PART IV: THE TOWER

I

With an instinctive movement both Harkness and Dunbar closed in upon

Hesther.

The three stood just in front of the heavy locked door facing the dim

hall. On the bottom stair was Crispin Senior, and on the floor below

him, one on either side, the two Japanese servants.

A glittering candelabrum, hanging high up, was fully lit, but it seemed

to give a very feeble illumination, as though the fog had penetrated

here also.

Crispin was wearing white silk pyjamas, brown leather slippers, and a

dressing-gown of a rich bronze-coloured silk flowered with gold buds and

leaves. His eyes were half-closed, as though the light, dim though it

was, was too strong for him. His face wore a look of petulant rather

childish melancholy. The two servants were statues indeed, no sign of

life proceeding from them. There was, however, very little movement

anywhere, the flags moving in the draught the chief.

Hesther's face was white, and her breath came in little sharp pants, but

she held her body rigid. Harkness after that first cry was silent, but

Dunbar stepped forward shouting:

"You damned hound--you let us go or you shall have this place about your

ears!" The hall echoed the words which, to tell the truth, sounded very

empty and theatrical. They were made to sound the more so by the

quietness of Crispin's reply.

"There is no need," he said, "for all those words, Mr. Dunbar. It is

your own fault that you interfered and must pay for your interference. I

warned you weeks ago not to annoy me. Unfortunately you wouldn't take

advice. You _have_ annoyed me--sadly, and must suffer the consequences."

"If you touch a hair of her head-----" Dunbar burst out.

"As to my daughter-in-law," Crispin said, stepping down on to the floor,

and suddenly smiling, "I can assure you that she is in the best possible

hands. She knows that herself, I'm sure. What induced you, Hesther," he

said, addressing her directly, "to climb out of your window like the

heroine of a cinematograph and career about on the seashore with these

two gentlemen is best known only to yourself. At least you saw the error

of your ways and are in time, after all, to go abroad with us to-day."

He advanced a step towards them. "And you, Mr. Harkness, don't you think

that you have rather violated the decencies of hospitality? I think you

will admit that I showed you nothing but courtesy as host. I invited you

to dinner, then to my house, showed you my few poor things, and how have

you repaid me? Is this the famous American courtesy? And may I ask while

we are on the question, what business this was of yours?"

"It was anybody's business," said Harkness firmly, "to rescue a helpless

girl from such a house as this."

"Indeed?" asked Crispin, "And what is the matter with this house?"

Here Hesther broke in: "Look back two nights ago," she cried, "and ask

yourself then what is the matter with this house and whether it is a

place for a woman to remain in."

"For myself," said Crispin. "I think it is a very nice house, and I am

quite sorry that we are leaving it to-day. That is, some of us--not

all," he added, softly.

"If you are going to murder us," Dunbar cried, "get done with it. We

don't fear you, you know, whatever colour your hair may be. But whether

you murder us or no I can tell you one thing, that your own time has

come--not many more hours of liberty for _you._"

"All the more reason to make the most of those I _have_ got," said

Crispin. "Murder you? No. But you have fallen in very opportunely for

the testing of certain theories of mine. I look forward to a very

interesting hour or two. It is now just four o'clock. We leave this

house at eight--or, at least, some of us do. I can promise all of us a

very interesting four hours with no time for sleep at all. I have no

doubt you are all tired, wandering about in the fog for so long must be

fatiguing, but I don't see any of you sleeping--not for an hour or two,

at least."

Hesther said then: "Mr. Crispin, I believe that I am chiefly concerned

in this. If I promise to go quietly with you abroad I hope that you will

free these two gentlemen. I give you that promise and I shall keep it."

"No, no," Dunbar cried, springing forward. "You shan't go with him

anywhere, Hesther, by heaven you shan't. Not while there's any breath in

my body----"

"And when there isn't any breath in your body, Mr. Dunbar," said

Crispin, "what then?"

"A very good line for an Adelphi melodrama, Mr. Crispin," said Harkness,

"but it seems to me that we've stayed here talking long enough. I warn

you that I am an American citizen, and I am not to be kept here against

my will----"

"Aren't you indeed, Mr. Harkness?" said Crispin. "Well, that's a line of

Adelphi drama, if you like. How many times in a secret service play has

the hero declared that he's an American citizen? Which only goes to

show, I suppose, how near real life is to the theatre--or rather how

much more theatrical real life is than the theatre can ever hope to be.

But you're all right, Mr. Harkness--I won't forget that you're an

American citizen. You shall have special privileges. That I promise

you."

Dunbar then did a foolish thing. He made a dash for the farther end of

the hall. What he had in mind no one knows--in all probability to find a

window, hurl himself through it and escape to give the alarm. But the

alarm to whom? That was, as far as things had yet gone, the foolishness

of their position. A policeman arriving at the house would find nothing

out of order, only that there two gentlemen had broken in, barbarously,

at a midnight hour to abscond with the married lady of the family.

Dunbar's effort was foolish in any case; its issue was that, in a moment

of time, without noise or a word spoken, the two Japanese servants had

him held, one hand on either arm. He looked stupid enough, there in the

middle of the hall, his eyes dim with tears of rage, his body straining

ineffectively against that apparently light and casual hold.

But it was strange to perceive how that movement of Dunbar's had altered

all the situation. Before that the three were at least the semblance of

visitors demanding of their host that they should be allowed to go; now

they were prisoners and knew it. Although Hesther and Harkness were

still untouched they were as conscious as was Dunbar of a sudden

helplessness--and of a new fear.

Harkness watched Crispin who had walked forward and now stood only a

pace or two from Dunbar. Harkness saw that his excitement was almost

uncontrollable. His legs, set widely apart, were quivering, his nostrils

panting, his eyes quite closed so that he seemed a blind man scenting

out his enemy.

"You miserable fellow," he said--and his voice was scarcely more than a

whisper. "You fool--to think that you could interfere. I told you . . .

I warned you . . . and now am I not justified? Yes--a thousand times.

Within the next hour you shall know what pain is, and I shall watch you

realise it."

Then his body trembled with a sort of passionate rhythm as though he

were swaying to the run of some murmured tune. With his eyes closed and

the shivering it was like the performance of some devotional rite. At

least Dunbar showed no fear.

"You can do what you damn well please," he shouted. "I'm not afraid of

you, mad though you are."

"Mad? Mad?" said Crispin, suddenly opening his eyes. "That depends. Yes,

that depends. Is a man mad who acts at last when given a perfectly just

and honourable opportunity for a pleasure from which he has restrained

himself because the opportunity hitherto was _not_ honourable? And

madness? A matter of taste, my friends, decides that. I like olives--you

do not. Are you therefore mad? Surely not. Be broad-minded, my friend.

You have much to learn and but little time in which to learn it."

Harkness perceived that the man was savouring every moment of this

situation. His anticipations of what was to come were so ardent that the

present scene was coloured deep with them. He looked from one to

another, tasting them, and his plans for them on his tongue. His

madness--for never before had his eyes, his hands, his whole attitude of

body more highly proclaimed him mad--had in it all the preoccupation

with some secret life that leads to such a climax. For months, for

years, grains of insanity, like coins in a miser's hoard, had been

heaping up to make this grand total. And now that the moment was come he

was afraid to touch the hoard lest it should melt under his fingers.

He approached Harkness.

"Mr. Harkness," he said quite gently, "believe me I am sorry to see

this. You took me in last evening, you did indeed. I felt that you had a

real interest in the beautiful things of art, and we had that in common.

All the time you were nothing but a dirty spy--a mean and dirty spy.

What right had you to interfere in the private life of a private

gentleman who, twenty-four hours ago, was quite unknown to you, simply

on the word of a crazy braggart boy? Have you so little to do that you

must be poking your fingers into every one else's business? I liked you,

Mr. Harkness. As I told you quite honestly last evening I don't know

where I have met a stranger to whom I took more warmly. But you have

disappointed me. You have only yourself to thank for this--only yourself

to thank."

Harkness replied firmly. "Mr. Crispin, I had every right to act as I

have done, and I only wish to God that it had been successful. It is

true that when I came down to Cornwall yesterday I had no knowledge of

you or your affairs, but, in the Treliss hotel, quite inadvertently, I

overheard a conversation that showed me quite plainly that it was some

one's place to interfere. What I have seen of you since that time, if

you will forgive the personality, has only strengthened my conviction

that interference--immediate and drastic--was most urgently necessary.

"Thanks to the fog we have failed. For Dunbar and myself we are for the

moment in your power. Do what you like with us, but at least have some

pity on this child here who has done you no wrong."

"Very fine, very fine," said Crispin. "Mr. Harkness, you have a

style--an excellent style--and I congratulate you on having lost almost

completely your American accent--a relief for all of us. But come, come,

this has lasted long enough. I would point out to you two gentlemen

that, as one of you has already discovered, any sort of resistance is

quite useless. We will go upstairs. One of my servants first--you two

gentlemen next, my other servant following, then my daughter-in-law and

myself. Please, gentlemen."

He said something in a foreign tongue. One Japanese started upstairs,

Harkness and Dunbar followed. There was nothing else at that moment to

be done. Only at the top of the stairs Dunbar turned and cried: "Buck

up, Hesther. It will be all right." And she cried back in a voice

marvellously clear and brave: "I'm not frightened, David; don't worry."

