Chapter V: Part 5

‘It was a light kind of a night, and we could see the walls around the institution from quite a way off. The old boy was heading us for the principal gate, and Kinjan turned to me: “The town’s in the hands of the ribils,” he said; “but, praises to the Almighty! the ould gintleman’s a big pot amongst thim, and he’s promised to take us to the Sheikh--or whativer his misbegotten name may be--and git us a pass and an iscort.” “Bluff!” I said; “’ware snakes.” “Faith! no,” said he, “’tis a swate old baboo, and ut’s truth he’s telling.” I wasn’t taking any, but it wouldn’t have done to interfere then, so I shut my head, and we rode on along the walls. Presently we struck what I judge was the front door; considerable of a high gate, fortified with iron spikes, and vūrry strong. There were no signs of hospitality. “I guess I’ll knock,” I said, and butted the end of my lance against the gate. A voice cried out from one of the little towers on the walls on each side in a kind of a sing-song; the old chief sung out something in answer, and then they had a palaver. I reckon they spoke some strange lingo, for Kinjan called out to me excitedly, “Can ye understand thim? May me sowl rust if oi can.” Before I could answer, we heard a sound of horses tramping, the gate’s hinges turned and it swung open, and there in front of us, drawn up in line, with spears in rest, was a troop of most a dozen mounted niggers. “Euchred, be Jasus! The ould schoundhrel! and the drinks oi promused ’um!” said Kinjan, mournfully; I guess I was thinking it was about time to throw up the cards and leave, when Torin trotted his horse past me. “Good-bye, boys,” he said, “_I’m_ going into the city.” He just waved his hand, clapped his heels into his horse’s side, and went like a catamount for the troop. They slashed and speared at him right and left, but they were taken by surprise; and I guess his release hadn’t been signed, for he went through them like so much paper. ‘Well, _sir_,’--Mr Denver rolled a cigarette and drew his breath in with a sharp hiss--‘how it came about I can’t say, but Kinjan and I, with the old gentleman between us, went through after him--they were kind of discommoded, I suppose--Torin was a big man, and he left an aperture. The moment we cleared them, Kinjan put a pistol to the chief’s head. “Ye son of a herring,” he said, quite forgetting to speak Moorish, “take us straight to the Sheikh’s palace, or I’ll schatter yer dhirty brains.” The only words of Moorish were Sheikh and palace, but they were enough for the old boy; he was as skeered an old cuss as I ever saw; he ducked from the pistol, touched his forehead, and muttered something, and we all vamoosed down the rattling stone-paved streets, like the job lot of horse-thieves we were.

‘The old gentleman was profoundly interested in the business-end of that shooting-iron, and so we got right there without any more hanky-panky; you see the streets were just as empty as a nigger’s head, and we had more than a street’s start of the guard. When we pulled up sharp in front of a large detached location, we could hear the guard coming, hell for leather. Kinjan explained to the chief that he had got to take us to the Sheikh right along, or he would investigate his interior. Now that old heathen was as swift a man at trapping an idea as ever I saw; he signed to us to get off our horses, and, with the end of the pistol working into the small of his back, he called out loudly in Moorish, and the gate was thrown open for us. ‘Then,’ said Mr Denver, flipping petulantly at his cigarette ash, ‘occurred a most annoying little affair. We were just passing quietly through the doorway, and the guard not more than a hundred yards away, coming like Jerusalem, when Torin pushed me aside, and stepped back to his horse. “Go on,” he said, “I’ve got another word to say to those fellows.” He was swinging himself into the saddle, when Kinjan drew a bead on the horse and brought the whole show to the ground. “Not so fast, ye suicidin’ divil,” he said, “bear ahand, Dick,” and before Torin could get his balance we lugged him through the door and shut it. ‘I’ve often regretted it since; ’twasn’t a neighbourly thing to do,’ said Mr Denver, thoughtfully, ‘for when a man wants his release real bad, why in thunder shouldn’t he have it?’ He lounged back in his seat with a far-away look in his sunken eyes, and I had to jog him with questions once or twice before he took up the word again.

‘Well, sir, the old chief had vamoosed down the street in the shindy, and there was only the porter, looking tolerably parti-coloured. When Torin found himself inside, instead of out, as he’d reckoned to be, he just folded his arms and shut his head, and I guess neither of us ever felt like alluding to that incident. Whether the porter took us for devils or not, I can’t say, but he was tarnation civil, specially when he felt the end of Kinjan’s pistol. As we passed through a stone archway into a courtyard, the house began to hum, and we could hear the guard behind us hammering at the gate we’d just come through. Kinjan pointed out to the porter in Moorish, and shooting-iron, that we were going right up to the Sheikh’s bedroom. The unfortunate coon said he reckoned his head was feeling loose, and kind of wobbly on his shoulders, but if we would ascend the steps he pointed to, we would find the Sheikh’s private apartments at the top; we thanked him, and he said his head felt real loose; but we took him along and went right there. He played us honest Injun, did that porter, and may be his woolly top’s on his shoulders yet; but I’m not betting on that,’ drawled Mr Denver, compassionately; and he stopped, turning his head to gaze out of the window.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘there’s the dawn.’ And sure enough, far away behind us on the eastern horizon, a pale salmon streak slowly lengthened and spread; between us and it on the dim prairie lay a still, murky sheet of water. In front of the train, in its western wayfaring, the young slopes of the Rockies rose shadowy and faint in the growing light. As we stepped out on to the car platform the shrill tragic cry of the loon came floating to us, through the wreathing mist, from across the reedy pools. We watched the sun rise--and those who are watching the sun rise on the prairie and the flushing of the early mountain slopes in the reflected light, are not greatly given to talk. But when it was over, I turned to Dick Denver. His brown, lean face looked drawn and haggard, and he shaded his eyes with his hand. Presently he raised his hand to his hat, and taking it off, stood looking long and steadily at the now risen sun, and his lips moved. If I hadn’t known him for a hardened and notorious sinner, I should have said he was muttering a prayer. The impression was so strong upon me that I waited to speak until he had replaced his hat.

