THE OLD BLOT
“What now?” exclaimed Ursula, still standing where Mopius had left her, by the great unused fireplace. “I cannot even trust Noks, who chatters. Poor father knows nothing about business. I am quite alone.”
Even as she spoke there flashed across her mind a memory of her husband’s words: “Not Gerard. Never Gerard. If ever you want a counsellor, turn to Theodore Helmont.”
Hardly knowing what she did—certainly not knowing why she did it—she sat down and wrote a telegram, then and there, to thiscousin she barely knew.
“Can you come here for two days? I greatly desire it.”
As soon as the boy had ridden away she wished she had worded her message quite differently. An hour later she wished she had not sent it at all.
“Mamma,” she said at luncheon, speaking very loudly and distinctly, as people had to do nowadays with the old lady, “I have asked Theodore van Helmont to come and stay here for a day or two.”
“Whom?” asked the Baroness.
“Theodore van Helmont.”
“The house is yours, Ursula, now, to do what you like with, but”—the Dowager began to cry—“you might have asked somebody with another name.”
“It is on business,” replied Ursula, curtly.
“Business again,” said the old lady, in an aggrieved tone;“since my poor Theodore died one would think we kept a shop. Oh, ask him, by all means. He is the plebeian young man. I have nothing to say. It is the invasion of the—the—what, Louisa?”
“I suppose you mean the Goths and Vandals,” replied Louisa, very busy with her meal, which she always treated seriously. “Well, the Goths and Vandals were a strong new element; they were just what an effete society wanted. The great misfortune of our modern civilization is that all the Goths and Vandals have been used up.”
“Invasion of the Goths and Vandals,” repeated the Dowager. “But I don’t mind. All I ask is to be allowed to finish my ‘Memoir.’ Then I shall go and sleep with Theodore and the children. You won’t put me in the big vault, will you, Ursula? Do the graves belong to Ursula, too?”
“No, no,” said Ursula, hastily.
“Who did you say was coming to stay here?”
“Theodore van Helmont, mamma, from Bois-le-Duc.”
“Theodore,” repeated the Dowager, reflectively. “That was Henry’s son. I’m glad he’s coming. He will be able to tell me in what year his father made that ridiculous marriage—the firstmésalliancein the Helmont family.”
“I could have told you that,” declared Louisa, brightly. “’54 or ’55.”
“I want to be exact,” replied the Dowager, in her uncertain drawl. “I’ve got it somewhere among my documents, but I couldn’t find it again.”
Two days passed without any answer. Ursula’s heart burned within her: at the thought of this neglect she turned suddenly hot and cold. In her quietly imperious necessity she had never doubted but that her summons would be obeyed.
Several times during the twenty-four hours the old Baroness would ask when the guest was expected.
“We are in mourning, Ursula,” she said. “I hope you will not forget that we are in mourning. I think you went out of it too soon for your father-in-law. But perhaps your customs are different.” (This was a standing, oft-repeated grievance.) “However, it is barely nine months since your husband died.”
“It is six,” replied Ursula; “I shall not forget.”
“The young man does not seem too anxious, certainly,” interposedAunt Louisa, over her crochet. “You ask him, and he doesn’t reply. I prefer the days of chivalry.”
“But you don’t remember the age of chivalry, Aunt Louisa,” said Ursula, whose patience was distinctly overwrought. She objected to hearing her own innermost thought thus clearly stated by the Freule.
“No; I was born fifty-seven years ago; I am in no way ashamed of it,” replied Aunt Louisa, coolly. “But what has that to do with the subject? You must be very unimaginative, Ursula, or have read very little. If you weren’t so careless about your books, and didn’t let them get dog-eared (as you do), I should lend you Madame de Roncevalles’ book on ‘The Decline of European Manners.’ It is wonderfully interesting. It proves from the fossil remains that the cave-dwellers, at their cannibal banquets, always ate the women first.”
“Louisa, it is time I had my piquet,” objected the Dowager, who never forgot her game. She had taken the old Baron’s place as Louisa’s partner, and somehow considered the continuation of this time-honored institution as an almost religious tribute to her lord.
Under the reproachful wonder of her two companions, Ursula began to remember with increasing clearness that her impression of Theodore van Helmont had been decidedly unfavorable. She had not been able to understand her husband’s admiration; but then, Otto and she so seldom sympathized. She remembered a grave young man, an awkward man, one of those irritating people who were always judging themselves, and had a logical reason for everything they did. There are people who constantly seem to be standing aside to look themselves down, superciliously, from head to foot. She wished more than ever that she had not sent her telegram. But, unfortunately for most of us, it is easy to say “Come,” and impossible to say “Don’t.”
The only time she had met this cousin was on the occasion of those Christmas festivities, when the house was full of guests. It was a time on which she could not bear to dwell. For it was then that Gerard—
She stopped suddenly when the thought of all this firstrushed back upon her. Since her illness it seemed as if the past had been locked away in a cupboard with many partitions, where its several incidents lay, not forgotten, but unrecalled. One by one, at the touch of Chance, the various doors flew open, and some memory, sweet or painful, would leap forth from a seeming nowhere into the light.
She was out in the wood, on the windy March day, with Monk by her side, and all around her the black tree-trunks streaked the sullen sky. She realized that she was close to the spot where, on that Christmas Eve two years ago, she had sunk to the ground in the snow—the spot where Gerard had afterwards found her glove.
Why had Gerard fought that frantic duel? Otto had said that nobody fought duels but desperadoes. And certainly, as far as Holland was concerned, Otto must be accounted right.
Still, in this matter he had judged his brother harshly. Ursula believed that the duel had been fought in defence of the national flag, and she felt that, had she been a soldier, she would have done the same.
Not in this matter only had Otto wronged a nature he could not understand. Gerard, as their mother had said, was a sunbeam, genially playing from flower to flower. He was a firebrand newly lighted, that fizzes and crackles in its youth, before settling down to a steady glow. Now that he was away in Acheen his good qualities seemed all to stand out against the background of the home that had lost him. She had known him all her life; all during her long childhood, her long girlhood, he had been her playmate, her companion—more than that, the bright Phœbus of her modest horizon, her Prince—in his uniqueness—of Cavaliers. Everything around her, in the Manor-house, in the neighborhood, was connected with memories of joint pastimes and pranks. Ever since she could toddle she had been very fond of Gerard, with the tranquil affection of practised chums. But now he had fairly forgotten her. In his frequent letters to his mother—letters full of tenderness and rose-color—he never even sent a token of remembrance. Stop—there had been that message the Baroness had declined to give in the first letter after their common bereavement.Perhaps there had been more. Ursula did not think so, for the Dowager gradually communicated her darling’s epistles to every one, repeating and rereading them in scraps. Had she not immediately let slip the very message in question—“Gerard says he would have sold the place in any case, so where’s the difference?”
