"I spent nearly two months on Tops Island," said Madame to me, when telling her story in Whitehall, "and I was exceedingly loath to depart. I had by accident picked out the very best season in the year. There was not a drop of rain, the big sun shone gloriously all day long, and the regular rise and fall of the south-east trade wind kept down the heat. In my tent, which was wide open by night and day, and had generous air spaces between the walls and roof, the temperature never rose above 85 nor sank below 65. We called that winter in the South, but it was just a perfect English summer, smiling upon the tropical growth of a Pacific island. Whenever I thought of a return to a desolate European autumn, I shuddered to my bones. If I were not an intensely modern woman," she went on reflectively, "I would spend three months of every year in Tops Island. But it takes such a devil of a long time to go and return. And perhaps my second stay would be so unlike my first—there would be no Willatopy and noHumming Top—that I should never go again. It is always a mistake to seek the repetition of a delightful experience. I don't suppose that I shall ever again see little Mrs. Toppys, the Hula wife of wise madWilliam, or those dear girls in the banana-leaf petticoats. They had lost their shyness of me, and clung about my neck when the motor boat came to bear me off for the last time. I consoled them with bright chains for their brown necks, and gave to the Topy family two of Sir John's tents and quite a lot of his camp gear. I am afraid that all through my Southern adventure I made very free with the property of our good profiteer of Wigan. He never called me to account, the dear thing. The last I saw of my camping ground, as the boat sped off, was the three Topy women kneeling on the sand crying to me to come back. I wonder what they would think of me now if they knew all."
William, Lord Topsham, and his legal adviser had already gone off in a whaleboat, so that when Madame mounted the accommodation ladder all was ready for departure. The mooring hawsers had been cast off, and the bow anchor cable hauled short. The tide was flowing into the bay so that theHumming Top'scutwater pointed towards the Coral Sea outside. At a word from Ching, who stood alone on the bridge, the steam winches rattled, and the anchor was run up.
John Clifford had discreetly vanished below, but Willie stood not far from Madame Gilbert on the boat deck. Ching rang for half-speed astern, and the long narrow yacht backed into the bay to give herself room to make the entrance. At the sound of the engines Willie started and his eyes flashed. For a moment he became once more the sailor and the incomparable pilot. By instinct, rather than intention, he moved towards the bridge ladder and mounted the rungs. At the top Ching faced him.
"Do you wish to take charge, my lord?" asked the Skipper.
"No," mattered Willie, "I am not a pilot. I am Lord Topsham."
"Then," replied Ching, very firmly, "I must request Lord Topsham to leave my bridge. No passengers are allowed here."
Willie returned to the boat deck and seated himself gloomily by the rail. He could not keep his skilled eyes off the channel through which they had begun to pass, but he felt grievously the rebuff that Ching had dealt him. The loss of Madame's friendliness had taught him something; the Skipper's cold professional words had taught him more. He began to realise that an idle English Lord is of no account in a ship in comparison with a pilot. As Willatopy, the pilot, he had been, by sheer merit, Lord of the Bridge; now he was titular Lord only of Topsham, a far-off Devonshire hamlet. It was a bitter lesson in relative values.
Madame walked over to where he sat, and made her last effort towards a reconciliation between the new friendless Lord of Topsham and the real world of men and women.
"Willie," said she gently, "I heard Captain Ching. He means that though he won't have Lord Topsham on his bridge he will give the most kindly welcome to our pilot Willatopy."
But Willie remained stupidly sullen. "There isn't a Willatopy any more," said he.
"I am sorry," said Madame, and for the last time she turned her back upon him. She was never a patient woman, but I think sometimes that she might have commanded a little more patience hadshe chosen. Willie was, after all, a boy, a boy of nineteen, puffed up and exalted by his new uncomprehended dignities. She, a woman of the world, a woman of nearly twice his age, might have dealt more gently with his boyish follies. I think that she would have acted differently had she ever borne a son of her own. She would not then have been so resentful of the snub of a silly youth.
Captain Ching, sensible that a far better pilot was watching every movement of the vessel, was taking no risks. In his cautious navigation there was nothing of the splendid free-hand verve of Willatopy. With the tide flowing under him he was content with eight knots of speed, and the Chief Engineer down below, watching the slow response of the foul-bottomed yacht to the revolutions of the propellers, gave thanks for his superior's moderation. They toddled along at a "vairy economical consumption," they kept rigidly to the deepest of channels, there was none of that spirited corner cutting so characteristic of the confident Willatopy, the performance was altogether lacking in flair, but it was safe and sound. Ching made no mistakes, and as Willie watched the course he learned yet another lesson—that no man in this world is indispensable. He had expected appeals for assistance, and might perhaps have consented to abate the dignity of his lordship, had Madame and Ching been reduced by necessity to a gratifying condition of grovelling humility. But of that there was no sign. The Skipper serenely conned the yacht from his own bridge, Madame had disappeared into the smoke-room, the sailors moved about upon their lawful occasions, the lordly passenger was whollyneglected. And above all other evidences of indifference to his feelings, theHumming Topproceeded steadily upon her way, and never came near to a bump on the reefs.
Presently Willie got up and went sullenly below. He had been allotted a handsome stateroom with bath and dressing-room attached on the main deck—it was on the starboard side opposite Madame's quarters—and thither he went and sulked by himself. I am afraid that he was not happy, and perhaps began to grasp some little inkling of the great truth that no man is happy unless he fills the place and does the job for which he is fitted. On the bridge in charge of the yacht he would have grinned joyously—the round man in the round hole which he perfectly fitted; here in a modern luxurious cabin, the boy, who had spent his life in a palm-thatched hut, or in a 30-foot yawl, was ill-placed and miserable.
A light step tripped along the corridor outside. Willie opened his door and saw Marie vanishing into a room just opposite. He called, and she, turning, showed for an instant a frightened face. Then she vanished, and Willie heard the snap of a drawn bolt. So even Marie, his white mistress, had flown at the sight of him, and bolted her door against him. He knocked, but there was silence within. He waited for what seemed a long time. But the door that he watched remained closed. Weary of waiting he went back to his cabin, lay down on the bed, and fell asleep.
