When his hunting trip in Uganda was over, Hemingway shipped his
specimens and weapons direct from Mombasa to New York, but he himself
journeyed south over the few miles that stretched to Zanzibar.
On the outward trip the steamer had touched there, and the little he
saw of the place had so charmed him that all the time he was on safari
he promised himself he would not return home without revisiting it. On
the morning he arrived he had called upon Harris, his consul, to
inquire about the hotel; and that evening Harris had returned his call
and introduced him at the club.
One of the men there asked Hemingway what brought him to Africa, and
when he answered simply and truthfully that he had come to shoot big
game, it was as though he had said something clever, and every one
smiled. On the way back to the hotel, as they felt their way through
the narrow slits in the wall that served as streets, he asked the
consul why every one had smiled.
The consul laughed evasively.
"It's a local joke," he explained. "A lot of men come here for reasons
best kept to themselves, and they all say what you said, that they've
come to shoot big game. It's grown to be a polite way of telling a man
it is none of his business."
"But I didn't mean it that way," protested Hemingway. "I really have
been after big game for the last eight months."
In the tone one uses to quiet a drunken man or a child, the consul
answered soothingly.
"Of course," he assented--"of course you have." But to show he was not
hopelessly credulous, and to keep Hemingway from involving himself
deeper, he hinted tactfully: "Maybe they noticed you came ashore with
only one steamer trunk and no gun-cases."
"Oh, that's easily explained," laughed Hemingway. "My heavy luggage--"
The consul had reached his house and his "boy" was pounding upon it
with his heavy staff.
"Please don't explain to me," he begged. "It's quite unnecessary. Down
here we're so darned glad to see any white man that we don't ask
anything of him except that he won't hurry away. We judge them as they
behave themselves here; we don't care what they are at home or why they
left it."
Hemingway was highly amused. To find that he, a respectable,
sport-loving Hemingway of Massachusetts, should be mistaken for a
gun-runner, slave-dealer, or escaping cashier greatly delighted him.
"All right!" he exclaimed. "I'll promise not to bore you with my past,
and I agree to be judged by Zanzibar standards. I only hope I can live
up to them, for I see I am going to like the place very much."
Hemingway kept his promise. He bored no one with confidences as to his
ancestors. Of his past he made a point never to speak. He preferred
that the little community into which he had dropped should remain
unenlightened, should take him as they found him. Of the fact that a
college was named after his grandfather and that on his father's
railroad he could travel through many States, he was discreetly silent.
The men of Zanzibar asked no questions. That Hemingway could play a
stiff game of tennis, a stiffer game of poker, and, on the piano, songs
from home was to them sufficient recommendation. In a week he had
become one of the most popular members of Zanzibar society. It was as
though he had lived there always. Hemingway found himself reaching out
to grasp the warmth of the place as a flower turns to the sun. He
discovered that for thirty years something in him had been cheated. For
thirty years he had believed that completely to satisfy his soul all he
needed was the gray stone walls and the gray-shingled cabins under the
gray skies of New England, that what in nature he most loved was the
pine forests and the fields of goldenrod on the rock-bound coast of the
North Shore. But now, like a man escaped from prison, he leaped and
danced in the glaring sunlight of the equator, he revelled in the
reckless generosity of nature, in the glorious confusion of colors, in
the "blooming blue" of the Indian Ocean, in the Arabian nights spent
upon the housetops under the purple sky, and beneath silver stars so
near that he could touch them with his hand.
He found it like being perpetually in a comic opera and playing a part
in one. For only the scenic artist would dare to paint houses in such
yellow, pink, and cobalt-blue; only a "producer" who had never ventured
farther from Broadway than the Atlantic City boardwalk would have
conceived costumes so mad and so magnificent. Instinctively he cast
the people of Zanzibar in the conventional roles of musical comedy.
His choruses were already in waiting. There was the Sultan's
body-guard in gold-laced turbans, the merchants of the bazaars in red
fezzes and gowns of flowing silk, the Malay sailors in blue, the black
native police in scarlet, the ladies of the harems closely veiled and
cloaked, the market women in a single garment of orange, or scarlet, or
purple, or of all three, and the happy, hilarious Zanzibari boys in the
color God gave them.
For hours he would sit under the yellow-and-green awning of the Greek
hotel and watch the procession pass, or he would lie under an umbrella
on the beach and laugh as the boatmen lifted their passengers to their
shoulders and with them splash through the breakers, or in the bazaars
for hours he would bargain with the Indian merchants, or in the great
mahogany hall of the Ivory House, to the whisper of a punka and the
tinkle of ice in a tall glass, listen to tales of Arab raids, of
elephant poachers, of the trade in white and black ivory, of the great
explorers who had sat in that same room--of Emin Pasha, of Livingstone,
of Stanley. His comic opera lacked only a heroine and the love
interest.
When he met Mrs. Adair he found both. Polly Adair, as every one who
dared to do so preferred to call her, was, like himself, an American
and, though absurdly young, a widow. In the States she would have been
called an extremely pretty girl. In a community where the few dozen
white women had wilted and faded in the fierce sun of the equator, and
where the rest of the women were jet black except their teeth, which
were dyed an alluring purple, Polly Adair was as beautiful as a June
morning. At least, so Hemingway thought the first time he saw her, and
each succeeding time he thought her more beautiful, more lovely, more
to be loved.
He met her, three days after his arrival, at the residence of the
British agent and consul-general, where Lady Firth was giving tea to
the six nurses from the English hospital and to all the other
respectable members of Zanzibar society.
"My husband's typist," said her ladyship as she helped Hemingway to
tea, "is a copatriot of yours. She's such a nice gell; not a bit like
an American. I don't know what I'd do in this awful place without her.
Promise me," she begged tragically, "you will not ask her to marry you."
