"You can get another," shrieked Clifford. "A better one than theHumming Top."
"What is that?" cried Willatopy, and paused while yet some life remained unhammered out on the yawl's deck.
"When you are a very rich Lord," groaned Clifford, "you will be able to buy a much newer and finer yacht than theHumming Top."
"Where?" enquired Willatopy.
"In England. You will give your orders, and your slaves will build for you any yacht which you please. But you must go to England first."
"I shall never go to England," said Willatopy. Yet he desisted from the hammering of John Clifford, and his tone lacked its customary resolution.
It had been an arduous day for the Hedge Lawyer. Yet I think that he was well content. In a few hours, at the price of much sweat and many aching bones, he had powerfully stirred up thesoul of Willatopy so that it would never resettle in its old simple contented form. He had driven belief into the half-white, half-brown mind of the once happy boy that beyond the wide seas, over in that England whence his father had fled, he himself had become a man of consequence. His poor, childlike brain boiled and threw up visions in its steaming vapours. White women at his pleasure, white men as his slaves, splendid yachts at his orders, big stone houses with many, many rooms—the big houses left him cold, but to the other visions he could give something of warm concrete form. Marie who made eyes at him, John who slaved for him, the yacht better even than the splendidHumming Top—these would all be his, and they were but an earnest of greater delights to follow. The round world and all that was therein would lie beneath his brown feet if only he would go to England and become, in his own unchallengeable right, the Twenty-Eighth Baron of Topsham. Already the impressions left by the father upon the small soft mind of the twelve-year-old boy were beginning to yield under the moulding hand of the white slave John. Already the white, restless strain in his blood, which throughout his life had reposed dormant, was beginning to bestir itself within him. He tossed John Clifford into the boat, and rowed ashore himself. He drove Clifford before him up into the woods, and left him there supperless and without shelter. Let him forage in the woods if he hungered, and seek for cover under the ample branches about him.
Then Willatopy, that gallant boy of mixed blood,torn from his lifelong island roots by the exotic pressure of a cursed Heirship, ran as if devils pursued to the tent of Madame Gilbert, and bursting in, flung his naked body at her feet. Never before had he entered without leave. And Madame, seeing the tumult which raged in his soul, and already understanding something of the agony of his partial awakening, listened while the boy poured out the story much as I have told it here.
"Madame," he cried at the end. "What shall I do? What shall I do?"
"Send Clifford away," said she, "and never go to England."
"I cannot send him away," said Willatopy. "He is my white slave. And if he went I should still be an English Lord. But when a schooner calls he shall go. And I will never go to England. My father said: 'Always stick to Hula, Willie: Hula is better than England.' And I always will."
"That's right," said Madame. "You can't go wrong if you follow your father. And now, Willie dear, go back to your own hut, and be Hula once more. I love Willatopy, but I should hate an English Lord. He couldn't come to my tent like this—without even a bootlace about his middle. But my dear Willatopy may wear as little as he pleases. Be off; I don't want Marie to find you here."
The blue eyes, so strange in the almost black face, flashed with a new light.
"Marie," he said. "The white Marie. If I were an English Lord...."
Madame held up a warning hand.
"As my lady pleases," said the boy, smilingalmost happily, and turning about, ran from the tent.
Madame sat for a long while after Willatopy had gone. Before her stood the austere Scotch figure of Grant of Thursday Island, the banker Grant who had loved the father and now loved the son for his father's sake. His solemn words rang in her ears. "White and brown blood form a bad mixture, an explosive mixture. A mixture unstable as nitro-glycerine." Grant had declared that if drink and white women came into his life, Willatopy would be a lost soul.
"We have no drink on the island," murmured Madame Gilbert, "and the stores of the yacht are safe from him. Marie dreads me too gravely to be a danger any more. If that lump of sharks' food, Clifford, can be got away, we may pull through. But this inheritance of poor Willatopy's is the very devil. In England it seemed a comedy shot with streaks of utter farce; here in Tops Island it borders upon tragedy. In England it would be ... Mon Dieu! To save Willatopy from that horror I would go some lengths, some bitter, bitter lengths."
"Marie," said Madame Gilbert, as the French girl came in. "If you hear any gossip about young Willatopy, don't believe it. There is a story that he is the rightful Lord Topsham, but, of course, it isn't true. Should it come to your ears, you have my authority to deny it stoutly."
"Certainly, Madame," said Marie, the demure maid. But Marie did not say that Willatopy, flying from Madame's tent, had fallen in with her;that he had told her the whole story, and that she had urged him to claim all the rights and privileges that were his. And as a foretaste in the privileges of a seigneur she had offered him her warm lips. No Marie said nothing of that to Madame Gilbert.
The days passed, no more island schooners put in for night shelter at the entrance to the bay, and the Hedge Lawyer gained with every passing day a tighter grip upon the vagrant mind of Willatopy. The Great Lord made the villein work for the pleasure of seeing a white man sweat in his service, but in the intervals of labour the two of them became host and guest rather than master and slave. And hour by hour the cunning hand of the lawyer, deftly kneading the soft wax of the native boy's intelligence, obliterated the impressions left by his father's teaching. Willatopy still declared at intervals that he would never go to England, but his tone had lost much of its old conviction. The once fixed resolution was degenerating into a verbal formula.
For awhile Clifford stuck to the first inducements of which he had demonstrated the effective potency. White women at Willatopy's seignorial pleasure, white men as his humble, willing slaves, yachts and buzz boats at his orders—Willatopy was salt to the bones. Then, as his grip became firmer, Clifford bethought him of a further engine of influence, and devised a means of bringing it into early operation. Immovably bent upon the one purpose of bearing Willatopy as a helpless fly into thespider's web of St. Mary Axe—and of securing that junior partnership for himself—Clifford perceived that a corrupted, degenerate Willatopy would be a prey more profitable to the plunderers than the healthy, shrewd sportsman of Tops Island. Wholly unscrupulous, it was nothing to him that a brave human soul should be lost. Willatopy was in his eyes not a human soul, but a much-desired client. After having been won over and despoiled in the interests of St. Mary Axe, the Twenty-Eighth Lord of Topsham might go to the Devil as fast as he pleased. The more he could be prevailed upon to dip into the Toppys estates—no great property by modern standards—the larger would be the profits of Chudleigh, Caves, Caves, and Chudleigh, poachers and speculators in law. I am no effusive admirer of Roger Gatepath, the solicitor of peers and princes, but the dingy honesty of Gatepaths was as driven snow in comparison with the black foulness of Chudleighs.
One morning, while running to her shark-proof creek for the customary dip after her physical exercises—Madame never neglected P.T. under any pressure of engagements, and to this persistence in muscular well-doing attributed her exuberant health and appetite—one morning early, Madame perceived that the mooring station of the yawl was empty. Upon her return she was informed that Willatopy, accompanied as always by his white slave John, had sailed at dawn with the first of the ebb. Ching, who had spent the night in the escort tent, and had been early astir, had watched through his binoculars the pair go forth towards the bar. Madame concluded that Willie, tired of makingJohn sweat in his garden, had borne him off upon an island cruise for the pleasure of harrying the white man's stomach. John hated the heaving ocean, and had suffered horribly on his trip from Thursday Island in the schooner. John, in Madame's judgment, could not have gone willingly, and would soon prevail upon Willatopy to return. But in this view Madame was wrong. John Clifford, bad sailor though he was, had braved the swell and tide rips of the uneasy Straits that he might bring into operation that further engine of influence upon whose effectiveness he placed sure confidence.