I do not know what had happened to John Clifford except that he had been given a room aft on the main deck, and kept resolutely to his ownquarters. His one great anxiety was to keep out of sight of that terrible straight-shooting Madame Gilbert.
When night drew on the yacht was brought to anchor under shelter of a large cay, and the Skipper drew a sigh of deep relief. He felt quite confident now that he could tackle the channels, and that his carefully constructed chart was to be depended upon. He received Madame's earnest congratulations with modesty, and the pair of them—closer friends now than at any period of their association—went down to the saloon for dinner. At the right of Captain Ching had been laid a place for William, Lord Topsham, and on his left sat Madame Gilbert. Beyond her the Chief Engineer had elected to deposit his ample person. When Willie came in, escorted by the now obsequious steward, the other three were waiting. The boy was bare-footed—he had never worn shoes in his life—and for the first time showed some sense of the inadequacy of his simple holiday dress of white shirt and Palm Beach trousers. He gazed with involuntary admiration upon our dazzling Madame—who, as always in the yacht, wore a dinner dress—and eyed the smart uniforms of the officers. He looked down at his own brown feet, and passed one hand nervously through the long frizzy tresses which stood out from his skull. The dark brown of his skin flushed into purple. Madame, who saw his embarrassment, at once spoke to him exactly as she would have done to an English guest. She drew him into the familiar chat of the group of old friends, and tried to make him forget for a moment the raw novelty of his inherited social status. Presently they wereall seated at table, and Willie felt more at ease now that his obtrusive feet were hidden. Just as daring that lunch in the saloon of a fortnight earlier, he watched how the others handled their dinner tools and committed no gaucheries. Unobtrusively, Madame observed and approved. The boy had many of the instincts of a gentleman; if only he could summon sense to his aid there might be hopes for him. But when she thought of that unstable mixed blood, unstable as nitro-glycerine, she sighed. More was needed than a smattering of carefully acquired table manners to turn a half-caste Hula into a civilised white man.
Willie observed that no wine was served at dinner, and that no liqueurs accompanied the after-dinner coffee. TheHumming Tophad become a "dry ship." By Madame's orders—accepted heartily by Ching, and no less heartily, though sorrowfully, by Alexander—the carefully selected cellar of Sir John Toppys had been locked up, and the key deposited in Ching's pocket. As with the saloon so also with the officers' mess and foc's'le. There were many groans and deep curses, but Madame was loved, and the senior officers respected. The need for the ordinance had been discreetly explained and accepted. His lordship was heartily consigned to the bottomless pit, but there was no mutiny.
It was in the smoke-room afterwards that Willie sprang upon our friends a request which showed how the white blood was beginning to stir in his veins. The Skipper had announced his intention not to stop at the unattractive Thursday Island, but to make without delay for the deep water beyond.
"I should like to have a word with Mr. Grant," observed Madame. She was anxious, if that were possible, to remove, by adroit explanations, the ill-opinion which she feared Willatopy's austere banker would form of her proceedings.
"Better go straight on," growled Ching stolidly.
"Very well," Madame sighed, for she hated that any man should think ill of her. Then Willie broke in. He was sitting with those conspicuous bare feet tucked under him, and with his eyes fixed on Madame's neat shoes and perfectly fitting silk stockings.
"I hope that you will stop," said he shyly. "I wish to go ashore."
"Is it urgent, Willie?" asked Madame. "Had we better not get on now that we have started for home?"
"I should like to see my banker. He was my father's friend, and has been very good to me. I should like to get some money."
"We have plenty here. Thanks to the business operations of the great Alexander, our treasure chest is bursting with wealth. We can supply all that you need."
"I want," murmured Willie, and his dark skin flushed again with that significant purple. "I want—to—get—some—clothes—and some shoes."
Madame looked away, and tried not to smile. "Certainly, if you wish. I quite understand. We will stop for a few hours, Captain."
The Skipper grunted, and reluctantly gave in. He could not say that he had elected to give Port Kennedy a miss in order that the dryness of theHumming Topmight not be tempered by fieryisland liquors. He knew very well what would happen if Lord Topsham and his seducer, John Clifford, were let loose upon that outpost of white civilisation.
Down below, when later Willie descended, he again caught a glimpse of his Marie. But again she fled from him, skipped into an empty cabin, and fastened the door against him. Again he waited, and did not retire to his own room until he heard Madame's steps approach. Madame Gilbert had deliberately chosen that he should be housed where his doings could be kept under her close personal observation. Willie, in his cabin, heard the mistress and maid go to their own quarters, and devoured his nails in helpless rage. His boyish love for Madame had already gone; in its place was growing up a passion not far removed from hate. Was he, a great English Lord, to be cabined and spied on by a mere widow? She had cut him off from the wine which he was learning to love, and she had so terrified Marie that the girl was afraid even to look upon him. The goddess whom he had spurned he now cursed.
Marie, eager above all things to earn that reprieve of which Madame had hinted, told how she had escaped from Willie, and locked herself up at his approach. Her degenerate passions had been stirred by Willie's colour, and she had sought to advance herself by a marriage with an English Lord before the boy could recover from her novel fascinations. But of love for him, in the nobler sense, she had not a scrap. She would sacrifice half-a-dozen Lord Topshams, now that she had no prospect of marrying one of them, to be saved from a return tothat awful revengeful France. Eagerly, in rapid emphatic French, she spread before Madame the proofs of her abandonment of Lord Topsham, and again and again protested her resolution never, never to sport with him again. She would not speak with him if she could possibly help. If he touched her she would shriek for protection.
"But, Madame," she went on, "I am as frightened of him as I am of you. I have seen in his bright blue eyes that cold look for murder which sometimes glares out from yours. I feel sure that he will kill me. But I would sooner that he killed me—if he did it quickly—than that I should be tried and shot in France. The shooting I might face bravely—death many times came near me in Amiens and I smiled upon it—but the trial, the awful remorseless faces, the shame and the horror of my treachery, the cold, deliberate preparations for my death—I could not face them, Madame. I would far sooner kill myself now at your feet."
"Keep that shame and terror before you," said Madame harshly. "They shall be yours if you disobey me, even for one instant. For you then there shall be no escape by the easy way of suicide. I will have you locked up and watched day and night by my sailors."