Ursula sighed. Yes, after all, Otto was right. It couldn’t be helped. Gerard’s letters never spoke of danger, but, through others, news had reached Horstwyk that the Jonker had, on several occasions, greatly distinguished himself. By-and-by he would come back, “rangé,” and marry—marry a little money, and then—
Then her task would be done.
Meditating thus, she reached the very spot which she had determined to avoid. A blackbird broke in, almost fiercely, upon her reverie, and she looked around. In an instant there rose up before her the meeting by the Manor-house on that Christmas morning, and again she heard Gerard’s voice saying, as he bent over an old brown glove, “I want you to let me keep this. It will be the most precious thing I shall ever possess.”
The whistling wind struck her hot cheeks; the great dog beside her leaped up, nose foremost, with vague, mute sympathy. She rushed away from the horrible place, tearing her crape in unmindful haste, hurrying to the open, the boundless heath, where the whole air was in a ferment of conflicting currents, that caught her and buffeted her, and flung her hither and thither amid a chorus of moans and sobbings, barks, laughter, and shrieks.
When at last she paused for breath, in a lull, she saw that she was not far from Klomp’s cottage. So she got under cover of the trees again, and directed her footsteps to the little tumble-down house. She had a weakness for Klomp. He was so signally “undeserving.”
By the door leaned Adeline, and at a glance each woman understood that the other had recognized her.
“Klomp, here’s the Baroness!” cried Mejuffrouw Skiff, retreating a little before the suddenness of an encounter she had hitherto vainly sought.
“Wish her Nobleness a very good day for me,” replied an uncertain voice from dingy depths unknown.
“Poor man, he’s asleep,” said Adeline, boldly. “Was it anything particular you wanted with him, Mevrouw?”
Ursula smiled. “No, indeed,” she said. “On no account would I disturb his well-earned rest.”
“Well-earned it is,” retorted Adeline, pertly. “His younger daughter’s ill, and he’s been sitting up with her all night.”
Ursula’s manner changed. “Mietje? I am sorry to hear that. Can I see her? What is the matter?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Nothing much, I fancy. You needn’t know what, I suppose, as long as you send the regulation broth.”
Ursula turned away, almost eagerly. That she should meet this woman now! She had lost sight of her and her story, gladly, for years.
“I suppose you don’t remember me, madame,” said Adeline, acidly. She had noticed the quick movement of aversion.
“Oh yes, I remember you,” replied Ursula, standing still. “But certainly I did not expect to find you here.”
“Yet what is more natural, Mevrouw the Baroness van Helmont, than that I should come to have a look at my relations.”
“I did not know the Klomps were any relations of yours.”
“I did not mean the Klomps.”
The two women looked at each other.
“Well,” said Ursula, in measured tones, “I hope you are doing better than you were. Good-morning.”
But again Adeline stopped her. “I am not doing well at all. As your Nobleness so kindly takes an interest in my career, I should like to explain my position, if your Nobleness would deign to listen.”
Suddenly the dog, Monk, who had been suspiciously watching the frowzy stranger, broke into a fury of disparagement which no commands from his mistress could quell. Adeline was horribly frightened. With a very cowed manner she retreated behind the door, but she shrieked from that place of safety that the matter was one of the greatest importance.
Ursula, having compelled the growling dog’s obedience, with one firm hand on his collar, called to the poor soul to come forth again.
“Say your say,” she decreed, “and have done.”
“It’s only this,” whined Adeline, on the door-step: “I’m destitute, deserted with my child, not knowing where to turn, and I’m Gerard Helmont’s wife.”
She had calculated her foolish “coup;” she was aware that a wide gulf yawned between Ursula and possible denial from Gerard.
“So it’s I,” she added, quickly, “who am the Baroness van Helmont, though not of the Horst—youknow why; and all I ask is a few hundred florins and to let me go in peace.”
“Do you mean to say,” queried Ursula, “that you claim to be Gerard van Helmont’s legal wife?”
“Yes; and it was you that wanted him to marry me, so, in part, the fault is yours,” responded Adeline, who enjoyed lies for the mere telling, even when there was nothing to be gained. “Therefore, give me a generous sum for Gerard’s child, and let me go. Why,everythingought to be his, the young Baron’s—all the wealth and magnificence that you’ve got hold of, nobody knows how.”
And Adeline began to cry real drops. Men cannot yet manufacture genuine diamonds. Women can.
But, notwithstanding her weeping, there was much spite, and even a little menace, in her tone.
“Down, Monk, down!” said Ursula. “I shall not ask you for further proof of your story, simply because I know it is not true. I wish it were. I am fully conscious that you have a claim to be what you say you are and are not. Could I help you to obtain its recognition I would do so; but otherwise I can do nothing for you. I have no money, and therefore can give you none. In a couple of years perhaps there will be more at my disposal, and then, if things remain unchanged, you may write to me, and I will do what I can for your boy. That is all. Now you had better go away from here. Have you understood me?”
“Give me twenty-five florins,” said Adeline.
“‘I SUPPOSE YOU DON’T REMEMBER ME, MADAME’”
“‘I SUPPOSE YOU DON’T REMEMBER ME, MADAME’”
Ursula drew the straining dog towards her, and passed down the narrow path. Half-way she hesitated.
“Oh, keep straight!” she burst out, pleadingly; “keep straight, for the child’s sake. I’ll send you the twenty-five florins, if you want them. Let me have your address in Drum, and I’ll try to find you decent work. Oh, be an honest girl, for the love of God!”
“Send me the twenty-five florins,” said Adeline.
Ursula crept back into the wood; her eyes were full of tears.
“Oh, Gerard, Gerard!” she said; “this isyourwork. God forgive you for deserting her. No pure-hearted woman can.”
THE COUNSELLOR
As she emerged into the avenue Ursula noticed a figure in front of her which she immediately recognized. It was walking at a deliberate pace, a valise and an overcoat thrown over one arm. The dog gave the alarm, and the figure looked round.
“Why did you not telegraph for the carriage?” thought Ursula.
The young man waited; his fresh-colored face shone out in the all-pervading gloom.
Ursula wondered, as she drew nearer, what deliverance she expected from this pink-eyed little innocent. He looked like a solemn peach. How could she broach her unusual subject? Visible shyness was not one of her qualities; but she smiled rather foolishly as she walked, thought Theodore Helmont, and, for so recent a widow, improperly.
