NYPL R.
|||
3
ESEARCH LIBRARIES
||||||||
7489340 9
34.33 O











E N S I GN K N I G H T L E Y
A N D O T H E R S T OR I. E. S.





ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY
AND OTHER STORIES.





w}0
f
++
+
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
E N S I GN
KNIGHT L E Y
AND
other stories i
++
+--
++
++
++
++
++
++
++
++
++
++
++
++
++
++++++
|-
|-
|-
:
:
|-
|-
|-
|-
- By
A. E. W. M. A S O N
\ I
Author of “The Courtship of Morrice i
Buckler,” “The Watchers,” I
“Parson Kelly,” etc. I
-
--
|-
|-
|-
+
f
f
f
f
f
f
f
i
f
f
f
f
t
i.
f
f
f
i.
f
f
f
r
+
--
-º-
++
f
f
; :
£2cm) 20th f :
Frejerick A. Stokes Company # i
y Publishers † :
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



/



>IES-
Pagi.
I
32
62
88
"5
137
156
178
186
207
220
252
285
301
307


v
THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC lIBSAfiY
118*S8B
AKTPB, l.TKOX AND
TILI>i:\' l-orNDAtWKS
8 1M1 u
Copyright, igoi,
By A. E. W. Mason


-J
f
CONTENTS.
Page.
Ensign Knightley i
The Man of Wheels 32
Mr. Mitchelbourne's Last Escapade . . 62
The Coward 88
The Deserter 115
The Crossed Gloves 137
The Shuttered House 156
Keeper of the Bishop 178
The Cruise of the " Willing Mind" . . 186
How Barrington Returned to Johannes-
burg. 207
Hatteras . . * . .-*.,-'. . . . 220
The Princess JocELiAJipE . . . .252
\ A Liberal Education 285
j The Twenty-Kroner Story . . . .301
* The Fifth Picture 307





ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY.
It was eleven o'clock at night when Surgeon Wyley
of His Majesty's ship Bonetta washed his hands, drew
on his coat, and walked from the hospital up the nar-
row cobbled street of Tangier to the Main-Guard by
the Catherine Port. In the upper room of the Main-
Guard he found Major Shackleton of the Tangier Foot
taking a hand at bassette with Lieutenant Scrope of
Trelawney's Regiment and young Captain Tessin of
the King's Battalion. There were three other officers
in the room, and to them Surgeon Wyley began to
talk in a prosy, medical strain. Two of his audience
listened in an uninterested stolidity for just so long as
the remnant of manners, which still survived in Tan-
gier, commanded, and then strolling through the open
window on to the balcony, lit their pipes.
Overhead the stars blazed in the rich sky of Mo-
rocco; the riding-lights of Admiral Herbert's fleet
sprinkled the bay; and below them rose the hum of
an unquiet town. It was the night of May 13th, 1680,
and the life of every Christian in Tangier hung in the
balance. The Moors had burst through the outposts
to the west, and were now entrenched beneath the
walls. The Henrietta Redoubt had fallen that day;
to-morrow the little fort at Devil's Drop, built on the
edge of the sand where the sea rippled up to the pali.


2 ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY.
sades, must fall; and Charles Fort, to the south-west,
was hardly in a better case. However, a sortie had
been commanded at daybreak as a last effort to relieve
Charles Fort, and the two officers on the balcony
speculated over their pipes on the chances of success.
Meanwhile, inside the room Surgeon Wyley lectured
to his remaining auditor, who, too tired to remonstrate,
tilted his chair against the wall and dozed.
"A concussion of the brain," Wyley went on, " has
this curious effect, that after recovery the patient will
have lost from his consciousness a period of time
which immediately preceded the injury. Thus a man
may walk down a street here in Tangier; four, five,
six hours afterwards, he mounts his horse, is thrown on
to his head. When he wakes again to his senses, the
last thing he remembers is—what? A sign, perhaps,
over a shop in the street he walked down, or a leper
pestering him for alms. The intervening hours are
lost to him, and forever. It is no question of an
abeyance of memory. There is a gap in the continuity
of his experience, and that gap he will never fill up."
"Except by hearsay?"
The correction came from Lieutenant Scrope at the
bassette table. It was quite carelessly uttered while
the Lieutenant was picking up his cards. Surgeon
Wyley shifted his chair towards the table, and accepted
the correction.
"Except, of course, by hearsay."
Wyley was a new-comer to Tangier, having sailed
into the bay less than a week back; but he had been
long enough in the town to find in Scrope a subject at
once of interest and perplexity. Scrope was in years


4 ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY.
Within a few hours the most honest man may commit
a damnable crime, a damnable dishonour."
Scrope looked quietly at the Surgeon to read the
intention of his words. Then: "I suppose so," he
said carelessly. "But do you think that question
would press?"
"Why not ?" asked Wyley.
Scrope shrugged his shoulders. "I should need an
example before I believed you."
The example was at the door. The corporal of the
guard at the Catherine Port knocked and was admitted.
He told his story to Major Shackleton, and as he told
it the two officers lounged back into the room from
the balcony, and the other who was dozing against
the wall brought the legs of his chair with a bang to
the floor and woke up.
It appeared that a sentry at the stockade outside
the Catherine Port had suddenly noticed a flutter of
white on the ground a few yards from the stockade.
He watched this white object, and it moved. He
challenged it, and was answered by a whispered
prayer for admission in the English tongue and in an
English voice. The sentry demanded the password,
and received as a reply, "Inchiquin. It is the last
password I have knowledge of. Let me in! Let me
in!"
The sentry called the corporal, the corporal admitted
the fugitive and brought him to the Main-Guard. He
was now in the guard-room below.
"You did well," said the Major. "The man has
come from the Moorish lines, and may have news
which will profit us in the morning. Let him up!"


ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY. 5
and as the corporal retired, " ' Inchiquin,' " he repeated
thoughtfully: "I cannot call to mind that password."
Now Wyley had noticed that when the corporal first
mentioned the word, Scrope, who was looking over
his cards, had dropped one on the table as though his
hand shook, had raised his head sharply, and with his
head his eyebrows, and had stared for a second fixedly
at the wall in front of him. So he said to Scrope:
"You can remember."
"Yes, I remember the password," Scrope replied
simply. "I have cause to. 'Inchiquin ' and ' Teviot'
—those were password and countersign on the night
which ruined me—the night of January 6th two years
ago."
There was an awkward pause, an interchange of
glances. Then Major Shackleton broke the silence,
though to no great effect.
"H'm—ah—yes," he said. "Well, well," he added,
and laying an arm upon Scrope's sleeve. "A good
fellow, Scrope."
Scrope made no response whatever, but of a sudden
Captain Tessin banged his fist upon the table.
"January 6th two years ago. Why," and he leaned
forward across the table towards Scrope, " Knightley
fell in the sortie that morning, and his body was never
recovered. The corporal said this fugitive was an
Englishman. What if"
Major Shackleton shook his head and interrupted.
"Knightley fell by my side. I saw the blow; it
must have broken his skull."
There was a sound of footsteps in the passage, the
door was opened and the fugitive appeared in the


6 ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY.
doorway. All eyes turned to him instantly, and
turned from him again with looks of disappointment.
Wyley remarked, however, that Scrope, who had
barely glanced at the man, rose from his chair. He
did not move from the table; only he stood where be-
fore he had sat.
The new-comer was tall; a beard plastered with
mud, as if to disguise its colour, straggled over his
burned and wasted cheeks, but here and there a wisp
of yellow hair flecked with grey curled from his hood,
a pair of blue eyes shone with excitement from hollow
sockets, and he wore the violet-and-white robes of a
Moorish soldier.
It was his dress at which Major Shackleton looked.
"One of our renegade deserters tired of his new
friends," he said with some contempt.
"Renegades do not wear chains," replied the man
in the doorway, lifting from beneath his long sleeves
his manacled hands. He spoke in a weak, hoarse
voice, and with a rusty accent; he rested a hand
against the jamb of the door as though he needed
support. Tessin sprang up from his chair, and half
crossed the room.
The stranger took an uncertain step forward. His
legs rattled as he moved, and Wyley saw that the links
of broken fetters were twisted about his ankles.
"Have two years made so vast a difference?" he
asked. "Well, they were years of the bastinado, and
I do not wonder."
Tessin peered into his face. "By God, it is!" he
exclaimed. "Knightley!"
"Thanks," said Knightley with a smile.


ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY. 7
Tessin reached out to take Knightley's hands, then
instantly stopped, glanced from Knightley to Scrope
and drew back.
"Knightley!" cried the Major in a voice of wel-
come, rising in his seat. Then he too glanced ex-
pectantly at Scrope and sat down again. Scrope
made no movement, but stood with his eyes cast down
on the table like a man lost in thought. It was
evident to Wyley that both Shackleton and Tessin
had obeyed the sporting instinct, and had left the
floor clear for the two men. It was no less evident
that Knightley remarked their action and did not un-
derstand it. For his eyes travelled from face to face,
and searched each with a wistful anxiety for the
reason of their reserve.
"Yes, I am Knightley," he said timidly. Then he
drew himself to his full height. "Ensign Knightley
of the Tangier Foot," he cried.
No one answered. The company waited upon
Scrope in a suspense so keen that even the ringing
challenge of the words passed unheeded. Knightley
spoke again, but now in a stiff, formal voice, and slowly.
"Gentlemen, I fear very much that two years make
a world of difference. It seems they change one who
had your goodwill into a most unwelcome stranger."
His voice broke in a sob; he turned to the door,
but staggered as he turned and caught at a chair. In
a moment Major Shackleton was beside him.
"What, lad? Have we been backward? Blame
our surprise, not us."
"Meanwhile," said Wyley, "Ensign Knightley's
starving."


8 ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY.
The Major pressed Knightley into a chair, called
for an orderly, and bade him bring food. Wyley
filled a glass with wine from the bottle on the table,
and handed it to the Ensign.
"It is vinegar," he said, "but"
"But Tangier is still Tangier," said Knightley with
a laugh. The Major's cordiality had strengthened
him like a tonic. He raised the glass to his lips and
drank; but as he tilted his head back his eyes over
the brim of the glass rested on Scrope, who still stood
without movement, without expression, a figure of
stone, but that his chest rose and fell with his deep
breathing. Knightley set down his glass half-full.
"There is something amiss," he said, "since even
Captain Scrope retains no memory of his old comrade."
"Captain?" exclaimed Wyley. So Scrope had
been more than a lieutenant. Here was an answer to
the question which had perplexed him. But it only
led to another question : " Had Scrope been degraded,
and why?" He did not, however, speculate on the
question, for his attention was seized the next moment.
Scrope made no sort of answer to Knightley's appeal,
but began to drum very softly with his fingers on the
table. And the drumming, at first vague and of no
significance, gradually took on, of itself as it seemed,'
a definite rhythm. There was a variation, too, in the
strength of the taps—now they fell light, now they
struck hard. Scrope was quite unconsciously beating
out upon the table a particular tune, although, since
there was but the one note sounded, Wyley could get
no more than an elusive hint of its character.
Knightley watched Scrope for a little as earnestly


ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY. 9
as the rest. Then—" Harry!" he said, "Harry
Scrope!" The name leaped from his lips in a plead-
ing cry; he stretched out his hands towards Scrope,
and the chain which bound them reached down to the
table and rattled on the wood.
There was a simultaneous movement, almost a
simultaneous ejaculation of bewilderment amongst
those who stood about Knightley. Where they had
expected a deadly anger, they found in its place a
beseeching humility. And Scrope ceased from drum-
ming on the table and turned on Knightley.
"Don't shake your chains at me," he burst out
harshly. "I am deaf to any reproach that they can
make. Are you the only man that has worn chains? I
can show as good, and better." He thrust the palm of
his left hand under Knightley's nose. "Branded, d'ye
see? Branded. There's more besides." He set his
foot on the chair and stripped the silk stocking down
his leg. Just above the ankle there was a broad
indent where a fetter had bitten into the flesh. "I
have dragged a chain, you see; not like you among
the Moors, but here in Tangier, on that damned
Mole, in sight of these my brother officers. By the
Lord, Knightley, I tell you you have had the better
part of it."
"You!" cried Knightley. "You dragged a chain
on Tangier Mole? For what offence?" And he
added, with a genuine tenderness, " There was no dis-
grace in't, I'll warrant."
Major Shackleton half checked an exclamation, and
turned it into a cough. Scrope leaned right across
the table and stared straight into Knightley's eyes.


12 ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY.
between them and their prisoners. I escaped last
night."
"Past the Henrietta Fort?" replied the Major.
"Then you can help us, for that way we make our
sortie."
"To relieve the Charles Fort?" said Knightley.
"I guessed the Charles Fort was surrounded, for I
heard one man on the Tangier wall shouting through
a speaking trumpet to the Charles Fort garrison. But
it will not be easy to relieve them. The Moors are
entrenched between. There are three trenches. I
should never have crawled through them, but that I
stripped a dead Moor of his robe."
"Three trenches," said Tessin, with a shrug of the
shoulders.
"Yes, three. The two nearest to Tangier may be
carried. But the third—it is deep, twelve feet at the
least, and wide, at the least eight yards. The sides
are steep and slippery with the rain."
"A grave, then," said Scrope carelessly; "a grave
that will hold many before the evening falls. It is
well they made it wide and deep enough."
The sombre words knocked upon every heart like a
blow on a door behind which conspirators are plot-
ting. The Major was the first to recover his speech.
"Curse your tongue, Scrope!" he said angrily.
"Let who will lie in your grave when the evening
falls. Before that time comes, we'll show these Moors
so fine a powder-play as shall glut some of them to all
eternity. Bon chat, bon rat; we are not made of jelly.
Tessin, see to Knightley."
The two men withdrew. Major Shackleton scrib-


ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY. 13
bled a note and despatched it to Sir Palmes Fairborne,
the Lieutenant-Governor. Scrope took a turn or two
across the room while the Major was writing the news
which Knightley had brought. Then—" What game
is this he's playing?" he said, with a jerk of his head
to the door by which Knightley had gone out. "I
have no mind to be played with."
"But is he playing a game at all?" asked Wyley.
Scrope faced him quickly, looked him over for a
second, and replied: "You are a new-comer to Tan-
gier, or you would not have asked that question."
"I should," rejoined Wyley with complete con-
fidence. "I know quite enough to be sure of one
thing. I know there lies some deep matter of dispute
between Ensign Knightley and Lieutenant Scrope,
and I am sure that there is one other person more in
the dark than myself, and that person is Ensign
Knightley. For whereas I know there is a dispute,
he is unaware of even that."
"Unaware?" cried Scrope. "Why, man, the very
good friend I fought with was Ensign Knightley.
The woman on whose account we fought was Knight-
ley's wife." He flung the words at the Surgeon with
almost a gesture of contempt. "Make the most of
that!" And once again he began to pace the room.
"I am not in the least surprised," returned Wyley
with an easy smile. "Though I admit that I am in-
terested. A wife is sauce to any story." He looked
placidly round the company. He alone held the key
to the puzzle, and since he was now become the centre
of attraction he was inclined to play with his less
acute brethren. With a wave of the hand he stilled


14 ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY.
the requests for an explanation, and turned to
Scrope.
"Will you answer me a question?"
"I think it most unlikely."
The curt reply in no way diminished the Surgeon's
suavity.
"I chose my words ill. I should have asked, Will
you confirm an assertion? The assertion is this: En-
sign Knightley had no suspicion before he actually
discovered the—well, the lamentable truth."
Scrope stopped his walk and came back to the table.
"Why, that is so," he agreed sullenly. "Knightley
had no suspicions. It angered me that he had not."
Wyley leaned back in his chair.
"Really, really," he said, and laughed a little to
himself. "On the night of January 6th Ensign Knight-
ley discovers the lamentable truth. At what hour?"
he asked suddenly.
Scope looked to the Major. "About midnight," he
suggested.
"A little later, I should think," corrected Major
Shackleton.
"A little after midnight," repeated Wyley. "En-
sign Knightley and Lieutenant Scrope, I understand,
immediately fight a duel, which seems to have been
interrupted before any hurt was done."
The Major and Scrope agreed with a nod of their
heads.
"In the morning," continued Wyley, "Ensign
Knightley takes part in a skirmish, and is clubbed on
the head so fiercely that Major Shackleton thought
his skull must be broken in. At what hour was he
struck?" Again he put the question quickly.


ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY. 15
"'Twixt seven and eight of the morning," replied
the Major.
"Quite so," said Wyley. "The incidents fit to a
nicety. Two years afterwards Ensign Knightley comes
home. He knows nothing of the duel, or any cause
for a duel. Lieutenant Scrope is still ' Harry' to him,
and his best of friends. It is all very clear."
He gazed about him. Perplexity sat on each face
except one ; that face was Scrope's.
"I spoke to you all some half an hour since con-
cerning the effects of a concussion. I could not have
hoped for so complete an example," said Wyley.
Captain Tessin whistled ; Major Shackleton bounced
on to his feet.
"Then Knightley knows nothing," cried Tessin in a
gust of excitement.
"And never will know," cried the Major.
"Except by hearsay," sharply interposed Scrope.
"Gentlemen, you go too fast. Except by hearsay.
That, Mr. Wyley, was the phrase, I think. By what
spells, Major," he asked with irony, "will you bind
Tangier to silence when there's scandal to be talked?
Let Knightley walk down to the water-gate to-mor-
row ; I'll warrant he'll have heard the story a hundred
times with a hundred new embellishments before he
gets there."
Major Shackleton resumed his seat moodily.
"And since that's the truth, why, he had best hear
the story nakedly from me."
"From you?" exclaimed Tessin. "Another duel,
then. Have you counted the cost?"
"Why, yes," replied Scrope quietly.


ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY. 17
may well appal any one. Lieutenant Scrope doubted
whether that question would trouble a man, and
needed an instance. I believe here is the instance.
I believe Knightley is afraid to ask any questions, and
I believe his reason to be fear of how he lived during
those lost hours."
There was a. pause. No one was prepared to deny,
however much he might doubt, what Wyley said.
Wyley continued:
"At some point of time before this duel Knightley's
recollections break off. At what precise point we are
not aware, nor is it of any great importance. The
sure thing is he does not know of the dispute be-
tween Lieutenant Scrope and himself, and it is of
more importance for us to consider whether he cannot
after all be kept from knowing. Could he not be sent
home to England? Mrs. Knightley, I take it, is no
longer in Tangier?"
Major Shackleton stood up, took Wyley by the arm
and led him out on to the balcony. The town beneath
them had gone to sleep; the streets were quiet; the
white roofs of the houses in the star-shine descended
to the water's edge like flights of marble steps; only
here and there did a light burn. To one of the lights
close by the city wall the Major directed Wyley's
attention. The house in which it burned lay so nearly
beneath them that they could command a corner of
the square open patio in the middle of it; and the
light shone in a window set in that corner and giving
on to the patio.
"You see that house?" said the Major.
"Yes," said Wyley. "It is Scrope's. I have seen
him enter and come out."


18 ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY.
"No doubt," said the Major; *' but it is Knightley's
house."
"Knightley's! Then the light burning in the win-
dow is"
The Major nodded. "She is still in Tangier. And
never a care for him has troubled her for two years,
not so much as would bring a pucker to her pretty
forehead—all my arrears of pay to a guinea-piece."
Wyley leaned across the rail of the balcony, watching
the light, and as he watched he was aware that his feel-
ings and his thoughts changed. The interest which
he had felt in Scrope died clean away, or rather was
transferred to Knightley; and with this new interest
there sprang up a new sympathy, a new pity. The
change was entirely due to that one yellow light burn-
ing in the window and the homely suggestions which
it provoked. It brought before him very clearly the
bitter contrast: so that light had burned any night
these last two years, and Scrope had gone in and out
at his will, while up in the barbarous inlands of
Morocco the husband had had his daily portion of the
bastinado and the whip. It was her fault, too, and
she made her profit of it. Wyley became sensible of
an overwhelming irony in the disposition of the world.
"You spoke a true word to-night, Major," he said
bitterly. "That light down there might turn any
man to a moralist, and send him preaching in the
market-places."
"Well," returned the Major, as though he must
make what defence he could for Scrope, "the story is
not the politest in the world. But, then, you know
Tangier—it is only a tiny outpost on the edges of the


ENSIGN KN1GHTLEY. 19
world where we starve behind broken walls forgotten
of our friends. We have the Moors ever swarming at
our gates and the wolf ever snarling at our heels, and
so the niceties of conduct are lost. We have so little
time wherein to live, and that little time is filled with
the noise of battle. Passion has its way with us in
the end, and honour comes to mean no more than
bravery and a^gallant death."
He remained a few moments silent, and then dis-
connectedly he told Wyley the rest of the story.
"It was only three years ago that Knightley came
to Tangier. He should never have brought his wife
with him. Scrope and Knightley became friends.
All Tangier knew the truth pretty soon, and laughed
at Knightley's ignorance. ... I remember the night
of January 6th very well. I was Captain of the
Guard that night too. A spy brought in news that
we might expect a night attack. I sent Knightley
with the news to Lord Inchiquin. On the way back
he stepped into his own house. It was late at night.
Mrs.Knightley was singing some foolish song to Scrope.
The two men came down into the street and fought
then and there. The quarter was aroused, the com-
batants arrested and brought to me. . . . There are
two faults which our necessities here compel us to pun-
ish beyond their proper gravity : duelling, for we can-
not afford to lose officers that way; and brawling in
the streets at night, because the Moors lie perdus under
our walls; ready to take occasion as it comes. Of
Scrope's punishment you have heard. Knightley I re-
leased for that night. He was on guard—I could not
spare him. We were attacked in the morning, and


20 ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY.
repulsed the attack. We followed up our success by
a sortie in which Knightley fell."
Wyley began again to wonder at what particular
point in this story Knightley's recollection broke off;
and, further, what particular fear it was that kept him
from all questions even concerning his wife.
Knightley's voice was heard behind them, and they
turned back into the room. The Ensign had shaved
his matted beard and combed out his hair, which now
curled and shone graciously about his head and
shoulders; his face, too, for all that it was wasted, had
taken almost a boyish zest, and his figure, revealed in
the graceful dress of his regiment, showed youth in
every movement. He was plainly by some years a
younger man than Scrope.
He saluted the Major, and Wyley noticed that with
his uniform he seemed to have drawn on something of
a soldierly confidence.
"There's your supper, lad," said Shackleton, point-
ing to a few poor herrings and a crust of bread which
an orderly had spread upon the table. "It is scanty."
"I like it the better," said Knightley with a laugh;
"for so I am assured I am at home, in Tangier. There
is no beef, I suppose?"
"Not so much as a hoof."
"No butter?"
"Not enough to cover a sixpence."
"There is cheese, however." He lifted up a scrap
upon a fork.
"There will be none to-morrow."
"And as for pay ?" he asked slyly.
"Two years and a half in arrears."


ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY. 21
Knightley laughed again.
"Moreover," added Shackleton, "out of our nothing
we may presently have to feed the fleet. It is indeed
the pleasantest joke imaginable."
"In a week, no doubt," rejoined Knightley, " I shall
be less sensible of its humour. But to-night—well, I
am home in Tangier, and that contents me. Nothing
has changed." At that he stopped suddenly. "Noth-
ing has changed?" This time the phrase was put
as a question, and with the halting timidity which he
had shown before. No one answered the question.
"No, nothing has changed," he said a third time, and
again his eyes began to travel wistfully from face to
face.
Tessin abruptly turned his back; Shackleton
blinked his eyes at the ceiling with altogether too
profound an unconcern; Scrope reached out for the
wine, and spilt it as he filled his glass ; Wyley busily
drew diagrams with a wet finger on the table.
All these details Knightley remarked. He laid
down his fork, he rested his elbow on the table, his
forehead upon his hand. Then absently he began to
hum over to himself a tune. The rhythm of it was
somehow familiar to the Surgeon's ears. Where had
he heard it before? Then with a start he remembered.
It was this very rhythm, that very tune, which Scrope's
fingers had beaten out on the table when he first saw
Knightley. And as he had absently drummed it then,
so Knightley absently hummed it now.
Surely, then, the tune had some part in the relations
of the two men—perhaps a part in this story. "A
foolish song." The words flashed into Wyley's mind,


24 ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY.
'"Let me have the truth of it," he burst out, con-
fronting his brother-officers gathered about the
table-" the truth, though it knell out my damnation
If you only knew how up there, at Fez, at Mequinez
I have pictured your welcome when I should get
back! I made of my anticipation a very anodyne
The cudgelling, the chains, the hunger, the sun, hot as
though a burning glass was held above my head—it
would all make a good story for the guard-room when
I got back-when I got back. And yet I do get back
and one and all of you draw away from me as though
I were one of the Tangier lepers we jostle in the
streets. 'Love that can flow ... '" he broke off
"I ask myself "—he hesitated, and with a great cry
"I ask you, did I play the coward on that night I was
captured two years ago?"
"The coward ?" exclaimed Shackleton in bewilder-
ment.
Wyley, for all his sympathy, could not refrain from
a triumphant glance at Scrope. » Here is the instance
you needed," he said,
"Yes, did I play the coward?" Knightley seated
himself sideways on the edge of the table, and clasp-
ing his hands between his knees, went on in a quick
lowered voice. "' Love that can flow '—those are the
last words I remember. You sent me, Major, to the
Governor with a message. I delivered it; I' started
back. On my way back I passed my house. I went
in. I stood in the patio. My wife was singing that
song. The window of the room in which she" sang
opened on to the patio. I stood there listening for a
second. Then I went upstairs. I turned the handle


ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY. 25
of the door. I remember quite clearly the light upon
the room wall as I opened the door. Those words
'love that can flow ' came swelling through the open-
ing; and—and—the next thing I am aware of, I was
riding chained upon a camel into slavery."
Tessin and Major Shackleton looked suddenly
towards Wyley in recognition of the accuracy of his
guess. Scrope simply wiped the perspiration from his
forehead and waited.
"But how does that—forgetfulness, shall we say?
—persuade you to the fear that you played the
coward ?" asked Wyley.
"Well," replied Knightley, and his voice sank to a
whisper, " I played the coward afterwards at Mequi-
nez. At the first it used to amuse me to wonder what
happened after I opened the door and before I was
captured outside Tangier; later it only puzzled me,
and in the end it began to frighten me. You see, I
could not tell; it was all a blank to me, as it is now;
and a man overdriven—well, he nurses sickly fancies.
No need to say what mine were until the day I played
the coward in Mequinez. They set me to build the
walls of the Emperor's new Palace. We used the
stones of the old Roman town and built them up in
Mequinez, and in the walls we were bidden to build
Christian slaves alive to the glory of Allah. I refused.
They stripped the flesh off my feet with their bastina-
does, starved me of food and drink, and brought me
back again to the walls. Again I refused." Knight-
ley looked up at his audience, and whether or no he
mistook their breathless silence for disbelief,—" I did,"
he implored. "Twice I refused, and twice they tor-


26 ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY.
tured me. The third time—I was so broken, the
whistle of a cane in the air made me cry out with pain
—I was sunk to that pitch of cowardice "He
stopped, unable to complete the sentence. He clasped
and unclasped his hands convulsively, he moistened
his dry lips with his tongue, and looked about him
with a weak, almost despairing laugh. Then he be-
gan in another way. "The Christian was a Portuguee
from Marmora. He was set in the wall with his arms
outstretched on either side—the attitude of a man
crucified. I built in his arms—his right arm first—
and mortised the stones, then his left arm in the same
way. I was careful not to look in his face. No, no!
I didn't look in his face." Knightley repeated the
words with a horrible leer of cunning, and hugged
himself with his arms. To Wyley's thinking he was
strung almost to madness. "After his arms I built in
his feet, and upwards from his feet I built in his legs
and his body until I came to his neck. All this while
he had been crying out for pity, babbling prayers, and
the rest of it. When I reached his neck he ceased
his clamour. I suppose he was dumb with horror. I
did not know. All I knew was that now I should
have to meet his eyes as I built in his face. I thought
for a moment of blinding him. I could have done it
quite easily with a stone. I picked up a stone to do
it, and then, well—I could not help looking at him.
He drew my eyes to his like a steel filing to a magnet.
And once I had looked, once I had heard his eyes
speaking, I—I tore down the stones. I freed his
body, his legs, his feet and one arm. When the
guards noticed what I was doing I cannot tell. I


ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY. 27
could not tell you when their sticks began to beat me.
But they dragged me away when I had freed only one
arm. I remember seeing him tugging at the other.
What happened to me,"—he shivered,—" I could not
describe to you. But you see I had played the
coward finely at Mequinez, and when that question re-
curred to me as to what had happened after I had
opened the door, I began to wonder whether by any
chance I had played the coward at Tangier. I dis-
missed the thought as a sickly fancy, but it came again
and again; and I came back here, and you draw aloof
from me with averted faces and forced welcomes on
your lips. Did I play the coward on that night I was
captured? Tell me! Tell me!" And so the torrent
of his speech came to an end.
The Major rose gravely from his seat, walked round
the table and held out his hand.
"Put your hand there, lad," he said gravely.
Knightley looked at the outstretched hand, then at
the Major's face. He took the hand diffidently, and
the Major's grasp was of the heartiest.
"Neither at Mequinez nor at Tangier did you play
the coward," said the Major. "You fell by my side
in the van of the attack."
And then Knightley began to cry. He blubbered
like a child, and with his blubbering he mixed apolo-
gies. He was weak, he was tired, his relief was too
great; he was thoroughly ashamed.
"You see," he said, " there was need that I should
know. My wife is waiting for me. I could not go
back to her bearing that stigma. Indeed, I hardly
dared ask news of her. Now I can go back; and,
gentlemen, I wish you good-night."


28 ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY.
He stood up, made his bow, wiped his eyes, and be-
gan to walk to the door. Scrope rose instantly.
"Sit down, Lieutenant," said the Major sharply,
and Scrope obeyed with reluctance.
The Major watched Knightley cross the room.
Should he let the Ensign go? Should he keep him?
He could not decide. That Knightley would seek his
wife at once might of course have been foreseen ; and
yet it had not been foreseen either by the Major or
the others. The present facts, as they had succeeded
one after another had engrossed their minds.
Knightley's hand was on the door, and the Major
had not decided. He pushed the door open, he set
a foot in the passage, and then the roar of a gun shook
the room.
"Ah !" remarked Wyley, "the signal for your sor-
tie."
Knightley stopped and listened. Major Shackleton
stood in a fixed attitude with his eyes upon the floor.
He had hit upon an issue, it seemed to him by inspi-
ration. The noise of the gun was followed by ten
clear strokes of a bell.
"That's for the King's Battalion," said Knightley
with a smile.
"Yes," said Tessin, and picking up his sword
from a corner he slung the bandolier across his
shoulder.
The bell rang out again; this time the number of
the strokes was twenty.
"That's for my Lord Dunbarton's Regiment," said
Knightley.
"Yes," said two of the remaining officers. They


ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY. 29
took their hats and followed Captain Tessin down the
stairs.
A third time the bell spoke, and the strokes were
thirty.
"Ah!" said Knightley, "that's for the Tangier
Foot. Well, good luck to you, Major!" and he passed
through the door.
"A moment, Knightley. The regiment first. You
wear Ensign Barbour's uniform. You must do more
than wear his uniform. The regiment first."
Major Shackleton spoke in a husky voice and kept
his eyes on the floor. Scrope looked at him keenly
from the table. Knightley hardly looked at him at all.
He stepped back into the room.
"With all my heart, Major: the regiment first."
"Your station is at Peterborough Tower. You will
go there—at once."
"At once," replied Knightley cheerfully. "So she
would wish," and he went down the stairs into the
street. Major Shackleton picked up his hat.
"I command this sortie," he said to Wyley; but
as he turned he found himself confronted by Scrope.
"What do you intend?" asked Scrope.
Major Shackleton looked towards Wyley. Wyley
understood the look and also what Shackleton in-
tended. He went from the room and left the two
men together.
The grey light poured through the window; the
candles still burnt yellow on the table.
"What do you intend?"
The Major looked Scrope straight in the face.
"I have heard a man speak to-night in a man's


30 ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY.
voice. I mean to do that man the best service that
I can. These two years at Mequinez cannot mate
with these two years at Tangier. Knightley knows
nothing now; he never shall know. He believes his
wife a second Penelope; he shall keep that belief.
There is a trench—you called it very properly a grave.
In that trench Knightley will not hear though all
Tangier scream its gossip in his ears. I mean to give
him his chance of death."
"No, Major," cried Scrope. "Or listen! Give
me an equal chance."
"Trelawney's Regiment is not called out. Again,
Lieutenant, I fear me you will have the harder part
of it."
Shackleton repeated Scrope's own words in all
sincerity, and hurried off to his post.
Scrope was left alone in the guard-room. A vision
of the trench, twelve feet deep, eight yards wide,
yawned before his eyes. He closed them, but that
made no difference; he still saw the trench. In
imagination he began to measure its width and depth.
Then he shook his head to rid himself of the picture,
and went out on to the balcony. His eyes turned in-
stinctively to a house by the city wall, to a corner of
the patio oi the house and the latticed shutter of a
window just seen from the balcony.
He stepped back into the room with a feeling of
nausea, and blowing out the candles sat down alone,
in the twilight, amongst the empty chairs. There
were dark corners in the room; the broadening light
searched into them, and suddenly the air was tinged
with warm gold. Somewhere the sun had risen. In a


ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY. 31
little, Scrope heard a dropping sound of firing, and a
few moments afterwards the rattle of a volley. The
battle was joined. Scrope saw the trench again yawn
up before his eyes. The Major was right. This
morning, again, Lieutenant Scrope had the harder
part of it.


THE MAN OF WHEELS.
When Sir Charles Fosbrook was told by Mr. Pepys
that Tangier had been surrendered to the Moors, he
asked at once after the fate of his gigantic mole; and
when he was informed that his mole had been, before
the evacuation, so utterly blown to pieces that its
scattered blocks made the harbour impossible for an-
chorage, he forbade so much as the mention in his
presence of the name of Africa. But if he had done
with Tangier, Tangier had not done with him, and
five years afterwards he became concerned in the most
unexpected way with certain tragic consequences of
that desperate siege.
He received a letter from an acquaintance of whom
he had long lost sight, a Mr. Mardale of the Quarry
House near Leamington, imploring him to give his
opinion upon some new inventions. The value of the
inventions could be easily gauged; Mr. Mardale
claimed to have invented a wheel of perpetual rotation.
Sir Charles, however, had his impulses of kindness.
He knew Mr. Mardale to be an old and gentle per-
son, a little touched in the head perhaps, who with
money enough to surfeit every instinct of pleasure, had
preferred to live a shy secluded life, busily engaged
either in the collection of curiosities or the invention
of toy-like futile machines. There was a girl too
whom Sir Charles remembered, a weird elfin creature


THE MAN OF WHEELS. 33
with extraordinary black eyes and hair and a clear
white face. Her one regret in those days had been
that she was not born a horse, and she had lived in the
stables, in as horse like a fashion as was possible. Her
ankle indeed still must bear an unnecessary scar
through the application of a fierce horse-liniment to a
sprain. No doubt, however, she had long since
changed her ambitions. Sir Charles calculated her
age. Resilda Mardale must be twenty-five years old
and a deuced fine woman into the bargain. Sir Charles
took a glance at his figure in his cheval-glass. He had
reached middle-age to be sure, but he had a leg that
many a spindle-shanked youngster might envy, nor
was there any unbecoming protuberance at his waist.
He wrote a letter accepting the invitation and a week
later in the dusk of a June evening, drove up the long
avenue of trees to the terrace of the Quarry House.
The house was a solid square mansion built upon
the side of a hill, and the ground in front of it fell
away very quickly from the terrace to what Sir Charles
imagined must be a pond, for a light mist hung at the
bottom. On the other side of the pond the ground
rose again in a steep hill. But Sir Charles had no
opportunity at this moment to get any accurate
knowledge of the house and its surroundings. For
apart from the darkness, it was close upon supper-
time and Miss Resilda Mardale must assuredly not be
kept waiting. His valet subsequently declared that
Sir Charles had seldom been so particular in the
choice of his coat and small-clothes; and the supper-
bell certainly rang out before he was satisfied with
the set of his cravat.


34 THE MAN OF WHEELS.
He could not, however, consider his pains wasted
when once he was set down opposite to Resilda. She
was taller than he had expected her to be, but he did
not count height a fault so long as there was grace to
carry it off, and grace she had in plenty. Her face
had gained in delicacy and lost nothing of its bril-
liancy, or of its remarkable clearness of complexion.
Her hair too if it was less rebellious, and more neatly
coiled, had retained its glory of profusion, and her big
black eyes, though to be sure they were grown a trifle
sedate, no doubt could sparkle as of old. Sir Charles
set himself to make them sparkle. Old Mr. Mardale
prattled of his inventions to his heart's delight—he
described the wheel, and also a flying machine and be-
sides the flying machine, an engine by which steam
might be used to raise water to great altitudes. Sir
Charles was ready from time to time with a polite, if
not always an appropriate comment, and for the rest
he paid compliments to Resilda. Still the eyes did
not sparkle, indeed a pucker appeared and deepened
on her forehead. Sir Charles accordingly redoubled
his gallantries, he was slyly humorous about the
horse-liniment, and thereupon came the remark which
so surprised him and was the beginning of his strange
discoveries. For Resilda suddenly leaned towards
him and said frankly:
"I would much rather, Sir Charles, you told me
something of your great mole at Tangier."
Sir Charles had reason for surprise. The world had
long since forgotten his mole, if ever it had been con-
cerned in it. Yet here was a girl whose thoughts
might be expected to run on youths and ribands talk-


THE MAN OF WHEELS. 35
ing of it in a little village four miles from Leamington
as though there were no topic more universal. Sir
Charles Fosbrook answered her gravely.
"I thought never to speak of Tangier and the mole
again. I spent many years upon the devising and
construction of that great breakwater. It could have
sheltered every ship of his Majesty's navy. It was
wife and children to me. My heart lay very close to
it. I fancied indeed my heart was disrupted with the
disruption of the mole, and it has at all events, lain
ever since as heavy as King Charles' Chest."
"Yes, I can understand that," said Resilda.
Sir Charles had vowed never to speak of the matter
again. But he had kept his vow for five long years,
and besides here was a girl of a remarkable beauty ex-
pressing sympathy and asking for information. Sir
Charles broke his vow and talked, and the girl helped
him. A suspicion that she might have primed herself
with knowledge in view of his coming, vanished before
the flame of her enthusiasm. She knew the history of
its building almost as well as he did himself, and
could even set him right in his dates. It was she who
knew the exact day on which King Charles' Chest,
that great block of mortised stones, which formed as it
were the keystone of the breakwater, had been lowered
into its place. Sir Charles abandoned all reserve, and
talked freely of his hopes and fears as the pier ran
farther out and out into the currents of the Straits, of
his bitter disappointment when his labours were de-
stroyed. He forgot his gallantries, he showed himself
the man he was. Neither he nor Resilda noticed a
low rumble of thunder or the beating of sudden rain


36 THE MAN OF WHEELS.
upon the windows, so occupied were they with the
theme of their talk; and at last Sir Charles, leaning
back in his chair, cried out with astonishment and
delight.
"But how is it that my mole is so familiar a thing
to you? Explain it if you please! Never have I
spent so agreeable an evening."
A momentary embarrassment seemed to follow
upon his words. Resilda looked at her father who
chuckled and explained.
"Sir, an old soldier years ago came over the hill in
front of the house and begged for alms. He found
my daughter on the terrace in a lucky moment for
himself. He had all sorts of wonderful stories of
Tangier and the great mole which was then a building.
Resilda was set on fire that day, and though the King
and the Parliament might shut their eyes to the sore
straits of that town and the gallantry of its defenders,
no one was allowed to forget them in the Quarry
House. To tell the truth I sometimes envied the
obliviousness of Parliament," and he laughed gently.
"So from the first my daughter was primed with the
history of that siege, and lately we have had further
means of knowledge—" He began to speak warily
and with embarrassment— "For two years ago
Resilda married an officer of The King's Battalion,
Major Lashley."
"Here are two surprises," cried Sir Charles. "For
in the first place, Madam, I had no thought you were
wed. Blame a bachelor's stupidity!" and he glanced
at her left hand which lay upon the table-cloth with
the band of gold gleaming upon a finger. "In the


THE MAN OF WHEELS. 37
second place I knew Major Lashley very well, though
it is news to me that he ever troubled his head with
my mole. A very gallant officer, who defended
Charles Fort through many nights of great suspense,
and cleft his way back to Tangier when his ammuni-
tion was expended. I shall be very glad to shake the
Major once more by the hand."
At once Sir Charles was aware that he had uttered
the most awkward and unsuitable remark. Resilda
Lashley, as he must now term her, actually flinched
away from him and then sat with a vague staring look
of pain as though she had been shocked clean out of
her wits. She recovered herself in a moment, but she
did not speak, neither had Sir Charles any words. He
looked at her dress which was white and had not
so much as a black riband dangling anywhere about
it.
But there were other events than death which could
make the utterance of his wish a gaucherie. Sir
Charles prided himself upon his tact, particularly with
a good-looking woman, and he was therefore much
abashed and confused. The only one who remained
undisturbed was Mr. Mardale. His mind was never
for very long off his wheels, or his works of art. It
was the turn of his pictures now. He had picked up
a genuine Rubens in Ghent, he declared. It was
standing somewhere in the great drawing-room on the
carpet against the back of a chair, and Sir Charles
must look at it in the morning, if only it could be
found. He had clean forgotten all about his daughter
it appeared. She, however, had a mind to clear the
mystery up, and interrupting her father.