From Tops Island to Port Kennedy is about one hundred miles, and theHumming Top, at the cautious speed set by Ching, did not arrive until the early afternoon of the second day out. She had come through all the channels without touching once, and the First Officer, who with Ching had prepared the home-made chart, shook hands with him in mutual congratulation.
"This," said the First, "is a great occasion wasted. What it really needs is a long drink."
"It does," lamented Ching. "I have always been strictly temperate in my habits, and will have no officer or man with me who cannot be trusted to keep down his elbow. But this terrible drought which has fallen upon theHumming Topmakes me dream of bottles by night and think of them by day. The most beautiful music which I could hear would be the flop of a pulled-out cork."
"There is nothing to do now, sir," whispered the First. "Shall we hand over to the Second—he is a happy teetotaller—and go ashore—for a stroll?"
"I think that we might," replied the Skipper judicially. "I think that we might. For a stroll. After all those hours on the bridge my legs are powerful stiff."
The boat which took the Skipper and First Officer for their stroll also contained Willie and John Clifford. No one except the officers' steward had seen John Clifford since he came aboard. He lived in the seclusion of his cabin aft, to which retreat sustenance was borne by the not unkindly steward. Clifford during the voyage on a hostile ship desired nothing so much as forgetfulness of his presence—the steward always excepted.
An hour or so after the others had gone, Madame had herself put ashore in the motor launch, and went up to Grant's office. The banker received her at once, and she found him much agitated.
"Willatopy has been here, yet told me little," said he. "He made a larger demand upon me for money than he has done hitherto, and, though he is a minor, I felt unable to refuse. As trustee, Ihave invested the Topy funds for years, and the family of Baru are much richer than they realise. I noticed a very marked change in Willatopy, a most lamentable change. Tell me everything, Madame Gilbert."
"He is not Willatopy any longer. He is William, Lord Topsham."
"So I suspected. Now I fear the worst. I warned you to sail away in your accursed yacht and trouble the boy no more."
Madame told all that she knew, all that I have told in this book. She described, with genuine emotion, her happy days on the Island of Tops, her friendship with the simple brown family, the shark hunt, and the wild fishing on the Barrier Reef. When she came to the casting up of the Hedge Lawyer on the peaceful strand of Baru, her listener groaned. "Wheresoever the carcass is there will the vultures be gathered together." She explained eagerly, anxiously—for she valued the good opinion of this honest Scotsman—how she had tried to win the confidence of Willatopy, and to set at naught the unscrupulous seductions of the legal poacher. She admitted failure. She showed how Willatopy had been led astray, first, by the visit in the yawl to Thursday Island, and the introduction to port and cherry brandy—("He never came near me then," ejaculated Grant)—and, secondly, by the wiles of the French girl Marie. She ended by declaring that Willie, godless—for he had spurned his gods—was on his way to England.
"He has come ashore," said she, "to buy clothes and shoes."
"And Clifford has come to buy drink," addedGrant. "Among you all you have ruined my poor boy. He was a brave honest lad, and you are making of him a devil. I could bring myself to curse you, Madame Gilbert."
"It was not my fault," pleaded Madame, in distress. "I am as grieved as you possibly can be. Even if I had followed my first righteous impulse, and thrown John Clifford to the sharks, another vulture would have followed after a ripe carcass. In my hands Willie was becoming white. It was the lawyer and Marie who corrupted him, not I."
"You carried the girl Marie to him."
"Mr. Grant. You are a just man who knows the world. If it had not been John Clifford it would have been some other hedge lawyer. If it had not been Marie, it would have been some other shameless white woman. I have at least done something to protect Willatopy from his lawyer, and I have stopped utterly the intrigue with Marie. In order that Willie may not in his ignorance be plundered, I shall take him now to England, and put him in the legal charge of his own Trustees of Topsham. The Hedge Lawyer shall be shot ashore at Singapore, and left there baffled and marooned. I can still save Willatopy from the worst disasters that threaten him."
"I have never doubted your good intentions, Madame. Hell is paved with good intentions. If you had intended to carry him off you should have done it at once. In the yacht you could have kept the boy and the girl apart. I gravely fear that your precautions are now too late. You may stop the intrigue, but you will conjure up new perils. Remember that Willatopy is of the blood of NewGuinea head hunters and ceremonial cannibals. He is by no more than two generations removed from untrammelled bloodthirsty man-eaters. Under the restraint which you now put upon his passions, he will turn towards revenge. I pray that murder may not be done in your beautiful yacht yonder. Believe me, you and that girl Marie, you no less than the girl, go in grievous peril. You should have foreseen, after my warning, the danger of bringing that intemperate maid of yours to Tops Island. You are deceiving yourself if you suppose that the evil train which she has led can be rendered harmless by any damping now."
"Surely you would not ..." began Madame in astonishment, but Grant cut in brusquely:
"No, of course not. Though it would now be the lesser peril. I have warned you once, and you disregarded my words. I will most gravely and solemnly warn you again. In that yacht you will live in daily, hourly peril of your life. You are a woman of high courage. It is written upon your face. But I implore you for once to live in fear—for yourself and your maid."
"I hesitate to believe you," said Madame, slowly and thoughtfully. "Willie has not changed so much as that would imply. His head is swollen with a sense of high lordship, but I am certain that he would not raise his hand against me. I allow that danger threatens Marie, and I will guard her against it. But for myself, no. The boy has worshipped me as a goddess; he has knelt at my feet and kissed my coat. He has flown to me in trouble, and I have comforted him. He has changed towards me, but not by so much as all that."
"For twelve years he worshipped his father as a live god. For seven more years, until almost yesterday, he worshipped his father's memory, and treasured all the little words of wisdom which fell from the lips of the god. Where is that father's godship now? The solid image of the father has been overthrown just as you—a newly erected idol—have been overthrown. I say to you again, Madame Gilbert: Live in Fear, in Hourly Deadly Fear."
When Madame rose to go, the Scotsman rose with her. He smiled kindly upon her and held out his hands. She took them both and pressed them with affection.
"Have you forgiven me?" whispered she.
"I cannot forgive you," said Grant, but though his words were stem his eyes smiled kindly. "I can never forgive you, but I acquit you wholly of evil intention. The evil that we do, however free from intention, lives after us, and sometimes it lives longer than we do. Take grave heed to my warning, for I wish you well."
