Chapter IV: Part 4

The crowd shouted in unison as they caught sight of Lemois' gray head, all the whiter from the grime of powdered plaster. Then came another and louder shout, followed by another piercing shriek from Gaston's mother as her boy's sagging, insensible body was brought clear of the wreck. None of his bones were broken, none that Lemois could find; something had struck the boy--some falling weight--perhaps a bust from one of the bookcases over his head. That was the last the lad had known until he found his mother kneeling beside him in the rain and mud, where the cold wind and rain revived him.

But our work was not yet over. The miscellaneous assortment of precious things housed in the garage must be rearranged before nightfall and protected against breakage and leakage. Watchmen must be selected and made comfortable in the garage, a telegram despatched to madame at her apartment in Paris, with details of the catastrophe and salvage, and another to her estate at Rouen, and, more important still, Gaston must be carried home, put to bed, and a doctor sent for. This done, Herbert and the rest of us could go back to the inn in Le Blanc's motor.

The first load brought Herbert, Brierley, and myself, Le Blanc driving: Lemois had remained with Gaston. Mignon, with staring, inquiring eyes, her apron over her head to protect her from the wet, met us at the outer gate, but not a word was said by any of us about Gaston, a crack on a fisherman's head not being a serious affair--and then again, this one was as tough as a rudder-post and as full of spring as an oar--and then, more important still, the poor child with her hungry, tear-stained eyes had had trouble enough for one day, as we all knew. Later when Leà and I were alone, I told her the story, describing Gaston's pluck and bravery and his risking his life to save Lemois--the dear old woman clasping her fingers together as if in church when I added that "he'd be all right in the morning after a good night's rest."

"Pray God nothing happens to him!" she said at last, crossing herself. "Mignon is only a child and it would break her heart. Monsieur Lemois does not wish it, and there is trouble--much trouble--ahead for her, but while there is life there is hope. He is a good Gaston--his mother and I were girls together; she had only this one left--the boat upset and the father was drowned off _Les Dents Terribles_ two years ago."

Louis, whose heart is as big as his body, was less cautious. He must have a word with the girl herself. And so, when we had all gathered before the fire to dry out--for most of us were still wet and all ravenous--he called out to her in his cheery, hearty way:

"That is a plucky garçon of yours, mademoiselle. Monsieur Lemois would have been flattened into a pancake but for him. When the house fell it was Monsieur Gaston who jerked him away from the window and rolled a sofa on top of him. Ah!--a brave garçon, and one who does you credit."

The girl--she was busying herself with her dishes at the time--blushed and said: "Merci, monsieur," her eyes dancing over the praise of her lover, but she was too modest and too well trained to say more.

Again Le Blanc's siren came shrieking down the road. This time it would bring Lemois. I threw on another log to warm them both, and Louis began collecting a small assortment of glasses, Mignon following with a decanter.

Several minutes passed, during which we waited for the heavy tread of fat Le Blanc. Then the door opened and Leà appeared; she was trembling from head to foot and white as a ghost.

"Monsieur wants you--all of you--something has happened! Not you, Mignon--you stay here."

Inside the court-yard, close to the door of the Marmouset, stood Le Blanc's motor. Lemois was on the foot-board leaning over the body of a man stretched out on the two seats.

"Easy now," Lemois whispered to Louis, who had pushed his way alongside of the others crowding about the car. "He collapsed again as soon as you all left. There is something serious I am afraid--that is why I brought him here. His mother wanted to take him home, but that's no place for him now. He must stay here to-night. We stopped and left word for the doctor and he will be here in a minute. Be careful, Monsieur Louis--not in there--upstairs."

Louis was careful--careful as if he were lifting a baby; but he did not delay, nor did he take him upstairs. Picking up the unconscious fisherman bodily in his arms, he bore him clear of the machine, carried him through the open door of the Marmouset, and stretched him full length on the lounge, tucking a cushion under his head as the lad sank down into the soft mattress.

As the flare of the table candles stirred by the night wind lighted up his face, Mignon, who had been pushing aside the chairs from out the wounded man's way, believing it to be Le Blanc, sprang forward, and with a half-stifled cry sank on her knees beside the boy. Lemois lunged forward, stooped quickly, and grasping her firmly by the arm, dragged her to her feet.

"Leave the room!--you are in the way," he said in low, angry tones. "There are plenty here to take care of him."

Louis, who had moved closer to the girl, and who had already begun to quiet her fears, wheeled suddenly and would have broken out in instantaneous protest had not Leà, her lean, tall body stretched to its utmost, her flat, sunken chest heaving with indignation, stepped in front of Lemois.

"You are not kind, monsieur," she said coldly, with calm, unflinching eyes.

"Hold your tongue! I do not want your advice. Take her out!--this is no place for her!"

Louis' eyes blazed. Unkindness to a woman was the one thing that always enraged him. Then his better judgment worked.

"Give her to me, Leà," he said. "Come, Mignon! Don't cry, child; he's not hurt so bad; he'll be all right in the morning. Move away there, all of you!" and he led the sobbing girl from the room.