38 THE MAN OF WHEELS.
"It is right that you should know," she said simply,
"Major Lashley disappeared six months ago."
"Disappeared!" exclaimed Sir Charles in spite of
himself, and the astonishment in his voice woke the
old gentleman from his prattle.
"To be sure," said he apologetically, " I should
have told you before of the sad business. Yes, Sir,
Major Lashley disappeared, utterly from this very
house on the eleventh night of last December, and
though the country-side was scoured and every raga-
muffin for miles round brought to question, no trace
of him has anywhere been discovered from that day
to this."
An intuition slipped into Sir Charles Fosbrook's
mind, and though he would have dismissed it as
entirely unwarrantable, persisted there. The thought
of the steep slope of ground before the house and the
mist in the hollow between the two hills. The mist
was undoubtedly the exhalation from a pond. The
pond might have reeds which might catch and gather
a body. But the pond would have been dragged.
Still the thought of the pond remained while he ex-
pressed a vague hope that the Major might by God's
will yet be restored to them.
He had barely ended before a louder gust of rain
than ordinary smote upon the windows and immedi-
ately there followed a knocking upon the hall-door.
The sound was violent, and it came with so opposite
a rapidity upon the heels of Fosbrook's words that it
thrilled and startled him. There was something very
timely in the circumstances of night and storm and
that premonitory clapping at the door. Sir Charles


THE MAN OF WHEELS. 39
looked towards the door in a glow of anticipation.
He had time to notice, however, how deeply Resilda
herself was stirred; her left hand which had lain loose
upon the table-cloth was now tightly clenched, and
she had a difficulty in breathing. The one strange
point in her conduct was that although she looked
towards the door like Sir Charles Fosbrook, there was
more of suspense in the look than of the eagerness of
welcome. The butler, however, had no news of Major
Lashley to announce. He merely presented the com-
pliments of Mr. Gibson Jerkley who had been caught
in the storm near the Quarry House and ten miles
from his home. Mr. Jerkley prayed for supper and a
dry suit of clothes.
"And a bed too," said Resilda, with a flush of
colour in her cheeks, and begging Sir Charles' per-
mission she rose from the table. Sir Charles was dis-
appointed by the mention of a strange name. Mr.
Mardale, however, to whom that loud knocking upon
the door had been void of suggestion, now became
alert. He looked with a strange anxiety after his
daughter, an anxiety which surprised Fosbrook, to
whom this man of wheels and little toys had seemed
lacking in the natural affections.
"And a bed too," repeated Mr. Mardale doubt-
fully, "to be sure! To be sure!" And though he
went into the hall to welcome his visitor, it was not
altogether without reluctance.
Mr. Gibson Jerkley was a man of about thirty years.
He had a brown open personable countenance, a pair
of frank blue eyes, and the steady restful air of a man
who has made his account with himself, and who


40 THE MAN OF WHEELS.
neither speaks to win praise nor is at pains to escape
dislike. Sir Charles Fosbrook was from the first
taken with the man, though he spoke little with him
for the moment. For being tired with his long
journey from London, he retired shortly to his room.
But however tired he was, Sir Charles found that it
was quite impossible for him to sleep. The cracking
of the rain upon his windows, the groaning trees in
the park, and the wail of the wind among the chim-
neys and about the corners of the house were no
doubt for something in a-Londoner's sleeplessness.
But the mysterious disappearance of Major Lashley
was at the bottom of it. He thought again of the
pond. He imagined a violent kidnapping and his
fancies went to work at devising motives. Some
quarrel long ago in the crowded city of Tangier and
now brought to a tragical finish amongst the oaks and
fields of England. Perhaps a Moor had travelled
over seas for his vengeance and found his way from
village to village like that Baracen lady of old times.
And when he had come to this point of his reflections,
he heard a light rapping upon his door. He got out
of bed and opened it. He saw Mr. Gibson Jerkley
standing on the threshold with a candle in one hand
and a finger of the other at his lip.
"I saw a light beneath your door," said Jerkley,
and Sir Charles made room for him to enter. He
closed the door cautiously, and setting his candle
down upon a chest of drawers, said without any
hesitation:
"I have come, Sir, to ask for your advice. I do
not wonder at your surprise, it is indeed a strange sort


THE MAN OF WHEELS. 41
of intrusion for a man to make upon whom you have
never clapped your eyes before this evening. But for
one thing I fancy Mrs. Lashley wishes me to ask you
for the favour. She has said nothing definitely, in
faith she could not as you will understand when you
have heard the story. But that I come with her ap-
proval I am very sure. For another, had she dis-
approved, I should none the less have come of my
own accord. Sir, though I know you very well by
reputation, I have had the honour of few words with
you, but my life has taught me to trust boldly where
my eyes bid me trust. And the whole affair is so
strange that one more strange act like this intrusion
of mine is quite of apiece. I ask you therefore to
listen to me. The listening pledges you to nothing,
and at the worst, I can promise you, my story will
while away a sleepless hour. If when you have heard,
you can give us your advice, I shall be very glad.
For we are sunk in such a quandary that a new point
of view cannot but help us."
Sir Charles pointed to a chair and politely turned
away to hide a yawn. For the young man's lengthy
exordium had made him very drowsy. He could very
comfortably had fallen asleep at this moment. But
Gibson Jerkley began to speak, and in a short space
of time Sir Charles was as wide-awake as any house-
breaker.
"Eight years ago," said he, " I came very often to
the Quarry House, but I always rode homewards dis-
contented in the evening. Resilda at that time had a
great ambition to be a boy. The sight of any brown
bare-legged lad gipsying down the hill with a song


42 THE MAN OF WHEELS.
upon his lips, would set her viciously kicking the toes
of her satin slippers against the parapet of the terrace,
and clamouring at her sex. Now I was not of the
same mind with Resilda."
"That I can well understand," said Sir Charles
drily. "But, my young friend, I can remember a
time when Resilda desired of all things to be a horse.
There was something hopeful because more human in
her wish to be a boy, had you only known."
Mr. Jerkley nodded gravely and continued:
"I was young enough to argue the point with her,
which did me no good, and then to make matters
worse, the soldier from Tangier came over the hill,
with his stories of Major Lashley—Captain he was
then."
"Major Lashley," exclaimed Sir Charles. "I did
not hear the soldier was one of Major Lashley's men!"
"But he was and thenceforward the world went
very ill with me. Reports of battles, and sorties came
home at rare intervals. She was the first to read of
them. Major Lashley's name was more than once
mentioned. We country gentlemen who stayed at
home and looked after our farms and our tenants,
having no experience of war, suffered greatly in the
comparison. So at the last I ordered my affairs for a
long voyage, and without taking leave of any but my
nearest neighbours and friends, I slipped off one even-
ing to the wars."
"You did not wish your friends at the Quarry
House good-bye?" said Fosbrook.
"No. It might have seemed that I was making
claims, and, after all, one has one's pride. I would


THE MAN OF WHEELS. 43
never, I think, ask a woman to wait for me. But
she heard of course after I had gone and—I am speak-
ing frankly—I believe the news woke the woman in
her. At all events there was little talk after of Tan-
gier at the Quarry House."
Mr. Jerkley related his subsequent history. He
had sailed at his own charges to Africa; he had en-
listed as a gentleman volunteer in The King's Batta-
lion; he had served under Major Lashley in the
Charles Fort where he was in charge of the great
speaking-trumpet by which the force received its orders
from the Lieutenant-Governor in Tangier Castle;
he took part in the desperate attempt to cut a way
back through the Moorish army into the town. In
that fight he was wounded and left behind for dead.
"A year later peace was made. Tangier was
evacuated, Major Lashley returned to England. Now
the Major and I despite the difference in rank had
been friends. I had spoken to him of Miss Mardale's
admiration, and as chance would have it, he came to
Leamington to take the waters."
"Chance ?" said Sir Charles drily.
"Well it may have been intention," said Jerkley.
"There was no reason in the world why he should not
seek her out. She was not promised to me, and very
likely I had spoken of her with enthusiasm. For a
long time she would not consent to listen to him.
He was, however, no less persistent—he pleaded his suit
for three years. I was dead you understand, and
what man worth a pinch of salt would wish a woman
to waste her gift of life in so sterile a fidelity. . . .
You follow me? At the end of three years Resilda


44 THE MAN OF WHEELS.
yielded to his pleadings, and the persuasions of her
friends. For Major Lashley quickly made himself a
position in the country. They were married, Major
Lashley was not a rich man, it was decided that they
should both live at the Quarry House."
"And what had Mr. Mardale to say to it?" asked
Fosbrook.
"Oh, Sir," said Gibson Jerkley with a laugh. "Mr.
Mardale is a man of wheels, and little steel springs.
Let him sit at his work-table in that crowded drawing-
room on the first floor, without interruption, and he
will be very well content, I can assure you. . . .
Hush !" and he suddenly raised his hand. In the
silence which followed, they both distinctly heard the
sound of some one stirring in the house. Mr. Jerkley
went to the door and opened it. The door gave on
to the passage which was shut off at its far end by
another door from the square tulip-wood landing, at
the head of the stairs. He came back into the bed-
room.
"There is a light on the other side of the passage-
door," said he. "But I have no doubt it is Mr. Mar-
dale going to his bed. He sits late at his work-table."
Sir Charles brought him back to his story.
"Meanwhile you were counted for dead, but actually
you were taken prisoner. There is one thing which I
do not understand. When peace was concluded the
prisoners were freed and an officer was sent up into
Morocco to secure their release."
"There were many oversights like mine, I have no
doubt. The Moors were reluctant enough to produce
their captives. We who were supposed to be dead


THE MAN OF WHEELS. 45
were not particularly looked for. I have no doubt
there is many a poor English soldier sweating out his
soul in the uplands of that country to this day. I
escaped two years ago, just about the time, in fact,
when Miss Resilda Mardale became Mrs. Lashley. I
crept down over the hillside behind Tangier one
dark evening, and lay all night beneath a bush of
tamarisks dreaming the Moors were still about me.
But an inexplicable silence reigned and nowhere was
the darkness spotted by the flame of any camp-fire.
In the morning I looked down to Tangier. The first
thing which I noticed was your broken stump of
mole, the second that nowhere upon the ring of
broken wall could be seen the flash of a red coat or
the glitter of a musket-barrel. I came down into
Tangier, I had no money and no friends. I got away
in a felucca to Spain. From Spain I worked my pas-
sage to England. I came home nine months ago.
And here is the trouble. Three months after I
returned Major Lashley disappeared. You under-
stand?"
"Oh," cried Sir Charles, and he jumped in his chair.
"I understand indeed. Suspicion settled upon you,"
and as it ever will upon the least provocation suspi-
cion passed for a moment into Fosbrook's brain. He
was heartily ashamed of it when he looked into
Jerkley's face. It would need, assuredly, a criminal of
an uncommon astuteness to come at this hour with'
this story. Mr. Jerkley was not that criminal.
"Yes," he answered simply, "I am looked at
askance, devil a doubt of it. I would not care a snap
of the fingers were I alone in the matter; but there is


46 THE MAN OF WHEELS.
Mrs. Lashley . . . she is neither wife nor widow . . .
and," he took a step across the room and said quicky—
"and were she known for a widow, there is still the
suspicion upon me like a great iron door between us."
"Can you help us, Sir Charles! Can you see
light?"
"You must tell me the details of the Major's dis-
appearance," said Sir Charles, and the following
details were given.
On the eleventh of December and at ten o'clock of
the evening Major Lashley left the house to visit the
stables which were situated in the Park and at the
distance of a quarter of a mile from the house. A
favourite mare, which he had hunted the day before,
had gone lame, and all day Major Lashley had shown
some anxiety; so that there was a natural reason why
he should have gone out at the last moment before
retiring to bed. Mrs. Lashley went up to her room
at the same time, indeed with so exact a correspon-
dence of movement that as she reached the polished
tulip-wood landing at the top of the stairs, she heard
the front door latch as her husband drew it to behind
him. That was the last she heard of him.
"She woke up suddenly," said Jerkley, " in the mid-
dle of the night, and found that her husband was not at
her side. She waited for a little and then rose from
her bed. She drew the window-curtains aside and
by the glimmering light which came into the room,
was able to read the dial of her watch. It was seven
minutes past three of the morning. She immediately
lighted her candle and went to rouse her father. Her
door opened upon the landing, it is the first door


THE MAN OF WHEELS. 47
upon the left hand side as you mount the stairs;
the big drawing-room opens on to the landing too,
but faces the stairs. Mrs. Lashley at once went to
that room, knowing how late Mr. Mardale is used to
sit over his inventions, and as she expected, found
him there. A search was at once arranged; every
servant in the house was at once impressed, and in
the morning every servant on the estate. Major
Lashley had left the stable at a quarter past ten. He
has been seen by no one since."
Sir Charles reflected upon this story.
"There is a pond in front of the house," said he.
"It was dragged in the morning," replied Jerkley.
Sir Charles made various inquiries and received the
most unsatisfactory answers for his purpose. Major
Lashley had been a favourite alike at Tangier, and
in the country. He had a winning trick of a smile,
which made friends for him even among his country's
enemies. Mr. Jerkley could not think of a man who
had wished him ill.
"Well, I will think the matter over," said Sir
Charles, who had not an idea in his head, and he held
the door open for Mr. Jerkley. Both men stood
upon the threshold, looked down the passage and
then looked at one another.
"It is strange," said Jerkley.
"The light has been a long while burning on the
landing," said Sir Charles. They walked on tip-toe
down the passage to the door beneath which one
bright bar of light stretched across the floor. Jerkley
opened the door and looked through; Sir Charles
who was the taller man looked over Jerkley's head


48 THE MAN OF WHEELS.
and never were two men more surprised. In the
embrasure of that door to the left of the stair-case,
the door behind which Resilda Lashley slept, old
Mr. Mardale reclined, with his back propped against
the door-post. He had fallen asleep at his post, and
a lighted candle half-burnt flamed at his side. The
reason of his presence then was clear to them both.
"A morbid fancy!" he said in a whisper, but
with a considerable anger in his voice. "Such a
fancy as comes only to a man who has lost his judg-
ment through much loneliness. See, he sits like any
negro outside an Eastern harem! Sir, I am shamed
by him."
"You have reason I take the liberty to say," said
Sir Charles absently, and he went back to his room
puzzling over what he had seen, and over what he
could neither see nor understand. The desire for
sleep was altogether gone from him. He opened his
Window and leaned out. The rain had ceased, but
the branches still dripped and the air was of an in-
comparable sweetness. Blackbirds and thrushes on
the lawns, and in the thicket-depths were singing as
though their lives hung upon the full fresh utterance
of each note. A clear pure light was diffused across
the world. Fosbrook went back to his old idea of
some vengeful pursuit sprung from a wrong done
long ago in Tangier. The picture of Major Lashley
struck with terror as he got news of his pursuers, and
slinking off into the darkness. Even now, somewhere
or another, on the uplands or the plains of England,
he might be rising from beneath a hedge to shake
the rain from his besmeared clothes, and start off


THE MAN OF WHEELS. 49
afresh on another day's aimless flight. The notion
caught his imagination and comforted him to sleep.
But in the morning he woke to recognise its unreality.
The unreality became yet more vivid to him at the
breakfast-table, when he sat with two pairs of young
eyes turning again and again trustfully towards him.
The very reliance which the man and woman so
clearly placed in him spurred him. Since they looked
to him to clear up the mystery, why he must do it,
and there was an end of the matter.
He was none the less glad, however, when Mr.
Jerkley announced his intention of returning home.
There would at all events be one pair of eyes the less.
He strolled with Mr. Jerkley on the terrace after
breakfast with a deep air of cogitation, the better to
avoid questions. Gibson Jerkley, however, was him-
self in a ruminative mood. He stopped, and gazing
across the valley to the riband of road descending the
hill:
"Down that road the soldier came," said he,
"whose stories brought about all this misfortune."
"And very likely down that road will come the
bearer of news to make an end of it," rejoined
Fosbrook sententiously. Mr. Jerkley looked at him
with a sudden upspringing of hope, and Sir Charles
nodded with ineffable mystery, never guessing how
these lightly spoken words were to return to his mind
with the strength of a fulfilled prophecy.
As he nodded, however, he turned about towards
the house, and a certain disfigurement struck upon his
eyes. Two windows on the first floor were entirely
bricked up, and as the house was square with level


50 THE MAN OF WHEELS.
tiers of windows, they gave to it an unsightly look.
Sir Charles inquired of his companion if he could ac-
count for them.
"To be sure," said Jerkley, with the inattention of
a man diverted from serious thought to an unimportant
topic. "They are the windows of the room in which
Mrs. Mardale died a quarter of a century ago. Mr.
Mardale locked the door as soon as his wife was taken
from it to the church, and the next day he had the
windows blocked. No one but he has entered the
room during all these years, the key has never left his
person. It must be the ruin of a room by now. You
can imagine it, the dust gathering, the curtains rotting,
in the darkness and at times the old man sitting there
with his head running on days long since dead. But
you know Mr. Mardale, he is not as other men."
Sir Charles swung round alertly to his companion.
To him at all events the topic was not an indifferent
one.
"Yet you say, you believe that he is void of the
natural affections. Last night we saw a proof, a crazy
proof if you will, but none the less a proof of his de-
votion to his daughter. To-day you give me as sure
a one of his devotion to his dead wife," and almost
before he had finished, Mr. Mardale was calling to him
from the steps of the house.
He spent all that morning in the great drawing-
room on the first floor. It was a room of rich furni-
ture, grown dingy with dust and inattention, and
crowded from end to end with tables and chairs and
sofas, on which were heaped in a confused medley,
pictures, statues of marble, fans and buckles from


$2 THE MAN OF WHEELS.
again, until at last it was pushed into the one cool
dark corner of the room. Then Sir Charles closed his
wearied eyes the better to think. But he had slept
little during the last night, and when he opened them
again, it was with a guilty start. He rubbed his eyes,
then he reached a hand down quickly at his side, and
lifted a book out of the lowest shelf in the corner.
The book was a volume of sermons. Sir Charles re-
placed it, and again dipped his hand into the lucky-
bag. He drew out a tome of Mr. Hobbes' philosophy;
Sir Charles was not in the mood for Hobbes; he tried
again. On this third occasion he found something
very much more to his taste, namely the second Vol-
ume of Anthony Hamilton's Memoirs of Count
Grammont. This he laid upon his knee, and began
glancing through the pages while he speculated upon
the mystery of the Major's disappearance. His
thoughts, however, lagged in a now well-worn circle,
they begot nothing new in the way of a suggestion.
On the other hand the book was quite new to him.
He became less and less interested in his thoughts,
more and more absorbed in the Memoirs. There were
passages marked with a pencil-line in the margin, and
marked, thought Sir Charles, by a discriminating
judge. He began to look only for the marked pas-
sages, being sure that thus he would most easily come
upon the raciest anecdotes. He read the story of the
Count's pursuit by the brother of the lady he was
affianced to. The brother caught up the Count when
he was nearing Dover to return to France. "You have
forgotten something," said the brother. "So I have,"
replied Grammont. "I have forgotten to marry your


THE MAN OF WHEELS. 53
sister." Sir Charles chuckled and turned over the
pages. There was an account of how the reprobate
hero rode seventy miles into the country to keep a
tryst with an inamorata and waited all night for no
purpose in pouring rain by the Park gate. Sir Charles
laughed aloud. He turned over more pages, and to
his surprise came across, amongst the marked pas-
sages, a quite unentertaining anecdote of how Gram-
mont lost a fine new suit of clothes, ordered for a
masquerade at White Hall. Sir Charles read the
story again, wondering why on earth this passage had
been marked; and suddenly he was standing by the
window, holding the book to the light in a quiver of
excitement. Underneath certain letters in the words of
this marked passage he had noticed dents in the paper,
as though by the pressure of a pencil point. Now
that he stood by the light, he made sure of the dents,
and he saw also by the roughness of the paper about
them, that the pencil-marks had been carefully erased.
He read these underlined letters together—they made
a word, two words—a sentence, and the sentence was
an assignation.
Sir Charles could not remember that the critical
moment in any of his great engineering undertakings,
had ever caused him such aflutter of excitement, such
a pulsing in his temples, such a catching of his breath
—no, not even the lowering of Charles' Chest into the
Waters of Tangier harbour. Everything at once be-
came exaggerated out of its proportions, the silence
of the house seemed potential and expectant, the
shadows in the room now that the sun was low had
their message, he felt a queer chill run down his spine


54 THE MAN OF WHEELS.
like ice, he shivered. Then he hurried to the door,
locked it and sat down to a more careful study. And
as he read, there came out before his eyes a story a
story told as it were in telegrams, a story of passion,
of secret meetings, of gratitude for favours.
Who was the discriminating judge who had marked
these passages and underlined these letters? The
book was newly published, it was in the Quarry
House, and there were three occupants of the Quarry
House. Was it Mr. Mardale? The mere question
raised a laugh. Resilda? Never. Major Lashley
then? If not Major Lashley, who else?
It flashed into his mind that here in this book he
might hold the history of the Major's long courtship
of Resilda. But he dismissed the notion contemptu-
ously. Gibson Jerkley had told him of that court-
ship, and of the girl's reluctance to respond to it.
Besides Resilda was never the woman in this story.
Perhaps the first volume might augment it and give
the clue to the woman's identity. Sir Charles hunted
desperately through the shelves. Nowhere was the
first volume to be found. He wasted half-an-hour be-
fore he understood why. Of course the other volume
would be in the woman's keeping, and how in the
world to discover her?
Things moved very quickly with Sir Charles that
afternoon. He had shut up the volume and laid it on
the table, the while he climbed up and down the
library steps. From the top of the steps he glanced
about the room in a despairing way, and his eyes lit
upon the table. For the first time he remarked the
binding which was of a brown leather. But all the


THE MAN OF WHEELS. 55
books on the shelves were bound uniformly in marble
boards with a red backing. He sprang down from the
steps with the vigour of a boy, and seizing the book
looked in the fly leaf for a name. There was a name,
the name of a bookseller in Leamington, and as he
closed the book again, some one rapped upon the door.
Sir Charles opened it and saw Mr. Mardale. He gave
the old gentleman no time to speak.
"Mr. Mardale," said he, "lam a man of plethoric
habits, and must needs take exercise. Can you lend
me a horse?"
Mr. Mardale was disappointed as his manner showed.
He had perhaps at that very moment hit upon a new
and most revolutionary invention. But his manners
hindered him from showing more than a trace of the
disappointment, and Sir Charles rode out to the book-
seller at Leamington, with the volume beneath his
coat.
"Can you show me the companion to this?" said he,
dumping it down upon the counter. The bookseller
seized upon the volume and fondled it.
"It is not fair," he cried. "In any other affair but
books, it would be called at once sheer dishonesty.
Here have been my subscribers clamouring for the
Memoirs for six months and more."
"You hire out your books !" cried Sir Charles.
"Give would be the properer word," grumbled the
man.
Sir Charles humbly apologised.
"It was the purest oversight," said he, " and I will
gladly pay double. But I need the first volume."
"The first volume, Sir," replied the bookseller in a


56 THE MAN OF WHEELS.
mollified voice, "is in the like case with the second.
There has been an oversight."
"But who has it?"
The bookseller was with difficulty persuaded to
search his list. He kept his papers in the greatest dis-
order, so that it was no wonder people kept his vol-
umes until they forgot them. But in the end he
found his list.
"Mrs. Ripley," he read out, " Mrs. Ripley of Burley
Wood."
"And where is Burley Wood ?" asked Sir Charles.
"It is a village, Sir, six miles from Leamington,"
replied the bookseller, and he gave some rough direc-
tions as to the road.
Sir Charles mounted his horse and cantered down
the Parade. The sun was setting; he would for a
something miss his supper; but he meant to see Bur-
ley Wood that day, and he would have just daylight
enough for his purpose. As he entered the village, he
caught up a labourer returning from the fields. Sir
Charles drew rein beside him.
"Will you tell me, if you please, where Mrs. Ripley
lives?"
The man looked up and grinned.
"In the churchyard," said he.
"Do you mean she is dead ?''
"No less."
"When did she die?"
"Well, it may have been a month or two ago, or it
may have been more."
"Show me her grave and there's a silver shilling
in your pocket."
The labourer led Fosbrook to a corner of the


THE MAN OF WHEELS. 57
churchyard. Then upon a head-stone he read that
Mary Ripley aged twenty-nine had died on December
7th. December the 7th thought Sir Charles, five days
before Major Lashley died. Then he turned quickly
to the labourer.
"Can you tell me when Mrs. Ripley was buried?"
"I can find out for another shilling."
"You shall have it, man."
The labourer hurried off, discovered the sexton, and
came back. But instead of the civil gentleman he had
left, he found now a man with a face of horror, and
eyes that had seen appalling things. Sir Charles had
remained in the churchyard by the grave, he had
looked about him from one to the other of the mounds
of turf, his imagination already stimulated had been
quickened by what he had seen; he stood with the
face of a Medusa.
"She was buried when?" he asked.
"On December the nth," replied the labourer.
Sir Charles showed no surprise. He stood very still
for a moment, then he gave the man his two shillings,
and walked to the gate where his horse was tied. Then
he inquired the nearest way to the Quarry House, and
he was pointed out a bridle-path running across fields
to a hill. As he mounted he asked another question.
"Mr. Ripley is alive?"
"Yes."
"It must be Mr. Ripley," Sir Charles assured
himself, as he rode through the dusk of the evening.
"It must be . . . It must be . . . until the words in
his mind became a meaningless echo of his horse's
hoofs. He rode up the hill, left the bridle-path for


58 THE MAN OF WHEELS.
the road, and suddenly, and long before he had ex-
pected, he saw beneath him the red square of the
Quarry House and the smoke from its chimneys. He
was on that very road up which he and Gibson Jerk-
ley had looked that morning. Down that road, he
had said, would come the man who knew how Major
Lashley had disappeared, and within twelve hours
down that road the man was coming. "But it must
be Mr. Ripley," he said to himself.
None the less he took occasion at supper to speak
of his ride.
"I rode by Leamington to Burley Wood. I went
into the churchyard." Then he stopped, but as though
the truth was meant to come to light, Resilda helped
him out.
"I had a dear friend buried there not so long ago,"
she said. "Father,you remember Mrs. Ripley."
"I saw her grave this afternoon," said Fosbrook,
with his eyes upon Mr. Mardale. It might have been
a mere accident, it was in any case a trifling thing, the
mere shaking of a hand, the spilling of a spoonful of
salt upon the table, but trifling things have their sug-
gestions. He remembered that Resilda, when she had
waked up on the night of December the nth to find
herself alone, had sought out her father, who was still
up, and at work in the big drawing-room. He remem-
bered too that the window of that room gave on to a
terrace of grass. A man might go out by that window
—aye and return without a soul but himself being
the wiser.
Of course it was all guess work and inference, and
besides, it must be Mr. Ripley. Mr. Ripley might as


THE MAN OF WHEELS. 59
easily have discovered the secret of the Memoirs as him-
self—or anyone else. Mr. Ripley would have jus-
tification for anger and indeed for more—yes for what
men who are not affected are used to call a crime
.... Sir Charles abruptly stopped his reasoning, see-
ing that it was prompted by a defence of Mr. Mardale.
He made his escape from his hosts as soon as he de-
cently could and retired to his room. He sat down
in his room and thought, and he thought to some pur-
pose. He blew out his candle, and stole down the
stairs into the hall. He had met no one. From the
hall he went to the library-door and opened it—ever
so gently. The room was quite dark. Sir Charles
felt his way across it to his chair in the corner. He
sat down in the darkness and waited. After a time
inconceivably long, after every board in the house had
cracked a million times, he heard distinctly a light
shuffling step in the passage, and after that the latch of
the door release itself from the socket. He heard
nothing more, for a little, he could only guess that the
door was being silently opened by some one who
carried no candle. Then the shuffling footsteps began
to move gently across the room, towards him, towards
the corner where he was sitting. Sir Charles had had
no doubt but that they would, not a single doubt, but
none the less as he sat there in the dark, he felt the hair
rising on his scalp, and all his body thrill. Then a
hand groped and touched him. Aery rang out, but it
was Sir Charles who uttered it. A voice answered
quietly:
"You had fallen asleep. I regret to have waked
you."


60 THE MAN OF WHEELS.
"I was not asleep, Mr. Mardale."
There was a pause and Mr. Mardale continued.
"I cannot sleep to-night, I came for a book."
"I know. For the book I took back to Leaming-
ton to-day, before I went to visit Mrs. Ripley's grave."
There was a yet longer pause before Mr. Mardale
spoke again.
"Stay then!" he said in the same gentle voice.
"I will fetch a light." He shuffled out of the room,
and to Sir Charles it seemed again an inconceivably
long time before he returned. He came back with a
single candle, which he placed upon the table, a little
star of light, showing the faces of the two men
shadowy and dim. He closed the door carefully, and
coming back, said simply:
"You know."
"Yes."
"How did you find out?"
"I saw the grave. I noticed the remarkable height
of the mound. I guessed."
"Yes," said Mr. Mardale, and in a low voice he ex-
plained. "I found the book here one day, that he
left by accident. On December I ith Mrs. Ripley was
buried, and that night he left the house—for the
stables, yes, but he did not return from the stables.
It seemed quite clear to me where he would be that
night. People hereabouts take me for a man crazed
and daft, I know that very well, but I know some-
thing of passion, Sir Charles. I have had my griefs
to bear. Oh, I knew where he would be. I followed
over the hill down to the churchyard of Burley Wood.
had no thought of what I should do. I carried a


THE MAN OF WHEELS. 61
stick in my hand, I had no thought of using it. But I
found him lying full-length upon the grave with his
lips pressed to the earth of it, whispering to her who
lay beneath him. ... I called to him to stand up and
he did. I bade him, if he dared, repeat the words he
had used to my face, to me, the father of the girl he
had married, and he did—triumphantly, recklessly.
I struck at him with the knob of my stick, the knob
was heavy, I struck with all my might, the blow fell
upon his forehead. The spade was lying on the
ground beside the grave. I buried him with her.
Now what will you do?"
"Nothing," said Sir Charles.
"But Mr. Jerkley asked you to help him."
"I shall tell a lie."
"My friend, there is no need," said the old man with
his gentle smile. "When I went out for this candle
I . . ." Sir Charles broke in upon him in a whirl of
horror.
"No. Don't say it! You did not!"
"I did," replied Mr. Mardale. "The poison is a
kindly one. I shall be dead before morning. I shall
sleep my way to death. I do not mind, for I fear
that, after all, my inventions are of little worth. I
have left a confession on my writing-desk. There is
no reason—is there ?—why he and she should be kept
apart?"
It was not a question which Sir Charles could dis-
cuss. He said nothing, and was again left alone in the
darkness, listening to the shuffling footsteps of Mr.
Mardale as, for the last time, he mounted the stairs.


MR. MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST
ESCAPADE.
It was in the kitchen of the inn at Framlingham
that Mr. Mitchelbourne came across the man who was
afraid, and during the Christmas week of the year
1681. Lewis Mitchelbourne was young in those days,
and esteemed as a gentleman of refinement and sensi-
bility, with a queer taste for escapades, pardonable
by reason of his youth. It was his pride to bear his
part in the graceful tactics of a minuet, while a sad-
dled horse waited for him at the door. He delighted
to vanish of a sudden from the lighted circle of his
friends into the byways where none knew him, or
held him of account, not that it was all vanity with
Mitchelbourne though no doubt the knowledge that
his associates in London Town were speculating upon
his whereabouts tickled him pleasurably through
many a solitary day. But he was possessed both of
courage and resource, qualities for which he found too
infrequent an exercise in his ordinary life; and so he
felt it good to be free for awhile, not from the re-
straints but from the safeguards, with which his social
circumstances surrounded him. He had his spice of
philosophy too, and discovered that these sharp con-
trasts,—luxury and hardship, treading hard upon each


MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE. 63
other and the new strange people with whom he fell
in, kept fresh his zest of life.
Thus it happened that at a time when families were
gathering cheerily each about a single fireside, Mr.
Mitchelbourne was riding alone through the muddy
and desolate lanes of Suffolk. The winter was not
seasonable; men were not tempted out of doors.
There was neither briskness nor sunlight in the air,
and there was no snow upon the ground. It was a
December of dripping branches, and mists and steady
pouring rains, with a raw sluggish cold, which crept
into one's marrow.
The man who was afraid, a large, corpulent man, of
a loose and heavy build, with a flaccid face and bright
little inexpressive eyes like a bird's, sat on a bench
within the glow of the fire.
"You travel far to-night?" he asked nervously,
shuffling his feet.
"To-night!" exclaimed Mitchelbourne as he stood
with his legs apart taking the comfortable warmth
into his bones. "No further than from this fire to
my bed," and he listened with enjoyment to the rain
which cracked upon the window like a shower of
gravel flung by some mischievous urchin. He was
not suffered to listen long, for the corpulent man be-
gan again.
"I am an observer, sir. I pride myself upon it, but
I have so much humility as to wish to put my ob-
servations to the test of fact. Now, from your car-
riage, I should judge you to serve His Majesty."
"A civilian may be straight. There is no law
against it," returned Mitchelbourne, and he perceived


64 MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE.
that the ambiguity of his reply threw his questioner
into a great alarm. He was at once interested.
Here, it seemed, was one of those encounters which
were the spice of his journeyings.
"You will pardon me," continued the stranger with
a great assumption of heartiness, " but I am curious,
sir, curious as Socrates, though I thank God I am no
heathen. Here is Christmas, when a sensible gentle-
man, as upon my word I take you to be, sits to his
table and drinks more than is good for him in honour
of the season. Yet here are you upon the roads to
Suffolk which have nothing to recommend them. I
wonder at it, sir."
"You may do that," replied Mitchelbourne,
"though to be sure, there are two of us in the like
case."
"Oh, as for me," said his companion shrugging his
shoulders, "I am on my way to be married. My
name is Lance," and he blurted it out with a sudden-
ness as though to catch Mitchelbourne off his guard.
Mitchelbourne bowed politely.
"And my name is Mitchelbourne, and I travel for
my pleasure, though my pleasure is mere gipsying, and
has nothing to do with marriage. I take comfort
from thinking that I have no friend from one rim of
this country to the other, and that my closest in-
timates have not an inkling of my whereabouts."
Mr. Lance received the explanation with undis-
guised suspicion, and at supper, which the two men
took together, he would be forever laying traps.
Now he slipped some outlandish name or oath unex-
pectedly into his talk, and watched with a forward


MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE. 65
bend of his body to mark whether the word struck
home; or again he mentioned some person with
whom Mitchelbourne was quite unfamiliar. At length,
however, he seemed satisfied, and drawing up his
chair to the fire, he showed himself at once in his true
character, a loud and gusty boaster.
"An exchange of sentiments, Mr. Mitchelbourne,
with a chance acquaintance over a pipe and a glass—
upon my word I think you are in the right of it, and
there's no pleasanterway of passing an evening. I could
tell you stories, sir; I served the King in his wars, but
I scorn a braggart, and all these glories are over. I am
now a man of peace, and, as I told you, on my way to
be married. Am I wise? I do not know, but I
sometimes think it preposterous that a man who has
been here and there about the world, and could, if he
were so meanly-minded, tell a tale or so of success in
gallantry, should hamper himself with connubial
fetters. But a man must settle, to be sure, and since
the lady is young, and not wanting in looks or breed-
ing or station, as I am told—"
"As you are told?" interrupted Mitchelbourne.
"Yes, for I have never seen her. No, not so much
as her miniature. Nor have I seen her mother either,
or any of the family, except the father, from whom I
carry letters to introduce me. She lives in a house
called 'The Porch' some miles from here. There is
another house hard by to it, I understand, which has
long stood empty and I have a mind to buy it. I
bring a fortune, the lady a standing in the county."
"And what has the lady to say to it ?" asked
Mitchelbourne.


66 MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE.
"The lady !" replied Lance with a stare. "Noth-
ing but what is dutiful, I'll be bound. The father
is under obligations to me." He stopped suddenly,
and Mitchelbourne, looking up, saw that his mouth
had fallen. He sat with his eyes starting from his
head and a face grey as lead, an image of panic piti-
ful to behold. Mitchelbourne spoke but got no an-
swer. It seemed Lance could not answer—he was so
arrested by a paralysis of terror. He sat staring
straight in front of him, and it seemed at the mantel-
piece which was just on a level with his eyes. The
mantelpiece, however, had nothing to distinguish it
from a score of others. Its counterpart might be
found to this day in the parlour of any inn. A couple
of china figures disfigured it, to be sure, but Mitchel-
bourne could not bring himself to believe that even
their barbaric crudity had power to produce so visible
a discomposure. He inclined to the notion that his
companion was struck by a physical disease, perhaps
some recrudescence of a malady contracted in those
foreign lands of which he vaguely spoke.
"Sir, you are ill," said Mitchelbourne. "I will have
a doctor, if there is one hereabouts to be found,
brought to your relief." He sprang up as he spoke,
and that action of his roused Lance out of his
paralysis. "Have a care," he cried almost in a shriek,
"Do not move! For pity, sir, do not move," and he
in his turn rose from his chair. He rose trembling,
and swept the dust off a corner of the mantelpiece
into the palm of his hand. Then he held his palm to
the lamp.


MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE. 67
"Have you seen the like of this before ?" he asked
in a low shaking voice.
Mitchelbourne looked over Lance's shoulder. The
dust was in reality a very fine grain of a greenish
tinge.
"Never !" said Mitchelbourne.
"No, nor I," said Lance, with a sudden cunning look
at his companion, and opening his fingers, as he let the
grain run between them. But he could not remove as
easily from Mitchelbourne's memories that picture he
had shown him of a shaking and a shaken man.
Mitchelbourne went to bed divided in his feelings be-
tween pity for the lady Lance was to marry, and curi-
osity as to Lance's apprehensions. He lay awake for a
long time speculating upon that mysterious green seed
which could produce so extraordinary a panic, and in
the morning his curiosity predominated. Since, there-
fore, he had no particular destination he was easily
persuaded to ride to Saxmundham with Mr. Lance,
who, for his part, was most earnest for a companion.
On the journey Lance gave further evidence of his
fears. He had a trick of looking backwards whenever
they came to a corner of the road—an habitual trick,
it seemed, acquired by a continued condition of fear.
When they stopped at midday to eat at an ordinary,
he inspected the guests through the chink at the hinges
of the door before he would enter the room; and this,
too, he did as though it had long been natural to him.
He kept a bridle in his mouth, however; that little
pile of grain upon the mantelshelf had somehow
warned him into reticence, so that Mitchelbourne, had
he not been addicted to his tobacco, would have learnt
V*<Sm


68 MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE.
no more of the business and would have escaped the
extraordinary peril which he was subsequently called
upon to face.
But he was addicted to his tobacco, and no sooner
had he finished his supper that night at Saxmundham
than he called for a pipe. The maidservant fetched a
handful from a cupboard and spread them upon the
table, and amongst them was one plainly of Barbary
manufacture. It had a straight wooden stem painted
with hieroglyphics in red and green and a small reddish
bowl of baked earth. Nine men out of ten would no
doubt have overlooked it, but Mitchelbourne was the
tenth man. His fancies were quick to kindle, and
taking up the pipe he said in a musing voice:
"Now, how in the world comes a Barbary pipe to
travel so far over seas and herd in the end with com-
mon clays in a little Suffolk village?"
He heard behind him the grating of a chair violently
pushed back. The pipe seemingly made its appeal to
Mr. Lance also.
"Has it been smoked?" he asked in a grave low
voice.
"The inside of the bowl is stained," said Mitchel-
bourne.
Mitchelbourne had been inclined to believe that he
had seen last evening the extremity of fear expressed
in a man's face: he had now to admit that he had
been wrong. Mr. Lance's terror was a Circe to him
and sunk him into something grotesque and inhuman;
he ran once or twice in a little tripping, silly run back-
wards and forwards like an animal trapped and out of
its wits; and his face had the look of a man suffering


MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE. 69
from a nausea; so that Mitchelbourne, seeing him, was
ashamed and hurt for their common nature.
"I must go," said Lance babbling his words. "I
cannot stay. I must go."
"To-night?" exclaimed Mitchelbourne. "Six
yards from the door you will be soaked!"
"Then there will be the fewer men abroad. I can-
not sleep here! No, though it rained pistols and bul-
lets I must go." He went into the passage, and
calling his host secretly asked for his score. Mitchel-
bourne made a further effort to detain him.
"Make an inquiry of the landlord first. It may be
a mere shadow that frightens you."
"Not a word, not a question," Lance implored.
The mere suggestion increased a panic which seemed
incapable of increase. "And for the shadow, why,
that's true. The pipe's the shadow, and the shadow
frightens me. A shadow! Yes! A shadow is a hor-
rible, threatning thing! Show me a shadow cast by
nothing and I am with you. But you might as easily
hold that this Barbary pipe floated hither across the
seas of its own will. No! 'Ware shadows, I say."
And so he continued harping on the word, till the
landlord fetched in the bill.
The landlord had his dissuasions too, but they
availed not a jot more than Mr. Mitchelbourne's.
"The road is as black as a pauper's coffin," said he,
"and damnable with ruts."
"So much the better," said Lance.
"There is no house where you can sleep nearer than
Glemham, and no man would sleep there could he
kennel elsewhere."