‘Well?’ I said.

‘Well?’ he replied absently, his eyes still on the far horizon.

‘And then? What happened next? Did you see the Sheikh?’ I lamely jogged him.

‘What!’ his mind returned unwillingly. ‘You can’t in thunder want to hear any more after that?’ and he pointed eastwards.

‘I’m very sorry,’ I said, ‘but I most certainly do. I want to hear the rest of your yarn badly.’

‘Oh! well,’ he said, resignedly, ‘I guess there’s mighty little left to tell.’

‘The Sheikh,’ I jogged.

‘Oh, yes, the Sheikh,’ he went on in a hopelessly bored tone; ‘we saw him--he was a vūrry civil cuss, said it was all a mistake, and we were his dearest friends, and the English were his fathers and his brothers and all his relations, and I guess--oh, yes, I guess he sent us down to Mogador with a troop of cavalry, and--that’s all.’ He turned and went back into the smoking car. The oyster was closing fast.

‘Just one question,’ I hazarded; ‘what became of the other two men afterwards?’ He drew out a pack of cards, and began shuffling them, and I had to repeat the question.

‘Oh! I guess Kinjan would be alive,--why certainly he would be; unless he might have been caught up in a flame of fire, there wouldn’t be any other kind of a death for him,’ he said with the ghost of a smile.

‘And Torin?’

‘Gone out, I reckon,’ he said impassively.

The curt grimness of this remark jarred upon me, though why it should have, I don’t know; why expect sentiment from Dick Denver, who lived from day’s end to day’s end with his life in his hands?

‘In heaven’s name, why indeed?’ I said aloud to myself, as I turned once again before going through the door to my berth--Dick Denver was dealing a set of poker hands, and humming softly to himself. It was broad daylight, and the train still droned along. I was dead tired; and as I shut the door softly, and turned into my bunk, instead of an intelligent moral deduction from the story and its teller, all I could think of was the children’s grace, ‘Thank God for a good dinner.’

ACCORDING TO HIS LIGHTS

‘Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone;
Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in your own.’

--Adam Lindsay Gordon.

‘Prevention is better than cure,’ they say. Quite probably; anyway that must be the reason why our system of imprisonment is so popular, for whoever knew anyone cured by it?

What the exact state of Eugene Rattray’s moral sentiments were upon the day that he was released from Rochester Gaol, it would be difficult to say.

Judging from the following record, I very much doubt whether the term of his imprisonment had materially affected his view of things.

What was his offence? The law called it by an awkward name having consequences; these consequences the law applied to a man who had come back of his own accord from Australia to ‘face the music,’ as he phrased it. I myself could never see that the offence was more than a chance effect of circumstances upon a formed character. It seemed to me futile to punish a chance effect, seeing that it was the formed character you wanted to get at; but anyway, ‘they done it,’ as Huck Finn has it.

When I went to see him in Pentonville, where he was known as ‘that there tall _I_talian with the strong beard, wot carries ’is ’ead so ’igh’ (certainly Eugene’s origin was half Greek, but then it was _all_ Greek to the warders--hence the _I_talian), he talked cheerfully enough, poor chap, and without any bitterness as to the past. As to the future, he put it away; he had to ‘face the music,’ and in doing that he was hard enough put to it to ‘carry ’is ’ead ’igh’ in the present, without thinking of the future. I suppose he realised to a certain degree what it would be like to ‘come out,’ but not greatly, for he told me that he felt exactly like a wrecked man flung on a desert island, when, on a February morning, with his certificate of discharge in his pocket, he walked out of Rochester Gaol into the world.

So feeling, he strolled to the end of the street, and there the sense of having lived his life pressed so strongly upon him that he stood debating dazedly whether he would not go back, and ask to be taken in again. He even took some steps in the direction of the prison, till the absurdity of the idea presented itself to his mind. He shook himself like a dog, and, pulling up before a shop window, looked long and critically at his image in the plate-glass. It was a presentable reflection, tall, straight, well-clothed; he took off his hat, and replaced it quickly with a shudder; he registered a mental vow not to remove his gloves for some days; he gazed at his upper lip blankly, it did not seem to fit in with his surroundings; finally he turned out his pockets--one pound fifteen shillings and sixpence.

This pantomime he went through mechanically, with the feeling that he must do something rational, something practical, however trifling, to save him from thought; and the next moment, the black waves of despair came rolling in over his flimsy breakwater one after the other, driving him with head down and huge strides anywhere away from his fellows. _This_ was the tug; anything that had gone before was child’s play to _this_. Out into a world that could look, and point and whisper the words ‘Convicted felon!’ to which there was no answer. It had been different in there; what were the words but the common property of all? It was easy enough to hold one’s head up in that dim world; but outside it, where everything was so clear and bright, where the light was strong--he cursed the sun; where everyone could and would read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest his shame; where he was branded like any poor devil of a sheep on a bush run. He flung himself down in a field, and--well, there are some things that are best left alone, and the full tide of a strong man’s humiliation is one of them.