“You have come up on foot from the station?” she cried. “I wish we had known. Why didn’t you telegraph?”
“Telegrams are expensive,” replied the young man.
This sounded promising.
“I only got my leave this morning,” he continued. “I couldn’t let you know, so I simply came.”
“Ah, you had to get leave?” said Ursula, her conscience smiting her.
“Yes; government officials always must. Most people must who work for their bread. I am a post-office clerk.”
“I know, I know,” answered Ursula, hastily.“Of course I know,CousinHelmont. Please put down your bag; it will be quite safe. I will send one of the laborers to fetch it.”
“I can easily carry it myself,” he said, more courteously; “I always do.” And, although this time he said nothing about expenditure, she felt that he considered the tip.
After that the conversation lagged. Presently the young man said, with much timidity:
“There is one thing I should greatly like, if you would be so very kind. My mother is exceedingly anxious about railway travelling of any sort, and she made me promise to let her know at once of my safe arrival. They couldn’t telegraph at the station. Would there be a possibility, perhaps, of forwarding a message?”
“Oh, certainly,” replied Ursula, demurely. “But—you know—telegrams are expensive.”
Theodore’s pure eyes grew troubled.
“The matter is altogether different,” he said. “Perhaps, if you will allow me to explain—”
Ursula burst out laughing.
“Certainly not,” she exclaimed. “What do you take me for? Of course, I perfectly understand. The boy shall get ready at once.”
Theodore looked straight in front of him.
“I only wanted to say,” he went on, doggedly, “that my mother’s anxiety is not irrational. She is quite unaccustomed to travelling herself, and we have never been parted before.”
Ursula stood still on the Manor-house steps. “Never been parted before!” she exclaimed. “Woe is me, what have I done?”
Theodore blushed in fresh waves of crimson. “Now you are laughing at me,” he said, and his tone was distinctly annoyed. “You mustn’t laugh at me. I am not at all accustomed to the society of ladies, and if you laugh at me we shall not be able to get on.”
“No—no, I really meant it,” Ursula hastened to say. “I honestly fear I have been exceedingly inconsiderate. I wish that your mother had accompanied you.” (“Oh dear, no,” she reflected; “there the expense comes in again!”) “Butyoumust not say you are unaccustomed to the society of ladies—”
“My mother is not a lady like you,” he remarked, quickly.
“I am Ursula Rovers,” she replied—“the pastor’s daughter. I remember Mevrouw van Helmont very well.”
In the solitude of her dressing-room she wondered what would be the next development of her devotion to Otto’s memory, and chid herself for the ungracious thought. Then she went down to luncheon, expecting to find her guest in a corner of the library turning over picture-books. That was the only pose in which his former visit had left him photographed on her brain.
To her astonishment, she heard him in earnest discussion with Aunt Louisa. “My dear Ursula,” cried the latter lady, running forward, “your cousin Van Helmont is a most interesting young man. I have been telling him about European manners, and he most sagaciously remarks that the best of manners is to have none. How delightfully true!”
The subject of this outspoken eulogy did not seem at all abashed by it; probably he was accustomed to his mother’s estimation of her only son.
“Pardon me,” he calmly protested; “I was saying that I had read that observation somewhere. I am not prepared to maintain that it is absolutely correct.”
“Oh, what does it matter whose it is,” cried the Freule. “Everything we say must have had its origin with some one, so everything is really original. Now that never struck me before. How new!”
“Yes,” replied Ursula. “Will you have a rissole?”
“Thank you, my dear. One more, please. Thank you. Personally, what I most reprobate is the walking in line, like ducks. ‘Do as others do.’ The Bible says, ‘Do as you would be done by’—a very different thing. I hope, Mynheer Helmont, that you are unconventional, as I know your father was.”
“I do not remember my father well,” answered Theodore, pondering whether he could not get away that night.
“Oh, I nevermethim,” said Louisa, just as the old Baroness entered. The poor old lady, who would have said ‘J’ai failli attendre’ in palmier days, now accorded all precedence to her literary labors.
“My dear,” continued the Freule, addressing her, “this young man is exceedingly interesting. I had forgotten him, but now I remember I thought so the last time he was here. The best thing is to have no manners. Now doesn’t he put that well?”
“I dare say he finds it convenient,” responded the Dowager. “How do you do, Mynheer Helmont? I am very glad to see you. I wish you would tell me when your father died?”
“It is seventeen years ago,” replied Helmont, wonderingly.
“Quite impossible. I feel sure you are more than sixteen.”
“I am twenty-four, but—”
“Mamma means ‘married,’ I believe,” suggested Ursula, gently.
“‘Married,’ that was what I said,” declared the Dowager, sharply. “Ursula, my soup is cold again. Manners or no manners, young man, you shouldn’t make fun of a woman old enough to be your grandmother.”
“I disapprove of such early marriages!” exclaimed the Freule. Ursula’s eyes and Theodore’s met. She burst out laughing, but he looked uncomfortably grave. “After luncheon,” she said, “I must take you round, Mynheer Helmont. It is no use showing you the stables; we have only three horses left, and they are of the kind that would better do their work unseen.”
He followed her obediently when they rose from table, and she pretended to take an interest in the small sights she had to offer her guest. The same can hardly be asserted of Theodore. He was painfully silent while she “made conversation,” wondering all the time in what way she should broach the one subject she cared to speak about.
In this, however, he hastened to her assistance, for his patience came to an end, while hers still hung on a thread. They were standing in the palm-house, when he suddenly looked up at her—he had some little height to look up—and asked,
“What did you want me for, please?”
She had been laughing about some of the gardener’s queer names for the roses; her voice suddenly changed, and everything but pain died out of it.
“I believe we are ruined,” she said, facing him,“and Otto made me promise, if ever I wanted advice, I would appeal to you.”
He seemed still to listen, plucking at the nearest leaves, for a moment after she had finished. Then he said, as if speaking to himself,
“Well, I’m very glad, at any rate, that I didn’t ask a holiday for nothing at all.” He glanced up at her anxious face. “Holidays are very rare with us, you know,” he added, apologetically. “I couldn’t soon get leave again.”
“Yet I don’t suppose you can help us,” continued Ursula, relentlessly. “Nobody can.”
“When people get down as low as that,” replied the young clerk, frigidly, “they can usually help themselves. I presume that, however much money you may happen to possess, you want more. That, I believe, is what people of your class call ‘being ruined.’”
She felt that he wronged her the more by this constant distinction, after what she had said on the Manor-house steps. “I possess no money at all,” she said, wroth with herself for the helpless confession. “And in about a week’s time I must have three thousand florins.”