Harkness had a momentary impulse to turn, dash down the stairs again and

run for the window as Dunbar had done; but as though he knew his thought

the Japanese behind him laid his hand on his arm; the thin fingers

pressed like steel. At the upper floor Dunbar was led one way, himself

another. One Japanese, his hand still on his arm, opened a door and

bowed. Harkness entered. The door closed. He found himself in total

obscurity.

II

He did not attempt to move about the room, but simply sank down on to

the floor where he was. He was in a state of extreme physical

weariness--his body ached from head to foot--but his brain was active

and urgent. This was the first time to himself that he had had--with the

exception of his cliff climbing--since his leaving the hotel last

evening, and he was glad of the loneliness. The darkness seemed to help

him; he felt that he could think here more clearly; he sat there,

huddled up, his back against the wall, and let his brain go.

At first it would do little more than force him to ask over and over

again: Why? Why? Why? Why did we do this imbecile thing? Why, when we

had all the world to choose from, did we find our way back into this

horrible house? It was a temptation to call the thing magic and to have

done with it, really to suggest that the older Crispin had wizard

powers, or at least hypnotic, and had willed them back. But he forced

himself to look at the whole thing clearly as a piece of real life as

true and as actual as the ham-and-eggs and buttered toast that in

another hour or two all the world around him would be eating. Yes, as

real and actual as a toothbrush, that was what this thing was; there was

nothing wizard about Crispin; he was a dangerous lunatic, and there were

hundreds like him in any asylum in the country. As for their return he

knew well enough that in a fog people either walked round and round in a

circle or returned to the place that they had started from.

At this point in his thoughts a tremor shook his body. He knew what

_that_ was from, and the anticipation that, lying like a chained animal,

deep in the recesses of his brain, must soon be loosed and then bravely

faced. But not yet, oh no, not yet! Let his mind stay with the past as

long as it might.

In the past was Crispin. He looked back over that first meeting with

him, the actual moment when he had asked him for a match, the dinner,

the return to the hotel when, influenced then by all that Dunbar had

told him, he had seen him standing there, the polite gestures, the

hospitable words, the drive in the motor. . . . His mind stopped

abruptly _there._ The door swung to, the lock was turned.

In that earlier Crispin there had been something deeply pathetic--and

when he dared to look forward--he would see that in the later Crispin

there was the same. So with a sudden flash of lightning revelation that

seemed to flare through the whole dark room he saw that it was not the

real Crispin with whom they--Hesther, Dunbar and he--were dealing at

all.

No more than the ravings of fever were the real patient, the wicked

cancerous growth the real body, the broken glass the real picture that

seemed to be shattered beneath it.

They were dealing with a wild and dangerous animal, and in the grip of

that animal, pitiably, was the true struggling suffering soul of

Crispin. Not struggling now perhaps any more; the disease had gone too

far, growing through a thousand tiny almost unnoticed stages to this

horrible possession.

He knew now--yes, as he had never known it, and would perhaps never have

known it had it not been for the sudden love for and tenderness towards

human nature that had come to him that night--what, in the old world,

they had meant by the possession of evil spirits. What it was that

Christ had cast out in His ministry. What it was from which David had

delivered King Saul.

Quick on this came the further question. If this were so might he not

perhaps when the crisis came--as come he knew it would--appeal to the

real Crispin and so rescue both themselves and him? He did not know. It

had all gone so far. The animal with its beastly claws deep in the flesh

had so tight a hold. He realised that it was in all probability the

personality of Hesther herself that had urged it to such extremes. There

was something in her clear-sighted simple defiance of him that had made

Crispin's fear of his powerlessness--the fear that had always

contributed to his most dangerous excesses--climb to its utmost height.

He had decided perhaps that this was to be the real final test of his

power, that this girl should submit to him utterly. Her escape had

stirred his sense of failure as nothing else could do. And then their

return, all the nervous excitement of that night, the constant alarm of

the neighbourhoods in which they had stayed so that, as the younger

Crispin had said, they had been driven "from pillar to post," all these

things had filled the bowl of insanity to overflowing. _Could_ he rescue

Crispin as well as themselves?

Once more a tremor ran through his body. Because if he could not----

Once more he thrust the anticipation back, pulling himself up from the

floor and beginning slowly, feeling the wall with his hand like a blind

man, to walk round the room.

His eyes now were better accustomed to the light, but he could make out

but little of where he was. He supposed that he was on the second floor

where were the rooms of Hesther and the younger Crispin. The place

seemed empty, there was no sound from the house. He might have been in

his grave. Fantastic stories came to his mind, Poe-like stories of walls

and ceilings growing closer and closer, of floors opening beneath the

foot into watery dungeons, of fiery eyes seen through the darkness. He

repeated then aloud:

"I am Charles Percy Harkness. I am thirty-five years of age. I grew up

in Baker, Oregon, in the United States of America. I am in sound mind

and in excellent health. I came down to Cornwall yesterday afternoon for

a holiday, recommended to do so by Sir James Maradick, Bart."

This gave him some little satisfaction; to himself he continued, still

walking and touching the wall-paper with his hand: "I am shut up in a

dark room in a strange house at four in the morning for no other reason

than that I meddled in other people's affairs. And I am glad that I

meddled. I am in love, and whatever comes out of this I do not regret

it. I would do over again exactly what I have done except that I should

hope to do it better next time."

He felt then seized with an intense weariness. He had known that he was,

long ago, physically tired, but excitement had kept that at bay. Now

quite instantly as though a spring in the middle of his back had broken,

he collapsed. He sank down there on the floor where he was, and all

huddled up, his head hanging forward into his knees, he slept. He had a

moment of conscious subjective rebellion when something cried to him:

"Don't surrender. Keep awake. It is part of his plan that you should

sleep here. You are surrendering to _him_."

And from long misty distances he seemed to hear himself reply:

"I don't care what happens any more. They can do what they like. . . .

They can do what they like. . . ."

And almost at once he was conscious that they were summoning him. A tall

thin figure, like an old German drawing, with wild hair, set mouth,

menacing eye like Baldung's "Saturnus," stood before him and pointed the

way into vague misty space. Other figures were moving about him, and he

could see as his eyes grew stronger, that a vast multitude of naked

persons were sliding forward like pale lava from a volcano down a steep

precipitous slope.

As they moved there came from them a shuddering cry like the tremor of

the ground beneath his feet.

"Not there! Not there!" Harkness cried, and Saturnus answered, "Not yet!

You have not been judged."

Almost instantly judgment followed--judgment in a narrow dark passage

that rocked backward and forward like the motion of a boat at sea. The

passage was dark, but on either side of its shaking walls were cries and

shouts and groans and piteous wails, and clouds of smoke poured through,

as into a tunnel, blinding the eyes and filling the nostrils with a

horrible stench.

No figure could be seen, but a voice, strong and menacing, could be

heard, and Harkness knew that it was himself the voice was addressing.

His naked body, slippery with sweat, the acrid smoke blinding him, the

voices deafening him, the rocking of the floor bewildering him, he felt

desperately that he must clear his mind to answer the charges brought

against him.

The voice was clear and calm: "On February 2, 1905, your friend Richard

Hentley was accused in the company of many people during his absence, of

having ill-treated his wife while in Florence. You knew that this was

totally untrue and could have given evidence to that effect, but from

cowardice you let the moment pass and your friend's position was

seriously damaged. What have you to say in your defence?"

The thick smoke rolled on. The walls tottered. The cries gathered in

anguish.

"On March 13, 1911, you wired to your sisters in America that you were

ill in bed when you were in perfect health, because you wished to stay

for a week longer in London in order to attend some races. What have you

to say in your defence?"

"On October 3, 1906, you grievously added to the unhappiness of Mrs.

Harrington-Adams by asserting in mixed company that no one in New York

would receive her and that all Americans were astonished that she should

be received at all in London."

Here at any rate was an opportunity. Through the smoke he cried:

"There at least I am innocent. I have never known Mrs. Harrington-Adams.

I have never even seen her."

"No," the voice replied. "But you spoke to Mrs. Phillops who spoke to

Miss Cator who then cut Mrs. Adams. Other people followed Miss Cator's

example, and you were quoted as an authority. Mrs. Adams's London life

was ruined. She had never done you any harm."

"On December 14, 1912, you told your sisters that you hated the sight of

them and their stuffy ways, that their attempts at culture were

ridiculous, and that, like all American women, they were absurdly

spoilt."

Through the smoke Harkness shouted: "I am sure I never said----"

The voice replied: "I am quoting your exact words."

"In a moment of pique I lost my temper. Of course I didn't mean----"

"On June 3, 1913, you went secretly into the library of a friend and

stole his book of Rembrandt drawings. You knew in your heart that you

had no intention of returning it to him, and when, some months later, he

spoke of it, wishing to lend it to you and wondered why he could not

find it you said nothing to him about your own possession of it."

Harkness blushed through the rolling smoke. "Yes, that was shameful," he

cried. "But I knew that he didn't care about the book and I----"

"What have you to say against these charges?"

"They are all little things," Harkness cried, "small things. Every one

does them. . . ."

"Judgment! Judgment! Judgment!" cried the voice, and suddenly he felt

himself moving in the vast waters of human nudity that were slipping

down the incline. He tried to stay himself, he flung out his hands and

touched nothing but cold slimy flesh.

Faster and faster and faster. Colder and colder and colder. Darker and

darker and darker. Despair seized him. He called on his friends. Others

were calling on every side of him. Thousands and thousands of names

mingled in the air. The smoke came up to meet them--vast billowing

clouds of it. He knew with a horrible consciousness that below him a sea

of upturned swords, were waiting to receive them. Soon they would be

impaled. . . . With a shriek of agony he awoke.