Madame smiled almost gaily as she walked away. Grant, in words, had denied to her forgiveness, but his smile had been a benediction. She thought to dismiss his warning, but it marched with her, and would not be thrust aside. Almost against her own will she found herself examining the doors of her cabin, of Marie's adjoining room, and of the bath and dressing-room on the other side. All the rooms opened upon the corridor from which Willie's cabin also opened. Marie entered as Madame was testing the strong brass bolts with which the doors were fitted.
"Always be careful to bolt your door at night," commanded Madame. "You are within the width of a passage from two great dangers: the love and the hatred of Lord Topsham. I do not know which is the more deadly. Bolt your door firmly against both."
Marie promised, for she already walked in the Hourly Deadly Fear demanded by the banker Grant. When the maid had left her, Madame picked up her automatic, flicked open the magazine, and saw that five cartridges lay within. In her stormy life that pistol, always loaded, had never been far from her hand. She had neglected somewhat of habitual precaution in the yacht, but Grant's words, spoken with the most solemn energy, would not be thrust away. She selected a bit of ribbon, and tied it to the ring on the pistol butt. Then she adjusted a loop to her own wrist.
"It is quite like old times," murmured Madame, when she had adjusted the ribbon so that the pistol hung conveniently from her wrist with the butt against her quick fingers. "It is quite like old times when I never went to sleep without this brave little fellow at my right hand. And sometimes but for his comforting presence I might almost have been frightened."
Madame Gilbert, standing by the rail, watched the boat come alongside which bore Lord Topsham and his legal adviser from Port Kennedy. They appeared to have been shopping with energy, for the boat was laden with packages. Among the spoils of Thursday Island were three wooden cases around which the seamen clustered, like wasps about honey, when they had been hauled up and laid upon the deck. Ching, who was standing beside Madame, and looking the happier for his stroll ashore, frowned savagely.
"Shall I have them thrown overboard?" asked he.
Madame did not reply. She was speechless with the fury of one who has been outraged publicly. Picture to yourself the feelings of a hostess who invites guests to dinner, and watches them enter her drawing-room, each with a bottle under the arm. Though strong drink may not be looked for at her board, does she not regard this ostentatious liquid supplement to her hospitality as a public outrage? So Madame felt in her "dry ship" when Lord Topsham and his slave John brought their cases of alcoholic refreshment aboard. For a moment she was strongly inclined to let Ching have his will, but reflected that even if guests should bring their ownliquor to one's dinner, one should not retaliate by smashing the bottles on the carpet. The only adequate retort would be to write the cads' names off the list of one's acquaintance. That is exactly what Madame was most disposed to do. She seriously thought of instantly sending Willie and Clifford to the right about with their baggage, and leaving them to find some other means of transport than theHumming Top. Had Willie been educated in the ways of white men she would certainly have shot him forth. But she realised that the blame lay with the man Clifford, and that she could not dismiss the servant while retaining the master. It must be both or neither. And while she hung upon the edge of decision, Willie himself determined the issue by one of those small unconscious actions which so often determine human destinies. He looked up, saw Madame, forgot for a moment his resentment against her, and smiled as the Willatopy of old had been wont to smile.
"I had just made up my mind to send the pair of them packing off to Port Kennedy," said Madame to me, "when the boy looked up and smiled. There was an unholy fascination about the brown creature, and sometimes I almost came within sympathetic range of my wicked maid Marie. The bright blue eyes, which shone like the sky at dawn, had a potency which no woman could wholly resist. When he smiled at me then, I remembered the boy who had kissed my wet trench coat—and I let him be. The cases were taken down to Willie's cabin. I was beaten again, and as soon as I was set free from the charm of those eyes, suffered the agonies of defeat. But I was helpless. I could not ostracisethat wretch Clifford any more than he was already ostracised. One cannot exile an inhabitant of Coventry in his own city. If our relations had not suffered so great a change, had not a gulf of bitter resentment yawned between us, I would have reasoned with the boy Willie—who at heart was a natural born gentleman—and have shown him his error, as I had done when he ordered port to be served in my own smoke-room. If that Clifford ever turns up again, and approaches within pistol shot of me, even in Piccadilly Circus at noonday, I am sure that I shall plug a hole in his waistcoat." Our Madame is a very human woman; she can love and she can hate, and after years of friendship and intimate knowledge of her, I cannot tell which is the more dangerous—her love or her hate.
Wine in cases was not the only result of Willie's shopping expedition in the outpost of white resources. He had gone ashore to gather covering for his feet and person which would be in harmony with his exalted dignity. The boy, who had happily roamed almost naked about his own island, and had lived for nineteen years the simple, untrammelled life of a native, had now become obsessed with the vice of clothes.
Madame Gilbert was standing in the saloon, waiting for her fellow diners to collect, when the shuffle of strange feet behind fell upon her quick ears. She spun round and beheld a portent. Lord Topsham had entered, a Lord Topsham transfigured most abominably. Upon his shoulders hung an ill-fitting dinner jacket, pumps of incredible vastness covered his broad, naturally developed feet, and the edges of his black trousers—some three inches too long—trailed upon the carpet. Upon what long-neglected peg in Thursday Island that villainous suit had hung, and for how long, Madame was never privileged to discover. Willie, in delighted zeal, had torn it down, and wrapped it about himself, and now stood forth the perfect European. Madame had been so completely absorbed in Willie's clothes that some few seconds passed before her eyes travelled upwards to his head. Then she had a further surprise—his long, frizzy hair had been cropped quite close to his skull.
The boy, in equipping himself as the Lord Topsham of his imagination, had lost for ever all the natural dignity of Willatopy. He had become the very image of an uncouth brown waiter in a Pacific Island hotel. It was pitiful, and Madame hung poised between laughter and tears.
"Am I all right, Madame?" asked Willie anxiously. "John fastened my tie. I could not do it myself."
"You are quite all right," said Madame kindly. "You were very lucky to find so splendid a dinner jacket in Thursday Island."
He glowed with pleasure, and stretched out a black, shining foot. "I am not ashamed now to sit at dinner with you, Madame."
