of final success. The dark hour that heralds dawn he spent
pacing the cluttered quarter-deck of the _Olive Branch_ in the cold, his
far-away eyes always fixed on the twinkling dock-lights, his almost
bloodless lips straight and compressed under his black moustache,
cudgelling his brains for some safe means of immediately obtaining the
money he wanted.
He had not the cash to meet Captain Dove's demands. But neither was he
so entirely penniless as Captain Dove supposed him. He had only a
hundred dollars in hand, but he had twenty thousand francs at his credit
in a French bank. Many a millionaire had risen to affluence from
infinitely smaller beginnings.
But it would have been idle to offer Captain Dove any such trifling sum
on account of the price he had set on Sallie. And, rack his own
overworked wits as he would, Slyne could think of no safe plan for
turning his modest capital over at a sufficient profit within the time
at his disposal.
"The only possible way," he told himself finally, his teeth set, "the
_only_ possible way is to chance my luck at those cursed tables again.
Although, God knows that's a risk I'd give up anything else to avoid.
But--it's the only possible way now," he repeated vexedly, recalling the
very excellent reasons he had for never showing his face in Monte Carlo
again.
For, only a season or two before, he had figured throughout the Cote
d'Azur as accessory in an _affaire_ with which the whole civilised world
had afterwards rung, in spite of every effort to hush it up, an
_affaire_ whose tragic consequences had caused such a flutter of
scandalised chagrin among the private police of three great European
powers that he could never again cross their frontiers without fear.
Since he knew very well that, if he were ever identified, he would
deservedly disappear, without any further fuss, to spend the rest of his
life as a nameless cypher, forgotten, among the living dead, entombed in
some secure fortress. In that cosmopolitan underworld to which such as
Slyne belong, occur many curious incidents not reported in the
newspapers, and the citizens of Cosmopolis have nowhere consul or
minister to protect them against unfortunate consequences.
Slyne had no illusions as to what his fate would be if he were
recognised on the Riviera.
"But she's worth the stake," he told himself with dogged determination,
"even though it _is_ life and liberty as well as my last few francs.
And--I'd just as soon be done with things if I can't capture Sallie from
that old scoundrel."
He knew very well, of course, that his prospect of making a financial
success at the tables was no less of a forlorn hope. But he had all a
professional gambler's blind faith in the goddess of chance. And since
he would not withdraw from the contest, he had no option but to play
that losing hazard also.
Day had broken before he had completed his plans. And then Captain Dove
reappeared, sleepy-eyed and unshaven, to interview the port-doctor.
As soon as that functionary had glanced at the forged Bill of Health put
before him and seen the crew mustered to the tally it told, the yellow
flag at the fore was hauled down and Captain Dove hailed a shore-boat,
to which he had Slyne's baggage transferred, and curtly told Slyne to be
off ashore.
Nor did Slyne delay to bid him farewell. Each was heartily sick of the
sight of the other, and each had plans of his own to promote in a hurry.
They separated without so much as a nod. Sallie was invisible. And
Slyne, in the boat on his way to the Custom-house, only looked back once
at the ports of the poop-cabin, to see, within the dingy brass frame of
one, a face that seemed to be watching him very thankfully as he went, a
horrible face, with blubber lips, almost inhumanly ugly, the face of
Sallie's devoted attendant, the dumb black dwarf, Ambrizette.
A yawning Customs' searcher glanced at his baggage and passed it
unopened. In return for which courtesy Slyne bestowed upon him a
doubtful rix-dollar and a few words in fluent Italian concerning the
_Olive Branch_--words which would not improve Captain Dove's prospects
of an early departure from Genoa, but might, conversely, increase by a
little his own scanty time-allowance in that desperate bout with fortune
to which he had committed himself. He knew that Captain Dove was intent
on coaling and sailing again without the loss of a minute that might be
saved.
