NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES
3 3433 082170311
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7 Fiction, Amenican
umwca
12

NEW-YO
Αδήναι
ORK
Norce
teip-
Acum
LIBRA
UM
SOCIETY
& Gallaudef.Sc
1758





BEYOND THE SKYLINE





BEYOND
THE SKYLINE
BY ROBERT AITKEN
“There is a world outside the one you know,
To which for curiousness 'Ell can't compare."
WILFUL-MISSING.
B. W. HUEBSCH
NEW YORK
1909


THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
173255B
ASTOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
R 1940 L
OPERTIES
E PROPEA
OCIETY USB


I am indebted to the Editor of The Idler for
permission to republish "The Black Sergeant,"
and to the Editor of Macmillan's Magazine for a
like courtesy in connection with "A Second-class
District."
A number of the other sketches herein have
also appeared in English and American magazines,
but in their cases copyright was reserved.
Robert Aitken.
Authors' Club,
London, 1908.





V
i


THE LITTLE SISTER TULA 3
but garrisoned by the Government because of its
surroundings.
A bishop blessed her before she went, but, not-
withstanding, she trembled with terror as the
train sped northwards, thinking covetously of
the safe shelter behind her in the convent on the
coast whence she had set forth shrinkingly upon
this her first essay into the lawless country she
had sworn to serve.
Not until she and her stores had been shot
forth at the railway depot which shares with the
river the doubtful honour of dealing with the
traffic of San Javier, did she dare to assume the
authority vested in her by virtue of her new
office. But there a difficulty cropped up and had
to be overcome: San Javier lay thirty miles
away across the mountains, and means of transit
there were none.
She threw back the hood under which she had
been hiding her beauty from the bold glances of
the young officers, her fellow-travellers, on the
troop-train, invaded the solitary cabin into which
the indifferent individual in charge of the station
had retired on the departure of the long line of
trucks behind their carefully crawling engine, and
demanded of him transport for herself and her
precious packages.
He spoke to her soothingly, and did nothing,
although she laid before him urgent orders, signed
and countersigned by his superiors.
"What would you?" he said, and shrugged
his shoulders, so that he did not hear the sound
of wheels without. "I myself am neither ox


4 THE PASSING OF
nor ass, and, excepting a few dogs, there is no
four-footed animal procurable: the insurgents
have already laid waste the land."
"In that thou liest, direct descendant of the
pariah!" a voice volunteered from the doorway,
and he faced about with speed, to find a big,
black-bearded man looking down upon him in
suchwise that he shrank visibly.
That personage did not condescend to notice
him further at the moment, but turned to the
shaking Sister.
"I have without," he said courteously, "a
carriage and four horses, as also a cart of the
most capacious. These, seftorita, are at your
service."
"God guard you, sir!" replied the Little Sister
Tula in her halting Spanish. "If you will take
me even a little way towards San Javier, I shall
be very grateful."
His hot eyes held hers for an instant until she
looked away, flushing furiously. He smiled, and
spoke again:
"All the way—and welcome," said he, while the
station-master stared, smitten with an astonish-
ment beyond words.
A curt command sent that worthy flying to help
in the loading-up of the heavy packing-cases lying
about the platform. These safely deposited in
the high-wheeled cart, the providential stranger
installed the Sister within his own conveyance,
and, entrusting her with the reins, returned to
the station-house, where he cut all communication
with the outer world by the simple expedient


THE LITTLE SISTER TULA 5
of smashing the telegraph-sounder. The faint-
hearted guardian of such mysteries made no
difficulty about handing over to him the spare
instrument which lay in the safe, whereafter it
was quite impossible to spread the alarming
intelligence that the hospital equipment and staff
destined for San Javier had been carried off into
the unknown and without demur by that most
notorious evil-doer Gil Navarro, commonly called
El Carancho, the Carrion-Hawk.
After their departure, however, it occurred to
the unfortunate official that he might manage
to delay the next troop-train for long enough to
send its engine south with dispatches which
should greatly redound to his own credit, and he
was only prevented from carrying out this praise-
worthy project by the unfortunate fact that the
line was then in process of being cut, both north
and south of his position, by the insurgent forces,
so that no more trains might be expected in the
meantime.
Pacing up and down his deserted platform in
great perturbation of spirit, he saw at a distance
a person unknown approaching, per rail, on foot,
and hid himself hastily within his now futile
office, whence he was extracted by the newcomer
with some difficulty and an iron-shod sprag.
Under direct pressure on the part of this master-
ful malignant he told his pitiful story, and, stung
by the stranger's harsh criticism of his conduct,
wept tears of rage, which availed him still less
than did the long knife wherewith he sought to
silence his unduly candid visitor. He was still


THE LITTLE SISTER TULA 7
"You desire to take service with us?" asked
El Carancho, cocking the revolver he had drawn
from his belt.
"Quite so," Eccles agreed without moving a
muscle.
"'Sta bueno," said the Carrion-Hawk. "I
accept your offer. But, look you, Mister the
Englishman, I have here two hungry dogs,"—he
whistled shrilly and a couple of ugly bloodhounds
ran baying from the wood behind. "You see
them?" he inquired solicitously.
"I see them," answered Eccles, in no wise pre-
possessed, but outwardly indifferent.
"These I feed on the flesh of traitors," the
Carrion-Hawk explained in a grating voice, as
they sniffed about the stranger's calves with a
horrid, eager growling.
"The idea," said Eccles, "is excellent. I
wish you'd lend me a match—I've finished all
mine."
He was given a box of matches and a bandolier,
bidden to provide himself with a rifle from the
first of those who should fall at his side, within
the long trench skirting a clump of trees that
looked over at San Javier, where he was presently
installed, and left to study at his leisure the art
and practice of revolution.
The St. Xavierines were making good shooting,
and he was soon able to possess himself of the
tools of his new trade. The trench was shallow,
and more than one stray bullet found a quivering
billet before he had been an hour at the business.
The mortally wounded were afforded the coup de


8
THE PASSING OF
grace by a blood-bespattered cut-throat who crept
about the background with a knife in his teeth.
Such as were less seriously shattered spent their
strength in keeping out of this individual's way,
and sometimes succeeded in doing so.
Eccles, firing ineffectually at frequent intervals,
found time between shots to exchange ideas with
those about him. He spoke execrable Spanish,
and laughed loudly at his own mistakes. The
spit of the bullets that were searching for his
body he did not appear to notice, and, when
the firing died down at nightfall, he found himself
surprisingly popular among his less cheerful
comrades, who bade against each other for his
company at their camp-fires, so that he was able
to wander about at will. But, for all his cunning,
he could find no trace of the woman who had
been carried off by El Carancho.
The Little Sister Tula knew nothing of the great
danger from which she had been delivered, along
with her precious packages, almost at the gates
of San Javier, and the Intendente's daughter, who
came forth to receive her there after her escort
had hurriedly driven off, did not think fit to
express any opinion upon the proceedings of
one who had, on the present occasion, proved
himself a friend in need. The Intendente himself,
however, shook his white head when he heard
her story, and let fall stray sentences which
might have enlightened her had she been less
preoccupied.
"A black beard, pointed—and a scar across his
face: eyes that burn with all the fires; a stiffness


THE LITTLE SISTER TULA 9
of one shoulder. You cannot be aware, my
Sister And yet he brought you here in
safety, that infamous!"
Peering blindly into her face, he saw that she
was beautiful, and turned away to hide the doubt
which, despite himself, would look forth from his
eyes. That Gil Navarro, the Carrion-Hawk, had,
of his own free will, passed this woman through
his lines unscathed, he found it difficult to
believe.
He bade his daughter deal delicately with her
in the meantime, and withdrew to talk things
over with his friend the commandant. But the
black-eyed Maruja was already enamoured of
her new friend, and went about the village with
her very willingly.
San Javier is not and never will be a nice place.
The Little Sister Tula returned from her tour
of inspection unprepossessed by the appearance
of its single square, its one long street, its solitary
spare building. The last of these had been
offered her as an asylum for her stores, but she
was not as yet sufficiently imbued with the
broad-mindedness of her adopted compatriots to
turn a church into a warehouse of her own free
will.
"Pero, mira, che," said the Miss Maruja de-
spondently in answer to her objections. "But,
look you, dear, how they are more mules than
men, these villagers! It does not please them
that the soldiers have been sent us, and they
obstinate themselves against helping in any way.
—All the houses are full, whereas the church


io THE PASSING OF
is empty, and the cura, who was also loyal,
deceased by the hand of the Hawk. It is the
custom of the country to make use of its
sacred edifices for the succouring of the stricken,
and, as you will understand, we have here no
choice. They are more mules than men, these
villagers, and very vicious when one stirs them
up."
"How many soldiers are there?" asked the
Little Sister, and her cicerone answered swiftly,
apparently pleased with the subject:
"One company of the Line, commanded by
the Mr. Captain O'Connor, a cavalier of over-
whelming courage, who—who has also made
pretension to my father that he may petition me
the hand."
"May you both be happy," said the Little
Sister heartily. "And now, let us leave the
church door open to the air until I can make
arrangements to have it cleaned and the beds
brought in."
"But beds there are not," Maruja explained
mournfully. "A sheep-skin on the floor for each
poor fellow who may come to us is all the
possible. Even of blankets I cannot promise you
more than my own."
The Little Sister Tula bit her lip and frowned
faintly, tapping the tessellated pavement with the
toe of a heelless slipper.
"I should like," said she, "to see the Mr.
Captain O'Connor. He, perhaps, may be able
to help us."
No suggestion more pleasing to her companion


THE LITTLE SISTER TULA . u
could she have put forward, and that capable
guide led her to the trenches forthwith. There
they discovered the object of their quest deep in
discussion with the aged Intendente, and the two
men came forward courteously to hear their
appeal.
The officer commanding the troops, a dashing
youth of far-off Irish extraction, promised a
fatigue party. The Intendente also agreed, at
his instigation, to commandeer whatever comforts
might be obtainable from his sulky charges under
such coercion, and thus encouraged they went
away again to purchase pails and scrubbing-
brushes for the cleansing of the church.
As soon as they were out of earshot the
younger man turned towards his companion and
spoke volubly. The Intendente, fumbling with a
soiled and crumpled envelope, nodded emphati-
cally from time to time.
"For my part," said the Mr. Captain O'Connor
firmly, " I will not consent to any treaty with the
rebels. That which this fellow Navarro requires
of you is an insult to myself, and will be wiped
out with his own blood. Let him give battle as
he threatens—I am here for that purpose—but I
will never comply with his insolent demand."
The Mr. Captain O'Connor stamped thrice
upon his earthen battlements with a high-heeled
patent-leather boot of doubtful" durability, and
assumed an expression of extreme determination.
The Intendente wondered vaguely whether it
would have made any difference had the Little
Sister Tula appeared as an old woman and


12 ♦ THE PASSING OF
wrinkled, but soon dismissed such unprofitable
speculation from his mind, turning his attention
once more to the missive in his hand:
"' Send me back the Sister of the Poor whom I
delivered at your doors this morning!" be read
aloud for the eleventh time. "'/ have need of
her, and you will have none unless you dare to
disobey me.'"
"The dog!" he said slowly.
When word went forth to the villagers that
Gil Navarro had delivered an ultimatum, the
which had been refused, and that he would
therefore attack San Javier within the hour, they
beat upon their breasts, calling down curses.
They could not conceive why their blood-brother,
the bandit, who had harried half the Republic
without molesting them, should all at once decide
to make war on a harmless folk who had also
helped him under the rose. But they ran to the
trenches, and dug desperately at deepening them
against the coming of the Carrion-Hawk.
A few of the women also volunteered their
services within the now soapy church, and of
these the Little Sister Tula availed herself gladly.
The echoes of the enemy's first volley had not
yet died away when a great Red Cross flag
floated out upon the breeze above the building,
affording the Carancho's marksmen an excellent
opportunity of getting their range before com-
mencing proceedings in earnest.
It would seem that Gil Navarro, who feared
neither God nor man, had already repented
himself of the impulse which had induced him


THE LITTLE SISTER TULA 13
to carry his innocent charge uninjured to her
destination. He had also made up his mind to
have her back, and offered San Javier its safety
as the price of her.
The message that the Intendente sent back
to him set his terrible temper ablaze, and cost
the ill-fated messenger his life. Then the church
bell began to toll drunkenly as the bullets
spat themselves flat against it. The siege was
set.
It had been in active progress for several
hours before Anthony Eccles turned up to take
part in it, but none of the Carancho's evil
crew could afford the newcomer any information
as to its object. The taking of the town would
not in itself repay the trouble that would cost
them; but there could be no doubt, they asse-
verated with oaths, that such matters were best
left in the hands of their leader, who was
notoriously capable of attending to his own
affairs.
The hint was not thrown away, and the
Englishman curbed his curiosity until he again
encountered the great man himself. Of that
saturnine sentimentalist he made bold but un-
availing inquiry, and went back to his burrow
among the leaves determined to invade the village
on his own account at the earliest opportunity.
For that he had not long to wait. Gil Navarro
called him up from his place in the trenches on
the next morning, and, having led him apart,
spoke subtly, thus:
"Sir," said he, with the air of one who confers


14 THE PASSING OF
a favour, "I have need of a man of nerve—to
make for me a mission of great importance."
Eccles bowed. "I myself am such a man," he
answered modestly.
The Carancho eyed him approvingly, and
almost repented him of his purpose. But Eccles
alone of all his followers had not been present
at the murder of the unfortunate messenger from
San Javier, and might therefore be trusted to
play the part required of him.
"Will you walk up to the walls of that fore-
damned village, under a white flag, and tell the
Intendente that I repeat my offer for the last
time ?" the outlaw asked; "and tell him also that
if he refuse it I shall surely keep my dogs from
food till I march in, giving no quarter."
"I will," answered Eccles the Englishman with
great outward composure.
"Then go—with God," said the insurgent
leader, in the idiom that is used indifferently to
speed the parting guest. "I shall stop the firing
for a space."
Some little difficulty was experienced in pro-
viding the envoy with a banner of reasonable
whiteness, but Eccles obligingly sacrificed his
own and only shirt for the purpose, and, with
that a-flutter on a broken lance-staff, set out upon
his perilous enterprise to the accompaniment of
much covert laughter on the part of his comrades.
A long-range shot from the village sang past
him, and he halted for a moment to wave his
emblem of peace and goodwill. He also took
the opportunity to light a cigarette.


THE LITTLE SISTER TULA 15
The troops in the Government trenches saw
him coming, and, grateful for the temporary lull
in the attack, held their own fire for the time
being. In the distance, the Carrion-Hawk, a pair
of Zeiss glasses glued to his eyes, observed his
progress anxiously.
It was really a matter of moment to that
worthy that he should attain his object without
delay. He and his men were needed elsewhere.
The sacking of San Javier would earn him
reprobation rather than praise from the revolu-
tionary Junta. But, " Dead or alive she shall be
mine!" said Gil Navarro to himself, and swore
sulphurously as he heard the hot fire that had
been reopened on his luckless emissary.
Eccles fell forward upon his face and lay prone
for a moment, staggered to his feet, stumbled,
struggled forward again, and falling finally, rose
no more.
El Carancho's teeth met through his lower lip,
and he strode along his lines spitting crimsonly.
"Make fire again, my sons," he ordered, in his
most terrible voice. "We have lost a good man,
and those pigs must pay for him!"
As long as daylight lasted he wandered up and
down like a man distraught; but his brain was
busy, and, when the time came, he dispatched
a party of picked men into the darkness with
orders to effect an entrance into the village at all
costs. While those were at their work, he himself
set out with others, and made a bold attempt to
achieve his purpose in person, only withdrawing
after a notable encounter, in the course of which


16 THE PASSING OF
San Javier lost its military head and not a few
of its civilian members.
The feint attack was also worsted, with con-
siderable loss to both sides, and without having
been able to accomplish its object. It had, how-
ever, and according to its own account, made
mincemeat of the Intendente. El Carancho
declared himself well satisfied with the night's
work, and, having commanded that a couple of
oxen should be roasted in their hides, bade his
dependents eat, drink, and be merry during a
brief armistice. He himself lay down at a dis-
tance under the shelter of the trees to nurse
a wounded arm and make fresh plans for the
morrow. Upon a branch above him he hung
the head that had once graced the shoulders of
the Mr. Captain O'Connor.
While these events were in progress Anthony
Eccles was lying at all his length in a canvas
stretcher on a shambling table once cleanly
scrubbed but now indelibly stained, within the
church of San Javier. Two vessels full of liquid
fat, wherein floated some feebly flaming strands of
cotton, cast an uncertain light on his face. The
smoke-thick air was alive with groans and curses.
A woman bending over him placed a reluctant
hand upon his heart.
"He does not die yet, this bandit they have
brought us," she remarked to a companion busy
behind her.
The wounded man opened his eyes very widely
and winked. The Miss Maruja started back in
alarm and turned towards the Little Sister Tula.


i8 THE PASSING OF
wounded without pity, clamouring for the carcase
of the English Sister that they might send it out
to the Carancho forthwith, and so save their own
skins.
They ransacked every corner of the church,
without result, and, when Eccles saw that neither
of the women was there, he broke back through
them, his eyes blazing madly. But he knew that
nothing he could do would stay them in their
purpose, and ran tremblingly towards the trenches
in the hope of securing from the soldiery she
had been sent to serve, protection for the Little
Sister.
One o'clock clanged from the belfry behind
him as he raced down the long street that led
to the earthen ramparts. He could hear loud
laughter ahead, and saw little lights where the
watchers were striking matches. But all hope
died in his heart as he learned, from the first
ragged ruffian he chanced across, the motive of
their untimely mirth.
"There is no need, senor," said that hero, " to
trouble about the Sister. She has already be-
taken herself out of harm's way—from us."
"Whither?" asked Eccles hoarsely, a horrible
pain at his throat.
"She crossed over to the Carancho's camp," the
linesman answered, "a good half-hour ago."
The Little Sister Tula, once Gertrude Ffrench,
the daughter of a God-fearing Irish family which
has always prided itself on its Catholicism, was
greatly given to self-sacrifice. Eccles, the Pro-
testant, had tried for long to teach her that love


THE LITTLE SISTER TULA 19
is—or should be—stronger than fear, but, her
spiritual advisers having got wind of his con-
tention and contradicted it root and branch, she
had meekly consented to be shipped abroad,
beyond reach of his reasoning.
The Foreign Legion of her Church had been
only too pleased to enlist a Ffrench, and, after
the gates of the far-off convent had closed behind
her, she had felt finally safe within the fold. But
she did not yet know the wolf-like nature of man,
as exemplified in Anthony Eccles.
The shock of seeing him again so suddenly, in
such surroundings, had been too much for her,
and, when she came to herself, she could by no
means recall the more immediate past. She
was lying, half dressed, on a bare bed within a
darkened room. The silence without was broken
by occasional outbursts of tumult. She could hear
harsh voices howling her name, and, listening
intently, learned from these the fate in store for
herself.
She shrank back, shuddering, and closed her
eyes again for a space.
The Miss Maruja came in carrying a candle, her
face full of impotent anguish. To her the Sister
spoke swiftly, with white lips.
"I will go," she said, "if that is the price
which must be paid for the safety of San
Javier. Give me my gown and hood, and I
will go."
The Miss Maruja sat down by the bedside.
"Listen, Little Sister," said she. "There are
two horses standing saddled without the gate.


20
THE PASSING OF
Such clothes as will serve you best are in the
next room. Go-if you must-and take the horses
with you-you may need them both. But first
drink this."
She gave her a soothing draught and stayed
beside her for a brief space without further
speech.
But time pressed, and a little later the Sister
stepped out into the street in front of the
Intendente's house, and, slipping quietly away
through the gloom, set forth, afoot, for the
enemy's camp.
"I shall need no horses," she said to herself,
and was seized of a cold, sick shivering.
"Send her in here to me," said the Carancho
from his couch among the trees when he was
told that she had surrendered. “And, look you
-keep well without the wood till daybreak.-
Come hither, little Little Sister, and bind me up
this arm of mine, that I may- "
The woman, who had been waiting with bowed
head to learn his pleasure, stepped forward among
the shadows. The men who had brought her in
turned back to their fires in the open, laughing
carelessly at jests that scorched her soul as she
heard them.
“This way," cried the Carrion-Hawk, raising
himself again on his elbow as the approaching
footsteps faltered. “Beware of that bough-it
bears but unsightly fruit."
She shrank aside and hurried past the horror
she had found in front of her. The Hawk held
out his arms, and, as she fell on her knees before


THE LITTLE SISTER TULA 21
him without a word, the long keen knife at her
garter pricked her ankle.
Gil Navarro, with only the hilt of the knife,
hard pressed, to hold in his black heart's blood
until he had seen shot down the Sister who had
slain him, died as does a mad dog, making dreadful
outcry. And while his now leaderless comrades
were spurring, wild-eyed and afraid, away from
the grisly echoes that came from within the wood,
the two starved dogs left tethered beside him fell
grimly silent.
Anthony Eccles, too late to save her, saw from
afar, as he ran frenziedly towards the great fire
which had been built up there, the slight black
figure standing stiffly against a tree, facing the
muzzles of many rifles.
A crackling volley rang out on the night, and
he too fell forward upon his face.
It was still dark when he recovered conscious-
ness, and pursuing his way in sore agony of
mind found the camp deserted.
He turned his tired feet towards the fatal tree,
and, seeing dimly under it what he was seeking,
sat there beside the shattered body till day
broke.
Then he rose, picked a shovel out of the
nearest trench, and set himself to dig deeply.
Stooping to dislodge a stone entangled in the
thick roots, he heard footsteps above him, and,
rising hurriedly, was aware of the dead girl's
living face peering down upon him. He sprang
up out of the earth, his eyes full of anguish, and


22 THE LITTLE SISTER TULA
halted, shaking speechlessly, on the edge of the
pit he had dug.
Over against him stood a slim boy, booted and
spurred for travel, who also stared, without
speaking. A little way off two saddled horses
were cropping the trampled grass, breathing
steamily in the still cold of dawn.
The boy's lips trembled. "Tony!" he said
suddenly, in a dry, tense whisper, holding out
both his hands.
They turned over with reverent care the poor
corpse, still lying, face downwards, where it had
fallen. The folds of the crushed white hood
dropped back, and Anthony Eccles groaned
aloud as he looked into the wide, unseeing eyes
of the Miss Maruja.
He buried her there, with the head of the
Mr. Captain O'Connor in her clasped hands,
and, leaving the dead Carancho's dogs still mum-
bling some shapeless horror within the wood,
rode for the frontier beside the boy who was once
Gertrude Ffrench, then the Little Sister Tula.
The stone stands by itself within a clump of
trees that looks over at San Javier, and many
pious pilgrims besides myself have studied its
inscription blinkingly. But only we three—Eccles,
his wife and I—know who lies underneath it.


RIGHINN
WADDEL was the man's name-Peter Waddel-
but he called himself Wåddēll, and was often
annoyed in that other people failed to accent
his cognomen accordingly.
He was quite unusually rich-even in aspir-
ates, plebeian in person, and vastly vulgar.
Many women, especially those with unmarried
daughters, made much of him. By the majority
of men he was tolerated-or toadied-for his
money's sake.
He had sailed away out of his own witless
world one hot summer, and, voyaging aimlessly,
with Baby Babington and her mother for com-
pany, in the miniature liner which was one of
his toys, chanced across another, a very different
world; a world wherein he saw himself most
singularly small and shameful : a grave, grey,
wind-swept world-sweet, clean, and curiously
scented.
Under its irresistible influence he grew strangely
fretful, until, aspiring towards unusual heights,
he freed himself of his most immediate incubus.
London's latest pet went pettishly back to London.
" Peter's gone dotty," Miss Babington assured
her wondering friends in the metropolis, and
passed on to Monaco, while Peter himself, as


24
RIGHINN
if in support of her statement, mooned aimlessly
about the islands until he came to —
But where, or which island it was, matters
little-to us. By chart and compass it lies east
by south of Cape Farewell, a very long way
from here. Great seas break green, in the short-
lived sunshine, on its white sands, and on to
those sands, out of a spray-splashed rainbow,
had stepped, all dripping, the Princess of the
Isles, ivory-limbed, dark-eyed, laughing from
under thick raven locks.
Peter knew nothing of her history: she was
no princess of Piccadilly. He merely remarked
to himself, very truthfully, that she was "a
deucéd fine gal," and went away in a hurry,
his eyes averted : for she had nothing on but
a brief bathing-dress, long since outgrown, and
he felt innately that the tendencies of Trouville
must by no means be indulged under these
chaster skies. He went so quickly, under the
spur of such unaccustomed purity of purpose,
that he tripped-tripped over a tuft of grass-
and fell headlong, filling his face with sand.
Ere he had recovered his perpendicular and
gotten his eyesight back, the landscape was void
about him, the seascape a shimmering, silver
vacancy; he was once more alone in the world.
The reward of virtue seemed to him heart-
breakingly inadequate.
He wandered on, wondering, forgetful for once
of the sumptuous lunch awaiting him on his
ship in the Castle Bay, until, like Crusoe, he
was confronted by a footprint on the sand. It


RIGHINN
25
was a very small footprint, and adorably feminine.
He took off his hat that he might the more
conveniently think it out.
Thinking, with people like Peter, soon begets
thirst. He made up his mind to break inland
in search of refreshment, took two steps in that
direction. Then he paused, turned back, and,
kneeling down hurriedly, traced on the back of
a new five-pound note a rough reproduction
of the passing picture, while the salt sea, kissing
away the last faint impress of its playmate's
passage, lapped and crooned at the knees of his
carefully immaculate flannel trousers.
Beyond the sand the earth was stone-clad.
Peter stumbled as he traversed it, and wondered
wearily, each time he stubbed his toes, who
might inhabit such a wild waste, and why. But
for the pencilled outline of a dainty foot buttoned
away in his breast pocket he might have set
his face seawards again and escaped. As it was
he went on stubbornly, all unwitting.
From the brow of a bluff he espied, far below
on a bend of the beach he had left behind, a
tiny cottage-white-walled, roofed with sun-kissed
gold. Thither he retraced his steps, with a stifled
curse.
Footsore and perspiring he pushed his way
past a tiny green gate in the rail that guarded
the garden, approached a woman who stood
within, white-haired, venerable, cleanly clad in
patched, shabby garments. She eyed him very
shrewdly, in silence.
"Er-hem!” said Peter, fumbling ineffectually


26
RIGHINN
with an eyeglass, his visage unnaturally con-
torted. “Er-hem!"
To this there was no reply possible, and he
tried again.
“Er-c'n you-er—'blige me with-er-glass 'f
water, hey ?"
The dame in the doorway motioned him to a
rustic seat by the porch, and hobbled indoors.
Peter, peering past her as she turned her back,
saw dimly the interior of the cottage. He saw,
much more clearly, a most seductively stockinged
foot thrust forth from under a billow of rippling
lace towards a rough, tacketted shoe held loosely
in two hasty hands, and sat down suddenly,
drawing forth his recent work of art to study
it with renewed interest.
Voices sounded vaguely from within and he
cocked his ears, vulgarly, but to no purpose.
His eyes were still on the back of the bank-note
when a girl stepped out into the sunshine, brush-
ing past him on her way to the well with a
bucket.
His greedy glance followed her every move-
ment, drinking in eagerly all the details of her
lithe grace. She walked bewitchingly in spite
of the coarse shoes which covered the silk-
stockinged feet he had seen from the doorstep;
the faded, old-fashioned skirt she wore was all
too short to hide the entrancing ankles under it;
the curves of her beautiful body were worth-
“By gad!” said Peter Waddel in a grievous
whisper, “I'd sell my soul for a woman likę
that !”
His drinking he walkewhich


RIGHINN
27
She filled her bucket and faced about, one arm,
bare below the elbow, white and wet, shining
silkily. The fat multi-millionaire sat gaping, and
she passed into the cottage again, unaided.
He heard low laughter, the clatter of crockery.
The elder woman brought out, on a silver salver,
its blazon hidden from him by a square of em-
broidered damask, a glass and a crystal carafe
of ice-cold water. He drank, and his wits came
back to him by degrees.
“Er—'nother glass," he implored, and it was
poured out. He sipped that slowly, and would
have held further intercourse with his taciturn
entertainer. But for all his wiles he learned
little, and saw nothing more of the girl. .
The Star of the South lay for long at anchor
in the Castle Bay, and Peter tramped very often
along the sand in vain search of his Aphrodite.
The pangs of passion were making him bilious;
but he fancied himself desperately in love, and
stayed on, suffering stoically, until the crone at
the cottage had come to hate the sight of him :
the smouldering fire in her eyes blazed forth
more fiercely each time he thrust his way into
her little kingdom, and he could by no means
compass speech with the girl until he called
cunning to his aid, waylaying her one quiet
evening in the hollow behind the house as she
sauntered homewards, a couple of cows at her
heels.
He bowed low before her, and spoke, “Er-
good evenin', miss," in the style of the stage-door.
But she looked him up and down with calm,


28
RIGHINN
unquestioning eyes, answered shortly in some
strange tongue, pursued her way very placidly,
ignoring his presence. And over such oppor-
tunity, so aggravatingly lost, the rich man raged
to himself as he slunk shipwards under the stars.
He had not been accustomed to whistle the wind
in vain where women were concerned.
Extravagant impulses thronged his mind as he
turned and tossed on his silken pillows. He rose
at daybreak, and stayed himself with old wine,
a definite purpose slowly shaping itself to his set
desires. A little later he went ashore, and the
Star of the South stood out to sea.
He spent his day in hiding, above the sands
whereon what he called love had first assailed
him; but the curling waves brought him no
company, the shore was an aching solitude. He
ate and drank often of the contents of a well-filled
hamper, smoked many very expensive cigars,
and so kept up his courage against the sacrifice
he contemplated. Towards sunset he arose, the
more resolute, and set out openly for the cottage.
A horned moon crept skywards from the edge
of the world, and the sun's last golden glory was
silvered over. The wind died down. There was
no sound to be heard save the murmur of the
making tide.
The mantle of night lay lightly on the Nameless
Isle.
Time had taken an hour's toll of night ere the
shrill, strong cry of a sea-bird rang down the
startled shore, was echoed among the rocks, and
died away on the water; while the man from


RIGHINN
29
whose lips it had sped was shortening his stride,
had halted, sat down on the sand, smiling wist-
fully to himself.
"I wonder if she has forgotten-after all those
weary years," he said in a low voice, and sighed.
But presently all his doubts were drowning in
the dark depths of two sea-sweet eyes, that looked
lovingly up into his, while the proud lips, which
had gone so long athirst, were whispering sweet
reproof of his unfaith.
“I shall never forget, Duncan.”
"Nor I, Princess," he answered gladly, out of
a laughing heart.
They were alone, by the sea, and her velvet
voice thrilled in Darroch's ears like the music of
a long-mute harp. The lean years which had
passed since they had parted were well forgotten
in the fulness of the present. The reaping of
the future was not yet.
The distant throbbing of a steamer's screw
recalled them to the cares of life. They sat down
side by side, and hand in hand; spoke rapidly,
because their time was short.
"Where's Peggy?” Duncan Darroch asked.
“ Did she not hear my signal ?"
“She heard,” the girl replied. “We had a
visitor. I slipped away without her.”
"She's been a faithful servant," said the man;
and his companion's eyes grew dim.
"A faithful friend, dear," she corrected gently.
“But for her I'd be She shares her small
annuity with me—that's all we have between us.”
He drew a short, sharp, painful breath.


30
RIGHINN
"But your own money?" he inquired, with
quick concern. "Surely it was saved from the
wreck when my poor father died?"
"Only a little, dear," said the girl in a whisper;
"and that has gone long since to meet the
mortgages. The Castle hasn't been let, you see,
since the War—nearly four years now. I'm
terribly poor, Duncan; and—and there's no help
for it. You must give me up. You must marry
some one who can help you in your profession—
not one who would be worse than a hindrance
to you."
But the break in her voice belied the words,
and the man threw back his head, laughing.
"Must I," he retorted. "We'll see about that.
The poor always stand by the poor. And,
in any case, you don't look half so hard-up as
I do."
He pointed to his own shabby shooting-coat,
and then towards the suggestion of silken lace
that showed above her shoes.
She flushed faintly, and drew in her feet.
"I've no other clothes now, dear," she said in
a low voice. "These were my mother's. I wear
a satin gown on Sundays, to save this outdoor
suit, but both are Peggy's handiwork."
Duncan Darroch groaned: he had confessions
of his own to make, and they were sticking
hurtfully in his throat.
"When did you arrive?" the girl asked, more
cheerfully, before he could frame words to tell
his story, and he was thankful for the respite.
"Forty-eight hours ago," he answered, " and I
i


RIGHINN
3i
came straight on. My mother died only a week
before I landed."
A swift pressure of the hand spoke sympathy,
and with that he was content. The dead woman
had been no friend to this lonely orphan, her
husband's ward, and the past was as well buried
with her.
"I've only got two months' leave," said Darroch,
breaking the silence which had ensued. "Just
time for a quiet wedding—and then, Princess, I
shall carry you off from your enchanted island.
How soon can you be ready?"
The soul of the girl spoke wordless love from
the windows of her misty eyes, but she schooled
her lips to slight it. Alas for those who must
reap where they have not sown!
"Oh, Duncan," she answered very sadly.
"We're both so poor—and I haven't told you
the worst yet."
The man's brow contracted in a frown of pain.
"Let's have it over," he said desperately, " and
I'll table my troubles too. Then we'll shoulder
the load together—somehow."
"It's the mortgages—the interest is overdue,
two years and a half: and the lawyers mean to
foreclose."
"Nothing else?"
"Nothing else," she asserted, a note of hope
in her voice as she noticed that he heard her
nonchalantly. "It's quite sufficient, isn't it?"
"More than sufficient," he muttered, and hope
died still-born. "My own news is almost
identical. I've only a hundred pounds in the


32 RIGHINN
world. My mother—I—I'm afraid we're rather
extravagant as a family, and my small savings
have taken wings."
A white face peered into his through the
darkness.
The sound of approaching footsteps put a stop
to further confidences. The girl and Darroch sat
perfectly still, scarce breathing, as a fat figure
passed over the sand in front of them, unconscious
of their presence. It moved rapidly, muttering
to itself, and presently disappeared round the
spit that shoots out at the end of the bay beneath
the Castle. The blast of a boatswain's pipe,
the regular rhythm of oars in rowlocks, the
distant echo of voices fell, in turn, on their
ears. Even the faint, far-off pop of a cork was
audible in the calm, and, at that, Darroch spoke
again.
"There must be a boat in the Bay," he said
carelessly. "I wonder who that fellow was, and
where he's come from."
The girl hesitated, irresolute, but for no more
than a moment, and plunged into speech, her face
aflame.
"It was Mr. Waddel, the millionaire," she told
him with reckless haste. "His yacht's lying in
the Bay, and he's just come from the cottage.
He went there to see me, Duncan, and—and he
wants to pay off the mortgages."
"And you?" asked Darroch in a strained
whisper. He had understood.
"I promised my father that I would never let
the Isle go," she answered shakily: and said


RIGHINN
33
no more, since there was nothing more to be
said.
He turned away from her to hide the pain that
was quick in his eyes.
The white, creaming tide kissed tenderly the
pebbles agleam at his feet. The crescent moon
overhead cradled a single star which looked
lovingly down on the lovers. The warm heart
of the world beat audibly in the encircling arms
of night. But, west by north, very bleak and
bitter, and barren, lay Cape Farewell.
Peter Waddel, brave with the bravery begotten
of good champagne, strode towards the stronghold
which enshrined the mysterious maiden of his
dreams, and faced the dragon on the doorstep
with a determination which served to carry him
over the threshold. The plea he put forward was
starvation, and, although his overfed appearance
proclaimed its falsity, there was no denying him
the succour he craved.
"My name is—er—Waddell," he announced
importantly, and failed to notice that the infor-
mation was received with unconcern. "My boat
has gone over to the mainland for letters, and
won't be back till late. Merely—er—cup 'f tea—
some bread 'n' butter—thanks awflly."
He had his wish, and sat down to eat in the
presence of his Princess. Cut crystal, curious
china, and crested silverware were set forth on
snowy linen for his entertainment. He marvelled
greatly as he masticated with uncouth relish the
food set before him. What manner of people
3


34
RIGHINN
were these, who lived so in such surroundings ?
A tardy tremor of disconfidence assailed him, and
he asked suddenly:
“Won't you-er-join me in-er-cup 'f tea ?"
He had addressed himself to the younger
woman, but it was the elder who answered him,
sullenly:
"She will not sit at table with you, but with
her equals."
"Oh, come now," cried Peter Waddel, de-
lightedly. “I ain't proud-I ain't really-not a
bit.”
But the girl made no movement, sitting dumb
by the window, her face enshadowed, and he
finished his meal in silence.
He was in two minds now as to the course he
should follow. Tea on the top of champagne
tends towards pessimism; and, after all, a bracelet
blazing with diamonds will sometimes carry a
man farther than any plain gold ring. Peter had
both in his pockets. He lay back in his chair,
and picked his teeth, pondering deeply.
The old woman got up and left the room, re-
turning, breathless, with a lighted lamp. Its
mellow radiance fell full upon the still figure by
the window. The girl turned her face to the
diamond-panes, and her petticoats rustled richly.
What came over Peter Waddel at that precise
moment it would be hard to explain-perhaps a
swift glance from a pair of sea-sweet eyes had
pled pity of him—but he leaned across the table
and spoke straightforwardly, one hand on the
wedding-ring.