70 MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE.
"So much the better," said Lance. "Besides, I am
expected to-morrow evening at 'The Porch' and
Glemham is on the way." He paid his bill, slipped
over to the stables and lent a hand to the saddling of
his horse. Mitchelbourne, though for once in his life
he regretted the precipitancy with which he welcomed
strangers, was still sufficiently provoked to see the
business to its end. His imagination was seized by
the thought of this fat and vulgar person fleeing in
terror through English lanes from a Barbary Moor.
He had now a conjecture in his mind as to the nature
of that greenish seed. He accordingly rode out with
Lance toward Glemham.
It was a night of extraordinary blackness; you
could not distinguish a hedge until the twigs stung
across your face; the road was narrow, great tree-
trunks with bulging roots lined it, at times it was very
steep—and, besides and beyond every other discom-
fort, there was the rain. It fell pitilessly straight
over the face of the country with a continuous roar as
though the earth was a hollow drum. Both travellers
were drenched to the skin before they were free of
Saxmundham, and one of them, when after midnight
they stumbled into the poor tumble-down parody of a
tavern at Glemham, was in an extreme exhaustion. It
was no more than an ague, said Lance, from which he
periodically suffered, but the two men slept in the
same bare room, and towards morning Mitchelbourne
was awakened from a deep slumber by an unfamiliar
voice talking at an incredible speed through the dark-
ness in an uncouth tongue. He started up upon his
elbow; the voice came from Lance's bed. He' struck


MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE. 71
a light. Lance was in a high fever, which increased
as the morning grew.
Now, whether he had the sickness latent within
him when he came from Barbary, or whether his
anxieties and corpulent habit made him an easy vic-
tim to disease, neither the doctor nor any one else
could determine. But at twelve o'clock that day
Lance was seized with an attack of cholera and by
three in the afternoon he was dead. The suddenness
of the catastrophe shocked Mr. Mitchelbourne inex-
pressibly. He stood gazing at the still features of the
man whom fear had, during these last days, so
grievously tormented, and was solemnly aware of the
vanity of those fears. He could not pretend to any
great esteem for his companion, but he made many
suitable reflections upon the shears of the Fates and
the tenacity of life, in which melancholy occupation
he was interrupted by the doctor, who pointed out
the necessity of immediate burial. Seven o'clock the
next morning was the hour agreed upon, and Mitchel-
bourne at once searched in Lance's coat pockets for
the letters which he carried. There were only two,
superscribed respectively to Mrs. Ufford at "The
Porch" near Glemham, and to her daughter Drusilla.
At "The Porch" Mitchelbourne remembered Lance
was expected this very evening, and he thought it
right at once to ride thither with his gloomy news.
Having, therefore, sprinkled the letters plentifully
with vinegar and taken such rough precautions as
were possible to remove the taint of infection from
the letters, he started about four o'clock. The even-
ing was most melancholy. For, though no rain any


72 MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE.
longer fell, there was a continual pattering of drops
from the trees and a ghostly creaking of branches in a.
light and almost imperceptible wind. The day, too,
was falling, the grey overhang of cloud was changing
to black, except for one wide space in the west, where
a pale spectral light shone without radiance; and the
last of that was fading when he pulled up at a parting
of the roads and inquired of a man who chanced to be
standing there his way to " The Porch." He was di-
rected to ride down the road upon his left hand until
he came to the second house, which he could not mis-
take, for there was a dyke or moat about the garden
wall. He passed the first house a mile further on,
and perhaps half a mile beyond that he came to the
dyke and the high garden wall, and saw the gables of
the second house loom up behind it black against the
sky. A wooden bridge spanned the dyke and led to
a wide gate. Mitchelbourne stopped his horse at the
bridge. The gate stood open and he looked down an
avenue of trees into a square of which three sides were
made by the high garden wall, and the fourth and in-
nermost by the house. Thus the whole length of the
house fronted him, and it struck him as very singular
that neither in the lower nor the upper windows was
there anywhere a spark of light, nor was there any
sound but the tossing of the branches and the wail of
the wind among the chimneys. Not even a dog
barked or rattled a chain, and from no chimney
breathed a wisp of smoke. The house in the gloom
of that melancholy evening had a singular eerie and
tenantless look ; and oppressive silence reigned there;
and Mitchelbourne was unaccountably conscious of a


MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE. 73
growing aversion to it, as to something inimical and
sinister.
He had crossed the mouth of a lane, he re-
membered, just at the first corner of the wall. The
lane ran backwards from the road, parallel with the
side wall of the garden. Mitchelbourne had a strong
desire to ride down that lane and inspect the back of
the house before he crossed the bridge into the gar-
den. He was restrained for a moment by the thought
that such a proceeding must savour of cowardice.
But only for a moment. There had been no doubt-
ing the genuine nature of Lance's fears and those fears
were very close to Mr. Mitchelbourne now. They
were feeling like cold fingers about his heart. He
was almost in the icy grip of them.
He turned and rode down the lane until he came to
the end of the wall. A meadow stretched behind the
house. Mitchelbourne unfastened the catch of a gate
with his riding whip and entered it. He found him-
self upon the edge of a pool, which on the opposite
side wetted the house wall. About the pool some
elder trees and elms grew and overhung, and their
boughs tapped like fingers upon the window-panes.
Mitchelbourne was assured that the house was in-
habited, since from one of the windows a strong
yellow light blazed, and whenever a sharper gust blew
the branches aside, swept across the face of the pool
like a flaw of wind.
The lighted window was in the lowest storey, and
Mitchelbourne, from the back of his horse, could see
into the room. He was mystified beyond expression
by what he saw. A deal table, three wooden chairs,


74 MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE.
some ragged curtains drawn back from the window,
and a single lamp made up the furniture. The boards
of the floor were bare and unswept; the paint peeled
in strips from the panels of the walls; the discoloured
ceiling was hung with cobwebs; the room in a word
matched the outward aspect of the house in its look
of long disuse. Yet it had occupants. Three men
were seated at the table in the scarlet coats and boots
of the King's officers. Their faces, though it was
winter-time, were brown with the sun, and thin and
drawn as with long privation and anxiety. They had
little to say to one another, it seemed. Each man
sat stiffly in a sort of suspense and expectation, with
now and then a restless movement or a curt word as
curtly answered.
Mitchelbourne rode back again, crossed the bridge,
fastened his horse to a tree in the garden, and walked
down the avenue to the door. As he mounted the
steps, he perceived with something of a shock, that
the door was wide open and that the void of the hall
yawned black before him. It was a fresh surprise,
but in this night of surprises, one more or less, he
assured himself, was of little account. He stepped
into the hall and walked forwards feeling with his
hands in front of him. As he advanced, he saw a
thin line of yellow upon the floor ahead of him. The
line of yellow was a line of light, and it came, no
doubt, from underneath a door, and the door, no doubt,
was that behind which the three men waited. Mit-
chelbourne stopped. After all, he reflected, the thres
men were English officers wearing His Majesty's
uniform, and, moreover, wearing it stained with their


MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE. 75
country's service. He walked forward and tapped
upon the door. At once the light within the room
was extinguished.
It needed just that swift and silent obliteration of
the slip of light upon the floor to make Mitchel-
bourne afraid. He had been upon the brink of fear
ever since he had seen that lonely and disquieting
house; he was now caught in the full stream. He
turned back. Through the open doorway, he saw
the avenue of leafless trees tossing against a leaden
sky. He took a step or two and then came suddenly
to a halt. For all around him in the darkness he
seemed to hear voices breathing and soft footsteps.
He realised that his fear had overstepped his reason;
he forced himself to remember the contempt he had
felt for Lance's manifestations of terror; and swing-
ing round again he flung open the door and entered
the room.
"Good evening, gentlemen," said he airily, and he
got no answer whatsoever. In front of him was the
grey panel of dim twilight where the window stood.
The rest was black night and an absolute silence. A
map of the room was quite clear in his recollections.
The three men were seated he knew at the table on
his right hand. The faint light from the window did
not reach them, and they made no noise. Yet they
were there. Why had they not answered him, he
asked himself. He could not even hear them
breathing, though he strained his ears. He could
only hear his heart drumming at his breast, the blood
pulsing in his temples. Why did they hold their
breath? He crossed the room, not knowing what he


76 MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE.
did, bereft of his wits. He had a confused, ridicu-
lous picture of himself wearing the flaccid, panic
stricken face of Mr. Lance, like an ass' head, not
holding the wand of Titania. He reached the win-
dow and stood in its embrasure, and there one def-
inite, practical thought crept into his mind. He was
visible to these men who were invisible to him. The
thought suggested a precaution, and with the trem-
bling haste of a man afraid, he tore at the curtains and
dragged them till they met across the window so that
even the faint grey glimmer of the night no longer
had entrance. The next moment he heard the door
behind him latch and a key turn in the lock. He
crouched beneath the window and did not stand up
again until a light was struck, and the lamp relit.
The lighting of the lamp restored Mr. Mitchel-
bourne, if not to the full measure of his confidence, at
all events to an appreciation that the chief warrant
for his trepidation was removed. What he had with
some appearance of reason feared was a sudden
attack in the dark. With the lamp lit, he could
surely stand in no danger of any violence at the hands
of three King's officers whom he had never come across
in all his life. He took, therefore, an easy look at
them. One, the youngest, now leaned against the
door, a youth of a frank, honest face, unremarkable
but for a firm set of the jaws. A youth of no great
intellect, thought Mitchelbourne, but tenacious, a
youth marked out for a subordinate command, and
never likely for all his sterling qualities to kindle a
woman to a world-forgetting passion, or to tread with
her the fiery heights where life throbs at its fullest.


MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE. 77
Mr. Mitchelbourne began to feel quite sorry for this
young officer of the limited capacities, and he was
still in the sympathetic mood when one of the two
men at the table spoke to him. Mitchelbourne turned
at once. The officers were sitting with a certain air
of the theatre in their attitudes, one a little dark man
and the other a stiff, light complexioned fellow with
a bony, barren face, unmistakably a stupid man and
the oldest of the three'. It was he who was speak-
ing, and he spoke with a sort of aggravated courtesy
like a man of no breeding counterfeiting a gentleman
upon the stage.
"You will pardon us for receiving you with so
little ceremony. But while we expected you, you on
the other hand were not expecting us, and we feared
that you might hesitate to come in if the lamp was
burning when you opened the door."
Mitchelbourne was now entirely at his ease. He
perceived that there was some mistake and made haste,
to put it right.
"On the contrary," said he," for I knew very well you
were here. Indeed, I knocked at the door to make a
necessary inquiry. You did not extinguish the lamp
so quickly but that I saw the light beneath the door,
and besides I watched you some five minutes through
the window from the opposite bank of the pool at the
back of the house."
The officers were plainly disconcerted by the affabil-
ity of Mr. Mitchelbourne's reply. They had evidently
expected to carry off a triumph, not to be taken up in an
argument. They had planned a stroke of the theatre,


78 MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE.
final and convincing, and behold the dialogue went on!
There was a riposte to their thrust.
The spokesman made some gruff noises in his
throat. Then his face cleared.
"These are dialectics," he said superbly with a wave
of the hand.
"Good," said the little dark fellow at his elbow,
"very good!"
The youth at the door nodded superciliously
towards Mitchelbourne.
"True, these are dialectics," said he with a smack of
the lips upon the word. It was a good cunning schol-
arly word, and the man who could produce it so aptly
worthy of admiration.
"You make a further error, gentlemen," continued
Mitchelbourne, "you no doubt are expecting some
one, but you were most certainly not expecting me.
For I am here by the purest mistake, having been mis-
directed on the way." Here the three men smiled to
each other, and their spokesman retorted with a
chuckle.
"Misdirected, indeed you were. We took precau-
tions that you should be. A servant of mine stationed
at the parting of the roads. But we are forgetting our
manners," he added rising from his chair. "You
should know our names. The gentleman at the door
is Cornet Lashley, this is Captain Bassett and I am
Major Chantrell. We are all three of Trevelyan's
regiment."
"And my name," said Mitchelbourne, not to be out-
done in politeness, " is Lewis Mitchelbourne, a gentle-
man of the County of Middlesex."


MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE. 79
At this each of the officers was seized with a fit of
laughter; but before Mitchelbourne had time to re-
sent their behavior, Major Chantrell said indulgently:
"Well, well, we shall not quarrel about names. At
all events we all four are lately come from Tangier."
"Oh, from Tangier," cried Mitchelbourne. The
riddle was becoming clear. That extraordinary siege
when a handful of English red-coats unpaid and illfed
fought a breached and broken town against countless
hordes for the honour of their King during twenty
years, had not yet become the property of the histor-
ian. It was still an actual war in 1681. Mitchel-
bourne understood whence came the sunburn on his
antagonists' faces, whence the stains and the worn
seams of their clothes. He advanced to the table and
spoke with a greater respect than he had used.
"Did one of you," he asked, " leave a Moorish pipe
behind you at an inn of Saxmundham?"
"Ah," said the Major with a reproachful glance at
Captain Bassett. The Captain answered with some
discomfort:
"Yes. I made that mistake. But what does it
matter? You are here none the less."
"You have with you some of the Moorish tobacco?"
continued Mitchelbourne.
Captain Bassett fetched out of his pocket a little
canvas bag, and handed it to Mitchelbourne, who un-
tied the string about the neck, and poured some of the
contents into the palm of his hand. The tobacco was
a fine, greenish seed.
"I thought as much," said Mitchelbourne, "you
expected Mr. Lance to-night. It is Mr. Lance whom


80 MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE.
you thought to misdirect to this solitary house. In-
deed Mr. Lance spoke of such a place in this neigh-
bourhood, and had a mind to buy it."
Captain Bassett suddenly raised his hand to his
mouth, not so quickly, however, but Mitchelbourne saw
the grim, amused smile upon his lips. "It is Mr.
Lance for whom you now mistake me," he said
abruptly.
The young man at the door uttered a short, con-
temptuous laugh, Major Chantrell only smiled.
"I am aware," said he, " that we meet for the first
time to-night, but you presume upon that fact too far.
What have you to say to this?" And dragging a big
and battered pistol from his pocket, he tossed it upon
the table, and folded his arms in the best transpontine
manner.
"And to this?" said Captain Bassett. He laid a
worn leather powder flask beside the pistol, and tapped
upon the table triumphantly.
Mr. Mitchelbourne recognised clearly that villainy
was somehow checkmated by these proceedings and
virtue restored, but how he could not for the life of
him determine. He took up the pistol.
"It appears to have seen some honourable service,"
said he. This casual remark had a most startling effect
upon his auditors. It was the spark to the gun-powder
of their passions. Their affectations vanished in a trice.
"Service, yes, but honourable! Use that lie again,
Mr. Lance, and I will ram the butt of it down your
throat!" cried Major Chantrell. He leaned forward
over the table in a blaze of fury. Yet his face did no
more than match the faces of his comrades.


MITCHELBOURNE'S LaST ESCAPADE. 81
Mitchelbourne began to understand. These simple
soldier-men had endeavoured to conduct their pro-
ceedings with great dignity and a judicial calmness;
they had mapped out for themselves certain parts
which they were to play as upon a stage ; they were to
be three stern imposing figures of justice; and so they
had become simply absurd and ridiculous. Now,
however, that passion had the upper hand of them,
Mitchelbourne saw at once that he stood in deadly
peril. These were men.
"Understand me, Mr. Lance," and the Major's
voice rang out firm, the voice of a man accustomed to
obedience. "Three years ago I was in command of
Devil's Drop, a little makeshift fort upon the sands
outside Tangier. In front the Moors lay about us in
a semicircle. Sir, the diameter was the line of the sea
at our backs. We could not retire six yards without
wetting our feet, not twenty without drowning. One
night the Moors pushed their trenches up to our
palisades; in the dusk of the morning I ordered a
sortie. Nine officers went out with me and three
came back, we three. Of the six we left behind, five
fell, by my orders, to be sure, for I led them out; but,
by the living God, you killed them. There's the pistol
that shot my best friend down, an English pistol.
There's the powder flask which charged the pistol,
an English flask filled with English powder. And
who sold the pistol and the powder to the Moors,
England's enemies? You, an Englishman. But you
have come to the end of your lane to-night. Turn
and turn as you will you have come to the end of it."
The truth was out now, and Mitchelbourne was


82 MITCH ELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE.
chilled with apprehension. Here were three men very
desperately set upon what they considered a mere act
of justice. How was he to dissuade them? By
argument? They would not listen to it. By
proofs? He had none to offer them. By excuses?
Of all unsupported excuses which can match for
futility the excuse of mistaken identity? It springs
immediate to the criminal's lips. Its mere utterance
is almost a conviction.
"You persist in error, Major Chantrell," he never-
theless began.
"Show him the proof, Bassett," Chantrell inter-
rupted with a shrug of the shoulders, and Captain
Bassett drew from his pocket a folded sheet of
paper.
"Nine officers went out," continued Chantrell,
"five were killed, three are here. The ninth was
taken a prisoner into Barbary. The Moors brought
him down to their port of Marmora to interpret. At
Marmora your ship unloaded its stores of powder and
guns. God knows how often it had unloaded the like
cargo during these twenty years—often enough it
seems, to give you a fancy for figuring as a gentleman
in the county. But the one occasion of its unload-
ing is enough. Our brother officer was your inter-
preter with the Moors, Mr. Lance. You may very
likely know that, but this you do not know, Mr.
Lance. He escaped, he crept into Tangier with this,
your bill of lading in his hand," and Bassett tossed
the sheet of paper towards Mitchelbourne. It fell
upon the floor before him but he did not trouble to
pick it up.


MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE. 83
"Is it Lance's death that you require?" he asked.
"Yes! yes! yes!" came from each mouth.
"Then already you have your wish. I do not
question one word of your charges against Lance. I
have reason to believe them true. But I am not
Lance. Lance lies at this moment dead at Great
Glemham. He died this afternoon of cholera. Here
are his letters," and he laid the letters on the table.
"I rode in with them at once. You do not believe
me, but you can put my words to the test. Let one
of you ride to Great Glemham and satisfy himself.
He will be back before morning."
The three officers listened so far with impassive
faces, or barely listened, for they were as indifferent
to the words as to the passion with which they were
spoken.
"We have had enough of the gentleman's in.
genuities, I think," said Chantrell, and he made a
movement towards his companions.
"One moment," exclaimed Mitchelbourne. "An-
swer me a question! These letters are to the ad-
dress of Mrs. Ufford at a house called 'The Porch.'
It is near to here?"
"It is the first house you passed," answered the
Major and, as he noticed a momentary satisfaction
flicker upon his victim's face, he added, "But you will
not do well to expect help from 'The Porch'—at all
events in time to be of much service to you. You
hardly appreciate that we have been at some pains
to come up with you. We are not likely again to
find so many circumstances agreeing to favour us, a
dismantled house, yourself travelling alone and off


84 MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE.
your guard in a country with which you are un-
familiar and where none know you, and just outside
the window a convenient pool. Besides—besides,"
he broke out passionately, "There are the little
mounds about Tangier, under which my friends lie,"
and he covered his face with his hands. "My friends,"
he cried in a hoarse and broken voice, "my soldier-
men! Come, let's make an end. Bassett, the rope
is in the corner. There's a noose to it. The beam
across the window will serve ;" and Bassett rose to
obey.
But Mitchelbourne gave them no time. His fears
had altogether vanished before his indignation at the
stupidity of these officers. He was boiling with
anger at the thought that he must lose his life in this
futile ignominious way for the crime of another man,
who was not even his friend, and who besides was
already dead. There was just one chance to escape,
it seemed to him. And even as Bassett stooped to lift
the coil of rope in the corner he took it.
"So that's the way of it," he cried stepping for-
ward. "I am to be hung up to a beam till I kick to
death, am I? I am to be buried decently in that
stagnant pool, am I? And you are to be miles away
before sunrise, and no one the wiser! No, Major
Chantrell, I am not come to the end of my lane," and
before either of the three could guess what he was at,
he had snatched up the pistol from the table and
dashed the lamp into a thousand fragments.
The flame shot up blue and high, and then came
darkness.
Mitchelbourne jumped lightly back from his position


MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE. 85
to the centre of the room. The men he had to deal
with were men who would follow their instincts.
They would feel along the walls; of so much he could
be certain. He heard the coil of rope drop down in a
corner to his left; so that he knew where Captain
Bassett was. He heard a chair upset in front of him,
and a man staggered against his chest. Mitchel-
bourne had the pistol still in his hand and struck
hard, and the man dropped with a crash. The fall
followed so closely upon the upsetting of the chair
that it seemed part of the same movement and ac-
cident. It seemed so clearly part, that a voice spoke
on Mitchelbourne's left, just where the empty hearth
would be.
"Get up! Be quick!"
The voice was Major Chantrell's and Mitchelbourne
had a throb of hope. For since it was not the Major
who had fallen nor Captain Bassett, it must be Lash-
ley. And Lashley had been guarding the door, of
which the key still remained in the lock. If only he
could reach the door and turn the key! He heard
Chantrell moving stealthily along the wall upon his
left hand and he suffered a moment's agony; for in the
darkness he could not surely tell which way the Major
moved. For if he moved to the window, if he had
the sense to move to the window and tear aside those
drawn curtains, the grey twilight would show the
shadowy moving figures. Mitchelbourne's chance
would be gone. And then something totally unex-
pected and unhoped for occurred. The god of the
machine was in a freakish mood that evening. He
had a mind for pranks and absurdities. Mitchel-


86 MITCHELBOURNES LAST ESCAPADE.
bourne was strung to so high a pitch that the ridicu-
lous aspect of the occurrence came home to him
before all else, and he could barely keep himself from
laughing aloud. For he heard two men grappling
and struggling silently together. Captain Bassett and
Major Chantrell had each other by the throat, and
neither of them had the wit to speak. They reserved
their strength for the struggle. Mitchelbourne
stepped on tiptoe to the door, felt for the key, grasped
it without so much as a click, and then suddenly
turned it, flung open the door and sprang out. He
sprang against a fourth man—the servant, no doubt,
who had misdirected him—and both tumbled on to
the floor. Mitchelbourne, however, tumbled on top.
He was again upon his feet while Major Chantrell was
explaining matters to Captain Bassett; he was flying
down the avenue of trees before the explanation was
finished. He did not stop to untie his horse; he ran,
conscious that there was only one place of safety for
him—the interior of Mrs. Ufford's house. He ran
along the road till he felt that his heart was cracking
within him, expecting every moment that a hand
would be laid upon his shoulder, or that a pistol shot
would ring out upon the night. He reached the
house, and knocked loudly at the door. He was ad-
mitted, breathless, by a man, who said to him at once,
with the smile and familiarity of an old servant:
"You are expected, Mr. Lance."
Mitchelbourne plumped down upon a chair and
burst into uncontrollable laughter. He gave up all
attempt for that night to establish his identity. The


MITCHELBOURNE'S LAST ESCAPADE. 87
fates were too heavily against him. Besides he was
now quite hysterical.
The manservant threw open a door.
"I will tell my mistress you have come, sir," said he.
"No, it would never do," cried Mitchelbourne.
"You see I died at three o'clock this afternoon. I
have merely come to leave my letters of presentation.
So much I think a proper etiquette may allow. But
it would never do for me to be paying visits upon
ladies so soon after an affair of so deplorable a gravity.
Besides I have to be buried at seven in the morning,
and if I chanced not to be back in time, I should cer-
tainly acquire a reputation for levity, which since I
am unknown in the county, I am unwilling to incur,"
and, leaving the butler stupefied in the hall, he ran
out into the road. He heard no sound of pursuit.


THE COWARD.
I.
"GEOFFREY," said General Faversham, "look at
the clock!"
The hands of the clock made the acutest of angles.
It was close upon midnight, and ever since nine
the boy had sat at the dinner-table listening. He had
not spoken a word, indeed had barely once stirred in
the three hours, but had sat turning a white and fas-
cinated face upon speaker after speaker. At his
father's warning he waked with a shock from his ab-
sorption, and reluctantly stood up.
"Must I go, father ?" he asked.
The General's three guests intervened in a chorus.
The conversation was clear gain for the lad, they de-
clared,—a first taste of powder which might stand him
in good stead at a future time. So Geoffrey was al-
lowed furlough from his bed for another half-hour, and
with his face supported between his hands he con-
tinued to listen at the table. The flames of the can-
dles were more and more blurred with a haze of
tobacco smoke, the room became intolerably hot, the
level of the wine grew steadily lower in the decanters,
and the boy's face took a strained, quivering look, his
pallour increased, his dark, wide-opened eyes seemed
preternaturally large.
The stories were all of that terrible winter in the


THE COWARD. 89
Crimea, now ten years past, and a fresh story was
always in the telling before its predecessor was ended.
For each of the four men had borne his share of that
winter's wounds and privations. It was still a reality
rather than a memory to them; they could feel, even
in this hot summer evening and round this dinner-
table, the chill of its snows, and the pinch of famine.
Yet their recollections were not all of hardships.
The Major told how the subalterns, of whom he had
then been one, had cheerily played cards in the
trenches three hundred yards from the Malakoff. One
of the party was always told off to watch for shells
from the fort's guns. If a black speck was seen in the
midst of the cannon smoke, then the sentinel shouted,
and a rush was made for safety, for the shell was
coming their way. At night the burning fuse could
be seen like a rocket in the air; so long as it span and
flew, the card-players were safe, but the moment it
became stationary above their heads it was time to
run, for the shell was falling upon them. The guns
of the Malakoff were not the rifled guns of a later
decade. When the Major had finished, the General
again looked at the clock, and Geoffrey said good-
night.
He stood outside the door listening to the muffled
talk on the other side of the panels, and, with a shiver,
lighted his candle, and held it aloft in the dark and
silent hall. There was not one man's portrait upon
the walls which did not glow with the colours of a
uniform,—and there were the portraits of many men.
Father and son the Faversham's had been soldiers
from the very birth of the family. Father and son,—


90 THE COWARD.
no steinkirks and plumed hats, no shakos and swallow
tails, no frogged coats and no high stocks. They
looked down upon the boy as though summoning him
to the like service. No distinction in uniform could
obscure their resemblance to each other: that stood
out with a remarkable clearness. The Favershams
were men of one stamp,—lean-faced, hard as iron—
they lacked the elasticity of steel—, rugged in feature;
confident in expression, men with firm, level mouths
but rather narrow at the forehead, men of resolution
and courage, no doubt; but hardly conspicuous for
intellect, men without nerves or subtlety, fighting
men of the first-class, but hardly first-class soldiers.
Some of their faces, indeed, revealed an actual stupid-
ity. The boy, however, saw none of their defects.
To him they were one and all portentous and terrible;
and he had an air of one standing before his judges
and pleading mutely for forgiveness. The candle
shook in his hand.
These Crimean knights, as his father termed them,
were the worst of torturers to Geoffrey Faversham.
He sat horribly thralled, so long as he was allowed;
he crept afterwards to bed and lay there shuddering.
For his mother, a lady who some twenty years before
had shone at the Court of Saxe-Coburg, as much by
the refinement of her intellect as by the beauty of her
person, had bequeathed to him a very burdensome
gift of imagination. It was visible in his face, mark-
ing him off unmistakably from his father, and from
the study portraits in the hall. He had the capacity
to foresee possibilities, and he could not but exercise
that capacity. A hint was enough for the boy.


THE COWARD. 91
Straightway he had a vivid picture before his mind,
and as he listened to the men at the dinner-table,
their rough clipped words set him down in the midst
of their battlefields, he heard the drone of bullets, he
quivered expecting the shock of a charge. But of all
the Crimean nights this had been fraught with the
most torments.
His father had told a story with a lowered voice,
and in his usual jerky way. But the gap was easy to
fill up.
"A Captain! Yes, and he bore one of the best
names in all England. It seemed incredible, and
mere camp rumour. But the rumour grew with every
fight he was engaged in. At the battle of Alma the
thing was proved. He was acting as galloper to his
General. I believe, upon my soul, that the General
chose him for this duty so that the man might set
himself right. He was bidden to ride with a message
a quarter of a mile, and that quarter of a mile was
bullet-swept. There were enough men looking on to
have given him a reputation, had he dared and come
through. But he did not dare, he refused, and was
sent under arrest to his tent. He was court-mar-
tialled and broken. He dropped out of his circle like
a plummet of lead; the very women in Piccadilly spat
if he spoke to them. He blew his brains out three
years later in a back bedroom off the Haymarket.
Explain that if you can. Turns tail, and says 'I
daren't!' But you, can you explain it? You can
only say it's the truth, and shrug your shoulders.
Queer, incomprehensible things happen. There's one
of them."


92 THE COWARD.
Geoffrey, however, understood only too well. He
was familiar with many phases of warfare of which
General Faversham took little account, such as, for
instance, the strain and suspense of the hours between
the parading of the troops and the first crack of a
rifle. He took that story with him up the great stair-
case, past the portraits to his bed. He fell asleep
only in the grey of the morning, and then only to
dream of a crisis in some hard-fought battle, when,
through his cowardice, a necessary movement was
delayed, his country worsted, and those dead men in
the hall brought to irretrievable shame. Geoffrey's
power to foresee in one flash all the perils to be en-
countered, the hazards to be run, had taught him the
hideous possibility of cowardice. He was now con-
fronted with the hideous fact. He could not after-
wards clear his mind of the memory of that evening.
He grew up with it; he looked upon himself as a
born coward, and all the time he knew that he was
destined for the army. He could not have avoided
his destiny without an explanation, and he could not
explain. But what he could do, he did. He hunted
deliberately, hoping that familiarity with danger
would overcome the vividness of his anticipations.
But those imagined hours before the beginnings of
battles had their exact counterpart in the moments
of waiting while the covers were drawn. At such
times he had a map of the country-side before his
eyes, with every ditch and fence and pit underlined
and marked dangerous; and though he rode straight
when the hounds were off, he rode straight with a
fluttering heart. Thus he spent his youth. He


THE COWARD. 93
passed into Woolwich and out of it with high
honours; he went to India with battery, and re-
turned home on a two years' furlough. He had not
been home more than a week when his father broke
one morning into his bedroom in a great excitement—
"Geoff," he cried, " guess the news to-day!"
Geoffrey sat up in his bed :—" Your manner, Sir,
tells me the news. War is declared."
"Between France and Germany."
Geoffrey said slowly :—
"My mother, Sir, was of Germany."
"So we can wish that country all success."
"Can we do no more?" said Geoffrey. And at
breakfast-time he returned to the subject. The
Favershams held property in Germany; influence
might be exerted; it was only right that those who
held a substantial stake in a country should venture
something for its cause. The words came quite
easily from Geoffrey's lips; he had been schooling
himself to speak them ever since it had become ap-
parent that Germany and France were driving to the
collision of war. General Faversham laughed with con-
tent when he heard them.
"That's a Faversham talking," said he. "But there
are obstacles, my boy. There is the Foreign Enlist-
ment Act, for instance. You are half German, to be
sure, but you are an English subject, and, by the
Lord! you are all Faversham. No, I cannot give
you permission to seek service in Germany. You un-
derstand. I cannot give you permission," he repeated
the words, so that the limit as well as the extent of
their meaning might be fully understood; and as he


94 THE COWARD.
repeated them, he solemnly winked. "Of course, you
can go to Germany; you can follow the army as
closely as you are allowed. In fact, I will give you
some introductions with that end in view. You will
gain experience, of course; but seek service,—no! To
do that, as I have said, I cannot give you permission."
The General went off chuckling to write his letters;
and with them safely tucked away in his pocket,
Geoffrey drove later in the day to the station.
General Faversham did not encourage demonstra-
tions. He shook his son cordially by the hand—
"There's no way I would rather you spent your
furlough. But come back, Geoff," said he. He was
not an observant man except in the matter of military
detail; and of Geoffrey's object he had never the
slightest suspicion. Had it been told him, however,
he would only have considered it one of those queer,
inexplicable vagaries, like the history of his coward in
the Crimea.
Geoffrey's action, however, was of a piece with the
rest of his life: it was due to no sudden, desperate
resolve. He went out to the war as deliberately as
he had ridden out to the hunting-field. The realities
of battle might prove his anticipations mere unneces-
sary torments of the mind.
"If only I can serve,—as a volunteer, as a private,
in any capacity," he thought, " I shall at all events
know. And if I fail, I fail not in the company of my
fellows. I disgrace only myself, not my name. But
if I do not fail—" He drew a great breath, he saw
himself waking up one morning without oppression,
without the haunting dread that he was destined one


THE COWARD. 95
day to slink in forgotten corners of the world a forgot-
ten pariah, destitute even of the courage to end his
misery. He went out to the war because he was
afraid of fear.
II.
On the evening of the capitulation of Paris, two
subalterns of German Artillery were seated before a
camp fire on a slope of hill overlooking the town. To
both of them the cessation of alarm was as yet strange
and almost incomprehensible, and the sudden silence
after so many months lived amongst the booming of
cannon had even a disquieting effect. Both were
particularly alert on this night when vigilance was
never less needed. If a gust of wind caught the fire
and drove the red flare of the flame like a ripple
across the grass, one would be sure to look quickly
over his shoulder, the other perhaps would lift a warn-
ing finger and listen to the shivering of the trees
behind them. Then with a relaxation of his attitude
he would say "All right" and light his pipe again at
the fire. But after one such gust, he retained his
position.
"What is it, Faversham ?" asked his companion.
"Listen, Max," said Geoffrey; and they heard a
faint jingle. The jingle became more distinct, another
sound was added to it, the sound of a horse galloping
over hard ground. Both officers turned their faces
away from the yellow entrenchment with its brown
streak of gun, below them and looked towards a roof-
less white-walled farmhouse on the left, of which the


94 THE COWARD.
repeated them, he solemnly winked. "Of course, you
can go to Germany; you can follow the army as
closely as you are allowed. In fact, I will give you
some introductions with that end in view. You will
gain experience, of course ; but seek service,—no! To
do that, as I have said, I cannot give you permission."
The General went off chuckling to write his letters;
and with them safely tucked away in his pocket,
Geoffrey drove later in the day to the station.
General Faversham did not encourage demonstra-
tions. He shook his son cordially by the hand—
"There's no way I would rather you spent your
furlough. But come back, Geoff," said he. He was
not an observant man except in the matter of military
detail; and of Geoffrey's object he had never the
slightest suspicion. Had it been told him, however,
he would only have considered it one of those queer,
inexplicable vagaries, like the history of his coward in
the Crimea.
Geoffrey's action, however, was of a piece with the
rest of his life: it was due to no sudden, desperate
resolve. He went out to the war as deliberately as
he had ridden out to the hunting-field. The realities
of battle might prove his anticipations mere unneces-
sary torments of the mind.
"If only I can serve,—as a volunteer, as a private,
in any capacity," he thought, " I shall at all events
know. And if I fail, I fail not in the company of my
fellows. I disgrace only myself, not my name. But
if I do not fail—" He drew a great breath, he saw
himself waking up one morning without oppression,
without the haunting dread that he was destined one


THE COWARD. 95
day to slink in forgotten corners of the world a forgot-
ten pariah, destitute even of the courage to end his
misery. He went out to the war because he was
afraid of fear.
II.
On the evening of the capitulation of Paris, two
subalterns of German Artillery were seated before a
camp fire on a slope of hill overlooking the town. To
both of them the cessation of alarm was as yet strange
and almost incomprehensible, and the sudden silence
after so many months lived amongst the booming of
cannon had even a disquieting effect. Both were
particularly alert on this night when vigilance was
never less needed. If a gust of wind caught the fire
and drove the red flare of the flame like a ripple
across the grass, one would be sure to look quickly
over his shoulder, the other perhaps would lift a warn-
ing finger and listen to the shivering of the trees
behind them. Then with a relaxation of his attitude
he would say "All right" and light his pipe again at
the fire. But after one such gust, he retained his
position.
"What is it, Faversham ?" asked his companion.
"Listen, Max," said Geoffrey; and they heard a
faint jingle. The jingle became more distinct, another
sound was added to it, the sound of a horse galloping
over hard ground. Both officers turned their faces
away from the yellow entrenchment with its brown
streak of gun, below them and looked towards a roof-
less white-walled farmhouse on the left, of which the


96 THE COWARD.
rafters rose black against the sky like a gigantic gal-
lows. From behind that farmhouse an aide-de-camp
galloped up to the fire.
"I want the officer in command of this battery," he
cried out and Geoffrey stood up.
"I am in command."
The aide-de-camp looked at the subaltern in an ex-
treme surprise.
"You !" he exclaimed. "Since when?"
"Since yesterday," answered Faversham.
"I doubt if the General knows you have been hit
so hard," the aide-de-camp continued. "But my orders
are explicit. The officer in command is to take sixty
men and march to-morrow morning into St. Denis.
He is to take possession of that quarter, he is to make
a search for mines and bombs, and wait there until
the German troops march in." There was to be no
repetition, he explained, of a certain unfortunate
affair when the Germans after occupying a surrendered
fort had been blown to the four winds. He concluded
with the comforting information that there were
10,000 French soldiers under arms in St. Denis and
that discretion was therefore a quality to be much
exercised by Faversham during his day of search.
Thereupon he galloped back.
Faversham remained standing a few paces from the
fire looking down towards Paris. His companion
petulantly tossed a branch upon the fire.
"Luck comes your way, my friend," said he envi-
ously.
Geoffrey looked up to the stars and down again to
Paris which with its lights had the look of a reflected


THE COWARD. 97
starlit firmament. Individual lights were the separate
stars and here and there a gash of fire, where a wide
thoroughfare cleaved, made a sort of milky way.
"I wonder," he answered slowly.
Max started up on his elbow and looked at his friend
in perplexity.
"Why, you have sixty men and St. Denis to com-
mand. To-morrow may bring you your opportunity ;"
and again with the same slowness, Geoffrey answered,
"I wonder."
"You joined us after Gravelotte," continued Max,
"Why?"
"My mother was German," said Faversham, and
turning suddenly back to the fire he dropped on the
ground beside his companion.
"Tell me," he said in a rare burst of confidence, " Do
you think a battle is the real test of courage? Here
and there men run away to be sure. But how many
fight and fight no worse than the rest by reason of a
sort of cowardice? Fear of their companions in arms
might dominate fear of the enemy."
"No doubt," said Max. "And you infer?"
"That the only touchstone is a solitary peril. When
danger comes upon a man and there is no one to see
whether he shirks—when he has no friends to share
his risks—that I should think would be the time when
fear would twist a man's bowels."
"I do not know," said Max. "All I am sure of is
that luck comes your way and not mine. To-morrow
you march into St. Denis."
Geoffrey Faversham marched down at daybreak and
formally occupied the quarter. The aide-de-camp's cal-


98 THE COWARD.
culations were confirmed. There were at the least
10,000 French soldiers crowded in the district. Geof-
frey's discretion warned against any foolish effort to dis-
arm them; he simply ignored their chassepots and bulg-
ing pouches, and searched the barracks, which the Ger-
mans were to occupy, from floor to ceiling. Late in the
afternoon he was able to assure himself that his duty
was ended. He billeted his men, and inquired
whether there was a hotel where he could sleep the
night. A French sergeant led him through the
streets to an Inn which matched in every detail of its
appearance that dingy quarter of the town. The
plaster was peeling from its walls, the window panes
were broken, and in the upper storey and the roof
there were yawning jagged holes where the Prussian
shells had struck. In the dusk the building had a
strangely mean and sordid look. It recalled to Faver-
sham's mind the inns in the novels of the elder
Dumas and acquired thus something of their sinister
suggestions. In the eager and arduous search of the
day he had forgotten these apprehensions to which he
had given voice by the camp fire. They now returned
to him with the relaxation of his vigilance. He
looked up at the forbidding house. "I wonder," he
said to himself.
He was met in the hall by a little obsequious man
who was full of apologies for the disorder of his hos-
telry. He opened a door into a large and dusty room.
"I will do my best, Monsieur," said he, "but food is
not yet plentiful in Paris."
In the centre of the room was a large mahogany


THE COWARD. 99
table surrounded by chairs. The landlord began to
polish the table with his napkin.
"We had an ordinary, Sir, every day before the war
broke out. But most cheerful, every chair had its reg-
ular occupant. There were certain jokes, too, which
every day were repeated. Ah, but it was like home.
However, all is changed as you see. It has not been
safe to sit in this room for many a long month."
Faversham unstrapped his sword and revolver from
his belt and laid them on the table.
"I saw that your house had unfortunately suffered."
"Suffered!" said the garrulous little man. "It is
ruined, sir, and its master with it. Ah, war! It is a
fine thing no doubt for you young gentlemen, but for
me? I have lived in a cellar, Sir, under the ground
ever since your guns first woke us from our sleep.
Look, I will show you."
He went out from the dining-room into the hall
and from the hall into the street; Faversham followed
him. There was a wooden trap in the pavement close
by the wall with an iron ring. The landlord pulled at
the ring and raised the trap disclosing a narrow flight
of stone steps. Faversham bent forward and peered
down into a dark cellar.
"Yes it is there that I have lived. Come down, Sir,
and see for yourself;" and the landlord moved down
a couple of steps. Faversham drew back. At once
the landlord turned to him.
"But there is nothing to fear, Sir," he said with a
deprecatory smile. Faversham coloured to the roots
of his hair.
"Of course there is nothing," said he and he fol-


ioo THE COWARD.
lowed the landlord. The cellar was only lighted by
the trap-door and at first Faversham coming out of
the daylight could distinguish nothing at all. He
stood, however, with his back to the light and in a
little he began to see. A little truckle-bed with a
patchwork counterpane stood at the end, the floor was
merely hard earth, the furniture consisted of a stove,
a stool and a small deal table. And as Faversham
took in the poverty of this underground habitation,
he suddenly found himself in darkness again. The
explanation came to him at once, the entrance to the
cellar had been blocked from the light. Yet he had
heard no sound except the footsteps of people in the
street above his head. He turned and faced the stair
steps. As he did so, the light streamed down again;
the obstruction had been removed, and that obstruc-
tion had not been the trap-door as Faversham had
suspected, but merely the body of some inquisitive
passer-by. He recognised this with relief and imme-
diately heard voices speaking together, and as it
seemed to him in lowered tones.
A sword rattled on the pavement, the entrance was
again darkened, but Faversham had just time to see
that the man who stooped down wore the buttons of
a uniform and a soldier's kepi. He kept quite still,
holding his breath while the man peered down into
the cellar. He remembered with a throb of hope that
he had himself been unable to distinguish a thing in
the gloom. And then the landlord knocked against
the table and spoke aloud. At once the man at the
head of the steps stood up. Faversham heard him
cry out in French, " They are here," and he detected


THE COWARD. 101
a note of exultation in the cry. At the same moment
a picture flashed before his eyes, the picture of that
dusty desolate dining-room up the steps, and of a long
table surrounded by chairs, upon which lay a sword
and a revolver,—his sword, his revolver. He had dis-
missed his sixty soldiers, he was alone.
"This is a trap," he blurted out.
"But, Sir, I do not understand," began the land-
lord, but Faversham cut him short with a whispered
command for silence.
The cellar darkened again, and the sound of boots
rang upon the stone steps. A rifle besides clanged as
it struck against the wall. The French soldiers were
descending. Faversham counted them by the light
which escaped past their legs ; there were three. The
landlord kept the silence which had been enjoined
upon him but he fancied in the darkness that he
heard some one's teeth chattering.
The Frenchmen descended into the cellar and stood
barring the steps. Their leader spoke.
"I have the honour to address the Prussian officer
in command of St. Denis."
The Frenchman got no reply whatever to his words
but he seemed to hear some one sharply draw in a
breath. He spoke again into the darkness ; for it was
now impossible for any one of the five men in the
cellar to see a hand's breadth beyond his face.
"I am the Captain Plessy of Mon Vandon's Di-
vision. I have the honour to address the Prussian
officer."
This time he received an answer, quietly spoken
yet with an inexplicable note of resignation.