Two hours later, Eugene walked into Rochester Station, his brow knit and his head thrown back, and cursing his fate silently in his heart. He took a first single to London.

‘As long as I have a sou,’ he thought, ‘I’ll give it for the only luxury left me--solitude;’ and he jingled the few remaining coins in his pocket.

They say an habitual criminal turned loose again upon society goes back to the scene of his offence--there is also a saying about a dog. Eugene was not an habitual criminal, he was only a victim of circumstances, playing on a formed character, yet he experienced a vague desire to return to the circumstances. He has told me that on that short but divinely lonely journey he was able to think his position over rationally. Item--he had no money, but many relations and friends, possibly, nay probably, willing to help him. Item--he was of the leisured class, unfitted for, _and_--a large _and_--disqualified for anything, except the merest manual labour. Item--he was physically strong, but happily, so he had been told, not unlikely to die at any minute. Item--he loved the best of everything. Finally, item--he had no reputation, and therefore no self-respect. He cast about in agony for any foundation on which to base a self-respect, and he found one, whether good or bad, who knows? In the circumstances, to the man, the only one. ‘Face the music; keep your head up; society has dealt you hard measure, treat it with the contempt with which it will undoubtedly treat you; if you let go the plank of your pride for but a minute, you drown.’

Nobody knew that he was free; his discharge had come a month earlier than expected, for some reason connected with certain services to the internal economy of the dim world. So far, good. The practical sum of his reflections came to this: ‘_Let_ no one know, avoid acquaintances, work in the docks till you have earned a passage to the diggings, and then’--he thought almost cheerfully of the ‘then.’

He stepped out of the carriage serenely; after all it was only his friends and acquaintances that mattered, a tiny eddy in the huge whirlpool of existence; easy enough to keep out of that eddy. He was always of a sanguine disposition; it had been very hard, I remember, at school to persuade him that he would infallibly miss his remove. It is the sanguine people upon whom circumstances play their pranks; luckily the payment of the piper is not to them so severe a tax as it is to the others--the pendulum swings very evenly. He lunched, to fortify the reaction; he lunched well; it was the first meal he had had for fourteen months--those in the dim world did not count. A cup of coffee and a cigar completing the fortification, he walked out of the station and along the crowded streets, enjoying the stir and bustle around him.

Mechanically he moved westwards. Presently he found himself opposite one of his favourite haunts--he would go in and read the papers. He stopped at the steps with a jerk, the waves came rolling back on him again, he gripped his plank and strode on. Some vague idea of seeking the docks directed his steps eastwards again through the heart and centre of the hum. He caught himself gazing with an indifferent, almost a callous eye at places and objects which were as the very pivot upon which had turned the whirling wheel of circumstances that now forced him to walk among his fellows a branded outcast. As he passed the London and Westminster Bank in Lothbury, a grey-haired man, hurrying from the door, ran against him, and without apology hastened past westwards. Eugene, in no mood to be jostled, turned angrily, but something familiar in the man’s back arrested his attention; the close, humping set of the shoulders, the head set stiffly forward, the walk of a man who goes straight to his object, and that object, money. Eugene looked after him undecided, then crossed the street, and hurrying on, took up a position that enabled him to see the face.

As he thought--his Uncle Stephen; no mistaking the shark’s mouth between the close-cut white moustache and beard, the light grey eyes under thick lids, looking neither to the right nor left, mechanically summing up the price of the man’s coat in front of him.

‘Not a day older, the same amiable Uncle Stephen; you old beast!’ muttered Eugene between his clenched teeth. He followed him, at first mechanically, then with a steadily growing resolve.

The one man who had had it in his power in the first place to check, in the second to annul circumstances--and yet not a hand raised, not even the kink of the crooked, grasping little finger unbent. The words, in the saw-like voice, dinned in his ears:

‘You’re a black sheep, sir, I’ll do nothing for you.’

To-day he was bidding farewell to his identity and to his former life, but he meant to have a word with that man first; merely an expression of opinion. How he hated that back threading the mazes of Cheapside and Ludgate Hill, stopping every now and then before a picture or a china shop, ‘bargain’ in its every line.

‘Four miles a day, and seventy,’ thought Eugene disgustedly; ‘he’ll live to be a hundred.’ The back threaded its way unwearyingly through the Strand and Charing Cross, and down the now gas-lighted Piccadilly, towards the Park, unconscious of the tall shadow that, dogging it grimly, waited for a less crowded thoroughfare. So journeying, they neared Hyde Park corner, and the back wavered; a slight drizzling rain had begun to fall.

‘It’s a cab fare against the gloss of that hat,’ thought Eugene; ‘um! thought so; the fare has it,’ for the back had turned into the Park, and was being borne swiftly along under an umbrella in the direction of Kensington. Eugene turned up his coat collar, and crossing over to the opposite side, drew slightly nearer to the chase. As he intended the opinion to be a strong one, he preferred to have a fair field and no favour, and waited his chance quietly, knowing his Uncle’s usual route would lead him through a sufficiently deserted region.