At this moment Ching and Alexander entered, and, like the gentlemen that they were, paid no apparent attention to the transfigured Willie. But they were appalled at the change which had been wrought upon him by that dreadful apparel. Never before had they so vividly realised the power of clothes to make or mar the human form. Willie, at his first effort, had unhappily chosen the mostcruelly searching of all human vestments. He had aspired to the heights and fallen into the depths.
They were still lying off Port Kennedy, for the Skipper did not propose until morning dawned to guide theHumming Topthrough the narrow bottle-neck of the Straits. They dined in comfort on an even keel, and afterwards Willie disappeared to go to his cabin, and there, with his slave John, to supplement Madame's austere hospitality.
At about eleven o'clock there happened an incident which has some significance in this story. Willie, whose thoughts were never far away from the Marie whose charms had been denied to him, and was ever on the alert to encounter her, had come into the corridor outside his cabin, and seen Marie's white skirt passing through an open door. He sprang, and before she could slip within, had gripped her hand in his iron fist.
"Now I have you," he whispered. "At last."
He pulled her towards him, but the girl strained away. She looked fearfully up and down the corridor.
"Kiss me, Marie," murmured Willie. "You cannot escape me now."
Still she strained away from him in terror. Then suddenly she relaxed, and he got his arm about her waist. She no longer resisted him, seemed not to be looking at him, and he was puzzled by a placid indifference which he had never before experienced in her. He had his arm round her waist, and she was gazing intently over his shoulder.
Willie threw back his head, and followed the direction of the girl's eyes. Six feet distant Madame Gilbert was standing in the corridor gazing uponthe pair with that sombre deadly look which chilled the blood of Marie, and sobered even the ardent, wine-inspired Lord of Topsham.
He released the girl, who immediately vanished, and turned savagely upon Madame. She said nothing. He moved towards her, and seized both her elbows. He thrust her against the wall, and held her there motionless.
Madame is very strong, physically, but she tells me that she never puts forth the strength of her body against that of a man.
"Whenever a man seizes me in anger I never struggle," she has often said to me. "A physical broil between a man and a woman must always end to the discomfiture of the woman. To the greater power of a man I oppose exaggerated feminine weakness."
With muscles deliberately limp, she stood against the wall in Willie's grip, her breast rising and falling quietly, her cold, fearless eyes holding him immovably. He approached his face to hers until each could see the tiny reflection of self in the other's pupils. Willie's breath, charged with the fumes of bad and fiery port, beat upon Madame's senses. She suffered from a momentary nausea, but the steadiness of her gaze continued unabated.
He was trying to beat her down with the power of his eyes, but, just then, they had no charm for Madame Gilbert. They were no longer the eyes of Willatopy before whose radiance her heart had often melted; they were the drink-suffused eyes of Lord Topsham, an enemy. She put forth all her moral energy, and stared him into disquiet. And when his eyelids began to blink and flicker, sheknew that she had won. The savage light died out, and he released her elbows. He stepped back, and she was free. Still calm, she bowed slightly as one bidding farewell to a distant acquaintance, and walked slowly towards her own door. With the snap of her drawn bolt the spell broke, and Willie also moved away. He felt humiliated, as one who had suffered defeat. As he had stood there facing Madame, there had come upon him a savage lust to fasten his talons in the beautiful white throat, and to choke the cold light of scorn out of her lovely eyes. But he could not do it. He had spurned her, and felt that he hated her, but there still remained for him about her something of the aura of a goddess.
Madame was very thoughtful as Marie undressed her that evening. She said nothing to the girl, for she had perceived her attempts to repulse Lord Topsham. She had confidence in Marie's terrors if not in her virtue. But the brief contest of wills without had made a deep impression. She perceived that the struggle for mastery between the half-savage boy and herself had begun seriously. As the wise man Grant had predicted, the boy was growing into a peril. She had beaten him once in the tense silent battle of eyes, but could she always reckon upon time and opportunity within which to achieve another victory? Madame lay deep in thought upon her bed, and fingered delicately the butt of that faithful companion which now always slept beside her.
A couple of hours later, while she still lay sleepless, a loud noise of shouting and singing arose from the cabin opposite. Willie and John Clifford hadbeen broaching the cases of sweet fiery port, and had become drunkenly exuberant This was, I believe, the first time that Willie had passed over the alcoholic border into actual intoxication. Madame listened to the unseemly racket, which resounded now through the silent anchored ship, and again toyed with the automatic.
"Drink and Lust and explosive half-blood," murmured she. "The blood of Old Devon and of savage Melanesia. I wonder what the end of it all will be."
That end came with appalling suddenness, without warning or preparation. Madame alone in the ship was ready, for she who had for five years lived amid quick storms and unheralded perils was always ready. For three days the yacht had been steaming slowly up towards the Straits of Sunda. Willie in public had been surly and reserved; he had not again fallen upon the apprehensive Marie—too intently busied upon working out her reprieve to relax in favour towards him—and had shown no overt hostility to Madame. Every night he had drunk deeply with John Clifford, and the noise of their joint libations had disturbed Madame Gilbert's rest. The once healthy boy, splendid in his tireless virility, was degenerating fast. From day to day the decline could be seen in the greyness of his face, and in the tremor of his strong thin fingers. The shoes which he insisted upon wearing crippled his free movements. Once conspicuously elastic of tread—he had seemed to move on steel springs—he now slouched and shuffled. Madame never saw Clifford, but she heard his voice nightly in the cabin opposite, and I am sure that she ached toslay him. She longed for Singapore, and for the final expulsion of the Hedge Lawyer, who was responsible for the woes of a once happy Toppys yacht, and of the once happy Tops Island. He was working fast for Willie's destruction, but he did not understand the explosive material with which he worked. In the end he lost—at the moment when it seemed to his narrow intelligence that the white slave had become the white master.
It was after midnight, Madame was abed, and for once the potations of the drinkers did not culminate in a noise which disturbed her sleep. For once Willie had dismissed Clifford at an early hour, and bent himself to carry out his own delayed yet cherished schemes. Something of the cunning of the white man had tempered the desires of the savage; he had deliberately ceased to pursue Marie, and thought to dim the bright polish of Madame's unfailing watchfulness.
