Oriental houses, you know, Doctor, just as they do in the forest,
wherever furtive beings hold their existence. Now, I moved too rapidly
for these rustlings, and in the kitchen I flushed some frightened Dyak
servants—three women and an old man.
“‘Take me to your mistress,’ I said to one of the women, and I said it
kindly, but I do think I have never seen more fright on a woman’s face.
After all, Doctor, to witness the horror of some one else is far more
gruesome than the thing itself, is it not?”
I thought of the look I had once seen in the eyes of a man whose
shoulder had been carried away by a piece of shrapnel, as he had glanced
down and seen his wound.
“Nothing is more contagious than dread,” I murmured.
“So I discovered a few moments later,” muttered Leyden. “The woman led
me to a hut a hundred yards behind the bungalow—a well-furnished hut; I
think it may have been the mission hospital—and there I found the
daughter, the deaf-mute——”
Leyden’s voice had dropped until it was almost inaudible. I could not
see his face in the dark, but I shivered.
“Of course,” he went on, in a careless sort of way, “I could talk with
her, for, although my ten modern languages and some twenty dialects all
are spoken with the mouth, there is one dialect which is universal—and
that is spoken with the eyes. We had a little conversation in this
tongue, and then I sat down beside her and patted her hands and made her
actually smile. They are simple folk—those on whom the hand of God has
been heavy in this regard. Perhaps they are above these mundane
things—but at the time I did not look at it in this way. Instead I went
back to the bungalow and waited in some impatience for the return of
Lynch and McAdoo—and, will you believe it, Doctor—just at this time,
when I needed myself the most, these accursed _plasmodia malariæ_, or
whatever kind of species of _fission-fungi_ it may be, began to start
their segmentation, and segregation, and proliferation in my blood
vessels, and I could feel the delirium creeping up my spine to my brain,
just as some poor devil of a Passamaquoddy might have felt the
fifty-foot rise of the Fundy tide creeping up _his spine_ when some
coterie of tribal enemies had staked him out on the flats at low
water—except that in his case it was cold and in mine it was red-hot!
“I had not long to wait, however. Back they came, McAdoo sullen but
studious, and Lynch smiling and talking as if he were the honored guest.
I noticed that his holster was unbuckled, however, and while he had been
away I had entertained no fears for his safety—because, you see, I had
heard no shot. Our co-operation was really quite admirable!
“‘Lynch,’ said I, and it seemed to me as if my voice came from a very
great distance—the fever, Doctor, not emotion, I beg you to believe; I
was never more composed mentally in my life. ‘Lynch,’ said I, ‘will you
and Mr. McAdoo kindly come into the library—there are some matters which
I wish to discuss with you both.’ It was growing dark then, so I clapped
my hands, quite softly, but a servant flittered out of the shadow like a
bat. The tension was high in that bungalow that night.
“‘Bring lights,’ I said in the vernacular.
“‘And food?’ suggested Lynch.
“‘The food can wait,’ I muttered, fighting hard against the inclination
to sleep—to drowse—to be let alone, to enjoy my intoxication in peace.
‘Come into the parlor!’ I said, and Lynch told me afterwards that my
manner was as snappish as a dog with distemper.
“‘After you, friend McAdoo!’ said Lynch, rhymingly, and the accursed
jingle got caught up in the swirl of ideas racing through my fevered
brain, so that while I talked I kept hearing over and over, ‘After you,
friend McAdoo—after you, friend McAdoo—after you’—_b’r’rgh_! What is
more frightful than trying to do mental work in the face of a delirium?
“I am not clear as to just what McAdoo said; it was Lynch who made the
opening move, and this time he did not say, ‘After you, friend McAdoo!’
He drew his revolver and waved McAdoo to a large lounging chair. I shall
never forget that chair; it was a home-made, or rather a native-made
chair like those one sees to-day, with a back the angle of which is
regulated by a rod behind, which is dropped into notches—you know the
kind. At the top there was a little pillow for the head to rest
against—a little ‘baby-blue’ pillow—and it was hollowed in the middle
where poor Cullen’s head had rested, and worn until the fabric held in a
streaky sort of way that showed the white beneath. It was probably made
in England by some girl parishioner, and there was something in its
homeliness that made me feel as the diary had.
“It was crushed beneath McAdoo’s great shoulders as he sank into it—and
he _did_ sink, Doctor, as if he had been hamstrung. In the middle of the
room there was a little bamboo table, on which the servant was about to
set the lamp, but Lynch motioned to place it on a shelf behind him. He
himself sat at the table, facing McAdoo, his back straight, as the back
of a thoroughbred should be, and the revolver lying in his hand near the
middle of the table.