A dull, paralyzing silence fell upon us all. Those of us who knew only the gentle, kind-hearted, always courteous Lemois were dumb with astonishment. Had he, too, received a crack on his head which had unsettled his judgment, or was this, after all, the real Lemois?

The opening of the door and the hurried re-entrance of Louis, followed by the doctor, a short, thick-set man with a bald head, for a time relieved the tension.

"I was on my way near here when your messenger met me," called out the doctor with a nod of salutation to the room at large as he dropped into a chair beside the sufferer, thus supplanting Brierley, who during Lemois' outburst had been wiping the blood-stained face and lips with a napkin and finger-bowl he had caught up from the table.

There was an anxious hush; the men standing in a half-circle awaiting the decision; the doctor feeling for broken limbs, listening to his breathing, his hand on the boy's heart. Then there came a convulsive movement and the wounded man lifted his head and gazed about him.

The doctor bent closer, studied Gaston's eyes for a moment, rose to his feet, tucked his spectacles into a black leather case which he took from his pocket, and said calmly:

"I think there's no fracture of the skull. I'll know definitely later on. He is, as I at first supposed, suffering from shock and has swallowed a lot of dust. He must have complete rest; get him to bed somewhere and send for a woman in the village to take care of him. I'll come to-morrow. Who carried him in here?"

Louis nodded his head.

"Then pick him up again and, if Monsieur Lemois is willing, put him in the room on the ground floor at the end of the court. I can get at him then from the outside without disturbing anybody. You, gentlemen, so I hear, are down here for your pleasure and not to run a hospital, and so I will see you are not disturbed."

Louis leaned down, picked the young fisherman up in his arms with no more effort than if he had been handling a bag of flour, and carried him out of the room, across the court, Leà following, and into the basement chamber, where he laid him on the bed, leaving him with the remark:

"Now stay here and take care of him, Leà, no matter what Monsieur Lemois says."

Meanwhile Lemois had poured out a glass of wine for the doctor, waited until he had drank it, thanked him in his most courteous tones for his promptness, bidden him good-night on the threshold, closed the door behind him, and without a word to any of us had resumed his place by the fire.

Another embarrassing silence ensued. Every one felt that the incident, if aggravated by any untimely remarks, might lead up to an outbreak which would bring our visit to a premature close. And yet both Leà and Mignon were so beloved by all of us, and the brutality of the attack upon the little maid was so uncalled for, that we felt something was due to our own self-respect.

Herbert, catching our suggestive glances, essayed the task. He was the man held in most esteem by Lemois, and might perhaps be allowed to say things which the old gentleman would not take from the rest; and then again, whatever the outcome, Herbert could be depended upon to keep his temper no matter what Lemois might answer in return.

"Mignon did nothing, monsieur, except show her love for her sweetheart--why break out on her?" Herbert's voice was low, but there was meaning behind it.

"I won't have this thing!" came the indignant retort, all his poise gone. "That's why I broke out on her. Mignon is not for fishermen, nor ditch-diggers, nor road-makers. She is like my child--I have other things in store for her. I tell you I will not have it go on--she knows why and Leà knows why! I have said so, and it is finished!"

"He about saved your life a little while ago. Does that count for anything?" The words edged their way through tightly closed lips.

"Yes--for me; that is why I brought him home--but he has not saved Mignon's life. He would wreck it. She will marry somebody else and he will marry somebody else. There are too many thick-heads along the coast now. I decide to steer clear of them."

Louis, who now that his human-ambulance trip was over, had returned to the Marmouset, stood wondering. What had taken place in his absence was a mystery. He had, after depositing his burden, taken Mignon to Pierre and sat her down by the kitchen fire, where he had left her crying softly to herself.

Lemois waited until Louis had found a seat and went on:

"You, gentlemen, are my friends, and so I will explain to you what I would not explain to others. You wonder at what I have just said and done. I try to do my duty--that is my religion, and my only religion. I have tried to do it to-night. With your help I have done what I could to save my friend's property, because she was away and helpless. She has now left to her some of the things she loved. So it is with this girl. Ten years ago I found her, a child of eight, crying in the street. For months she had gotten up at daylight, had washed and dressed her two baby brothers, cooked their breakfast, cleaned house, and tucked in her bedridden mother; but, try as she would, she was late for school--not once, but several times. This was against the rules, and when the prizes and diplomas were given out, all she got was a scolding. Later on she was dismissed. Because she had no other place to go, and because I had no child of my own, I took her home with me. As I assumed all responsibility for her, and she has no one but me, I shall carry it out to the end, exactly as if she were my daughter. My own daughter should not and would not marry a fisherman, neither shall Mignon. Madame la Marquise de la Caux is in Paris, and I do what I can to look after her belongings. Madame, Mignon's mother, is in heaven, and the remnant of her people God knows where, and so I do what I can to look after their child."

"But has the girl no say in the matter?" broke out Louis angrily. "You are not to live with him--she is."