A day and a night passed, and yet another day and night. The yawl did not return. Madame's apprehension swelled into panic. It was, of course, absurd to suppose that a navigator of Willatopy's competence had suffered a marine disaster in his own familiar Straits at the settled season of the south-east trade. Anxiety of that kind was absent from Madame's thoughts. Her fears took an altogether different line. She was obsessed by the dread lest Willatopy, under the rapidly growing influence of Clifford, had sailed for Thursday Islanden routefor England. Grant, the banker, held considerable sums at the boy's disposal—or, rather, since Willatopy was a minor, the banker and executor held considerable sums which he might be prevailed upon to hand over. Even if, as was not improbable, Grant proved obdurate, the lawyer, John Clifford, must have been provided with ample cash or credits for traveling expenses. Ching and Ewing were both ashore, and she commanded their attendance.
The Devonshire ship captain and the Glasgow engineer had been close friends during half their lives, and habit had made them inseparable. In temperament, as we have seen, they were far apart. Though sprung from kindred races—there is no great difference in blood between the Lowland Glasgow Scot and the West Country Englishman—they were typical representatives of distinct branches of the British stock. The soft and bountiful Devon produces sailors rather than engineers; the harsher and leaner North produces engineers rather than sailors. I cannot stop now to explain why. In association, Ching and Ewing were complementary, the one to the other. Both of them loved Madame Gilbert, but their affection, though sincere, was too platonic to excite serious rivalry. They would dine together in the big saloon of the yacht—at a table which had accommodation for twelve persons—and discuss over Sir John's port the merits of the gracious lady who had betaken herself to the shore. Later on they would carry the discussion to the smoke-room where the three had so often sat and applied their foot rules to the universe during the long voyage out from England. Every few days, moved by a common impulse which Ewing shamelessly avowed and Ching sought to conceal, they would disembark and cast up in Madame's camp. It was understood that both remained in the yacht at their unexacting care and maintenance duties, or both revelled in Madame's welcome smiles. They took their duties and their pleasures in company.
"My friends," said Madame, smiling andaffecting a levity which she just then did not feel, "lend me your ears.
"The time has come La Gilbert said,To give you a surprise.To tell of yachts and reefs and tents,Of blackamoors and peers,And why she's come to this far land,And what it is she fears."
"The time has come La Gilbert said,To give you a surprise.To tell of yachts and reefs and tents,Of blackamoors and peers,And why she's come to this far land,And what it is she fears."
"The time has come La Gilbert said,To give you a surprise.To tell of yachts and reefs and tents,Of blackamoors and peers,And why she's come to this far land,And what it is she fears."
"The time has come La Gilbert said,
To give you a surprise.
To tell of yachts and reefs and tents,
Of blackamoors and peers,
And why she's come to this far land,
And what it is she fears."
"As a piece of impromptu poetry," said Ewing, "yon is no so bad. If it is impromptu, about which I have my doubts. And since my home is in Paisley, where all the poets come from, my judgment is creetical."
Ching shot one penetrative glance at Madame, and perceptibly paled under his weather-beaten skin.
"Further," went on Ewing cautiously—he could babble as gleefully and interminably as Madame herself—"further, I question the judeecious use of the wor-r-d 'surprise.' In the leeterary sense its employment is bad, for it does not rhyme, and as a statement of fact it is erroneous. I will not say that I cannot be surprised by anybody in the wur-r-ld, though they that have tried to astonish me have been up against a sair obstacle. What I assert now is that Madame Gilbert has no surprise for me, and little enough for Ching."
"Wait," warned Madame, with assurance. "I have not yet spoken. The worst of talking to you, Alexander, is that one can never wedge a wur-r-d in."
"Go canny, lassie," proceeded Ewing. "Go canny. Be not over boastful. You have been abonny actress all these weeks past, but not so bonny that you can deceive Sandy Ewing. I had my suspeecions from the first when that Willatopy boy revealed to as the secret of his bairth. And since then I've been conning my eye over the bit registers in Thursday Island."
"'Tis a wash out," admitted Madame. "I have not seen those famous registers myself, but I understand that they would convince a brazen image."
"They are as tight as a drum and as adhesive as a pepper plaster. The joints of them are steam tight to any pressure. You could na shift them with T.N.T. My metaphors may be a wee bit mixed, there is nothing of confusion about those registers. If you would like to see fair copies, I have them now in my hip pocket. Three half-crowns they cost me—for the certeeficate of the registrar. It was a turrible expense."
"You are a great man, Sandy," said Madame.
"The Scots were ever a grand people, and Sandy Ewing is one of the grandest among them.Primus inter Pares.But a wumman of your perspicacity, though a foreigner and a Roman, will not have neglected to obsairve that we are of a modesty beyond belief. We, none of us, ever blow our own trumpets."
"Never," assented Madame. "You employ a steam syren."
"Then it be all true," groaned Ching, who had remained silent during this interchange. Except in the speech of his profession, his tongue was inflexible. The babble of his friends broke upon him as the sea foam on an immovable rock. "Then it beall true. That Moor be the rightful Lord of Topsham."
"It is true," said Madame gently. "We must make the best of it, Captain." Much as Madame Gilbert admired and respected the solid merits of Robert Ching, she never relaxed towards him her form of address. He was always "Captain." The Chief Engineer had long since become the "Alexander" of reproof or the "Sandy" of familiar converse. One may respect, and in emergency cling to, an immovable rock. But one does not pat it familiarly.
"Whatzimever be us vur to do?" wailed Ching, reverting in distress to the peasant dialect of his youth.
"I do not hold," put in Ewing, "that it is for us to do anything. I am a Leeberal, a good Scots Leeberal. In Paisley, where my home is, and where the poets come from, we have always been steadfast, unshaken Leeberals. No argument can shift us. For ten years past we have done our Leeberal best to pull down the House of Lords, and Willatopy is a damn sight better than most of the scum of them. His skin is an accident of bairth. If his skin had come as white as his eyes are blue he would have been a vairy presentable Head for the House of Toppys. He has, it seems to me, all the instincts of the Idle Rich, and what more can you Tories want? He is a grand pilot and a very hardy sailor and sportsman. His eye for the gur-r-ls is worthy of the loftiest aristocrat. It is nothing but the brown epidermis which sets Ching here groaning like a gravid cow, and Madame bewailing the undoubted legitimacy of a Topy heir."