To speak his mind!--A very empty satisfaction, but still, some sort of salve to the bitterness of his feelings.

A nursemaid and her charge pressing homewards in the dim distance were now the only people in sight, and Eugene was on the point of ranging alongside, when something white lying in the pathway where his Uncle had just passed caught his eye. Stooping, he picked it up, and stopped mechanically to examine the contents of the packet. The light was dim, and he read the heading words on the covering with difficulty: ‘Seabright Trust.’

He rubbed his eyes, and read it again. No mistake about the words: ‘Seabright Trust,’ the Trust of which himself and his respected Uncle were, or rather had been, the co-trustees; he tore open the covering.

Quite so; documents of importance, notes, gold, dropped, undoubtedly dropped by his Uncle. A fierce joy leapt up in his heart; he took one look at the fast disappearing figure, then drew quickly back into the shelter of some trees, and turned again to the contents of the packet.

His _co_-trustee--well, not exactly, now--possibly it might have been better for that gentleman, he thought with a bitter sneer, if he were still so. Over this Trust he had come to grief, over this Trust that man--his co-trustee--had shown him no mercy, no saving grace, not even the grace of a two days’ silence. Hard measure, hardly dealt, ‘black sheep--black sheep’--that was all. Well, things square themselves: over this Trust the black sheep would be quits; the documents were _most_ important; the bottom of the Serpentine was quite an admirable place for them.

What construction the law would put upon their disappearance, really--he reflected with a grim smile--he couldn’t say; his Uncle would doubtless know; he knew the consequences of everything so accurately. The memory of that fourteen months in the dim world pressed like lead upon his brain; the revengeful Southern blood leaped in his veins, and he ground his teeth and laughed aloud. He hoped it might be held _criminal_ negligence, the documents were _so_ important; it was, moreover, quite unfortunate for his co-trustee that it was at all events indirectly to the latter’s interest that they should cease to exist. This would be better than speaking his mind. He leapt a paling and looked about him for stones suitable to weld the canvas covering and its contents to their new abode. Let him think; there were also notes and gold, _these_ most certainly, whatever else happened, _that man_ would have to restore, therefore by taking them he robbed nobody.

‘By God! What I take from him is my due; he has taken everything from me; shall there be no exchange?’

‘The notes may go,’ he thought, ‘they’re risky. I’ll give society no more chances, but the gold will give me a fresh start. Uncle Stephen! Uncle Stephen! this isn’t your day out, it’s mine, and by heaven I’ll make the most of it.’

Now, in this matter, as he said when he told me of it afterwards, he acted with conviction; there was no struggle in him as to the right or the wrong of the thing--it was so plain--no single qualm of hesitation or regret tempered the seething delight in the coming revenge, only he was forced to stamp his feet and grind his teeth to get back a clear power of thinking to his whirling brain.

He filled the bag with scientific care, first taking out the roll of gold; then tying the strings, he leapt back across the paling. The nearest way to the Serpentine led him across the path where the packet had been dropped. As he crossed it he saw a figure approaching slowly through the dusk, from the direction in which his Uncle had disappeared; he shrank behind a tree and watched. If it should be that old shark, and he were seen--well--a blow neatly given secured the necessary amount of silence, and did no great harm.

‘He’s an old man, and I don’t want to hurt him, but by heaven I won’t be stopped--.’

The figure advanced very slowly, and Eugene watched it anxiously in the fast waning light. It seemed to move forwards down the path a few feet with a jerk, and then to stop suddenly. It was bent almost double, so that no glimpse of the face could be seen, but a curious, indistinct, shrill murmur like the ‘goo-gooing’ of a dumb man came down to Eugene’s ears.

‘What the devil is it?’ he thought, and as if for answer, one intelligible word ‘Trust’ came in a half-scream through the chill evening air, and then the ‘goo-gooing’ began again. Suddenly, when only some few yards away, the figure straightened itself as if animated by a spring, and Eugene saw his Uncle.

The right arm hung stiffened at his side, the left gesticulated wildly, pointing down the path and then to his mouth, out of one side of which came that weird and curious mumbling. Eugene shuddered; whatever else, there could be no _fear_ of this pitiable being--he stepped from behind the tree and moved forward.

The figure continued to advance, dragging itself painfully along--as it seemed the left leg alone moving--and the eyes fixed on Eugene’s advancing form had an intense look of agonised appeal. There was no recognition in them, only an unasked question; the mouth mumbled, the man’s left hand alternately pointed down the path, and clutched the breast of his overcoat. It seemed to Eugene that the piteous searching in the eyes must pierce the covering which his buttoned coat formed over the lost bag, and with an involuntary movement he threw it open. The figure staggered, and with an inarticulate cry thrust out its hand for the bag. Eugene drew back--he must have time to think. His Uncle, a dim look of recognition struggling through the film of agonised entreaty, crouched almost double again before him. The drizzling mist shrouded the rest of the world, and these two figures stood alone.

A thousand thoughts and feelings surged in the nephew’s mind. Gratified revenge, reluctant pity, and a growing railing at the fates. In a whirl of disgust he found that the thing he had in his heart to do was no longer in his power. Why had he lingered that minute to gloat over his revenge? Why turned his head as he was taking his road _to_ that revenge? A minute sooner, this miserable, crouching, smitten figure, with its dumb, despairing look, and its dumb, despairing voice, would not have been cringing in supplication before him. What had befallen the man, hale a few minutes before, did not trouble him; he was bitterly raging at the failure of his revenge, and disgusted with the stroke of fate which had caused it, tearing from him his fresh start in life.