RIGHINN
35
"Look here," he said to the elder woman, in
a somewhat tremulous voice but distinctly, " I'm
willing to marry her! To many her—d'ye take
me?"
A sea-bird cried shrilly out of the distant dark-
ness, and he, seeing the sudden, startled glances
that passed between them, sank back in his seat,
eyeing them eagerly, well pleased with the im-
pression his words had produced.
The old dame muttered quick, unintelligible
phrases.
The girl, replying rapidly in liquid syllables
equally incomprehensible to their guest, rose
and went out. And after she had gone, the
other turned towards him.
"You were saying, sir"
Mr. Waddel sniffed aggrievedly. He was in
no temper for any protracted wooing, and felt
half inclined to follow the fugitive, who had
not, he felt very certain, failed to gather the
import of his speech whether or no she knew
the tongue in which he had spoken.
"Where's she gone?" he demanded irritably.
The woman deliberated.
"She is free of the Isle," she said at length,
"and need render no account to you, sir."
"Dash it all," snapped Peter. "You can surely
answer a civil question civilly! Who are you,
anyway? It's her I want—not you." He sulked
sombrely for a time, getting no reply, and,
presently, rose to go. "That'll pay my footing,"
said he loftily, and tossed a sovereign across the
table. "If I can't find her to-night I'll be back


36
RIGHINN
to-morrow. I'm in earnest about this business,
and I'll see it through—but I won't be trifled
with, understand that.".
“Wait a little,” said the old woman, and he sat
down again, not unwillingly, to hear what she
had to say.
He made his way back to the yacht by moon-
light, his mind full of confused imaginings. He
was desperate with desire: the repulse he had
received had but served to fan the flame which
was still consuming him. He had never doubted
that fair means would win what he wanted if
foul should fail, although his enchantress might
neither hear nor answer his suit in the only
language he knew.
He cursed all comers on his way to the saloon,
drank a quart of champagne over-quickly, and
went to bed the more bewildered.
There he slept badly, certain words of the old
woman's ringing in his hot ears over the ripple
of the tide.
“Her name is Righinn-to such as you," the
crone had returned, unabashed, after he had set
forth his own princely circumstances and asked
of hers.
“Rot the old witch!” he growled to himself,
and rose in ill-humour. “What th’ devil does.
she mean? •To such as me,' indeed! Clutter-
buck!”
His valet entered.
"I say, Clutterbuck, d'ye know any family 'f
th' name 'f Righinn in these parts ?”


RIGHINN 37
"No, sir," answered Clutterbuck, "I don't
.
Shall I ask the quartermaster, sir? 'E knows all
the islands."
"Do," said Peter, and the man went off on his
errand.
When he returned his employer was still sitting
on the edge of the cot, impatiently dangling
pyjama-clad legs to and fro.
"Well?" asked the millionaire eagerly.
"Righinn, sir," returned the valet, his features
composed and respectful, his manner that of one
who speaks profoundly, " is the local name of the
serpent fam'ly, w'ich is supposed by the super-
stitious islanders to be a princess in a state of
bewitchment."
"Clutterbuck," cried Mr. Waddel with sudden
fury, "you're the damnest idiot I ever Get
out o' this; get out o' this, quick!"
He shaved himself, most unhandily, and sat
down to breakfast half dressed, eschewing both
tea and coffee in favour of beverages more
fortifying. These enabled him to endure once
more the presence of the unmoved Clutterbuck,
and he even grew confidential with that worthy
over his first cigar.
"Look here," said he, puffing clouds of smoke
while his tie was in process of construction, " I'm
a bit mixed. What'd you do, Clutterbuck, if you
were a bit mixed?"
"Soda and angostura, sir?" Clutterbuck sug-
gested. "Or, per'aps," he went on hurriedly, as
his master showed unmistakable symptoms of ex-
ploding again, "per'aps a wire to Miss Babington."


RIGHINN
39
the fishing-boat that was drifting out of the
empty Castle Bay on the ebb flapped noisily
against the mast. The man at the heavy tiller
looked glum.
"Get the sweeps out, lads," he ordered, "and
pull me inshore a bit. We can't make the pier
this morning, but"
"One of the sweeps is broken, Mr. Duncan,"
said a voice from forward, "and she will not
travel at all without it."
Darroch flung the tiller from him, and the boat
swung slowly about. The men in the bow eyed
him stolidly.
"Here," he said, passing a piece of gold to the
nearest. "Now roll my things in an oilskin."
"It's a terrible long way, sir," said the man
doubtfully, but did as he was bidden.
Half an hour later Darroch splashed up the
beach, and a faint cheer rose from the far-off boat as
it floated seawards. He unbound the bundle about
his shoulders, and, having hurriedly dressed
himself behind a rock, set off along the shore,
whistling.
The smoke of a steamer showed above the
horizon, and he stopped for a moment to observe
it. Something brushed the back of his neck very
softly. He looked round into two dewy eyes
and a radiant face.
"I saw you in the distance," said the girl
tremulously. "Why did you do it, dear?"
And the bold swimmer had much to say to
this maiden, although little of his news could be
to her liking.


40
RIGHINN
"I saw the lawyers,” he said presently, “and
they will do nothing for us. Waddel holds
all the mortgages-he wired the money to take
them up as soon's he had ferreted out the facts
about you. The overdue interest and so on
amounts to about nineteen hundred pounds, and,
after begging and borrowing the last penny
possible, I haven't been able to scrape together
more than a thousand. I offered that to account,
but it was too late-he's determined to foreclose
unless you "
The girl shuddered, and he paused to take
breath.
"D'ye know, dear," he continued, "that it was
Waddel who ruined my father-and cost you the
few thousands the poor old chap held in trust for
you? Isn't it all too ghastly! And now he's
taken a lease of the Isle so as to have you fast
here whatever happens, and that's his smoke
beyond the Butt or I'm much mistaken." He
pointed to a black cloud rising over the headland
that shut them in
The girl said no word, but stood looking down
at the sand, her hands tightly clenched.
" I've been a fool-a fool!” he went on, to
himself. “I ought to have been making money
all those years past instead of spending it on
soldiering. I've paid a long price for serving my
country. Your father paid still more heavily.
We mustn't sacrifice our happiness also-and for
a sentiment. That would be too hard !"
She nestled more closely to him, and looked up
into his face very wistfully.


RIGHINN
41
“It is hard, dear," she answered, “but we can
endure, you and I.”
“Together," he stipulated, but she shook her
head.
“Together-or apart,” she said simply, “and
we're very near the parting."
“You shall not sell yourself," he cried hoarsely.
“ You must let the Isle go, sweetheart. There is
no other way."
“There is a way," she replied; “and I can't
break the promise I made my father."
"And the promise you made me ?” he asked,
in despair.
“You can release me, Duncan," she answered
sadly, "and my father cannot-now."
They turned towards the cottage, and a white
yacht which had been making for the island at
great speed passed across the bay before them
ere they entered, so that they could both see the
fat figure at the flag-pole in the stern, as the
blue ensign fluttered down and up again in
stately salutation.
"Curse his impudence!" said Darroch furiously
to himself, and hurried his companion indoors.
“I'll cut his throat for him if he comes ashore."
Mr. Waddel did not, however, see fit to for-
sake the safe shelter of his vessel. He had seen
Duncan in the distance, had even taken the
trouble to point him out to Baby Babington,
who had scanned his broad back through a pair
of field-glasses with considerable interest.
“That's a bad beggar," her host had informed
her. “A bad beggar, Baby! I know the breed,


42
RIGHINN
His father was sole trustee for Miss Constantine,
and actually attempted to shoot me in my own
office after I—he had frittered away the poor girl's
fortune. Like to take a run ashore, eh? And
find out what's what? I'll keep Mrs. Babington
company till you get back."
"Right oh," said Miss Babington shortly.
"My life's not so valuable as yours, Peter, is
it?"
Peter pretended not to have heard this un-
necessary inquiry, and at once gave orders for
the debarkation of his guest, so that Duncan
Darroch, strolling along the beach moodily after
lunch, an unlighted cigar in his mouth, en-
countered the fair stranger sauntering, all by
herself, in his direction.
He looked his astonishment at sight of her in
such circumstance, and she, returning his wide-
eyed gaze for a moment, broke into laughter,
long and low.
"Hello, old chap," she exclaimed at length,
holding out her hand, tilting back the parasol
which had shaded her mirthful eyes. "What on
earth are you doing here? I had no idea that
the bold buccaneer I'm to vanquish would turn
out to be my old friend Duncan Darroch."
He shook hands with her limply. "Baby
Babington!" he ejaculated. "Where in the
name of all that's wonderful have you dropped
from? I thought you were still in Simla."
"Simla!" retorted Miss Babington scornfully.
"I've been three times round the world, my
dear man, since I last saw Simla."


RIGHINN 43
"And what are you doing here?" asked
Darroch, no less amazed.
"I'm 'resting' just at the moment—on old
Peter's punt. And presently, after we've had a
little chat, you and I, I'm going to chase you out
of his private preserves, you poacher."
"I'm in terrible trouble, Baby," he returned
gloomily. "I wish you wouldn't rag me."
Miss Babington looked him straight in the eyes
for a space, but his did not drop. Hers clouded
over.
"I won't, old chap," she assured him; and
stifled a sigh with a laugh. "I know all about it.
It was really I who put Peter up to the tricks
he's been playing to get the girl, but I'd have cut
off my right hand first if I had known it was you
he was trying to euchre. I haven't forgotten
what you did for me in India, and Will you
take me to see her, Duncan?"
He hesitated, for only an instant, and she bit
her lip.
"Never mind, then," she said in a low voice
behind her parasol.
"I was on my way to the Castle," he explained
lamely. "Will you come with me?"
"All right," she agreed indifferently.
The great grey keep that looks seawards from
the end of the island seemed to frown forbid-
dingly on the two intruders as they passed across
the drawbridge that spans the moat. Miss Babing-
ton looked up at its solid walls almost fearfully.
"I shouldn't much care to live here," she
remarked.


44 RIGHINN
"I should," said Darroch between set teeth, and
they both fell silent again.
He led her into the lofty hall, leaving wide
behind -him its massive doors, and the summer
sun lit up many faces in tarnished frames. Torn
flags tossed in the twilight overhead as the
draught rose upwards. Out of dim corners peered
pale, patient ghosts, steel-clad, with visors down.
The smartest frock of the season seemed singu-
larly out of place there. The woman who wore
it was ill at ease.
"Is it all like this?" she asked, in a whisper
which echoed eerily from the galleries. But
Darroch did not answer. His ears had caught the
sound of footsteps, already past the portcullis.
He drew his companion into the shadow of a
suit of armour, laying a finger on his lips as a
girlish figure crossed the threshold and passed
onwards into the darkness with assured steps.
The woman of the world stood watching, hot-
eyed.
A voice cried Darroch's name from a distant
room, lingeringly, but he did not stir till a hand
was laid on his arm, and Miss Babington spoke,
very softly—
"Go to her, Duncan."
"And you ?" he asked.
"You may trust me to look after myself," she
answered with a brave assumption of unconcern,
and turned back into the sunshine.
Peter Waddel, that proud man of millions, was
in a white rage. He had been cast violently forth


RIGHINN 45
from a public place by a common person. His
heart was full of bitterness, and the back of his
blue yachting-jacket was full of sand.
"I'll have the law of you, you blackguard!"
he screamed, shaking a fat fist in the direction of
a tall, bearded individual, his aggressor, who
stood, smoking a short clay pipe, in the doorway
of a thatched cottage entitled "Post Office."
That worthy stepped forward, and Peter fled
incontinently, while the visible population hooted.
"You swore at the girl, I suppose," said Miss
Babington, once more afloat, when he sought
sympathy of her, "and she sent for the chucker-
out. You're too tiresome, Peter."
Mr. Waddel swallowed excitedly, and waved a
telegram at her.
"Read that," he yelped. "Read that, woman!"
She read, and a slow smile overspread her
perfect features.
"Poor old chap!" she said shakily. "There's
some excuse for you, after all. I'll split a pint
with you, if you like."
"I'll split your—somebody's head for this!"
said Peter savagely, and she left him.
Her mother, sitting in state at the saloon table
behind a litter of correspondence, looked up
anxiously as she entered.
"What's the matter, child?" asked that es-
timable matron, and Miss Babington ceased
smiling.
"Peter's had his hand trumped," she answered.
"The interest on those mortgages he's so keen
about has been paid. He won't get the girl now,


46
RIGHINN
and he's rehearsing for a funeral instead of a
wedding."
Mrs. Babington gazed upwards at a skylight.
“How much money did you make at Monte,
Baby ?" she asked reflectively.
“About two thousand," returned her dutiful
daughter, “but I've spent every penny of it. I'll
have to look out for another engagement now,
I'm afraid."
“You're a clever girl, dear," purred Mrs.
Babington, “but-
Mr. Waddel, leaning over the transom, looked
back across a world of water to where the
Nameless Isle was hiding itself from him under
the horizon. A tender, rose-tinted cloud stood
out above the sea-rim. His mind was full of
melancholy.
He was communing soulfully with himself when
the quartermaster came aft to set the log.
“ Righinn," he said very sorrowfully, his lips
twisted, "the enchanted princess—the Princess
Righinn!"
“That chap's about off his onion!" the quarter-
master remarked inwardly, and, finishing his
errand with all speed, he departed noiselessly.
The homeward passage of the Star of the South
was notable for a certain naughty brilliance, and,
when she encountered the Indian trooper Serapis
off the Needles, the bulwarks of that craft were
thronged with faces eager to catch a glimpse of
the pleasure-ship whose name was in every
paper. Peter, puffing pompously up and down
his bridge, binoculars in hand, ranged alongside


RIGHINN
47
the outgoing vessel, and bowed benevolently in
response to the cheers of custom; but the eyes
of all men were irresistibly attracted towards
a lonely figure in the stern of the long yacht.
“That's 'er!” said the rank and file in awed
whispers, and the officers thought longingly of
London. Only Duncan Darroch, standing by
the poop-rail beside his wife, spoke unselfishly
out of a full heart.
“Kiss your hand to her, dear," he commanded.
"Never mind whether she's an actress or not-
we shan't see her again, and I'll tell you after-
wards all that she's done for us.”
“I will if you wish it, Duncan," said Mrs.
Darroch doubtfully, “but- ".
The inert onlooker in the distance stood up
suddenly to wave a tiny handkerchief.
"I am glad," she said to herself with passionate
insistence. "I owed him his happiness—and he's
far, far better with her. Thank God that I had
the money!"
Mr. Waddel came down off the bridge suddenly.
“ Did you see that woman kiss her hand to
me ?” he demanded in a choking voice. “I
consider it deucéd bad taste on her part-and
after the way she's treated me too!"


A SECOND-CLASS DISTRICT
Betwixt a man and a woman wedded, who can judge from
the outside of the wall.—Spanish Proverb.
"This is a Second-class District," remarked
the Commissioner affably, and Hermann Brandt
opened his eyes.
"Very!" said he, emphatically. "Have a
cocktail? Hilda!"
The tall, fair woman who had been sewing
silently in a corner of the verandah since breakfast-
time, watching her husband out of the corners
of her eyes the while, rose obediently, to fetch
the gin bottle and swizzle-stick. The other
necessaries for the compounding of the proffered
refreshment lay at hand on the deal trestle that
served the Brandt household for sideboard.
She mixed gin and water in a big tumbler,
splashed in angostura bitters and curacoa, added
a dash of lemon and a dusting of sugar, whipped
the mixture into a pink foam with the dexterity
of long practice, and, having filled two coloured
glasses with the resulting potion, stood waiting
with all the admirable patience of the German
housewife while the two men drank it off. Then
she carried away the debris.
The Commissioner lay back in his cane
48


A SECOND-CLASS DISTRICT 49
lounging-chair with a sigh of contentment. He
was short, somewhat stout, and bull-necked.
"Smart girl, your wife, Brandt," he puffed
patronisingly, and mopped his moist brow with
a silken handkerchief.
The trader scowled blackly.
"So?" he grunted, and looked slantly over
at his guest, on whom, however, the import of
the glance was wasted.
"Where did you pick her up?" drawled that
dignitary with an affectation of languid unconcern
that sat but ill upon his obese youthfulness.
The shrill shriek of a steam whistle saved his
host the onus of explanation thus delicately
asked. It sounded thrice, and the two men rose
together.
"That's my launch—at last," the Commissioner
announced impressively, and "Thank God!"
muttered Hermann Brandt in his beard.
Perspiring black men were running excitedly
to and fro upon the planking that abutted from
the warehouse on to the river. The launch was
still half a mile away, and was, moreover, a
police-launch, so that there was no occasion for
undue haste, but it is the habit of our black
brethren to be spasmodically hasty, and, with
them, habit is sacred. The Commissioner kicked
three of them in rapid rotation, and the remainder,
glad to be so governed, ceased all unnecessary
activity, laughing secretly behind huge hands as
the sufferers departed, rubbing.
A splash of red showed at the launch's stern,
and Brandt ran a dirty Jack to the truck of the
4


So A SECOND-CLASS DISTRICT
ragged pole on the bluff. Then he sauntered
down to join his official acquaintance on the
landing-stage, while Hilda, his wife, ceased sewing
for a moment to follow his movements with
curious eyes. Mrs. Brandt had, no doubt, reasons
of her own for a certain anxiety concerning her
husband's methods with the patently important
representative of the Government under which
they existed.
The launch puffed noisily alongside the staging,
and she sat down again with a sigh that might
have indicated tension relieved. But no man
ever really understood Hilda Brandt, and her
husband least of any: otherwise these details
need not have been published here.
A thin, haggard-looking man in travel-stained
khaki uniform sprang ashore and limped towards
the Commissioner, holding out his right hand.
"How d'you do: how d'you do, old chap?"
he said heartily. "I'm deuced glad to see you."
"Er—how d'ye do," the Commissioner echoed
perfunctorily. "You're four days late!"
The Policeman's effusion thus nipped in the
bud, he found time to shake hands with Brandt,
and their eyes met in a single glance that made
the situation clear to the newcomer.
"Swelled head!" said he to himself surprisedly.
"Sudden, and all the more deadly."
Aloud, he merely remarked:
"Morning, Brandt: how goes it?" And the
trader replied in like manner.
The three white men walked slowly over to
the dwelling-house together, and there were more


A SECOND-CLASS DISTRICT 51
cocktails. The black policemen fraternised with
their commercial brethren of the factory, from
whom they gleaned evil reports concerning the
Commissioner's procedure and parentage, the
kicked detachment exhibiting their alleged hurts
immodestly. There was food for all, and, later,
sleep, for it was very hot indeed.
Only Hermann Brandt and Boma, the cook,
who did not trust his newest wife, remained
awake throughout the sweltering afternoon.
After nightfall there was feasting. That lay
within Mrs. Brandt's province, and she dealt
liberally with her dependent mankind. The lean
black policemen, squatting round their fires
among the trees beyond the huts, rose up and
blessed her frequently as they ate; her husband's
fat helpers gorged themselves without comment
as a matter of custom.
When all had eaten, weird noises, indicative,
to the optimist, of native music, rose from their
quarters. There was much shouting, a fight, and
the beating of a Mrs. Boma, to add zest to the
entertainment; then silence, by order of the
Commissioner at dinner.
Hilda Brandt, at the head of her own table
indoors, dispensed boiled fowl and rice, palm-oil
chop, canned peaches, and whiskey, each in its
due order, to her husband's guests. Then she
was sent to bed.
She departed without complaint, and despite
the protests of the Commissioner, who lighted
her along the dark passage to her door. He
returned to a room full of smoke, and, for an


52 A SECOND-CLASS DISTRICT
hour, the bottle passed from hand to hand in
regular rotation, while he spoke at large, and his
companions listened unwinkingly.
When he was empty of untruth he too went
to bed, and Brandt sat straining his ears until he
heard the shooting of a bolt. Then he filled his
glass again, passed the bottle to the Policeman,
and lay back limply.
"That man has been here for a week," he said
in a grievous voice. "You must take him away
quickly, or——"
"Don't fret," replied the Policeman soothingly.
"We're off at daybreak."
Brandt drank thirstily, and the drink seemed
to do him good. He slipped off his shoes, tiptoed
down the passage to his own room, and returned
with his wife, smiling.
She was clad in a loose robe of sunshiny silk,
very pleasing to the eyes, her thick gold hair
coiled carelessly about her head, her bare feet in
low bronze slippers, showing their arched insteps
as she walked. She sank into her husband's
comfortable chair, her arms gleaming whitely as
the sleeves rippled back from them, her face
peach-pink. The Policeman also smiled, con-
tentedly, and she smiled back at him, Hermann
Brandt looking on. They were old friends, these
three: they had spent many such evenings
together.
Brandt, the jealous, had known the Policeman
long before the beautiful Hilda had arrived from
Hamburg to be at once the balm and the bane
of his own existence. He spoke evil of the


A SECOND-CLASS DISTRICT 53
Commissioner before his wife frankly, until the
other man bade him desist, for that he and the
fat, bull-necked youth now snoring loudly in
the distance both served the same unimpeachable
Power, and it did not become him to listen
longer. Nor was it, he averred, fit matter for a
woman's ears.
Whereat Hilda Brandt laughed mirthfully.
"All right," said her husband grudgingly, " I'll
shut up. But I tell you he's a wrong 'un. I've
had him on my hands for a week, and I ought to
know. Why've you been so long coming down
for him? The coast launch said you'd be in on
Tuesday."
"More trouble up above," the Policeman re-
joined wearily. "He'll have a busy time in his
rotten District—if he ever reaches it. We'll have
to man-handle one or two of the villages by the
way, I expect."
"How did he come to get the appointment?"
Brandt asked curiously. "I thought you"
The Policeman frowned.
"Oh, influence," he said; "the old story:
second cousin to a lord, you know, and all that
sort of thing. I play off my own bat."
Mrs. Brandt poured out more whiskey, and,
that acting as oil upon troubled waters, there
was peace. She sat late with them, sewing bead-
work upon a satchel of plaited grass that was
growing rapidly beautiful under her deft fingers.
When she had finished it she ordered the two
men to bed.
Day broke on the factory amid much stir and


54 A SECOND-CLASS DISTRICT
bustle. The Policeman was early afoot picking
out his men from among the huts, shepherding
them towards the waterside, severing with ruth-
less determination the tender ties that might
haply have cost him more of them than he could
afford to lose. In his wise hands his underlings
proved morosely tractable, and his refusal to
deliver up to the righteous wrath of Boma, the
cook, a certain corporal of romantic tendencies,
did much to restore his waning popularity
amongst his own people. Before the Commis-
sioner had got crossly out of bed the launch was
whistling impatiently at the landing-stage where
it lay ready, fully manned, waiting to carry him
off to the wilds.
The Commissioner dressed very deliberately,
resolute to show the over-officious Policeman
that he was not to be hurried unnecessarily by
his subordinates, lingered over coffee in the
verandah with Mrs. Brandt, till that lady's hus-
band ground his teeth with rage, and, at last,
strolled down to the water's edge at a snail's
pace.
"Hurry up, for Heaven's sake!" said the
Policeman irritably; and the Commissioner,
having stared at him officially, bade a protracted
farewell to his hostess, nodded carelessly to
Brandt, and stepped on board.
"Let her rip," the Policeman ordered, and the
launch backed out from the pier.
The Commissioner sat down suddenly as she
moved, and from under his linen tunic there
slipped a woven satghel, gay with bead-work.


A SECOND-CLASS DISTRICT 55
He stooped swiftly, and thrust it under a thwart
out of sight.
The two white men made themselves as com-
fortable as might be in the limited space at their
disposal, stretching themselves at length on the
narrow benches under the awning in the bow.
The black policemen, crowded abaft the funnel,
sat grumbling together as they were carried
away from comfort. Only the amorous corporal
was at all cheerful.
He waved a dirty white handkerchief over the
stern, looking fondly back towards the scene of
his latest conquest. A silken signal fluttered for
a moment from the window of Mrs. Brandt's
room, and was suddenly withdrawn. The cor-
poral's grin of appreciation faded into a frown
of pain, and he gave vent to a yelp of anguish,
facing about with fierce determination to dis-
cover who it was that had bitten him savagely
in the calf of the leg. A sharp order from the
Policeman silenced him, and he sat brooding
impotently over the wrong done him, while the
men squatted on the grating at his feet chuckled
causelessly.
The long, low factory buildings faded away
in the distance, the flag above the bluff dis-
appeared in a shimmer of steamy heat-haze,
the launch turned the bend where the North
Passage strikes west, and the Commissioner
spoke.
"Where's that dam boy Brandt promised me?"
he inquired with a lofty lack of politeness.
There was an upheaval amongst the closely


56 A SECOND-CLASS DISTRICT
packed black men aft, and a grinning negro was
produced, like any package, for his inspection.
"What's your name, boy?" demanded the
Commissioner, gratified in that the sable crew
were regarding him with breathless curiosity.
"I Boma, sah. I cook-boy Boma, sah. You
dash Boma dem bottle gin, sah ?" ejaculated the
new recruit with ingratiating humility.
"No lip," the Commissioner commanded
sternly, " or I'll dash you two dozen with a good
rawhide as soon's we land. That'll hearten you
up quicker than gin, my lad. Go an' sit on
my kit—that's your job. An', here, take this
satchel. Careful, you black blackguard! If
there's as much as a finger-mark on it when
we arrive you'll get four dozen instead of two.
D'ye hear!"
"U-wau!" grunted the listening black men
in chorus, and Boma withdrew, entirely unpre-
possessed.
"Did Mrs. Brandt give you that?" asked the
Policeman uneasily, as the satchel was carried
off, and the Commissioner looked him up and
down with obvious intent.
"P'r'aps she did—an' p'r'aps she didn't," he
retorted, and lit a cigarette with intense de-
liberation. "Are you interested in Mrs.
Brandt?"
The launch snored steadily on its way through-
out the long, hot hours, and the burden of life
lay heavy on its human freight. There was no
change of scenery to break the monotony: always
the same turgid brown seascape, the same low


A SECOND-CLASS DISTRICT 57
green banks on either hand, far off, unreal,
behind the impalpable curtain of steam drawn
from the simmering river by a salient sun.
It was needful also to navigate in mid-channel.
The North Passage is notorious, even now: in
those days it was reputed a death-trap, and
worse things than death lurked about its banks.
Therefore, when darkness came down, the Police-
man was pardonably cross.
"We lost a good hour this morning while you
were philandering with Mrs. Brandt," he said
briefly, "and we'll have to lie all night in mid-
stream: we can't make a landing now."
The Commissioner was cowed. Even the
glories of his Commissionership seemed small
and trivial in such circumstances, and he thought
covetously of his comfortable clerkship at Head-
quarters with a battalion in the background.
He felt lonely, was ill at ease.
A comfortless night on the misty, malarious
river did little to reassure him. He quarrelled
fitfully with his companion in the intervals
between troubled snatches of sleep, painfully
aware of anxious sentries cursing him under their
breath as they peered into the darkness for any
sign of the swift canoes they dreaded.
Soon after daybreak the launch turned into
the side-creek whereby it was proposed to effect
a first landing in the district he was to rule
according to his lights.
"Of course, it's only a Second-class District,"
he admitted to the Policeman with superfluous
magnanimity, " but -"


58 A SECOND-CLASS DISTRICT
"A second-class district! I should think it
is—look at it!" said the Policeman, whose nerves
were also somewhat jangled.
The Commissioner looked, and was silent.
"Of course, you're only a Second-class Com-
missioner," the Policeman continued reflectively,
"and"
"Zip! Ping!"
A nickel-nosed bullet drilled a neat hole
through the funnel behind him, and he turned
to gaze across at the bank whence it had sped.
"And you'll get a second-class welcome," he
concluded hastily. "They're a baddish lot about
this creek."
The leafy curtain that overhung the near shore
shivered slightly for a moment although there
was no wind, and he hailed the steersman
suddenly.
"Ram her ashore," he ordered.
The launch swung round, careening danger-
ously, and headed straight for the bank.
"Give her all you can," he added to the
engineer.
Two men with axes crept up to the bow.
The remainder sat perfectly still: their time was
not yet.
The Policeman and the Commissioner drew
sharp, hissing breaths between set teeth. Sparks
flew from the launch's funnel, the clank of her
straining engines re-echoed across the water.
As she drew rapidly inshore the Policeman
scrambled forward and lay down between the
bowmen. Other black men squatted close at


A SECOND-CLASS DISTRICT 59
his heels, fumbling with the waist-belts that held
their ammunition, filling their mouths with
cartridges: they had often rehearsed their parts
in such a piece.
"Any opening?" called the Commissioner
from behind, but the Policeman did not hear
him: he was too busy studying the face of the
forest, and he was also too near thereto for
polite conversation. He shot an arm out to
the right, and the launch, following its direction,
crashed into the green branches blindly, tearing
its way through the tangle, biting towards the
bank.
The bowmen hacked and hewed at the under-
growth. The fighting men laid down their rifles
for a moment to heave and haul at the overhang.
The nose of the launch struck slowly into slime,
and the Policeman swung himself outboard by
a stout branch, climbing hand over hand towards
solid earth.
Ten black men followed him in monkey-wise,
disappearing from the ken of their fellows into
the gloom. The remainder held fast by their
branches, breathing heavily, rolling their eyes,
tense, expectant.
For five long minutes there was no sound from
above. Then the Policeman's voice rang out
suddenly, and the Commissioner jumped.
"We'll make our landing here," said the voice;
"but you'd better sit tight for a little yet while
I prospect the village: it's close behind, and
seems to be empty. I'll send you word when
all's safe,"


6o A SECOND-CLASS DISTRICT
With that there was silence once more, save
for the uneasy wriggling of the black men in the
launch, who felt strangely forlorn without the
countenance of their leader. The Commissioner
uncocked his revolver, and slapped it back into
the holster at his belt with a sigh of relief.
"We're in luck after all," he said to himself,
prematurely.
The dull echo of a distant shot gave him the
lie. A scream of terror tore the silence—another
shot, more shots, much loud crying, the snapping
of twigs, the thud of hurrying feet.
The Commissioner was no coward, although he
lacked judgment. "Come on!" he called to the
men about him.
They moved uncertainly, and some followed
him slowly to the Jacob's ladder that the Police-
man had shown him how to use. He pulled
himself up as far as he could, dropped on to the
soft, spongy soil, scrambling on hands and knees
till he found firm footing. There he paused to
marshal his supports; and, with these behind
him, plunged through the thicket in the direction
of the firing.
It was dismally dark in the forest. Gnarled
tree-trunks, roofed in by thick, impenetrable
layers of leaves, showed ghastly shapes in the
greyness. There was stealthy movement amongst
the shadows in the near distance, but the sounds
of strife were fading, seemed farther off. The
Commissioner pushed on briskly, and at his heels
went Boma, basket in hand.
There were ten men left with the launch. Of


A SECOND-CLASS DISTRICT 61
these, five were wise and five foolish. The wise
faced disaster where it found them, and their
troubles were soon over. The foolish, having
surrendered at discretion, supped death later
with a long spoon.
The bones of the launch lie buried in the mud,
charred, half calcined, hidden by the leaves that
have grown afresh since the fierce flames of its
burning ate a ragged gap in the greenery about
it: other bones there are on the bank above,
yellow with age, polished, picked clean, un-
interred, beside the ashes of other fires.
Hilda Brandt withdrew hurriedly as soon as
the Commissioner had ceased shaking her by the
hand. Her husband would have followed her,
but that he had suddenly caught sight of an
embroidered basket which had fallen at the
Commissioner's feet. He clenched his fists very
tightly as he noticed the furtive movement by
which the fat official sought to remedy the mis-
chance. It was probably by the purpose of
Providence that the launch had already backed
out farther than a strong man might leap.
Hermann Brandt was a strong man, but there
are acid accidents in life that will test the
strength of the strongest. He stood silent,
watching his enemy out of sight, and saw the
waving of a white signal from the steamer in
the distance, the answering flutter of yellow silk
from his wife's window. Then he strode over
to the store, his face working.
“Some one's gone off with my work!" cried


62 A SECOND-CLASS DISTRICT
Hilda from the verandah as he passed. "That
pretty basket I was sewing for you, Hermann—
I can't find it anywhere."
"So?" said he, very grimly, and went on
his way.
The figures in the big ledger danced and drifted
dizzily before his bloodshot vision as he pored
over them. He closed it with a curse, and went
back to the house, wild words trembling on his
lips. His wife looked up at him with enigmatic
eyes, and he was dumb before her, seeking
comfort of the bottle.
The day passed dully, and at night he could
not sleep. Next morning he was fast in the grip
of a fever, and Hilda nursed him conscientiously,
regardless of repulse.
A potent opiate administered at sunset sent
him to sleep, and his wife sat down to dinner
alone, placid, unperturbed. She ate with appe-
tite, and, when word was brought her that her
black maid's husband was without, a message
on his mind, she bade him wait until she should
have finished.
Later, she gave orders for his admission, and
Boma, the cook, sidled into the room uncertainly.
He was fat, and greasy, and perspiring, but
obviously none the worse of his very short
experience in the Commissioner's service. In his
right hand he carried a satchel of plaited grass,
distended to the shape of a Dutch cheese, bead-
bedecked and very dirty. He laid it carefully on
the table before her, and drew back, shuffling.
"Dem white man he lib for breakfas' chop," he


A SECOND-CLASS DISTRICT 63
explained lucidly, and placed one hand upon his
stomach.
Mrs. Brandt staggered to her feet. The basket
settled down softly on its side, and its contents
rolled stickily across the white tablecloth.
The Policeman, arriving unexpectedly at the
factory in an unseaworthy canoe with certain
survivors of the disaster up-river, found Mrs.
Brandt very ill and her husband at death's door.
Both babbled of bare horrors, and he was glad
when they recovered, leaving him free to go on
his way and report at Headquarters the failure of
the enterprise entrusted to him.
After due delay he was gazetted to the con-
sequent vacancy in the administration, and sent
up-river once more with two companies of troops
to exact from the tribes the price payable for a
white man done to death. In the plenitude of
his power as an Acting-Second-class-District-
Commissioner he ordered a halt by the way at
Brandt's, and spent an evening with his friends
there according to custom. Both were better, and
no reference was made in public to past unpleasant-
ness. But Hermann Brandt led him privately in
the morning to a tiny mound on the bluff, under
the shadow of the flag above, and raised his hat
sullenly as the new Commissioner saluted all that
was left of the old.
Boma, the cook, sitting at the door of his hut
when the two men passed down to the riverside
together, was not so fat as he had been, but
seemed satisfied with his lot in life. He bade his
wives come forth to do poojah before the Govern-


64 A SECOND-CLASS DISTRICT
ment, and they obeyed him with alacrity: only
the late corporal's enchantress with the yellow
silk handkerchief, his gift, about her head moved
listlessly, the which she had reason to regret in
due course.
The new Commissioner nodded curtly in answer
to the salutations showered upon him by Mr. and
the Mrs. Boma.
"I'll live to hang that black blackguard," he
remarked hopefully to Brandt.
"Oh, Boma's all right," the trader rejoined.
"Besides, we've no evidence against him. By
the way, what did you do with that tablecloth?
My wife can't find it anywhere; she wants to
wash it."
"I put it in the fire," said the ex-Policeman,
shivering in the sunshine. "It was—it wouldn't
have washed."