Unconscious of his fate, Hemingway promised.
"Because all the men do," sighed Lady Firth, "and I never know what
morning one of the wretches won't carry her off to a home of her own.
And then what would become of me? Men are so selfish! If you must fall
in love," suggested her ladyship, "promise me you will fall in love
with"--she paused innocently and raised baby-blue eyes, in a baby-like
stare--"with some one else."
Again Hemingway promised. He bowed gallantly. "That will be quite
easy," he said.
Her ladyship smiled, but Hemingway did not see the smile. He was
looking past her at a girl from home, who came across the terrace
carrying in her hand a stenographer's note-book.
Lady Firth followed the direction of his eyes and saw the look in them.
She exclaimed with dismay:
"Already! Already he deserts me, even before the ink is dry on the
paper."
She drew the note-book from Mrs. Adair's fingers and dropped it under
the tea-table.
"Letters must wait, my child," she declared.
"But Sir George--" protested the girl.
"Sir George must wait, too," continued his wife; "the Foreign Office
must wait, the British Empire must wait until you have had your tea."
The girl laughed helplessly. As though assured her fellow countryman
would comprehend, she turned to him.
"They're so exactly like what you want them to be," she said--"I mean
about their tea!"
Hemingway smiled back with such intimate understanding that Lady Firth
glanced up inquiringly.
"Have you met Mrs. Adair already?" she asked.
"No," said Hemingway, "but I have been trying to meet her for thirty
years."
Perplexed, the Englishwoman frowned, and then, with delight at her own
perspicuity, laughed aloud.
"I know," she cried, "in your country you are what they call a
'hustler'! Is that right?" She waved them away. "Take Mrs. Adair over
there," she commanded, "and tell her all the news from home. Tell her
about the railroad accidents and 'washouts' and the latest thing in
lynching."
The young people stretched out in long wicker chairs in the shade of a
tree covered with purple flowers. On a perch at one side of them an
orang-outang in a steel belt was combing the whiskers of her infant
daughter; at their feet what looked like two chow puppies, but which
happened to be Lady Firth's pet lions, were chewing each other's
toothless gums; and in the immediate foreground the hospital nurses
were defying the sun at tennis while the Sultan's band played
selections from a Gaiety success of many years in the past. With these
surroundings it was difficult to talk of home. Nor on any later
occasions, except through inadvertence, did they talk of home.
For the reasons already stated, it amused Hemingway to volunteer no
confidences. On account of what that same evening Harris told him of
Mrs. Adair, he asked none.
Harris himself was a young man in no way inclined to withhold
confidences. He enjoyed giving out information. He enjoyed talking
about himself, his duties, the other consuls, the Zanzibaris, and his
native State of Iowa. So long as he was permitted to talk, the
listener could select the subject. But, combined with his loquacity,
Hemingway had found him kind-hearted, intelligent, observing, and the
call of a common country had got them quickly together.
Hemingway was quite conscious that the girl he had seen but once had
impressed him out of all proportion to what he knew of her. She seemed
too good to be true. And he tried to persuade himself that after eight
months in the hinterland among hippos and zebras any reasonably
attractive girl would have proved equally disturbing.
But he was not convinced. He did not wish to be convinced. He assured
himself that had he met Mrs. Adair at home among hundreds of others he
would have recognized her as a woman of exceptional character, as one
especially charming. He wanted to justify this idea of her; he wanted
to talk of Mrs. Adair to Harris, not to learn more concerning her, but
just for the pleasure of speaking her name.
He was much upset at that, and the discovery that on meeting a woman
for the first time he still could be so boyishly and ingenuously moved
greatly pleased him. It was a most delightful secret. So he acted on
the principle that when a man immensely admires a woman and wishes to
conceal that fact from every one else he can best do so by declaring
his admiration in the frankest and most open manner. After the
tea-party, as Harris and himself sat in the consulate, he so expressed
himself.
"What an extraordinary nice girl," he exclaimed, "is that Mrs. Adair! I
had a long talk with her. She is most charming. However did a woman
like that come to be in a place like this?"
Judging from his manner, it seemed to Hemingway that at the mention of
Mrs. Adair's name he had found Harris mentally on guard, as though the
consul had guessed the question would come and had prepared for it.
"She just dropped in here one day," said Harris, "from no place in
particular. Personally, I always have thought from heaven."
"It's a good address," said Hemingway.
"It seems to suit her," the consul agreed. "Anyway, if she doesn't
come from there, that's where she's going--just on account of the good
she's done us while she's been here. She arrived four months ago with
a typewriting-machine and letters to me from our consuls in Cape Town
and Durban. She had done some typewriting for them. It seems that
after her husband died, which was a few months after they were married,
she learned to make her living by typewriting. She worked too hard and
broke down, and the doctor said she must go to hot countries, the
'hotter the better.' So she's worked her way half around the world
typewriting. She worked chiefly for her own consuls or for the
American commission houses. Sometimes she stayed a month, sometimes
only over one steamer day. But when she got here Lady Firth took such
a fancy to her that she made Sir George engage her as his private
secretary, and she's been here ever since."
In a community so small as was that of Zanzibar the white residents saw
one another every day, and within a week Hemingway had met Mrs. Adair
many times. He met her at dinner, at the British agency; he met her in
the country club, where the white exiles gathered for tea and tennis.
He hired a launch and in her honor gave a picnic on the north coast of
the island, and on three glorious and memorable nights, after different
dinner-parties had ascended to the roof, he sat at her side and across
the white level of the housetops looked down into the moonlit harbor.