"That may make some difference in your country, Monsieur Louis, but it makes no difference in mine. In France we parents and guardians are the best judges of what is and what is not good for our children. Now, gentlemen, let us brush it all away. It is very creditable to your hearts to be so interested in the child; I do not blame you. She is very lovely and very amusing, and when she leaves us--even with the man I shall choose for her--it will be a great grief for me, for you see I am quite alone in the world. So, Monsieur Herbert, there is my hand. Not to have you understand me would be harder than all the rest, for I esteem you as I do no other man. And you too, Monsieur Louis, with your big arms and your big heart. Let us be friends once more. And now I am tired out with the day's work, and if you do not mind I will say 'Good-night!'"

VII

IN WHICH OUR LANDLORD BECOMES BOTH ENTERTAINING AND INSTRUCTIVE

The experiences of the previous day had left their mark in stiffened joints and blistered hands. Herbert was nursing a wrenched finger, Lemois had discovered a bruised back, and Louis a strained wrist--slight accidents all of them, unheeded in the excitement of the rescue, and only definitely located when the several victims got out of bed the next morning.

The real sufferer was Gaston. Two stitches had been taken in his shapely head and, although he was quite himself and restless as a goat, the doctor had given positive orders to Leà to keep him where he was until his wound should heal. To this Lemois had added another and far more cruel mandate, forbidding Mignon either outside or inside his bedroom door under pain of death, or words to that effect.

It was not to be wondered at, therefore, that the day was passed quietly, the men keeping indoors, although the storm had whirled down the coast, leaving behind it only laughing blue skies and a light wind.

The one exciting incident was a telegram from madame la marquise, thanking Lemois and his "brave body of men" for their heroic services and adding that she would come as soon as possible to inspect what she called her "ruin," and would then give herself the pleasure of thanking each and every one in person. This was followed some hours later by a second despatch inquiring after the wounded fisherman and charging Lemois to spare no expense in bringing him back to health; and a third one from Marc saying he had gone to Paris and would not be back for several days.

The absorbing topic, of course, had been Lemois' outbreak on Mignon and subsequent justification of his conduct. Louis was the most outspoken of all, and, despite Lemois' defence, valiantly espoused the girl's cause, the rest of us with one accord pledging ourselves to fight her battles and Gaston's, no matter at what cost. Brierley even went so far as to offer to relieve Leà, during which blissful interim he would smuggle Mignon in for a brief word of sympathy, but this was frowned upon and abandoned when Herbert reminded us that we were in a sense Lemois' guests and could not, therefore, breed treachery among his servants. To this was added his positive conviction that the girl's sufferings would so tell upon the old man that before many days he would not only regret his attitude, but would abandon his ambitious plans and give her to the man she loved.

If Lemois had any such misgivings there was no evidence of it in his manner. But for an occasional wry face when he moved, due to the blow of the overturned sofa, he was in an exceptionally happy frame of mind. Nor did he show the slightest resentment toward any one of us for not agreeing with him. Even when the twilight hour arrived--a restful hour when the fellowship of the group came out strongest, and men voiced the thoughts that lay closest to their hearts--no word escaped him. Music, church architecture, the influence of Rodin and Rostand on the art and literature of our time, French politics--all were touched upon in turn, but not a word of the condition of Gaston's broken head nor the state of Mignon's bleeding heart--nothing so harrowing. Indeed, so gay was he, so full of quaint sayings and odd views of life and things, that when Brierley sat down at the spinet and ran his fingers over the keys, giving us snatches of melodies from the current music of the day, he begged for some mediæval anthems "as a slight apology to my suffering ears," and when Brierley complied with what he claimed was an old Italian chant, having found the original in Padua, Lemois branched off into a homily on church music which evinced such a mastery of the subject that even Brierley, who is something of a musician himself, was filled with amazement. Indeed, the discussion was in danger of becoming so heated that the old man, with a twinkle in his eye, relieved the tension with:

"No, you are quite wrong, Monsieur Brierley, if you will forgive me for saying so. Your chant is not Italian; it is Spanish. I have a better way of knowing than by searching among musty libraries and sacristies. When your fingers were touching the keys I looked around my Marmouset to see who was listening beside you gentlemen. I soon discovered that the two heads on Monsieur Herbert's chair were glum and solemn; they might have been asleep so dull were they. My old Virgin in the corner, which I found in Rouen, and which is unquestionably French, never raised her eyes; but the two carved saints over your head, the ones I got in Salamanca when I was last there, were overjoyed. One smiled so sweetly that I could not take my eyes from her, and the other kept such perfect time with his head that I was sorry when you stopped. So you see, your chant is unquestionably Spanish, and I am glad."

Nor did his spirits flag when dinner was over and he took his place by the coffee-table, handing Mignon the tiny cups without even a look of reproach at the demure, sad-eyed girl who was keeping up so brave a heart.