He had not been asleep for more, perhaps, than ten minutes, but the

dream had unnerved him. When he rose from the ground he tottered and

stood trembling. He knew now why it was that his enemy had designed that

he should sleep; he knew _now_ that he could no longer ward off the

animal that on padded feet had been approaching him--the pain! The pain!

The pain!

The sweat beaded his forehead, his knees gave way and he sank yet again

upon the floor. He was murmuring: "Anything but that. Anything but that.

I can't stand pain. I can't _stand_ pain, I tell you. Don't you know

that I have always funked it all my life long? That I've always prayed

that whatever else I got it wouldn't be _that._ That I've never been

able to bear to see the tiniest thing hurt, and that in all my thought

about going to the war, although I didn't try to escape it, it was even

more the pain that I would see than the pain that I would feel.

"And now to wait for it like this, to know that it may be torture of the

worst kind, that I am in the power of a man who can reason no longer,

who is himself in the power of something stronger and more evil than any

of us."

Then dimly it came through to him that he had been given three tests

to-night, and as it always is in life the three tests especially suited

to his character, his strength and weakness, his past history. The dance

had stripped him of his aloofness and drawn him into life, his love for

Hesther that he had surrendered had taken from him his selfishness--and

now he must lose his fear of pain.

But that? How could he lose it? It was part of the very fibre of his

body, his nerves throbbed with it, his heart beat with it. He could not

remember a time when it had not been part of him. When he had been five

or six his father had decided that he must be beaten for some little

crime. His father was the gentlest of human beings, and the beating

would be very little, but at the sight of the whip something had cracked

inside his brain.

He was not a coward; he had stood up to the beating without a tear, but

the sense of the coming pain had been more awful than anything that he

could have imagined. It was the same afterwards at school. He was no

coward there either, shared in the roughest games, stood up to bullies,

ventured into the most dangerous places.

But one night earache had attacked him. It was a new pain for him and he

thought that he had never known anything so terrible. Worse than all

else were the intermissions between the attacks and the warnings that a

new attack was soon to begin. That approach was what he feared, that

terrible and fearful approach. He had said very little, had only lain

there white and trembling, but the memory of all those awful hours

stayed with him always.

Any thought of suffering in others--of poor women in childbirth, of

rabbits caught in traps, of dogs poisoned, of children run over or

accidentally wounded--these things, if he knew of them, produced an odd

sort of sympathetic pain in himself. The strangest thing had been that

the war, with all its horrors, had not driven him crazy as he might have

expected from his earlier history. On so terrible a scale was it that

his senses soon became numbed? He did the work that he was given to do,

and heard of the rest like cries beyond the wall. Again and again he had

tried to mingle, himself, in it; he had always been prevented.

A dog run over by a motor car struck him more terribly than all the

agonies of Ypres.

But these things, what had they to do with his present case? He could

not think at all. His brain literally reeled, as though it shook, tried

to steady itself, could not, and then turned right over. His body was

alive, standing up with all its nerves on tiptoe. How was he to endure

these hours that were coming to him?

"I must get out of this!" some one, not himself, cried. It seemed to him

that he could hear the strange voice in the room. "I must get out of

this. How dare they keep me if I demand to be let out? I am an American

citizen. Let me out of this. Can't you hear? Bring me a light and let me

out. I have had enough of this dark room. What do you mean by keeping me

here? You think that you are stronger than I. Try it and see. Let me

out, I say! Let me out!"

He tottered to his feet and ran across the room, although he could not

see his way, blundering against the opposite wall. He beat upon it with

his hands.

"Let me out, do you hear! Let me out!"

He was not himself, Harkness. He could no longer repeat those earlier

words. He was nobody, nothing, nothing at all. They could not hurt him

then. Try as they might they could not hurt him, Harkness, when he was

not Harkness. He laughed, stroking the wall gently with his hand as

though it were his friend.

"It's all right, do you see? You can't hurt me because you can't find

me. I'm hiding, _I_ don't know where to find myself, so that it isn't

likely you will find me. You can't hurt nothing, you know. You can't

indeed."

He laughed and laughed and laughed--gently enjoying his own joke. There

was a sudden knocking at the door.

"Come in!" he said in a whisper. "Come in!"

His heart stood still with fear.

The door opened, splashing into the darkness a shower of light like

water flung from a bucket. In the centre of this the two Japanese were

standing.

"Master says please come. If you ready he ready."

At sight of the Japanese a marvellous thing had happened. All his fear

had on the instant left him, his beastly physical fear. It fell from him

like an old suit of clothes, discarded. He was himself, clear-headed,

cool, collected, and in some strange new way, happy.

Harkness followed them.

III

Harkness followed, conscious only of one thing, his sudden marvellous

and happy deliverance from fear. He could not analyse it--he did not

wish to. He did not consider the probable length of its duration. Enough

that for the present Crispin might cut him into small pieces, skin him

alive, boil him in a large pot like a lobster, and he would not care. He

followed the sleek servants like a schoolboy.

The Tower? Then at last he was to see the interior of this mysterious

place. It had exercised, all through this adventure, a strange influence

over him, standing up in his imagination white and pure and apart,

washed by the sea, guarded by the woods behind it, having a spirit

altogether of its own and quite separate from the man who for the moment

occupied it. This would be perhaps the last building on this world that

would see his bones move and have their being, he had a sense that it

knew and sympathised with him and wished him luck.

Meanwhile he walked quietly. His chance would still come and with Dunbar

beside him. Or was he never to see Dunbar again? Some of his newfound

courage trembled. The worst of this present moment was his loneliness.

Was the final crisis to be fought out by himself with no friends at

hand? Was he never to see Hesther again? He had an impulse to throw

himself forward, attack the servants, and let come what will. The

silence of the house was terrible--only their footsteps soft on the

thick carpet--and if he could wring a cry or two from his enemies that

would be something. No, he must wait. The happiness of others was

involved with his own.

The men stopped before a dark-wooded door.

They went through and were met by a white circular staircase. Up this

they passed, paused before another door, and crossed the threshold into

a high circular brilliantly-lit room. For the moment Harkness, his eyes

dimmed a little by the shadows of the staircase, could see nothing but

the gayness, brightness of the place papered with a wonderful Chinese

pattern of green and purple birds, cherry-coloured pagodas and crimson

temples. The carpet was a soft heavy purple, and there was a number of

little gilt chairs, and, in front of the narrow barred window, a gilt

cage with a green and crimson macaw.

All this, standing by the door shading his eyes from the dazzling

crystal candelabra, he took in. Then suddenly saw something that swept

away the rest--Hesther and Dunbar standing together, hand in hand, by

the window. He gave a cry of joy, hurrying towards them. It was as

though he had not seen them for years; they caught his hand in theirs;

Crispin was there watching them like a benevolent father with his

beloved children.

"That's right," he said. "Make the most of your time together. I want

you to have a last talk."

He sat down on one of the gilt chairs.

"Won't you sit down? In a moment I shall leave you alone together for a

little while. In case you have any last words. . . ." Then he leaned

forward in that fashion so familiar now to Harkness, huddled together,

his red hair and little eyes and pale white soft hands alone alive.

"Well, and so--in my power, are you not? The three of you. You can laugh

at my ugliness and my stupidity and my bad character, but now you are in

my hands completely. I can do whatever I like with you. Whatever . . .

the last shame, the last indignity, the uttermost pain. I, ludicrous

creature that I am, have absolute power over three fine young things

like you, so strong, so beautiful. And then more power and then more and

then more. And over many finer, grander, more beautiful than you. I can

say crawl and you will crawl, dance and you will dance. . . . I who am

so ugly that every one has always laughed at me. I am a little God, and

perhaps not so little, and soon God Himself. . . ."

He broke off, making the movement of music in the air with his hands.

"You a little overestimate the situation," said Harkness, quietly. "For

the moment you can do what you like with our bodies because you happen

to have two servants who, with their Jiu-Jitsu and the rest of their

tricks, are stronger than we are. It is not you who are stronger, but

your servants whom your money is able to buy. I guess if I had you tied

to a pillar and myself with a gun in my hand I could make you look

pretty small. And in any case it is only our bodies that you can do

anything with. Ourselves--our real selves--you can't touch."

"Is that so?" said Crispin. "But I have not begun. The fun is all to

come. We will see whether I can touch you or no. And for my

daughter-in-law"--he looked at Hesther--"there is plenty of time--many

years perhaps."

Nothing in all his life would ever appeal more to Harkness than Hesther

then. From the first moment of his sight of her what had attracted him

had been the exquisite mingling of the child and of the woman. She had

been for him at first some sort of deserted waif who had experienced all

the cruelty and harshness of life so desperately early that she had

known life upside down, and this had given her a woman's endurance and

fortitude. She was like a child who has dressed up in her mother's

clothes for a party and then finds that she must take her mother's

place.

And now when she must, after this terrible night, be physically beyond

all her resources she seemed, in her shabby ill-made dress, her hair

disordered, her face pale, her eyes ringed with grey, to have a new

courage that must be similar to that which he had himself been given.

She kept her hand in Dunbar's, and with a strange dim unexpected pain

Harkness realised that new relation between the two of which he had made

the foundation had grown through danger and anxiety the one for another

already to a fine height. Then he was conscious that Hesther was

speaking. She had come forward quite close to Crispin and stood in front

of him looking him calmly and clearly in the eyes.