“I walked up to him, staggering a little, and threw down the diary.
“‘What is this?’ asked Lynch.
“‘After you, friend—the diary of the Rev. R. M. Cullen! What do you
think it is—a skull?’ I snapped. He raised his eyebrows.
“‘There is a divan at the end of the room, Doctor,’ he said, without
taking his eyes from McAdoo. ‘Lie there, if you please, during our
proceedings.’ There was a cold, official note in his voice which seemed
to recall the shuffle of heavy feet, whispers, whimpers, somnolence on
one side of the room and nerves stretched like the strings of a violin
on the other. Dulled as I was, I could see that it brought back
something to McAdoo, for it was at these very first words that he began
to slump—doubly armed from the start as he had been, surrounded by his
servants and in the house which he had claimed as his own.
“Then Lynch began to read—intently and with no apparent thought of the
man opposite him. I had sunk in a heap on the divan, deliciously
relaxed—leaving it all to Lynch, and humming, ‘After you, friend
McAdoo,’ to myself, as I thought, until Lynch remarked, coldly: ‘Doctor,
kindly refrain from interrupting the reading of the testimony.’ Then I
subsided, very much embarrassed.
“_Ach!_ how I see it now, Doctor, just as I saw it then; as if I was
standing apart—a fourth person regarding the other three: Lynch with the
light behind him, his face in the shadow, carefully reading the journal
and apparently oblivious to the fully armed giant who appeared to have
shrunk on sinking into the chair of his late victim; apparently
oblivious to me also as I lay muttering on the divan at the other end of
the room, and rousing myself at longer intervals, as the conflagration
within my veins gained headway. The servant in placing the lamp upon the
shelf had moved a little clock, which had run down, and the jar had set
it ticking, and this and the sharp rustle as Lynch turned the leaves
were the only noises in that room—unless my mutterings were audible,
which may have been.
“Such a fever as mine is like a fire, Doctor; it leaps upward, then
sinks, flickers, smoulders for a while, and then bursts out to rage with
fresh fury. It was in one of these lapses, one of these returns almost
to the normal, that Lynch finished his perusal.
“I opened my eyes as he laid down the journal with a smart slap. Lynch
had turned half-way in his chair, and the yellow light threw out in
sharp profile his straight brow, short aquiline nose and firm legal
mouth and chin. There is a forensic type, just as there is any other
type, and this was Lynch’s, except that there was to him an element of
the terse and martial rather than the parliamentary. His revolver was
lying in the center of the table, and his sinewy hands were in front of
him, just beneath his chin, the finger-tips touching, the elbows on the
arms of his chair.
“McAdoo was in the same position—the position of the rabbit confronted
by the stoat; shoulders hunched, head sunk, muscle-heavy arms hanging
limp outside the arms of the chair, utterly relaxed, yet held half-bent
by the tonic contraction of the biceps, and so utter was this relaxation
that the hands seemed swollen, the veins on the dorsum stretched to
bursting. His bloodshot eyes were fastened on the revolver in front of
him, which was nickeled and threw the limpid lamp-light from its
separate planes in steady tongues of flame. Perhaps it was this that
held him—the hypnosis, the somnambulizing of the optic nerve.
“‘Where is the daughter of Robert Cullen?’ asked Lynch, crisply. McAdoo
started; his great head was raised with a jerk of such suddenness that
one could almost hear the creak of the cervical vertebræ. And his voice!
Ah! it was ridiculous. You have heard the whistle of this steamer,
Doctor, when on entering a port the cord is pulled while the whistle is
still filled with the water of condensation? It was such a noise.
“‘Where is the daughter?—answer me, man!’ said Lynch, sharply.
“I clapped my hands and one of the soft-footed women slithered to the
door of the room. It was the same who had taken me to the deaf-mute
girl.
“‘Bring your mistress hither,’ said I. The woman vanished.
“Our speech had brought a change in McAdoo. The lusterless look had left
his eyes, and even in my benumbed condition I detected a twitching of
his thick fingers.
“‘After you——’ I began, thickly, then realized that I was talking
nonsense, but Lynch also had seen the movement. His hand fell upon the
revolver.
“‘If you move a muscle you are a dead man, friend McAdoo,’ he said,
softly. ‘I fear that you are no better than a dead man as it is—but I
should advise you not to bring the matter to a climax until all of the
evidence is in.’