“In other words,” he answered, with an angry wave of his short arm round the greenhouse, “youmustspend thirty thousand florins with an income of twenty-seven. Other people have an income of one thousand, and spentthat.”
“No,” she replied, “it is not that. We will say no more about it. Come, let us walk on.”
“Pardon me. It takes one person to start a subject, but two to drop it. Will you permit me to express myself plainly?”
“Oh, certainly. Dear me, Mynheer van Helmont, I had understood you to say you were shy?”
“Again I beg your pardon. I can understand fun, and I can understand earnest; but which is it to be?”
“I apprehend you. You do not recognize humor outside the comic papers. You are like my father.Ilaugh most at the dentist’s. It is to be earnest, please.”
“The house is crowded with treasures. Sell one or two.”
“I cannot; they belong to my mother-in-law.”
“Do away with a carriage you can’t pay for, and go on foot.”
“I cannot. I keep a sort of boarding-house, and my two boarders pay for the carriage, not I.”
“Eat dry bread instead of hot lunch.”
“And drive away the boarders! There, you see, I answer plainly, too. Do you really imagine that if I could have solved my difficulties by merely eating dry bread I would have troubled you, a comparative stranger, to come all the way from Bois-le-Duc?”
“I don’t know. The women of ’93 could be guillotined, and willing, but they couldn’t eat dry bread.”
However, his tone was gentler, and his manner less assured.
“Now will you let me, as we return to the house, explain how matters really stand?” she said. He nodded silently, and under the bare, sky-piercing oaks she softly told him the long story of her father-in-law’s slow purchase and last testament, of Otto’s life-work and dying charge, of her struggle to continue what they had begun in expectation of better times. He listened, his boy-face puckered up.
“It is your name, too,” she said, in conclusion, “your race, your blood.” And she measured the little plebeian beside her.
“Yes,” he said.
“There it lies. And each rood that belonged to a Van Helmont four hundred years ago belongs to a Van Helmont now.”
“It belongs toyou,” he replied, quickly. “And afterwards?”
She faltered.
“It will never pass from my keeping till it passes to a Van Helmont,” she said, “so help me God!”
In that moment even he could not press the point.
“You must give me time,” he said; “I have three days’ leave. Do not let us mention the subject again till the day after to-morrow. Meantime, I will have a look round and try to discover if you can keep on, supposing the three thousand are found.”
“Thank you. But do you know about land?” She was just a little bit piqued.“I assure you I am very slowly learning.”
“Oh, I know. My mother is a farmer’s daughter. I have always been about with my uncle. If mother had given me my choice, I should have been a common farmer myself.”
“A Van Helmont!”
“Pooh! That’s what mother said!”
THE NEW BAILIFF
As ill-luck would have it, Helena wrote to announce her visit for the last evening of Theodore’s stay at the Manor-house. She arrived before dinner, bringing the unwilling Willie along with her.
An almost oppressive quiet had reigned in the mansion, only rarely disturbed by the deep voice of Monk. The guest had spent most of his time out-of-doors, returning occasionally to closet himself with great memoranda and account books. Tante Louisa complained bitterly that she got next to nothing of his interesting conversation; Ursula anxiously fought shy of him; the Dowager, unexpectedly meeting him in the hall, asked herconfidante, the cook, who he was.
“I shall stir them all up a bit,” said Helena to her husband in the carriage. “I have seen them already once or twice since the event, and you can’t go on looking lugubrious forever. Besides, I don’t believe Ursula is inconsolable. I shall ask her.”
“No, you won’t,” said Willie.
“Willie, don’t put my back up, or you’ll make me do an unlady-like thing.”
“You won’t ask her, because you can’t. I’d bet you a gold piece that you wouldn’t dare.”
“You wouldn’t like me to dare.” Helena’s eyes strayed away through the carriage window.
“Indeed I should. I like pluck of any kind. In a horse, or a woman, or a dog.”
“Only not in a man!” exclaimed Helena, a little bitterly.
“In a man it goes without saying. By-the-bye, what atrocious brutes these horses of Ursula’s are. I’ve an idea, Nellie, that she’s very badly off.”
“All the more reason for her to console herself. A poor widow remarries much sooner than a rich one, and with far less opportunity.”
“’Tisn’t said that she’d better herself. If she marries she ought to marry Gerard. It would be her bounden duty.”
“Thank you, for Gerard’s sake,” retorted Helena, now very bitterly indeed. And they lapsed into silence. Was there really any prospect of Ursula’s marrying Gerard? It was this question which had long held Nellie van Troyen’s heart as in a vise, pinching it and torturing it, and refusing to let it rest. It was this question which now hunted her to the Horst. She was determined to see with her own eyes how matters stood. “I shall find out,” she told herself. “I must, even if I have toaskher. To think of Willie’s trumpery gold piece! It is horrible, all the suffering. But my life is a beautiful romance.” She smiled, and reflectively arranged her dress. “You like me, you know, Willie,” she said, “in pink.”
“Yes,” he replied, “though I don’t know why. Blue suits your fair complexion better. But, somehow, I can’t bear to see you in blue.”
“I know why. Shall I tell you? It is because you have some delightful memories connected with a creature in blue.”
“You are wrong,” he said, quite coolly. “It is because I have some detestable memories connected with a creature in blue.”
“Oh, ‘delightful,’ ‘detestable,’ that is all one in such cases. So you see, I was right. Here we are.”
“Well, shall we wager?” he asked, as he helped her to alight.
“If you like. But you are pretty sure of your gold piece, for I certainly shall not trouble her unless she drives me to it.”
“So much the better. Don’t dare, and pay me.”
“Willie, I believe you would sell your soul for money,” she cried.
He laughed.
“No, no, not his soul,” she said to herself, half aloud, as sheclimbed the great stone steps. “Only his body—only all he’s got to sell!”
The Dowager came forward to meet her niece, who had always been a favorite with the old lady, and the only possible successor she could consider with equanimity. “My dear, I am so glad you are come,” she said, with a return of her vanished sprightliness. “Your visits are like those of the angels. And the house is so dull. Though certainly, at this moment, we have a guest.”
“A guest?”
“Oh, he is Ursula’s guest. One of the—the other Helmonts, that nobody ever used to see. But these are the days of the bend sinister. We have fallen on evil times.”
Helena stood taking off her wraps, the little old lady helping her. “My dear,” began the latter, somewhat tremulously, “I wish you would do me a kindness. I want you to come andstay with us for a few days, and I will read you what I have written about the good old past. I read it to Ursula, but she does not know what it is all about. She is not one of us; it will interestyou. There is a great deal in it about your mother.”
