Chapter III: Part 3

“We are all strange, eh? And what would it matter if we didn’t understand you? You must talk: it is good for every man to talk. Perhaps you are wise, and no one understands wise men.”

This comforted Vuk a little.

“Perhaps I am,” he said; “I do not know.” He paused for a moment. “Have you--have you ever noticed at night how, though it may be very silent, it is still more silent when the moon appears?”

His companion considered a moment.

“No, I don’t think I have,” he answered, shifting uneasily in his chair.

Vuk took another mouthful of wine.

“Well, you listen one night and you’ll hear. Especially when the moon is just rising--red and swollen on the horizon. Of course, she is angry then, and at those times I always think she is like some raging, drunken queen rising from her couch in the middle of the night.”

His companion stared at Vuk for a moment and then laughed. But by now Vuk was too exalted and excited to notice that his host was uncomfortable and perhaps a little contemptuous, and, putting his arms on the table and leaning forward, he began to talk volubly.

“I wish I had money to buy jewels,” he said, “especially certain jewels like opals. I would like to hold many opals in the hollow of my hand: I would like to crush them together between my hands. You know that all fire is the sun. Did you know that? Yes. I’m telling you. Take coal. Coal is buried wood. And what is wood? Wood is trees. And it is the sun that makes trees grow. It pulls at the ground and draws them out; it warms them and feeds them. When you burn wood and coal, it is the sun that leaps out at you--a little bit of the sun that has been silently hiding for many years. A good deal of the sun is stored under the ground and a good deal of it is alive and burning there. Well, it is the same with the moon. Some precious stones absorb the moon. Opals do. That is why I want to hold many opals in my hand and crush them together. And I am sure that the moon gives herself to water, especially to large sheets of water like Lake Langaza.” He paused a few moments, his thoughts far away. “You can feel the moon, soft and sliding, on your limbs, if you bathe at night when the moon is high in the sky: but when the dawn comes, the light of the sun destroys all the moon that is in the water.”

He noticed, for the first time, that his companion’s eyes were shut and that his heavy breathing was developing into a snore.

“I am explaining this to you!” exclaimed Vuk, peremptorily.

But his host sank deeper into slumber, and for a little while Vuk talked quietly to himself until he, too, slept.

* * * * *

That evening at dusk Vuk, dazed with wine, made his way to the orchards above Kirekoj. For a long time he sat brooding among the trees, until the moon, full and splendid, went redly up the sky. He watched her so closely that he could see her moving. To-night she did not seem to glide: she moved with just perceptible jerks--“Like the hands of a very large clock,” said Vuk to himself, for he had wandered far and had lived in many big cities.

He watched the trees appearing out of the blackness: they seemed to be marching upon him, closing in upon him. So he arose and began to walk, and presently came to the edge of the orchard and looked up at the mountain at whose feet he stood. He began to climb, and soon, after leaving the vineyards behind him, he came upon large, bare rocks in the clefts of which grass and flowers grew. It was while he was climbing both with hands and feet that his dog-friend, excited but silent, joined him.

“Tchut! tchut!” said Vuk, beneath his breath.

The dog, honoured by human speech, became still more excited, and Vuk could see him dimly as, having rushed to the top of a high rock, he stood open-mouthed, wagging his tail.

Now, there was no one either in Langaza or Kirekoj who was more bound by conscience to his work than Vuk Karadjitch, and it was very strange that on this night he should, without effort, have left his master’s orchards to wander up the mountains. He did not know where he was going or, indeed, why he was “going” at all. But I have no doubt that something in his brain--one of the many selves that were Vuk--was urging him forward to some secret purpose of its own.

Stillness and the moon’s rays held the night, and though the moon falsified distance and misled even Vuk who was used to the moon’s deceit, he reached the top of the mountains sooner than he had expected. There, unseen, Langaza lay beneath him. Looking in Langaza’s direction, he suddenly became aware of his motive in coming thither. Turning to the dog, he muttered threateningly:

“Go away! Go away!”

But though he threw stones at the animal, it refused to leave him. So, muttering to himself, Vuk proceeded down the other side of the mountain, making his way to Langaza with impatient strides.

Langaza is a lake without banks, and even a careful investigator will find it difficult to determine where dry land ends and water begins. Rushes and grasses, tropically luxuriant, grow from dry earth, mud, and the lake’s bed. In hot weather the air is miasmatic, and millions of mosquitoes make with their wings high shrieks as they fly their way through the air.

When Vuk found himself on the edge of this poisoned richness, he was covered with sweat, and the fumes of the afternoon’s wine had left his brain. For a little time he stood looking at the moon--not at the moon in the sky, for that was too far away, and its very distance mocked him; but at the moon in the lake that was so near. Man cannot without wings soar into the sky, but his own weight will carry him to the bottom of the deepest abyss.

He walked into the rushes and grasses and, in a moment, was surrounded by them; they towered above his head, and soon his feet began to sink in the slime and mud of the lake’s true edge. The dog, with velvet paws, followed a pace behind him. Vuk had forgotten him, for Vuk’s mind was now full of the moon and inflamed by it.

In a very short time walking became laborious and slow, for Vuk’s feet sank into the mud until it covered his ankles, and it was with a great effort that he drew them out again. The sucking, explosive sound they made, and the Moon Man’s heavy breathing startled many large water-birds that, with flopping wings and raucous throats, announced their fear as they rushed away.

