"--Until their love lifts the curse, and the Jew can die."
"This is mere madness," said I, my tongue blurting it out at length.
"I expected you to say no less. Now look you, sir--in a few minutes I
leave you, I walk home and spend an hour or two before bedtime in adding
figures, balancing accounts; to-morrow I rise and go about my daily
business cheerfully, methodically, always successfully. I am the
long-headed man, making money because I know how to make it, respected
by all, with no trace of madness in me. You, if you meet me to-morrow,
shall recognise none. Just now you are forced to believe me mad.
Believe it then; but listen while I tell you this:--When Rome was, I
was; when Constantinople was, I was. I was that Jew rescued from the
lions. It was I who sailed from the Bosphorus in that ship, with Julia
beside me; I from whom the Moorish pirates tore her, on the beach beside
Tetuan; I who, centuries after, drew those obscene figures on the wall
of your church--the devil, the nun, and the barred convent--when Julia,
another Julia but the same soul, was denied to me and forced into a
nunnery. For the frescoes, too, tell _my_ history. _I_ was that figure
in the dark habit, standing a little back from the cross. Tell me, sir,
did you never hear of Joseph Kartophilus, Pilate's porter?"
I saw that I must humour him. "I have heard his legend," said I;[1]
"and have understood that in time he became a Christian."
He smiled wearily. "He has travelled through many creeds; but he has
never travelled beyond Love. And if that love can be purified of all
passion such as you suspect, he has not travelled beyond forgiveness.
Many times I have known her who shall save me in the end; and now in the
end I have found her and shall be able, at length, to die; have found
her, and with her all my dead loves, in the body of a girl whom you call
half-witted--and shall be able, at length, to die."
And with this he bent over the table, and, resting his face on his arms,
sobbed aloud. I let him sob there for a while, and then touched his
shoulder gently.
He raised his head. "Ah," said he, in a voice which answered the
gentleness of my touch, "you remind me!" And with that he deliberately
slipped his coat off his left arm and, rolling up the shirt sleeve,
bared the arm almost to the shoulder. "I want you close," he added with
half a smile; for I have to confess that during the process I had backed
a couple of paces towards the door. He took up a candle, and held it
while I bent and examined the thin red line which ran like a circlet
around the flesh of the upper arm just below the apex of the deltoid
muscle. When I looked up I met his eyes challenging mine across the
flame.
"Mr. Laquedem," I said, "my conviction is that you are possessed and are
being misled by a grievous hallucination. At the same time I am not
fool enough to deny that the union of flesh and spirit, so passing
mysterious in everyday life (when we pause to think of it), may easily
hold mysteries deeper yet. The Church Catholic, whose servant I am, has
never to my knowledge denied this; yet has providentially made a rule of
St. Paul's advice to the Colossians against intruding into those things
which she hath not seen. In the matter of this extraordinary belief of
yours I can give you no such comfort as one honest man should offer to
another: for I do not share it. But in the more practical matter of
your conduct towards July Constantine, it may help you to know that I
have accepted your word and propose henceforward to trust you as a
gentleman."
"I thank you, sir," he said, as he slipped on his coat. "May I have
your hand on that?"
"With pleasure," I answered, and, having shaken hands, conducted him to
the door.
From that day the affection between Joseph Laquedem and July
Constantine, and their frequent companionship, were open and avowed.
Scandal there was, to be sure; but as it blazed up like straw, so it
died down. Even the women feared to sharpen their tongues openly on
Laquedem, who by this time held the purse of the district, and to offend
whom might mean an empty skivet on Saturday night. July, to be sure,
was more tempting game; and one day her lover found her in the centre
of a knot of women fringed by a dozen children with open mouths and
ears. He stepped forward. "Ladies," said he, "the difficulty which
vexes you cannot, I feel sure, be altogether good for your small sons
and daughters. Let me put an end to it." He bent forward and
reverently took July's hand. "My dear, it appears that the depth of my
respect for you will not be credited by these ladies unless I offer you
marriage. And as I am proud of it, so forgive me if I put it beyond
their doubt. Will you marry me?" July, blushing scarlet, covered her
face with her hands, but shook her head. There was no mistaking the
gesture: all the women saw it. "Condole with me, ladies!" said
Laquedem, lifting his hat and including them in an ironical bow; and
placing July's arm in his, escorted her away.