What interest the two young people felt in each other was in no way
discouraged by their surroundings. In the tropics the tender emotions
are not winter killed. Had they met at home, the conventions, his own
work, her social duties would have kept the progress of their interest
within a certain speed limit. But they were in a place free of
conventions, and the preceding eight months which Hemingway had spent
in the jungle and on the plain had made the society of his fellow man,
and of Mrs. Adair in particular, especially attractive.
Hemingway had no work to occupy his time, and he placed it unreservedly
at the disposition of his countrywoman. In doing so it could not be
said that Mrs. Adair encouraged him. Hemingway himself would have been
the first to acknowledge this. From the day he met her he was
conscious that always there was an intangible barrier between them.
Even before she possibly could have guessed that his interest in her
was more than even she, attractive as she was, had the right to expect,
she had wrapped around herself an invisible mantle of defense.
There were certain speeches of his which she never heard, certain tones
to which she never responded. At moments when he was complimenting
himself that at last she was content to be in his company, she would
suddenly rise and join the others, and he would be left wondering in
what way he could possibly have offended.
He assured himself that a woman, young and attractive, in a strange
land in her dependent position must of necessity be discreet, but in
his conduct there certainly had been nothing that was not considerate,
courteous, and straightforward.
When he appreciated that he cared for her seriously, that he was
gloriously happy in caring, and proud of the way in which he cared, the
fact that she persistently held him at arm's length puzzled and hurt.
At first when he had deliberately set to work to make her like him he
was glad to think that, owing to his reticence about himself, if she
did like him it would be for himself alone and not for his worldly
goods. But when he knew her better he understood that if once Mrs.
Adair made up her mind to take a second husband, the fact that he was a
social and financial somebody, and not, as many in Zanzibar supposed
Hemingway to be, a social outcast, would make but little difference.
Nor was her manner to be explained by the fact that the majority of
women found him unattractive. As to that, the pleasant burden of his
experience was to the contrary. He at last wondered if there was some
one else, if he had come into her life too late. He set about looking
for the man and so, he believed, he soon found him.
Of the little colony, Arthur Fearing was the man of whom Hemingway had
seen the least. That was so because Fearing wished it. Like himself,
Fearing was an American, young, and a bachelor, but, very much unlike
Hemingway, a hermit and a recluse.
Two years before he had come to Zanzibar looking for an investment for
his money. In Zanzibar there were gentlemen adventurers of every
country, who were welcome to live in any country save their own.
To them Mr. Fearing seemed a heaven-sent victim. But to him their
alluring tales of the fortunes that were to rise from buried treasures,
lost mines, and pearl beds did not appeal. Instead he conferred with
the consuls, the responsible merchants, the partners in the prosperous
trading houses. After a month of "looking around" he had purchased
outright the goodwill and stock of one of the oldest of the commission
houses, and soon showed himself to be a most capable man of business.
But, except as a man of business, no one knew him. From the dim
recesses of his warehouse he passed each day to the seclusion of his
bungalow in the country. And, although every one was friendly to him,
he made no friends.
It was only after the arrival of Mrs. Adair that he consented to show
himself, and it was soon noted that it was only when she was invited
that he would appear, and that on these occasions he devoted himself
entirely to her. In the presence of others, he still was shy, gravely
polite, and speaking but little, and never of himself; but with Mrs.
Adair his shyness seemed to leave him, and when with her he was seen to
talk easily and eagerly. And, on her part, to what he said, Polly
Adair listened with serious interest.
Lady Firth, who, at home, was a trained and successful match-maker, and
who, in Zanzibar, had found but a limited field for her activities,
decided that if her companion and protegee must marry, she should marry
Fearing.
Fearing was no gentleman adventurer, remittance-man, or humble clerk
serving his apprenticeship to a steamship line or an ivory house. He
was one of the pillars of Zanzibar society. The trading house he had
purchased had had its beginnings in the slave-trade, and now under his
alert direction was making a turnover equal to that of any of its
ancient rivals. Personally, Fearing was a most desirable catch. He
was well-mannered, well-read, of good appearance, steady, and, in a
latitude only six degrees removed from the equator, of impeccable
morals.
It is said that it is the person who is in love who always is the first
to discover his successful rival. It is either an instinct or because
his concern is deeper than that of others.
And so, when Hemingway sought for the influence that separated him from
Polly Adair, the trail led to Fearing. To find that the obstacle in
the path of his true love was a man greatly relieved him. He had
feared that what was in the thoughts of Mrs. Adair was the memory of
her dead husband. He had no desire to cross swords with a ghost. But
to a living rival he could afford to be generous.
For he was sure no one could care for Polly Adair as he cared, and,
like every other man in love, he believed that he alone had discovered
in her beauties of soul and character that to the rest of mankind were
hidden. This knowledge, he assured himself, had aroused in him a depth
of devotion no one else could hope to imitate, and this depth of
devotion would in time so impress her, would become so necessary to her
existence, that it would force her at last into the arms of the only
man who could offer it.
Having satisfied himself in this fashion, he continued cheerfully on
his way, and the presence of a rival in no way discouraged him. It
only was Polly Adair who discouraged him. And this, in spite of the
fact that every hour of the day he tried to bring himself pleasantly to
her notice. All that an idle young man in love, aided and abetted by
imagination and an unlimited letter of credit, could do, Hemingway did.
But to no end.
The treasures he dug out of the bazaars and presented to her, under
false pretenses as trinkets he happened at that moment to find in his
pockets, were admired by her at their own great value, and returned
also under false pretenses, as having been offered her only to examine.
"It is for your sister at home, I suppose," she prompted. "It's quite
lovely. Thank you for letting me see it."
After having been several times severely snubbed in this fashion,
Hemingway remarked grimly as he put a black pearl back into his pocket:
"At this rate sister will be mighty glad to see me when I get home. It
seems almost a pity I haven't got a sister."
The girl answered this only with a grave smile.