The change was a delightful one to the coterie. As long as the embarrassing situation continued there was no telling what might happen. A question of cuisine could be settled by more or less cayenne, but the question of a marriage settlement was another affair. Press him too far and the old gentleman might have bundled us all into the street and thrown our trunks after us.

The wisest thing, therefore, was to meet his cordiality more than half way, an easy solution, really, since his _amende honorable_ of the night before had put us all on our mettle. He should be made to realize and at once that all traces of ill feeling of every kind had been wiped out of our hearts.

Herbert, who, as usual when any patching up was to be done, was chief pacificator, opened the programme by becoming suddenly interested in the several rare specimens of furniture that enriched the room in which we sat, complimenting Lemois on his good taste in banishing from his collection the severe, uncomfortable chairs and sofas of Louis XIV and XV, and calling special attention to the noble Spanish and Italian specimens about us, with wide seats, backs, and arms, where, even in the old days, tired mortals could have lounged without splitting their stockings or disarranging their wigs, had the dons and contessas worn any such absurdities.

"Quite true, Monsieur Herbert, but you must remember that the aristocrats of that day never sat down--their mirrors were hung too high for them to see themselves should they recline. It was an era of high heels and polished floors, much low bowing, and overmuch ceremony. And yet it was a delightful period, and a most instructive one, for the antiquary, even if it did end with the guillotine. I have always thought that nothing so clearly defines the taste and intelligence of a nation as their furniture and house decoration. The frivolities of the Monarchs of the period is to be found in every twist and curve of their several styles, just as the virility and out-door life of the Greeks and Romans are expressed in their solid-marble benches and carved-stone sofas. Since I have no place in my gardens for ruins of this kind, I do not collect them--nor would I if I had. There should be, I think, a certain sane appropriateness in every collection, even in so slight a one as my own, and a Greek garden with a line of motor cars on one side and a Normandy church on the other would, I am afraid, be a little out of keeping," and he laughed softly.

"But you haven't kept close to that rule in this room," said Herbert, gazing about him. "We have everything here from Philip the Second to Napoleon the Third."

"I have kept much closer than you think, Monsieur Herbert. The panels, ceiling, furniture, and stained glass, as well as the fireplace, are more or less of one period. The fixtures, such as the andirons, candelabra, and curtains, might have been obtained in one of the antiquary shops of the day--if any such existed; and so could the china, silver, and glass. What I had in mind was, not a museum, but a room that would take you into its arms--a restful, warm, enticing room--one full of surprises, too"--and he pointed to his rarest possession, the Black Virgin, half hidden in the recess of the chimney breast. "You see, a very rare thing is always more effective when you come upon it suddenly than when you confront it in the blaze of a window or under a fixed light. Your curiosity is then aroused, and you must stoop to study it. I arrange these surprises for all my most precious things.

"Here, for instance"--and he crossed the room, opened a cabinet, and brought from its hiding-place a crystal chalice with a legend in Latin engraved in gold letters around the rim, placing it on the table so that the light from the candelabra could fall upon it--"here is something now you would not look at twice, perhaps, if it were put in the window and filled with flowers. It must be hidden away before you appreciate it. I found it in a convent outside of Salamanca some years ago. It is evidently the work of some old monk who spent his life in doing this sort of thing, and is a very rare example of that kind of craftsmanship. Be very careful, Monsieur Louis, you will break the monk's heart, as well as my own, if you smash it."

"Brierley is the man you want to look out for," answered the painter, bending closer over the precious object. "He'll be borrowing it to mix high-balls in unless you keep the cabinet locked."

"Monsieur Brierley is too good for any such sacrilege. And now please stand aside, and you, Monsieur High-Muck, will you kindly move your arm?" and he lifted the vase from the cloth and replaced it in the cabinet, adding with a shrewd glance, "You see, it is always wise to keep the most precious things hidden away, with, perhaps, only an edge peeping out to arouse your curiosity--and I have many such."

"Like a grisette's slipper below a petticoat," remarked Louis _sotto voce_.

"Quite like a grisette's slipper, my dear Monsieur Louis. What a nimble wit is yours! Only, take an old man's advice and don't be too curious."

Every one roared, Louis louder than any one, and when quiet reigned once more Herbert, who was determined to keep the talk along the lines which would most interest our landlord, and who had examined the chalice with the greatest interest, said, pointing to the cabinet:

"And now show us something else. Here I have lived with these things for weeks at a time and yet am only beginning to find them out. What else have you that is especially rare?"

Lemois, who had just closed the door of the cabinet, turned and began searching the room before replying.