Nothing was to be heard that night save the whirr of the high-speed turbines, and nothing to be felt except the quivering vibration of the yacht's frames. Although the cabin opposite was unwontedly quiet, Madame Gilbert did not sleep. The change from noise to silence oppressed her. She was more wakeful and watchful than she had been for some days; she had learned that the unexpected always happens and she was waiting, apprehensively, for the violently unexpected. She did not, as Grant had advised, pass her days and nights in deadly fear—it was no strange experience for her to watch and wait with that faithful companion within grip of her fingers—but both her days and nights were brimful of apprehension and sorrow. She hadfaintly hoped that the old spirit of Willatopy would revive when the well-beloved seas girt him about, and his feet trod the decks of a ship. She had hoped that the salt of the sea would call irresistibly to the salt in his blood. But the strong, rich drinks of Thursday Island were more potent than any sea salt. Willatopy was gone for ever. There remained a visibly degenerating Lord Topsham.
Suddenly she heard the soft closing of a door. The sound was quite near. She sat up and listened. A faint light, reflected from the sea, came through her cabin scuttles; she could make out the closed doors of her room—the bathroom door behind her, Marie's door in front, and that other which led into the corridor at her right. Her rooms were on the port side of the main deck. But though the upper part of the cabin was faintly illuminated, the deck lay in the deepest shadow.
Madame heard nothing, but straight before her she saw the communicating door between her room and Marie's open half-way and then close. Someone had penetrated her room by way of the bathroom door, crawled past her bed along the deck, and slipped without sound into her maid's cabin.
A gust of fury shook her. She did not seek to enquire whether Marie were a victim or an accomplice. Just as when those cases of liquor had come aboard, she felt the humiliation of outrage. Her room had been made flagrant use of as a surreptitious passage to her maid's; her one passion at that moment was for instant vengeance.
She stretched forth her left hand, and snapped on the electric lights. In her other hand was gripped the loaded automatic.
The lights flashed on, and Marie's door opened wide. On the threshold stood Lord Topsham, clad only in a pair of pyjama trousers. The dark brown skin of his body glowed in the light. He himself paused, momentarily dazzled.
Behind him rang out a shriek followed instantly by a howl from Willie. White arms were wound about his neck. Marie had sprung upon his back, and clung to him shrieking.
Willie staggered into Madame's room, and some hard object, which had been in his hand, fell upon the deck. Madame heard the ring of steel upon wood. Then he raised both hands, and fastened his fingers into the soft upper arms of the girl who had sprung upon him. Those fingers, contracted with the full force of Willie's powerful muscles, bit into Marie's flesh, and she screamed with a pain which was even greater than her terror. The remorseless fingers ground and bit, and the grip of Marie's arms relaxed. Then Willie bent almost to the deck, and with a heave of his loins flung Marie, a whirl of white tangled draperies, against the cabin wall. She brought up with a sickening crunch against the hard steel-backed panelling, and lay insensible along the wainscot.
Willie stooped and picked up that which he had dropped. Madame sat upon her hammock-bed, motionless, scarcely breathing, every scrap of nervous energy concentrated in her eyes and skilled right hand. As one whose life hung by a thread, which she alone could preserve intact, she watched intently Willie's every movement.
He stooped and picked up the trench dagger which at Marie's onslaught he had dropped. Thelight ran up and down the thin sharp blade. Madame watched Willie feel the point with his thumb, and settle his fingers comfortably about the grip. He did not hurry, and as he grasped the dagger firmly, and struck out gently once or twice to enjoy a sense of its handiness, the broad lips curled back from his white teeth.
Then he sprang straight at Madame. It was the launching of a human steel-tipped javelin.
He was ten feet away from her when he sprang, and six feet distant when her pistol cracked like a vicious whip lash. In the act of firing she threw herself backwards. The brown boy, carried irresistibly forward by the impetus of his leap, fell diagonally across Madame's body, the outstretched dagger-tipped arm passing close over her face. He fell across her, pinning her down, and the hammock bed creaked and swung with the shock. The stricken boy lay across Madame, his hands and feet tearing at the deck as the bed swung, his body heaving and writhing in convulsions. Under him she lay pinned down, and felt within her own living frame every quiver and pang of his dissolution.
The hammock bed slowed down in its swing, and the hands and feet of William, Lord Topsham, trailed helplessly. His brown half-naked body was quiet now. The sudden leap, the quick deadly shot, the last agonies, had not filled up sixty seconds, yet they left Madame aged by their rapid passage. In those seconds some of her old light-heartedness had gone from her. She felt little sorrow for the Lord Topsham who had sought to slay her, and whom she had killed in the act, but her heart wept bitterly for the Willatopy whom he once had been.
The bed and the body came to rest together, and all was still.
"Marie," called Madame. There was no response from the white heap which lay where it had been flung.
"Marie," Madame cried again, "es tu morte?"
It was the silliest of enquiries, yet it penetrated the dulled ear of the sorely bruised girl.
"Oui, Madame," groaned Marie. "Je suis morte, morte, absolument."
"So that's all right," cried Madame, much relieved. The maid had risen to a lofty eminence in the opinion of the mistress, when she, inspired by her brave French blood, had sprung upon the back of the murder-filled savage. She had staked her life, and come nigh to losing her stake, to gain time for the mistress whom she had no great reason to love.
"I am pinned down and cannot move," explained Madame. "Try to open the door and then scream as loudly as you can."
"Where is the terrible Lord?" muttered Marie, still not wholly conscious. "I woke with his face against mine. He pricked my breast with his sharp steel."
"Tell me later," cried Madame. "He is dead. Open the door and scream."
The heap moved slowly, and Marie somehow got the door open. Then she howled.
A steward ran up and thrust in his gaping head.
"Call the Captain," ordered Madame sharply.
Summoned by an urgent message, of which he could make no sense, Ching leaped down from hisbridge and a moment later stepped over Marie's body into Madame's cabin.
Madame, lying with Willie stretched across her, his feet and hands drooping to the deck on either side, raised her right hand, and beckoned to the Skipper with her pistol muzzle.
"See, I have killed him. It happened very quickly."
Before the slow-witted Skipper could take in this astonishing situation, Alexander Ewing burst through the ring of sailors which had clustered about the door. A rumour had flown through the ship that Madame Gilbert was dead. Alexander burst into her cabin, white and shaking, for he loved her.