He had all his own movements mapped out in anticipation. He drove to an
hotel at which he had stayed once before, and, after a Turkish bath and
breakfast, went on to the Credit Lyonnais office to cash his draft. Then
he made a number of purchases in inconspicuous shops, where he had to
spend a good deal of time in bargaining, looked in at the Motor-Car Mart
& Exchange, where he saw a big touring-car over which he argued for some
minutes with the salesman; and, after a belated but liberal lunch in a
first-class restaurant, he turned back toward the sale-room.
A man in an elaborate chauffeur's uniform, and evidently English,
stopped him in the street outside, to ask whether he would care to buy a
gold cigarette-case, a bargain. Slyne looked him over, and sized him up
at a glance.
"Stranded?" he asked, and the man nodded sulkily.
"Want a few days' work?"
The chauffeur's dissipated face brightened.
"Yes, sir," said he, "I do."
"Wait here, then," said Slyne, and went inside.
"Well," he asked the salesman, "have you thought it over? What's the
last word?"
"Fifteen thousand _lire, milor_--not a _soldo_ less," declared the
dapper, frock-coated salesman, in a tone of final decision which Slyne's
sharp ears judged unfeigned. "The car is worth twice as much. Indeed, I
could not let it go at such a ruinous loss were it not--But, _ecco_! The
owner himself. He would probably be very ill pleased to hear it was
actually sold at that ridiculous price."
Slyne looked round at the grey-haired, portly, prosperous-looking
individual threading his way through the agglomeration of cars in the
background, and his half-parted lips snapped together again.
He wanted that particular car and had made up his mind to buy it, rash
though such an investment might prove, but he had surmised from a
lynx-like glance at the seller that he might be able to get it for even
less than the salesman was authorised to accept. And, since his own
pockets were so poorly lined for the expensive part he was playing, he,
who despised chaffering, was yet bent on making the very best bargain he
could.
"It's more than I've got about me," he told the salesman in a very
audible voice, as the fat man in the fur coat halted indeterminately a
few paces away. And at the words the new-comer's puffy face lighted up,
as if with relief, behind the pince-nez he was wearing. He came forward
and spoke.
"An Englishman, by Jove!" he remarked with a great semblance of
geniality. "So am I. Very happy to meet you, sir. You're interested in
my car?"
"Not at the price," Slyne returned, with an indifferent hauteur which
he judged likely to be effective with one in the stranger's presumable
plight. And the fat man's lips drooped visibly, the pouches under his
uneasy eyes became more marked. He was obviously disappointed, and felt
himself snubbed. He did not seem quite sure what to say or do next.
Slyne, congratulating himself on his talent for character reading,
turned away, to look at a cheap runabout, as carelessly as though he had
all time at his disposal, instead of being, as he was, in a fever of
ill-restrained impatience. The salesman figuratively washed his hands of
them both; he could already foresee a forced sale at a calamitous
sacrifice. And so it fell out.
Slyne, cavalier to the verge of rudeness, finally bought the big scarlet
car, which the other almost forced upon him, for about half its market
value, and paid for it there and then, in the new French notes which had
almost been burning a hole in his pocket since he had left the Credit
Lyonnais office--so eager was he to be off on his last forlorn hope of
winning Sallie.
"If you had allowed me only a few hours longer, I could have got you
twice that amount," said the disappointed salesman in a stage aside to
the seller as he counted over his own diminished commission. But the fat
man merely bestowed on him a look of contemptuous annoyance, and, having
signed the receipt Slyne required, tucked away in an empty pocket-book
the balance of the crisply-rustling bills he had just received.
Even then he did not appear to know what next to do with himself. For,
having glanced at his watch, he gave vent to a grunt of disgust, and
hung on his heel undecidedly, after making a move to go.
"It's only about a hundred miles to Monaco, isn't it?" Slyne asked the
salesman; and was answered in the affirmative.
The fat man gasped and choked for a moment, and then spoke again, with
more confidence: a change due, perhaps, to the improvement in his
finances.