102 THE COWARD.
"I am Lieutenant Faversham in command of St.
Denis."
Captain Plessy stepped immediately forward, and
bowed. Now as he dipped his shoulders in the bow
a gleam of light struck over his head into the cellar,
and—he could not be sure—but it seemed to him that
he saw a man suddenly raise his arm as if to ward off
a blow. Captain Plessy continued.
"I ask Lieutenant Faversham for permission for
myself and my two officers to sleep to-night at this
hotel;" and now he very distinctly heard a long,
irrepressible sigh of relief. Lieutenant Faversham
gave him the permission he desired in a cordial, polite
way. Moreover he added an invitation. "Your
name, Captain Plessy, is well known to me as to all on
both sides who have served in this campaign and to
many more who have not. I beg that you and your
officers will favour me with your company at dinner."
Captain Plessy accepted the invitation and was
pleased to deprecate the Lieutenant's high opinion
of his merits. But his achievement nonetheless had
been of a redoubtable character. He had broken
through the lines about Metz and had ridden across
France into Paris without a single companion. In
the sorties from that beleaguered town he had succes-
sively distinguished himself by his fearless audacity.
His name and reputation had travelled far as Lieuten-
ant Faversham was that evening to learn. But Cap-
tain Plessy, for the moment, was all for making little
of his renown.
"Such small exploits should be expected from a
soldier. One brave man may say that to another,—is


THE COWARD. 103
it not so ?—and still not be thought to be angling for
praise," and Captain Plessy went up the steps, wonder-
ing who it was that had drawn the long sharp breath
of suspense, and uttered the long sigh of immense re-
lief. The landlord or Lieutenant Faversham? Cap-
tain Plessy had not been in the cellar at the time when
the landlord had seemed to hear the chatter of a man's
teeth.
The dinner was not a pronounced success, in spite of
Faversham's avoidance of any awkward topic. They
sat at the long table in the big, desolate and shabby
room, lighted only by a couple of tallow candles set
up in their candlesticks upon the cloth. And the two
junior officers maintained an air of chilly reserve and
seldom spoke except when politeness compelled them.
Faversham himself was absorbed, the burden of enter-
tainment fell upon Captain Plessy. He strove nobly,
he told stories, he drank a health to the " Camaraderie
of arms," he drew one after the other of his compan-
ions into an interchange of words, if not of sympathies.
But the strain told on him visibly towards the end of
the dinner. His champagne glass had been constantly
refilled, his face was now a trifle overflushed, his eyes
beyond nature bright, and he loosened the belt about
his waist and at a moment when Faversham was not
looking the throat buttons of his tunic. Moreover
while up till now he had deprecated any allusions
to his reputation he now began to talk of it himself;
and in a particularly odious way.
"A reputation, Lieutenant, it has its advantages,"
and he blew a kiss with his fingers into the air to
designate the sort of advantages to which he referred.


104 THE COWARD.
Then he leaned on one side to avoid the candle be-
tween Faversham and himself.
"You are English, my Commandant?" he asked.
"My mother was German," replied Faversham.
"But you are English yourself. Now have you ever
met in England a certain Miss Marian Beveridge," and
his leer was the most disagreeable thing that Faver-
sham ever remembered to have set eyes upon.
"No," he answered shortly.
"And you have not heard of her?"
"No."
"Ah!"
Captain Plessy leaned back in his chair and filled his
glass. Lieutenant Faversham's tone was not that of
a man inviting confidence. But the Captain's brains
were more than a little fuddled, he repeated the name
over to himself once or twice with the chuckle which
asks for questions, and since the questions did not
come, he must needs proceed of his own accord.
"But I must cross to England myself. I must see
this Miss Marian Beveridge. Ah, but your English girls
are strange, name of Heaven, they are very strange."
Lieutenant Faversham made a movement. The Cap-
tain was his guest, he was bound to save him if he
could from a breach of manners and saw no way but this
of breaking up the party. Captain Plessy, however,
was too quick for him, he lifted his hand to his breast.
"You wish for something to smoke. It is true, we
have forgotten to smoke, but I have my cigarettes
and I beg you to try them, the tobacco I think is good
and you will be saved the trouble of moving."
He opened the case and reached it over to Faver-


THE COWARD. 105
sham. But as Faversham with a word of thanks took
a cigarette, the Captain upset the case as though by
inadvertence. There fell out upon the table under
Faversham's eyes not merely the cigarettes, but some
of the Captain's visiting-cards and a letter. The letter
was addressed to Captain Plessy in a firm character
but it was plainly the writing of a woman. Faversham
picked it up and at once handed it back to Plessy.
"Ah," said Plessy with a start of surprise, "Was
the letter indeed in the case?" and he fondled it in
his hands and finally kissed it with the upturned eyes
of a cheap opera singer. "A pigeon, Sir, flew with it
into Paris. Happy pigeon that could be the bearer of
such sweet messages."
He took out the letter from the envelope and read
a line or two with a sigh, and another line or two with
a laugh.
"But your English girls are strange!" he said
again. "Here is an instance, an example, fallen by
accident from my cigarette-case. M. le Commandant,
I will read it to you, that you may see how strange
they are."
One of Plessy's subalterns extended his hand and
laid it on his sleeve. Plessy turned upon him angrily,
and the subaltern withdrew his hand.
"I will read it to you," he said again to Faversham.
Faversham did not protest nor did he now make any
effort to move. But his face grew pale, he shivered
once or twice, his eyes seemed to be taking the mea-
sure of Plessy's strength, his brain to be calculating
upon his prowess; the sweat began to gather upon his
forehead.


106 THE COWARD.
Of these signs, however, Plessy took no note. He
had reached however inartistically the point at which
he had been aiming.
He was no longer to be baulked of reading his letter.
He read it through to the end, and Faversham listened
to the end. It told its own story. It was the letter
of a girl who wrote in a frank impulse of admiration
to a man whom she did not know. There was no-
where a trace of coquetry, nowhere the expression of
a single sentimentality. Its tone was pure friendliness,
it was the work of a quite innocent girl who because
she knew the man to whom she wrote to be brave,
therefore believed him to be honourable. She ex-
pressed her trust in the very last words. "You will
not of course show this letter to any one in the world.
But I wrong you even by mentioning such an im-
possibility."
"But you have shown it," said Faversham.
His face was now grown of an extraordinary pallor,
his lips twitched as he spoke and his fingers worked in
a nervous uneasy manner upon the table-cloth. Cap-
tain Plessy was in far too complacent a mood to notice
such trifles. His vanity was satisfied, the world was a
rosy mist with a sparkle of champagne, and he an-
swered lightly as he unfastened another button of his
tunic.
"No, my friend, I have not shown it. I keep the
lady's wish."
"You have read it aloud. It is the same thing."
"Pardon me. Had I shown the letter I should
have shown the name. And that would have been a


THE COWARD. 107
dishonour of which a gallant man is incapable, is it not
so? I read it and I did not read the name."
"But you took pains, Captain Plessy, that we
should know the name before you read the letter."
"I? Did I mention a name?" exclaimed Plessy
with an air of concern and a smile upon his mouth
which gave the lie to the concern. "Ah, yes, a long
while ago. But did I say it was the name of the lady
who had written the letter? Indeed, no. You make
a slight mistake, my friend. I bear no malice for it—
believe me, upon my heart, no! After a dinner and a
little bottle of champagne, there is nothing more par-
donable. But I will tell you why I read the letter."
"If you please," said Faversham, and the gravity of
his tone struck upon his companion suddenly as some-
thing unexpected and noteworthy. Plessy drew him-
self together and for the first time took stock of his
host as of a possible adversary. He remarked the
agitation of his face, the beads of perspiration upon
his forehead, the restless fingers, and beyond all these
a certain hunted look in the eyes with which his ex-
perience had made him familiar. He nodded his
head once or twice slowly as though he were coming
to a definite conclusion about Faversham. Then he
sat bolt upright.
"Ah," said he with a laugh. " I can answer a question
which puzzled me a little this afternoon," and he
sank back again in his chair with an easy confidence
and purled the smoke of his cigarette from his mouth.
Faversham was not sufficiently composed to con-
sider the meaning of Plessy's remark. He put it
aside from his thoughts as an evasion.


108 THE COWARD.
"You were to tell me, I think, why you read the
letter."
"Certainly," answered Plessy. He twirled his
moustache, his voice had lost its suavity and had
taken on an accent of almost contemptuous raillery.
He even winked at his two brother officers, he was
beginning to play with Faversham. "I read the
letter to illustrate how strange, how very strange, are
your English girls. Here is one of them who writes
to me. I am grateful—oh, beyond words, but I think to
myself what a different thing the letter would be if
it had been written by a Frenchwoman. There would
have been some hints, nothing definite you under-
stand, but a suggestion, a delicate, provoking sug-
gestion of herself, like a perfume to sting one into a
desire for a nearer acquaintance. She would del-
icately and without any appearance of intention have
permitted me to know her colour, perhaps her height,
perhaps even to catch an elusive glimpse of her face.
Very likely a silk thread of hair would have been left
inadvertently clinging to a sheet of the paper. She
would sketch perhaps her home and speak remorsefully
of her boldness in writing. Oh, but I can imagine the
letter, full of pretty subtleties, alluring from its
omissions, a vexation and a delight from end to end.
But this, my friend!" He tossed the letter carelessly
upon the table-cloth. "I am grateful from the bot-
tom of my heart, but it has no art."
At once Geoffrey Faversham's hand reached out
and closed upon the letter.
"You have told me why you have read it aloud."


THE COWARD. 109
"Yes," said Plessy, a little disconcerted by the
quickness of Faversham's movement.
"Now I will tell you why I allowed you to read it
to the end. I was of the same mind as that English
girl whose name we both know. I could not believe
that a man, brave as I knew you to be, could outside
his bravery be so contemptible."
The words were brought out with a distinct effort.
None the less they were distinctly spoken.
A startled exclamation broke from the two subal-
terns. Plessy commenced to bluster.
"Sir, do I understand you?" and he saw Faver-
sham standing above him, in a quiver of excitement.
"You will hold your tongue, Captain Plessy, until I
have finished. I allowed you to read the letter, never
thinking but that some pang of forgotten honour
would paralyse your tongue. You read it to the end.
You complain there is no art in it, that it has no
delicate provocations, such as your own country-
women would not fail to use. It should be the more
sacred on that account, and I am glad to believe that
you misjudge your country women. Captain Plessy,
I acknowledge that as you read out that letter with
its simple, friendly expression of gratitude for the
spectacle of a brave man, I envied you heartily, I
would have been very proud to have received it. I
would have much liked to know that some deed
which I had done had made the world for a moment
brighter to some one a long way off with whom I was
not acquainted. Captain Plessy, I shall not allow
you to keep this letter. You shall not read it aloud
again."


no THE COWARD.
Faversham thrust the letter into the flame of the
candle which stood between Plessy and himself.
Plessy sprang up and blew the candle out; but little
colourless flames were already licking along the en-
velope. Faversham held the letter downwards by a
corner and the colourless flame flickered up into a
tongue of yellow, the paper charred and curled in the
track of the flames, the flames leapt to Faversham's
fingers; he dropped the burning letter on the floor
and crushed it with his foot. Then he looked at
Plessy and waited. He was as white as the table-
cloth, his dark eyes seemed to have sunk into his
head and burned unnaturally bright, every nerve in
his body seemed to be twitching; he looked very
like the young boy who used to sit at the dinner-
table on Crimean nights and listen in a quiver to
the appalling stories of his father's guests. As he
had been silent then, so he was silent now. He
waited for Captain Plessy to speak. Captain Plessy,
however, was in no hurry to begin. He had com-
pletely lost his air of contemptuous raillery, he was
measuring Faversham warily with the eyes of a con-
noisseur.
"You have insulted me," he said abruptly, and he
heard again that indrawing of the breath which he
had remarked that afternoon in the cellar. He also
heard Faversham speak immediately after he had
drawn the breath.
"There are reparations for insults," said Faver-
sham.
Captain Plessy bowed. He was now almost as
sober as when he had sat down to his dinner.


THE COWARD. in
"We will choose a time and place," said he.
"There can be no better time than now," suddenly
cried Faversham, "no better place than this. You
have two friends of whom with your leave I will bor-
row one. We have a large room and a candle apiece
to fight by. To-morrow my duties begin again. We
will fight to-night, Captain Plessy, to-night," and he
leaned forward almost feverishly, his words had almost
the accent of a prayer. The two subalterns rose from
their chairs, but Plessy motioned them to keep still.
Then he seized the candle which he had himself blown
outt lighted it from the candle at the far end of the
table and held it up above his head so that the light
fell clearly upon Faversham's face. He stood looking
at Faversham for an appreciable time. Then he said
quietly,
"I will not fight you to-night."
One of the subalterns started up, the other merely
turned his head towards Plessy, but both stared at
their Captain with an unfeigned astonishment and an
unfeigned disappointment. Faversham continued to
plead.
"But you must to-night, for to-morrow you cannot.
To-night I am alone here, to-night I give orders, to-
morrow I receive them. You have your sword at
your side to-night. Will you be wearing it to-morrow?
I pray you gentlemen to help me," he said turning to
the subalterns, and he began to push the heavy table
from the centre of the room.
"I will not fight you to-night, Lieutenant," Captain
Plessy replied.
"And why?" asked Faversham ceasing from his


112 THE COWARD.
work. He made a gesture which had more of despair
than of impatience.
Captain Plessy gave his reason. It rang false to
every man in the room and indeed he made no at-
tempt to give to it any appearance of sincerity. It
was a deliberate excuse and not his reason.
"Because you are the Prussian officer in command
and the Prussian troops march into St. Denis to-
morrow. Suppose that I kill you, what sort of penalty
should I suffer at their hands?"
"None," exclaimed Faversham. "We can draw
up an account of the quarrel, here now. Look here is
paper and ink and as luck will have it a pen that will
write. I will write an account with my own hand, and
the four of us can sign it. Besides if you kill me, you
can escape into Paris."
"I will not fight you to-night," said Captain Plessy
and he set down the candle upon the table. Then
with an elaborate correctness he drew his sword from
its scabbard and offered the handle of it to Faversham.
"Lieutenant, you are in command of St. Denis. I
am your prisoner of war."
Faversham stood for a moment or two with his
hands clenched. The light had gone out of .his face.
"I have no authority to make prisoners," he said.
He took up one of the candles, gazed at his guest in
perplexity.
"You have not given me your real reason, Captain
Plessy," he said. Captain Plessy did not answer a word.
"Good-night, gentlemen," said Faversham and
Captain Plessy bowed deeply as Faversham left the
room.


THE COWARD. 113
A silence of some duration followed upon the clos-
ing of the door. The two subalterns were as per-
plexed as Faversham to account for their hero's con-
duct. They sat dumb and displeased. Plessy stood
for a moment thoughtfully, then he made a gesture
with his hands as though to brush the whole incident
from his mind and taking a cigarette from his case
proceeded to light it at the candle. As he stooped to
the flame he noticed the glum countenances of his
brother-officers, and laughed carelessly.
"You are not pleased with me, my friends," said he
as he threw himself on to a couch which stood against
the wall opposite to his companions. "You think I
did not speak the truth when I gave the reason of my
refusal? Well you are right. I will give you the
real reason why I would not fight. It is very simple.
I do not wish to be killed. I know these white-faced,
trembling men—there are no men more terrible.
They may run away but if they do not, if they string
themselves to the point of action—take the word of a
soldier older than yourselves—then is the time to climb
trees. To-morrow I would very likely kill our young
friend, he would have had time to think, to picture to
himself the little point of steel glittering towards his
heart—but to-night he would assuredly have killed
me. But as I say I do not wish to be killed. You
are satisfied?"
It appeared that they were not. They sat with all
the appearances of discontent. They had no words
for Captain Plessy. Captain Plessy accordingly rose
lightly from his seat.
"Ah," said he, " my good friend the Lieutenant has


U4 THE COWARD.
after all left me my sword. The table too is already
pushed sufficiently on one side. There is only one
candle to be sure, but it will serve. You are not
satisfied, gentlemen? Then—" But both subalterns
now hastened to assure Captain Plessy that they con-
sidered his conduct had been entirely justified.


THE DESERTER. 117
join in the criticisms. It was just, he reflected, be-
cause he had avoided the cafes of Metz that he was
singled out for special distinction, and he fell to won-
dering what work it was he had to do that night.
Was it to surprise a field-watch? Or to spike a
battery? Or to capture a convoy? Lieutenant
Fevrier raised his head. For any exploit in the world
he was ready.
General Jarras was writing at a table when Fevrier
was admitted to his office. The Chief of the Staff
inclined his lamp-shade so that the light fell full upon
Fevrier's face, and the action caused the lieutenant to
rejoice. So much care in the choice of the officer
meant so much more important a duty.
"The General Montaudon tells me," said Jarras,
"that you are an obedient soldier."
"Obedience, my General, is the soldier's first
lesson."
"That explains to me why it is first forgotten,"
answered Jarras, drily. Then his voice became sharp
and curt. "You will choose fifty men. You will
pick them carefully."
"They shall be the best soldiers in the regiment,"
said Fevrier.
"No, the worst."
Lieutenant Fevrier was puzzled. When dangers
were to be encountered, when audacity was needed,
one requires the best soldiers. That was obvious,
unless the mission meant annihilation. That thought
came to Fevrier, and remembering the cafes and the
officers dishonouring their uniforms, he drew himself
up proudly and saluted. Already he saw his dead


Il8 THE DESERTER.
body recovered from the enemy, and borne to the
grave beneath a tricolour. He heard the lamentations
of his friends, and the firing of the platoon. He saw
General Montaudon in tears. He was shaken with
emotion. But Jarras's next words fell upon him like
cold water.
"You will parade your fifty men unarmed. You
will march out of the lines, and to-morrow morning
as soon as it is light enough for the Prussians to see
you come unarmed you will desert to them. There
are too many mouths to feed in Metz." *
The Lieutenant had it on his lips to shout, "Then
why not lead us out to die?" But he kept silence.
He could have flung his kepi in the General's face;
but he saluted. He went out again into the streets
and among the lighted cafes and reeled like a drunken
man, thinking confusedly of many things; that he
had a mother in Paris who might hear of his desertion
before she heard of its explanation; that it was right
to claim obedience but Idche to exact dishonour—but
chiefly and above all that if he had been wise, and
had made light of his duty, and had come up to Metz
to re-arrange the campaign with dominoes on the
marble-tables, he would not have been specially
selected for ignominy. It was true, it needed an
obedient officer to desert! And so laughing aloud he
reeled blindly down to the gates of Metz. And it
happened that just by the gates a civilian looked after
him, and shrugging his shoulders, remarked, "Ah!
But if we had a Man at Metz!"
From Metz Lieutenant Fevrier ran. The night air
* See the Daily News War Correspondence, 1870.


THE DESERTER. 119
struck cool upon him. And he ran and stumbled and
fell and picked himself up and ran again until he
reached the Belletonge farm.
"The General," he cried, and so to the General a
mud-plastered figure with a white, tormented face was
admitted.
"What is it?" asked Montaudon. "What will
this say?"
Lieutenant Fevrier stood with the palms of his
hands extended, speechless like an animal in pain.
Then he suddenly burst into tears and wept, and told
of the fine plan to diminish the demands upon the
commissariat.
"Courage, my old one !" said the General. "I had
a fear of this. You are not alone—other officers in
other divisions have the same hard duty," and there
was no inflection in the voice to tell Fevrier what his
General thought of the duty. But a hand was laid
soothingly upon his shoulder, and that told him. He
took heart to whisper that he had a mother in Paris.
"I will write to her," said Montaudon. "She will
be proud when she receives the letter."
Then Lieutenant Fevrier, being French, took the
General's hand and kissed it, and the General, being
French, felt his throat fill with tears.
Fevrier left the headquarters, paraded his men, laid
his sword and revolver on the ground, and ordered his
fifty to pile their arms. Then he made them a speech
—a very short speech, but it cost him much to make
it in an even voice.
"My braves," said he, " my fellow-soldiers, it is
easy to fight for one's country, it is not difficult to die


120 THE DESERTER.
for it. But the supreme test of patriotism is willingly
to suffer shame for it. That test your country now
claims of you. Attention! March!"
For the last time he exchanged a password with a
French sentinel, and tramped out into the belt of
ground between the French outposts and the Prus-
sian field-watch. Now in this belt there stood a little
village which Fevrier had held with skill and honour
all the two days of the battle of Noisseville. Doubt-
less that recollection had something to do with his
choice of the village. For in his martyrdom of shame
he had fallen to wonder whether after all he had not
deserved it, and any reassurance such as the gaping
house-walls of Vaudere would bring to him, was
eagerly welcomed. There was another reason, how-
ever, in the position of the village.
It stood in an abrupt valley at the foot of a steep
vine-hill on the summit, and which was the Prussian
forepost. The Prussian field-watch would be even
nearer to Vaudere and dispersed amongst the vines.
So he could get his ignominious work over quickly in
the morning. The village would provide, too, safe
quarters for the night, since it was well within range
of the heavy guns in Fort St. Julien, and the Prus-
sians on that account were unable to hold it.
He led his fifty soldiers then northwestward from
his camp, skirted the Bois de Grimont, and marched
into the village. The night was dark, and the sky so
overhung with clouds that not a star was visible. The
one street of Vaudere was absolutely silent. The
glimmering white cottages showed their black rents
on either side, but never the light of a candle behind


THE DESERTER. 121
any shutter. Lieutenant Fevrier left his men at the
western or Frenchward end of the street, and went
forward alone.
The doors of the houses stood open. The path was
encumbered with the wreckage of their contents, and
every now and then he smelt a whiff of paraffin, as
though lamps had been broken or cans overset.
Vaudere had been looted, but there were no Prussians
now in the village.
He made sure of this by walking as far as the large
house at the head of the village. Then he went back
to his men and led them forward until he reached the
general shop which every village has.
"It is not likely," he said, "that we shall find even
the makeshift of a supper. But courage, my friends,
let us try!"
He could not have eaten a crust himself, but it had
become an instinct with him to anticipate the needs
of his privates, and he acted from habit. They
crowded into the shop; one man shut the door, Fev-
rier lighted a match and disclosed by its light staved-in
barrels, empty cannisters, broken boxes, fragments of
lemonade bottles, but of food not so much as a stale
biscuit.
"Go upstairs and search."
They went and returned empty-handed.
"We have found nothing, monsieur," said they.
"But I have," replied Fevrier, and striking another
match he held up what he had found, dirty and
crumpled, in a corner of the shop. It was a little tri-
colour flag of painted linen upon a bamboo stick, a
child's cheap and gaudy toy. But Fevrier held it up
solemnly, and of the fifty deserters no one laughed.


THE DESERTER. 123
He walked more slowly. That odour of paraffin
began to seem remarkable. The looting of the village
had not occurred to-day, for there had been thick
dust about the general shop. But the paraffin had
surely been freshly spilt, or the odour would have
evaporated.
Lieutenant Fevrier walked on thinking this over.
He found the broken door of his house, and still
thinking it over, mounted the stairs. There was a
door fronting the stairs. He felt for the handle and
opened it, and from a corner of the room a voice
challenged him in German.
Fevrier was fairly startled. There were Germans
in the village after all. He explained to himself now
the smell of paraffin. Meanwhile he did not answer;
neither did he move; neither did he hear any move-
ment. He had forgotten for the moment that he was
a deserter, and he stood holding his breath and listen-
ing. There was a tiny window opposite to the door,
but it only declared itself a window, it gave no light.
And illusions came to Lieutenant Fevrier, such as
will come to the bravest man so long as he listens
hard enough in the dark—illusions of stealthy foot-
steps on the floor, of hands scraping and feeling along
the walls, of a man's breathing upon his neck, of
many infinitesimal noises and movements close by.
The challenge was repeated and Fevrier remembered
his orders.
"I am Lieutenant Fevrier of Montaudon's division."
"You are alone."
Fevrier now distinguished that the voice came from
the right-hand corner of the room, and that it was faint.


124 THE DESERTER.
"I have fifty men with me. We are deserters," he
blurted out, "and unarmed."
There followed silence, and a long silence. Then
the voice spoke again, but in French, and the French
of a native.
"My friend, your voice is not the voice of a deserter.
There is too much humiliation in it. Come to my
bedside here. I spoke in German, expecting Germans.
But I am the cure" of Vaudere. Why are you de-
serters?"
Fevrier had expected a scornful order to marshal
his men as prisoners. The extraordinary gentleness
of the curb's voice almost overcame him. He walked
across to the bedside and told his story. The cure
basely heard him out.
"It is right to obey," said he, "but here you can
obey and disobey. You can relieve Metz of your ap-
petites, my friend, but you need not desert." The
cure" reached up, and drawing Fevrier down, laid a
hand upon his head. "I consecrate you to the ser-
vice of your country. Do you understand?"
Fevrier leaned his mouth towards the curd's ear.
"The Prussians are coming to-night to burn the
village."
"Yes, they came at dusk."
Just at the moment, in fact, when Fevrier had been
summoned to Metz, the Prussians had crept down into
Vaudere and had been scared back to their rdpli by a
false alarm.
"But they will come back you may be sure," said
the cur6, and raising himself upon his elbow he said
in a voice of suspense " Listen!"


THE DESERTER. 125
Fevrier went to the window and opened it. It
faced the hill-side, but no sounds came through it be-
yond the natural murmurs of the night. The cur6
sank back.
"After the fight here, there were dead soldiers in
the streets—French soldiers and so French chassepots.
Ah, my friend, the Prussians have found out which is
the better rifle—the chassepot or the needle gun.
After your retreat they came down the hill for those
chassepots. They could not find one. They searched
every house, they came here and questioned me.
Finally they caught one of the villagers hiding in a
field, and he was afraid and he told where the rifles
had been buried. The Prussians dug for them and
the hole was empty. They believe they are still
hidden somewhere in the village; they fancy, too, that
there are secret stores of food; so they mean to burn
the houses to the ground. They did not know that I
was here this afternoon. I would have come into the
French lines had it been possible, but I am tied here
to my bed. No doubt God had sent you to me—you
and your fifty men. You need not desert. You can
make your last stand here for France."
"And perish," cried Fevrier, caught up from the
depths of his humiliation, "as Frenchmen should,
arms in hand." Then his voice dropped again. "But
we have no arms."
The cure shook the lieutenant's arm gently.
"Did I not tell you the chassepots were not found?
And why? Because too many knew where they were
hidden. Because out of that many I feared there
might be one to betray. There is always a Judas.


126 THE DESERTER.
So I got one man whom I knew, and he dug them up
and hid them afresh."
"Where, father?"
The question was put with a feverish eagerness—it
seemed to the cure with an eagerness too feverish.
He drew his hand, his whole body away.
"You have matches? Light one!" he said, in a
startled voice.
"But the window!"
"Light one!"
Every moment of time was now of value. Fevrier
took the risk and lit the match, shading it from the
window so far as he could with his hand.
"That will do."
Fevrier blew out the light. The cure had seen him,
his uniform and his features. He,' too, had seen the
cure, had noticed his thin emaciated face, and the eyes
staring out of it feverishly bright and preternaturally
large.
"Shall I tell you your malady, father?" he said
gently. "It is starvation."
"What will you, my son? I am alone. There is
not a crust from one end of Vaudere to the other.
You cannot help me. Help France! Go to the
church, stand with your back to the door, turn left,
and advance straight to the churchyard wall. You
will find a new grave there, the rifles in the grave.
Quick! There is a spade in the tower. Quick! The
rifles are wrapped from the damp, the cartridges too.
Quick! Quick!"
Fevrier hurried downstairs, roused three of his sol-
diers, bade one of them go from house to house and


THE DESERTER. 127
bring the soldiers in silence to the churchyard, and
with the others he went thither himself. In groups of
two and three the men crept through the street, and
gathered about the grave. It was already open. The
spade was driven hard and quick, deeper and deeper,
and at last rang upon metal. There were seventy
chassepots, complete with bayonets and ammunition.
Fifty-one were handed out, the remaining nineteen
were hastily covered in again. Fevrier was immeasu-
rably cheered to notice his men clutch at their weapons
and fondle them, hold them to their shoulders taking
aim, and work the breech-blocks.
"It is like meeting old friends, is it not, my children,
or rather new sweethearts? " said he. "Come! The
Prussians may advance from the Brasserie at Lanval-
lier, from Servigny, from Montay, or from Noisseville,
straight down the hill. The last direction is the most
likely, but we must make no mistake. Ten men will
watch on the Lanvallier road, ten on the Servigny, ten
on the Montay, twenty will follow me. March!"
An hour ago Lieutenant Fevrier was in command of
fifty men who slouched along with their hands in
their pockets, robbed even of self-respect. Now he
had fifty armed and disciplined soldiers, men alert and
inspired. So much difference a chassepot apiece had
made. Lieutenant Fevrier was moved to the concep-
tion of another plan; and to prepare the way for its
execution, he left his twenty men in a house at the
Prussian end of Vaudere, and himself crept in among
the vines and up the hill.
Somewhere near to him would be the sentries of the
field-watch. He went down upon his hands and knees


128 THE DESERTER.
and crawled, parting the vine leaves, that the swish of
them might not betray him. In a little knoll high
above his head he heard the cracking of wood, the
sound of men stumbling. The Prussians were coming
down to Vaudere. He lay flat upon the ground wait-
ing and waiting; and the sounds grew louder and
approached. At last he heard that for which he
waited—the challenge of the field-watch, the answer
of the burning-party. It came down to him quite
clearly through the windless air. "Sadowa."
Lieutenant Fevrier turned about chuckling. It
seemed that in some respects the world after all was
not going so ill with him that night. He crawled
downwards as quickly as he could. But it was now
more than even inspiration that he should not be de-
tected. He dared not stand up and run; he must still
keep upon his hands and knees. His arms so ached
that he was forced now and then to stop and lie prone
to give them ease; he was soaked through and
through with perspiration; his blood hammered at his
temples; he felt his spine weaken as though the mar-
row had melted into water; and his heart throbbed
until the effort to breathe was a pain. But he reached
the bottom of the hill, he got refuge amongst his men,
he even had time to give his orders before the tread of
the first Prussian was heard in the street.
"They will make for the other end of Vaudere.
They will give the village first as near to the French
lines as it reaches and light the rest as they retreat.
Let them go forward! We will cut them off. And
remember, the bayonet! A shot will bring the Prus-
sians down in force. It will bring the French too, so


130 THE DESERTER.
He whispered accordingly some brief instructions to
his men; he sent a message to the ten on the Servigny
road, and when the Prussians marched on after their
second halt, Lieutenant Fevrier and two Frenchmen
fell in behind them. The same procedure was followed
at the next halt and at the next; so that when the
Prussians reached the Frenchward end of Vaudere
there were twenty-three Prussians and ten French-
men in the file. To Fevrier's thinking it was sufficiently
comic. There was something artistic about it too.
Fevrier was pleased, but he had not counted on the
quick Prussian step to which his soldiers were un-
accustomed. At the fourth halt, the officer moved
unsuspiciously first on one side of the street, then on
the other, but gave no order to his men to fall out.
It seemed that he had forgotten, until he came sud-
denly running down the file and flashed his lantern
into Fevrier's face. He had been secretly counting
his men.
"The French," he cried. "Load!"
The one word quite compensated Fevrier for the
detection. The Germans had come down into Vau-
dere with their rifles unloaded, lest an accidental dis-
charge should betray their neighbourhood to the
French.
"Load!" cried the German. And slipping back
he tugged at the revolver in his belt. But before he
could draw it out, Fevrier dashed his bayonet through
the lantern and hung it on the officer's heart. He
whistled, and his other ten men came running down
the street.
"Vorwarts," shouted Fevrier, derisively. "Immer
Vorwarts."


THE DESERTER. 131
The Prussians surprised, and ignorant how many
they had to face, fell back in disorder against a house-
wall. The French soldiers dashed at them in the
darkness, engaging them so that not a man had the
chance to load.
That little fight in the dark street between the
white-ruined cottages made Fevrier's blood dance.
"Courage!" he cried. "The paraffin!"
The combatants were well matched, and it was
hand-to-hand and bayonet-to-bayonet. Fevrier loved
his enemies at that moment. It even occurred to
him that it was worth while to have deserted. After
the sense of disgrace, the prospect of imprisonment
and dishonour, it was all wonderful to him—the feel
of the thick coat yielding to the bayonet point, the
fatigue of the beaten opponent, the vigour of the new
one, the feeling of injury and unfairness when a
Prussian he had wounded dropped in falling the butt
of a rifle upon his toes.
Once he cried, " Voila pour la patrie!" but for the
rest he fought in silence, as did the others, having
other uses for their breath. All that could be heard was
a loud and laborious panting, as of wrestlers in a match,
the clang of rifle crossing rifle, the rattle of bayonet
guarding bayonet, and now and then a groan and a
heavy fall. One Prussian escaped and ran ; but the ten
who had been stationed on the Servigny road were now
guarding the entrance from Noisseville. Fevrier had
no fears of him. He pressed upon a new man, drove
him against the wall,and the man shouted in despair:
"A mot!"
"You, Philippe?" exclaimed Fevrier.


133 THE DESERTER.
"That was a timely cry," and he sprang back.
There were six men standing, and the six saluted
Fevrier; they were all Frenchmen. Fevrier mopped
his forehead.
"But that was fine," said he, "though what's to
come will be still better. Oh, but we will make this
night memorable to our friends. They shall talk of
us by their firesides when they are grown old and
France has had many years of peace—we shall not
hear, but they will talk of us, the deserters from
Metz."
Lieutenant Fevrier in a word was exalted, and had
lost his sense of proportion. He did not, however,
relax his activity. He sent off the six to gather the
rest of his contingent. He made an examination of
the Prussians, and found that sixteen had been killed
outright, and eight were lying wounded. He re-
moved their rifles and ammunition out of reach, and
from dead and wounded alike took the coats and caps.
To the wounded he gave instead French uniforms;
and then, bidding twenty-three of his soldiers don the
Prussian caps and coats, he snatched a moment
wherein to run to the curd.
"It is over," said he. "The Prussians will not
burn Vaudere to-night." And he jumped down the
stairs again without waiting for any response. In the
street he put on the cap and coat of the Prussian
officer, buckled the sword about his waist, and thrust
the revolver into his belt. He had now twenty-three
men who at night might pass for Prussians, and thir-
teen others.
To these thirteen he gave general instructions.


THE DESERTER. 133
They were to spread out on the right and left, and
make their way singly up through the vines, and past
the field-watch if they could without risk of detection.
They were to join him high up on the slope, and op-
posite to the bonfire which would be burning at the
repli. His twenty-three he led boldly, following as
nearly as possible the track by which the Prussians
had descended. The party trampled down the vine-
poles, brushed through the leaves, and in a little while
were challenged.
"Sadowa," said Fevrier, in his best imitation of the
German accent.
"Pass Sadowa," returned the sentry.
Fevrier and his men filed upwards. He halted
some two hundred yards farther on, and went down
upon his knees. The soldiers behind him copied his
example. They crept slowly and cautiously forward
until the flames of the bonfire were visible through
the screen of leaves, until the faces of the officers
about the bonfire could be read.
Then Fevrier stopped and whispered to the soldier
next to him. That soldier passed the whisper on, and
from a file the Frenchmen crept into line. Fevrier
had now nothing to do but to wait; and he waited
without trepidation or excitement. The night from
first to last had gone very well with him. He could
even think of Mareschal Bazaine without anger.
He waited for perhaps an hour, watching the faces
round the fire increase in number and grow troubled
with anxiety. The German officers talked in low
tones staring through their night-glasses down the
hill, to catch the first leaping flame from the roofs of


134 THE DESERTER.
Vaudere, pushing forward their heads to listen for
any alarm. Fevrier watched them with the amuse-
ment of a spectator in a play house. He was fully
aware that he was shortly to step upon the stage him-
self. He was aware too that the play was to have a
tragic ending. Meanwhile, however, here was very
good comedy! He had a Frenchman's appreciation
of the picturesque. The dark night, the glowing fire
on the one broad level of grass, the French soldiers
hidden in the vines, within a stone's throw of the
Germans, the Germans looking unconsciously on
over their heads for the return of those comrades who
never would return.—Lieutenant Fevrier was the
dramatist who had created this striking and artistic
situation. Lieutenant Fevrier could not but be
pleased. Moreover there were better effects to follow.
One occurred to him at this very moment, an admira-
ble one. He fumbled in his breast and took out the
flag. A minute later he saw the Colonel of the fore-
post join the group, hack nervously with his naked
sword at a burning log, and dispatch a subaltern down
the hill to the field-watch.
The subaltern came crashing back through the
vines. Fevrier did not need to hear his words in
order to guess at his report. It could only be that
the Prussian party had given the password and come
safely back an hour since. Besides, the Colonel's act
was significant.
He sent four men at once in different directions,
and the rest of his soldiers he withdrew into the dark-
ness behind the bonfire. He did not follow them
himself until he had picked up and tossed a fusee into


536 THE DESERTER.
and across the open space to the Prussian bayonets.
But not one of the number reached the bayonets.
"Fire!" shouted the Prussian officer, in his turn.
The volley flashed out, the smoke cleared away,
and showed a little heap of men silent between the
bonfire and the Prussian ranks.
The Prussians loaded again and stood ready, wait-
ing for the main attack. The morning was just
breaking. They stood silent and motionless till the
sky was flooded with light and the hills one after
another came into view, and the files of poplars were
seen marching on the plains. Then the Colonel
approached the little heap. A rifle caught his eye,
and he picked it up.
"They are all mad," said he. Forced to the point
of the bayonet was a gaudy little linen tri-colour flag.


THE CROSSED GLOVES.
"Although you have not been near Ronda for
five years," said the Spanish Commandant severely to
Dennis Shere, "the face of the country has not
changed. You are certainly the most suitable officer
I can select, since I am told you are well acquainted
with the neighbourhood. You will ride therefore to-
day to Olvera and deliver this sealed letter to the
officer commanding the temporary garrison there.
But it is not necessary that it should reach him before
eleven at night, so that you will still have an hour or
two before you start in which you can renew your
acquaintanceships, as I can very well understand you
are anxious to do."
Dennis Shere's reluctance, however, was now
changed into alacrity. For the road to Olvera ran
past the gates of that white-walled, straggling resi-
dencia where he had planned to spend this first even-
ing that he was stationed at Ronda. On his way
back from his colonel's quarters he even avoided those
squares and streets where he would be likely to meet
with old acquaintances, foreseeing their questions as
to why he was now a Spanish subject and wore the
uniform of a captain of Spanish cavalry and by seven
o'clock he was already riding through the Plaza de
Toros upon his mission. There, however, a familiar
voice hailed him, and turning about in his saddle he


138 THE CROSSED GLOVES.
saw an old padre who had once gained a small prize
for logic at the University of Barcelona, and who had
since made his inferences and deductions an excuse
for a great deal of inquisitiveness. Shere had no
option but to stop. He broke in, however, at once
on the inevitable questions as to his uniform with the
statement that he must be at Olveraby eleven.
"Fifteen miles," said the padre. "Does it need
four hours and a fresh horse to journey fifteen miles?"
"But I have friends to visit on the way," and to
give convincing details to an excuse which was plainly
disbelieved, Shere added, "Just this side of Setenil I
have friends."
The padre was still dissatisfied. "There is only one
house just this side of Setenil, and Esteban Silvela I
saw with my own eyes to-day in Ronda."
"He may well be home by now, and it is not
Esteban whom I go to see."
"Not Esteban," exclaimed the padre. "Then it
will be—"
"His sister, the Senora Christina," said Sheje with
a laugh at his companion's persistency. "Since the
brother and sister live alone, and it is not the brother,
why it will be the sister. You argue still very closely,
padre."
The padre stood back a little from Shere and stared.
Then he said slyly, and with the air of one who
quotes:
"All women are born tricksters."
"Those were rank words," said Shere composedly.
"Yet they were often spoken when you grew vines
in the Ronda Valley."