Guided by the moon, Vuk at length reached the inner edge of the rushes. In his journey he had fallen many times, and his clothes, his hands, and his face were thick with ooze; the spiky rushes had pierced his flesh, and his face and neck were bleeding. The water now reached his thighs. He stood still while he undressed. His impatient hands feverishly unwound the long cloth that circled his stomach many times. When naked, he waded still further into the lake, and then, lifting his feet and pressing his chest against the water, he swam towards the moon lying in the lake. The dog, devoted and dumb, and seemingly driven by the same fate, followed him.

Vuk could swim well, but he was already exhausted before he had emerged from the forest of rushes and grasses. It was a long, long way to the moon in the lake, and in a little time his strokes became feeble and there was only just enough movement in his arms to keep him afloat. Turning himself on his back, he rested. All deep desire had gone from his mind. Weary, he wished for oblivion. The moon was at the bottom of the lake, waiting. He had only just to sink now where he was, and slowly, very slowly, but oh! how safely and inevitably, he would go to her.

He began to sink and to be smothered.... After a time he reappeared, feebly struggling. The dog snatched at and missed him. Vuk sank again. And after that Vuk’s body, remaining, for how long I know not, midway between the water’s surface and the lake’s bottom, was never again seen.

The dog swam in ever-widening circles round the spot where the Moon Man had disappeared until he, also, sank, perhaps joining the only friend he had ever known.

HOW HIS FRIENDS DESTROYED HIM

To Olive Warnock

To Harry Bruton it seemed an eternity before the little steamer, _Caucase_, was berthed, the gangways placed in position, and the passengers allowed to disembark on the quay at Le Pirée. For nearly half an hour he had been standing on the quay-side shouting inanities to his friend Dick Cassels who, clad in flannels, a straw hat, and a lemon-coloured tie, stood grinning on the deck and failing to catch a word that was called to him.

“Had a good time?” shouted Bruton.

Cassels, examining his watch and craning his neck forward, yelled back:

“Just 8.40.”

“Oh--damn! Can’t you hear?”

“What do you say?”

“Damn!--that’s all.”

This sort of thing could not go on indefinitely, and Bruton, shrugging his shoulders, began to laugh. Nevertheless, he was terribly anxious for Cassels to come on shore. Every minute mattered. God alone knew what might be happening at this very second in that big house on the outskirts of Athens--that house whose garden even now, in April, was one huge, thick cluster of flowers, crimson, blue and yellow.

Bruton had been in Greece a couple of years. Leaving Oxford at the age of twenty-three, he had gone to Athens to study and write. Cassels was coming to him for a few days on his way to Constantinople. Friends of many years standing, both had for some weeks been looking forward eagerly to this meeting, and now, though they were within a stone’s throw of each other, they could not clasp hands. At last the gangways were pushed from the boat to the quay, and Cassels was one of the first to step on shore.

“Let’s hurry through the Customs as quickly as possible,” said Bruton, “I’ve got a car waiting on the road.”

Five minutes later they were in the car rushing at top speed in the direction of Athens, four miles away.

“And now that those rotten Levantine Jews have ceased pawing my baggage and me,” said Cassels, “how are you?”

“Top-hole. And you?”

“Never fitter in my life. Good lord, it’s fine to see you again, Harry. Had a ripping time on board. There was a French girl who sang....”

Bruton interrupted him by placing a sudden hand on his friend’s arm.

“An awf’ly rotten thing’s happened, Dick. I must tell you all about it before we arrive. I’ve got a friend here in Athens--a man called Gascoyne. Yesterday his girl jilted him and ran off God knows where with another fellow. She played up to him--to Gascoyne, I mean--to the very last moment: spent the evening with him the day before she skedaddled. Well, Gascoyne’s done--absolutely broken. All yesterday and last night I was with him, literally keeping him from suicide. I am going to him now: I daren’t leave him alone.”

“Good Lord!” exclaimed Cassels. “Rather a weak sort of devil, isn’t he? And why the dickens should _you_ bother about him, anyway? This is going to knock the bottom out of our holiday.”

“I’m afraid it is. But, you see, he’s all alone and I’m his closest friend. His mother’s dead, his father’s away, and there he is with just one man-servant, a Greek, living alone in an enormous, rambling house. I scarcely liked to leave him even while I came to meet you.”

Cassels cursed under his breath and lit a cigarette.

“I’m beastly sorry,” said Bruton, “but what can I do? If anything should happen to him I should blame myself for ever.”

“Oh, you’re doing quite the right thing, old son,” Cassels assured him, “but what a damned ass the man is! It makes me sick the way young fools carry on about women.”

“But he’s not a fool. As self-contained and manly a chap as you could wish to meet. Now, listen. What I propose to do is this. We’ll go and seek him now, have breakfast together, and persuade him to come back with us to my place. I can easily put him up. Wherever we go we’ll take him with us. He wants pulling out of himself, and in a day or two he’ll probably be all right. But just at present he’s dangerous--dangerous to himself, I mean, though I may tell you I’ve got his revolver all right. But here we are.”

The car slowed down and stopped in front of a big white house with green shutters, standing well back from the road. A great wooden gate barred their way. In response to their ring, an oldish man came hurrying from the house.

“Everything all right?” asked Bruton.

“Yes, sir. Mister Cyril’s digging in the garden.”

And at the back of the house they found Gascoyne, a fair handsome fellow with blue eyes and freckles; he wore no coat, and his open white shirt revealed a magnificent chest.

Shaking hands with Dick Cassels, he invited them indoors.

“Coffee and things are waiting for you,” he said.