“Yes?” said Helena. “Is it ready, aunt?”
“Ready, my dear? Oh dear no; how could it be ready? But I can show you what I have done. Do you know, I begin to fear it will never be ready!”—the Dowager’s voice nearly failed her. “To give me plenty of time to write the memoir, your uncle ought to have died a great many years ago.” Then, vaguely realizing that she had incorrectly expressed her meaning, she began to cry with unmistakable persistence.
“Hush, hush!” exclaimed Helena, in her most impulsive tones. “Auntie, I shall be delighted to come; we will talk over the old days, as you say, and all the fun I used to have with Gerard. But would you not rather pay us a visit?” She drew the little lady’s arm through her own. “I am so sorry. This is very hard for you—and for Gerard—this about Ursula.”
“My dear, I thank you, but I cannot.”
The Dowager nestled confidentially against the silver-pinksleeve of the fair creature beside her. They cooed over each other like a pair of high-bred doves. “I dare not leave the house for a single night. I have an idea that something would happen if I did. I am the last of us all, and I am set here to watch. When Gerard comes back—Helena, you do not think, do you, that they will really leave it to her forever?”
“Poor auntie!” said Helena, softly stroking the transparent cheek. “Poor auntie!”
“What I cannot understand is thathedoesn’t come and take it away from her!” cried the Dowager, with sudden energy. “I wrote to him to do so. Gerard never was a coward. But I fear that Louisa’s explanation is correct.”
“What is Freule Louisa’s explanation?” questioned Helena, quickly.
“She says that Gerard is in love with Ursula, and always has been. She says thatthatis why he went to India. If what she says is true, then Ursula has robbed me of both my sons.” And again the poor, forlorn old woman began gently to whimper.
“Perhaps it is not true,” replied Helena, pensively. “Come, auntie, let us sit in the window-seat and talk of Gerard. I suppose he will be coming back before long.”
“I don’t know. I forget. Oh, Nellie, you don’t know how dreadful it is to grow old and forget. I can’t find my words sometimes, though I take care that nobody notices it. I feel that it would never do for Ursula to discover that I have not all my wits about me. Who knows what she might not do?Sell the place, perhaps!”—her voice dropped to a whisper. “Imagine that! Or sell some of your uncle’s dear art treasures that he bade me keep. She doesn’t care for them, I know, for she never seems to see them even. I’ve watched her constantly. Oh, Nellie, I’m set here as sentinel, and—my strength is failing.”
Helena felt that, irrational as she knew the feeling to be, shecouldnot but think ill of Ursula.
“I forgot one of the poor children’s birthdays last week,” wailed the Baroness—she alluded to her dead infants that slept beneath “The Devil’s Doll”—“and Ursula didn’t remind me to take any flowers. I have never forgotten before.”
Ursula entered at the moment, tall and straight in her heavy gown. To both the gracefully drooping women, whose soft clothes and figures intermingled against the darkening window, her presence at that moment seemed more than ever an insult.
“Shall we have lights?” she said, in her clear voice.
“Oh, in the drawing-room, pray,” replied her mother-in-law, pettishly. “Mynheer van Helmont is gone in there. He was looking for you.”
Ursula withdrew into an adjoining apartment. It was very large and lofty, and the figures on its tapestried walls, half hidden under the great masses of shadow now clouding around them, peered forth in vaguely distorted gloom. Theodore was pacing the parqueted floor with moody tramp. He came forward at once.
“I want you,” he said, hurriedly. “I must leave to-night. So we may as well have our talk at once.”
“I am quite ready,” she answered. “I did not wish to press you. Will half an hour suffice?”
“Ten minutes. Everything worth saying in this world by one human being to another can be said in ten minutes. But I should like you to sit down.”
“Very well,” she said. “No, not an easy-chair. Thanks.”
“I have looked into everything, superficially,” he began, resuming his march in the dusk. “I must, in the first place, beg your pardon for misjudging you all. I came here with false impressions. When a man grows up, as I have done, in the bourgeois daily fight with poverty, he is apt to form erroneous impressions of the life which his ‘grand’ relations lead, especially when his impressions are gained by hearsay. I beg your pardon.”
He paused for a moment; then, as she did not answer, he continued:
“In the second place I want to express my—my admi—myrecognitionof the way in which you have carried on your husband’s work. Few women, I imagine, would have taken up such a load or borne it so bravely. I didn’t like your sudden telegram. I thought of the people who jump into the water and then call out to strangers to save them. There! that’s off my mind. I am not good at compliments or excuses. I’ve no manners, as Freule Louisa says. Now to business.” His tone, which had been agitated, immediately dropped to the habitual growl that masked his shyness.
“He reminds you,” Helena had said, when they met by the Christmas-tree, “of a peach with a wasp inside.”
“The truth is as you stated,” he resumed; “nothing but hard work can keep the whole thing going. A forced sale would mean ruin. On the other hand, barring such extra expenses as death duties, you ought, with rigid economy, to pay your way.” He paused for a moment. “With rigid economy,” he repeated.
“I know,” said Ursula, softly.
“There is nothing so hopeless as farming without capital—you know that better than I do. But the cherry orchards pay, and so, especially, do the osier plantations. Without these latter you could hardly get on. You have good tenants, on the whole. One of them, however, will have to go.”
“I know,” said Ursula again, in the same tone, through the darkness; “but he can’t.”
“He must. I see we understand each other—the home-farm man—your sort of agent. I don’t say he is dishonest. Otto seems pretty well to have stopped that—but he is expensive—you can’t afford him.”
“I cannot make cheese myself,” pleaded Ursula, a little helplessly, for her. “I tried once, and nobody could eat it. It—it didn’t stiffen.”
But her stern adviser vouchsafed no responsive smile.
“It’s a matter of life or death,” he said; “the work that fellow does must be done by another man.”
“But where would you find a better?”
“I can’t find a better, but I can find a cheaper.”
“Have you got him?”
“Yes; I mean myself. Stop a minute—let me explain. I told you I had always wanted to be a farmer”—his voice grew nervous again. “I’m sick of being a genteel sort of manikin in a pot-hat. I’m especially sick of the post-office. I’m going to take that farm and work it.”
“But, Mynheer Helmont, this sudden decision—”
“It isn’t a sudden decision. It took twenty-four hours to come to, and its twenty-four hours old already. I’ve announced it to my mother.” He again made a pause, away at the farther, darkest end. “Oh, I dare say you don’t like it,” he burst out; “I didn’t expect you would. But it’s going to happen, all the same. To have as my lady Baroness’s close neighbor a farmer bearing her name—”
“I was not thinking of that,” she interrupted him. “For, of course, a gentleman-farmer—”
But he would not allow her to proceed.