"Well, there is my bas-relief, my Madonna. It is just behind you--very beautiful and very rare. I do not lock it up; I keep it in a dark corner where the cross-lights from the window can bring out the face in strong relief. Please do me the favor, gentlemen, to leave your seats. I never take it from its place," and he crossed the room and stood beneath it. "This is the only one in existence, so far as I know--that is, the only replica. The original is in the Sistine Chapel, near Ravenna. Bring a candle, please, Monsieur Brierley, so we can all enjoy it. See how beautiful is the Madonna's face--it is very seldom that so lovely a smile has lived in marble--and the tenderness of the mother suggested in the poise of the head as it bends over the Child. I never look at it without a twinge of my conscience, for it is the only thing in this room which I made off with without letting any one know I had it, but I was young then and a freebooter like Monsieur Herbert's man Goringe. I did penance for years afterward by putting a few lira in the poor-box whenever I was in Italy, and I often come in here and say my prayers, standing reverently before her, begging her forgiveness; and she always gives it--that is, she _must_--for the smile has never, during all these years, faded from her face."

"But this is plaster," remarked Herbert, reaching up and passing his skilled fingers over the caste. "Very well done, too."

"Yes--of course. I helped make the mould myself from the original marble built into the altar--and in the night too, when I had to feel my way about. I am glad you think it is so good."

"Couldn't do it better myself. But why in the night?"

"Ah--that is a long story."

Herbert clapped his hands to command attention.

"Everybody take their seats. Monsieur Lemois is going to tell us of how he burglarized a church and made off with a Madonna."

Louis walked solemnly toward the door, his hand over his heart.

"You must excuse me, Herbert, if I leave the room before Lemois begins," he said, turning and facing the group, "for I should certainly interrupt his recital. This whole discussion is so repulsive to me, and so far below my own high standard of what is right and wrong, that my morals are in danger of being undermined. And I----"

"Dry up, Louis!" growled Brierley. "Go on, Lemois."

"No, I mean what I say," protested Louis. "Only a few nights ago, and at this very table, a most worthy woman, descendant of one of the oldest families in France, and our guest, confessed to wilful perjury, and now a former mayor of this village admits that he robbed a church. I have not been brought up this way, and if----"

"Tie him to a chair, High-Muck!" cried Herbert. "No, his hands are up! All right, go on, Lemois."

"Our landlord drew nearer to the table, sat down, and, with a humorous nod toward Louis, began:

"You must all remember I was an impressionable young fellow at the time, full of daredevil, romantic ideas, and, like most young fellows, saw only the end in view without caring a sou about the means by which I reached it.

"I found the bas-relief, as I have told you, in a small chapel outside of Ravenna--one of those deep-toned interiors lighted by dust-begrimed windows, the roof supported by rows of marble columns. The altar, which was low and of simple design, was placed at the top of a wide flight of three rose-marble steps over which swung a huge brass lamp burning a ruby light. With the exception of an old woman asleep on her knees before a figure of the Virgin, I was the only person in the building. I had already seen dozens of such interiors, all more or less alike, and after walking around it once or twice was about to leave by a side door protected by a heavy clay-soiled red curtain when my eye fell on the original of the caste above you, the figures and surrounding panel being built into the masonry of the altar, a position it had occupied, no doubt, since the days of Michael Angelo.

"For half an hour I stood before it--worshipping it, really. The longer I looked the more I wanted something to take away with me that would keep it alive in my memory. I drew a little, of course, and had my sketch-book filled, student-like, with bits of architecture, peasants, horses, and things I came across every day; but I knew I could never reproduce the angelic smile on the Madonna's face, and that was the one thing that made it greater than all the bas-reliefs I had seen in all my wanderings. Then it suddenly occurred to me--there being no photographs in those days: none you could buy of a thing like this--that perhaps I could get some one in the village to make a caste, the Italians being experts at this work. While I was leaning over the rose-marble rail drinking it in, a door opened somewhere behind the altar and an old priest came slowly toward me.

"'It is very lovely, holy father,' I said, in an effort to open up a conversation which might lead somewhere.

"'Yes!' he replied curtly; 'but love it on your knees.'

"So down I got, and there I stayed until he had finished his prayer at one of the side chapels and had left the church by the main door.

"All this time I was measuring it with my eye--its width, thickness, the depth of the cutting, how much plaster it would take, how large a bag it would require in which to carry it away. This done I went back to Ravenna and started to look up some one of the image vendors who haunt the door of the great church.

"But none of them would listen. It would take at least an hour before the plaster would be dry enough to come away from the marble. The priests--poor as some of them were--would never consent to such a sacrilege. Without their permission detection was almost certain; so please go to the devil, illustrious signore, and do not tempt a poor man who does not wish to go to prison for twenty lira.

"This talk, let me tell you, took place in a shop up a back street, kept by a young Italian image-vendor who made casts and moulds with the assistance of his father, who was a hunch-back, and an old man all rags whom I could see was listening to every word of the talk.

"That same night, about the time the lamps began to be lighted, and I had started out in search of another mouldmaker, the old man in rags stepped out of the shadow of a wall and touched my arm.

"'I know the place, signore, and I know the Madonna. I have everything here in this bucket--at night the church is closed, but there is a side door. I will take your twenty lira. Come with me.'