THE PRICE OF VICTORY
The Magnifique had made good time as far as
the Flemish Cap, but there the first of the fog
drew a close curtain across her path and spoiled
all prospect of a record run.
A little later came a wireless warning from the
Majestic, feeling her way towards the Fastnet
through the thick sea-smoke, of busy times on
the Banks and a big berg calving below the
Virgins, whence its unwieldy progeny was wallow-
ing westwards on the Great Circle course.
And after that there was snow, dense, incessant,
through which could scarcely be seen the dim
shadows of disaster and death that went squatter-
ing past the big liner, while the sensitive ears
of her saloon passengers, peering disconsolately
through the steamy portholes, were shocked by
the sound of deep-sea curses, harsh polyglot
profanity.
All the shipping of that hemisphere seemed to
be bearing down upon her, but, by the grace of
God, she had so far escaped collision.
It was just possible, while daylight lasted, to
struggle onwards at half speed. When dusk
came down, the engine-room telegraph rang for
Dead Slow.
Every other precaution possible had already
6S 5


66 THE PRICE OF VICTORY
been taken, and, with that, she went blindly on to
her fate.
It was the surge of the sea rather than her own
impetus which sent her crashing across the
submerged floe with such force that, as she
sprang upwards in agony, the keen, knife-like
edges of the ice cut through her soft steel skin
straight to the throbbing heart of her.
She sank back, sickly, stricken unto death; her
soul shrieked skywards on the escaping steam.
There followed that hell which breaks loose
when a multitude in fear is fighting for individual
life; when dark deeds are done in the darkness;
when the devil exacts his dues of many who
would not otherwise be accounted cowards. It
is one thing, remember, to face death free, in the
open, by broad daylight—another entirely to go
down into the depths alive, to drown, like rats in
a trap, with wide, unseeing eyes.
The Magnifique was crowded from stem to
stern. A thousand emigrants had swarmed on
board before she started: in the saloon and
second cabin she carried nine hundred passengers:
her own hands could be counted by companies.
Some were crushed into shapeless clay in the
mad rush for the upper air: many more cast
overside in the struggle to be first at the life-
boats: there were even knives at work amongst
the worst of them, stabbing, cutting, carving a
way for their wielders towards supposititious
safety.
A blue light began to sputter on the flying-
bridge, and, as it blazed up, its flare fell, through


THE PRICE OF VICTORY 67
fog and snow, on the white fretwork of frantic
faces turned towards it. Beyond these, on all
sides, showed the black, hungry sea, swelling,
sinking again with an oily regularity, an apparent
relentlessness of purpose which heightened the
horror of the scene.
The captain, leaning far over the rail above,
shouted short, sharp orders through a megaphone
which muffled the words as they left his lips so
that no mere landsman could understand their
import. His officers, striving to reach their posts
beside the boats, sought to reassure the rabble
by the way: but that was seemingly impossible,
and it was not long before the report of a revolver-
shot proclaimed the species of the discipline they
were prepared to exercise in case of need.
Wherewith the emigrants, misconstruing the
measures being taken for their corporate welfare,
set themselves to storm the boat-deck.
As soon as Yorston Goodyear realised that the
ship had struck, he lifted a life-belt from the rack
above his head, and, snatching a candle-lamp
from its socket, started out to find Amberley.
It happened, as he had foreseen, that the
electrics failed ere he had well reached the
passage, already packed with frenzied men and
women, and he had to fight hard to save his
insufficient light.
Prisoned there among them, he kept calling
a man's name, "Miles! Miles!" until through all
the uproar there came back to him the answer
he had prayed for, and Amberley. .appeared, his


68 THE PRICE OF VICTORY
Further effort brought them together at the
foot of the staircase, up which they clambered
painfully in a slow-creeping current of humanity,
leaving behind them in the cruel darkness an
inferno unforgettable.
Once on the landing immediately above, they
turned aside, boring their way along another
blocked corridor, blind and deaf to the agonies
about them, until they came to the cabin they
were seeking.
The door was locked, and, despite their most
desperate demands, they could get no answer
from within.
The steamer lurched soddenly to one side,
while they kicked and hammered at the wood-
work. Goodyear broke in one of the panels with
his bare hands and thus obtained entrance, but
it was Amberley who, carrying the candle mean-
while, came upon Mya du Maurier first.
She was lying insensible upon the floor in an
inner room.
He lifted her, very tenderly, that the other
might adjust the cork jacket about her, enfolded
her in warm blankets, and covered all with a great
fur cloak snatched from a hook behind him : while
Goodyear, having played his minor part, stood
looking on, a queer, crooked smile tugging at the
corners of his tight lips. It was no time to show
jealousy, in word or deed : they must sink all their
old rivalry in order to save, should that be humanly
possible, the woman whom they both loved.
When they went out into the turmoil again,
Amberley bearing the limp body in his arms,


THE PRICE OF VICTORY 69
they saw that the stairward end of the alleyway
was still stagnant of a shrieking, insensate mob,
and black as the pit.
Goodyear, leading the way with the light,
turned to the left along a now empty passage
conducting to the second-class saloon; thence
they were able to reach the engine-room, dark,
deserted, half full of water, and through its lofty
skylight escaped, by dint of the most desperate
exertion, on to the hurricane-deck.
The battle which had been raging about the
boats was almost over. A flaming tar-barrel
showed a red and white shambles along the line
of the empty davits wherefrom had dropped to
a quick death by drowning the misguided droves
who had there beaten down the discipline which
might have delivered them from their peril.
Many of the multitude remaining were women
and children.
A figure in uniform came stumbling through
the throng, and Amberley recognised in it the
second officer, who had been on the bridge when
the disaster occurred. From him they learned
that the sole, scant hope of saving those left on
board lay in that some passing ship might
possibly sight their signals of distress.
"Who've you got there?" he asked dully,
turning away; and, as they answered, "Good
God!" said he. "The old millionaire's daughter!
All his money won't help her now."
A little later he came swiftly back to them, his
eyes aglow with good tidings, and spoke shortly,
in a sharp whisper.


70 THE PRICE OF VICTORY
"The fourth officer's boat's still afloat," he
said, "and he's standing by to starboard. He's
willing to take two of you—only two, remember:
she's gunwale under already. He'll lay along-
side for you in about a minute, and whichever's
going with the lady must bring her across to the
rail as soon's I hold up my hand. Don't move
till then, or the others'll try to rush us."
Miles Amberley stood staring at his friend
across the prostrate body between them, and the
fashion of his countenance changed.
He had fought fairly, so far, for this woman—
but he could not face defeat at the finish. If he
must sell even his soul to pay the price of
victory—he would do so, here and now.
"You'll go, Miles," said Goodyear suddenly,
and, "Yes—I—I'll go," he gulped.
There was nothing more to be said.
The tar-barrel burned out before the signal
that was to seal the sorry compact had come,
and gross darkness once more engulfed them.
The straining of the crowd, as the ship sagged
sinkingly underfoot, forced them apart. Amberley
fought furiously to regain the spot where Mya
was lying. He could hear the second officer's
voice above all the tumult, and, breaking back
towards him by sheer sense of sound, found him
carrying her to the rail beyond which the boat
was waiting.
It was no time to waste words. He caught at
a corner of her fur cloak and followed, blindly.
At the top of the steep slope he took her back
into his own arms, and the other tied a rope


THE PRICE OF VICTORY 71
about them both. He clambered overside, and
was swiftly lowered to the water's edge, whence
he and his burden were lifted into the lifeboat.
It sheered away, through the thick pall of
night, and the second officer shook his head very
sadly.
"She's left the best of her two sweethearts on
board,” said he to himself.
Fresh fuel, cast on the ashes of the dying fire,
caught light, and its flame illumined a waste of
water about the doomed ship.
Goodyear, free at last of the pressure which
had penned him in, and glancing about him, felt
sickly glad that there was now no need for any
good-bye : he had sacrificed so much more than
his life for his friend that he could scarcely have
borne its added agony.
He was still standing there in the snow,
benumbed, both body and mind, when there came
towards him from a dim corner a white, blanketted
figure which spoke his name.
He staggered forward as if in fear, and,
“ Mya!” he cried, most disconsolately.
She held out her hands to him.
He hesitated, looking long and anxiously into
her dear eyes, before he drew her towards him,
unresisting, and kissed her on the lips.
“You have chosen between us," he said simply,
as if he had read her thoughts. “You must have
heard
“Yes," she assented, shivering, “I heard you
offer Miles his life--and me. I wrapped my
cloak about a woman beside me, and it was


72 THE PRICE OF VICTORY
all quite easy, in the darkness. It's late to have
learned my lesson, Yorston, but there's time yet
to tell you"
11 Steamer on the starboard quarter!" screamed
a straining voice from overhead on the bridge,
and, through the thinning mist, the morning star
twinkled cheerily.


PAQUITA
Pangare Dunn—and Paquita! Who'd ever ha'
thought it?
But there the entry stands in the unclerkly
handwriting of Roque Perez, J.P., and lord of
the Little Sea:
Dunn, Felipe. . . ingle's ... 25 afios . . . soltero
Perez, Francisca . oriental. . 17 afios . . . soltera
And it is attested by the signs-manual of Johnny
Gordon, of the Parrot estancia, and Pat Heron,
of Las Garzas, neither of whom would sit down
deliberately to foul pure paper with fiction.
Tis a fact then on the face of it—and it fell out
thus:
Philip—better known as "Pangare" Dunn, of
the Papagayo—the Parrot—estancia, started up
out of his slumbers.
"I am in a sweat!" said he, mopping his
streaming face with the selvedge of the rough
blanket that covered him.
He yawned, most cavernously, stretched him-
self, and, with a supreme exertion of will-power,
thrust one foot floorwards. It descended upon
a cold, soft, clammy body by the bedside, and
Pangare jerked it suddenly back again, tucking it
73


74 PAQUITA
underneath him in tailorwise, with a shudder of
disgust.
"The devil!" he ejaculated fervently, and
peered, with due precaution, over the edge of
the canvas stretcher which served him indifferently
for bed and board.
A big bath-sponge, soaking wet, lay in a
yellow puddle upon the cracked clay with which
his abode was liberally floored.
"The devil!" said Pangare a second time,
and sprang out of bed, wide awake, without
further ado.
He slipped his feet into a pair of ragged
alpargatas, and stepped judiciously out into the
early sunshine.
A cloud of dust in the distance caught his
roving glance, the quick drum of hooves fell upon
his ear, and he grinned ungracefully.
"The little devil!" said he, and re-entered his
habitation.
A very few short minutes sufficed for the
manifold purposes of shaving, sluicing, and
slipping into breeches and boots: a pink silk
shirt and a wideawake served as top-dressing,
and Mr. Dunn, snatching an odd pair of spurs
from a nail on the wall, sallied forth to his work,
clothed, and in his right mind.
"But what a head!" he groaned to himself by
the way, the aftertaste of last night's festivities
as ashes in his mouth.
Head or no head, however, he had to ride the
boundaries of the Papagayo before breakfast:
that was the precise purpose of his presence in


PAQUITA 75
the solitary hut at the far corner of Johnny
Gordon's great demesne, and he knew better
than to shirk any single league of fencing in the
process.
Once, and once only, had he been guilty of
such neglect of duty, and, upon that unfortunate
occasion, three thousand pounds' worth of his
employer's fat export stock had slipped through
a tiny gap in the wires into the Rincon de Perez,
whence they were only recovered after six of
the best bullocks had disappeared permanently.
Pangare had promptly tendered his resignation
and the whole of his worldly wealth as some off-
set to the loss incurred; but Johnny had thanked
him courteously and refused both, although the
latter might, under favourable auspices, have
amounted to as much as ten pounds sterling.
He was proportionately grateful. "Rippin' chap,
Johnny!" he announced to all and sundry, and
no one disagreed with him. "I'll ride the fences
like a shillin' angel henceforth an' for ever, amen,"
he said to himself privately, making no such
reservation in favour of thirst as an older and
wiser man might.
"A ver el pangar6, Manuelito—y ligero!" he
ordered angrily, as a sleepy peon sauntered
across to the corral before him.
"Let's have the blooming pony, you Dago
orphan! or I'll"
Manuel backed into a corner of the enclosure
the tricky little mustang to which Mr. Dunn
was indebted for his strange nickname, slipped
a headstall over its uplifted nose, looped a thick


76 PAQUITA
snaffle into place, and led forth his master's
mount with virtuous haste.
"Good-days, don Felipe," said he, unnecessarily
breathless. "How does it go? Have you slept
well?"
"Saddle!" said Pangare, with emphasis, and
Manuel cinched up the blown-out steed in silence.
Pangar6 threw himself across its back and can-
tered off. The peon lit a cigarette, and thanked
God piously between puffs that his patron was
once more safely disposed of. He drew a small
weekly wage for the supposititious awakening
of the Englishman at dawn, for the theoretical
provision of hot shaving-water and early morn-
ing coffee thereafter, for the unperformed duty
of rubbing down his employer's pony previous
to presenting it, encaparisoned, at the door of
Pangare's hut, and he would have been loth to
lose his sinecure.
"I'll sack that brute," Mr. Dunn was grumbling
to himself for the fiftieth time as he jogged along
his fences. "He hasn't wakened me once this
week. I'd be sleeping still if Paquita hadn't been
passing, and I haven't had a cup of coffee for
months, although I've got a mouth like
Hello! Here's Heron."
"Mornin,' PangareV' shouted the advancing
horseman gleefully. "How does your hat fit?"
"Like a mustard plaster!" explained Pangare
in a grievous voice, as he reined in on his own
side of the fence. "That last go of cocktails
fairly floored me: I'd give two legs and an arm
for a squencher! Got anything about you?"


PAQUITA 77
"Devil the drop," said Pat Heron, dolefully.
"Let's toddle over to the Corner and get some-
thing to cool our mouths. Got any ready ?—I'm
broke to the wide!"
Pangare thrust a hand into his breeches pocket,
and dragged out several dirty bills, which he
proceeded to tell over carefully.
"Fifty, seventy, one-twenty, one-forty, one-
forty-five," he counted, and Heron looked re-
lieved.
"You're a regular paper-mine," cried that
impecunious individual: "I wonder you feel safe
sleeping alone with all that wealth in the
house!"
"One dollar forty-five," Pangar6 mumbled.
"About one-an'-ninepence. That'll pay for two
goes of neckwash, at any rate."
"Come on then," implored Mr. Heron. "It'll
be dark before you're finished figurin' it all out.
Hang your hat on the fence and put your pony
at it. That chap jumps wire, doesn't he?"
"'f course he does," returned Pangare indig-
nantly, and wheeled for the leap. Then his face
fell. "No," he said suddenly, "I won't. Here,
take the cash, and liquidate it yourself. I've got
to get round these blasted fences before breakfast."
"What rot!" cried Heron crossly. "Don't be
an owl. I've just come down the Rincon, and
your wire's all standing; no one about but
Pepe Garcao, and he won't try any tricks just at
present."
"Paquita was over at my hut this morning,"
Mr. Dunn observed inconsequently. "She


78
PAQUITA
dropped a wet sponge down my neck, or I'd be
sound asleep still.”
" That's all right then," returned Pat Heron
cheerfully. “Your fences are safe enough as long
as she's about. Jump, man-jump!”
And Pangaré jumped.
Donde vas con manton de manila !
Donde vas con vestido Chiné ?
sang Paquita Perez, riding through the sunshine.
Her black eyes sparkled as she sang, and her
face—the delicate, oval face of a child-Madonna-
was incongruously full of roguish satisfaction.
"I 'аve awake my frien' Feelip," she ceased
singing to remark. “The English 'e is awake to
say—'Oh, dash it all, don' you know, w'at !””.
She laughed aloud over this imperfect parody
of Mr. Dunn's morning orisons, and, shaking up
the blood mare she was riding, fell a-singing again.
The dew was not yet dry on the grass, but the
mare kicked up the under-dust as she stretched
out into a gallop. A barbed-wire fence rose in
her path, and she steadied down obediently,
taking it like any furze-filled posts and rails,
lifting her mistress easily over out of Johnny
Gordon's Papagayo estancia into the Rincón de
Perez, her birthplace.
" Thanks, little sister," said Paquita softly,
patting the glossy neck before her. “Thou hast
saved me from the wrath; now we may go more
slowly."
The Perez property bites in between the Papa-
gayo and Las Garzas in a V-shaped wedge: in


PAQUITA
79
the centre of that wedge, midway between the
fences of its two English neighbours, lies a lagoon
overhung by willows, cool and pleasant and
restful in the heat of the summer. Thither the
girl bent her way.
A low whinnying sounded from among the
trees as she rode forward, and the mare, tossing
her head, called back an answer. Her mistress
pulled lightly on the curb as if minded to stop
her, but in a moment the reins fell slack again,
and she cantered on. “Pouf !” said Paquita, with
a grimace, “ 'tis only Pepe."
Pepe grinned to himself as he watched his
cousin coming. She was very desirable, and he
had long desired her in vain, for old Uncle Perez
could not be brought to coerce his only child
into a marriage that was distasteful to her. Now,
it seemed to Pepe, he might make terms with old
Uncle Perez, the wicked and wealthy.
Paquita was aware of the grin, and her face
changed. She had little liking for the half-bred
native who swaggered over towards her, spurs
clattering at his high heels, knife and revolver
glittering at his belt in the sun. He might have
made a hero, she thought scornfully, to a woman
of his own class, but to her he was merely the
braggart bravo he looked. Paquita's mother
had been a Spanish lady; Pepe's an Indian
woman of the tolderias.
She nodded slightly in response to his greeting,
and, slipping from the saddle, led her mare to
the water's edge. He scowled as she turned her
shoulder to him.


80 PAQUITA
"I saw thee this morning," he said sharply,
and she faced about, defiant.
"Well?" she asked.
He was somewhat staggered by her coolness.
"What if I tell thy father?" he asked loweringly.
"Tio Perez would not like to hear that his
daughter was caught coming from the English-
man's doorway at daybreak!"
The girl looked him up and down with calm
eyes. "Truly, Pepe," she said, "thy wooing
might win thee a more worthy bride than I!"
His face fell. "See here, Paquita," he ques-
tioned roughly, "wilt marry me? Say 'yes,'
and I am silent."
"Help me to my saddle," she ordered, as one
would address a servant; and he lifted her
willingly, his fingers lingering at her trim ankles
till she kicked them free.
She would have ridden off, but that he, like any
fool, held fast by her bridle. "Shall I tell—or
no ?" he asked again. "Wilt be my wife, or the
Englishman's mistress?"
A cut across the face was the most natural
answer to such a query, and, as he staggered
back blindly, the mare, her head free, sprang
forward. A less practised rider might have
fallen, but Paquita had her fretful steed under
control, and was off at a gallop almost before the
other had realised his plight.
He stayed to examine his appearance in the
pocket-mirror which formed part of his equip-
ment, and, at sight of the weal across his coun-
tenance, fell to cursing filthily. He flung himself


PAQUITA 81
into his own saddle, half minded to pursue the
girl; fingered knife and revolver with fell intent;
and finally threw himself, face downwards, upon
the dry ground, weeping bitterly, calling upon
his gods.
Roque Perez lives, far from his neighbours, in
a loop-holed building set upon a low bluff that
overlooks the Little Sea. At times his house
stands upon an island, and, again, upon a penin-
sula. In the island season his neighbours lose
many cattle.
Then they speak bitterly of Uncle Perez, pro-
claiming him a rascal, alleging that he is given to
cutting wires in the dark, to faring forth from his
fastness, once the hue and cry is over, with other
men's goods for sale. Uncle Perez is very
wealthy, but his own fencing is that of a poor
man, and there are many hiding-places along the
uncertain shores of the Little Sea. As Juez de
Paz he hears all complaints courteously, and at
times even authorises the searching of his own
property high and low for missing stock, but such
search is always fruitless. Then Uncle Perez
winks placidly to Pepe Garcao, his dead brother's
son, and places meat and drink before the searchers,
bidding them note the tenderness of steaks pre-
sumably cut from his own tough native cattle.
A humorous rascal this Uncle Perez, and
greatly daring. Very jovial after a successful
foray; very terrible also in wrath, save only to
Paquita, his daughter, who could do no wrong.
To him, then, came Pepe Garcao, trembling, a
6


82
PAQUITA
scar across his face, with a story that set him
raving starkly. "From the Englishman's hut—
at dawn—struck thee because thou didst warn
her! By God, lad, if the tale be of thine own
making thou shalt rue it bitterly. Where is the
girl? In hiding! Thou liest, Indian dog! Get
hence and wait without. Paquita! Paquita!"
Pepe slunk away, desperately terrified by the
tempest he had called up, and wondering on
whom its weight would fall. He knew that if
his cousin gave her word that his story was false,
the Rincon de Perez would no longer be a safe
abiding-place for him, and, going forth, saddled
himself a fresh horse against contingencies.
He lounged about the courtyard until Paquita
rode in, fresh and unconcerned. She would have
passed him, but he caught her roughly by the
shoulder. "He knows all," he said, nervously.
"Thou art to go to him; and remember, I have
spoken only the truth."
"Brave man!" answered Paquita, and went on
her way, her slender, womanly figure erect, her
proud little head well back—and sick fear in her
heart for the first time in her life.
Pat Heron and his confederate made a fast
league of it to the Corner, and reined up before
the tumble-down mud building wherein were to
be obtained, at extreme prices, all the necessaries
of life, from a cradle to a coffin, in time to join
in the chorus of a scandalous ditty sung with
great fervour by the survivors of the over-night's
occasion. All the younger Englishmen of the


PAQUITA 83
Little Sea were gathered together there that
morning, and their thirst was like the sands of
the great Sahara.
The song sung, shouts of welcome greeted the
newcomers, who, however, postponed acknow-
ledging these in favour of the more pressing need
of instant refreshment.
"Ajenjo—dos," commanded Pangare the capital-
ist, elbowing his way through the press towards
the iron grille behind which sat the proprietor
of the den, bottles, knife and revolver all within
reaching distance. "Splash 'em out quick,
Whiskers—we're most uncommon dry."
"The cash?" inquired Whiskers drily, and
Pangare tossed him a fifty-cent note with a curse.
He poured out two minute doses of absinthe,
dripped water from a skin bottle slowly into each,
and pushed the opalescent results towards his
aggravated customers, who, thrusting eager hands
between the bars of his stronghold, seized the
thick-stemmed glasses and drank off their insuffi-
cient contents at a gulp.
"Two more," ordered Pangar6, "an' don't cry
into the glasses, in case you wet 'em!"
"Drink up, Pangare, and pipe us a stave,"
cried the company, and he, nothing loth, obeyed,
making melody, after he had drunk, to the effect
that he was a big black wolf from Bitter Creek,
and that, consequently, it was his night to howl.
He howled: the audience howled: the dogs
without howled, until they could howl no longer,
whereupon a unanimous vote of thanks was
awarded him by the time-honoured method of


84 PAQUITA
beating upon tables, benches, walls, and windows
in such wise as to produce the greatest volume
of sound with the least effort.
Much howling makes thirst, and more absinthe
was called for, on the plea that it, of all liquors,
is the most refreshing to husky throats. Then
there was more music. One man sang, another
danced, some did neither and some both, but in
any case a good hour passed unheeded.
Pat Heron was in the midst of a pathetic solo,
his own composition, when a still small voice
belonging to a still smaller boy in the doorway
shrilled pantingly: "The fence is down between
the Rincon and Don Juancito Gordon's!"
Pangare's face was the colour of chalk, and
Heron's scarlet with shame, as the two rushed
forth for their ponies, followed by every English-
man present. Neither uttered a word; the clatter
of many hooves filled the air, and they knew that
there were good men at their backs, but they
knew also that, if they could reach the break in
the fence before the cattle, there would be no
need for these. They raced across the plain side
by side, crouching in their saddles, urging the
willing ponies to their utmost speed.
Heron's mount stumbled into a bizcachera and
turned heels over head in the air, but he threw
himself clear with gaucho cunning and was in the
saddle again, sore and shaking, before the last of
the followers had galloped past him.
It happened thus that Pangare' held the lead by
half a mile and was the first to sight the distant
herd of the Papagayo trotting slowly along the


PAQUITA 85
fence behind a big half-bred Durham, the most
notorious breaker of bounds within the Partido;
and, far away on the slope, he was aware of a
tiny figure moving towards the same objective
as himself.
He spurred his sweating pony to greater effort,
praying that he might reach the gap before the
cattle should find it, but his heart sank as he saw
that they also had freshened their pace, and were
heading for a point much nearer to the approach-
ing stranger than to himself. He looked long
and earnestly at the oncomer, wondering whether
he would be man enough to head them off until
he, Pangare, should be able to reach them with
his stock-whip, and the flutter of a skirt caught
his eye.
He groaned aloud. "It's only Paquita after
all," he told himself very disconsolately, and rode
his hardest.
The big Durham was tossing his head in the
distance. Pangare saw the gap, still far away,
and knew that the cattle had picked it out also.
He set his teeth and worked the pony mercilessly,
but they were close to the broken wires before
he could reach them.
Almost too late, though, to win through, for
there was a woman in their way, a woman upon
a frantic blood mare which reared arid plunged
most desperately as she urged it against their
thunderous oncome.
Pangare gasped sickly as he saw her danger,
and gave a great gulp of relief when the mare, mad
with terror, spun round upon its heels and bolted


86 PAQUITA
wildly; but when he saw its rider fall, a sudden
mist obscured his vision, and he swayed in his
saddle at the imminent peril of his own neck.
The cattle came on, more slowly, behind their
self-appointed leader, and halted, bellowing, a
few yards from the fence: the gap was there, as
they had gathered from afar, and they very
greatly desired to pass through it towards the
lush lagoon beyond; but the slight figure which
had fallen from the saddle was afoot again and
running back towards them, crying out against
their purpose.
It achieved the opening and stood there, breath-
lessly determined, while Pangare, the English-
man, their proper guardian, was yet some distance
from them.
The restless Durham lowered his head and
roared wickedly: his satellites answered him as
he wished, and he trotted forward, tail up, his
head between his forelegs.
The whole herd passed through into the Rincon
de Perez, but the trifling delay proved fatal to
their plans; they were promptly rounded up by
a half-circle of terribly angry Englishmen, and
driven ignominiously back into their proper place,
sorely belaboured, after the broken bodies of the
man and woman who had attempted to withstand
them had been carried to one side.
Then a couple of men galloped wildly over to
Pangare's rancho, returning therefrom with a
hingeless door, while others rode away swiftly to
bring back such aid as might be obtainable within
the borders of the Little Sea,


PAQUITA 87
Roque Perez was warned, and strode into
Pangare's hut within the hour to find his daughter
lying at death's door. Pangare himself was
stretched, unconscious, under a rude awning
without, and there were womenfolk with both.
Mrs. Johnny Gordon was there, as well as her
husband, and, before them, the old freebooter
was dumb, but he spoke freely enough amongst
his equals, the black-browed, soft-spoken sons of
the soil who had gathered together swiftly at word
of the mishap to the Pearl of the Little Sea.
"Living or dead," he said, his mouth set and
stern, " she shall be carried to church on Sunday,
and Pepe may have her if he will."
This strange saying flew down the wind, and it
was shortly rumoured throughout the Partido
that Roque Perez was mad.
Mad or sane, however, he stayed beside his
daughter until the English doctor, fetched from
afar at great cost, told him that she would live;
then he went back to his house, leaving her with
the women.
Neither she nor Pangare could be moved at the
moment: both had been terribly trampled by the
cattle in their wild effort to stem the rush, but
Pangare had suffered most severely, since he had
thrown himself across the girl's prostrate body as
he fell; he was in great pain, and convinced that
every bone in his body was broken, all the spirit
crushed out of him. Paquita's injuries were less
serious, but she was terribly torn about the face.
Sunday morning broke very softly upon the


88
PAQUITA
Little Sea, but Pangare, lying under his blankets
in the lee of the hut, was awake before the sun;
he felt fresher, thanks to a sleeping-draught, and
was even tempted to move his limbs a little,
vastly surprised to find them movable with the
exception of his left arm, which was closely
imprisoned in splints.
He lay musing for a space, until, rendered rest-
less by the unusual bustle within his abode, he
made shift to summon one of the women camped
about the place for nursing purposes.
"Que pasa adentro?" he asked fretfully.
"What's going on inside?"
"It is that we are robing the little lady for her
wedding, Don Felipe," she answered soothingly.
"She will soon be ready, and Don Roque comes
for her at seven."
Pangare Dunn sat straight up, gasping: "What!"
he shouted; and Paquita, within, smiled wanly
at the sound of his voice. It was such an honest
voice, she reflected vaguely, and she liked the
ring of it, for she thought much of honesty, this
daughter of a cattle-thief and a dame of Leon.
She herself had been honest at great cost.
She plucked with trembling fingers at the silken
folds of her wedding dress as she remembered
the words her father had spoken when she had
told him fearlessly that Pepe's story was true—
in so far as it went. More than that he had
refused to hear, and the price of all was to be
paid this morning within the four walls of Saint
Felicity. Ay de mi! It is ill to be sore of heart
at seventeen!


PAQUITA
89
Pat Heron, riding up to Mr. Dunn's abode
shortly after sunrise, was smitten with amaze-
ment at sight of that precocious invalid balancing
himself precariously against an immature paraiso
tree and pulling on a pair of white drill breeches
with his only available hand.
“Mother of Moses, Pangaré," he exclaimed with
friendly frankness, "you must be mad!”
"Shut your head," requested Mr. Dunn, “and
fasten this buckle. That's right. Now lace 'em
up at the knees.-Strop that razor. Where's
the soap ? No: cold water'll do. Hang the
mirror on that nail-50.-Boots ? Oh yes : stick
'em on. Steady, you silly owl, or I'll be chop-
ping my chin off.-Gimme a clean shirt. No,
a white one-that box under the tree-and a
scarf. Here, tie this—that's right. Now tell
Manuel to saddle the bay, and see if you can
sneak a peg or two of rum from that infernal
woman with the green turban-she's in charge
of the stores."
Pat carried out all his orders with great meek-
ness, well pleased that his friend should be once
more afoot, and Pangaré, fortified by a share of
the natural medicine he had prescribed for himself,
proceeded to unfold a tale of woe.
“He beat her-damn him!” said he, “because
she had looked into my hut to wake me. Pepe
Garçao had told him he had seen her in the door-
way, and he would hear no explanation. She
had struck her cousin across the face because he
insulted her about it, and the son of a dog cut
the wires on his way home, I'll cut his Pat,


90
PAQUITA
will you help me ? I've only one arm, and she's
to be married this morning.".
As soon as Paquita was dressed for the sacri-
fice, Pangaré's gossip once more bethought herself
of her charge without, and strolled round to the
back of the hut with a cup of coffee for that
sufferer. Her howl of dismay when she found
his sick-bed untenanted brought other curious
women to her side, and many conjectures were
hazarded as to the nature of the mysterious
power which had spirited him away. The most
generally accepted of these was that of an obese
and elderly female, who expressed herself pessi-
mistically anent the undoubted liability of all
Englishmen to Satanic influences. Manuel's curt
statement that Don Felipe had merely ridden off
with his friend Heron and a bottle of rum was
received with universal derision. .
" He ride!” said the crone sneeringly. “By
the mercy of Mary he may walk-with crutches-
to the graveyard. I have seen the wounds, Don
Manuel, and you may sell his saddle to pay the
priest.”
Manuel had no breath to waste on old women,
and sucked his cigarette with philosophic calm,
until one or two of the more forward began
to finger the property of the departed English-
man.. Then he took such part in the proceedings
as made him most unpopular, and the gathering
fled.
At the hour appointed Roque Perez drove his
famous galloping four-in-hand up to the door
of the hut, and the bride-to-bę was carried out


PAQUITA 91
to him, feet foremost and swathed in soft wrap-
pings. Then he went his way, more slowly,
while the women followed on foot.
There was a great concourse at High Mass
within the strait and narrow walls of Santa
Felicita that morning; but the heart of the good
father there was troubled rather than uplifted
thereby, for he knew the sad story of the week.
He spoke eloquently to his parishioners con-
cerning the divinity of mercy, but they listened
with deaf ears until there was a rattle of wheels
without, when they rose and retired in a body,
crossing themselves perfunctorily at the font as
they passed.
Roque Perez confronted the crowd on the steps
boldly, and it opened before him as he strode
up, his daughter in his arms, closing in again
as he paused at the church door. "Canst walk?"
he asked sternly, and set his burden down.
A sudden shiver passed through the assemblage;
a slow, sibilant indrawing of the breath sounded
like rising wind amidst the silence, as the girl,
facing about, threw back her heavy veil and
looked down upon the staring faces before her.
She was masked in white linen from brow to
bosom, and, but for the two piteous eyes behind
the spectre-like windows of her covering, might
have been a corpse.
Her father drew one of her arms through
his and led her in. The spectators, sighing
relievedly, followed at a respectful distance,
and the priest moved forward to the altar as
the old man and his daughter knelt together


92 PAQUITA
before it. The scanty choir broke into singing
behind their screen, the boys' voices sounding
sweetly in the dim coolness of the little church,
and curious folk began to turn their heads
towards the door again for the coming of the
bridegroom.
The minutes passed, and the masked bride
still knelt in prayer, heedless of the whispering
behind her. Her father was on his feet, erect,
rigid, the veins of his forehead throbbing visibly.
Once he laid his left hand upon the butt of a
revolver that hung at his hip; but a mild glance
from the priest reproved such open avowal of
his impulse, and he dropped it to his side again
sullenly.
Vague rumours circulated amongst the con-
gregation. Pepe was sick—or sorry. Pepe had
been poisoned by some creature of Paquita's.
Pepe had fallen, in his haste to the wedding,
and broken his neck. Pepe had been locked up
by the new policeman, who was not yet aware
of his hereditary immunity from justice. But
the most general opinion was that Pepe might
be well rid of his bargain—one does not desire
to see a masked bride twice in a lifetime, and
the hint of horrors concealed might daunt the
bravest lover.
Roque Perez turned on his heel, and the buzz
of conversation died down with surprising sud-
denness. A tense, expectant silence overhung
the crowded church as the singing ceased, and
all eyes, save those behind the mask, followed
the old man as he strode to the open door, his


PAQUITA 93
great silver spurs jangling angrily upon the flags,
his face working.
He stood, bareheaded, in the sunshine, shading
his eyes with a quivering hand, scanning the
open plain to the horizon. Then he looked back
into the church, still scowling, but less fiercely.
"He comes," said Roque Perez to the priest,
as if they two and the girl had been alone in the
building.
There was no more whispering.
It seemed after all that Pepe must have been
sick, for of the two tiny figures cantering out of
the distance towards the Church of Saint Felicity
one swayed in the saddle from time to time,
and had to be supported by the other, so that
they came slowly. Roque Perez, as well as such
of the waiting throng as could see past him
through the doorway, had, therefore, plenty of
time to realise that the two travellers were not,
as had been supposed, Pepe Garcao and his best
man, but a certain Mr. Dunn, boundary-rider
on the Papagayo estancia, and his light-hearted
friend, Mr. Heron, of Las Garzas.
What Uncle Perez might do under such pecu-
liarly aggravating circumstances no man or
woman dared surmise; and there was no breath
drawn within the church as the bold Pangar6,
tumbling breathlessly out of his saddle, staggered
up the steps and held out to the apoplectic
watcher there a somewhat dirty scrap of paper.
The thread of Mr. Dunn's existence might have
been cut there and then had not that gentleman,
with inconceivable aplomb, continued his erratic