"Not quite," objected Madame, though she was impressed by the Scot's shrewd analysis. "I admit that if Willatopy had been born white, or as light-skinned as his sisters, his lawyers at home would long ago have summoned him to claim his peerage. His half blood would not then have made the Family a butt for ridicule. But to me his half blood and not his colour is an occasion for genuine distress. It is because Willatopy here in his own Tops Island is so artless and attractive a creature, that I dread the effect of his transfer to England and his succession to what still is, even in these democratic days, an eminence ringed about with peculiar and dangerous temptations. Let me give you the opinion of a man—one of your own countrymen, Sandy—who knew the father well, and feels the gravest apprehensions lest the son should come to utter wreck." Then Madame, in the frank fashion which draws men's hearts to her, repeated that conversation with Grant of Thursday Island, which I have recounted in a previous chapter. She kept back nothing. As she spoke of the neglected deposits of osmiridium—at fifty pounds an ounce—Ewing shrieked as a man tortured in the most tender nerve centres of his being. As she told of the death of William Toppys, and of the twelve-year-old son's desperate voyage with the father's corpse lashed to the yawl's deck, her hearers fell silent, and she could see that both men were deeply moved.
"Good lad," whispered Ching, who hated Willatopy.
"Good lad," whispered Ewing, who liked him. As Madame proceeded and painted in her forcible vivid English the twin demons which threatenedthe half-caste boy, torn from his native island environment, the men followed her words with grave assent. Both of them in their wanderings over the wide world had seen men and women of the black and brown races wither and die at the touch of white vices.
The story drew to its end.
"He was a circumspectious man, yon Grant," said Ewing with approval. "A good Scot and vairy intelligent."
"He was right, Madame," agreed Ching. "It is not the brown skin but the unstable half-blood which is the peril. We must keep away drink and white women from—his young lordship."
It was a tremendous concession from a man like Ching. The "Moor" whom he detested had become the "young lordship" from whose stumbling footsteps must be withdrawn the perilous rocks of offence.
"But can we?" enquired Madame Gilbert anxiously. "He is a boy and very masterful. We cannot hold him in leading strings. Already my influence over him is waning. The seductions of John Clifford are more potent than the friendly, almost maternal, warnings of Madame Gilbert. I could, if I pleased, by working on his boyish virile passions, make him crawl at my feet and eat out of my hand. But to what end, and for how long? I should but hasten the process of corruption which the Hedge Lawyer has begun. From me, unassailable, he would flee to others less obdurate. And they are never far away even in the Straits of Torres. I cannot play with Willatopy. We must do what we can, but it is already borne in upon me that we seekto achieve the impossible. Already, these two days since, Willatopy has gone in the yawl with Clifford. It was for that reason I summoned you, and announced the surprise which our Alexander had so completely anticipated. I have grave fears lest even now John Clifford has drawn Willatopy away to Thursday Island, thence to take ship for England."
"For my part," declared Ewing, "I doubt the accuracy of Madame Gilbert's prognostications. They do not carry conviction to my astute mind. The change over is too sudden. That he will ultimately be prevailed upon to depart for his English lordship I make no manner of doubt. But not yet. He is a good boy. He has a great respect and affection for you, Madame. He worships you, Madame, as a gracious white goddess. As we all do, we all do. We are weak men, but there is nothing sinful in our love for you. Ching here, says little though he thinks a lot; and I say, maybe, more even than I think. But, believe me, Madame, we both of us love you from your bonny red hair to your dainty feet—which twinkle so sweetly over the sand when you come from your bath—and we would lay down our lives to presairve you from har-r-m. Willatopy would not have gone away to England without asking for your leave and bidding you farewell."
Ching, of the inflexible tongue, murmured assent.
Madame Gilbert, to whom the hearts of men had so often been as toys, was moved.
"My dear friends," said she gently, "I believe you, and I thank you. I have never played with your honest hearts, and I am proud that you should have given them so freely to me." She stretchedforth a hand to each man, and first Ewing and then Ching touched with his lips her white fingers.
"And if not to Thursday Island whither then has Willatopy gone?" asked Madame.
"I do not say that he has not gone to Thursday Island," replied Ewing. "Port Kennedy, with its tin houses and bare dusty streets, is the one town in the Straits with any number of white folk. Clifford has played on the boy's white blood, and carried him off there to flaunt his lordship before the populace. As a preliminary canter, so to speak. If the brown Lord of Topsham meets with favour in the Island, I doubt he will aspire to wider fields of conquest."
"Very like," agreed Ching, and then flung forth a speech which astonished Madame with its sharp sailor wit. Hitherto she had rated the Skipper as a dull dog. "Willatopy will not have sailed for England because that would mean leaving his yawl at Thursday Island. Nothing would induce him to risk the safety of his yawl."
"You are right, Captain," cried she. "That is final. The sailor, and Willatopy is a sailor born and bred, will cast off his mistress, but never his ship. He will return to us with his yawl. If later on he sails for England he will leave the yawl here in safety at her moorings. Why didn't you think of that, my circumspectious man, Sandy?"
"I am an Engineer, not a sailor. It is engines I think of, not ships. They are nothing to me but the case for the bonny engines."
"Exactly," said Madame. "That is just the difference between an engineer and a sailor, between Devon and Glasgow. You are clever, Sandy, andas a man of business, you soar far beyond our poor comprehension. But Captain Ching here is the wiser man."
It was not very subtle, perhaps, but in this fashion Madame Gilbert put down the talkative Ewing, and exalted the silent Ching, and bound the hearts of both men to her. More than ever she felt assured that if she needed help—and the fracture of the laws of God and man at her behests—Ching and Ewing would stand immovably with her.
"Madame," said Ching, and it was to be observed that when he spoke of the sea and his own craft, his tongue instantly loosened. "Can you tell me when you propose that theHumming Topshould cast off and sail for England?"
"I had not considered leaving. There is no hurry, is there?"
"There is no immediate urgency. But it is my duty as Captain to make certain representations to my owner. We sailed in the middle of March, and we arrived here after a voyage of two months, most of it in warm weather. We have now lain for five weeks in a tropical tidal bay. The yacht is foul, very foul. The brown boys who dive under her for bits of silver thrown from the rail say that she trails weed four feet long. The teak sheathing which runs from bilge to bilge, and stretches from near the forefoot to the stern post, is uncoppered. It was attached rather hastily, and copper was still scarce after the war. The wood is proof against worm, but it collects weed. When we do sail—it is now near the end of June—we must make for Singapore, and go into dock for a clean. The Chief will tell you that though we do not lack for fuel,the foul bottom will grievously increase our consumption."
"That is so," explained Ewing. "I have dived down myself, and seen the blooming garden which flourishes under our bottom. We are a tropical curiosity. We attract every kind of growth except coral. If we linger much longer we shall become fir-r-mly attached to the sea floor. We lie in six fathoms, but the weeds grow like bananas. At the consumption which brought us here steaming eleven knots, we should not now make eight. And if we get much more foul we shall not make six. Sir John's dollars will bur-r-n in grand volumes when we put out to sea. It goes against my conscience, Madame, to waste good oil on a foul ship."
Madame knitted her brows. "Both of you know now how I am placed. I am a woman and curious; I want to see the drama of Willatopy unfold itself before me."