"When you are twenty, you are like a hawk after its quarry--your blood boiling, your nerves keyed up, and you swoop down and get your talons in your prey without caring what happens afterward. Being also a romantic hawk, I liked immensely the idea of doing my prowling at night; there was a touch of danger in that kind of villany which daylight dispels. So off we started, the ragged man carrying the bucket holding a small bottle of olive-oil, dry plaster, and a thick sheet of modelling wax besides some tools: I with two good-sized candles and a box of matches.

"When you rob a bank at night you must, so I am told, be sure you have a duplicate key or something with which to pick the lock. When you rob an Italian church, there is no such bother--you simply push wide the door and begin feeling your way about. And it was not, to my surprise, very dark once we got in. The ruby light in the big altar lamp helped, and so did what was left of a single candle placed on a side altar by some poor soul as part penance for unforgiven sins.

"And it did not take long once we got to work. First a coat of oil to keep the wax from sticking to the marble; then a patting and forcing of the soft stuff with thumbs, fingers, and a wooden tool into the crevices and grooves of the stone, and then a gentle pull.

"Just here my courage failed and my conscience gave a little jump like the toothache. It might have been the quick flare of the lone candle on the side altar--I had not used my own, there being light enough to see to work--or it might have been my heated imagination, but I distinctly saw on the oil-smeared face of the blessed mother an expression of such intense humiliation that I pulled out my handkerchief, and although the ragged man was calling me to hurry, and I myself heard the noise of approaching footsteps, I kept on wiping off the oil until I saw her smile once more.

"The time lost caused our undoing--or rather mine. The ragged man with the precious mould ran out the side door which was never locked--the one he knew--I landed in the arms of a priest.

"He was bald-headed, wore sandals, and carried a lantern.

"'What are you doing here?' he asked gruffly.

"I pulled out the two candles and held them up so he could see them.

"'I came to burn these before the Madonna--the door was open and I walked in.'

"He lifted the lantern and scanned my face.

"'You are the man who was here this morning. Did you get down on your knees as I told you?'

"'Yes, holy father.'

"'Get down again while I close the church. You can light your candles by the lantern,' and he laid it on the stone pavement beside me and moved off into the gloom.

"I did everything he bade me--never was there a more devout worshipper--handed him back his lantern, and made my way out.

"At the end of the town the ragged man thrust his head over a low wall. He seemed greatly relieved, and picking up the bucket, we two started on a run for my lodgings. Before I went to bed that night he had mixed up the dry plaster in his bucket and taken the cast. He wanted to keep the matrix, but I wouldn't have it. I did not want his dirty fingers feeling around her lovely face, and so I paid him his blood money and pounded the mould out of shape. The next morning I left Ravenna for Paris.

"You see now, messieurs, what a disreputable person I am." Here he rose from his seat and walked back to the bas-relief. "And yet, most blessed of women"--and he raised his eyes as if in prayer--"I think I would do it all over again to have you where you could always listen to my sins."

VIII

CONTAINING SEVERAL EXPERIENCES AND ADVENTURES SHOWING THE WIDE CONTRASTS IN LIFE

How it began I do not remember, for nothing had led up to it except, perhaps, Le Blanc's arrival for dinner half an hour late, due, so he explained, to a break in the running gear of his machine, most of which time he had spent flat on his back in the cold mud, monkey-wrench in hand, instead of in one of our warm, comfortable chairs.

No sooner was he seated at my side and his story told than we fell naturally to discussing similar moments in life when such sudden contrasts often caused us to look upon ourselves as two distinct persons having nothing in common each with the other. Lemois, whose story of the stolen Madonna the previous night had made us eager for more, described, in defence of the newly launched theory, a visit to a Swiss chalet, and the sense of comfort he felt in the warmth and coseyness of it all, as he settled himself in bed, when just as he was dozing off a fire broke out and in less than five minutes he, with the whole family, was shivering in a snow-bank while the house burned to the ground.

"And a most uncomfortable and demoralizing change it was, messieurs--one minute in warm white sheets and the next in a blanket of cold snow. What has always remained in my mind was the rapidity with which I passed from one personality to another."

Brierley, taking up the thread, described his own sensations when, during a visit to a friend's luxurious camp in the Adirondacks, he lost his way in the forest and for three days and nights kept himself alive on moose-buds and huckleberries.

"Poor grub when you have been living on porter-house steak and lobsters from Fulton Market and peaches from South Africa. Time, however, didn't appeal to me as it did to Lemois, but hunger did, and I have never looked a huckleberry in the face since without the same queer feeling around my waistband."

Appealed to by Herbert for some experiences of my own, I told how this same realization of intense and sudden contrasts always took possession of me, when, after having lived for a week on hardtack, boiled pork, and plum duff, begrimed with dust and cement, I would leave the inside of a coffer-dam and in a few hours find myself in the customary swallow-tail and white tie at a dinner of twelve, sitting among ladies in costly gowns and jewels.

"What, however, stuck out clearest in my mind," I continued, "was neither time nor what I had had to eat, but the enormous contrasts in the color scheme of my two experiences: at noon a gray sky and leaden sea, relieved by men in overalls, rusty derricks, and clouds of white steam rising from the concrete mixers; at night filmy gowns and bare shoulders rose pink in the softened light against a strong relief of the reds and greens of deep-toned tapestries and portraits in rich frames. I remember only the color."