94 PAQUITA
progress as far as the steps of the altar, where,
in the sight of all men, he knelt reverently down
beside the bride, leaving the terrible old man
in the background to make the most he might
of a note, signed by Pepe Garcao, to this effect:
"// was a lie, and I will not marry your daughter,
but this man will."
"Shall I proceed?" asked the voice of the
priest from within, and the words sounded strange
and far off to the man in the doorway.
He waved his hand. "Go on," said he chok-
ingly, and tiptoed back to his place. As soon
as his back was turned, Pat Heron came round
the corner refastening his revolver holster, and
went up the steps also.
Mr. and Mrs. Dunn, duly united in the holy
bonds of matrimony, were the recipients of many
good wishes as they stepped out into the sun-
shine again, arm in arm. Even the ghostly mask
that the bride still wore seemed to have lost
all its terrors since she had learned to smile
through it, and it has long been an established
fact that no more romantic-looking couple ever
has trod or will tread the steps of Saint Felicity.
Roque Perez, his part played, followed the
newly married pair like any tame sheep. The
superstructure of his plans had tumbled about
his ears, and he was still stunned by the crash.
He therefore came forward meekly when his
son-in-law beckoned to him before all the people,
and stepped aside with that worthy almost as if
he liked it, leaving the bride to kiss as many


PAQUITA
95
other women as she could pending her husband's
return.
"I ask a gift, Don Roque," said Pangare bluntly,
and the old man nodded.
"You have given me back my daughter," he
answered, "and all that I have is yours."
"Word of an Englishman?" asked Pangare
doubtfully.
"Word of an Englishman," Uncle Perez as-
sented solemnly.
"Then you won't kill Pepe—I ask his life,"
said Pangar6 Dunn.
Sudden anger blazed forth in the other's eyes.
"You seek to trick me," he said hoarsely. "I
will surely plaster the doorsteps with his brains
against your home-coming—the man who stole
from your wife her honour."
"You beat Paquita?" Pangare asserted.
"I beat her cruelly, God help me," said Roque
Perez, "and for that alone I would have the life
of him whose lying led me to it."
"She asks this wedding gift of you," Pangare
urged desperately. "A worthless life is no great
guerdon. I too ask it—and I have your word—
word of an Englishman. I am an Englishman."
"All Englishmen are fools," replied the old
man, smiling drearily, "and—I too am a fool,
for I will keep my promise. His life is safe
from me."
"You're a brick," said Mr. Dunn warmly, "and
I'll shake hands with you if you won't squeeze
too hard."
He went back to his wife, his face beaming,


96 PAQUITA
and she tucked an arm into his happily, seeing
that all was well.
"Come on," he cried, and the two stepped
forward together lamely.
"Hold hard, idiot," cautioned Pat Heron at his
elbow. "Where are you going?"
"God bless my soul," said Pangar6 blankly, " I
never thought o' that!" He scratched his head
in evident confusion. "We'll have to put up
with my hut," he announced at length, " until I
can raise something better."
"Ass!" retorted Mr. Heron angrily. "Wait
here a bit, and I'll have my trap over in next to
no time. You'll go to Las Garzas."
"Thanks, old chap," Pangar6 agreed: "I'll do
the same for you some day."
Heron was already in the saddle when Roque
Perez hailed him in a stentorian voice. "Whither
away, Don Patricio ?" he shouted, and Pat turned
his pony to explain.
The old man pulled him to the ground.
"House me no houses," said he. "My daughter's
home stands by the Little Sea, not in the dry
land of Las Garzas. There is also meat and
wine therein—tender meat and wine of the oldest;
and after we have eaten and drunk, you and I
and the others, there are accounts to be settled
between us. I am in debt, Don Patricio, and I
pay to-day."
The galloping four-in-hand made the pace to
Rinc6n de Perez, and it had a long following.
No man or woman who could sit upright but
broke bread that day with the lord of the


PAQUITA 97
Little Sea; and we need not follow their fortunes
beyond the lagoon in the corner between the
fences of the Papagayo and Las Garzas, whereby
Uncle Perez pulled up with a stifled oath at
sight of two men, elaborately attired as if for a
wedding, who lay slumbering stertorously under
the shade of the willows.
Their mouths were very wide open, their eyes
very tightly shut, and between the two stood a
black bottle, empty, bearing these words upon
a gaudy wrapper about its middle: "Negrohead
Rum."
Uncle Perez handed the reins to Pat Heron
without a word, and descended from his perch
in haste.
"Word of an Englishman I" said Pangar6 warn-
ingly, and his father-in-law grunted, handing into
his new relative's keeping the knife and revolver
from his belt, descending upon the sleepers with
a stout whip only.
Ere he had fully achieved his purposes the
sleepers were far away, running rapidly, rubbing
as they ran, and Pangare Dunn was burying with
the toe of his boot in the soft mud of the lagoon
a small cardboard box, left lying there by some
careless person, and thus inscribed: "The Sleeping
Powders. To be taken as required—One."
7


CCEURVAILLANT
He was a veray perfit gentil knight.—Chaucer.
"Voici, M'siEu'," said the black dwarf, and Tarrant,
raising startled eyes, looked swiftly about him.
He had ridden far since daybreak, was stupid
with fatigue: at sight of the girl on the bluff
above he reined back in blank astonishment. It
was so long since he had seen a white woman.
It seemed so unaccountable to see one there, and
very obviously at home, in the wilderness.
She was standing upon a great red rock, out-
lined, clearly as a cameo, in the glow of early
twilight against a steely sky: silent, and very
beautiful.
He sat straight in his saddle, staring up at her,
dumbly.
"Bon soir, ma'm'selle," the dwarf remarked,
mouthing the words in negro fashion, and " Bon
soir, Cceurvaillant," answered she most courte-
ously, while Tarrant was still cudgelling his
brain for phrase wherewith to greet her. But
before he in his turn could speak she had dis-
appeared, so suddenly, so completely, that he
could find neither trace nor trail of her when he
went stumbling up the slope toward the spot on
which she had been standing.
98


CCEURVAILLANT 99
The dwarf, left with the horses on the path
below, gave vent to an aggravating, throaty
chuckle, and Tarrant turned to him, demanding,
with threats, an instant and explicit explanation
of the incident: but that linguist disclaimed, in
dull Sesuto, all or any liability in connection with
it, stubbornly refusing to trench further upon the
French vocabulary with which he had so suddenly
shocked his employer.
Tarrant, knowing no Sesuto and little enough
of French, could get nothing out of him, and,
having postponed for the present the pleasure of
clumping him over the head with a stone, pursued
his irritable way eastwards, followed, at a safely
respectful distance, by the grinning, unrepentant
negro. It was his most immediate and pressing
purpose to pick out, before the scant twilight
should fail him, a camping-ground whereon they
might more or less safely spend the night; in
those days, and on the wrong side of Swaziland,
it would have been unwise to travel triflingly.
Darkness had already fallen before he could
find a site to satisfy himself, and even then the
dwarf protested vehemently against his final
choice. But the guttural grumblings of that
malcontent conveyed nothing to the compre-
hension of his master, and, after several futile
soliloquies, he set himself discontentedly to off-
saddle the three sorry steeds of their cavalcade,
making thereafter such preparation as was possible
for food and rest.
The gloom of the dead day's grave was lessened
by the lighting of the stars. Tarrant sat down,
73235B


ioo CCEURVAILLANT
his back against a boulder, and stretched his
aching limbs luxuriously.
The cool, soundless African night soothed and
comforted him after his long, hot day on horse-
back. The warmth of the dwarfs great cooking-
fire, the grateful fragrance from his own pipe,
rendered him pleasantly drowsy. He puffed
contemplative clouds into the cloudless vault,
and, through the curling smoke, looked fate in
the face unknowingly, till his pipe went out, the
fire died down for lack of fuel, and the eyes that,
looking into his, had spoken to him mutely were
swallowed up in space.
He rose with a rush, reached in a second the
bush whence they had shone upon him, and came
back bleeding from its embrace. The shred of
white linen ravished from a woman's clothing
by a lustful thorn he did not see, but the black
dwarf, who had cat's eyes and a busy brain,
saw it, and had occasion on the instant to cut
down the green mimosa for the replenishing of
his fading fire.
Master and man ate thankfully and in silence
of the savoury stew the latter had evolved.
Thereafter Tarrant wrapped himself about with
a great kaross, and lay down wearily. In five
minutes he was fast asleep.
The dwarf, squatted on his haunches by the
dying blaze, gazed frowningly into the red heart
of the embers. From time to time he fed their
glow with dry and smokeless wood, and once,
when Tarrant, turning in uneasy slumber, shook
the folds of the sheepskin from about his shoulders,


CCEURVAILLANT 101
rose from his crouching posture to cover the
white man carefully from the keen night air.
A very villainous figure he cut, bending, like
some black nightmare, over the unconscious form
at his feet: misshapen almost beyond belief,
inhumanly ugly, an embodied spirit of evil, he
was yet studying with exceeding tenderness the
flushed face of the sleeping Englishman. He
shook him gently by the shoulder, and Tarrant
started up, hand on hip, to glare wildly into the
outer darkness.
"Du quinquina," said the watcher laconically,
and the sick man, swallowing without demur the
tiny tabloids held out to him, lay down again
content, his fears allayed.
"Useful sort of beast!" he muttered sleepily to
himself, and, smiling careless thanks, regained the
land of dreams.
It is a theory—an aesthetic theory—of the de-
scendants of Ham that none but the normally
shaped of the human species should be allowed
to survive the perils of birth. It is, moreover,
a practice of theirs to take certain steps to that
end, and the achievement of manhood by Paul
Tarrant's servitor must have been a most unusual
feat, not unattended by very unpleasant risks.
A pariah, then, amongst his own folk in con-
sequence of his deformities, a patient butt for the
untender mercies of the wandering takhaar Boers
in whose midst he perforce dwelt, a sour, sad,
savage creature, he had attached himself to the
errant Englishman on the strength of some kindly
word thrown him by chance, forgotten as soon as


102 CCEURVAILLANT
uttered save by its recipient. He had followed
Tarrant faithfully in all that Ishmaelite's sub-
sequent wanderings, and, despite the fact that
neither could understand the other's speech, that
the service was of the hardest, without immediate
payment, with prospects only of the most remote,
remained well satisfied with his position.
They had travelled together down the Assegai
River into the Ubombo country, where, rumour
had it, there was raw gold to be had for the
digging by those who did not set too much store
upon their chances of living to a ripe old age.
Of such was Tarrant, and he had set forth on the
fresh quest, desperately hopeful, urged on by
vivid recollections of a certain North-country
parsonage from whose scanty resources had come
the meagre financial equipment for his venture
into those untilled fields: from which must be
wrung, at all hazards, a manifold harvest.
In that far-away home there were hungry
mouths to be fed and hungrier hearts to be
healed by the early acquisition of that competence
whose long deferring had bred in him sickness
of both body and mind. He tossed and turned
the night through, his dreams divided between
the struggling mother in the smoke-sick Yorkshire
city and the visionary voice, the questioning eyes
that had met him in that desert where men and
women of his own race had as yet no portion.
Malaria weighs heavily on mind as well as
body, and when the fever-stricken prospector,
waking unrefreshed to the hot sun of a new day,
became aware that his solitary servant had at last


CURVAILLANT
103
deserted him, he communed very bitterly with
himself concerning the black vice of ingratitude.
Then he arose, saddled, at great pains, his three
stale steeds, and set forth into the aching solitude
alone, the clangour of a smithy in his brain, its fire
ablaze beneath his eyelids.
Daylight showed him that he had, in the dark-
ness, pitched his camp under the shadow of a
sloping shoulder which abutted from the foothills
along whose base he had been travelling.
He had not ridden far before he stopped to
rest, and, as he threw himself down in the
patchy shadow of an attenuated thorn, he
realised, all at once, that he was very ill indeed:
for he saw mistily, under his elbow, a vein of
dull, virgin gold, which peered out at him, naked
and unashamed, from the blurred, grey quartz of
the outcrop whose long spine fell away before
him in active, undulating waves. Staggering to
his feet, he found confronting him at no great
distance, a long, low, rambling edifice, a con-
spicuously comfortable-looking, civilised dwelling-
house where none such should exist : out of the
earth appeared the unmistakable figure of his
errant servitor, bearing towards him an equally
unmistakable breakfast-tray heaped high with
smoking dishes.
He groaned aloud. The demon of delirium
mocked and mowed at his shoulder. A thick
darkness fell before his eyes and he rolled over,
unconscious.
Tarrant was carried into Siloam feet foremost,


CEURVAILLANT
105
"Tout va bien, m'sieu' ?" inquired the mon-
strosity hoarsely, sidling into the room like a
rheumatic crab, and, “ Assez bien, Courvaillant,”
the tall man assured him in a low voice.
"1-1-I don't understand," Tarrant expostu-
lated feebly from the bed. “Who-what-why
does he speak French to you? Who was the
woman I saw ? What does it all mean?”
His voice died away: he was conscious of an
exceedingly bitter taste in his mouth, of white,
fleecy clouds which enwrapped him in misty,
slumberous coolness, and of nothing more until
he awoke again, twelve hours later, sound and
self-confident as ever.
His host would have had him remain in bed
for a time that he might regain some measure of
strength, but he felt that he could not lie there
longer, and refused to be coerced even for his own
good. His black man brought him such clothing
as he could muster, and, having dressed him with
clumsy care, led him once more out into the world.
A very bright, pleasant world it seemed to
Tarrant, lying in a long lounge under the deep
verandah of the mission-house, where he had
been deftly installed by the still taciturn dwarf:
a sunny, smiling world, inset with pleasant
prospects, sparkling with golden opportunities.
He closed his eyes with a sigh of contentment,
and did not reopen them for a good hour.
Then the most delightful of his dreams came
true, and he forgot for a moment all things save
the red rock in the desert and the woman who
had stood thereon.


106
CEURVAILLANT
She endured his gaze for a brief space before
she spoke, a faint, fugitive colour lighting up her
face the while: “Good-morning," she said at
last laughingly; and Tarrant too found his
tongue.
“G-g-good-morning," he echoed witlessly,
and the dwarf, watching from a distance, and
with goggle eyes, the obvious comedietta, rubbed
his huge hands together between crooked knees,
chuckling his contentment.
Tarrant, overhearing his unseemly mirth, would
have risen to correct the misdemeanour but that
the girl anticipated him: “Avance donc, Caur-
vaillant, et chante-nous quelqu' chose de gaie."
The misshapen black man shuffled forward at
her bidding, and stood on one leg before her,
scraping in the dust with his other foot, his eyes
cast down, an image of fatuous confusion.
He was by no means a picturesque person, nor
was his grotesque deformity at all redeemed by
the full-dress costume he had donned in honour
of the occasion. A pair of very wide trousers,
fastened round his neck by a leathern strap, were
only partially eclipsed by a morning-coat whose
tails swept the ground behind him; the sleeves
of the coat and the ankles of the trousers were
rolled up many times. On his enormous head he
wore an infinitesimal straw hat with a broken
brim absurdly like a halo.
"Le Taureau Noir'," he announced at length,
in an agonised croak, and broke into a most
doleful ditty.
The man and woman on the verandah above


CŒURVAILLANT
107
ve you jously: Joan
him sat for a time in silence, listening. Their
eyes met for an instant, but neither smiled; and
from that moment one of them put her trust in
the other.
"Poor Courvaillant !” she said, very softly,
and sighed.
“Why do you call him Courvaillant ? "
Tarrant asked in a whisper, that he might not
disturb the singer. “Is that really his name?”.
" It's his christian name," the missionary's
daughter answered simply. “My mother had
him baptized by it."
“How long have you known him, then ?" the
young man inquired curiously.
“All my life," answered Joan de Guérin,
smiling. “He was brought to Siloam for
sanctuary when he was born, and his father
would have killed him because of his deformity
-you know the cruel custom ? I wish he were
not such a wanderer. I'm often afraid that his
own people may get hold of him some day,
and "She shuddered.
“He'll be all right as long as he's with me,"
said Tarrant stoutly. “I wonder why he let me
camp so close to your place the night I fell
sick ?”
"He begged you to come on to us," the girl
asserted, with obvious surprise. “I heard him
myself.”
"Then it was you I saw behind a bush," he
interrupted, a glad light in his eyes.
"You wouldn't pay any attention to him," she
continued, ignoring his suggestion.
Siloan


108
CEURVAILLANT
"I don't understand his outlandish jargon,"
Tarrant protested aggrievedly. “He speaks
French well enough when he wants to, but
never a sensible word have I had out of him
except when he first saw you. I suppose the
beggar's too proud to talk anything but his own
thieves' Latin to me."
"He is a king's son," said Joan gravely, as if
that fact were adequate explanation; and her
companion, looking over at her, drowned all his
plaints in the cool, dark depths of those dear eyes
which still met his so honestly.
Much that had seemed mysterious did she
make clear to him while they sat together and
the black dwarf sang; and, as Tarrant told her
of his plans-of the gold to be gained, of the
good he meant to do with it—there came to him
the knowledge that he cared more for her than
for all the gold in the world.
She was so altogether desirable, this daughter
of the wilderness, who had thought little of her
own attributes until the English adventurer had
ridden out of the foot-ranges into her life.
She had come to know him very intimately
before he could recognise her, had scanned him
very closely before admitting him to the inner
temple of her maiden thoughts; and he had
passed with credit all the tests at her command,
from the moment when he had sat dumbly in his
saddle before her, through long days and nights
of anxious nursing, to the supreme and seldom-
requisitioned trial of the black dwarf's singing.
He alone, of the few white men she had met,
the for the En
before had


CCURVAILLANT
109
had been moved by aught but mirth by its inflic-
tion; so that Joan, the beautiful-wild, unsophisti-
cated Joan-looking very gratefully towards him,
was innocently glad that her rare smile could
afford him pleasure.
He, lying back in his chair, gaunt and ex-
hausted, in his worn riding-clothes, was yet of
goodly presence-blue blood had gone to the
grimy Yorkshire parsonage-and Courvaillant,
the unmusical, paused in the twentieth verse of
his ballad to roll his eyes benignantly, as who
would say: "Bless you, my children !" Then he
went on with verse twenty-one.
Roger de Guérin, the reverend, was sorely
grieved when Tarrant told him of the purpose to
be carried out at the gates of Siloam-even more
grieved than when Paul demanded permission to
woo and win from him his only daughter.
"If Joan is willing, Tarrant," he said, when
the younger man had spoken all that lay in his
mind, “I, for one, will not stand in the way of her
happiness; although it will leave me lonely, lad.
I have often felt that this is not, perhaps, the
best place for her; and I think I can trust you to
deal tenderly with my motherless girl. But ah,
lad! I wish you could leave the gold where it
lies. Thirty years of my life and all my goods
have I given to sow the seed here; and I had
hoped to hand the harvest on unspoiled when
my day's work is done. A mining-camp! A
mining-camp! Take everything I have, lad, but
spare me that, if you can."
Tarrant thought for long before replying, and


no CCEURVAILLANT
a spasm of regret wrung his heart as he answered.
He felt very keenly for this toil-worn enthusiast
whose house he must leave doubly desolate.
"I am afraid," he said sadly, "that it must be
all—or nothing."
De Gu6rin bowed his head, and presently lifted
it again to stare upwards—at the stars, perhaps.
From the safe succour of Siloam, Tarrant set
forth again, strong enough in body, mind, and
estate to journey westwards for the purpose of
acquiring legal title to exploit his neighbour's
tiny vineyard.
The story of one Naboth ran in his mind un-
pleasantly while he was kicking his heels about
the corridors of corrupt offices in the capital,
awaiting the tardy acceptance of such bribes as
he could offer. But he comforted himself in the
writing of comforting letters, addressed to a big
manufacturing town in Yorkshire; and, conscious
of the solace these would carry to the patient
folk at home, allowed good and evil to work
together to the end ordained.
Finally, and after many grievous delays, he
turned his face once more towards the east, and
the woman who awaited him.
He found her on the self-same rock whence she
had first looked down upon him, and under its
cool shade the two exchanged a single kiss, while
the black dwarf beamed on them unblushingly.
Tarrant, proud and all but penniless, had not
dared to put his fate to the test until the title-
deeds which meant so much to him should be


CCEURVAILLANT m
securely sealed; but motherless Joan was woman-
wise, and knew what the near future had in store
for her—so that there was no weariful wooing,
but a quick question and a ready reply.
Then they went down the path together, hand
in hand.
Roger de Guerin saw them coming, and ran
forth to meet them with that most unwelcome
message which had just been delivered to him:
"Sehynga has heard of your scheme," he cried,
omitting in his excitement the greeting they had
looked for, "and has sent to say that he will not
allow the land to be disturbed."
Joan turned pale; but Paul Tarrant, the master-
ful adventurer, the cool, careful Yorkshireman,
laughed grimly—it seemed to him unnecessary
to trouble about such a trifle as the assent of a
savage potentate to plans which had been ap-
proved by a suzerain power.
"Swaziland is subject to the South African
Republic," he said slowly, "and Sehynga had
better not bother me. I've bought my option
from Oom Paul; he's the man to talk to about it."
His sweetheart smiled, but rather sadly. She
knew, far better than he, the nature of the people
among whom she dwelt; and even the brand-new
title-deeds which Paul exhibited so proudly did
not seem to her altogether sufficient for their
purpose.
She sought comfort of Coeurvaillant, the faith-
ful, while the two white men went off together to
interview the messenger who had brought them
the Word of his king.


I I2
CEURVAILLANT
The dwarf heard her out in silence, and con-
sumed an inordinate spoonful of snuff before he
spoke.
“There may be a price," said he calmly, upon
deliberation.
“And who will pay that price ?" she asked,
turning over in her mind the meaning of his
parable, but foreseeing nothing of the truth.
“ Moi, Courvaillant,” the misshapen creature
answered unhesitatingly. “Je le payerai, moi-
même."
"I wish he wouldn't drivel like that!” said
Paul Tarrant, when she told him later of his
servant's dark saying. “The price is paid in
full—though it cost me a pretty tight squeeze,
and I'm going to start operations to-morrow."
He was as good as his word, and got a hard
day's work done before the foretold trouble
came: silently, and at night, in the shape of a
very formidable host of jet-black fighting-men,
who pitched their camp upon the very ground
into which he had begun to drive the first adit of
his enterprise.
He went out to them at dawn, his blood up,
and bade them depart with all speed. Whereat
they laughed, insultingly, which so incensed the
Englishman that he would forthwith have
appealed to the Republic for armed assistance
against them had not the missionary pled with
him for his people, for time to reason with
them.
And Tarrant, for whom he was to sacrifice so
much, awaited sullenly the outcome of his more


U4 CCEURVAILLANT
In the evening he came again to Joan and spoke
soothingly.
"All will be well, ma'm'selle," he asserted.
"The King, my father, has fixed his price, and
it is but little. I, Cceurvaillant, brought you this
man: it is meet, therefore, that I should provide
the dowry. To-night I go upon a journey—
to get it. And I go willingly—that the land may
be yours. Adieu, ma'm'selle."
"Au r'voir, Cceurvaillant," said Joan, who had
a racking headache and scarcely heard him.
The night passed very noisily, but the anxious
folk within the mission-station looked out upon
a different world at daybreak.
The powers of darkness had all decamped,
leaving behind them only dead fires and dry
bones. The cool morning air was undisturbed
save by the wheeling vultures which hovered
over the deserted cantonments.
Tarrant went forth alone to spy out the land,
and, stumbling over a heap of stones in the heart
of his redeemed property, saw suddenly the
price which had been paid for its redemption.
He sat down, sickly. His head drooped for-
ward on his hands.
There were tears of unavailing remorse in his
eyes when he once more rose to his feet.
He carried Cceurvaillant back to the mission
so shrouded in a blanket that the others need
see nothing of that which had befallen. But the
precaution was needless. Both de Gu6rin and
his daughter knew, only too well, the reason for
the covering.


CCEURVAILLANT 115
They laid the poor body to rest in the first adit
of the mine it had purchased so royally for them,
engraving on a stone above it the name by which
it had been known to them, and a single line
which said:—
"Greater love hath no man than this."
They could do no more, now, for Coeurvaillant.


THE BLACK SERGEANT
I
Chon Maclean was a Mull man, and Mull, as
any passing Scot will tell you, breeds men to its
own liking. Stark and dour is the race that has
its heritage, cot or castle as may hap, in the rainy
Island, but the blood that runs in its veins is
quick blood. Red blood, it was, too, for long,
and the maids of Mull were fair in those days—
fair and frail is soon said with no Mull man
listening.
The Great Armada is no more than a name to
us now. To many a Mull lass then, though, it
brought home the want of one, an she had
trusted too lightly the light word of that Spanish
lord, sole jetsam of a lost galleon which lies deep
down in the ooze under Calgary, saved from the
raging sea in his skin without so much as a
pocket for the precaution of a wedding-ring.
There are dark men in Mull to-day, and black-
eyed, smiling women, whose faces speak of Seville
and the sun. Of such was Chon Maclean.
The back-throw of three centuries still crops
up strangely. Blue blood commixed with red
breeds discontent of small surroundings, and
Chon Maclean, the cottar's son, soon wearied of
the peaceful life and lean prosperity of his estate,
took ship one summer's day across the Firth of
116


THE BLACK SERGEANT 117
Lome as far as the big town of Oban. And
there, of set and stubborn purpose, the old strain
that was in him stirred by the fanfare he heard
as a half-company of the White Watch marched
through recruiting, he 'listed for a soldier, leaving
behind him, across the water, a sad house and
sorrowing hearts.
He meant well enough if he did but ill, with
the whole world tugging at his heart-strings
against hands that had grown old and frail and
feeble. And surely the long-dead Spaniard
should share your blame.
Chon Maclean the elder and Moira his wife
mourned their lost laddie unmurmuring, while
the neighbours shook their wise grey heads at
mention of young Chon's name: there are few
fortunes to be made to tuck of drum.
Only Mairi Macdonald at the Long Croft in
Glenforsa had a good word for the prodigal, and
she, to be sure, had reason for that, or the ring
she carried on a lace under the ribbon round her
neck told no true story. In any case she would
hear no ill spoken of the absent, and the sturdy
smacksmen from Salen and Lochdonhead who
were her father's constant visitors soon learned
the foolishness of decrying a distant rival. For
Mairi had a Mull tongue in her head—one side
for a friend, the other with a keen edge to it—
and none of them came about the croft alto-
gether for old Macdonald's sake, nor one but
would gladly have given red gold for the silver
token that the lass wore so faithfully. But no
one of them put the matter to test, unless you


n8 THE BLACK SERGEANT
would take count of a big, slow-witted North-
countryman from Assynt-away, who was, shortly,
in such haste to make sail that he all but finished
his course on the black rocks by the lighthouse
of Ardnamurchan; after which he traded east-
wards only and came no more to Mull.
The others, as time went by, lost heart and
found happiness elsewhere, so that Mairi, after
all, was left alone with her father. For other
company she had the silver ring, and certain
memories, the which sufficed her.
Chon Maclean, man of Mull, was no mean
soldier, and, by the time that the last of his
sweetheart's suitors had gone sadly down the
glen, he had come to be Colour-Sergeant John
Maclean of the White Watch, a man thought
well of by his regiment. There was also a small
hoard of sovereigns in a safe place under the
thatch of the old farm cottage looking across the
Sound to Ardtornish: "from the soldier for the
old folk," said a rough scrawl in the Gaelic
hidden away beside them, but "for the soldier
himself," said the old folk tremulously.
They were no abler with the years, the two of
them, but could still live decent, hard-working
lives, beholden to no one. They treasured up
the golden tokens of their laddie's love, and
never grudged the hard-felt toil that left the little
store intact against his home-coming. Dour folk
they are in Mull, but very purposeful.
It fell out in time that the White Watch, its
tour of foreign service written red in history,
was ordered home, and marched through fail-


THE BLACK SERGEANT 119
ing snow one winter's day up the High Street,
past St. Giles's, to the old Castle of Edinburgh.
Black, brown, or red were the faces of the men,
according as the sun had fired them, but all
pinched with the unaccustomed cold.
Colour-Sergeant John Maclean, swinging along
with his company, got as many smiles and sweet
looks by the way as may be good for a young
unmarried soldier, but he heeded none of them
till a lassock in the High Street, happed about in
a plaid of the true Maclean tartan, called out
above the cheering as he passed:
"My word, but look at the black sergeant!"
Then he glanced back over his shoulder
hurriedly, and muttered a "Dhia gleidh sinn!",
shivering.
After he had gotten his work done he found
his way to the sergeants' mess, walking straight
up to the mirror over the fireplace, there to look
long and fixedly at the face which confronted
him. It was truly of a sun-scorched blackness,
and gave good reason to the street lass for her
cry, but the Mull man was ill-pleased—as who
would not be?
A dreich home-coming it must be in company
with the Black Sergeant—yon one that the
Lowland regiments speak of as Death. Chon
shivered again while he looked, though the fire
was roaring cheerily up the chimney.
If you have studied the regimental records of
the White Watch, you will know well that
Colour-Sergeant John Maclean was never one
who feared to look death in the face, and that


120 THE BLACK SERGEANT
laughing, as the men of his company could tell.
His name had been high up on the Black
Sergeant's roster any time these five or six years,
and he had awaited the roll-call with a light
heart. But it had never struck him that the
name of Chon Maclean might be spoken as loudly
in the High Street of Edinburgh as in any bullet-
searched nullah or cholera-swept cantonment,
and the nearness of joy and sorrow together
unnerved him so that he stood before the mess-
room fire shaking, a cold hand on his heart.
Cailleach's tale or gospel truth, it is ill to shake
a Mull man in his beliefs.
Once settled down in garrison, there was
furlough in plenty for the White Watch, and
one of the first to go was Colour-Sergeant John
Maclean.
“First-class man,” said the adjutant to the
colonel, “and needs a rest."
Wherewith the colonel signed silently the
papers that were put before him, and Chon,
enfranchised, drove in state to the station, taking
train for Oban, where he arrived late on a wet
night and very cold.
He had no mind, however, to spend in an
inn the hours of waiting for the morning boat,
and passed the time pacing the esplanade,
trying to make out the black bulk of Mull across
the Firth through the driving rain. He had
sent no word of his coming—that was to be a
quick pleasure for those who waited-and he
was eaten up with fierce impatience to reach
his home,


122 THE BLACK SERGEANT
early, but such as there were had a warm
welcome for Chon Maclean. The steamer's
people learned too late the fame of the quiet
man in kilt and greatcoat, but, as the ropes were
cast off again, they raised a round of cheers that
to some extent atoned for any former lack of
effusion, while the Salen men, not to be outdone
by strangers, overwhelmed the home-comer with
their attentions.
Chon's heartfelt wish to slip away quietly and
win back to his own unnoticed was set aside
lightly by the gathering that had flocked to the
pierhead at word of his coming. It was but
fitting that he should reach home in state, and
effective measures were taken to that end, de-
spite his protests. A man whose name has
figured, often and honourably, in the Oban Times
is no longer his own master in such matters, and,
with the coming of the piper, Chon felt that to
argue longer would be breath wasted. He took
his seat in the pony-cart provided for him, and
the procession, marshalled by the bellman and
headed by the finest piper in Mull, set off, in
proper order, along the shore road.
Colour-Sergeant John Maclean bit on his lip
to steady himself, and took off his greatcoat, for
the sun was warming him ; at sight of the medal-
riband on the breast of the King's scarlet another
long, throaty cheer broke forth, and the pipes
struck up the “Salute."
From each cottage and farmstead by the way
the inmates turned out hastily, the men to swell
the column, the women to wave shawls and


i24 THE BLACK SERGEANT
The procession halted and looked about it
while old Chon, a shake in his voice, spoke warm
words to the wanderer, and then, with an arm
for each of the old ones, the tall Highland soldier
went into his home.
As he crossed the doorstep there was the
whisk of a petticoat adown the passage that led
ben the house, and Chon looked inquiringly at
the mother. The old woman hesitated for a
moment, and her son laughed softly:
"You will pe hafing a maid now to help in
the croft?" he said, remembering with content
the little dole of gold he had spared to make up
for the absence of his own strong arms.
She did not answer immediately: the old man
it was who replied, smiling: "Aye, aye, Chon,
poy; we will pe hafing a maid with us now—
a maid to help in the croft. And why not, if
the poor girl's father iss dead, and she hass no
one to look to: no one at ahl, whatefer."
Than that there was no more to be said at
the moment, and all the world waiting outside.
They went forth to their friends again with
a word for each so that no one was slighted,
and after each had eaten a morsel and drunk a
mouthful in honour of the occasion the proces-
sion formed up again, gave three last ringing
cheers to express its entire satisfaction with
the reception accorded it, and marched off home-
wards, the piper, in the cart, fingering his chanter
in such wise that every heel lifted with a spring
to it, and the miles slipped by unheeded.
The three Macleans watched them out of sight,


THE BLACK SERGEANT 125
and turned back towards the house, questions on
each tongue: but young Chon was not to be
denied.
"And Mairi, mother?"
"Mairi? Mairi? Iss it Mairi Macdonald you
will pe meaning, Chon poy?" the old man broke
in: "put will you not pe gifing the goot-day to
lass that helps on the"
Old Chon struggled with inward mirth as one
who savours a rich jest, and a young maid stood
in the doorway regarding with blushing goodwill
the two old people and their stalwart son. Young
Chon looked but for a moment, and ran again.
Moira, his mother, caught at his arm with a last
little sob—it is ill to feel that another woman
stands between you and your son—but all she
said to her husband was, " He hass not forgotten
her, Chon. He hass not forgotten!"
For it was none other than Mairi Macdonald,
and she was the happy lass that day.
II
Tobermory is a fine place, but Chon Maclean
did not think that when he was carried there feet
foremost, all the blood in his body like liquid
lead. He had begged leave to die in his own
home, but an angry doctor had forbidden him
very strictly to die either there or elsewhere at
the moment, and Chon, soldier-like, was for carry-
ing out orders.
He was making what fight he might for life, in
a hired cottage beside the doctor's house, against
an enemy known by the evil-sounding titles of


126 THE BLACK SERGEANT
Pleurisy and Peritonitis. But he cared little for
mere names, knowing, as he did, that the Black
Sergeant had laid an ice-cold finger upon his
shoulder," that he stood warned for the Last
Parade.
He was not ill-pleased to answer the roll-call
there amongst his kin when he remembered how
often he had been passed over in strange, far-
away places. It was good that he had been
allowed to see the old man and the mother again
in his time—and Mairi : Mairi who wore a gold
ring in place of the worn silver token she had
been so faithful to, who tramped twenty miles
twice a week to call at the door for news of the
sick man.
Old Chon and Moira his wife at the Fishnish
bided the will of God dumbly, groping together
o' nights in the well-worn Book for courage to
live, and very grateful for the ready sympathy of
all around them, a sympathy rough indeed but
none the less helpful.
It had been early spring when Chon came
home, and it was early summer when Moira
Maclean gathered the bog-myrtle to lay away in
the folds of the scarlet tunic that was her soldier
son's. She had seen Chon on his sick-bed, and
he had told her in a weak whisper of the call laid
upon him. She felt that, after all, the Good One
had been very good to her and hers, and if, in
place of a wedding, there must be a burying, is it
not too often so in His world ? Nor did old
Chon seek to disturb her pathetic acquiescence
in the order of things—the Highland superstition


THE BLACK SERGEANT 127
born of mist and mountain ran quick in his veins
as in his son's.
Even Mairi had little to say "when the irate
doctor, who always made a point of knowing his
sick folk's affairs, urged her to hold out her strong
young arms to the man who was passively drift-
ing away from her with the tide. She would have
poured out her heart's blood to save him, but
could find few words to speak in the hushed
room where the dying man lay patiently ready to
answer the ordained summons.
The doctor was in despair.
"Da downright nonsense!" he growled to
the nursing-sister in charge, fuming up and down
the passage the while, "and worse than nonsense.
The man's determined to die simply because
some idiot he happened to pass in the street
mentioned the Black Sergeant in his hearing.
Black Sergeant, indeed! A man with his con-
stitution might pull through if he chose, but
It's too bad, upon my word!" And the
indignant little man went off, scowling, on one
of his never-ending rounds.
Now Sister Mary was from the mainland of
Lome, but she had been long in Mull, and had
a kindly side towards the strong, silent people
of the Island. Chon's case was but one of
many, and she had only too often come across
similar instances of blind submission to the
supposed decree of fate. She frowned as she
closed the door behind the doctor, went back to
see that her patient was as comfortable as he
might be, and, finding him asleep, stole ten


128 THE BLACK SERGEANT
precious minutes to trip down to the Post Office
by the quay, and send away a telegram which
said:
"Campbell, Kyle, by Oban (Mounted
Messenger). Will you come over at once
to do something for me.—M."
Next morning, five minutes after the Oban
steamer had landed the early arrivals at Tober-
mory pier, a very impatient young man in a wet
suit of Harris tweeds was clamouring at the
cottage door for Sister Mary. He was eager to
have the Sister's orders that he might the sooner
carry them out, but when he heard what it was
she wanted he turned away quickly and made to
depart. He was back again, however, before the
door was closed behind him, to say, "I'll do it:
I'll do it! Make it a month, girl, and I'll do it if
they murder me for it."
But the grey-eyed Sister, very demure, said,
1' Not one month, Alec,—but maybe two." And
the young man rushed away wildly.
It was soon after this that Mairi, forbidden the
sick-room, where, the little doctor said, she was
of no use to him or to his patient, began to feel
the need of her absent lover very bitterly, for one
or two of the lads, under pretence of asking after
young Chon, had begun to come about the cottage
at the Fishnish again more often than was maybe
needful. Not bad-hearted lads were they, but
Mairi was a likely lass, and, now that her father
was dead and the man who had so long stood in
their way was minded to leave her also, where


THE BLACK SERGEANT 129
was the harm in being the ones to show that they
too could wait faithfully.
Never had the work of the croft been lighter
with so many willing hands to help, and that
was very well; but there was a newcomer among
them, a young gamekeeper from Lome, very
English-away and not to be denied in his wooing
for all the black looks of the Mull lads and the
mourning of the household for him that was
passing.
Mairi would have none of him at any rate, and
had aye the head turned aside while he sat by the
ingle and smoked with old Chon, who found him
a likeable lad and was not averse to his company.
One night, too, some of the younger men from
Salen, hot at his persistent presence, had such
speech with him as would have daunted any but
a determined lover. Him it only hardened in his
purpose, and the next day, working sickle in hand
among the grain, he asked Mairi outright to marry
him.
She, the tear in her eye, answered straightly,
"No," and the work went on in silence; but that
night he sat late by the fireside and spoke of
young Chon, a thing he had not yet done.
"A fine man, the sergeant," said he, "and a
pity it is that Mull should lose him. But what
must be will be, and the ones that are left are
those to be pitied."
Mairi, sewing by the lamp in the window, won-
dered to hear him; but he took no notice of her,
save that in the morning he asked her again if she
would not have him when the other should be gone.
9


i30 THE BLACK SERGEANT
This time she was angry, and told Moira, the
mother, of how the stranger would take the place
that was her son's. And Moira, going out to him
in the field, said, " Let the lass be, for she wears
my son's ring, and should be his."
The fair fellow spoke the old woman softly.
"But what is the use," said he in the end, "of
wearing the ring of a dead man. Chon Maclean,
your son, is a good man, but he is no longer of
us, and the girl will be mine in time."
The two women took deep counsel together,
and, next morning, set out afoot early, so that the
young man worked alone on the croft, smiling.
Colour-Sergeant John Maclean was very far
through. There was talk of a gun-carriage and
the opening of a plot in Tobermory graveyard.
The Volunteers were drilling at the "Reverse
Arms " and the long, slow pace that follows the
coffin, and the band-parts were out for the " Dead
March." It is not every day they bury a soldier
in Mull.
Two men stood by the open window of a
cottage beside the doctor's house. They were
talking together over-loudly, but the doctor
merely grinned at them as he passed.
"And will it be true," said the one, "that
Mairi herself is like to take up with the fair
stranger?"
"True it may well be," the other made answer,
"for he is never away from the Fishnish. And
what matter now, when the poor lad here is for-
done with her!"
Chon Maclean, lying sad and silent within,


THE BLACK SERGEANT 131
heard these words, and the heart in him stirred
quickly. Sister Mary, sitting by the fireplace,
saw him beckon to her, and went over.
"Is there anything you wish for?" she asked,
and stooped to catch his reply.
"Aye, Miss Mary," said Chon, in the whisper
that was left him. "I would pe fery thankful to
see the lass Mairi again, if"
"If it is Mairi Macdonald you mean, sergeant,
that will be easy, for she was here this morning.
I'll ask Doctor Ramsay, whenever he comes, to
find her for you, and he will be here in a minute
or two."
The little doctor came bustling in at the word,
and Sister Mary spoke softly to him. He came
over to Chon's bedside smiling cunningly.
"Aye, lad," said he, " and you were asking for
the lass Mairi, were you? Well, well! When a
man's getting better he can surely see a visitor
that has been so often to ask for him."
Chon looked his contentment, and the doctor
went off to seek his patient's sweetheart, whom
he speedily found, without looking elsewhere than
in his own study near by. He winked to himself
as he walked back with her, but soon grew grave
again.
"It's his last chance," said he below his breath,
frowning.
Mairi went in alone, and tip-toed over towards
the bed wherefrom the gaunt, enfeebled soldier
was eyeing her very wistfully. She knelt down
tremblingly, and took a hot hand in hers; but "Oh,
Chon, Chon, m'eudail /" was all she had to say.