‘If I could,’--he swung the bag doubtfully in his hand, and felt the gold in his pocket; ‘_if_ I only could,--but I can’t, and there’s an end of it. The old brute--he’s down, and I _can’t_ kick him.’ All feeling of pity for the miserable object before him was swallowed up in an amazing regret. He even cursed the training which caused him to feel the impossibility of that kick.

‘A good many of my late friends would have been on in this piece,’ he thought bitterly, ‘and glad of the chance.’

He plucked the bag from under his coat, and opening it, dropped the stones out one by one.

‘I suppose this’ll have to go back too,’ he muttered, and replaced the gold, with a sigh of disgust. The stricken man’s eyes gleamed, and he put out his left hand feebly. Eugene put the bag into it, but the grasp was uncertain, and it fell again to the ground. The shock of seemingly losing it a second time was too much for the disordered intellect, and in a dead swoon, Stephen Rattray fell stiffly forward on to his nephew’s shoulder.

Eugene laid him on the ground, carefully buttoned the packet into the inner pocket of his Uncle’s coat, and then drew himself away to think. He couldn’t get a clear grasp of things with that hated figure touching his. Leaning apart against a tree, and looking down at the helpless form, he dealt grimly and despitefully in his heart with the feeling that troubled him; let it stand for want of better phrasing at ‘common humanity.’ He railed at it; he even took some steps of retreat; he reasoned with himself.

This man, when a nod of the head might have saved, had reduced him to the level of the brute beasts--what duty then lay upon him to act but upon that level? This man lay there, dependent on him for a chance perhaps of further life. Yes, but there had been a bitter hour, when their positions had been reversed, and the closing of that hour, with its depths of horror and degradation, its blotting out of all hope and life, was vividly before him. This, too, was an old man, at the end of things, and he had been a young man at the beginning--that was but an aggravation. As things now were he had done him no wrong, taken no revenge; the packet was found; it was even himself that had restored it: the stroke had come through a visitation of the fates, through no dealing of his.

He searched, and he failed to see any reason why he should lift a finger to give back life to this hulk. It was adding insult to injury indeed to expect him to carry his enemy perhaps a mile in search of help. Leave him here?--and get help?--he would certainly die before it came. No, either all or nothing; and it should be, by heaven, _nothing_!

He turned on his heel,--and straightway it came upon him that these things were not done. Just as impossible as kicking a fellow on the ground, or shooting an unarmed man.

‘By Gad! the other thing’s got to be done! When I’ve lived a few years in Borneo or some such place, I shall know better how to deal with you, my friend; in the meantime--’ he lifted him, and with wearily slow steps bore him disgustedly in the direction of the Alexandria Gate.

Now that he had begun, he meant to see it through; and with many a halt, for his Uncle was a heavy man, he got him through the fast closing fog to the crossing of Rotten Row.

‘I don’t want any fuss,’ he thought, as he put his burden down and paused for breath; ‘can’t afford to have it advertised that I played the good Samaritan. Evening paper paragraphs--“The Admirable Convict,” “Rattray Repents,” “Remarkable occurrence in connection with a scandal in high life, showing the beneficial influences of our prison system--Nephew and Uncle”--Good Lord!’

He wiped his brow, and propping his Uncle’s motionless form against a rail, went in search of a cab. He found a four-wheeler at the gate of the Park, and drove back in it.

‘Now, my friend, bear a hand,’ he said to the driver; ‘this gentleman’s had a stroke; we must get him home at once. Double fare, and look sharp--it’s the only chance.’ He gave the astonished man the address, and between them they lifted the helpless form into the cab.

When they drew up at the house, Eugene leapt out and rang the bell.

‘Hope it’s Ashton,’ he thought. The old butler, a man who had known him from his youth up, opened the door, and recoiled in blank astonishment when he saw who was there.

‘Master Eugene!’ he said.

‘All right, Ashton, don’t make a row. Look here, my Uncle’s had a stroke; he’s in that cab; I came across him in the Park walking home; better get him in-doors at once. And look here, Ashton,’ he lifted his hat significantly, and said grimly, ‘you know all about me, I suppose; well, see that my name doesn’t come out in this business.’

He held out his hand to the old man.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said the butler, taking it, ‘always proud to take your hand, sir, believe me. I’ll make it all right,--say I picked him up myself, if necessary; you can depend on me, sir.’

‘Thank you, Ashton,’ said Eugene; ‘and look here, give that chap a sovereign,’ he pointed to the cabman waiting at the door, ‘and lend me another, there’s a good fellow.’

The butler pulled two sovereigns out of his pocket.

‘Proud to be of any use to you, sir,’ he said.

Eugene, with a choke in his throat, helped them carry his Uncle into the house; and as the door closed, turned to the cabman.

‘You haven’t earned that sovereign yet,’ he said, handing him one, ‘it’s all right, but you’ve got to shut your head--d’ye see? Now go on to the docks, and drive like Hell.’

He sat back in the cab that rattled eastwards through the fog, and he ground his teeth.