At this Herbert lighted a fresh cigar and, with the flaming match still in hand, said quietly:

"While you men have been talking I have been going over some of my own experiences"--here he blew out the match--"and I have a great mind to tell you of one that I had years ago which made an indelible impression on me."

"Leave out your 'great mind,' Herbert," cried Louis--"we'll believe anything but that--and give us the story--that is, Le Blanc, if you will be so very good as to move your very handsome but slightly opaque head, so that I can watch the distinguished mud-dauber's face while he talks. Fire away, Herbert!"

"I was a lad of twenty at the time," resumed Herbert, pausing for a moment until the unembarrassed Le Blanc had pushed back his chair, "and for reasons which then seemed good to me ran away from home, and for two years served as common sailor aboard an English merchantman, bunking in the forecastle, eating hardtack, and doing work aloft like any of the others. I had the world before me, was strong and sturdily built, and, being a happy-hearted young fellow, was on good terms with every one of the crew except a dark, murderous-looking young Portuguese of about my own age, active as a cat, and continually quarrelling with every one. When you get a low-down Portuguese with negro blood in his veins you have reached the bottom of cunning and cruelty. I've come across several of them since--some in dress suits--and know.

"For some reason this fellow hated me as only sailors who are forced to live together on long voyages know how to hate. My bunk was immediately over his, and when I slid out in the morning my feet had to dangle in front of his venomous face. When I crawled up at night the same thing happened. We worked side by side, got the same pay, and ate the same grub, yet I never was with him without feeling his animosity toward me.

"It was only by the merest accident that I found out why he hated me. He blurted it out in the forecastle one night after I had gone on deck, and the men told me when I dropped down the companion-way again. He hated me because I brushed my teeth! Oh!--you needn't laugh! Men have murdered each other for less. I once knew a man who picked a quarrel at the club with a diplomat because he dared to twist his mustache at the same angle as his own; and another--an Austrian colonel--who challenged a brother officer to a mortal duel for serving a certain Johannesburg when it was a well-known fact that he claimed to own every bottle of that year's vintage.

"I continued brushing my teeth, of course, and at the same time kept an eye on the Portuguese whose slurs and general ugliness at every turn became so marked that I was convinced he was only waiting for a chance to put a knife into me. The captain, who studied his crew, was of the same opinion and instructed the first mate to look after us both and prevent any quarrel reaching a crisis.

"One night, off Cape Horn, a gale came up, and half a dozen of us were ordered aloft to furl a topsail. That's no easy job for a greenhorn; sometimes it's a pretty tough job for an old hand. The yard is generally wet and slippery, the reefers stiff as marlin-spikes, and the sail hard as a board, particularly when the wind drives it against your face. But orders were orders and up I went. Then again, I had been a fairly good gymnast when I was at school, and could throw wheels on the horizontal bars with the best of them.

"The orders had come just as we were finishing supper. As usual the Portuguese had opened on me again; this time it was my table manners, my way of treating my plate after finishing meals being to leave some of the fragments still sticking to the bottom and edge, while he wiped his clean with a crust of bread as a compliment to the cook.

"The mate had heard the last of his outbreak, and in detailing the men sent me up the port ratlines and the Portuguese up the starboard. The sail was thrashing and flopping in the wind, the vessel rolling her rails under as the squall struck her. I was so occupied with tying the reefers over the canvas and holding on at the same time to the slippery yard, that I had not noticed the Portuguese, who, with every flop of the sail, was crawling nearer to where I clung.

"He was almost on top of me when I caught sight of him sliding along the foot-stay, his eyes boring into mine with a look that made me stop short and pull myself together. One hand was around the yard, the other clutched his sheath knife. Another lunge of the ship and he would let drive and over I'd go.

"For an instant I quavered before the fellow's hungry glare, his tiger eyes fixed on mine, the knife in his hand, the sail smothering me as it flapped in my face, while below were the black sea and half-lighted deck. Were he to strike, no trace would be left of me. I was a greenhorn, and it would be supposed I had missed my hold and fallen clear of the ship.

"Bracing myself, I twisted a reefer around my wrist for better hold, determined, if he moved an inch nearer, to kick him square in the face. But at that instant a sea broke over the starboard bow, wrenching the ship fore and aft and jerking the yards as if they had been so many tent-poles. Then came a horrible shriek, and looking down I saw the Portuguese clutching wildly at the ratlines, clear the ship's side, and strike the water head-foremost. 'Man overboard!' I yelled at the top of my lungs, slid to the deck, and ran into the arms of the first mate, who had been watching us and who had seen the whole thing.

"Some of the crew made a spring for the davits, I among them. But the mate shook his head.

"'Ain't no use lowerin',' he said. 'Besides, he ain't worth savin'.'