132 THE BLACK SERGEANT
Chon looked at her long and searchingly.
“Iss it true, Mairi, mo chridhe," said he slowly,
“what they will pe telling me apout the fair
one ?"
Mairi broke into stormy weeping, but the
Sister stayed still without and did not check her.
“I do not know what they will haf told you,
Chon,” she sobbed," put it iss true that the tall,
fair man will haf peen asking me--and oh, Chon,
if you will not come back to me, what am I to
answer one that will not take a 'No'!".
The sick man's face flushed blood-red.
“Py Kott!" whispered Chon Maclean of Fish-
nish in Mull, Colour-Sergeant in the White Watch,
"put I will rise out off thiss ped, and preak efery
pone in that man's pody!”
He said no more than that, but Mairi went
away comforted; and when Moira and she got
back to their home, said “No” for the third time
to the man of Lorne.
Next morning the plot in the graveyard was
still undisturbed, the Volunteers ceased reversing
arms, and the “Dead March" music went back
into store, A marvellous improvement had been
recorded on the chart hanging above a certain
sick-bed in Tobermory, and a sedate doctor
danced a schottische on a valuable flower-bed in
his cherished garden in such wise that no single
footprint was visible thereupon when he had
finished.
Mull men are dour, but the young gamekeeper
from Lorne showed himself no whit behind them
in steadfastness. The other lads dropped away


THE BLACK SERGEANT 133
quietly, one by one, as Chon grew rapidly
stronger; but his visits only ceased when the
sergeant was pronounced by the cheery little
doctor to be quite beyond the reach of any
relapse and almost fit to be removed to his own
home.
Then a breathless young man, in a suit of
Harris tweeds that looked as if they had been
laid by for some time, turned up once more at
the cottage in Tobermory, urgently demanding
speech of Sister Mary of the nursing staff.
Doctor Ramsay, whom he had buttonholed in
the doorway, eyed him in friendlywise and
nodded knowingly. He was not precisely ac-
quainted with the young man, but met his
impatient questions with this enigmatic remark:
"If you will take my advice, my young friend,
you'll leave Mull to-day—unless you want the
black sergeant to catch you up. I can't hold him
back much longer."
Alec Campbell laughed. "I'm quite ready to
leave," said he, " whenever"
Sister Mary, coming along the passage, heard
him, and, blushing, put a finger to her lips, so
that the young man, seeing her, had no time to
finish. He sprang to meet her, leaving the doctor
tapping the ground with his cane and looking
none too well pleased. Doctor Ramsay also had
seen Sister Mary in the corridor, and, by this and
by that, judged that sooner or later he would be
losing his best nurse, the which he liked little.
He danced at her wedding for all that, just
three months from the time when the young


134 THE BLACK SERGEANT
gamekeeper had crossed from Lome to make love
to Mairi Macdonald at the Fishnish, and the one
he danced with was none other than Mairi herself,
the wedded wife of Chon Maclean, the black
sergeant of Mull. With the other Mary, once
Sister Mary to the sick and sorrowful, he would
willingly have trod the floor also, but that the
bridegroom, Alec Campbell of Kyle, Captain of
Militia and a very hasty man to boot, was neither
to hold nor to bind until he and his bride should
be started off for the foreign lands that were to
make their honeymoon.
Four words were spoken, and that before all
the grand folk, at parting.
"Man, Campbell," said the little doctor, in a
grievous voice, " but you'll have to settle down a
bit now you are a married man! No more ploys
with other men's lasses! I wonder you dare to
look the black sergeant between the eyes!"
Sister Mary laughed in his face.
"Ah, doctor," said she, the sunshine within her
heart glinting through the grey eyes of her,
"and is it you who would put me out of conceit
with the husband I took—to help you?"
"My patience!" cried Captain Campbell, " but
here's the height of gratitude for you. And that,
too, after the life I led and the risks I ran when I
made a gamekeeper of myself—to please this same
Sister Mary! But here's Colour-Sergeant Maclean
to speak for himself. He'll tell you"
Chon Maclean gripped his hand for God-speed,
and wrung it hard. His heart was warm towards
this same gamekeeper of Lome, but the Scot's


THE BLACK SERGEANT
135
dumbness seized him, and the newly married
couple were driving away in a storm of cheers
ere he found tongue, and
“Cosh !” said he, "put they're the two fine
ones, yon.”
Mairi Maclean, his wife, well content, said
nothing at all. She had kissed Mary Campbell
upon the lips, and the two women understood.


PETER 137
Yantele, a sullen Tehuelche Indian, endowed
with more apparent body than brains, and far
less sociable than any dog in that he could speak
but would not: in whose dispiriting society he
had lived alone for such a long time that he had
grown to hate the sight of the silent giant.
He struck a minor discord, and was singing
sorrowfully,
"To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,
To my brethren in their sorrows overseas, . . ."
when Yantele came sauntering across from his
cooking-fire, with twitching ears. Peter ceased
singing, but did not look up.
"Hay gente!" said the Indian suddenly, in
guttural Spanish. "There are people coming!"
and withdrew again as though ashamed of having
misused the power of speech. But Peter had
dropped his decrepit instrument, sprung to his
feet, and was already standing on the summit of
a sandheap beyond the well, a long, lean silhouette
against the silver sky.
His attitude was one of strained expectancy.
His heart was thumping so, that he could neither
see nor hear across the undulating desert a
single sign of human presence other than his
own. He descended to the dip of the slope,
ankle-deep at every step, and there laid ear to
the solid earth. Faintly and from far away, but
truer than any telephone, it told him of tame
horses cantering towards his camp: and he arose,
rejoicing. The hour of his release from the
abomination of desolation was at hand. And


138
PETER
there would also be more rum wherewith to
fight those devils of the dark hours.
Times without number he had ticked off the
interminable days since the travelling trader on
whom he depended for all intercourse with the
outer world had been due to start with his pack-
train from Punta Arenas: the nights they would
have to spend on the unsafe trail, along the
Southern Andes by Paine and Agassiz, Fitzroy
and San Lorenzo, ere they could once more
come to his relief. Angel Urquiza had never
before been so late on his long round, and Peter
had begun to fear that he was going to fail him
altogether.
He turned, well pleased, and waded back into
the cup-like hollow which contained his dwelling,
bade the indifferent Indian build a beacon on its
brim, and then brought forth from some safe
hiding-place within the hut a heap of little bags
made of undressed guanaco-skin, each holding
a handful of impure, gritty gold-dust, the scanty
harvest of much patient ploughing in the sand.
It was with these that he would purchase his
brief Day of Mercy.
He was still sorting and resorting them when
a solitary horseman appeared without warning
on the rise in front, paused there, and then rode
forward with a great jingling of loosened bit and
bridle—an Indian trick, the noiseless recon-
noitring of the unknown; but the newcomer was
a white man: a fat white man, of soapy aspect
morally but not in person, who slipped from his
broad saddle with a thankful sigh, and, having


PETER 139
first embraced the unwilling recluse, produced
from a capacious pocket a black quart bottle
sealed with a splash of wax.
"A token of continued friendship, Don Pedro,"
he explained effusively—" in spite of the almost
prohibitive price," he added as an afterthought.
Peter nodded, knocked half the neck off on his
boot-heel, and drank thirstily from the jagged
opening before he spoke:
"Who cares about the price of ice, in hell?"
said he, gasping relief.
The pack-train presently came plodding in,
a string of sad-eyed, patient animals, tied head
to tail and driven by two evil-looking gauchos.
The bell-mare whinnied as she snuffed the water.
An answering neigh preluded the appearance of
the loose spare horses.
"Come indoors, Don Angel," said Peter hospi-
tably, and drew a deep breath of contentment.
The bustle and confusion were beyond words
Comforting to him.
He led the way. They sat down in the hovel
and kept glasses going till Yantele set food before
them: a smoking flank of venison, a tray of salt-
less broken bread that had been baked a year
before, which they washed down with further
draughts of fiery spirit. They smoked hot
Tucuman tobacco, which engenders thirst, and
went on quenching that until the stupor of
debauch brought sleep, such dreamless sleep as
Peter had not known for many nights. He woke
at daybreak with a splitting head, but grateful
none the less to his complaisant guest.


140
PETER
That diplomat was quick to grasp at oppor-
tunity. He prescribed for the headache a hair
of the dog which had bitten them both, and then
talked business. Before the dew was dry on the
sand without, he had driven a bargain with his
luckless host. The bags of gold-dust had become
his property by barter for four demijohns of
overproof and bank-notes for a sum proportion-
ately small, but not without protest on Peter's
part.
"It's not enough," he said, as succinctly as a
tripping tongue would permit. "I can't afford to
trade with you at these rates, Don Angel. I could
get twice as much for my colour on the coast,
and—I need money."
"Pero mira, don Pedro," the trader urged,
turning out the contents of his pockets to prove
that he had paid his utmost for the parcel.
"Look you, then, how I have done my most
possible. Every centave I had I have given you,
and—there is this now for luck-penny!"
II
He laid on the table between them, beside a
bundle of dirty bills and a half-full bottle, the
letter he would assuredly have overlooked but
for feeling the frayed edge of its envelope between
his fumbling fingers. He had forgotten all about
it during the weeks which had come and gone
since he had picked it up by chance in the post
office at the Point.
"Por dios!" said he, piously thankful for its


PETER
141
timely interposition, "but there are few who
would travel so far to oblige a friend."
Peter received the belated epistle with a scowl.
He knew precisely what would have happened
it had not the other laid hands on it then.
"A thousand thanks," he said indifferently,
"but this will be the last time. Your kindness
costs too much. I'll take the next lot to the
coast myself, Don Angel."
Don Angel shrugged his shoulders, but his
eyes showed anger.
"As you will, my friend," he answered.
Silence obtained for an appreciable space, the
trader sucking stolidly at his cigar, staring out
at the sunswept plain, while Peter trifled with
the tattered missive. He was quite incurious as
to its contents. His only correspondents were
the New York lawyers to whom he was in the
habit of sending an occasional instalment towards
the total at his debit in their books. Their
receipts sometimes reached him thus, at others
were lost in transit. To-morrow would be
time enough to scrutinise their statement of the
balance still to be settled.
But the mere sight of it had brought back to
his mind a train of thought which hurt him
horribly. He became seized of an immediate
anxiety to be alone again, a sudden craving for
the stark solitude of custom.
"When do you start?" he asked abruptly,
without regard to appearance.
"At this same moment," replied Urquiza with
oily smoothness. "At this same moment and in


142 PETER
haste, Don Pedro. I must ride fast and far, now
that my purse is empty."
It had not been his purpose to set forth before
the following day, but the sweet savour of the
swindle to be thus successfully consummated
would serve to solace him for the deprivation of
the final drinking bout to which he had been
looking forward. He would sleep all the more
soundly, too, with ten or fifteen leagues of shift-
ing sand between himself and his recalcitrant
client, who might presently, perhaps, see fit
to repent himself of the current transaction
also. He poured out a potent stirrup-cup,
pledged his companion in dumb show, and
sauntered toward the doorway. Peter emptied
his own glass and followed him into the open
air.
The peons of the trader's outfit rose sulkily at
their employer's order, and set about saddling
their mounts. They, too, had counted on a
second night in standing camp, with food and
water furnished by effort other than their own.
They were unnecessarily deliberate in all their
movements. Peter impatiently bade Yantele
assist him to expedite matters.
While they were busy thus, Urquiza took the
opportunity to slip back into the empty hut and
regain possession of the roll of bills on the rough
table.
"If this is to be the last time," he said to
himself sagaciously, " I need not leave my good
money behind me."
And, catching Yantele's eye at that incon-


PETER 143
venient instant, he laid a significant hand on the
silver hilt of the two-edged /aeon at his belt.
When all was ready for the road he took a
long farewell of his ungracious host, who bade
him a curt good-bye, and was unfeignedly glad
to see him gallop off after the pack-train, which
was soon shut out of sight by a quivering
curtain of refracted sun-rays. The brooding
silence of the waste once more walled in the
well.
Peter went "in out of the heat, blinking, and
had one more drink to drown the distaste with
which the departed Don Angel always inspired
him. Whereafter there was the day's work to
occupy him for his good. He never spared him-
self in that respect. It was late in the afternoon
before he ceased his patient sifting of sand in a
distant hollow, and came home hot and dry and
dusty.
At the back of the hut his bath was waiting
him, a staked-out skin half filled with ice-cold
water, and into that he stepped without delay.
Out of the self-respect that was left him he
would still take pains with his toilet; and, if
his evening clothes were scarcely such as would
suit the clubs he had once belonged to, there
was all the old sensation of comfort in the
change.
Tubbed and shaven and thoroughly tired, there
seemed no especial reason to deny himself a dose
of his accustomed stimulant. He refilled the
empty bottle from one of the demijohns, and sat
down beside it to anticipate supper. The letter


PETER
III
It was spring-time, at Yale. He stood by
himself in the throng on the campus, ill at ease
in his first suit of custom-made clothes, and for-
lorn, notwithstanding the well-filled note-case he
could feel in one pocket. He was fingering it
that he might thus assure himself of the reality
of his surroundings. Such change of circumstance
had come so recently that he could scarce believe
them tangible.
His fellows fought shy of his stern exterior.
He was earnestly wishing that some one would
speak to him, when there came thrusting toward
him with outstretched hand a lad of his own age,
but dressed in black, who said, "I know your
face. Our fathers were good friends."
The which was true in some sense, since it
had been to his that Peter's had owed such
help as was needful to exploit the patent whose
early proceeds had rendered possible a college
career for the poor man's son. In any case
it turned the creaking key to the stranger's
heart. Jack Winans stepped right into that,
to stay.
Which was just like Jack: that genial, lovable
warm-hearted scapegrace, ally of high and humble,
of rich and poor, and no man's unfriend but his
own: with an indefinable charm about him to
win quick confidence of man or woman, a per-
sonality so superb, an easy generosity so evident,
a scorn for the mean and petty in life so out-
spoken, that none could deny him their regard.
10


146
PETER
To the outwardly stolid, indifferent Peter he was
a paragon.
They two became fast friends, despite the fun-
damental difference in their characters. Through-
out term after term they were inseparable, and
Peter learned in time to look with lenient :
eyes upon the pranks his comrade was for
ever playing: as to whose strict straightfor-
wardness he had at first had some uneasy
scruples.
Studies of all sorts they put off until to-morrow,
and it was no doubt for that reason that Peter's
father, busy amassing money now, received such
poor reports of his son's progress.
These passed unnoticed for a time, but presently
there came a letter of remonstrance, sharply
penned, and, after Jack in turn had read that,
as he read all Peter's correspondence,
“Better not go back to New York just yet,"
said he. “Come south with me until the storm
blows over. There's only Sylvia at home now,
and she won't worry us.".
They went together to an old-world manor in
Virginia, within whose creeper-covered porch a
girl was standing with glad eyes as they dis-
mounted.
It seemed but fitting that a gentleman like Jack
should have the fairest lady in the land for sister,
and with a stately home to shelter her. Peter,
uncomfortably conscious of his own uncouthness,
bowed down and worshipped her forthwith. In
his sight she was very finely perfect, he far
beneath her notice.


PETER 147
And she, of her innate gentilesse, accepted his
clumsy devoirs with gracious tolerance.
How dear and very dear, but ah! so short, the
days which followed: in that strange old-world
whose sun and moon and stars were all so in-
finitely brighter than elsewhere, where all went
well, so well that Peter sometimes dared desire
that it might last.
And, if he had his high ambitions, as what boy
will not, who was the worse? It was sufficient
for his proud humility that she would bear with
him, a workman's son, awkward and shy as any
rustic, for the sake of their mutual idol, Jack:
Jack, always frank and debonair, as well became
a scion of the South whose ancestry went back to
Walter Raleigh.
When it was time to go, he went, silent and
self-contained, deeper in Winans' debt than ever.
And, in due sequence, he paid, lavishly, with
open hand. He had been paying throughout the
dreadful years which had dragged past since he
had found out that their idol had feet of clay.
He was paying still.
The moon rose. Its relentless rays lit up the
sordid present. Peter threw down the letter,
rubbed his eyes, erased the pictured past. In its
place he saw confronting him the problem he
must solve a second time, for better or for worse,
without delay. Since the dead had left such
a legacy, a dumb and living man must once more
sort the tangled skein in which fate had enmeshed
them both. He got up with a gesture of despair.
"I don't know what to do now," he said shakily,


148
PETER
speaking aloud as had become his custom.
"There's one thing sure, though—I must cut
the rum right out!"
The words recoiled upon him, choked back by
the heavy, tomb-like quiet. A vague sense of his
utter loneliness stirred in his mind.
"Yantele!" he cried uncomfortably, but no
answer was vouchsafed him. Nor was there any
echo to keep him company. "Damn it 1" he
swore with futile frenzy, "I want my supper,
and—and "He dashed out of the hut, calling
his servant with increasing anger. No one was
visible. The cooking fire was cold and black.
Even the Indian had deserted him.
He turned back hastily, and lit his lamp, a
lidless can of congealed fat with floating wick,
which smelled most evilly. Forgetful of his
resolution to the contrary, he swallowed a second
dose of rum to stay his sinking heart. Then he
sat down again, to think.
"I can't stay here alone," he cogitated, " and—
I can't get away without a horse. It's close on a
hundred leagues to the coast, and terrible travel-
ling. But I'll have to manage it somehow, and
cable those precious lawyers of mine about that
paper. They should have had sense enough to
know what to do with it. Then, with the money
I have,"—he paused to reflect, his forehead
wrinkled—" the money I have—now where the
devil's the money I have? I left it beside this
letter."
He scanned the table, examined the floor,
turned all his belongings inside out, hurriedly


PETER 149
but without result. More systematic and assidu-
ous research failed to disclose the slightest trace
of his cash assets, lacking which he was indeed
left desolate.
"Yantele's taken it," he finally inferred, and so
dismissed the subject from his thoughts. It was
too late for gainless grieving over such spilt
milk.
But his face fell at thought of the prospect
before him now.
"It'll take me months to wash enough dust to
get away with," he muttered miserably, " and in
the meantime I'll go mad, I think. I can't stay
here alone. I must make for the coast."
He kicked his only chair aside, and sat down
on the sloping floor, between two demijohns.
"Let's forget it, Peter," he concluded. "There's
no use starting to-night. It will be time enough
to turn teetotaler to-morrow."
IV
Day broke. The sun rose on a desert grey and
gold. A cool breeze swept across the dew-damp
sand. Peter still slept, turning from side to side,
restlessly, murmuring.
Over the world's edge, 'twixt earth and sky, far
off, came creeping four black, fly-like figures, and,
at another point, a fifth, yet smaller, crawled
more slowly out of space into the circular
expanse about the hovel. The single speck
would apparently have fled from its swifter
neighbours, but they achieved its capture, and,
after a brief interval, turned with it toward the


PETER
well, growing in bulk till they assumed the
shapes of human beings, all but one on horse-
back. That one led the way.
There were no landmarks visible. Only an
Indian could have steered straight through the
trackless waste, as he did.
He was an Indian. His name was Yantele.
In one hand he was carrying a bundle of dirty
bills, and in the other a two-edged dagger with
silver hilt, which had once belonged to Don
Angel Urquiza. On his face was a placid,
retrospective smile and a deep, dripping gash.
His body also showed that he had lately taken
part in conflict. He was footsore, had travelled
far.
Of those who followed him, one was a woman
of the north, and very fair. There were two
white men of her own people with her, and the
fourth was a swart gaucho from the coast, glad
to be thus relieved of his responsibilities as
guide. At the brow of the cup-like hollow
whose heart was water they halted. The white
folk hurried toward the hut, throwing the reins
to their retainers.
"There's some one here," the first man said,
looking inside with a suspicious sniff. "But,
say, you'd better wait"
The girl at his shoulder had seen for herself.
She stood and stared, and stared again at the
prone body on the floor, head pillowed on a
great stone jar.
"It's he," she said, her eyes dilated.
She had but whispered. The two men heard


PETER
151
her. Their glances met. They turned and left
her without a word. Trembling, she stepped
across the threshold. The atmosphere was
heavy with the odour of stale spirits. She hung
back, shuddered.
“He didn't—didn't drink, in the old days,"
she told herself. Her eyes were wet with
misery.
She went still nearer, curbing the dread with
which his condition inspired her. She and a
dead man, her kin, were deeper in this poor
drunkard's debt than she in her old blind pride
of race could have thought possible. She would
repay—would repay to the uttermost of her
powers.
Humbly she kneeled beside him, thrusting the
jar away, taking his hot, dishevelled head on her
lap that he might rest more at his ease. For he
had been tossing to and fro in disquiet, mumbling
fragments of speech. And there she stayed,
doing most hurtful penance for sin that was
none of hers.
She had done much already, had made such
reparation as she might for a wrong irreparable,
since that dark day when her brother Jack, on
his haunted deathbed, had bidden her write
down for him his belated confession. There
were lines at her lips and nostrils now which
had not been there before. It had almost
broken her heart to hear what he had to tell :
that he had allowed the workman's son to
endure in his stead.
How much it had hurt her when Peter had


152
PETER
disappeared, none knew but herself. She had
always believed in her brother's taciturn chum,
and her belief had not wavered, although the
world at large had adjudged him guilty : not
even when his own father, embittered by his
inexplicably stubborn silence under accusal, had
felt impelled to disown him. And, now that
she knew his pitiful reason therefor, the fulness
of his abnegation appalled her. Since the man
for whom, out of his great love, he had given
his life, had been laid away in humanity's last
poor refuge, how could she hope to requite the
sacrifice as she most surely must.
Peter already stood re-established in all men's
eyes by virtue of that confession which she had
shrinkingly placed in the hands of his lawyers.
His father was waiting to welcome him, beg his
forgiveness. Guilt lay where it belonged, in her
brother's grave. And after the exile had seemed
to ignore the urgent messages sent overseas
broadcast to bid him come back to his own, she
herself had forced from his worried lawyers the
jealously guarded secret of his asylum, starting
therefor on the instant.
She had done what she could. She would do
more, if that were possible, but-it was all very
hard to bear. In that squalid Gethsemane of the
desert, looking down at the wreck of the work-
man's son, she suffered the extreme agony.
Her anguished glance fell on a sheet of paper
under the table, and the words written thereon
stamped themselves upon her sight.
"Winans is dead. We hold his full confession.”


PETER
153
It seemed, then, that he knew already what she
had come to tell him. And, underneath, scrawled
in a big, schoolboy hand, there was the resolution
he had reached :
“Burn Winans' document.”
At such cost he would have kept even her
brother's memory clean. And she had once
been wont to treat him with gracious tolerance!
Great tears welled up from her aching heart.
One splashed on the sleeper's face, and, out of
dreamland, a hoarse voice said, “Sylvia," very
wistfully.
Scarlet with shame she scanned his haggard,
unshaven countenance, but the eyelashes still lay
close, there was no sign of awakening.
"I did it all for your sake, dear!” the sleeper
said, and moaned.
She stayed where she was, and motionless,
slow dawn dispelling the darkness in which she
had wandered so wearily that she was almost
spent.
It was for her sake-hers !
“Peter !" she whispered piteously, and,
stooping down to him, kissed him with infinite
tenderness on the lips.
The grievous impress left there by his time of
torment faded from his drawn face.
Lingeringly, very reluctant to leave the realm
through which she had come to him thus, he
let go his hold on the gateway of dreams, woke,
and looked up at her with bloodshot, startled
eyes.


THE ASSYTHMENT OF MR. ARCHIBALD
With the former state of Mr. Archibald we need
not concern ourselves.
At present he is alive, and may repent—but,
with every disposition to optimism, I am afraid
he will put that off until too late. One cannot,
on the Upper Niger, base any very vital calcula-
tion upon the Expectation of Life set forth so
comfortingly by Mr. Whitaker, F.S.A., among
the insurance statistics in his admirable Almanack,
and, when I tell you ithat Ernest Archibald con-
soles himself periodically with the figures 15*95
in the column headed Mean After-Lifetime (Male),
on page 383 of that publication, you will no
doubt understand my feeling in the matter. The
only admissible feature in his case lies in the
phrase itself—Mr. Archibald's after-lifetime must
be mean, exceedingly.
There are, without doubt, many white men
amongst the rank and file of the trading com-
munity on the much-maligned Coast, but there
are black sheep in that particular fold as in any
other. Without them it would not be so easy to
find cheap fuel for the mortal machinery with
which a shopkeeper's civilisation is pushing its
way, slowly but very surely, by swamp and river,
forest and mountain, to the very heart of a
154


ASSYTHMENT OF MR. ARCHIBALD 155
savage country which will, one day, be a prosper-
ous British colony.
This is the tale of a Black Sheep.
Ernest Archibald's place of immolation was
written S6: not a difficult name to spell, or even
to speak distinctly at a pinch.
There he had been deposited, one sweltering
November day, by the uninterested Sub-Assistant-
Manager of the trading syndicate which had
bought him, body and soul, at a price so ex-
tremely moderate that it is hardly worthy of
record here. And there he remained, suffering
silent agony, until the dumb, brooding devils of
climate and country had devoured his heart
piecemeal. It was a weak, flabby heart at best,
and he did not suffer so long or so deeply as a
stronger man might, but that was a bad time for
him while it lasted.
After he had found his tongue he sought such
comfort as was forthcoming from the ape-like
chatter of his black subordinates, whose manners
and customs he set himself to emulate with a
mistaken diligence. Other company he had none
but his thoughts—and they were not pleasant
companions.
So had never been a paying station. It was
maintained for the pure and philanthropic pur-
pose of preventing any other company from
establishing a representative there. It was not,
therefore, an unlooked-for disappointment to the
syndicate when their delegate failed to show a
profit on his first balance-sheet, and they passed
his infinitesimal salary without a murmur, content


156 THE ASSYTHMENT OF
in that he showed no disposition to attempt
escape from the terms of the contract under
which they had netted him.
Half-year after half-year passed soddenly, and
the only indents from So that showed any in-
crease were those for "medical comforts": and,
since they could be lawfully debited against the
sender's salary account, they were duly executed,
so that case upon case of poisonous spirits went
up-river with the half-yearly launch, which, on
the other hand, never returned overladen.
The Sub-Assistant-Manager, who also went the
round of the back-creek stations, of which S6
was one, did not report favourably upon that
particular post, but, for the politic reasons already
mentioned, little notice was taken of his ani-
madversions. Even his direct complaint that Mr.
Archibald had "cheeked him most infernally"
upon two successive visits was passed over in
contemptuous silence by the all-powerful Manager
on the Coast. Ernest Archibald was of too slight
importance in the scale of things, things as they
are graded on the Coast, to have any attention
paid him as long as he merely existed, a stumbling-
block in the path of rival companies.
By some extraordinary process of reasoning,
however, Archibald had succeeded in convincing
himself that he was of importance. Two bases
he had to work upon, and these were undeniable.
First, there was the fact that he held fast in
bondage to the bottle the head-man of the native
village which had spawned upon his station out
of the darkness; and, last, he himself had long


MR. ARCHIBALD 157
outlived his allotted span in that stronghold of
disease and death, had blossomed forth, in the
midst of its miasma, a gross, damp, bloated,
unwholesome-looking evergreen. He was no
longer the cadaverous candidate for a wholesale
grave who had crept ashore at S6 to die, but the
mark-master of life and death and burial, justice
and injustice, the high, the middle, and the low.
It was his comfortable habit to drink, at dawn
and at nightfall, towards the clearing under the
big mangrove before his hut, wherein lay, in
unhallowed ground, the mortal remains of his
ill-starred predecessors in the honourable post
of So, and the propitiatory nod with which he
was wont to preface each libation would seem
to have appeased the restless spirits of the
departed. At any rate, they were content with
his company in the flesh, so that the ready plot
beside them was almost as overgrown with weeds
as their own last resting-places.
Seventy-four geographical miles from Mr.
Archibald's stronghold, a hundred and fifty miles
away by the only feasible route, lay the nearest
white man's dwelling, the trading-station of a
German company whose ostensible headquarters
figure in the Liverpool directory. There dwelt,
very near the main river, a Mr. and Mrs. Otto
Schweitzer, Hebrews, sometime of Hamburg,
draining Archibald's district of trade, exciting
lightheartedly his futile displeasure. Within
visiting distance of this abode of commerce was
quartered a posse of police, and these were kept
so very busy in its immediate neighbourhood


158 THE ASSYTHMENT OF
that their sweating surveillance had never quite
reached the outskirts of S6.
Under such circumstances Archibald waxed
fat, until, in his fermenting brain, there cropped
up the happy idea of kicking his predatory
neighbours. Which idea he proceeded to carry
out, and, one dark night, Mr. and Mrs. Otto
Schweitzer passed painfully from a drunken
slumber to a more settled sleep, besides being
expensively cremated, under the supervision of
one of Archibald's most trusted lieutenants, in
the fiery furnace of their own dwelling place.
The crew of the police launch, on its next weekly
call, were unpleasantly impressed by the dead
desolation of what had once been a place of
business, and, having decently interred a few
calcined bones recovered from among the ashes,
returned to their headquarters to report the evi-
dently accidental burning of Schweitzer's store,
the consequent demise of its inmates. Archibald
had news of this in due course from his acquaint-
ance the Sub-Assistant-Manager, and expressed
himself sorrowfully regarding the untoward
event.
The tide of trade thus temporarily diverted, S6
showed a clear profit of some four pounds over
its next half-year's accounts, and Archibald
promptly sent south an application for increase
of salary. This was as promptly refused, and he
was referred to his contract. Afterwards he was
a man with a grievance.
The measure of his discontent overflowed
finally when a wave of progress, sweeping as far


MR. ARCHIBALD 159
inland as S6, left jetsam on the strand in the
shape of a detachment of police. The sea of
civilisation threatened to wash away the autocracy
of the bottle, and the presiding genius of the spot
was wroth exceedingly.
Trade gin is not, on the Upper Niger at least,
soothing to raw nerves, and Mr. Archibald's
temper became deadly in the extreme. Mrs.
Archibald, coal-black but loyal, suffered sadly in
those days, and a travelling Fulani trader who
had been rash enough to express sympathy with
her plight departed suddenly from So to the
accompaniment of a charge of buckshot which
would inevitably have ruined his trousers had he
worn any. His luck in getting away with his life
was much commented upon locally.
With his plaints ceased all attempt at remon-
strance, and Mr. Archibald pursued his evil way
unchecked, but partially appeased by burnt-
offerings, ever and anon rumbling wrathfully,
while the villagers cowered before him.
Take for granted an average English home of
the upper middle class, standing, where you will,
in the grass country: people the cosy country-
house with average English men and women, well
bred, well groomed, and deeply addicted to
hunting: imagine the average master of such an
establishment, in pink and tops, and you will have
a perfectly set portrait of Harry Hamilton's
father, whose requiem, throughout three counties,
was expressed in three words, "A straight
goer!"