‘That’s over; and the Lord do so to me, and more also, if I’d do it again,’ he said between them; and with those words, Eugene Rattray disappeared from among his fellows, and the place thereof knew him no more.

THE DEMI-GODS

[Music]

PROLOGUE

Into the garden of rest had come trouble and pain, for the end was at hand.

He sat in the sun, on the stone wall that divided the garden from the great lake, and swung his legs, silently gazing with his soul in his eyes, and SHE, in a long wicker chair, sideways to him, shaded her face with her hand and looked down. The soul went out of him, and hovering over the waving hair, and the dimple at the corner of the drooping mouth, peeped through the fingers of the dear hand at its true and only resting places--those brown pools over whose depths lay the clouding shadow of the morrow.

_But_ another twenty-four hours, and then back to prison--to prison--to prison. The thought beat through both hearts, with the level monotony of a tolling for the dead, for the glorious dead, for the month past of a sweet and lovely life together in the garden of rest.

To-morrow was the ending of all life and light, bringing with it for her a separation from the true self, a return behind the triumphant car of a mocking and over-riding fate, to a caged existence, a loathed companionship, a weary, weary beating of the breast against the bars; for him--a legion of mind-devils, torturing, twisting, lying in wait at every turn and corner of life, ever alert and ever cruel, and a dreary, craving ache.

To-morrow was the farewell of their love, perhaps till the grave--who knows? their great and burning love, that had given all and taken all, that had cared with an exceeding tenderness for every thought and movement, that was old, yet had not tired, that had known and understood, having no depths left to sound, no heights to win; that tree which, planted in the moist, cool earth of comradeship, had grown steadily and grandly till it rejoiced in the sweet foliage of a perfect trust, and the glorious flowers of passion. The day looked on, and laughed in slanting rays of heat and light, and presently on a snow-cooled breeze wafted between two towering heights came a chime of far-off Italian bells.

She looked up into his face, and smiled.

‘Shall I sing my Love a little song?’ she said. And as he knelt beside her, she held his head in her two hands, and sang shyly into his ear, in time to the drifting cadence.

* * * * *

Out of his eyes fled hunger and pain, and he leaned his forehead on her breast, and so they drank of the merciful well of peace. The chime floated faintly past them with a note of invitation.

* * * * *

‘The bells have got into my head, darling. I’m mad, I think,--I can’t feel anything--Child of mine, come for a drive, and find the bells; we’ll get drunk on sun, and air, and sky, and mountains, and--kisses, and forget there is a to-morrow and an ending.’

He stood up straight and strong, and drew her to him.

So they waited, and the chime floated once more past, while they looked life again into each other’s eyes.

Then, with his arm around her shoulder, and hers drawn round his waist, they walked through the garden of rest to the gate where the angel of Publicity threatened such proceeding with a flaming and respectable sword.

* * * * *

_The Meditations of Pietro._

‘The sun is very yellow and hot here by the side of the water, and the flies are like to a hundred devils on my good Nicolas--Ugh! Pighead, what good to shake thy bell! It is not good sitting here, for I have only money for one--two--three--yes, for four drinkings, in my pouch, and the last a little one, and the day is hot. Eleven of the clock, for there begins the morning tolling from San Felice. Where be these fools of strangers? There be many things to see, also my chariot is very strong, and beautiful exceedingly, and my good grey Nicolas, is he not a most willing puller, being still young and lusty? Yet, forsooth, because it is the Sabbath, they will not stir forth--these fools--but sit at home in sad garments, and eat, thinking to make the day holy.

‘Ai! What are these? Can it be they are coming? Ai--Ai--_si signore, si, si, signora, si, si, si.... This_ is several drinkings; moreover they appear to be English. A very curious peoples, the English--for some reason known only of God they speak to me in French, as if I, Pietro, understood French, forsooth. However, it is all the same thing; the _he_ waves his hat to the West, and says--“_San Felice_;”--now San Felice is in the South;--the _she_ says “_Campenella_,” and does not wave anythings,--decidedly she is the more intelligent; and I, Pietro, the most intelligent of all, for I nod my top once, twice, three times strongly, and say “San Felice, si, si,” and beat my grey, and lo! we are off, and they have forgotten to bargain. Ho! A very curious peoples!

‘And yet, now that I regard, perhaps I have done to the English an injustice. _These_ are no doubt mad, they have a very queer look, their eyes are all shiny, and they sit very close together, though even I, Pietro, am hot, sitting up here alone on the head of my chariot.

‘Ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling, sighs my old friend the bell, as Nicolas shakes his ears at the road; _si, si, amico_, it is long, and it is white, and--pouff--dusty, and in places even steep.

‘Yes, now I know for a certainty they are mad; it is not for them the road either too long or too steep or too dusty; they only sit like coo-doves, and the _he_ sighs, and every now and then he starts upon his feet, greatly endangering his neck, and points with his fist, and says, “Look, Carissima, how grand, how _beaut_iful!”

‘I think he talks foolishness, for it is always the same whether we come to a pool or a mountain, or even where the trees grow thickly, or there are flowers on the ground. And then what does the _she_ but uprise also, ah! She is “bella,” the _she_! And puts her hand on his shoulder, ah! The lucky shoulder! and before she has looked, Nicolas gives a big pull so that both sit down on a sudden, upon their ends, and laugh greatly.