“A gentleman-gammon!” he cried, still out of the distant darkness; “a common, common farmer. Nothing in all the world—not even drink—costs half as much as gentility. But, remember, if it isn’t pleasant for you people, it’s a hundred times worse for my mother and—” He broke off. “But she’ll do it,” he lamely concluded the sentence.
Ursula rose and came up the big room to look for him.
“Sit down, please,” he said, hastily; “I haven’t done. Please sit down till I’ve done. Women are such bad listeners!” She obeyed, knocking the chair against something which crashed to the floor. “I hope that isn’t anything expensive!” exclaimed Theodore, emerging from his corner. His tone chid her as if she had been an awkward child.
“It didn’t sound broken,” replied Ursula, meekly; “but I suppose you object to my getting a light?”
For only answer he struck a match, revealing a cloisonné vase which lay in a pool of water and a tangle of white anemones upon an Oriental rug. The match flickered out.
“That’ll keep,” said Theodore, coolly. “I only want half a minute more. There is still one point, the most important. The three thousand florins we require next week will be found.”
“But how?” Ursula’s voice betrayed her.
“Oh, not picked up on the high-road. When I say ‘found,’ of course I mean provided and paid for.Ishall provide them. You can imagine that, poor as we are, we do not live on my salary only. As a matter of fact, I possess about twenty-seven thousand florins; I have looked so much into your private affairs that I suppose you have a right, if you care, to know something of mine. Three thousand, therefore, I will advance, if you can give me sufficient security.”
“That is just what I cannot do.”
“That remains to be seen. Freule Louisa mentioned that you still had a valuable diamond brooch.”
Ursula was thankful he could not see the hot flare of her resentment.
“And do you think,” she said, scornfully, “that I would not have soldthat? But it isn’t mine to sell. It is an heirloom. I must keep it, like the rest.”
“It is legally yours,” he replied, “and therefore you mustnotkeep it. Besides, I trust that you will be able to redeem it in the slow course of the years. All ladies like diamonds. I promise to take good care of yours. Bring the thing down before the carriage starts. And now perhaps I had better ring for somebody with a cloth.”
“Stop!” she cried; he had lighted another match and was looking for the bell-rope. “Before you do that I want to say—”
“Don’t. I really do not think there is anything more to be said just now.” He had found the bell and pulled it.
“But I do not want to do this. I do not want—”
“I know you don’t. Did not I tell you so? However, permit me to say that I have as good a right to interfere in this matter as you. I am quite as much of a Helmont—even a good deal more.” His voice rolled out like the threat of a recoiling dog.
A female servant knocked and entered, letting in a flood of light from the hall. She gazed with decorous astonishment at the occupants of the room.
“Ursula,” said Willie, coming in with the others, “is it true that you have let the shooting?”
“No; that was not one of my crimes,” replied Ursula, with a petulant laugh. “Otto did it immediately after Gerard’s departure.” Then her voice softened.“I believe it was the greatest sacrifice he ever made. You know, he was such a splendid shot.”
“He was,” assented Willie, with that solemn admiration which no man can suppress.
“But, Ursula, I remember you used to say you hated ‘splendid shots’?” suggested Helena, looking back over the arm which still supported the Dowager. They were passing in to dinner. Willie, glancing up, saw mischief in his wife’s blue eye.
“They are better than stabs,” answered Ursula; and from that moment it might be evident to any one that these two women meant war. It would not, however, be the feminine skirmishing of intrigue and innuendo, for Helena, as we know, was reckless, and Ursula blunt.
“I want to sit next to poor dear auntie,” said Helena, as they took their places. “Mynheer van Helmont, I supposeyourhabitual seat is next to the lady of the house? Are you going to stay here long?”
“I have no habitual seat,” replied Theodore, awkwardly. “I leave to-night. I am only a three days’ guest.”
“Yes; no one of your name could be anything else at the Horst now. Not even the head of the house, away in Acheen.” She smiled sweetly and turned to the Dowager.
Theodore was mortally afraid of this fine lady, all soft texture and vague perfume, like a rose. But he found conversation hardly easier with Ursula, in spite of the sullen admiration he unwillingly accorded her.
“Your mother will be glad to have you back,” said Ursula.
“Yes, indeed,” he replied, fervently. “And I to go—back,” he added, blushing.
“You know, it was impossible,” Helena’s voice rang out again. “We are speaking of your uncle Mopius, Ursula. They have had to withdraw his candidature. He is a very good sort of man—oh, very good—but he is not what Freule Louisa calls ‘strong.’ Papa tells me it is quite impossible, though I’m sure I worked hard for him—didn’t I, Willie? Your uncle says it’s allyourdoing, Ursula. He was very rude about you to papa. I had to stop him, and remind him you were become my cousin by marriage.”
“Indeed,” replied Ursula.
“Would you like to hear what he said?”
“I cannot say I care.”
“Well, as we are quite among ourselves, perhaps it is better you should know. He said that your elevation had turned your head. You know, Ursula, he is rather, rather—pardon me the word—vulgar!”
She had spoken French. The servant, by the sideboard, rattled his plates.
“And he said your political opinions were deplorable. What are your political opinions, Mynheer van Helmont?”
“Deplorable,” replied Theodore, with a ready championship which astonished himself.
“Ah, you two are in close sympathy, I see. So much the better.” She dropped her voice. “But is it not a strange thought to you, Mynheer van Helmont, that this old place is now certain to pass, in due time, to Ursula’s children, whatever their name may happen to be?”
“No,” replied Theodore; “it’s no business of mine.”
“Ah!” she exclaimed, angrily. “The Baron van Helmont thinks differently, no doubt. Why, if Ursula has some seizure to-night, I suppose we shall soon see a Lord Mopius of Horstwyk! Fie, Mynheer van Helmont, this poor creature at my side has more spirit than you.”
Ursula could not avoid hearing enough of this aside to understand its meaning. She felt that everybody had heard it. Passionate as she was, she fixed her eyes on the table-cloth. She remained conscious that Helena, that everybody, even while the talk went on, was watching her. At last she lifted them—those steadfast brown eyes.
“It is six months to-day,” she said, “exactly six months. Only six months since Otto and Baby died.” And she rose from the table.
“Ursula, you have forgotten the dessert,” cried Aunt Louisa, lingering.
Ursula turned back.