The air still reeked with the acrid taste of burnt cordite, and for a moment Alexander could see no more of Madame than a glorious mass of copper tresses on the white pillow beyond Willie's shoulder. He groaned "Is she dead? Is our Madame really dead?"
"Not much," came the voice which he loved. "If you will lift off the body of this unhappy, foolish boy, you will find me very much alive, Sandy dear."
They raised with gentle hands the limp body of the Twenty-Eighth Baron of Topsham, who never now would enter upon his hereditary dignities; they lifted the body, and laid it on the floor. There was no sign about him of a weapon, and both men looked enquiringly at Madame. She pointed between her bed and the wall, and Ewing leaning over picked up the trench dagger.
"That explains all," said he as he threw it downby the corpse. "It is sharp and deadly, Ching. Madame had no choice but to shoot."
"I was sure of that before I saw the dagger," said Ching coldly.
Madame swung herself out of bed, and wrapped a dressing-grown about her blue pyjamas. She stood beside Alexander Ewing, looking down upon the body of the boy whom she had shot. The blue eyes, half open, had lost their brightness. No longer were they like the sky at dawn. Death falling swiftly had wiped out their colour. A large scorched patch appeared on the broad chest of him who had been called Lord Topsham, and in the centre, over the heart, was the deep print of Madame's bullet. The small sharp bullet had passed right through him; they found it later embedded in the woodwork of Marie's door. Madame looked down at the scorched breast, and at the tiny hole through which a life had sped; her lips twitched painfully, and she held back a sob. She looked up pitifully at the two men, both her loving friends; at Ching, whose faith in her cool judgment had not asked for the proof of Willie's dagger; at Alexander, to whom the discovery of that weapon had brought a deep sense of relief. Ching stood erect, thinking deeply, but Alexander, with quicker sympathy, moved a step, and laid his arm about Madame's shoulders.
"Brave lass," he whispered, as she cuddled herself to him.
"I had to shoot, Sandy," she murmured. "It was a very close call, Sandy."
"Brave lass," said he again, and stooping down, kissed the twitching lips.
"Thank you, Sandy dear," said Madame. "I am only a woman thing, after all."
But though only a woman thing, Madame, an instant later, gave them an exhibition of her rapid relentless quality. Into the room penetrated a red-faced slobbering figure. Roused out of his drunken slumbers by a realisation of the total failure of his evil plans, John Clifford came for the last time into the silent presence of his human spoil.
He saw the body lying upon its back on the floor; he saw Madame standing by with the pistol still dangling from her wrist. The wide burnt mark made by the flaming cordite and the bullet hole told their tale. The base creature, who did not lack for courage, turned furiously upon Madame in the presence of her loyal friends.
"Murderess," he shrieked. "If there is a law in England you shall have justice done upon you."
Madame swung round, the automatic in, her hand.
"And you, John Clifford, robber and man destroyer, shall have justice here and now."
The pistol cracked, and the bullet, passing within an inch of his head, smacked up against the wall. He leaped for the door, both Ching and Ewing jumped out of the way, and the crowd beyond scattered down the corridor. Crack went the pistol again, and a second bullet banged with the impact of a hammer on the doorpost. Clifford reached the opening, and was through. They heard his feet pattering down the alley way.
"Steady, lass," warned Ewing. "Ye might have killed him."
"No," said Madame. "I shot to frighten, not tokill. And I have done what I intended. We shall not hear much more of Clifford and his law. With all my heart I wish that he lay here now at my feet, and that poor Willatopy, safe and ignorantly happy, were still in Tops Island. Fate is very cruel, Sandy; it might have spared upon my hand the blood of Willatopy."
The Captain of a British ship is every kind of civil authority, from magistrate and chaplain to hangman. In his capacity as coroner, Robert Ching held an enquiry in the saloon on the morning which followed the death of Willatopy. He was supported by those of his officers who were not on duty above and below deck. Marie, sore and grievously bruised from shoulder to knee, was carried in and laid at length upon a sofa. Her bones were unbroken, and though she suffered much pain, she was a very happy Marie Lambert. Madame Gilbert had passed the sponge of forgiveness over the maid's disreputable past; her one act of self-forgetting courage had blotted out the treachery in France, and the fatal amour in Tops Island. Marie had won her final reprieve.
John Clifford, broken down by days of drunkenness and by the collapse of his professional ambition, attended the inquest as the legal adviser of the slain Baron of Topsham. His spirit of the night before had faded out of him with the alcohol which stimulated it. It was a very miserable and draggled Hedge Lawyer who met for the last time his fellow voyagers in theHumming Top.
I will not trouble the reader with the whole enquiry, which was long and tedious. Ching,foreseeing scandal and legal complications when the tragic story came to be told in England, wrote down in his round, slow sailor's hand, every word that was spoken, and obtained the signatures of all present, even that of the reluctant John Clifford, to the evidence as given on oath.
No new facts were disclosed, except by Marie. She described how she had been awakened, and had felt Lord Topsham's face against hers and his dagger's point at her breast. She had tried to cry out, but his rude hand upon her mouth commanded silence. She had whispered urging him to go, and warning him that Madame, in the adjoining room, would hear.
"How did he get into your room?" asked Ching.
Marie said that he had come through Madame's cabin, crawling along the floor. He must have entered by the bathroom. The door of that room which gave upon the corridor was always bolted, had naturally always been kept bolted. Willie must have slipped in sometime when the rooms were empty, and unfastened that door. The slipping of the bolt had not been perceived. She had been afraid to cry out, even when Lord Topsham removed his hand from her mouth, for the dagger which he carried was very sharp. She had already felt its point. Yet she struggled, and whispered that Madame would hear, that Madame would interpose furiously, and that she would be a Marie Lambert doomed to a cruel death in France. Lord Topsham's breath smelled strongly of wine, and she was sure that he was half drunk. Had he been sober he would never have raised his hand against Madame Gilbert. But when Marie urged that herlife would pay the toll for any further indiscretions, Willie had ground his teeth in rage.
"'It is always Madame,' he growled. 'I am tired of Madame. She stands between me and you, and she threatens you with death. Wait, Marie,' he had said. 'I will kill this Madame nuisance, and then will come back to you. I am a great English Lord, and will kill anyone who interferes with me.'"