On another occasion she admired a polo pony that had been imported for
the stable of the boy Sultan. But next morning Hemingway, after much
diplomacy, became the owner of it and proudly rode it to the agency.
Lady Firth and Polly Adair walked out to meet him arm in arm, but at
sight of the pony there came into the eyes of the secretary a look that
caused Hemingway to wish himself and his mount many miles in the
jungle. He saw that before it had been proffered, his gift-horse had
been rejected. He acted promptly.
"Lady Firth," he said, "you've been so awfully kind to me, made this
place so like a home to me, that I want you to put this mare in your
stable. The Sultan wanted her, but when he learned I meant to turn her
over to you, he let her go. We both hope you'll accept."
Lady Firth had no scruples. In five minutes she had accepted, had
clapped a side-saddle on her rich gift, and was cantering joyously down
the Pearl Road.
Polly Adair looked after her with an expression that was distinctly
wistful. Thus encouraged, Hemingway said:
"I'm glad you are sorry. I hope every time you see that pony you'll be
sorry."
"Why should I be sorry?" asked the girl.
"Because you have been unkind," said Hemingway, "and it is not your
character to be unkind. And that you have shown lack of character
ought to make you sorry."
"But you know perfectly well," said Mrs. Adair, "that if I were to take
any one of these wonderful things you bring me, I wouldn't have any
character left."
She smiled at him reassuringly. "And you know," she added, "that that
is not why I do not take them. It isn't because I can't afford to, or
because I don't want them, because I do; but it's because I don't
deserve them, because I can give you nothing in return."
"As the copy-book says," returned Hemingway, "'the pleasure is in the
giving.' If the copy-book don't say that, I do. And to pretend that
you give me nothing, that is ridiculous!"
It was so ridiculous that he rushed on vehemently. "Why, every minute
you give me something," he exclaimed. "Just to see you, just to know
you are alive, just to be certain when I turn in at night that when the
world wakes up again you will still be a part of it; that is what you
give me. And its name is--Happiness!"
He had begun quite innocently; he had had no idea that it would come.
But he had said it. As clearly as though he had dropped upon one knee,
laid his hand over his heart and exclaimed: "Most beautiful of your
sex, I love you! Will you marry me?" His eyes and the tone of his
voice had said it. And he knew that he had said it, and that she knew.
Her eyes were filled with sudden tears, and so wonderful was the light
in them that for one mad moment Hemingway thought they were tears of
happiness. But the light died, and what had been tears became only wet
drops of water, and he saw to his dismay that she was most miserable.
The girl moved ahead of him to the cliff on which the agency stood, and
which overhung the harbor and the Indian Ocean. Her eyes were filled
with trouble. As she raised them to his they begged of him to be kind.
"I am glad you told me," she said. "I have been afraid it was coming.
But until you told me I could not say anything. I tried to stop you.
I was rude and unkind--"
"You certainly were," Hemingway agreed cheerfully. "And the more you
would have nothing to do with me, the more I admired you. And then I
learned to admire you more, and then to love you. It seems now as
though I had always known and always loved you. And now this is what
we are going to do."
He wouldn't let her speak; he rushed on precipitately.
"We are first going up to the house to get your typewriting-machine,
and we will bring it back here and hurl it as far as we can off this
cliff. I want to see the splash! I want to hear it smash when it hits
that rock. It has been my worst enemy, because it helped you to be
independent of me, because it kept you from me. Time after time, on
the veranda, when I was pretending to listen to Lady Firth, I was
listening to that damned machine banging and complaining and tiring
your pretty fingers and your dear eyes. So first it has got to go.
You have been its slave, now I am going to be your slave. You have
only to rub the lamp and things will happen. And because I've told you
nothing about myself, you mustn't think that the money that helps to
make them happen is 'tainted.' It isn't. Nor am I, nor my father, nor
my father's father. I am asking you to marry a perfectly respectable
young man. And, when you do--"
Again he gave her no opportunity to interrupt, but rushed on
impetuously: "We will sail away across that ocean to wherever you will
take me. To Ceylon and Tokio and San Francisco, to Naples and New
York, to Greece and Athens. They are all near. They are all yours.
Will you accept them and me?" He smiled appealingly, but most
miserably. For though he had spoken lightly and with confidence, it
was to conceal the fact that he was not at all confident. As he had
read in her eyes her refusal of his pony, he had read, even as he
spoke, her refusal of himself. When he ceased speaking the girl
answered:
"If I say that what you tell me makes me proud, I am saying too
little." She shook her head firmly, with an air of finality that
frightened Hemingway. "But what you ask--what you suggest is
impossible."
"You don't like me?" said Hemingway.
"I like you very much," returned the girl, "and, if I don't seem
unhappy that it can't be, it is because I always have known it can't
be--"
"Why can't it be?" rebelled Hemingway. "I don't mean that I can't
understand your not wanting to marry me, but if I knew your objection,
maybe, I could beat it down."
Again, with the same air of finality, the girl moved her head slowly,
as though considering each word; she began cautiously.
"I cannot tell you the reason," she said, "because it does not concern
only myself."
"If you mean you care for some one else," pleaded Hemingway, "that does
not frighten me at all." It did frighten him extremely, but, believing
that a faint heart never won anything, he pretended to be brave.
"For you," he boasted, "I would go down into the grave as deep as any
man. He that hath more let him give. I know what I offer. I know I
love you as no other man--"
The girl backed away from him as though he had struck her. "You must
not say that," she commanded.
For the first time he saw that she was moved, that the fingers she
laced and unlaced were trembling. "It is final!" exclaimed the girl.
"I cannot marry--you, or any one. I--I have promised. I am not free."
"Nothing in the world is final," returned Hemingway sharply, "except
death." He raised his hat and, as though to leave her, moved away.