I need not follow the history of their intimacy, of which I saw, indeed,
no more than my neighbours. On two points all accounts of it agree: the
rapid ageing of the man during this period and the improvement in the
poor girl's intellect. Some profess to have remarked an equally
vehement heightening of her beauty; but, as my recollection serves me,
she had always been a handsome maid; and I set down the
transfiguration--if such it was--entirely to the dawn and growth of her
reason. To this I can add a curious scrap of evidence. I was walking
along the cliff track, one afternoon, between Porthlooe and Lanihale
church-town, when, a few yards ahead, I heard a man's voice declaiming
in monotone some sentences which I could not catch; and rounding the
corner, came upon Laquedem and July. She was seated on a rock; and he,
on a patch of turf at her feet, held open a small volume which he laid
face downwards as he rose to greet me. I glanced at the back of the
book and saw it was a volume of Euripides. I made no comment, however,
on this small discovery; and whether he had indeed taught the girl some
Greek, or whether she merely listened for the sake of hearing his voice,
I am unable to say.
Let me come then to the last scene, of which I was one among many
spectators.
On the morning of August 15th, 1810, and just about daybreak, I was
awakened by the sound of horses' hoofs coming down the road beyond the
vicarage gate. My ear told me at once that they were many riders and
moving at a trot; and a minute later the jingle of metal gave me an
inkling of the truth. I hurried to the window and pulled up the blind.
Day was breaking on a grey drizzle of fog which drove up from seaward,
and through this drizzle I caught sight of the last five or six scarlet
plumes of a troop of dragoons jogging down the hill past my bank of
laurels.
Now our parish had stood for some weeks in apprehension of a visit from
these gentry. The riding-officer, Mr. Luke, had threatened us with them
more than once. I knew, moreover, that a run of goods was contemplated:
and without questions of mine--it did not become a parish priest in
those days to know too much--it had reached my ears that Laquedem was
himself in Roscoff bargaining for the freight. But we had all learnt
confidence in him by this time--his increasing bodily weakness never
seemed to affect his cleverness and resource--and no doubt occurred to
me that he would contrive to checkmate this new move of the
riding-officer's. Nevertheless, and partly I dare say out of curiosity,
to have a good look at the soldiers, I slipped on my clothes and hurried
downstairs and across the garden.
My hand was on the gate when I heard footsteps, and July Constantine
came running down the hill, her red cloak flapping and her hair powdered
with mist.
"Hullo!" said I, "nothing wrong, I hope?" She turned a white,
distraught face to me in the dawn.
"Yes, yes! All is wrong! I saw the soldiers coming--I heard them a
mile away, and sent up the rocket from the church-tower. But the lugger
stood in--they _must_ have seen!--she stood in, and is right under Sheba
Point now--and _he_--"
I whistled. "This is serious. Let us run out towards the point; we--
you, I mean--may be in time to warn them yet."
So we set off running together. The morning breeze had a cold edge on
it, but already the sun had begun to wrestle with the bank of sea-fog.
While we hurried along the cliffs the shoreward fringe of it was ripped
and rolled back like a tent-cloth, and through the rent I saw a broad
patch of the cove below; the sands (for the tide was at low ebb) shining
like silver; the dragoons with their greatcoats thrown back from their
scarlet breasts and their accoutrements flashing against the level rays.
Seaward, the lugger loomed through the weather; but there was a crowd of
men and black boats--half a score of them--by the water's edge, and it
was clear to me at once that a forced run had been at least attempted.
I had pulled up, panting, on the verge of the cliff, when July caught me
by the arm.
"_The sand!_"
She pointed; and well I remember the gesture--the very gesture of the
hand in the fresco--the forefinger extended, the thumb shut within the
palm. "_The sand_ . . . he told me . . ."
Her eyes were wide and fixed. She spoke, not excitedly at all, but
rather as one musing, much as she had answered Laquedem on the morning
when he waved the daisy-chain before her.