"So do we," said Ching. "We do not ask you to depart until the need grows urgent. But remember. We must dock at Singapore, and thence home to England will occupy the best part of two months. TheHumming Topis long and narrow, with a very low freeboard. The bulwarks of her monkey fo'c'sle are not more than twelve feet above the water, and her stern is no more than seven. She can live anywhere, but she was built for speed and fair weather cruising; if we ram her through the autumn gales in the northern hemisphere she will be a very wet and uncomfortable ship. The seas will be all over bridge and charthouse and smokeroom, and you will have to live battened down. You won't like that,Madame, and your maid Marie will yield up her immortal soul."
"I am not worrying about Marie's soul—or her stomach," said Madame callously. "How long can you give me?"
"Four weeks," said Ching firmly. "If we sail towards the end of July we should be in English waters by the middle of October at latest."
"Make it so," said Madame. "I promise that you shall hoist the Blue Peter—is that right?—before the end of July. And perhaps sooner. For at the rate at which events are moving, Willatopy may soon determine to transport his person and fortunes to England. At the last, if all my persuasions that he should remain here fail—and I am afraid that they must fail—I shall offer him passage in theHumming Top. It is fitting that the Lord of Topsham should enter upon his inheritance on board a Toppys ship. Sir John Toppys will not be best pleased, but if Willatopy insists, the haughty Family must swallow their medicine, and pretend that they like it.Noblesse oblige!So long as theHumming Topis available, Lord Topsham must not travel in a hired steamer. Besides," added Madame with a smile, "I shall be able to keep my eye and perhaps my hand upon that detestable little cad, the indispensable managing clerk. And if the sea should be very rough, perhaps a kindly Neptune might whisk him overboard."
"If you give the word, Madame, he shall go overboard all right," said Ching, the descendant of Plymouth buccaneers.
"No. I will not allow crime where I command. I am not squeamish; in my time I have shot moremen than one or two, and when I shoot to kill, a soul is sped. But what I have done by way of duty, or in self-defence, has not been crime. Unless he provoked me beyond endurance, I would not slay even John Clifford."
"If I could do a wee bit murder on the swine under the rose, and stuff his corpse into a firebox, it would not distur-r-b my slumbers," observed Ewing. "But men talk, men talk. If the two of them sail with us in theHumming Top, and the weather comes on sweet and dirty, we must put up powerful petitions to an all-wise Providence. From the look of the beast, I should judge that he has a taste for whisky. Now, whisky, discreetly administered, might help the Divine wisdom to interpose with an effective boost, when Clifford reeled against a lee rail. We are all in the hands of God," concluded Alexander piously.
"We are a sweet crowd," observed Madame, with an air of detachment. "We borrow the yacht of a highly respectable baronet and profiteer. On the voyage out we convert her into a rollicking dope smuggler. We now contemplate petitions to the Almighty that He should boost a drunken Hedge Lawyer over our rail while on the voyage home. And withal, we are God-fearing members of some Christian Church. I, it must be confessed, am an indifferent Catholic. Alexander is a Scotch Presbyterian...."
"An Elder when at home in Paisley," interjected the Chief—"and Captain Ching is what—a Plymouth Brother?"
"Never," declared Ching in horror. "TheChurch of England for me. I will have no truck with sectarians."
"It is a beautiful example of the essential unity of the Churches," went on Madame wickedly. "The Roman Catholic, the Presbyterian Elder and the zealous English Churchman are all agreed to advise their God to interpose for the confounding of a Hedge Lawyer. And if nothing happens, their belief in the efficacy of prayer will get a nasty jar. Our unanimity is at least some indication that in human judgment the little sweep were better dead. But, my friends, reflect that worms as noxious came through the war unscathed, while the best of Europe's manhood perished. Let us not bank on the discriminating taste of the Almighty, or on the alertness of the Providential ear."
Alexander Ewing was not unwilling to plunge into an active theological controversy, and Ching, with a lightening of the eye, showed that he too smelled battle. But Madame waved her hand, and forbade reply. If she were a Catholic, I am afraid, as she herself admitted, that she was not a very good one.
On the following evening Ching and Ewing returned to the yacht, and three more days went by without word of the yawl, Willatopy, or John Clifford. Then news came like the blare of a bugle summoning Madame to the fight.
She had just returned from her morning swim, and the bathing dress, which rapidly dried in the sun, was still upon her body. The motor boat had just buzzed in through the passage of the bar, and brought an officer with a message.
"The Captain's compliments," said he, "and Iwas to tell you, Madame, that the brown boy, Willatopy, with the man called Clifford, are sitting in the smokeroom of the yacht drinking Sir John Toppys' port."
"Port!" cried she. "At this hour of the day!" Her eyes flashed, and she leapt for the tent. Upon her feet she slipped a pair of sand shoes, and about her person buckled the linen trench coat. Then going to her dressing case she picked out the Webley automatic which in her tent or in her cabin was never very far from her hand. She dropped the pistol into her right-hand pocket.
"Come," said she to the officer. "I am ready. Willatopy is Lord of the Island, but Madame Gilbert is Lady of the Yacht. I am going to give Mr. John Clifford, solicitor of St. Mary Axe, a lesson in the laws of property."
"Shall I stand by with a monkey wrench?" enquired the officer eagerly. He was a young engineer.
"It will not be needed," said Madame serenely.
The tide was at half ebb, and the trip out to theHumming Topmuch wetter than Madame had expected. The long Pacific rollers were already crashing upon the bar, and had the motor boat delayed its return by half an hour, even the passage inshore would have become too boisterous for safety. But Madame, anxious lest she should be cut off for more than six hours from the port-drinking intruders in theHumming Top'ssmoke-room, gave orders that the surf must be faced at all hazards. So the powerful little craft, driven by the full power of its eight-cylindered engine, gave back buffet for buffet, and got through, though the passenger and crew were soaked to the skin in the effort. Madame, in her bathing dress and linen trench coat, had been saturated so often since her first passage of the breakers with Willatopy, that she paid no heed to salt water. She had always loved the sea, and was becoming well salted.
Ching and the apologetic steward met her at the top of the accommodation ladder.
"With your permission, Captain," said she, "I will now take charge." And, turning to the steward, flung out the one word "Explain!"
"Mr. Willatopy and his friend," said the man, "arrived alongside in the yawl and came aboard.Mr. Willatopy said that the surf was too bad for the yawl to go in, and that they would wait until high tide in the yacht. I knew that you, Madame, would wish me to treat the young gentleman with respect, so I asked him, and his friend, to enter the smoke-room. A few minutes later the bell rang, and Mr. Willatopy said that his friend wished for a drink. Would I get a bottle of port? I had no orders, and I was aware that Mr. Willatopy is said to be the new Lord Topsham, so I brought the wine in a decanter. Then I reported what I had done to the Captain. He was very angry, and at once sent off the motor boat to fetch you. He knew that you would risk the surf, and was angry that you should have been called upon to do it. I ought to have reported to the Captain before I carried out the young gentleman's order."
"On the whole, Captain," said Madame, thoughtfully, "I am not sorry that this incident has happened. We now know the line of Clifford's attack, and can take measures to meet it. I will counterattack at once."