160 THE ASSYTHMENT OF
But straight going is not, of itself, in these
commercial days, sufficient to provide for a wife
and family, and, when Mr. Hamilton met death
one winter's morning on a slippery country road,
he had only time to wonder, with a sigh, what
would become of Norah and the boy, before the
sand in the hourglass ran out.
Norah was Harry's mother, and the two
mourned together for a time over the frozen body
that was brought them, feet foremost, on a
hurdle. Then they stood up, dry-eyed, to face
the world.
Harry had come of age, and was, therefore, in a
position to expend his slender fortune in settling
his father's debts: which were trifling, but less so
than the son's resources.
The dead man's only other blood-relative was
a brother, who had disappeared, long ago and
under a cloud. His wife had forgotten, since he
had brought her home, the distant Irish cousins,
whom she had seen but seldom during her lonely
schooldays, although they were all the kin she
could count. Mother and son turned their backs
on the old life, and, refusing, with all the over-
sensitiveness of poverty, the plentiful offers of
assistance made them, went forth into the world
practically penniless.
A more appalling situation for a country-bred
youngster it would be difficult to conceive, and
Harry passed through a two years' inferno before
he procured the appointment which was to keep
his mother and himself in bread and butter. It
was no choice of his that took him to the Coast,


MR. ARCHIBALD 161
but bitter, black necessity, and the same imperious
taskmaster kept him alive throughout the first
sick months of his apprenticeship there.
Norah Hamilton had let him go, with a sore
heart, and set herself to save largely out of the
monthly cheque which came to her from his
bankers. Wherefore, in time, she died, half
starved, and Harry's pay accumulated uselessly
while he worked on in sullen, careless despair,
all his world in fragments about his ears.
There was also, as is sometimes the case, a Girl
in the question. It happened, fatefully, that she
adventured a brief note of condolence to her
stricken comrade, and, a merciful Providence
ordaining that the mail-runner should, on the
occasion, overcome with unusual valour the
manifold difficulties and dangers in his way,
delivering his burden intact at the journey's end,
it fell out that her shy sympathy served to save
her friend from shipwreck. Having read the
scant epistle, he smashed repentantly the brandy-
bottle to which he had been addressing himself
for comfort, and resolved to see things out
soberly. Then he sat down to write an application
for transfer to the frontier, where, he had heard
it stated, there might be work toward.
Before he was sent there, however, he found time
to answer the letter he had received, and the Girl,
reading his sorry confession, cried very bitterly,
but thought still more thereafter of Harry
Hamilton. It struck her as a very strange thing
that a man should, out of sheer pride, trample
upon the happiness of two people, himself and
ii


MR. ARCHIBALD 163
parley with Mrs. Archibald, he was permitted
to view that great man himself, it was all he
could do to conceal his disgust.
He made his request modestly. The swollen,
dropsical, evil-looking creature on the floor eyed
him in silence, and broke into a sneering, shaky
laugh, swaying to and fro, jelly-like, as he sat
up in his unclean habiliments on the dirty mat
that served him for couch. Harry returned his
gaze steadily, while many heads peered in through
the doorway upon this strange meeting of the
two white men.
"Clear out!" said Ernest Archibald at length,
insolently, and Sub-Inspector Hamilton, loosen-
ing his tongue, spoke to him without reserve.
Tears of rage were rolling down the man's
puffy cheeks long before the slim youth in spot-
less khaki uniform had concluded his homily:
gasping, outraged, among his filthy household
gods, he could find no words strong enough to
express his feelings, and, presently, the sub-
altern of Police went away sickly to seek the
fresh air.
The big, ugly negroes in the doorway fell back
before him as he strode out, and faced him in
a black half-moon when he halted and spoke:
but no one of them stepped forward when he
asked for volunteers to work upon his entrench-
ments, and, as he was without immediate means
to compel their labour, he had to return to the
fort emptyhanded.
Before he went, however, he looked back into
the hut, and laid a final official injunction upon


MR. ARCHIBALD 165
for reinforcements at S6 could not conveniently
be complied with.
This was unfortunate, since it was patently
impossible for any white man, however white,
to maintain, with twenty-three Sniders, a half-
completed, hastily put together blockhouse and
stockade against some thousands of armed
savages.
Harry had spared two of his scanty force to
carry duplicate dispatches to the post on the
River. The reply to his message reached him
in the cleft haft of a spear that grazed his arm
in its coming, and it was evident that the en-
velope had been tampered with by the way.
"Have sent South for reinforcements" it ran.
"Am besieged here and can't spare a man. Hold
out to the last."
The Sub-Inspector of Police, having read it,
removed his helmet, and "God help us!" said
he, without irreverence.
The first onfall came with the dawn. It failed,
and the black men within the fort howled de-
risively as the enemy drew off at nightfall.
Harry could have laughed also, but that it was
no laughing matter—his ammunition was all but
spent, and the capture of the fort could be but
a question of hours.
He posted his sentries, and slept soddenly,
satisfied that he need not fear a night attack.
But every two hours he was called, and went
round his defences in the pitch darkness, stumb-
ling sleepily over the prone bodies of men,
living or dead as might be.


MR. ARCHIBALD 167
Harry thought of his unsuspecting comrades,
and groaned aloud.
"Ah!" said Mr. Archibald, "that hits you,
does it? Deserted your post at the first cock
an' bull story that was pitched you! Who's a
disgrace to his country now, eh?"
The Sub-Inspector of Police groaned again.
"Look here," he said pleadingly, "I've spent
six good lives already to help you; take mine,
too, and let the rest go."
"I'll take the lot," answered Archibald coolly,
"an' then I'll let people know how you've
behaved."
"Damn you!" said Harry Hamilton solemnly;
"you—you thing!" And he spat in the man's face.
"Take him away!" growled Ernest Archibald
hoarsely, the veins swelling on his forehead;
"and—take him away; d'ye hear!"
Little was said in the grass country as to the
manner of Harry Hamilton's passing; but men
shook their heads when his name was mentioned,
and were glad that his father was not there to
hear of his disgrace.
"Such a straight goer, the old chap," said they
sorrowfully. "Who'd ever ha' thought it of the
young 'un!"
The women sighed, and spoke of the boy's
dead mother pityingly. Among them all only the
Girl had faith.
"Deserted his post!" said she, in a low, level
voice. "What a very obvious untruth!"
But, in her own heart, she grieved exceedingly;


168 THE ASSYTHMENT OF
and, a little later, she gave up hunting for hos-
pital-nursing, greatly to the consternation of the
grass country.
"Ridiculous folly!" opined the matrons, and
warned the maids against the wearing of hearts
on their sleeves. "Tut, tut!" exclaimed the old
men comprehensively; and the young men smiled
sadly, in vain.
The extermination of the police brought down
upon S6 a military garrison, which drilled the
district most wholesomely, and all but frightened
Archibald out of his remaining wits. Lack of
stimulant also played havoc with his nerves, and
he was the first patient to be installed in the
brand-new hospital which in time looked down
disgustedly upon the growing township of S6.
There he lay for long, in a black nightmare of
brain-fever which made him a most unpleasant
charge to the new nursing-sister.
He recovered and went forth into the world
again, shaken but unimpressed, while the hospital
authorities debated amongst themselves whether
they should or should not make use of his recent
self-communings in order to have him hanged by
the neck until he was dead.
At the urgent request of the nursing-sister they
decided to forgo that privilege, contenting them-
selves with having him deported from S6. But
before he was carried away the sister spoke to
him, from a distance, in such wise that he went
dumbly, mouthing soundless self-defence and
white to the lips.


MR. ARCHIBALD 169
"I don't know how many men's lives have
been paid out for you," she said sadly, " and God
knows whether you are worth the blood-money;
but you might have spared your brother's son."
She broke down bitterly as soon as he had
gone, and, making no fight for her own life, the
climate claimed it; so that the assythment of
Mr. Archibald was surely paid in full tale.
At the foot of a hasty cross, a lurching roost
for all the poultry of Sd, under the big mangrove
tree before the hut that once was Archibald's,
sleep very soundly, side by side, Harry Hamilton
and the nursing-sister, man and maid. It is
believed, by the local medical officer and myself,
that the Day of Judgment will provide a very
pleasant surprise for both of them.


DELILAH
171
“ Shut tha' door, damn yer eyes!” growled a
comrade disturbed in his heavy sleep by the
inroad of fresh air.
“Curse you !” returned Samson, according to
custom, but enviously.
Afoot in the infinite, cumbered with blankets
and greatcoat, bandolier, haversack, water-bottle
and rifle, he stood blinking blindly about him in
the tomb-like blackness until, above the mono-
tonous diapason of his more fortunate fellows'
snoring, his ear caught the sound of boots
grinding on the gritty ballast of the broad track.
As he turned in their direction, a faint, ethereal
glow from the engine furnace showed four dim
shapes alongside the cab.
"Fall in here," one of them ordered, accenting
the aspirate with extreme care, as he stumbled
sleepily forward, “an' look sharp about it."
He took his place, lurching dazedly against the
man next him, who surreptitiously repelled him
with a painful elbow.
"All present now, sir," said the same speaker,
in a changed tone, to a shadow standing slightly
apart, impatient.
“Right," it answered crisply. “You know your
duties, Lance-Corporal Sawyer. And, lads,"—it
was addressing the three who constituted the
lance-corporal's command, an irrepressible note
of anxiety in its accents-"you'll do your best
here. You won't forget that you represent the
regiment."
A curious, tingling thrill ran swiftly through
Samson's veins. He suddenly sloughed his


172
DELILAH
sleepiness. Some chord responsive to his
harassed officer's adjuration had stirred within
him. He tried hard to square his hock-bottle
shoulders and throw out his chest.
"No bloomin' fear, sir," he rejoined unex-
pectedly. "We won't forget."
The shadow standing slightly apart turned
sharply upon its heel, with an unseen nod of
farewell which included all four equally. It
clambered into the engine-cab with a cheery
word to the driver. The long, unlighted train
acquired slow, stealthy motion; and, gathering
speed by degrees, drew windily past, was gone
to whatever fate and the fortunes of war had in
store for it.
The four men thus marooned in the midst of
night stood motionless for a time, listening
greedily to the diminishing rumble of its retreat.
That died away in the distance, and then a sick
sensation of loneliness fell upon them. They were
at last within that zone of battle, murder, and
sudden death of which, in faraway, comfortably
crowded England, they had heard and read, and
seen pictured by the biograph, so much that was
not pleasant hearing or reading or seeing. They
were only four. The ensuing stillness was heavy
with a vague, ominous menace.
Samson outfaced it first.
"There was a chap in that crowd owed me
ninepence!" said he dolorously, and his un-
timeous plaint broke the spell of the void.
Lance-Corporal Sawyer hurriedly resumed the
offensive.


DELILAH
173
Who's that I hear talkin' in the ranks whilst
on parade ?” he inquired in a hissing whisper,
although the question was quite superfluous.
"Me, corporal," admitted the culprit, outwardly
meek, but inwardly raging. His petty tyrant's
single chevron was over-new and oppressive.
Lance-Corporal Sawyer launched into scathing
reprimand, such as he himself had been accus-
tomed to hear from the drill-sergeants he had so
lately escaped, past-masters in the art of invective.
He plagiarised their improper language foolishly,
in a suppressed falsetto, and the luckless Samson,
easily moved to mirth, became afflicted with an
inopportune cough.
" I'll learn you 'ow to soldier !” said the lance-
corporal virulently, even dropping an h in his
agitation. “You'll do a double sentry-go to
begin with, an'—an'-Right turn-March on yer
beat !”
Samson obediently discarded his blankets,
tossing them to one side in the dust, canted his
heavy rifle over a sloping shoulder, turned to his
right in the two movements prescribed by the
drill-book, and all but tumbled over his own feet
in doing so. Lance-Corporal Sawyer, with the
remaining two-thirds of his force, groped his way
through the starless mirk to some little distance
from the low culvert he had been set there to
guard, found a shallow fissure in the earth's
surface by the simple process of falling into it,
and, having slowly recovered from his consequent
alarm, encamped therein.
Lance-Corporal Sawyer's nerves were sadly on


174
DELILAH
edge. He was not yet accustomed to the cares
of his new rank. The actualities of warfare were
still as a sealed book to him. He would not let
the others light their pipes lest the mere striking
of a match should bring down upon them a body
of those very accurate marksmen with Mausers
who had already mishandled the British army so
grievously. Parker and Jellicoe rolled themselves
up in their blankets, grumbling, and soon forgot
their sorrows in further sleep.
Their obvious indifference to his anxieties
angered Lance-Corporal Sawyer sorely. He
leaned back against the bank of the donga, ready
to spring forth at a moment's notice. He meant
well, but eight days in the troop-train had over-
taxed his capacity for keeping awake. Within
ten minutes his eyes were shut and his mouth
wide open. But neither he nor Parker nor
Jellicoe snored. A stark and burdensome silence
supervened.
"This 'ere seems a silly sort of a turn !" said
Samson, left to his own reflections, and resting
languidly after half an hour's tramp to and fro,
during which he had had to feel his way with one
foot always close to a rail. The night air was
nipping keenly at his neck and shoulders. He
sought high and low for his blankets without
success, swearing, and called to mind tales of
men who had perished of the bitter cold on the
mountain passes. He did not pause to consider
that their fate had overtaken them in midwinter,
and that as yet there was no more than a touch
of early frost in the temperature, but hastily
lcd.


176
DELILAH
soft pad-pad-pad of bare feet running swiftly
towards him—which he set down as unreal like
the rest, till something brushed past him so
closely that it had all but cannoned into him ere
he jumped. Two white, glaring eyeballs met his
for a heartrending instant, and, while he lay
stiffly where he had fallen, palsied, unable even
to scream, the solid earth at his ear told him
that the pad-pad-pad was dying away down the
line.
He scrambled to one knee, drawing breath
again in short, hurtful sobs, set butt to shoulder,
pulled, blindly, with all his strength at the trigger.
But the safety-catch was well home and the
hammer locked at half-cock.
The fleeting footsteps were quite inaudible
before his trembling fingers could rectify that
mischance, and he did not fire after all, adjudging
defence more politic than defiance; so that the
naked native track-walker who had found courage
to run the gauntlet along the railway that night
went his brave way unscathed by his fellow-
servant of empire-while Samson, who knew
nothing of native track-walkers and believed that
the neighbourhood was inhabited solely by blood-
thirsty Boers, got to his feet, perspiring at every
pore, inwardly thanking his private providence
for his deliverance from such grave peril.
And, curiously enough, the incident served to
calm him. He had come safely through it but
for a somersault attributable to his own clumsi-
ness. The other fellow, whoever he was, had
been in as big a funk as himself. He once


DELILAH 177
more stepped out valiantly, determined to do,
not die.
Even when a jackal yowled evilly from a clump
of graves on the open veld and a night-roving
baboon barked back at it in a voice that was
horribly human, he did not altogether give way
to the terror these sounds induced.
But, withal, the night dragged drearily, and
nothing else occurred to disturb him. The un-
accustomed exercise, mental and bodily, after the
close confinement of a railway journey such as he
had endured, was overstraining his powers. The
cold pinched more severely during the small
hours, and after the perspiration he had been
bathed in. He slung his rifle recklessly over his
back and instituted a systematic search for his
blankets. It was at last successful. He unslung
his rifle, and sat down for just five minutes to
ease his ankles a little. He had been afoot for
close on five hours, and . . .
He was recalled to consciousness, half baked,
by a blazing sun. And, fortunately for him, no
more trains had passed, either north or south, in
the interval. Had any done so he could not have
failed to notice them, for he was lying between
the metals, head pillowed on one forearm sup-
ported by a steel rail, across which also rested
his precious Lee-Metford.
He had been dreaming of the "Cat and Anchor"
at Gravesend. He often dreamed of that holiday
haunt, and the bitter beer which is sold in its
summer garden of a hot Sunday-at-Home.
Lapped in that pleasant vision, he had forgotten
12


178
DELILAH
that he represented the regiment . . . among the
Boers . . . who very often fall upon solitary
sentries at dawn.
But half awake, still prostrate, he was acutely
aware of a hostile presence. There was some
one close behind him. . . . If the enemy were
upon him now. ...
He staggered upright, facing about with a
futile, tremulous wail of warning to his still
unseen, slumbering comrades, fumbling at the
cut-off of his magazine, and stopped galvanically,
stood stock-still, rifle at the charge, mouth and
eyes alike at their widest.
It was thus that he acquired his first im-
pression of Bloedzuiger's, and, even at this date,
when the slow years have mercifully dimmed
most of his other recollections, he can recall to
his mind's eye a perfect, indelible picture of that
dun and open space, unbounded eastward, as he
looked, but by the horizon, a world apart in its
majestic immensity, and all aglow with a golden,
living light, all empty save for Delilah.
And she stands always in its forefront, a tall,
slim, blushing slip of a girl, beautiful beyond
telling, smiling across its threshold at him, half
afraid and yet friendly.
It has been his great good fortune never to
have found out that the smile and the fear and
the friendliness were all alike false, assumed for
a purpose. He is still blind to the wrong
wrought him by Delilah.
Delilah's father's twentieth-century name is
Stoffel Bezuidenhout. He is a man so saturated


DELILAH 179
with Scripture that he talks in texts all twisted
to his own ends. And he calls his daughter
Christiana. He seems to have no sense of the
fitness of things, and is, in all essential respects,
a dogmatic old rascal.
He stoutly maintains, for instance, that the
world is flat. He is quite a traveller, too, having
been as far from his farm as Ceylon, in the guise
of a rebel and traitorous person, at the expense
of the British Government. But that experience
has only served to confirm him in his precon-
ceived opinion, for, if the world were round,
how would the sea he hates so heartily stick to it!
Stoffel is a true takhaar Boer, content in the
tenets evolved by his forefathers, a sturdy enemy
of those iconoclasts who would have him believe
that the earth is shaped like an orange.
Bloedzuiger's, where he was born, and still
lives, and will no doubt die in due course and
the odour of sanctity, is another conclusive proof
to the contrary. The railway that runs past his
stoep—at a range of exactly six hundred yards
from the bulletproof wall of sods which encircles
his goat-kraal—follows a perfectly straight line
from Tyger's Kloof at the foot of the Schurfteberg,
twelve miles away, to the invisible and equidis-
tant station at Twyfelpoort, where it once more
takes to the mountains. When it was first
surveyed, the engineers' spirit-levels, which do
not lie, showed that there was no slightest curve
from the horizontal in all that area. The barren
surface of Bloedzuiger's, and, ergo, the whole
earth, is flat as a frying-pan.


DELILAH
181
virtue of local standing as a landholder, received
a verbally unceremonious invitation. Of which he
availed himself, and found out that day what
makes some folk think the world is round. He him-
self distinctly observed it spin like a top while he
swayed in his saddle and sang as any hyena might
to the staring moon on his late way homeward.
For there had been champagne without stint to
wash the dust out of the trial-trippers' throats.
But by next morning it had all flattened out
nicely again, although he found himself, for the
first time in his life, afflicted with headache; and
after that he stayed quietly at home, drinking
nothing stronger than his own dop.
Years passed, some fifteen, or five, or ten-
your true Boer takes little note of the flight of
time—and Stoffel had almost grown accustomed
to the daily passing of trains with champagneless
passengers, trains with freight, trains full, trains
empty, when, one day, there came a freight-train
whose freight was troops. Not the old-fashioned
rooibaatjes either, whom the Boers had beaten at
Potchefstroom and Majuba, but a new breed of
strangely young men, almost boys, in curious
clay-coloured clothes very difficult to distinguish
from the sun-baked soil even at only six hundred
yards. And that train stopped at Bloedzuiger's,
the first that had ever done so.
Stoffel rode over to the railside, to find out
what was toward, and when he returned to his
usual seat on the ox-skull stool which stands on
the stoep, his face was grave. The train had
gone on again, having found that the culvert


182
DELILAH
was safe, and left word that the long-talked-of
war was at last afoot.
In that war Stoffel's six sons presently took
part, as also did most of Delilah's admirers:
who were many more than six. They went
away one by one, and always during the dark of
the moon, because they were all British subjects,
to spend their lives in vain for the vierkluur.
But Stoffel himself stayed quietly at home, like
most of the older and wiser men among the
Cape Dutch, waiting to see which way the cat
would jump. It would have been rank folly on
his part to forfeit his farm, as might have
happened had he taken arms against the flag he
had been born under, without some certainty that
he would be awarded a better one by the Boers
in its place. And, as it seemed that there were
always more kicks than halfpence to be earned
in their service, he maintained a masterly policy
of inaction. It was then that the Delilah wished
she had been a man, for, knowing nothing rightly
about the business under discussion, she was a
rabid partisan of the Republics.
"But I'll show them some day what a girl can
do," she promised herself.
One by one Stoffel lost his six sons. Stoffel
the younger, and Willem were among those
picked off by the sharpshooters of the Cape
Mounted Riflemen at Penhoek. Andries was
caught, with a canister of cyanide of potassium
in his possession, by a British picket guarding its
water-supply, and his shrift was almost as short
as theirs would have been if he had succeeded in


DELILAH 183
carrying out his purpose. Koos, Gert, and Jantje,
the youngest born, all died during the first year
of the war. They had unwittingly acquired the
expensive English habit of seeing a fight out to a
finish, and had not that facility in retreat which
brought so many of their blood-brethren home
unhurt in the end.
One by one Stoffel entered the dates of their
deaths in the big family Bible, and with each
entry his craving for a condign revenge on their
murderers grew more insistent. But he still
stayed quietly at home, waiting the time ap-
pointed for the payment of that illogical debt.
And, when Lance-Corporal Sawyer's picket was
posted over the culvert at Bloedzuiger's, he saw
that opportunity had lain for long at his door
while he had been looking blindly abroad for it.
In virtue of his supposedly sore-tried loyalty,
Stoffel had an official permit from the British
commandant of the district to remain in
residence on his farm. Most of his neighbours,
the nearest ten miles away at the best of times,
had either openly joined the Boers on commando
or been removed to the British concentration-
camps lest they should do so. He and Delilah
therefore lived there alone, unless you would
count as human beings, which Stoffel did not, a
couple of Kaffir herds and Kleinbooy, the Hotten-
tot, house-servant and groom of the empty stables.
Stoffel's last horse, his famous blaauw-schitnmel,
had been commandeered by the Boers since the
British had been ill-advised enough to listen to his
entreaties and leave it also in his possession.


184
DELILAH
Within a radius of twelve miles in any direction
the land lay uninhabited, desolate, save for the
folk at the farm and the four men that the troop-
train had left at the culvert.
Stoffel had heard the troop-train stop, and sat
up all night excogitating the purpose of its
stoppage. At dawn he sent Delilah across to
find that out. And Delilah went on her errand
willingly.
She gathered a few eggs in her kerchief, filled
a pitcher with milk from the can a Kaffir had
just brought in from the goat-kraal, knotted the
strings of her great white kapje bewitchingly
under her oval chin, and set forth through the
sunshine with smouldering eyes.
She was gone for over an hour, and, when she
returned to the farm where Stoffel Bezuidenhout
was impatiently waiting her, she was accompanied
by Lance-Corporal Sawyer.
It was high noon before Lance-Corporal Sawyer
reappeared at the culvert, and when he did so he
was in as pleasant a frame of mind as a man of
his constitution could be. He told Parker quite
politely to take Jellicoe's place on guard, and even
condescended to speech with Samson, who
augured ill for his own hopes of happiness from
such unusual amiability.
The lance-corporal was loud in Stoffel
Bezuidenhout's praises.
"One of the right sort," said he, having first
recounted the active items of his late host's
hospitality. "A natural-born gentleman, an'
not a ounce of side about him—although he owns


DELILAH
185
more land than a dozen dukes. He wants us
all to look in at the farm when free to do so,
an'- "
"C'n I get a 'our off this afternoon, corporal ? "
asked Samson in his most ingratiating tone,
anxious to make the most of the present fair
breeze.
“Jellicoe can, but not you," rejoined Lance-
Corporal Sawyer graciously. “You're next for
duty, an' he's jus' done his. I'd be glad to oblige
you, Samson, but fair's fair with me."
Samson gave vent to a grunt of disgust, in-
dicative of his sentiments as to the lance-corporal's
sense of fairness, but, for a wonder, the latter
took no more than a mental note of that open
affront. His self-complacence was not to be so
easily ruffled since Stoffel-and Delilah-had
smoothed it down for him so successfully. He
went on with his eulogium of their innate gentility,
and Samson listened sulkily while Jellicoe hurried
away to test it in practice.
That practical young man came back in turn
with accounts of kindness which made the hapless
Samson's mouth water. And then it was time for
Samson to do some more sentry-duty, although
that was otherwise quite a sinecure while daylight
lasted. Stoffel had told Lance-Corporal Sawyer
that any train approaching would be visible a good
half hour before it could reach the culvert, on the
steep gradients either at Tyger's Kloof or Twyfel-
poort. East and west also the plateau lay level
to the horizon, so that no unseen enemy need be
feared from any point of the compass till dark


186
DELILAH
came down. All that the sentry had to do was to
sit at his ease on one edge of the culvert, and keep
awake so that he might rise to a more attentive
attitude in the event of a train coming through.
It was only at night that the picket might hope to
prove useful, and its provisional usefulness was
already sadly impaired by its unfortunate predis-
position to accept Stoffel Bezuidenhout at his face
value.
But the night also passed without incident, and,
next forenoon, the enraptured Samson at length
found himself on his way to the farm, bent on
further conquest. He was the last of the quartette
to visit their future father-in-law—each of the four
had already made up his mind to marry Delilah—
but he had been the first, by a good half-hour, to
lay siege to the heiress's heart. He felt sure that
she had not been indifferent to his gallant words
and glances on that occasion.
Stoffel Bezuidenhout, seated upon an ox-skull
stool on the stoep, observed his hasty, shambling
approach, and called Delilah forth from the
voerhuis.
"Is that the one?" he asked eagerly, and she
nodded.
The old man studied the stunted, ill-knit figure
dispassionately for a few moments.
"What's its name?" he demanded.
"Samson," replied Delilah abruptly, and went
out into the sunshine, to welcome that valiant
individual.
Stoffel sat still, laughing, for the first time in a
twelvemonth, but mirthlessly, making no sound.


DELILAH
187
The picket at the culvert soon became accus-
tomed to its surroundings, and made itself much
at home in the kind-hearted Stoffel's establish-
ment. One or another of the four was always
about the house, and so deftly did Delilah manage
them that neither jealousy nor suspicion of one
another interfered with their self-content. Each
felt secure that he was the man of her choice, and
Samson added to that feeling sorrow for the other
three.
Under such circumstances a week passed
pleasantly. Three or four ill-used trains trickled
through, travelling with extreme precaution and
only by daylight. One stopped for long enough
to leave a scanty supply of rations and a plentiful
assortment of bad news from both north and
south.
An artist in explosives, a renegade deserter
from the Corps of Engineers, had recently joined
the Boers. The railway line had been cut in a
dozen places within that week. The bridge at
Zeekoe River had been blown up, and the trestle
crossing at Kenegha Drift torn down. Vlaklaagte
Station was no more, having been stormed,
sacked, and burned to its brick foundations.
The water-tank at Brakfontein lay at the foot
of its pedestal in fifty pieces. The troop-train
which had dropped the picket at Bloedzuiger's
had got no further than Daniel's Kuil before it
was ditched. And all these happenings had cost
their quota of lives.
Worse still, the picket at Bloedzuiger's was to
be replaced next morning by an officer's com-


DELILAH
189
Parker woke him up with a rifle-butt to take over
sentry-duty.
By then the lance-corporal was lying stretched
in a sodden slumber, and they did not think it
worth their while to disturb him. Parker saw
Samson on to his post, and, having returned to
the donga, rolled himself up in his blankets, lost
consciousness of the darkness in dreams.
The new moon had gone down long ago, and
Samson, rub his eyes as he might, could discover
no stars in the sky. But he was not adversely
affected by that circumstance. His mind was ac-
tivelyoccupied with matters much more important.
A thin and penetrating night-wind was whip-
ping gustily across the bare plateau, and he had
left his blankets behind at the bivouac, but he
did not feel the cold. Inwardly he was aglow,
with hope.
What he saw and heard and felt was not the
dark waste, the sough of the south wind from the
Schurfteberg, its bitter breath, but a cosy cottage
in England, Delilah's voice at his elbow in its
wide ingle, the warmth of the flickering coal-fire
on its open hearth, and her hand in his.
He could hear her voice distinctly, speaking
his name. He started with a gasp of surprise,
stared intently about him. The voice was real,
had recalled him to Africa. She was out there,
alone in the night, seeking him.
"'Ullo!" he answered hoarsely, scarce able to
believe his own ears.
"Come to me," cried Delilah coaxingly, and
Samson went.


190
DELILAH
He found her fifty paces away from his post,
standing on the hither side of the spruit which
led to the culvert, and there she held him fast
with her wiles while her father, barefoot, face
blackened, indiscernible in the darkness, crept
past at a safe distance toward the railway.
Stoffel had with him two of those little oblong
slabs of a soft, yellowish-white stuff, carefully
packed in oil-paper, for which he had lately sent
Kleinbooy to beg of the train-wreckers' com-
mando. They had looked harmless enough when
he had last seen them, but, carrying them in his
coat pockets with fuses already attached lest he
should not have time to attend to that detail
properly at the critical moment, he felt so ex-
ceedingly uncomfortable in his ignorance of their
propensities that it would have taken very little
to turn him back from his purpose.
But fate ordained that his way should be made
smooth for him, and, while Delilah was hearken-
ing deafly to Samson's passionate declarations,
Stoffel was fastening his most infernal con-
trivances firmly between the masonry and the
rails at the culvert, fixing the fuses so that the
first wheels which came that way would touch
them off automatically. And, that done, he
regained the shelter of his own roof without
accident, washed his face and hands, slipped on
his veld-schoen, and swallowed a strong medicinal
dose of dop.
Then he called Kleinbooy and the two Kaffirs
out of their hut behind, bestowed upon them a
Mauser apiece from the armoury concealed in


DELILAH 191
the thatch of his dwelling, and, having carried a
couple of boxes of ammunition out to the goat-
kraal, posted his fighting force in ambush, picked
up his own rifle, set himself to await, with what
patience he could command, the coming of the
train which, he had been advised, would attempt
the trip southward that night.
Delilah heard it afar off first, and told Samson
of its coming. He paid a perfunctory visit to his
post, fifty paces away, and came back quickly
because she had said that it was high time for
her to go home to bed, and he earnestly desired
to dissuade her from any such idea. He even
contemplated, although with tremors, a kiss.
The culvert seemed to be exactly as he had
left it. Laying an ear to one rail, as he had
learned to do, he could hear it hum. The train
would be along immediately. There was no time
now for any one to work it harm at that point.
The little picket at Bloedzuiger's would leave
with a clean record. He sat down at Delilah's
side on the edge of the spruit, readily running, for
her sweet sake, the very slight risk of discovery
by Lance-Corporal Sawyer. Darkness was made
for lovers, and who will blame him that he was
not thinking of dynamite at such a moment.
"I'll scoot across to the line as she passes,"
he told himself, thus easily salving a somewhat
somnolent conscience, and boldly slipped an arm
round Delilah's shoulders.
"Give us a kiss, dear!" he begged, in a shakj
whisper. "I 'aven't never 'ad one from you,


192
DELILAH
She shivered violently. She had betrayed this
simpleton; but-a kiss! Would not that stamp
her sister to the Iscariot ?
A sudden, overwhelming remorse for the part
she had played burned up within her—too late.
Her trained ear told her that there was no time
now to avert the impending catastrophe. It was
already written that her father's sons would be
amply avenged. The moment had arrived when
she must flee from the wrath to come.
But a belated, pitiful, womanly impulse held her
fast there, within the imminent sweep of death's
sickle. She might still save this one poor fool,
who had trusted her so implicitly. Her own life
she no longer held of any account. She had
already repented the crime about to be consum-
mated, and would fain have faced God forthwith;
for, if she lived, her punishment might be greater
than she could bear.
“Bend down,” she whispered tensely to Sam-
son. “I want to cut a lock off your hair, for
myself.”
He hesitated. The train was almost upon them,
and had not slowed down, since the culvert was
known to be guarded.
"Quick !” she urged, "if—if you want that
kiss."
He bent his bullet head, with its close-cropped,
stubbly shock of nondescript hair, and she clasped
it to her bosom, throwing both arms about him,
holding him helpless, shielded by her own body.
And Samson lay there, content, till the crash
came.


DELILAH
193
It did not kill either of them, although they lay
for long as dead in the dry bed of the spruit into
which the explosion had cast them; but when
Samson raised himself sickly on hands and knees,
peering up over the bank at the flaming inferno
about the culvert, his mind was almost a blank.
It was a hospital train, taking sick and wounded
south, that had come to grief there. Each of the
shattered, heaped-up coaches bore on its rapidly
blistering paintwork, in mute appeal, a great red
cross, stencilled on a white ground. At one shut
window, within the crimson heart of the blaze,
he caught sight of a uniformed nursing-sister,
beating in vain on its cracked glass with her
bare hands.
The buzz of bullets was audible over all the
unspeakable uproar. They came from Bloed-
zuiger's. Here and there some poor fellow,
escaped from the fire, dropped before them.
Samson stood shakily upright, hoping that one
would hit him; but none came near enough.
He scrambled into the spruit again and seized
his own rifle. Delilah was lying, face downward,
where she had fallen. He set the rifle upright,
its butt on the ground, stooped over it so that
the muzzle met his throbbing temple, and, stretch-
ing one short arm till his fumbling fingers found
the trigger-guard, got his thumb inside that.
His mind was almost a blank, but he had not
forgotten that he represented the regiment. He
did not hesitate, but pushed the trigger, hard, till
the hammer fell.
An hour later a troop of British cavalry,
13


194 DELILAH
galloping madly across from Twyfelpoort towards
the red glare that had told them of disaster
and death at Bloedzuiger's, drew rein about the
culvert. But, although the men were afoot, with
drawn faces, before their plunging horses had
come to a halt, they were too late to do more
than sort out the quick from the dead, turn over
the still smouldering ashes, and dig a great, wide
grave, in which Lance-Corporal Sawyer, Parker,
and Jellicoe were presently laid, along with many
others, while Samson and Delilah were carried
off to the house in two dripping stretchers, by
order of the doctor, who had already established
his emergency hospital there.
"This one'll do, with care," said that over-
worked official a little later, knotting an outer
bandage about Samson's head. "He'll be stone
blind, of course, but we'll pull him through."
He passed on to where Delilah was waiting
her turn, and spent ten precious minutes on her,
with knife and needle and thread.
"She'll live, too," he told his orderly, and raised
himself with a shrug. "Yes, she'll live, too, poor
thing! But we must make sure that she doesn't
get hold of a looking-glass, until she's strong
enough to stand what she'll see in it."
After the war was well over, and Stoffel safely
back from Ceylon at Bloedzuiger's, with a
gratuitous loan from the British Government to
help him start afresh in life, and a fat claim
pending before the Arbitration Board against that
same stupid entity for damage done to his farm


DELILAH
195
by its forces, Delilah was returned to him there.
And they resumed their old life, in so far as was
possible.
The culvert had long ago been permanently
repaired, and the wreckage about it removed.
The sole remaining mark of the mishap which
had occurred there was a great, wide mound,
with a lurching, weather-stained, wooden board,
bearing many almost illegible names, at one end
of it.
England is always far too busy oppressing the
weak and helpless to have time to tend her own
children's graves. But Stoffel sometimes replaced
on its sloping surface the scarce stones that the
wild beasts would thrust aside as they burrowed.
And no qualms of conscience disturbed him
while he was doing so.
He was engaged in that praiseworthy work on
the day when Samson came back to Bloed-
zuiger's, and he did not return to the house till
the station-master of Tyger's Kloof, who had
brought the blind man thither in a borrowed
Cape-cart, had driven off, alone. Stoffel did not
like the station-master, who, on his part, had no
overweening admiration for Stoffel.
When he got back to his ox-skull stool on the
stoep, the two within came out to meet him.
And he swore, scripturally, beneath his breath,
at what he saw in their faces. Samson did not
seem to him a suitable substitute for his six sons,
and he himself was getting beyond his prime.
But, since no one but a blind man would be
likely to wed Delilah now, he gave them a


196
DELILAH
begrudged blessing, and in due course they were
married. None of Delilah's old admirers were
present at the ceremony. No one of them wanted
her for himself, but, at the same time, they did
not think it well done of Stoffel to give her to an
uitlander.
They three live alone in that vast solitude, with
their thoughts. And, strangely enough, they are
not altogether unhappy.
Stoffel has learned to tolerate the little Cockney
who listens so patiently to his interminable dis-
courses on the flatness of the earth, his, Stoffel's,
own slimness, and similar topics. Samson asks
no more of life than to sit there in the sunshine,
his wife's hand in his, with the old man droning
on and on till the drone ends in a snore. Delilah
is abjectly devoted to her helpless husband, and
so makes such atonement as is permitted her.
She has grown stout and elderly, for she
must be four-and-twenty now. She was not yet
eighteen when Samson first saw her, and at
eighteen the Boer meisje is in the full flower of
womanhood-almost ready to run to seed, as do
most of them before they turn twenty. The veld
develops its women early, and its men late-some-
times never; out of which fact springs much of
its endless tragedy.
But to her man she is always the same tall,
slim, blushing slip of a girl whom he met in a
world apart. He does not know that she is no
longer beautiful, or that, when he strokes her
face tenderly with his stubby fingers, as he some-
times will, to make quite sure that she is not


DELILAH
197
losing her looks, she always turns the same
side to him. She is needlessly afraid that, if he
once touched the other—she had glanced over
her shoulder towards the culvert as the train
reached it—she would lose his love.
And that ever-present fear is Delilah's punish-
ment.