“We waited in silence; even the clock had stopped its ticking; the
journal was lying on the table. Lynch, I remember, was twisting the ends
of his wiry mustache with his free hand. Perhaps the tension had cleared
my head; perhaps the drugs, taken, as usual, four hours before the
paroxysm was due, were beginning to act; at any rate, my mind was
active—abnormally so.
“The crisis had passed with McAdoo; he was no longer held by shock,
surprise, rage, the psychic force of the man in front of him, or the
hypnotizing force of the shining weapon. The little bullet _in_ the
weapon was all that held him now—and I do not think that it would have
held him long—in that position, for he had the pluck of a pig, and his
eyes were beginning to dance again, when there was a rustle in the
doorway and a white-clad figure paused on the threshold.
“I looked at her face—and the sight of it chilled the fever in my blood
and whipped the mist of delirium from my brain. When I had seen her
before it had been the face of a beautiful child—a frightened, wretched
child—but now it was different, matured. Lynch saw it, too—just the
swiftest glance, and then his keen eyes flew back to the man, who was
only awaiting his opportunity. Afterwards I learned that Lynch possessed
the science of the sign language practiced by these folk; he possessed
also the science of developing upon his brain an instantaneous
photograph taken with the eyes, and _this_ science made the first
unnecessary, for you see, Doctor, the girl was looking at her father’s
murderer—and who knows what beside! Ah, how true it is, as you said a
little while ago, that the horror reflected from the eyes of another is
far more dreadful than the thing itself!
“Lynch made a movement of dismissal with his hand—a judicial gesture
which told me that it was over; the verdict rendered; sentence
pronounced. But I was puzzled for the next—eh—step.
“‘Take her back,’ I said to the servant.
“‘Dr. Leyden,’ said Lynch, ‘do you feel that you are in possession of
your faculties?’ My head was roaring like a cataract, my skin like ice,
and my bones were smouldering coals, but my brain was clear—for the
moment—too clear.
“‘Quite,’ I answered—‘in so far as this man is concerned.’
“‘What is your opinion? What course would you advise in the matter?’
“‘I would advise shooting him,’ said I. ‘He requires to be shot, and I
do not think that we should waste much time about it. If you do not care
to shoot him, I will do so myself,’ I added. Personally, his death was
necessary to our safety in a way, yet that did not occur to me. I was
thinking of the diary, the little blue pillow and the deaf-mute girl.
“‘It makes no difference,’ said Lynch, and his hand tightened on the
stock of the revolver; then he suddenly paused—and I guessed why.
“‘She cannot hear,’ I said. ‘She is deaf.’
“‘That is so—I overlooked the fact,’ softly.
“McAdoo was watching Lynch in a fascinated way—and I was watching
McAdoo. When the report came he pitched forward, and I scrambled to my
feet and rescued the little blue pillow.”
Leyden was silent—and so was I. He did nothing, said nothing, but we
both sat and watched the growing lights in the sea, the increase in the
phosphorescence as the moon set.
“It was really a very simple matter,” said Leyden, lightly, “and it has
always been a source of satisfaction to me. It was all so sensible; so
many fools would have wanted to give the brute a chance. Lynch had the
right idea; he did not even invite any closing remarks; the only one
that was really apropos was made by his Colt, and was quite
unanswerable.
“Would you believe it, Doctor, the people were sufficiently
Christianized to regard the whole thing as a visitation. Not a soul was
in sight when we left, taking the girl with us. Lynch himself conducted
her back to England and placed her in an institution.
“Yes—the trip was a success. My anthropologist thought so, I thought so,
Lynch thought so, and I have not the slightest doubt that the
semi-civilized Dyaks, who still slip through the shadows and peer
between the jalousies of the ruined mission-house at the thing which is,
perhaps, still held in that ample chair, think so as well.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ROSENTHAL THE JEW
LEYDEN and I paused in our conversation and, leaning our backs against
the steamer’s rail, listened in some amusement to an argument between a
group of our fellow-passengers. That is to say, I was thoughtless enough
to be amused; Leyden listened with his usual quiet consideration.
At Paramaribo there had taken passage for New York a wiry little Jew
named Gonzalez. He was a cheerful little man, who was pleasing from his
sincere politeness. The other passengers, especially the Dutch, had
rather made a butt of his provincialism, and it seemed to me that their
attitude toward him was edged with a bit of malice. Apparently they
resented his claim as a fellow-countryman.