THE CROSSED GLOVES. 139
"Then a crowd of men must know me for a fool.
A young man may make a mistake, padre, and ex-
aggerate a disappointment. Besides, I had not then
seen the seflora. Esteban I knew, but she was a child,
and known to me only by name." And then, warmed
by the pleasure in his old friend's face, he said, " I
will tell you about it."
They walked on slowly side by side, while Shere,
who now that he had begun to confide was quite swept
away, bent over his saddle and told how after inherit-
ing a modest fortune, after wandering for three years
from city to city, he had at last come to Paris, and
there, at a Carlist conversazione, had heard the familiar
name called from a doorway, and had seen the un-
familiar face appear. Shere described Christina. She
walked with the grace of a deer, as though the floor
beneath her foot had the spring of turf. The blood
was bright in "her face; her brown hair shone ; she
was sweet with youth ; the suppleness of her body
showed it and the steadiness of her great clear eyes.
"She passed me," he went on, "and the arrogance
of what I used to think and say came sharp home to
me like a pain. I suppose that I stared—it was an
accident, of course—perhaps my face showed some-
thing of my trouble; but just as she was opposite me
her fan slipped through her fingers and clattered on
the floor."
The padre was at a loss to understand Shere's em-
barrassment in relating so small a matter.
"Well," said he, " you picked up the fan and so"
"No," interrupted Shere. His embarrassment in-
creased, and he stammered out awkwardly, " Just for


140 THE CROSSED GLOVES.
the moment, you see, I began to wonder whether
after all I had not been right before; whether after all
any woman would or could baulk herself of a fraction
of any man's admiration, supposing that it would
only cost a trick to extort it. And while I was won-
dering she herself stooped, picked up the fan, and
good-humouredly dropped me a curtsey for my lack
of manners. Esteban presented me to her that even-
ing. There followed two magical months in Paris
and a June in London."
"But, Esteban?" said the padre, doubtfully. "I
do not understand. I know something of Esteban
Silvela. A lean man of plots and devices. My friend,
do you know that Esteban has not a groat? The
Silvela fortunes and estate came from the mother and
went to the daughter. Esteban is the Sefiora Chris-
tina's steward, and her marriage would alter his posi-
tion at the least. Did he not spoil the magic of the
months in Paris?"
Shere laughed aloud in assured confidence.
"No, indeed," said he. "I did not know Esteban
was dependent on his sister, but what difference would
her marriage make? Esteban is my best friend. For
instance, you questioned me about my uniform. It is
by Esteban's advice and help that I wear it."
"Indeed I" said the padre, quickly. "Tell me."
"That June, in London, two years ago—it was by
the way the last time I saw the sefiora—we three
dined at the same house. As the ladies rose from the
table I said to Christina quietly, ' I want to speak to
you to-night,' and she answered very simply and
quietly,'With all my heart.' She was not so quiet,


THE CROSSED GLOVES. 141
however, but that Esteban overheard her. He hitched
his chair up to mine; I asked him what my chances
were, and whether he would second them? He was
most cordial, but he thought with his Spaniard's pride
that I ought—I use my words, not his—in some way
to repair my insufficiency in station and the rest; and
he pointed out this way of the uniform. I could not
resist his argument; I did not speak that night. I
took out my papers and became a Spaniard; with
Esteban's help I secured a commission. That was
two years ago. I have not seen her since, nor have I
written, but I ride to her to-night with my two years'
silence and my two years' service to prove the truth of
what I say. So you see I have reason to thank Este-
ban." And since they were now come to the edge of
the town they parted company. Shere rode smartly
down the slope of t"he hill, the padre stood and
watched him with a feeling of melancholy.
It was not merely that he distrusted Esteban, but
he knew Shere, the cadet of an impoverished family,
who had come out from England to a small estate in
the Ronda valley, which had belonged to his house
since the days of the Duke of Wellington in Spain.
He knew him for a man of tempests and extremes,
and as he thought of his ardent words and tones, of
his ready acceptance of Esteban's good faith, of his
description of Christina, he fell to wondering whether
so sudden and violent a conversion from passionate
cynic to passionate believer would not lack perma-
nence. There was that little instructive accident of
the dropped fan. Even in the moment of conversion
so small a thing had almost sufficed to dissuade Shere.


142 THE CROSSED GLOVES.
Shere, however, was quite untroubled—so un-
troubled, indeed, that he even rode slowly that he
might not waste the luxury of anticipating the wel-
come which his unexpected appearance would surely
provoke. He rode into the groves of almond and
walnut trees and out again into a wild and stony
country. It was just growing dusk when he saw ahead
of him the square white walls of the enclosure, and the
cluster of buildings within, glimmering at the foot of
a rugged hill. The lights began to move in the win-
dows as he approached, and then a man suddenly ap-
peared at his side on the roadway and whistled twice
loudly as though he were calling his dog. Shere rode
past the man and through the open gates into the court-
yard. There were three men lounging there, and they
came forward almost as if they had expected Shere.
He gave his horse into their charge and impetuously
mounted the flight of stone steps to the house. A
servant in readiness came forward at once and pre-
ceded Shere along a gallery towards a door. Shere's
impetuosity led him to outstep the servant, he opened
the door, and so entered the room unannounced.
It was a long, low room with a wainscot of dark
walnut, and a single lamp upon the table gave it
shadows rather than light. He had just time to no-
tice that a girl and a man were bending over the table
in the lamplight, to recognise with a throb of the
heart the play of the light upon the girl's brown hair,
to understand that she was explaining something
which she held in her hands, and then Esteban came
quickly to him with a certain air of perplexity and a
glance of inquiry towards the servant. Then he
said:—


THE CROSSED GLOVES. 143
"Of course, of course, you stopped and came in of
your own accord."
"Of my own accord, indeed," said Shere, who was
looking at Christina instead of heeding Esteban's
words. His unexpected coming had certainly not
missed its effect, although it was not the effect which
Shere had desired. There was, to be sure, a great
deal of astonishment in her looks, but there was also
consternation; and when she spoke it was in a numbed
and absent way.
"You are well? We have not seen you this long
while. Two years is it? More than two years."
"There have been changes," said Esteban. "We
have had war and, alas, defeats."
"Yes, I was in Cuba," said Shere, and the conver-
sation dragged on impersonal and dull. Esteban
talked continually with a forced heartiness, Christina
barely spoke at all, and then absently. Shere noticed
that she had but lately come in, for she still wore her
hat, and her gloves lay crossed on the table in the
light of the lamp; she moved restlessly about the
room, stopping now and then to give an ear to any
chance noise in the courtyard, and to glance alertly at
the door; so that Shere understood that she was ex-
pecting another visitor, and that he himself was in the
way. An inopportune intrusion, it seemed, was the sole
outcome of the two years' anticipations, and utterly
discouraged he rose from his chair. On the instant,
however, Esteban signed to Shere to remain, and with a
friendly smile himself made an excuse and left the
room.
Christina was now walking up and down one par-


144 THE CROSSED GLOVES.
ticular seam in the floor with as much care as if the
seam was a tight-rope, and this exercise she continued.
Shere moved over to the table and quite absently
played with the gloves which lay there, disarranging
their position, so that they no longer made a cross.
"You remember that night in London," said he,
and Christina stopped for a second to say simply and
without any suggestion that she was offended, "You
should have spoken that night," and then resumed her
walk.
"Yes," returned Shere. "But I was always aware
that I could not offer you your match, and I found, I
thought, quite suddenly that evening a way to make
my insufficiency less insufficient."
"Less insufficient by a strip of brass upon your
shoulder," she exclaimed passionately. She came and
stood opposite to him. "Well, that strip of brass
stops us both. It stops my ears, it must stop your
lips too. Where did we meet first?"
"In Paris."
"Go on!"
"At a Carlist—" and Shere broke off and took a
step towards her. "Oh !" he exclaimed, " I never
thought of it. I imagined you went there to laugh
as I did."
"Does one laugh at one's creed?" she cried vio-
lently; and Shere with a helpless gesture of the
hands sat down in a chair. Esteban had fooled him,
and why, the padre had shown Shere that afternoon,
Esteban had fooled him irreparably; it did not need
a glance at Christina, as she stood facing him, to con-
vince him of that. There was no anger against him,


THE CROSSED GLOVES. 145
he noticed, in her face, but on the contrary a great
friendliness and pity. But he knew her at that mo-
ment. Her looks might soften, but not her resolve.
She was heart-whole a Carlist. Carlism was her
creed, and her creed would be more than a creed, it
would be a passion too. So it was not to persuade
her but rather in acknowledgment that he said:
"And one:does not change one's creed?"
"No," she answered, and suggested, but in a doubt-
ful voice", "but one can put off one's uniform."
Shere stood up. "Neither can one do that," he
said simply. "It is quite true that I sought my com-
mission upon your account. I would just as readily
have become a Carlist had I known. I had no incli-
nation one way or the other, only a great hope and
longing for you. But I have made the mistake, and I
cannot retrieve it. The strip of brass obliges me to
good faith. Already you will understand the uniform
has had its inconvenience. It sent me to Cuba, and
set me armed against men almost of my own blood.
There was no escape then ; there is no escape now."
Christina moved closer to him. The reticence with
which Shere spoke, and the fact that he made no claim
upon her made her voice very gentle.
"No," she agreed. "I thought that you would
make that answer. And in my heart I do not think
that I should like to have heard from you any other."
"Thank you," said Shere. He drew out his watch.
"I have still some way to go. I have to reach Olvera
by eleven ;" and he was aware that Christina at his
side became at once very still, so that even her breath-
ing was arrested. For her sigh of emotion at the abrupt


146 THE CROSSED GLOVES.
mention of parting he was thankful, but it made him.
keep his eyes turned from her lest a sight of any dis-
tress of hers might lead him to falter from his purpose.
"You are riding to 01vera?"she asked, after a
pause, and in a queer muffled voice.
"Yes. So I must say good-bye," and now he turned
to her. But she was too quick for him to catch a
glimpse of her face. She had already turned from
him and was walking towards the door.
"You must also say good-bye to Esteban," said
she, as though to gain time. With her fingers on the
door-handle she stopped. "Tell me," she exclaimed.
"It was Esteban who advised the army, who helped
you to your commission? You need not deny it! It
was Esteban," she stood silent, turning over this rev-
elation in her mind. Then she added, " Did you see
Esteban in Ronda this afternoon?"
"No, but I heard that he was there. I must go."
He took up his hat, and turning again towards the
door saw that Christina stood with her back against
the panels and her arms outstretched across them like
a barrier.
"You need not fear," he said to reassure her. "I
shall not quarrel with Esteban. He is your brother,
and the harm is done. Besides, I do not know that
it is all harm when I look back in the years before I
wore the uniform. In those times it was all one's own
dissatisfactions and trivial dislikes and trivial ambi-
tions. Now I find a repose in losing them, in becom-
ing a little necessary part of a big machine, even
though it is not the best machine of its kind and
works creakily. I find a dignity in it too."


THE CROSSED GLOVES. 147
It was the man of extremes who spoke, and he
spoke quite sincerely. Christina, however, neither an-
swered him nor heard. Her eyes were fixed with a
strange intentness upon him ; her breath came and
went as if she had run a race, and in the silence
seemed unnaturally audible.
"You carry orders to Olvera?" she said at length.
Shere fetched the sealed letter out of his pocket.
"So I must go, or fail in my duty," said he.
"Give me the letter," said Christina.
Shere stared at her in amazement. The amazement
changed to suspicion. His whole face seemed to nar-
row and sharpen out of his own likeness into some-
thing foxy and mean.
"I will not," he said, and slowly replaced the letter.
"There was a man in the road," he continued slowly,
"who whistled as I passed—a signal, no doubt. You
are Carlist. This is a trap."
"A trap not laid for you," said Christina. "Be sure
of that! Until you spoke of Olvera I did not know."
"No," admitted Shere, "not laid for me to your
knowledge, but to Esteban's. You were surprised at
my coming—Esteban only at the manner of my com-
ing. He asked if I had ridden into the gates of my
own accord I remember. He was in Ronda this after-
noon. Very likely it was he who told my colonel of
my knowledge of the neighbourhood. It would suit
his purposes well to present me to you suddenly, not
merely as an enemy, but an active enemy. Yes, I un-
derstand that. But," and his voice hardened again,
"even to your knowledge the trap was laid for the
man who carries the letter. You have your share in


148 THE CROSSED GLOVES.
the trick." He repeated the word with a sharp laugh,
savouring it, dwelling upon it as upon something long
forgotten, and now suddenly remembered. "A mur-
derous trick, too, it seems! I wonder what would
have happened if I had not turned in at the gates of
my own accord. How much farther should I have
ridden towards Olvera, and by what gentle means
should I have been stopped?"
"By nothing more dangerous than a hand upon
your bridle and an excuse that you might do me some
small service at Olvera."
"An excuse, a falsity! To be sure," said Shere
bitterly. "Yet you still stand before the door though
you know the letter will not be yours. Is the trick
after all so harmless? Is there no one—Esteban, for
instance—in the dark passage outside the door or on
the dark road outside the gates?"
"I will prove to you you are wrong."
Christina dropped her arms to her side, moved alto-
gether from the door, and rang a bell. "Esteban
shall come here; he will see you outside the gates;
he will set you safely on your road to Olvera." She
spoke now quite quietly; all the panic and agitation
had gone in a moment from her face, her manner, and
her words. But the very suddenness of the change in
her increased Shere's suspicions. A moment ago
Christina was standing before the door with every
nerve astrain, her face white, and her eyes bewildered
with horror. Now she stood easily by the table with
the lighted lamp, speaking easily, playing easily with
the gloves upon the table. Shere watched for the
secret of this sudden change.


THE CROSSED GLOVES. 149
A servant answered the bell and was bidden to find
Esteban. No look of significance passed between
them; by no gesture was any signal given. "No
harm was intended to any man," Christina continued
as soon as the door again was closed; "I insisted—I
mean there was no need to insist; for I promised to
get the letter from the bearer once he had come into
this room."
"How?" Shere asked with a blunt contempt.
"By tricks?"
Christina raised her head quickly, stung to a mo-
ment's anger; but she did not answer him, and again
her head drooped.
"At all events," she said quietly," I have not tried
to trick you," and Shere noticed that she arranged
with an absent carelessness the gloves in the form of
a cross beneath the lamp; and at once he felt that
her action contradicted her words. It was merely an
instinct at first. Then he began to reason. Those
gloves had been so arranged when first he entered the
room. Christina and Esteban were bending over the
table. Christina was explaining something. Was
she explaining that arrangement of the gloves? Was
that arrangement the reason of her ready acceptance
of his refusal to part with his orders? Was it, in a
word, a signal for Esteban—a signal which should
tell him whether or not she had secured the letter?
Shere saw a way to answer that question. He was
now filled with distrust of Christina as half an hour
back he had been filled with faith in her; so that he
paid no heed to her apology, or to the passionate and
pleading voice in which she spoke it.


150 THE CROSSED GLOVES.
"So much was at stake for us," she said. "It
seemed a necessity that we must have that letter, that
no sudden orders must reach Olvera to-night. For
there is some one at Olvera—I must trust you, you
see, though you are our pledged enemy—some one of
great consequence to us, some one we love, some one
to whom we look to revive this Spain of ours. No, it
is not our King, but his son—his young and gallant
son. He will be gone to-morrow, but he is at Olvera
to-night. And so when Esteban found out to-day
that orders were to be sent to the commandant there
it seemed we had no choice. It seemed those orders
must not reach him, and it seemed therefore—just so
that no hurt might be done, which otherwise would
surely have been done, whatever I might order or
forbid—that I must use a woman's way and secure
the letter."
"And the bearer?" asked Shere, advancing to the
table. "What of him? He, I suppose, might creep
back to Ronda, broken in honour and with a lie to
tell? The best lie he could invent. Or would you
have helped him to the lie?"
Christina shrank away from the table as though she
had been struck.
"You had not thought of his plight," continued
Shere. "He rides out from Ronda an honest soldier
and returns—what? No more a soldier than this
glove of yours is your hand," and taking up one of
the gloves he held it for a moment, and then tossed
it down at a distance from its fellow. He deliberately
turned his back to the table as Christina replied:
"The bearer would be just our pledged enemy—


152 THE CROSSED GLOVES.
the gloves, and when he took a polite leave of Chris-
tina and followed Esteban from the room it was not
without an air of triumph.
Christina stood without changing her attitude,
except that perhaps she pushed her head a little
forward that she might the better hear the last of her
lover's receding steps. When they ceased to sound
she ran quickly to the window, opened it, and leaned
out that she might the better hear his horse's hoofs on
the flagged courtyard. She heard besides Esteban's
voice speaking amiably and Shere's making amiable
replies. The sharp hard clatter upon the stones
softened into the duller thud upon the road; the
voices became fainter and lost their character. Then
one clear " good-night" rang out loudly, and was
followed by the quick beats of a horse trotting. Chris-
tina slowly closed the window and turned her eyes
upon the room. She saw the lamp upon the table
and the gloves in parallel lines beneath it.
Now Shere was so far right in that the gloves were
intended as a signal for Esteban ; only owing to that
complete revulsion of which the padre had seen the
possibility, Shere had mistaken the signal. The
passionate believer had again become the passionate
cynic. He saw the trick, and setting no trust in the
girl who played it, heeding neither her looks nor words
nor the sincerity of her voice, had no doubt that it
was aimed against him ; whereas it was aimed to pro-
tect him. Shere had no doubt that the gloves crossed
meant that he still had the sealed letter in his keep-
ing, and therefore he disarranged them. But in
truth the gloves crossed meant that Christina had it,


THE CROSSED GLOVES. 153
and that the messenger might go unhindered upon his
way.
Christina uttered no cry. She simply did not be-
lieve what her eyes saw. She needed to touch the
gloves before she was convinced, and when she had
done that she was at once not sure but that she her-
self in touching them had ranged them in these lines.
In the end, however, she understood, not the how or
why, but the mere fact. She ran to the door, along
the gallery, down the steps into the courtyard. She
met no one. The house might have been a deserted
ruin from its silence. She crossed the courtyard to
the glimmering white walls, and passed through the
gates on to the road. The night was clear ; and ahead
of her far away in the middle of the road a lantern
shone very red. Christina ran towards it, and as she
approached she saw faces like miniatures grouped
above it. They did not heed her until she was close
upon them, until she had noticed one man holding a
riderless horse apart from the group and another
coiling up a stout rope. Then Esteban, who was
holding the lantern, raised his hand to keep her back.
"There has been an accident," said he. "He fell,
and fell awkwardly, the horse with him."
"An accident," said Christina, and she pointed to
the coil of rope. It was no use for her now to say
that she had forbidden violence. Indeed, at no time,
as she told Shere, would it have been of any use. She
pushed through the group to where Dennis Shere lay
on the ground, his face white and shiny and tortured
with pain. She knelt down on the ground and took
his head in her hands as though she would raise it on


154 THE CROSSED GLOVES.
to her lap, but one man stopped her, saying, " It is his
back, seflora." Shere opened his eyes and saw who
it was that bent over him, and Christina, reading their
look, was appalled. It was surely impossible that
human eyes could carry so much hate. His lips
moved, and she leaned her ear close to his mouth to
catch the words. But it was only one word he spoke
and repeated:—
"Tricks! Tricks!"
There was no time to disprove or explain. Chris-
tina had but one argument. She kissed him on the
lips.
"This is no trick," she cried, and Esteban, laying a
hand upon her shoulder, said, " He does not hear, nor
can his lips answer;" and Esteban spoke the truth.
Shere had not heard, and never would hear, as Chris-
tina knew.
"He still has the letter," said Esteban. Christina
thrust him back with her hand and crouched over the
dead man, protecting him. In a little she said, " True,
there is the letter." She unbuttoned Shere's jacket
and gently took the letter from his breast. Then she
knelt back and looked at the superscription without
speaking. Esteban opened the door of the lantern
and held the flame towards her. "No," said she.
"It had better go to Olvera."
She rode to Olvera that night. They let her go,
deceived by her composure and thinking that she
meant to carry it to " the man of great consequence."
But Christina's composure meant nothing more than
that her mind and her feelings were numbed. She
was conscious of only one conviction, that Shere must


THE CROSSED GLOVES. 155
not fail in his duty, since he had staked his honour
upon its fulfilment. And so she rode straight to the
commandant's quarters at Olvera, and telling of an
accident to the bearer, handed him the letter. The
commandant read it, and was most politely distressed
that Christina should have put herself to so much
trouble, for the orders merely recalled his contingent
to Ronda in the morning. It was about this time
that Christina began to understand precisely what had
happened.


THE SHUTTERED HOUSE.
If ever a man's pleasures jumped with his duties
mine did in the year 1744, when, as a clerk in the ser-
vice of the Royal African Company of Adventurers, I
was despatched to the remote islands of Scilly in
search of certain information which, it was believed,
Mr. Robert Lovyes alone could impart. For even a
clerk that sits all day conning his ledgers may now
and again chance upon a record or name which will
tickle his dull fancies with the suggestion of a story.
Such a suggestion I had derived from the circum-
stances of Mr. Lovyes. He had passed an adventu-
rous youth, during which he had for eight years been
held to slavery by a negro tribe on the Gambia river;
he had afterwards amassed a considerable fortune,
and embarked it in the ventures of the Company; he
had thereupon withdrawn himself to Tresco, where he
had lived for twenty years: so much any man might
know without provocation to his curiosity. The
strange feature of Mr. Lovyes' conduct was revealed
to me by the ledgers. For during all those years he
had drawn neither upon his capital nor his interest, so
that his stake in the Company grew larger and larger,
with no profit to himself that any one could discover.
It seemed to me, in fact, clean against nature that a
man so rich should so disregard his wealth; and I


THE SHUTTERED HOUSE. 157
busied myself upon the journey with discovering
strange reasons for his seclusion, of which none, I may
say, came near the mark, by so much did the truth ex-
ceed them all.
I landed at the harbour of New Grimsey, on Tresco,
in the grey twilight of a September evening; and ask-
ing for Mr. Lovyes, was directed across a little ridge
of heather to Dolphin Town, which lies on the east-
ward side of Tresco, and looks across Old Grimsey
Sound to the island of St. Helen's. Dolphin Town,
you should know, for all its grand name, boasts but a
poor half-score of houses dotted about the ferns and
bracken, with no semblance of order. One of the
houses, however, attracted my notice—first, because
it was built in two storeys, and was, therefore, by
a storey taller than the rest; and, secondly, because all
its windows were closely shuttered, and it wore in that
falling light a drooping, melancholy aspect, like a
derelict ship upon the seas. It stood in the middle of
this scanty village, and had a little unkempt garden
about it inclosed within a wooden paling. There was
a wicket-gate in the paling, and a rough path from the
gate to the house door, and a few steps to the right of
this path a well was sunk and rigged with a winch and
bucket. I was both tired and thirsty, so I turned into
the garden and drew up some water in the bucket.
A narrow track was beaten in the grass between the
well and the house, and I saw with surprise that the
stones about the mouth of the well were splashed and
still wet. The house, then, had an inmate. I looked
at it again, but the shutters kept their secret: there
was no glimmer of light visible through any chink.


158 THE SHUTTERED HOUSE.
I approached the house, and from that nearer vantage
discovered that the shutters were common planks
fitted into the windows and nailed fast to the wood-
work from without. Growing yet more curious, I
marched to the door and knocked, with an inquiry
upon my tongue as to where Mr. Lovyes lived. But
the excuse was not needed; the sound of my blows
echoed through the house in a desolate, solitary
fashion, and no step answered them. I knocked again,
and louder. Then I leaned my ear to the panel, and
I distinctly heard the rustling of a woman's dress. I
held my breath to hear the more surely. The sound
was repeated, but more faintly, and it was followed by
a noise like the closing of a door. I drew back from
the house, keeping an eye upon the upper storey, for
I thought it possible the woman might reconnoitre
me thence. But the windows stared at me blind, un-
responsive. To the right and left lights twinkled in
the scattered dwellings, and I found something very
ghostly in the thought of this woman entombed as it
were in the midst of them and moving alone in the
shuttered gloom. The twilight deepened, and suddenly
the gate behind me whined on its hinges. At once I
dropped to my full length on the grass—the gloom was
now so thick there was little fear I should be dis-
covered—and a man went past me to the house. He
walked, so far as I could judge, with a heavy stoop,
but was yet uncommon tall, and he carried a basket
upon his arm. He laid the basket upon the doorstep,
and, to my utter disappointment, turned at once, and
so down the path and out at the gate. I heard the
gate rattle once, twice, and then a click as its latch


THE SHUTTERED HOUSE. 159
caught. I was sufficiently curious to desire a nearer
view of the basket, and discovered that it contained
food. Then, remembering me that all this while my
own business waited, I continued on my way to Mr.
Lovyes' house. It was a long building of a brownish
granite, under Merchant's Point, at the northern ex-
tremity of Old Grimsey Harbour. Mr. Lovyes was
sitting over his walnuts in the cheerless solitude of his
dining-room—a frail old gentleman, older than his
years, which I took to be sixty or thereabouts, and
with the air of a man in a decline. I unfolded my
business forthwith, but I had not got far before he in-
terrupted me.
"There is a mistake," he said. "It is doubtless my
brother Robert you are in search of. I am John Lov-
yes, and was, it is true, captured with my brother in
Africa, but I escaped six years before he did, and
traded no more in those parts. We fled together from
the negroes, but we were pursued. My brother was
pierced by an arrow, and I left him, believing him to
be dead."
I had, indeed, heard something of a brother, though
I little expected to find him in Tresco too. He
pressed upon me the hospitality of his house, but my
business was with Mr. Robert, and I asked him to di-
rect me on my path, which he did with some hesita-
tion and reluctance. I had once more to pass through
Dolphin Town, and an impulse prompted me to take
another look at the shuttered house. I found that
the basket of food had been removed, and an empty
bucket stood in its place. But there was still no light
visible, and I went on to the dwelling of Mr. Robert


i6o THE SHUTTERED HOUSE.
Lovyes. When I came to it, I comprehended his
brother's hesitation. It was a rough, mean little
cottage standing on the edge of the bracken close to
the sea—a dwelling fit for the poorest fisherman, but
for no one above that station, and a large open boat
was drawn up on the hard beside it as though the
tenant fished for his bread. I knocked at the door,
and a man with a candle in his hand opened it.
"Mr. Robert Lovyes? " I asked.
"Yes, I am he." And he led the way into a kitchen,
poor and mean as the outside warranted, but scrupu-
lously clean and bright with a fire. He led the way,
as I say, and I was still more mystified to observe
from his gait, his height, and the stoop of his
shoulders that he was the man whom I had seen car-
rying the basket through the garden. I had now an
opportunity of noticing his face, wherein I could de-
tect no resemblance to his brother's. For it was
broader and more vigorous, with a great, white beard
valancing it; and whereas Mr. John's hair was neatly
powdered and tied with a ribbon, as a gentleman's
should be, Mr. Robert's, which was of a black colour
with a little sprinkling of grey, hung about his head
in a tangled mane. There was but a two-years differ-
ence between the ages of the brothers, but there might
have been a decade. I explained my business, and we
sat down to a supper of fish, freshly caught, which
he served himself. And during supper he gave me
the information I was come after. But I lent only an
inattentive ear to his talk. For my knowledge of
his wealth, the picture of him as he sat in his great
sea-boots and coarse seaman's vest, as though it was the


THE SHUTTERED HOUSE. 161
most natural garb in the world, and his easy discourse
about those far African rivers, made a veritable jumble
of my mind. To add to it all, there was the mystery
of the shuttered house. More than once I was inclined
to question him upon this last account, but his man-
ner did not promise confidences, and I said nothing.
At last he perceived my inattention.
"I will repeat all this to-morrow," he said grimly.
"You are, no doubt, tired. I cannot, I am afraid, house
you, for, as you see, I have no room; but I have a
young friend who happens by good luck to stay this
night on Tresco, and no doubt he will oblige me."
Thereupon he led me to a cottage on the outskirts of
Dolphin Town, and of all in that village nearest to
the sea.
"My friend," said he, "is named Ginver Wyeth, and,
though he comes from these parts, he does not live
here, being a school-master on the mainland. His
mother has died lately, and he is come on that ac-
count."
Mr. Wyeth received me hospitably, but with a cer-
tain pedantry of speech which somewhat surprised me,
seeing that his parents were common fisherfolk. He
readily explained the matter, however, over a pipe,
when Mr. Lovyes had left us.
"I owe everything to Mrs. Lovyes," he said. "She
took me when a boy, taught me something herself,
and sent me thereafter, at her own charges, to a school
in Falmouth."
"Mrs. Lovyes !" I exclaimed.
"Yes," he continued, and, bending forward, lowered
his voice. "You went up to Merchant's Point, you


THE SHUTTERED HOUSE. 163
rapped when he first landed on Tresco on the night of
the seventh of May twenty-two years ago, and I was
here on my holidays at the time. I had been out that
day in my father's lugger to the Poul, which is the
best fishing-ground anywhere near Scilly, and the fog
took us, I remember, at three of the afternoon. So
what with that and the wind failing, it was late when
we cast anchor in Grimsey Sound. The night had
fallen in a brown mirk, and so still that the sound of our
feet brushing through the ferns was loud, like the
sweep of scythes. We sat down to supper in this
kitchen about nine, my mother, my father, two men
from the boat, and myself, and after supper we
gathered about the fire here and talked. The talk
in these parts, however it may begin, slides insensibly
to that one element of which the noise is ever in our
ears; and so in a little here were we chattering of
wrecks and wrecks and wrecks and the bodies of dead
men drowned. And then, in the thick of the talk,
came the knock on the door—a light rapping of the
knuckles, such as one hears twenty times a day; but
our minds were so primed with old wives' tales that
it fairly shook us all. No one stirred, and the knock-
ing was repeated.
"Then the latch was lifted, and Robert Lovyes
stepped in. His beard was black then—coal black,
like his hair—and his face looked out from it pale as a
ghost and shining wet from the sea. The water
dripped from his clothes and made a puddle about his
feet.
"' How often did I knock?' he asked pleasantly.
'Twice, I think. Yes, twice.'


i64 THE SHUTTERED HOUSE.
"Then he sat down on the settle, very deliberately
pulled off his great sea-boots, and emptied the water
out of them.
"' What island is this?' he asked.
"' Tresco.'
"' Tresco!' he exclaimed, in a quick, agitated
whisper, as though he dreaded yet expected to hear
the name. ■ We were wrecked, then, on the Golden
Ball.'
"' Wrecked?' cried my father; but the man went
on pursuing his own thoughts.
"' I swam to an islet.'
"' It would be Norwithel,' said my father.
"' Yes,' said he, ' it would be Norwithel.' And my
mother asked curiously—
"'You know these islands?' For his speech was
leisurely and delicate, such as we heard neither from
Scillonians nor from the sailors who visit St. Mary's.
"' Yes,' he answered, his face breaking into a smile
of unexpected softness, 'I know these islands. From
Rosevean to Ganilly, from Peninnis Head to Maiden
Bower: I know them well.'"
*********
At this point Mr. Wyeth broke off his story, and
crossing to the window, opened it. "Listen!" he
said. I heard as it were the sound of innumerable
voices chattering and murmuring and whispering in
some mysterious language, and at times the voices
blended and the murmurs became a single moan.
"It is the tide making on the Golden Ball," said
Mr. Wyeth. "The reef stretches seawards from St.
Helen's island and half way across the Sound. You


THE SHUTTERED HOUSE. 165
may see it at low tide, a ledge level as a paved cause-
way, and God help the ship that strikes on it!"
Even while he spoke, from these undertones of
sound there swelled suddenly a great booming like a
battery of cannon.
"It is the ledge cracking," said Mr. Wyeth, "and it
cracks in the calmest weather." With that, he closed
the window, and, lighting his pipe, resumed his story.
*********
"It was on that reef that Mr. Robert Lovyes was
wrecked. The ship, he told us, was the schooner
Waking Dawn, bound from Cardiff to Africa, and she
had run into the fog about half-past three, when they
were a mile short of the Seven Stones. She bumped
twice on the reef, and sank immediately, with, so far as
he knew, all her crew.
"' So now,' Robert continued, tapping his belt,' since
I have the means to pay, I will make bold to ask for a
lodging, and for this night I will hang up here my
dripping garments to Neptune.'
"' Me tabula sacer
Votiva paries'
I began in the pride of my schooling, for I had learned
that verse of Horace but a week before.
"' This, no doubt, is the Cornish tongue,' he inter-
rupted gravely,' and will you please to carry my boots
outside?'
"What followed seemed to me then the strangest
part of all this business, though, indeed, our sea-fogs
come and go as often as not with a like abruptness.
But the time of this fog's dispersion shocked the mind
as something pitiless and arbitrary. For had the air


166 THE SHUTTERED HOUSE.
cleared an hour before, the Waking Dawn would not
have struck. I opened the door, and it was as though
a panel of brilliant white was of a sudden painted on
the floor. Robert Lovyes sprang up from the settle,
ran past me into the open, and stood on the bracken
in his stockinged feet. A little patch of fog still
smoked on the shining beach of Tean; a scarf of it
was twisted about the granite bosses of St. Helen's;
and for the rest the moonlight sparkled upon the
head-lands and was spilled across miles of placid sea.
There was a froth of water upon the Golden Ball, but
no sign of the schooner sunk among its weeds.
"My father, however, and the two boatmen hurried
down to the shore, while I was despatched with the
news to Merchant's Point. My mother asked Mr.
Lovyes his name, that I might carry it with me. But
he spoke in a dreamy voice, as though he had not
heard her.
"' There were eight of the crew. Four were below,
and I doubt if the four on deck could swim.'
"I ran off on my errand, and, coming back a little
later with a bottle of cordial waters, found Mr. Lovyes
still standing in the moonlight. He seemed not to
have moved a finger. I gave him the bottle, with a
message that any who were rescued should be carried
to Merchant's Point forthwith, and that he himself
should go down there in the morning.
"' Who taught you Latin ?' he asked suddenly.
"' Mrs. Lovyes taught me the rudiments,' I began;
and with that he led me on to talk of her, but with
some cunning. For now he would divert me to an-
other topic and again bring me back to her, so that it


168 THE SHUTTERED HOUSE.
"'That depends upon how quick you are with the
gaff,' said I. 'Here comes my father.'
"My father returned empty-handed. Not one of
the crew had been saved.
"' You asked my name,' said Robert Lovyes, turn-
ing to my mother. 'It is Crudge—Jarvis Crudge.'
With that he went to his bed, but all night long I
heard him pacing his room.
"The next morning he complained of his long
immersion in the sea, and certainly when he told his
story to Mr. and Mrs. Lovyes as they sat over their
breakfast in the parlour at Merchant's Point, he spoke
with such huskiness as I never heard the like of. Mr.
Lovyes took little heed to us, but went on eating his
breakfast with only a sour comment here and there.
I noticed, however, that Mrs. Lovyes, who sat over
against us, bent her head forward and once or twice
shook it as though she would unseat some ridiculous
conviction. And after the story was told, she sat
with no word of kindness for Mr. Crudge, and, what
was yet more unlike her, no word of pity for the sail-
ors who were lost. Then she rose and stood, steady-
ing herself with the tips of her fingers upon the table.
Finally she came swiftly across the room and peered
into Mr. Crudge's face.
"' If you need help,' she said, ' I will gladly furnish
it. No doubt you will be anxious to go from Tresco
at the earliest. No doubt, no doubt you will,' she re-
peated anxiously.
"' Madame,' he said, 'I need no help, being by
God's leave a man'—and he laid some stress upon the
'man,' bat not boastfully—rather as though all women


170 THE SHUTTERED HOUSE.
did not mention my discovery to him, lest I should
meet with another rebuff. But I was none the less
sure of its truth, for he mistook Hanjague for Nornor,
and Priglis Bay for Beady Pool, and made a number
of suchlike mistakes. After a week he hired the cot-
tage in which he now lives, bought his boat, leased
from the steward the patch of ground in Dolphin
Town, and set about building his house. He under-
took the work, I am sure, for pure employment and
distraction. He picked up the granite stones, fitted
them together, panelled them, made the floors from
the deck of a brigantine which came ashore on Annet,
pegged down the thatch roof—in a word, he built the
house from first to last with his own hands and he
took fifteen months over the business, during which
time he did not exchange a single word with Mrs.
Lovyes, nor anything more than a short 'Good-day'
with Mr. John. He worked, however, with no great
regularity. For while now he laboured in a feverish
haste, now he would sit a whole day idle on the head-
lands; or, again, he would of a sudden throw down
his tools as though the work overtaxed him, and, leap-
ing into his boat, set all sail and run with the wind.
All that night you might see him sailing in the moon-
light, and he would come home in the flush of the
dawn.
"After he had built the house, he furnished it,
crossing for that purpose backwards and forwards be-
tween Tresco and St. Mary's. I remember that one
day he brought back with him a large chest, and I
offered to lend him a hand in carrying it. But he
hoisted it on his back and took it no farther than the


172 THE SHUTTERED HOUSE.
"' Do you remember the night I came ashore?
You had caught a shark that day, and you told me of
it. The great lilac shadow which rises from the
depths and circles about the bait, and sinks again and
rises again and takes—how long?—two years maybe
before he snaps it.'
"' But he does not carry it away,' said I, taking his
meaning.
"'Sometimes—sometimes,' he snarled.
"' That depends on how quick we are with the gaff."
"' You !' he laughed, and taking me by the elbows,
he shook me till I was giddy.
"' I owe Mrs. Lovyes everything,' I said. At that
he let me go. The ferocity of his manner, however,
confirmed me in my fears, and, with a boy's extrava-
gance, I carried from that day a big knife in my belt.
"' The gaff, I suppose,' said Mr. Crudge with a
polite smile when first he remarked it. During the
next week, however, he showed more contentment
with his lot, and once I caught him rubbing his hands
and chuckling, like a man well pleased; so that by
New Year's Eve I was wellnigh relieved of my anxi-
ety on Mrs. Lovyes' account.
"On that night, however, I went down to Crudge's
cottage, and peeping through the window on my way
to the door, I saw a strange man in the room. His
face was clean-shaven, his hair tied back and pow-
dered; he was in his shirt-sleeves, with a satin waist-
coat, a sword at his side, and shining buckles to his
shoes. Then I saw that the big chest stood open. I
opened the door and entered.
"' Come in!' said the man, and from his voice I


THE SHUTTERED HOUSE. 173
knew him to be Mr. Crudge. He took a candle in his
hand and held it above his head.
"' Tell me my name,' he said. His face, shaved of
its beard and no longer hidden by his hair, stood out
distinct, unmistakable.
"' Lovyes,' I answered.
"' Good boy,' said he. 'Robert Lovyes, brother to
John.'
"' Yet he did not know you,' said I, though, in-
deed, I could not wonder.
"' But she did,' he cried, with a savage exultation.
'At the first glance, at the first word, she knew me.'
Then, quietly, ' My coat is on the chair beside you.'
"I took it up. 'What do you mean to do?' I
asked.
"'It is New Year's Eve,' he said grimly. 'The
season of good wishes. It is only meet that I should
wish my brother, who stole my wife, much happiness
for the next twelve months.'
"He took the coat from my hands.
"' You admire the coat? Ah! true, the colour is
lilac.' He held it out at arm's length. Doubtless I
had been staring at the coat, but I had not even given
it a thought. 'The lilac shadow!' he went on, with
a sneer. 'Believe me, it is the purest coincidence.'
And as he prepared to slip his arm into the sleeve I
flashed the knife out of my belt. He was too quick
for me, however. He flung the coat over my head.
I felt the knife twisted out of my hand; he stumbled
over the chair; we both fell to the ground, and the
next thing I know I was running over the bracken
towards Merchant's Point with Robert Lovyes hot


174 THE SHUTTERED HOUSE.
upon my heels. He was of a heavy build, and forty
years of age. I had the double advantage, and I ran
till my chest cracked and the stars danced above me.
I clanged at the bell and stumbled into the hall.
"'Mrs. Lovyes!' I choked the name out as she
stepped from the parlour.
"' Well?' she asked. 'What is it?'
"' He is following—Robert Lovyes!'
"She sprang rigid, as though I had whipped her
across the face. Then, ' I knew it would come to this
at the last,' she said; and even as she spoke Robert
Lovyes crossed the threshold.
"' Molly,' he said, and looked at her curiously.
She stood singularly passive, twisting her fingers. 'I
hardly know you,' he continued. 'In the old days
you were the wilfullest girl I ever clapped eyes
on.'
"' That was thirteen years ago,' she said, with a
queer little laugh at the recollection.
"He took her by the hand and led her into the par-
lour. I followed. Neither Mrs. Lovyes nor Robert
remarked my presence, and as for John Lovyes, he
rose from his chair as the pair approached him,
stretched out a trembling hand, drew it in, stretched
it out again, all without a word, and his face purple
and ridged with the veins.
"' Brother,' said Robert, taking between his fingers
half a gold coin, which was threaded on a chain about
Mrs. Lovyes' wrist, 'where is the fellow to this?
I gave it to you on the Gambia river, bidding you
carry it to Molly as a sign that I would return.'
"I saw John's face harden and set at the sound of


THE SHUTTERED HOUSE. 175
his brother's voice. He looked at his wife, and, since
she now knew the truth, he took the bold course.
"' I gave it to her,' said he, 'as a token of your
death; and, by God! she was worth the lie!'
"The two men faced one another—Robert smooth-
ing his chin, John with his arms folded, and each as
white and ugly with passion as the other. Robert
turned to Mrs. Lovyes, who stood like a stone.
"' You promised to wait,' he said in a constrained
voice. 'I escaped six years after my noble brother.'
"' Six years?' she asked. 'Had you come back
then you would have found me waiting.'
"' I could not,' he said. 'A fortune equal to your
own—that was what I promised to myself before I
returned to marry you.'
"' And much good it has done you,' said John,
and I think that he meant by the provocation to
bring the matter to an immediate issue. 'Pride,
pride!' and he wagged his head. 'Sinful pride!'
"Robert sprang forward with an oath, and then,
as though the movement had awakened her, Mrs.
Lovyes stepped in between the two men, with an arm
outstretched on either side to keep them apart.
"' Wait!' she said. 'For what is it that you fight?
Not, indeed, for me. To you, my husband, I will no
more belong; to you, my lover, I cannot. My
woman's pride, my woman's honour—those two things
are mine to keep.'
"So she stood casting about for an issue, while the
brothers glowered at one another across her. It was
evident that if she left them alone they would fight,
and fight to the death. She turned to Robert..