2oo THE BRAND OF CAIN
"It's not a bit unfortunate, and we're not going
back one step—we must be quite a hundred miles
from the railway. I can put up perfectly well in
the tent until something better is forthcoming,
and you know we can't afford to waste time. So
please tell the men to pitch camp and get a fire
going. We'll have some dinner, and see how
things shape after that."
Colonel Sartoris looked his perplexity, but
called up the guide, who was muttering in the
rear with his companions. That black-browed
individual sauntered over, and withdrawing an
oily-looking cigarette from between his lips,
anticipated speech.
"There is," said he, "an inhabited estancia
which marches with this. If you and the seflorita
care to ride some five leagues farther, perhaps
food and shelter may be had there."
"Whose is the place, Pablo?" the Colonel
asked with a sudden accession of hope.
"A son of the country's," said Pablo shortly
in the local idiom.
The two castaways consulted together, and
after a final look round the comfortless waste of
their actual position, decided to push on, in the
surety that their plight could by no means be
rendered worse. The guide led off at an easy
amble, with the assured confidence of one who
is certain of making his landfall, and the little
cavalcade followed him silently.
For two endless hours they swept onward, with-
out observing any change in their surroundings.
The same flat, desolate landscape lapped to an


THE BRAND OF CAIN 203
And he rode forward to the great doorsteps.
"Ave Maria!" he called loudly, and sat waiting
while the Colonel behind him fumed and fretted
over the unnecessary ceremonial of the country.
Steps sounded from within.
"Sin pecado concebida," said a voice, and the
double doors were thrown wide. A young man
in evening dress came down the steps, bare-
headed, and, calling off the dogs, bowed low
before the intruders.
He cast a swift glance towards the Colonel
in the forefront.
"Beltran de Salazar," he said in an even voice,
"your servant. Dismount and enter: my poor
house and all its people are at your orders."
"Aha!" cried the Colonel joyfully, "you speak
English."
And Don Beltran bowed again.
"At your orders," said he, and, calling his
servants forth, bade them conduct his visitors
to their apartments. It seemed that he was not
unprepared to receive company.
A chime of gongs called the two travellers to
dinner, and they, fresh from the comfort of their
luxurious dressing-rooms, entered the great
dining-hall together in the best of spirits.
Their host received them courteously at its
threshold, and, after a Latin grace, intoned by
the frocked household priest, there was served
a dinner which would have done no discredit
at all to the Carlton.
Colonel Sartoris was too hungry to let his
attention wander far from the board, but, after


204 THE BRAND OF CAIN
the noiseless attendants had at length with-
drawn, leaving coffee and liqueurs on a table
before the fire, he settled his daughter in one
of the great arm-chairs thereby, and, lighting a
long cigar, looked round him with a sigh of
heartfelt appreciation.
"You do yourself very comfortably here,
Sefior Salazar," he said, and Don Beltran smiled.
"One must live—even in these wilds," he
answered, "and we have kept house here for
two generations."
"You had some pretty wild times, no doubt,
in the early days," suggested the Colonel, and
the young man nodded expressively.
"El Pufio," said he, "was first won by the
strong hand. You may have noticed my father's
brand on the stock as you came along."
"Why," inquired Eve thoughtlessly, " do they
call it the brand of Cain?"
Don Beltran rose suddenly, white to the lips,
and, with a muttered word of apology, stumbled
out of the room, overturning as he went the table
which stood beside him.
And presently the priest came in again, to take
his place.
The Colonel would willingly have made the
soft-voiced churchman some slight excuse for
Eve's unfortunate question, but Dom Eustaquio
forestalled that by telling them at length, and,
as he intimated, by Don Beltran's specific order,
why the estancia-mark of El Pufio was called
the brand of Cain.
His story took them back to Don Beltran's dead


THE BRAND OF CAIN 205
father's day, and the beginning of the family
history in the New World, whither Don Joaquin
had come from Spain to mend his fortunes. The
which he did most notably.
The collar-point on the old man's escutcheon
had been a mailed hand, clenched, but, in a land
whose heraldry is limited to the burning of a
rough stigma on its wealth of horn and hide,
he had been wont to describe it as el puno—
the fist.
The sixty leagues of land he had won from
the wilderness and its inhabitants he called the
Estancia El Puno, and his brand in that shape
soon came to be known and respected from the
Pacific eastward to the other coast.
It was his good will and pleasure to mark
himself master of every available creature on
his wide possessions. He had been accustomed
to carry that foible to such an extent that even
his tame Indian peons carried for life the impress
of ownership burnt on a buttock at their first
coming. But he had been an hidalgo of Spain,
while his two sons were native-born.
The old man dead, they kept up all the feudal
state to which he had trained them, abating in
no other respect the pomp and circumstance they
had inherited with means more than enough to
maintain them.
And all went well with them till—till some
matter of a woman, not to be dwelt upon, caused
Don Beltran to rise up against his brother. And
his brother died—in quittance of a foul wrong,
a wrong done wittingly and in cold blood.


THE BRAND OF CAIN 207
Dom Estaquio reverently, that the senor ingles
and the senorita had been brought out of the
desert to the very gates of El Puno.
And he sat with them until it was time to retire
for the night. So that they did not see Don
Beltran again till next morning.
It was patently impossible then to refer to the
matter; but Eve, at fault, was very ready to make
atonement. Few men, and Don Beltran least of
all, could withstand her charm. Within a very
short space of time he was her most devoted
slave.
When Colonel Sartoris had explained to him
his own purpose, he refused most determinedly
to permit their departure from under his roof
until such time as there might be made ready
for them on the lands of San Miguel a fit habi-
tation. He did not, in his own mind, think much
of the Colonel's scheme of settling down in these
wilds, but threw himself into it wholeheartedly
notwithstanding, dispatching a small army of
his people to the building of a dwelling-place for
his new neighbours.
During those happy days, while the work was
progressing, the three spent long hours together,
planning, altering, supervising. And Don Beltran
made himself almost indispensable to the Colonel,
who had the greatest difficulty in keeping the
young man's generous impulses under restraint.
Within a marvellously brief period, therefore,
there arose on the barren acreage of San Miguel
a squat, thickly walled, flat-roofed homestead,
four-square and very defensible. Whitewashed


THE BRAND OF CAIN 209
to render them more than usually restless, while
it afforded a party of marauding Indians a
thoroughly valid pretext for cutting out and
carrying off to a mountain fastness fifty of the
fattest of them.
It was a tribal canon that the brand of El Pufio
should be held sacred. Great then was the joy
of those simple savages when the wonderful
newcomer, in marvellous white nether garments
and polo-boots like pipe-stems, went to an in-
finity of trouble for the express purpose of eras-
ing the prohibited brand with a fresh sign of his
own invention. There was loud laughter and
much meat in the mountains for many days, till
the aggrieved Colonel, making what shift he
might to arm the dozen gauchos of his retinue,
and going forth with these behind him, smote the
Amalekjtes hip and thigh, even unto the third
generation, for he shot with his own hand in the
heat of the moment the old chief of the Huelches,
great-grandfather of the tribe. Whereafter war
in the third degree was declared between the
denizens of the outer desert and the indwellers
at San Miguel.
The more experienced frontiersman at El Pufio
warned his new neighbour of the futility of such
methods, but the ex-soldier smiled scornfully, and
swore that there should be no dual ownership
of San Miguel: it should be his own, and his
only, or the Indians'.
"But the senorita—your daughter?" asked Don
Beltran anxiously, and the Colonel fell a-frowning.
"I think I shall send Eve home for a year till
H


2io THE BRAND OF CAIN
I get things licked into shape here," he said on
reflection, and the younger man offered him no
further advice.
Eve, needless to say, refused to leave her father,
and the two spent a troublous six months together
until matters came to a climax. The tribes rose
up and demanded of their elders the blood of that
unnecessary white man who had made good his
footing in their midst, who was so fussy with
regard to such trifling matters as the slaughter
of half a dozen fat cattle bearing a brand un-
known, who had poisoned against them the mind
of Beltran de Salazar, their foster-brother, who
had even slain them to their hurt. For Colonel
Sartoris's Winchester had wrought great havoc
among them; and, chiefly for that reason, it was
decided over the council-fire that the Estancia
San Miguel should be blotted off the face of the
earth.
Means to that end were promptly taken, and
Colonel Sartoris rose from dinner one evening
to find himself bereft of all his possessions
save only the bare land and the house wherein
he dwelt.
He rose, in deep wrath, and, fulfilling the
enemy's anticipations, set forth through the night
for the spurs of the mountains to give battle to
his oppressors. But, ere riding off, he sent word
of his plight to Don Beltran, and begged safeguard
for his daughter during his absence.
It fell out, therefore, that an army of wild
Indians, besieging the estancia-house of San
Miguel in the darkness, was suddenly assaulted


2\2 THE BRAND OF CAIN
been all but impregnable to an Indian attack; but
when de Salazar recognised, amidst the crackle
of the besiegers' inefficient musketry, the unmis-
takable "pip-pop" of the Colonel's Winchester,
and knew, therefore, that that gentleman had
fallen into unfriendly hands, his heart sank. It
is one thing to despise the effete firearms of a
savage foe, but quite another to find that foe
endowed with the arms of precision ravished from
one's own armoury.
Ten minutes sufficed the tribes for the storming
of the outer walls, and the garrison ensconced
itself within the house proper, keeping up a
murderous fire from loophole and parapet. But
strong reinforcements emboldened the enemy to
attempt the main entrance; and Eve, in the tower
above it, recovered consciousness in an inferno
of battle which all but sent her off into a fresh
swoon. But she pulled herself together gallantly,
and went down, despite the entreaties of the
women about her, to offer her help in the
defence.
The defenders were suffering severely despite
all the good Dom Eustaquio's prayers for their
temporal welfare. The Indians, expert rifle-shots
and possessed of the modern arms of their
prisoners, had no difficulty, at short range, in
keeping the loopholes untenantable, and Beltran,
going the round of his defences, groaned as he
saw the gaps in the ranks on which so much
depended. He hurried towards the tower,
wherein the best of his men were placed, to make
such disposition as he might for a final stand.


214 THE BRAND OF CAIN
"False brother!" he retorted. "At whose
pleasure do you stand within my gates?"
"Are we not of one people ?" asked the Indian,
simulating surprise.
The Spaniard spat towards him.
"Jaguars' blood is the breed !" he said, " and I
renounce it."
"That may not be," the envoy answered, "and,
whatever the breed, the blood remains. It calls
upon us to avenge it. What to you are those
strangers who have come among us to our
sorrow? . . . who have cost us our Cacique!
Give up to us the white woman whose father
also we have sent to the long hunting, and we
withdraw. Otherwise . . . upon your own head
and hers be the manner of her taking!"
"And what of our bond?" asked Don Beltran
in all seriousness.
"The bond of the tribes embraces only such
chattels as carry the brand," said the Indian,
unmoved.
"Then begone, dog!" cried de Salazar furiously,
"and leave me with my own Hand to hold my
own."
Of the final taking of El Pufio in flames there
is little readable to be written: of what passed
within the tower still less; but it may be set
down that when Beltran de Salazar carried forth
over its slippery threshold the limp, inanimate
body of Eve Sartoris, and, pointing out to all the
tribes the black, bleeding, inburned brand on her
bare white shoulder, claimed her to El Pufio
under bond, they drew back very quietly and


THE BRAND OF CAIN 215
departed with their own dead in dumb acqui-
escence.
The same evening Colonel Sartoris was de-
livered, in a state of extreme raggedness and
indignation, at the gateless gateway of the ruined
stronghold, his escort making off ere he had time
to remove from his mouth the handful of wool
which impeded his utterance.
His subsequent expression of opinion would
not, perhaps, form profitable reading, and may,
for that reason, be omitted here.
He still owns San Miguel, and draws therefrom
an income which enables him to live in a more
civilised locality. At the " Rag" he is something
of an authority on South American matters, but
only very active and ablebodied persons should
question him concerning the events herein briefly
recorded.
Mr. and Mrs. de Salazar are often in London,
but I doubt whether Eve would care to exhibit
her shoulders in support of a mere story. When
she does so at the Opera you need no longer be
surprised by the unusual breadth of the shoulder-
straps she always wears with her evening gowns.
For under one of these she bears for her husband
the brand of Cain.


GRUAGACH
A Fantasy
"Dear God!" said Andrew Ransom, very rever-
ently, and drew a deep, ecstatic breath.
He laid his easel gently on a rock behind him,
and turned again toward the wonderful world that
was growing before his eyes as the sun rose
slowly above Beinn Iadain.
The still waters of Loch Sunart lay at his feet,
like a tissue of turquoise silk. White pearls, on
the other edge of the blue, were the distant cots
of Mingary. Silver and green and gold over the
white specks grew belts of birch, and fir, and
bracken. Purple and sapphire shone in the living
light where sky kissed heather on the high hills
that reach from the shore through Ardgour and
Moidart. Ardmore and Ardnamurchan peered
across through a thin and semi-transparent opal
veil. A pathway of burnished brass, between
them, led oversea to Eilan Mohr and the far
Hebrides.
The painter bowed his head.
"What can any man do—but try?" he said,
and turned to the tools of his craft with sudden,
feverish haste.
There was no wind, but the tide was making.
216


GRUAGACH
217
He set himself down, his back to a boulder,
beyond its reach. And there in the strong,
clear north-light he worked faithfully, wielding
his well-worn brushes as one who loved them.
Which indeed he did, since it was to them and
them only that he owed his late release from a
life now too terrible almost to contemplate-if
life it be that they lead, the pallid slaves of the
yard-wand, counter and till.
Nor was his foothold in this sweet, fresh,
fragrant world yet secure. The few scarce
sovereigns which lay in his shabby suit-case at
the inn represented the sole weak bulwark be-
twixt its new-found freedom and an ignominious
return to that bitter servitude of the shop
whence he had only escaped on the strength of
a couple of sketches done in the gaslight after
the day's work, but sold and paid for. He was
no favourite of fortune, this poor counter-jumping
gentleman, and the struggle before him might
well have dismayed a much braver man.
"What can any man do—but try ?" said he,
through set teeth, and put his whole heart into
the work of his hands.
Hours passed unheeded. The fit was on him,
and the blank board grew rapidly beautiful
under his tender touch. The sea crept up the
shore toward him unnoticed. The sun was hot
overhead, his face burned painfully: but he
painted on.
· The sound of a woman's singing rose on the
rare atmosphere. He paused for a moment to
look about him in sudden bewilderment.


218
GRUAGACH
He had concentrated all his powers on the
canvas. The intensity of the strain, relaxed, left
him witlessly bemused, uncertain. He blinked
into the sunshine and tried to think.
The islet he was on held no inhabitants. There
was no boat to be seen. Whence, then, had
come those siren strains which had recalled him
from the clouds]? He could not rise. His heart
was beating furiously. For the sound came, in-
creasingly, without apparent source, from seaward.
There was some sea-creature moving slowly
past him through the water. He remained
motionless, unable to believe his eyes, his ears.
A fair face, framed in a tangle of golden wrack
above a still, white bosom, looked up at him
from out of the depths—and the singing ceased.
He sat staring, petrified, and the vision faded
before him under a broad, blue-green ripple
that presently lapped the wet pebbles at his feet.
The tide had turned.
He stayed where he was till the wind rose.
Then he tied his traps together and returned to
the inn, pulling himself unhandily across the
inner loch in the ramshackle cobble that served
him for means of transport to and from his
enchanted island.
Through the dim hazel-woods he walked like
one bewitched, and for all his long abstinence
had little appetite for the food which the good
folk of the inn would have pressed upon him.
After he had eaten he fell asleep in his chair,
but his exhausted brain was still busy with the


220
GRUAGACH
"Please don't let me disturb you," she said, in
a voice that fell on his ears like remembered
music. "I'm sure you're busy."
"I'm not, really," Andrew Ransom answered,
and wondered where he had found the words and
the courage to utter them.
She hesitated for a brief moment.
"I heard you were painting here," she ex-
plained with a high-bred ease which denoted
nothing to him, "and I couldn't resist the
temptation to take a peep at your picture. I
didn't intend that you should see me though."
The painter looked up at her with passionate
eyes.
"Won't you come down to me," he asked
tremulously, " if you care to—to look at my poor
work?"
And almost immediately she was standing with
clasped hands before his easel.
She came again next day, but not alone. There
was with her a grave-faced, grey-haired man, clad
in the same rough homespun she herself wore, who
stood for long in front of the half-finished painting.
Then he spoke farseeingly of the painter's
future, and offered him an undreamed-of sum for
the canvas completed.
The younger man paid little heed to his fore-
casts—who would not rather have a present
heaven ?—and still less to his huckstering, but
willingly promised that he would not part with
his picture otherwise. And the two visitors
departed, leaving the artist idle, in worshipful
silence, without eyes for the world.


GRUAGACH
221
A night's rest once more served to steady him,
and he recalled with infinite difficulty the half-
heard words of the wiseacre.
"I was rather rude to him," thought Andrew
Ransom ruefully, “and he may not make me
another such offer. But 1-1 can't part with it."
" You might do so much with the money," whispered
the spirit of ambition. “ You can paint plenty of
pictures after- "
“After what ?" asked Andrew angrily of the
spirit. “Must I sell my very soul to satisfy you?
Was there ever a woman in all the world to
compare with her?”
He stopped, on his way to the waterside.
"And why not?” he said to himself defiantly.
“Other men have done it. And why not I ? She
is probably some farmer's daughter-and I-an
artist, possibly."
He paddled across to the island like a man
possessed and set to work, wildly, no one dis-
turbing him.
A long week passed and the picture grew
slowly perfect: more slowly each day.
Autumn was creeping on. There was threat of
storm in the hot, heavy atmosphere. The sun
still shone very fiercely. The unaccustomed
exposure was telling on the town-bred toiler.
And he was sick with the strain of a hope
still-born. He had expended himself utterly on
the dumb daub before him.
Turning, with tired eyes, from his completed
task, he saw again the only woman who, if she
would, could comfort him.


224 GRUAGACH
"Yes, a Lorelei, in some sort. A sweet singer,
like yourself—but who seeks men's souls."
She laid her purchase down, and fell silent.
A burst of laughter from the saloon below jarred
upwards on the night. ,
A couple of young men and an under-dressed
woman stumbled up the companion and came
towards them. One of the men lurched a little
as he walked, although the yacht still lay at
anchor.
"Hullo!"he said thickly, "what's this?" and
picked up the picture. "Aha, old girl! Some
one caught you nappin' at last, eh? I told you
that it was a trifle risky to go bathin' from the
boat by yourself! Too many Peepin' Toms about,
what?"
"It's a rippin' picture, though," said his com-
panion, gaping at it over the Duke's shoulder.
"Ain't it, Sir Alaric? You ought to know."
The Academician did not deign to reply, and
the youth turned away with a wink.
"Let's have a song," he suggested. "Sing us
somethin', Duchess. It sounds so well on the
water. We're goin' to have a howlin' gale pre-
sently, the skipper says," he continued. "No
time for singin' then."
A long, low, ominous growl of thunder silenced
him. And, as it died away, the Duchess turned
her face to the west and sang.


THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE
Across the fields, from Armod's dwelling-place,
We heard Bisesa weeping where she passed
To seek the Unlighted Shrine. . . .
The Sacrifice of Er-Heb.
I
After the investiture was over, Noodles slipped
quietly away from his more or less self-satisfied
fellows, and, hailing a hansom from the long rank
in the road behind the Palace, had himself driven
towards his rooms in Jermyn Street.
Reflecting by the way upon the proceedings
of the afternoon, he could not help feeling that
he had failed to shine as he ought in the presence
of his Sovereign. He had stumbled as he stepped
forward to have his Cross pinned on, and, but
for the readiness of the royal hand, might easily
have finished by treading upon the royal foot;
which would have been particularly painful for
all concerned. But "Edward VII., by the grace
of God," had saved himself and his most humble
servant from such calamity; had spoken with
especial kindness to the agitated soldier; and
had even condescended to send a most cordial
message to Noodles' father, old General Grims-
dale, who, since forced superannuation had cut


226 THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE
short a strenuous career, had been hiding his
honest poverty from King and courtier alike on
the unprofitable acres that remained to him of a
once wide domain among the tors of Devon.
For Noodles, despite his apparent uncouthness,
came of a stock which had served its country
throughout long generations, and without regard
to the cost of it. Son after son had gone forth
from the mouldering West-country manor, to
spend his working life with the colours; and for
each a further slice of the old estate had had to
be sold or mortgaged, to augment the meagre
wage that a poverty-stricken empire pays its
protectors.
Some, but not many of them, had won home
to die there, and those had been accounted the
least lucky : a lean old age is less to be desired
than the quick passing that has but the battle-
trumpet for bell, and cuts all life's tangled skeins
so deftly.
It was for home that Noodles intended heading,
as soon as his servant should have extricated
him from the pomp and panoply of full dress in
which he had attended the recent function. He
knew how impatient his father would be to see
him with the coveted bit of bronze on his breast,
and was the more ready to gratify the old
gentleman in that respect since he had heard that
the Chichesters were back at Broome: he thought
it very possible that Eve might have been in-
cluded in the invitations to certain modest
festivities which had been planned against his
home-coming, and was not unwilling, for all his


THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE 231
have enlightened their darkness by means of
books and those who were empowered to im-
prove them with rifles. They had indifferently
decided to abolish all intruders, and had begun
at the mission, whence they had, however, carried
away alive for further consideration the only
woman there then; but not before she had found
means to write the piteous epistle which had
ultimately reached Hoboken per favour of a
sympathising inspector of police, who had found
it fluttering in the fork of a tree on the trail
taken by the escaping savages.
And McGinnis had been more than prompt in
his response. He had already traced her, through
untold trials and by means of almost superhuman
efforts, to the mouth of the Yehbo marshes.
He had missed his chance of making her happy,
but, now that she once more needed him and
so sorely, it might be possible to atone in some
measure for his former folly. All that he re-
quired to know at the moment was whether
his new friend
"Of course I'll go with you," said that youth,
a trifle snappishly. "You don't suppose
When shall we start? To-night?"
It took time, however, to convince his com-
manding officer, without condescending upon
details as to which he had unwillingly sworn
secrecy (" I'd rather go alone than have you
say a single word about her till we know every-
thing," McGinnis had insisted), that he could
have reasons sufficiently weighty to warrant
his requesting leave to absent himself from his


THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE 233
Noodles, swaying on his feet, sniffing the hot
air with twitching nostrils while he peered about
him out of dull, glazed eyes. “This entrance
should never be left unguarded, an'_ God!
Look there!"
McGinnis looked, and was sickly silent.
"The fort's been stormed," whispered the
Englishman, a horror of hopelessness in his
husky voice.
At every turn they came across more mutilated
corpses, and among them those of the two white
men they had left there, who had died hard, at
the foot of the flagpole before the mess-house.
The flag itself hung heavily overhead, in sack
shape: the halliards had not been cut.
Creeping cautiously inwards, Noodles at length
assured himself that there was no living enemy
left within the walls. He sought and found a
full bottle of brandy in his own dismantled
quarters. With that and some broken biscuits
the desperate adventurers revived their fast-failing
energies, but not before McGinnis had done what
he could for the unconscious burden they had
carried thither at such cost.
“She's terribly far through,” he mumbled
wretchedly, and his companion groaned.
“There's nothing for it but to take her on to
Kwassi," said Noodles. “It's only eighty miles,
and you'll do it in a night with wind and current.
The raft'll ride drier without my weight too."
McGinnis ceased chewing to look at him in
blank astonishment.
"How d'ye mean without your weight ?” he


THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE 235
sight of a circular building on a bluff beyond the
river-bank, and, making therefor with all the
strength that was left in him, ran aground under
the rifle of a fat white man who was fishing for
alligators from behind a bush.
To the fat man, after he had ceased the wrathful
roaring with which he had received the sup-
posititiously insolent negro who had spoiled his
sport, McGinnis, still coal-black and semi-nude,
unfolded such a tale as sent him scuttling back
to barracks at the top of his speed-wherewith a
bugle blew very urgently, and there was instant
bustle.
A stretcher-party came trotting down the slope,
and bore away both the huddled figures lying on
the foreshore.
" Who've you got there, doctor ?" demanded a
perspiring subaltern, on his way to the waterside
where the steam pinnace was hidden.
“A very sick pair, me dear bhoy," the fat man
answered seriously, and paused to mop his fore-
head. “Ye remember the mad American that went
inland a month ago—and the girl, poor thing! that
the Pagans carried away when they sacked the
southern mission ? He's brought her back, bedad!
from the very hobs o' hell itself-and blind.”
"The black devils !” said the youngster
savagely. “They've run up a long score this
time, haven't they ? I wish you'd let Winters go
with us, Murphy. He begged me to ask you :
says he's quite fit now, and it'll break his heart
if you keep him hanging about in hospital while
we're hustling after poor Noodles."


THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE 23;
he said thickly, "but I think I'll pull through
without. Give me a couple of minutes"
He straightened up again almost immediately,
and the doctor, foreseeing by the light of a long
experience the question that was coming, shook
his head in anticipation, and very sadly.
"How did it happen ?" he asked, to stave that
off for a moment.
"It was on the West Coast," the blind man
responded bravely. "We were fighting in the
dark—to save a white woman. Some one threw
dust in my eyes—they've hurt ever since—but I
was more or less all right till yesterday. Is there
no chance for me, doctor?"
The agony of appeal in his tense tones showed
the strain he was suffering, and the oculist
answered him swiftly:
"To the best of my knowledge and belief—
none."
"Thanks," said the soldier once again. He
knew that the cruel words were kindly meant,
that the quick, sharp amputation of all hope was
the least hurtful course, for he, in his time, had
assisted at similar operations.
And now there was nothing for it but to face
his own fate; the grim, grey, relentless fate
which had tracked him to within a few hours'
journey of happiness.
He rose, with a gesture of dumb despair.
Winters was called, and, reading at a glance
all that was written in his attitude, gripped with
clumsy tenderness the groping hand held out
towards him.


238 THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE
"Take me home now, Winters," the stricken
man requested, very humbly. "Take me home
now. I'm finished."
After they had gone the oculist rang for his
secretary and demanded of her those files of the
Lancet containing an article emanating from the
Tropical School of Medicine anent a strange
epidemic of sporadic blindness among the native
troops employed on a recent West African expedi-
tion, which had been brought under its notice
by a Major Murphy of the Medical Corps, then
stationed at Kwassi, who seemed to be of opinion
that it was attributable to some mysterious juju
or obeah practised by the priests of a weird cult
which flourished in territory still unexplored, but
whose borders the expedition had crossed.
"I'd like to have ten minutes' chat with that
Murphy man," said the famous London practi-
tioner, and was still pondering vexedly when his
next visitor was shown in.
IV
A sad silence obtained between the two travel-
lers during the journey down to Exeter.
An occasional subdued snuffle indicated the
trend of Winters' thoughts, but Noodles, sitting
apart in the farthest corner of the compartment,
showed no sign of the inward tumult which was
threatening to overmaster his outward self-
restraint.
Every remembered scent and sound of the
English summer was adding to the burden he


24o THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE
Another hour passed as speedily as its prede-
cessors had seemed interminable, and, with a last
long-drawn shriek from the steam whistle, a great
grinding of brakes, they drew up at Broome
Regis.
Noodles shrank back into his corner, and " This
Broome, Winters?" he asked nervously. He
had been dumbly dreading the ordeal now before
him.
"Yes, sir; Broome, sir," Winters answered, as
cheerfully as he could. "We'll be 'ome in 'alf
an 'our, sir."
"Is the General there? Are there many people
about?" his master questioned quickly.
"A 'andful or so of people, sir," the man replied
diplomatically from the window, whence he was
looking out upon the greatest gathering that the
little wayside station had ever known, the flags
and flowers and arch of welcome they had got
together to greet their hero.
"Will you stay still, sir, just for a minute, till
I"
He sprang forth upon the platform, and shut
the door behind him, standing guard against it
until the General came thrusting through the
throng.
"Mr. Denzil's in 'ere, sir," he said then, and
turned the handle so that the old gentleman
might jump in beside his son.
The Earl of Esk strode forward, stuffing the
draft of his superfluous speech into a coat-tail
pocket, and "Well, Winters," he exclaimed
sorrowfully, "this is a sad business! A very


THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE 241
sad business! What are we to do with all
these people, hey ?"
“Oh, sir,for God's sake, sir," implored the
private soldier breathlessly, “ ask them to keep
quiet, an' let 'im through unbeknown. 'E thinks
there's no one 'ere but the General, an' it'd break
'is 'eart if'e knew. 'E's takin' it terrible 'ard, sir."
Wherefore, when the blind man came forth
with lagging, uncertain steps, there was a clear
pathway towards the lych-gate : whither father
and son walked slowly, hand in hand, while all
the onlookers held their breaths for pity.
Many of the women in the carriages beyond
the archway were crying quietly, but Eve
Chichester did not even blink as the two spent
soldiers, the old and the young, passed her smart
equipage on their way to the shabby dogcart
which was all that the Manor could boast for
such occasion. She sat very straight in her
seat, showing no sign of aught save neighbourly
sympathy; but the corners of her mouth were
drawn, the hand that upheld her parasol was
clenched and white about the knuckles. And
when the Earl, her father, rejoined her after the
others had driven off, she clutched at his arm
with a strangled sob, keeping close hold of him
for a space.
The crowd dispersed very quietly and with
much shaking of heads.
Here was a hollow home-coming for you, and
a heavy, heavy Cross to carry! An empty enough
honour, forsooth, that must be paid for at such
a price! And with it all no word of welcome
16


242 THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE
spoken! They were sore at heart, great folk
and simple: and who would grudge them their
grumble?
It was not for themselves either that they felt
aggrieved, but for the two broken men at the
Manor, whom it would be very hard to help, for
pride and poverty together are a difficult pair to
handle.
In carriages, in carts, or on foot, they scattered
across the moors, and the cool dark covered up
the little wayside station with its futile flags and
flowers.
V
Michael Angelo McGinnis was an independent
American—before he took upon himself, within
the mud-walled chapel at Kwassi and under the
approving aegis of the medical officer there, the
bonds of matrimony, the burdens of a benedict.
Since then he had been subject to Mrs.
McGinnis, and when that gentle little lady had
suggested that they should spend a week in
England on their way home to America, in order
that she might meet there the man without
whose help they could never have attained their
ideal, he had assented willingly. There was
nothing within the compass of his powers and
purse that he would not have done to prove the
depth of his devotion to his blind wife.
Noodles had been carried to the coast direct
from Yehbo, and thence transported to the
Islands, while they two had still been hovering
between life and death in the hospital at Kwassi.


THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE 243
And before they, in their turn, had reached Las
Palmas, he had been sent on to Osborne. So
that they had not heard until they landed in
Liverpool of the honour he had won, the evil
which had forthwith befallen him.
It had been agreed that they should look up
their good friend Major Murphy, who had hurried
home on leave, if they came to London. And in
response to their wire that pillar of his profession
was awaiting them at Euston, in such a state of
excitement that he could scarcely speak. But
once within a capacious hansom, bowling through
Bloomsbury on their way toward the hotel he
had chosen for them, he calmed down sufficiently
to show cause therefor.
"If it's bad news ye're trying to tell me," he
declared with ill-assumed indifference, "there's
no need. Haven't I seen it all meself in me
morning paper? And I've got something to show
the two of ye that'll maybe change the com-
plexion of it: something that fairly bates the
band for comicality too, bedad!"
With which mysterious preface he declined to
enlighten them further till after lunch. To which
meal he in due course devoted his most profound
attention, with the avowed object of setting them
a good example.
Thereafter, however, he escorted them upstairs
to a cosy sitting-room overlooking the Embank-
ment and the long vista of the Thames—which
Michael Angelo McGinnis compared unfavourably,
from a commercial point of view, with the Niger
—and, having seen to the supply of coffee and


244 THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE
cigars, proceeded to unfold to them a wondrous
tale.
“I must tell you to begin with," he commenced
briskly, “that after ye left us at Kwassi—and
sorry we were to see ye go-we all went up to
Yehbo again—to do some spring-cleaning that
the district's been badly in need of for some
time back. And while I was there I had more of
this same blindness brought under me notice
than seemed altogether right and reasonable.
Every second or third man in the field Force
had trouble with his eyes, and always on the
same excuse: it was the dust that did it. The
dust mark yemand in a swamp like a wet sponge!
Until one fine day I put on me gum-boots and an
old pair of motor-goggles, took me gun in me
hand, and went out of camp on me own account
to see if I couldn't come across some sample of it.
And I did that : a full-sized sample, perched in a
tree and strewin' clouds that made me sneeze.
“It cost me considerable trouble to convince him
that he'd better come down alive, and favour me
with less chat; but in the end I enticed him off
his branch with a pin on the end of a pole-and
got him to go with me. Ye'd have laughed,
McGinnis, to see the faces of our Yaos when I
marched him in: it was worse than the fear o'
death that he put on them, and not one of the
bunch would tell me why, till me own servant at
last admitted, under pressure, ye understand, that
I'd bagged a beauty--no less than one of the
chief priests from the old temple that you and
Noodles broke into, like the bold bad characthers


THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE 245
ye both are! I've heard some queer, queer
stories- Ye were already blind, were ye not,
Mrs. McGinnis, before those beggars took you
there ?"
The little woman nodded silently, and her
husband put an arm about her, for she was
shivering.
"In any case," the major continued, “I attached
me new pet to the surrounding scenery by the
business end of a stout steel chain, and set
meself to study his habits. And the next day
he was blinder than Bartimæus himself! I
wasn't surprised at that-in fact, I'd have been
disappointed if it had turned out otherwise. I
had set me heart on proving a private theorem
for the sake of Mrs. McGinnis there : I didn't
think then that poor old Noodles had been
dusted too.
"So I let slip the chain, and took the measure
of his blindness with a red-hot-ahem! I satis-
fied meself that he could see nothing. And then
I laid a little trap I had contrived, and sat down
to wait and see how long he would stay blind.
“Ye'd scarcely believe that within twenty-four
hours that black son of Belial was chasing me up
and down Africa with a knife, and me in my
pyjam-ahem! while the rest of our mess sat
on the stockade and laughed themselves silly.
It was the fastest sprint on record while it
lasted, but I tripped him in the last lap: and
while I was sitting on his head till help came
he coughed up the cure he had been using.
Be careful with it, McGinnis! It's about half


246 THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE
full of the ointment, and that's all there is in the
world for us till I get back to the Coast and see
if I can find some more. Which won't be easy
either, faith! for the secret's sacred. I had to
buy the truth about this thrifle from me clerical
friend for the price of his life, with the rope
taut and his toes off the ground—ahem!
"It's a first-chop juju! The slow blindness
they can put upon a man—and then lift when
they're through with him. A first-chop juju,
bedad!"
He eyed admiringly a tiny gourd, tightly sealed
with wax, of a highly polished appearance, which
he had produced from one of his waistcoat pockets,
and passed it over to the American, who took it
from him tenderly.
"D'you mean to tell me that this will restore
her sight?" McGinnis demanded hoarsely, an
agony of anxiety in his own eyes.
"I have every reason to believe it will," the
other answered, very seriously. "There's enough
for that, and no more."
Then he rose and crossed to the window,
whistling softly. But, between two bars of the
ditty, he paused to blow his nose with un-
necessary violence and swallow down a lump in
his throat. It hurt him to hear a woman
weeping—even tears of joy.
There was much more to be said, however,
before they separated, with full, true, and particu-
lar instructions as to the use of the precious
ointment; and it had also been decided that the
two wayfarers should go down to Devonshire next


THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE 247
day. Whither the impatient Irishman, still
subject to the authorities in Westminster, was to
follow them as soon as he conveniently could,
with due regard to his duty.
They therefore reached Broome Regis on the
forenoon following Noodles' own arrival, and
quietly took up their quarters at the village inn,
where they were able to possess themselves of
many intimate details concerning the inmates of
the Manor before setting out upon their visit
of ceremony to that establishment.
It was very warm in the sunshine on the dusty
open road, and Michael Angelo had no great
difficulty in inducing his wife to aid and abet him
in an act of trespass which enabled them to pursue
their way by a more pleasant path: leading
through the shady coverts wherein were wont
to disport themselves those carefully preserved
pheasants upon whose success or failure in life
depended to a great extent General Grimsdale's
precarious income.
Within the leafy screen, they left the almost
untrodden track, and halted at the edge of a
purling brook, behind a moss-grown boulder,
where they sat talking together for a time, until
a distant crackling of dry twigs, the echo of
approaching footsteps, silenced them.
They heard the sound of a stifled sob, and,
with that, there approached a woman, tall and
straight and slender, in a simple gown, her head
bowed, her eyes abrim: she was walking slowly
through the sun-streaked woods, totally uncon-
scious of other presence.