"Please let me say something. After all I am the principal person in

this. If it hadn't been for me there would not have been any of this

trouble. I married your son. I married him, not because I loved him, but

because I wanted things that I thought that you could give me. I see now

how wrong that was and that I must pay for doing such a thing. I am

ready to do right by your son. I never would have tried to run away if

it had not been for you--the other night. After that I was right to do

everything I could to get away. I begged your son first--and he refused.

You have had me watched during the last three weeks--every step that I

have taken. What could I do but try to escape?

"We've failed, and because we've failed and because it has been all my

fault I want you to punish me in any way you like but to let my two

friends go. I was not wrong to try to escape." She threw up her head

proudly, "I was right after the way you had behaved to me, but now it is

different. I have brought them into this. They have done nothing wrong.

You must let them go."

"You must let all of us go." Dunbar broke in hotly, starting forward to

Hesther's side. "Do you think we're afraid of you, you old play-acting

red-haired monkey? You just let us free or it will be the worse for you.

Do you know where you'll be this time to-morrow? Beating your fancy

coloured hair against a padded cell, and that's where you should have

been years ago."

"No, no," Hesther broke in. "No, no, David. That's not the way. You

don't understand. Don't listen to him. I'm the only one in this, I tell

you--can't you hear me?--that I will stay. I won't try to run away, you

can do anything to me you like. I'll obey you--I will indeed. Please,

please-- Don't listen to him. He doesn't understand. But I do. Let them

go. They've done no harm. They only wanted to help me. They didn't mean

anything against you. They didn't truly. Oh! let them go! Let them go!"

In spite of her struggle for self-control her terror was rising, her

terror never for herself but now only for them. She knew, more than

they, of what he was. She saw perhaps in his face more than they would

ever see.

But Harkness saw enough. He saw rising into Crispin's eyes the soul of

that strange hairy fetid-smelling animal between whose paws Crispin's

own soul was now lying. That animal looked out of Crispin's eyes. And

behind that gaze was Crispin's own terror.

Crispin said:

"This is very comforting for me. I have waited for this moment." Then

Harkness came over to him and stood very close to him.

"Crispin, listen to me. It isn't the three of us who matter in this, it

is yourself. Whatever you do to us we are safe. Whatever you think or

hope you can't touch the real part of us, but for yourself to-night this

is a matter of life or death.

"I may know nothing about medicine and yet know enough to tell you that

you're a sick man--badly sick--and if you let this animal that has his

grip on you get the better of you in the next two hours you're finished,

you're dead. You know that as well as I. You know that you're possessed

of an evil spirit as surely as the man with the spirits that cleared the

Gadarene swine into the sea. It isn't for our sakes that I ask you to

let us go to-night. Let us go. You'll never hear from any of us again.

In the morning, in the decent daylight, you'll know that you've won a

victory more important than any you've ever won in your life.

"You talk about mastering us, man. Master your own evil spirit. You know

that you loathe it, that you've loathed it for years, that you are

miserable and wretched under it. It is life or death for you to-night, I

tell you. You know that as well as I."

For one moment, a brief flashing moment, Harkness met for the first and

for the last time the real Crispin. No one else saw that meeting.

Straight into the eyes, gazing out of them exactly as a prisoner gazes

from behind iron bars, jumped the real Crispin, something sad, starved

and dying. One instant of recognition and he was gone.

"That is very kind of you, Mr. Harkness," Crispin said. "I knew that I

should enjoy this quarter of an hour's chat with you all and truly I am

enjoying it. My friend Dunbar shows himself to be quite frankly the

young ruffian he is. It will be interesting to see whether in--say an

hour's time from now--he is still in the same mind. I doubt it; quite

frankly I doubt it very much. It is these robust natures that break the

easiest. But you other two--really how charming. All altruism and

unselfishness. This lady has no thought for anything but her friends,

and Mr. Harkness, like all Americans, is full of fine idealism. And you

are all standing round me as though you were my children listening to a

fairy story. Such a pretty picture!

"And when you come to think of it here I am quite alone, all

defenceless, one to three. Why don't you attack me? Such an admirable

opportunity! Can it be fear? Fear of an old fat ugly man like me, a man

at whom every one laughs!"

Dunbar made a movement. Harkness cried: "Don't move, Dunbar. Don't touch

him. That's what he wants."

Crispin got up. They were now all standing in a little group close

together. Crispin gathered his dressing-gown around him.

"The time is nearly up," he said. "I am going to leave you alone

together for a little last talk. You'll never see one another again

after this, so you had best make the most of it. You see that I am not

really unkind."

"It is hopeless." Harkness turned round to the window. "God help us

all."

"Yes, it is hopeless," Crispin said gently. "At last my time has come.

Do you know how long I have waited for it? Do you know what you

represent to me? You have done me wrong, the two of you, broken my

hospitality, betrayed my bread and salt, invaded my home. I have justice

if I punish you for that. But you stand also for all the others, for all

who have insulted me and laughed at me and mocked at me. I have power at

last. I shall prick you and you shall bleed. I shall spit on you and you

shall bow your heads, and then when you are at my feet stung with a

thousand wounds I will raise you and care for you and love you, and you

shall share my power----"

He jumped suddenly from his gilt chair and stuttered, waving his hands

as though he were commanding an army, towards the macaw who was asleep

with his head under his crimson wing. "I shall be king in my own right,

king of men, emperor of mankind, then one with the gods, and at the last

I will shower my gifts. . . ."

He broke off, looking up at a red lacquer clock that stood on a little

round gilt table. "Time--time--time nearly up!" He swung round upon the

three of them.

Dunbar burst out:

"Don't flatter yourself that you'll get away to-morrow. When we're

missed----"

"You won't be missed," Crispin answered with a sigh, as though he deeply

regretted the fact. "The hotel will receive a note in the morning saying

that Mr. Harkness has gone for a coast walk, will return in a week, and

will the hotel kindly keep his things until his return? Of course the

hotel most kindly will. For Mr. Dunbar--well, I believe there is only an

aunt in Gloucester, is there not? It will be, I imagine, a month at

least before she makes any inquiry. Possibly a year. Possibly never. Who

knows? Aunts are often extraordinarily careless about their nephew's

safety. And in a week. Where can one not be in a week in these modern

days? Very far indeed. Then there is the sea. Anything dropped from the

garden over the cliff so completely vanishes, and their faces are so

often--well, spoilt beyond recognition. . . ."

"If you do this," Hesther cried, "I will----"

"I regret to say," interrupted Crispin, "that after eight this morning

you will not see your father-in-law of whom you are so fond for six

months at least. Ah, that is good news for you, I am sure. That is not

to say you will never see him again. Dear me, no. But not immediately.

Not immediately!"

Harkness caught Hesther's hand. He saw that she was about to make some

desperate movement. "Wait," he said; "wait. We can do nothing now."

For answer she drew him to her and flung out her hand to Dunbar. "We

three. We love one another," she cried. "Do your worst."

Crispin looked once more at the clock. "Melodrama," he said. "I, too,

will be melodramatic. I give you twenty minutes by that clock--a

situation familiar to every theatre-goer. When that clock strikes six I

shall, I'm afraid, want the company of both of you gentlemen. Make your

adieus then to the lady. Your eternal adieus."

He smiled and gently tip-toed from the room.

IV

"And so the curtain falls on Act Three of this pleasant little drama,"

said Dunbar, huskily, turning towards the window. "There will be a

twenty minutes' interval. But the last act will be played _in camera._

If only one wasn't so beastly tired--and if only it wasn't all my

fault. . . ." His voice broke.

Harkness went up to him, put his arm around him and drew him to him.

"Look here. I'm older than both of you. I might almost be your father,

so you've got to obey my orders. I'll be best man at your wedding yet,

David, yours and Hesther's. There's nobody to blame. Nothing but the

fog. But don't let's cheat ourselves either. We're shut up here at

half-past five in the morning miles from any help, no way out, no

telephone, and two damn Japs who are stronger than we are, in the power

of a man who's as mad as a hatter and as bloodthirsty as a tiger.

"It's going to be all right, I tell you. I know it. I feel it in my

bones. But we've got to behave for these twenty minutes--only seventeen

of them now--as though it won't be. It's of no use for us to make any

plan. We'll have to do something on the spur of the moment when we see

what the old devil has up his sleeve for us----"

"Meanwhile, as I say, make the best of these minutes."

He put out his arm and drew Hesther in.

"I tell you that I love you both. I've only known you a day, but I love

you as I've never loved any one in my life before. I love you as father

and brother and comrade. It's the best thing that has happened to me in

all my life."

The three, body to body, stood looking out through the gilded bars at

the sky, silver grey, and washed with shifting shadows.

"After all," he went on, "if our luck doesn't hold, and we are going to

die in the next hour or so, what is it? It's only what millions of

fellows passed through in the war and under much more terrible

conditions. Imagination is the worst part of that I fancy, and I suggest

that we don't think of what is going to happen when this time is

over--whether it goes well or ill--we'll fill these twenty minutes with

every decent thought we've got, we'll think of every fine thing that we

know of, and every beautiful thing, and everything that is of good

report."