Not because he admitted defeat, but because he felt that for the
present to continue might lose him the chance to fight again. But, to
deliver an ultimatum, he turned back.
"As long as you are alive, and I am alive," he told her, "all things
are possible. I don't give up hope. I don't give up you."
The girl exclaimed with a gesture of despair. "He won't understand!"
she cried.
Hemingway advanced eagerly.
"Help me to understand," he begged.
"You won't understand," explained the girl, "that I am speaking the
truth. You are right that things can change in the future, but nothing
can change the past. Can't you understand that?"
"What do I care for the past?" cried the young man scornfully. "I know
you as well as though I had known you for a thousand years and I love
you."
The girl flushed crimson.
"Not my past," she gasped. "I meant--"
"I don't care what you meant," said Hemingway. "I'm not prying into
your little secrets. I know only one thing--two things, that I love
you and that, until you love me, I am going to make your life hell!"
He caught at her hands, and for an instant she let him clasp them in
both of his, while she looked at him.
Something in her face, other than distress and pity, caused his heart
to leap. But he was too wise to speak, and, that she might not read
the hope in his eyes, turned quickly and left her. He had not crossed
the grounds of the agency before he had made up his mind as to the
reason for her repelling him.
"She is engaged to Fearing!" he told himself. "She has promised to
marry Fearing! She thinks that it is too late to consider another man!"
The prospect of a fight for the woman he loved thrilled him greatly.
His lower jaw set pugnaciously.
"I'll show her it's not too late," he promised himself. "I'll show her
which of us is the man to make her happy. And, if I am not the man,
I'll take the first outbound steamer and trouble them no more. But
before that happens," he also promised himself, "Fearing must show he
is the better man."
In spite of his brave words, in spite of his determination, within the
day Hemingway had withdrawn in favor of his rival, and, on the Crown
Prince Eitel, bound for Genoa and New York, had booked his passage home.
On the afternoon of the same day he had spoken to Polly Adair,
Hemingway at the sunset hour betook himself to the consulate. At that
hour it had become his custom to visit his fellow countryman and with
him share the gossip of the day and such a cocktail as only a fellow
countryman could compose. Later he was to dine at the house of the
Ivory Company and, as his heart never ceased telling him, Mrs. Adair
also was to be present.
"It will be a very pleasant party," said Harris. "They gave me a bid,
too, but it's steamer day to-morrow, and I've got to get my mail ready
for the Crown Prince Eitel. Mrs. Adair is to be there."
Hemingway nodded, and with pleasant anticipation waited. Of Mrs.
Adair, Harris always spoke with reverent enthusiasm, and the man who
loved her delighted to listen. But this time Harris disappointed him.
"And Fearing, too," he added.
Again Hemingway nodded. The conjunction of the two names surprised
him, but he made no sign. Loquacious as he knew Harris to be, he never
before had heard his friend even suggest the subject that to Zanzibar
had become of acute interest.
Harris filled the two glasses, and began to pace the room. When he
spoke it was in the aggrieved tone of one who feels himself placed in a
false position.
"There's no one," he complained suddenly, "so popularly unpopular as
the man who butts in. I know that, but still I've always taken his
side. I've always been for him." He halted, straddling with legs
apart and hands deep in his trousers pockets, and frowned down upon his
guest.
"Suppose," he began aggressively, "I see a man driving his car over a
cliff. If I tell him that road will take him over a cliff, the worst
that can happen to me is to be told to mind my own business, and I can
always answer back: 'I was only trying to help you.' If I don't speak,
the man breaks his neck. Between the two, it seems to me, sooner than
have any one's life on my hands, I'd rather be told to mind my own
business."
Hemingway stared into his glass. His expression was distinctly
disapproving, but, undismayed, the consul continued.
"Now, we all know that this morning you gave that polo pony to Lady
Firth, and one of us guesses that you first offered it to some one
else, who refused it. One of us thinks that very soon, to-morrow, or
even to-night, at this party you may offer that same person something
else, something worth more than a polo pony, and that if she refuses
that, it is going to break you all up, is going to hurt you for the
rest of your life."
Lifting his eyes from his glass, Hemingway shot at his friend a glance
of warning. In haste, Harris continued:
"I know," he protested, answering the look, "I know that this is where
Mr. Buttinsky is told to mind his business. But I'm going right on.
I'm going to state a hypothetical case with no names mentioned and no
questions asked, or answered. I'm going to state a theory, and let you
draw your own deductions."
He slid into a chair, and across the table fastened his eyes on those
of his friend. Confidently and undisturbed, but with a wry smile of
dislike, Hemingway stared fixedly back at him.
"What," demanded Harris, "is the first rule in detective work?"
Hemingway started. He was prepared for something unpleasant, but not
for that particular form of unpleasantness. But his faith was
unshaken, and he smiled confidently. He let the consul answer his own
question.
"It is to follow the woman," declared Harris. "And, accordingly, what
should be the first precaution of a man making his get-away? To see
that the woman does not follow. But suppose we are dealing with a
fugitive of especial intelligence, with a criminal who has imagination
and brains? He might fix it so that the woman could follow him without
giving him away, he might plan it so that no one would suspect. She
might arrive at his hiding-place only after many months, only after
each had made separately a long circuit of the globe, only after a
journey with a plausible and legitimate object. She would arrive
disguised in every way, and they would meet as total strangers. And,
as strangers under the eyes of others, they would become acquainted,
would gradually grow more friendly, would be seen more frequently
together, until at last people would say: 'Those two mean to make a
match of it.' And then, one day, openly, in the sight of all men, with
the aid of the law and the church, they would resume those relations
that existed before the man ran away and the woman followed."
There was a short silence.
Hemingway broke it in a tone that would accept no denial.