“Good!” exclaimed Cassels; “for I’m dreadfully hungry. On the boat we’ve been breakfasting at 10.30. Such a rummy breakfast! Wine and rolls and _hors d'œuvres_ and cheese.”

They stepped into the house and entered a large cool room with whitewashed walls; the pine-wood floor was bare except for an occasional Persian rug whose smooth colours held and gratified the eye.

“Do help yourselves,” said Gascoyne. “No, don’t. Sit in these easy chairs and I’ll wait on you.”

His fresh face was a little haggard and his eyes glittered. He busied himself with cups, plates, and food, and when his friends had begun eating, he eagerly and tremblingly seized a decanter of whisky, filled a champagne-glass to the brim, and drank it off neat in two gulps.

“Oh, I say,” exclaimed Cassels, “I didn’t know you had any whisky there. Do give me some.”

“Certainly. I’ll get you some soda.”

When Gascoyne had left the room, Bruton turned to his friend.

“What on earth are you drinking whisky for at this time of the morning?”

“Well, the great thing is not to let your friend think he is doing anything unusual. He knows we are watching him carefully, and a watched man always poses. He is suffering, and perhaps he is a little unhinged--all the more reason why we should not only make no comment on what he does, but should behave ourselves as nearly as possible in the same way that he does.”

“I wonder,” said Bruton.

Gascoyne entered with three or four bottles of soda-water.

“Oh, really, you shouldn’t have troubled,” protested Cassels, “for I’d much rather have it neat. I’m sick of red wine, and they hadn’t even a drop of whisky on board.”

And he helped himself to a glassful.

“How shall we spend the morning, Cyril?” asked Bruton. “Shall we drive to the Acropolis and sleep for an hour in the shade of the Parthenon?”

Gascoyne looked at him curiously for a moment, and then laughed.

“What a funny old thing you are!” he said. “No. Been to Athens before?” he asked Cassels.

“No--this is my first visit.”

“Very well, then. We’ll go to the Acropolis to-night. There’s a full moon, and one’s first sight of the Acropolis should always be by moonlight. This morning we’ll take the car to Eleusis. There are Mysteries there,” he added, darkly, “undiscoverable Mysteries. The Temple of Demeter is now a confusion of broken stones. We can bathe there. The sea is blue.”

He drank more whisky and still more, and while his friends ate their breakfast he had continual recourse to the decanter. But he exhibited none of the more obvious signs of intoxication: his voice and gait were steady; only his eyes were wild, and his face strained.

After pacing the room for a short while, he sat down in a deck-chair facing his friends.

“Finished?” he asked. “Do have some more. Those oranges were plucked only this morning. No? Well, then, come upstairs with me: I’ve got something rather magnificent I want to show you.”

He rose and led the way from the room. The house was full of greenish light reflected from the half-open shutters. The staircase leading to the upper story was made of white marble flushed gently with pink. Gascoyne, opening a door, said:

“This is my bedroom.”

They entered and he pointed to a plaster cast of a woman’s head nailed upon the wall opposite the window. Walking to the window, they half-seated themselves upon the dressing-table there and looked at the cast. Instinctively, Cassels knew it was Gascoyne’s love.

“It is very beautiful,” said he softly.

The face had the inscrutable smile of La Gioconda; there was mystery in the mouth, imagination in the eyes, and holiness dwelt on her brows.

“Who did it?” asked Bruton.

“Some artist chap,” answered Gascoyne; “as a matter of fact,” he continued, carelessly, “the man she’s run away with. He’s very clever, don’t you think?”

He walked up to it, as though scrutinizing it for the first time; then, returning, he put his face close to the face of Bruton and said:

“Damned little devil, isn’t she?”

But it was Cassels who answered him.

“She has the most wonderful face I have ever seen,” he said; “the kindest face. But, then, nearly all faces are masks. That, I suppose, is what they’re for--to deceive, I mean.”

“Outside,” said Gascoyne, “I have the most gorgeous view.”

They turned and looked. The windows were wide open. Beneath them was a thick, undulating carpet of pear-blossom as thick as a heavy fall of snow, and as brilliant as snow in the sun. The orchard was several acres in extent. In the distance were blue mountains; the sky above them had a faint tinge of purple.

“Good Lord! How wonderful!” exclaimed Cassels. “And is this Greece or Paradise?”

“It was both--till yesterday,” said Gascoyne. “Now it’s hell. By the way, Cassels, are you a good shot with a revolver?”

“Pretty fair. At least, I used to be, but I’ve had no practice for years.”

“I wonder if you can shoot as well as this.”

And on the instant he turned round and, at arm’s length, held out a Webley, pointing it straight at the cast on the opposite wall. In rapid succession he fired six rounds, smashing the cast into a hundred pieces. His friends, standing one on either side of him, looked on without a word or movement.

“Rather good shooting,” said Cassels, at length, as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world to pour lead into bedroom walls after breakfast.

Bruton, pale and trembling, exclaimed:

“But I thought I’d taken your revolver!”

“Have you taken my other revolver?” asked Gascoyne, his face working with anger. “What the devil for? Where is it? Give it me now. Get it, I tell you! Who in God’s name are you to come here stealing the things I may want at any minute?”

Bruton put his hand on Gascoyne’s arm.

“Don’t be angry with me, Cyril,” he said, penitently. “I was a fool to do it, I know. But I was so upset last night--I scarcely knew what I was doing.”

“But why did you take it?”

But again it was Cassels who answered him.