"All I pray," said Dunbar, "is that I may have one last dash at that

lunatic before good-bye. He can have a hundred Japs around him but I'll

get at him somehow. Harkness, you're a brick. I brought you into this. I

had no right to, but I'm not going to apologise. We're here. The thing's

done, and if it hadn't been for that rotten fog----But you're right,

Harkness. We'll think of all the ripping things we know. With me it's

simple enough. Because the beginning and the middle and the end of it is

Hesther. Hesther first and Hesther second and Hesther all the time."

He didn't look at her, but stared out of the window.

"By Jove, the sun's coming. It's been up round the corner ever so long.

It will just about hit the window in another ten minutes. It seems kind

of stupid to stand here doing nothing."

He stepped forward and felt the bars. "Take hours to get through that,

and then there's a drop of hundreds of feet. No, you're about right,

Harkness. There's nothing to be done here but to say good-bye as

decently as possible."

He sighed. "I didn't want to kick the bucket just yet, but there it is,

it can happen to anybody. A fellow can be as strong as a horse, forget

to change his socks and next day be finished. This is better than

pneumonia anyway! All the same I can't help feeling we missed our chance

just now when we had him alone in here----"

"No," said Harkness, "I was watching him. That's what he wanted, for us

to go for him. I am sure that he had the Japs handy somewhere, and I

think he wanted to hurt us in front of Hesther. But his brain works

queerly. He's formulated a kind of book of rules for himself. If we take

such and such a step then he will take such and such another. A sort of

insane sense of justice. He's worked it all out to the minute. Half the

fun for him has been the planning of it, and then the deliberate

slowness of it, watching us, calculating what we'll do. Really a cat

with mice. There's nothing for deliberate consecutive thinking like a

madman's brain."

Hesther broke in:

"We're wasting time. I know--I feel as you do--that it's going to be all

right, but however he fails with you he _can_ carry me off somewhere,

and so it _is_ very likely that I don't see either of you again for some

time. And if that's so--_if_ that's so, I just want to say that you've

been the finest men in the world to me.

"And I want you to know that whatever turns up for me now--yes, whatever

it is--it _can't_ be as bad as it was before yesterday. I can't ever

again be as unhappy as I was now that I've known both of you as I've

known you this night.

"I didn't realise, David, how I felt about you until Mr. Harkness showed

me. I've been so selfish all these years, and I suppose I shall go on

being selfish, because one doesn't change all in a minute, but at least

I've got the two best friends a woman ever had."

"Hesther," Dunbar said, turning towards her, "if we get free of this and

you can get rid of that man--I ask you as I've asked you every week for

the last ten years--will you marry me?"

"Yes," she said. But for the moment she turned to Harkness. He was

looking through the bars out to the sky where the mist was now very

faintly rose like the coloured smoke of far distant fire. She put her

hand on his shoulder, keeping her other hand in Dunbar's.

"I don't know why you said you were so much older than we are. You're

not. Do you promise to be the friend of both of us always?"

"Yes," he said. Something mockingly repeated in his brain, "It is a far

better thing that I do----"

He burst out laughing. The macaw awoke, put up his head and screamed.

"You are both younger by centuries than I," he said. "I was born old. I

was born with the Old Man of Europe singing in my ears. I was born to

the inheritance of borrowed culture. The gifts that the fairies gave me

at my cradle were Michael Angelo's 'David,' Rembrandt's 'Goldweigher's

Field,' the 'Temples at Pæstum,' the Da Vinci 'Last Supper,' the

Breughels at Vienna, the view of the Jungfrau from Mürren, the Grand

Canal at dawn, Hogarth's prints, and the Quintet of the _Meistersinger._

Yes, the gifts were piled up all right. But just as they were all

showered upon me in stepped the Wicked Fairy and said that I should have

them all--on condition that I didn't touch! Never touch--never. At least

I've known that they were there, at least I've bent the knee, but--until

last night--until last night. . . ."

He suddenly took Hesther's face between his two hands, kissed her on the

forehead, on the eyes, on the mouth:

"I don't know what's coming in a quarter of an hour. I don't like to

think. To tell you the truth I'm in the devil of a funk. But I love you,

I love you, I love you. Like an uncle you know or at least like a

brother. You've taken a match and set fire to this old tinder-box that's

been dry and dusty so long, and now it's alight--such a pretty blaze!"

He broke away from them both with a smile that suddenly made him look

young as they'd never seen him:

"I've danced the town, I've climbed rocks. I've dared the devil. I've

fallen in love, and I know at last that there's such a hunger for beauty

in my soul that it must go on and on and on. Why should it be there? My

parents hadn't it, my sisters haven't it, no one tried to give it to me.

I've done nothing with it until last night, but now when I've needed it,

it's come to my help. I've touched life at last. I'm alive. I never can

die any more!"

The macaw screamed again and again, beating at the cage with its wings.

"Hesther, never lose courage. Remember that he can't touch you, that no

one can touch you. You're your own immortal mistress."

The red-lacquered clock struck the quarter, and at the same moment the

sun hit the window. Strange to see how instantly that room with the

coloured pagodas, the fantastic temple, the gilt chairs and the purple

carpet shivered into tinsel. The dust floated on the ladder of the sun:

the blue of the early morning sky was coloured faintly like a bird's

wing.

The sun flooded the room, wrapping them all in its mantle.

"Let's sit down," said Dunbar, pulling three of the gilt chairs into the

centre of the room where the sun shone brightest. "I've a kind of idea

that we'll need all the strength we've got in a few minutes. That's fine

what you said, Harkness, about being alive, although I didn't follow you

altogether.

"I'm not very artistic. A man who's been on the sea since he was a small

kid doesn't go to many picture galleries and he doesn't read books much

either. To tell you the truth there's always such a lot to do, and when

I've finished the _Daily Mail_ there doesn't seem time for much more,

except a shocker sometimes. The sort of mess we're in now wouldn't make

a bad shocker, would it? Only you'd never be able to make Crispin

convincing. All I know is, if I wrote a book about him I'd have him

tortured at the end with little red devils and plenty of pincers.

However, I get what you mean, Harkness, about being alive.

"I felt something of the same thing in the war sometimes. At Jutland,

although I was in the devil of a funk all the time, I was sort of

pleased with myself too. Life's always seemed a bit unreal since the

armistice, until last night. And it's a funny thing, but when I was

helping Hesther climb out of that window and expecting Crispin Junior to

poke his head up any minute I had just that same pleased-all-over

feeling that I had at Jutland. So that's about the same as you feel,

Harkness, only different, of course, because of your education. . . .

Hesther, if we win out of this and you marry me I'll be so good to

you--so good to you--that----"

He beat his hands desperately on his knees. "Here's the time slipping

and we don't seem to be doing anything with it. It's always been my

trouble that I've never been able to say what I mean--couldn't find

words, you know. I can't now, but it's simple enough what I mean----"

Hesther said: "If we only have ten minutes like this it's so hard to

choose what you would say, but I'd like you to know, David, that I

remember everything we've ever done together--the time I missed the

train at Truro and was so frightened about father, and you said you'd

come in with me, and father hadn't even noticed I'd been away; and the

time you brought me the pink fan from Madrid; and the time I had that

fever and you sat up all night outside my room, those two days father

was away; and the day Billy fell over the Bring Rock and you climbed

down after him; and the time you brought me that Sealyham and father

wouldn't let me have him; and the time just before you went off to South

Africa and I wouldn't say good-bye. I've hurt you so many times and

you've never been angry with me once--or only that once. Do you remember

the day I struck you in the face because you said I was more like a boy

than a girl? I thought you were laughing at me because I was so untidy

and dirty and so I hit you. And do you remember you sprang on me like a

tiger, and for a moment I thought you were going to kill me? You said no

one had ever struck you without getting it back. Then suddenly you

pulled yourself in--just like going inside and shutting your door.

"I've never seen you until to-night, David. I've been blind to you.

You've been too close to me for me to see you. It will be all right.

We'll come out of this and then we'll have such times--such wonderful

times----"

She came up to him, drew his head to her breast. He knelt on the floor

at her feet, his arms round her, his head on her bosom. She stroked his

hair, looking out beyond him to the blue of the sky.

Harkness felt a mad wildness of impatience. He went to the window and

tugged at the bars. In despair his hands fell to his side.

"The only chance, Dunbar, is to go straight for him the moment we're out

of this room, even if those damned Japs are with him. We can't do much,

but we may smash him up a bit first. Then there's Jabez. We've forgotten

Jabez. Where's he been all this time?"

Dunbar looked up. "I expect he went home after we went off."

"No," said Harkness, "he was to be there till six. He told me. What's

happened to him? At any rate he'll give the alarm if we don't turn up."

"No, he'll think we got safely off."

"Yes, I suppose he will. My God, it's five to six. Look here, stand up a

moment."

They stood up.

"Let's take hands. Let's swear this. Whatever happens to us now, whether

some of us survive or none, whether we die now or live happily ever

afterwards, we'll be friends forever, nothing shall ever separate us,

for better or worse we're together for always."

They swore it.

"And see here. If I don't come out of this don't have any regrets either

of you. Don't think you brought me into this against my will. Don't

think that whichever way it goes I regret a moment of it. You've given

me the finest time."

Dunbar laughed. "I sort of feel we're going to have a chance yet. After

all, he's been probably playing with us, trying to frighten us. There'll

be nothing in it, you see. Anyway I'll get a crack at his skull, and now

that I've got you, Hesther, I wouldn't give up this night for all the

wealth of the Indies. I don't know about life or death. I've never

thought much about it, to tell you the honest truth, but I bet that any

one who's as fond of any one as I am of you can't be very far away

whatever happens to their body."