"You can't talk like that to me," he cried. "What do you mean?"
Without resentment, the consul regarded him with grave solicitude. His
look was one of real affection, and, although his tone held the
absolute finality of the family physician who delivers a sentence of
death, he spoke with gentleness and regret.
"I mean," he said, "that Mrs. Adair is not a widow, that the man she
speaks of as her late husband is not dead; that that man is Fearing!"
Hemingway felt afraid. A month before a rhinoceros had charged him and
had dropped at his feet. At another time a wounded lioness had leaped
into his path and crouched to spring. Then he had not been afraid.
Then he had aimed as confidently as though he were firing at a straw
target. But now he felt real fear: fear of something he did not
comprehend, of a situation he could not master, of an adversary as
strong as Fate. By a word something had been snatched from him that he
now knew was as dear to him as life, that was life, that was what made
it worth continuing. And he could do nothing to prevent it; he could
not help himself. He was as impotent as the prisoner who hears the
judge banish him into exile. He tried to adjust his mind to the
calamity. But his mind refused. As easily as with his finger a man
can block the swing of a pendulum and halt the progress of the clock,
Harris with a word had brought the entire world to a full stop.
And then, above his head, Hemingway heard the lazy whisper of the
punka, and from the harbor the raucous whistle of the Crown Prince
Eitel, signalling her entrance. The world had not stopped; for the
punka-boy, for the captain of the German steamer, for Harris seated
with face averted, the world was still going gayly and busily forward.
Only for him had it stopped.
In spite of the confident tone in which Harris had spoken, in spite of
the fact that unless he knew it was the truth, he would not have
spoken, Hemingway tried to urge himself to believe there had been some
hideous, absurd error. But in answer came back to him snatches of talk
or phrases the girl had last addressed to him: "You can command the
future, but you cannot change the past. I cannot marry you, or any
one! I am not free!"
And then to comfort himself, he called up the look he had surprised in
her eyes when he stood holding her hands in his. He clung to it, as a
drowning man will clutch even at a piece of floating seaweed.
When he tried to speak he found his voice choked and stifled, and that
his distress was evident, he knew from the pity he read in the eyes of
Harris.
In a voice strange to him, he heard himself saying: "Why do you think
that? You've got to tell me. I have a right to know. This morning I
asked Mrs. Adair to marry me."
The consul exclaimed with dismay and squirmed unhappily. "I didn't
know," he protested. "I thought I was in time. I ought to have told
you days ago, but--"
"Tell me now," commanded Hemingway.
"I know it in a thousand ways," began Harris.
Hemingway raised his eyes hopefully.
But the consul shook his head. "But to convince you," he went on, "I
need tell you only one. The thousand other proofs are looks they have
exchanged, sentences I have chanced to overhear, and that each of them
unknown to the other has told me of little happenings and incidents
which I found were common to both. Each has described the house in
which he or she lived, and it was the same house. They claim to come
from different cities in New England, they came from the same city.
They claim--"
"That is no proof," cried Hemingway, "either that they are married, or
that the man is a criminal."
For a moment Harris regarded the other in silence. Then he said:
"You're making it very hard for me. I see I've got to show you. It's
kindest, after all, to cut quick." He leaned farther forward, and his
voice dropped. Speaking quickly, he said:
"Last summer I lived outside the town in a bungalow on the Pearl Road.
Fearing's house was next to mine. This was before Mrs. Adair went to
live at the agency, and while she was alone in another bungalow farther
down the road. I was ill that summer; my nerves went back on me. I
couldn't sleep. I used to sit all night on my veranda and pray for the
sun to rise. From where I sat it was dark and no one could see me, but
I could see the veranda of Fearing's house and into his garden. And
night after night I saw Mrs. Adair creep out of Fearing's house, saw
him walk with her to the gate, saw him in the shadow of the bushes take
her in his arms, and saw them kiss." The voice of the consul rose
sharply. "No one knows that but you and I, and," he cried defiantly,
"it is impossible for us to believe ill of Polly Adair. The easy
explanation we refuse. It is intolerable. And so you must believe as I
believe; that when she visited Fearing by night she went to him because
she had the right to go to him, because already she was his wife. And
now when every one here believes they met for the first time in
Zanzibar, when no one will be surprised if they should marry, they will
go through the ceremony again, and live as man and wife, as they are,
as they were before he fled from America!"
Hemingway was seated with his elbows on the table and his face in his
hands. He was so long silent that Harris struck the table roughly with
his palm.
"Well," he demanded, "why don't you speak? Do you doubt her? Don't you
believe she is his wife?"
"I refuse to believe anything else!" said Hemingway. He rose, and
slowly and heavily moved toward the door. "And I will not trouble them
any more," he added. "I'll leave at sunrise on the Eitel."
Harris exclaimed in dismay, but Hemingway did not hear him. In the
doorway he halted and turned back. From his voice all trace of emotion
had departed. "Why," he asked dully, "do you think Fearing is a
fugitive? Not that it matters to her, since she loves him, or that it
matters to me. Only I would like to think you were wrong. I want her
to have only the best."
Again the consul moved unhappily.
"I oughtn't to tell you," he protested, "and if I do I ought to tell
the State Department, and a detective agency first. They have the
call. They want him, or a man damned like him." His voice dropped to a
whisper. "The man wanted is Henry Brownell, a cashier of a bank in
Waltham, Mass., thirty-five years of age, smooth-shaven, college-bred,
speaking with a marked New England accent, and--and with other marks
that fit Fearing like the cover on a book. The department and the
Pinkertons have been devilling the life out of me about it for nine
months. They are positive he is on the coast of Africa. I put them
off. I wasn't sure."
"You've been protecting them," said Hemingway.