She mounted the steps of the boat decks, and walked up to the smoke-room. She stood at the open door looking down upon the trespassers, who had already made free with nearly a whole bottle of Sir John's carefully selected wine. Willie had his back to her, so that the Hedge Lawyer saw her first. His mean, thin face went white, and he tried to push back his chair, forgetting that it was screwed to the deck. Willie turned, and seeing Madame, raised his glass.
"Have a drink, Madame?" cried he. "I hate whisky, but I like port, which John taught me todrink in Thursday Island. I like tumblers better than these silly glasses, and the sweet, sticky stuff we got in Thursday Island has more taste than my cousin's soft thin wine. Here's to your health, Madame." He emptied the glass, and pointed to the decanter, which was nearly exhausted. "Ring the bell, John; Madame wants a drink."
But John Clifford, with those sombre, deadly eyes of Madame Gilbert upon him, shivered.
"Willie, dear," said Madame, softly, "will you please listen to me for a moment." When Madame speaks like that there lives not a man so insensible as to disregard her. Willatopy passed a hand in rather a bewildered way across his eyes, and turned his chair round towards her. Then, in a stiff, automatic fashion, he rose to his feet and murmured: "I beg your pardon, Madame Gilbert."
She entered the room, and sat down on the sofa.
"Be seated, Willie, I want to talk with you. No," she added sternly to John Clifford, who was sliding out by the farther door. "Stay where you are, lawyer. Sit." She snapped out the word as one gives an order to a dog, and Clifford sat.
"Willie," said Madame Gilbert, in that soft, compelling voice of hers, which none can resist. "On the island yonder in a tent I live with my servants. The land is yours. Any day, at any moment, you could tell me to go, and I should go. But while I live in that tent, pitched upon your land, I am your guest and under your protection. Would you, Willie, enter that tent in my absence, and give orders to my servants? Would you seat yourself, uninvited, at my table?"
Willatopy passed a hand again over his flushedcheek and heavy eyes. "You are my guest on the Island, Madame, my honoured guest. I could not approach your tent without your permission. You know that, Madame."
"I know it, Willie. But think a little. This yacht is mine, lent to me by your cousin, Sir John Toppys. All the men on board are my servants. The yacht is as much my home as the tent ashore. An English gentleman, Willie, does not go into the house of his friend and order wine to be placed before him; he waits to be invited, Willie. Still less does he bring another, a stranger, with him. You cannot be an English Lord, Willie, unless you begin by becoming an English gentleman."
Willatopy looked intently at Madame all the while she was speaking, and his eyes lost their blurred look. As the fumes of the unaccustomed port cleared away, the native sense of courtesy in his brown and white blood revived. He sprang from his chair, dropped on the floor at her feet, and laid his black, frizzy head upon her knees.
"Forgive me, Madame," cried he. "I was—a perfect hog."
"Willie dear," said Madame, as she passed her hands gently over the long frizzled hair, and arranged the tresses neatly on her lap. "Now that you are an English Lord, you will really have to get your hair cut." In this fashion the two became reconciled.
Willatopy shed a vinous tear or two on Madame's trench coat, and then sprang violently up as a thought struck him.
"You, John," roared he. "You white slave! Why did you not tell me that it was a hoggishthing to come on board Madame's yacht and order Madame's wine? I did not think. You are my white slave, and it is your job to think for me. Madame, have I your permission to kill John here in your yacht? I should like to begin at once."
"I will deal with him," said Madame. "Willie, have you half-a-crown?"
Willatopy, looking puzzled, thrust his hand into a trouser pocket, and produced a silver coin.
"It is a two-shilling piece," said he. "Will that do?"
"Quite well." Madame drew the automatic pistol from her side pocket. John Clifford cowered before her, screaming. "Worm and liar," snapped Madame. "I am convinced that you are a hedge lawyer—so scurvy a wretch could be none other—but I will never believe that even for three months you were ever an English officer. Come outside and and look upon your death." She drove him out on to the deck at her pistol muzzle. He crouched down by the rail, and covered his eyes with both hands.
"No," said Madame. "That will not do at all. I had not intended to slay you—just yet—but I am going to make you watch me shoot. As a warning. Take away those hands and look at me." Her voice snapped at him as it had done before, and Clifford obeyed—as a dog obeys its mistress. He sat up by the rail and looked at her.
"Willie," said Madame. "Stand over there with your back to the sea. I don't want anyone to be hurt, not even the brave lawyer. When I give the word, throw that coin into the air. I am going to show to Mr. John Clifford a little bit of trickshooting which he may bear in his remembrance—as a warning. I shall not hit you, Willie."
"I am not afraid," said the boy with a touch of pride. He did as she commanded. With his back to the sea, and at the word from Madame, he spun the florin into the air.
She had stretched out her pistol arm, and with the muzzle followed the scrap of white metal which flew upwards sparkling in the sun. Madame declares that she never looks at her gun sights—that she shoots by instinct. Exactly at the instant when the coin stopped in act to fall, Madame's pistol cracked, and the two-shilling piece, hit fairly by the small .25 bullet, flashed over the rail into the sea.
"Teach me to do that," cried Willie.
Madame returned the pistol to her pocket, and contemplated Clifford.
"I am a woman," said she, "and very nervous. My terrors, when a stranger approaches my camp, even by day, are lamentable. I struggle against them, but it is no use. My one consolation is this pistol, which never leaves my side, and my skill in its use. My nerves are so uncontrollable that I am sure no stranger—not even one so innocent of offence as Mr. John Clifford—is safe within pistol shot of me. As a friend, who would be desolated should an accident befall him, I say to Mr. Clifford: 'keep clear of Madame Gilbert.' Captain," went on Madame, turning to Ching, who had not been far away during this scene, "Mr. John Clifford regrets that he must leave us. Would you please order out a boat, and put him ashore over there by the mangroves. He will have a pleasant walk through the woods of a couple of miles before reaching a humanhabitation. Contemplation is good for the penitent soul. And should he approach the ladder of the yacht again—I doubt myself if he can be persuaded to pay us another call—will you please give orders that Madame Gilbert is not at home—neither is her port."
The dinghy was swung out and Clifford invited to enter. He turned to Willatopy.
"Are you coming too, my lord?" asked he, obsequiously.
"No," said Willie. "I hate walking. And your society does not amuse me. The brown girls on Thursday Island who would not touch you, when you sought their favours, were right. You are an unclean beast. Go and walk and sweat by yourself. I am tired, and would sleep, if Madame will permit."
He stretched himself upon the sofa bunk in the smoke-room, and instantly fell asleep. Madame sat watching the dark, quiet face, so very negroid now that the bright blue eyes were veiled, and presently Ching joined her.
"Captain," said she softly. "The white blood stirs, and with it the taste for white vice. Look at those lines under the eyes which stand out purple against his skin. Listen to that harsh note in his breath, and watch the uneasy twitch of his long, thin fingers. It was not in that restless fashion that he slept when Willatopy was our pilot and our guest. His Heirship lies heavily upon him already, and its burden has scarcely begun. Do you still hate Willatopy, Captain Ching?"
"No, Madame. Since you told us of the black boy's devotion to his white father, I have hatedhim no more. I wish to help his young lordship if I can."