The argument grew warmer; I could not follow it, as they spoke Dutch,
but it was easy to see that Gonzalez was growing angry; the others were
laughingly sarcastic. Presently the Jew, whose shrill voice had risen in
key, said something bitter and walked rapidly away, and as he passed us
I saw that his thin face was working with emotion. The others frowned;
one gave a short laugh, then looked at us a bit sheepishly. Leyden made
a little gurgle in his throat, a sound which carried disapproval. I
glanced at him inquiringly.
“They are baiting him because he claims to be a Dutchman,” said Leyden.
“It is a shame; he is a good little man. He told me yesterday why he was
going to New York. It seems that he has a half-sister with Pott’s
disease of the spine, and he is going to consult a specialist to
determine whether anything can be done for her, also how much it will
cost. Probably there is not a person on this ship whose errand is so
unselfish. _Ach!_ They are a much maligned people, the Jews!”
For several moments he drew vigorously at his big porcelain pipe.
“Doctor,” he asked, presently, “did you ever meet Isidore Rosenthal?”
“No,” said I. “Who is he?”
“A Jew, a power in the West Indies. This little chap reminds me of
him—because he is so different. There are three people in the West
Indies who are worth knowing. One is Mallock, another is Arjolas and the
third is Isidore Rosenthal.”
Leyden stirred the ashes of his pipe, while I waited. Gonzalez, who
passed near me, had swallowed his pique and was talking in bad English
to a Portuguese adventuress. “Yes, Madame,” he was saying, “I have
traveled a great deal. I have been to Demerara, to Trinidad and to
Venezuela. Now I am going to New York. If a man has the means it is his
duty to travel; he should see the world, improve his mind—and I, I have
the means. I own a chemist’s shop in Paramaribo——”
“Rosenthal,” said Leyden, “is a Czechian Jew, the most malignant type;
aggressive as a hotel child. When he dies, if the Hebrew heaven is not
up to his ideas, the Christians will have a hard time to keep him out of
theirs. He is a big-boned, muscular, hairy brute, with the push of a
peccary and the vitality of a dose of Chagres fever. His present
occupation is selling the Santo Dominicans expensive things which they
don’t want. As soon as he gets _all_ of their money he will go somewhere
else.”
“He appears to have qualities,” I observed.
“He has—some of them ones with which you would not credit him. We were
once involved in an affair, and there are few men for whom I have more
respect.
“I first met Rosenthal in Curaçao, where he and his younger brother,
Jacob, as poisonous a cripple as ever drew breath, were doing a nice
little business which combined gambling and pawnbroking. Their method
was this: Having the _entrée_ to the select circle of South American
exiles and refugees and conspirators—for you must know that almost every
South and Central American revolution is hatched under the protection of
the Dutch flag—Jacob, who was rather expert at cards, would manage to
start a game. No doubt the play was honest; his policy was neither to
lose nor to win a great deal, but simply to keep things moving. In time
some one would lose heavily, for Jacob had a talent for drawing the
others out and was liberal with cognac and champagne. These South
Americans, as you have observed, possess a passion for jewelry; the
first thing which your South American who has made a successful
financial _coup_ will buy is a gem; on the other hand, when he loses
heavily he is open for a good offer on his solitaire or brilliants, and
this was Isidore’s department. He would manage to be about with some
stones to show the winner and ready cash with which to purchase from a
loser, or perhaps to negotiate a loan, and he was diplomatic enough to
accomplish this without becoming unpopular. He had a manner of loud and
blatant _camaraderie_, was ready to give way in trifles, and I have even
known him to loan out a good round sum without any security whatever. He
was a friend of the friendless and had the reputation of being honest
and liberal.
“Between them the pair should have done very well had Jacob been
designed on the large scale of Isidore, but he was not. I think he
envied Isidore’s physique and manner and popularity, whereas the elder
brother loved Jacob devotedly and would nurse him like a mother through
his occasional attacks of illness, for one of Jacob’s lungs was far gone
with tuberculosis. I remember Isidore’s boarding the steamer once in
Vera Cruz when I was returning from an expedition into Yucatan. It seems
that he had heard of my being aboard, and he came to me haggard with
watching and worry and told me that he feared that Jacob was dying of
fever.
“‘These doctors are a set of fools!’ he cried, in his big, discordant
bass. ‘They do not know the fever when they see it; they say it is the
lung, but I know that it is the fever, also.’
“‘But, my dear fellow,’ I protested, ‘I am not a physician; I am nothing
but a collector.’