I heard an order shouted, high up the beach, and the dragoons came
charging down across the sand. There was a scuffle close by the water's
edge; then, as the soldiers broke through the mob of free-traders and
wheeled their horses round, fetlock deep in the tide, I saw a figure
break from the crowd and run, but presently check himself and walk
composedly towards the cliff up which climbed the footpath leading to
Porthlooe. And above the hubbub of oaths and shouting, I heard a voice
crying distinctly, "Run, man! Tis after thee they are! _Man, go
faster!_"
Even then, had he gained the cliff-track, he might have escaped; for up
there no horseman could follow. But as a trooper came galloping in
pursuit, he turned deliberately. There was no defiance in his attitude;
of that I am sure. What followed must have been mere blundering
ferocity. I saw a jet of smoke, heard the sharp crack of a firearm, and
Joseph Laquedem flung up his arms and pitched forward at full length on
the sand.
The report woke the girl as with the stab of a knife. Her cry--it
pierces through my dreams at times--rang back with the echoes from the
rocks, and before they ceased she was halfway down the cliffside,
springing as surely as a goat, and, where she found no foothold,
clutching the grass, the rooted samphires and sea pinks, and sliding.
While my head swam with the sight of it, she was running across the
sands, was kneeling beside the body, had risen, and was staggering under
the weight of it down to the water's edge.
"Stop her!" shouted Luke, the riding-officer. "We must have the man!
Dead or alive, we must have'n!"
She gained the nearest boat, the free-traders forming up around her, and
hustling the dragoons. It was old Solomon Tweedy's boat, and he,
prudent man, had taken advantage of the skirmish to ease her off, so
that a push would set her afloat. He asserts that as July came up to
him she never uttered a word, but the look on her face said "Push me
off," and though he was at that moment meditating his own escape, he
obeyed and pushed the boat off "like a mazed man." I may add that he
spent three months in Bodmin Gaol for it.
She dropped with her burden against the stern sheets, but leapt up
instantly and had the oars between the thole-pins almost as the boat
floated. She pulled a dozen strokes, and hoisted the main-sail, pulled
a hundred or so, sprang forward and ran up the jib. All this while the
preventive men were straining to get off two boats in pursuit; but, as
you may guess, the free-traders did nothing to help and a great deal to
impede. And first the crews tumbled in too hurriedly, and had to climb
out again (looking very foolish) and push afresh, and then one of the
boats had mysteriously lost her plug and sank in half a fathom of water.
July had gained a full hundred yards' offing before the pursuit began in
earnest, and this meant a good deal. Once clear of the point the small
cutter could defy their rowing and reach away to the eastward with the
wind just behind her beam. The riding-officer saw this, and ordered his
men to fire. They assert, and we must believe, that their object was
merely to disable the boat by cutting up her canvas.
Their first desultory volley did no damage. I stood there, high on the
cliff, and watched the boat, making a spy-glass of my hands. She had
fetched in close under the point, and gone about on the port tack--the
next would clear--when the first shot struck her, cutting a hole through
her jib, and I expected the wind to rip the sail up immediately; yet it
stood. The breeze being dead on-shore, the little boat heeled towards
us, her mainsail hiding the steerswoman.
It was a minute later, perhaps, that I began to suspect that July was
hit, for she allowed the jib to shake and seemed to be running right up
into the wind. The stern swung round and I strained my eyes to catch a
glimpse of her. At that moment a third volley rattled out, a bullet
shore through the peak halliards, and the mainsail came down with a run.
It was all over.
The preventive men cheered and pulled with a will. I saw them run
alongside, clamber into the cutter, and lift the fallen sail.
And that was all. There was no one on board, alive or dead. Whilst the
canvas hid her, in the swift two minutes between the boat's putting
about and her running up into the wind, July Constantine must have
lifted her lover's body overboard and followed it to the bottom of the
sea, There is no other explanation; and of the bond that knit these two
together there is, when I ask myself candidly, no explanation at all,
unless I give more credence than I have any wish to give to the wild
tale which Joseph Laquedem told me. I have told you the facts, my
friend, and leave them to your judgment.
[1] The legend is that as Christ left the judgment hall on His way to
Calvary, Kartophilus smote Him, saying, "Man, go quicker!" and was
answered, "I indeed go quickly; but thou shalt tarry till I come again."