“True,” she said.“I beg everybody’s pardon. Won’t you try some of mamma’s preserved orange-leaves, Helena? You will find them as good as ever.”
In the hall, just as the carriage had driven up which was to convey the three visitors to the station, Ursula appeared with a small parcel in her hand; she gave it to Theodore, who buttoned it out of sight, without even saying “Thanks.”
“There is one thing still,” she began, hurriedly. “You heard about the election. I had a letter yesterday from the Opposition Caucus, asking me if I wished to put forward a candidate, or would accept one from them. I have none. I have one. I mean, I had thought, hearing what you said at dinner, that, if your political opinions were theirs—”
“I have no political opinions,” he answered, moving away from the sheltering pillar to the light where the others stood grouped.
She put out one hand. “I am sorry,” she stammered, trembling from head to foot. “I had thought—it is the one only thing I could have done to thank you—to express my gratitude—”
“I want no thanks,” he replied, literally shaking off her hand. “Gratitude, pshaw! I told you a couple of hours ago that I have as much right to do this as you have. I am notallpeasant, Mevrouw. You remind me too frequently of that side.” And he went and took up his own valise. “The servants forget these things,” he said to Helena.
When they were all gone, Ursula crossed the cold emptiness of the hall and encountered Hephzibah. The maid shrank away. “Hephzibah, I want you to do me a favor,” said the young Baroness. “Would you take this letter, when you go to the Parsonage to-morrow with the Freule, and give it to a person who is staying at Klomp’s? Please give it into her own hands. There is money in it.”
“H’m,” reflected Hephzibah, watching the tall figure in its slow ascent. “Money in it. Is there? And why? Throw a barking dog a bone.” She shook her head. “If I hear that noise up-stairs again,” she muttered,“I’ll write to the Jonker, wife or not. But I’ve said that so often before! And if the Jonker’s got a wife already, what business had he wearing Mevrouw’s glove in his bosom and duelling? I saw him pick it up. It’s a bad world, a bad world. But I’m a blessed body to feel how bad it is. I told cook about the groanings, though I didn’t explain their reason, so she only said I ought to take medicine.”
“Well, Willie, I’ve lost my wager,” declared Helena, as soon as they were rid of the “post-boy.”
“I don’t know about that, but pay up anyhow. You deserve to, Nellie, for your treatment of Ursula. Poor thing, she behaved very well, I thought. She’s quite lost that magnificent rich complexion of hers. She looks sallow.”
“Oh, that will come right when she marries little Theodore,” replied Helena, with tranquil satisfaction. “The person I am sorry for is auntie. I’m sure I cried with her for nearly an hour.”
THUNDER IN THE TROPICS
The scene changes.
For one moment we look, with clearer eyes than the poor old Dowager’s, across the cruel waste of waters into a very real dreamland, and we see Gerard, Baron van Helmont, after two years of weary waiting for glory, wearily waiting for glory still.
Gerard van Helmont stood before his hut in the compound of the little fort under his command on the Acheen River. All round him trembled, with soft persistence, the thousand breathings of the tropic night.
An hour ago it had flung itself, the sudden blackness, down the slopes of the Barissan Mountains, and away across the green islands of the Indian Ocean. It had fallen with the swiftness of a blow, wiping out all the luxuriance of dreamy glories that lay reposefully burning in endless variations of verdure under the moist veil of paludal heat. The wide sea of tropical foliage that laughed down the sides of the valley till within a few yards of the river fort had sunk back from view like a swiftly receding tide, and a living silence now brooded over these jungles a-quiver with hate. The roar of the million frogs in the marshes had at last ceased to beat against never-accustomed ears, and all the other manifold murmurs and flutterings had died down to one dully penetrative tone, whose ringing music, in its rhythmical rise and fall, swelled upon the ear of the listener like the pulse-beat of the world. Now and then the sudden howlings of distant wild dogs broke out hideously, or the clattering shriek of thetokkèhresounded from the woods. And throughout the long darkness came the swishof the turbid water among its reeds and overhanging branches, as it went playing around the masses of logs and rotten refuse over which it quarrels day and night in slow pushings with the sea.
Nature under the equator knows not even the semblance of rest. In Northern countries she at least appears to sleep; here she sits through the cooler hours on her couch listening.
Certainly there was no rest for Gerard van Helmont, or for any Dutchman at that time in Acheen; there was only the tension of expectant inactivity amid all-encompassing treachery, hundred-eyed and hundred-handed. Barbaric murder lurked behind every tree and behind every smiling face that bent in allegiance. For if an Achinese stoop low before the Kafir it is with the idea, in rising, of ripping him up.
Gerard in this small “Benting” had fifty men under his orders, European and native fusileers. His nearest neighbors were established about half a mile off in a similar intrenchment, a certain number of these permanent camps having been constructed to keep open the way to the sea, for the invading force had gone up the valley into the interior.
The lanterns along the outer side of the wall had been lighted; their yellow reflection created a circle of vaguely lessening defence. Across this, into the dark tangle beyond the clearing, peered solitary sentinels by their guns. A sergeant tramped past. The night was starless and misty.
“Werda?” cried a sentry.
Something had moved, he thought, behind the glooming bushes. Something always seemed to be moving—creeping forward through the whispers of the forest, in the incessant alarm of guerilla night attack.
“Nonsense, it’s too early,” said the sergeant. “Besides, we’re quite safe now, here in these pacified districts. Keep a good lookout, all the same.”
Gerard smiled, overhearing the concluding exhortation. He knew that they were not safe—no, not for one moment. The friendly villagers from the farther side of the marsh who had sold them victuals that morning might even now be meditating a raid, one of those terrible Achinese swoops and withdrawals,the hand-to-hand swarm up the battlements—Allah il Allah!—On!
He lighted a cigarette, and wondered how many he still had left. It was painfully lonely and humdrum and wearing. Danger becomes humdrum; death can become humdrum, they say. Occasionally he met his brother officer from the neighboring fort. Otherwise not a white-faced Christian, except his own garrison, and the commissariat people from the camp, at long intervals, with stores.
He was thinking—no, not of home. Soldiers—thank God!—do not always think of home.
He was thinking of his men. One of them, an Amboinese, had got himself killed that morning through sheer temerity and disobedience. There were a couple of these insubordinates in the Benting, who, wearying of inaction, had broken out once before on the spree—that is to say, on the hunt for a grinning, long-haired devil with a klewang. He had punished them, of course, but at daybreak this morning Adja had slipped away alone, and had fallen into the hands of friendly Achinese. Gerard knew what that meant. Death by the most prolonged of cruelties, a slow chopping away of all parts except such as keep life extant. He sighed as he thought of the poor fellow’s fate, and the inevitable reprisals, and all the official bother and blame.