"Pardon me, sir," said he, "but--if you're going that way, I wonder--It
would be a most tremendous favour to me, and I haven't haggled over
giving you the best of our bargain. The train's just gone, and--"
Slyne, chin in air, once more looked him over appraisingly, as he
stammered and hesitated; and was very much disposed to cut him adrift
without more ado. But some indefinable impulse, some feeling that here
was a bird of a feather very sadly astray, caused him to alter his mind.
"I'll be glad to give you a lift," he said, more graciously, "if you're
ready to start now. But I can't wait."
The fat man's face lighted up again. "My luck's on the mend at last!" he
declared. "I'm in as great a hurry as you can be, sir. I'm more than
obliged to you for your courtesy. May I offer you my card?"
Slyne glanced at the slip of pasteboard conferred upon him while the car
was being shifted out of the showroom into the street, where his
elaborate chauffeur was in waiting. And, "Jump in, Mr. Jobling," he
requested with unconcealed coldness as he himself took the wheel,
relegating the chauffeur to a back seat. It ruffled his self-satisfied
mood of the moment more than a little to learn that the fat man in the
fur coat was in fact a London solicitor. With the law in any shape or
form Jasper Slyne wanted nothing whatever to do, and especially at such
a juncture. He was already repenting his ill-timed politeness.
However, he could not very well rid himself of his passenger then. All
he could do was to dash through the busy streets of Genoa in the dusk at
a pace calculated to make the hair of any respectable and
self-respecting solicitor stand on end. But, out of the corner of one
eye, he observed that Mr. Jobling was wearing a blandly contented smile.
That gentleman did not seem so well pleased, however, as they turned
up-hill into the Via Roma, and Slyne, understanding, relented a little
again. "I have some baggage at the Isotta," he volunteered, and the
cloud at once lifted from Mr. Jobling's brow.
Several assiduous porters stowed hastily in the tonneau, beside the
ornamental chauffeur, the travel-worn trunks and suit-cases which Slyne
had left there that morning, and stood at the salute till he drove away,
when they no doubt returned to their lairs to count the profits of such
politeness. He had, as usual, been very lavish with his small change.
And his passenger was also impressed by his liberality.
Meanwhile the car was negotiating more carefully the lumpy patchwork
with which the old Via Carlo Alberto is paved, and Mr. Jobling's puffy
features spoke his discontent over its slow progress. But, once beyond
Sampierdarena, clear of close traffic, on the open road to Savona, Slyne
made more speed; and it was self-evident that he knew how to get the
most out of his horse-power.
He looked, indeed,--if looks go for anything nowadays,--quite at home,
very much in his element, lying lazily back in the driver's seat of the
richly-appointed car which had been his companion's an hour before. It
was late on a winter afternoon, and what wind there was had a chill in
it, caught, no doubt, in crossing the Apennines. But Slyne also was
wearing a heavy fur coat and had pulled on a pair of gauntlets at the
hotel.
As the car rocked and swayed on its rapid way through the last outskirts
of Savona, he was humming light-heartedly to himself the antique aria of
_The Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo_.
"Been gambling a bit?" he presently asked his silent companion. And Mr.
Jobling admitted the soft impeachment.
"And no luck," Slyne inferred amusedly. He could view with an equable
eye the misfortunes of others as well as his own; especially since the
stout solicitor's losses had brought his own way such a substantial
profit as could be readily realised by the re-sale of his car.
"No luck at all," Mr. Jobling affirmed explosively, and the troubles
fermenting in his mind at length found outlet in speech. "I wouldn't
have believed anyone could have been so unlucky!" he declared with great
bitterness; "and at such a critical moment. I want so little, too; I've
no ambition to break the bank. It wasn't with any such foolish idea that
_I_ came to Monte Carlo. I wouldn't have had this happen for all the
bank holds."
"Which isn't a great deal," commented Slyne. "I've broken the bank more
than once myself, and lost twice as much the next evening."