“He told me on the way here why he had taken it. He was afraid you would find the--the other man and kill him.”

Gascoyne’s face cleared a little.

“In any case, it was a damned silly thing to do,” he said.

“I know it was,” said Bruton, “but you’ve forgiven me, haven’t you? It’s up at my place--I’ll get it you this afternoon or some time to-morrow. Look here, Cyril. Why not come and stay with me? I’ve plenty of room. It’ll be a change for you.”

“Thanks. But I don’t want a change. As a matter of fact, I’m damned tired. I think I’ll go to sleep.”

He was still holding his revolver, but now he put it down on the dressing-table with a gesture of disgust.

“I’ll not go with you to Eleusis,” he added. “Use my car, won’t you? You’ll find it round at the hotel garage, and Eurinikos will drive you if you want him. I’ll call for you to-night after dinner, and we’ll all go together to the Acropolis.”

“Right,” said Cassels.

“But are you sure you’ll be able to sleep?” asked Bruton, involuntarily glancing at the revolver.

“Of course I shall be able to sleep,” answered Gascoyne, irritably; “why the hell shouldn’t I?” He hesitated a moment. “Well, good-bye for the present,” he added, in a matter-of-fact voice.

“See you to-night, then,” said Cassels, smiling frankly.

The two friends left Gascoyne, Bruton closing the door in careful silence. Out in the street, he asked:

“What do you think of him?”

“Look here, Harry,” said Cassels, “let’s not talk about it at all. If you think you ought to stay with him we’ll wait downstairs until he wakes up. But if you think he can be safely left, let’s go out for the day together and forget all about him. With a chap like that you don’t know how much is sincere and how much is acting. Probably the poor devil doesn’t know himself.”

“But he’s got his revolver with him!”

“Yes, he has. What then?”

“He may use it.”

“Precisely. For Heaven’s sake, Harry, do make up your mind what you are going to do. But let me tell you this--your presence irritates him, and it is much better for him to be left alone.”

“Well, then, we’ll leave him. We go this way for the garage.”

* * * * *

Dinner that night at the Minerva Hotel was rather a dull affair, for Bruton even at the third course began to fidget about Gascoyne and to wonder if his friend were lying dead in his bedroom.

“Let’s have some wine, Harry,” said Cassels. “What’s that golden booze the people at the next table are drinking?”

“Some native stuff--Olympus they call it, I think.”

“Well, we’ll have a bottle--two bottles.”

But the more Bruton drank the more despondent he became, and over coffee and liqueurs he said:

“It’s quite time he was here. Half-past nine.”

“For heaven’s sake, do keep calm. We can do nothing but wait.”

“Yes, I know. But I feel we ought not to have left him alone all day. How rotten he would feel when he woke up! And, in his present condition, he may be annoyed that we’ve come here to dine. I do hope my servant has given him my note telling him where to find us.”

He moved restlessly, and then rose to his feet. An idea had struck him. It was possible Gascoyne had left a note or a message for him at his flat across the way.

“Excuse me a minute, won’t you? I’ve left something at my flat that I want.”

He hurried away. In five minutes he was back again, holding a note in his hand.

“He left this at my flat this afternoon,” said Bruton, agitatedly; “what does it mean?”

Cassels read the following.

_I’m not coming to-night. I’m staying at home. All the loveliness
of the world has become cruel. Sympathy is an intrusion and
kindness bruises. Yet if you and your friend would like to come and
get drunk with me to-night, you will be welcome._

“I understand his mood well enough,” said Cassels. “We’d better be getting along, hadn’t we? The best thing we can do is to let him drink himself to sleep. To-morrow we’ll put the screw on.”

They hurried down the road and in a quarter of an hour had reached the big white house with the green shutters. In the moonlight it looked insubstantial, ethereal, like some enormous ghostly bird preparing for flight. The door of the main entrance showed there was a light in the hall, and through the half-closed shutters of one of the rooms on the ground-floor more light revealed itself.

They rang, but there was no response. Nor did their knocking evoke any movement they could hear. Ringing and knocking alternately, they stood for five minutes or so, speaking little, but into the hearts of both of them fear had begun to creep.

“Damned funny!” said Bruton, at length. “Look here, Dick, will you stay where you are while I go and investigate? He may be in the garden somewhere, or he might have dropped off to sleep in one of the outhouses.”

Cassels, sitting down on the top step, lit his pipe. Summing up the situation and attempting to calculate the chances of Gascoyne’s having committed suicide, he muttered: “More than likely--more than likely. A chap like that might do it just for the sake of making an effect--just to give the whole affair its proper dramatic close.”

Bruton was a long time away. At last he returned, running.

“Are you there, Dick? No: I’ve found nothing. He’s not there. I’ve tried all the windows I can get at, but they’re all locked. His servant sleeps out, and I don’t know where to get hold of him. We must break one of the windows.”

“Yes, I suppose we must, if it’s only to ease our own minds. This damned business is getting on my nerves.”

They selected the smallest window, broke it open, and entered the house.

“You’d better let me go first,” said Cassels, “my nerves are a bit steadier than yours.”

They entered the lit-up room--the room in which they had breakfasted. It was untenanted. The decanter which, earlier in the day, had been half full was now empty; by its side was a bottle of brandy holding a third of its original contents. Without a word, acting on the same impulse, they left the room, ascended the stairs and entered Gascoyne’s bedroom. This also was untenanted. Near the door the floor was covered with the debris of the shattered cast. Bruton walked to and almost pounced upon the dressing-table, opening one drawer after another.