"He will need all our help," said Madame, sighing. "The evil that Grant prophesied is coming upon him. If it is port to-day, it will be brandy to-morrow. He hates whisky now, but for how long will his palate reject it? Clifford will steep him in foul liquors if he can. For the moment Willatopy is unspoiled. When I spoke in tones of reproof, he fell at my feet and kissed my coat. He implored my forgiveness. But for how long can I fight against the wiles of Clifford?"
"What strikes me the most forcibly may seem to you a little thing," said the Skipper. "Willatopy arrived here in his yawl at an hour when he could not pass the bar for the fury of the swell. He came aboard us, and said that he had forgotten the state of the tide. Think of that for a sailor and pilot like him. When he was conning theHumming Top, Madame, he knew the tide level to an inch, but now he forgets that at certain states his own yawl cannot sail over his own bar. I think that the pair of them must have been lying up and drinking most of the night, Madame."
"Captain, you are very wise. What you say frightens me."
Willatopy stirred upon the sofa and groaned.
"John," he murmured, "you said the wine was not strong, and did no harm. But my head burns, and I cannot see. My father said...."
His voice trailed away, and he slid into half-drunken unconsciousness.
"That Hedge Lawyer is a cunning devil," said Madame. "It looks as if he represented port as atemperance drink, favoured by the strictest missionaries. I wondered a little why port was chosen for the first introduction to alcohol. Captain Ching, it sticks in my mind that my patience and courtesy towards that stranger will fail me, and that he will get hurt. When I saw him sitting opposite Willatopy in this room, making free with my yacht and my wine, my hand went to my gun. He saw death in my eyes, and wilted."
"It is a job for us, not for you," said Ching deliberately. "Shall we take him out into the Straits—and lose him? Not a man aboard of us would give away the secret. My conscience would not worry me. I would as soon drown that devil as a rat."
"We may come to it. One's views upon the sanctity of human life change with the circumstances. I do not hold it crime to slay Clifford if the killing of him would save Willatopy. But it would be a postponement, that is all. Other poachers would find him out and we should not then be at hand to interpose for his protection. There is an alternative which appeals to me more strongly. Clifford is away toiling through the woods yonder. Willatopy is here with us. Suppose, while he sleeps, that we send in for my camp gear, ship it on board, cast off our moorings, and sail immediately for England. Willie would then have been cut loose from the unscrupulous poachers of St. Mary Axe. I would hand him over to the Trustees of the Toppys estates, who must give his claims full recognition, and keep a constant watch upon him in England. Disaster, degeneracy, will fall upon him, I fear. They are the present perils of his explosivehalf blood. But at least he would have been preserved from deliberate corruption. Will you please summon Alexander. He is shrewd and vairy circumspectious. Let us have his opinion."
Alexander considered the proposal with a grave, judicial countenance. He had been below tinkering with his adored engines—painting the lily of the high-speed turbines—and had seen nothing of the expulsion of John Clifford. When told how Madame had plugged a two-shilling piece with a .25 pistol bullet, he expanded with admiration.
"Yon Clifford will go in fear of his dirty life," said he with satisfaction. "He will scuttle for the woods when the shadow of our sweet Madame falls across his track. You are a bonny shooter, but don't puncture the vermin if you can keep your wee gun off him. I like fine your new plan. There is a flavour of lawless kidnapping about it which appeals, which appeals. Both Ching and me are with you up to the neck. Will you send ashore now for the gear?"
"You can't," interposed Ching shortly. "'Tis close on low water, and the bar is not passable."
"Oh!" groaned Madame. "Like Willie, I had forgotten the tide."
"It's a peety, a sore peety," observed Ewing. "But not an insuperable obstacle. The tents and the gear are worth much money; still they belong to Sir John Toppys and not to us. He would be the loser by their being left behind, not us. The Idle Rich can afford losses of gear. We can maroon the tents as we propose to maroon the law agent."
"But," objected Ching—to the best of plans there is always some intrusive objection—"what aboutmy six men in the escort tent, and Madame's maid, Marie? We can't leave them behind."
"I will willingly leave Marie—she can console John Clifford if she has the stomach for him. But I agree that we can't leave Ching's men. They are wanted to work the yacht. Besides, after my stores were exhausted they would have nothing to live on except bananas and the produce of Mrs. Toppy's fowls and garden. It would be a low down trick to play on the poor dears. We must confide Willie and his future to the hands of Fate. If he stays asleep until the tide rises, and we can evacuate my camp, we will accept the omen, up anchor, and sail to-night for home. Willie himself shall be our Pilot. But if not, not. I am a fatalist, and shall not grumble either way. Will you please get the boats ready, Captain, so that no time may be lost. We must do our bit to help the workings of Fate, but I shan't interfere to the extent of locking Willie up, and kidnapping him by force."
But Fate had already decided. Willatopy awoke at about one o'clock, announced that hunger devastated him, and for the first time lunched with Madame and her companions in the saloon. As Willatopy he had messed with the junior officers; as the Twenty-Eighth Baron of Topsham he sat at Madame's right hand in the saloon. There was no pretence now that he was a byblow of Will. Toppys.
It was interesting to observe Willie at table. He had been brought up strictly as a native of the Straits, and in his father's hut had lived exactly like other brown boys. Now and then, during his visits to Thursday Island, he had sat at table in rough company. Once or twice, I believe, thebanker Grant had invited him to tea with his wife and family. In the usages of white society, with these small exceptions, Willie was wholly unversed. Yet no one watching him now, seated beside Madame, and talking freely with Ching and Ewing, would have suspected the slenderness of his social equipment. He never touched knife or fork or plate until by observation he had seen how the others used them. He watched his companions as narrowly as he watched the reefs by which, and over which, he sailed his yawl. His method was slow, but it was very sure. In the course of time he satisfied his hunger, and all through the meal he never committed one noticeable gaucherie.
"The boy is white and a gentleman," thought Madame. "What a pity it is that his skin did not come as pale as that of his sisters. But for that most unfortunate coffee-coloured epidermis, there might be a chance for him after all. The brown skin together with the explosive mixture in his blood are too overwhelming a handicap to carry." No wine was served by Madame's strict orders.
Afterwards in the smoke-room over coffee and cigarettes—Willie had never smoked before, but seemed to relish one of Madame's favourite Russians—Madame openly spoke to Willie of their intentions had he not awakened so inopportunely.
"It is not too late, Willie, to go now with us of your own free will. Lord Topsham—for you really and truly are Lord Topsham, a great English Lord—cannot for long remain on a little island in the Torres Straits. He will be sought out by his own Trustees, and by loathsome sharks of the Clifford breed. Now that you know the truth and your whiteblood stirs in your veins, I become convinced that you must go to England. Before you had gone on that trip to Thursday Island, I thought it possible that you might stay in peace here. Now I am sure that sooner or later you must go. And if Fate wills, sail with us, your friends who love you, in a Toppys ship. We will take you home with us, and put you in your lawful place."
But Willie said No. The wine, dying out in his system, had left him full of terrors. The gallant lad, who had fought for three days to save his godlike father from the devils of the sea, who until now had never felt fear, trembled before the unknown.