"You play some system, perhaps?" his companion inquired, but Slyne shook
his head reminiscently. "I've tried several myself, but none seemed to
be of the slightest use. And now--It doesn't matter, of course. I didn't
come to Monaco to make money; I'm not such a fool! But it's most
infernally inconvenient ... may cost me my chance of a fortune ...
practically within my grasp." His voice had died away to a mere mutter.
Slyne was smiling in disdain.
"But I can't go on losing at the tables for ever," he exploded again.
"My turn must come. I feel in better fettle this evening--as if my luck
had changed. It's no doubt since I met you; I must thank you again for
this lift. If I'd had to wait in Genoa for the slow train, I might have
got back too late to take the tide at the flood. I'm a great believer,
you know, in striking while the iron's hot."
"So am I," said Slyne dryly, and much amused by his monologue.
"I'm sure my luck's on the mend," Mr. Jobling went on, growing still
more communicative under encouragement, "and the mere matter of winning
a few thousand francs is nothing to what will follow--what _must_
follow. I've made up my mind to win all along the line; and there's a
great deal in the theory that, if you apply sufficient will-power to any
project, its success is assured. I'm ab-so-lutely _determined_ to win
fifty thousand francs to-night, and then ... I fancy it was a mistake to
come here at all.... But, of course, a man who never makes a mistake
will never make anything.... I'll go straight back to London, and
surely, among the five or six million people there....
"_Look out!_ Good--God!"
Between his two excited ejaculations Slyne had outwitted calamity.
Taking a rash curve at top speed, he had come to an unexpected rectangle
in the roadway running almost parallel there with the shore below, and,
rounding that corner safely with a quick wrench of the wheel, had almost
crashed into a heavy, high-built ox-wagon which was backing blindly out
from some steep, hidden side-lane. The hubs of the car's wheels had all
but grazed the parapet of the roadway at Mr. Jobling's side, and Slyne,
on the other, had barely escaped being brained by the timbers protruding
from the rear of the wagon. The ornamental chauffeur was fast asleep in
the tonneau behind.
Mr. Jobling lay back and gasped while Slyne held on as if nothing had
happened, at the same breakneck pace. But neither spoke again for some
time.
Through village after village they dashed, always at grave risk and yet
without accident. The moon rose just before they reached Alassio. Slyne
even managed to improve the pace a little then, and his passenger made
no protest, but sat with eyes downcast, his lips always moving mutely.
"A slight overdraft on the future--it's no more than that," remarked Mr.
Jobling a little later, as if he had been alone, and Slyne looked round
at him for an instant, with nostrils curled in a faint, superior smile.
Slyne thought he could guess some part at least of the troubles
afflicting his chance acquaintance, and was very little inclined to hear
more about them. He was too busy considering his own plan of campaign,
the blood in his own veins was running too briskly under the stimulus of
that wild flight through the keen night air, to waste any time or
thought on another man's worries. But--a fellow-feeling makes us
wondrous kind. "Cheer up!" said he suddenly. "Every one overdraws more
or less on his luck, at one time or another. If that's all you've done,
it's nothing to mope about."
Mr. Jobling sat up with a start, and stared at him. "That's all," he
asserted, a little too hurried in his assurance. "I give you my word,
sir...." And then he recollected himself and laughed uncomfortably,
confused.
"I've been thinking aloud," said he. "But you mustn't take any notice of
that. It's a bad habit of mine. And, as you say, we all overdraw on the
future, from time to time. As a man of the world, sir, you'll understand
what I mean to convey to you. And of course these little overdrafts are
always met when they're due.
"What a fine night this is for a fast spin!"
"What's the nature of your present overdraft?" Slyne inquired
perversely, safe in the certainty that the other could not resent that
rudeness, and was again amused by Mr. Jobling's cough of discomfiture.
But, "Purely metaphorical," that gentleman countered cleverly. "We'll
soon be in San Remo at this rate. I wouldn't wonder if we've established
a record. It isn't every day there's such a car in the market."