“‘_Peste!_’ he answered, for, as he was an Austrian and I a Hollander,
we talked in French. ‘There is no one who knows more of the pernicious
malaria than yourself. Will you come and see the little Jacob?’
“‘But I am already overdue with my specimens,’ I objected.
“‘_Diable!_’ he growled. ‘What are weeds and stones and ancient rubbish
to the life of my dear little Jacob? You shall lose nothing, and if you
save his life’—he hauled a chamois bag from some recess of himself and
threw a glittering handful of gems upon my bunk—‘help yourself; take
them all, if you like. Some of them I hold as security, but it makes no
difference’—the man grinned—‘I get them all in the end.’
“‘Put up your ill-gotten gains,’ said I, much provoked. ‘I’ll wait over
a steamer and see what I can do because I like your affection for your
brother.’
“He grinned again. I got out my microscope and went ashore with him, to
find that he was correct. The cripple’s blood swarmed with the malarial
organisms, but we managed to overcome them. When I came to leave he was
quite out of danger.
“It was about six months later that I was in a little hotel in New York
much frequented by people from south of the tropic, when who should come
in but Rosenthal. I saw immediately that he was in trouble. His big,
swarthy, Satanic face was seamed and lined and his shaggy black eyebrows
almost hid his fierce green eyes.
“‘_Bon jour_, Dr. Leyden,’ said he, roughly. ‘I heard that you were here
and have come to engage your services.’
“‘Indeed?’ said I.
“‘But yes—it is Jacob again. Ah, _mon_ _dieu_!’ He broke into violent
profanity, and his yellow teeth gleamed from beneath his bristling
mustache. ‘He is in the prison at Porto Cabello.’
“Personally, Doctor, I thought no doubt that that was precisely where he
belonged, but I naturally did not say so to Isidore. Instead I asked him
for particulars.
“‘You have heard of “La Fouchère?”’ he snapped, ‘the wife of that nigger
doctor from Hayti who spends most of his time hanging around the _Moulin
Rouge_?’
“‘They are acquaintances of mine,’ said I.
“‘The ——!’ I will not repeat the term which he applied to the lady,
Doctor. ‘When I left Curaçao a month ago,’ said Rosenthal, ‘she was
there waiting for the French steamer on her way to Paris. You know she
is as white as myself’ (as a matter of fact La Fouchère would have made
Rosenthal look a Zulu, as the woman’s skin was like a piece of paper
held against the light) ‘and she is as beautiful as sin. Little Jacob
must fall in love with her, like the child he is. They go together to
Caracas, and while there she falls in with an old flame, General Trocas,
and the two of them plan to get possession of the bag of gems which I
left with Jacob while in the States.’
“‘Bad business,’ said I. ‘I know Trocas also.’ He was the chap, Doctor,
who broke up my Orinoco expedition and landed me in the prison at
Cumana.
“‘Is it not, _mon cher_? But the little Jacob is no fool; they have had
him arrested and searched on a charge of conspiring in Curaçao, but they
have been unable to find the gems——’
“‘And so have lodged him at Porto Cabello until the stones are
forthcoming?’
“‘Rather through spite, and it is to get him out that I wish to engage
your services, my dear Doctor.’
“‘Indeed?’ said I.
“‘My plan is this,’ said Rosenthal. ‘The fortress is, as you know, full
of political prisoners from the last revolution, and, as there is no
immediate prospect of another revolution, they are apt to remain there
for some time. You know, Doctor’—he grinned at me—‘how very poor are the
accommodations of these hostelries. I know of a dozen wealthy exiles in
Curaçao who would contribute a large sum toward the rescue of their
friends. My plan is to quietly raise such a subscription and proceed to
Porto Cabello and get the gems, which I will turn over to the commandant
of the prison on consideration that he permits the escape of Jacob. You
in the meantime will quietly charter a schooner in Curaçao for a
scientific expedition, sail across and on a certain night be off Porto
Cabello. We will communicate there. The prison guards on that night will
be blind to a boat under the sea-wall, and instead of the escape of
Jacob alone there will be an escape of _all_ of the political prisoners.
The subscription of the others will reimburse me for the expense of
ransoming Jacob.’
“I reflected for a moment, then asked him if he thought the commandant
of the prison would keep his faith.
“‘We must take some chances, of course,’ answered Rosenthal. ‘For your
part, Doctor, there is no risk, and you may name your own figure.
Remember that I am already deeply in your debt.’