Marie went on to say that Lord Topsham had then let her go, and turned to enter Madame's room. He held the trench dagger in his right hand. Marie was terribly frightened, but she could not lie still and let Madame be murdered in her sleep. She did not know that Madame Gilbert was already awake and watching. So, as the half-drunken savage boy approached the door of communication with Madame's room, she slipped out of bed, and followed behind him. And when he opened the door she jumped upon his back and screamed.
"He couldn't kill me then," she explained simply, "until Madame had awakened and got ready to meet him. I knew that she slept with her pistol beside her. I jumped on Lord Topsham's back to save Madame's life."
A murmur of admiration ran round the table of the saloon.
"We all feel," said Ching gravely, "that your conduct was very brave and splendid. You risked your life for a mistress whom you had no cause to love and good reason to fear. I shall put this commendation in my report."
"Thank you, sir," said Marie. "Of course I knew that if I saved Madame she would forgive me everything."
The Court smiled at this ingenuous display of heroism combined with regard for the main chance. Marie was sprung from thrifty French peasant stock.
Madame followed, and told what we already know. She would not, she declared, have shot to kill if she could have stopped Willie by wounding him. John Clifford interposed with a question. Madame, he said, was a first-rate pistol shot. She could have hit her assailant in any part of his body that she pleased. Could she not have preserved her own life by disabling Lord Topsham's right arm or breaking his leg?
Madame, with a sad little smile, offered him her automatic pistol.
"It carried a .25 nickel-coated bullet," said she. "A tiny bullet with no stopping power. With a .45 revolver and a lump of soft lead, I could have knocked the poor boy over long before he reached me. I should have fired at him immediately after he flung off Marie. But with this little toy I had no choice. When he launched himself at me I shot him through the heart, and should, even then, have been pierced by his dagger had I not evaded the stroke by flinging myself instantly flat on my back. The dagger point just missed me. If I had done no more than wound him, had I merely punctured a hole in a leg or arm, he would have had plenty of time to kill me. You may not believe me, Mr. John Clifford, but I swear to you that I did not shoot willingly. I loved Willatopy very sincerely."
Clifford said no more, and when Ching asked for his signature to the evidence he gave it without another word.
"I find," declared Ching solemnly, "and so I shall write in my report to the English Board of Trade, that Madame Gilbert shot and killed William, Lord Topsham, in defence of her own life, and that she was fully justified in what she did."
After the enquiry had been closed, Madame went to her room, and rummaged among her trunks. She was looking for something which she vaguely remembered to have packed, and presently she found what she sought. Madame Gilbert, a Catholic by birth and upbringing, was infamously negligent of religious observances, yet she always, impelled by some inherited instinct, carried upon her travels a small ivory crucifix. It had been her mother's. Now Madame drew forth this emblem of her loosely fitting faith and bore it reverently to the cabin where the body of Willatopy lay awaiting sea burial. There she stood looking down upon the face of the boy whom she had killed. The bright blue eyes were closed for ever, but the quiet, almost smiling face was that of the Willatopy of Tops Island. She laid the crucifix upon the boy's breast that it might go into the depths with him. It was the last service that she could render, and, for some reason, it brought solace to her.
She had never kissed Willie in life, but now she stooped and pressed her lips upon the cold forehead.
"Willie," she murmured, "forgive the Madame who loved and killed you. I was the best friend that you ever had, Willie dear. It was better, far better, that you should die by my little bullet than that you should cease for always to be Willatopy."And with that kiss of farewell, there departed from Madame Gilbert all sense of blood guilt. Her hand had been the Hand of Fate, and it had been a bountiful and kindly Fate.
Willatopy lies in the depths of the Straits of Sunda. The seas are all one, and he, a sailor on both sides of the house, went home to the Great Mother upon whose bosom he had been born and lived. Madame's crucifix was sewn up in his sailcloth shroud, and he lies with it for ever upon his breast. The yacht was stopped for the ceremony, and the whole ship's company with bared heads watched the Twenty-Eighth Lord of Topsham enter into his inheritance. For his true heritage was the Sea, which he knew and loved so well.
As Madame told the story to me, in that room of mine in Whitehall—so remote in distance and in atmosphere from Tops Island and the Torres Straits—she asked me anxiously, often with tears glittering in those violet eyes of hers, if there was anything which she could have done, or left undone, to thrust tragedy away from the bright young life of Willatopy. She had loved the boy, though his skin was of so very dark a brown, and his hair so definitely negroid. And I could do no better than shake my head and lament that which was inevitable. The Hedge Lawyer, that little London cad, quickened the movement towards destruction, and set at naught Madame's own kindly exertions, but sooner or later tragedy must have fallen, heavy footed, upon Willatopy's soul and body.
"You fought and lost," said I sadly, "but in the end you won. I am sure of this: that when WillToppys, the wise mad father, met beyond the stars the brave though erring son, the blessing of the father descended from Heaven upon the head and hand of Madame Gilbert. He knew, that beachcomber, from what a calamitous fate your shot had saved his Willatopy."
"Do you really, honestly think so?" she asked eagerly.
"I do, really and honestly," said I.
* * * * * * *
It fell to the lot of the silent, always dependable Ching to speed at Singapore the parting guest. TheHumming Tophad been warped into dock, and there was a bustle of preparation for her cleansing, when the Hedge Lawyer, bearing his suit case, appeared on the main deck and accosted the skipper.
"I am leaving you here," said he. "I shall not stay upon this blood-stained ship. I said little at your precious enquiry, for I knew that you were all in the interest of Sir John Toppys, your owner. I go now to England to make very sure that justice shall be done upon that murderess."
"I will help you on the road," replied Ching serenely, and gripping the wretch by collar and pants, he hove him over the rail into the dock. No one saw him climb forth, and yet, when the water had run away, there was no trace of him in the mud—except his half-buried suit case. Hove by Captain Ching, he disappeared over the rail, and, so far as I can discover, has never since been seen. Roger Gatepath, who has his own underground methods of enquiry, declares that John Clifford hasnot returned to St. Mary Axe. The "Justice" which he demanded against Madame Gilbert has never been invoked. He is not in the dock at Singapore; he must have clambered out; so much we know—but the rest is silence.