"There goes six."

The red lacquer clock struck. Hesther flung her arms around Harkness and

kissed him, then Dunbar.

They all stood listening. Just as the clock ceased there was a knock at

the door.

V

Harkness went to the door and opened it; not Crispin, as he had

expected, but one of the Japanese.

For the first time he spoke:

"Beg your pardon, sir. The master would be glad you see him upstairs."

Harkness did not look back. He knew that Dunbar and Hesther were clasped

tightly in one another's arms. He walked out closing the door behind

him. He stood with the Japanese in the small space waiting. It was a dim

subdued light out here. You could only see the thick stone steps of the

circular staircase winding upwards out of sight. Harkness's brain was

working now with feverish activity. Whatever Crispin's devilish plan

might be he would be there to watch the climax of it. If Harkness and

Dunbar were quick enough they could surely have Crispin throttled before

the Japanese were in time; without Crispin it was likely enough that the

Japanese would be passive. This was no affair of theirs. They simply

obeyed their master's orders.

He wondered why he had not attempted something in that room just now,

why, indeed, he had prevented Dunbar; but some instinct had told him

then that Crispin was longing to shame them in some way before Hesther.

He had then an almost overpowering impulse to turn back, run into that

room, fling his arms about Hesther and hold her until those devils

pulled them apart. It was an impulse that rose blinding his eyes,

deafening his ears, stunning his brain. He half turned. The door opened

and Dunbar came out. Harkness sighed with relief. At the sight of Dunbar

the temptation left him.

They mounted the stairs, one Japanese in front of them, the other

behind. At the next break in the flight the Japanese turned and opened a

door on the left.

"In here, gentlemen, if you please," he said, bowing.

They entered a small room with no windows, quite dark save for one dim

electric light in the ceiling, and without furniture save for two wicker

chairs.

They stood there waiting. "The master," said the Japanese, "he much

obliged if you gentlemen will kindly take your clothes off."

For a moment there was silence. They had not realised the words. Then

Dunbar broke out: "No, by God, no! Strip for that swine! Harkness come

on! You go for that fellow, I'll take this one!" and instantly he had

hurled himself on the Japanese nearest the door.

Harkness flung at the one who had spoken. He was conscious of his

fingers clutching at the thin cotton stuff of the clothes, and, beneath

the clothes, the cold hard steel of the limbs. His arms gripped upwards,

caught the cloth of the shirt, tore it, slipped on the smooth hairless

chest. Then in his left forearm there was a pain, sharp as though some

ravenous animal had bitten him there, then an agony in the middle of his

back, then in his left thigh.

Against his will he cried out; the pain was terrible--awful. Every nerve

in his body was rebelling so that he had neither strength nor force. He

slipped to the floor, writhing involuntarily with the agony of the

twisted muscle and, even as he slipped, he saw sliding down over him,

impervious, motionless, fixed like a shining mask, the face of the

Japanese.

He lay on the floor; panic flooded him. His helplessness, the terror of

what was coming next, the fright of the dark--it was all he could do at

that moment not to burst into tears and cry like a child.

He was lying on the floor, and the Japanese, kneeling beside him, had

one arm under him as though to make his position more comfortable.

"Very sorry," the Japanese murmured in his ear; "the master's orders."

As the pain withdrew he felt only an intense relief and thankfulness. He

did not care about what had gone before nor mind what followed. All he

wished was to be left like that until the wild beating of his heart

softened and his pulse was again tranquil.

Then he thought of Dunbar. He turned his head and saw that Dunbar also

was lying on the floor, on his side. Not a sound came from him. The

other Japanese was bending over him.

"Dunbar!" Harkness cried in a voice that to his own surprise was only a

whisper, "wait. It's no good with these fellows. We'll have our chance

later."

Dunbar replied, the words gritted from between his teeth: "No--it's no

good--with these devils. It's all right though. I'm cheery."

Harkness saw then that the Japanese had been stripping Dunbar, and he

noticed with a curious little wonder that his clothes had been arranged

in a neat tidy pile--his socks, his collar, his braces, on his shirt and

trousers. He saw the Japanese move forward as though to help Dunbar to

his feet; there was a movement as though Dunbar were pushing him away.

He rose to his feet, naked, strong, his head up, swung out his arms,

pushed out his chest.

"No bones broken with their monkey tricks. Hurry up, Harkness. We may as

well go into the sea together. I bet the water's cold."

But no. The Japanese said something. Dunbar broke out:

"I'm damned if I will." Then, turning to Harkness: "He says I've got to

go on by myself. It seems they're going to separate us. Rotten luck, but

there's no fighting these two fellows here. Well, cheerio, Harkness.

You've been a mighty fine pal, if we don't meet again. Only that rotten

fog did us in."

Harkness struggled to his knees. "No, no, Dunbar. They shan't separate

us. They shan't----" but there was a touch of a hand on his arm and

instantly, as though to save at all costs another pressure of that

nerve, he sank back.

Dunbar went out, one of the Japanese following him. The door closed.

Now indeed Harkness needed all his fortitude. He had never felt such

loneliness as this. From the beginning of the adventure there had been

an element so fantastic, so improbable, that except at certain moments

he had never believed in the final reality of it. There was something

laughable, ludicrous about Crispin himself; he had been like a child

playing with his toys. Now absolutely Harkness was face to face with

reality.

Crispin did mean all that he had threatened. And what that might be----!

The Japanese was beginning to take off his clothes, very lightly and

gently pulling his coat from under him. Harkness sat up and assisted

him. This did not matter. Of what significance was it whether he had

clothes or no? What mattered was that he should be out of this horrible

room where there was neither space nor light nor company. Anything

anywhere was better. The Japanese' cool hard fingers slipped about his

body. He himself undid his collar and mechanically dropped his

collar-stud into the right-hand pocket of his waistcoat, where he always

put it when he was undressing. He bent forward and took off his shoes.

The Japanese gravely thanked him. There was a small hole in his right

sock and he slipped it off quickly, covering it with his other hand. He

was ashamed for the Japanese to see it.

His clothes were piled as neatly as Dunbar's. He stood up feeling

freshened and cool.

Then the Japanese, bowing, moved to the door. Harkness followed him.

They climbed the stairs once more, the stone striking cold under

Harkness's bare feet. They must now be reaching the very top of the

Tower. There was a sense of space and height about them and a stronger

light.

The Japanese paused, pushed back a door and sharply jerked Harkness

forward. Harkness nearly fell, but was caught by some one else, closed

his eyes involuntarily against a flood of light into which he seemed,

with a curious sensation as though he had dived from a great height, to

be sinking ever deeper and deeper, then to be struggling up through

bursting bubbles of colour. His eyes were still closed against the sun

that pressed like a warm palm upon the lids.

He felt hands moving about him. Then that he was held back against

something cold, then that he was being bound, gently, smoothly; the

bands did not hurt his flesh. There was a pause. He still kept his eyes

closed. Was this death then? The sun beat upon his body warm and strong.

The cool of the pillar to which he was bound was pleasant against his

back. There were boards beneath his feet, and on their dry, friendly

surface his toes curled. A delicious soft lethargy wrapped him round.

Was this death? One sharp pang like the pressure of an aching tooth and

then nothing. Sinking into dark silence through this shaft of deep and

burning sunlight. . . .

He opened his eyes. He cried aloud with astonishment. He was in what was

plainly the top room of the Tower, a high white place with a round

ceiling softly primrose. One high window went the length from floor to

ceiling, and this window, which was without bars, blazed with sun and

shone with the colours of the early morning blue. The room was

white--pure virgin white--round, and bare of furniture. Only--and this

was what had caught the cry from Harkness--three pillars supported the

ceiling, and to these three pillars were bound by white cord, first

himself, then Dunbar, then, naked as they, Jabez.

The fisherman stood there facing Harkness--a gigantic figure. Yesterday

afternoon on the hill, last night in the garden Harkness had not

recognised the man's huge proportions under his clothes. Now, bound

there, with his black hair and beard, his great chest, the muscle of his

arms and thighs, the sunlight bathing him, he was mighty to see.

His eyes were mild and puzzled like the eyes of a dog who has been

chained against reason. He was making a strange restless motion from

side to side as though he were testing the white cords that held him.

His face above his beard, his neck, the upper part of his chest, his

hands, his legs beneath the knees, were a deep russet brown, the rest of

him a fair white, striking strangely with the jet blackness of his hair.

He smiled as he saw Harkness's astonishment.

"Aye, sir," he said. "It wasn't me you was expectin' to see here, and it

wasn't myself that was expectin' to be here neither."

They were alone--no Japanese, no Crispin.

"I've been in here half an hour before you come," he went on. "And I can

tell you, sir, I was mighty sorry to see them bringin' both you

gentlemen in. Whatever happens to me, I said, they've got clear away. It

never kind of struck me that the fog was going to worry you."

"Why didn't you get away yourself, Jabez?" Harkness asked him.

"They was down on me about an hour after. The fog had come on pretty

thick and I was walkin' up and down out there thinkin'. I hadn't no more

than another hour of it and pleasin' myself to think how mad that old

devil would be when he'd found out what had happened and me safe in my

own house with the mother, when all of a sudden I hear the car snortin'.