176 THE SHUTTERED HOUSE.
"' You meant to live on Tresco here at my gates,
unknown to me; but you could not.'
"' I could not,' he answered. 'In the old days you
had spoken so much of Scilly—every island reminded
me—and I saw you every day.'
"I could read the thought passing through her
mind. It would not serve for her to live beside them,
visible to them each day. Sooner or later they would
come to grips. And then her face flushed as the
notion of her great sacrifice came to her.
"' I see but the one way,' she said. 'I will go into
the house that you, Robert, have built. Neither you
nor John sliall see me, but none the less, I shall live
between you, holding you apart, as my hands do now.
I give my life to you so truly that from this night no
one shall see my face. You, John, shall live on here
at Merchant's Point. Robert, you at your cottage,
and every day you will bring me food and water and
leave it at my door.'
"The two men fell back shamefaced. They pro-
tested they would part and put the world between
them; but she would not trust them. I think, too,
the notion of her sacrifice grew on her as she thought
of it. For women are tenacious of sacrifice even as men
are of revenge. And in the end she had her way.
That night Robert Lovyes nailed the boards across
the windows, and brought the door-key back to her;
and that night, twenty years ago, she crossed the thres-
hold. No man has seen her since. But, none the less,
for twenty years she has lived between the brothers,
keeping them apart."
This was the story which Mr. Wyeth told me as


THE SHUTTERED HOUSE. 177
we sat over our pipes, and the next day I set off on
my journey back to London. The conclusion of the
affair I witnessed myself. For a year later we re-
ceived a letter from Mr. Robert, asking that a large
sum of money should be forwarded to him. Being
curious to learn the reason for his demand, I carried
the sum to Tresco myself. Mr. John Lovyes had
died a month before, and I reached the island on Mr.
Robert's wedcjing-day. I was present at the ceremony.
He was now dressed in a manner which befitted his
station—an old man bent and bowed, but still hand-
some, and he bore upon his arm a tall woman, grey-
haired and very pale, yet with the traces of great
beauty. As the parson laid her hand in her hus-
band's, I heard her whisper to him, "Dust to Dust."


KEEPER OF THE BISHOP.
FOR a fortnight out of every six weeks the little
white faced man walked the garrison on St. Mary's
Island in a broadcloth frock-coat, a low waistcoat and
a black riband of a tie fastened in a bow; and it gave
him great pleasure to be mistaken for.a commercial
traveller. But during the other four weeks he was
head-keeper of the lighthouse on the Bishop's Rock,
with thirty years of exemplary service to his credit.
By what circumstances he had been brought to enlist
under the Trinity flag I never knew. But now, at the
age of forty-eight he was entirely occupied with a great
horror of the sea and its hunger for the bodies of men;
the frock-coat which he wore during his spells on shore
was a protest against the sea; and he hated not only
the sea but all things that were in the sea, especially
rock lighthouses, and of all rock lighthouses especially
the Bishop.
"The Atlantic's as smooth as a ballroom floor,"
said he. It was a clear, still day and we were sitting
among the gorse on the top of the garrison, looking
down the sea towards the west. Five miles from the
Scillies, the thin column of the Bishop showed like a
cord strung tight in the sky. "But out there all
round the lighthouse there are eddies twisting and
twisting, without any noise, and extraordinary quick,
and every other second, now here, now there, you'll
notice the sea dimple, and you'll hear a sound like a


KEEPER OF THE BISHOP. 179
man hiccoughing, and all at once, there's a wicked
black whirlpool. The tide runs seven miles an hour
past the Bishop. But in another year I have done
with her." To her Garstin nodded across from St.
Mary's to that grey finger post of the Atlantic. "One
more winter, well, very likely during this one more
winter the Bishop will go—on some night when a
storm blows from west or west-nor'west and the Irish
coast takes none of its strength."
He was only uttering the current belief of the
islands. The first Bishop lighthouse had been swept
away before its building was finished, and though the
second stood, a fog bell weighing no less than a ton,
and fixed ninety feet above the water, had bedn lifted
from its fittings by a single wave, and tossed like a
tennis-ball into the sea. I asked Garstin whether he
had been stationed on the rock at the time.
"People talk of lightships plunging and tugging at
their cables," he returned. "Well, I've tried light-
ships, and what I say is, ships are built to plunge and
tug at their cables. That's their business. But it isn't
the business of one hundred and twenty upright feet of
granite to quiver and tremble like a steel spring. No,
I wasn't on the Bishop when the bell went. But I was
there when a wave climbed up from the base of the
rock and smashed in the glass wall of the lantern, and
put the light out. That was last spring at four o'clock
in the morning. The day was breaking very cold and
wild, and one could just see the waves below, a lashing
tumble of grey and white water as far as the eye could
reach. I was in the lantern reading "It's never too
late to mend." I had come to where the chaplain


180 KEEPER OF THE BISHOP.
knocks down the warder, and I was thinking how I'd
like to have a go at that warder myself, when all the
guns in the world went off together in my ears. And
there I was dripping wet, and fairly sliced with
splinters of glass, and the wind blowing wet in my
face, and the lamp out, and a bitter grey light of
morning, as though there never, never had been any
sun, and all the dead men in the sea shouting out for
me one hundred feet below," and Garstin shivered,
and rose to his feet. "Well, I have only one more
winter of it."
"And then?" I asked.
"Then I get the North Foreland, and the trippers
come out from Margate, and I live on shore with my
wife and—By the way, I wanted to speak to you
about my boy. He's getting up in years. What
shall I make of him? A linen-draper, eh? In the
Midlands, what? or something in a Free Library,
handing out Charles Reade's books? He's at home
now. Come and see him!"
In Garstin's quarters, within the coastguard enclos-
ure, I was introduced to his wife and the lad, Leopold.
"What shall We call him?" Mrs. Garstin had asked,
some fifteen years before. "I don't know any sea-
faring man by the name of Leopold," Garstin had re-
plied, after a moment of reflection. So Leopold he
was named.
Mrs. Garstin was a buxom, unimaginative woman,
but she shared to the full her husband's horror of the
sea. She told me of nights when she lay alone listen-
ing to the moan of the wind overhead, and seeing the
column of the Bishop rock upon its base, and of


KEEPER OF THE BISHOP. 181
mornings when she climbed from the sheltered bar-
racks up the gorse, with her heart tugging in her
breast, certain, certain that this morning, at least, there
would be no Bishop lighthouse visible from the top of
the garrison.
"It seems a sort of insult to the works of God," said
she, in a hushed voice. "It seems as if it stood up
there in God's face and cried, ' You can't hurt me!'"
"Yes, most presumptuous and provoking," said
Garstin ; and so they fell to talking of the boy, who, at
all events, should fulfil his destiny very far inland
from the sea. Mrs. Garstin leaned to the linen-drap-
ery ; Garstin inclined to the free library.
"Well, I will come down to the North Foreland,"
said I, "and you shall tell me which way it is."
"Yes, if—" said Garstin, and stopped.
"Yes, if—" repeated his wife, with a nod of the
head.
"Oh! it won't go this winter," said I.
And it didn't. But, on the other hand, Garstin did
not go to the North Foreland, nor for two years did I
hear any more of him. But two years later I re-
turned to St. Mary's and walked across the beach of
the island to the little graveyard by the sea. A new
tablet upon the outer wall of the church caught and
held my eye. I read the inscription and remained
incredulous. For the Bishop still stood. But the
letters were there engraved upon the plate, and as I read
them again, the futility of Garstin's fears was enforced
upon me with a singular pathos.
For the Bishop still stood and Garstin had died on
the Christmas Eve of that last year which he was to


182 KEEPER OF THE BISHOP.
spend upon rock lighthouses. Of how he died the
tablet gave a hint, but no more than a hint. There
were four words inscribed underneath his name:
"And he was not."
I walked back to Hugh Town, wondering at the trag-
edy which those four words half hid and half revealed,
and remembering that the tide runs seven miles an
hour past the Bishop, with many eddies and whirl-
pools. Almost unconsciously I went up the hill above
Hugh Town and came to the signal station on the top
of the garrison. And so occupied was I with my
recollections of Garstin that it did not strike me as
strange that I should find Mrs. Garstin standing now
where he had stood and looking out to the Bishop as
he was used to look.
"I had not heard," I said to her.
"No?" she returned simply, and again turned her
eyes seawards. It was late on a midsummer afternoon.
The sun hung a foot or so above the water, a huge
ball of dull red fire, and from St. Mary's out to the
horizon's rim the sea stretched a rippling lagoon of the
colour of claret. Over the whole expanse there was
but one boat visible, a lugger, between Sennen and
St. Agnes, beating homewards against a light wind.
"It was a storm, I suppose," said I. "A storm out
of the west?"
"No. There was no wind, but—there was a haze,
and it was growing dark." Mrs. Garstin spoke in a
peculiar tone of resignation, with a yearning glance
towards the Bishop as I thought, towards the lugger as
I know. But even then I was sure that those last
words: "There was a haze and it was growing dark,"


KEEPER OF THE BISHOP. 183
concealed the heart of her distress. She explained
the inscription upon the tablet, while the lugger
tacked towards St. Mary's, and while I gradually began
to wonder what still kept her on the island.
At four o'clock on the afternoon of that Christmas
Eve, the lighthouse on St. Agnes' Island showed its
lamps; five minutes later the red beams struck out
from Round Island to the north; but to the west on
the Bishop all was dark. The haze thickened, and
night came on; still there was no flash from the
Bishop, and the islands wondered. Half an hour
passed; there was still darkness in the west, and the
islands became alarmed. The Trinity Brethren sub-
sidise a St. Agnes' lugger to serve the Bishop, and this
boat was got ready. At a quarter to five suddenly
the Bishop light shot through the gloom, but immedi-
ately after a shutter was interposed quickly some half-
a-dozen times. It was the signal of distress, and the
lugger worked out to the Bishop with the tide. Of
the three keepers there were now only two.
It appeared from their account that Garstin took the
middle day watch, that they themselves were asleep,
and that Garstin should have roused them to light the
lamps at a quarter to four. They woke of their own
accord in the dark, and at once believed they had slept
into the night. The clock showed them it was half-
past four. They mounted to the lantern room, and
nowhere was there any sign of Garstin. They lit the
lamps. The first thing they saw was the log. It was
open and the last entry was written in Garstin's hand
and was timed 3.40 P. M. It mentioned a ketch reach-
ing northwards. The two men descended the wind-


184 KEEPER OF THE BISHOP.
ing-stairs, and the cold air breathed upon their faces.
The brass door at the foot of the stairs stood open.
From that door thirty feet of gun-metal rungs let in to
the outside of the lighthouse lead down to the set-off,
which is a granite rim less than a yard wide, and un-
protected by any rail. They shouted downwards from
the doorway, and received no answer. They des-
cended to the set-off, and again no Garstin, not even
his cap. He was not.
Garstin had entered up the log, had climbed down
to the set-off for five minutes of fresh air, and some-
how had slipped, though the wind was light and the
sea whispering. But the whispering sea ran seven
miles an hour past the Bishop.
This was Mrs. Garstin's story and it left me still
wondering why she lived on at St. Mary's. I asked
after her son.
"How is Leopold? What is be—a linen-draper?"
She shaded her eyes with her hand and said:
"That's the St. Agnes' lugger from the Bishop, and
if we go down to the pier now we shall meet it."
We walked down to the pier. The first person to
step on shore was Leopold, with the Trinity House
buttons on his pilot coat.
"He's the third hand on the Bishop now," said
Mrs. Garstin. "You are surprised?" She sent
Leopold into Hugh Town upon an errand, and as we
walked back up the hill she said: "Did you notice
a grave underneath John's tablet?"
"No," said I.
"I told you there was a mention in the log of a
ketch."


KEEPER OF THE BISHOP. 185
"Yes."
"The ketch went ashore on the Crebinachs at half-
past four on that Christmas Eve. One man jumped
for the rocks when the ketch struck, and was drowned.
The rest were brought off by the lugger. But one
man was drowned."
"He drowned because he jumped," said I.
"He drowned because my man hadn't lit the Bishop
light," said she, brushing my sophistry aside. "So I
gave my boy in his place."
And now I knew why those words—" There was a
haze and it was growing dark "—held the heart of her
distress.
"And if the Bishop goes next winter," she con-
tinued, "why, it will just be a life for a life;" and she
choked down a sob as a young voice hailed us from
behind.
But the Bishop still stands in the Atlantic, and
Leopold, now the second hand, explains to the Mar-
gate trippers the wonders of the North Foreland
lights.


THE CRUISE OF THE "WILLING
MIND."
THE cruise happened before the steam-trawler
ousted the smack from the North Sea. A few news-
papers recorded it in half-a-dozen lines of small print
which nobody read. But it became and—though
nowadays the Willing Mind rots from month to
month by the quay—remains staple talk at Gorleston
ale-houses on winter nights.
The crew consisted of Weeks, three fairly compe-
tent hands, and a baker's assistant, when the Willing
Mind slipped out of Yarmouth. Alexander Duncan,
the photographer from Derby, joined the smack after-
wards under peculiar circumstances. Duncan was a
timid person, but aware of his timidity. He was
quite clear that his paramount business was to be
a man; and he was equally clear that he was not
successful in his paramount business. Meanwhile
he pretended to be, hoping that on some miraculous
day a sudden test would prove the straw man he was
to have become real flesh and blood. A visit to a
surgeon and the flick of a knife quite shattered that
illusion. He went down to Yarmouth afterwards,
fairly disheartened. The test had been applied, and
he had failed.
Now, Weeks was a particular friend of Duncan's.
They had chummed together on Gorleston Quay


THE CRUISE OF THE "WILLING MIND." 18;
some years before, perhaps because they were so dis-
similar. Weeks had taught Duncan to sail a boat,
and had once or twice taken him for a short trip on
his smack; so that the first thing that Duncan did on
his arrival at Yarmouth was to take the tram to
Gorleston and to make inquiries.
A fisherman lounging against a winch replied to
them—
"If Weeks is a friend o' yours I should get used to
missin' 'im, as I tell his wife."
There was at that time an ingenious system by
which the skipper might buy his smack from the
owner on the instalment plan—as people buy their
furniture—only with a difference: for people some-
times get their furniture. The instalments had to be
completed within a certain period. The skipper could
do it—he could just do it; but he couldn't do it
without running up one little bill here for stores,
and another little bill there for sail-mending. The
owner worked in with the sail-maker, and just as the
skipper was putting out to earn his last instalment, he
would find the bailiffs on board, his cruise would be
delayed, he would be, consequently, behindhand with
his instalment and back would go the smack to the
owner with a present of four-fifths of its price. Weeks
had to pay two hundred pounds, and had eight weeks
to earn it in. But he got the straight tip that his sail-
maker would stop him; and getting together any sort
of crew he could, he slipped out at night with half his
stores.
"Now the No'th Sea," concluded the fisherman, " in
November and December ain't a bobby's job."


188 THE CRUISE OF THE "WILLING MIND."
Duncan walked forward to the pier-head. He
looked out at a grey tumbled sky shutting down on a
grey tumbled sea. There were flecks of white cloud
in the sky, flecks of white breakers on the sea, and it
was all most dreary. He stood at the end of the
jetty, and his great possibility came out of the grey to
him. Weeks was shorthanded. Cribbed within a few
feet of the smack's deck, there would be no chance for
any man to shirk. Duncan acted on the impulse.
He bought a fisherman's outfit at Gorleston, travelled
up to London, got a passage the next morning on a
Billingsgate fish-carrier, and that night went throbbing
down the great water street of the Swim, past the
green globes of the Mouse. The four flashes of
the Outer Gabbard winked him good-bye away on the
starboard, and at eleven o'clock the next night far out
in the North Sea he saw the little city of lights swing-
ing on the Dogger.
The Willing Mind's boat came aboard the next
morning and Captain Weeks with it, who smiled
grimly while Duncan explained how he had learnt
that the smack was shorthanded.
"I can't put you ashore in Denmark," said Weeks
knowingly. "There'll be seven weeks, it's true, for
things to blow over; but I'll have to take you back
to Yarmouth. And I can't afford a passenger. If
you come, you come as a hand. I mean to own my
smack at the end of this voyage."
Duncan climbed after him into the boat. The
Willing Mind had now six for her crew, Weeks; his
son Willie, a lad of sixteen; Upton, the first hand;
Deakin, the decky; Rall, the baker's assistant, and


THE CRUISE OF THE "WILLING MIND." 189
Alexander Duncan. And of these six four were almost
competent. Deakin, it is true, was making his second
voyage; but Willie Weeks, though young, had begun
early; and Upton, a man of forty, knew the banks
and currents of the North Sea as well as Weeks.
"It's all right," said the skipper, " if the weather
holds." And for a month the weather did hold, and
the catches were good, and Duncan learned a great
deal. He learnt how to keep a night-watch from
midnight till eight in the morning, and then stay on
deck till noon ; how to put his tiller up and down when
his tiller was a wheel, and how to vary the order accord-
ing as his skipper stood to windward or to lee; he
learnt to box a compass and to steer by it; to gauge
the leeway he was making by the angle of his wake
and the black line in the compass; above all, he
learnt to love the boat like a live thing, as a man loves
his horse, and to want every scanty inch of brass on
her to shine.
But it was not for this that Duncan had come out
to sea. He gazed out at night across the rippling
starlit water, and the smacks nestling upon it, and
asked of his God: "Is this all?" And his God an-
swered him.
The beginning of it was the sudden looming of
ships upon the horizon, very clear, till they looked
like carved toys. The skipper got out his accounts
and totted up his catches, and the prices they had
fetched in Billingsgate Market. Then he went on
deck and watched the sun set. There were no cloud-
banks in the west, and he shook his head.
"It'll blow a bit from the east before morning,"


I90THE CRUISE OF THE "WILLING MIND."
said he, and he tapped on the barometer. Then he
returned to his accounts and added them up again.
After a little he looked up, and saw the first hand
watching him with comprehension.
"Two or three really good hauls would do the
trick," suggested Weeks.
The first hand nodded. "If it was my boat I
should chance it to-morrow before the weather blows
up."
Weeks drummed his fists on the table and agreed.
On the morrow the Admiral headed north for the
Great Fisher Bank, and the fleet followed, with the
exception of the Willing Mind. The Willing Mind
lagged along in the rear without her topsails till
about half-past two in the afternoon, when Captain
Weeks became suddenly alert. He bore away till he
was right before the wind, hoisted every scrap of sail
he could carry, rigged out a spinnaker with his bal-
loon fore-sail, and made a clean run for the coast of
Denmark. Deakin explained the manoeuvre to
Duncan. "The old man's goin'poachin'. He's after
soles."
"Keep a look-out, lads!" cried Weeks. "It's not
the Danish gun-boat I'm afraid of; it's the fatherly
English cruiser a-turning of us back."
Darkness, however, found them unmolested. They
crossed the three-mile limit at eight o'clock, and crept
close in under the Danish headlands without a glim-
mer of light showing.
"I want all hands all night," said Weeks; "ar.d
there's a couple of pounds for him as first see the
bogey-man."


THE CRUISE OF THE "WILLING MIND." 191
"Meaning the Danish gun-boat," explained Deakin.
The trawl was down before nine. The skipper stood
by his lead. Upton took the wheel, and all night
they trawled in the shallows, bumping on the grounds,
with a sharp eye for the Danish gun-boat. They
hauled in at twelve and again at three and again at six,
and they had just got their last catch on deck when
Duncan saw by the first grey of the morning a dun-
coloured trail of smoke hanging over a projecting
knoll.
"There she is !" he cried.
"Yes, that's the gun-boat," answered Weeks. "We
can laugh at her with this wind."
He put his smack about, and before the gun-boat
puffed round the headland, three miles away, was
reaching northwards with his sails free. He rejoined
the fleet that afternoon. "Fifty-two boxes of soles!"
said Weeks. "And every one of them worth two-
pound-ten in Billingsgate Market. This smack's
mine!" and he stamped on the deck in all the pride
of ownership. "We'll take a reef in," he added.
"There's a no'th-easterly gale blowin' up and I don't
know anything worse in the No'th Sea. The sea
piles in upon you from Newfoundland, piles in till it
strikes the banks. Then it breaks. You were right,
Upton; we'll be lying hove-to in the morning."
They were lying hove-to before the morning. Dun-
can, tossing about in his canvas cot, heard the skipper
stamping overhead, and in an interval of the wind
caught a snatch of song bawled out in a high voice.
The song was not reassuring, for the two lines which
Duncan caught ran as follows—


192 THE CRUISE OF THE " WILLING MIND."
You never can tell when your death-bells are ringing,
Your never can know when you're going to die.
Duncan tumbled on to the floor, fell about the cabin
as he pulled on his sea-boots and climbed up the com-
panion. He clung to the mizzen-runners in a night of
extraordinary blackness. To port and to starboard
the lights of the smacks rose on the crests and sank
in the troughs, with such violence they had the air of
being tossed up into the sky and then extinguished in
the water; while all round him there flashed little
points of white which suddenly lengthened out into a
horizontal line. There was one quite close to the
quarter of the Willing Mind. It stretched about the
height of the gaff in a line of white. The line sud-
denly descended towards him and became a sheet;
and then a voice bawled, "Water! Jump! Down
the companion! Jump!"
There was a scamper of heavy boots, and a roar of
water plunging over the bulwarks, as though so many
loads of wood had been dropped on the deck. Duncan
jumped for the cabin. Weeks and the mate jumped
the next second and the water sluiced down after them,
put out the fire, and washed them, choking and
wrestling, about on the cabin floor. Weeks was the
first to disentangle himself, and he turned fiercely on
Duncan.
"What were you doing on deck? Upton and I
keep the watch to-night. You stay below, and, by
God, I'll see you do it! I have fifty-two boxes of
soles to put aboard the fish-cutter in the morning, and
I'm not going to lose lives before I do that! This
smack's mine!"


THE CRUISE OF THE "WILLING MIND." 193
Captain Weeks was transformed into a savage ani-
mal fighting (or his own. All night he and the mate
stood on the deck and plunged down the open com-
panion with a torrent of water to hurry them. All
night Duncan lay in his bunk listening to the bellow-
ing of the wind, the great thuds of solid green wave
on the deck, the horrid rush and roaring of the seas as
they broke loose to leeward from under the smack's
keel. And he listened to something more—the
whimpering of the baker's assistant in the next bunk.
"Three inches of deck! What's the use of it! Lord
ha' mercy on me, what's the use of it? No more than
an eggshell! We'll be broken in afore morning,
broken in like a man's skull under a bludgeon. . . .
I'm no sailor, I'm not; I'm a baker. It isn't right I
should die at sea!"
Duncan stopped his ears, and thought of the journey
some one would have to make to the fish-cutter in the
morning. There were fifty-two boxes of soles to be
put aboard.
He remembered the waves and the swirl of foam
upon their crests and the wind. Two men would be
needed to row the boat, and the boat must make three
trips. The skipper and the first hand had been on
deck all night. There remained four, or rather three,
for the baker's assistant had ceased to count—Willie
Weeks, Deakin, and himself, not a great number to
choose from. He felt that he was within an ace of a
panic, and not so far, after all, from that whimperer
his neighbour. Two men to row the boat—two men!
His hands clutched at the iron bar of his hammock;
he closed his eyes tight; but the words were thun-


194 THE CRUISE OF THE "WILLING MIND."
dered out at him overhead, in the whistle of the wind,
and slashed at him by the water against the planks at
his side. He found that his lips were framing excuses.
Duncan was on deck when the morning broke. It
broke extraordinarily slowly, a niggardly filtering of
grey, sad light from the under edge of the sea. The
bare topmasts of the smacks showed one after the
other. Duncan watched each boat as it came into
view with a keen suspense. This was a ketch, and
that, and that other, for there was the peak of its
reefed mainsail just visible, like a bird's wing, and at
last he saw it—the fish-cutter—lurching and rolling in
the very middle of the fleet, whither she had crept up
in the night. He stared at it; his belly was pinched
with fear as a starveling's with hunger; and yet he
was conscious that, in a way, he would have been dis-
appointed if it had not been there.
"No other smack is shipping its fish," quavered a
voice at his elbow. It was the voice of the baker's
assistant.
"But this smack is," replied Weeks, and he set his
mouth hard. "And, what's more, my Willie is taking
it aboard. Now, who'll go with Willie?"
"I will."
Weeks swung round on Duncan and stared at him.
Then he stared out to sea. Then he stared again at
Duncan.
"You?"
"When I shipped as a hand on the Willing Mind,
I took all a hand's risks."
"And brought the willing mind," said Weeks with
a smile. "Go, then! Some one must go. Get the


THE CRUISE OF THE "WILLING MIND." 195
boat tackle ready, forward. Here, Willie, put your
life-belt on. You, too, Duncan, though God knows
life-belts won't be of no manner of use; but they'll
save your insurance. Steady with the punt there!
If it slips inboard off the rail there will be a broken
back! And, Willie, don't get under the cutter's
counter. She'll come atop of you and smash you like
an egg. I'll drop you as close as I can to windward,
and pick you up as close as I can to leeward."
The boat was dropped into the water and loaded up
with fish-boxes. Duncan and Willie Weeks took their
places, and the boat slid away into a furrow. Dun-
can sat in the boat and rowed. Willie Weeks stood
in the stern, facing him, and rowed and steered.
"Water!" said Willie every now and then, and a
wave curled over the bows and hit Duncan a stunning
blow on the back.
"Row," said Willie, and Duncan rowed and rowed.
His hands were ice, he sat in water ice-cold, and his
body perspired beneath his oil-skins, but he rowed.
Once, on the crest of a wave, Duncan looked out and
saw below them the deck of a smack, and the crew
looking upwards at them as though they were a horse-
race." "Row!" said Willie Weeks. Once, too, at the
bottom of a slope down which they had bumped diz-
zily, Duncan again looked out, and saw the spar of a
mainmast tossing just over the edge of a grey roller.
"Row," said Weeks, and a moment later, " Ship your
oar!" and a rope caught him across the chest.
They were alongside the cutter.
Duncan made fast the rope.
"Push her off !" suddenly cried Willie, and grasped


ig6 THE CRUISE OF THE " WILLING MIND."
an oar. But he was too late. The cutter's bulwarks
swung down towards him, disappeared under water,
caught the punt fairly beneath the keel and scooped
it clean on to the deck, cargo and crew.
"And this is only the first trip !" said Willie.
The two following trips, however, were made with-
out accident.
"Fifty-two boxes at two-pound-ten," said Weeks, as
the boat was swung inboard. "That's a hundred and
four, and ten two's are twenty, and carry two, and ten
fives are fifty, and two carried, and twenties into that
makes twenty-six. One hundred and thirty pounds—
this smack's mine, every rope on her. I tell you what,
Duncan: you've done me a good turn to-day, and I'll
do you another. I'll land you at Helsund, in Denmark,
and you can get clear away. All we can do now is to
lie out this gale."
Before the afternoon the air was dark with a swither
of foam and spray blown off the waves in the thick-
ness of a fog. The heavy bows of the smack beat into
the seas with a thud and a hiss—the thud of a steam-
hammer, the hiss of molten iron plunged into water;
the waves raced exultingly up to the bows from wind-
ward, and roared angrily away in a spume of foam
from the ship's keel to lee; and the thrumming and
screaming of the storm in the rigging exceeded all
that Duncan had ever imagined. He clung to the
stays appalled. This storm was surely the perfect ex-
pression of anger, too persistent for mere fury. There
seemed to be a definite aim of destruction, a deliberate
attempt to'wear the boat down, in the steady follow
of wave upon wave, and in the steady volume of the
wind.


THE CRUISE OF THE "WILLING MIND." 197
Captain Weeks, too, had lost all of a sudden all his
exhilaration. He stood moodily by Duncan's side, his
mind evidently labouring like his ship. He told Dun-
can stories which Duncan would rather not have
listened to, the story of the man who slipped as he
stepped from the deck into the punt, and weighted by
his boots, had sunk down and down and down through
the clearest, calmest water without a struggle; the
story of the punt which got its painter under its keel
and drowned three men; the story of the full-rigged
ship which got driven across the seven-fathom part of
the Dogger—the part that looks like a man's leg in
the chart—and which was turned upside-down through
the bank breaking. The skipper and the mate got
outside and clung to her bottom, and a steam-cutter
tried to get them off, but smashed them both with her
iron counter instead.
"Look!" said Weeks, gloomily pointing his finger.
"I don't know why that breaker didn't hit us. I
don't know what we should have done if it had. I
can't think why it didn't hit us! Are you saved?"
Duncan was taken aback, and answered vaguely—
"I hope so."
"But you must know," said Weeks, perplexed.
The wind made a theological discussion difficult.
Weeks curved his hand into a trumpet, and bawled
into Duncan's ear: "You are either saved or not
saved! It's a thing one knows. You must know if
you are saved, if you've felt the glow and illumination
of it." He suddenly broke off into a shout of
triumph: "But I got my fish on board the cutter.
The Willing Mind's the on'y boat that did." Then


198 THE CRUISE OF THE " WILLING MIND."
he relapsed again into melancholy: "But I'm troubled
about the poachin'. The temptation was great, but
it wasn't right; and I'm not sure but what this storm
ain't a judgment."
He was silent for a little, and then cheered up. "I
tell you what. Since we're hove-to, we'll have a
prayer-meeting in the cabin to-night and smooth
things over."
The meeting was held after tea, by the light of a
smoking paraffin-lamp with a broken chimney. The
crew sat round and smoked, the companion was open,
so that the swish of the water and the man on deck
alike joined in the hymns. Rall, the baker's assistant,
who had once been a steady attendant at Revivalist
meetings, led off with a Moody and Sankey hymn,
and the crew followed, bawling at the top pitch of
their lungs, with now and then some suggestion of a
tune. The little stuffy cabin rang with the noise. It
burst upwards through the companion-way, loud and
earnest and plaintive, and the winds caught it and
carried it over the water, a thin and appealing cry.
After the hymn Weeks prayed aloud, and extempore
and most seriously. He prayed for each member of
the crew by name, one by one, taking the opportunity
to mention in detail each fault which he had had to
complain of, and begging that the offender's chastise-
ment might be light. Of Duncan he spoke in am-
biguous terms.
"O Lord!" he prayed, "a strange gentleman, Mr.
Duncan, has come amongst us. O Lord! we do not
know as much about Mr. Duncan as You do, but still
bless him, O Lord!" and so he came to himself.


THE CRUISE OF THE "WILLING MIND." 199
"O Lord! this smack's mine, this little smack labour-
ing in the North Sea is mine. Through my poachin'
and your lovin' kindness it's mine; and, O Lord, see
that it don't cost me dear!" And the crew solemnly
and fervently said " Amen!"
But the smack was to cost him dear. For in the
morning Duncan woke to find himself alone in the
cabin. He thrust his head up the companion, and saw
Weeks with a very grey face standing by the lashed
wheel.
"Halloa!" said Duncan. "Where's the binnacle?"
"Overboard," said Weeks.
Duncan looked round the deck.
"Where's Willie and the crew?"
"Overboard," said Weeks. "All except Rall!
He's below deck forward and clean daft. Listen and
you'll hear 'im. He's singing hymns for those in
peril on the sea."
Duncan stared in disbelief. The skipper's face
drove the disbelief out of him.
"Why didn't you wake me?" he asked.
"What's the use? You want all the sleep you can
get, because you an' me have got to sail my smack
into Yarmouth. But I was minded to call you, lad,"
he said, with a sort of cry leaping from his throat.
"The wave struck us at about twelve, and it's been
mighty lonesome on deck since with Willie callin' out
of the sea. All night he's been callin' out of the wel-
ter of the sea. Funny that I haven't heard Upton or
Deakin, but on'y Willie! All night until daybreak
he called, first on one side of the smack and then on
t'other, I don't think I'll tell his mother that. An'


zoo THE CRUISE OF THE "WILLING MIND."
I don't see how I'm to put you on shore in Denmark,
after all."
What had happened Duncan put together from the
curt utterances of Captain Weeks and the crazy
lamentations of Rall. Weeks had roused all hands
except Duncan to take the last reef in. They were
forward by the mainmast at the time the wave struck
them. Weeks himself was on the boom, threading
the reefing-rope through the eye of the sail. He
shouted "Water!" and the water came on board,
carrying the three men aft. Upton was washed over
the taffrail. Weeks threw one end of the rope down,
and Rall and Willie caught it and were swept over-
board, dragging Weeks from the boom on to the deck
and jamming him against the bulwarks.
The captain held on to the rope, setting his feet
against the side. The smack lifted and dropped and
tossed, and each movement wrenched his arms. He
could not reach a cleat. Had he moved he would
have been jerked overboard.
"I can't hold you both!" he cried, and then, set-
ting his teeth and hardening his heart, he addressed
his words to his son: "Willie! I can't hold you
both!" and immediately the weight upon the rope
was less. With each drop of the stern the rope
slackened, and Weeks gathered the slack in. He
could now afford to move. He made the rope fast
and hauled the one survivor on deck. He looked at
him for a moment. "Thank God, it's not my son!"
he had the courage to say.
"And my heart's broke!" had gasped Rall. "Fair
broke." And he had gone forward and sung hymns.


202 THE CRUISE OF THE "WILLING MIND."
it, man! There may be some chance for us if you go
down on your knees and confess it."
Duncan turned as fiercely upon Weeks. Both men
were overstrained with want of food and sleep.
"I'm not your Jonah—don't fancy it! I did noth-
ing on land!"
"Then what did you come out for?"
"What did you? To fight and wrestle for your
ship, eh? Well, I came out to fight and wrestle for
my immortal soul, and let it go at that!"
Weeks turned away, and as he turned, slipped on
the frozen deck. A lurch of the smack sent him
sliding into the rudder-chains, where he lay. Once he
tried to rise, and fell back. Duncan hauled himself
along the bulwarks to him.
"Hurt?"
"Leg broke. Get me down into the cabin. Lucky
there's the tell-tale. We'll get the Willing Mind
berthed by the quay, see if we don't." That was
still his one thought, his one belief.
Duncan hitched a rope round Weeks, underneath
his arms, and lowered him as gently as he could down
the companion.
"Lift me on to the table so that my head's just be-
neath the compass! Right! Now take a turn with
the rope underneath the table, or I'll roll off. Push
an oily under my head, and then go for'ard and see if
you can find a fish-box. Take a look that the wheel's
fast."
It seemed to Duncan that the last chance was gone.
There was just one inexperienced amateur to change
the sails and steer a seventy-ton ketch across the


THE CRUISE OF THE "WILLING MIND." 203
North Sea into Yarmouth Roads. He said nothing,
however, of his despair to the indomitable man upon
the table, and went forward in search of a fish-box.
He split up the sides into rough splints and came aft
with them.
"Thank 'ee, lad," said Weeks. "Just cut my boot
away, and fix it up best you can."
The tossing of the smack made the operation
difficult and long. Weeks, however, never uttered a
groan. Only Duncan once looked up, and said—
"Halloa! You've hurt your face too. There's
blood on your chin!"
"That's all right!" said Weeks, with an effort.
"I reckon I've just bit through my lip."
Duncan stopped his work.
"You've got a medicine-chest, skipper, with some
laudanum in it?"
"Daren't!" replied Weeks. "There's on'y you
and me to work the ship. Fix up the job quick as
you can, and I'll have a drink of Friar's Balsam after-
wards. Seems to me the gale's blowing itself out,
and if on'y the wind holds in the same quarter"
And thereupon he fainted.
Duncan bandaged up the leg, got Weeks round,
gave him a drink of Friar's Balsam, set the teapot
within his reach, and went on deck. The wind was
going down; the air was clearer of foam. He tal-
lowed the lead and heaved it, and brought it down
to Weeks. Weeks looked at the sand stuck on the
tallow and tasted it, and seemed pleased.
"This gives me my longitude," said he, "but not
my latitude, worse luck. Still, we'll manage it.


204 THE CRUISE OF THE " WILLING MIND."
You'd better get our dinner now; any odd thing in
the way of biscuits or a bit of cold fish will do, and
then I think we'll be able to run."
After dinner Duncan said: "I'll put her about
now."
"No; wear her and let her jibe," said Weeks,
"then you'll on'y have to ease your sheets."
Duncan stood at the wheel, while Weeks, with the
compass swinging above his head, shouted directions
through the companion. They sailed the boat all
that night with the wind on her quarter, and at day-
break Duncan brought her to and heaved his lead
again. There was rough sand with blackish specks
upon the tallow, and Weeks, when he saw it, forgot
his broken leg.
"My word," he cried, "we've hit the Fisher Bank!
You'd best lash the wheel, get our breakfast, and
take a spell of sleep on deck. Tie a string to your
finger and pass it down to me, so that I can wake
you up."
Weeks waked him up at ten o'clock, and they ran
southwest with a steady wind till six, when Weeks
shouted—
"Take another cast with your lead."
The sand upon the tallow was white like salt.
"Yes," said Weeks; "I thought we was hereabouts.
We're on the edge of the Dogger, and we'll be in
Yarmouth by the morning." And all through the
night the orders came thick and fast from the cabin.
Weeks was on his own ground; he had no longer any
need of the lead; he seemed no longer to need his
eyes; he felt his way across the currents from the


THE CRUISE OF THE "WILLING MIND." 205
Dogger to the English coast; and at daybreak he
shouted—
"Can you see land?"
"There's a mist."
"Lie to, then, till the sun's up."
Duncan lay the boat to for a couple of hours, till
the mist was tinged with gold and the ball of the sun
showed red on his starboard quarter. The mist sank,
the brown sails of a smack thrust upwards through
it; coastwards it shifted and thinned and thickened,
as though cunningly to excite expectation as to what
it hid. Again Weeks called out—
"See anything?"
"Yes," said Duncan, in a perplexed voice. "I
see something. Looks like a sort of mediaeval castle
on a rock."
A shout of laughter answered him.
"That's the Gorleston Hotel. The harbour-mouth's
just beneath. We've hit it fine," and while he spoke
the mist swept clear, and the long, treeless esplanade
of Yarmouth lay there a couple of miles from Dun-
can's eyes, glistening and gilded in the sun like a row
of dolls' houses.
"Haul in your sheets a bit," said Weeks. "Keep
no'th of the hotel, for the tide'll set you up and we'll
sail her in without dawdlin' behind a tug. Get your
mainsail down as best you can before you make the
entrance."
Half an hour afterwards the smack sailed between
the pier-heads.
"Who are you?" cried the harbour-master.
"The Willing Mind."


2o6 THE CRUISE OF THE " WILLING MIND."
"The Willing Mind's reported lost with all hands."
"Well, here's the Willing Mind," said Duncan,
*' and here's one of the hands."
The irrepressible voice bawled up the companion
to complete the sentence—
"And the owner's reposin' in his cabin." But in a
lower key he added words for his own ears. "There's
the old woman to meet. Lord! but the Willing Mind
has cost me dear."