‘They laugh always, these--when they do not sigh, and when they sigh sometimes there comes also to my ears another sound, very gentle, like the end of a good drinking. Can they already, then, be thirsty? Why, even I, Pietro, am not yet thirsty, but soon shall be.

‘Yet no, when I turn, saying ‘_Il Signore--ha parlato_?’’ is he not always tying on his boot--very curious must be the boots of the English--and she hooking her glove, and both laughing, yes, always laughing? nor can I see any bottle.

‘Overhead the sky is quite blue, and the sun very yellow, and there be no shade, but the _he_ throws off his hat, and says, “Grand, glorious, ’twill make to grow the hair, Carissima;” this he says many times, so that I learn it by stomach, and the _she_ strokes his top, where the hairs did no longer kiss one another, and purrs--all these things I know through the back of my hat where the brim is broad, and a man half-turning can see with the corner of his eyeball.

‘Now, in a good time we come to where the valley runs away down from the road, and Nicolas, as is the habit of this pighead, when the sun is hot even to the winking of his master’s eye, walks over till he hangs above the valley by the hairs of his tail and the strength of my right arms, and presently with much thanking of God and cursings of that pighead, I pull him up again; at the which what does the _he_ but cast himself back laughing, and say, “Do it again, do it again,” which I am supposing is of great wit, for the _she_ laughs also greatly.

‘Do they think, perchance, that I, Pietro, cannot drive? Chickenheads! it is now of a surety they are mad--I, Pietro, who am a celebration! I too laugh, and so we laugh all three, until we come to where there is good drinking.

‘“_Goutez un petit peu_,” I speak to them in that fool’s tongue--this much knowing, and that quite enough.

‘“_Si, si_,” they say, and nod their tops, yet do not descend. Certainly they have drunk upon the voyage, for the day is hot. Well, well, I, Pietro, am thirsty and so inwards; Nicolas also will drink, but not of the Asti that bubbles sweet and yellow. Ai! Good! Very good drinking; is it not so, my pighead? And what of these? they have not drunk, yet are their eyes shinier than even before, and surely they are _very_ near together.

‘So we go down into the valley from whence on both hands the big hills roll up their limbs, and I, coming to that place where it is of the custom to show where the man from the market was bereft of his goods, and where his body was cut off, turn on my head, and tell them in usual words the story.

‘Chickenheads! never yet did any understand, and my Italian is very pure, very--always in great estimation.

‘These only say, “_Si, si!_” and presently many times: “How far San Felice? How far? How far?” What shall this mean? I know not, yet surely I must to tell them--being of great intelligence, so I stop my Nicolas and speak of the country and how many peoples live in the town, and the name of the mayor; and then, for greater satisfaction of these, because they will pay largely--turning a little to think the better, and outspit once, twice, very skilfully on two hairs of Nicolas’ back-tail--again to them, concerning the other road, and the number of horses my master has, and how I, Pietro, have a wife (whom God plant!) and several offsprings.

‘But these only laugh, and point in many ways, having no intelligence, and say, “How far, how far? More?”

‘Chickenheads! and do? What to do? But nod my top, and on again where the brown water runs swiftly down from the hills towards its Mother, the great blue lake. Ai--so it runs busily from the hills where the snow cloak lies shining in the sun. And now these are quiet, quiet as the deep Mother herself, or as the tall Father with his white head. Perhaps they are frightened; well, _I_ was frightened once; that was many years ago, being but a whipperling; for the Mother is very blue and still and deep, and the Father is of a giantness strong as the death itself.

‘So the little brown Son runs over between them, and carries messages and greeting.

‘Yet not always, for in the great heat comes the Fiery One and licks him up for a space, and tears off the Father’s white hairs that get thinner and thinner with every golden dawning. Surely the _he_ with the hat, upon which he sits, should regard and understand of this, taking warning lest the same befall; yet perchance there is a difference, his hair being of a fair mud, as is that of all the English.

‘Now the _she_ is “bella,” with many hairs running in billows like waves on the shore of the lake, only not white-topped, and her face is like unto a violet and a star. Yet also is she like unto something that springs swiftly and far, or unto that which waves its wings in the sunlight, making many colours, and floats past like the twinkling of an eyebrow. Also have I seen in shops figures of porcelain of a delicate transparence, so that a man can look at things through them, that are greatly like her; so it seems also the _he_ finds her, for whenever she points and bids him to be looking at the things around, he regards straightly and without winking at her eyeballs, or--so often as _I_ am observing at her _eyelashes_, which she then, it seems, wears long upon her cheeks.

‘Ai! I have seen one or two fairer amongst my own race; but never amongst these strangers, wearing nets on their faces, with blue looking-glasses for their eyes, and very thick garments of a sad colour.

‘And so on and on past the great Mother, Nicolas drawing with a good stomach to where rises the long hill to San Felice, and ever comes clearer the great chime, it being now the second pulling of it.

‘Then the _he_--mad, as I have said--descends and marches with me, patting my Nicolas and saying, “Good, good, how old?” With that he regards his teeth. Now I know well what I must be saying, when one of these regards where once were Nicolas’ teeth, and says, “How old?” For I am of great intelligence and have learnt it by stomach,--so “_Eightee_” I say. “What?” says the _he_, and his eyes grow of a roundness, then he laughs and wheels his toes to the she, and says something of a great wit, and both laugh again. Then a curious thing passes, for the she says, “Ah! Eight_ine_! but _impossible_!” and like to a shot gun rolls from the chariot moving, and both run and look at Nicolas’ knees, and again at his teeth. Do they think then that he eats his knees?