“His revolver’s gone,” he said, as if the final word had been spoken.

“Is there a piano in the house?”

“Yes--why?”

“Let’s go and play it. It’ll pull us together a bit. After all, what is there more likely than that he’s gone for a long tramp? Or he might have changed his mind and gone to your place after all. In any case we can do nothing now but wait.”

A little comforted, Bruton led the way to the music-room.

“Play something, Dick: I’m too shaky,” he said.

So Cassels played some of the humane if rather turgid music of Schumann in which one may always find balm for the poisoned mind. The brooding sound brought them both consolation for a time, but at length Bruton’s mind wandered away from the music, and he began to tease and lacerate his spirit with horrible thoughts.

“Supposing he is lying dead in a cupboard somewhere,” something whispered to him, “or in a bath. He might have cut a vein and even at this moment be bleeding to death. Or he might have gone on to the roof.” Then, rising from his chair, he said, hurriedly:

“Dick--we must go and look for him--we must go and find him!”

At the first word Cassels’ fingers dropped lifeless on the keys.

“I was thinking the same thing myself,” he said. “We’ll do the ground-floor first.”

Slowly and in silence they went from one room to another, switching on the electric lights and looking in every place--likely and unlikely--which a man might have chosen to hide his own dead body in. The rooms, for the most part, were large and sparsely furnished, and a mere glance was in many cases sufficient to assure them that there, at least, no tragedy had been enacted. But in a narrow, long passage leading to the back premises, and in the back premises themselves, were many cupboards. These they opened one by one and, striking matches, peered inside.

“Damn the whole business!” exclaimed Bruton; “my legs feel like jelly. Each time I look I expect to see--something.”

And Cassels found that the hand with which he held the matches on high trembled. His body was cold and he felt sick.

Nothing on the ground-floor. In the room upstairs there was much more furniture, and they feverishly opened the lids of boxes and ottomans, looked under beds, pulled open the doors of wardrobes, and searched behind curtains. Coming out of the third bedroom they had searched, they both suddenly stood still with a sensation of terrible and grotesque fear: Gascoyne was standing at the doorway, leaning drunkenly against the jamb and watching them.

“Looking for me?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Cassels, who was the first to collect himself; “we thought you had fallen asleep in one of the bedrooms. We’ve come to drink with you.”

“Drunk enough,” said Gascoyne. “Been drinking all day. However, you fellows help yourselves: plenty of drink downstairs. Staying the night? Good. I’m going to bed. Choose your own rooms. S’long.”

He groped his way to his bedroom. Bruton followed him. Cassels, standing in the passage, heard the following conversation.

“Are you sure you’re all right, Cyril?”

“Course I’m all right. Why the hell shouldn’t I be all right? What’s the matter with me, eh? That’s what I want to know--what’s the matter with me?”

“Oh--nothing. Of course there’s nothing. Good night, then.”

Bruton emerged from the room pale and excited. When they had reached the foot of the stairs, he whispered:

“I’ve got it. I’ve got his revolver. I took it out of his coat-pocket. Look! All six chambers are loaded.”

After a drink the two friends, choosing separate rooms, went to bed.

* * * * *

It must have been about three o’clock next morning that Cyril Gascoyne awoke with an intolerable thirst. For a little while he lay wondering where he was and trying to remember the events of the previous day. Like a nightmare they came to him, and with them came a feeling of self-disgust.

Sitting up in bed he groped about for his coat and, taking a box of matches from one of his pockets, struck a light. Some blind instinct made him feel in the right-hand side-pocket to discover if his revolver was still there. The pocket was empty.

In a flash he jumped out of bed and turned on the light.

“Damn him!” he muttered; “he’s got them both now!”

And then his brain, overwrought and dizzied with the fumes of alcohol, began to breed the thoughts and desires of madness.

“So Bruton thought I was going to commit suicide, did he? And he’s tried to outwit me! The damned fool! Why, blast it, if I’d wanted to shoot myself I would have shot myself. Why not? But I’ll show him. He can’t get the better of me--I’m damned if he can.”

He chuckled with insane laughter, and his eyes became deep with cunning. Having turned out the electric light, he lit a candle, noiselessly opened the door, and listened. Not a sound. Yes: breathing--the sound of someone breathing deeply in his sleep. He crept along the passage, stopped and listened again. The sound came from the room on his right, the door of which was open. For a brief second he looked inside: it was Bruton, fast asleep.

Gascoyne had no doubt at all that his revolver lay under the pillow beneath Bruton’s head. He was as confident it was there as if he had seen it. He extinguished the candle, put it on the floor, and crept into the bedroom on his hands and knees, making no sound, and breathing through both mouth and nostrils. His fingers slid along the mattress until they reached the pillows. Then for a minute he paused. Gently, gently his open hand felt its way inch by inch, pressing itself hard upon the mattress. Again he paused. The sleeper did not move. Then, once more, his hand began its stealthy work, exploring, sensitive, apprehensive....

In ten minutes he was sitting on the floor holding the revolver, sweat on his forehead, a dreadful dryness in his throat. And now he rose to his feet and walked quickly and agitatedly but very silently to his own room, locking the door behind him.

“I’ll show him!” he muttered. “I’ll teach him to meddle.”

Taking a thick eiderdown quilt from a cupboard, he spread it carefully on the bed. Then, with the revolver still in his hand, he crept head-first beneath the clothes, dragging them closely around him....

No one heard the shot that was fired....