"No, it isn't," Slyne agreed. "Nor a buyer for it." And conversation
languished again.
But Slyne's spirits, none the less, were steadily rising as he drew
nearer, mile by mile, to the chief temple of that goddess of chance to
whom he looked to befriend him now--since it was not on his own behalf
alone that he was seeking her shrine, since mischance must entail
consequences so dire to Sallie as well as to him. The personal risk he
was running lent added zest to the piquancy of his most unusual position
as a champion of maidenhood in distress. And what Sallie's fate would be
if his own luck failed him, he could picture in vivid detail from his
own experience of a world most men know nothing about.
Within a few days the _Olive Branch_, with a supply of cheap coal and
some makeshift repairs, would be gone from Genoa, leaving behind no
trace but such bills as Captain Dove could escape without paying. She
would enter Port Said and leave Suez in some effective disguise and
under another assumed name which would last her through the Straits of
Bab-el-Mandeb; beyond which she would disappear, perhaps for good, into
whatever strange world she might raise over the mysterious sea-rim which
lies beyond "the Gate of the Place of Tears."
Captain Dove was an old man already. And even he could not for ever go
on living such a life as he led. He had spoken of this trip East as his
last, and it was his avowed object in it to turn Sallie to some account.
Slyne, who, as you will perhaps suppose, was no squeamish moralist,
sickened at thought of what time might still have in store for the girl.
"Just imagine _her_," said he to himself, "cooped up in some slat-eyed
Chinaman's filthy _yamen_ till she grows grey, or eating her heart out
in some coffee-coloured sultan's clay palace, with nothing to comfort
her but a crooked brass crown--and not even that by and by. It's
damnable to think--But what's the use of thinking about it! I'm going to
save her from all that--in spite of herself." And his selfishly
sentimental mood of the moment once more gave place to a philosophic
contentment with things as they were, and that in turn to an
exhilarating anticipation of pleasures to come.
The lights of San Remo looked very alluring to him, who had for so long
spent his nights at sea with no more companionable illuminant than a
reeking kerosene lamp or the cold, aloof stars. He became jocular, in a
lofty way, with the always impatient Jobling, and at the frontier was so
patronisingly polite to the officials there that they let him pass
almost at once, under the apparent impression that he was some personage
of importance--a circumstance which lent him a little additional
self-confidence.
From Menton Garavan in to Monte Carlo is only some seven miles. And for
that short distance he sat silent, once more mentally reviewing the
manifold chances of mischance ahead of him. While Mr. Jobling, beside
him, continued to mumble and mutter at intervals of misfortune--no fault
of his own--and fortune, that marvellous fortune which was to be his so
soon, since he had made up his mind that it must.
"I'm absolutely _determined_," said Mr. Jobling, unconsciously raising
his voice again. "Eh? What? Oh, yes. I beg your pardon. I have a room at
the Metropole. Where are you going to put up?"
"I always stay at the Paris," Slyne lied easily. He had no inclination
for any more of his companion's society, especially while he had no idea
how he himself might be received at any hotel in the Principality.
"I'll walk on from here, then, if you'll allow me," suggested that
gentleman. "And--er--by the way, you won't be mentioning to anyone the
circumstances--er--about the car."
"We'll let it be understood that I bought it in London--last month,"
said Slyne, ready to be obliging since it would be for his own benefit;
and, cutting short with a curt "Good night" some further profuse
expressions of gratitude on the part of his passenger, glad, indeed, to
be so well quit of him, drove on in more state, his sleepy chauffeur in
the seat vacated by Mr. Jobling, to make his next move in that desperate
game in which he was going to stake life and liberty also on the
infinitesimal chance of returning triumphant to Genoa to claim Sallie
from Captain Dove.
For, "If they spot me, I'll blow out my brains before they can lay hands
on me," said he to himself as he drew up with an imperative
_honk-honk-honk!_ before the Hotel de Paris.