"I will never leave Tops Island," muttered he. "This is my home. I am a Hula, and my father said, 'Always be Hula, Willie, never go to England.' I cannot disobey the words of the Great White Chief, my father. Clifford I hate. I am sorry, Madame, that I did not kill him when first he landed on my island. It was you who saved his miserable life from me. In Thursday Island he tried to give me whisky, and, when I refused it, told me the sweet sticky port was good and safe to drink. I liked it, Madame. He brought two, three cases away in the yawl, and some other stuff like port—he called it cherry brandy. That I like too. It is hot and sweet. And then there is...." In his artless fashion he was about to speak of the girl Marie, but the white blood stirred, for the first time in his relations with women he felt shame, and the sentence was left unfinished.
"It is as you will," said Madame gently. "We will remain here for a little while longer. Should you change your mind and wish to go, here is theHumming Topat your service. We cannot sail without our Pilot. We should be cast away on the reefs for sure. You brought us to your island, Willie, and only you can take us away."
"I will be your pilot to Thursday Island whenever you wish, Madame. But no farther. I will return here in my yawl."
"And what about Clifford?"
"If he has not gone, I will cut off his head. It amuses me that he should be my white slave, but I grow weary of him. His head will smoke nicely over the fire in my cookhouse."
The afternoon drew on, and the tide rose to its height. Willie, looking out over the bar, decided that the moment for his departure had arrived. He went to the stern of the yacht where the yawl had been tied up.
"One moment," said Madame. "Those cases which Clifford bought? The port and the cherry brandy? Shall we throw them overboard, Willie?"
The boy's face worked uneasily. He had tasted of the juice of the Californian grape and found it very good. He had decided not to go to England to claim his lordship, but had not decided to cut himself loose from all white seductions. It was his intention to carry the cases to his island, and there to offer alcoholic hospitality to the girl Marie. Madame knew nothing of what passed through his opening mind.
"Shall we throw the cases into the sea?" she enquired anxiously. "It will be better so, Willie, my dear."
Willie did not refuse her in words. He stood hesitating, and then suddenly leaped over the rail.Down he dropped true upon the yawl's deck, and steadied himself with one hand on the mainmast. In a moment he had cast off and run up the sails.
Madame Gilbert watched the yawl fly through the slack water towards the bar, and heave and pitch in the swell. Willie took her over as a skilful rider lifts a horse over a gate, and slid away into the distant recesses of the bay.
She turned to Ching, who stood silent at her side.
"There is something hidden," said she. "Something that we do not know. One does not all at once become so fond of drink. What is that something, Captain Ching?"
Ching shook his head. He did not know. If Alexander had been present, I do not think that he would have shaken his head. He might not have known more than was vouchsafed to Ching, but he would, at least, have put up a guess. Alexander, the circumspectious man, did not lightly confess to being baffled.
Willie moored the yawl at the head of the bay, and went ashore in the collapsible boat. On the edge of the beach he met Marie, who, in the absence of the terrible Madame Gilbert, had gained courage.
"My lord has been a long time gone," whispered she, regarding him sideways with the eyes that bit. "Marie has missed you very much."
"You will not miss me any more," said Willie. He kissed her—it was the salute of the seigneur to the beautiful white slave—and with his arm about her waist walked slowly towards the woods.
"When you go to England and become a great Lord," said she, "you will forget poor Marie."
"Yes," agreed Willie, as one stating the most unchallengeable of truths. Marie Lambert frowned. It was not the reply for which she had angled.
A few more days had passed. Every afternoon, when released from attendance upon Madame Gilbert, the French girl would climb up to an appointed place on the hillside above the camp and there meet Willatopy. They were, she judged, safe from observation. Madame, when not afloat on the sea, stuck to the sea shore, or read books in the shady entrance to her tent. Never gratuitously active on foot, Madame rarely ascended the hill which formed the backbone of Tops Island. She was enjoying a spell of real physical laziness after her unremitting labours in the war.
The bright blue eyes and dark brown skin of Willatopy seemed to the depraved taste of Marie to be the most fascinating masculine combination in colour that she had ever enjoyed; when to them was added the glamour of Willie's succession to an historic peerage, Marie felt that for once in her lurid career she really loved. Willie, she assured him,occupied the whole of her capacious heart. There was no room, no room at all, for junior deck and engine-room officers. Marie knew her mistress. She was well aware that a threat from Madame was no vain play with words. She was convinced that the discovery of her intrigue with Willatopy would mean: first, confinement in the ever-rolling yacht at anchor—a nauseating prospect—and finally, her return to France with Madame as an accuser and relentless enemy. Yet she risked all to sport with Willatopy in the woods.
"That is unkind," said she. "You do not love Marie any more." Willatopy, who was lying at her feet, raised his face lazily. He permitted her, if she pleased, to bend over and kiss him. She did bend over, though conscious of some slight humiliation.
"What do you want?" asked Willatopy, rather crossly. "I have left my brown girls for you. When I was in Thursday Island, I would not look at them. I rejected one whom I used to love, and she wept bitterly. When I offered her a white man, John Clifford, she smacked his face. None of the brown girls would put up with John. All scorned him. He is a filthy little beast. For you, Marie, my white woman, I have turned my back on the brown girls. What more do you want?"
"I do not wish that you should go to England and leave me. If you go, Madame Gilbert will take me away."
"I have told you many times that I do not go to England."
"But you are a lord, the Lord of Topsham."
"I can be a Lord here on my Tops Island."
"I should like, Willie, to be the Lady of Tops Island."
"Well," said Willatopy, knitting his brows, "that is easy. When Madame and the yacht have sailed away, you shall stay here, and be my white Lady. My boys shall build you a fine hut thatched with sago palm."
"I don't think, Willie, that I care much for a hut. You are rich. You have the money of your father, and of your uncle, the late Lord. You can send for men, skilful men, and build a house on this island fit for a white woman and her—her—husband."
"I did not say anything about a husband," observed Willatopy drily.
"But Willie," urged Marie, "you are a grown man. Very soon you will want a home of your own and a wife who loves you. An English Lord must have a white wife, and here am I. You will never find a wife fonder or more beautiful than I would be."
"I do very well as I am," said Willie, philosophically.
Marie Lambert ground her teeth. She had thought to fascinate the brown Heir, and to twist him about her fingers. A marriage, at Murray or Thursday Island, would be as legal as a marriage at St. George's, Hanover Square. If she could prevail upon Willie to marry her now, before he learned the value of his peerage, she would become an English Lady, the Lady of Topsham. After that, there would be no more talk about a fine house on Tops Island. England, and English society, would be her new sphere of campaign.
She had not, I fancy, thought of this scheme at the beginning, or perhaps she would have been less complaisant. A discreet aloofness might have proved a more potent inducement to matrimony than the free love which she had offered. Marie, sitting there grinding her teeth, felt that she could hate Willatopy as savagely as a day or two ago she had loved him. If she had not also feared him, almost as much as she feared Madame Gilbert, she would have let loose her vixenish rage. It was perhaps a little late, but, as a new weapon, she affected a judicious propriety.