Not until the marvellous April dawn of Greece came that morning did Bruton wake up and, jumping out of bed, try oh! so quietly to open Gascoyne’s door. For, if Gascoyne slept, he did not wish to wake him.

THE VICTIM

To Marcel Xystobam

I suppose there are few civilian prisons in the Near East more humanely conducted and governed than the cosmopolitan Citadel of Salonika. Yet the Citadel is most inhuman. Men rot there: their brains rot, and their bodies become flabby, sickly and inert.

If, as a casual and inquiring visitor, you enter through the archway, you will be told to go to the right and then make a sudden turn to the left into a kind of cage which leads you to a staircase; mounting the stairs, you reach a platform placed high in the true centre of a circle. The circle below you is divided into four roofless segments: in one segment are Greeks; in another, Bulgars; in the third, Turks; in the fourth, Armenians, Montenegrins, Spanish Jews, and men of many other nationalities. The prisoners are separated by high walls; for if they mingled with each other they would fight, and perhaps kill; but well-behaved victims of law, if they choose, may leave for a short time one segment for another.

The Citadel is inhuman because the men living there are not compelled to work. Any work is better than none. Even a treadmill is a boon compared with everlasting indolence. I have been there many times and, fascinated, have watched young men sitting with their backs to the walls, staring with unfocussed eyes at--nothing. Always staring at nothing and, no doubt, thinking of nothing, and hoping nothing and regretting nothing.

For this reason they decay.

* * * * *

Euripitos Cavalcini--half Greek, half Italian--had not yet recovered from the shock of his arrest, trial and sentence. Three months ago he was one of the proudest men in Salonika--nay, one of the most overbearing, one of the most insolent. He owned much land, two breweries, and four streets of houses in the slums; he kept a flaunting large-bosomed courtesan; he was a patron of the arts, and the walls of two of his large rooms sported many of Rops’ indecencies. He commanded respect, admiration. As soon as he entered a bank, lo! the manager was by his side. And before he had time to sit down at a restaurant table, the head waiter was reporting to him the latest additions to his wine-cellar.

But successful and magnificent though Euripitos Cavalcini was, he had his limitations. Life intoxicated him, and his grandiose vanity was an incessant drug. In Salonika there were cleverer men than he, and when he floated the India Bazaar Company with a capital of half-a-million, he felt strong enough to own half the world as enemies. But he was found out. The colossal swindle ruined many families, and even before he was pronounced guilty great crowds of men and women would gather round the court to cast insult upon him as he was taken in and escorted out.

The sentence of two years’ imprisonment broke him. His magnificence fell from him in a single hour, and the insolent, hot spirit of him became abased and cringing.

That is why, when in the Citadel, he was so humble. The lord of life had become life’s slave. He was afraid of the meanest and most wretched of his fellow-prisoners. Life had turned upon him once and brought him to the dust, and some dark fear warned him that even yet life had not had its full revenge.

So he humbled himself and served others. The courtesan whom he had loved used, twice a week, to bring him food--cooked meats, fruit and sometimes a bottle of wine. These he would press into the hands of others--especially those who eyed him with contempt or who were harsh to him. Particularly did he cultivate the friendship of the big and strong, partly because he feared them, and partly because he hoped that in time of need--physical need--they would come to his defence.

Soon he became the victim of a great bearded man with small eyes of cunning, a man who, towering contemptuously above others, strode up and down the prison half his waking hours, his thick bare arms folded on his chest, his head set defiantly upon a bullock-like neck. This man was named Aristides, and it was said he was there because he had half-killed a demirep who had not kept faith with him.

“Take this, Aristides,” said Cavalcini, one afternoon, pulling a bottle of wine from beneath his cloak and furtively handing it to the bearded giant who was striding hither and thither.

Aristides, taking the bottle by the neck, held it up above his head against the sky’s brilliant blue.

“It is full?” he asked.

“Yes, it is full. And I have some grapes also.”

A big bunch of grapes changed hands. Aristides, having torn off a mouthful with his teeth, chewed them meditatively, spat out the skins on Cavalcini’s feet, and then stared down on his victim.

“Anything else?” he asked, loudly.

“No,” faltered Cavalcini.

With a snarling smile of amused contempt, Aristides resumed his walk.

* * * * *

There were terrible hours when Cavalcini gave way to morbid introspection. There was nothing in him that he kept sacred from himself; there was nothing so vile that he did not wish to understand it. Yet this habit of introspection dragged him deeper and deeper into dejection.

One morning he threw himself on the ground near the wall and covered his face with his cloak.

“Why am I so afraid?” he asked himself. “What harm can come to me here? Aristides will not hurt me. Aristides is my friend.”

Presently, he slept. It was a burning July day, and here, in this roofless prison, the air burned one’s skin. There was a faint, foul odour. The hard, enamelled sky and the sun beating on the walls mocked the prisoners. The sentry on the little raised platform in their midst looked pale and ill. A boy-prisoner--he had stabbed his mother--moaned occasionally in his sleep. There was little sound in any of the prison’s four compartments, for everyone was lying down exhausted--some asleep, some merely stupefied. Everyone except Aristides. The giant, saturnine and insolent, promenaded like an emperor who has covered himself with degradation. His eyes, examining the sweating men around him, picked out Cavalcini. Walking up to him, he kicked his victim on the buttocks. Cavalcini lifted his head and, seeing Aristides, staggered to his feet.

“Walk with me!” commanded Aristides.

For a full hour they strode up and down, no word passing between them, Cavalcini apprehensive and trembling, Aristides bearing himself as though ten thousand eyes were upon him.