'Somethin' up,' I says, and three seconds later, as you might say, they

was on me. If it hadn't been for that fog I might of got clear, but they

was on me before I knew it. I had a bit of a struggle with they dirty

stinkin' foreigners, but they got a lot of dirty tricks an Englishman

would be ashamed of using. Anyway they had me down on the ground pretty

quick and hurt me too.

"They trussed me up like a fowl, carried me into the hall, and didn't

the old red-headed devil spit and curse? You've never seen nothing like

it, sir. Sure raving mad he was that time all right. And he came and

kicked me on the face and pulled my beard and spat in my eyes. I don't

know what's coming to us right now, but I pray the Almighty Father to

give me just one turn with my fist. I'll land him.

"Then, sir, they carried me upstairs and tumbled me into a dark room.

There I was for I wouldn't like to say how long. Then they came in and

took my things off me, the dirty foreigners. It's only a foreigner would

think of a thing like that. I struggled a bit, but what's the use? They

put their thumb in your back and they've got you. Then they tied me up

here. I had to laugh, I did really. Did you ever see such a comic

picture as all three of us without a stitch between us tied up here at

six in the morning?

"When I tell mother about it she'll laugh all right. Like the show down

to St. Ives when they have the boxing. I suppose we'll be getting out of

this all serene, sir, won't we?"

"Of course we will," said Dunbar. "Don't you worry, Jabez. He's been

doing all this to frighten us. He daren't touch us really. Why, he'll

have the county about his ears as it is. Don't you worry."

"Thank you, sir," said Jabez, still moving from side to side within the

bands, "because you see, sir, I wouldn't like anything to happen to me

just now. Mother's expectin' an addition to the family in a month or so

and there's six on 'em already, an' it needs a bit of doing looking

after them all. I wouldn't have been working for this dirty blackguard

here if it hadn't been for there being so many of us--not that I'd have

one of them away if you understand me, sir."

"You needn't be afraid, Jabez," Dunbar said. "When we get out of this

Mr. Harkness and I will see that you never have any anxiety again.

You've been a wonderful friend to us to-night and we're not likely to

forget it."

"Oh, don't you mistake me, sir," said Jabez. "It wasn't no help I was

asking for. I'm doing very well with the boat and the potatoes. It was

only I was thinking I wouldn't like nothing exactly to happen to me

along of this crazy lunatic here if you understand me, sir. . . . I'm

not so sure if they give me time I couldn't get through these bits of

rope here. I'm pretty strong in the arm, or used to be--not so dusty

even now. If I could work at them a bit----"

The door opened and Crispin came in.

He appeared to Harkness as he stepped in, quietly closing the door

behind him, like some strange creature of a dream. He seemed himself, in

the way that he moved with his eyes nearly closed, somnambulistic. He

was wearing now only his white silk pyjamas, and of these the sleeves

were rolled up showing his fat white arms. His red hair stood on end

like an ill-fitting wig. In one hand he carried a curved knife with a

handle of worked gold.

In the room, blazing with sunlight, he was like a creature straight from

the boards of some neighbouring theatre, even to the white powder that

lay in dry flakes upon his face.

He opened his eyes, staring at the sunlight, and in their depths

Harkness saw the strangest mingling of terror, pathos, eager lust, and a

bewildered amazement, as though he were tranced. The gaze with which he

turned to Harkness had in it a sudden appeal; then that appeal sank like

light quenched by water.

He was wrung up on the instant to intensest excitement. His whole body

trembled. His mouth opened as though he would speak, then closed again.

He came close to Harkness. He put out his hand and touched his neck.

"We are alone," he said, in his soft beautiful voice. He stroked

Harkness's neck. The soft boneless fingers. Harkness looked at him, and,

strangely, at that moment their eyes were very close to one another.

They looked at one another gently. In Harkness's eyes was no malice; in

Crispin's that strange mingling of lust and unhappiness.

Harkness only said: "Crispin, whatever you do to us leave that girl

alone. I beg you leave her. . . ."

He closed his eyes then. God helping him he would not speak another

word. But a triumphant exultation surged through him because he knew

that he was not afraid.

There was no fear in him. It was as though the warm sun beating on his

body gave him courage.

Standing behind the safeguard of his closed eyes his real soul seemed to

slip away, to run down the circular staircase into the hall and pass

happily into the garden, down the road to the sea.

His soul was free and Crispin's was imprisoned.

He heard Crispin's voice: "Will you admit now that I have you in my

hand? If I touch you here how you will bleed--bleed to death if I do not

prevent it. Do you remember Shylock and his pound of flesh? 'Oh! upright

Judge!' But there is no judge here to stay me!"

The knife touched him. He felt it as though it had been a wasp's

sting--a small cut it must be--and suddenly there was the cool trickle

of blood down his skin. Then his right shoulder--a prick! Now a cut

again on his arm. Stings--nothing more. But the end had really come then

at last? His hands beneath the bonds moved suddenly of their own

impulse. It was not natural not to strive to be free, to fight for his

life.

He opened his eyes. He was bleeding from five or six little cuts.

Crispin was standing away from him. He saw that Dunbar, crimson in the

face, was struggling frantically with his cords and was shouting. Jabez,

too, was calling out. The room, hitherto so quiet, was alive with

movement. Crispin now stood back from him watching him. The sight of

blood had completed what these weeks had been preparing.

With that first touch of the knife on Harkness's body Crispin's soul had

died. The battle was over. There was an animal here clothed

fantastically in human clothes like a monkey or a dog at a music-hall

show. The animal capered, stood on its hind legs, mowed in the air with

its hands. It crept up to Harkness and, whining like a dog, pricked him

with the knife point now here, now there, in a hundred places.

Harkness looked out once more at the great window with its splash of

glorious sky, then ceased to struggle with his cords. His lips moved in

some prayer perhaps, and once more, surely now for the last time, he

closed his eyes. He had a strange vision of all the moving world beyond

that window. At that moment at the hotel the maids would be sweeping the

corridors, people would be stirring and rubbing their eyes and looking

at their watches; in the town family breakfasts would be preparing, men

would be sauntering down the narrow streets to their work; the

connection with the London train would be running in with the London

papers, already the men and women would be in the fields, the women

would be waiting perhaps for the fishing-fleet to come in, Mrs. Jabez

would be at the cottage door looking up the road for her husband. . . .

His heart pounded into his mouth, with a mighty impulse he drove it

back. Crispin was laughing. The knife was raised. His face was wrinkled.

He was running round the room, round and round, making with the knife

strange movements in the air. He was whispering to himself. Round and

round and round he ran, words pouring from his mouth in a thick unending

stream. They were not words, they were sounds, and once and again a

strange sigh like a catch of the breath, like a choke in the throat. He

ran, bending, not looking at the three men, bending low as though as he

ran he were looking for something on the floor.

Then quite suddenly he straightened himself, and with a growl and a

snarl, the knife raised in one hand, hurled himself at Jabez.

All followed then quickly. The knife flashed in the sunlight. It seemed

that the hands caught at Jabez's eyes, first one and then another, but

there had been more than the hands because suddenly blood poured from

those eyes, spouting over, covering the face, mingling with the beard.

With a great cry Jabez put forth his strength. Stung by agony to a power

that he had never known until then his body seemed to rise from the

ground, to become something superhuman, immortal. The great head

towered, the limbs spread out, it seemed for a moment as though the

pillar itself would fall.

The cord that tied him to the pillar snapped and his hands were free. He

tottered, the blood pouring from his face. He moved, blindly,

staggering. Not a sound had come from him since that first cry.

His hands flung out, and in another moment Crispin was caught into his

arms. He raised him. The little fat hands fluttered. The knife flashed

loosely and fell to the ground. The giant swung into the middle of the

room blinded, but holding to himself ever tighter and ever tighter the

short fat body.

Crispin, his head tossed back, his legs flung out in an agony now of

terror, screamed with a strange shrill cry like a rabbit entrapped.

Jabez turned, and now he had Crispin's soft chest against his bleeding

face, the arms fluttering above his head. As he turned his shoulder

touched the glass of the window. He pushed backward with his arm and the

window swung open, some of the broken glass tinkling to the ground.

There was a great rush of air.

That strange thing, like no human body, the white silk, the brown

slippers, the red hair, swung. For one second of time, suspended as it

were on the thread of that long animal scream, so shrill and yet so thin

and distant, the white face, its little eyes staring, the painted mouth

open, hung towards Harkness. Then into the air like a coloured bundle of

worthless junk, for a moment a dark shadow across the steeple of

sunlight, and then down, down, into fathomless depths of air, leaving

the space of sky stainless, the morning blue without taint. . . .

Jabez stood for a moment facing them, his chest heaving in convulsive

pants. Then crying, "My eyes! My eyes!" crumpled to the floor.

VI

First Harkness was conscious of a wonderful silence. Then into the

silence, borne in on the back of the sea breeze, he heard the wild

chattering of a multitude of birds. The room was filled with their

chatter, up from the trees, crowding the room with their life.

Straight past the window, like an arrow shot from a bow, flashed a

sea-gull. Then another more slowly wheeled down, curving against the

blue like a wave released into air.

He recognized all these things, and then once again that wonderful

blessed stillness. All was peace, all repose. He might rest for ever.

After, it seemed, an infinity of time, and from a vast distance, he

caught Dunbar's voice:

". . . Jabez! Jabez! Jabez, old fellow! The man's fainted. Harkness, are

you all right? Did he hurt you?"