"I should not have met you—like this, Willie, if I had doubted your intention to marry me. White women, especially French women, are not like brown girls. They regard their—reputation. If you have been playing with me, I shall not meet you again—much though I love you."
Willatopy thoughtfully considered this new development. To him, her speech was just foolishness, but in his tolerant way he tried to understand it. In his own small world, wives were models of virtue, but girls—and widows—were not. Marie was making a fuss about something, though quite what it was he had no idea.
"One does not marry everybody," he said at last. He could think of no sentence more illuminating.
"I am not—everybody—or anybody," replied Marie with dignity. "I am a French lady, as good a lady as Madame Gilbert. When a man makes love, as you have done, to a French lady, she naturally thinks that he intends to marry her."
This was far over Willatopy's head. It is the woman who proposes marriage in the Straits, andthe man who, after fall consideration, gives or withholds his assent. An amour, such as this one of his with Marie, had nothing to do with marriage as he understood it. A man married so that his wife might work for him. He could not picture the white Marie, in her pretty French clothes, working for him or anyone else. She was altogether charming to sport with, but as a wife quite inconceivable. He tried to explain his simple code to Marie. It was not easy, for neither of them had a full command of the English language. Their vocabularies were sufficient for everyday speech, or for love-making, but were incapable of expressing the deeper mysteries of social philosophy.
Marie gathered that Willatopy would not marry her because she could not work in his hut or in his plantation, and that he had no use for a wife who couldn't. If that was all——
"That is nothing," exclaimed she brightly. "That only means that we must not live in Tops Island. After we are married we will go to England where you will be a great Lord and I shall be a great Lady. I shall be Lady Topsham, and I will make Madame Gilbertcreverwith jealousy."
"But I am not going to England," observed Willatopy, stolidly. He had fully made up his mind not to marry Marie, and was quite capable of continuing his refusal indefinitely. If she turned from him in consequence, he would be grieved, but marry her he would not.
Rather bluntly, perhaps, he conveyed this determination to the perceptions of Marie Lambert.
Furious, she sprang up. Willatopy rose with her. She was about to rate him in voluble French whenshe remembered that he did not understand a dozen words of that beautiful language. And since she could not do justice to her emotions in English, she stood there gasping, tongue-tied.
Willie smiled, and took both her hands. She strained from him, but in his grip she was helpless. Slowly he drew her close, and bent his bright eyes upon hers. Thus he held her.
"Let me go," she muttered. "Your eyes shine. They make me faint."
"They shine like the sky at dawn," said Willatopy. "Go back to your tent, Marie, and meet me here to-morrow." He kissed her farewell, and, half dazed, she went without another word.
At the appointed hour next day she came again. Willie was late, and when at length, gracefully debonair, he strolled into the clearing, Marie raged furiously.
"I had not intended to come again," cried she, "and now I am sorry that I did."
"You could not keep away," replied the brown Sultan of Tops Island.
"Bête," roared Marie, and burst into a passion of French, which broke uncomprehended about Willie's ears. She then tried English, but the language would not flow. It is a terrible thing for an angry woman to possess no vehicle of speech. Willatopy, quite unmoved, drew out a packet of cigarettes and lighted one. Since his definite recognition by Madame and theHumming Topas the new Lord Topsham, he had adopted his white holiday clothes as a regular island wear. Clifford and Marie had convinced him that it was improper for a great white lord to go about lookinglike a Hula savage. His suddenly acquired taste for cigarettes was satisfied by plundering the scanty store of the white slave John.
Marie Lambert plucked the cigarette from his mouth, and flung it down. His eyes lighted up, and he grappled her, crushing the thin white dress into her soft arms. Frightened, she struggled feebly. He kissed her, and she hung helpless in his arms.
"Don't be a fool, Marie," said Willatopy.
He put her down on the ground and lighted another cigarette. Marie, conquered, no longer attempted to suppress this mark of his indifference.
It was not until the time drew near when they must part that Marie returned to the topic of the previous day. Her tenure of Willatopy's affections was so insecure that no moment must be wasted if she were to rivet him to her by the bonds of matrimony.
"It shall be to-morrow," said she softly, patting the brown cheek, which was not far from her own.
"What will be to-morrow?" asked he lazily.
"We will start for Thursday Island in the yawl—and be married there."
"No," said he.
"Yes. Englishmen love French girls, and all of them will envy the Lord Topsham with his wife Marie."
"You could not work in my hut or in my garden. I am very rich, and do not work. But my wife must work very hard indeed."
Marie had been thinking over this aspect of Hula matrimony, and had her answer pat.
"You may take a brown girl as your workingwife, if you please. She shall labour for both of us, you the Lord and me the white Lady."
"One time, one wife," replied Willatopy stolidly. "I would not take a brown girl to wife until after I had put you away from me."
"She need not be a real wife," explained Marie eagerly. "Just one who worked. I should be the real wife, of course."
Willatopy considered this proposal gravely. It had certain advantages, for, in his careless savage fashion, he loved the white Marie and her novel attractions. He was exceedingly reluctant to part with her. All this matrimonial fuss worried him, for he had some glimmering of the truth that an English marriage in Thursday Island—the kind of marriage which had bound his parents, and had made him the legitimate heir of Topsham—was something much more serious than the simple native ceremony of the Islands. It might not be easy to put away a Marie wedded to him in Thursday Island.
"My boys will build a hut here," said he at last, "and we will hold a marriage feast. I will take you then. That will be better than the English way."
"No," declared Marie positively, "that would be no more than—this. You could cast me off and go to England, and I should be left here alone on this hateful island."
"My mother and my sisters would be with you," said Willatopy haughtily.
"No. I must marry William, Lord Topsham, in Thursday Island, or—we must part, Willie. I was weak to-day, but I shall not come any more if you will not marry me."
Willatopy gritted his teeth, and Marie was nearer to receiving a hearty whipping than she had been since her nursery days. Nothing protected her except the vague stirrings of Willie's English blood. He would chastise his white slave, John, with unction, but his hand unaccountably shrank from striking this white woman who irritated him so grievously.
He began to speak in a halting fashion, and revealed to the anxiously listening woman the strange new thoughts which were struggling for expression in his awakening mind.
"John says that I must go to England. He says that if I send him away, others will come later. He says that an English Lord cannot live on an Island in the Straits; it is against the law, the English Law, and the Government will come for me. If I try to stay here they will put me in prison. He says that the English Lords are sent for by the King to go to London and help him to rule, and they can't refuse, unless they want to go to prison as rebels. That would be to disobey the King. I love the King, and would not disobey him. If he sends for me, then I must go.... I love you, Marie, but love has nothing to do with making you my wife. I don't want a wife. When the King sends for me he will send for William, Lord Topsham, not for my wife. You and Madame Gilbert are the only white women I have known, close. I want to see other white women, lots of them, before I marry a wife. John says that they will all be my slaves in England, and that I can take my pick among them. I should like that. Of course I could not pick great ladies likeMadame Gilbert to be my slaves, at my pleasure, but there will be many others. Like you, Marie."