"I wasn't sure," reiterated Harris. "And if I were, the Pinkertons can
do their own sleuthing. The man's living honestly now, anyway, isn't
he?" he demanded; "and she loves him. At least she's stuck by him.
Why should I punish her?"
His tone seemed to challenge and upbraid.
"Good God!" cried the other, "I'm not blaming you! I'd be proud of the
chance to do as much. I asked because I'd like to go away thinking
she's content, thinking she's happy with him."
"Doesn't it look as though she were?" Harris protested. "She's
followed him--followed him half around the globe. If she'd been
happier away from him, she'd have stayed away from him."
So intent had been the men upon their talk that neither had noted the
passing of the minutes or, what at other times was an event of moment,
that the mail steamer had distributed her mail and passengers; and when
a servant entered bearing lamps, and from the office the consul's clerk
appeared with a bundle of letters from the Eitel, both were taken by
surprise.
"So late?" exclaimed Hemingway. "I must go. If I'm to sail with the
Eitel at daybreak, I've little time!"
But he did not go.
As he advanced toward Harris with his hand outstretched in adieu, the
face of the consul halted him. With the letters, the clerk had placed
upon the table a visiting-card, and as it lay in the circle of light
from the lamp the consul, as though it were alive and menacing, stared
at it in fascination. Moving stiffly, he turned it so that Hemingway
could see. On it Hemingway read, "George S. Sheyer," and, on a lower
line, "Representing William L. Pinkerton."
To the woman he loved the calamity they dreaded had come, and
Hemingway, with a groan of dismay, exclaimed aloud:
"It is the end!"
From the darkness of the outer office a man stepped softly into the
circle of the lamp. They could see his figure only from the waist
down; the rest of him was blurred in shadows.
"'It is the end'?" he repeated inquiringly. He spoke the phrase with
peculiar emphasis, as though to impress it upon the memory of the two
others. His voice was cool, alert, authoritative. "The end of what?"
he demanded sharply.
The question was most difficult. In the silence the detective moved
into the light. He was tall and strongly built, his face was shrewd
and intelligent. He might have been a prosperous man of business.
"Which of you is the consul?" he asked. But he did not take his eyes
from Hemingway.
"I am the consul," said Harris. But still the detective did not turn
from Hemingway.
"Why," he asked, "did this gentleman, when he read my card, say, 'It is
the end'? The end of what? Has anything been going on here that came to
an end when he saw my card?"
Disconcerted, in deep embarrassment, Harris struggled for a word. But
his distress was not observed by the detective. His eyes, suspicious
and accusing, still were fixed upon Hemingway, and under their scrutiny
Harris saw his friend slowly retreat, slowly crumple up into a chair,
slowly raise his hands to cover his face. As though in a nightmare, he
heard him saying savagely:
"It is the end of two years of hell, it is the end of two years of fear
and agony! Now I shall have peace. Now I shall sleep! I thank God
you've come! I thank God I can go back!"
Harris broke the spell by leaping to his feet. He sprang between the
two men.
"What does this mean?" he commanded.
Hemingway raised his eyes and surveyed him steadily.
"It means," he said, "that I have deceived you, Harris--that I am the
man you told me of, I am the man they want." He turned to the officer.
"I fooled him for four months," he said. "I couldn't fool you for five
minutes."
The eyes of the detective danced with sudden excitement, joy, and
triumph. He shot an eager glance from Hemingway to the consul.
"This man," he demanded; "who is he?"
With an impatient gesture Hemingway signified Harris.
"He doesn't know who I am," he said. "He knows me as Hemingway. I am
Henry Brownell, of Waltham, Mass." Again his face sank into the palms
of his hands. "And I'm tired--tired," he moaned. "I am sick of not
knowing, sick of running away. I give myself up."
The detective breathed a sigh of relief that seemed to issue from his
soul.
"My God," he sighed, "you've given me a long chase! I've had eleven
months of you, and I'm as sick of this as you are." He recovered
himself sharply. As though reciting an incantation, he addressed
Hemingway in crisp, emotionless notes.
"Henry Brownell," he chanted, "I arrest you in the name of the
commonwealth of Massachusetts for the robbery, on October the eleventh,
nineteen hundred and nine, of the Waltham Title and Trust Company. I
understand," he added, "you waive extradition and return with me of
your own free will?"
With his face still in his hands, Hemingway murmured assent. The
detective stepped briskly and uninvited to the table and seated
himself. He was beaming with triumph, with pleasurable excitement.
"I want to send a message home, Mr. Consul," he said. "May I use your
cable blanks?"
Harris was still standing in the centre of the room looking down upon
the bowed head and shoulders of Hemingway. Since, in amazement, he had
sprung toward him, he had not spoken. And he was still silent.
Inside the skull of Wilbur Harris, of Iowa, U. S. A., American consul
to Zanzibar, East Africa, there was going forward a mighty struggle
that was not fit to put into words. For Harris and his conscience had
met and were at odds. One way or the other the fight must be settled
at once, and whatever he decided must be for all time. This he
understood, and as his sympathies and conscience struggled for the
mastery the pen of the detective, scratching at racing speed across the
paper, warned him that only a few seconds were left him in which to
protest or else to forever after hold his peace.
So realistic had been the acting of Hemingway that for an instant
Harris himself had been deceived. But only for an instant. With his
knowledge of the circumstances he saw that Hemingway was not confessing
to a crime of his own, but drawing across the trail of the real
criminal the convenient and useful red herring. He knew that already
Hemingway had determined to sail the next morning. In leaving Zanzibar
he was making no sacrifice. He merely was carrying out his original
plan, and by taking away with him the detective was giving Brownell and
his wife at least a month in which to again lose themselves.