* * * * *

A slow month crawled from the future into the past. There were hours--especially at night time when all the prisoners lay herded together in the big room upstairs--in which Cavalcini took the edge off his suffering by thoughts and half-formulated plans of escape. In his heart he knew he would never escape, that he would never attempt it, but it gave him pleasure to devise schemes for eluding the sentry, for scaling the walls, for leaving Salonika for the freer world of Marseilles or Port Said.

One day he thought he would curry favour with Aristides by talking to him of his plans. So, very humbly and with his eyes on the ground, he walked over to where the big bearded man was standing.

“I’ve had something on my mind for a long time past,” he began; “something in which you might be willing to help me.”

“Well,” said Aristides, “what is it?”

“Escape--escape from this den--this den of animals.”

His companion laughed.

“Isn’t that what most of us have been thinking of ever since we came here? Try again: think of something new.”

“But it could be done. I’m sure of it.”

“Can you scale the wall?” asked Aristides, nodding towards the outer wall that seemed to tower in the sky.

“No. But I might walk through gates that are locked and barred.”

“How? Speak out. Don’t play with _me_.”

“I mean bribery. I have money--plenty of money. That is to say, I can get plenty.”

“How much?”

“A thousand drachmæ. Ten thousand drachmæ.”

“Ho-ho?”

Aristides spat.

“You want my help?” he asked.

“I thought we might get away together,” said Cavalcini, afraid of what he had already spoken, and horrified at the things he yet might utter. “Two can sometimes contrive a thing that is impossible for one,” he added.

“Well,” said Aristides, “ten thousand drachmæ would not be enough. Can you get twenty thousand?”

“I might. I will try. My friend is coming this afternoon with my food. I will ask her what she can do.”

And as Aristides stood silently contemptuous, Cavalcini turned miserably away, feeling that he had committed himself to some frightful scheme he could not possibly carry out, and that he had done so to no purpose, for it was obvious Aristides was no better disposed towards him now than he had been before.

“I must not talk to anyone again,” he said to himself; “my nerve is gone, and I say things I do not mean.”

It was true he could get the sum of money he had named, but it was not true that he wished to attempt to escape. Only heroes and very desperate men escaped from that prison, and he was too deeply involved in misery to be desperate. But when his mistress came and he spoke to her for a few moments, as the prison rules permitted, he told her how to get the money.

“Bring it next time you come--bring it in hundred-drachmæ notes. Wrap them into a little parcel and when you are talking to me, slip it into this pocket of my tunic. I will stand as I am standing now. But be very careful you are not observed.”

“But where shall you go when you escape?”

“I don’t know,” he said, miserably.

She looked at him with eyes of compassion, took him in her arms and kissed him.

A few days later she called again, and passed the money into his pocket, unobserved.

“Don’t get yourself into worse trouble than you are in now, _mon p’tit_,” she said, her eyes full of tears.

He took the notes to Aristides, retaining five hundred drachmæ for himself, of which he told Aristides nothing.

“I have brought you the money,” he said.

Aristides’ small eyes almost disappeared into his head with greed and cunning.

“Do not give me it now,” he said; “many eyes are upon us. That swine of a sentry is looking. Wait until we go to bed.”

And he turned on his heel and began walking disdainfully to and fro.

Now, at the time of which I am writing, the sentry on duty over the prisoners in the Citadel was relieved every two hours. By day there was only one sentry; by night there were two--one in the “compound,” one on the gallery above. Against one of these men Aristides nursed a fanatical hatred. They had known each other for a long time; indeed, they were both from the same mountain village; but they had not met for many years. Critias had married the girl Aristides loved, and though she was now dead and Critias had come down in the world, nevertheless Aristides’ hatred had flamed anew at sight of his old enemy. Nor had Critias wished for a reconciliation; on the contrary, he had sought every opportunity to revile and taunt Aristides in his state of bondage. Aristides had sworn to have revenge on the sentry before he left the prison, and so near was his hatred and so dear was the thought of vengeance, that he could not persuade himself to attempt to escape until he had done his worst against his old enemy.

As he walked hither and thither, his thick hairy arms folded on his chest, his chin on his bosom, he matured the half-formed plans that had come to his mind on the first occasion on which Cavalcini had spoken to him of escape. His term of imprisonment had only three more months to run: he would gladly serve those months if he could compass the death of his enemy, throw the guilt upon another, and secure at least a substantial portion of the money Cavalcini possessed.

The whole thing was so simple that he smiled contemptuously at Cavalcini as he passed him.

* * * * *

That night as they were preparing for bed, Cavalcini once more offered the money to Aristides.

“Give me half,” said the giant, “and keep the other half for yourself. I will tell you my plans to-morrow.”

“But where shall I hide it?” asked Cavalcini.

“Where I hide mine--in the pocket of your robe. Nobody would think of looking there for valuables.”

And he ostentatiously put the notes Cavalcini had given him in the inside pocket of his robe.

But before an hour had gone Aristides had secretly removed them to the middle of the straw in his mattress.

Cavalcini could not sleep. His head was hot and light with anxiety. He would, he knew, have to attempt to escape with Aristides, yet the prospect of this attempt terrified him. But Aristides, it was evident, was depending upon him, and he did not dare to disappoint him.

Because of his apprehensiveness, Cavalcini’s senses became abnormally keen, and it was with a feeling of nausea that he felt the sour odour of his fellow-prisoners as they turned in their beds. He could hear a low voice in distress at the far end of the room, and he told himself that it must be the wretched boy-prisoner talking in his sleep.