And he reflected on certain instructions issued not long ago. The army, whose women and children were daily exposed to fiendish barbarities, had been reminded that every Achinese was a man and a brother, and must be treated as such. Kindness to prisoners (even if they owned to having boiled your envoy); kindness to villagers (even if they potted you as you passed their houses)—these were of the elements of Christian warfare. It was quite true. And, moreover, the good people at home that write, in their slippers, to the newspapers never pardoned an act of cruelty, unless practised by the foe.
“I must speak to the other fellow, I suppose,” said Gerard. “I wonder how he takes it? Sergeant, send Popa along,” and he passed into his hut, that the interview might seem more imposing under the yellow glare of the lamp. The hut certainlyhad nothing impressive about it, with its bamboo walls and uneven furniture. There was a small rug by the bed, a red blot on the planks which alone distinguished this abode from the mud-floored homes of the soldiery. And two or three of the articles scattered about bespoke the refinement of their owner.
Popa presented himself, a lithe little fellow, brown and fierce. He saluted.
“Popa, you know what has happened to Adja?”
“Tjingtjang, Lieutenant,” replied Popa, saluting again.[L]
“You may be thankful that you didn’t accompany him this time. If you had—” He paused, and looked at the man.
“Perhaps—forgive me that I say it—we should not have been caught, Lieutenant.”
“In that case your punishment would have awaited you here. You understand thatanyattempt at insubordination will henceforth be repressed with the utmost severity. Iwillnot have it. You can go.”
Popa saluted again, and tripped off. His heart was hot within him for the loss of his comrade.
“They call us ‘tiger-faces,’” he reflected; “they will call us ‘tiger-tails.’”
“A splendid fighter,” said Gerard, aloud, “like so many of these Amboinese. And nothing to be gained but death or unrecorded glory. God forgive the worthies at home, who care for no man’s soul or body as long as consols remain at par! If some of us didn’t love fighting for its own mad sake (which I certainly don’t) where would their Excellencies’ consols be?”
Then he lighted another cigarette, and once more told himself that really this time he must count his store. So he would—to-morrow.
He threw himself in his single rocking-chair and yawned. What should he do the live-long evening? What had he done through the creeping weeks and months? What could one do? It was the emptiness which tormented him—the not doing anything: he wanted to be with the invaders on ahead. He groaned over this misfortune for the five-hundredth time.Otherwise, Acheen was not half a bad place—much more spacious and much moremouvementéthan Holland. Of course it was always horribly hot, and here where he lay, by the marsh, it was even especially unhealthy. Everybody sickened. But then, on the other hand, there were no duns. Gerard looked down at his lean, yellow fingers. Yes, he had altered.
But what matter? Who cared? Only he wished he had had something to show for it. He felt that the Home Government may send you to kill savages, but they ought to provide plenty of savages for you to kill.
In the military club at Kotta Radja he was popular. He would always be popular with brave men anywhere because of his unpretending unselfishness. And many of his comrades liked a fellow who was Baron van Helmont, you know, by George! and he never seems to remember, though, somehow, you never forget.
He devoutly wished himself in the club at this moment. They would be playing, and there would be unlimited tobacco.
“Werda?” He leaped to his feet. A swift brightness swept across the gloom outside. A signal rang clear. At his cabin door a sergeant met him.
“Friends, Lieutenant,” said the man.
Under the protection of a suddenly uplifted fire-ball, half a dozen soldiers in dark uniform were seen approaching the Benting, whistling a signal as they came. Gerard recognized a party from the neighboring fort, his companion in exile at their head. Greatly surprised, he went down to the gate.
“You, Streeling!” he cried. “What, in the name of mischief, brings you here? That light of yours will rouse the neighborhood.”
“Put it out, somebody,” said the new-comer. “I only fired it as we emerged from the wood. I felt no desire to test your sentries, thanks.”
“Well, what have you come for?”
“And why shouldn’t I take my walks abroad in the cool of the evening? Isn’t this the pacified zone?”
Gerard’s brother-commander was a facetious little man, melancholyby nature, and with a melancholy history, which he kept to himself.
“Let’s go into your hut and I’ll tell you,” he said. “Have you anything left to drink?”
“Only brandy.”
“Lucky fellow to have plenty of spirits still!” He settled himself, by right of sodality, in the rocking-chair, the proprietor of the shanty crouching on the bed.
“It’s just this,” began Streeling, with suppressed excitement. “Krayveld’s turned up at my place from the ships with important despatches. The steam-launch can’t get any farther to-night, and he says they must be taken on to the front, in any case, at once. It appears they’ve big plans for to-morrow up yonder.” He jerked his head in the direction of his hopes.
“Yes,” said Gerard, and his downcast eyelids twitched.
“His orders are that one of us is to take them on by road, and thatheis to remain in command for the man that goes. He doesn’t know the road, you know—what there is of it, damn it!”
“Yes,” replied Gerard, continuing the close study of his cigarette-point. “Whichis to take them on?”
“There’s the nuisance. The ‘Vice’ has left that to us to settle. Didn’t know which had least fever, you know. But one of us may go.”
“Yes,” repeated Gerard, with a sigh; “I suppose it must be you.”
“I suppose it must,” admitted the little man, echoing the sigh. “I’m the oldest, you see. It’s risky work. You’re as likely as not to get hashed into mince-meat by some of those klewang brutes. Save us from our friends, say I!”
“True, I hadn’t thought of the risk,” replied Gerard, with much alacrity. “I’ll go, if you like. In fact, you know, I think it had better be I.”
“Why? Nonsense. You were awfully seedy when I was over here last week. And it strikes me you’re looking pale to-day. The miasma’ll be murderous at this time of night round by the second swamp.”
“Yes,” said Gerard again, endeavoring to improve the lamplight.“How long is it—did you say—since your fever went?”
The other did not answer immediately, and in the silence that ensued Gerard let fall one word from the tips of his lips:
“Humbug!”
“Humbug, am I? And what are you? Yah!”
The two men looked at each other.
“Well, then, if it must be, it must be,” said Streeling, submissively; “I don’t want to spoil your chances, old man. Let’s draw lots.”
“Youarethe eldest,” admitted Gerard. “Thanks.”
“The eldest ought to remain in command,” replied Streeling, with a grin. “But I’ll tell you what—we’ll sit by the doorway, and if the first man that passes is a native, it’s yours. That’ll give me the odds, for you’ve got more Europeans.”