248 THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE
She passed, and, after she was out of earshot,
McGinnis spoke again.
“That's Lady Eve," he said enlightenedly.
“She must be going to the Manor too. Let's
wait here for a little, wifie. We aren't bound to
butt in for another hour or so—an' maybe we'll
have thought of some better plan by then."
"What's she like, Mike ?" asked Mrs. McGinnis
eagerly. “Does she look nice?”
“Clean Blue Grass—an' Kentucky bred,"
answered promptly Michael Angelo the unre-
generate, and she gave vent to a little sigh of
satisfaction.
There were no more words for a moment, and
then, “Say, Mike," she adventured, nestling
timidly towards him.
“ Yes, darlin' ?"
“He didn't stop by the way to count the cost,"
she said wistfully.
VI
It was no easy errand that lay before Eve
Chichester when she at length tripped across the
threshold of the Manor, under Winters' stare of
astonished protest, her heart in her mouth lest
the General himself should intercept her in
passing.
"But I'm sure Mr. Denzil will see me, Winters,"
she said, lightly enough, in answer to the man's
objections. “I'll tell him, if you like, that I
forced my way in, in spite of you." And she
went on, undaunted, until she came to a curtained
doorway whence she was able to look in at


2SO THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE
dear heart. I couldn't do it. You must forgive
me, and—and forget what you have said. I—I
thank you—from the bottom of my heart—but I'll
have to live the rest of my life alone."
She withstood the wounded impulse to shrink
away, and kept to her purpose, knowing that no
second essay would be possible. While he, no
less desperately determined to save her from
herself at all costs, strong in the certainty that
there could be no place with honour for a blind
pauper in the brilliant future before her, strove to
subdue the insurgent ^dictates of his old desire.
And, since neither would give way, they were still
at issue with each other when General Grimsdale
came gently into the room.
"It's I, Denzil, lad," said the old gentleman
soothingly: he had already learned to anticipate
the unspoken inquiry. "And I've brought you
Lady Eve!"
The girl stepped forth from the embrasure of the
window whither she had fled, striving after calm-
ness of speech wherewith to explain her presence.
But Noodles did that for her.
"Eve came over to ask for me, father," he said
easily, "and found me alone. None of my old
friends have forgotten me. Who've you brought
with you?"
"Mr. and Mrs.—er—McGinnis," replied the
General, and Michael Angelo strode forward with
no uncertain step.
"It's me an' Tessie, Mr. Grimsdale," said he,
"come to pay back part of what we owe you."
He spoke unsteadily, shaking Noodles by the


THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE 251
hand the while, and then brought forward his
wife that she also might greet the man who had
gone through Hell's Gate with him to her succour.
And the little blind bride's voice was not very
steady either as she spoke the simple words
which meant so much more than was immediately
apparent.
“Mike and I are very, very grateful to you,
Captain Grimsdale," she said, “and we've brought
you a cure for your blindness."
She laid her tiny offering, the gourd of oint-
ment, on his lap, and stepped back into her
husband's arms.
Noodles made no response for a moment, but
there was that in his face which it was not good
to see the futile struggle of willing faith in the
fell clutch of despair.
"It was kind of you to come, McGinnis," he
mumbled presently, “and I'm glad to see-to
have you and your wife here. But I've been to
the best oculist in London, and he tells me there's
no remedy."
"He hasn't got a wife like mine," McGinnis
retorted stubbornly, “or he wouldn't be so sure
that he's always right about everything; an' Major
Murphy 'll be here shortly to tell you it's true.”
The drooping figure by the fire sat up, and
squared its shoulders, as though casting off a
burden become intolerable.
“Eve!” it cried, and the girl came forward
with shining eyes.
“Yes-dear,” she answered, and Michael Angelo
squeezed his wife's hand,


THE UNLIGHTED SHRINE 253
good to think that ye're Irish, ma'am!" he said;
and no one contradicted the misstatement.
The slow dusk of a summer's day was creeping
over the valley of the Esk when the Earl rode
up to the Manor of Broome in search of his
errant daughter; and to him, on the terrace,
came forth from the dinner-table General
Grimsdale.
"She's here, Esk," said he. "I should have
sent you word—but you must bear with us all
to-night, for we're very happy. Come in, old
friend, and keep us company."
And his lordship went in, wondering, to see for
himself the sequel to the story of the unlighted
shrine.


MERETRIX
255
in the dim, blue distance beyond the Cape Flats,
whence swarmed unceasingly those locust-like
invaders of their rights and privileges. And they
welcomed whole-heartedly each new arrival, who,
tubbed and shaven into some semblance of a
former self, might curtly impart to them some
precious scraps of news anent the prospects of
that peace for which their souls longed, ere he,
in turn, should be superseded by some still later
comer and quietly disappear again at an unholy
hour, what time the troop-trains would whistle
warningly on their way from the docks to
Adderley Street.
Life and death were equally busy in those days,
and men, making merry between the changes, had
little time to spare for grumbling.
There were women also under the shadow of
the scythe, who played their parts, comedy or
tragedy, wisdom or unwisdom, on the slippery
stage which had the huge hotel for set-scene, of
whom, in any case, it behoves us to speak with
courtesy; so that we need not discuss them here
save in so far as their deeds or misdeeds may
have affected Miss Marillier, who was one of
them. And even regarding her it were unwise
to dogmatise, an we in our turn would shuffle
safely past the judgment-seat.
She was a very beautiful woman, and written
woman rather than girl by reason of the time
and place. Under other auspices she should
surely have followed the sheltered by-paths along
which the well-born English maiden is led all
but blindfold to happiness. As it was, she trod


MERETRIX
decorously the wider way that lies before a
woman of the world; the noxious notoriety that
was making her elders and betters the by-words
of a great army passed her over scatheless.
Concerning the purpose of her presence there,
and alone, rumour had it that a certain unnamed
but obviously to be envied individual would
shortly come forth from the mirage beyond the
mountains in order to marry her. Such un-
conventional incident was sufficiently common
then, and the people about her were all too
busy with their own affairs to question such a
convenient solution of her situation.
Men, therefore, admired her from afar, and some-
what disconsolately, since the few to whom she
would, on occasion, bow modestly, evinced quite
unusual obduracy in the matter of introducing
their fellows; and as her circle, though small,
was singularly select, it was difficult for persons
who were not also personages to press the point.
She was, indeed, so sweetly reasonable in the
matter of mankind, that the other women all but
forgave her for her brilliant beauty; and she
might even, in the end, have been as lucky as
some of her sisters, had not fate brought forward
Toby Allardyce.
That guileless youth jumped out of a ricksha
at the door of the Mount Nelson one blazing
afternoon, while most of the good folk therefrom
were sipping hot tea or swallowing cold cup
about the lawns at Government House.
The brim of his helmet was broken, and both
his boots were badly burst. His bepatched


MERETRIX
257
breeches had almost failed him; and the belt
which held together by courtesy the remains of
a soiled and shapeless tunic would have stricken
Sam Browne's soul with horror. His clean-cut
chin was hidden by the stubble of a week, and
further disfigured-as if that were necessary-by
a clamant gash, acquired in process of an attempt
at shaving on board a horse-box in the truck-train
by which he had travelled south.
He was well aware, withal, of the defects in his
appearance, and earnestly desired to reach his
room unnoticed
To him, then, on the threshold, appeared this
Miss Marillier, marvellously cool and comfortable-
looking in a simple frock-which, to a woman,
would have spoken plainly of Paris-perfectly
composed, and apparently oblivious of the ani-
mated scarecrow who was standing aside that she
might pass him without soiling her skirts.
"My hat !” said the young man fervently, as
she turned the corner and was lost to sight.
He paid his driver's exorbitant overcharge so
indifferently that the man gnashed his teeth, as
one who realises, too late, an opportunity thrown
away; inscribed his name in the register of the
hotel with an air of unusual effort; and was forth-
with installed in quarters of such unaccustomed
comfort that he had great difficulty in curbing an
inordinate desire to fling himself between the
sheets of the bed, and sleep-sleep soddenly-it
was so long since he had been inside a bedroom.
Instead, however, he sought out a bath-room
and a barber, returning, greatly altered for the


258
MERETRIX
better, to a roomful of clean clothes and a busy
soldier-servant, who turned him out for dinner in
a manner which did credit to both.
He went downstairs, whistling softly, his
shining shoulder-scales well back, wide awake
and desperately hungry.
The dining-room was very full, but he asked
and was afforded a quiet seat in the alcove, with
plenty to eat and a wordless waiter. It had also
been fore-ordained that he should have the com-
pany of Miss Marillier, who sat at his right hand
and wondered where she had seen him before.
Her presence agitated Toby, but he managed
to make a meal out of the first few courses, and,
strengthened thereby, looked about him squarely.
Men at other tables grinned and nodded to him
as he glanced, and he grinned and nodded again
after the manner of his kind. He was glad to see
so many of his friends alive, since he knew so
many were dead, and
"Will you pass the salt, please."
He put out a brown paw, blushing so hotly
that the white line left about his jaw where the
chin-strap had sat disappeared among the sur-
rounding tan, and, a delicate bare arm brushing
his coat-sleeve for an instant, his hand shook so
that he spilled the salt even as he fell in love
with Miss Marillier.
"A girl with a voice like that "he said to
himself rapturously, and her eyes met his for a
single instant, so that he thought no more of her
voice at the moment.
Dinner over, he tipped the waiter lavishly, and


260
MERETRIX
A wise man would have left him to himself at
such a moment, but the individual who smote
him heavily between the shoulder-blades as he
attempted to light a match was not a wise man :
he was, in fact, so many different sorts of a fool
that the aggrieved Toby lacked breath to enumer-
ate them, and he wedged in his apologies in this
wise:
“Hello, young Allardyce! Spiffin' mornin',
ain't it? What? Going out to Kenilworth, hey?"
His victim swallowed with an effort the wicked
words that trembled on his tongue.
"What's doing there?” he asked thickly, and
doubled his fists in case the information should
prove valueless.
"Love a duck!" quoth the open-handed one
in melancholy tones, “I don't believe you're
awake yet. There's racin' at Kenilworth, cocky.
R-a-c-i-n-g-racin'. Buck up, and you'll just
catch the twelve-twenty. See you there. I've
got an engagement—with a girl. Ta-ta."
Toby did not catch the twelve-twenty, but he
did eventually arrive within the enclosure at
Kenilworth in time to see Miss Marillier, daintily
gowned, without either cloak or veil, escorted by
his heavy-handed acquaintance, emerge from the
luncheon-room behind the stand. Then indeed
did he “buck up," and to such purpose that he
found himself, five minutes later, in sole charge
of that fair lady, while her cavalier was busy
with the bookmakers beyond the railings.
“I hardly expected to find you here," hazarded
the ingenious Mr. Allardyce, as he piloted her


MERETRIX
261
with considerable cunning towards two unoccu-
pied seats in a quiet corner of the stand. "Are
you fond of racing?"
She did not reply to this banality until, having
seated herself, she had scanned with quick eyes
the heads and faces about her. Then she turned
towards him and spoke.
"I saw you at dinner last night," she said,
smiling frankly at him so that he, looking down,
could see himself reflected infinitesimally in the
mirror of her dark eyes.
He studied himself therein for a brief moment
before the long lashes once more encurtained
their depths.
"Do you always sit at the same table?" he
asked eagerly, and she nodded in such wise that
he felt himself admitted to terms of intimacy
more generous than he had dared to hope for.
"I've told them to keep my seat there," he
adventured, and prayed inwardly for some sign
of approval on her part.
She was watching the start across the course,
but he could not keep his eyes from her face.
"Did you find it comfortable?" she asked at
length, with polite unconcern, and the young
man gasped like a fish out of water.
The race was won and lost before Toby had
to resign his seat in favour of the claimant from
the betting-ring, but, ere he made his bow, he
had established a more or less satisfactory under-
standing with his fair neighbour of the table
d'hote. He returned to the hotel alone, thoroughly
well pleased with himself, generously disposed


MERETRIX
263
the interests of her sex, to intervene, and would
have gone so far as to seat herself at the table he
had had reserved had not he warned her off with
some warmth.
“A thousand apologies,” she murmured mildly,
in reply to his stern intimation of trespass. “I
had no idea that all the seats were engaged, and
I did so want to have a chat with my dear
Louisa's boy. Come and see me in the drawing-
room after dinner, Mr. Allardyce. I have so
much to say to you.”
She swept onwards, with a single chill glance
in the direction of Toby's table-companion, and
the incensed Mr. Allardyce eyed her broad back
malevolently.
“My mother's name's Jane," he explained, and
Miss Marillier looked much relieved. “ Lady
Louisa isn't married."
He did not, however, feel called upon to enter
into any such explanation with the individual
who was interested in Louisa's boy, and that
matron did not forgive him the slight.
“Does any one know who this Miss Marillier
is ?" she repeated untiringly, and the words were
widely echoed. But the male minority which
shared the rare pleasure of that lady's acquaint-
ance was doggedly dumb, and such of the women
as were interested in the matter were baffled for
the time being.
During the epoch of Martial Law in that part
of the world, men and women mingled more
freely than might have been thought proper in
less parlous times. Miss Marillier did not hesi-


266
MERETRIX
dared to strike him, the débris was swept up, the
bill paid, and Miss Marillier presently found her-
self installed in a ricksha beside a desperately
enraged subaltern of cavalry.
“Drive towards Salt River-slowly," com-
manded that strategist, and, as the cab crawled
past the Parade, he turned penitently to his
companion.
"You heard ?” he asked in a low voice, and
recalled with intolerable distinctness certain in-
cidents of the immediate past which he would
fain have forgotten; low laughter and leering
looks which had followed him as he had passed
to and fro at her side among the ever-present
rabble; snatches of scornful comment which had
buzzed harmlessly past his ears; veiled innuendo
and racy rumours that he had laughed at or
listened to in contemptuous silence. But no least.
traitorous thought had entered his mind, and he
spoke softly, as if imploring forgiveness for a
wrong done.
“You heard ?”
"I heard," assented the woman he had asked
to be his wife, and turned her head to hide the
tears that were raining down her cheeks.
“I'll take good care for the future," said Toby
earnestly, “but you must give me the right,
dear-
Miss Marillier sat up and dried her eyes.
“Listen, Mr. Allardyce," she said, in a voice
that hurt her hearer beyond all mending.
“It's quite true—and the man who told you
knows."


268
MERETRIX
For that young woman had lately blossomed
into a real lady, had to hide her finery under
close cloak and veil when she came to visit her
mother now! And her mother's endless petty
debts were all paid! And there had been urgent
suggestions on the daughter's part that the mother
should remove altogether from that locality, but
these had always been vetoed. The muddled
mourner at the bedside shook an unkempt head
virtuously, and hoped that all would end well
with the girl who had more than once evicted
her from the very seat she was sitting in—and
that although she and the corpse had been boon-
companions for more months than she could
conveniently count at the moment.
She was shedding maudlin tears into her last
mouthful of liquor when a quick step in the
sweltering street caused her to start up in guilty
affright and reach unsteadily for a malevolent
bonnet which seemed determined to elude her
grasp.
The door opened noiselessly, and Miss Marillier
entered the dim, evil-smelling apartment. Her
face was drawn and colourless, her eyes were set
in dark shadows, about the corners of her lips
there lurked deep lines. She threw herself down
on her knees by the bedside, her head fell forward,
her hands groped pitifully for the clasp denied
them, and, “Mother-oh, mother!" she cried,
in a voice which set the watcher shuddering,
" won't you try to help me! I can't go on any
longer alone.”
“ Your mother's bin dead this good hour, miss,"
her knees by cd pitifully for the " she cried,


272 FALAISE
different reasons, to follow him on any such fool-
hardy expedition into the unknown. They held,
for instance, that those gloomy glades were
haunted, and had adduced in his hearing the fact
that, of the few men who had ever essayed to
scale the Giant's sloping shoulder through its
close-knit cloak of jungle, none had returned to
tell how they had fared therein.
They were afraid, but O'Ferral did not know
what fear was. He had not yet lived long enough
on the Isthmus to assize accurately that ruthless
strength against which he was so willing to pit
his own puny effort, the instant, vice-like grip of
the virgin forest.
He was a young man and American, a civil
engineer in his first appointment of promise,
enthusiastic in his profession and aiming high.
It was his immediate object to reach a certain
outstanding spur of the mountain, wherefrom he
hoped to secure some survey data of more than
enough importance to warrant any risks he might
run.
With these he would win credit among his
fellows of the Survey Staff, all very busy else-
where on similar errands. And even the Canal
Commission, still in its infancy, trying out its
scanty advance-guard, might approve his assiduity
in its service.
But he had not anticipated having to overcome
armed opposition as well as natural difficulties
quite sufficiently formidable, and it gave him
pause now to think how absolutely he was cut off
from all human ken except that of his invisible


FALAISE 275
wild domain. He was often absent from head-
quarters for a week at a stretch.
His fellows of the Survey Staff were all too
busy to keep count of his casual coming and
going. A fortnight slipped away before a careless
question evoked the disconcerting answer that no
one seemed to have seen him for so long.
The wires began to burn with urgent demands
for information as to his whereabouts, and, none
forthcoming, his peons were peremptorily called
for. They also had disappeared, leaving a deserted
camp within its overgrown clearing on the slope
above Bruja.
Search-parties were sent out to scour the lower
escarpments of the Gigante, but without any
result. They could find no trace of the missing
American, whose tracks had been so swiftly
covered by the rank, ravenous growth of the
underwoods.
It was officially assumed that his native sub-
ordinates must have murdered him and made off
with his money. There was precedent sufficient
for such assumption, and a reward was offered for
the recovery of his body or their arrest.
The name of Roger O'Ferral, removed from the
pay-roll on the ground of absence without leave,
became part of the past history of the Canal: a
history which, heavy as it is with strange,
scandalous jungle secrets, says nothing of Falaise.
Few foreigners, indeed, have pleasant things to
say about the Isthmus, and many have maligned
it. O'Ferral had been wont to anathematise the


276 FALAISE
very name of Panama. He found it but a short step
thence to paradise, and, strange to relate, was in
no way grateful for the rapid transit accorded him,
for the quick change to the much more attractive
locality. He was, in fact, exceedingly loath to
believe the evidence of his own eyes when he at
length opened them to his early impressions of
the condition celestial.
He felt that he could well have waited a while
for wings. He would willingly have postponed
his possible hopes of a harp in favour of his old
theodolite and dumpy level. He was still
enamoured of his mundane ambitions, of the
honest earthly occupation he would henceforth
have to forgo.
Not even the grave, gracious presence of that
good angel who was bending over him with such
a world of compassion in her perfect face could
yet console him for his premature translation
thither.
But it was so drowsily restful withal in the
dim aisles of his dream-heaven that he soon let
fall again his half-lifted eyelids, and therewith
ceased to repine.
Stray shafts of sunshine, between great pillars
supporting a dome of topaz and turquoise-green,
shot golden bars about him. A silver rivulet
made music while he slept, and birds that were
live diamonds and jewels echoed its endless
melody. Above their harmonies he seemed to
hear a soft voice singing a remembered song.
His slow heart stirred to its surpassing sweetness,
his failing pulses throbbed in sympathy.


278 FALAISE
They two stood talking for a space, in low
tones, with ever and anon a sidelong look in the
direction of O'Ferral. Then they turned slowly
from him, and disappeared together.
O'Ferral tried to raise himself a little that he
might see where they had gone, but there was
no strength left in him and he lay back gasping.
A sudden pain had gripped him between the
shoulders. It cost him a sick struggle to fight
off the scintillant red mist which was threatening
to engulf him. He had almost fainted.
He possessed his soul in impatience for a brief
interval, and tried again. He managed to lift his
head sufficiently to prop it up with one of the
pillows behind him, and, after he had once more
recovered from the consequent collapse, made
shift to scan his surroundings by slow degrees.
He was lying on a low, luxurious couch at
the edge of an open space walled off from the
outer world by the interwoven fascines of the
sheer forest. Tall tree-trunks and thick foliage
sheltered it from superfluous sun, letting the
light through in long, golden shafts. Out of a
dark ravine that hid, deep down, a plashing
rivulet, came cool, sweet air. A high, unclimb-
able cliff in the background overhung all,
sheltering that little garden of the Hesperides
from every breath but the zephyrs.
Turning his head, he became aware of a
wonderful white pavilion, a miniature palace of
purest marble, with many windows, all wide,
looking out on a rainbow-like wealth of wild-
flowers. Among the wild-flowers stood snowy


FALAISE
279
nymphs and fauns and naiads, ceaselessly
showering from hidden fountains the sparkling
spray which kept the thirsty plants alive. And
out and in between the drops of liquid light
darted, uneasy shuttles in a fabric of celestial
silk, those iridescent songsters he had heard in
dreamland.
O'Ferral tried very hard to think coherently, to
resist the irresistible sense of enchantment that
was creeping over him, but, try as he might, he
could not understand.
He closed his eyes and recalled to mind the
iron bungalow at Bas Obispo which was his
official home; the ugly scar on earth's surface
that the men there called the Culebra Cut; the
crawling freight-train which had brought him as
near as it could to the camp above Bruja, where
he had left his spiritless peons; his reckless
plunge into the dark sargasso they would not
face, and the unforeseen encounter which had
put a stop to his progress through it. But for
his present circumstances he could by no means
account. The more he strove to explain his
surroundings the less explicable did they appear.
And least of all could he allot to the girl he had
seen any part in the known life of the Isthmus
of Panama.
When he next opened his eyes and looked up
sleepily, there was a roof overhead. He was in
a room which had once been handsomely fur-
nished, although its rosewood and ebony were
now sadly the worse of weather. It seemed to


28o
FALAISE
have been shut up for a long time without
attention, and then reopened for use without
repair.
The great pier-glass on its moulded pedestal
against one wall was all obscured by mildew.
In the expensive pictures upon the ceiling there
were great gaps whence the painted plaster had
fallen. The gilded cornice which framed them
was cracked and blackened with age. It was
altogether a room of fallen fortunes, but none
the less fresh and clean.
Through its open windows he could see dimly
the unkempt lawn whereon he had first come to
life again, and at the far edge of that the ruthless
wilderness, waiting.
Daylight was waning fast: the room was full
of shadows. In the clouded pier-glass he seemed
to see dimly a fierce face, half-hidden between its
heavy white hair and beard, moving toward him,
noiselessly, from a dark corner.
Under the spell of his absolute helplessness in
that strange place he had cried out before he
could stop himself. And, while the sound of his
voice was still echoing eerily along empty
corridors, the girl came in with a guttering
candle, her eyes dilated by an unspeakable
dread.
"Monsieur called?" she questioned breath-
lessly, holding the light up, looking about her,
one slender hand on her heart.
The loose sleeve had left her uplifted arm bare
beyond the elbow. A mellow gleam illumined
her head and shoulders, her heaving bosom under


FALAISE
281
the snowy folds of her worn white robe. O'Ferral
gazed at her dumbly, bemused by her beauty,
but half awake. It did not lessen his numbing
sense of bewilderment to grasp the fact that she
had addressed him in French.
She set the light down, closed all the windows
carefully, her every movement a further revela-
tion of lissom grace, and came across to his
couch again, her regard grave, hesitant, troubled.
And O'Ferral, fearful that she meant to leave him
alone, found his tongue, awkward and stam-
mering.
"1-1-there was some one here when you
came in,” he said, and the whisper with which
he had begun swelled into his natural voice. It
startled him afresh to hear himself speak so
strongly. “It-it was the old man," he added.
“I saw his face in the mirror. It frightened
me."
She started as though he had struck her. Her
head drooped forward. Their silken lashes hid
the hopeless hurt in her eyes. A crimson wave
crept from throat to temple, and, ebbing swiftly,
left her of a cold, ivory pallor. O'Ferral was
beyond words dismayed by the effect of his
simple statement.
She stood thus for a moment, her sweet lips
trembling, hands clasped before her with fingers
interlocked. And, before he could concoct
apology or explanation, she had dropped on her
knees beside him, beseeching, suppliant, was
speaking in broken sentences.
"Monsieur, my father is an old man-it is


FALAISE 283
therefore the more indebted to her for ray life.
I am altogether at her disposal. Why, then,
should she ask mercy of me, who owe her so
much more than I can hope to repay? The
shooting was, without doubt, an accident, and
I—I don't know who it was shot me. Is it about
such a bagatelle that mademoiselle is needlessly
distressing herself?"
She leaned toward him, lips parted, eager,
scarce daring to draw breath.
"Then monsieur is not of the Quai des
Orfevres?" she asked, half incredulous, and yet
beyond words desirous of being convinced.
"Most assuredly not," O'Ferral asserted, and,
while he was still wondering surprisedly what
she could possibly have to fear from the Quai
des Orfevres, she turned from him, overwhelmed
by a sudden revulsion of feeling.
Great tears of gladness welled up in her speak-
ing eyes. Her slender body shook with an irre-
pressible sobbing. Her head drooped forward
again, and she hid her face in her hands for a
moment. Then she rose, and, with one warm
glance of heartfelt gratitude, passed swiftly from
the room.
He heard her calling, outside, in the night,
and presently a gruff voice answered her, from
the garden. A low-toned conversation ensued.
She came in again, her eyes alight, hand in hand
with the old man, his fierce face still more
haggard with hesitant hope.
"Monsieur has said that he is not of the
Police?" he exclaimed, and O'Ferral, nodding


FALAISE 291
instant, Providence intervened, taking from his
hands the disposal of events.
"Qu' est-ce que monsieur dit?" demanded his
auditor in a choked voice, springing to his feet,
face working, his limbs trembling under him.
"What says monsieur? That justice is now
proscribed. Pardieu! it is not justice I fear, but
injustice. My hands are clean. It is not justice
I fear," he repeated dazedly, and his knees gave
way under him; he collapsed in a crumpled heap.
The fierce, unnatural fire that had served to sus-
tain him so long had at last burned out.
O'Ferral caught him up, and carried him indoors
to his daughter, blaming himself very bitterly for
his clumsy speech. They tended him all that
day and throughout the night, and next day as
well. But he showed no sign of revival until,
towards the second evening, his lips moved
slightly. Falaise was bending over him in an
agony of solicitude, and O'Ferral, behind her,
also heard the whisper with which the tired soul
at last surrendered:
"J' me rends," said Gaston La Roche de Mar-
trin d'Olonne very gladly, and so went elsewhere
to stand his trial.
The history of the Canal contains no record of
Roger O'Ferral's resurrection, nor any hint of a
happy ending to the idyll I have thus attempted
to set forth in prosaic print.
At Bas Obispo, nevertheless, you may to this
day hear how it happened that a man officially
dead came back to life, recrossed the unrecross-


296 THE CURIOUS CASE IN WHICH
His heart was not in his work, his thoughts were
wandering. It therefore happened, quite suddenly,
that he chopped a joint off his left forefinger.
His attention thus pointedly recalled to the
matter in hand, he dropped his implement and
eyed the damaged digit frowningly.
“Velly dam luck!” said Ah Chow.
He tore a thread from the ragged shirt which
composed his costume, and with the aid of his
teeth, tied it tightly about the wounded finger.
Then he lit a small fire, heated the blade of his
chopper therein with great patience, and cauterised
the bleeding stump unflinchingly. As soon as
the chopper was once more cool he went on with
his chopping.
Towards sunset he rested from his labours in
that direction, setting himself instead to the tying
up of neat little bundles of faggots with cordage
of flexible creepers.
When he had builded up a yellow man's burden
of these he shouldered it uncomplainingly, and
made his way with cautious steps towards an
extremely ineligible abode pitched on foot-high
piles above the sodden bank of a sluggish stream
which wandered through the dankness of the
undergrowth like a wounded serpent. Within,
on a couch of dry leaves, lay Ginger Handasyde,
delirious.
Ginger was no coward, but he had fled from
São Pedro to escape the epidemic which seemed
likely to decimate the scanty population of that
insalubrious spot.
He had been risking his life there for five long


298 THE CURIOUS CASE IN WHICH
deeply, decided to carry out the trust imposed
upon him. He had found it not unprofitable in
the course of his career to deal justly by such of
the human race as were of ruddy countenance
with red hair and blue eyes. He knew, more-
over, that he might well be shot down at sight
by any black-browed local patriot who should
chance to find him wandering from the narrow
path of duty, and, in view of all these inducements
to well-doing, set himself philosophically to tend
his gratuitous charge, whom he feelingly de-
scribed, for his own private edification, as "velly
sick pidgin."
He was by no means a bad servant, and he was
also a fatalist. He made his patient as comfort-
able as might be under the very uncomfortable
circumstances, keeping house for him on such
slender resources as were to be had for the
gathering within the great forest which hemmed
them in.
Ginger grew rapidly worse, and Ah Chow, who
had acquired an easy liking for the helpless white
man, correspondingly sorrowful. Sorrow and
fatalism, with a blending of sanitary instinct,
induced the faithful Chinaman to cut much fire-
wood, which he persisted in storing immediately
underneath the rotten floor of Mr. Handasyde's
temporary dwelling; and Mr. Handasyde's cur-
sory objections to this dangerous habit he met
with diplomatic evasiveness.
Ginger spoke rationally to him at infrequent
intervals, and Ah Chow always answered civilly
to the best of his ability, lightly undertaking


GINGER HANDASYDE CAME HOME 299
many ill-understood commissions of importance
in order that his master might sleep with an
easier mind—until, at the end of an interminable
week, that sufferer did drop off.
He slept for twelve hours, and Ah Chow,
watching over him, grew very weary. He slept
for twelve more, and the Celestial decided that it
was high time to jog the memory of that particular
joss which had so evidently forgotten a worn-out
Chinaman at his post.
He looked, long and carefully, at the motionless
figure on its leafy couch; held a steel mirror to
the breathless lips in vain; stood upright, dizzy,
and shook his head with doleful significance.
He placed his last handful of rice and a pinch
of rock-salt on the dead man's breast, moistened
the lips of the corpse with water against the long
journey, groaned heartrendingly, and applied a
light to the carefully prepared pyre. The dry
faggots flamed up, sobbed inwardly, and were all
ablaze.
Ah Chow sat down at a safe distance and
closed his own tired eyes, moralising in the
Confucian manner upon the mutability of human
purpose, until an indignant family of monkeys
stopped his snoring with a shower of nuts.
Having overcome his mixed emotions, he returned
to the site of the riverside mansion, which was
now no more.
The most prized of the poor Oriental's worldly
possessions was a small octagonal tin of curious
workmanship, inwrought with quaint devices in
the shape of dragons and serpents, enwrapped


302 THE CURIOUS CASE IN WHICH
His written message was a formal one, but she
could read between the lines, and what she saw
there brought brighter colour to her cheeks. It
would be her turn now to call the main, and—she
owed this Mr. Handasyde some sleepless nights.
Should she take toll of him when he appeared for
the quixotic stubbornness which had kept them
apart, which might so easily have cost them both
their happiness? or should she rather reward at
once the single-minded purpose which had brought
him back from the struggle to sue for his prize?
She laughed delightedly, and went indoors out of
the sunshine, making her way towards the drawing-
room, whence sounded the voices of visitors.
There was evidently a man amongst them, and
she thought it only kind to round up Tommy, the
disconsolate, for his more masculine entertain-
ment. That youth she discovered in a very
dejected attitude and a capacious armchair before
the fire in the billiard-room. He made no objec-
tion to honouring his aunt's tea-table with his
presence, given that there was another male on
the spot to support him against the opposite sex,
and followed his cousin back to the drawing-room
obediently although without enthusiasm.
A tall, thin, cadaverous-looking stranger rose
to intercept them as they came forward, and
with a simultaneous start they recognised Paul
Methuen.
"How d'ye do, Miss Marchmont?" said that
wanderer cheerfully, and held out his hand.
"How do, Tommy? How're things with you?
All brisk, eh?"


304 THE CURIOUS CASE IN WHICH
“ Extraordinary thing!” he replied. “Ginger
and I agreed, months ago, to travel by the same
steamer; but he didn't turn up, although I
waited a week for him, and I've had no news of
him since."
"Perhaps we'll hear by the next boat."
More people came in, and there was nothing
else said on that subject then. Tea over, a move
was made towards the tennis-courts, and Paul
claimed May as his partner for the first set on
the plea of his own rustiness. But she did not
seem to be in the best of form either, and they
were hard pushed by their opponents.
The appearance of the station messenger,
trundling up the avenue on his bicycle, afforded
them pretext for a moment's breathing-space while
she inspected the mail.
Paul Methuen, watching her admiringly as she
came tripping back across the turf, saw with
sudden horror that she was carrying, poised on
her racquet, what seemed a faithful duplicate of
the curious case which he and the ship-chandler's
clerk had used for projectile in the Rua Direita
a few short weeks before. He felt a sudden
dryness of the mouth as she threw it down at
the edge of the court, and his play became so
shocking that the other side had no difficulty
in bringing the game to an early conclusion.
Whereupon he apologised lamely, and she went
off smiling to welcome some new arrivals, so
that the ill-omened article lay where she had
left it until Tommy Marchmont, passing, picked
it up.


308 THE CURIOUS CASE IN WHICH
a beautiful heiress held fast in the arms of a
haggard and by no means lovely lover.
Gerald Handasyde was haled into the drawing-
room again, and there held forth for a time
concerning the manner of his most marvellous
resurrection. But the billiard-room edition of
his adventures, which was shorter and more to
the point, must serve the purpose of these pages,
wherein brevity is the soul of worth.
"I saw the dirty heathen popping his beastly
bundles under my bed," said Ginger wrathfully,
while Tommy held a glass for him and Methuen
poured, " but I'd no idea of the trick he intended
to play me.
"I was feeling sort of cheap at the time, and
thought a ten minutes' snooze 'd do me a lot of
good; but, if you'll believe me, I'd no sooner
closed my eyes than the worthy Ah Chow lighted
me up and cleared.
"I'm pretty hardy, but not quite hardy enough
to stop in bed when the blankets are burning,
so I vamoosed the ranch one-time. Nothing to
wear but an old top-hat of the heathen's that I
grabbed in passing, all my ready money raked
in by the local aristocracy before they footed
me out into the forest, an' devil the shave for
weeks. I didn't need a mirror to know that I
was no beauty!
"I strolled over towards the village to inves-
tigate, but some sportsman with a second-hand
Hamburg rifle headed me off at the outskirts,
which I took as a warning that I need never hope
to be a welcome guest there.


GINGER HANDASYDE CAME HOME 309
"So I struck out for the coast-it took me ten
days to cover the distance and when I at last
reached it my troubles began. But I borrowed
a pair of trousers from a man I met—that's the
mark of his knife on my neck; he didn't want to
oblige me—and swam out to an old Dago wind-
jammer that was loading timber in a creek
near by.
“The skipper shipped me as a distressed
seaman, and I worked my passage to Plymouth.
Got there last night, and wired you first thing
this forenoon, Polly, you brute! You'll find
my message waiting you when you get home,
I suppose.
“Now pass the bottle. Talking's dry work!”
“And what about Ah Chow?" asked Tommy
thoughtlessly.
“What about Ah Chow?" Ginger answered,
with great earnestness. “Well, I think I'lí
have enough left out of the wreck to bury him
handsomely. When I next meet Ah Chow he
will suddenly cease.”
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