"That night I had to crawl over the dead man's empty berth; his pillow and quilt were just as he had left them, all tumbled and mussed, and his tin tobacco-box where he had laid it. Try as I would as I lay awake in my warm bunk and thought of him out in the sea, and my own close shave for life, I could not get rid of a certain uncanny feeling--something akin to the sensation as that of which Lemois was speaking. Only an instant's time had saved me from the same awful plunge--his last in life. I never got over the feeling until we reached port, for his berth was left untouched and his tin tobacco-box still lay beside his pillow. Even now when a sailor or fisherman pulls out an old tin box--they are all pretty much alike--or cuts a plug with a sheath knife, it gives me a shudder."

"Served the brute right!" cried Louis. "Very good story, Herbert--a little exaggerated in parts, particularly where you were so absent-minded as to select the face of the gentleman for your murderous kick, but it's all right: very good story. I could freeze you all solid by an experience I had with an Apache who followed me on my way to Montmartre last week, but I won't."

"Give it to us, Louis!" cried everybody in unison.

"No!"

"Well, why not?" I demanded.

"Because he turned down the next street. I said I _could_, and I would if he'd kept on after me. Your turn, Brierley. We haven't heard from you since you kept school for crows and wild ducks and taught them how to dodge bird shot. Unhook your ear-flaps, gentlemen; the distinguished naturalist is about to relate another one of his soul-stirring adventures--pure fiction, of course, but none the less entertaining."

Before I could reply, Lemois, who had followed the course of the discussion with the keenest interest, interrupted with a deprecating shrug of his shoulders, his fingers widened out.

"But not another bird story, if you please, Monsieur Brierley. We want something deeper and stronger. We have touched upon a great subject to-night, and have only scraped the surface."

Herbert leaned forward until he caught Lemois' eye.

"Say the rest, Lemois. You have something to tell us."

"I! No--I have nothing to tell you. My life has been too stupid. I am always either bowing to my guests or making sauces for them over Pierre's fire. I could only tell you about things of which I have _heard_. You, Monsieur Herbert, can tell us of things with which you have _lived_. I want to listen now to something we will remember, like your story of the cannibal's wife. Almost every night since you have been here I go to bed with a great song ringing in my ears. You, Monsieur Herbert, must yourself have seen such tragedies in men's lives, when in the space of a lightning's flash their souls were stripped clean and they left naked."

Herbert played with his fork for a moment, threw it back upon the cloth, and then said in a decided tone:

"No--it is not my turn; I've talked enough to-night. Open up, Le Blanc, and give us something out of the old Latin Quartier--there were tragedies enough there."

"Only what absinthe and starvation brought--and a ring now and then on the wrong girl's finger--or none at all, as the case might have been. But you've got a story, Herbert, if you will tell it, which will send Lemois to bed with a whole orchestra sounding in his ears."

Herbert looked up.

"Which one?"

"The fever camp at Bangala."

Herbert's face became instantly grave and an expression of intense thought settled upon it. We waited, our eyes fixed upon him.

"No--I'd rather not, Le Blanc," he said slowly. "That belongs to the dead past, and it is best to leave it so."

"Tell it, Herbert," I coaxed.

"Both you and Le Blanc have heard it."

"But Lemois and the others haven't."

"Got any cannibals or barbecues in it, Herbert?" inquired Louis.

"No, just plain white man all the way through, Louis. Two of them are still alive--I and another fellow. And you really want it again, Le Blanc? Well, all right. But before I begin I must ask you to pardon my referring so often to my African experiences"--and he glanced in apology around the table--"but I was there at a most impressionable age, and they still stand out in my mind--this one in particular. You may have read of the horrors that took place at Bangala in what at the time was known as the fever camp, where some of the bravest fellows who ever entered the jungles met their deaths. Both natives and white men had succumbed, one after another, in a way that wiped out all hope.

"The remedies we had, had been used without effect, and quinine had lost its power to pull down the temperature, and each fellow knew that if he were not among those carried out feet foremost to-day, and buried so deep that the hyenas could not dig him up, it was only a question if on the morrow his own turn did not come. A strange kind of fear had taken possession of us, sick or well, and a cold, deadening despair had crept into our hearts, so great was the mortality, and so quickly when once a man was stricken did the end come. We were hundreds of miles from civilization of any kind, unable to move our quarters unless we deserted our sick, and even then there was no healthier place within reach. And so, not knowing who would go next, we awaited the end.

"The only other white man in the country besides ourselves was a young English missionary who had taken up his quarters in a native village some two miles away, in the low, marshy lands, and who from the very day of his arrival had set to work to teach and care for the swarms of native children who literally infested the settlement. Many of these had been abandoned by their parents and would have perished but for his untiring watchfulness. When the fever broke out he, with the assistance of those of the natives whom he could bribe to help, had constructed a rude hospital into which the little people were placed. These he nursed with his own hands, and as children under ten years of age were less liable to the disease than those who were older, and, when stricken, easier to coax back to life, his mortality list was very much less than our own.