"No," Harkness quietly answered. "He didn't hurt me. He meant to,

though. . . ." Then a green curtain of dark thick cloth swept through

the heavens and caught him into its folds. He knew nothing more. The

last thing he heard was the glorious happy chattering of the birds.

VII

He slowly climbed an infinity of stairs, up and up and up. The stairs

were hard to climb, but he knew that at their summit there would be a

glorious view, and, for that view, he would undergo any hardship. But

oh! he was tired, desperately tired. He could hardly raise one foot

above another.

He had been walking with his eyes closed because it was cooler that way.

Then a bee stung him. Then another. On the chest. Now on the arm. Now a

whole flight. He cried out. He opened his eyes.

He was lying on a bed. People were about him. He had been climbing those

stairs naked. It would never do that those strangers should see him. He

must speak of it. His hand touched cloth. He was wearing trousers. His

chest was bare, and some one was bending over him touching places here

and there on his body with something that stung. Not bees after all. He

looked up with mildly wondering eyes and saw a face bending over him--a

kindly bearded face, a face that he could trust. Not like--not

like--that strange mask face of the Japanese. . . . That other. . . .

He struggled on to his elbow crying: "No, no. I can't any more. I've had

enough. He's mad, I tell you----"

A kind rough voice said to him: "That's all right, my friend. That's all

over. No harm done----"

My friend! That sounded good. He looked round him and in the distance

saw Dunbar. He broke into smiles holding out his hand.

"Dunbar, old man! That's fine. So you're all right?"

Dunbar came over, sat on his bed, putting his arm around him.

"All right? I should think so. So are we all. Even Jabez isn't much the

worse. That devil missed his eyes, thank heaven. He'll have two scars to

the end of his time to remind him, though."

Harkness sat up. He knew now where he was, on a sofa in the hall--in the

hall with the tattered banners and the clock that coughed like a dog. He

looked at the clock--just a quarter to seven! Only three-quarters of an

hour since that awful knock on the door.

Then he saw Hesther.

"Oh, thank God!" he whispered to himself. "_Nunc dimittis_. . . ."

She came to him. The three sat together on the sofa, the bearded man

(the doctor from the village under the cliff, Harkness afterwards found)

standing back, looking at them, smiling.

"Now tell me," Harkness said, looking at Dunbar, "the rest that I don't

know."

"There isn't much to tell. We were only there another ten minutes. When

you fainted off I felt a bit queer myself, but I just kept together, and

then heard some one running up the stairs.

"I thought it was one of the Japs returning, but there was a great

banging on the door and then shouting in a good old Cornish accent. I

called back that I was tied up in there and that they must break in the

door. That they did and burst in--two fishermen and old Possiter the

policeman from Duntrent. He's somewhere about the house now with two of

the Treliss policemen. Well, it seems that a fellow, Jack Curtis, was

going up the hill to his morning work in the Creppit fields above the

wood here when he heard a strange cry, and, turning the corner of the

road, finds on the path above the rocks, Crispin--pretty smashed up you

know. He ran--only a yard or two--to the Possiters' cottage. Possiter

was having his breakfast and was up here in no time. They got into the

house through a window and saw the two Japanese clearing off up the back

garden. Curtis chased them but they beat him and vanished into the wood.

They stopped two other men who were passing and then came on Hesther

tied up in the library. She sent them to the Tower."

"Well--and then?" said Harkness.

"There isn't much more. Except this. They got up the doctor, had poor

old Jabez's face looked to and cleared him off down to his cottage, were

examining your cuts--all this down here. Suddenly a car comes up to the

door and in there bursts--young Crispin! The two Treliss policemen had

turned up three minutes earlier in _their_ car and were here alone

except for Possiter examining Crispin Senior--who was pretty well

smashed to pieces I can tell you.

"Crispin Junior breaks through, gives one look at his father, shouts out

some words that no one can understand, puts a revolver to his temple and

blows the top of his head off before any one can stop him. Topples right

over his father's body. The end of the house of Crispin!

"I saw all this from the staircase. I was just coming down after looking

at you. I heard the shot, saw old Possiter jump back and got down in

time to help them clear it all up.

"No one knows where he'd been. To Truro, I imagine, looking for all of

us. He must have cared for that madman, cared for him or been hypnotised

by him--_I_ don't know. At least he didn't hesitate----"

"And now, sir, would you mind telling me . . .?" said the stout

red-faced Treliss policeman, advancing towards them.

VIII

He was free; it was from the moment that the red-faced policeman,

smiling upon him benevolently, had informed him that, for the moment, he

had had from him all that he needed, his one burning and determined

impulse--to get away from that hall, that garden, that house with the

utmost possible urgency.

He had not wished even to stay with Hesther and Dunbar. He would see

them later in the day, would see them, please God, many many times in

the years to come.

What he wanted was to be alone--absolutely alone.

The cuts on the upper part of his body were nothing--a little iodine

would heal them soon; it seemed that there had come to him no physical

harm--only an amazing all-invading weariness. It was not like any

weariness that he had ever before known. He imagined--he had had no

positive experience--that it resembled the conditions of some happy

doped trance, some dream-state in which the world was a vision and

oneself a disembodied spirit. It was as though his body, stricken with

an agony of weariness, was waiting for his descent, but his soul

remained high in air in a bell of crystal glass beyond whose surface the

colours of the world floated about him.

He left them all--the doctor, the policeman, Dunbar and Hesther. He did

not even stop at Jabez's cottage to inquire. That was for later. As

half-past seven struck from the church tower below the hill he flung the

gate behind him, crossed the road, and struck off on to the Downs above

the sea.

By a kind of second sight he knew exactly where he would go. There was a

path that crossed the Downs that ran slipping into a little cove, across

whose breast a stream trickled, then up on to the Downs again, pushing

up over fields of corn, past the cottage gardens up to the very gate of

the hotel.

It was all mapped in his mind in bright clear-painted colours.

The world was indeed as though it had only that morning been painted in

green and blue and gold. While the fog hung, under its canopy the

master-artist had been at work. Now from the shoulder of the Downs a

shimmer of mist tempered the splendour of the day. Harkness could see it

all. The long line of sea on whose blue surface three white sails

hovered, the bend of the Downs where it turned to deeper green, the dip

of the hill out of whose hollow the church spire like a spear

steel-tipped gesticulated, the rising hill with the wood and the tall

white tower, the green Downs far to the right where tiny sheep like

flowers quivered in the early morning haze.

All was peace. The rustling whisper of the sea, the breeze moving

through the taller grasses, the hum of tiny insects, a lark singing, two

dogs barking in rivalry, a scent of herb and salt and fashioned soil,

all these things were peace.

Harkness moved a free man as he had never been in all his life as yet.

He was his own master and God's servant too. Life might be a dream--it

seemed to him that it was--but it was a dream with a meaning, and the

events of that night had given him the key.

His egotism was gone. He wanted nothing for himself any more. He was,

and would always be, himself, but also he had lost himself in the common

life of man. He was himself because his contact with beauty was his own.

Beauty belonged to all men in common, and it was through beauty that

they came to God, but each man found beauty in his own way, and, having

found it, joined his portion of it to the common stock.

He had been shy of man and was shy no longer; he had been in love, was

in love now, but had surrendered it; he had been afraid of physical pain

and was afraid no longer; he had looked his enemy in the eyes and borne

him no ill-will.

But he was conscious of none of these things--only of the freshness of

the morning, of the scents that came to him from every side, and of this

strange disembodied state so that he seemed to float, like gossamer, on

air.

He went down the path to the little cove. He watched the ripple of water

advance and retreat. The stream of fresh water that ran through it was

crystal clear and he bent down, made a cup with his hands and drank. He

could see the pebbles, brown and red and green like jewels, and thin

spires of green weed swaying to and fro.

He buried his face in the water, letting it wash his eyes, his forehead,

his nostrils, his mouth.

He stood up and drank in the silence. The ripple of the sea was like the

touch on his arm of a friend. He kneeled down and let the fine sand run,

hot, through his fingers. Then he moved on.

He climbed the hill: a flock of sheep passed him, huddling together,

crying, nosing the hedge. The sun touched the outline of their fleece to

shining light. He cried out to the shepherd:

"A fine morning!"

"Aye, a beautiful morning!"

"A nasty fog last night."

"Aye, aye--all cleared off now though. It'll be a warm day."

The dog, his tongue out, his eyes shining, ran barking hither, thither.

They passed over the hill, the sheep like a cloud against the green.

He pushed up, the breeze blowing more strongly now on his forehead.

He reached the cottage gardens, and the smell of roses was once more

thick in his nostrils. The chimneys were sending silver skeins of smoke

into the blue air. Bacon smells and scent of fresh bread came to him.

He was at the hotel gates. Oh, but he was weary now! Weary and happy. He

stumbled up the path smelling the roses again. Into the hall. The gong

was ringing for breakfast. Children, crying out and laughing, raced down

the stairs, passed him. He reached his room. He opened the door. How

quiet it was! Just as he had left it.

Ah! there was the tree of the "St. Gilles," and there the grave friendly

eyes of Strang leaning over the etching-table to greet him.

Just as they were--but he!--not as he had been! He caught his face in

the glass smiling idiotically.

He staggered to his bed, flung himself down still smiling. His eyes

closed. There floated up to him a face--a little white face crowned with

red hair, but not evil now, not animal--friendly, lonely, asking for

something. . . .

He smiled, promising something. Lifted his hand. Then his hand fell, and

he sank deep, deep, deep into happy, blissful slumber.

THE END.