‘Then again both say Eightine! but _impossible_! and I say Eightine, _si, si_! and nod myself so that they shall not think small of Nicolas, or that he is too young a horse and fiery, as I was of a fear they might. Yet they wag their tops very often and as I think, sadly, and the _she_ looks at Nicolas softly and timidly, and smites him very gently, and they walk up all that great hill--both--even “_la bella_.”

‘But then it is all same thing, they are English and mad; who knows what is in them?

‘Now am I thirsty again; but at the end we have become in San Felice, and after much questioning of the peoples walking in the streets--who know nothing--I find at the end the place where they wish to drink, the bells being quite at hand, and very full of noise.

‘So I leave them for mine own drinking. Yet they do not hurry to their drinking, but go slowly, and as it were without eagerness, looking at each other, and the “bella’s” eyes shine like two stars in a heaven of violets.

‘What did they, while for three hours I and Nicolas ate bravely and drank much, is of a supposition. But now we are again to returning ready, and see! they come, the “bella” with many flowers in her hands; and still their eyes shine, and their noses smell the flowers, and they say, “_Allez, Pietro, allez!_”

‘So, with a crackling of the whip-stick, we roll through the streets, and down to the other road leading through the valley of the fair view to the bridge that cuts in two the great Mother, and so home again. Now I have a liking for this road, and so has Nicolas; it is of a gentle sloping, with many spots where he that is intelligent can ‘_goutez un peu_,’ and so we go pleasantly.

‘The Fiery One is hiding him behind the tall Father and his brethren, and there comes over the earth a great sweet colour as of the sparkling Asti in this my glass, and all things drink deeply of the flushing light--even those lying back with eyes very serene, and arms invisible cunningly--and I, Pietro, even more deeply, for have I not also of the light inside me?

‘Only Nicolas goes like the pighead he is, without reason, now on one side, now on the other, and jumps as does the flea when you catch his tail.

‘Well--well--he is a sure beast, and the way is very long--and safe--and aww--drowsy, and the light has got into my eyes, and also, I think a little into my top--aw--w--w--well, I _will_ perchance sleep a little--’tis a sure--beast--and the way--a--w--w....’

EPILOGUE.

The champagne light faded slowly from the snow-crowned tops, and from the green and grey sides of the hills, and the violet shadows crept on over the great blue lake below; the shining in _her_ eyes was fading too, giving place to a look of great rest and faith, and _his_ face turned to hers was the face of a man gazing at the Holy Grail.

So, obliviously, unconsciously onwards, the cup of a perfect joy full to overflowing.

The carriage rolled slowly along the white and dusty road by the lake-side, the tired horse picking his own way, the pleasantly drunken Pietro heavily asleep on his box.

In the fast gathering dusk they came to the iron railway bridge that carved the lake into two halves. The carriage road and railway track lay parallel across the bridge, divided only by a high partition of iron-work running its entire length. The gates of each lay open, and a level crossing tempted the unguided horse past the gate of the road on to the lines of the railway.

Perhaps some sting of a dormant yet uneasy conscience, or the jolt of the wheel, caused his slumbering driver to awaken suddenly; the reins, jerked sharply and mechanically to the left, brought the horse’s head round into and through the wrong gate. In a minute the carriage was being dragged along the single railway track with no room to turn.

A frightened cry from the driver, and the grey, terrified by the jerking at his mouth, and the unwonted nature of the road, plunged forward wildly. Losing his balance, Pietro fell over to the side of the line with a groan of terror, and crawled, shrinking, to an iron girder at the side, to which he clung with trembling arms.

‘Sit still, my darling, it’s a fair course and no favour; can’t go wrong, Sweet, there isn’t room to upset; we shall be all right at the end.’

She gave a little shiver and clasped her hands tightly round his neck.

‘Courage, sweetheart; we’ve laughed the day through, and we’ll laugh it through to the finish; is it not so, O my love?’

The darkness closed in, the horse plunged and snorted in his mad career, the carriage rocked and rattled fearfully. He strained her close to him with a laugh, looking with eyes of love into her face,--and the same sweet look of rest and faith was upon it.

‘Hast thou been happy all this long day, child?’ he said.

‘Ay--ah! How happy!! There is no telling.’

Then suddenly her face changed; over it closed the grim shadow of the morning, and even in that moment of fear and excitement a black reaction was upon her. With a low moan she whispered:

‘My own, I want to die now, _now_, with thee in my arms, thy face to me, thy lips to mine, and no one to see but the sky and the lake; I can’t face to-morrow and the ending--I can’t--I can’t!’

The passionate whisper rose into a cry, the breathing choked in a sob, and the calm of her face broke, and vanished suddenly, as the calm of the great lake breaks and vanishes before the icy blast sweeping down the mountain gully.

For answer he held her closer and closer in his arms.

‘Gold help me! neither can I, thy wish is mine.’...

From out of the darkness in front, swelling gradually above the rattling of the carriage and the snorting of the horse, came a muttering sound.

‘The gods are merciful,’ he said; ‘a train’s on us; it’s all over--there will be _no_ ending.’

Nearer and nearer came the terrible roar, stunning all the faculties of heart and brain, and still the maddened horse sprang forward to his doom.