What was his own duty he could not determine. That of Hemingway he
knew nothing, he could truthfully testify. And if now Hemingway
claimed to be Henry Brownell, he had no certain knowledge to the
contrary. That through his adventure Hemingway would come to harm did
not greatly disturb him. He foresaw that his friend need only send a
wireless from Nantucket and at the wharf witnesses would swarm to
establish his identity and make it evident the detective had blundered.
And in the meanwhile Brownell and his wife, in some settlement still
further removed from observation, would for the second time have
fortified themselves against pursuit and capture. He saw the eyes of
Hemingway fixed upon him in appeal and warning.
The brisk voice of the detective broke the silence.
"You will testify, if need be, Mr. Consul," he said, "that you heard
the prisoner admit he was Henry Brownell and that he surrendered
himself of his own free will?"
For an instant the consul hesitated, then he nodded stiffly.
"I heard him," he said.
Three hours later, at ten o' clock of the same evening, the detective
and Hemingway leaned together on the rail of the Crown Prince Eitel.
Forward, in the glare of her cargo lights, to the puffing and creaking
of derricks and donkey engines, bundles of beeswax, of rawhides, and
precious tusks of ivory were being hurled into the hold; from the
shore-boats clinging to the ship's sides came the shrieks of the
Zanzibar boys, from the smoking-room the blare of the steward's band
and the clink of glasses. Those of the youth of Zanzibar who were on
board, the German and English clerks and agents, saw in the presence of
Hemingway only a purpose similar to their own; the desire of a homesick
exile to gaze upon the mirrored glories of the Eitel's saloon, at the
faces of white men and women, to listen to home-made music, to drink
home-brewed beer. As he passed the smoking-room they called to him,
and to the stranger at his elbow, but he only nodded smiling and,
avoiding them, ascended to the shadow of the deserted boat-deck.
"You are sure," he said, "you told no one?"
"No one," the detective answered. "Of course your hotel proprietor
knows you're sailing, but he doesn't know why. And, by sunrise, we'll
be well out at sea."
The words caught Hemingway by the throat. He turned his eyes to the
town lying like a field of snow in the moonlight. Somewhere on one of
its flat roofs a merry dinner-party was laughing, drinking, perhaps
regretting his absence, wondering at his excuse of sudden illness. She
was there, and he with the detective like a shadow at his elbow, was
sailing out of her life forever. He had seen her for the last time:
that morning for the last time had looked into her eyes, had held her
hands in his. He saw the white beach, the white fortress-like walls,
the hanging gardens, the courtesying palms, dimly. It was among those
that he who had thought himself content, had found happiness, and had
then seen it desert him and take out of his life pleasure in all other
things. With a pain that seemed impossible to support, he turned his
back upon Zanzibar and all it meant to him. And, as he turned, he
faced, coming toward him, across the moonlit deck, Fearing.
His instinct was to cry out to the man in warning, but his second
thought showed him that through his very effort to protect the other,
he might bring about his undoing. So, helpless to prevent, in
agitation and alarm, he waited in silence. Of the two men, Fearing
appeared the least disturbed. With a polite but authoritative gesture
he turned to the detective. "I have something to say to this gentleman
before he sails," he said; "would you kindly stand over there?"
He pointed across the empty deck at the other rail.
In the alert, confident young man in the English mess-jacket,
clean-shaven and bronzed by the suns of the equator, the detective saw
no likeness to the pale, bearded bank clerk of the New England city.
This, he guessed, must be some English official, some friend of
Brownell's who generously had come to bid the unfortunate fugitive
Godspeed.
Assured of this, the detective also bowed politely, and, out of
hearing, but with his prisoner in full view, took up a position against
the rail opposite.
Turning his back upon the detective, and facing Hemingway with his eyes
close to his, Fearing began abruptly. His voice was sunk to a whisper,
but he spoke without the slightest sign of trepidation, without the
hesitation of an instant.
"Two years ago, when I was indicted," he whispered, "and ran away,
Polly paid back half of the sum I stole. That left her without a
penny; that's why she took to this typewriting. Since then, I have
paid back nearly all the rest. But Polly was not satisfied. She
wanted me to take my punishment and start fresh. She knew they were
watching her so she couldn't write this to me, but she came to me by a
roundabout way, taking a year to get here. And all the time she's been
here, she's been begging me to go back and give myself up. I couldn't
see it. I knew in a few months I'd have paid back all I took, and I
thought that was enough. I wanted to keep out of jail. But she said I
must take my medicine in our own country, and start square with a clean
slate. She's done a lot for me, and whether I'd have done that for her
or not, I don't know. But now, I must! What you did to-night to save
me, leaves me no choice. So, I'll sail--"
With an exclamation of anger, Hemingway caught the other by the
shoulder and dragged him closer.
"To save you!" he whispered. "No one's thinking of you. I didn't do
it for you. I did it, that you both could escape together, to give you
time--"
"But I tell you," protested Fearing, "she doesn't want me to escape.
And maybe she's right. Anyway, we're sailing with you at--"
"We?" echoed Hemingway.
That again he was to see the woman he loved, that for six weeks through
summer seas he would travel in her company, filled him with alarm, with
distress, with a wonderful happiness.
"We?" he whispered, steadying his voice. "Then--then your wife is
going with you?"
Fearing gazed at him as though the other had suddenly gone mad.
"My wife!" he exclaimed. "I haven't got a wife! If you mean
Polly--Mrs. Adair, she is my sister! And she wants to thank you. She's
below--"
He was not allowed to finish. Hemingway had flung him to one side, and
was racing down the deck.
The detective sprang in pursuit.
"One moment, there!" he shouted.
But the man in the white mess-jacket barred his way.
In the moonlight the detective saw that the alert, bronzed young man
was smiling.
"That's all right," said Fearing. "He'll be back in a minute.
Besides, you don't want him. I'm the man you want."