And then he became aware of someone moving: there was no sound, and the sense of movement was not conveyed to his brain by his eyes. It was as though stealthy and impending disaster were in the air, impinging on his brain through some unknown sense-channel.

He raised his head an inch and saw the bulky form of Aristides approaching. Cavalcini shook with fear. The giant was undressed, and his form, without his long, flowing robe, seemed much larger and stronger than when fully clad. Nearer and nearer he crept until he reached Cavalcini’s bed, where he stopped. The little man simulated sleep, but under his lids his eyes watched what might befall. Aristides took Cavalcini’s robe from the end of his bed and donned it; it fitted grotesquely. Then, in silence, he passed the foot of the bed and made his way to the treacherous, winding stone stairway leading to the four compartments below.

Terrified, hypnotized, Cavalcini sat up in bed, crawled to its foot, and watched this wanderer in the night. He saw Aristides--for there was a moon--descend the steps and crawl by the side of the wall as cruelly and as sinuously as a tiger. The sentry, twenty yards from Aristides, appeared to be facing him, but it seemed certain he saw nothing, for he made no movement and called out no challenge. Aristides stopped, advanced a little, and stopped again, crouching. His body was so tightly squeezed against the wall that to Cavalcini it seemed to have become part of it. For a long time he did not move. But when the sentry turned his back on the would-be murderer and with slow regular paces began to walk away from him, Aristides rushed forward with a bound. Cavalcini could not see what happened next, but he caught the glint of a knife raised on high, and a few seconds later he saw the sentry lying motionless on the ground and the giant running back to the stone stairway. It had all taken in place in absolute silence. For a few moments Cavalcini did not realize what had happened. When, at last, he understood, his brain seemed to freeze with horror. Trembling, he sank back on his pillow and shut his eyes. He dared not move: it was dangerous even to breathe. He felt, rather than saw Aristides return and pass his bed, and he knew that his robe had been replaced.

Silence, save for the rapid, distressed muttering of a boy-prisoner at the far end of the room. After what had happened, it seemed an outrage that the night should continue. Cavalcini, feeling himself to be the victim of evil powers it was useless to resist, lay shivering with cold in the warm night, saying to himself over and over again.

“He has killed the wrong man! Why didn’t he kill me? He has killed the wrong man! Why didn’t he kill me?”

Suddenly, down in the “compound” below, a voice, sharp and clear, rang out. The guard was being summoned. The body had been found. Armed soldiers entered. Torches and candles were brought. Orders were given and countermanded. Swords were drawn and bayonets fixed. In two or three minutes the soldiers began to climb the stairway and take up positions along the gallery, fifteen paces apart, by the prisoners’ beds. A shrill whistle was blown many times until all the prisoners were awake.

“Every man will sit up in bed!” called out the officer in charge of the guard, speaking alternately in several languages. “If anyone attempts to get out of bed, he will be shot.”

And then began a systematic search. Cavalcini only dimly realized what was happening, but when the officer and a sergeant reached his bed he became a ghastly victim of terror. His very looks condemned him. The officer eyed him with searching suspicion.

“Get out of bed and stand up!” he ordered.

Cavalcini put his feet on the floor and attempted to stand, but he collapsed on the bed, a miserable heap of quaking fear.

“Blood!” exclaimed the sergeant. “Look! There’s blood on his gown!”

“Stand up!” commanded the officer.

Cavalcini slipped to the floor and crawled forward on his hands and knees, gibbering.

Then the officer, searching the pockets of Cavalcini’s gown, pulled out a handful of hundred-drachma notes.

“Arrest him!” he said, calmly.

Cavalcini was pulled on to his feet and half-dragged, half-carried to the dark little hole, less than four feet high, that is to be found in the stone wall at the top of the stairway.

There he lay in a muddled heap, bereft of sense, every nerve quivering.

* * * * *

Three months later, Aristides, with his woman, was dining at one of the flashy restaurants on the quay-side.

“Tell me!” she said, pressing her foot upon his and rubbing his calf against her knee; “tell me! Where did you get all your money?”

“Well,” said he, smiling at her cunningly, “it was given me by a great friend of mine in prison. He used to give me half of everything he had. Poor devil! He’s dead. They shot him. He didn’t behave himself very well. He murdered one of the sentries.”

TRENCH MADNESS

To Ellary Warden

Le Grand Couronné was the last of the mountain peaks to disappear in the darkness that so quickly follows twilight in Greece. To Valentine Latimer, excited by malaria, it seemed to curtesy as it went. He raised himself on to the fire-step, took off the gauze mask that protected his face from mosquitoes, and handed it to his orderly.

“Won’t you keep it on, sir?” asked his orderly; “the mosquitoes are out in their millions to-night.”

“It’ll make no difference,” said Latimer, “and I can’t breathe with that damned thing smothering me.... How heavy the air is!”

His servant stood behind him leaning with his back against the rock trench-wall, his head--so tall was he--almost touching the parados.

“We’d better visit the sentry-groups, Morgan,” said Latimer.

The man had slung his rifle, but Latimer did not move. He was listening to the fitful rustle of the trees immediately overhead. The sound reminded him of his father’s garden at home--the garden in which he had spent the happiest hours of his life. The little breeze went its way, and almost immediately a sour smell stole up from the trench. Into his fevered brain came the word “decay ... decay,” and stayed there like a drop of poison.

“Everything is strangely quiet,” he observed.