2io RETURN TO JOHANNESBURG.
Norris rose from the ground, and walked straight
ahead for the distance of a hundred yards until he
reached a jasmine bush, which stood in a bee-line with
the opening of his camp fence. Thence he moved
round in a semicircle until he came upon a wagon-
track in the rear of the camp, and, after pausing there,
he went forward again, and completed the circle. He
returned to his wagon chuckling. Barrington, he
remembered, had been lost while travelling north-
wards to the Zambesie; but the track stopped here.
There was not a trace of it to the north or the east or
the west. It was evident that the boy had chosen
Barrington's last camping-ground as the site for his
own, and he discovered a comforting irony in the
fact. He felt that he was standing in Barrington's
shoes.
That night, as he was smoking by the fire, he called
out to the Ma-ongwi boy. The lad came forward
from his hut behind the wagon.
"Tell me how you lost him," said Norris.
"He rode that way alone after a sable antelope."
The boy pointed an arm to the southwest. "The
beast was wounded, and we followed its blood-spoor.
We found Mr. Barrington's horse gored by the ante-
lope's horns. He himself had gone forward on foot.
We tracked him to a little stream, but the opposite
bank was trampled, and we lost all sign of him." This
is what the boy said though his language is translated.
Norris remained upon this encampment for a fort-
night. Blue wildebeests, koodoos, elands, and gems-
bok were plentiful, and once he got a shot at a
wart-hog boar. At the end of the fortnight he walked


212 RETURN TO JOHANNESBURG.
wished to make that triangle an isosceles. So he
jammed his heels into his horse's ribs, and was fast
drawing within easy range, when the buffalo got his
wind and swerved on the instant into a diagonal course
due southwest.
The manoeuvre left Norris directly behind his
quarry, and with a long, stern chase in prospect.
However, his blood was up, and he held on to wear
the beast down. He forgot his breakfast; he took no
more than a casual notice of the direction he was fol-
lowing; he simply braced his knees in a closer grip,
while the distorted shadows of himself and the horse
lengthened and thinned along the ground as the sun
rose over his right shoulder.
Suddenly the buffalo disappeared in a dip of the
veld, and a few moments later came again into view a
good hundred yards further to the south. Norris
pulled his left rein, and made for the exact spot at
which the bull had reappeared. He found himself on
the edge of a tiny cliff which dropped twenty feet in
a sheer fall to a little stream, and he was compelled
to ride along the bank until he reached the incline
which the buffalo had descended. He forded the
stream, galloped under the opposite bank across a
patch of ground which had been trampled into mud
by the hoofs of beasts coming here to water, and
mounted again to the open. The bull had gained a
quarter of a mile's grace from his mistake, and was
heading straight for a huge cone of granite.
Norris recognised the cone. It towered up from
the veld, its cliffs seamed into gullies by the rain-
wash of ages, and he had used it more than once as a


RETURN TO JOHANNESBURG. 213
landmark during the last fortnight, for it rose due
southwest of his camp.
He watched the bull approach the cone and vanish
into one of the gullies. It did not reappear, and he
rode forward, keeping a close eye upon the gully.
As he came opposite to it, however, he saw through
the opening a vista of green trees flashing in the sun-
light. He turned his horse through the passage, and
reined up in a granite amphitheatre. The floor seemed
about half a mile in diameter; it was broken into
hillocks, and strewn with patches of a dense under-
growth, while here and there a big tree grew. The
walls, which converged slightly towards an open top,
were robed from summit to base with wild flowers, so
that the whole circumference of the cone was one
blaze of colour.
Norris hitched forward and reloaded the rifle.
Then he advanced slowly between the bushes on the
alert for a charge from the wounded bull; but nothing
stirred. No sound came to his ears except the soft
padding noise of his horse's hoofs upon the turf.
There was not a crackle of the brushwood, and the
trees seemed carved out of metal. He rode through
absolute silence in a suspension of all movement.
Once his horse trod upon a bough, and the snapping
of the twigs sounded like so many cracks of a pistol.
At first the silence struck Norris as merely curious,
a little later as very lonesome. Once or twice he
stopped his horse with a sudden jerk of the reins, and
sat crouched forwards with his neck outstretched,
listening. Once or twice he cast a quick, furtive
glance over his shoulder to make certain that no one


214 RETURN TO JOHANNESBURG.
stood between himself and the entrance to the hollow.
He forgot the buffalo; he caught himself labouring
his breath, and found it necessary to elaborately
explain the circumstance in his thoughts on the
ground of heat.
The next moment he began to plead this heat not
merely as an excuse for his uneasiness, but as a
reason for returning to camp. The heat was intense,
he argued. Above him the light of an African mid-
day sun poured out of a brassy sky into a sort of
inverted funnel, and lay in blinding pools upon the
scattered slabs of rock. Within the hollow, every
cup of the innumerable flowers which tapestried the
cliffs seemed a mouth breathing heat. He became
possessed with a parching thirst, and he felt his
tongue heavy and fibrous like a dried fig. There was,
however, one obstacle which prevented him from act-
ing upon his impulse, and that obstacle was his
sense of shame. It was not so much that he thought
it cowardly to give up the chase and quietly return,
but he knew that the second after he had given way,
he would be galloping madly towards the entrance
in no child's panic of terror. He finally compromised
matters by dropping the reins upon his horse's neck
in the unformulated hope that the animal would turn
of its own accord ; but the horse kept straight on.
As Norris drew towards the innermost wall of
granite, there was a quick rustle all across its face
as though the screen of shrubs and flowers had been
fluttered by a draught of wind. Norris drew himself
erect with a distinct appearance of relief, loosened


RETURN TO JOHANNESBURG. 215
the clench of his fingers upon his rifle, and began
once more to search the bushes for the buffalo.
For a moment his attention was arrested by a
queer object lying upon the ground to his left. It
was in shape something like a melon, but bigger,
and it seemed to be plastered over with a black
mould. Norris rode by it, turned a corner, and then
with a gasp reined back his horse upon its haunches.
Straight in front of him a broken rifle lay across the
path.
Norris stood still, and stared at it stupidly. Some
vague recollection floated elusively through his brain.
He tried to grasp and fix it clearly in his mind. It
was a recollection of something which had happened
a long while ago, in England, when he was at school.
Suddenly, he remembered. It was not something
which had happened, but something he had read
under the great elm trees in the close. It was that
passage in Robinson Crusoe which tells of the naked
footprint in the sand.
Norris dismounted, and stooped to lift the rifle;
but all at once he straightened himself, and swung
round with his arms guarding his head. There was
no one, however, behind him, and he gave a little
quavering laugh, and picked up the rifle. It was a
heavy 10-bore Holland, a Holland with a single bar-
rel, and that barrel was twisted like a corkscrew. The
lock had been wrenched off, and there were marks
upon the stock—marks of teeth, and other queer, un-
intelligible marks as well.
Norris held the rifle in his hands, gazing vacantly
straight ahead. He was thinking of the direction in


216 RETURN TO JOHANNESBURG.
which he had come, southwest, and of the stream
which he had crossed, and of the patch of trampled
mud, where track obliterated track. He dropped the
rifle. It rang upon a stone, and again the screen of
foliage shivered and rustled. Norris, however, paid
no attention to the movement, but ran back to that
object which he had passed, and took it in his hands.
It was oval in shape, being slightly broader at one
end than the other. Norris drew his knife and cleaned
the mould from one side of it. To the touch of the
blade it seemed softer than stone, and smoother than
wood. "More like bone," he said to himself. In the
side which he had cleaned, there was a little round
hole filled up with mould. Norris dug his knife in
and scraped round the hole as one cleans a caked
pipe. He drew out a little cube of mud. There was
a second corresponding hole on the other side. He
turned the narrower end of the thing upwards. It
was hollow, he saw, but packed full of mould, and
more deliberately packed, for there were finger-marks
in the mould. "What an aimless trick!" he mut-
tered vaguely.
He carried the thing back to the rifle, and, compar-
ing them, understood those queer marks upon the
stock. They were the mark of fingers, of human
fingers, impressed faintly upon the wood with super-
human strength. He was holding the rifle in his
hands and looking down at it; but he saw below the
rifle, and he saw that his knees were shaking in a
palsy.
On an instant he tossed the rifle away, and laughed
to reassure himself—laughed out boldly, once, twice;


RETURN TO JOHANNESBURG. 217
and then he stopped with his eyes riveted upon the
granite wall. At each laugh that he gave the shrubs
and flowers rippled, and shook the sunlight from their
leaves. For the first time he remarked the coincidence
as something strange. He lifted up his face, but not
a breath of air fanned it; he looked across the hollow,
the trees and bushes stood immobile. He laughed a
third time, louder than before, and all at once his
laughter got hold of him; he sent it pealing out hys-
terically, burst after burst, until the hollow seemed
brimming with the din of it. His body began to
twist; he beat time to his laughter with his feet, and
then he danced. He danced there alone in the
African sunlight faster and faster, with a mad tossing
of his limbs, and with his laughter grown to a yell.
And as though to keep pace with him, each moment
the shiver of the foliage increased. Up and down,
crosswise and breadthwise, the flowers were tossed
and flung, while their petals rained down the cliff's
face in a purple storm. It appeared, indeed, to Norris
that the very granite walls were moving.
In the midst of his dance he kicked something and
stumbled. He stopped dead when he saw what that
something was. It was the queer, mud-plastered
object which he had compared with the broken rifle,
and the sight of it recalled him to his wits. He
tucked it hastily beneath his jacket, and looked about
him for his horse. The horse was standing behind
him some distance away, and nearer to the cliff.
Norris snatched up his own rifle, and ran towards it.
His hand was on the horse's mane, when just above
its head he noticed a clean patch of granite, and across


RETURN TO JOHANNESBURG. 219
started homewards for Johannesburg. He went down
to the Stock Exchange on the day of his arrival, and
chanced upon Teddy Isaacs.
"What's that?" asked Isaacs, touching a bulge of
his coat.
"That?" replied Norris, unfastening the buttons.
"I told you I would bring back Barrington if I found
him," and he trundled a scoured and polished skull
across the floor of the Stock Exchange.


HATTERAS. 223
forest and converged upon the shutters; and the hum
sounded from within the room.
Hatteras looked about for a Kru boy just for the
sake of company, but, at that moment there was not
one to be seen. He felt the cold strike at his spine,
he went back to the room in which he had been sitting.
He sat again, but he sat shivering. The agent had left
no work for him. . . . The Kru boys had been anxious
to explain something. The humming of the flies
about that shuttered window seemed to Hatteras to
have more explicit language than the Kru boys' chat-
terings. He penetrated into the interior of the house,
and reckoned up the doors. He opened one of them
ever so slightly, and the buzzing came through like
the hum of a wheel in a factoiy, revolving in the col-
lar of a strap. He flung the door open and stood upon
the threshold. The atmosphere of the room appalled
him; he felt the sweat break cold upon his forehead
and a deadly sickness in all his body. Then he
nerved himself to enter.
At first he saw little because of the gloom. In a
moment, however, he made out a bed stretched along
the wall and a thing stretched upon the bed. The
thing was more or less shapeless because it was covered
with a black, furry sort of rug. Hatteras, however,
had little trouble in defining it. He knew now for
certain what it was that the Kru boys had been so
anxious to explain to him. He approached the bed
and bent over it, and as he bent over it the horrible
thing occurred which left so vivid an impression on
Hatteras. The black, furry rug suddenly lifted itself
from the bed, beat about Hatteras' face, and dissolved


HATTERAS. 225
"Well, look at yourself in a glass a year from now
for my double," said Hatteras, and the pair went up
river together.
"Your factory's next to the Residency," said Hat-
teras. "There's a compound to each running down to
the river, and there's a palisade between the com-
pounds. I've cut a little gate in the palisade as it will
shorten the way from one house to the other."
The wicket gate was frequently used during the
next few months—indeed, more frequently than
Walker imagined. He was only aware that, when they
were both at home, Hatteras would come through it
of an evening and smoke on his verandah. Then he
would sit for hours cursing the country, raving about
the lights in Piccadilly-circus, and offering his immor-
tal soul in exchange for a comic-opera tune played up-
on a barrel-organ. Walker possessed a big atlas, and
one of Hatteras' chief diversions was to trace with his
finger a bee-line across the African continent and the
Bay of Biscay until he reached London.
More rarely Walker would stroll over to the Resi-
dency, but he soon came to notice that Hatteras had
a distinct preference for the factory and for the fac-
tory verandah. The reason for the preference puzzled
Walker considerably. He drew a quite erroneous
conclusion that Hatteras was hiding at the Residency
—well, some one whom it was prudent, especially in
an official, to conceal. He abandoned the conclusion,
however, when he discovered that his friend was in
the habit of making solitary expeditions. At times
Hatteras would be absent for a couple of days, at
times for a week, and, so far as Walker could ascer-


226 HATTERAS.
tain, he never so much as took a servant with him to
keep him company. He would simply announce at
night his intended departure, and in the morning he
would be gone. Nor on his return did he ever offer
to Walker any explanation of his journeys. On one
occasion, however, Walker broached the subject.
Hatteras had come back the night before, and he sat
crouched up in a deck chair, looking intently into the
darkness of the forest.
"I say," asked Walker, " isn't it rather dangerous
to go slumming about West Africa alone?"
Hatteras did not reply for a moment. He seemed
not to have heard the suggestion, and when he did
speak it was to ask a quite irrelevant question.
"Have you ever seen the Horse Guards' Parade on
a dark, rainy night ?" he asked; but he never moved
his head, he never took his eyes from the forest.
"The wet level of ground looks just like a lagoon and
the arches a Venice palace above it."
"But look here, Dick !" said Walker, keeping to
his subject. "You never leave word when you are
coming back. One never knows that you have come
back until you show yourself the morning after."
"I think," said Hatteras slowly, " that the finest
sight in the world is to be seen from tlje bridge in St.
James's Park when there's a State ball on at Bucking-
ham Palace and the light from the windows reddens
the lake and the carriages glance about the Mall like
fireflies."
"Even your servants don't know when you come
back," said Walker.
"Oh," said Hatteras quietly, "so you have been
asking questions of my servants?"


H ATT ERAS. 227
"I had a good reason," replied Walker, "your
safety," and with that the conversation dropped.
Walker watched Hatteras. Hatteras watched the
forest. A West African mangrove forest at night is
full of the eeriest, queerest sounds that ever a man's
ears harkened to. And the sounds come not so much
from the birds, or the soughing of the branches; they
seem to come from the swamp life underneath the
branches, at the roots of trees. There's a ceaseless
stir as of a myriad of reptiles creeping in the slime.
Listen long enough and you will fancy that you hear
the whirr and rush of innumerable crabs, the flapping
of innumerable fish. Now and again a more distinc-
tive sound emerges from the rest—the croaking of a
bull-frog, the whining cough of a crocodile. At such
sounds Hatteras would start up in his chair and cock
his head like a dog in a room that hears another dog
barking in the street.
"Doesn't it sound damned wicked ?" he said, with
a queer smile of enjoyment.
Walker did not answer. The light from a lamp in
the room behind them struck obliquely upon Hatteras'
face and slanted off from it in a narrowing column
until it vanished in a yellow thread among the leaves
of the trees.* It showed that the same enjoyment
which ran in Hatteras' voice was alive upon his face.
His eyes, his ears, were alert, and he gently opened
and shut his mouth with a little clicking of the teeth.
In some horrible way he seemed to have something in
common with, he appeared almost to participate in, the
activity of the swamp. Thus, had Walker often seen
him sit, but never with the light so clear upon his


228 H ATT ERAS.
face, and the sight gave to him a quite new impression
of his friend. He wondered whether all these months
his judgment had been wrong. And out of that
wonder a new thought sprang into his mind.
"Dick," he said, "this house of mine stands be-
tween your house and the forest. It stands on the
borders of the trees, on the edge of the swamp. Is
that why you always prefer it to your own?"
Hatteras turned his head quickly towards his com-
panion, almost suspiciously. Then he looked back
into the darkness, and after a little he said:—
"It's not only the things you care about, old man,
which tug at you, it's the things you hate as well. I
hate this country. I hate these miles and miles of
mangroves, and yet I am fascinated. I can't get the
forest and the undergrowth out of my mind. I dream
of them at nights. I dream that I am sinking into
that black oily batter of mud. Listen," and he sud-
denly broke off with his head stretched forwards.
"Doesn't it sound wicked?"
"But all this talk about London ?" cried Walker.
"Oh, don't you understand?" interrupted Hatteras
roughly. Then he changed his tone and gave his
reason. "One has to struggle against a fascination of
that sort. It's devil's work. So for all I am worth I
talk about London."
"Look here, Dick," said Walker. "You had better
get leave and go back to the old country for a spell."
"A very solid piece of advice," said Hatteras, and
he went home to the Residency.


HATTERAS. 229
II.
The next morning he had again disappeared. But
Walker discovered upon his table a couple of new
volumes. He glanced at the titles. They were Burton's
account of his pilgrimage to al-Madinah and Mecca.
Five nights afterwards Walker was smoking a pipe
on the verandah when he fancied that he heard a rub-
bing, scuffling sound as if some one very cautiously was
climbing over the fence of his compound. The moon
was low in the sky and dipping down toward the for-
est; indeed the rim of it touched the tree-tops so that
while a full half of the enclosure was bare to the yellow
light that half which bordered on the forest was inky
black in shadow ; and it was from the furthest corner
of this second half that the sound came. Walker bent
forward listening. He heard the sound again, and a
moment after another sound, which left him in no
doubt. For in that dark corner he knew that a num-
ber of palisades for repairing the fence were piled and
the second sound which he heard was a rattle as
some one stumbled against them. Walker went inside
and fetched a rifle.
When he came back he saw a negro creeping across
the bright open space towards the Residency. Walker
hailed to him to stop. Instead the negro ran. He
ran towards the wicket gate in the palisades. Walker
shouted again; the figure only ran the faster. He had
covered half the distance before Walker fired. He
clutched his right forearm with his left hand, but he
did not stop. Walker fired again, this time at his legs,
and the man dropped to the ground. Walker heard
his servants stirring as he ran down the steps. He


230 HATTERAS.
crossed quickly to the negro and the negro spoke to
him, but in English, and with the voice of Hatteras.
"For God's sake keep your servants off!"
Walker ran to the house, met his servants at the
foot of the steps, and ordered them back. He had
shot at a monkey he said. Then he returned to
Hatteras.
"Dicky, are you hurt ?" he whispered.
"You hit me each time you fired, but not very badly
I think."
He bandaged Hatteras' arm and thigh with strips
of his shirt and waited by his side until the house was
quiet. Then he lifted him and carried him across the
enclosure to the steps and up the steps into his bed-
room. It was a long and fatiguing process. For one
thing Walker dared make no noise and must needs
tread lightly with his load; for another, the steps
were steep and ricketty, with a narrow balustrade on
each side waist high. It seemed to Walker that the
day would dawn before he reached the top. Once or
twice Hatteras stirred in his arms, and he feared the
man would die then and there. For all the time his
blood dripped and pattered like heavy raindrops on
the wooden steps.
Walker laid Hatteras on his bed and examined his
wounds. One bullet had passed through the fleshy
part of the forearm, the other through the fleshy part
of his right thigh. But no bones were broken and no
arteries cut. Walker lit a fire, baked some plaintain
leaves, and applied them as a poultice. Then he went
out with a pail of water and scrubbed down the steps.
Again he dared not make any noise, and it was


HATTERAS. 231
close on daybreak before he had done. His night's
work, however, was not ended. He had still to cleanse
the black stain from Hatteras' skin, and the sun was
up before he stretched a rug upon the ground and
went to sleep with his back against the door.
"Walker," Hatteras called out in a low voice, an
hour or so later.
Walker woke up and crossed over to the bed.
"Dicky, I'm frightfully sorry. I couldn't know it
was you."
"That's all right, Jim. Don't you worry about that.
What I wanted to say was that nobody had better
know. It wouldn't do, would it, if it got about?"
"Oh, I am not so sure. People would think it
rather a creditable proceeding."
Hatteras shot a puzzled look at his friend. Walker,
however, did not notice it, and continued, " I saw
Burton's account of his pilgrimage in your room; I
might have known that journeys of the kind were
just the sort of thing to appeal to you."
"Oh, yes, that's it," said Hatteras, lifting himself
up in bed. He spoke eagerly—perhaps a thought too
eagerly. "Yes, that's it. I have always been keen on
understanding the native thoroughly. It's after all no
less than one's duty if one has to rule them, and since
I could speak their lingo—" he broke off and returned
to the subject which had prompted him to rouse
Walker. "But, all the same, it wouldn't do if the
natives got to know."
"There's no difficulty about that," said Walker.
"I'll give out that you have come back with the fever
and that I am nursing you. Fortunately there's no


H ATT ERAS. 233
hideous side. Was this masquerading as a black man
a further proof of the fascination? Was it, as it were,
a step downwards towards a closer association?
Walker sought to laugh the notion from his mind, but
it returned and returned, and here and there an in-
cident occurred to give it strength and colour.
For instance, on one occasion after Hatteras had
been three weeks absent, Walker sauntered over to
the Residency towards four o'clock in the afternoon.
Hatteras was trying cases in the court-house, which
formed the ground floor of the Residency. Walker
stepped into the room. It was packed with a naked
throng of blacks, and the heat was overpowering.
At the end of the hall sat Hatteras. His worn face
shone out amongst the black heads about him white
and waxy like a gardenia in a bouquet of black flowers.
Walker invented his simile and realised its apposite-
ness at one and the same moment. Bouquet was
not an inappropriate word since there is a penetrating
aroma about the native of the Niger delta when he
begins to perspire.
Walker, however, thinking that the Court would
rise, determined to wait for a little. But, at the last
moment, a negro was put up to answer to a charge
of participation in Fetish rites. The case seemed
sufficiently clear from the outset, but somehow Hat-
teras delayed its conclusion. There was evidence and
unrebutted evidence of the usual details—human sac-
rifice, mutilations and the like, but Hatteras pressed
for more. He sat until it was dusk, and then had
candles brought into the Court-house. He seemed
indeed not so much to be investigating the negro's


236 HATTERAS.
banjo and played for the rest of the year; all through
the wet season while the rain came down in a steady
roar and only the curlews cried—until Hatteras re-
turned. He returned at the top of his spirits and
health. Of course he was hall-marked West African,
but no man gets rid of that stamp. Moreover there
was more than health in his expression. There was a
new look of pride in his eyes and when he spoke of a
bachelor it was in terms of sympathetic pity.
"Jim," said he, after five minutes of restraint, "I
am engaged to be married."
Jim danced round him in delight. "What an ass I
have been," he thought, "why didn't I think of that
cure myself?" and he asked, "When is it to be?"
"In eight months. You'll come home and see me
through."
Walker agreed and for eight months listened to
praises of the lady. There were no more solitary ex-
peditions. In fact, Hatteras seemed absorbed in the
diurnal discovery of new perfections in his future
wife.
"Yes, she seems a nice girl," Walker commented.
He found her upon his arrival in England more
human than Hatteras' conversation had led him to
expect, and she proved to him that she was a nice
girl. For she listened for hours to him lecturing her
on the proper way to treat Dick without the slightest
irritation and with only a faintly visible amusement.
Besides she insisted on returning with her husband to
Bonny river, which was a sufficiently courageous
thing to undertake.
For a year in spite of the climate the couple were


HATTERAS. 237
commonplace and happy. For a year Walker clucked
about them like a hen after its chickens and slept the
sleep of the untroubled. Then he returned to Eng-
land and from that time made only occasional journeys
to West Africa. Thus for awhile he almost lost sight
of Hatteras and consequently still slept the sleep of
the untroubled. One morning, however, he arrived
unexpectedly at the settlement and at once called on
Hatteras. He did not wait to be announced, but ran
up the steps outside the house and into the dining-
room. He found Mrs. Hatteras crying. She dried
her eyes, welcomed Walker, and said that she was
sorry, but her husband was away.
Walker started, looked at her eyes, and asked hesitat-
ingly whether he could help. Mrs. Hatteras replied
with an ill-assumed surprise that she did not under-
stand. Walker suggested that there was trouble.
Mrs. Hatteras denied the truth of the suggestion.
Walker pressed the point and Mrs. Hatteras yielded
so far as to assert that there was no trouble in which
Hatteras was concerned. Walker hardly thought it
the occasion for a parade of manners, and insisted on
pointing out that his knowledge of her husband was
intimate and dated from his schooldays. Thereupon
Mrs. Hatteras gave way.
"Dick goes away alone," she said. "He stains his
skin and goes away at night. He tells me that he
must, that it's the only way by which he can know
the natives, and that so it's a sort of duty. He says
the black tells nothing of himself to the white man—
ever. You must go amongst them if you are to
know them. So he goes, and I never know when he


238 HATTERAS.
will come back. I never know whether he will come
back."
"But he has done that sort of thing on and off for
years, and he has always come back," replied Walker.
"Yes, but one day he will not." Walker comforted
her as well as he could, praised Hatteras for his con-
duct, though his heart was hot against him, spoke of
risks that every one must run who serve the Empire.
"Never a lotus closes, you know," he said, and went
back to the factory with the consciousness that he had
been telling lies.
It was no sense of duty that prompted Hatteras, of
that he was certain, and he waited—he waited from
darkness to daybreak in his compound for three
successive nights. On the fourth he heard the
scuffling sound at the corner of the fence. The night
was black as the inside of a coffin. Half a regiment
of men might steal past him and he not have seen
them. Accordingly he walked cautiously to the pali-
sade which separated the enclosure of the Residency
from his own, felt along it until he reached the little
gate and stationed himself in front of it. In a few
moments he thought that he heard a man breathing,
but whether to the right or the left he could not tell;
and then a groping hand lightly touched his face and
drew away again. Walker said nothing, but held his
breath and did not move. The hand was stretched
out again. This time it touched his breast and moved
across it until it felt a button of Walker's coat. Then
it was snatched away and Walker heard a gasping in-
draw of the breath and afterwards a sound as of a man
turning in a flurry. Walker sprang forward and


HATTERAS. 239
caught a naked shoulder with one hand, a naked arm
with the other.
"Wait a bit, Dick Hatteras," he said.
There was a low cry, and then a husky voice ad-
dressed him respectfully as " Daddy " in trade-English.
"That won't do, Dick," said Walker.
The voice babbled more trade-English.
"Ifyou're not Dick Hatteras," continued Walker,
tightening his grasp, "You've no manner of right
here. I'll give you till I count ten and then I shall
shoot."
Walker counted up to nine aloud and then—
"Jim," said Hatteras in his natural voice.
"That's better," said Walker. "Let's go in and
talk."
III.
He went up the step and lighted the lamp. Hat-
teras followed him and the two men faced one an-
other. .For a little while neither of them spoke.
Walker was repeating to himself that this man with
the black skin, naked except for a dirty loincloth and
a few feathers on his head was a white man married
to a white wife who was sleeping—Nay, more likely
crying—not thirty yards away.
Hatteras began to mumble out his usual explana-
tion of duty and the rest of it.
"That won't wash," interrupted Walker. "What
is it? A woman?"
"Good Heaven, no!" cried Hatteras suddenly.
It was plain that that explanation was at all events


240 HATTERAS.
untrue. "Jim, I've a good mind to tell you all
about it."
"You have got to," said Walker. He stood be-
tween Hatteras and the steps.
"I told you how this country fascinated me in
spite of myself," he began.
"But I thought," interrupted Walker, "that you
had got over that since. Why, man, you are married,"
and he came across to Hatteras and shook him by
the shoulder. "Don't you understand? You have
a wife!"
"I know," said Hatteras. "But there are things
deeper at the heart of me than the love of woman,
and one of those things is the love of horror. I tell
you it bites as nothing else does in this world. It's
like absinthe that turns you sick at the beginning and
that you can't do without once you have got the
taste of it. Do you remember my first landing?
It made me sick enough at the beginning, you know.
But now—" He sat down in a chair and drew it
close to Walker. His voice dropped to a passionate
whisper, he locked and unlocked his fingers with
feverish movements, and his eyes shifted and glittered
in an unnatural excitement.
"It's like going down to Hell and coming up again
and wanting to go down again. Oh, you'd want to
go down again. You'd find the whole earth pale.
You'd count the days until you went down again.
Do you remember Orpheus? I think he looked back
not to see if Eurydice was coming after him but be-
cause he knew it was the last glimpse he would get
of Hell." At that he broke off and began to chant


242 HATTERAS.
to a stop when he saw Walker hold out to him a
cocked and loaded revolver.
"Well?" he asked. "Well?"
Walker still offered him the revolver.
"There are cases, I think, which neither God's law
nor man's law seems to have provided for. There's
your wife you see to be considered. If you don't
take it I shall shoot you myself now, here, and m.irk
you I shall shoot you for the sake of a boy I loved at
school in the old country."
Hatteras took the revolver in silence, laid it on the
table, fingered it for a little.
"My wife must never know," he said.
"There's the pistol. Outside's the swamp. The
swamp will tell no tales, nor shall I. Your wife need
never know."
Hatteras picked up the pistol and stood up.
"Good-bye, Jim," he said, and half pushed out his
hand. Walker shook his head, and Hatteras went out
on to the verandah and down the steps.
Walker heard him climb over the fence; and then
followed as far as the verandah. In the still night the
rustle and swish of the undergrowth came quite
clearly to his ears. The sound ceased, and a few
minutes afterwards the muffled crack of a pistol shot
broke the silence like the tap of a hammer. The
swamp, as Walker prophesied, told no tales. Mrs.
Hatteras gave the one explanation of her husband's
disappearance that she knew and returned broken-
hearted to England. There was some loud talk about
the self-sacrificing energy, which makes the English


HATTERAS. 243
a dominant race, and there you might think is the
end of the story.
But some years later Walker went trudging up the
Ogow6 river in Congo Fran§ais. He travelled as far
as Woermann's factory in Njole Island and, having
transacted his business there, pushed up stream in the
hope of opening the upper reaches for trade purposes.
He travelled for a hundred and fifty miles in a little
stern-wheel steamer. At that point he stretched an
awning over a whale-boat, embarked himself, his
banjo and eight blacks from the steamer, and rowed
. for another fifty miles. There he ran the boat's nose
into a clay cliff close to a Fan village and went
ashore to negotiate with the chief.
There was a slip of forest between the village and
the river bank, and while Walker was still dodging
the palm creepers which tapestried it he heard a noise
of lamentation. The noise came from the village and
was general enough to assure him that a chief was
dead. It rose in a chorus of discordant howls, low in
note and long-drawn out—wordless, something like
the howls of an animal in pain and yet human by
reason of their infinite melancholy.
Walker pushed forward, came out upon a hillock,
fronting the palisade which closed the entrance to the
single street of huts, and passed down into the village.
It seemed as though he had been expected. For
from every hut the Fans rushed out towards him, the
men dressed in their filthiest rags, the women with
their faces chalked and their heads shaved. They
stopped, however, on seeing a white man, and Walker
knew enough of their tongue to ascertain that they


244 HATTERAS.
looked for the coming of the witch doctor. The
chief, it appeared, had died a natural death, and, since
the event is of sufficiently rare occurrence in the Fan
country, it had promptly been attributed to witch-
craft, and the witch doctor had been sent for to dis-
cover the criminal. The village was consequently in
a lively state of apprehension, since the end of those
who bewitch chiefs to death is not easy. The Fans,
however, politely invited Walker to inspect the corpse.
It lay in a dark hut, packed with the corpse's relations,
who were shouting to it at the top of their voices on
the off-chance that its spirit might think better of its
conduct and return to the body. They explained to
Walker that they had tried all the usual varieties of
persuasion. They had put red pepper into the chief's
eyes while he was dying. They had propped open his
mouth with a stick; they had burned fibres of the oil
nut under his nose. In fact, they had made his death
as uncomfortable as possible, but none the less he had
died.
The witch doctor arrived on the heels of the ex-
planation, and Walker, since he was powerless to in-
terfere, thought it wise to retire for the time being.
He went back to the hillock on the edge of the trees.
Thence he looked across and over the palisade and had
the whole length of the street within his view.
The witch doctor entered it from the opposite end,
to the beating of many drums. The first thing Walker
noticed was that he wore a square-skirted eighteenth
century coat and a tattered pair of brocaded knee
breeches on his bare legs; the second was that he
limped—ever so slightly. Still he limped and—with


HATTERAS. 247
The night fell moonless and black, and the enclos-
ing forest made it yet blacker. A few stars burned in
the strip of sky above his head like gold spangles on a
strip of black velvet. Those stars and the glimmering
of the clay bank to which the boat was moored were
the only lights which Walker had. It was as dark as
the night when Walker waited for Hatteras at the
wicket-gate.
He placed his gun and a pouch of cartridges on one
side, an unlighted lantern on the other, and then he
took up his banjo and again he waited. He waited
for a couple of hours, until a light crackle as of twigs
snapping came to him out of the forest. Walker struck
a chord on his banjo and played a hymn tune. He
played "Abide with me," thinking that some picture of
a home, of a Sunday evening in England's summer
time, perhaps of a group of girls singing about a piano
might flash into the darkened mind of the man upon
the bank and draw him as with cords. The music
went tinkling up and down the river, but no one spoke,
no one moved upon the bank. So Walker changed the
tune and played a melody of the barrel organs and Pic-
cadilly circus. He had not played more than a dozen
bars before he heard a sob from the bank and then
the sound of some one sliding down the clay. The
next instant a figure shone black against the clay.
The boat lurched under the weight of a foot upon the
gunwale, and a man plumped down in front of
Walker.
"Well, what is it ?" asked Walker, as he laid down
his banjo and felt for a match in his pocket.
It seemed as though the words roused the man to a


248 HATTERAS.
perception that he had made a mistake. He said as
much hurriedly in trade-English, and sprang up as
though he would leap from the boat. Walker caught
hold of his ankle.
"No, you don't," said he, " you must have meant
to visit me. This isn't Heally," and he jerked the
man back into the bottom of the boat.
The man explained that he had paid a visit out of
the purest friendliness.
"You're the witch doctor, I suppose," said Walker.
The other replied that he was and proceeded to state
that he was willing to give information about much
that made white men curious. He would explain
why it was of singular advantage to possess a white
man's eyeball, and how very advisable it was to kill
any one you caught making Itung. The danger of
passing near a cotton-tree which had red earth at the
roots provided a subject which no prudent man should
disregard; and Tando, with his driver ants, was worth
conciliating. The witch doctor was prepared to
explain to Walker how to conciliate Tando. Walker
replied that it was very kind of the witch doctor but
Tando didn't really worry him. He was, in fact, very
much more worried by an inability to understand how
a native so high up the Ogowe River had learned how
to speak trade-English.
The witch doctor waved the question aside and
remarked that Walker must have enemies. "Pussim
bad too much," he called them. "Pussim woh-woh.
Berrah well! Ah send grand Krau-Krau and dem
pussim die one time." Walker could not recol-
lect for the moment any " pussim " whom he wished


H ATT ERAS. 249
to die one time, whether from grand Krau-Krau or
any other disease. "Wait a bit," he continued,
"there is one man—Dick Hatteras !" and he struck
the match suddenly. The witch doctor started
forward as though to put it out. Walker, however,
had the door of the lantern open. He set the match
to the wick of the candle and closed the door fast.
The witch doctor drew back. Walker lifted the lan-
tern and threw the light on his face. The witch
doctor buried his face in his hands and supported his
elbows on his knees. Immediately Walker darted
forward a hand, seized the loose sleeve of the witch
doctor's coat and slipped it back along his arm to the
elbow. It was the sleeve of the right arm and there
on the fleshy part of the forearm was the scar of a
bullet.
"Yes," said Walker. "By God, it is Dick Hat-
teras!"
"Well?" cried Hatteras, taking his hands from
his face. "What the devil made you tum-tum
'Tommy Atkins ' on the banjo? Damn you!"
"Dick, I saw you this afternoon."
"I know, I know. Why on earth didn't you kill
me that night in your compound?"
"I mean to make up for that mistake to-night!"
Walker took his rifle on to his knees. Hatteras saw
the movement, leaned forward quickly, snatched up
the rifle, snatched up the cartridges, thrust a couple
of cartridges into the breech, and handed the loaded
rifle back to his old friend.
"That's right," he said. "I remember. There are
some cases neither God's law nor man's law has quite


HATTERAS. 251
"No thanks," said Walker. "I don't think I will."
Hatteras looked at his companion for an instant.
Then he emptied deliberately both cups over the side
of the boat. Next he took the pipe from his lips.
The tobacco was not half consumed. He poised the
pipe for a little in his hand. Then he blew into the
bowl and watched the dull red glow kindle into
sparks of flame as he blew. Very slowly he tapped
the bowl against the thwart of the boat until the
burning tobacco fell with a hiss into the water. He
laid the pipe gently down and stood up.
"So long, old man," he said, and sprang out on to
the clay. Walker turned the lantern until the light
made a disc upon the bank.
"Good bye, Jim," said Hatteras, and he climbed
up the bank until he stood in the light of. the lantern.
Twice Walker raised the rifle to his shoulder, twice
he lowered it. Then he remembered that Hatteras
and he had been at school together.
"Good bye, Dicky," he cried, and fired. Hatteras
tumbled down to the boat-side. The blacks down-
river were roused by the shot. Walker shouted to
them to stay where they were, and as soon as their
camp was quiet he stepped on shore. He filled up
the whiskey jar with water, tied it to Hatteras' feet,
shook his hand, and pushed the body into the river.
The next morning he started back to Fernan Vaz.


THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE.
THE truth concerning the downfall of the Princess
Joceliande has never as yet been honestly inscribed.
Doubtless there be few alive except myself that know
it; for from the beginning many strange and insidious
rumours were set about to account for her mishap,
whereby great damage was done to the memory of the
Sieur Rudel le Malaise and Solita his wife; and after-
wards these rumours were so embroidered and painted
by rhymesters that the truth has become, as you
might say, doubly lost. For minstrels take more
thought of tickling the fancies of those to whom they
sing with joyous and gallant histories than of their
high craft and office, and hence it is that though many
and various accounts are told to this day throughout
the country-side by grandsires at their winter hearths,
not one of them has so much as a grain of verity.
They are but rude and homely versions of the chaunts
of Troubadours.
And yet the truth is sweet and pitiful enough to
furnish forth a song, were our bards so minded. How-
beit, I will set it down here in simple prose; for so my
duty to the Sieur Rudel bids me, and, moreover, 'twas
from this event his wanderings began wherein for
twenty years I bare him company.
And let none gainsay my story, for that I was not


254 THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE.
might have believed you were listening to some dox-
ical monk.
In the tenth year of his age came Solita to the
castle, whence no man knew, nor could they ever learn
more than this, that she sailed out of the grey mists of
a November morning to our bleak Brittany coast in a
white-painted boat. A fisherman drew the boat to
land, perceiving it when he was casting his nets, and
found a woman-child therein, cushioned upon white
satin; and marvelling much at the richness of her pur-
veyance, for even the sail of the boat was of white
silk, he bore her straightway to the castle. And the
abbot took her and baptised her and gave her Sola for
a name. "For," said he, "she hath come alone and
none knoweth her parentage or place." In time she
grew to exceeding beauty, with fair hair clustering
like finest silk above her temples and curling way-
wardly about her throat; wondrous fair she was and
white, shaming the snowdrops, so that all men stopped
and gazed at her as she passed.
And the Princess Joceliande, perceiving her, joined
her to the company of her hand-maidens and took
great delight in her for her modesty and beauty, so
that at last she changed her name. "Sola have you
been called till now," she said, " but henceforth shall
your name be Solita, as who shall say 'you have be-
come my wont.'"
Meanwhile the Sieur Rudel was advanced from
honour to honour, until he stood ever at the right
hand of the Princess, and ruled over her kingdom as
her chancellor and vicegerent. Her enemies he
conquered and added their lands and sovereignties


THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE. 255
to hers, until of all the kings in those parts, none had
such power and dominions as the Princess Joceliande.
Many ladies, you may believe, cast fond eyes on him,
and dropped their gauntlet that he might bend to
them upon his knee and pick it up, but his heart they
could not bend, strive how they might, and to each
and all he showed the same courtesy and gentleness.
For he had seen the maiden Solita, and of an evening
when the Court was feasting in the hall and the music
of harps rippled sweetly in the ears, he would slip
from the table as one that was busied in statecraft,
and in company with Solita pace the terrace in the
dark, beneath the lighted windows. Yet neither spoke
of love, though loving was their intercourse. Solita
for that her modesty withheld her, and she feared
even to hope that so great a lord should give his
heart to her keeping; Rudel because he had not
achieved enough to merit she should love him. "In a
little," he would mutter, "in a little! One more
thing must I do, and then will I claim my guerdon of
the Princess Joceliande."
Now this one more thing was the highest and most
dangerous emprise of all that he had undertaken. Be-
yond the confines of the kingdom there dwelt a great
horde of men that had come to Brittany from the East
in many deep ships and had settled upon the coast,
whence they would embark and, travelling hard by the
land, burn and ravage the sea-borders for many days.
Against these did the Sieur Rudel make war, and
gathering the nobles and yeomen he mustered them
in boats and prepared to sail forth to what he believed
was the last of his adventures, knowing not that it was


256 THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE.
indeed but the beginning. And to the princess he
said: "Lady, I have served you faithfully, as a gen-
tleman should serve his queen. From nothing have I
drawn back that could establish or increase you.
Therefore when I get me home again, one boon will
I ask of you, and I pray you of your mercy grant it
me.
"I will well," replied the princess. "For such
loyal service hath no queen known before—nay, not
even Dame Helen among the Trojans."
So right gladly did the Sieur Rudel depart from her,
and down he walked among the sandhills, where he
found Solita standing in a hollow in the midst of a
cloud of sand which the sharp wind whirled about her.
Nothing she said to him, but she stood with downcast
head and eyes that stung with tears.
"Solita," said he, "the Princess hath granted me
such boon as I may ask on my return. What say
?M
And she answered in a low voice. "Who am I, my
lord, that I should oppose the will of the princess?
A nameless maiden, meet only to yoke with a name-
less yeoman!"
At that the Sieur Rudel laughed and said, " Look
you into a mirror, sweet! and your face will gainsay
your words."
She lifted her eyes to his and the light came into
them again, so that they danced behind the tears, and
Rudel clipped her about the waist for all that he had
not as yet merited her, and kissed her upon the lips
and the forehead and upon her white hands and wrists.
But she, gazing past his head, saw the blowing


THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE. 257
sands beyond and the armed men in the boats upon
the sea, and ' O, Rudel, my sweet lord!" she cried,
"never till this moment did I know how barren and
lonely was the coast. Come back, and that soon—
for of a truth I dread to be left alone!"
"In God's good time and if so He will, I will come
back, and from the moment of my coming I will never
again depart from you."
"Promise me that!" she said, clinging to him with
her arms twined about his neck, and he promised her,
and so, comforting her a little more, he got him into
his boat and sailed away upon his errand.
But of all this, the Princess Joceliande knew noth-
ing. From her balcony in the castle she saw the
Sieur Rudel sail forth. He stood upon the poop, the
wind blowing the hair back from his face, and as she
watched his straight figure, she said, "A boon he shall
ask, but a greater will I grant. Surely no man ever
did such loyal service but for love, and for love's sake,
he shall share my throne with me." With that she
wept a little for fear he might be slain or ever he
should return; but she remembered from how many
noble exploits he had come scatheless, and so taking
heart once more she fell to thinking of his black locks
and clear olive face and darkly shining eyes. For, in
truth, these outward qualities did more enthral and
delight her than his most loyal services.
But for the maiden Solita, she got her back to her
chamber and, remembering her lord's advice, spied
about for a mirror. No mirror, however, did she pos-
sess, having never used aught else but a basin of clear
water, and till now found it all-sufficient, so little
s


258 THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE.
curious had she been concerning the whiteness of her
beauty. Thereupon she thought for a little, and un-
binding her hair so that it fell to her feet in a golden
cloud, hied her to Joceliande, who bade her take a
book of chivalry and read aloud. But Solita so bent
her head that her hair fell ever across the pages and
hindered her from reading, and each time she put it
roughly back from her forehead with some small word
of anger as though she was vexed.
"What ails you, child ?" asked the princess.
"It is my hair," replied Solita. But the princess
paid no heed. She heard little, indeed, even of what
was read, but sat by the window gazing out across the
grey hungry sea, and bethinking her of the Sieur
Rudel and his gallant men. And again Solita let her
hair fall upon the scroll, and again she tossed it back,
saying, " Fie! Fie!"
"What ails you, child ?" the princess asked.
"It is my hair," she replied, and Joceliande, smiling
heedlessly, bade her read on. So she read until Jo-
celiande bade her stop and called to her, and Solita
came over to the window and knelt by the side of the
princess, so that her hair fell across the wrist of Joceli-
ande and fettered it. "It is ever in the way," said
Solita, and she loosed it from the wrist of the princess.
But the princess caught the silky coils within her hand
and smoothed them tenderly. "That were easily
remedied," she replied with a smile, and she sought
for the scissors which hung at her girdle.
But Solita bethought her that many men had praised
the colour and softness of her hair—why, she could
not tell, for dark locks alone were beautiful in her


THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE. 259
eyes. Howbeit men praised hers, and for Sieur Ru-
del's sake she would fain be as praiseworthy as might
be. Therefore she stayed Joceliande's hand and cried
aloud in fear, " Nay, nay, sweet lady, 'tis all the gold
I have, and I pray you leave it me who am so poor."
And the Princess Joceliande laughed, and replaced
the scissors in her girdle. "I did but make pretence,
to try you," she said, " for, in truth, I had begun to
think you were some holy angel and no woman, so
little share had you in a woman's vanities. But 'tis
all unbound, and I wonder not that it hinders you.
Let me bind it up!"
And while the princess bound the hair cunningly in
a coronal upon her head, Solita spake again hesitat-
ingly, seeking to conceal her craft.
"Madame, it is easy for you to bind my hair, but for
myself, I have no mirror and so dress it awkwardly."
Joceliande laughed again merrily at the words.
"Dear heart!" she cried. "What man is it? Hast
discovered thou art a woman after all? First thou
fearest for thy hair, and now thou askest a mirror.
But in truth I like thee the better for thy discovery."
And she kissed Solita very heartily, who blushed that
her secret was so readily found out, and felt no small
shame at her lack of subtlety. For many ladies, she
knew, had secrets—ay, even from their bosom lords
and masters—and kept them without effort in the
subterfuge, whereas she, poor fool, betrayed hers at
the first word.
"And what man is it?" laughed the princess.
"For there is not one that deserves thee, as thou shalt
judge for thyself." Whereupon she summoned one


262 THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE.
from its brightness and who grows peevish in her
loneliness. But open your mind to me, for you have
twined about my heart even as your curls did but now
twine and coil about my wrist, and the more for this
pretty vanity of yours. Therefore tell me his name,
that I may advance him."
But once more Solita did fob her off, and the
princess would no longer question her, but turned her
wearily to the window.
"All day long," she said, " I listen to soft speeches
and honeyed tongues, and all night long I listen to
the breakers booming upon the sands, and in truth I
wot not which sound is the more hollow."
Such was the melancholy and sadness of her voice
that the tears sprang into Solita's eyes and ran down
her cheeks for very pity of Joceliande.
"Think not I fail in love to you, sweet princess,"
she cried. "But I may not tell you, though I would
be blithe and proud to name him. But 'tis for him
to claim me of you, and I must needs wait his time."
But Joceliande would not be comforted, and chiding
her roughly, sent her to her chamber. So Solita de-
parted out of her sight, her heart heavy with a great
pity, though little she understood of Joceliande's dis-
tress. For this she could not know: that at the sight
of her white beauty the Princess Joceliande was
ashamed.
And coming into her chamber, Solita beheld the
mirror ranged against the wall, and long she stood be-
fore it, being much comforted by the image which she
saw. From that day ever she watched the ladies of
the court, noting jealously if any might be more fair


264 THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE.
admitted before all the Court assembled in the great
hall, he fell upon his knees at the foot of the princess,
and, making his obeisance, said—
"Fair Lady Joceliande, I crave a boon, and I pray
you of your gentleness to grant it me."
"But what boon, good Sir Broyance?" replied the
princess. "I know you for a true and loyal gentle-
man who has ever been welcome at my castle. Speak,
then, your need, and if so be I may, you shall find me
complaisant to your request."
Thereupon, Sir Broyance took heart and said:
"Since our king died, God rest his soul, there has
been no peace or quiet in our kingdom of Broye. 'Tis
rent with strife and factions, so that no man may
dwell in it but he must fight from mom to night, and
withal win no rest for the morrow. The king's three
sons contend for the throne, and meanwhile is the
country eaten up. Therefore am I sent by many, and
those our chiefest gentlemen, to ask you to send us
Sieur Rudel, that he may quell these conflicts and
rule over us as our king."
So Sir Broyance spake and was silent, and a great
murmur and acclamation rose about the hall for that
the Sieur Rudel was held in such honour and worship
even beyond his own country. But for the Princess
Joceliande, she sat with downcast head, and for a
while vouchsafed no reply. For her heart was sore at
the thought that Sieur Rudel should go from her.
"There is much danger in the adventure," she said
at length, doubtfully.
"Were there no danger, madame," he replied, " we
should not ask Sieur Rudel of you to be our leader,


266 THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE.
have his promise never to depart from me." So much
confidence had her mirror taught her, as it ever is with
women.
But despite them both did the Sieur Rudel voyage
to Broye and rule over the kingdom as its king, and
how that came about ye shall hear.
Now on the fourth day after the coming of Sir
Broyance, the Princess Joceliande was leaning over
the baluster of her balcony and gazing seawards as
was her wont. The hours had drawn towards evening,
and the sun stood like a glowing wheel upon the
farthest edge of the sea's grey floor, when she beheld
a black speck crawl across its globe, and then another
and another, to the number of thirty. Thereupon, she
knew that the Sieur Rudel had returned, and joyfully
she summoned her tirewomen and bade them coif and
robe her as befitted a princess. A coronet of gold
and rubies they set upon her head, and a robe of
purple they hung about her shoulders. With pearls
they laced her neck and her arms, and with pearls
they shod her feet, and when she saw the ships riding
at their anchorage, and the Sieur Rudel step forth
amid the shouts of the sailors, then she hied her to
the council-chamber and prepared to give him instant
audience. Yet for all her jewels and rich attire, she
trembled like a common wench at the approach of
her lover, and feared that the loud beating of her
heart would drown the sound of his footsteps in the
passage.
But the Sieur Rudel came not, and she sent a
messenger to inquire why he tarried, and the mes-
senger brought word and said:


THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE. 267
"He is with the maiden Solita in the tower."
Then the princess stumbled as though she were
about to fall, and her women came about her. But
she waved them back with her hand, and so stood
shivering for a little. "The night blows cold," she
said; "I would the lamps were lit." And when her
servants had lighted the council-chamber, she sent
yet another messenger to Sieur Rudel, bidding him
instantly come to her, and waited in great bitterness
of spirit. For she remembered how that she had
promised to grant him the boon that he should ask,
and much she feared that she knew what that boon
was.
Now leave we the Princess Joceliande, and hie be-
fore her messenger to the chamber of Solita. No
pearls or purple robes had she to clad her beauty in,
but a simple gown of white wool fastened with a
silver girdle about the waist, and her hair she loosed
so that it rippled down her shoulders and nestled round
her ears and face.
Thither the Sieur Rudel came straight from the
sea, and—
"Love," he said, kissing her, "it has been a weary
waste of days and nights, and yet more weary for
thee than for me. For stern work was there ever to
my hand—ay, and well-nigh more than I could do;
but for thee nought but to wait."
"Yet, my dear lord," she replied, "the princess
did give me this mirror, wherein I could see myself
from top to toe, and a great comfort has it been to
me."
So she spake, and the messenger from the princess


270 THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE.
were green and of the finest silk, and on his feet he
wore shoes of white doeskin, and the latchets were of
gold. So he came into the hall, and seeing him thus
gaily attired with all his harness off, much did all
marvel at his knightly prowess. For in truth he
looked more like some tender minstrel than a gallant
warrior. Then up rose Sir Broyance and said;
"From the kingdom of Broye the nobles send
greeting to the Sieur Rudel, and a message."
And with that he set forth his errand and request;
but the Sieur Rudel laughed and answered:
"Sir Broyance, great honour you do me, and so, I
pray, tell your countrymen of Broye. But never
more will I draw sword or feuter spear, for this day
hath the Princess Joceliande granted me her maiden
Solita for wife, and by her side I will bide till
death."
Thereupon rose a great murmur of astonishment
within the hall, the men lamenting that the Sieur
Rudel would lead them no more to battle, and the
women marvelling to each other that he should
choose so mean a thing as Solita for wife. But Sir
Broyance said never a word, but got him from the
table and out of the hall, so that the company mar-
velled yet more for that he had not sought to per-
suade the Sieur Rudel. Then said the Princess Joce-
liande, and greatly was she angered both against
Solita and Rudel:
"Fie, my lord! shame on you; you forget your
knighthood!"
And he replied, "My knighthood, your highness,
had but one use, and that to win my sweet Solita."


THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE. 271
Wherefore was Joceliande's heart yet hotter against
the twain, and she cried aloud:
"Nay, but it is on us that the shame of your
cowardice will fall. Even now Sir Broyance left our
hall in anger and scorn. It may not be that our chief-
est noble shall so disgrace us."
But Sieur Rudel laughed lightly, and answered her:
"Madame, full oft have I jeopardised my life in
your good cause, and I fear no charge of cowardice
more than I fear thistle-down."
His words did but increase the fury of the princess,
and she brake out in most bitter speech:
"Nay, but it is a kitchen knave we have been hon-
ouring unawares, and bidding sit with us at table!"
And straightway she called to her servants and
bade them fetch the warden of the castle with the
fetters. But the Sieur Rudel laughed again, and said:
"Thus it will be impossible that I leave my dear
Solita and voyage perilously to Broye."
Nor any effort or resistance did he make, but lightly
suffered them to fetter him, the while the princess
most foully mis-said him. With fetters they prisoned
his feet, and manacles they straitly fastened about his
wrists, and they bound him to a pillar in the hall by a
chain about his middle.
"There shall you bide," she said, "in shameful
bonds until you make promise to voyage forth to
Broye. For surely there is nothing so vile in all this
world as a craven gentleman."
With that she turned her again to the feast, though
little heart she had thereto. But the Sieur Rudel was
well content; for not for all the honour in Christendom


272 THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE.
would he break his word to his dearSolita. Howbeit,
the nobles were ever urgent that the princess should
set him free, pleading the worshipful deeds he had ac-
complished in her cause. But to none of them would
she hearken, and the fair gentle ladies of the Court
greatly applauded her for her persistence—and espe-
cially those who had erstwhile dropped their gauntlets
that Rudel might bend and pick them up. And many
pleasant jests they passed upon the Sieur Rudel,
bidding him dance with them, since he was loth to
fight. But he paid no heed to them, nor could they
provoke him by any number of taunts. Whereupon,
being angered at his silence, they were fain to send to
Solita and make their sport with her.
But that Joceliande would not suffer, and, rising,
she went to Solita's chamber and entreated her most
kindly, telling her that for love of her the Sieur Rudel
would not adventure himself at Broye. Not a word
did she say of how she had mistreated him, and Solita
answered her jocundly for that her lord had held his
pledge with her. But when the castle was still, the
princess took Solita by the hand and led her down the
steps to where Rudel stood against the pillar in the
dark hall.
"For thy sake, sweet Solita," she said, "is he
bound. For thy sake!" and she made her feel the
manacles upon his hands. And when Solita had so
felt his bonds, she wept, and made the greatest sor-
row that ever man heard.
"Alas !" she cried, " that my dear lord should suffer
in such straits. In God's mercy, madame, I pray you
let him go! Loyal service hath he done for you, such
as no other in the kingdom."


THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE. 273
"Loyal service, I trow," replied the princess. "He
hath brought such shame upon my Court that for
ever am I dishonoured. It may not be that I let him
go, without you give him back his word and bid him
forth to Broye."
"And that will I never do," replied Solita, "for all
your cruelty."
So the princess turned her away and gat her from
the hall, but Solita remained with her lord, making
moan and easing his fetters with her hands as best she
might. Hence it fell out that she who should have
comforted must needs be comforted herself, and that
the Sieur Rudel did right willingly.
The like, he would say to me, hath often happened
to him since, and when he was harassed with sore dis-
tress he must needs turn him about to stop a woman's
tears; for which he thanked God most heartily, and
prayed that so it might ever be, since thus he clean
forgot his own sad plight. Whence, meseems, may
men understand how noble a gentleman was my good
lord the Sieur Rudel.
Now when the night was well spent and drawing on
to dawn, Solita, for very weariness, fell asleep at the
pillar's foot, and Rudel began to take counsel with
himself if, by any manner of means, he might outwit
the Princess Joceliande. For this he saw, that she
would not have him wed her handmaiden, and for that
cause, and for no cowardice of his, had so cruelly
entreated him. And when he had pondered a little
with himself, he bent and touched Solita with his
hands, and called to her in a low voice.
"Solita," he said, " it is in Joceliande's heart to


276 THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE.
shalt thou ever keep his love. Thy image will ride
before his eyes in the van of battles; for very lack of
thee he will move from endeavour to endeavour; and
so thy life will be enshrined in his most noble deeds."
At these words, with such cunning gentleness were
they spoken, Solita was sore troubled.
"I cannot send him from me," she cried, " for never
did woman so love her lord—no, not ever in the world!"
"Then prove thy love," said Joceliandc again. "A
kingdom is given into his hand, and he will not take
it because of thee. It is a hard thing, I trow right
well. But the cross becomes a crown when a woman
lifts it. Think! A kingdom! And never yet was
kingdom established but the stones of its walls were
mortised with the blood of women's hearts."
So she pleaded, hiding her own thoughts, until
Solita answered her, and said:
"God help me, but he shall go to Broye!"
Much ado had the Princess Joceliande to hide her
joy for the success of her device; but Solita, poor
lass! had neither eyes nor thoughts for her. Forth-
with she rose to her feet, and quickly gat her to the
hall, lest her courage should fail, before that she had
accomplished her resolve. But when she came near
to the Sieur Rudel, blithely he smiled at her and called
"Solita, my wife." It seemed to her that words so
sweet had never as yet been spoken since the world
began, and all her strength ebbed from her, and she
stood like one that is dumb, gazing piteously at her
husband. Again Rudel called to her, but no answer
could she make, and she turned and fled sobbing to
the chamber of the princess.


THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE. 277
"I could not speak," she said; "my lips were
locked, and Rudel holds the key."
But the princess spoke gently and craftily, bidding
her take heart, for that she herself would go with her
and second her words; and taking Solita by the hand,
she led her again to the hall.
This time Solita made haste to speak first.
"Rudel," she said, " no honour can I bring to you,
but only foul disgrace, and that is no fit gift from one
who loves you. Therefore, from this hour I hold you
quit of your promise and pray you to undertake this
mission and set forth for Broye."
But the Sieur Rudel would hearken to nothing of
what she said.
"No foul disgrace can come to me," he cried, "but
only if I prove false to you and lose your love. My
promise I will keep, and all the more for that I see
the Princess Joceliande hath set you on to this."
But Solita protested that it was not so, and that of
her own will and desire she released him, for the long-
ing to sacrifice herself for her dear lord's sake grew
upon her as she thought upon it. Yet he would not
consent.
"My word I passed to you when you were a maid,
and shall I not keep it now that you are a wife?" he
cried.
"Wife?" cried the princess, " you are his wife?"
And she roughly gripped Solita's wrist so that the
girl could not withhold a cry.
"In truth, madame," replied the Sieur Rudel,
"even last night, in this hall, Solita and I were mar-
ried by the good abbot, and therefore I will not leave
her while she lives."


278 THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE.
Still Joceliande would not believe it, bethinking
her that the Sieur Rudel had hit upon the pretence
as a device for his enlargement; but Solita showed
to her the ring which the abbot had taken from the
finger of her lord and placed upon hers, and then the
princess knew that of a surety they were married, and
her hatred for Solita burned in her blood like fire.
But no sign she gave of what she felt, but rather
spoke with greater softness to them both, bidding
them look forward beyond the first delights of love,
and behold how all their years to come were the price
they needs must pay.
Now, while they were yet debating each with other,
came Sir Broyance into the hall, and straightway the
princess called to him and begged him to add his
prayers to Solita's. But he answered:
"That, madame, I will not do, for, indeed, the
esteem I have for the Sieur Rudel is much increased,
and I hold it no cowardice that he should refuse a
kingdom for his wife's sake, but the sweetest bravery.
And therefore it was that I broke off my plea last
night and sought not to persuade him."
At that Rudel was greatly rejoiced, and said:
"Dost hear him, Solita? Even he who most has
need of me acquits me of disgrace. Truly I will
never leave thee while I live."
But the princess turned sharply to Sir Broyance.
"Sir, have you changed your tune?" she said; "for
never was a man so urgent as you with me for the
Sieur Rudel's help."
"Alas! madame," he replied, "I knew not then
that he was plighted to the maiden Solita, or never


THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE. 281
she returned to the hall, and, summoning the warden,
bade him loose the Sieur Rudel.
"It shall be even as you wish," she said to him.
Wise and prudent had she been, had she ended with
that; but her malice was not yet sated, and so she
suffered it to lead her to her ruin. For she stretched
out her hand to him and said, " I myself will take you
to your wife." And greatly marvelling, the Sieur
Rudel took her hand and followed.
Now when they were come to Solita's chamber, the
princess entered first, and turned her again to my
Lord Rudel and laid her finger to her lips, saying,
"Hush!" Therefore he came in after her on tiptoe
and stood a little way from the foot of the couch,
fearing lest he might wake his wife.
"Is she not still? "asked Joceliande in a whisper.
"Is she not still and white?"
"Still and white as a folded lily," he replied, "and
like a folded lily, too, in her white flesh there sleeps a
heart of gold." Therewith he crept softly to the
couch and bent above her, and in an instant he per-
ceived that her bosom did not rise and fall. He
gazed swiftly at the princess; she was watching him,
and their glances met. He dropped upon his knees
by the couch and felt about Solita's heart that he
might know whether it beat or not, and his fingers
touched the knob of Joceliande's bodkin. Gently he
drew the gown from Solita's bosom, and beheld how
that she had been slain. Then did he weep, believ-
ing that in truth she had killed herself, but the prin-
cess must needs touch him upon the shoulder.
"My lord," she said, "why weep for the handmaid
when the princess lives?"


THE PRINCESS JOCELIANDE. 283
might she win him to share her siege with her.
Therefore her love changed to a bitter fury, and
standing up forthwith she bade the nobles take their
swords and smite off the Sieur Rudel's head. But no
one so much as moved a hand towards his hilt. Then
spake Rudel again:
"O vile and treacherous," he cried, " who will obey
thee ?" and his eyes fell upon Solita where she lay
in her white beauty upon the golden pillow of her
hair. Thereupon he dropped again upon his knees
by the couch, and took her within his arms, kissing her
lips and her eyes, and bidding her wake; this with
many tears. But seeing she would not, but was dead
in very truth, he got him to his feet and turned to
where the princess stood like stone in the middle of
the chamber. "Now for thy sin," he cried, "a shame-
ful death shalt thou die and a painful, and may the
devil have thy soul!"
He bade the nobles depart from the chamber, and
following them the last, firmly barred the door upon
the outside. Thus was the Princess Joceliande left
alone with dead Solita, and ever she heard the closing
and barring of doors and the sound of feet growing
fainter and fainter. But no one came to her, loud
though she cried, and sorely was she afeard, gazing
now at the dead body, now wondering what manner
of death the Sieur Rudel planned for her. Then she
walked to the window if by any chance she might win
help that way, and saw the ships riding at their
anchorage with sails loose, and heard the songs of the
sailors as they made ready to cast free; and between
the coast and the castle were many men hurrying


A LIBERAL EDUCATION.
"So you couldn't wait!"
Mrs. Branscome turned full on the speaker as she
answered deliberately: "You have evidently not been
long in London, Mr. Hilton, or you would not ask
that question."
"I arrived yesterday evening."
"Quite so. Then will you forgive me one tiny
word of advice? You will learn the truth of it soon
by yourself; but I want to convince you at once of
the uselessness—to use no harder word—of trying to
revive a flirtation—let me see! yes, quite two years
old. You might as well galvanise a mummy and ex-
pect it to walk about. Besides," she added inconsis-
tently, " I had to marry and—and—you never came."
"Then you sent the locket!"
The word sent a shiver through Mrs. Branscome
with a remembrance of the desecration of a gift which
she had cherished as a holy thing. She clung to flip-
pancy as her defence.
"Oh, no! I never sent it. I lost it somewhere, I
think. Must you go?" she continued, as Hilton
moved silently to the door. "I expect my husband
in just now. Won't you wait and meet him?"
"How dare you?" Hilton burst out. "Is there
nothing of your true self left?"
*********


286 A LIBERAL EDUCATION.
David Hilton's education was as yet in its infancy.
This was not only his first visit to England, but, in-
deed, to any spot further afield than Interlaken. All
of his six-and-twenty years that he could recollect had
been passed in a chdlet on the Scheidegg above Grin-
delwald, his only companion an elderly recluse who
had deliberately cut himself off from communion with
his fellows. The trouble which had driven Mr.
Strange, an author at one time of some mark, into
this seclusion, was now as completely forgotten as his
name. Even David knew nothing of its cause. That
Strange was his uncle and had adopted him when left
an orphan at the age of six, was the sum of his infor-
mation. For although the pair had lived together for
twenty years, there had been little intercourse of
thought between them, and none of sentiment.
Strange had, indeed, throughout shut his nephew, not
merely from his heart, but also from his confidence, at
first out of sheer neglect, and afterwards, as the lad
grew towards manhood, from deliberate intent. For,
by continually brooding over his embittered life, he had
at last impregnated his weak nature with the savage
cynicism which embraced even his one comrade;
and the child he had originally chosen as a solace for
his loneliness, became in the end the victim of a heart-
less experiment. Strange's plan was based upon a
method of training. In the first place, he thoroughly
isolated David from any actual experience of
persons beyond the simple shepherd folk who attended
to their needs and a few Alpine guides who accom-
panied him on mountain expeditions. He kept inces-
sant guard over his own past life, letting no incidents


A LIBERAL EDUCATION. 291
The actual solution of his perplexities came by an
accident. Amongst the visitors who fell under Hil-
ton's observation at the Branscomes' was a certain Mr.
Marston, a complacent widower of some five-and-thirty
years, and Branscome's fellow servant at the Admi-
ralty. Hilton's attention was attracted to this man
by the air of embarrassment with which Mrs. Brans-
come received his approaches. Resolute to neglect
no clue, however slight, David sought Marston's com-
panionship, and, as a reward, discovered one afternoon
in a Crown Derby teacup on the mantel-shelf of the
latter's room his own present of two years back. The
exclamation which this discovery extorted aroused
Marston.
"What's up?"
"Where did you get this?"
"Why? Have you seen it before?"
The question pointed out to David the need of
wariness.
"No!" he answered. "Its shape rather struck me,
that's all. The emblem of a conquest, I sup-
pose?
The invitation stumbled awkwardly from unaccus-
tomed lips, but Marston noticed no more than the
words. He was chewing the cud of a disappointment
and answered with a short laugh:
"No! Rather of a rebuff. The lady tore her
hand away in a hurry—the link on the bracelet was
thin, I suppose. Anyway, that was left in my hand."
"You were proposing to her?"
"Well, hardly. I was married at the time."
There was a silence for some moments, during


A LIBERAL EDUCATION. 293
episode of which he had just heard was so mean and
petty in itself, and yet so far-reaching in its conse-
quences that it set his senses aflame in an increased
revolt against the order of the world. Marriage was
practically a necessity to a girl as unprotected as Kate
Alden ; he now acquiesced in that. But that it should
have been forced upon her by the vanity of a trivial
person like Marston, engaged in the pursuit of his
desires, sent a fever of repulsion through his veins.
He turned back to the door deluded by the notion
that it was his duty to render the occurrence impos-
sible of repetition. He was checked, however, by the
thought of Mrs. Branscome. The shame he felt hinted
the full force of degradation of which she must have
been conscious, and begot in him a strange feeling of
loyalty. Up till now the true meaning of chivalry had
been unknown to him. In consequence of his bring-
ing up he had been incapable of regarding faith in
persons as a working motive in one's life. Even the
first dawn of his passion had failed to teach him that;
all the confidence and trust which he gained thereby
being a mere reflection, from what he saw in Kate
Alden, of truth to him. It was necessary that he
should feel her trouble first and his poignant sense of
that now revealed to him, not merely the wantonness
of the perils women are compelled to run, but their
consequent sufferings and their endurance in suppress-
ing them.
A feverish impulse towards self-sacrifice sprang up
within him. He would bury the incident of that
afternoon as a dead thing—nay, more, for Mrs. Brans-
come's sake he would leave England and return to his


A LIBERAL EDUCATION. 295
David returned to town, though not without a lurking
sense of shame.
A few evenings after, he sought out Mrs. Branscome
at a dance. The blood rushed to her face when she
caught his figure, and as quickly ebbed away.
"So you have not gone, after all?" There was
something pitiful in her tone of reproach.
"No. What made you think I had?"
"Mr. Marston told me!"
"Did he tell you why?"
"I guessed that, and I thanked you in my heart."
David was disconcerted; the woman he saw corre-
sponded so ill with what he was schooling himself to
believe her. He sought to conceal his confusion, as
she had once done, and played a part. Like her, he
overplayed it.
"Well! I came to see London life, you know. It
makes a pretty comedy."
"Comedies end in tears at times."
"Even then common politeness makes us sit them
out. Can you spare me a dance?"
Mrs. Branscome pleaded fatigue, and barely sup-
pressed a sigh of relief as she noted. her husband's
approach. David followed her glance, and bent over
her, speaking hurriedly:—
"You said you knew why I went away; I want to
tell you why I came back."
"No! no!" she exclaimed. "It could be of no
use—of no help to either of us."
"I came back," he went on, ignoring her interrup-
tion, "merely to ask you one question. Will you


A LIBERAL EDUCATION. 297
finding this barren, came in the end to frankly devis-
ing schemes for their circumvention. Such inward
personal conflicts were, of necessity, strange to a man
dry-nursed on abstractions, and, after a night of ten-
sion, they tossed him up on the shores of the morning
broken in mind and irresolute for good or ill.
*********
Mrs. Branscome received him impassively at the ap-
pointed time. David saw that he was expected to
speak to the point, and a growing scorn for his own
insistence urged him to the same course. He plunged
abruptly into his subject and his manner showed him
in the rough, more particularly to himself.
"What I came back to ask you is just this. You
know—you must know—that I would have come,
whatever the consequence. Why did you not send
for me after, after?"
"Why did I not send for you?" Mrs. Branscome
took him up, repeating his words mechanically, as
though their meaning had not reached her. "You
don't mean that you never received my letter. Oh,
don't say that! It can't have miscarried, I registered
it."
"Then you did write?"
This confirmation of her fear drove a breach through
her composure.
"Of course, of course, I wrote," she cried. "You
doubt that? What can you think of me? Yes, I
wrote, and when no answer came, I fancied you had
forgotten me—that you had never really cared, and so
I—I married."
Her voice dried in her throat. The thought of this


300 A LIBERAL EDUCATION.
For a moment he stayed to watch her white figure,
outlined against the dusk of the room, and then gently
closed the door on her. The next morning David
left England, not, however, for Grindelwald. He
dreaded the morbid selfishness which grows from iso-
lation, and sought a finishing school in the companion-
ship of practical men.


THE TWENTY-KRONER STORY. 303
Three weeks later Helling called at Lincott's house
in Harley Street. Now, when hospital patients take
the trouble, after they have been discharged, to find
out the doctor's private address and call, it generally
means they have come to beg. Lincott, remembering
how Helling's simple courtesies had impressed him,
experienced an actual disappointment. He felt his
theories about the seafaring man begin to totter.
However, Helling was shown into the consulting-
room, and at the sight of him Lincott's disappointment
vanished. He did not start up, since manifestations
of surprise are amongst those things with which
doctors find it advisable to dispense, but he hooked a
chair forward with his foot.
"Now then, sit down! Chuck yourself about!
Sit down," said Lincott genially. "You look bad."
Helling, in fact, was gaunt with famine; his eyes
were sunk and dull; he was so thin that he seemed to
have grown in height.
"I had some trouble in finding a ship," he said;
and sitting down on the edge of the chair, twirled his
hat in some embarrassment.
"It is three weeks since you left the hospital?"
"Yes."
"You should have come here before," the surgeon
was moved to say.
"No," answered Helling. "I couldn't come before,
sir. You see, I had no ship. But I found one this
morning, and I start to-morrow."
"But for these three weeks? You have been starv-
ing." Lincott slipped his hand into his pocket. It
seemed to him afterwards simply providential that he


306 THE TWENTY-KRONER STORY.
pedestal stood a great silver vase, blazing its mag-
nificence across the room.
"You see that?" he asked.
"Yes," said Helling.
"It was given to me by a patient. It must have
cost at the least .£500."
Helling tapped the vase with his knuckles.
"Yes, sir, that's a present," he said enviously.
"That is a present."
Lincott laughed and threw up the window.
"You can pitch it out into the street if you like.
By the side of your coin it's muck."
Lincott keeps the coin. He points out that Helling
was fifty-three at the time that he gave him this pres-
ent, and that the operation was one which any prac-
titioner could have performed.


310 THE FIFTH PICTURE.
The lady's foot began to tap upon the carpet. Mr.
Dale stopped and leaned critically forward.
"Well! Why don't you go on?" she asked im-
patiently.
"It's pretty," he reflected aloud.
The foot disappeared demurely into the seclusion
of petticoats. "You exasperate me," she remarked.
But her face hardly guaranteed her words. "We
were speaking of ties."
"Ah, the tie wasn't pretty. It was of satin, bright
yellow with blue spots. And an idea struck me; yes,
an idea! Sir John's election colours are yellow, his
opponent's blue. So I thought the tie would make a
tactful present, symbolical (do you see?) of the state
of the parties in the constituency."
He paused a second time.
"Well?"
"I went in and bought it."
"Well?"
"Julian Fairholm sold if to me."
Lady Tamworth stared at the speaker in pure per-
plexity. Then all at once she understood and the
blood eddied into her cheeks. "I don't believe it!"
she exclaimed.
"His face would be difficult to mistake," Mr. Dale
objected. "Besides I had time to assure myself, for I
had to wait my turn. When I entered the shop, he
was serving a woman with baby-linen. Oh yes!
Julian Fairholm sold me the tie."
Lady Tamworth kept her eyes upon the ground.
Then she looked up. She struck the arm of her chair
with her closed fist and cried in a quick petulance,
"How dare he?"


THE FIFTH PICTURE. 311
"Exactly what I thought," answered her com-
panion smoothly. "The colours were crude by them-
selves, the combination was detestable. And he an
artist too!" Mr. Dale laughed pleasantly.
"Did he speak to you?"
"He asked me whether I would take a packet of
pins instead of a farthing."
"Ah, don't," she entreated, and rose from her chair.
It might have been her own degradation of which Mr.
Dale was speaking.
"By the way," he added, "I was so taken aback
that I forgot to present the tie. Would you?"
"No! No !" she said decisively and turned away.
But a sudden notion checked her. "On second
thoughts I will; but I can't promise to make him
wear it."
The smile which sped the words flickered strangely
upon quivering lips and her eyes shone with anger.
However the tie changed hands, and Lady Tamworth
tripped down stairs and stepped into her brougham.
The packet lay upon her lap and she unfolded it. A
round ticket was enclosed, and the bill. On the ticket
was printed,^ Present from Zedediah Moss. With a
convulsion of disgust she swept the parcel on to the
floor. "How dare he?" she cried again, and her
thoughts flew back to the brief period of their engage-
ment. She had been just Kitty Arlton in those days,
the daughter of a poor sea-captain but dowered with
the compensating grace of personal attractions. Prov-
idence had indisputably designed her for the estab-
lishment of the family fortunes; such at all events
was the family creed, and the girl herself felt no in-


312 THE FIFTH PICTURE.
clination to doubt a faith which was backed by the
evidence of her looking-glass. Julian Fairholm at
that time shared a studio with her brother, and the ac-
quaintance thus begun ripened into an attachment
and ended in a betrothal. For Julian, in the common
prediction, possessed that vague blessing, a future.
It is true the common prediction was always pro-
tected by a saving clause: "If he could struggle free
from his mysticism." But none the less his pictures
were beginning to sell, and the family displayed a
moderate content. The discomposing appearance of
Sir John Tamworth, however, gave a different com-
plexion to the matter. Sir John was rich, and had
besides the confident pertinacity of success. In a
word, Kitty Arlton married Sir John.
Lady Tamworth's recollections of the episode were
characteristically vague; they came back to her in
pieces like disconnected sections of a wooden puzzle.
She remembered that she had written an exquisitely
pathetic letter to Fairholm "when the end came," as
she expressed it; and she recalled queer scraps of the
artist's talk about the danger of forming ties. "New
ties," he would say, "mean new duties, and they
hamper and clog the will." Ah yes, the will; he was
always holding forth about that and here was the
lecture finally exemplified! He was selling baby-
linen in the Mile-End road. She had borne her dis-
appointment, she reflected, without any talk about
will. The thought of her self-sacrifice even now
brought the tears to her eyes; she saw herself wearing
her orange-blossoms in the spirit of an Iphigeneia.
Sections of the puzzle, however, were missing to


THE FIFTH PICTURE. 315
The footman came to the carriage door, disdain
perceptibly struggling through his mask of impas-
sivity.
"Why is the shop closed?" Lady Tamworth
asked.
"The name, perhaps, my lady," he suggested.
"It is Friday."
Lady Tamworth had forgotten the day. "Very
well," she said sullenly. "Home at once!" How-
ever, she corrected herself adroitly: "I mean, of
course, fetch Sir John first."
Sir John was duly fetched and carried home jubi-
lant at so rare an attention. The tie was presented
to him on the way, and he bellowed his merriment at
its shape and colour. To her surprise Lady Tam-
worth found herself defending the style, and inveigh-
ing against the monotony of the fashions of the West
End. Nor was this the only occasion on which she
disagreed with her husband that evening. He launched
an aphorism across the dinner-table which he had
cogitated from the report of a divorce-suit in the
evening papers. "It is a strange thing," he said,
"that the woman who knows her influence over a man
usually employs it to hurt him; the woman who
doesn't, employs it unconsciously for his good."
"You don't mean that?" she asked earnestly.
"I have noticed it more than once," he replied.
For a moment Lady Tamworth's chivalric edifice
showed cracks and rents; it threatened to crumble
like a house of cards; but only for a moment. For
she merely considered the remark in reference to the
future; she applied it to her present wish to exercise


316 THE FIFTH PICTURE.
an influence over Julian. The issue of that, however,
lay still in the dark, and was consequently imaginable
as inclination prompted. A glance at Sir Julian
sufficed to finally reassure her. He was rosy and
modern, and so plainly incapable of appreciating chiv-
alric impulses. To estimate them rightly one must
have an insight into their nature, and therefore an
actual experience of their fire; but such fire left
traces on the person. Chivalric people were hollow-
cheeked with luminous eyes; at least chivalric men
were hollow-cheeked, she corrected herself with a
look at the mirror. At all events Sir John and his
aphorism were beneath serious reflection; and she
determined to repeat her journey upon the first
opportunity.
The opportunity, however, was delayed for a week
and occasioned Lady Tamworth no small amount of
self-pity. Here was noble work waiting for her hand,
and duty kept her chained to the social oar!
On the afternoon, then, of the following Friday
she dressed with what even for her was unusual care,
aiming at a complex effect of daintiness and severity,
and drove down in a hansom to Whitechapel. She
stopped the cab some yards from the shop and walked
up to the window. Through the glass she could see
Julian standing behind the counter. His hands (she
noticed them particularly because he was displaying
some cheap skeins of coloured wool) seemed perhaps
a trifle thinner and more nervous, his features a little
sharpened, and there was a sprinkling of grey in the
black of his hair. For the first time since the con-
ception of her scheme Lady Tamworth experienced


THE FIFTH PICTURE. 319
was drawing out one of the shelves in the wall behind
him.
"No, no!" she exclaimed, " not here ; I can't speak
to you here. Come and call on me; what day will
you come?"
Julian shook his head. "Not at all, I am afraid.
I have not the time."
A boy came out from the inner room and began to
get ready the shutters. "Ah, it's Friday," she said.
"You will be closing soon."
"In five minutes."
"Then I will wait for you. Yes, I will wait for
you."
She paused at the door and looked at Julian. He
was deferentially waiting on his customer, and Lady
Tamworth noticed with a queer feeling of repugnance
that he had even acquired the shopman's trick of rub-
bing the hands. Those five minutes proved for her
a most unenviable period. Julian's sentence,—" I
owe it all to you "—pressed heavily upon her con-
science. Spoken bitterly, she would have given little
heed to it; but there had been a convincing sincerity
in the ring of his voice. The words, besides, brought
back to her Sir John's uncomfortable aphorism and
freighted it with an accusation. She applied it now
as a search-light upon her jumbled recollections ol
Julian's courtship, and began to realise that her efforts
during that time had been directed thoughtlessly to-
wards enlarging her influence over him. If, indeed,
Julian owed this change in his condition to her, then
Sir John was right, and she had employed her influ-
ence to his hurt. And it onlv made her fault the


322 THE FIFTH PICTURE.
old days thoughts and ideas commenced to make them-
selves felt in me, to crop up in my work. I would
start on a picture with a clear settled design; when it
was finished, I would notice that by some unconscious
freak I had introduced a figure, an arabesque, always
something which made the whole incongruous and
bizarre. I discovered the cause during the week after
I received your last letter. The thoughts, the ideas
were yours; better than mine perhaps, but none the
less death to me."
Lady Tamworth stirred uneasily under a sense of
guilt, and murmured a faint objection. Julian shook
off the occupation of his theme and handed her some
cake, and began again, standing over her with the
cake in his hand, and to all seeming unconscious that
there was a strain of cruelty in his words. "I found
out what that meant. My emotions were mastering
me, drowning the will in me. You see, I cared for
you so much—then."
A frank contempt stressing the last word cut into
his hearer with the keenness of a knife. "You are
unkind," she said weakly.
"There's no reproach to you. I have got over it
long ago," he replied cheerily. "And you showed
me how to get over it; that's why I am grateful.
For I began to wonder after that, why I, who had
always been on my guard against the emotions, should
become so thoroughly their slave. And at last I
found out the reason; it was the work I was doing."
"Your work?" she exclaimed.
"Exactly! You remember what Plato remarked
about the actor?"


324 THE FIFTH PICTURE.
And do you know," he sank his voice yet lower, " I
hear them at times; very faintly of course,—their
songs have so far to travel; but I hear them,—yes, I
hear the stars."
Lady Tamworth rose in a whirl of alarm. Before
this crazy exaltation, her very desire to pursue her
purpose vanished. For Julian's manner even more
than his words contributed to her fears. In spite of
his homily, emotion was dominant in his expression,
swaying his body, burning on his face and lighting his
eyes with a fire of changing colours. And every note
in his voice was struck within the scale of passion.
She glanced about the room; her eyes fell on the
easel. "Don't you ever paint?" she asked hurriedly.
He dropped his head and stood shifting from one
foot to the other, as if he was ashamed. "At times,"
he said hesitatingly; "at times I have to,—I can't
help it,—I have to express myself. Look!" He
stepped suddenly across the room and slid the cur-
tains back along the rail. The wall was frescoed from
floor to ceiling.
"Julian!" Lady Tamworth cried. She forgot all
her fears in face of this splendid revelation of his skill.
Here was the fulfilment of his promise.
In the centre four pictures were ranged, the stages
in the progress of an allegory, but executed with such
masterful craft and of so vivid an intention that they
read their message straightway into the heart of
one's understanding. Round about this group, were
smaller sketches, miniatures of pure fancy. It seemed
as if the artist had sought relief in painting these from
the pressure of his chief design. Here, for instance,


326 THE FIFTH PICTURE.
with contempt. Above the sky had brightened with
the gleam of stars; and underneath was written,
"They know each other." In the fourth, the white
figure pressed on ahead and dragged the other by the
chain impatiently. Before them the sun was rising
over the edge of a heath and the road ran straight
towards it in a golden line; and underneath was writ-
ten, " He knoweth his burden."
Lady Tamworth waited when he had finished,
in a laughing expectancy. "And is that all?" she
asked. "Is that all?"
"No," he replied slowly; "there is yet a further
stage. It is unfinished." And he pointed to the
easel.
"I don't mean that. Is that all you have to say
of these?"
"I think so. Yes."
"Look at me!"
Julian turned wonderingly to Lady Tamworth.
She watched him with a dancing sparkle of her eyes.
"Now look at the pictures!" Julian obeyed her.
"Well," she said after a pause, with a touch of
anxiety. "What do you see now?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?" she asked. "Do you mean that?"
"Yes! What should I see?" She caught him by
the arm and stared intently into his eyes in a horror
of disbelief. He met her gaze with a frank astonish-
ment. She dropped his arm and turned away.
"What should I see?" he repeated.
"Nothing," she echoed with a quivering sadness in
her voice. "It is late, I must go,"


THE FIFTH PICTURE. 327
The white figure in each of those four pictures wore
her face, idealised and illumined, but still unmistak-
ably her face; and he did not know it, could not per-
ceive it though she stood by his side! The futility of
her errand was proved to her. She drew on her gloves
and looking towards the easel inquired dully, "What
stage is that?"
"The last; and it is the last picture I shall paint.
As soon as it is completed I shall leave here."
"You will leave?" she asked, paying little heed to
his words.
"Yes! The experiment has not succeeded," and
he waved a hand towards the wall. "I shall take
better means next time."
"How much remains to be done?" Lady Tam-
worth stepped over to the easel. With a quick spring
Julian placed himself in front of it.
"No!" he cried vehemently, raising a hand to warn
her off. "No!"
Lady Tamworth's curiosity began to reawaken.
"You have shown me the rest."
"I know; you had a right to see them."
"Then why not that?"
"I have told you," he said stubbornly. "It is not
finished."
"But when it is finished?" she insisted.
Julian looked at her strangely. "Well, why not?"
he said reasoning with himself. "Why not? It is
the masterpiece."
"You will let me know when it's ready?"
"I will send it to you; for I shall leave here the
day I finish it."


328 THE FIFTH PICTURE.
They went down stairs and back into the Mile-End
road. Julian hailed a passing hansom, and Lady Tam-
worth drove westwards to Berkeley Square.
The fifth picture arrived a week later in the dusk of
the afternoon. Lady Tamworth unpacked it herself
with an odd foreboding.
It represented an orchard glowing in the noontide
sun. From the branches of a tree with lolling tongue
and swollen twisted face swung the figure which had
grovelled before the god. A broken chain dangled on
its wrist, a few links of the chain lay on the grass be-
neath, and above the white figure winged and trium-
phant faded into the blue of the sky; and underneath
was written, "He freeth himself from his burden."
Lady Tamworth rushed to the bell and pealed loudly
for her maid. "Quick !" she cried, "I am going
out." But the shrill screech of a newsboy pierced in-
to the room. With a cry she flung open the window.
She could hear his voice plainly at the corner of the
square. For a while she clung to the sash in a dumb
sickness. Then she said quietly: "Never mind!
I will not go out after all! I did not know I was so
late."





· · ·